Originally planned as a One Shot.

But I ended up having several ideas for this thing, so I turned it into a whole story.

Also readable on deviantART under my nickname of Cat-Alin.

Yu Wo owns all rights to the characters of 1/2 Prince

"Prince, the city's financial situation", "When we consider the expansions to the city's western block", "In Star City, the population is almost crying for love songs-", "-with house prices rising, we're bound to lose players to other cities-", "and the jacket trimmed with fake fur, maybe dyed red", "the reconstructions, Prince-", "Rowdyness of drunk players in the pub district", "and without further cutbacks-", "we're looking at losing the entire ci-"
"Everybody shut up!" Prince yelled as he jumped out of his seat and the entire room became instantly silent, staring at their leader. The elf let his bloodred eyes wander along the stunned faces of everybody sitting at the long wooden table, all with their own papers in hand or flared out, bombarding him with information from every side about so many things he didn't know where to listen. Needing to create order, he tried to do so.
"Yu Lian."
"Infinite City's financials are getting close to nothing." the darkhaired mage said. "Unless we do some drastic cutbacks, we are facing the abandonement of it all, because the value of the city and the surrounding land will be worth less than dirt. We have to salvage this, and soon, Prince."
"Gui."
"Your Highness, the planned expansions must be started and finished soon." the bard explained seriously. "With more and more players deciding to live in our city, we need to expand the western block for more housing opportunities. The inns are already bursting with players on permanent stay until they can move in."
"Loli."
"We have already planned out the next concert tour." the elven thief gestured with her hands. "Infinite Rhapsody is already prepared for the final stage, temporary stages have been built in the other cities and we've been advertising the tour to the players...we can lower the cost by reusing old costumes."
"There's still the cost for board and food..." Prince sunk back into his chair with a sigh and massaged the bridge of his nose. "What about the city's security, Dagé?"
"We've been getting more reports of rowdyness from players amongst the pub district." Ugly Wolf repeated. "And the disturbances are getting more and more, moving closer to the living quarters. Granted, we can't stop people from drinking but we need stricter security. And without NPCs, we'll need players to do that job."
The elf nodded and kneaded his forehead, trying to take it all in and come up with a solution. Wolf was right, there was no point in not letting players into the bars, after all their drinking was also payment for the city. The problem with the finances and the expansions was a vicious circle without money, no expansions. And without any expansions to let players finally buy some houses, there'd be no money. And Lolidragon was willing to not make new clothes for the concerts, something she and Ice Phoenix loved to do. They insisted that, without new clothes, the effect wouldn't be as grand. But considering the cost for housing the band, the tours usually taking up to a month, the food they'd need during that time... at least the travelling cost was low thanks to Sunshine's flying carpet.
"Uuurgh!" Prince let out a frustrated groan and gripped his hair with both hands.
"A break is in order." Yu Lian said and got up from her own chair, shuffling her papers together. "We'll try this again in an hour." Everybody followed her order, getting up from the table and leaving the meeting hall, stretching or talking to each other, relieved to be out for a while. Only Prince remained in his seat and as everybody filed out, he leaned his head in one hand and tapped a finger onto the table.
The finances, expansions, more security for the city and concert tours, not to mention his plans on renovating the Star, Moon and Sun city into attractions... Maybe there was a solution to the problem there. After all, from the beginning it was his plan to turn Star City into a place filled to the brim with entertainment. It would be the perfect place to build stuff, or even turn the entire city into a theme park! The perfect money-maker! It was wonderful! It was perfect!
"No, wait... no finances..." the elf mumbled to himself and burst his own bubble of Imagination Land.
Okay, giving up the plans of letting the renovated cities become the new moneybags, Prince had to come up with something else. Well, they couldn't pay players to work as security guards. They'd have to do that themselves... although that wasn't helping the other matters. Sinking lower in the chair, Prince grumbled out of frustration and banged his head against the back of the chair when he sat up with a jolt. Holding his throbbing head, the elf went over one idea after another and always found some shortcoming.
