Chapter Text
In front of her vanity, tugging an ornate comb through the round cloud atop her head sat the young princess of The House of Okumura. The princess’s reflection, framed by swirls of gold and crystal flowers frowned back at her, plush lips pressed into a pout. On the desk before her was a myriad of open fragrances, powders, and creams; all to make her skin paler, her lips redder, her lashes longer. It was expected of her to look perfect in time for her new husband’s arrival.
It was expected of her to be perfect.
Polite, pretty, poised, the perfect royal wife.
Frustrated, the girl slammed her comb down, causing the other items of beautification on her vanity to bounce and rattle accordingly. She placed her hands on the curved shiny wood of her chair and twisted her head around to plead through her gaze at the royal guard standing by her door.
The man’s face was obscured by the cold metal of his helmet, but here and there wild strands of black pushed their way through the cracks, like weeds growing through a cobblestone path.
He lifted his chin in acknowledgement of her attention.
“Ren,” the princess all but begged, fingers curling around the smooth wood. “I can’t do it, tell them I can’t go through with the marriage.”
Ren assessed the distraught threatening to overtake his princess’s composure. If he could have saved her from this, he would have. The young guard was no fonder of the idea of her going through with this arranged marriage than she was; but it was not his place to intervene. A simple guard had no power over a decision made by the king. Haru must have gathered as much from his silence, seeing as she turned back to her mirror. Her reflection stared back with wide, frightened doe eyes.
This was it. The marriage would happen, and there was very little either of them could do about it.
There was nothing either of them could do about it.
“I love her,” Haru admitted to the girl in the mirror. Before her the girl in the mirror crumbled beneath the weight of the words. “I am going to lose her.”
“No,” Ren’s voice cut in. “You two will be fine, your father knows nothing.”
“But what of my new husband? What if he finds out?”
“How would he ever find out?” Ren approached the princess and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, armored glove glinting in the sunlight as its plates shifted to accommodate the position. “This is politics, nothing more.”
“He’ll own me. I’m being traded from one man to another, from my father to a stranger, how could he do this to me?” Haru stood up from her chair, shaking off Ren’s hand. She walked around the guard to her bed, sitting down upon it. The feather-packed mattress melded to her weight. Its silk sheets wrinkled, raised lines running up from where she sat, cracking the perfect smooth visage of her luxury fabrics. Ren watched as the girl dropped her head into her hands, face disappearing behind unblemished, pink-toned skin and frizzy hair.
Ren had liked to think that he and the princess were friends, he'd come to know a lot about her since being promoted to her royal guard. He often accompanied Haru on her late night trips to the kitchen where she experimented with the royal garden’s latest harvest. She was an amazing cook, always excited to utilize the newest foreign spices her father had imported. Because of her, Ren got to enjoy all sorts of dishes he wouldn't have even conceptualized prior to joining the palace. She would talk as she cooked, telling Ren about all the recent court drama; who she believed was in the right, and who she believed was in the wrong. He learned about her strained relationship with her mother, who lived separate from the palace, per her own request. He learned about her crush on one of the guards, the only female guard, and was the first to know when that crush became something more.
Unlike Ren, Haru knew nothing of a life outside of the castle. She had never gone hungry, never been denied a pretty dress or new jewelry, she slept on the softest cushion their kingdom could produce, bathed in warm water and rich fragrances. There was a time in Ren’s life where he would have resented her for this, where his envy would have clouded his empathy, but that time had come and gone.
She didn't deserve to be treated like property.
A knock sounded against the dense wood of Haru’s chamber door, to which the princess looked up, exposing the puffy redness that had come to surround her eyes.
“Who is it?” She called, her voice scratchy and worn.
“Just me,” came the reply.
Haru sniffled, then attempted to wipe the tears from her face. They kept coming, steadily trickling down from the corners of her eyes. She looked to Ren as though to ask, do I look okay? before asking him to allow the other woman to enter.
