Prince CousCous
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.
Note: So it's recently been pointed out to me that for all the 'Princess CousCous' parodies out there, there really isn't much about her male counterpart… I should probably warn you, he's kind of a horrible person.
People often wondered what Bryce and Eleanor Cousland had been thinking when they named their second son Prince. Seeing as how the couple were the highest-ranking nobility in Ferelden, nobody save the King, their fellow Teyrn Loghain, or the members of their own family wouldn't feel like they were being impudent to do so. Loghain honestly didn't care what they named their spawn as long as they weren't plotting with Orlais, Maric hadn't even been able to come up with a name for either of his children and had gotten Rowan and Duncan respectively to name them, and Cailan had grown up with Prince. Fergus had asked once but he had only gotten a confusing warning about the hazards of excessive drinking and making silly bets.
Prince himself adored his name. He thought it was a sign that one day, he could become King Prince. Unfortunately, there was that little matter of that hack Cailan but the minute that Loghain found out about Cailan's secret plans to divorce Anora and marry Empress Celene of Orlais then something told him that Ferelden would be short a king and the queen would be single again. He could, of course, actually play some part in telling Loghain or the Landsmeet about Cailan's plotting but given that he intended to take the throne in the aftermath of all of that that would make him seem too opportunistic. Surely someone as paranoid as Loghain would figure it out sooner or later. Cailan worried that that would happen, too, which was why he had taken to avoiding his father-in-law. Seeing as how Loghain was Cailan's top general and they were both of at Ostagar dealing with darkspawn, that was probably harder than it sounded.
Prince wandered into the main hall of Castle Cousland to see his father reminiscing with the evil Arl Howe. He just knew that Howe was out to kill them all but whenever he tried to tell his parents such, they never seemed to think 'have you heard his voice' was a good enough reason to suspect him. Well, Prince couldn't say that he hadn't tried.
"I'm sorry pup; I didn't see you there. Howe, you remember my son?" Bryce said politely. Prince wondered vaguely, since his father seemed to think that Howe was his friend, why he referred to him by his last name. Clearly, friend or not, Bryce couldn't stand the man either.
"I see he's grown into a fine young man. Pleased to see you again, lad," Howe greeted perfunctorily.
"I'm on to you," Prince growled.
Howe laughed, a little uncomfortably. "My daughter Delilah asked after you. Perhaps I should bring her next time."
"Don't bother," Prince said rudely. "Your daughter isn't hot enough for me and I'm marrying Anora anyway."
"Pup," Bryce said in his why-didn't-we-stop-after-Fergus tone, "Queen Anora is already married."
"For now, maybe," Prince muttered crossly. He didn't know much about Anora but she was really hot and he wanted to be king so he was sure that they'd make a wonderful couple. Besides, Anora hadn't had a child in five years of marriage which meant that she must be getting pretty nervous and so would want to have sex nearly non-stop to make sure that they'd have an heir.
Bryce rubbed his forehead wearily. "Prince, please try not to say anything treasonous in front of the guests."
"I heard nothing," Howe promised, while probably secretly plotting to tell everyone what he'd said after having the castle massacred.
"At any rate, I summoned you for a reason," Bryce said, quickly changing the subject. "Your brother and I are going off to war tomorrow and so I'm leaving you in charge of the castle."
Prince sighed. "Do I have to? Why can't Mother do it?"
"Your mother is going off to stay at Lady Landra's Denerim estate," Bryce explained patiently.
"Oh. Why can't Oriana do it, then? She may be Antivan but she seems to be vaguely competent," Prince suggested.
"The whole reason that your mother is leaving is so she wouldn't make anyone question your authority," Bryce replied. "And so if Oriana were to be in charge then it would defeat the purpose of your mother leaving in the first place."
"Why do I have to baby-sit the teynir?" Prince whined manly-ly. "I want to go off to battle and kill scores of darkspawn while everyone around me just kills a handful and singlehandedly drive back the horde while everyone just stares in awe at my mad skills."
