A/N: Prompted by Colferisourking; she wanted a historical (read: fairy-tale-like, days-of-yore) Kinn AU fic that involves an arranged marriage. And I came up with just the thing for that. ;D
This will be a three-part fic, but the three parts ("past," "present," "future") will be pretty lengthy in word count, so don't panic. C:
...Well, the middle one will be at least. The opening and closing parts will vary. Like this first one? Only about 2,800 words/5 pages in Word. So yeah. :/
Part 1 of 3: What Has Come
Once upon a time, in a far away land nestled in the heart of would-be England, there were two neighboring countries. For seventy-five years and through four or five kings each, the two countries were at war, each prince rising from the last king to go up against the opposing country in a war that seemed to have no end.
At one point, no one quite remembered how the war began. They were fighting for the sake of fighting, as if it were tradition, and it was at this point that a certain pair of kings and their queens who came into power wanted to put an end to this.
"My people have forgotten how it was a betrayal during a romance that triggered this seventy-five year long war. But I researched the records and found the truth again, and it is for that reason that I come to you today as a humble king without a man to guard him but his own wife to discuss a possible solution to this war to end it once and for all. A treaty, perhaps?" King Burt Hummel spoke to King Richard Hudson, bending down before his throne via one knee like a knight.
King Richard rose from his chair and placed a hand on the other King's shoulder. "King Burt, man of strong, kind heart; I salute thee." And he did so. "You are noble and humble indeed, to address your enemy so. And I couldn't be more agreeable; this war we have been fighting… it began with a jealous assassination over a love that should have been but couldn't be, and revenge for the assassination, and continual from there. I do not condone the choices of the past, and therefore, I will consent to a treaty formation here and now, today. Rise, King Burt."
King Burt does so, and a smile warms his face, his green eyes sparking to life.
King Richard smiles as well, pleased with the decision. "Come, let us join my council at the table, and we will record the terms of the treaty in full agreement. Bring your wife and have her, as queen, act as your representing council."
Nodding, King Burt followed his new ally into the council room to a large oval table made of solid oak. He seated himself across the oval from the other king, and a scribe sat on one side between them to record the terms as the queens sat on the opposite side as the scribe, side by side to one another.
"Let it be written in the treaty that I, King Richard Jonathan Hudson the second of Finnshire hereby consent to the offering of a treaty made by King Burt Oliver Hummel the first of Kurtsiedom. Let it be known that this agreement to end the War of Ages between our neighboring countries is under mutually-agreed conditions of which shall be named today, the twenty-fifth of March, year 1306 A.D. Pause in the writing, and let us discuss the full terms."
"None of surrender; neither of us are surrendering to the other. This is a mutual agreement to end the war, therefore we must not write down conditions of surrender. Instead, I propose that we each make a fair trade equivalent to what the war has lost," King Burt motioned to the council before him.
Beside him, his wife, Queen Elizabeth Hummel, nodded her head and gestured to her belly. "I am with child, perhaps three or so months. While I know not its gender, I am willing to give you my child to your own child – for I see that your wife, too, is with child, perhaps five or six months already – in a vow of marriage. The pair could rule beyond us, joining our two counties."
"Oh yes, yes! I consent to this. I believe in harmony through marriage, since jealousy of love is what began this war, love could be what heals it," Queen Carole Hudson agreed with a cheerful smile where she sat beside her peer. "Do our husbands agree to this?"
King Burt and King Richard pondered this carefully, slowly nodding their heads in agreement. "Aye, I do," Burt spoke softly. "What say you, King Richard?"
"I say aye," Richard nodded curtly. "A marriage, despite gender, should be fit for our children, and we can begin constructing a castle at the center-boarder of our kingdoms for the two to rule from. Record that, sir scribe, and also write that, in honor of our countries losing separation and becoming one, our children will be names after our previous lands, and that the joint name of our newborn kingdom shall be…" and here he paused, unsure what to call it.
"Gleetopia, for this new kingdom shall be a gleeful utopia of peace and life," Queen Carole suggested. "All in favor?"
"Aye," King Richard consented, stretching to touch his wife's arm.
"Aye," Queen Elizabeth smiled and glanced at her husband.
"Aye," King Burt agreed, and he listened at the rest of the quiet council members – two nights and a duke – nodded as well, voicing their own favors.
