Work Text:
My people need this.
Even in my own head, the words are unconvincing.
My people need this.
One heel in front of the other, clicking against the flagstones. My brother always said I sounded like a horse in these tricked-out court shoes. I always took it as a compliment.
My people need this.
Not for the first time, I wish I wasn’t always right.
My people may need this, but I, myself need this like a penknife where the sun don’t shine. Princes in Andador are raised to be warriors first and heads of state second; I learned sword forms as soon as my pudgy little hands could lift a blade. I expected to be married off at some point if I didn’t die on the battlefield first– my dad has no apparent intention of retiring– but I figured it would be a slow, delicate courtship with all the pomp and rigamarole my station requires.
I also– shortsightedly, in retrospect– figured there would only be one of them.
The war’s been going on longer than I’ve been alive. Machaliyon’s lush farmlands and bloodthirsty queen have given rise to a really unpleasant manifest-destiny attitude, and the neighboring kingdom of Cruiscin and its dour king have gone from staunch ally to conquest. My father couldn’t resist getting involved– unable to pass up the opportunity to take down the Undying Queen, but unwilling to hop in bed with her former suitor either. No one ever gives in or backs down; Cruiscin’s lost more than half its territory, relegated to the cold northern shores and the mountains, where they’ve dug in like a burr. The last several battles have been attrition and senseless death on both sides.
And then someone, in a genius stroke of diplomacy, decided to unite the three kingdoms, end the decades-long war, and marry me off to two bozos about it.
Princess Feferi and Prince Eridan– notably, neither being the oldest in their families, probably stemming from some serious drama. I’ve seen paintings; nothing to sniff at, either of them, but then again everyone looks hot when their portraiture sitting is a life-or-death situation for the artist. The rumor is that both their families were born of the sea, that they’ve got gills hidden beneath their pretty collars. I’ll have to ask if any equally juicy rumors exist about me.
I meet my betrotheds for the first time in the back room of the temple. Like my own royal portraits, theirs appear to have lied. The princess looks sweeter and friendlier in person, but the prince looks considerably older and likelier to kill somebody. By the way he holds himself, I’d reckon he has.
Well, so have I. This pissing contest is older than both of us put together. I meander into the room like I couldn’t give less of a shit about any of this, and give them both a real easy nod. It is not returned.
Another try, then. I jerk my chin prince-ward. “All the way from Cruiscin in a weekend? What, did they have you shipped priority?”
“That’s not how you say it.”
I cock an eyebrow uncomprehendingly.
“Cruiscin.”
He says it curtly, and noticeably differently than me. With that, my future husband turns away to lace up a pair of boots.
My future wife is enveloped in attendants and lace, and hasn’t even bothered to cast an eye in my direction.
Our new estate is on the cliffs by the sea. My cohort begged for it, apparently– up close, they don’t have gills, but parts of their skin glisten with tiny, translucent scales. Feferi goes out swimming for half the day or more, and Eridan paces the beaches in noble melancholy, spearfishing or collecting seaglass.
I’ve never been so homesick in my whole life.
It’s a special kind of hell, this castle. Every inch of it is a pale, cold marble that sucks the moisture out of my fingertips, and the spires and vaulted ceilings stubbornly resist any attempts at climbing up to look out over a sun-soaked prairie that isn’t there. Not that I’ve tried while everyone else is sitting down to yet another fucking ostentatious luncheon, or anything.
I get the impression my spouses hate me, and not even as much as they hate each other. Eridan’s turned out to be a completely irritable prick, so caught up in the fussy trappings of royalty that he actually believes them– and Feferi’s his longtime crush, wildly out of touch with reality and nowhere near as good at diplomacy as she thinks she is. The two of them are at each other’s throats with the ease that comes from years of practice, and any conflict with me stems mainly from my getting in the way of it.
We’ve been here, what– three weeks now? Four? The days are blurring together. The problem is that by uniting us three in holy matrimony, we’ve brokered a peace between our kingdoms, but we’ve also created a really unpleasant situation wherein none of us have any real kingdom anymore. I’m cut off from my father, my library, my duties– and Feferi and Eridan are dealing with the same. It’s a permanent, inescapable vacation; a three-sided talisman hidden away in its ugly little temple, warding evil away from the world. I think I’ve read a story about this once– a paradise made possible only by compartmentalized suffering.
