A/N: Yesterday I stumbled upon images of Andrej Pejic (http:/ /models . com / people / andrej-pejic). He's so beautiful. He's like, the perfect image of how a begetter looks like.

You know, in Garden, I have the flowers dressed in male clothing. The clothing can have feminine styles - frills and ribbons, large sleeves, robes with cinched waist, a bustier even (remember Arthur's first wedding suit?) - but they are, undoubtedly, male clothes. No corset and no layers of skirt.

I have a question: Should begetters have the choice to wear women's clothes too?

The thing is I always picture Kiku and Yao in female kimono and Shanghai dress. This is because female period clothing in China and Japan weren't that much different from their male counterparts. Males wore muted colours and slimmer obi/belt (for Kiku) or pants under the slit of baggier Shanghai one-piece (for Yao). It helped that Japanese kimono emphasised on straight lines and not curves. But I've never pictured Arthur in a corset and full skirt. I've seen gorgeous fanarts of him in modern skirt/one-piece, but never, you know, in 16th Century or even Victorian kind of dresses...

Another question: would you want me to give some focus on the clothing and the setting, or just continue with the politics?

Arrghh, now I feel like rewriting some parts of the previous chapters! Like the clothes the Carnation and the Edelweiss wore in formal parties!

But anyways, please answer my questions.

Warning: some gore.

Part 2.6: Jack and Jill Tumbled Down the Hill

Arthur could merely watch, with wide eyes, when James pulled the knife out only to pierce another patch of skin over Francis' torso. And another. And another. Blood sprayed from the gaping wounds, bathing the two brothers in thick, warm, crimson fluid.

"STOP!" Arthur cried shrilly and threw himself at his brother, latching on his muscular arm and struggling with his legs and teeth until James dropped his knife. He kicked the lethal weapon to the other corner of the room and pinned his considerably larger brother with a knee over his throat before crawling on his elbows to the fallen Emperor.

"Please hold on," Arthur spoke fervently as he tore the tattered fabric of Francis' shirt, soaked in blood so dark the pale blue fabric had turned black. The blood seeped to the sleeves of Arthur's green robes, but the Empress Consort paid them no heed, deft fingers pulling the tablecloth to the floor and pressing the balled-up fabric to the wounds to stall the bleeding.

"A…Art…" The Emperor gurgled.

Arthur shushed him. "Don't worr-"

The older monarch's fingers clutched his sleeve weakly, his eyes shifting in and out of focus. His thin lips curled to a soft, peaceful smile. "I'm…sor…ry…" he managed before his fingers went slack and his eyes dulled.

Emperor Francis of House Bonnefoy had passed away.

What?

Arthur barely made sense of his (late) husband's apology when the door to the alcove was suddenly wrenched open. An army of the West's elite soldiers stampeded into the room, led by a tall man with greying hair, his thin frame swathed in violet and indigo.

Duke Orleans, the late Empress Consort Iris' father.

"Arthur and James of House Kirkland," the soldiers drew their swords and point them at the siblings as Duke Orleans spoke, "You're hereby arrested for the murder of Emperor Francis."

What?

"Jame-" Arthur turned to his brother sharply, panic and puzzlement clouding his eyes, but the older begetter was laughing. Loud guffaws that shook his entire body.

He'd lost it.

"Don't worry, things would go according to plan." Arthur remembered hearing, and his heart sank. [1]

When his wrists were bound and he was manhandled off the floor, the widowed monarch didn't bother struggling.

"Duke Orleans convinced you to do this, didn't he?"

Much, much later, after the soldiers had humiliatingly stripped any lint of finery off his skin and forced him into the coarsest material he'd ever worn since birth, tortured him in a mockery of an interrogation (which he could give no answer to any of the inquiries and accusations no matter how hard the whip hit his skin because he was innocent, damn it!) and thrown him into the prison in the dungeon like a sack of potatoes, Arthur asked.

His companion, who was hunched at the corner across the damp, filthy, windowless cell (which reeked of piss, crap and other bodily fluids Arthur really didn't want to think of), dull green eyes staring bleakly at the cold, hard stone tiles of the floor, his bulky frame unmoving as a statue, merely grunted. "No."

Arthur inhaled sharply. "Why?"

Silence.

Angered by the lack of response, Arthur rose to his feet and crossed the cramped space in two strides. He raised his arm high and brought his palm against his brother's cheek. Hard. Neither the resounding SLAP nor the thud as the side of James' face knocked against the wall made Arthur feel any remorse.

"You do realise that you've put our family in danger, don't you!" the youngest Kirkland hissed.

His slap was a measly addition to the array of wounds and bruises their interrogators had placed on the former flower's skin.

"I've written to them," James merely shrugged from his awkward, twisted position on the wall, his eyes continued staring at nothing. "I've told them to run away, as far as they could, to places nobody can find them."

