Arthur Kirkland is the son of two very rich people.
His younger years were never filled with trouble. He had a normal life, a happy life, playing with his favorite toys and being tucked in by his mother at the end of each day, after being read a story.
The kind of stories his mother had told him were the kind his father despised.
Fairy tales.
Arthur adored fairy tales so, he loved every single one his mother told him. He grew up with "silly little ideas" in his head. He thought everything was possible with the help of a good heart and a wave of a magic wand.
When he reached his twelfth birthday, his mother fell ill and died.
Then his father remarried a witch of a woman, and often left Arthur home to his three older stepbrothers and his demon stepmother.
And how hard poor Arthur had to work! He had to scrub the floors, wash the dishes, sort out the peas and lentils, and other chores. He had to clean the whole mansion all by himself, and often fell asleep by the fireplace while poking at the fire.
He didn't have much of a room, anyways, now that his stepbrother took his. His "room" was simply a dark closet that had a bundle of blankets on the floor.
But Arthur never lost hope. Hope was in all of the fairy tales that his mother had told him.
And how he loved those fairy tales.
Luckily for him, he was now eighteen, and that was the age that most young ladies and young gentlemen went to find the person that they loved most in the world, or, if you're not exactly what most would call bright, eighteen was the age that people would wed in his country.
There was also a perfect place to find that special someone.
Prince Alfred's 18th Birthday Ball.