Give Me Your Riches: Chapter Thirteen
"Pssst!"
Roland felt a hand insistently shaking his shoulder. He groaned and tried to ignore it, his head spinning.
"Pssst!" The voice, a girl's, urged him again. "Roland, wake up! You're going to miss the Anthem and Father walking in. Even I know to pay attention for that part." Roland slowly brought his weary eyes open. Bright green eyes, a near reflection of his own, stared back at him from the face of Duchess Matilda, but as a girl. She tilted her head to the side in concern. "Are you feeling alright, baby brother? You usually love this courtly stuff."
Roland shut his eyes tightly. Was...was the Duchess Matilda somehow a child and calling him brother? He opened his eyes again and she was still there, her head now tilted to the other side. Roland blinked several times and tried to take in the world around him.
He was sitting in a straight-backed chair with a plush cushion. He looked down at his hands and found them much smaller than they should be. Roland dazedly ran a hand through his hair and then touched his clothes. No longer was he garbed in his dirt encrusted gardener's attire. He was dressed in finery that was befitting of a king: a velvet doublet in rich blue with golden buttons, knickerbockers with silk socks and well-shined shoes to match. The fabric was impossibly soft against his skin. He looked past Matilda's head to see a room he could have only imagined in his wildest dreams. He was in an ornate ballroom filled with people in finery that, despite their prosperous appearances, paled in comparison to his own. All eyes looked expectantly to the grand double doors as trumpets began the introduction of the Enchancian National Anthem, the only familiar thing about this entire scenario.
"From the silver, flying horses," a singer crooned somewhere beside the trumpets, her voice magically enhanced to fill the room. The impossibly-young Matilda grabbed Roland by the collar of his shirt and pulled him up to his feet. A purple jewel hanging on a silver necklace around her neck caught his attention. Wasn't that the same jewel King Cedric wore? The double doors swung open and, like a ghost of the past come back to flesh, Roland's namesake, King Roland the First, entered.
"Of the ever golden glades.
To the dragons on the cliff tops
Of the Blazing Palisades.
Enchancia, Enchancia
Come hear our humble call.
Enchancia, Enchancia
A land for one and all."
There was a brief musical interlude between verses. Roland looked to Matilda and his confusion overcame his nerves at speaking to the little royal. "But -" He stopped speaking briefly, startled, and cleared his throat. His voice wasn't his own. Well, it was his voice but it was his voice before he had reached adolescence. "B-but Roland the First - he's dead. King Cedric the Great rules in Enchancia."
Roland was answered by a barely-suppressed peal of giggles. "You picked a weird time to play a game, Ro-ro."
The singer continued before Roland could respond.
"Where the valiant knights protect us
From the darkest evil spells.
And your wishes all come true here
If they're made in wishing wells."
Roland couldn't contain himself and he spoke under his breath to the girl.
"That's wrong! That's not how it goes - it's 'where the noble knights protect us from our foes, both near and far. And your wishes can come true here if you wish upon a star.' Not-not-not anything about a...a wishing well…." He trailed off into stunned silence as his mind spun.
"Wiz-bang! I can't believe you actually want to play a game." Matilda was practically buzzing with excitement as the anthem came to an end. "Okay, so Cedric is King and the anthem lyrics are different. Great. Am I still your sister? Ooo! I can be the Bouncing Bear of the Badlands and Cordelia can be the damsel! Just let me go get my pogo stick and then I'll capture Cordelia and you and Cedric can vanquish me. I'll be right back!" She slipped behind her own straight-backed chair and snuck away as the song concluded and King Roland started toward the dais of thrones.
The wishing well. The damned wishing well had...had what? It had granted his wish? But Roland had wished for his life to change, not to go back in time. The well seemed to have a mind of its own, disregarding Roland's wish and taking him back to a childhood that wasn't his and then inserting a little quip about itself in the National Anthem to...to forever remind Roland of exactly what had happened.
"But was does that make me? And where does that leave King Cedric?"
"Where has your sister run off to, Roland?" King Roland said with an exasperated sigh that came from fathering an unruly daughter. Roland the lesser, deep in thought, ignored the question. "Son?"
"Yes, father?" he responded and then blinked in surprise. The words had rolled off his tongue as if he had always said them, as if he had always known King Roland the First to be his true father. Roland's mother had named him after the King in a moment of pure adulation. King Roland the First had been a good King and Roland's mother had hoped her son might emulate such a man. His mother had died shortly after the King, the year Roland turned thirteen. He always wondered if it was the death of Roland the First that had sent his mother to a premature grave. But now, Roland was looking up at the man who was, apparently, his new, real father and felt awash with the same adulation his mother had held for the old King, now very much alive.
It was a strange phenomenon. Roland was conscious of his original past .He knew what it was to be a peasant under the rule of a tyrant King. He knew what it was to love Ceres and their children. But, at the same time, he was quickly coming to know memories of living in the castle, life as a Prince, love for his older sister Matilda who shared his eyes, and love for his father, Roland the First.
