#before we return to your regularly scheduled obiyuki angst

[traditional-with-a-twist]

xxiii. Beauty and Her Beast

<<Previous || first arc || AO3 || Next>>

A man can save a sinking ship if he bails fast enough.

Lord Haruka had suspected cracks in the hull of the Clarines estate ever since the reigning prince had showed faulty judgment that morning after his brother’s funeral. 

Haruka had done his best since then to remain a bulwark for their young ruler: shouldering the burdens of his absence, duly performing any service as requested, maintaining some semblance of normalcy despite the tumult that rocked the people’s nerves and the wild rumors infesting the court.

A lesser man would have let some details slip in grappling with the crushing overload of guiding the country to post-war recovery while orchestrating a state ceremony on a scale usually reserved for centennial events, but Haruka knew his duty and executed it relentlessly.

Work, he had long since concluded, was the only remedy when fate denied you a more pleasing order of events. It was useless to struggle or complain when circumstances refused you alternatives.

...

In one matter alone he had been remiss, and for this Haruka reproached himself bitterly: He had neglected the supervision of the intended second princess.

Now she neglected her duties in turn.

It was enough that she had failed to report during the last week of Izana’s absence -- he had assigned her more than sufficient responsibilities to busy herself independently if she so chose -- but to miss their appointed rehearsal the day before the ceremony was unconscionable.

She had no respect for the customs of their country. She was not fit for office.

It was time that the first prince knew of her indiscretions.

...

Haruka was fully prepared to confess his own culpability in the matter. 

He had never approved of her presence in the castle, would have been glad to see her depart. Her steady rise in good graces and influence had done nothing to improve his opinion of her.

He had allowed this personal bias to cloud his professional judgement: permitting her absences to create distance between them when he should have insisted on her proximity.

Now the situation had gotten out of hand, and they both must answer for it.

Otherwise the trickle of indiscretions threatened to swell to a tide that would swamp everything they had labored for.

...

With this mission in mind, Haruka presented himself early to the prince’s office.

He met the royal tailor on his way out the door, trailed by a parade of seamstresses, fabrics, and jewels.

Many years had passed since the Wisterias had required a newly crafted costume for a formal occasion, but then there was nothing fitting available that featured only white.

...

Lord Haruka entered to find the prince in his undershirt.

Izana was easing into one of the creamy, long-sleeved blouses he wore under the heavier vests and coats befitting his station. He greeted the lord with a poise often absent in half-dressed men.

“Your highness,” Haruka forged ahead, determined to waste no time. “Forgive the intrusion; I would not have disturbed you, were it not for a matter of utmost--”

The next word stuck in his throat.

...

As Izana drew up his right sleeve, Haruka’s eye caught on an anomalous color: red.

An ugly red line bisected the field of white cloth and pale skin, marring the prince’s arm.

Haruka started forwards like a horse that felt a spur in its side. “Highness -- you bleed!”

Izana glanced carelessly, as if Haruka had expressed alarm over a dust mote. “Oh, yes. I passed too near the edge of a blade, you see...and the sword has left its mark.”

...

Had Haruka’s heart labored under the additional burden of another decade or two, it might have failed him.

A cut, a wound - evidence of hostile intent, engraved on their prince’s flesh: a blow struck at the head of Clarines, in the heart of its foremost fortress and safeguard.

Unable to articulate his feelings, Haruka warbled a protest.

...

The prince had paused to observe him; he seemed in no hurry to finish his toilette. At the lord’s vocalization, he arched an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

Lowering his voice to a rasp, Haruka managed, “What--what is the meaning of this, your highness?”

A pointing finger dispelled Izana’s remaining confusion. Following its course to the cut still exposed on his arm, he broke into a smile.

“Ah. It was a parting gift from our friend - the rogue messenger.”

...

The red pulsed, expanding until it filled Haruka’s vision. This confirmed all his worst fears.