When an hour passed, the head of the city's deparments entered the meeting hall again and found Prince standing next to his chair, his expression emotionless. They sat down and studied the citylord who remained standing, waiting for him to say or do something and tell them their next course of action. Prince held his hands up although the room was already quiet and turned his head towards Yu Lian.
"How much money did we make from the last concert?" he asked and waited while Yu Lian flipped through her papers, finding the concert incomes.
"Close to 7.000 Crystal Coins, rounded up." she answered and frowned, wondering why he wanted to know the latest income. It was gone now, most of it.
"Alright, in that case..." Prince mumbled in a low voice to himself. "The next tour isn't that big, so it might bring less... Gui, rough estimate. The expansions."
"About 2.000 Crystal Coins, considering the amount of material and size of what we'll build. Several hundred Gold Coins for the new city walls." he replied instantly.
"Hm..." Prince nodded and frowned, thinking things through in his head, trying to see if his plan was going to work out. He walked around his chair, frowning, finally stopping on the other side of it and turning towards everybody again.
"Maybe it's crazy,but..." he told them. "Yu Lian, do as many cutbacks as need to be done. For the tour, we'll camp out and eat simple food, maybe even not eat if the budget is too close. The concert income will only be for the city. Gui, if the majority goes to the expansions, how much is left for finances?"
"Say we get about 4.500 Crystal Coins together," Gui explained, his head buzzing with calculations. "if we use 90% of the earnings on expansions, the finances are going to just barely scrape by and the expansions will be finished within a month. If we give 16% to the financial department, though, it won't get done before two months or longer. But the financial threat won't be as big."
Prince nodded and looked over at Yu Lian, who returned his gaze.
"With cutbacks on every corner and the small income from the tour, maybe." she agreed. "But it would be better to not hurry the expansions, lest we want to run the risk of causing more harm than help. Take a minimum of three months for the expansions. We'll figure it out."
The citylord sighed relieved when he heard that, but got called back to more problems by Lolidragon rapping her knuckles against the table.
"Not to burst your bubble, Prince, but what about the security problems?" she asked lazily. "We don't have any players who would do it for free. With the band gone, we'd also be missing on help from our own side in that manner. How do you plan to solve that problem?"
"Call me an idealist, but I think that, with most people enjoying the concerts a lot, they'll be too happy to get rowdy after drinking." Prince admitted sheepishly. Lolidragon rolled her eyes at that and shrugged her shoulders, knowing that Prince meant it.
With Yu Lian and Gui discussing the finer details of the new plans, the meeting was over and Prince took the chance and left, heading onto the adjacent balcony. Barely paying attention to the view over Infinite City and the landscape beyond the city walls, the elf let out a huge sigh and relaxed his body, leaning heavily against the banister and putting his head onto his crossed arms.
"Good job with the thinking, Prince." Lolidragon said, having followed the citylord out and stood next to him, nudging his side. "Hurts the head, though, right?"
"I didn't do the thinking." the elf told her and nodded his head towards the room behind them. "Gui did the money stuff. And Yu Lian put her foot down about it."
"Yeah, but you got the idea of where to get money to solve three out of four problems."
Smiling wistfully, Prince straightened up and let his eyes wander around the view in front of him. The sandy colored walls of the city, the buildings in it, with players wandering around all over the place and their general chatter filling the air so much that little bits of it was heard up on the balcony.
"Heh, you know, Loli," Prince said. "when I was still playing The World, I talked with my brother about owning a city. I always wanted to have my own land, no matter what size it was. And I would've been happy with just that one land. I didn't know what that ownership would mean. I always thought it was easy, just lean back and collect taxes from anyone who lives there and I'm done. Now I see the trouble with it. And that I have to invade other cities, too..."
Lolidragon turned around and jumped up to sit on the banister, listening to the elf.
"So, you would've been happier with just Infinite City and not becoming Overlord of the entire Central Continent?"