Makoto stepped inside the room, eyes falling first on Ren, whom she regarded with hesitance, then Haru, for whom her gaze softened.
He greeted her, as was polite, before quietly taking his leave and allowing the two their privacy. He knew well that Makoto had yet to come to fully trust him, but he had no issues with this. Were Ren to meet himself as a stranger, he wouldn’t trust himself either.
Haru’s betrothed arrived in the afternoon. He was set to be received by the same ambassador who handled all dealings between the prince's home country and the Okumura's. Ren was chosen to accompany the ambassador, per the Captain of the Guard's request.
The prince had arrived with a few guards of his own, as was customary. Their suits weren’t much different than Ren’s, however they lacked detailing and embellishments. King Kunikazu liked to display his wealth at any given opportunity, so it was only natural that the armor he provided for his men would bore the crest and colors of his royal family in the loudest fashion available. A snarling boar's head took up the entirety of Ren's breastplate, accented with gold to emphasize its features. The same gold had been inlayed throughout the rest of his armor, as was the same for the other guards.
All the armor of the prince's men bore was a silver crest embedded over the heart of their chest plates. A simple ship design sat atop serene waves.
The lack of character in the mens’ attire made their stiff silence all the more off-putting. Ren tried to imagine what the men beneath the helmets looked like, but his mind could scrounge up nothing more than dark, empty echo chambers.
The prince himself wore a simple white frock-coat and black chausses. If it weren't for the golden tassels on his shoulders the prince wouldn't have been identifiable as nobility. He wore his family's crest as a small silver pin on his collar.
The ambassador greeted the prince and his associates with gratitude, smothering them in layer after layer of compliments. The prince took it all in stride, playing humble. Ren offered the prince a polite nod as the ambassador reached the end of his welcome speech, to which Prince Goro nodded back, smiling sweetly at Ren before returning his attention to the man that had been speaking.
He looked to be the same age as Haru, if not a few months younger. He was pretty, notably more pretty than handsome, but he wore it well. The prince was well spoken, had good posture and straight teeth. At first glance he made quite the great marriage candidate, generally speaking. Ren had never known Haru to show any interest in men, but perhaps she could come to enjoy the relationship she had with her new husband, whatever shape that came in.
The group of men made their way down the hall to the throne room, Okumura's ambassador keeping a steady flow of conversation going as they walked. Aside from his initial greeting, the prince didn’t look again in Ren’s direction. That was typical for someone of Prince Goro's status. Ren was so far below him in the hierarchy it came as a shock he had acknowledged the guard at all.
“I present to you Prince Goro Shido of the Coastal Realm,” the ambassador announced as they entered the throne room. The Prince knelt before the dias where King Kunikazu and Haru sat, and, to the surprise of those present, lowered his head, as someone of non-royal blood may do. Haru’s eyes widened, then flickered to Ren, as though to try and catch his reaction despite the helmet obscuring it.
“Do stand,” the king requested. He was a skinny man, King Kunikazu, with about half the muscle that his guards carried. This was fine, he wasn’t known for his strength after all, nor his cunning, nor his charisma, no, King Kunikazu was good at one thing and one thing only.
Commerce.
Of all the royal families, the Okumuras were the richest, and so in turn were their elites. This was at the expense of their peasantry, who despite the castle’s prosperity lived in worse conditions than any other region. Thousands scraped the bottoms of bowls, surviving off of bone broth and moldy scraps in order for the ruling class to continue to live the egregious lives they so desired.
The second-most wealthiest kingdom was from which Prince Goro hailed, whose proximity to the water made them prosperous not only in trade, but war spoils. The Shidos were the first to master sea warfare, plundering all other kingdoms who touched the coast. They stole from what the dead left behind, using it to lay the foundations to exploit their ancestors for years to come.
The Okumuras remained untouched by the Shidos’ attacks thanks to being a landlocked state. The House of Okumura transported their goods through caravans, not ships, which from their position in the center of the continent were just as convenient for them as ships were for those with access to waterways.
