Chapter I

A look of distaste contorted Arthur's features as he watched the line of newly captured criminals shuffle inside the court room. They looked ragged, with shifty eyes that showed fear, anger and sometimes even desperation.

'Bow to your Crown Prince, you filthy lot!' The head guard bellowed.

The line of outlaws hastily shuffled some more to obey the order.

All but one. One boy kept his head up and consequently his bright eyes caught Arthurs. The look on his face was determined, curious and even a little mocking. On top of all that, he had the most ridiculous ears. Awaken from his boredom, Arthur raised a surprised eyebrow at him. The boy remained upright. There was a kind of pride in his attitude that Arthur thought to be completely out of place, considering he was a captured criminal, surrendered to the good will of his crown prince.

The head guard noticed the boys disobedience and quickly stepped over to manhandle him into bowing his head. The boy allowed the man to force his head down, but with such a strong air of doing just that: allowing it, like he could overpower him at any moment, but was simply choosing not to. It baffled Arthur.

'What did that one do?' He demanded.

'He's suspected of having Magic, sire.' He answered. Well that explains the attitude, Arthur thought.

'Why is he in the same line as the pick pockets and chicken stealers?' He asked angrily. Usually the Magic-Users were dealt with with much more care and consideration.

'Well,' the guard shifted uneasily on his feet. 'He doesn't appear to be that dangerous, sire.'

'And on what did you base that conclusion?'

'His crime, sire,'

'Well, tell me what he did.' He demanded impatiently, exasperation sounding through his voice.

'He induced an unusually prosperous harvest, sire,'

'That's hardly proof of magic,'

'In the middle of winter, sire.' A rush of whispers went through the court room. Awed looks and mistrusting gazes were thrown in the boys direction.

'I see,' He took a second look at the boy: all long limbs and pointy edges, but within that skinny body apparently great power hid.

'And where was this?'

'Ealdor, sire,' The name caused a pang of guilt in his stomach. It was known for being terrorised by raiders and Arthur had been planning to do something about that for years. But there'd always been something more important, something more pressing that demanded his attention, so he'd done nothing. He could hardly blame the citizens of Ealdor for taking matters into their own hands, even if it was through the use of magic.

'So, crops in the middle of winter,' he muttered, more to himself than to anyone in the room. 'Hang on, it's the middle of spring, why did it take this long to capture him?' An embarrassed look crossed over the guard's features.

'He,' the guard cleared his throat, 'disappeared, sire,'

'You mean you couldn't find him,'

'No, I mean literarily, sire. We did find him, but then he —' the guard seemed to have great difficulty admitting what had happened. 'he just — disappeared. Right in front of our eyes, sire.' Another round of murmurs went through the room.

Arthur's eyes shot back to the boy. He was now curiously studying his surroundings, like he'd just wondered in here on is own volition, in stead of being a prisoner. And then it hit him: he had the power to disappear. He needn't ever be caught. He could disappear right now if he wanted to. But he didn't. He had the air of someone who chose to be here, because that was exactly the case. The idea that he was the prisoner and that they were in control was an absolute charade.

'Take them all away.' Arthur commanded abruptly. 'Except for him.' They made eye contact again. The boy cocked his head expectantly.

'As you wish, sire. What do you want me to do with them?'

'I don't see any reason not to give them the standard punishment for their crimes, I'll deal with their Sentence Scrolls later later,' I've got more important things to deal with right now, he mentally added.

'And the boy?' There was a good question. He bit his lower lip, they still hadn't broken eye contact. Arthur wanted to have him alone, half so he could yell at him for defying his authority like this and half to satisfy his curiosity and find out why he came here. But he needed to keep his father in mind. And the fact that the boy was officially speaking under arrest. And that the entire court was watching over his shoulder. He couldn't just start ordering suspected Magic–Users up to his rooms now could he?

'Sire?' the guard asked again.

Author's Note

So. Hey there (: You lovely reader you! Thank you so much for doing all that reading! It's an understatement to say that I am gut-wrenchingly-curious as to what you think so if you have a minute, drop me a line! It would give me all kinds of fuzzy feelings inside.

Also please note that these is un-beta-ed! There will be mistakes, probably. Even though I checked like a million times. I am flawed. There is a very wonderful person who has offered to beta this for me, but she's still working on it so when she's finished I'll replace this with the right thing, but I just suddenly became very excited to upload this so there you have it.

This brings me to my last point: the reason I got SO EXITED was because of this amazingly lovely, kittens flying over rainbows kind of person, who has this equally amazing blog on tumblr. She's called timeywimeyjam. I don't actually know her but I've been following her blog for a while now and she's my favourite person on tumblr. Today I dropped her all these little snippets of my story, to find out what she thought of it, and she was SO KIND and SO ENTHUSIASTIC! Which gave me a major confidence boost and made me want to show her the whole thing :)