Note:Officially on a one week Easter break from work! (Not to say that I don’t have anything to do for work, we’re still busy haha, but at least we don’t have to go in) Also, I actually already finished writing Ch.8 and 9 a week ago haha…. Just editing it.

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: A LOT OF SELF REFLECTION, INTERNAL STRUGGLE AND CONFUSED FEELINGS FROM SCARAMOUCHE, GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF GETTING SICK: THROWING UP, SCARAMOUCHE-CENTRED CHAPTER, you only show up for like, 30 seconds, lol, because of that, it might be a slow chapter overall, slow burn, does not exactly follow the genshin lore, AU, swearing

Word Count: 2.6k words

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

“It didn’t pierce her heart,” was the first thing the doctor says. The weight on Scaramouche’s shoulders lifted right then and there, only for it to multiply and be dumped back at the doctor’s next words.

“But the arrow wasn’t designed to kill anyway, the finishing blow is the poison-laced tip,” 

What’s that shiver up his back? Goosebumps? 

He was getting frustrated. He didn’t like this feeling. Why were there so many thoughts flitting in and out of his head? Why are there so many questions that he wants answered? Why is he trying so hard to stay still when all he wants is to pace back and forth? He’s never had to try and contain himself like this before. 

“I’m afraid there’s no guarantee. She’ll be sick for days and has to be monitored closely. The only thing I can do at this moment is to prescribe a week’s worth of antidotes,” 

Scaramouche spaced out then, just as the doctor finished talking. Kuni’s eyes glance up at the prince who is lost in thought, rather flabbergasted that he looked so out of it. “Prince?” Kuni gently chides. 

Scaramouche’s head jerks up the tiniest bit, processing the entirety of the conversation. His eyes linger on your unconscious form. You looked peaceful now, but he wasn’t sure what would happen later on.

“…Move her to another room…set Abigail, yourself and the head maids on rotation to watch her…” 

Scaramouche was wary of the incident. They kept the arrow to see if they could determine how it was crafted, where it was from, and he could not bring himself to trust the whole castle under circumstances like this. So, he asked Kuni only to place the longest serving knights to guard your door. Other than that, the whole castle was placed on high alert and the patrols outside had intensified.

Kuni bowed, and started making arrangements for it, walking out of your shared room along with the doctor, leaving Scaramouche in the silence with you. 

Strange. He thought. 

It was already quiet enough the past week, trying to avoid you and vice versa. Yet now…he didn’t think it was possible for it to even be more silent than it already was. 

It was deafening, the absence of sound. Like a ringing in his ears that wouldn’t go away.

He finally lets out that frustrated sigh he’s been keeping in, closing his eyes to calm his still disarrayed nerves. But every time he closed them he gets flashbacks of that arrow pierced through your chest. 

He grimaces, and opts to open his eyes instead. 

What do I do with myself? 

He has his arms crossed only to prevent himself from the impulse of throwing something against the wall. A vase. A chair. A pillow. Anything. And yet, his nails are digging into his flesh from how tight his grip on himself is. 

Where is this anger coming from?

He always knows where his anger is coming from. Be it something that pisses him off, a clumsy maid, things not going his way, too much paperwork, he always knows where it’s from but this time, he’s confused. 

Because it should’ve been for me but she–

Shouldn’t he be happy then? That someone took the hit for him. He should’ve been, because he was definitely saved from the days of agony and pain, but knowing that it was you who took the fall for him…that’s it. That’s where that feeling of wanting to throw up is coming from.

“…She despises me,”

“…I don’t think that’s completely correct, prince. Perhaps if you showed…a little more…support,”

Support?

Unfortunately, Scaramouche didn’t exactly know what that entailed. Was it not support enough that he gave you things that you liked? Well, now that you were bedridden…painting and tea probably wasn’t an option. So what? What would someone count as support? 

“What’s got you so spaced out today?” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” 

“Oh, come on, you’ve hardly drank anything up until I shoved this glass to your face. I daresay I’m the better noble tonight,” 

Your expression. The way you tilt your chin up slightly higher to show how “superior” you were to him. The way a smug smile paints your face. He at once gets the sense that you’re trying to cheer him up, to put him at ease, despite possibly wanting to leave the party just as badly as he did.

The interaction echoes in the chambers of his mind. The way such a simple gesture, a simple sentence and a simple smile can give someone a sense of comfort. It was that elementary, that easy for you to offer him support. 

But for him, who didn’t ever have to give it to someone else, it was uncharted territory. 

Would it be foolish to try it? He felt…somewhat embarrassed, thinking of it. 

He shakes his head vigorously with a sigh. His mind had again wandered off to things that were unimportant. What’s important right now was to at least make sure you were going to survive. He’ll worry about this support thing later.

His first chance to practice “support” was given to him three days later. The first time you woke up after the whole ordeal. He hadn’t been in your room. It was Abigail, your etiquette instructor, that witnessed your eyes flying open and your arms pushing you up from the mattress.

She was startled, it had been so sudden, with no indications at all, but she was even more startled when you pulled yourself to the edge of the bed and started retching. Gagging, heaving, choking on air noises were all that Scaramouche heard when he entered the room, after Abigail alerted a maid to call for him and a doctor. 

Did he dare to look at the puddle of mess you made? He did, he had to see what exactly you’d thrown up, knowing that you hadn’t even eaten in days. 

It was mostly blood. The doctor warned that might happen when the antidote starts working the poison out of you. 

You took slow, deep breaths when you thought the sick feeling had passed, but you still stayed on the edge of the bed. You whimpered at all the sensations attacking you at the same time. Fatigue, hunger, exhaustion, pain and just this overall ill feeling in your stomach. 

Scaramouche heard it and turned to you after sending Abigail off to fetch maids for the clean-up. “Y/N,” he barely spoke your name, rolling it on his tongue seemed a little unnatural. “How…How do you feel?” He stumbled over his words. He definitely had not asked anyone that before, let alone be concerned enough to think about asking it. He was still standing tense at the foot of your bed, just watching you hoist yourself up with your arms and taking deep breaths.

Your head lolled towards him, blinking, not really caring what kinds of words left your mouth or his. You were just too out of it. “…Like shit,”

Scaramouche’s eyebrow quirked up, but somehow, that kind of answer was better than anything else you could have said, earning a small, amused grin from the prince. “Get back in bed,” he curtly commanded, strolling to the clean side of the floor as you rolled over to your back. 

“…Can I have some water, please?” you asked after a moment, feeling your throat on fire and just…the foul, irony taste in your mouth. 

Scaramouche obliged. There was no one else there to help you after all. With water already on the bedside table, he poured you a glass and passed it off after you sat up, chugging it down like it was a lifeline. You felt so thirsty. 

You winced though, when all that bad stuff had been washed down your throat, it nearly made you feel like gagging again, but you tried not to think about it as you stretch the glass back over to him. Scaramouche receives it, replacing the glass with a towel. 

You stared at the towel in your hand for a moment, wondering what the hell it was for. “…Wipe your mouth,” was his explanation and you made a sound of sudden understanding, doing as he said, realizing that you probably look like a monster right now. 

“Thanks…” and you throw the towel over to the bedside table, once again plopping down on the bed, only to feel a sharp pain on your chest as you do so, causing your hand to jerk upwards and push on your chest, where you thought the pain was coming from.

Ah, that’s right. You thought. That’s where the arrow entered. Bits and pieces of the incident comes back to you now, but it doesn’t explain why you feel so tired and exhausted. An arrow wouldn’t do so much damage, would it? To top it off, you didn’t even know how long you were out. 

“Scaramouche, are you fine?” you mumble, half delirious in your broken state. Scaramouche barely hears it and he raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” 

He waits, but he doesn’t get a reply. He realizes you’ve quickly fallen back asleep after that throwing up episode, and who could blame your battered body? He sighed a little, and left the room when the maids and Abigail returned. There was no point in staying there if you weren’t awake. Though he must admit, it was bugging him that you hadn’t eaten anything in 3 days. 

Scaramouche sought Kuni out the same night about that problem, finding him in his own, personal office. “Kuni,” Scaramouche greeted. 

Kuni looked up from the book he had on hand, “Prince,” greeting back naturally. “Can I help you?” 

“Y/N hasn’t eaten in 3 days,” 

Kuni was aware of that, and so was everyone else. Everyone was aware that there was a chance you wouldn’t survive. But for the prince to point it out, it was rather a strange thing to Kuni. It simply meant that he was watching out for someone else other than himself, and that wasn’t something that happened often.

“Yes, we’re hoping she’ll wake up long enough at some point, just enough to get some food into her system,” 

And then…Silence. Kuni peered over his reading glasses over to the dazed prince. It was quite obvious that the prince had been unusually quiet the past few weeks. It told Kuni that something had happened. Where before, the two of you would at least sit together and eat your meals, the prince suddenly took his meals separately from yours.

Kuni noticed it early on, but he wasn’t the least bit concerned. He had guessed that it had been some sort of disagreement, some sort of fight between the two of you. Most people would say that it was a bad thing. But, to Kuni, who had been the prince’s guardian for a long time, seeing him evidently avoid you, was a good thing.

It told Kuni that Scaramouche cared. 

Going through the effort of trying to avoid you meant that the prince was uncomfortable with something. And that was saying a lot when the prince’s usual emotions only consisted of anger and indifference. 

Kuni has to squint, but he sees the distress thinly shadowed over Scaramouche’s expression. It’s barely there, but he sees it. “…Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Scaramouche bristles, awkwardly rubbing his shoulder as he dives into deep thought. There’s so many things he wants to know. Who shot the arrow? Who did it? Why were they trying to kill him? Why am I waiting for her to wake up? 

“I don’t have control over the situation. It’s annoying,” Scaramouche says, translating what he felt into words that he was familiar with.

“…It’s called being worried, prince. Entirely natural,” Kuni took his reading glasses off and folded them atop his table, leveling his gaze towards the prince that he had served nearly his whole life. He watched as the prince’s body language shifts, uncomfortably looking away and off to somewhere unimportant, like the wall. 

Worry? Scaramouche ponders on it. Well, whatever it was, it eats at him, and it just doesn’t go away. The moment he wakes up he wonders if you’ve survived the night. At night, he finds it harder to fall asleep with the questions and what ifs in his mind. When he eats a meal at the table and you’re not there, he finds himself wondering if you’re hungry, and if your body would survive the days without any sustenance. 

All Scaramouche sees it as, isvulnerability, and Kuni sees that too. Sees how the prince struggles to accept the mess of unpleasant emotions he feels. Vulnerability was not an easy thing, not even for the normal, run off the mill guy. 

“What do you know about the princess, prince?” Kuni changes the subject, successfully diverting Scaramouche’s attention towards him, face now painted with confusion.

“What do I know about her?” Scaramouche counters the question back.

“Yes. What does she like, what she reads, what her preferred dishes are,” Kuni lists off and sees the familiar scowl on Scaramouche’s face.

“It’s not necessary for me to know–”

“Is that how you truly feel?” Kuni cuts him off and Scaramouche is rendered silent. “Communicating is not just merely an exchange of words, prince. It’s an exchange of experiences and opinions, both good and bad.” 

Scaramouche gets a flash of you animatedly talking to Kokomi and Tartaglia. The reason why you never showed that side of yourself to him was…because he never shared anything with you. That’s what Kuni was saying, and yet, it takes time for that to fully sink in to Scaramouche’s mind. 

He ponders on it for a moment, then scoffs. “It’s too late to think about that now,” and he truly felt it as well. He’d decided to be a pain in your ass from the beginning. He had no intentions–and still didn’t have any–to be nice to you. He didn’t have that in him. 

But to tolerate you? That. he found that it was something he could do and possibly even enjoy. He didn’t mind it as much as he thought it would, sitting in the art room and spending time with you, even though it was him just sitting and you quietly painting…being in the presence of each other…it was…different, but he couldn’t put a finger to what that feeling was. Comfort? Peace? 

“Why do you say so?” Kuni continues to prod the prince. This was the right time to do it, he thinks. If not now, then there wouldn’t be another time where the prince would let his guard down like this. “For as long as she lives, and for as long as you live, there’s a lifetime between the two of you, my lord. Well, assuming that she agrees to stay married,” Kuni coughed, because divorce wasn’t usually talked about in royal situations. What a disaster that would be. 