"Frankly, yes." Prince answered without hesitating and then laughed self-consciousessly. "What a thing for the lord to say, right?"
"Well..."
"Actually, I'm sick of it all..." the elf admitted with a heavy sigh and turned to look into the room again. Inside, the department heads were still talking with Wolf musing at one end of the table, trying to come up with a security solution himself. The door burst open, Doll running in and either chasing Meatbun or playing a game of tag with it. It was hard to tell which one it really was. Watching them for a while, Prince shrugged his shoulders in an exasperated manner and waved at Lolidragon, his sign that he was logging off.
He saw a short wave from her before everything went black.

"Yang! Oi, Yang!" Lan called out, rapping her knuckles against the bedroom door of her brother. Hearing nothing, she knocked again and finally heard it, his sleepy mumbling and the scuffling of him getting out of bed. Sighing annoyed, she grabbed her books and put her shoes on. Holding two lunchboxes in one hand, Lan stood in the entrance hall for about five minutes until Yang was semi-decent and awake enough to leave the house. Handing him his lunch, the girl locked the door when both exited their home and they rushed down the hallway and stairs to the bus stop. All the while, Lan hissed at Yang.
"Do it yourself! I take care of everything in Second Life and I take care of you in real life. I'm sick of this! Get up on your own!"
"Why are you so pissy? Period or what?" Yang asked, surprised at his sister's string of nagging which was generally at a minimum. That comment earned him a glare from his sister.
When Lan entered the classroom with her brother and they each approached their seats, Lan's two best friends took one look at her and got curious.
"My god, what's with you?" Jing asked and held up her little compact mirror, showing the frown lines and bags under her eyes.
"City managing is hard work..." Lan admitted and sank into her chair, putting her head onto the desk and told them about yesterday's meeting.
"Hmm..." Yun nodded in a sympathetic matter. "And we thought you had pulled an all-nighter, not logging on at all. We didn't see you."
"All-nighter? What fo..." the brunette began but stopped herself, suddenly remembering with a pang that assignment she still had to do for Professor Min, but also remembered that there were still a few days before the final deadline for it. "I hope it won't take all night long..."
Min entered the classroom then, putting his papers onto the front desk and rapped his knuckles against the blackboard for a second to get everyone's attention.
"Good morning." he greeted everyone with a slight smile. "Let's begin fast. Regarding the assignment I gave you-... yes?" He stopped talking when he saw a student lifting his hand, looking rather eagerly at him and probably having a question that required answering.
"It's not really about class..." the student admitted but got an encouraging nod from Min. "I, uh, wanted to ask... if something is wrong with Prince."
"As far as I have noticed, nothing is wrong with him." Min answered, cocking his head slightly to the side. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, he is barely ever seen in Second Life anymore..."
"Prince is online and seems fine. He's merely busy with managing the Central Continent and hardly has time to leave the castle." Thinking that that was enough information or even simple talk about Prince, Lan figured the student's question was answered and things would go on, but the student lifted his hand again. Perhaps he, too, hadn't done the assignment and was hoping to distract Min with enough Prince-related words and questions, so that Min would forget all about it himself and move onto something else.
"But before he was this busy, he was looking really pale...!" the student said sheepishly and looked hopeful when Min frowned slightly.
"Well, he always was a bit on the light side." Min muttered. "His Highness' complexion being of silky whiteness is of course always easy to misinterpret as illness..." And then he began to flare out on his favorite subject of his beloved Prince, dissecting the complexion of the elf, going on about the almost albino-esque appearance, even spending at least five minutes explaining the wonderful contrast the dark long eyeslashes made against the fair skin. The entire class listened, but nobody looked more horrified than Lan and she put her head on the desk again, clawing her hands into her hair. Aside from taking care of her brother all day, all night long she had to handle the problems of the Central Continent and particularly Infinite City. Not to mention caring for Meatbun and avoiding fangirls. She also had to spend her day enduring Min's long-winded, adjective-heavy, besotted and incredibly embarrassing rantings about Prince!
