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Their Oath Sonata: Chapter V

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Chapter V.


Vae groaned and rolled his eyes. They were in quite a bind; Markus, being careless as he was, hadn't really thought about exactly how Vae was supposed to go with him. But this made him smile interiorly; at least some of the old Markus was still left.

"All you had to do was prepare your master plan! I'm the one leaving all my family, friends, and basically my whole life, everything I know, behind!" the rogue scolded, letting himself drop onto the cool grass.

"Sorry, I was just too stressed to think properly, I promise I'll come up with a plan before morning," Markus squeaked sheepishly, hesitantly glancing over at the redhead.

"Do you always make such promises?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" The blond turned to completely face Vae.

"Promises that are hollow, short-lived. Promises that are worthless."

"The Prince's word can never be worthless," Markus said, feeling a tad insulted.

"You haven't done a very good job backing it up."

The Crown Prince sighed and sat down beside the rogue, their shoulders almost brushing. Vae felt the heat rise to his cheeks despite the cold weather, and tried distracting himself by biting the inside of his mouth. But he still couldn't control the furtive glances that threw themselves the blonde's way.

"Oh, I know!" Markus said suddenly, jumping up and startling Vae.

"Are you always so erratic?" the redhead grumbled, brushing blades of grass off his pants.

"Take those off."

He blinked, and looked up with bewildered eyes. What did Markus just say?

"What?"

"I said take 'em pants off. We won't need them."

He was saying it so casually, as if it were "Good morning" or "Hello". Vae still didn't budge—he was under shock. We won't need them?

"If you think I'm just gonna strip naked without a reason when you tell me to, you are horribly mistaken," he snapped, well, tried to, because he probably stuttered so much he was incomprehensible.

"Well, how are you gonna pass for a girl if you're dressed in guy clothes?" the Crown Prince said with a click of the tongue, finding himself quite clever.

"And why exactly would I want to pass for a girl?"

"To get into the castle, maybe? You should use that head of yours sometimes, Vae."

"Speak for yourself, dumbass! What kind of shitty plan did you come up with in that quarter of a second your brain was functioning?"

"How harsh," Markus said with a pout, feigning hurt. "I think my plan will work very fine."

"You think a lot of things," Vae hissed back. "Most of them are stupid."

But he sighed and complied, reaching to pull his shirt over his head, when a thought crossed his mind and he froze.

"Wait, exactly what am I supposed to wear then?" the redhead asked.

"Uh, I dunno…"

"What do you mean you don't know? You have to know! This is your plan! And it's not working!" Vae shouted, irritated. And then Markus had the nerve to smirk! "And anyways, even if you did bring something for me to wear, it still wouldn't work! How the hell am I supposed to pass for a girl? I have no chest, no form, I'm already an adult! We're not kids anymore, Markus. Ten years have past. I've changed. In fact, so have you."

There was an awkward pause at this point, Vae having run out of breath and Markus not knowing what to say. But he seemed to have gathered his scattered thoughts up because, miraculously, the next thing he said actually made sense.

"Yeah. But that doesn't mean we have to forget the past, pretend it didn't happen. And that doesn't mean you can spend all your time mulling over it, pitying yourself. Right now we have to focus on the present and find a solution to our predicament. Some way, we can be together again. Nothing can come between us—social standing, law, distance. In the end, fate has brought us back together, no?"

Vae's train of thought came to a screeching halt when the last few words were uttered, and consequently his mind went blank.

"I'll say you were attacked by rogues and robbed, and you can have my cloak. But we'll need you to go to sleep for a little while," the Crown Prince then added, quickly changing the subject back to the problem at hand.

Before Vae could retaliate, everything went black.

~*~

"I heard the Crown Prince brought back a lost girl he found in the forest…"

"Yes, they say she was attacked by rogues…"

"Poor thing; and she looked so young. It's good that our Prince is so valiant."

"I say this is all a plot—a conspiracy against the throne's successor! The rogue thing sounds fake enough; the fact that she was found on the border of the forest is even more suspicious! Rogues never venture that close to the village!"

Phiore absentmindedly absorbed the gossiping servants' whispering. She had no time to ponder on those matters; she had caught wind of Markus' stunning and scandalous entrance with a young girl unconscious in his arms through Dyane, who was the most up-to-date with the castle's hearsay. And she had rushed out of her temporary quarters right away, ran down three long winding staircases and through innumerable corridors before finally ending up in the Crown Prince's room, panting and sweating.

"What's this all about?" she demanded, jade eyes shooting a glare that allowed no defiance, but Markus bended without putting up a fight.

"What I told you earlier about," he replied dully, a tired look plastered over his handsome face.

"This is the boy—"

Phiore stopped mid-sentence when she caught a glimpse of auburn from under the white silk sheets. Without a sound, as if possessed by something, she quickly stalked over to the bedside and pulled up them up, peering down at the frail body hiding beneath it. She could trace the contour of a delicate face, almost feminine, but below pale collarbones was a sturdy chest certainly not belonging to a girl.