And what about me?

Arthur collapsed to his knees in despair, an indescribably heavy weight crushing his chest. He wheezed as he struggled to take air into his lungs. "I told you, I didn't seduce him," his sight blurred, and when he blinked his cheeks felt wet. "Do you think a brat like me would know how to? Why didn't you trust me?" he croaked, his voice breaking to a hoarse sob.

"It doesn't matter," there was a snicker in James' tone. "You weren't good enough," he whispered. The curl of his lips weren't sinister or vengeful, but deprecating, desolate, devoid of any hope. "Both of us weren't."

Arthur pressed his palms against his ears, closed his eyes and, for the first time in his life, cried into the coarse material that covered his knees over the coldest night he'd ever experienced.

They didn't let him (them) go to his (their) former husband's funeral.

A change of clothes (not that it mattered, the prisoner's garb dark enough to be black) was Arthur's only signal that the mourning period had started. James had come out of his husk and begged and pleaded and screamed, but nobody heeded him.

Arthur merely pressed his ear to the wall of the dungeon, seeking futilely for the clanging of the bells of the Cathedral's mass, closed his eyes and prayed. For himself. For his family.

For the love that could have been.

The trial lasted for less than fifteen minutes in entirety.

"Why did you murder Emperor Francis?"

"I didn't do it," he told the Judge and his juries straight to their faces, his gaze straight and unwavering.

"Who else have you conspired with?" the Judge continued indifferently, his voice cold and unforgiving.

"I wasn't involved!" Arthur raised his voice. "If anything, it's Duke Orleans who was the mastermind-"

"Do you have any proof?" the Judge cut the accused off.

Arthur was taken aback. "No," he started with a small voice. His hands clutched the wooden railing of the raised platform he'd been placed on, the chain of dark, heavy iron that trapped his wrists clinking as he moved. "But he has the strongest motive to do so and I have NONE! Why would I want to murder the man who, by virtue of living, made me the second MOST POWERFUL person in the entire Empire?" Arthur's distinctive green eyes gazed into those of the juries, imploring for support and scanning for allies.

"That's what I'd like to know as well," the Judge remarked dismissively.

Arthur flinched. "Your Grace-"

"Arthur Kirkland, all incriminating evidences we've gathered point out that you and your brother had willfully planned and executed Emperor Francis II's murder," the impenetrable Judge ignored his pleas. "Juries, what is your verdict?"

"Guilty," the noble seated on the top right hand corner of the rows of benches that accommodated a representative of every House in the West raised his hand, the sleeve of his black robe swishing around his forearm, and announced his stand. "Guilty," the man on his left stated less than a breath after. "Guilty," a fellow jury followed. Soon, the room was filled with an orchestra of "Guilty," the words bouncing off the walls and burying Arthur in despair. [2]

Although Antonio Carriedo, Roderich Edelstein, the former Cornflower and Minister Zwingli did not raise their hands, Arthur was not saved.

Before the moon waned, Arthur was to lose his head to a guillotine.

James departed the world of the living with a bleak stare and rust in his laughter. "Soon," he mouthed at the sky as tears coursed down his cheeks.

A lot of thoughts crossed Arthur's mind as his executioner dragged him up the platform. As he looked at the crowd that had come to witness the death of their fallen Empress Consort, he worried about father, mother, Rhys and Erin. He wondered if Erin had to part with her husband to escape from the Empire with the rest. He wondered if Gabriel was still angry with him. Arthur hadn't said his goodbyes to the true friends he's made in last four years…especially the Princes. He wondered if they knew what was going to happen to him. If they were going to miss him. Undoubtedly, Duke Orleans was going to seize control of the Empire (he's already starting, what's with reclining languidly on a chair set up on a viewing platform opposite to the execution stage), and what was to become of the court? Of the younglings?

I don't want to die yet, Arthur thought as he blinked the tears that clouded his misty eyes.

"Arthur! ARTHUR! STOP!"

Speaking of the little devils…as his executioner forced Arthur to his knees and pushed his head down to the block that was still stained by James' blood, Prince Alfred's clear voice cut through the murmurs of the crowd.

The young monarch had been dressed to fight it seemed, the colours and symbols of the Royal House displayed proudly on his clothes under the pitch black of his velvet mourning robes. Prince Matthew was present with his twin, dark blue eyes resolute. Half a step behind him, holding their hands was Roderich, also in black and his House's colours, the design of his robes clearly less feminine – no frills, no curves – since he wasn't legally a royal concubine anymore. The trio made their way through the throng, who parted for the royalties like the Red Sea. Arthur's executioner took a step away from him as Prince Alfred climbed the wooden stairs and positioned himself next to the doomed. From the way his legs shook, Arthur could tell that the tactile young boy must have wanted to wrap his arms around his side and bury his face to his stomach, like he used to just a little over half a year ago, but Roderich's hand on the small of his back kept him in check.