And so it was settled, and so it was written, and so it was done.
The marrying age was agreed to be fifteen, and the ruling age to be twenty-one, where, despite their parents being alive or dead, they would inherit the throne once they were trained and ready to.
The pair, the council agreed, could rule as brothers or sisters, the marriage bond a light sentence, if the children were to be of the same gender. And if opposite gender, they could rule as lovers like any other power couple.
Months later, the two babies were born. Both were male; one was named Kurt after the previously separate kingdom ruled by the Hummels, and the other was named Finn after the previously separate kingdom ruled by the Hudsons. Sadly, Kurt's mother died from childbirth, being only strong enough to give birth and see her child before passing away in her sleep, her baby boy in her arms. They changed his middle name to Elizabeth in memory of her.
Likewise, Finn lost his father; Queen Carole permitted him to travel to another country across the sea to discuss trade, but he died upon return when his ship ran into a storm and crashed against the rocks of a cliff-covered shoreline of an unknown country. His body, bruised and broken, was found and sent home for burial, but like Kurt, Finn grew up without knowing one of his parents while the other struggled to rule alone, mostly giving their child care by nanny.
Years flew by. Kurt grew up taught by many of the jesters and minstrels to play music and sing and dance, and they also taught him how to act. His father disapproved, telling him that these are not things meant for a prince let alone a king-to-be, but Kurt ignored his father and rebelled, because he would rather read and sing to the villagers to keep the peace than dictate them as a stiff, stuffy monarch.
However, Kurt loved fashion. He adored seeing and wearing all of the imported, strange fashions of places like India and Africa and Asia, and he wore them all. Bright, colorful, unusual, flamboyant, stunning. Each and every foreign outfit in varying shades of blue, red, purple, green, and just about every color between. He sported each look with grace and mastery and every maiden in the kingdom's main village envied and adored him.
Kurt had no interest in any of them. Girls would flock to his princely feet and ask to be his until he's to be married, but he declined each and every one. Girls didn't suit Kurt's fancy. He would see young men his own age around and even though he felt it might be wrong, the men would turn his head, not the women. There was something about the angles to a man that women did not possess, something that caught his attention.
In fact, Prince Kurt played things up a bit under his father's nose; he would make his father's knights, Sir Dave and Sir Blaine, do his bidding for him as excuses to hang around the two handsome gentlemen. Or he would order around one of the stable boys, Sam, and have him teach Kurt horseback riding as excuses to touch another boy. It was devious and shameful in equally different ways, but Kurt couldn't help himself. He longed for love, and could only see it coming from someone of his own gender, because he felt small and delicate like a girl, and he felt safe with someone stronger than himself.
But Kurt was meant to wed someone from the land beside his father's; he assumed a girl, because that's how marriages went. And he detested the thought.
Meanwhile, in said other kingdom, Finn grew up a very physical child. He wasn't permitted to join in the tournaments officially since he was a prince and not a knight, but Finn would practice jousting and would enter the underground mud wrestling championships for his age group, because while young, he was very strong and very fast, and quite talents with all sports.
Young women loved him, and he loved young women. Two girls in particular, Miss Quinn Fabray, a duke's daughter, and Rachel Berry, a girl in the care of two bakers, were secret flings of the prince's that the public knew not about, but who were precious to him in turn nonetheless.
Except there was something else that was odd that Finn carried deeply in his breast: a feeling he had toward his best and closest friend, Noah Puckerman, a blacksmith's apprentice (him being the blacksmith's son). Finn wasn't sure what the feeling was, he only knew that it was there, and that it felt stranger than friendship and deeper, because Finn, too, was friends with Mike and Matt, two foreign slaves-turned-free (one from Asia and the other from Africa, respectively), and yet he didn't feel this same thing for them.
But Finn shrugged off the feeling and carried on, because it couldn't be that important if it was a mystery. And so he grew older, and older, until finally, he was fifteen, of legal age to be wed.
Likewise, a few months later, Kurt turned fifteen, and he, too, was ready to be wed.
They didn't expect to meet one another at the altar.
Their parents hadn't communicated that they both had sons, being too caught up in ruling without spouses to do so. And their sons throughout their excavations across the two lands coincidentally hadn't met, only just barely missing one another at certain locales and moments.