That low life was not fit for civilized society; he should never have allowed him near the castle.

Haruka forced air in through his nose, fighting for mastery of himself. He had not understood the prince’s policy regarding that undesirable presence, but he had allowed it to pass unquestioned.

Now it was clear that sentiment or something equally insidious had blinded Prince Izana.

It was his duty as a peer of the realm to intervene.

...

“I will have him arrested, your highness,” Haruka rapped out.

Lazy as a cat, Izana slipped his shirt into place at last, hiding the offense from view. He seemed bored as he fastened the buttons - or perhaps amused.

“That won’t be necessary, Lord Haruka,” he dismissed the idea with all the weight he would afford a suggestion about adding yellow flowers to the table settings. “It was only a small matter -- a quarrel, you might say.”

...

Lord Haruka contained himself with difficulty. His fingers flexed, but he was too well-bred, his deference to royal authority and awareness of public image too deeply ingrained, to allow them to form into fists.

Every thought of the failed princess had fled his mind. His consciousness roiled like boiling water, overheated by the abrupt imposition of an offense long simmering under the surface.

“A...a quarrel,” he choked, “with...your highness…”

The notion itself was absurd: an outlaw, pursuing a disagreement with a prince - at swordpoint!

Haruka’s imagination failed him; he could not fathom it.

...

Izana must have sympathized with his struggle, for he showed no reluctance in offering an explanation. 

Now fully robed, his back to the brilliant morning sun, the prince looked kindly on his subject.

“I provoked him, you see…” Izana held Haruka’s gaze, unblinking, “...by proposing marriage to the lady Shirayuki.”

...

If he had announced the extinction of the sun, Haruka could not have been more confounded.

Mounting rage had aided him thus far in withstanding repeated blows to his sense of order, propriety, and thwarted urgency, but in this extremity, it deserted him.

When Prince Zen had announced his engagement to the red-haired girl, Haruka had not greeted the news with anything like approbation. 

Although he acknowledged that he had overreached, overstepped the bounds of his authority in his efforts to drive her from the castle, he nonetheless felt that the connection could not do the young prince credit - unless it were to his beneficence and broad-mindedness.

He feared Zen would one day regret choosing a woman for her personal qualities rather than bowing to the time-honored qualifications of rank and breeding.

Sooner or later, she would disappoint him by reverting to the life she had left behind.

...

Since the first prince had approved the match, however, there was nothing Haruka could do but keep his sour reflections to himself and perform his duty as required.

Still, it was a waste, he had thought - a wasted opportunity for the advancement of the kingdom, and for the improvement of Prince Zen’s material condition.

For an elevated commoner to marry the second prince, it would have been unfortunate.

If she married the first prince, it would be catastrophic.

...

Buffeted by a hail of disastrous surprises, worn down by overwork, conscious of his own impotence despite all his efforts to the contrary, Haruka had no recourse left but to wish the bad luck away.

He looked back at his prince pleadingly, almost childlike in his distress.

His eyes, lately hardened by conviction and then glowing with wrath, now beseeched Izana to take pity and contravene this news, as unsettling to the lord’s existence as the death of a parent would be.

...

Izana evinced no surprise or disappointment that the revelation of his glad tidings had received no answering felicities.

Serene, almost thoughtful, he seated himself at his desk and took up a pen - the picture of readiness to begin the day’s labors.

Moments before his inattention would have constituted a dismissal, Izana looked up and added, as if by afterthought:

“He wished to marry her himself, it seems.”

...

The last piece of the puzzle fell into place for Haruka, revealing an awful picture.

Her inexplicable absences, his flagrant trespassing, the outlandish gossip - it all became clear.

This was no freak of whim on the first prince’s part, no accident of fate.

It was nothing less than the inevitable working out of baser natures--and the imposition of a cure worse than the disease.

The rogue and the girl would disgrace them all, as they had always threatened to.

He had failed Clarines.