"-Ah, the bell already?" Min said more to himself than the class and looked up at the clock, the last chimes of the bell ringing for the next class. Quickly apologizing for his rant, the professor mentioned the assignment being handled next lesson and filed out of the room.
Meanwhile, Yun and Jing leaned over towards Lan's desk, because the girl hadn't lifted her head since she had put it down the last time around.
"I... am going... to kill him..." she growled, feeling her face burn bright red with embarrassment, anger and a slight hint of flattery.
"He'd probably enjoy it, coming from Prince, after all..." Jing offered as advice and she and Yun grabbed Lan by each arm, hiding her a bit and dragged her out, heading towards a drinking fountain in the hall where she splashed some cool water on her face. Once she felt her face not being so red and hot anymore, Lan sighed and wiped her hand across her forehead, suppressing a yawn.
"Gui in Second Life, Gui in class, Yang during the day and being a braggy bastard in Second Life..." she muttered darkly to herself. "And the finances..."
"Lan?" Yun asked tentatively. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. Just the stupid problems with the money. The upcoming tour... oh and the drunkards. Forgot about them..." Seeming to be caught in her own web of thoughts, Jing and Yun just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, deciding to not ask anymore.
They were sure she wasn't going to answer them in any way they'd understand, so they gave her a little jab in the back to make her return to the classroom.

Staring frustrated at the half finished assignment regarding literature history in front of her, Lan chewed slightly on the end of the pencil in her mouth, an old habit of hers that she had tried to rid herself of several times already. Having failed repeatedly, she decided to not care anymore.
"Buuuhh..." she went and sank so low into her chair she almost slipped off. No matter how she looked at the paper, she had no idea how to finish the assignment, or even what she still had to do with it. Her head was stuffed with the problems of Infinite City, whirring around inside of it like a merry-go-round, making it impossible for her to think of anything else. With her mind as blank as it was about anything else, Lan decided to just leave it the way it was for now. There was still time to do it. And hopefully, Min would explain more about the assignment tomorrow... unless another classmate decided to Prince-track the guy.
"That guy needs a whack on the head whenever 'Prince' is mentioned..." she said to herself and stretched, changing into her pajamas. Heading to bed, Lan lay down and automatically grabbed the headband, staring at it for a minute. Putting it on would bring her back into Second Life, make her deal with the problems of yesterday again and more, because she was sure that in her current absence, something must've happened to cause trouble. Sighing slightly, she twirled the headband in her hand and thought fondly back of the days when sleep was rejuvinating and not more tiring.
"...Screw it." Lan finally said, threw the headband carelessly into a corner of her bed and snuggled under the blanket, deciding to sleep the natural way, without the headband inducing the automatic drowsyness which helped players to log into Second Life more easily.
Despite the initial trouble of falling asleep, when Lan woke up in the morning and stretched, she actually felt pretty good. Better than yesterday, that much was clear. She had slept alright, had not spent the night online and trying to solve problems she never fully understood, neither having to deal with an almost obsessive lover, although she still had to deal with him during the day. Luckily he didn't know her offline. She'd never have a quiet moment if he did.
Later, as she was almost heading out the door and leaving Yang who was still in the realm of Second Life or sleep behind, she heard her phone ring and took the call.
"Xiao Lan?" Zhuo's voice came and he had a slight undertone of worry in it. "Are you alright?"
"I'm great. Why?" she asked and put her keys into her pocket, although she had an idea why he was asking, not to mention calling this early in the morning.
"Well, you weren't online."
"So I didn't play Second Life. Big deal. Do I need a reason?" she told him, trying to keep her voice calm. "Besides, the guys know what to do."
"Sure. If you don't want to play, that's absolutely your business. It's just that everyone's wondering and worrying." Zhuo explained. "Especially Gui..."
Lan couldn't help but notice the grumble in his voice when he mentioned that guy's name. Shrugging her shoulders, she grinned, thinking about the bard. Knowing him, he was probably walking around frantically and restless and blabbing about where Prince was and why he wasn't online. Probably ignoring his work, too...