A lifetime, huh? 

Scaramouche knew that when he married you. He knew that the rest of his and your life would be bound together, but he didn’t care at that moment. What he cared about was ticking off the checkboxes that his father gave him. 

“I only offer suggestions, my lord, but perhaps, when she’s well and awake again, you might consider learning a bit more about her…She may one day be your greatest ally. Your father is a great king, but there were also many a times he would turn to the queen for guidance and support,”

Greatest ally? Support? Why would he need such a thing and why was everyone talking about it? He was fine by himself, and progressing just fine. Scaramouche was about to say something crass back, but there’s a knock on the door of the study. A maid peeks her head in and bows down a perfect 90 degree before straightening up again.

“The princess is awake. She requests the presence of prince Scaramouche,”

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MASTERLIST

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Note:This will be my last update for a bit, I’ll be focusing on some events for work next week so I’ll be off tumblr. Not to worry, I still am working on everyone’s requests, and I see all your lovely comments and asks! Just need some time to sort them out <3

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: slow burn, does not exactly follow the genshin lore, AU, tw: blood, injury

Word Count: 2.2k words

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts: (Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

A silent week.

If you thought that life had been miserable ever since you came here, it doesn’t compare to this week. You haven’t seen Scaramouche. Not before you sleep, not when you wake up, not even during your meals: breakfast, lunch or dinner. 

The only time you saw him was when you woke up in the middle of the night, groggy with sleep and eyes blurred with drowsiness. All you could see of him was his back, the gentle rise and fall of it. When you woke the next morning, he wouldn’t be there anymore, and wouldn’t show up for breakfast, Kuni would say that he was in his study, busy with papers first thing in the morning.

That was a lie, and you knew it. 

You spent the week painting and drawing in the art room. Not only did you have no events this week, but you even declined Duchess Kokomi’s invitation to have tea with her. Somehow, last week’s events at the ball just left a sour taste in your mouth, you weren’t in the mood to see anyone. 

As you settle in front of the easel on a Friday morning, your hand on the brush making big, upward strokes on the painting you were working on, your mind wanders yet again, causing your hand to stop and stall. 

“What I did back there had nothing to do with you, in fact you can go right ahead and kiss him in private.”

Scaramouche was out of line, or so you thought. It hit you all over again, as you blankly stare forward. 

He.didn’t.care. 

Not one smidgen of understanding and love for you. You never asked for his heart, you knew you couldn’t have it. But, at the very least, some type of companionship, even something less than friendship, just civility towards each other and yet…it was so hard to obtain.

A week ago you were still grasping at hope. You were going to spend the rest of your life with him, there must have been some way to see eye to eye, to understand him a bit better. You thought that all you needed was time and perseverance, and at some point, you’d felt as if you were finally able to reach a little bit of him, finally able to see a part of him that wasn’t callous or self-centred. 

But now, where there was once hope, there was nothing but despair. 

You were wrong. Time or perseverance was not going to change anything. He made it very clear that night, scowling at you, ordering you to play your part, using you as an accessory. 

You sigh, setting your paintbrush down when you notice that you’ve stopped painting altogether. Your head turns towards the large lattice windows, the light streaming through it drawing criss-cross patterns on your canvas. It was such a nice day out, and yet you sat in here on the inside gathering dust just as all the books on the shelves have. 

The door clicking open nearly scared you to death. There was no knock, no announcements whatsoever, and Scaramouche just walks into the art room, arms crossed as your mouth falls agape. You hadn’t seen him in a whole week, and he decides to show up just like that. 

The Ruthless Prince walks over to the armchair that he usually occupied on Fridays, and realizes that the tea you usually brew for him was not ready. 

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you feel as if you’ve held your breath, wondering if you’re in trouble for not getting it out earlier. You just didn’t think he was going to show up, after all of that. 

“…Where’s the tea?” He doesn’t look at you as he asks this, as if his eyes could only be glued to the table and were allergic to you. You let silence curtain the two of you, your body relaxes, yet it relaxes in a way that shows defeat. Your eyes linger on him, before you finally exclaim. “I didn’t prepare any.”

Quiet, and timid. 

There’s a thin veil of uneasiness between the two of you, an awkwardness that was new. You hadn’t realized that those four weeks of him enjoying tea in the art room was already a glimpse of comfort with him. Now it was back to that painful and glaring silence.

“…You better go and make some then,” he huffs to himself, sinking into the armchair as if it was any Friday beforehand. You stand, with your feet heavy, you drag them all the way to the middle of the room, facing him, a few steps away from the armchair he sat on. “…I’m not preparing it for you,” you started, seeing him tense up a little, and his head finally moves the slightest bit, turning towards your voice, yet not daring to look at you fully. 

“…I don’t feel like preparing it for you…It’s my free and private time so…I’ll do what I want with it,” was it petty? You immediately ask yourself. To take the words he threw at you and throw it back at him? The only difference was the eerie calmness in your tone. Scaramouche recognizes it, and when he turns his head to finally look at you, you can’t read his expression.

There’s no scowl, no glare, no smirk nor a grin. Just him, looking at you and waiting for what else you have to say.

“…I’ll teach Kuni and the maids how to brew it, you can ask them to prepare it for you,” Then, like a mechanical being, you stroll out of the art room quietly, but you walk out with a realization in mind:

I liked brewing it for you, I liked watching you drink it.

And he sits at the armchair, unmoving as the door clicks close, having a thought that he had already known for weeks on end:

I liked it when you brewed it for me.

The following day of Saturday had the two of you struggling to even look at each other during the ball you attended, and still, in front of all the others, you were the stellar conversationalist and everything seemed as it was. 

Play the part, as he said. 

Kokomi had been there, and it was your one saving grace during that ball, having her to really converse and catch up with. You’d left Scaramouche’s side to greet her, and stayed to talk to her for the most part.

Scaramouche didn’t stop you, but he did watch you from one of the various drinks table. You looked so…animated. So different from when you stood next to him. What did he expect, after that tirade last week? Why was it affecting him so much? How did it change your attitude towards him so drastically? Why was he only seeing it now? Was this the cold shoulder? And he thought it was bad before, now it was just…

Unbearable…

He downs the drink he has in his hand, just in time for the arrival of Prince Tartaglia to be announced. He half grunts and half growls under his breath, as if things weren’t bad enough already. He picks up another drink and starts on it, not even bothering to clap or turn around when the Snezhnayan Prince arrives.

Come to think of it, Tartaglia was supposed to be here for a few weeks. It wasn’t often he came around, but when he did, it was usually to check on the trading agreements and to make sure his imports and exports were in order. And of course, Scaramouche had an impression that Tartaglia just loved to annoy him, so, instead of the actual king coming to check, it’d always been Tartaglia. 

When the applause settles down and when a few minutes pass, Scaramouche yet again opts to scan the room for you. As he suspected, Tartaglia now joins your group of two with Kokomi. Nevermind that Kokomi looks just as amused as you at whatever story Tartaglia’s performing, but you looked as if new life had just been breathed on to you, listening to and laughing at the Snezhnayan prince’s comedies. 

Scaramouche catches his own frustrated sigh, holding it in and just…trying to let everything go. 

When did it become like this?

He wonders. 

Not the fact that you had gone cold and wary of him–he knew exactly when that started–but when did he start feeling a sense of unease whenever you weren’t by his side? When did he start wanting for you to look at him like that too? He’s inclined to believe that his outburst last week…was not all that it seemed to be. He felt ridiculed, he felt that his sense of authority was threatened, but…could there be any other reason he felt angered like he did?

It takes seconds for him to realize that you’re back at his side. He blinks, and raises his eyes to look around, seeing Kokomi and Tartaglia still engaged in their small talk, then his eyes drop to you. You looked…absolutely miserable next to him, forced smile and tense shoulders and all. 

How can I make this bearable again?

He suddenly asks himself, then instinctively passes a drink to you. You casually receive it with a small thank you, but other than that, there were no other words from you. 

The night goes on as such, more small talk with the nobles, more of you conversing with people he didn’t even want to look at, up until it was time for the two of you to leave. 

Briefly, just before the two of you depart, you find yourself seeking out Kokomi and Tartaglia again, saying a brief goodbye to the two people who have made the night the slightest bit enjoyable. Scaramouche observes as you do so, but doesn’t say anything about it.

He doesn’t say anything at all, as usual, on the carriage back. You, on the other hand, perhaps because your mood was a little better than it was after talking to Kokomi and Tartaglia, and maybe because you thought that this cold war had been going on for too long, a casual “Are you having dinner with me today?” slipped past your lips. 

Though, there was no expectation laced with it at all. Just a question, no desire whatsoever for him to join you, nor a trace of hope for him to reply nicely. Merely to ask if he was going to leave you alone for the rest of the night. 

His head jerks towards you at the sudden question…the first thing you had uttered to him in a week. Well, the first semi-nice thing, after that incident with the tea. He’s confused as to how to answer. Does he ignore the question, and continue with this strange atmosphere or does he say–

“Yes,” he says it before thinking about it fully, as if it was the only sensible answer. From his peripheral vision, he sees you nod, and that was the only conversation you had with him in the vicinity of the carriage. 

Scaramouche doesn’t offer his hand when you step down the carriage at arrival. He hasn’t done that in a while. However, a strange feeling overcomes you as you step down, a prickling at the back of your neck urging you to turn around, just as the carriage leaves, giving you a clear view of the deep forest surrounding the castle edges. 

What possessed you or told you to turn around, you’d never know. Instinct, you might call it. A gut feeling. You thought that your eyes were playing tricks on you, when you see a slight billow of black among the trees. It’s dark, but there was movement and there was enough moonlight for you to catch it. 

“Scara–” a cloak, that’s what it was. A glint and the sound of something snapping through the air had you clumsily tackling Scaramouche down to the pavement leading up to the castle. He falls on all fours, shocked at the action and finally thinking to himself ‘Are you that mad at me?’ 

He’s had enough. He turns toward you with the same snarl as last week, looking like a lion devouring his prey. “What the hell do you think you’re–”

Blood. 

Soaking through the dress from your left chest, an arrow sticking out from your front. You, just kneeling there and looking at it, startled and unable to grasp the severity of the situation. Everything is so hazy now.

“Y/N–” Scaramouche’s voice mixed into one of confusion and horror, his eyes tacked on to the way the arrow pierces through your dress, sinks into your flesh and blooms red dangerously close to your left breast. 

Scaramouche snaps out of it when you start to fall backwards onto the pavement, he jolts forward and catches you. His eyes dart up towards the trees, purple veins of electricity on his free arm, a loud, thunderous crash of lightning decimating a whole portion of trees, painting the area purple for a split second before the trees caught fire with a raging orange, hoping to catch the perpetrator off guard.

The knights were alerted by now, and Scaramouche doesn’t quite remember what orders he barks at them. 

All he can remember was the trembling of his breath as he hoists you up into his arms.

All he remembers is the unfamiliar feeling of dread introducing itself to him for the first time. 

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: slow burn, does not exactly follow the genshin lore, AU, nasty and mean fight

Word Count: 2.2k words

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts: (Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

“Scaramouche, long time no see,” Tartaglia let out a laugh, waving briefly at the man next to you. You immediately get the sense that they’d known each other for a long time, with Tartaglia not using the proper title for Scaramouche, but your husband doesn’t say anything just as your eyes lock with Tartaglia’s. 

It surely is dazzling. His deep, cobalt blue eyes. Arguably the most stunning you’ve ever seen. 

“And this must be princess Y/N. I heard about the marriage,” Tartaglia picks your hand up in your dazed state, and you can’t break your gaze as he leans in to softly press a kiss against your hand. He withdraws a few inches away, but seems unwilling and reluctant to let go of your hand as he keeps it in his for a few moments more, before releasing it from his hold and standing straight up. 

Scaramouche eyes the interaction second by second. He already had a natural dislike towards Tartaglia, ever since they were little. Tartaglia was quite persistent in several different angles. He irked Scaramouche in ways that he had never been irked before. Though he didn’t say anything about the hand kiss, he was certainly wary of what else the Snezhnayan Prince might pull. 

