NB. My first fanfiction. 'The Illegitimate Prince' is not the original title, but the original had a word that is offensive in some contexts, so I changed it to be careful. (You'll be able to guess what it was from the story!) Any reviews/constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Please take note, also, that the story does not present the citizens of Albion exactly as they are portrayed in Fable. I decided to do this to reflect on attitudes to homosexuality that are taken in real-life. Also, I know that you can't have a slow-time spell as a Fable III gauntlet, but that's always been my favourite spell so I mentioned it here anyway! Enjoy!

The Illegitimate Prince

When I walked behind him, the crowds cheered, but now, as I walk beside him, they whisper.

I am the bastard prince. That is my only name, apart from my official title which is so long, so complex and so rarely used that not even I remember it. In any case, it is unimportant, having been created for the purpose of being unimportant, and I am not a prince. As a child I was called Runt, not as an insult but simply because it seemed to be the only name that fit, and it's a name I still haven't quite outgrown.

Before I became the outcast of the monarchy I was the outcast of the Dweller Camp. I had been found as a baby on the snowy peaks of the Mistpeak Mountains, my parents either having abandoned me or having been killed and devoured by wolves, or robbed and enslaved by any number of people – there was a tyrant on the throne then. I was taken in and raised with every Dweller as my family, the whole Camp as my home. In my frosty, impoverished, unshod youth there was, in particular, one little log cabin in which I always felt the warmest, the most cherished. It belonged to Boulder, a moustached giant of a man with a heart so big it seemed oversized even for his chest. He was as lonely as I and yearned comfort as I did, and we grew so close he might as well be considered my father. It was he that bought me clothes if ever I outgrew them and who kept me fed when I was too young to earn my own nourishment. He even paid for me to visit Brightwall in my early teenage years to learn how to read and write, and later got the blind seeress, Theresa, to train me when he found I had some skill in magic. It is because of him then that huge men have never intimidated me, which is a good thing because I am in love with one.

I am in love with the king, another huge man (as a Hero adept in both Strength and Skill ought to be) though about a head shorter than Boulder. He struts about the cobblestone and the colour that is the Bowerstone Market of his epoch with me pressed tight against his armoured torso for protection – his or mine? Both of us need it. – A thick gold-plated arm of his extends from a shoulder, in line with my head, and clutches me around my back as we march and stare into the calm sea of citizens that would normally be rough and loud and jovial. I tilt my head upwards to him and give a look of quiet worriment, to which he responds with a feigned confident smile. There are no gusts of 'Long Live the King' today, merely breezes of gossip, the only word of which I could make out being 'bastard.' I feel exposed. Fear eats away at my insides and at his too. I know this for I can feel against my head and neck each heaving breath as it is born in the broad chest expanding and contracting beneath his golden armour.

I wish I had my gauntlets. Today is the first day that I have had to take them off since I was given them after completing my training. 'To show the people you are not a threat,' as Jasper, the organiser of this façade of a parade had put it. I felt vulnerable the second my wrists were denudated. With my gauntlets I don't have to rely on other people's strength, safe in the knowledge that I can strike anyone I liked down with a conjured blade, or flee whilst for them all time has stopped. Even though I have not had any use of them since the war against the shadows, the fact that I could protect myself even against the most colossal of brutes brought peace upon my heart like the dying ripples on a pond after a pebble had been skipped across it. I remember an old poster that read 'Brawn not Brain'. It had a picture of a hammer shattering a pair of spectacles. How farce. In form I am scrawny, tiny, 'weak' in the conventional sense, yet the magic that flows from my brain and projects itself from my gauntlets is far more potent than any kind of physical strength. It outmatches even the king's, and he knows it, yet he does not fear me, because he pretends that he does not know it.

I hold tight to the king's hand as we return with nervous smiles and a composed yet hurried pace to the castle. Inside, a pale blue rug spreads down the corridor like a stream, as servants shuffle and flit across it like its fish. They whisper as much as the people outside, we know that. It was one of them, a wicked little fat fellow named Hobson, who had changed the sea of cheers on the streets into the stream of gossip, and had flooded the palace with protestors overnight. In greed he sold a story to the printing press, a simple, alarming one – the kind that always get the best attention. The story was that the king was gay, and that I was his lover. Now he's probably drunk, gleeful, and remorseless, celebrating in his newly-bought mansion in Millfields.

As the great wooden doors creak shut behind us, and the air instantly darkens and cools, Markus – away from the public I can use my lover's name – rolls his sturdy shoulders, gazes down at me and sighs. 'It's a step forward, at least,' he says in his booming voice that conceals a twinge of femininity which only I can detect.

I go to hug him before freezing with the realisation that the heads of various cooks and cleaners are jutting out of various doorframes.

'We'll go to the bedroom,' he says it as if it is a military order, and with a heavy clank of gold boots on wood he almost drags me up the stairs in hurry.

