Rating: K
The time had come. At long last, it was finally inches from his grasp. The Bateleur of Spinel in all its glory, a once majestic creature of wings and feathers now forced into the state of a statue from the ancient curse of an evil witch. It stood high and mighty, regally perched on its stone pedastal, its calm and neutral facial expression showing of how the previous creature was completely unaware of how it was about to be ambushed by a wicked sorceress, who would cause him to spend the rest of his days as a masterpiece of gentle green gemstone. When the Prince reached out his hand, the shimmering glow emitted by the originally alive treasure seemed to sting his skin with both curiousity and fear, for who knew what consequences would follow removing this artifact from its designated location. He decided he would have to find out.
It was only mere seconds after the adventurous royal had swiped the bejeweled critter that it began to emerge. A ferocious beast as high as forty feet, a horrific monstrosity unlike anything Victor had ever seen. It was a disgusting mishmash of all kinds of seemingly impossible revolting nightmares: it had the body and limbs of what could only be compared to a garguantuant praying mantis, though it also possessed a mouth that erupted with yellow, poison-dipped fangs that nearly scraped the floor, merely one humongous eyeball painted with yellows and reds, and, most unusual of all: a floating head.
But this colossus struck no fear into the heart of the Prince; to him it was merely child's play. With the precious item sitting safe and secure within his satchel, he dashed back the way he came, refusing to blink as he sprinted towards the exit, not paying a single look back towards living eyesore that was locked on his tail, practically breathing onto the young boys ankle as it huffed and barked with desperate hunger. The ending second between life or death struck. The final chance, the last oppurtunity, had arrived. He lept up into the air towards the gap, the opening in the cave that hung high in the rocky sky, and, finally-
"MASTER VOLT!"
"nnnNNNYYAAHH!"
The princeling sprung up, forced into movement by shock, nearly shaking with surprise as his heart pounded fiercely against the walls of his chest, hands busy rearranging disshelved pieces of hair while lungs were busying themselves with recollecting all the air they had lost.
The student and the teacher exchanged looks with one another, each party not the slightest bit unaware of what had happened: Victor had fallen asleep in class. Again. For the sixth time that week.
"Master Volt." the old hag repeated as she began waddling towards the solitary desk in the room, a heavily controlled and maintained orange bun bouncing on her head as she did so. She hung over the small table with a prescence of unrelenting sternless unlike the one found in her voice, which caused the son of the monarch to sink back into his chair as he gulped back with apprehension.
And yet...something surprising followed the scholar's actions. She suddenly seemed to be looking down upon the boy with...sympathy? Pity? A weirdly failed attempt at sympathy or pity? Yeah, probably the latter.
"Master Volt, please..." she plead in an exhausted tone, as though these words had been recycled so many types in her head that it was just a rehash to say them aloud. "You're going to be king of Tonant Colonial Wyndland one day. A king! I repeat, a KING young man! That's why its so important for you to pay attent-"
"But I am paying attentio-"
In a literal instant, the temporarily kind old lady practically pounced onto the desk, leaning over her pupil as she cried, "HOW DARE INTERRUPT ME YOUNG MAN."
Victor's rear was nearly touching the floor as he sunk deep within his chair, almost squishing himself into a little ball like an armadillo as he stared up at his intellectual lecturer in a similar manner to how a teensy baby rabbit may look up at a starving coyote. In a strangled, petrified whisper, he could only muster enough bravery to whisper: "Y...y, yes, Nana."
Pushing herself off from the undersized table, Nana framed herself back into her correct position, standing straight up, at the perfect posture for her to look down upon all those beneath her. Including Victor.
"Look, Victor." she let out with one final tired sigh. "Just...for Pete's sake, pay attention for once. This is very important."
The young Prince, still pathetically hiding beneath his own workdesk, slowly, hesitantly, brough himself back up, like a creature unsure of whether or not its raging hunter had left yet, ready to dive back into hiding if necessary. As the teacher he so despised haughtily turned her back and began making her way back to the front of the room in slow, graceful waddles, he thought over the fact that he normally would've protested against her, but today, that matter was not open for discussion. So, he slunked back into his seat, head in his hand, elbow on his desk, eyes blankly staring at the chalkboard, ears hearing but not actually listening to the world's most boring history lecture. And, while staying awake throughout the rest of that lesson may seem like a simple accomplishment, in a life where your entire existence spans between an overly cushioned bedroom and a heavily guarded class, that's a gigantic feat.
