Chapter Text
When Prince Charles went missing, no one was unduly worried. He had gone missing before, usually due to drink. He normally returned or was found within a couple of days. But this time, it was a week and he had not returned. The Royal Family of Monaco began to send guards out and asked their people to look for him. After two weeks, the Family’s worry steadily increased
Princess Lando had worried too Charles was careless and selfish, yes, but he was vulnerable too, especially if he had been drinking a lot and was even less careful than usual. He could be alone, or not, Lando wasn’t sure which was worse. He wasn’t sure where Charles could be. The worry dug at Lando unendingly.
Alex and George hadn’t teased Lando for his concern. They’d gone with him to Monaco to offer assistance. George had brought words of support from Lewis, who also sent a battalion of guards to help in the search. Charles’s mother was pale and drawn and curtseyed low to George.
“His Highness is kind and generous,” she said, her accent heavy and her expression strained.
“He is concerned for your son, as am I,” George replied, gentle but regal. “Please, allow us to assist.”
She did not object, not even to the Prince Consort to the King of England taking to his horse and personally involving himself in the search. There were surprised glances from some but none yet voiced any caution.
Usually Lando would have teased his friend for his lofty position, and for how delicately people treated him. But Lando focused on the landscape instead, on the beautiful mountains and woodland, and the fierce sea that greedily lapped the shore, on where Charles could be. A witch had been consulted, Pierre had told them, looking pale and drawn himself, Dany firmly holding his hand. All the witch had been able to offer was that Charles lived. She hadn’t been holding back, something was shrouding any more of her certainty.
“Lando, slow down.”
Alex rode up to Lando’s side, his voice dropping quieter, “You don’t want to miss something.”
That was good logic. Lando nodded and relaxed his grip on the reins, his horse slowing. His worry was blocking so much out. He couldn’t remember the journey here in full. He’d been thinking about Charles and where he could be, how hurt. Being alive didn’t mean he was unharmed. Lando had written to Daniel and Max in Amsterdam, wanting Max’s opinion on Charles’s state. Max could find details that the other witch could not.
Alex’s gloved hand grasped Lando’s and gently squeezed, “You’re not the only one searching, Lando. He will be found.”
Lando couldn’t stop scanning his surroundings, was there a clue to Charles’s disappearance that he was missing?
“The witch can’t find him though,” Lando murmured. “And Pierre’s looked for him every day, there’s so much water to search. He knew something was very wrong, like I did. Deadly wrong.”
It felt as though the bottom had fallen out of Landos’ world and more and more was seeping out each day. Alex halted both horses, squeezing Lando’s hand hard to get his attention. Alex’s expression was worried and determined.
“We don’t know that,” he reminded Lando. “And we won’t stop searching until we do, okay?”
Lando swallowed and nodded mutely. Alex and George were no close friends of Charles, they did this because of Lando. His friends were truly the best. They rode together until they reached a large area of woodland. There was no small flag nearby to let them know it had been searched.
Lando slipped down from his horse, pulling his embroidered cloak tighter around him. It looked like the sort of place that people would get lost in.
“We stick together,” George said, eyeing the woods distrustfully.
Alex and Lando both nodded in agreement. It was a foolish person indeed who wandered alone when someone had already gone missing. The wood was dense and soon enough, the sunlight was choked by the thickly layered branches. Lando’s cloak dragged slightly, he was glad he was wearing his riding boots and had a blade strapped to his hip. Alex and George walked on either side of him, both with a hand to their swords. It was so quiet.
“Where are the birds?” George asked suddenly in an undertone.
And there were no animal sounds either. Lando frowned and stepped carefully over a log. When he looked up again, there was a chink of light up ahead.
“Look.”
He moved quickly and saw a dim shape forming somewhere among the trees. He strove towards it, his heart beating fast. Alex and George were behind him somewhere.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Me either.”
Lando shook his head and refused to look away, he knew what he was seeing. There, down in a small valley, he could see a cottage, but it was unlike any he had seen before. It looked as though it was part of the woods itself, made of living wood. Trees were growing into the walls, some of their branches were part of the roof. It was as though it had always been there. Alex and George gasped as they gazed down at it.