Roland felt his face pale and his stomach tie itself into knots. Ceres. Their children. Where was Ceres?! And the twins, they must not exist... Oh gods above and below, what had he done?! A rising panic tightened his chest and Roland felt light headed as he sat back in his chair - his throne. In a moment of ignorance, he had washed away the existence of his own children. The chance to watch them grow to run and play had been unceremoniously ripped away from Roland. He had wanted a chance to make things better with Ceres, to make better for their family, but not at the cost of the lives of his children.
King Roland looked down at his son, kind concern crossing his features. He raised an arm to hail a nearby servant. A tall, thin man in a pristine uniform came over. "Baileywick, could you fetch the Prince some water? And keep an eye out for the Princess, would you?"
"At once, sire," he said with a precise bow. He waved a hand and another servant with a tray of goblets came over, proffering it Prince Roland as Baileywick hurried off, eyes searching the ballroom for Matilda.
Roland took a goblet and drank down the water gratefully. He calmed himself by watching couples dance around the ballroom and eavesdropping on adult conversations while he acclimated to the world he had been shoved into. He was a Prince, he told himself, which meant he had virtually unlimited means. He quickly decided to use those means to find Ceres. Be she peasant or royal in this new world, it wouldn't matter. Roland loved her and would bide his time until he could marry her again. That would, eventually, bring about the twins and his family would be whole again.
In the world Roland had known as a gardener, King Roland the First had a brother, Goodwin the Great, who served Roland the First as Royal Sorcerer of Enchancia. King Roland had a daughter, Matilda, and Goodwin the Great had a daughter, Cordelia, and a son, Cedric. Matilda had abdicated the throne soon after her father's death. Goodwin had no interest in ruling and neither did his daughter Cordelia. So the rulership of Enchancia fell to Cedric while he was still a boy. His rule was initially shepherded by his parents. They indulged his every whim, leading King Cedric the Great to be spoiled and demanding with unrealistic expectations of his servants and people.
This new world in which Roland was a Prince was fresh and full of possibility. The well had allowed for significant differences, which Roland learned through his eavesdropping and an unconscious delve into his new memories.
King Roland the First and Goodwin the Great were not brothers, not here. Goodwin merely served as Royal Sorcerer, leaving Cedric with no claim to the throne. The well had also arranged for Roland the First to have a son. Roland the gardener-now-child was that son. This meant that if Matilda abdicated the throne again, Roland would be next in line to rule. All Roland would need to do would be to ensure that there was no possibility of Cedric rising to any level of real power and Roland's world, his Kingdom, and his wife would be safely his. All of them properly protected and provided for. Roland just needed to find Cedric and see him suffer. It wouldn't be enough for Cedric to simply not be in power, not if Cedric didn't also remember the world Roland had known.
But the well had thought of that too. This was a Sorcerer's Ball, after all. After regaining his composure, Prince Roland was encouraged by his father to mingle amongst the guests while his sister was chastised for her less than Royal behavior of hopping around the ballroom on a pogo stick. Prince Roland's eyes were rarely engaged in his conversations as he searched for the man who ruined his life.
The girl of the hour, Cordelia, made her entrance and a pint-sized version of the man Roland had only ever seen from a distance walked out behind her. Young Cedric raised a potion high into the air and then tilted it, drops falling to the ground, surrounding the young sorceress in an impressive smoke. Roland immediately cringed, feeling foolish for searching for an adult Cedric and hoping this child Cedric wouldn't notice him.
But as the smoke cleared and Cordelia was revealed to have spiked green hair, Roland couldn't help his immediate guffaw. He covered his mouth, turning red with embarrassment. But everyone around him started laughing. And then they started admonishing not poor Cordelia's hair, but the boy who caused it to happen. Cedric's hair had taken a hit as well, the front bangs gray in contrast to his naturally dark hair color but that didn't matter amongst the verbal whiplash centered around what was clearly his mistake.
Cedric was admonished, judged, and humiliated by the entire magical community present at the ball for the daughter of Goodwin the Great. Goodwin himself seemed more concerned with saving face against his son's failure. He stuck his nose in the air and spoke about having a word with Cedric's instructors at Hexley Hall; they obviously were being too soft on the boy. He clearly needed much more work seeing as how he was such an embarrassment to the family.
Roland indulged a grin as he watched Cedric get beaten down and blamed. History was changing, alright. And Roland was here to watch it happen, reveling in every vicious word.
A/N:
It's been over a year. Sorry, friends. Pregnancy zaps my creative energy and the result of said pregnancy, my newest little love, doesn't accept bottles so my time (and sanity) has been in very short supply.
This story is still alive and I know how it ends (and have much of it mapped out). But I can't promise any kind of secure update schedule yet. Hopefully a new chapter by the end of March at the latest, but we shall see. I'm projecting about 6 more chapters.
Also! I haven't watched any of the latest season. My youngest is too little for TV and Sofia has fallen out of vogue with my oldest and I just can't bring myself to watch the series alone in my very limited free time. So! Forgive me any cannon violations that came along with the last season (I think the biggest one is whatever went down with Wormwood? Because Wormwood is still with Cedric in this story, though I've rarely addressed it).
This entire chapter takes place during the StF Episode "Through the Looking Back Glass"
The lyrics for the Enchancian National Anthem are taken directly from the show.