“It’s an honor, King Kunikazu,” Prince Goro greeted as he stood. He turned his attention to the girl sitting beside the king, who quickly diverted her eyes away from Ren and onto the prince. “And might I say, you’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”
Haru snuck a quick glance in her dad’s direction, making sure that she was allowed to speak. At the minute tilt of his head, she offered a reply.
“Thank you,” arrived, soft and mellow. It was impossible to tell that she’d been sobbing just hours prior. The princess's eyes had been effectively depuffed with ice and painted in makeup, her throat soothed with hot tea and her nervous stomach tamed with ginseng. Ren raised his chin, offering her what support he could from where he stood behind the prince.
“I will admit, I was not aware King Masayoshi had a son, you’ve come as quite the surprise,” King Kunikazu acknowledged. There was an underlying accusation to his words, a questioning of the Prince’s legitimacy. The young man took this in stride.
“He was worried I may come under threat given our kingdom’s reputation.” The prince smiled as he said this, as though decades of bloodshed were nothing more than an inside joke among royalty and he was right to think so. The king laughed, slapping his daughter’s shoulder. She jostled, discomfort flashing across her features.
“He would be right! I gather there’s many who’d want your head on a stick, even if just to spite the old man. How old is he now?”
“Fifty-four," Prince Goro replied courteously.
“Ah! Yes, fifty-four, I had begun to worry that wife of his was barren.” Haru did well to hide her displeasure at such a comment, smiling as though it were funny when her father looked to her for validation. “Fifty-four years of life and no children to show for it, or so we believed. Well Haru, what do you think of him? Handsome, no?”
Haru glanced down at the prince.
“He is,” She conceded. It sounded genuine.
“That’s that then.” The king clapped and motioned to the four standing at the foot of the dais. “Show the prince to his room, we will meet again for supper this evening, it’s a pleasure to host you, Prince Goro.”
The prince smiled, thanking the king for his hospitality before he took his leave.
Supper was an extravagant affair. The castle's dining hall was large enough to sit up to fifty, and so fifty it sat. The royals feasted on roasted quail and spitted boar drenched in rich sauces, fine manchet, fruit with honey, and drank aged wine. From where Ren stood he could smell the aroma of expensive slow-cooked meat. His stomach grumbled beneath his armor, begging to join in on the feasting. The sound was drowned out by a cacophony of laughter and lively conversation.
While Haru ate Ren was posted by one of the entrances to the hall, just off to the side of where the princess and her father sat. Beside her was the ‘handsome’ prince, who Ren watched duck his head to whisper into the princess's ear, occasionally nodding toward others at the table. Ren could only see their backs, but he could tell from the way Haru’s shoulders shook that the prince was finding success in making her laugh.
The royal guard looked from them to his fellow iron-clad friend across the room, not surprised to find her also watching the two. He couldn’t see Makoto’s face, but he was familiar enough with her scowl to be able to imagine what it looked like. As ideal as it would be that Prince Goro and Haru came to like one another, Makoto would undoubtedly be left in the dust. No matter how long they had been involved, she had no claim to the princess.
She was no prince, no noble, and most notably, she was no man.
When the coastal prince placed his hand on Haru’s back, smoothing his palm up and down her thoracic spine, Ren averted his eyes and thanked the gods that Makoto was stationed on the opposite side of the room.
With supper came jesters, and bards, and dancers, including a pair of acrobatic twins, one with hair a fiery red to compensate for her inability to leap and stretch as high as her brunette sister. Ren had seen it all before, many of the performers lived within the castle as to be ready to entertain at a moment's notice. A few made time to speak to Ren here and there, but the majority stayed out of his path. They found him intimidating, apparently, as he had learned from idly eavesdropping on a conversation between two bards.
“Does the princess’s shadow ever sleep?” One had asked another.
“That guard? I dunno, probably not.”
“He scares me. I don't think I've heard him say a word since he came here.”
There was quiet, the other bard ensuring that they were alone no doubt. He didn’t think to peek his head around the corner.