“You haven’t changed,” Scaramouche’s voice is flat, he’s controlling it rather well while Tartaglia answers with a chuckle. “I could say the same for you,” 

There’s a bit of hidden tension between them, but it gets cut off as you finally come back down to Earth and introduce yourself to the newly arrived prince. You curtsy properly and state your name in accordance with the rules, just as you have with the other guests you’ve talked with before.

“…and it’s nice to meet you, Prince Tartaglia,” the words roll from your tongue easily, having done it almost a hundred times now for the past few months. 

Tartaglia doesn’t show it, but he’s a little surprised. He thought that Scaramouche would have chosen someone who was more timid, more reserved and would only talk when being talked to. That didn’t seem the case at all as he observed you more closely. 

The way you carried yourself was still a little unpolished, but the smile looked almost genuine and was very welcoming. That was possibly part of your charm. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, how’s the weather in Snezhnaya? I hear it’s cold most of the time,” and great at starting conversations too. Nothing like what Tartaglia thought you’d be from the rumors. It didn’t look as if you were caged nor forced into anything, but Tartaglia knew a good actor when he saw one. He was somewhat of a good one himself.

Scaramouche let you talk, or attempt to, at least. It strangely gave him some semblance of normality and authority, to let you talk to Tartaglia as if he was just like anyone else in the party. There was no need to treat the Snezhnayan Prince any differently.

Tartaglia falls into another chuckle, this time directed towards you. “Correct, it’s extremely cold in the winter. Though, there’s no use of me talking about it. Experiencing it yourself is a better answer, princess. You should visit some time,” smoothly, Tartaglia offers his hand out towards you, and you stare blankly at his outstretched hand until he explains. “Care to dance, princess?” his eyes dart at Scaramouche, whose face is still unreadable. “I’m sure Scaramouche wouldn’t mind. It’ll only be a moment,” 

“Oh, uhm–” Dancing. The bane of your existence. Sure you’ve had plenty of lessons by now, but come to think of it, you hadn’t tried it out in an actual ball, mostly because Scaramouche didn’t want to bother with dancing, and perhaps no one dared to ask Scaramouche’s wife for a dance…up until today.

Your hesitation is obvious. Tarataglia and Scaramouche sees it, but Tartaglia, just as Scaramouche thought, had his ways of getting what he wanted. “Don’t worry about the steps, princess. I’ll guide you through it,”

You look up at Tartaglia’s earnest eyes and honest smile, there was no rule against dancing with another prince, in fact, it was like a form of greeting. Yet, you can’t help your automatic instinct to look towards Scaramouche for an answer. 

It was now Scaramouche’s turn to be secretly surprised, you had always done what you wanted to do, regardless of his opinions. Suddenly realizing that you were asking him for permission inflated his ego a little…and he saw an instant flash of himself saying “No,” immediately, only for himself to thwart the feeling and bury it under the depths. 

“Go ahead, what you do doesn’t concern me,” he sounds nearly angry and the voice that he hadn’t used in weeks towards you resurfaces. Your mouth falls slack as you watch him walk away, grabbing a drink from a table while he’s at it. 

‘Oh,’ It’s bizarre, the little dip your heart does. You don’t know the reason for it. ‘I thought for sure that I’ve gotten through to him a little…’

But you weren’t the type to be rude to guests, and so you hide the thought away for later on, smiling towards Tartaglia and taking his hand to accept his offer for a dance. 

The simplest way to describe Prince Tartaglia’s laugh was the word picturesque. The way his eyes crinkled perfectly at the sides, he’s not obnoxiously loud, but anyone looking from a mile away knew that he was having fun. “Well, not bad at all princess! You don’t really have much to worry about when it comes to dancing,” 

You know he’s lying, because you were sure that you’d stepped on his foot at least 4 times now, and you were slightly horrified and yet, Tartaglia was so convincing with the way he complimented you, it was easy to forget that you’d made so many missteps. “M-Maybe we should take a break,” there’s a lopsided smile on you, as if unsure whether you should laugh or apologize to him. 

He’s amused, but relents and escorts you off of the ballroom floor after a few elegant minutes on it. 

The funny thing about royal parties like these, was that there were no chairs in sight. People came away from the dance floor still standing side by side each other, just falling into another conversation, or curtsying towards each other and then moving on to the next person they would want to socialize with. 

Tartaglia had drawn you in with his amusing and exciting stories about Snezhnaya: about the snow, the cold mornings, their special brew of tea. About the way night falls faster and about his family. He has siblings, and he talked of them as if they were his pride and joy. 

A thought suddenly crosses your mind.

Scaramouche and Tartaglia could not have been any more different. 

They were like night and day. The other choosing to be away from people, refusing to socialize with his audience and the other was like a magnet. Even if you didn’t know him, you were drawn to how confident and welcoming he was. 

“I see! I’ve never witnessed snow before, so building snowmen and snowball fights and the like are unfamiliar to me,” you tell Tartaglia as he was discussing how him and his siblings pass the time. 

“Scaramouche used to join us,” Tartaglia thinks that the way your head snaps up, the way your eyes search into his at the mention of Scaramouche’s name was not only because you were curious about your estranged husband. There’s a sort of eagerness mixed in your curious eyes, a longing for you to understand the cold prince.

“He did?”

“He used to visit when we were younger. Back then, Teucer wasn’t born yet. But then…Well, I suppose growing up changes a lot of things,” Tartaglia chuckles, taking a sip of his drink, feeling your eyes still on his form as more questions about Scaramouche threaten to spill out of your mouth. However, he speaks up first. “I’m surprised he hasn’t told you about this, princess. It’s not a secret that we used to be good companions,” He turns his head sideways, watching as your eyes now flicker away from his. Your hesitation is back.

“Oh…Well… He’s…rather busy,” 

“Is he now? Has he told you about his vision, at least?”

Your eyebrows crease together in confusion at the word “vision”. It could have simply been another word for “goals” but the way he says it lets you know that wasn’t what he was talking about. “…You mean, his magical artes?” 

Rumor has it that when a thunderstorm erupted in the country, it was probably because the Ruthless Prince was in a foul mood. That’s how powerful people thought he was and yet you… had seen no sign of this “power” that Scaramouche supposedly held. “No, he doesn’t talk about that,” you confirm and Tartaglia lets out a slight huff mixed in with a laugh.

“Ever the secretive person,” He adds, placing his empty glass down on the table and fully turning towards you, his cloak billowing behind him as he moves. There’s not quite enough time to react to his hand suddenly finding its way under your chin, he tilts it up to get a better look at you, or perhaps to draw your attention fully on him. 

“Though I wonder, princess, is it really because he’s busy…….Or because he would rather not spend time with you?” The hair at the back of your neck stands. Looking into Tartaglia’s unwavering gaze, your eyes widen for a fraction of a moment before getting your bearings back. Before reminding yourself that you have to put on an act, to let everyone else know that you and Scaramocuhe were a perfectly normal couple. 

“H-He’s just busy…”

Tartaglia’s eyes narrows, as if searching for a flaw in your otherwise perfect show. He leans in closer, a whisper already on his lips. “What a pity then, missing out on such beaut–”

The way that Scaramouche grabs Tartaglia’s wrist from your chin and flings it away, and the way that he roughly pulls you backwards by the shoulder. It was rather unprincelike and crass, but you were already used to Scaramouche’s mannerisms. 

There’s a quick flicker of murder in Scaramouche’s eyes, but only Tartaglia sees it, earning an amused grin from the Snezhnayan Prince. “Ah, sorry, I was merely…enamored,” Tartaglia offers easily, as if not perturbed at all by what had transpired. 

It doesn’t help that they were in a public gathering, prying eyes were already turning their way. You take a quick glance around you and back towards the two men in front of you, Scaramouche wedged in between you and Tartaglia, the former with his hand balled up on his side, and the latter pleasantly smiling, as if nothing had happened at all. 

You step up and wrap both your hands around Scaramouche’s fist gently, whispering “…We should… step back,” another way of telling him that escalating would not do anything for anyone. He listens quite readily and unfurls his fisted hand, grabbing yours before exclaiming, “We’re leaving,” and tugging on it, leaving you no choice but to follow.

“I’ll see you next time then, princess,” Tartaglia still waves at you as you pass by, though he didn’t give any greeting towards Scaramouche, you merely give the taller man an apologetic smile.

It’s uncomfortably silent in the carriage. You sit there replaying the short but sudden scene, of Tartaglia nearly nose to nose with you at how close he’d been, and the rage that Scaramouche barely hides. It was not Tartaglia on your mind, or how he’d blatantly flirted with you–somehow you got the impression that he was just that kind of person. Instead, it was Scaracmouche’s rather…unusual reaction that had your mind going back and forth with questions.

Why was he so angry? 

Unbeknownst and sat across from you, the prince thinks the same thing. He watches the scenery outside the carriage, letting the silence fester between the two of you. No one had said a word about it yet. You only had the courage to once the two of you stepped out of the carriage. “…Are you alri–”

“Don’t be disillusioned,” He cuts off, his back facing you. “What I did back there had nothing to do with you, in fact you can go right ahead and kiss him in private.” He swerves around, familiar snarl on his face and yet, it was much, much more menacing. Like staring at the open mouth of a lion, about to tear your face in half. “It was to uphold my authority, what would others think if I let him do that? And you–!” 

He grit his teeth before continuing, “You stood there doing nothing, knowing that the other nobles were watching!” You’re rendered frozen at his words, whatever thought you had that Scaramouche might have been a little jealous, just even the tiniest amount, washed away from your mind. 

“Let me make this clear to you, Y/N. Out in public, you’re married to ME, so act like it!” There’s a harsh comeback on your tongue, about to berate him for the fact that HE doesn’t act like the two of you are married, but he continues first. “Your private time, it doesn’t concern me, you can meet up with whoever you want and do whatever the hell you’d like with them, and I’ll do the same,” he spits his next words out with intensity.

“Play.your.role.”

And he walks, leaving you standing there for a moment longer, numb and blank. It slowly dawns on you that there was nothing in his heart for you. You were a pawn, just like his knights, servants and maids. You were merely a pawn who had the life of a princess. 

“We’ve all come from royal and pure blood, and then you, tainted and filthy like where you came from–there’s no way the prince would ever love you!”

The words echo in your mind as you find your way back to the bedroom, Scaramouche nowhere to be seen. You didn’t have it in you to cry, thinking that when you wake up, these few months had just been a big nightmare, and everything would be back to normal in your quiet and quaint house in the village. 

You fall asleep, more exhausted than you have ever been and the hope in your heart merely a dying and suffering small flame. 

As you slept, the sky rumbles, the beginnings of a terrible thunderstorm covering the country. 

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: not much actually, it’s a pretty slow chapter, just a transition to the next “arc” as I would call it hahahaha, lots of interaction between reader and Scaramouche though

Word Count: 2.4k

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

Were you proud of yourself for causing a scuffle between two princes? No. Well, maybe. Just a little. 

It didn’t last long though. Tartaglia was just as shocked as you were when he realized Scaramouche punched him, but he was up on his feet in the next second and grabbed Scaramouche by the collar managing to scuff his chin before the two of them were pulled apart.

And so here you were, sitting in your shared room with Scaramouche as Kuni retrieved ice for him. There’s still an annoyed look on his face, glaring at nothing in particular, his chin a little red from the contact. Still, it was nothing compared to Tartaglia’s bleeding nose. You were sure it would bruise beautifully. 

“…You didn’t have to punch him, you know,” The whole thing was 100% unprincelike and the two would surely be the talk of the country for the next few weeks. In your normal world, however, guys getting into scuffles wasn’t really an unusual thing. 

“…I didn’t do it for you,” Scaramouche stated rather easily. There he was again with his “this has nothing to do with you” speech. The last time he said that was…

“What I did back there had nothing to do with you, in fact you can go right ahead and kiss him in private.”

You winced a little at the irony because Tartaglia had indeed gone ahead and kissed you. Scaramouche didn’t know that, in fact, you wondered if you should say something about it, but decided that you wouldn’t say anything if not asked. 

You mock glared at Scaramouche’s stubbornness. “Okay? Why’d you punch him then?” you challenged, crossing your arms above your chest. 

“Because he annoys me,” he answers immediately, not even a second after your question.