"...And don't forget, its I before E except after C, and when sounding like 'A' as in 'neighbour' and 'weigh', and-"
Victor couldn't imagine anything more satisfying than the hearty "KA-CHUNK!" of that heavy, wooden classroom door as he finally got the chance to slam it on his responsibilities, usually cutting off his teacher as he did so; if only it could be permanent, rather than just lasting until the crack of dawn upon the next day.
After spending enough time revelling in the gloriously golden silence of the teacher-free hallway, the Prince inevitably began to return to his room, nearly scraping the floor with the mile-high tower of textbooks he was forced to lug around, bumping into walls due both to them blocking his vision and their seemingly 4-ton weight. Occasionally he grunted and whined from exhaustion and frustration, sounding like a baby buffallo throwing a tantrum. And by "ocassionally" I mean often. Like, nonstop. Cause, while he'd never admit it aloud, Victor was somewhat of a weakling, even after endlessly spending afternoon after afternoon dragging his homework back to his bedroom, like a mule with no other choice or purpose.
It was a repetitive, neverending cycle. Wake up, listen to boring lectures, drag an entire library up to his room, mindlessly scroll them without actually paying attention, get punished for it with longer lectures the next day, repeat, with the only breaks in this melancholy rythm being a party filled with pretensious stuckups smooching the ground he walked on rather than treating him like a real person. There simply wasn't a single thing to do in Tonant Colonial Wyndland...or, at least, nothing that was fun. Victor could simply never understand how peasants would come up to him during the family's occasional galas, raving and ranting of how they'd literally kill to be a Prince like him. He almost laughed to himself at the idea of someone wanting to be the human equivalent of a barnyard animal, forced through a routine that others have chosen for you with absolutely no say in it whatsoever.
Once Prince Victor finally arrived to his quarters, the leaning tower of books hit the night table with a hard smack, and his body collapsed onto the bed with a harsh thud. But, as was to be expected from his life at this point, yet another chance to actually relax and come even remotely close to enjoying himself was yet again squashed by:
"MASTER VOLT!"
He didn't even have the energy for his usual, unnecessarily spastic response anymore. Slowly lifting himself from the bed, with the absolute smallest amount of purpose or caring in the world, he managed to strangle a mumble out of his exhausted state: "Whatisitnow?"
It was Kowalski. Dressed in her usual little overly-poofified yellow dress, her usual messy, almost swooping bun of yellow curls, her usual overdose of mascara and related black eye makeup, and her usual face of uncontrollable terror as though the sky was falling down.
"Th-THE WINDOW, Master Volt!" she desperately cried while struggling for breath, throwing out an arm to point at the gigantic, glamorous, disgustingly gawdy window of multicolored curtains and rainbow of stained glass that towered upon the right wall.
What's this? Something was actually HAPENNING for once in his life? And he got to see it?! This was big. This was really, really big. There wasn't a moment to lose. Victor's feet barely touched the ground as he raced; well, really, lunged; towards the window, throwing it open as though it was standing inbetween him and eternal life. But he was presented with something much less pleasant.
"PyRIgHtIES BeWArE".
It was written...no, burnt into the sides of about five conjoining village houses. Devastated families were running about, calling out for assistance in their panic, while crowds of strangers completely ignored them, pushed past them even, to behold the spectacle of the manic scrawlings scribbled across the wooden walls in what was surely burnmarks, not a single person knowing what to make out of it except for one thing and one thing alone: fear.
"P-Pyrighties?" The young Prince exclaimed, in a much more shocked tone than was probably necessary. "What's that supposed to mean?!" He scrunched his face up in an attempt at looking offended and irritated, but only ended up looking like a disrguntled dog trying to guilt trip its owner into giving it another treat.