"Because life doesn't work like that," Bryce said, beginning to get impatient. "And you'd just get yourself killed if you tried. This is real life, pup, not one of Cailan's legends. You're not going and that's final. Now, send Duncan in."
"It is an honor to be a guest within your hall, Teyrn Cousland," a heavily-armed man with a suspiciously Rivaini appearance said as he walked into the room.
Howe drew back, looking horrified. "You never told me that there would be a Grey Warden here!"
"Duncan arrived unexpectedly. Is that a problem?" Bryce asked with a frown, trying to remember if Howe had gotten over that traumatizing incident where he'd gone home with an elven Grey Warden that he'd thought was female or not.
"What's wrong, Howe?" Prince challenged. "Does this put a wrench in your plans to murder us all?"
"Really, child, you do say the strangest things," Howe said delicately, pointedly ignoring the question.
"Duncan's here to test Ser Gilmore to see if he has what it takes to become a Warden," Bryce explained.
"Your son might also make a good recruit-" Duncan started to say.
"What would that do to my chances of becoming king should anything tragic befall Cailan?" Prince interrupted.
"Kings have no place being Grey Wardens and Grey Wardens have no place being Kings," Duncan replied.
Prince made a face. "Not interested then."
"Thank the Maker for small mercies," Bryce murmured. "Now, go find your brother and tell him to come and see me."
"Maker, first you won't let me go into battle and now you're giving me servant work? You must really hate me," Prince sulked.
Bryce rolled his eyes. "Not now. Just go find your brother. He should be in his rooms."
A single manly tear rolled down Prince's cheek at this cruel dismissal but he nobly did as his father requested.
"There you are! Your mother told me the Teyrn had summoned you, so I didn't want to interrupt," a red-headed young man exclaimed as he ran up to Prince.
"Hello, Gilmore. Why are you bothering me?" Prince asked with a put-upon sigh.
"Your mother wanted me to tell you that your dog is causing all sorts of problems in the kitchen and Nan is threatening to quit if you don't personally go and make him leave," Gilmore explained.
"So my mother can send servants to deliver her messages but my father insists on sending me," Prince lamented. "Well, I can see which parent likes me better. Although if she wants me to go deal with staffing problems then maybe that's not quite true…"
"Um, I'm not a servant," Gilmore reminded him. "And mabari only listen to the one they've imprinted on, you know that."
"I don't even like the thing!" Prince complained. "My life is dreadful. If only I could be a commoner…I would be free of such dreadful restrictions and wouldn't have to deliver other people's stupid messages."
"Is that…really what you think the life of a commoner is like?" Gilmore asked uncertainly.
"Pretty much," Prince confirmed. "Although being so un-special is really not my thing so I think I'll stick with my current plans of becoming king one day."
"Yes, it must be so trying to be you," Gilmore deadpanned. As per usual, Prince failed to pick up on the sarcasm. "So…I heard a Grey Warden was coming. Do you know anything about that?"
"Oh, yeah. Duncan said something about wanting to recruit me but since I can't be bothered he supposed that he might as well test you so as to not have wasted a trip," Prince said casually.
Gilmore deflated a little. "Oh…well, that's…that's something, I guess."
"Now, let's go find that stupid dog," Prince said reluctantly as he strolled along the hall. He stopped as he came upon his mother talking with one of her friends. This really pathetic-looking man that Prince was quite certain he had never seen before was standing nearby as well as the really attractive elven woman. Well, at least he thought it was a woman. It was really hard to tell with elves sometimes.
"Darling, have you fetched your dog yet?" Eleanor asked, sounding a little drunk.
"No," Prince replied. "Why do I have to do it anyway?"
"Because it's your dog," Eleanor pointed out.
"But I hate it," Prince told her.
Eleanor fixed him a stern look. "Your father acquired that mabari for you at great cost, and the dog adores you. The least you could do is keep him out of trouble."
Prince rolled his eyes. "Fine…"
"Do you remember Lady Landra? She's Bann Loren's wife," Eleanor introduced.
"I think we last met at your mother's spring salon," the woman said helpfully.
Prince frowned as he tried to strain his memory back. "Weren't you the one who threw up all over Bann Vaughan, Arl Howe, and King Cailan?"