You pursed your lips because you were sure he was lying. He was clearly irked, he had definitely sensed that something was wrong and that Tartaglia was the culprit. “Liar,” a smirk threatens to appear on your face.

Scaramouche half growls and half grumbles. “Drop it or I’ll punch you next,” He absolutely had no excuse ready, and so opted to get you to stop talking about the incident and move on with it instead. Still, there was a nagging at the back of his mind, he wanted to ask what exactly happened, but your stifled laughter breaks him out of thought. 

“You wouldn’t,” There is an incredibly, loopy, wide grin on your face. One might think that you had too much alcohol, but in reality you were just incredibly relieved and reassured. The incident had proven something about Scaramouche. 

He might threaten people but he wouldn’t actually raise a hand against anyone…Well, not unless necessary. 

The picture of him socking Tartaglia on the face replays in your head. It was rather satisfying to recall. 

Kuni strolls in a second later and hands the ice wrapped in a towel over to the prince. “Unusual that you would get into a scuffle, milord. Highly out of etiquette rules, though you don’t usually follow them,”

Scaramouche lets out an annoyed sigh. Not wanting to talk about it anymore and yet the topic just kept going back to it. “…I’ve always had a personal hatred towards him,” Scaramouche simply explains, to which Kuni hums in understanding. “I suppose that’s true…Though I don’t see why you would choose to attack him now… as opposed to the hundreds of other times you had the chance,” 

You hid a smile behind your hand, pretending that the side of your lip itched when in reality you just couldn’t stop from enjoying Scaramouche dig a deeper hole for himself. Thankfully, Kuni is considerate of the time.

“I’ll leave the two of you to rest, milord.” Kuni bows towards Scaramouche, then towards you. “Milady, have a good evening,” 

You return the sentiment before going back to watching Scaramouche ice his chin. Another curtain of silence falls over the two of you, though, strangely, it was a comfortable one this time. With him sitting back on the armchair and you relaxed on the sofa adjacent to him, it almost felt like a normal morning in a mundane living room.

“I told you, didn’t I? Not as nice as you thought he was, wasn’t he?” Scaramouche’s accusatory tone wasn’t hidden and he had directed it at you. You expected an ‘I told you so,’ from him. He was RIGHT and you were wrong, of course he was going to shove that in your face. 

Scaramouche met your eyes, wanting to gauge your reaction because he had no idea what really happened. Your sudden meekness and the way you reacted to Tartaglia’s presence was enough to tell him something had transpired, but did it mean that it was something displeasing or offending? Scaramouche merely equated your uncomfortable manner to something disagreeable, whether he actually had proof of that was arguable. 

You leaned back into the sofa and played with your fingers, having trouble admitting that you were terribly wrong about the guy. “…No…Not nice at all,” you whispered, replaying the events in fast forward. Just the thought of it made you want to shudder. 

You figured it was also a calculated move by Tartaglia, to have led you away from the crowd. He had most likely thought about the fact that Scaramouche wasn’t around either. All of that piled up told you that the Snezhnayan prince was craftier than you thought. 

“He’s planning something,” Scaramouche changes the angle of the ice on his chin. He realizes he’s actually holding a normal conversation with you and perhaps that was because there was an impending doom that he feels in his veins. Something was about to happen and he didn’t know what it was, just that his gut feeling was telling him that it wasn’t the best time to make enemies or engage in squabbles with you. 

So, at the very least, he took Kuni’s advice.

“I only offer suggestions, my lord, but perhaps, when she’s well and awake again, you might consider learning a bit more about her…She may one day be your greatest ally. Your father is a great king, prince, but there were also many a times he would turn to the queen for guidance and support,”

“So if he told you something you’d better tell me what it is,” though, Scaramouche’s rough way of talking wasn’t something he could change. You’d just have to put up with that. You hesitated, looking away from him icing his chin but relayed to him of what Tartaglia said, leaving out the bits about what he had done to you, and told him only the conversation that you thought was important: Tartaglia thought that he had full entitlement to Scaramouche’s electro vision.

“As I thought, he’s still obsessed with it,” he mutters, loud enough for you to hear. He went inside his head for a moment, wondering if it really was Tartagla who shot the arrow meant for him, or at least if he was the one who plotted it. Scaramouche tried picking up pieces and throwing them together to form some sort of picture, some sort of clue as to what the Snezhnayan Prince was planning. But he couldn’t grasp at a full one, and all he could do was speculate. 

“…He seems to think I’ll help him, or something,” You added after a moment of thinking, recalling that Tartaglia was largely disillusioned–almost like he was hallucinating really–about what you thought of him. Sure you did appreciate his niceness and his stories at one point and even enjoyed listening to him, but… the way he spoke as if you belonged to him, in the same way that he thought Scaramouche’s electro vision was rightfully his…it was a little unsettling.

“What do you mean?” Scaramouche asks, and you falter a little.

“Well…I…” you pause, remembering word for word what Tartaglia said, despite your embarrassment. 

“…Although, I must say…there’s something else of his that’s caught my interest these days…”

“…And you’ll help me, won’t you, dear Y/N?”

Scaramouche would describe the feeling as wanting to gag in his throat. It was such a cheesy line, but he didn’t have any visible or verbal response to you sharing that information.

He was back to pondering things in his own world. You could see it in the way his eyes stared at nothing, yet flickered about from time to time. Scaramouche wondered if Tartaglia had you in some kind of bigger picture, if you were part of his plans or if he was just using you as a decoy. Did the Snezhnayan prince really take an interest in you? Or was he feigning it so that his real motive was hidden? Pretending to be interested in you so that the attention was there, and not on his real goal. 

“It’s late, there’s no use thinking about it right now,” You finally broke his peace and he flicked the cold and damp towel onto the table in front of the two of you, the ice having melted already. He stood, hesitated, but opened his mouth to say “Stop getting into so much damn trouble,” as if you had any control over it. 

You huffed and slightly glared up at him. “Well excuse me for saving your life,” He acted as if he didn’t hear that statement but he continued to stand there as if tossing an idea back and forth in his mind. Finally, he opens his mouth, but is slow when stating his plan.

“You have to learn how to fight,” You thought he was joking, your mouth already forming into a humorous smile, but his eyes held yours and the only thing you could see was seriousness. 

“What? What for?” Your eyes narrow in confusion, head tilting sideways slightly to accentuate it. Scaramouche sighs and darts his eyes towards the curtain covered windows of the room. It seems that there was more going on in that brain of his than you anticipated, and he just wouldn’t let you know what it was. 

“Just… a feeling,” your shoulders slumped, giving him a blank look, letting him know that his explanation was not enlightening at all, but he was frustrated with himself too. There was just something in him that thought things were going to go south very soon. “I told you, he’s planning something.”

“Well, the knights are here to protect me, aren’t they?” Scaramouche winced a little at your hopeful conclusion, but he offers you a fact that you haven’t thought about before.

“My mother and father are away at the moment. They’re accompanied only by our best knights… So the ones left here are…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, and instead starts a new one. “My parents are set to come back in a few weeks…but I suspect Tartaglia will have his plan in motion before then. He’s already made a bold move, trying to shoot me dead with an arrow,”

“That was him?” You immediately ask, and Scaramouche sighs again, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“No, I don’t know. There’s no evidence that it’s him, the arrow was analyzed and there was no links to him nor Snezhnaya, I just… and after what you told me about him, who else could it be?” He’s crossed his arms over his chest, and you look him over. For once, he didn’t look angry. Only wildly thoughtful, just as you’ve observed ever since you came back to the castle. Then you realize…maybe, maybe this is what vulnerability looks like on him. 

It’s subtle, he doesn’t give off the fact that he’s worried, but it suddenly registers in your mind that he’s rambled–or at least his version of rambling–he’s talking to you. He’s confiding in what’s bothering him.

Your eyes widen a little as it dawns on you, looking up at him almost with awe in your expression. He doesn’t notice it at all. Your body relaxes and a small smile appears on your lips. “Well, like I said, it’s too late to think about it right now. Let’s talk about it again tomorrow,” You stand and excuse yourself, disappearing into the bathroom to freshen up for a good 20 or so minutes. 

You take turns, and once he’s done, clad in his silk, purple sleeping attire and sitting on his side of the bed, toweling his still damp hair, you lay on your side looking at his back. Pondering on certain things that he said, you ask “…Why would your mom and dad leave the kingdom without its best knights?” 

His arms slow down on drying his hair, “…Because Kuni is here and so am I,” the light shuffling sound of the towel encompasses the room until he speaks up again. “With my vision, I can fight well enough to take down armies…” The towel slips to his shoulders and he moves on to patting his face dry. 

“…Then aren’t you enough to protect me?” From your view of his back, you can tell that he’s frozen up, his arm has stopped moving. Slowly, he drops the towel altogether and tethers his hand to the bed. 

“Battle…War. It gets messy,” he offers a non-answer. “…My obligation is to the kingdom so if a war does happen… I have to be at the front,” that was a clearer answer to you. He had such ways to go around a question, to indirectly tell you that he can’t be guarding you 24/7. But did it mean that he wanted to? That fact was unclear. His answer was largely biased towards his kingdom, and not towards you. 

Then you hear him click his tongue, he turns his head to glare at you. For a moment you think to yourself that you hadn’t seen that glare in a while. “Stop being an idiot trying to get away from combat training. I’ll get Kuni to start training you on the basics so just shut up and do it. Stop complaining,” 

You don’t get offended like the other times, instead you tried not to smile, secretly biting the inside of your lip as he grumbles to himself but gets in bed. You close your eyes and say nothing more of his demands only a simple and slightly mocking “Yes, sir,” to which you hear a slight growl at. 

You must have been more tired than you thought. Closing your eyes was enough to lull you into a comfortable sleep. 

You and him don’t realize it, but it’s possibly the very first time the two of you have fallen asleep facing each other.

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: Just lots of dialogue and retelling in this chapter, not much actual Scaramouche in this story. Little Scaramouche makes an appearance for like, 20 cute seconds, haha. We’re going to the main action plot, so it’s not really sunshine and daisies, tw: death, does not follow the actual genshin lore but takes ideas from it, this is kinda looking more like a royal+fantasyAU hahaha sorry.

Word Count: 2.1k words

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

“…and that’s what he said!”

You were clutching the blanket resting on your lap, looking towards Kuni who had a shocked look on his face.

“The prince…he told you this on his own accord?”

“Yes!”

Kuni fell silent. 

There was no one else in the room aside from him and you. 

Yet again, Scaramouche had done a disappearing act. 

It seemed to be his only way of solving things: avoiding them.

Scaramouche saw the horror in your face when he told you, and instantly thought that he had made a mistake. He shouldn’t have told you. He shouldn’t have said anything. He was supposed to be the one to tell you the story, but the look in your eyes reminded him of the ghosts in past. “Just… ask Kuni about it,” then he left. 

You ended up not having an appetite. Confused and rattled at the same time.

“Apologies, princess,” Kuni started with a sigh “…It’s not what it seems, perhaps when you’re all better I can explain the story to you–”

“Kuni,” you looked at the older man, stubborn persistence in your eyes. “I have to know. Right now,” 

Kuni observed you for a moment, then glanced around the room, looking for a chair. He drags one over, closer to your bed, a solemn look on his face. “If at any time you feel unwell, do say so,” he clears his throat. “The prince doesn’t know how to express himself. So I believe he was…not threatening you, but instead he was merely trying to share an incident of long past…”

I never thought I’d talk about this again.

You were getting perturbed. It was like you couldn’t trust anyone around you. Being rude is one thing, but being a murderer was a completely different problem. 

“It’s not what he makes it to be,” Kuni closes his eyes, memory traveling far back into the depths, snatching at tiny snippets to retell. “Simply said, it was an accident. We…have not talked about it in a long time,”

Kuni opens his eyes, wearily smiling, eyes faraway and as if in a realm different from yours.

“The prince was, just as any child was: Jovial, curious and energetic. He ran around like other kids did, and played outside in the sun just the same. I suppose he did have more of a temper than the others did, but it wasn’t anything noteworthy. Just the usual tempers a child would go through,”

“Tartaglia! That’s not fair! You said I could be the seeker next!” A younger Scaramouche stomps his foot on the ground. The surrounding garden is peaceful, and the kids playing amongst themselves are roughly the same age. Tartaglia laughs apologetically. “Ah, yeah! I forgot! It’s okay, you can be next, okay? I promise!” 