I enter through the door after him, and, leaning over me, he slams it shut without looking back. My gauntlets are on a table close at hand, and I greedily grab them and garb them. The black tattoo on my face, a claw-like pattern that reaches out from beneath my head of bright red hair and clasps my right eye, instantly gleams bright blue as my strength flows through me. Yet, in the face of our present situation, I feel somewhat empty, a feeling akin to drinking water when one is hungry.

Instantaneously, Markus begins to remove his golden armour. He kicks off his boots with vigour and hurls his gauntlets crashing to the floor. The breastplate soon follows. The clash of each discarded piece causes a dreadful ringing sound to fill the pristine, blue, velvety room, which brings metallic discomfort to my ears. Markus grunts and I examine him. His stag-like torso is tense, every bare muscle swelled and solid, each prickly little light brown hair on edge, like a beast enraged. 'It's useless now!' he howls, 'how can I protect a people that do not want me?' He kicks the heavy breastplate before yelping like something timid and clutching his hurt bare foot tight against him.

In spite of his rage I can't help but laugh, and he regains poise and gazes at me with a distant, curious interest. He seems to have only just acknowledged my presence in the room and thusly his muscles loosen, he exhales his anger, and, with a smile, he rushes towards me, uproots me from the floor and embraces me. 'It was a baby step forward,' I whisper to him in my soft, faintly masculine voice, as his wavy dark blond hair interlopes with mine and his lawn of stubble scratches and tickles the bright blue pattern on my cheek, the brand that indicates the mystical power I hold over him and others.

We are awoken in the early morning by an alarmed call of 'Your Highness!' from a voice I recognise well. Jasper, a cherished servant of Markus', a witty, patronising old chum whose pallid face is presently near egg-white in colour, knocks twice hastily on the door before entering. He is in his nightgown and his usually well-preserved ponytail is unkempt. 'Get dressed, Your Highness,' he addresses Markus, 'you too,' he continues, indicating my general position beneath the sheets. His lack of formal address towards me shows urgency rather than disrespect; he has not the time to think of – let alone say – my actual title.

'What's happened?' Markus demands, masking his husky morning voice with a tremor of decisive kingliness.

Jasper stares up at him like a hare inches away from the point of a rifle 'Th-There are people outside,' he stammers, 'they're unhappy about…' he gives a faint nod in my direction, as I begin to pile on the garish green ensemble that is my official vestment.

Markus, half-dressed in his glossy imperial armour which he had gathered from the floor, slumps head in hands into a sitting position on the bed. He waves a hand to Jasper, who comprehends the gesture and discreetly slinks from the room, softly shutting the door behind him. I sit beside my lover.

'I'll go and speak to them,' I suggest.

'I'll do it,' Markus raises his head. His face is solid with determination.

'You can't change a thing. You know that.' I say reassuringly as I take hold of his big hands, which proceed to envelop mine. 'The people already love you,' I continue, 'it's me they find hard to stomach. But who can blame them? They know you – they hear your words echoed by the criers and the bards about the streets, they see your face painted on posters and signs. You are their king, their champion. But what am I? A Hero, yes, but in a time such as now when none are needed I'm just a thing in the way, a voiceless controversy. If I can speak to them I can change that. I can prove to them that I am human.'

'Okay,' replies Markus hoarsely, tentatively, 'but I'll go with you.'

'No.'

He twitches at my swift response, only slightly, and then caresses my hands gently with his thumb. 'You're not wearing your gauntlets,' he observes, correctly, for I had removed them as I dressed because I wanted still to be seen as harmless. I nod and stand to leave. Markus applies a certain pressure on my hands and wrists, not enough to hurt me but enough to prevent me breaking free. I turn my head toward his. Slenderly and unnoticeably like the dew appearing on the grass of the cool summer night outside, tears form on his lower eyelids. Soon they slide noiselessly down his angular, masculine cheek and fall from his prickly chin. Markus is crying. The king is crying. The king is a deer in lion's clothing.

'Please wear your gauntlets.' The king is begging.

'No.'

Markus slowly lets go of my hands and stands over me. He pulls my head tight into his chest and kisses it, weeping audibly now. 'I've no choice,' he sobs, 'be careful…'

Now it is midday, and I walk beside him again to roaring cheers. In the early hours of this morning I had addressed the people of Albion, unarmed, alone, and afraid. They had listened. I reassured them that the rumours speculating that I held lineage to the throne were false, and explained that they should love and support their king as I do. They accepted this, and this morning legislation was passed to ensure that as the royal lineage ends, the people may vote either to replace the monarch or to elect a democracy.

I spoke not as a representative of the Crown but as a citizen of Albion, for that is all I am. I also resigned from my title, which was, I had come to learn, 'Underminister for the art of Magic and Representative for the Protection of the Peoples of the Dweller Camp and the Mistpeak Mountains'. It had meant nothing anyway, and now they call me 'bastard' again, but somehow they do so in an amicable way. The connotations of the word 'bastard' are even beginning to change.

I walk under the great arm of the king, though we are no longer supporting each other. Now it is the people that support us. I can wear my gauntlets, too, for our kind are no longer seen as a threat.