“I hear he used to be a thief, robbed good people, left ‘em punctured on the street and their pockets empty. Nasty business.”
A shudder. “Better to have the beast on a leash then roaming free, huh?”
Ren would be lying if he said he didn't just slightly enjoy the beast comment. Him, Ren Amamiya, a beast. Just the thought of it made him chuckle.
The night went on, and the nobles drank, and they sang, and they danced, and drank again. Ren remained at his post, a silent observer.
Haru was still talking to the prince, more animatedly now, and actually looked as though she were quite enjoying herself. Ren wasn’t the only one to notice this, as was made clear by a fellow armor clad individual coming to stand beside him.
“Sae the Worthy,” Ren greeted, a smile playing at his lips that she could not see but could no doubt hear. The House of Okumura's very own Captain of the Guard. Distinguishable by the long ponytail sprouting from the back of her helmet. That helmet was no where to be seen today, forgone along with her gloves in order to allow Sae to comfortably take part in the festivities.
“Just call me Sae, please," she sounded tired.
“Why, when the king has bestowed upon you such a beautiful title?” The Worthy. A nod to her ability to rise in the ranks despite her womanhood. Women weren't typically allowed to join the guard, let alone become captain. There was no official decree against it, but until Sae's father had become captain no woman had ever been allowed in. Word around the castle was that the king had been reluctant to grant Sae her knighthood at all, and if it hadn’t been for her father, the most well-respected knight in his order, he wouldn’t have done it.
“The betrothed are getting along well,” Sae commented, not acknowledging Ren’s sarcastic comment. “Would you like to handle the role of chaperone until their vows are said?”
“Me? Isn’t that a woman’s job?”
“He’s strange isn’t he? The prince?” Sae loved to ignore him. “Too perfect, I’d say, and too convenient. For years there’s been talk that the Tyrant King’s wife is unable to conceive, now suddenly he has a son?”
“It is strange,” Ren acknowledged.
“I’m worried for the princess’s safety," Sae admitted. "As you should be."
Ren nodded.
“You will watch them carefully, not a move goes unseen.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Better than your best,” Sae raised him.
“Better than my best,” Ren conceded. It was strange to see her hair down. Even stranger to notice a red tinge to her lips and cheeks. "Do you have make-up on, Sae the Worthy?" Ren inquired playfully.
His captain's face grew stern.
"Quiet."
Ren gasped. "You do!"
"Enough out of you, back to work." She turned on her heeled boots and returned to the hall of conversing nobility, head held high as though she were marching into battle.
When it was finally time for the princess to retire to her bedchamber the prince offered to accompany her. Accepting his role as chaperone Ren trailed behind the two in silence. They weren't blind, they both knew he was there, but a standard royal guard was just as significant to the average royal as a potted plant. Their chatter was lively, but overall superficial and lacking in romantic chemistry. They complained of the confinements brought upon them by their status, and went back and forth on the best palace activities. Occasionally, Prince Goro would try to slip a suggestive comment into the conversation to test the waters for an opportunity to flirt.
Ren found great amusement in watching his attempts fall flat, the prince’s face flashing blank each time he was subtly shut down. Haru by no means appeared to dislike him per-se, but it was clear her heart belonged to another.
One point to Makoto.
At the entrance to Haru’s room Prince Goro took Haru’s hand in his own, tipping down his head to kiss the back of it. It was then that Ren noticed despite all the festivities and indulgences, the prince’s white gloves remained intact. It was a marvel that he had managed to keep them clean. Ren entertained the idea that the reason he neglected to remove them was to hide the gnarly and mangled hands he had underneath.
Then followed that thought up with chastising himself for wishing something like that upon his princess.
The prince wished Haru a good night’s rest, to which she asked him if he’d be alright getting back to his room on his own.
“Let Ren take you,” she insisted.
“Ren?” The prince replied. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.”