"Zhuo-gege, tell him to pull himself together and do his job." the girl said, descending the stairs to the bus stop. "Unless I do that myself, I'm not sure I will..."
"Got it." Zhuo said and hung up.
Sighing, Lan got on the bus when it arrived and felt like hitting herself. Of course Gui was going to act differently if Prince wasn't there. She hadn't been there, but when Prince had got lost on the East Continent and was gone from the party for almost three months... well, she had been told that Gui had been annoying, more so than usual. Insufferable, whining about wanting to head over and 'rescue' Prince. From what, she didn't know. All she knew about the solution, was that Lolidragon used something that she called 'The Heel'. It must've worked... maybe Lan should tell Lolidragon to use it again.
If she decided to not go online again. She wasn't sure if she was going to.
"XX University Main Entrance." the busdriver's voice came over the announcer and Lan got out with other students, trudging towards the entrance.
"The elusive player, hey! You weren't online yesterday." Yun said as a greeting, grinning widely at her as she sat down.
"Yes, for once I didn't have to bother with annoying stuff..." Lan admitted with a sigh.
The class was its usual loud self, waiting for Professor Min to arrive and naturally quieted down when the bell was only a few minutes away, knowing that Min arrived at this time. But he didn't today. He entered just as the bell was ringing and put his papers on the desk, smiling at the class.
"Morning." he said and took the first paper off the pile on the desk, turned towards the blackboard and began the lesson. Throughout the lesson, when it came to answering a question or going from one topic to the next, Min was always silent a second or two and then continued, perhaps mentally preparing himself. But he never did that before. The class knew him for switching through topics in one lesson faster than other teachers, but still able to have the students keep up with him and ending the class with the newest assignment. Min was an outrageously intelligent and focused teacher.
Unless he went on a tangent about Prince.
Lan watched him during class instead of really paying attention and she knew other students also had a little trouble adjusting to Min's new behavior, like he was losing his train of thought at a random pace or stopped and got distracted by something nobody else but him saw. Luckily, those instances were short, at least short enough to not cause any trouble in class. When the bell rang at the end of class, Min was amongst the first to leave.
"Maybe I do need to go online and smack sense into him..." Lan thought to herself. Although she had been thinking of laying off Second Life for another day. But by the time she got home that day, she had dismissed the thought. After all, she had told Zhuo to take care of Gui so that problem was taken care of. Yu Lian, having all the details for the money, would be busy doing cutbacks, not letting anybody disturb her and everybody knew to leave her alone when she was working. And with reusing the costumes from the last concert, there was no need for Prince to be online for another set of measurement taking and color deciding. Not that Prince did the latter... that was all Ice Phoenix. And Lan enjoyed herself, not having to go online every night and deal with anything. All the sleep, or energy, she thought she lost while dealing with problems, demands on the citylord and running away from fangirls she got back over the next few nights of good oldtime sleep.
By the fourth day, though, she was having problems.
Aside from the fact that Min's absent-minded behavior got worse and he sometimes didn't come into class until 15 minutes into the lesson, often lost his place or failed to teach at all and just stood at the blackboard with his back towards the class and was silent. He also seemed more tired. Either it was because he was busy worrying about Prince in Second Life or because he didn't sleep at all at night because of worry and refusing to log on, knowing that Prince wasn't going to be online anyway. Lan sort of hoped it was the first, because if she returned as Prince and he wasn't there, she had no means of telling him. And she did want to return to Second Life.
Because she started to miss Second Life. She missed being with the rest of the OddSquad, missed killing the monsters when she was in a bad mood, travelling around on Sunshine's carpet and even Wu Qing, annoying bastard as he was in game and real life. But whenever she thought of that, she remembered it, the problems of the city all resting on her shoulders and everybody wanting to see Prince and wanting this, that or the other thing. And that took the fun away.
