11 - Betrothed

"Emil! Emil!"

Emil stopped his training with the broadsword to see his older brother rush towards him.

"Lukas?" Emil asked. "Shouldn't you be with Mr. Edelstein for your lessons? He won't be very happy if you ignored them again."

"Mr. Edelstein can complain to mother and father for all I care. This is important. I need you to help me," Lukas pleaded.

Emil's eyebrows shot up. He knew his brother could be sometimes rude and uncaring, so that is not what surprised him. What surprised him is that Lukas thought Emil could help him with what he needed.

Lukas is the eldest brother, so he's obviously next in line for the throne. Emil never really cared for the position and knew his brother would be good at it. Lukas was smart and, underneath that cold exterior, very caring. So, Emil never focused himself in the studies of bloodlines and laws. Instead he put all his time into the training of a knight.

Emil knew he wasn't very big or strong, but there were plenty of other knights like that anyway. Instead, he was quick and nimble, making him a surprising opponent. He almost never loses a training battle. One day, he will take on the position as Head of the Royal Guard and stand by his brother's side. In actuality, his real aim was to get out of the kingdom and see the world, but being royalty made that difficult. So, being a knight was the next best thing.

"Help? Help with what? Sparring?" Emil asked as he went over to the side of the training field to put up his broadsword and equipment. He generally doesn't like broadswords but he needed to be proficient in all weapons.

"No," Lukas started, following Emil. "An engagement. I just learned that I'm in an arrangement to be married."

Emil turned to look at the elder brother. "So, what? You want me to stand guard at your wedding here or something? Lukas, you knew you were eventually going to be in a marriage arrangement. I thought you didn't have a problem with that?"

"I don't… Er, well, I didn't."

"Then what's the problem? Is it the girl?" Then Emil leaned in conspiringly. "Is she ugly?"

"No," Lukas snorted and pushed Emil's face away.

"So…?"

"There, em, may be this person… I met…"

"Lukas!" Emil cried exasperatedly. "I thought you didn't fall for people like that!"

"I don't. I just- I mean, they just fell into my lap. Literally. I was sitting there innocently and bam- hello, they were there."

Emil blinked, not really following his brother's rant but getting the basic gist of it. "So what do you want me to do? Assassinate your betrothed? Because I don't think that would help. At all."

Lukas rubbed the back of his neck and looked away awkwardly. "No… I was thinking that maybe you could take my place…?"

A few seconds passed by as the request sank in and then Emil laughed. "I'm sorry, but you want me to take your place? You realize that I have no formal training right?"

"You'll learn," Lukas said confidently. "Besides the kingdom is far away to the East. It's what you wanted right? To get out of here and explore new places?"

Emil bit his lip. "Yeah but…"

"Also, the kingdom is a bit different, so you won't be caught doing the actual ruling. It's more of an allegiance between their kingdom and ours. And their kingdom is quite big so you won't ever be bored."

Emil thought about it. On one hand it's a new adventure. A faraway kingdom with different customs and language, it's hard to resist something like that. But on the other hand, he won't see his brother much at all… plus he won't get to meet the princess until the day of the marriage. And, of course, the obvious being engaged to a complete stranger, but it's not like he had anyone special in mind anyway.

One look at his brother's pleading face and he knew what he had to do. Emil sighed, "Fine. I'll do it."

Lukas smiled. "Thank you, brother. This means a lot to me."

"I know."

Emil fiddled with the too-tight formal outfit he was supposed to wear when meeting his fiancée. He was used to wearing loose clothing that would allow him to easily move and spar.

"Stop fidgeting," his mother chastised quietly beside him.

His father, the king obviously, was on the other side of his mother, making the formal announcements. Emil wasn't listening, though he probably should have been. Lukas stood on the other side of Emil, remaining perfectly calm. The bastard. Of course he would. He was the perfect eldest son, remaining calm in any situation. Hell, Emil could remain calm too… just not here… in front of all these people about to get married.