Little Scaramouche puffs his cheeks out, but relents and looks for a hiding place while Tartaglia’s sister starts counting.

“Tartaglia’s father and Scaramouche’s father were good friends. The alliance between our two kingdoms were strong, we flourished with trade agreements, shared resources that the other didn’t have…I suppose that’s where the story starts. Snezhnaya ran across a discovery that was all too powerful,”

“…A fake vision?” Scaramouche’s father inspects the trinket. It looked just like the real thing.

“I wouldn’t call it a fake,” Tartaglia’s father hummed. “It works just like the real thing, potentially even more powerful…A delusion, as I call it,”

“…And what are you planning to use it for?”

“Military force, of course! Without visions, our knights are mediocre at best.”

“You mean to say that you’ve given your knights delusions?” Scaramouche’s father asks with an air of worry.

“Hydro delusions. Made from my own hydro vision. You should see them! They’re stronger than they ever were, fueled by a power they never had! My friend, imagine if we could make delusions out of your electro vision,”

“Can I interrupt you for a second there?” Your voice cuts through Kuni’s retelling. “This…vision thing. Only the nobles have them, right?” 

Kuni doesn’t answer immediately. “Back then, we believed so, yes. That only the nobles were presented with such a power. However, times have changed, and we’re more open to the possibility that a vision can be granted to anyone who longed for it,”

“So…Scaramouche, the king and the queen, Tartaglia and his parents, they all have one?”

“Indeed they do. They saw it as a blessing granted to them,”

You tried not to show any apprehension or doubt in your face, but there must’ve been a hint of it appearing. A blessing, huh? You supposed it entirely depended on how people looked at it, because from where you sat and listened, it just sounded like a lot of responsibilities.

You signaled for Kuni to continue.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline, my friend,” Scaramouche’s father hands back the hydro delusion.

“Ah, well if you change your mind, the offer is always here,”

“It turns out that in order to make a delusion, they had to extract the element from a real vision, and so Tartaglia’s father was persistent in asking our king to lend the power of his electro vision…Our king, of course, declined. He was not the type of person to interrupt the natural flow of things…He felt that if humans interfered too much into powers that they didn’t understand, it might cause great disaster…”

You tried to follow where the story was going. From the way Kuni was telling it, it wasn’t difficult to figure out that something had gone wrong along the way. “…But the king was forced to use it, at some point?”

“Yes,” Kuni sighed. In his mind, the story is still fresh as it was yesterday. The happenings as if it just transpired. “Our peace continued, up until the neighbouring kingdom threatened to overtake us. See, we were but a small kingdom back then, milady. There was no possible way for us to fight back, not with our small military power…The King realized this…and took up the offer,”

“He agreed to make electro delusions out of his own vision?” you concluded wrongly for Kuni, who shook his head slowly.

“There was not enough time to produce electro delusions. So Prince Tartaglia’s father lent our king the hydro delusions that he already had on hand. There was no doubt about it, once our knights donned the hydro delusions, the war was over before it even started. The enemies had no chance at all. But…the king discovered a greater tragedy.”

“Accelerated aging…They’re losing their life force far too fast while using the delusions,” the royal doctor broke the news to the king, eyes filled with confusion and worry all at the same time. It was beyond the realm of what he had seen, never had he observed a human deteriorate in such a short time. 

“All of them?” the king asked in horror. Watching as three of his knights remained bed-ridden for days, their hair slowly turning grey. 

“It seems not. Particular people are weaker against the effects. Your captain, for instance, has yet to feel the effects of the delusions, but these three young men have been the hardest hit,” 

“…Take the delusions away. All of it. Return it back to Snezhnaya,” 

……….

Your head tilts up at the silence, eyes questioning Kuni when you realize that he had stopped. He seemed to be struggling with something, the same expression of contemplation appearing on his face just as it did yesterday on Scaramouche’s.

You give him time, and he breathes out a heavy sigh.

“I’m afraid…I still cannot fully explain in words what I experienced and saw that day…but the disaster happened before we could even return the delusions…Prince Scaramouche…managed to get his hands on one of the hydro delusions and…”

There’s a pregnant pause once again, and you finally feel like the story is reaching its peak. Suddenly, Kuni stands up. You sit up from your relaxed position as well, thinking that he was about to walk away and abandon the story, but he lifts his shirt up halfway.

There, on his left abdomen, right at the edge of his waist, was a large puncture wound. New, pink and rubbery skin had tried to cover up the hole that was once there. The scar looked soft to the touch, and it was clear that the deformity would never be the same again. 

Your eyes were tacked on to it, the little pieces that Kuni told you melding together and forming a bigger picture. “That’s–”

“I was the captain of the knights back then,” Kuni suddenly continued, dropping his hold on the fabric. “…but I was called in far too late. When I arrived, the prince…had already taken two lives,” 

You didn’t gasp, nor did you sigh. You didn’t notice that you were holding your breath.

“He was just a child, yet the delusion took to him. He was a completely different being, wrapped in an aura that wasn’t his…I was the only one who managed to wrestle the delusion away from him. When he awoke, he recalled no such events… However, with blood on his hands and the wound on my side, he quickly realized what he had done…”

Fear, or sorrow? The two were battling within you and you hadn’t a clue which one was winning. 

“The prince changed after those events. And the king… took me out of knight’s duty and placed me as the prince’s guardian.”

Never had you heard silence with such an intensity. 

“The incident was covered up easily…Aside from the prince, the king and the queen…Only I knew what truly transpired that day…I suppose it’s one of our kingdom’s biggest sins…to not properly honour those who fell in that tragedy…”

You couldn’t help but place a hand on your mouth and sink back to lean on the bed’s headboard, trying to picture the scene in your mind. Trying to process the entirety of the situation. How to feel about it. What to make of it. What it meant for you and for others.

I can’t pretend that I’m okay with this…

You see a flash of Scaramouche’s glare in your mind.

I can’t pretend that I’m not scared… but…does everything that happened really justify the way he treats people in the present? Shouldn’t he be more…understanding?

“…So he’s got issues to work on,” you manage to mumble out your first thoughts, and to your surprise, Kuni chuckles. 

“I’m glad you think so, milady,” he starts to move the chair back to where it was supposed to be. “But do not be mistaken…it isn’t your job alone to remedy his problem.” Kuni doesn’t give any more explanation other than that. There was still much to say, but he gathered that the conversation had to be between you and the pince.

“I know you have a lot to think about, princess, so I’ll take my leave. The questions and thoughts you have right now, and the one’s you come up with can wait… I suppose the prince may have more answers and insights into it, now that he’s grown up,” 

“Hardly grown up…” you mutter, and melt back down on your bed, closing your eyes to really internalize the story. “Thank you, Kuni,”

He gives a small sound of understanding before you hear him excuse himself, the sound of the door opening and closing indicating to you that he’d left. 

The silence helped.

For a moment you laid in bed. Draped your arm over your eyes and merely let yourself…exist. 

You asked yourself why Scaramouche always had the worst of timings. 

Just when you think everything was going to be okay, he had the uncanny talent of making everything unravel again. 

Why does he have to tell me…Does it have anything to do with the attempted assassination? And why now? Does he think I’m about to die or something, and this is the last chance he gets to confess? 

You huffed to yourself. Thanking the Gods that your body and wound didn’t burn as much as it did anymore, but it still took a lot out of you. Though, you couldn’t completely blame him. It was you, after all, who had a moment of sheer panic in front of him, thinking you were about to take your last breath through that coughing fit. He didn’t offer any kind words, but you remember the feeling of his hand behind your head.

That really happened, I wasn’t imagining it.

That moment of vulnerability you showed. Was that what caused him to reach out? The possibilities and theories of whys and how comes were not decreasing. The more you thought about it, the more questions popped up. 

In some senses, your relationship with Scaramouche was exactly the same.

You learned more about him, yet nothing about him all at the same time.

He was an infuriating mystery. 

And your final thoughts before you decided to leave it for now and focus on your recovery:

That’s what I get for marrying a stranger, I guess.

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Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: you might feel overwhelmed by this chapter but give it a chance and I promise I’ll cut you some slack in the next one hahahahahhaha, seems yandere but it really isn’t, secrets will be revealed in the next chapter so sit tight (any speculation or theories tho?), does not follow genshin lore, mentions of murder and killing.

Word Count: 2.6k words

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

“You didn’t answer my question,” was the first thing you said when he walks in. For someone who had just been struck in the chest with an arrow, with poison still running in her veins, you were feisty as ever. 

He raised an eyebrow at you, watching as you struggled to heave yourself up by your elbows just to look him in the eye. “What question?” he counters.

“I asked if you were fine,”

“And I answered, what do you mean?”

Forget about support, he was already getting pissed. That spunky attitude of yours was coming out despite your condition, even more when you rolled your eyes. The wince that followed a second after didn’t earn you any sympathy from him. Your elbows caved and you ended up lying on your back again. 

“I meant, are you hurt?” Once again, you try sitting up, the maid nearby finally helps you as you do so and props a pillow behind your back. You mutter a quick thanks before turning your head back to Scaramouche, who looked intensely vexed. 

“You’re asking ME if I’m hurt? Have you looked at yourself?” He was actually, seriously angry and you couldn’t understand why he was barking at you despite your concern. 

“Well, prince, if I was going to die I’d like to at least think I died for something.” Sarcasm was evident in your tone.

“You’re not a hero, stop talking like one!” His glare intensifies, donning his signature look. 

“Not a hero? I—cough—literally pushed you out of death’s way,” your voice croaked by the end of it, marking the start of a fit of coughs. The screaming and shouting competition was temporarily on hold.

Scaramouche walks closer to your bed and waves at the maid, dismissing her and leaving the two of you alone in the room once again. “That’s what you get for talking too much, shut the hell up for a minute and lay back down,” he says while pouring you a glass of water for the second time that day, sitting on the edge of the mattress, waiting for your coughing fits to die down before he passed it off to you.

But it didn’t die down. 

You kept heaving and coughing and you could feel your chest giving out, so tired of the constant battering your lungs was taking. The coughs were so severe, sounding as if you were trying to dislodge something from your throat, though there was nothing there. You panicked at some point, you just couldn’t take a proper breath in between those coughs, and Scaramouche was starting to get restless, not sure what to do.

‘What’s happening?’ he thought to himself.

“Scara–cough–” You hack out a choked cough and gasp for momentary air, it was getting hard to breath, and in a herculean effort to hold on to something, anythingthat tethered you to this world, something to give you the illusion that you were going to make it through, you pushed forward with whatever strength you had left and latched on to him.

The glass of water in his hand swished, droplets of it wetting his fingers. Your hands clutched at his cloak, your head pressed against his shoulder, eyes shut tight. 

You’d never been this close to him before, neither had you been so close to death.

“I don’t want to die–cough–” Fear was instilled in your every vein just as the poison was. The horror that dawned on you when you realized you were sicker than you thought. 

What was there after death? Were there stars? Was there anything to be felt at all? Pain? Happiness? Fear? Was it just floating along in the darkness forever?

You didn’t want to know. Not yet. And it was terrifying to think about. Despite how hard it had been for you the past few months, there were still so many things you wanted to experience.

“Not like this–” and you heaved another gasp. Unaware that you were being treated for poison, you were confused as to why an arrow to the chest hurt this much. Your whole being was on fire, every breath you took was like swallowing a handful of lava and the coughs were knocking your breath away. 

“I don’t want to be alone when I go I–I want to see my parents, please,” 

He could hear the labour in your voice, the raspy breaths that sounded shattered. 

“I want to see them–just one last time, please,”

You were convinced that this was it for you. Your mind was not ready to go, yet you could feel the strength in your body dissipate. Tears escape your closed lids, making your breathing much more laboured than it already was.

And then, you felt a hand press on your head. 

Months of not having anyone comfort you, provide you with a touch that was reassuring had you freeze up for a moment before you realized what was happening.

Scaramouche was holding you. 

Connecting with you in a way that was unspoken yet spoke loud enough to soothe your heart and break it all at the same time. 

It’d been so long without someone else.