But, finally, she decided to go online again. Just to beat Gui up for letting himself go so much that it affected his real life personality. That night, Lan sighed and adjusted the headband one last time, lying down and waiting to log on.

Mistake!
Prince barely took two steps down the hallway when he heard running steps behind him and the next second he was tackled from behind, two arms wrapping themselves around his chest and he almost got the air squeezed out of his lungs. Gui was definitely relieved and happy that Prince was online.
"Your Highness! You're online! I'm so happy to see you again!" he cheered and cheered, so eager that he sometimes lifted the elf off his feet. But before Prince could start up with an apology or even his initial want of beating Gui up, two more pairs of footsteps approached him.
"Prince! There you are!" a high voice said in quite a different tone, like it was furious with him and wanted to rip his hair out. Ice Phoenix marched down the hall, closely followed by Fairsky, and she stopped just barely in front of him and stuck her face in front of his with a fire burning in her eyes. Gripping the bottom of his shirt, because Gui still hadn't let go and made the collar unavailable for grabbing, Ice Phoenix began to shake him lightly.
"What's this I heard of reusing the old costumes? Are you insane? You have any idea how much money that could set us back?" she asked. "We need new costumes, part of the reason those people come to the concerts is to see you in all sorts of outfits! So what if we save money by not making new ones? We'll lose out on it!"
"But Ice Ph..." Prince began and then started when Fairsky's face appeared close to his the next second.
"And you're thinking of abusing my beloved hubby as your chauffeur again, aren't you?" she demanded to know and stomped her foot. "Don't you dare tear us apart, the way you almost did during the last concert. I'm setting a time limit of being apart from Sunshine, got that? And if I spend even one second over that limit, I'm going to go meet him. I don't care if it's in the middle of the concert, I'll drop it all and walk right off stage!"
All attempts the elf made to explain or to be heard by the two girls was futile, especially since Gui's excessive talking about his return was still droning in his ears. Not to mention that, with the two girls' voices getting louder, his already sensitive elf ears were twitching like mad when it became too much to handle.
"Look, the costumes", "A minimum of 4.000 Crystal Coins, that's what you expected, isn't it", "poor guy has to spend all day on that carpet while you parade around-", "-half of that could be lost without anything new to present to the audience.", "was so lonely and boring without you around, Your Highness-"
His ears twitching, his head throbbing like crazy and with Gui's arms still around him, Prince felt absolutely trapped in place. Wondering again why he had returned, the elf couldn't remember the reason and only felt a sudden desire to hit himself for going online again. He should've stayed away longer, until everything blew over.
"Back off!" he yelled loudly and his voice echoed through the hallway and the three nuisances jumped about a foot away from him, like his voice had created a barrier, forcing them to give him some space. They all stared, dead silent and frozen in place, at the elf whose chest was heaving with anger and his eyes glared at them, worst they had ever done. Then Prince brushed past the two girls and down the hallway, banging the door open and seeing more shocked faces. Apparently his voice had been so loud that the next room had heard it as well. Seeing who he wanted, the elf rushed towards her and grabbed Lolidragon's wrist, pulling her out of the chair she was sitting in and dragging her along.
"Whoa! Hey!" she snapped and half-forcefully followed him, almost stumbling over her legs when he returned to the hallway he had just vacated, opened the first door he could get his hand on and almost pushed her inside, slamming the door shut behind himself. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I am sick and tired of all of this!" Prince yelled at her, not realizing that his voice was heard outside of the room. "All the time, it's just Prince This, Prince That, Prince What-The-Hell-Ever! Financial problems, security problems, public problems, all of it I have to take care of! And nobody's of much help! Sure, you do as ordered, but it's still all my problem! Dammit, I can't even go anywhere without a whole fucking brigade following me!"
"You know," Lolidragon replied, raising her own voice so he would hear her over his own yelling. "we do leave you alone if you want to go anywhere."
"Even so, I still have to uphold the image of Prince! I can't do anything that harms the image of Infinite City!" he screamed, feeling all the pent-up frustration, finally letting it out. "I can't relax anywhere anymore! I can't be myself, Loli! Always Prince, Prince, Prince! Fuck Prince! I wish I never had entered Second Life!"
