Thanks to all readviewers!
I had three ideas for this last daily prompt. This (a retelling of part of Wilde's The Young King) seemed the best of them, though I don't think it actually happened.
Prompt: Mix a fairy tale—European, Asian, North American, from wherever—in your story today.
"Such strange dreams I have had this last night. Brother mine, whence came this heavy chain of gold and rubies?"
"The finest fruits of Calormene's mines were purchased for the use of the crown of Narnia."
"Harvested by slaves, with sweat and whip?"
"I presume so. Such is the Calormene way."
"I see. What is the source of this, my coronation robe?"
"Ah, yes. Costly threads were obtained from several countries, and the tailor spent three months working alone in a tower, that none might steal the garment or the materials."
"Did this solitude extend even to the physician being forbidden to tend her in illness?"
"It may be so. I haven't any idea what the servants get up to."
"I suppose you wouldn't. And how was the great pearl on the scepter acquired?"
"I am told it was taken from a sea demon, which thought to buy its life with the jewel."
"Yet was doubtless killed after handing it over."
"Of course. Such creatures cannot be allowed to live."
The elder brother's mouth twisted. "I shall have none of them."
"Pardon?" said the younger.
"I shall have none of these fine things. For the chain has been bought by blood, the robe by cruelty, and the scepter by death. What kind of king do you take me for, that I should begin my reign by profiting from the ill-usage of others? My robe will be from my present closet. The scepter I will supply of my own choice from the castle treasury, and do you call the scullion-girl to me; I shall bid her visit the hothouse and prepare a suitable garland."
So it was that Caspian, ninth of that name, was crowned all in white cambric, with a string of lilies about his neck and an unjeweled scepter in his hand. The sun came through the eastern windows and shone on him, so that the cambric gleamed like spun gold and the lilies like fire, and all of Telmar's Narnia cheered their new king.
But in the heart of his brother Miraz, the smoldering embers of hate blew hot into flame.
