Title: The Fairest of them All

Description: A satire in which our resistant hero is forced to wear a magic, gender-switching heirloom so he can attend the ball and save the day. Nobody expected the peckish prince to fall in love, though. Now only hilarity may ensue.

Pairing(s): Sora / Roxas (soiku, akuroku)

Author's Note: I like funny stories. :D

Prelude:

Roxas was leaning at the edge of a shoddy wooden table, sweeping his forefinger luxuriously around the rim of an earthy mug filled to the brim with ale, and eying his best friend in the entire world. Outside he could hear the rain, a distant rumble mixed in with the excited chatter of human voices bubbling throughout the tavern he was currently filling. Axel sat next to him, wooden chair leaning back on two feet, with his own shoes maintaining balance on their table. He looked fluid, and natural. Roxas took a drink, feigning interest as the red head (with hair that defied gravity, and was spiky, and all those other cliches so often used to describe Axel's simply flamboyant hair) continued to tell a story with increasing volume and enthusiasm to the rest of their party; Pence, Olette, and Hayner.

"And the pig was screaming," Axel yelled, and Roxas' eye ticked at that. He glanced down at the teetering feet of his friend's chair. "so naturally I had to catch him, but he was running like 'e was on fire! So I thinks to myself..."

It smelled like dirt in the tavern, and the only light filling the room came from candles on the table, and the grandiose fireplace burning in some far-off corner. That same fire made the air hazy – that and the multiple pipes gruff men were smoking, and the cigarettes. Roxas eyed his own; he'd forgotten he had it. A bit of tan paper with tobacco rolled into it, a rare find for someone as... financially challenged as Roxas.

You see, he was poor as dirt. Except the dirt in their village was actually very rich in nutrients, and indeed fantastic for farming. So, realistically, he was poorer than dirt.

He was as poor as something very poor, though.

The blond dragged off his cigarette, and mused about how it had yet to be mentioned that he was indeed a blond, with his own gravity-defying spikes that were messy as they were bed-fresh. You see, Roxas didn't care about his hair. It just happened to be attractive on it's own – which tended to be the luck of boys in his village. And, for the record, he had sky-blue eyes with deep, somber depths that girls loved, and a pert nose fixed above two very pouty lips.

That aside...

Oh yes, the tavern. There was laughter in the air, and the mood was jolly. Roxas tuned back into the story Axel was telling, though he had heard it maybe a million times. "So, I set the damn thing on fire," he friend was finished. Axel had a thing about fire. He liked it, a lot. He liked setting things on fire, he liked the way it looked and smelled and felt. It wasn't uncommon for him to get burnt in unfortunate accidents, because as much as Axel liked fire – fire liked him, too. It was one of those deadly attractions that Roxas found rather silly, since flames were easy enough to avoid if one put even an amoeba of effort into it.

Axel took a long drag from his mug, and then slammed the drink onto their table and allowed the momentum to pull his chair forwards onto all fours. Roxas huffed, for he'd been considering knocking his friend over for the last ten minutes of his gallant story about pig mutilation. It didn't matter, though, so he drew once again on the roll of paper wadded with tar between his fingers, and then flicked it into the dirt floor and snubbed it with his thin, leather boots. He felt the warmth against his big toe, but it didn't burn through. Which was good, because aforementioned, Roxas could not afford to replace the boots, and killing another deer for it's hide seemed... barbaric.

Roxas wasn't much for killing things. He sipped his beer, acutely aware that his friends (or, group of similarly financially impaired hoodlums) were talking amongst each other, and that he hadn't said anything for well-on ten minutes. It was just that Roxas wasn't one for talking. He could do it, and he was actually rather clever for an ex-farmhand who had never been afforded conventional schooling, but it was always so taxing. What he liked about Axel was the older male's ability to control conversation for him, so that he could remain a passive bystander and not have to deal directly with 'maintaining' any mood. He'd just slip something clever in and make everyone laugh occasionally, and that was enough.

There was a break in the mood, and a clamor rose up across the bar. Roxas turned to look along with the rest of his table, and found a group of men in front of the fire, arguing. He couldn't hear what was being said, and he didn't bother trying to strain above the feverant whispering of the other bags of meat in the tavern. He sipped again at the ale, the wooden mug rough against his lips. Axel once again pushed his chair up onto two feet, and he was grinning, rolling tobacco from a pouch at his hip.

Axel usually had cigarettes. That was another thing Roxas liked about him.

The blond wiped away the mustache of froth he felt on his upper lip. It was bitter. Across the room, where he had yet to stop staring, the argument had grown louder. One of the largest men stepped back, and Roxas realized there was a girl in the middle of the group. He immediately straightened up, because if you learned anything being raised by a single, worn woman on a farm, it was chivalry. He remembered his mother always telling him to treat a lady like she wished she had been treated, and that stuck with a boy. The girl stumbled out of the group, standing directly in front of the fire and becoming a silhouette in Roxas' eyes. He set down his beer nimbly, casting a bored glance at his table, locking eyes with Axel, and then once a mutual understanding had been reached, pushing himself off of the table and starting across the bar. Voices were grating against his ears, and he felt his neck go red under the scrutiny of other bored voyeurs.