“Oh.” It was now that the princess blushed, a reaction the prince’s flirtations had aimed to produce and yet had continuously failed. A princess was not supposed to refer to a royal guard by his given name, such was below her stature. “Ren is my royal guard,” She looked between the two guards stationed at either side of her door, as though noticing them for the first time. “One of them, but he’s with me the most often.” She corrected, motioning now to Ren, who nodded accordingly when the prince turned to acknowledge him.
“Ah, I see. I will admit, I’m impressed at your ability to tell your guards apart.”
At that Haru began to giggle. “Well, I can usually tell when it’s Ren from all the hair sticking out of his helmet.”
Ren suppressed the urge to reach up and feel if that were true. He reminded himself that he wouldn’t be able to feel the wild strands through his gloves anyhow so it was a pointless endeavor. Nonetheless, he felt self-conscious. The prince was looking at him now, and closely at that, racking his eyes over Ren’s face- no, his armor, to try and catch a glimpse of what the princess was talking about.
“Would you mind taking him to his room?” Haru asked rather than ordered. Still pinned beneath the prince’s scrutiny, Ren struggled to produce another nod. At the rough jerk of his head that Ren managed to crank out, the prince’s eyes narrowed. Ren could feel himself going hot beneath his suit. He’d never understood why his friend Ryuji would turn into a stuttering mess when one of the ladies of the court would speak to him, but he understood now. Prince Goro’s beauty could rival that of any of the court ladies, all one had to do was trade out his suit for a dress.
He hadn't seen it earlier, hadn't properly taken in the otherworldliness of the prince's pulchritude. It should have been impossible for a man to look as though he did.
Ren let out a sigh of relief when the prince's attention finally left him, directing itself back on the princess.
He needed to get himself together. He had no place to be looking at someone of the prince's status in such a way. If he were to voice any of his thoughts they would surely be found offensive. A man who would one day be king would not want to be told he better resembled a queen.
“Thank you again for honoring me with your company tonight, Princess.”
“It was a pleasure." Haru lingered in front of her door, gracing the prince with a soft, hesitant smile, before finally slipping inside.
Once her door had closed, the prince turned to Ren and motioned for him to lead the way.
As soon as the two were out of earshot of the other guards, the pleasantness Prince Goro had been displaying just a moment prior dropped from his face. He crossed his arms, lip curling up in disgust as he resumed his scrutiny of Ren's steel-coated form.
“Ren, was it?” The prince asked.
Ren nodded.
“Are you mute?”
The guard found himself taken aback by the question. His mouth opened and closed uselessly, snapping shut when the prince spoke up once more.
“I asked you a question.”
Jilted, Ren cleared his throat and prayed for his voice not to crack, or sound weirdly scratchy, or do really anything that would embarrass him in this moment.
“I am not mute your highness, no," he managed to get out, relieved by how normal he sounded.
The prince’s eyes widened a fraction, and his disgust waned.
“You’re young," he stated.
The prince brought a hand to his chin, stroking it in thought.
“I would have expected someone with more experience to have been appointed to the princess’s guard.”
Was Ren being…insulted right now? Unsure of how to respond, Ren came to a stop, staring at the prince in silence. He was going to inform the prince of his many accomplishments, and that he was beyond capable of the role he'd been given, but Prince Goro didn't allow him the time to get his words out.
“Well?” The prince prompted, footsteps halting as well. “Aren’t you going to take me to my room?”
Ren nodded briskly, too embarrassed to try to stick up for himself now. They resumed their trek.
Sae had been right, the prince was hiding something, but it wasn’t some underlying danger like she had implied, just… bitchiness . They walked the rest of the way to Prince Goro’s temporary bedchamber in silence. Unlike how Ren usually felt when he quietly escorted nobles, the silence between them felt suffocating and tense, as though Ren was supposed to be saying something, even though he didn’t have half a clue what that ‘something’ would be. He was becoming certain anything he tried to say would just earn him more degradation.