"The Pirate's wrote that; that's how you know they're in town." the young blonde replied. "'Pyrighties' is their term for royals; Its supposed to be like 'Pyrite', the word for fool's gold. Because, well, they love gold, of course, but only real gold, so, and since we're rich, we're like gold, but only the bad gold that they don't like, like we're fake, not like the gold they look for."
Kowalski was the only person in all of the Tonant Colonial who was worse with words than him. The young Prince slowly massaged his slightly aching forehead with his right hand, giving himself permission to let out a small and pathetic moan.
"Whatever." He muttered. "Stuff like this happens all the time, but I never get to see any of it. Invaders from other lands, evil sorcerers, crazy monsters, heck, I heard a flipping DRAGON came one time, but I never get see any of it! Its all, 'High excitement isn't good for your blood pressure, Master Victor' this and 'You must focus on your studies, Prince Victor' that. I mean, its not like watching the knights fight off a giant army of demonic octopuses would kill me!" He grumpily stormed back to his bed and sulked back onto his pillow, accusingly glaring down at the pile of books on his night stand. "...But the boredom of this stupid work might."
The shuffling of cautious feet in the night. The thunk of leather on a heavily polished marble floor. The hushed, hissing breaths of a determined stealth. The clanking of fingernails on rusted metal. It was this musical chorus of unusual noises that awoke Victor near midnight that evening. It was this chorus that led him from his bed, striped nightcap and pajamas fluttering in a manmade breeze as he quietly whirled through the halls, slippers almost slipping on the overly cleaned, sleek ivory stairs. And it was this chorus that brought Victor to the entrance of the castle, this chorus that brought Victor to the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and this chorus that lead him to have his life changed forever.
His jaw was forced into dropping, hanging open and limb like a loose door as all breath swept out of lungs, daring to never return after the man's eyes were gifted with the image of the strange yet gorgeous figure who busied herself at the end of the hallway. She stuck out harshly from the stunningly glimmering golden walls,all of which were draped in pieces of history masked with jewelry and towering around her, causing her to serve as a differing center to a painting in which she had no place. But that made her all that more intriguing to him.
Hunched over the lock to the Grand Hall in a peculiarly animalistic yet almost graceful pose, the female was covered from head to toe in garments that the royal could only find familiar in pictures of ancient storybooks. From her heavily torn black pants, her white blouse stained harshly from sunbeams and saltwater, her dull and scuffed up leather boots, her small earrings of pure gold and the tiny, almost unnoticable beads of multiple hues that dotted her flowing jungle of hair, every little piece belonging to the girl's puzzle of an appearance was unlike anything Victor had ever seen before. Her skin was darkened with the flavor of many days kissed by a rich and powerful sunlight, the tanned tone resembling that of a tropical beach's shoreline, a perfectly clear and smooth terrain only being broken by the occasion scar and clouds of small, light-orange freckle's upon the gal's cheeks. The bow tying together her unusual yet glorious gift of an appearance was a slim bandanna that resembled the shade of purple found late within sunsets, tied around her tanned forehead and serving as a shore for her luxurious, unbroken ocean of golden locks.
And yet, with all the parts of this freakish circus act of unusual beauty that the male had to gaze upon, his eyes inevitably became particularly fixated on the damsel's face. Glaring down at the lock whilst her hands worked, almost as though her piercing gemstones of amethyst eyes could melt the hunk of metal to nothing, the dame's entire expression, scrunched around her almost comically pointed nose to her light brown lips screamed with extreme concentration and determination as she attempted to figure out the challenge in front of her. Somehow though, perhaps due to the slight smugness of the occasional smile that broke out on the gal's lip, or the shimmer of the light pools of purple watercolors that danced throughout her irises, or even the childishly plump, rosy and gingerly freckled cheeks that bounced with each breath, Victor found an elusive element of friendliness in this human-like alien's face. And, it was this potentially nonexistent piece of friendliness that the Prince dug up, or possibly even invented, that motivated him to do something he never believed possible: He decided to greet the pirate.
"Uh, hey, I-"
SCHINK!