"Don't be rude, dear," Eleanor hissed at him, looking mortified.
Prince's eyebrows shot up. "Rude? I'm impressed. I hate those three almost as much as Bann Loren hates her."
Lady Landra coughed, embarrassed. "You remember my son, Dairren? I believe you two sparred in the last tourney."
"And you beat me handily, as I recall. It's good to see you again, my lord," Dairren said politely.
"I have never seen this man before in my life," Prince insisted.
Dairren's face fell. "But…we spent so much time together!"
Prince just shrugged. "Who's that?" he asked, pointing towards the elf.
"That would be my lady-in-waiting, Iona," Lady Landra answered. "Well, do say something, girl."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Iona said diplomatically.
"I'm sure it is," Prince agreed. "Do you want to have sex later?"
"Prince!" Eleanor cried, shocked at his audaciousness.
"No thank you," Iona managed to say civilly.
"Why not?" Prince asked, genuinely puzzled. "Wait…don't tell me that you're one of those lesbians? Trust me, that's really not as much of a problem as you'd think."
"I'm not a lesbian and I have a daughter," Iona told him, still reasonably calm.
"Then why don't you want to have sex with me?" Prince demanded.
"Well, there's the fact that we just met, you come on very strongly, I'm not that easy, if we did have sex then I would run the risk of becoming pregnant with a human child, I can't afford a second child, I would be shunned by my fellow elves for having a human child and my child would have it even worse as an 'elf-blood', and I wouldn't be able to work towards the end of a pregnancy anyway," Iona replied matter-of-factly.
"Is that a yes?" Prince asked her.
Iona closed her eyes and did not open them, apparently deciding that if she refused to acknowledge that he was there he'd disappear.
"Prince, maybe you should go down to the kitchen and find your dog," Eleanor hinted.
"I'm going, I'm going…" Prince grumbled. "I'll talk to you later, Lana."
"Iona," Gilmore said as they began to make their way towards the kitchen again.
"Pardon?" Prince asked, puzzled.
"Her name was Iona," Gilmore clarified.
Prince still looked confused. "Who?"
Gilmore sighed. "Never mind."
Nan was shouting at the terrified elven servants when they arrived. "Get that bloody mutt out of the larder!" she ordered.
Prince opened the door to the larder and out crawled a half a dozen giant rats followed closely by Prince's mabari, Arl.
The elven servants immediately started screaming and ran for the other side of the room.
"You know, this reminds me of the start of every great adventure tale my father used to tell me," Gilmore remarked idly. "I guess the heroes of legends had a lot of rat problems. Well, let's take care of them."
"You can do that," Prince said haughtily. "As the son of a Teyrn this is beneath me."
"But…" Gilmore started to say before he shook his head. "All right, then." He and Arl made quick work of the rats.
"Now that's taken care of," Nan began, irritated, "I'll only have to worry about convincing my useless help to go anywhere near the rest of the larder for the next month at least!"
"Now that that's settled, I really should get back to my duties," Gilmore said apologetically. "Goodbye, Prince."
"Whatever," Prince said apathetically. What was he supposed to be doing again?
"Shouldn't you go find your brother?" Nan hinted.
Oh, right. How was it that everybody knew about that again? At this rate it seemed like Fergus could get the idea that their father wanted to see him on his own.
Prince would have headed straight for Fergus' room but he thought that he spotted Iona in the library. Unfortunately, when he went in to talk to her he was ambushed by his old tutor. "Hello, dear boy! I'm trying to teach these imbeciles something about history. They're a bit…slow."
"I hate history. Why should I care about the Couslands?" one of his would-be pupils demanded.
"Because they have the power to decide who lives and who dies and you're insulting them in front of Prince Cousland himself!" the tutor admonished. "Would you care to help me try to educate these wayward youths?"
"I would except that I don't care," Prince explained. "I'm just looking for that hot elven girl that came in here earlier. Have you seen her?"