“Lando, you saw this from back there?”
“Yes,” Lando looked at his friends with a frown. “You really couldn’t?”
George shook his head and Lando’s frown deepened, his hand clenching around the hilt of his sword. There was magic here, that wanted him to find it but it was letting Alex and George in now too. Slowly, Lando made his way closer to the cottage, down into the basin valley that cradled it. There was still no sound.
At the front door, all three looked at each other, checking they were united. Then Lando laid a gloved hand against the heavy door and pushed it open. It was quiet inside the cottage too but there was a sound, a hushed noise. Lando frowned and tried to see his very dim surroundings. The hallway was empty, there was a staircase but the sound didn’t seem to come from upstairs.
George touched Lando’s wrist, then squeezed it gently. Lando nodded, he still wanted to go ahead. They all walked towards the sound, through one empty room and into one that was occupied. There was Charles, wearing grey and black, with red slashed in his doublet’s sleeves. The room was lit by a strange green light, revealing that Charles was sitting at a loom, weaving. His eyes were fixed on the loom, they saw nothing else. Lando pressed a hand to his own collar, his joy at Charles being alive choked by what he saw.
“Charles?” he called faintly, just to confirm that Charles was enspelled.
There was no answer, Lando stepped forward, wanting desperately to touch Charles’s shoulder, to reassure himself that Charles was there, to shake him out of the spell. But he made himself stay a step or two back. Charles’s face was so blank, it was truly awful. And his hands, oh, his hands were bloody .
“You should not have come.”
The voice came out of nowhere. Lando’s eyes darted around the room, trying to spot the speaker. Alex and George were doing the same. The voice spoke again.
“It shouldn’t have been possible.”
There was something moving in a corner, Lando could see it forming now - a tall elegant figure clothed in flowing obsidian, and there were enormous iridescent wings like shadows behind her. The figure’s face was hidden but Lando knew he was looking at a Black Fairy. Oh gods, Charles had crossed a Black Fairy.
Lando dropped quickly into a deep curtsey, keeping his gaze fixed to the floorboards as he rose back up. He could feel Alex and George dipping into very respectful bows.
“I am sorry, Fair One, for trespassing,” Lando said, quietly. “We came only to search for Charles.”
“Charles, Prince of Monaco,” the Fairy’s voice twisted with displeased mocking. “He has brought this fate on himself.”
“We do not doubt it," George spoke now, his head also bowed. "But there are people that miss him and want him to return."
“Are there.”
The displeasure increased in the Fairy’s voice. Lando was very aware of the sound of the loom and how bloody Charles’s hands had been. He bit his lip hard, he couldn’t make demands, no matter how much he wanted to.
The Fairy continued, “He stumbled through my woodland until he found this cottage and slept. When he woke, he sneered and insulted me, demanding to be taken home.”
Lando closed his eyes, oh Charles. It sounded as though Charles had drunk and then woken with a heavy head and a filthy temper. And he had insulted a Black Fairy. Lando’s heart ached for his love who did not know how to live peacefully anymore.
“I apologise,” Lando said. “He has suffered much loss and his pain is a weapon against the world that grievously hurts him.”
“Grief is a burden to live with, not a river to drown yourself in with the world.”
Alex and George nodded in agreement, Lando agreed too. He also knew how much pain Charles could not seem to escape.
“I think he has forgotten how,” Lando said quietly, sadly.
The Fairy was silent for a moment, then, “Who addresses me?”
Lando inclined his head but kept his eyes lowered, “Princess Lando of Bristol.”
“Prince Alexander of London.”
“Prince George of Norfolk, Prince Consort to King Lewis of England.”
“Well met.”
The displeasure in her voice had thawed but Lando didn’t raise his eyes as he carefully asked, “Is there some way we could free Charles?”
“He has penance to pay.”
The thaw had stopped. Lando nodded but continued determinedly and polite, “His family miss him very much, Fair One. You have his blood already.”
“He is making instead of tearing down,” the Fairy stated. “He is learning to give himself.”
A sickening thought occurred, Lando could feel the sword hilt in his hand digging into his flesh. “Is Charles...feeling his punishment? He cannot see or hear us.”