In a lightning strike's flash, the situation was flipped over on its head faster than the unfortunate Prince could properly understand what was even going on. One second he was gently laying his hand on the mystical lass's shoulder, and the next he was backed up into the wall, the girl he so admired gritting her teeth and glowering towards him in fury as she pressed her sword less than inches from his throat; the blade was majestic yet bizarre, splotted and splattered with a rainbow of what Victor could only assume to be the most peculiarly colored blood stains he'd ever encountered; Green, blue, with dots of orange...what creature bled these colors?! Oh, well, probably not the best time to be examining the weapon's design and color scheme, considering it was about to be the object of the poor man's murder.
"W-WaIT!" Victor nervously spluttered, choking on his own painful panic as he avoided breathing, in hopes of not expanding his neck into the blade that seemed to be pressing closer and closer to his flesh. "C'mON, now! I-I won't hurtcha-ACK!-" The cutlass graced his skin, and whilst not quite deep enough yet to draw blood, the woman's expression, refusing to lose its carnivorous death stare, only added yet another wave of terror to the situation. "P-please-S-S-SERIOUSLY!-I'm j-just a PRINCE! I couldn't hurt-I W-W-OULDN'T HURT-a pretty pirate like you!"
Something struck the pirate woman. Neither was more sure than the other of what it could've been; Pity? Sympathy? A lose of hope or ambition? Well, whatever it was, it washed over the lady, it hit her hard, and it compelled her to action. With a slow, graceful, steady hand, the oversized saber was returned to the marauder girl's hip, but her gaze upon the fancily dressed regal never dwindled. For a literal several moments that felt like a figurative year, Victor was glued to the wall in his own confusion, like a startled animal of prey waiting in complete uncertainty as the beastly queen of the food chain tilted her head from side to side, assumably investigating each of his nooks and crannies with her eyes, before finally bursting out into an even more baffling giggle.
"You're hilarious."
"Uh..thanks. Little too boring around here for a comedian though."
After this exchange was met with more chuckles, both characters were forcibly sunken into an abyss of silence, though only one found it awkward at first; as Victor hesitantly allowed himself to relax, still slowly and awkwardly sliding off the wall in a state of beffudlement, the raider lassie merely kept her brilliantly smug smile. But then, something happened that neither could have guessed if they'd been given a million years: both parties lost their past feelings, and, in a state of an emotional blank canvas, began to automatically lean closer to each other, as if intrigued by what lay in the other's eyes. Finally, at each person's last breath, before either could notice that their faces were inches away from contact, the Prince was slammed with a procrastinated observation about the pirate maiden's voice:
"You...you're BRITISH."
"...Wait, what?"
Welp, he ruined it. The duo withdrew from one another, only spending several seconds of thought on the insane concept that they may have just shared an almost...romantic moment with one another. Finally, while the duet stewed in an inability to comprehend a way out of the social situation, Victor decided to do what he did best: open his big mouth and make things worse.
"But, I mean, aren't you supposed to be all like, 'AAARRGGHHHAARRR', and, 'Shiv-ere' meh timberes', and, 'Ahoyeh, meh fernd serm booteh-and, uh, stuff like that?"
"...No."
"...Oh."
If there was a ever a moment in which the duet perfectly understood just how different they were, it was right then and there. The two stood in dead silence, locked in each other's stares, wanting to look away but obligated to keep their gaze alive, perharps for different reasons. The royal's face began to flush whilst embarassment washed over him as the realization settled in that he had not only made a giant fool out of himself, but he had also potentially offended this woman he found so fascinating. Meanwhile, the long-locked blonde drowned in complete befuddlement over the regal man's pure stupidity; his voice during his poor attempts at mockery of stereotypical pirate slang sounded less like a typical deep-throated, gravelly-voiced pirate captain, and more like the high-pitched squawks of a seagull choking on its own spit. She never suspected that someone with so much could be so ignorant. Finally, almost in an attempt to make it possible for her to forgive him, the female pirate blurted out with:
"I blame your media. The parents around here don't want their kids running off with us 'dirty, rebellious hethen pirates', so they spread all these silly little rumors. Like that we can't speak proper English, or that we never bathe, or that we all have pet parakeets and peg legs and eyepatchs and hooks for hands...okay, maybe those are all sometimes true, but not nearly as often as you Pyrighties make them out to be."