As their destination neared, Ren held himself back from running the rest of the way, shoving the prince into his room and slamming the door behind him. That would be out of line, surely, and likely end with Ren either being fired or executed.
Luckily for both men, Ren had a spectacular amount of self-restraint.
“Before you go, can I ask something?” The prince requested as they reached his door.
It wasn’t like Ren was allowed to say no, even though he would have really really liked to. He waited for the prince to voice his question, only realizing when the awkward silence had stretched on between them for too long that the prince was waiting for his verbal approval.
“Go ahead.”
At that Prince Goro crossed his arms and leaned back against the door to his bedchamber, racking his eyes up and down Ren’s suit of armor. There was no way he’d be capable of discerning what Ren looked like beneath it, yet the gaze was piercing, and as his amber eyes traced and scrutinized every detail of the guard’s form Ren slowly began to suspect he was truly capable of seeing through metal.
“Are you bedding the princess?” The prince asked.
Ren’s eyes widened and his lips parted in shock.
Silence dragged out between them. It dragged out across Ren's mind as well. Ren had never had someone make him feel so unmoored.
The prince tilted his head, bangs falling into his face.
“Is that a yes?”
“No! No, it’s a no.” Ren lifted his hands, holding them out in front of himself. “She’s amazing, a beautiful girl, but I don’t see her that way.”
The prince cracked a smile, amused by the intensity of Ren’s response.
He pushed up from the door, waving a hand dismissively. “Well, alright then. I just wanted to check. It’d make things difficult for our marriage if she had another lover, not that I’m entirely opposed to it,” The prince trailed off, looking up at Ren in thought. “If you were sleeping with her, I’d only ask that the two of you keep it hidden. I’d like to avoid the drama of an affair, that also means no pregnancy.”
“We’re not sleeping together!” The words came out too quick, too loud.
The prince held his hands up in a surrender. His eyes were shining with mirth. “No need to yell, Ren.”
Ren stiffened at the sound of his name. He could have sworn the prince had spoken sweeter as he said it, but that was illogical, the prince had no reason to do so. In an attempt to compose himself, the guard swallowed and brought his hands behind his back, standing at attention.
“Is there anything else you need from me, your highness?”
“Yes, actually.” The prince stepped away from the wall, and without so much as a warning, reached up and lifted Ren’s helmet from his head. With it now in his hands, he stepped back, studying Ren’s newly exposed face.
The prince’s expression became blank, smile faltering. His fingers tapped along the side of the helmet’s shell.
Surely Ren’s hair had to be a mess, sweaty at that. He could feel it sticking to his forehead and the sides of his face. Sometimes on particularly grueling days his cheeks bore that of a drunken flush when he removed his helmet-- entirely due to how much exertion he’d endured within the confines of his iron armor, nothing more. The heat in his cheeks had nothing to do with the man standing in front of him, flaying Ren with his eyes.
The silence stretched on, punctuated by the prince’s steady tapping. Ren could feel every tap in his heart.
“Is that all?” Ren asked, itching to snatch back up his helmet and hide within it. He imagined himself as an ostrich trying to bury its head into the sand in a futile attempt to escape from predators. The prince would still know what he looked like now even if he got the helmet back. Every time he'd look at Ren it was going to feel like Prince Goro was really looking at him.
Prince Goro held Ren’s helmet up in the air, turning it this way and that way to watch the light’s reflection bend and curve along its shiny surface. The prince’s eyes were like that of a predator. Sharp, focused; almost red if the light hit them correctly.
“Do you enjoy your occupation?” The prince asked Ren, still looking at the helmet.
“It’s an honor to serve the Okumura’s," Ren replied obediently. His eyes kept darting between his helmet and the prince's face.
“Is it?” The prince smiled wryly to himself. His eyes caught Ren's mid-dart, holding them still. “Well, it was an honor to properly meet you, Ren.” There it was again, that sweet drawl. Ren hadn’t imagined it.
The helmet was handed back to him, gloves sliding smoothly over the steel as Ren received it. “Sleep well.”