“Stop crying, you’re making it worse,” He’d put the glass down and used that hand to awkwardly touch your head, wondering if this was the right way to do it. When he felt that it hadn’t done any harm, he relaxed, and let his hand do tiny, barely discernable pats. It felt as if only his thumb was moving, but he was already trying his best.

“And you’re not seeing your parents, you want them to see you all pathetic like this?” he scoffed, looking at your concealed face, hidden on his shoulder. 

You gasped again, this time a mix of a sob and desperate breath of air. You were an utter mess. 

“You just need your antidote. Take deeper breaths so you stop hacking all over me and so you can take it,” he commanded, but neither of you moved. His hand still rested behind your head and you still held on to him for dear life. You did, however, listen to the advice of breathing deeper. 

‘Will the antidote really fix things though?’ Scaramouche is reminded of the doctor’s words. No guarantee.

Your throat was so raspy that every time you breathed in you were sent into a scratchy cough, but it was slowly getting better. 

A comfortable kind of silence wrapped around the two of you when your breathing finally evened out. Though, it seemed to have taken forever. Your hands eventually loosened its hold on his cloak and sleeve, and you finally moved away from your hiding position, eyes turned downwards to look at your hands, somewhat embarrassed at your earlier panic-stricken display.

Your face was tear-stained. On the crinkles of your eyes, on your cheeks, your chin. It quite literally was like water was sprayed on your face. Even your hair was disheveled. 

“Water and this,” he once again commanded and finally handed you the glass along with a small vial. You drank from both of it and returned it to him wordlessly. You’d pieced together what happened. You weren’t stupid. Antidote simply meant that you were poisoned, and when else could that have happened except for when the arrow entered your chest?

“Get back to sleep,” he said, giving out another order as if you were a knight instead of someone sick. His eyes, however, followed your demeanor closely. Watching if anything was amiss aside from your panicked frenzy earlier. 

You sank back down to bed, eyes already heavy and mind wavering, wanting to go back to a state of sleep. Scaramouche merely watched your eyes droop and close, but there’s a mumble on your lips. 

In your mind, you had already drifted away into your dreams. It felt so much better to close your eyes and rest, to not think about things too much, mind in a foggy state. “Are you leaving…?”

Scaramouche strains his ears to hear it, and still he couldn’t make out what you were saying. So, he leans closer to you and asks in his usual gruff way, “What?”

“ ‘r you leavin’” your eyes flutter open a split second, before it slowly caves in on itself again.

Scaramouche stays silent. Perhaps you’ll fall asleep and he wouldn’t have to answer, but curiosity got the better of him. “…Do you want me to leave?”

Your face scrunches up, but your eyes remain closed. On the verge of dreams and far from reality, without the usual insecurities and worries that one had while awake, it was safe to say that the censors you put on yourself were mostly gone. You answer quite truthfully, “no.”

His fist suddenly clenches the bed covers, there’s a warmth in his chest that hits him all too suddenly and without warning. 

She wants me here?

Are you still awake? He asks himself, would it be a stretch to ask you now? “Do you know who you’re talking to?” He blurts out, unable to really comprehend what you said. Perhaps you were imagining that he was someone else. 

Now it was your turn to be silent. Though, unlike him, it was mostly because you were already falling asleep, things were taking longer to process, but your head does a tiny nod and you mumble an easy and muffled “my grumpy husband,”

There was nothing much to it, just the truth. But why did such a simple statement of fact suddenly sound so…satisfying? Was it because you uttered it? Or was it the way you said it?

Scaramouche is certain that you’ve finally fallen asleep, and he sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair, sweeping it back and staring at the ceiling. 

When did things become so complicated? She’s just an accessory…

He wasn’t going to change. He knew that and you knew that. You knew exactly what you were getting into, and agreed into a loveless marriage because of the benefits it brought to your family. To your sick mother, specifically. And yet…thinking about the lifetime that Kuni talked of, it would certainly be a very long time.

Try as Scaramouche might to change his so-called “grumpy” ways, it was part of him, and it was just how he communicated, but still…there must be some sort of middle ground where the two of you could meet.

Not to make you or him feel better. Not because he sympathized with you, but it would probably be easier for him if you weren’t so emotional or unwilling to communicate–yes, he really thought you were the one who was difficult to understand, despite watching you easily socialize with the other nobles. 

He went to bed with those thoughts that night. Barely getting any sleep, mostly because he had decided on what to do, yet he wasn’t confident that this was the best action to take.  

It’s too late for her to turn back…

He woke up to a routine that he fell into ever since you got injured: Check your room, then go to breakfast. 

He was surprised to see that you were awake and standing at that, though the maid was trying to coax you back into bed. Looks like he came in at the right time. 

“What’re you doing?” he narrowed his eyes at you and you blinked at him innocently. 

“Going to breakfast, I’m really hungry,” Scaramouche breathes out an exasperated sigh. “You’re not going anywhere, they’ll bring breakfast to you,” and the maid takes that as a cue to leave and to do as he says.

You purse your lips a little, “I’ve been in bed for days, I can walk…”

Scaramouche doesn’t know if he imagines it or if it really happens, but his eye twitches. “This coming from someone who had a coughing fit yesterday? You really think you’re well enough?”

You open your mouth to say something back, but close it again when you realize he’s right. You might feel energetic now, but that could quickly change in a second. You were overestimating your body a little too much. You plop back down on your bed with a simple, “Fine,” like a teen who just lost a bet. 

“I almost forgot how hard-headed you are,” Scaramouche mumbles.

“You’re one to talk…” 

Silence falls over the two of you, just waiting for the maids to come back with your food. You were lost in thought for a moment, finally feeling that your mind was clearing up and your body was healing itself after days knocked out and bed-ridden. It was here that you were able to truly think about what transpired. 

The attack, the arrow, the suddenness of it. 

“…So…What really happened?” You manage to ask, and Scaramouche instantly knows what you’re enquiring about.

“It’s as you said, you played hero and took an arrow that was meant for me,” there’s an obvious condescending tone to his words, but you ignore it and instead continue your line of questions.

“Who was it? And why?” There must have been something bigger in play here, killing a prince was a huge offense, and it would lead to execution of the perpetrator. You see Scaramouche tense up at the question. Shoulders stiffening as if it was cold. 

“…We don’t know…” He simply answers and trails off, his tone indicating that he wasn’t done talking. “…but I have my guesses,” 

“So you know who it is?” you prod.

“No, it’s just speculation,”

With you sitting on the bed and him standing a few steps away from you, you see his head turn away, eyes upon the wide, clear-glass balcony doors. It’s not often you see a thoughtful look on his face. He seemed to be seriously considering something. His brows furrow and though he seems to be staring into space, you had a feeling he was just processing certain information in his mind, and you let him. 

It feels like a long while before he starts talking again.

“There’s…” something about the way he softly whispers his next words draws your full attention towards him. He was always easily heard. Not loud, but always enough to be audible. So when he whispered, it was rather unusual. “There’s something you need to know…”

This isn’t a love confession. You see it in the way he stiffly turns his gaze towards you, the way his face holds a darker expression than usual. He looks at you as if he’s looking at your very soul.

Trying to lighten up the atmosphere a little, you give a small smile and a nonchalant shrug. “Sure?” 

There’s every bit of confidence in you that it isn’t actually something too bad. After all, you’re married to a heartless prince, you’ve been struck by an arrow, you’ve been poisoned. How could it go down from there? 

There’s a heavy stillness. For some reason, you hold your breath as he starts speaking. 

His lips move. 

You expect it to be something about an enemy, something about a war between two kingdoms. You expect him to say that he knows who it is because it had happened before, or something at least to point out who the perpetrator was. 

Instead, the confession he makes is about himself.

“I’ve taken people’s lives,” Scaramouche doesn’t break eye contact with you. You’re not sure what hits you first, the shiver that runs up your spine, or the split second of fear that clenches your chest. 

“…What?” This isn’t good for your body, it feels as if you’re panicking again.

“…Which part do you not understand…?” His whole being changes. Where before, despite his anger and his frustrations, you felt as if he wasn’t much of a real threat. He was just an incredibly insensitive man.

But now, as he walks towards you, his gait is almost intimidating. “…I’ve killed people,” he stops, just an arm’s length away from you. “…Do you wanna know how?”

The maids–oblivious to the conversation that had just transpired–knock on the door and open it as you continue to dazedly stare up at Scaramouche’s face. The cogs in your mind are struggling to work, but it tries to get to a conclusion:

You’re married to a cold-blooded man.

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: NOT PROOFREAD forgive me, longer than usual, a bit of fluff I guess?, medieval Karen alert

Word Count: 3.2k

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

You were distinctly aware that Scaramouche had sat next to you on the carriage enroute to the annual celebration. Before then, he’d always sat across you instead. Why were you paying attention to such details anyway? You’d been telling yourself not to overthink things, but it seems as if your mind just loved to wander,  especially after that small moment yesterday night. 

Try as you might to pretend that last night was nothing, probably just him being moody again, something inside you stirred in a way that had you curious, bordering on wondering if Scaramouche was actually starting to warm up to you…or maybe, possibly, even something more. 

You shook your head vigorously at the thought.

“What’re you doing?” Of course he had to notice and of course he had to give you a weirded out look. 

Your eyes darted towards and away from him all at once. “Uh…Nothing,” and then it was silent in the carriage again, up until the two of you arrived at the venue. 

It was a special one, unlike any other that you’ve been to before it actually looked simpler, yet it was still quite large with intricate ceilings and chandeliers, exotic looking windows and long elegant tables of food and drinks. 

Your arrival had to be announced. It was Scaramouche’s day and his presence was of the utmost importance. For some reason that didn’t bother you too much, though a lot of the attention would be on you for the night. Unlike usual gatherings, much of the guests were younger people. Possibly around your and Scaramouche’s age rather than the older nobles and aristocrats. 

Perhaps it was for that reason that you felt like there were a lot more stares on you than usual. 

“The opening dance will start in a few,” Scaramouche warned you, your arm hooked around his, a standard stance when the two of you enter a venue. 

A somewhat familiar face stops in front of the two of you. You reach back into your mind to look for her name. Ah. Right. Amaya. The young noble who saw you as nothing but dirt under her feet. 

“How can a nobody like you become the princess? We’ve all come from royal and pure blood, and then you, tainted and filthy like where you came from–there’s no way the prince would ever love you!”

You’ve seen her a few more times after that, in the same ladies tea party, but she didn’t speak up as much, seeing as the other nobles started warming up to you, regardless of your background. Amaya, however, you could see in the way she stood in front of the two of you that she was out for trouble.

“Prince Scaramouche,” she curtsied towards him, and completely disregards your presence next to him. Scaramouche’s eyebrows raise up, also noticing the lack of greeting towards you. Amaya wouldn’t even glance at you.

“Happy birthday, I’ve brought an extremely valuable artifact as a birthday present. I’m sure it’ll be to your liking,” Amaya was rather graceful. They all were. She motions her hand towards her left for a server to come forward. A perfect looking square shaped gift wrapped in golden paper was atop the tray he was holding, red ribbon encircling it. 

“If I may be so bold as to suggest something…I don’t believe she’s fit to do the opening dance with you…I heard that she hasn’t had the proper noble upbringing. I’m sure it’s stressful for her too,” Amaya threw you a fake smile as your eyes widened a little. She was really doing this in front of you, JUST as the two of you walk in. The night had barely even started and it was starting out with this, insinuating that you were nothing but commoner trash, and she wasn’t even done talking yet. “If you’d like, I’m confident that I’ll be able to do the dance flawlessly,”

Even the server holding the gift looked uncomfortable with her words. There was no world in which it was appropriate to suggest to the prince that he should do the opening dance with someone else who WASN’T his wife. The beginning was already looking grim for you.

There was a moment of silence, and you were at a loss for what to say, not knowing how far you could go with your words. However, a short snort of laughter cut through the tension, your eyes darted sideways, realizing that it was Scaramouche. There was a wide grin plastered on his face and he was looking at Amaya as if SHE was the trash beneath his feet. His momentary snickering gradually turned into chuckles, and his chuckles bellowed into obnoxious laughter, his head tipped back like a villain.

Your eyes were wide while Amaya was making her declaration, but they were full blown saucers now, watching Scaramouche laugh like a maniac and everyone in close vicinity was looking at him, astounded as well. “S-Scaramouche?” You started, wondering if he had finally gone crazy.