An awkward silence followed as neither person knew how to follow up the lady's short rant. Finally, desperate to break the still tension, the gal abruptly moved back towards the large door, almost pushing aside the Prince as she chose to ignore him in returning to her original endeavor.
As the British pirate placed her strong hands around the lock once more, the royal American suddenly said, in an almost surprised fashion, "W-wait! Y-you never told me your name."
"Hm?" the golden-haired beauty swung her head back around at the gentleman. "Oh, i'm Anita." She felt a pang of guilt as she realised that she'd also forgotten to ask the young man for his name. What a fool; here she was, going on and on about how false Pirate stereotypes were, only to be followed with her rudely ignoring someone who'd been at least decent towards her. "...Uh, and you?"
"Oh! I'm Victor, Prince Victor Thomas Jefferson Volt, Third of the Fifty-Second Volt Generation." The lengthy-named Prince shot out his left paw towards the Pirate and shined an incredibly large grin, only to have his gaudy look of glee vanish when his introduction was met with a look of confusion on his new friend's end, much different from the humbled and honored praise he usually received after introducing himself to peasants and fellow royals.
Slowly, hesitant like a suspicious animal of prey approaching a potential trap, Anita eventually placed her hand into the Prince's, nearly shuddering at the shock of feeling his soft, fragile, creamy skin meet her own rough, strong, slightly filthy palm. She could see the surprise well up in his own eyes as well, but he didn't feel an urge to retreat as she did. He merely wrapped his own thin, pink fingers around her tough tanned ones, incasing her palm safely as she finally allowed herself to relax, an action she rarely took around anyone. They sank into silence for more than several seconds, ignorant of the connection beginning to grow between the two souls that met with the bridge of those hands. Finally, like a sensitive baby bubble exploding upon an exceedingly sharp old stone, both people came to their senses and swiftly broke apart, hands returning to their original locations and eyes darting in any old direction, almost trying to shake off the seeds of an unlikely possible bond that the two had just planted.
Whilst the slightly embarassed Prince inspected the gold-plated walls he had gazed upon seemingly millions of times throughout his lifetime, the inevitable yet sudden realization came crashing in on him like a gigantic crystal chandelier. What was a pirate doing in his house?!
"HEY!" the male squawked abruptly, "What're you even trying to do with that lock?!"
"Hm?" the pirate princess innocently lifted her head like a student being caught doodling, as though she didn't understand the meaning behind her new acquaintance's words. And finally, yet all at once, the fellow daydreamer was forced into returning to her reality as well; despite whatever unplanned happenstances occurred between the two, she was still an attemptive thief, invading his home against all moral conduct. Could she possibly just...tell him the truth? He said it himself earlier, there was no way on Earth that a little pipsqueak like him could ever harm her. Even if he were to call upon the guard's attention, it would be dull child's play compared to what she'd faced in the past; nothing her quick wits couldn't allow her to handle. She also knew quite well that her body, well muscled from years of hard labor at sea, could not only outrun his pale, skinny and scrawny structure, but even destroy it if necessary. So, any consequences that could come up from her honestly would easily be prepared from her well-trained combination of mind and body, it was a game she had every chance of winning...oh, what the heck?
"I'm here for the Sphalerite Tiara."
"You're WHAT?! B-But-That's supposed to be a secret!"
"Ha!" the mischevious mistress stiffled her own chuckling. "Some secret; we sent other pirates to your last party WEEKS ago. You know, keeping your most valuable treasure of all time in the gigantic, gaping Grand Hall in the center of the castle isn't exactly the best idea. "
He knew he shouldn't have allowed that shifty-looking man with the eyepatch and the gaping tear in his jacket to tour the Grand Hall during the Spring-Tacular Gala Festival.
"Well, YOU should know that-"
As if to cut off all possibilities of continuing the conversation, one final, frustrated blow from the blonde's fist caused the hunk of rock seen by the royals as a lock to explode into beyond dozens of small fragments. Without any answer to the Prince's former exclamation, the devlish marauder excitedly pushed through the monstrous wooden doors like a child on Christmas morning, rushing in towards her spoils with a sheepish regal hurridly following on her tail, yet doing little to stop her.
