this one can be read as sometime before the events of pale fire.
Night 2: Princes
"Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me."
I. Shiro
They say that two things come naturally to every Jishouan man: the feel of an oar in his hands, and the burn of a mooring rope slipping through his clenched fists. True Jishouan men were born in the sea, or so they say, their adult frames tossed and molded by its fat swells. Years ago, children used to be thrown in the rushing waters and were expected to swim miles ashore on their own, to prove their worth as men. Whoever did not return simply did not return.
Although times have changed since then, the corrupted joke is still uttered in every port city where foreigners intermingle with the rowdy sailors and hardy fishermen in crowded taverns. You can throw us overboard, but we've already got practice from when we were all drowned as infants.
Yet Shiro's head had always been fogged with stories about great battles fought on land, not on water; with armies whose length extended as far as the horizon and whose width stretched with interlocked shields, and men in gleaming helmets underneath a glorious sun. He remembers in great detail begging his father to send him to Caera, when he was much much younger than he is now – he had whined and pleaded to be sent to their famous military schools, and still he remembers in even greater detail his father's outright refusal.
There are no generals in Jishou, boy, the king had told him coldly, only admirals.
He recalls his ten year old self taking an oar and carving out his own wooden sword out of spite. Jishou is a land mired in its worship for its ships and its mastery over the sea. Shiro has always considered it foolish to think that one could tame the sea; the sea is relentless, it is tireless, and it is always hungry. There are many stories about ships crossing an ocean to fight Jishou's wars, but there are just as many stories of marooned sailors and entire fleets disappearing without a trace.
Every man is decreed to serve at least once in the royal navy. Spending so much time on a ship, listening to the keen of the wind, and watching the endless rise and fall of the tide, he wonders how other men haven't come to the same conclusion already.
We were all drowned as infants, so the joke goes.
This is not to say his teenaged self didn't undergo all the (ridiculous) rights of passage to be seen as a man by his peers, which at least gained him a single nod of approval from his father. Years of passive resistance have also worn the king down, and the births of Shiro's sisters have softened him. On the day Sayuri turned six the royal family had thrown a lavish banquet, and he had begrudgingly been hired the greatest swordsmen from Caera as tutors.
Though Nobshiro shows no overwhelming enthusiasm for life aboard a ship the way his father does, he is at least more than capable in other princely things like administration and diplomacy.
Sometimes, he thinks of what would have happened if it were only him and his brother in the family line. If his sweet younger sisters had never been born, and the issue of the royal couple stopped at Nobushiro and Nobuyuki Jie.
If Yuki wasn't a magician – if he wasn't chosen for the Magisterium –
– Shiro knows Mameyoshi would have easily plucked the crown and all the titles it entailed right off his ten year old head. He would have handed it to his brother the moment Shiro brandished that oar-carved wooden sword at the king.
We were all drowned as infants…
Yet as it stands he will always and only ever be his father's firstborn son. There are good princes, obedient princes out there. Princes that do not find any flaws within the nation they are one day supposed to rule. Such princes exist, that much Nobushiro is sure of; he is simply not one of them.
II. Kuja
They call him the lost prince.
Of the many titles bestowed upon him, Kuja is fondest of this one. The lost prince, the useless prince, the wasted prince, the noble-blooded sons and daughters of the magician caste like to call him; he finds it much more fitting than chosen or revered magister or pride of the Salman bloodline.
When he was a boy he had been very fond of his title of Prince of Ariavat. It entailed less scrutiny than being the heir to the throne, and he spent his childhood idly watching his sister navigate the constant squabbling and treachery of the Ariavatan noble houses. It was only him and his sister against the entire noble caste, yet Yerim had protected him from everything, even his responsibilities.
And so it came to be that young Alihaddra Kujahabar Salman, only prince of Ariavat, held everything in the palms of his hands. He had had wealth, friends, and jewels in unparalleled abundance; his days were spent in indolence, and a thousand servants labored every second to make him happy.
He'd had everything.
Everything except for time.
When he was sixteen he had been abruptly summoned back from summer in Jishou. Waiting for him in the royal palace had been one old woman with a crackling voice, and his father, looking the proudest he'd ever been.
That same day, as fate would have it, Kuja would lose everything like grains of sand sifting uselessly between his fingers.
At one time of his life he'd held the world at his fingertips; at another, he was left with nothing more than the camel below him, the robes on his back, and the expectation that he would make the long and arduous pilgrimage to the center of the desert alone, and somehow he would find the Magisterium.
And they did find him.
It is the greatest honor, to be chosen for the Magisterium. Ariavat was first founded by a magi, and its kings and noble houses all descend somehow from this illustrious line. Each year the noble houses that make up the magician caste try to create the right mix of magical blood that would produce a scion worthy enough of being chosen by the magisters.
To emulate the great magi and magicians of old, and be henceforth known as the supreme bloodline in Ariavat: it is the reason why every year, a noble house must struggle.
And every child, once chosen, is forever lost to their noble house.
O prince, the same old woman from before had intoned in her low voice, upon his arrival in the Magisterium. It was the first time he'd ever been called by his title without any sort of deference, any modicum of respect. It had shaken him: never in his life had Kuja thought he would be chosen, and yet he was; never in his life had Kuja thought he would give up everything he was, and yet he did.
Kuja is a prince, yes. In nothing but name. He can comport himself like one, put on the airs and trappings of one, but never again will he feel like one, after all his years in the desert – that feeling of weightlessness is forever lost to him, even if the title that came with it isn't.
III. Alexander
Caera has a long history of princes and kings. It is a song of climaxes and nadirs, of sorrow and glory everlasting; of brother slaying brother, of wife slaying husband, of children slaying parents, and of citizens slaying kings.
Now, of course, they have lived in peace for centuries, and the cities and peoples of Caera have flourished. Still the history stays, and so do vigilance and the way of the warrior, through the military schools in its provinces.
It is a simple enough thing, being prince: for years and years Alexander knew the way his destiny would unfold, as tradition and centuries of history dictated – he would be schooled, he would take someone to wife, and he would rule one day as king. It is a small worn groove in the larger wheel of Caeran history.
And the wheel, ever-spinning, ever-finishing, completes a cycle; in one moment he watches as history, bound to repeat itself, comes alive: centuries of peace comes apart, and something in Alexander's blood answers to the call it raises.
It is his inheritance, his right as the crown prince, almost, to bear the face of what would come next. It is the natural end to centuries of peace, and the natural end to his life.
Notes:
I'm procrastinating on ch. 16 of Pale Fire. It's been a really long series of writes and rewrites, with a dash of school is just really complicated sorry guise.
(1) Night 2's summary is from Shakespeare; Antony and Cleopatra, act V scene II, spoken by Cleopatra before she offs herself. Because even princes crave immortal things.
(2) Is this just a really sneaky way of writing about the three countries of the Triangle, but without writing a boring textbook explanation of what their cultures are like? Maybe. Also because I neglect Shiro a bit.
There's an accompanying design notes to this oneshot on the livejournal; it explains references and some character notes about everyone featured in Night 2.