“He thinks only of his work, for the first time in his life,” the Fairy said with satisfaction. “He feels the pain, it does not matter to him.”
Lando’s next breath shook but he kept silent as he gathered himself. Charles needed him to stay strong and to construct an escape. But he couldn’t attempt to trick a Black Fairy, the consequences, and they would come, would be total.
Alex was speaking, “...can we tell his family?”
“Tell them he is suffering for his foolishness and disrespect.”
“May we tell them when he will be free?”
“When I will it.”
He might never be free. Lando stared at Charles, at his blank staring face, at his bloodied fingers. If only he could...maybe he could. A wild terrified hope gripped him, he wrestled it away from his expression.
“Are we permitted to leave, Fair One?” he asked suddenly.
He heard a silky ripple and then, “You may.”
“And may we return after we leave freely?”
“You have that permission.”
Lando nodded to himself, okay. He turned to Alex and George, “Fetch Pierre. Maybe he can both word Charles’s value and demonstrate the weight of his absence better.”
Alex raised his eyebrows, “We won’t leave you here alone.”
“I’m not alone, I’m with Charles. And you cannot walk alone in the woods. Bring Pierre, no forces of arms. Dany, if he wishes, but no battalions.”
George stared at Lando, then looked towards the Fairy, “You will watch over our friend?”
The Fairy inclined her head, “He will be here when you return.”
There was a note in her voice, it was scrupulous. She was biding her time, she knew what solution was approaching and she wasn’t preventing it. Lando’s heart hammered hard in his throat.
“Do not do anything foolish,” George told Lando as they left.
Lando listened to them leave, marching quickly out of the wood and towards where their horses waited, until all Lando could hear was the loom again. He swallowed hard.
“Fair One, would you accept a bargain? Another in his place?”
“It is his punishment, no one else’s.”
Lando nodded but pushed on determinedly, “But I am willing to suffer in his place. His family have lost a father and Charles’s godfather and one of his best friends. To take him as well, they would be punished, not him. His mother grieves already.”
“Your family would not suffer? Your mother would not grieve?”
Lando closed his eyes, pain squeezing his heart. “They would all grieve. But I ask this still.”
“Why?”
Lando stared at his feet, at the tips of his riding boots. This was not something he spoke baldly aloud. He had never had a wish for Charles to know it or for others to use it against Charles. But the Fairy would take nothing but the truth.
“Because I love him.”
The silence that followed was not surprised, “And you believe it would hurt him if you were taken?”
Lando’s laugh cracked the air, “No! No, he knows nothing of my feelings and is never likely to. I would not even call us friends, aquaintances perhaps.”
“Yet you would take his place in punishment and pain.”
“That is love.”
“It is.”
The Fairy gave the impression of great consideration. Lando watched Charles.
“I will not refuse your gift,” the Fairy said at last. “Your selflessness brought you here, it will save him also.”
Lando frowned in confusion but nodded, “Thank you. Can you ensure that none of my friends bargain to take my place? And that they and Charles leave here safely?”
“I will. But if he insults me again, there will be no bargains.”
Lando bowed his head, that was fair. “What...what should I do?”
Charles stopped weaving and stood, his face still blank. He stood beside the loom now, staring at something only he could see. Lando gazed at him, drinking in all he could. This would nourish him. He had to have faith that perhaps George and Alex could come up with some way of freeing him but he had made his choice. It was what he wanted.
“You have made a choice that he never would,” the Fairy stated. “Step towards the loom.”
Lando wished he could argue her first point, but he could not. He moved towards the loom, his heartbeat loud in his ears. Charles moved towards him, he was going to step past Lando but turned his head, his blank gaze falling on Lando. Lando smiled encouragingly, his joy returning, his eyes suddenly wet with tears.
“Take care, Charles.”
Charles looked forward again, walking to where Lando had stood. Lando sat down before the loom.
“He will not truly wake until your friends return,” the Fairy told him. “Your trials will begin now however.”
Lando nodded, of course. But Charles was safe, he had a chance to heal. If only he would take it now. Lando shook his head; Charles was Charles, and Lando loved him regardless.
His hands touched the loom and then, nothing else mattered.