"No," the tutor snapped. "And if you're not going to help then I'm going to have to remind you that your brother-"
"I know, I know," Prince cut him off wearily. Casting one last wistful look around the library – he could have sworn he'd seen her in here! – he reluctantly went off to go see his brother.
Fergus was, indeed, in his room blissfully unaware that half the castle wanted him to go see the Teyrn. He, Oriana, and Oren were having a mushy goodbye.
"Come to see me off, little brother?" Fergus asked when he was finally able to tear himself away from his wife long enough to notice Prince's presence. And, as always, he felt the need to rub in the fact that he was five years older. Not that Prince was upset about this, of course, as if he had been Fergus' age he would have been expected to seriously consider marriage and until Cailan was nice and dead he couldn't really do that.
"You are all making me sick," Prince complained.
Oriana sent him a disapproving glance but Fergus merely chuckled. "You'll understand when you have a girl of your own one day."
"I've had scores of girls and I still don't get it," Prince replied skeptically.
Oriana started coughing. "S-scores?"
"I mean a real girl, not one of those who-" Fergus cut off suddenly as he realized that his son was still in the room. "Those horrible girls you hang around with."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that they're horrible," Prince said with a smirk. "Although they are pretty naughty…"
"My son doesn't need to hear this," Oriana quickly interceded.
"Uncle, if they're naughty do they have to go to the Chantry and pray?" Oren asked earnestly.
"Well, I don't know about praying but they sure do say the Maker's name a lot…" Prince replied slyly. "And don't call me 'Uncle', kid."
"But you're my uncle," Oren said reasonably.
"I know but that makes me sound old and while I know some girls are into things like that I'd really rather not give out that impression lest your grandmother starts pestering me for grandchildren again," Prince explained.
Oren just blinked at him. "What?"
Fortunately, Prince was spared having to further communicate with his slightly stupid nephew by the arrival of his parents.
"I hope you weren't thinking of leaving without saying goodbye," Bryce said suddenly as he and Eleanor entered the room.
"Father, if you were going to come to Fergus then why did you tell me to send him to you?" Prince asked, annoyed. "Do you hate me or something?"
"Nothing of the sort," Bryce replied jovially. "I just wanted both of my children in the same place before Fergus left."
"And this couldn't be accomplished by sending a servant to go fetch Fergus to where we were because…?" Prince inquired.
Bryce shrugged. "I didn't feel like it."
"The Maker sustain and preserve us all. Watch over our sons, husbands, and fathers and bring them safely back to us," Oriana prayed.
Prince rolled his eyes. "Really, Oriana, can't you save that for the prayer meeting Mallol is holding tonight? I hate it when you try to force your made-up religion on me."
"And I hate it when you remind me that you're a godless heathen," Oriana returned.
"And I hate it when you insist on being Antivan," Prince added.
"I'm always Antivan!" Oriana exclaimed.
"So I noticed," Prince said dryly.
"Alright, break it up," Eleanor cut in. "You two can bicker all you'd like while Fergus and Bryce are off at war and I'm in Denerim."
"You will take care of mother, won't you, Prince?" Fergus asked affectionately.
Prince stared at him. "…You realize that she just said that she's going to Denerim, right? Meaning that I'd only need to 'take care of her' for one night and then she's leaving?"
"Well…will you make sure that nothing unspeakable happens to her before she leaves?" Fergus amended.
Prince shrugged. "No promises. I've yet to even find Ionia and then I'll be very busy."
"Now Prince, what have we told you about harassing guests?" Eleanor asked sharply.
"Besides, you've got a big day ahead of you tomorrow," Bryce added. "So I want you to go straight to bed."
Prince's jaw dropped in horror. "But…It's, like, four o'clock! And Oren's not even in bed!"
"Now, Prince," Bryce said firmly.
Prince shot a withering glare at them. "Oh, fine. You know what? Send me to bed. See if I care. And see if I save you all when Arl Howe inevitably goes mad tonight and tries to kill you all!"
"Are you sure that putting him in charge of the castle is a good idea?" Oriana asked as she watched him leave.
Eleanor shrugged. "Most of the personnel will be gone and he's got to try his hand at ruling at some point. What's the worst that could happen?"
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