And it should be no matter, because in the treaty the kingdoms were to be united anyhow, and same-gender arrangements had been agreed to and will be adhered to, but that didn't mean that the princes themselves weren't upset.
There, in the holy church as the two were sealed into a relationship legally, a fight broke out. It took Queen Carole and King Burt themselves to pry the two bickering boys apart at the end, and solidify the arrangement without the public's eye to witness it like they had been invited to do initially. They had to leave the church, and the monarchs had to sit their sons down and explain the situation to them.
"It may very well be that you two do not like each other. You are both very different individuals; while one likes to read and sing and act, the other likes to joust and wrestle and daydream. And the pair of you are only months apart in age, and yet it is clear that one of you is far ahead of his years than the other. You are both male, too, which makes you two naturally more hostile toward one another, aside from being strangers. We see that. We understand that. However…" King Burt began swiftly and steadily, and he looked to his right for assistance from Queen Carole.
"However, we are getting old and tired, and cannot rule much longer, and we are not permitted in these lands to remarry, else we would have done this ourselves long ago, when our spouses died. Thus, you two must learn to work together over the next six years until you are old enough to rule yourselves, as equals. We are placing you, with guidance and servants, in your very own castle between the counties. Please, please do us proud and be honorable and respectful to one another and to those living around you, because the pair of you are to one day be kings of Gleetopia, and we need you to act like so," Queen Carole finished, and nodded once, firmly, like a period at the end of her speech.
Sighing begrudgingly, Finn nodded his consent and looked away from where Kurt sat beside him.
Kurt's stomach leapt in his gut, and his heart raced in his throat. He must live alone with this tall, awkward, spacey, athletic prince? Given, he was extremely attractive and he already had Kurt's heart drumming and his fingertips twitching, but how can Kurt ever find the love he wanted in someone so below himself? And how, he wondered further, can they be expected to rule a country together when they seem to be so hesitant to even be in the same room together?
Finn wasn't thinking as intensely. Instead of what Kurt was thinking of, Finn was instead thinking about how he was going to miss Rachel and Quinn and Noah and Mike and Matt, all of his friends or romantic flings. But he is a man now, and he must man up and take on this challenge like a true prince, because Finn is idealistic and wants to be a true prince like in the stories he Nana told to him as a child.
"So it is settled, then? You two will go by carriage tonight to your new castle, where we have the servants and tutors already waiting for you to begin your princely duties of a pre-monarch that from hence will be your jobs until you both inherit the throne," King Burt declared, and the two boys nodded docilely, quietly.
Queen Carole forced a small smile and pecked her son on the forehead with her painted lips. "Farewell, Finn. I will visit you when I can, but you are raised and beyond my reach for the most part, now."
"And take care yourself, Kurt," King Burt murmured as he stood and patted his son on the shoulder. "I, too, will see you when I am able. Luck and God be with you."
And the two parents left the church in their separate carriages, and with a huff from each of them (for different reasons), the two boys climbed into their joint carriage that would take them to a place they wouldn't recognize, a castle on the boarder.
"This is awful," Finn remarked sourly. "I don't even know you, but I'm expected to learn to like and rule with you? How does this even make any sense?"
"Know you not the history of our countries, Prince Finn?" Kurt frowned, flabbergasted. "We were at war for seventy-five years! This is part of a treaty made when we were in the womb to solidify a mutual agreement to put a stop to the violent war and unite the two countries! Didn't your scholar teach you nothing as a child?"
"I always skipped my scholar classes. I didn't like my teacher; he smelled of mead and other alcohols," Finn shrugged. "Anyway, that sounds reasonable, I guess. Why did they let two boys marry, though?"
Kurt rolled his eyes. "It's not a real marriage since we are two boys. It's more like… a partnership. A brotherhood. Whatever you want to call it."
"Oh. So I don't have to love you?" Finn asked foolishly.
Kurt stiffened. He would like there to be love between them, because Kurt has always been fond of boys and he already feels attracted to the other prince, but technically speaking… He sighs, "No, you don't have to 'love' me. Or be my lover. Or any of that. You simply have to be my codependency for the time being, perhaps the rest of our lives, depending."
"Oh. All right. This I can do," Finn nodded, and as their carriage carried them further and further away from their homes toward the halfway point between, they rode in an uneasy silence.