They couldn't possibly believe their queen was fit to rule this kingdom! Her magic had cursed the place, never mind that she was also the same person to lift it in the end. Couldn't they see that she could do it again, but much, much worse? Was Arendelle really that ignorant?
The Duke of Weselton tried to save a bit of face by hoping to see the accursed ruler one last time, to show just how dangerous it would be to have a monarch with supernatural abilities that could doom an entire civilization with a flick of her wrist. After all, if she could do that while she retained her humanity; what more would happen once the madness took ahold of her? It was doom and death for everyone!
Arendelle should have someone who knew how to deal with these sorcerers. Someone like him!
And maybe be in charge of the trade situation in the kingdom while he was at it. From what he saw, it was pretty dismal how they were handling things. Arendelle definitely had the goods, they just needed proper instruction and regulation from the government in order to profit better. They couldn't just allow willy-nilly handouts like what that Prince Hans did.
Speaking of, there went the prince right now, disgraced by his actions and tossed behind bars of a nearby ship.
Good riddance. The Southern Isles would know what to do with him. And if Prince Hans turned out to be just as devil-blooded as the ice witch Arendelle had for a queen…
Wait a minute.
That man just might be the key to getting out of the punishment in trade between Arendelle and Weselton. He might even have his status lifted in the eyes of the public if he revealed just how dangerous the supernaturally inclined could be. Prince Hans' actions showed that he was close to losing it, if the duke's gut was right about the prince being a magician, that is.
Something about mirrors and trickery. The duke hoped that pushing the prince to revealing his powers wouldn't end up killing people. Mainly him.
"Prince Hans, I know you can hear me!" the duke shouted as he struggled against the heavy hands of the guards. "I know what you are! And I assure you that I will tell the King and Queen of the Southern Isles."
No response from the ship the prince got tossed into.
"I'm sure they'd love to hear that their youngest son is a magician so close to losing his mind!" the duke continued to goad. "What was the punishment that magicians get if they attempt to murder someone? That's right, public execution!"
He looked around himself, noticing that he was drawing in a crowd at his outburst. He was about to prod at the prince again, but hesitated when he saw a tiny, almost transparent image of the prince in the reflection of one of the lenses of his glasses. And not a proud, princely image either, for he saw a disheveled Prince Hans on his hands and knees, begging. The image shook its head, a silent plea for the duke not to follow through with his threat.
So he was right. Hans did have magic.
"You're going to have to do much better than that!" the duke called out. The image in his glasses disappeared. "That's if you want me to keep mum about all of this!"
"What is going on here?!" Princess Anna demanded, that blond commoner she came back from the mountain with at her side.
"Prince Hans has confessed!" the duke cried as the guards pulled at him to his ship. "Everyone! This is what becomes of people with magic! They spiral out of control and lust for murder and bloodshed! Prince Hans is only the beginning! Queen Elsa could be next!"
"Guards, just put him on his boat already," Princess Anna said.
"No!"
All of a sudden, boats and ships appeared out of nowhere to float in a spiral in the sky, copies of the duke and the princess materialized just as quickly around everyone along with an image similar to the one he saw in his glasses of Prince Hans on his knees before them at the end of the dock. Then it all vanished and everything was back to normal.
"Don't tell them, I beg of you!" came the panicked voice of Prince Hans in the distance.
"What. Was. That!?" gaped the blond beside the princess.
"That, my dear fellow, was a confession," the duke said, smug.
"Guards, take the duke and the prince into the dungeons," Princess Anna instructed. "My sister's going to want to have a word with them about this."
Author's Note: Okay, so I've been busy for the last week being at a conference. It's messed with my ability to update Immurement. Also, I've been struggling with finding the words for that fic, so I decided to do a quick little update on something different to give me a little oomph to write again. Yeah, I know I intended to keep this as a one-shot one chapter thing.
But I was working on the actual, longer plot that inspired this one shot (which hasn't been written yet) and I've been dying to write something out for that AU. This is one of the scenes that I had trouble planning out so I decided that it would be a fun exercise to write it out in the duke's POV. Since I've already got this one-shot Duke of Weselton POV set in the same AU, might as well put a little bonus scene in here.
Though do keep in mind that I will not post the actual AU fic until I've got my trilogy completed and this AU project written out. Just to keep me from getting overwhelmed with trying to update more than one plot at a time.