In the story, in the paradise, people are allowed to leave.
They give us next to no warning– only half an hour. Our butler enters hushed and unannounced while we’re eating breakfast, Eridan wolfing down porridge in the corner with his practice armor on while Feferi sprawls and gets crumbs all over the sheets. We, collectively, are informed that a solution has decided on to our marital woes, whether we like it or not.
It takes the form of a fourth spouse.
This has devolved into full-on slapstick comedy as far as I’m concerned, and so I break the silence with a barking, incredulous laugh. “Shit, just keep adding people until someone gets along, right?”
Sharp stares. Let them judge me for my unregal conduct; this honestly can’t get any worse.
From the way they present him to us, you figure they thought we’d kill him if we had the time to plan it. But no, we just stare blankly; they usher in a weedy, unsmiling guy and introduce him to us with full heraldic honors as Sollux Captor, younger son of the ruling family of Saigai.
Wait, Saigai? Barely-a-kingdom, glorified-farming-village Saigai? What kind of cruel joke is this? And the poor fucker looks like he’s been locked in a closet for the last few months– he’s thin and sickly-looking, with hunched shoulders and dark circles below his eyes. He looks completely unfit to rule anything.
I am, of course, utterly enamored with him from the first glance.
I mean, hell. The sheer heft of the cojones necessary to decide you’re going to marry into the three most powerful royal families with literally nothing to back it up? Incredible. Absolutely legendary. I’d suck this guy’s dick and say thank you afterwards.
A quick glance around says I may not be alone in the sentiment. Eridan’s about to have a stroke– but then, his rage face does look an awful lot like his horny face– and Feferi is transparently head over heels. She’s already rushing forward to curtsy and make introductions, and when they shake hands, she doesn’t let go.
Cute.
The wedding goes fine. I could care less about the details, but they still make me wear my court shoes.
Holy shit does Eridan hate this guy.
He seem to hate him all the more because of how much Feferi and I adore him, which is a lot– it turns out Sollux and I are remarkably alike, all sharp angles and racing thoughts and projects so engrossing you forget to eat or sleep or breathe. Feferi viewed those tendencies in me with open distaste, but she seems to find it endearing in Sollux; she’ll bring him little snacks in the study while he works, asking questions about his cryptography research, listening attentively to the rambling answers. At length she sets up a heap of cushions to be with him while he’s in there, journaling or embroidering or just dozing sweetly to the sound of his nib scratching on the paper.
She’s pretty when she sleeps.
Sollux catches me watching from the doorway one day, and meets my eye before I can ditch. He just looks at me and gives me this knowing, crooked smile. It takes me several seconds to realize I don’t know how to respond to it; he’s put me genuinely at a loss for words.
Huh.
Eridan takes it the hardest by far. The three of us don’t see him for days, and when he emerges, he picks a screaming-match fight over dinner. Feferi’s a two-faced piece of shit, she lied to him, she was betrothed to him when they were younger and now she’s cavorting with another man, et cetera. Par for the course, at this point– but what’s new is Sollux’s presence, and he pushes his chair back mid-sentence and says “Okay, what are you going to do about it?”
Eridan gapes; Sollux rises.
“If you don’t like me cavorting with your wife, I’m right here. Either do something about it or shut the shitting fuck up.”
Eridan would swear up and down that this didn’t happen, but I know what I saw– at those words, at the challenge, he glowed . It’s the happiest I’d ever seen him.
And, of course, he pulled off his cravat and nailed Sollux in the face with a very unsportsmanlike suckerpunch, and the two of them went down in a cursing pile– the form sloppy as anything, an uncoordinated explosion of tension and frustration and– oh, hey, look at that. Eridan got his hair pulled and moaned.
As I enjoy the proceedings, something brushes against the side of my palm. It’s Feferi’s pinkie; she’s looking at me, smiling with an undeniable warmth in her eyes.
What else is a well-bred gentleman to do? I hold the nice lady’s hand.
We watch, side by side. Our husbands tussle messily.
Belatedly, I realize:
hey, this could actually work.