Her breath caught in her throat. It seemed so familiar, sending bells chiming in all the corners of her mind, but she just couldn't put a finger on what exactly it reminded her of.

"Uh, are you alright, Phiore?" Markus asked, worried, and his soft voice brought her back on earth.

"I'm fine," she whispered, tearing her eyes away from the sleeping form and back to her friend. "You said his name was?"

"Vae," the blond replied, gazing up at her, a puzzled expression hiding deep in his blue eyes.

Vae.

Vae.

Run—


Phiore shook her head violently, forcefully pulling herself out of her trance. What the hell was that? She'd think about it later; right now she needed to choke explanations out of her reckless childhood friend.

"What the hell was that story with him being a girl, rogues and everything so cheesy it sent furor coursing through the maids? They're fueled with enough gossip now to last them a year," the Lady said, setting her hands on her hips.

Markus smiled sheepishly. "I really couldn't come up with anything else. I'm not smart like you, Phiore—well, probably because you didn't have to study under the scrutinizing vulture eyes of a fat man and a pointy-nosed old hag."

Phiore tsk'ed and shook her head. "Not an excuse there, Mark. Anyways, what are we going to do with him—or should I say her—now?"

"Continue acting, I suppose," he replied with a shrug that made her sigh.

"This won't do," Phiore said. "Sooner or later you'll be discovered. And then what? Your little friend here will be served the noose, you're probably gonna get disowned, and me, the accomplice, will rot away my years in the dungeon."

"Maybe we can ask Dyane for help," the blond suggested, in a desperate attempt to rectify the situation.

"Not going to happen," Phiore hissed, feeling the anger inside her starting to surface. "You won't whisper a single fucking measly word to her—I do not, in any way, want her to be involved. I'll get to you before the guards if she ever catches wind of this."

The Crown Prince blinked, stunned by the reaction he had provoked from the younger woman. The Lady ran a hand through slightly curly locks of auburn, and shook her head as if to say "You're hopeless"—which he probably was.

"I'm not trying to tell you off or anything," she said, voice softening down until it was nothing but a whisper. "I'm just saying with the mouth she has, the news'll have traveled three times around the castle before you've noticed it, and when you have you'd find your sorry asses flat against the dungeon floor. This is really for your own good, Mark."

The Crown Prince nodded without saying anything, and just stared blankly down at the hands sitting in his lap. Phiore decided he was in no shape to handle such things, and took things into her own two hands.

"Let's wake him up first or at least dress him into something for the night," she said. "We can't leave him lying bare on your bed—what if someone walks in? And anyways, they'd surely want to change his room, seeing he is, to the rest of the population, female."

"Alright," Markus replied, so unenergetically Phiore started fearing for his health.

This is ridiculous, the Lady couldn't help thinking, but in the back of her mind, she silently hoped it would work out. The plan was already in motion—there was no going back now. So she'd fight with Markus until the end, no matter what end it would be. For the moment, she contented herself with grimacing at him and telling him maybe he should wash up first.

"You're so pale you could pass for a dead man," she tried joking, and Markus flashed her an uneasy smile, but a smile nonetheless.

~*~

Vae woke up to blurred whiteness, nothing but blinding warmth stinging his eyes, and so he quickly shut them again. He waited a moment, then cracked them open—and was met this time by a wall of cold stone gray. This sent panic shooting through his veins, reflexes kicking in, and he abruptly shot into a sitting position in a way that was probably unhealthy for his spine. Emerald eyes scanned the area, and finding himself the only occupant of the room, calmed down a bit. He willed his breathing to slow, his head to stop turning and focus instead.

Question number one: Where was he?

In a room. On a bed. Sunlight filtering through the thick curtains framing a window that overlooked what he would later discover was the garden. This confirmed that last night was not a dream, that everything had really happened, that Markus had indeed brought the hilt of his sword to Vae's head and knocked him over. Vae mentally noted to kill him for it later.

Question number two: Why the hell was he in a nightgown?

Okay, he had a slight recollection of Markus mentioning disguising him as a girl to sneak him into the castle, but Vae really hadn't taken him seriously. Maybe he should have.

Question number three: Where was Markus exactly?

Nowhere to be seen, anyways. Panic surged once more from the pit of his stomach, and Vae felt the urgent need to throw up. Which he did, after getting as far as the door, not wanting to soil the sheets. It also happened that at that precise moment the door swung open and in pranced a complete stranger.

He had, not even five minutes after awakening, puked on an innocent passerby.

Luckily for him, said passerby happened to be Phiore. It wouldn't be right to think he could probably get away with it since it was "just" Phiore, seeing as he didn't know who she was anyways, but it was better than on Dyane who followed a quarter of a minute later.