The elf finally stopped and stood there with a heaving chest and clenched fists, staring at the thief. Lolidragon returned his look deviantly, folding her arms together. Both were silent for a minute, letting their tempers cool down a little bit.
"So what do you come to me for?" Lolidragon asked. "What am I supposed to do about this?"
"I don't know! You think of something for a change." Prince replied with a heavy sigh and a voice a bit more quiet than before. He didn't know what he want. All he knew, was that it had become too much over time and he finally felt some relief about letting it all out. It was partly her fault, after all, having been the first to label him as the citylord, turning him into Second Life's Spokesperson without asking him beforehand. And during character creation, she had been the one to decide his appearance and increasing the option of beautification to fourty percent and making everybody end up in love with Prince.
"If I could, I'd redo the whole process..." the elf admitted. "Can't I make a new character?"
"No. I told you the rules upon your first log-in, One Character Per Person."
"Can't you do an exception? Please. I love Second Life. It's an amazing game and I miss playing it, but..." Prince tried to explain. He was starting to feel exhausted, he wouldn't even mind begging Lolidragon on bended knees for anything. "Face it. When was the last time we went around and fought monsters, just for fun? Or didn't have to worry about anything. When we just ate at one of the restaurants and hung out together. That's what I miss. Not... this. This isn't what I love."
Lolidragon listened and felt a sort of nostalgia overcome her when she remembered the time Prince was talking about. Before they had conquered this continent, before they had built Infinite City and before everything. The last time had been during the Adventurers' Tournament.
"Okay." she said and heaved a sigh. "I'll talk to my supervisors, see if anything can be done."
"Thank you, Loli." Prince let his shoulders slump with relief.
"I don't know how they'll react, though... they might refuse..."
"Tell them I'm not above blackmailing them. I can easily delete my character, causing you to lose The One And Only Prince as your spokesperson." Lolidragon laughed at that and gave Prince an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Sometimes, she felt like a mother superior to every player of Second Life.
"Don't worry. If everything else fails, I'll tell them." she said. "But it might take a while, so try to stick this out for a few more days at least."
"I will." Prince nodded and left the room with Lolidragon, facing the shocked and involuntary audience who quickly pretended to not have heard anything.

Over the next few days, Prince was sitting on hot coals while he waited for Lolidragon's news and although he tried to do his work as usual, they wouldn't let him. They talked in slow, calm voices to him and left him alone as much as possible, even telling him to not do anything when he offered it. When the security reports, in their usual short-sentenced manner, told of more rowdyness going on lately and even starting to harrass bypassers and Prince said they needed to do patrols, even volunteering to take on the first round, he was declined.
"You should just lean back for a while and relax, Prince." Wolf told him in his usual deep and comforting voice. "We'll handle everything."
"Why not head to the café and splurge, treat yourself a little bit?" Yu Lian offered, although amongst the cutbacks she had nixed splurging. Especially treats.
Clearly, everybody was still very shaken up by the elf's last outburst and were trying to soothe his upset nature. They meant well and wanted to not overwork him, but all that did was make him angry again. Sighing, Prince leaned back into his chair.
"You guys, I'm fine." he told them. "I can work, I can handle this. I just needed to let off some steam."
"Be that as it may, we really have everything under control. The soonest we can expect to need you is for singing on stage." the mage said, studying the document. Just then, the door behind them burst open and Gui entered, having just logged on for the night. Seeing the elf in his chair, the bard began to rush across the room.
Prince saw the bard approaching him fast and stood up, ready for the usual and stared when Gui stopped in his tracks, about two steps away from him, his arms outstretched in his usual glomping matter. Confused, Prince frowned and then looked at Gui whose expression seemed rather conflicted. Prince, standing in his I'm-Prepared-For-A-Hug position, lifted his shoulders and eyebrows, waiting for something to happen or the bard to explain himself.
