Author's Note: So, while the actual fic to this AU is still in the planning stages, I decided to have this thing be a "add things when I feel like it" kind of thing. It's likely going to be written anachronistically, jumping between points of views (but not in Hans' since the actual fic is going to follow in his), and not really drive any plot along since I want that to be done in the actual one. I'm going to make this more of a companion piece, but not quite.

It was said that the Crown Prince Søren of the Southern Isles never truly lived until his parents had enough with children and stopped at having Prince Hans as their thirteenth and final offspring. There was some disappointment in the kingdom at the thought that the Southern Isles wouldn't have their own princess to fawn over in this generation of the royal family. However, the sentiment went away when Prince Hans proved to be quite the charmer, even in his infancy.

Prince Søren, before little Hans came along when he was eighteen, was a private person who tended to shy from the public. But for some unknown reason, having this one brother out of the many he already had sparked some kind of extraversion the kingdom hadn't yet seen in their Crown Prince. It was a curiosity that went without an answer, even until now.

Of course, Søren himself knew the answer. Finally, he wasn't the only one. He was no longer alone in his struggle. Hans was the answer to a rather selfish wish he had to have someone who would share in his misery; a desperate plea to have a hope that while he himself might perish in his misfortune, at least he would have someone to guide to find some way to free every afflicted individual of this curse. If not by antidote, then at least to show that not everyone with their condition was hopeless.

But of course not himself. Crown Prince Søren of the Southern Isles was cursed with being imbued with the fires of hell. He was hopeless the moment he scorched the tablecloth accidentally and blamed it on a knocked-over candlestick.

However, Hans was that hope. Søren knew that he had a responsibility to his brother, to teach him everything he knew in concealment and control. His brother was charming, just not in the way the public had yet realized. It was an easy enough façade to work with. It was made easier when Hans' abilities had finally manifested themselves that Søren knew his brother was harmless, that his littlest brother was not deserving of asylums and decapitations like his contemporaries.

What the public saw as their beloved Crown Prince doting on his baby brother, they themselves knew it was training to delay the inevitable.

It was during one of those days of training where precocious little Hans had begun to show the doubt Søren himself knew he needed to fix, for it was an inner voice he knew would come to haunt his baby brother for the entirety of his existence.

Søren inspected his crossbow, making adjustments to the limbs and bowstring. He moved his attentions to the smaller crossbow in Hans' four-year-old hands, making small corrections in the youngest prince's hand placement before knocking a bolt in his own crossbow.

Søren took aim at a nearby tree trunk and fired. The impact of the projectile caused the birds roosting on its branches to take flight. Søren took a shot at the fleeing flock and downed one out of the sky. It was dead before it hit the ground.

Hans did the same, but winged his target. The poor bird floundered on the dirt, screeching and squawking as Søren approached and snapped its neck, killing it instantly. The Crown Prince closed his eyes and exhaled as he felt the scrambled mess of his thoughts reassemble themselves, the worrying desire for inflicting pain and bloodshed waning like a fog lifting from the heat of the day. Those moments of desire were lapsing closer and closer together. Considering the pace and his age, he was pleased to know that he surpassed the expected time where the cursed would lose it since it meant that if it would work for him, it would work especially well for Hans.

But it also meant that his time was also really close.

"Søren," Hans said, lamenting the dead bird. "I don't like killing things."

"I don't either, Hans," Søren said. "But sometimes, as a prince, we have to do things we don't like to do for the good of the kingdom."

The little prince looked at the crossbow in his hands, then at the larger on in Søren's. "Are we… are we monsters, Søren?"

"Heavens, no!" Søren knelt down to Hans' eye level and put down his crossbow to hold his brother's shoulders with both hands. "Especially not you, Hans."

"But… magic will make us want to hurt people. I even heard in the square someone saying that magicians were monsters for wanting to hurt people. And that magician killed someone. A person! Not a bird!"

Hans was only four. He couldn't possibly understand, could he?

Yet even at the age of four, he proved to be serious and dutiful instead of being the carefree child his other brothers were at this stage in life. And considering that Søren might not even have enough years to make his impression in his brother's life, the elder decided not to sugarcoat it.

"That person in the square was scared. When people are scared, they may say and do things that are hurtful."

"But are we monsters, Søren?"

"Everyone has the ability to be a monster, Hans. Even those not like us. All you have to do is prove to them you're not. It'll be hard, I know it will be, but at all costs remember this: Don't be the monster they fear you are. Can you repeat that for me?"

"Don't be the monster they fear you are."

"Remember that, okay? Whenever someone says something like that, whenever that little voice inside your head tries to convince yourself of that, encourage yourself with those words, alright? It's helped me a lot before. And if it helps me, it might help you, right?"

"Right."

"Good. Now let me just wash this bird blood off my hands and then I do that firebird trick so we can give these dead ones a proper send-off. Sounds good?"

Hans nodded eagerly. He took both Søren's and his own crossbow and took off towards the hunting shed to put them away. In his happiness, tiny motes of light trailed behind him, disappearing just as quickly as they appeared.

That was… new.

Søren's heart sank at the sight. Hans was too young to have the ability to keep his emotions in check. If this was what happened if Hans was happy, and if Hans needed to keep the taint of magic upon him secret…

He was only four. To force him to never be happy for his own good?

Søren wondered if killing his brother would be better than making him live a miserable existence. The prince shook his head. No, Hans's condition had hope. Maybe Hans would one day find people to give him a chance like he did, then maybe through all that misery he would be free to be happy.

Even so, it was all unfair.

Author's Note: And yes, to all those people who took note of the chapter title, it is a reference to the laws of reflection (my favorite chapter when I took general physics). For those that don't know about the laws of reflection, don't worry about it too much. It was just me trying to be clever, hahaha.