His laughing abruptly stopped and he leveled his gaze towards Amaya. His glare was unlike anything you’ve seen before. Sure, he always had one on his face, but this one was vicious, like you could be poisoned with just one look. And then, with humor in his voice, he asked Amaya “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Amaya was frozen in a second, and you couldn’t help but tug at Scaramouche’s arm with your own, like a mother who was embarrassed. You whispered at him, “Scara, just leave it,” you tugged again, but he didn’t budge. “You’re a great example of why I didn’t marry a noble, conceited witch,” 

“Scaramouche!” You hissed, aware of the eyes that were already turned towards your small group. Amaya was looking paler by the minute but Scaramouche was looking more entertained by the second. 

“Listen carefully, either you apologize or you’re going to leave and count on it that your family will be wiped out of noble existence,” Scaramouche gave his final command and Amaya immediately blurted out, looking straight at Scaramouche “I-I’m sorry! I apologize,” almost as if she didn’t know what was happening. 

But Scaramouche sneered, tipped his head sideways towards you and exclaimed, “to her,”

Amaya was horrified, but she still turned towards you, finally meeting your eyes and curtsied. “I-I-I” she seemed to be having some trouble.

“Now!” Scaracmouche was ruthless in his demands, and Amaya finally breaks.

“I apologize, princess!” you could hear the tremble in her voice. Shamed and embarrassed, she turned around and fled to the restrooms, you could almost see her watery eyes in your mind’s eye. The server was left standing there with the gift and Scaramouche clicked his tongue. “Throw that out, I want nothing from that family,” and finally tugged at you to retreat over to one of the tables with drinks. 

Scaramouche unwound his arm from yours and took one of the champagne glasses flawlessly, taking a sip from it as if nothing had happened and you were left staring at him, jaw slack and open. “Scaramouche, you can’t just–” you blinked, and looked around to see if anyone was staring at the two of you, then your eyes darted between crowds to see if you could catch a glimpse of Amaya again. Strange enough, part of you felt bad, despite the fact that Amaya was the one who struck first.

“Quit looking so worried, I’m the crown prince,” Scaramouche watches as your eyebrows scrunch up in worry. He doesn’t understand what’s got you so riled up or anxious. “Don’t waste your time over that hag.” and he meant it. You knew because his hand flew over to your chin and forced your gaze away from the crowd and towards him. “Stop. Forget about it,” 

Easy for him to say. He must be so used at making people feel like crap. You opened your mouth to say something, but he spoke sooner than you did. “If she isn’t showing respect then she doesn’t deserve it either,” then he dropped his hand away from your chin, but your gaze stayed on Scaramouche. Your shoulders relaxed. He had a point, but it was really strange coming from Scaramouche’s mouth. 

It’s as if when it came to other people he knew what the rules were, but for himself…it’s like etiquette didn’t matter. He could be rude and snappy all day long and yet he wouldn’t expect anyone to talk back to him.

You took in a long breath while closing your eyes and sighed it out just as slow. You kept your eyes closed for a moment longer before opening them with a half defeated and half accepting grin. “Alright, fine…I’ll just…wipe everything over, pretend it didn’t happen and get on with this party,” then you set your hand out to him. “Opening dance?” Suddenly you had the determination to show others that you DID know how to do the opening dance properly. Amaya be damned.

Despite being in close proximity of each other during the actual opening dance, it didn’t have the same intimacy as it did the night before. Perhaps because there were people looking at the two of you, scrutinizing the dance and probably whispering about how the two of you had no chemistry at all, or something. Nevertheless it ended without a hitch, and unlike the night before, you and Scaramouche came apart as soon as the dance finished, but your hands stayed together as you walked off the dance floor and onto another table with food.

He glanced sideways at you. “You were a little stiff,” he commented and you swerved your head towards him with a glare. 

“I was nervous, what do you expect?” It didn’t really feel great to be told that when you were so determined to show others that you had “perfected” the dance. 

“…It wasn’t a poor performance…but being stiff just makes you…heavier,” Scaramouche continued to talk as if he didn’t know he was digging his own grave.

“Oh now you’re calling me heavy! That doesn’t even make sense–I’m the same weight all throughout the dance!” you hissed at him and he turns to look at you with a blank look on his face as the two of you walk, though it looks as if he’s about to say something mischievous.

“…Then maybe you’re just naturally heav–”

“Prince Scaramouche! Princess Y/N!” You fumed at him, though he didn’t finish his sentence, he has a grin on his face. The two of you turn to see Kokomi curtsying towards the two of you. Your mood instantly brightens up. 

“Kokomi!” You can’t help but break away from Scaramouche’s hold on your hand and greeted Kokomi with a hug. She seemed like such a good break from a terrible start of the evening. Kokomi receives it and greets Scaramouche as well. 

“Happy birthday, prince,” she nodded and Scaramouche only let out a hum. “It seems like the two of you are getting along better these days,” Kokomi comments as you slide away from her hug and back to Scaramouche’s side.

“Nonsense.” Scaramouche pipes up right at the same time as you say “Hardly.” with a roll of your eyes. But Kokomi giggles, hiding her laugh behind her hand and moves on to a different topic. She fetches a black box from her sleeve, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand and hands it over to Scaramouche. “It’s done, milord. There should be no issues whatsoever with it,” She sounded so proud, but you had no idea what was in the box, and Scaramouche looked as if he didn’t have an idea too.

So, the first thing he did was receive it, and opened the top. There were two rings resting inside the velvet of the box. One was clearly for a female. A simple, silver band ring with a pearl embedded into the middle. The other was a larger and thicker ring. It was silver as well, but it had a mysterious sheen to it, like it wasn’t completely made of silver. 

Then it hit Scaramouche, a quiet “Oh,” escaping his lips. He closed it back and pocketed the box of rings. Kokomi looked far too pleased with herself. You only blinked, confused. “Is that… a gift?” you asked the two of them. 

Scaramouche doesn’t answer but Kokomi gives you an explanation. “For generations, our clan has been tasked to make pearl rings for the future king and queen. These rings are exchanged during the first birthday in which the prince has been wedded. They’re quite special, you see. The Sango pearls we use are one of a kind, magical properties are infused into the material and…well, you’ll experience it yourself later,” 

“Oh,” you let out just like Scaramouche did earlier. “I didn’t know about that,” your gaze moves to Scaramouche, and he feels it on him, questioning him as to why he didn’t say anything about it earlier. 

“…I forgot,” he simply said, and you buy it but you deflate, wondering if he really was fit for the role of king. He just…didn’t know how to communicate with anyone. 

“Why was it not exchanged during the wedding instead?” You ask Kokomi curiously, who is oh-so happy to answer your questions. 

“Back then the rings were originally simple gifts from the Sangonomiya clan to the crown prince on his birthday. I suppose that tradition just stuck despite some changes on the rings itself. So, in a way, youcould say that it’s simply a birthday gift,” She brought her hands together with a pleasant smile. 

Come to think of it, the wedding rings that the two of you exchanged during the wedding were…fake. Just for show. You exchanged them during the ceremony but they were taken off as soon as the whole thing was over and you didn’t see them again. Perhaps these were like replacements, or maybe the real ones. 

“Perhaps the prince can explain more about the rings if time allows. Now then, I’ll have to catch up with you later, princess,” Kokomi curtsied again, and smoothly leaves the conversation. Without her there it’s as if the two of you are back to your gruff demeanors. 

You cross your arms on your chest and say “Well?” to fish out an explanation from Scaramouche. He lolls his head lazily towards you. “You’ll see later, they’ll make a big show of us exchanging the rings, after we cut my birthday cake.”

Oh great. You thought to yourself. The whole thing was quite literally a show. Scaramouche’s birthday show for all the young nobles to see. It was rather horrifying and just as you thought you didn’t mind the attention, it really did seem like all of it would be on you for the rest of the night. 

Surprisingly, you and Scaramouche seemed to share the same thought. He didn’t like these theatrics either, and so the two of you silently agreed to just hang out on one table together, discreetly eating some food unless a noble disturbed the two of you and engaged in conversation. However, these ones were not that adept at making long conversations. The young ones would say something about the weather, ask how the two of you were and would have nothing else to talk about and leave almost instantly. 

It was like a blessing in disguise. 

When Scaramouche’s birthday cake was rolled out, you had to tip your head up to see the entirety of it. It was a royal lavender colour, and you didn’t bother to count how many tiers there were, it looked as if one poke would tip it over.

The announcer was talking. Something about celebrating Scaramouche’s birthday and it being a joyous occasion. You tuned it all out cause all you were focused on was not making a fool of yourself while the others watched on and clapped in awe at how grand the cake was. 

Scaramouche was passed a knife and he took it. Then, with the knife still gripped in his hand he seemed to offer it to you. “We’re supposed to cut it together,” You blink at him but follow suit, lest you would just stand there like a fool. You placed your hand atop his which was holding the cutting knife and just followed as his hand hovered above the cake. There was a countdown, and both of your hands pushed down through a piece, making a clean cut and perfect slice.

That piece of cake was set aside on a plate, possibly for the two of you to enjoy later. The theatrics didn’t stop there. It was the ring exchange now, and Scaramouche still looked as bored as ever as he fished it out of his pocket. 

“May our hearts always be connected,” Your head jerks up as you hear Scaramouche utter the words. It takes you a moment to realize that he’s picking up your left hand, ring ready on his other. You can’t stop the goosebumps that rise behind your neck, making you shiver. The words seemed out of place in his mouth, with his expression so blank it’s hard to think that he’s sincere, but then his eyes hold yours, there seems to be a slight squeeze on your hand as he slips the ring around your ring finger. “…no matter the distance, you’ll always be protected,” 

He finished just as the ring rests snugly on your finger, and he takes a moment to admire it on your hand, still splayed atop his. 

The sentences he said were your short wedding vows, and though it’s your second time hearing it, there’s something different about it this time around. “I–” You start, when you realize that it’s supposed to be your turn. You remember yours clear as day, because the two of you had practiced it back then, endlessly. 

His eyes follow your every move, from the way you picked up his ring, to the way there was a slight tremble in your hand when you picked up his. “I vow to always be by your side…” Your hands are a little cold, he notes…and yet…why does he feel nothing but warmth, watching your lips move to recite the vows? “…To be your shelter, your strength…and your bride,”

As you place the ring in the correct place on his finger, the two of you move your head at the same time, meeting each other’s gazes. Your lips are slightly apart in wonder. 

When did it become easier to say those words?

“Y/N,” Scaramouche rarely says your name, but when he does it sounds like a delicacy. Something that you only enjoy once in a while. You realize he calls your name to warn you, your heart suddenly leaps out of your chest and starts galloping like a frenzied horse.

You’re supposed to kiss. Why did no one tell you about this?

Scaramouche’s hand easily rests on the side of your face. You don’t think you’re ready for this. You’re slightly panicking and you only hope it isn’t evident as he starts to dip closer–

BANG!

You startle and jump, instinctively clutching at Scaramouche’s coat when the ballroom starts to register that someone had come in rather forcefully. There are sudden whispers all around you and it seemed as if the atmosphere had changed drastically. Scaramouche still has his hand on your cheek when he turns to face the intruder striding towards the two of you. 

Prince Tartaglia approaches. 

In full armor and battle gear, knights following behind him.

You aren’t aware that the pearl on your ring suddenly glows a fiery red.

Scaramouche has time to glance at his, the pearl sheen on his ring turns dark, almost black under the light. Then, as if reading your emotions clearly, he states “Being afraid does nothing,” he drops the hand that was on your cheek, and subtly places himself in front of you as Tartaglia nears. “Besides, I’ll make quick work of this uninvited bastard,” 

Scaramouche grins, and it’s as if an unspoken war had just started. 

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: cliche training scenes lol, nothing much, very light chapter, light fluff you might not even see it, I guess you should squint a little lol, probably more noticeable in the next chapter after this

Word Count:2.8k

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

“What happened to training with Kuni?” 

Coming face to face with Scaramouche’s scowling face in the morning was not an unusual thing anymore. It was embedded into your routine, almost like breakfast in the morning. He was, however, clearly in a more sour mood than usual, glaring at you like that.