"You can't kill Arthur!" Prince Alfred shook his head and held his place adamantly as he spoke to the crowd. "I forbid you!"

"Now, now, Your Highness," Duke Orleans rose to his feet and opened his hands in a placating gesture, his tone patronizing. "This man has murdered your father. This man's dangerous to the Empire."

"I don't believe you!" Prince Alfred's somber expression cracked, "Arthur's cared about this Empire more than father! I know this!" Prince Matthew took a step closer to his brother and nodded, a quiet, solid support in the debacle.

"Don't you want your father's honour restored?" Duke Orleans clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Children like you won't understand…"

"I beg to differ!" Prince Alfred flinched. The Duke had made a huge mistake. He did not take kindly to being treated as a child. "The person who'd destroyed my father's honour was my father himself! I know very well what rumours have been circulating around the court, around my own home." he spoke challengingly. "I didn't hear you defending my father's honour!"

The Duke gritted his teeth. "Your Highness-"

"I'm an Imperial Prince!" the young boy didn't let anyone interrupt him. "Currently the first in line to the throne! No one can tell me what to do!" For one moment, the glare he'd cast his own grandfather wasn't that of an eight(almost nine)-year-old, but that of a young man who knew that he was born to be the ruler of the world, brimming with confidence, strength and righteous anger.

The yard was enveloped in silence as the two powers battled through their gaze.

Duke Orleans stared at his grandson's stubborn eyes for a long time before he sighed. Since he wasn't formally recognised as the Princes' Regent (yet), he had no power over the brat.

(Besides, what kind of harm could the fallen Kirkland do?)

"Very well," the Duke would concede, for now. "Arthur Kirkland's life shall be spared under one condition."

"Let us hear it first," Roderich cut in. The battle wasn't over yet.

The Duke tsk-ed inwardly. "That Arthur Kirkland be exiled-"

"No," the former Infante rebuked the offer straight away, "How are we to know that you won't finish him off when he's away?"

The Duke narrowed his eyes. "Then, what are you offering?" he nearly snarled. The Duke would take great pleasure in rejecting all of them.

Roderich looked down and stared into the eyes of his former student for a while, apology apparent in his gaze, before he finally faced the elderly authoritative figure again. "That Arthur Kirkland be a slave to the Crown," he bargained in his characteristically tenor voice, "owned by the Castle and the Royal House. Since the Princes insist of keeping him in their sight, I think this is the best course of action."

All breath seemed to leave Arthur's lungs. Him, as a slave. Devoid of any rights, properties and a name, serving and obeying the whims of others his whole life.

(Would death or a life rotting in prison be better?)

Duke Orleans' eye twitched. Raised under the guidance of Archduke Edelstein, Roderich would have been a force to reckon with if he wasn't an Infante [3]. The decisions he made were very much sound. "Very well," he agreed half-heartedly.

And once again, Arthur's fate was sealed.

TBC

(tho I don't technically have the tradition...) Happy Thanksgiving! And please REVIEW! I have 2 exams on Monday and Wednesday which have huge potential of being screwed up...I need all the happiness I can get.

A/N:

1. Perhaps I didn't manage to make this very clear...but James wasn't the only person to blame here. The so-called plan between James and Francis involved a joint-suicide. YES, Francis did want to die, still.

Have you ever humoured yourself thinking you can change for the better, only to encounter something that reminded yourself that no, you can't change after all, and you ended up more depressed than you originally were? Francis encountered that. In the background. I've never really written about his feelings, but yes, that was what he'd been feeling, the whole time. Francis was hiding this from Arthur, because he didn't want to depress that kid. But James knew Francis still wasn't feeling happy. Hence his saying, "You weren't good enough, both of us weren't."

Francis was saying sorry to Arthur because he was sorry he still wanted to die, Francis was sorry Arthur was involved in James' last-minute stunt.

And the position of an Emperor is a highly coveted, highly dangerous one. It's not surprising that someone, who knew of Arthur's and James' family relation, noticed James' resentment toward Arthur and utilised it for his own ulterior motives. The point is: James, like Arthur, was a pawn. A sad, sad pawn.

2. The scene of the trial was inspired by Ann Boleyn's trial from the movie 'The Other Boleyn Girl' a few years ago.

3. Infante is the title and rank given in the European kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre and León) and Portugal to the sons of the King who were not the heir to the throne. In this context I tweak the meaning of the title. Archduke Edelstein was one of Emperor Francis' father's half-sisters' husband, so technically Roderich was Francis' half-cousin and very strongly a royalty, but he had no rights to the throne.