Neither of them even noticed the perfectly synced timing of their matched inhales, skidding to halts as they reached the plinth at the end of the room, on which sat the rarity of the angelic crown.
A mere word such as "gorgeous" simply wasn't enough to describe its majesty. The framework was expertly crafted beyond anything anyone could imagine possible for human hands, almost as though it were ripped directly from a dream. Curving upwards like waves from a gently overflowing brook, light-orange bronze curls perfectly carressed an elegant, glimmering, glistening sphalerite gemstone, that shimmered and shone with its varying dark orange hues, whispering promises of beauty to whoever dared to gaze upon it. It was really no wonder that the Royal Volt family decided to keep it such a secret.
Despite the fact that he had oggled upon it hundreds of times since he was a young child, Victor still couldn't help but be completely stolen by a tornado of bewilderment and childlike wonder as he looked down onto the bejweled ornament, viewing it lovingly as though it was his own child...until a reckless, mood-breaking swipe caused the tiara to instantly vanish, once upon the cushioned pedastal and now in the female pirate's small burlap sack.
Anita slowly and leisurely began to stroll back out of the Grand Hall, leather-strapped feet calmly pattering against the polished marble floors without a care in the world, as if she hadn't just committed a horrendous robbery of a highly precious item right in front of one of the most important people in all of Tonant Colonial. Because, well, what was that very important person to do? They both knew full well he was no match for her...but, wait a minute.
Anita's feet stopped moving as her brain began to.
Would this be the last time she'd ever see the Prince?
Somehow, for some inexplicable reason, Anita's usually stable heart of stone seemed to crackle and fall at the idea of leaving this new..."friend" of hers, if you could call him that, behind. That's why she reached a daring conclusion to a decision she'd not only never imagined facing, but never imagined resolving in quite this manner, spinning around and suggesting:
"Why don't you come back with me?"
He'd been lingering by the entrance to the Grand Hall, stupidly drowning in a haze as he was lost over what to do...but when she gave him her invitation, he raced over to her so fast it was a miracle he didn't topple over onto her and create yet another embarassing scenario. Barely skidding to a halt at her feet, his hands were in a whirl around his head, as though he was trying to literally "grasp" what she had just said.
"Y-Y-You, you, YOOUU, You-Y-W-W-WHAT?"
"Oh, c'mon." Anita cheekily chirped in reply, almost seductively reaching out for and holding the royal's scraggly arm. "You said it yourself, you're bored here! We could always use another hand." She thought to herself of how she was shifting her tone, trying to make it sound like he was actually necessary to the crew, and not just a treat she struggled with the idea of living without...but that wasn't important. "Wouldn't you just have so much more fun on a pirate ship, going on adventures, taking risks, experiencing daring thrills, than being cooped up in this stuffy ol' place your entire life?"
Gulping down his apprehension, the Prince looked away, back towards the Grand Hall, as though looking away from her could save him from the decision. He knew very well that what she was saying wasn't wrong. Really, he hated it here. But, everything that he'd be leaving behind, everything he dreaded so much, was still a responsibility of his. His work. His job as the Prince of Tonant Colional. His future...
As the King.
But what would being King earn him? Nothing he didn't have already. If anything, aside from a higher title, everything in his life would deterioate from there. He'd have more responsibilities. More work. More stuffy people he'd have to pretend to like. More pressure to keep up a good appearance. More time spent inside panicing over more heavy situations with the weight of more peoples lives on his shoulders.
Less time with the people he actually enjoyed.
That was something he never even considered; his family. Well, what was left of his family. What would his mother think of this? She was the only thing that truly made palace life worth living. She wasn't like the other uptight inhabitants of the castle, always judging him, always critising his every move. She always accepted him for who he was. But that's just why she'd approve of this. She always felt bad for him, so miserable with the life destiny chose for him. Though she may not show it outwardly, he knew she'd want him to be happy more than anything.
He knew it was selfish. Extremely selfish. Childish, even. But if he didn't take the oppurtunity while it was open, he knew he'd regret it for the rest of his life.
"Yeah. Let's go."