After being hastily rushed to the washroom and washed up all over again, Phiore helped him change into a spare set of clothes, effectively locking Dyane out first. Then, when she was done with that, she led Vae out and carefully but firmly made him sit on the bed, strictly ordering him to move not even a muscle, before hurrying away to change. The smell of vomit was getting to her.

Dyane took this opportunity to give Vae a once-over, before bombarding him with questions he tried too hard to answer carefully.

"So. How'd you end up in the woods with all those rogues?"

Vae blinked. What?

Fortunately for him, Dyane interpreted his confused expression to his advantage, and replaced that question with another. "Do you remember anything at all?"

Oh. Okay. He'd just have to play along and act like he had lost his memory. Not very hard, seeing as he'd already had experience in this field. "Vae. My name is Vae."

Dyane nodded understandingly, before pushing on. "Anything else? Like perhaps, your age?"

"No… I don't remember." The cruelest thing about it was that this was not a lie.

"Then… parents, siblings, any recollection of events from your past?"

Vae closed his eyes. "No." And somehow, it was true. It sounded honest, even.

Then Phiore returned and saved him from more awkward questioning. She shot Dyane a glare and told her without the use of words to leave her alone a moment with Vae. The other woman shrugged, saluted them and walked out, lavender dress flowing behind.

"Hey there, Vae," Phiore started, deeming it wise to start off casually before getting down to business.

Vae looked up at her, and froze. He probably stared too hard because Phiore had a funny expression on her face.

But asides from that, everything else was in place. What place, Vae didn't know yet. The curly locks of reddish brown, frowning green eyes, pale skin. Phiore was taller than average and had her hands on her hips. She was wearing a dark red dress with frilly white sleeves cut off at the elbows, and her hair was in a messy ponytail, stray strands of hair protruding from the ribbon.

Mother. Mother.

Run, Vae, run! Hurry—


"Are you okay?"

Vae startled, and blinked. What had happened? What was that voice—so familiar yet so forlorn? Out of his reach, intangible, frustrating. He sat immobile, pensive, for a moment, before replying to Phiore, who was really starting to worry.

"I'm alright."

Phiore nodded and then scrunched her forehead, as if bothered by some unseen abnormality. "Now, let's do something about your hair."

Vae stared at her, questioning, but received no answer. Instead, he was dragged across the room and pushed now onto a stool. He found himself staring back at his reflection from a large oval mirror set on a circular table. Phiore whisked a comb out of nowhere and started flattening his hair, forcing the rebel locks into submission. She then proceeded to apply about fifty layers of makeup to his face and afterwards excused herself for a few minutes.

Vae took this opportunity to stare, incredulous, at his face. His ruined face.

Not that Phiore hadn't done a great job at making him look like a girl—in fact, Vae was crestfallen because she did such a wonderful job. She'd used powder to make his sharp jaw line seem less evident, smoothed his features and painted his lips. She'd also taken the time to brush some blush across his cheeks, and it even looked natural. Vae gulped. So, his face was gone. What was next?

The dress was next, apparently, and not last.

When Phiore returned with that frilly, white, frilly thing, he'd almost swallowed his Adam's apple—if he had at least they wouldn't have to hide it anymore. He probably looked completely aghast.

"I am not wearing that." He made sure to emphasize every single word to make it clear he was, in no way, stepping into those clothes. Even if it meant death.

Phiore rolled her eyes at his pout. "You have no choice. Either this or the dungeons."

Vae stared up at her, eyes wide. You're not serious.

"Anyways, let's get you dolled up. Markus has been worrying, you know," she chuckled.

Vae felt his stomach turn.

Right. Markus.

He had to talk to him.

Vae grabbed the dress from Phiore. "Where do I change?"

"The washroom. Or I could leave," she replied with a shrug.

"If you please," he said.

Five minutes later, Phiore was practically hysterical, clutching onto her stomach as she leaned against the door for support.

"No, seriously," Vae's panicked voice came from within the room. "How do you put this on? Where do you even put it?!"

Phiore managed to say, in between hiccups, "It's a bra. Where do you think you wear it?"

Now his male pride was ruined, too.

-End of Chapter V-
OTL. I AM SO SORRY. THIS IS SO LATE.

This chapter's been sitting incomplete on my comp for like, months. BOOHOO I AM UNWORTHY TT_____TT OTLOTL

So, yaaaah, here it is. I also have my french project open on another Word Doc and it's due tomorrow and I am nowhere near finished, but this thing I've been owing for sooo looong.

Right ;-;

Inspired by The Fox and The Hound as well as Lion King 2, in case I never mentioned it. Spending a whole summer (which was a year ago, now that I think about it...) watching Disney movies doesn't help the mind.

TOS (c)

Also, I know bras prolly didn't exist, but whatever, it's not like they're in our world or anything. What would be the fun in that?
© 2010 - 2024 Ever-Kitten
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Baby-Suzu's avatar
How cute. :3 Vae's such a 'tard sometimes. :giggle:
Markus, somehow, appears far more refined than last. <3