"Introducing Prince Xiao Wang of the Eastern Kingdom."

A young man walked in wearing what must have been his country's formal wear, walked in with a few other people. Quite honestly, Emil wasn't paying attention. He didn't care about this prince. He was much more focused on calming his nerves before he met the princess. The guy looked like a cocky, arrogant bastard anyway. Emil certainly hoped he wasn't in any way related to the princess he will marry.

The guy walked up with his guards and did the usual courtesies to Emil's family. Emil glanced at Lukas beside him, only to catch his eye. Lukas gave a small smile and mouthed "good luck". Emil narrowed his eyes in confusion. Had he already met that prince before? Ah, serves Emil right for skipping out on the meetings about the betrothal.

"We welcome you to our kingdom," Emil's father continued. "And of course we introduce to you our youngest son, Prince Emil."

Wait, what.

Emil looked up, wide eyed. The Prince was staring at him with a smirk. In fact, everyone was staring at him. What was he supposed to do again? His mother nudged him in the side to get him to stand up. He slowly got up on his feet in a daze.

A prince? A prince!?

But- but… Emil was a prince! He needed a princess, not a prince! Right?

He slowly turned his head towards Lukas, while everyone was distracted by his father's monologue about the joining of two great kingdoms or whatever. At his confused and panicked look, Lukas leaned towards him and whispered, "You should be paying attention, bro."

"A prince!?" Emil hissed back.

"Well, yeah. Didn't you know?"

"No!"

"Oh, well… surprise?"

"Surprise? That's it! Surprise!? I'm about to be married to a man, Lukas! A man! You should have told me! I-"

"Emil!" His mother hissed at him from his side. "Please pay attention."

Emil gave one last glare to his brother before he turned back to face the front.

The prince was smirking at him.

Ugh. He looked like such an arrogant bastard. Emil rolled his eyes. He so didn't want to do this now. On the other hand, his kingdom is apparently large, so maybe Emil could go travelling for a very long time and would only have to see him once a year. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

Suddenly, his mother nudged him. Emil looked up surprised and realized he must've missed some sort of cue.

"Go meet your prince," his mother whispered.

Emil took a deep breath. Here goes everything. Like he was in a daze, he slowly walked forward until he was standing in front of the foreign prince.

The prince was actually a bit taller than him, and his smirk was even more annoying up close. Though, oddly enough, he did smell good. Of some sort of spice that Emil was unfamiliar with.

"I, like, thought I was meeting blondie," the prince said with an obnoxious nod towards Lukas. Ugh, even his voice was annoying.

Emil frowned and crossed his arms. "Well, you got me."

Prince Xiao smirked. "I am definitely not complaining," he said as he raked his eyes up and down Emil's body.

Emil blushed. "Stop that!"

"So what happened?"

"Huh?"

Prince Xiao waved a hand nonchalantly. "With blondie."

"I'm taking his place."

Xiao crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Why? He didn't want me?"

"No… well, sort of."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?"

"I mean that's it's none of your business. I'm the one who's getting married to you."

"That's not fair," Xiao said with a bored expression on his face. "I was, like, promised Blondie."

"Oh my god," Emil said, just realizing something.

"What?"

"You are an asshole!"

Suddenly, the whole room went quiet and everyone stared at the pair. Emil blushed as he realized just how loud he said that. The king and queen were in shock and about ready to jump to apologize, when Xiao busted out into laughter.

After about a full minute of laughter, he wiped away the tears in his eyes and said, "I think I'm going to really like you!"

Emil rolled his eyes.

A/N

I've had this mostly written for a long time, I just couldn't write an ending. Well, as you can see the ending still sucks, but oh well. lol

And the guy that fell into Lukas' lap, literally... was Mathias XD

This story is for the 14th by the way... I haven't gone to bed yet so I still count it as the 14th xD (I was out catching pokemon, that's why it's late...)