A small ring had formed around the men by the fire, and Roxas, had he been anyone else, would have had to push through it. Being as it was, Roxas was the proud owner of a 'reputation' for violence, and thus, people got the fuck out of his way. He casually straddled up, hands stuck in the pockets of his deerskin trousers, eyes their usual shade of bored. He was mildly disgusted that no one had intervened, and upon closer inspection, he realized why.

The girl was a boy. A boy in a bright red cloak. And he looked a little bit like he was asking for it, the way he was yelling at the three men who had been surrounding him. Roxas' lip ticked along with his left eye – something he picked up around the time he started smoking – and he inhaled sharply. Roxas was standing at a moral impasse, you see. For, as far as his book went, you don't meddle in other people's business unless their meddlin' in yours (or their grating on your nerves, or breaking any of your other, non-extensive morals). But, be as that may, Roxas was never one to watch people gang up on someone, even if they were begging for it. The boy in the red cloak didn't seem to know what he was doing, and he made that abundantly clear by suddenly leaning forward and shoving the first man in the group. Roxas' eyebrow shot up at that.

A fight was inevitable. In slow-motion, because things like that happen, Roxas saw all three men recoil and then lunge, angrily. He dug with his tongue at a piece of meat stuck in his back tooth, before stepping forward like lightening and grabbing the first man by his outstretched fist. In the same fluid motion he placed himself between the boy and the three men, one arm going back to create space between the cloaked aggressor and the men who wanted to kick his ass. Roxas dimly noted that he touched fabric, before he was twisting the first man's hand and glaring daggers at the other two.

He couldn't actually take them, but they didn't know that. He had a really, really bad reputation. What for? He had never really figured it out, but he suspected it had to do with all the not-talking, and the cigarette smoking. And probably because he liked to ambush royal guards and rob their carts, but that information should be looked at closely, later.

As for now, he was enjoying the way the men backed off. He nodded his head at the door, and they were gone. Smug, the blond turned to check on the spitfire whose ass he just saved so generously. The kid was on his butt on the dirt floor, looking up at Roxas with wide blue eyes.

Roxas' stomach did a flip or twelve, and it wasn't because the boy was pretty or because his hair was drearily gravity-defying (just like every other boy's). No, it was because of the little band of gold encircling the kid's temple, which had been hidden by the hood on his obnoxious, red cloak. Royalty. This was a prince. Roxas frowned, glaring at his left hand, which he had used to knock the boy back. And now the boy was on his bottom in the dirt. And this was Roxas' fault.

He computed for approximately two more seconds, before turning tail and running out the tavern's huge, wooden door, into the night. It was still raining, like black ooze from the sky, and Roxas' deerskin boots (which he'd dyed dark green, a detail of absolutely no consequence) slapped in the mud, sending up showers of water and dirt.

"Wait!" he heard someone scream from the tavern door, and he paused just long enough to glance over his shoulder. The prince was chasing after him? Into the rain? He'd only run on impulse, since physically harming royalty was a crime punishable by death, and this prick was really going to try and chase him down? For what? For helping? Roxas was frowning now. He glared forward again, unable to see anything in the dark, but knowing the roads of his hometown with little effort. This wasn't his first chase, nor would it be his last. He imagined he could hear the boy's (here one would insert that by 'boy' it should be inferred that the prince was possibly a year younger than Roxas, who himself was nineteen winters old) expensive boots smacking the mud, but in reality that would be impossible with the drizzling rain and the boom of blood in Roxas' ears. He rounded a corner, and then another, and then another.

Quick, with skill only a hoodlum would possess, Roxas bent himself into a small corner at the back of an abandoned alleyway. He disappeared into the shadows, watching as the prince trotted by, occasionally calling out in a voice that sounded smooth against all the ruckus of the night. His heart was beating quickly, but the teen was hardly jostled. He waited a few minutes after the prince was gone before unfolding himself from the shadows and smoothing his hair. The rain had let up, slightly, but it still stained his clothes. He trudged home, lips drawn into an amused grimace the entire way.

Nothing has been said of the setting our dear boys find themselves entangled with. Think of England, with cool weather and gray mornings. Imagine that things are feudal, and Roxas lives in a sprawling, dingy village just on the outskirts of a magnificent city known simply as, "Kingdom", which houses the great Castle Oblivion, which houses the royal family.

And yes, the royal surname is 'Oblivion'. How intimidating is that?

Digression. Roxas and Axel have been raised as paupers, and they're happy that way. People still churn their butter and Roxas' mom died when he was seven (his dad?.. who knows) and he has a brother named Cloud and a sister named Namine. Namine sews his clothes, Cloud makes the money (he is a blacksmith, and a damn good one). Roxas smokes cigarettes and occasionally robs people when times are tough. The village, which was never properly named anyways, has only dirt roads, except the market-road, which is cobblestone. Roxas inhabits a drafty wooden home with his siblings, and there are two rooms, one of which is a bathroom. They get by.

