A/N: Oh dear… This is what happens when you dig around in your Scrivener folders. This is the first Royal Tutor fanfiction I ever wrote, written exactly one year ago to the day. Talk about nostalgia…

Can't We Get Along?

~ Leonhard ~

'Heine, I'm a royal prince — since when am I ever going to need to know how to read a map!?' I yell.

Heine straightens his glasses. 'When you get lost, Prince Leonhard.' He glances over my shoulder. Several passersby are giving us wary looks. 'And please stop throwing royal temper tantrums in public.'

'Khhh — !'

'It's just a lesson, Highness. Concentrate and get it over with.'

'Fine,' I grumble. 'All the better to speed our escape from this commoner-infested place.'

Around us, carriages circle around the Ringstrauss. Or Ringstrasse, or wherever we are. Heine leans against a lamppost and cuts me a look, waiting. How does he always look so composed?! And so what if he's a commoner — he needs to get over it! We can't all be royalty!

I smirk, and spread out the map. My smile fades.

It's not a map. It's a string of written directions.

'What the blazes even is this?!'

I try to hit him with the paper — he dodges — so I snatch at his arm instead, but only manage to close my fingers on the tassel dangling from his hat, which he pulls out of my grip so fast that it gives me rope burn.

'Owww!' I hiss.

Heine straightens his hat and flicks the tassel to the side. 'Highness, you may be a gifted athlete but my reflexes are superior. Stop before you hurt yourself.'

'Hmph…' I flatten the paper and the instructions spin in a whirl of symbols before my eyes. 'My fingers hurt,' I sulk.

'It was your own doing.' Heine looks bored, and a little impatient. 'I'd also like to get back to the palace sometime today, too, Prince Leonhard. Let's continue.'

'You said it would be a map — not, whatever this is!

'I said that you would be learning how to find your way. Shall we proceed?

'No.'

A vein twitches in Heine's jaw. He's getting ticked. 'Wouldn't written directions be easier than reading a map?'

'I hate reading!'

Heine sags against the lamppost and mutters, 'Good grief.'

'You know I hate reading, but do you see me living in the palace library like dearest brother Bruno — no you don't!' I yell. 'That is so unfair — you did that on purpose!'

'To the contrary, my prince, I didn't take your abhorrence of written text into account at all.' Heine sighs. 'Fine.'

He takes the map out of my hand and I blink. 'Eh?'

Heine walks off. 'Change of plan. We're off to the bookstore. I'll buy you a self-help book for reluctant readers.'

'A book on how to read!? What kind of twisted present is that?'

Heine sighs and turns back around. 'I'm merely trying to help you, Your Highness. You don't need to throw it in my face.'

'Nghh — !' My clenched fists are shaking with frustration. Some days he's so infuriating that I could push him under a carriage!

'We don't have time to do both the lesson and get the book,' Heine says. 'Unfortunately, we'll have to come back to the city another day and—'

I snatch the map out of his hand. 'Yeah right — I'm not coming back here a second time!' I march off, and yell over my shoulder, 'Buy the dumb book next time you're in town!'

'As you wish,' Heine says, and follows.

~ Heine ~

'Look where you're going, Highness!'

I pull Leonhard back by his coattails and a carriage blazes past, inches from his toes.

'But — !'

'Read, then walk.'

'But the street names all sound the same and besides — I've got to remember lefts and rights and crossings and all this other rot as well! I can't remember it all at once!'

I place my hands on Leonhard's back and push him across the street. 'Dulzriche and Glockzdenspan do not sound similar in the slightest.'

I may need to reevaluate his reading comprehension skills…

Once we're across the road, Leonhard digs in his heels slightly. He hesitates, then chews his pencil, before turning down a side street. We're getting further and further from our destination. I sigh.

I don't know if this can even be considered manipulation. When I offered him a choice — reverse psychology though it may have been — Leonhard opted to take his lesson as I thought he would. This really is merely what it is: working with a child.

I can hear him talking to himself. 'Turn left at Grenzdael; cross the road at the livery… but the livery's further up. Wait… this is Graezlyn…'

However, he is trying. I haven't the heart to tell him our destination is on the other side of town.

To my surprise, Leonhard suddenly stops, and sits down on a doorstep. He crumples the paper into a ball and tosses it at my feet. The paper rolls into a puddle.

'I give up. I tried, and I failed.'

'Prince—'

'Stop rationalising!' If he were at the palace, his disaster diaries would be piling up at an inhuman speed. He buries his head in his arms, crying, however hard he tries not to show it. 'I-I'm just stupid… I'll be put to the guillotine… Heine, just push me under a carriage and make it quick!' he sobs.

…The pitiful thing about the situation is that the prince isn't putting his behaviour on. His hysterics have real fear behind them.

'Prince…'

Something catches my eye.

'…Surely you can throw a better pitch than that?'

Leonhard looks up and blinks the tears from his eyes. 'Huh?' And, reflexively, he catches the ball I throw him.

'Wait…' The prince's eyes snap fully open and he hurls the ball back at me, nearly taking off my head. It hits my palm with a crack. 'Did you fish that thing out of the gutter!?'

'Off the pavement.'

'That's not the point! It's filthy — I could die of gangrene!'

I raise an eyebrow.

'Or… Or cholera,' he corrects.

I notice a group of children running towards us, dressed in ragged clothes. My skin starts to prick. We're further away from the heart of the city than I expected. I had better exercise caution. I toss the ball across the road, and the children chase after it like a litter of stray pups.

'Where… where are we?' Leonhard asks.

'Further from our destination than I would like.'

Leonhard's shoulders curve inwards. Shrinking in on himself like a wilting lily.

A window slams open on the first floor, above the prince's head. I flinch. 'Ah, Prince? Your current position isn not exactly conducive to —'

Leonhard looks up. 'Huh? Agh!' he yells, and leaps backwards into the door with a slam, as a bucket's contents splash onto the pavement, spattering us both. 'What the — ugh!'

I flick water off my sleeves with distaste. 'Dishwater. The best of many evils.'

Leonhard blanches. 'I think I might be ill.'

I sit beside him and say, 'Just try not to be "ill" all over my coat, Highness.'

'Hmph!' He leans back against the door, but his shoulders drop. '…Can you get us out of here?'

I don't respond immediately.

'Come on, you sadist — the instructions are already melted in a puddle and I'm useless anyway!'

I touch his arm. 'You're not useless, Prince. Learning new things isn't meant to be easy.'

He still looks depressed. I'll have mercy on him this once. 'And there is always more than one way of doing things. The destination was written on the directions.'

'But…' Leonhard gets to his feet, and picks up the sodden mess of paper. 'It… Huh? The bell tower?' His face brightens. 'Wh — I can see that from here!'

I stand, and stretch. 'Well, we better start walking if we want to reach the palace before dark—'

Leonhard smirks and unbuttons his jacket. 'I can get there in no time, just watch me! Even if it's halfway across the city!'

'By all means; just try not to draw attention to yourself.'

Leonhard takes off like a shot. 'Well, I can't help it that I'm such a talented athlete!'

I sprint after him, dodging people, carriages, rounding street corners and leaping over pavement edgings.

Leonhard's hair flashes gold in the light. The prince is truly in his element when he's running.

He glances at me over his shoulder. And smiles just a little.

But the time when he seems to be truly happy… is when I'm chasing after him.

And I smile back.

The End

A/N: Reviews welcome, and thanks for reading!