"Your Highness, may I embrace you?"
Prince's jaw dropped so fast he thought it would fall right to the ground after hearing Gui say that to him. Never had he ever asked for permission! Furious, Prince knew this was Gui's way to handle the outburst of the elf, in which he probably blamed himself for always being so incessently annoying, thinking that he could not be such a burden to Prince if he asked for permission for his usual skinship. Prince grumbled and stamped his foot.
"Yes, you moron! Now get over here!" he snapped and almost pulled Gui closer, who hugged the elf. Returning the hug, Prince quickly turned it into a bear hug, clenching his arms tightly around Gui's chest. The bard winced and Prince let go. "That's for walking on eggshells around me. Don't do that again."
"Ok." Gui coughed, having lost all air during Prince's embrace. While Gui was still coughing and catching his breath, Lolidragon entered the room.
"Prince." she said and the elf looked over at her, as did everybody else. Opting to stay silent, she only beckoned him with her finger to follow him and he did, skipping a bit to catch up to her. She lead the way to a closeby empty room which, upon entry, Prince recognized as the one where he had shouted at her last time. Feeling a bit embarrassed about it, he scratched the back of his head.
"They agreed to it." Lolidragon said.
"A-agreed to it? To what?" the elf asked and saw her role her eyes.
"To you having a second character!" she told him. "It took me a while to persuade them, but they agreed to letting you have a second character, giving you a chance to get out of your Prince role now and then. They probably fear bad publicity if you snap in some way."
"Hehe... did you have to blackmail them in my stead?"
"No, I didn't. It was close, but they caved before I could start in on that threat of yours... you weren't really planning it, were you?" she asked, but saw him shrug his shoulders and finally shrugged her own. "Anyway, you can have a second character. But, there are conditions."
"Of course there are. What are they?"
Lolidragon let her eyes stray to the ceiling and began to count the conditions off on her fingers.
"One, you have to buy another Second Life Set, so that your other character can be installed on that headband."
"Well d'uh." Prince couldn't help but say that. It was a pretty obvious and simple condition, although the price of Second Life had been jacked up a lot lately, but thanks to his job as the spokesperson, he had been paid so much he could easily afford another one. Lolidragon rolled her eyes and grinned, agreeing that it was a stupid idea to have to tell him of that condition.
"Two, when it gets delivered I want you to call me, I'll give you a note with my phone number, so that I will be the GM to help you create your character, get to know what you'll look like and what you'll be going by so that, and this is the third condition, I can PM you any time we need Prince."
Prince listened to the conditions and they all seemed pretty straightforward, except the last one. Cocking his head to the side, he tried to figure it out.
"When you need Prince?" he asked.
"D'uh! Even if you have another character to play as, Prince is important. We can cool it on the whole citylord thing and give you some R and R on that, but we still need you for the band. And how would that work out if nobody can contact you and get Prince?" Lolidragon explained, rolling her eyes again, wondering how he didn't get that part. Prince laughed sheepishly and nodded, realizing what a rather dumb question it had been.
"So, if I get a PM from you and you need Prince, I just have to log off and log back on as Prince?"
"In a nutshell, yes." the thief nodded. "Just think of your role as Prince as a part-time job. But I hope you won't ignore Prince entirely."
"Nah. Thank you, Loli!" Prince said and hugged Lolidragon on impulse, rushing out of the room in a happy daze. He returned to the room where everybody else was, Gui having recovered nicely and quickly looked at everyone and couldn't stop grinning. "Short news. I might not be coming online so often anymore-"
"What!" the surprise went through the entire room, but before things could go out of control, Prince lifted his hands in a soothing matter.
"Don't worry, I'll still be here and work and all that. I might just be busy. Oh, and Gui," the elf turned towards the bard with a big grin. "Don't slack off without me, cause lessons where you act like you have brain-damage are very hard to understand. Okay? If you don't pull yourself together, I'll end up failing and I'll have to hurt you."
"...I'll try." Gui sighed.