Chapter Text
Priscilla Agathe Clotheheart felt her heartbeat thrumming in her ears as she walked into the throne room.
Her mother summoned her, which meant that everything had to be impeccable. Her servants fretted at her hair for the better part of an the morning, and golden ornaments swirled in her long, blood-red locks that usually reached her thighs today were braided into an intricate hairstyle that was as heavy as it was glorious. Her makeup complimented her red-gold dress in the colours of the Royal Family as she walked with her head held high despite the weight on her shoulders.
“Your Highness.” She curtsied, looking down.
“Priscilla, dear.” Her mother’s voice was as smooth and painful as viper venom. “We have a guest.”
The man that turned towards Agathe was clearly from the Candy Kingdom. Round, fat, with dark head dripping with something brown and a toothy grin filled with yellowed teeth. The Candy’s own brand of elemental-touched, an older one at that.
“I am Augustus Fudge, m’Lady.” The man took Agathe’s hand and kisses it, leaving a thin film of slime. She swallowed her discomfort and smiled. ‘You have to smile, dear. Always. Smile.’
“Pleasure to meet you, Lord Fudge.” She said with a little strain in her voice.
“Pleasure is all mine.” He still didn’t let her hand go.
“I have decided.” Her Mother announced in front of the court. Agathe could see her siblings looking away. The Lords and Ladies of the castle tensed up. “As is my divine right as the ruler of the Doll Queendom, I Lestrenia Miriam Clotheheart the Second, declare my daughter Priscilla Agathe Clotheheart to be wed to Lord Augustus Fudge as part of a union between the lands of Candy and Dolls on the next Full Moon, as is tradition.”
The princess smiles.
Priscilla feels her blood freeze up in terror. “You can’t do that!” She wants to scream… but she doesn’t. Her mother is the Queen. She can do that. She can do whatever she pleases. They all know it. Every single one of them knows it deep in their hearts, down to their bones and centipede bites.
She can only watch in terror from beyond her own body as she slips her hand out of Augustus’ hand ignoring the lingering slime, and curtsies once again, deeply before the Queen.
“I-it is an honour, Your Highness.”
Keep smiling.
The look in her mother’s eyes says “It better be”.
What can she do but act like a nice little doll and play her part?
She’s smiling.
What else is there?
It is only much later that she reaches for the control of her body. Motor functions don’t want to come back after smiling and dancing and being agreeable all blurry and unfocused evening. On some level she knows she made conversations, all of them pleasant and painfully fake, with the local nobles.
Her fingers and dress are sticky with Lord Augustus’ touch. She’s smiling.
Then she stops.
Agathe took a deep breath, and slowly returned to her own body. She was sitting on the bed, her hands tangled into her dress, with face muscles painfully sore from overuse. The feast was long and daunting, and she knew she formed precious few memories like this, watching herself from afar. It was necessary. It was necessary for her to distance herself and agree blindly, letting the dreamlike quality of dissociation carry her afloat. It was that or screaming, and she knew Mother didn’t take kindly to screaming, considered it unladylike.
She ordered her servants to strip her of multiple-layered dress, the corset, the makeup. Dirty. She felt dirty and so she called for a bath, only climbing into the water once she made sure the disgusting sliminess of Augustus’ fingers was washed off any spot she touched in the sink. She barely registered her servants calling to her to stop scrubbing when blood started to drip down the forearm he insisted on holding for most of the ball.
Perhaps she wasn’t still yet “all there” when she was washing.
Laying in the golden bathtub on lion legs, she stared at the ceiling, fighting with the sweet oblivion of hiding in another out-of-body experience, as her reflection stared impassively back from the ceiling-mounted mirror.
Agathe’s red locks filled the tub in bloodlike garlands, mixing with what little liquid escaped her furious scrape-spree. She sent the maids away with a lazy wave of her hand, and continued looking.
This was good for the Queendom. A union with the Candy Kingdom meant pushing away the looming monster of war that bred at the border. The Abstracts were always a problem, but since last year more and more dead refused to be laid to rest, instead raising as multi-eyed horrors. The recent outpour from under the Tent Mountain caused tensions among the nations to spike; the Candians blamed the Dolls, the Dolls blamed the Candians, and the Northeners blamed them both for robbing graves and waking monsters that long went to sleep.
She knew the truth just because she was Royalty. She heard Mother give the order. Before the outbreak, Mother sent a 6 person adventuring party to look for artifacts under the mountain. It was her fault. It was her fault, as the Crown Princess. She didn’t talk Mother down then, and she got locked in the Crawling Room for four hours for her trouble. She should’ve tried harder.
Now, they awoke whatever was sending these monsters out, and what is worse… the Abstracts mutated. Even briefly coming in contact with one of them, can cause the magical instability to spread and Abstact you too.
Abstraction stopped to be the matter of the restless dead to throw clerics at until something stuck; it became a problem of the living. It meant the Doll Kingdom needed allies.
She floated in the water, longing to put her head below and let it take her. She could see the newspapers around the kingdom. ‘Unfortunate accident, Princess Priscilla drowned in her bath!’
At least she wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. She wouldn’t have to be responsible for everything. She wouldn’t have to deal with the princessing, and the parading, and looking out for her siblings, and the marriage and duty and-
I wouldn’t be sold like a prized sheep to an abroad creep.
It was too much. She leaned lower into the bathtub, allowing the water to cover her face. She couldn’t stop thinking about every single detail of it.
The Fudge family weren’t directly related to the Kingdom Candy ruling family. They were an offshoot of the family tree, still powerful, but at best considered distant cousins. They had a legitimate claim to the throne in the event of the main line…
She sat up abruptly grabbing the edges of the bathtub.
Was that? Did Mother want to- She did, didn’t she. The Fudge family was staging a coup and the Doll Queen was backing them. Details she ignored started to click into place. The expanded export of yarn and buttons? That was a cover for sending weapons and armour. Her own marriage-
The dowry included carts, chemicals for tanning, servants. They can easily be trained soldiers playing a role of common folk, hiding out in Fudge residences until-
Loo. Mom wouldn’t kill Loo… right?
Princes Loolialu of the Sweethold was Agathe’s best friend and the only person in the courts that called her Agathe. They hit it off as kids, when she tagged along with Father to, in his words, learn what diplomacy is all about. Loo’s parents let her play in the mud, and Loo instantly started to call her Agathe. No one else did, no matter how many times she asked for it. To everyone else, she was Priscilla. But not to Loo.
She missed Father. She wanted to crawl into his familiar cloak and tell her of his woes. She lied a little to herself, indulging just a bit, imagining Father would show up and put a stop to Mother’s madness.
She knew it was merely a fantasy. Even when he was alive, he spent most days working, barely paying attention to his wife’s doing. Sometimes he would get the same blank stare she did when Mother punished her for being disobedient. But he never stepped in, never stopped her, but for faint pleas that more often than not died down.
It was hard, loving him and being loved by him, and knowing they wouldn’t protect you in a way that matters.
She couldn’t stand by. Not when it came to the Candy Kingdom. She had to warn Loo, no matter what.
She needed allies.