Axel drifts in and out of elderly couple's homes, helping them for a stint with their chores, and stealing. He stays with Roxas in-between, or sometimes in the woods at the edge of the village, if the weather permits. He calls it "getting in touch with nature".

Roxas awoke peacefully, the way one wishes to awake every morning. One moment he had been snoozing, dimly conscious and aware that there was a world beyond the one he dreamt of, and the next his eyes had fluttered open and registered that he did indeed exist in a realm beyond his own. And he was fiercely awake, passing from his dream-state into full consciousness breezily. He couldn't remember what he had been dreaming about, except that he had been feeling... orange. If that made any sense. Something about fruit, maybe. Or the sun.

He stayed on his cot for a stint longer, flat on his back, watching the sun filter in through the loose boards in the ceiling. He could see dust in the air, and he vaguely wondered if breathing it in would cause his lungs harm. Someone sneezed across the room.

Roxas didn't roll over immediately, but instead took the time to luxuriously stretch out each muscle in his body. He let his back arch until he reached a moment of divine pleasure, before everything cramped and he was forced to sit up. Axel was lounging in their open window, smoking a pipe and looking out at the street (which was thin, and lined with other tightly-packed, shoddy residential houses). Roxas didn't say anything to him, but instead fell back onto his arm and leaned there, observing. Axel blew perfect smoke rings; that was another thing Roxas liked about him.

"You punched that kid in the face," Axel said, and Roxas almost missed it, for he had wandered off into his own thoughts about how he was hungry and whether or not the milk was still good. He didn't think to defend himself when he did finally register what had been said, though. The blond just stared, blankly, as if asking, 'how did you get my window open?'

Roxas' disinterest was the main thing Axel liked about him, so that was okay. The redhead continued, "Did he beat you up? You split like, fast. Like that time Old Misses Goth found you in the cowshed with..." Axel tilted his head back, trying to remember a name, "that... girl. Uh."

Roxas shrugged, because he forgot things usually directly after they happened. He felt that remembering names and events took away from his real passion in life, which was not giving a shit. "No, I shook him," he offered, though, because when he didn't respond for too long Axel got touchy. The oaf needed attention, as vexing as that was.

"Nice," Axel mused, before sliding off of the windowsill and into the little house. He blew one billowy smoke-ring, before finding his way to the table and picking through a bowl of fruit Namine had left out. Axel, who if it is not clear enough yet, was very tall (as well as unusually thin, considering he ate like the obese) and had to bend at the waist to sit, with his knees angled high and grating at the bottom of the little table. He found an apple and nibbled it, watching Roxas with fiery green eyes.

Something spurred the boy on. "That was the prince," he offered up conversationally, which was rather shocking for Axel, who spent the better part of his day trying to get Roxas to make a facial expression. He had a half-chewed chunk of (savory, wet, delicious) apple in his mouth, and there was a slurping sound as the man hurriedly chewed it and swallowed.

"Which one?" he asked, because paupers in a little farming village outside of Kingdom really had no idea what their royal leaders looked like. They weren't used to grandiose things.

Roxas shrugged, losing interest. "I'dunno," he added, which was unusual since Roxas didn't say things simply for the pleasure of saying them. "I thought he would try to have me arrested for shoving, not punching (this emphasis was important), him."

Axel tossed the apple he had been snacking on between his hands, and Roxas watched him with increasing agitation. To Roxas, everything Axel did seemed so pointless. It was one of the things he didn't like about the oaf. "Why are you here?" the boy finally questioned, left eye doing it's usual tick. He leaned over the side of his cot and found the deerskin pants he'd worn yesterday – there was a smoke in the pocket that he dug out and lit with the matches he kept under his pillow.

"The Haggermunds," he mumbled, as if that explained everything. And, really, it did, since with Axel it was always the same story:

He would move in with an elderly couple and assist them around the house for a week or two (though once he had shacked up with a single, mature woman and lived there for half a year) before his incessant stealing and riot-acting would frazzle the geezers into kicking him out, and then he would slink back to Roxas', crawl in the window, and steal food.

Roxas puffed his cigarette, finding the taste awful since it'd gotten wet in the rain before. "Who will you leech off of, next?" he asked, voice ragged from the smoke in his throat. Axel only shrugged, and they both fell into the perfect silence only seasoned companions can achieve.

"I bet it was Prince Sora," Axel suddenly said, and Roxas wanted to punch him for always ruining their perfect little moments. "He's the younger one of 'em, I think."

Falling back on his bed, Roxas sighed. He didn't bother mentioning that he didn't care, which seemed to fuel Axel further (as per usual). "And I bet anything he actually wanted to reward you for saving him from those dick-weeds that were giving him a hard time. But what was he doin' at the tavern..."

Roxas sat up, pinning his best friend with a bone-stripping glare. "Axel," he spoke calmingly, "I really, really, really don't care."

They didn't talk much after that.

acta est fabula

review kthx