His jaw tightened at your question, and he grumbled out. “He had other things to do,” or, to put it simply, instead of Scaramouche forcing Kuni to train you, the reverse had happened.

Kuni had somehow put Scaramouche up to do the training instead. 

“Come on,” He didn’t wait for your response and turned to walk towards the lush green training area. It was a large and vast field, squared in by the high stone walls of the castle. You could see the battlements clearly from where you stood, the knights would occasionally walk back and forth from tower to tower on their patrol. 

Over the other side of the field was a large shed and a stable area. The faint sounds of hay being baled together and the subtle grind of hoof to soil was rather comforting. Like you were in the countryside rather than a big, old castle. 

The two of you ended up in the shed, which was actually an armory. It was stale smelling in there, but there was quite the selection of everything. Swords, bows, polearms, shields, light armor, heavy armor–anything you could think of was lined on the walls or propped up on a rack. 

By the time the two of you had returned to the middle of the field, he was carrying a few weapons on him, dumped it on the ground and handed you an arm shield. It wasn’t in the best condition, clearly used for practice purposes but you put it on your dominant arm and looked at him quizically. “I thought I was learning how to fight?” 

“Changed my mind,” he answered easily as he took the bow and arrow into his hands, leaving two swords on the grass, most likely for later. 

“Put your arm up, in front of your face,” Scaramouche instructed as he placed an arrow on the string, pulling back with his arm. His stance was impeccable and you realized that you hardly knew what weapon he was trained in. 

“What–” You immediately followed and shielded your head.

“Don’t move, I’m aiming at your shield. Move an inch and I might actually hit you,” 

You winced at his command, bracing your arm as best as you could. The sound of the string snapping and the arrow whistling into the air made you brace more, but you were still startled when it hit the shield with a PLINK, causing you to recoil backwards a tiny bit. 

There was a lot of force in there, for such a thin weapon, and you looked down at the ground at the arrow, now resting on the grass, stopped short by your shield. 

You didn’t realize that small moment had your heart racing already. You were about to ask what the big deal was, suddenly deciding to shoot an arrow at you, but Scaramouche had cut you off before you could even ask.

“Tartaglia uses a bow, and his stance is unquestionably better than mine,” He drops the bow to his side and looks you up and down, thinking to himself that you’d need to be given custom armor. Nothing in the armory would fit your stature, but you needed that extra layer of protection. “He isn’t going to aim at your shield, and he isn’t going to shoot just one arrow,” he continues.

“…So you want me to practice guarding from arrows,” You slowly concluded, looking down at the shield strapped around your forearm, twisting it to take a better look. There was no dent on it at all, just scratches from previous uses.

“Guarding from it, deflecting it, parrying it, dodging. Whatever.” He picks the bow up again and starts to load an arrow onto the string. “You’ll have to get used to the impact first. Raise it up,” He nods his chin upwards to tell you to guard again, and that’s how training started. 

He was surprisingly amicable during training. Almost as if… he enjoyed it. Like he was familiar with the routine and knew what to do, unlike his social awkwardness, he was at home here on this field, with those weapons in his hands. 

You weren’t quite sure if that was a good or bad thing. 

He imparted tips and gave you certain instructions to do certain maneuvers, some of which you butchered and got a scolding for. He had to “lower the level” so much that he got pissed at some point, but he continued to train with you. 

“…Let’s move on to the sword…” He sounded as if he was disappointed in your performance. The sun was high up in the sky when he decided that, and you, unused to the training regimen, requested for a break. 

“Can we take a short break?” You heaved out, droplets of sweat trailing down your forehead. He looked at you, took a second, and rolled his eyes. “Fine,” again unimpressed at how unfit you were for training.

You, on the other hand, was quite literally dying. Training itself wasn’t all that difficult. It was just really hot, and the lack of wind wasn’t helping today. You trudged up to a nearby tree, leaned against its trunk and sighed at the comfort of the shade. Scaramouche stayed out in the field, but you watched as he raised his hand over to a knight and exchanged words with him. 

You spent the next couple of seconds catching your breath, glancing at Scaramouche as he tried the sword around, hearing the occasional sound of blade cutting through air. A moment later, there was suddenly a maid by your side, holding a pitcher of water and a glass full of it. “Milady,” 

“Oh, thanks,” You were caught off guard, but instantly connected the dots that Scaramouche had requested for it. Water definitely helped and you took a swig of two full glasses before you got out on the field again. 

Scaramouche had been thinking out there on the field while you rested. There was no way you were going to learn how to parry an arrow with a sword at such a short amount of time, but learning some offensive moves might come in handy at some point, and the sword was likely the easiest one to handle with your stature. 

“What weapon do you usually use?” He turns his head to see that you’re back with him, and he stops brandishing the sword. 

“…I don’t have a preference…” it was a strange answer, but it also told you that he had probably practiced with every weapon imaginable. He sure seemed familiar with a sword, but he also knew how to use a bow and arrow. 

He handed you the other sword, and the two of you started again. He stayed on simple moves, because that’s all you could really handle, and you even struggled with it. He didn’t complain much. It was as if he accepted and finally realized that you were a horrid fighter, or just a normal person with no fighting background. 

“That’s not–” He narrowed his eyes at the way you held the sword. It was rather unremarkable, and your grip wasn’t tight enough. He didn’t think much of it when he strode over and corrected your stance. His hand moved above yours and tightened your hold around the hilt, his thumb pressing down on your own. 

“One hand is usually enough, but for you…” His other free hand motions for your other one to come up and around the hilt, and again he places his atop yours, moving it a little to show you the correct way to hold it, and pressing warmly on the back of yours to show you the amount of grip you were missing. “Here, and further up you’re supposed to…” 

He was talking but for some reason you couldn’t quite comprehend what he was saying, like a blur of words in your ear. He was just… so close and you were sure as hell he wasn’t even thinking about it, but his hands were surprisingly strong yet comforting. He smelled a little like cinnamon and you could smell it even stronger when he moved his arm around you to lift your right elbow a little, talking about some type of stance that was not registering in your mind. 

“…Are you even listening?” He lightly growled, snapping you away from your reverie. 

“Yeah! I’m–I’m holding it too low, you said,” You thanked the Gods that you were at least able to catch some parts of his sentences, and he looked at you suspiciously before peeling away from you, his body heat coming off, hands sliding away and suddenly you felt exposed without him circled around you.

“Whatever…You’re too weak. That’s all you can handle today,” which also meant that was the end of training for the day. You didn’t complain, you felt as if you’d done a years worth of exercise already. 

In more ways than one, training with Scaramouche was like seeing him in a new light, like looking into a window of his. There were a lot of things he knew, a lot of knowledge about combat buried deep, but he went through them in a sort of calm. He just knew what he was doing. 

Training continued daily, but two days in and you’d requested for it to be done at night instead, where it would probably be cooler. He relented, and even wondered why he hadn’t thought of it himself. He preferred training at nighttime too, but he must have thought that his night training was his alone time, his own thing away from others, including you. 

Though, when you did start coming to his nightly training, he wasn’t too opposed to it. Either he just liked seeing you struggle, or it was entertaining to watch such a weak worm try to wiggle herself out of a bird’s beak.

Life continued as normal, or as normal as it could get with Scaramouche, all up until a week before the annual celebration. 

“Prince, princess, the tailor is here,” Kuni announced while the two of you were out on the field one day. You were confused, mostly because you were not told of a tailor coming to visit today. 

“What for?” You asked. At this point, you had all the dresses you needed already, what with the various balls you attended. But this particular time seemed a big deal. Scaramouche and you were to be measured at the same time, and Kuni was more particular than normal towards the tailor.

“…The annual celebration,” Scaramouche liked to give you answers that were vague, or at least ones that didn’t really explain a lot of things. 

“Annual celebration of what?” You prodded again as the two of you watched Kuni giving instructions to the team of tailors in the meeting room.

“…My birthday, unfortunately,” He sighed as he said it, shoulders finally slumping and your head whiplashed so fast towards him that you were afraid it was going to detach from your neck.

“It’s your birthday next week?”

“Did I stutter?” His half-glare was back on, but the tailors had started to move and went about measuring you and him from head to toe. 

The prince and princess had to have matching outfits. And Scaramouche being the star of the night, it was only right to have you complement his outfit. A fully new dress was in the works after that day. Though, Scaramouche noticed a strange shift in your schedule after.

At night as the two of you trained, you’d usually retire to the bedroom at the same time as him. You’d use the bathroom first, then after when you finished he’d use it next, by which time when he came out, more often than not, you’d already be asleep, exhausted by the day’s events. 

The following days after, however, you approached him after your bath and told him you had some work to do. As if you were getting his permission to be up in the dead of night instead of resting in bed. He only scoffed, “Do what you want,” but he was mildly surprised that he found it strange you weren’t in bed earlier than him. Or was it just your absence overall? Still, he didn’t question it, up until you showed obvious signs of fatigue a few days later.

“What’ve you been doing?” He gruffly asked when you were about to tell him you’re off to another one of your “research” sessions. Apparently you’ve been really interested in a book about teas from the library. “Why not just take them back here?” and you said that the books were far too heavy and plentiful. 

“Can’t you do that in the morning instead?” You were a little baffled at his insistence about your activities. He said to do whatever you wanted but after a few days he didn’t seem to approve of his own words. In fact he seemed to be more irritable about your activities. You shrugged.

“I do some reading in the morning too,”

It was late one night when he woke up with a start and realized you still weren’t next to him that he got fed up and took action. He pushed himself out of bed, noted the time and how it was past the wee hours of the morning and you were nowhere in your shared bedroom. He ventured into the silent hallways and into the library. Surely enough finding you on the first big table, books upon books piled up and paper scattered over the table. On closer inspection, you were reading about paintings, not tea. And there were ironically some books about self defense, which he found really funny. Reading wouldn’t help you with combat, practice and experience would.

“Hey,” you were slumped over the papers, fast asleep, head resting on your folded arms. He reached a hand to clap your shoulder, attempting to shake you awake but was unsuccessful. He merely stared down at your face for a moment, then sighed. “Stupid girl…” He positioned himself in a way that would easily hoist you up in his arms. 

He might have been smaller in stature but years of training did well on his arms and form, it was an easy carry for him, and he was struck by the idea that this wasn’t the first time he was carrying you around in his arms like this. He’d actually done it a couple of other times. 

It was the first time, however, that he looked down at you while walking to observe your face. Mouth slightly open to an unelegant picture of you snoozing away, head cradled against his shoulder . You didn’t budge nor move an inch even when he lifted you up from your previous sitting position. He thought about how easy it would be for anyone to kidnap you in your sleeping state, and he sighed again.

When the two of you were back in the comfort of your room he placed you down on your side of the bed, didn’t bother to change you out of your clothes–because how could he?–and pulled the covers up halfway to your waist. He rounded the bed to go back to his side, but took a moment to notice the steady rise and fall of your chest. 

This feels better. He caught himself thinking. This feels right. He corrected himself in his head. You were supposed to be in bed next to him and that was how the order of things were, was what he tried to reason with in his mind. It wasn’t about thefeeling, he convinced himself, just about how things should be in place, including you. It was about having the correct arrangement.

Still, as he climbed into bed next to you, he wondered if “correct arrangements” was ever such a big thing. Like how breakfast should be in the morning and lunch should be in the afternoon. Or how you should be next to him at all times. When was that determined? 

However, unlike breakfast in the morning and lunch in the afternoon, where he didn’t really care about straying from those rules–one could always have lunch earlier or later–he was less inclined to stray away from the rules he was making around you.

It’s late. She’s tired. It’s only right that she sleeps in a bed. Is the simplest rule he could make. But, he didn’t know when he had added next to me, into the rule. Last week? A few days ago? Just now? 

Well, he didn’t think too much of it. After all, more often than not he always got what he wanted. 

He just wasn’t completely aware that what he wanted was not to impose his “new rules” on you, but for you to willingly want it and come up with your own, following them of your own accord:

Because you wanted to. Not because he told you to.

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings:mentions of sex, hints of character death, kind of fast paced, longer than normal, not much of Scaramouche here, but once you finish this chapter you KNOW that the next one is gunna be delicious Scaramouche angst. Aha.

Word Count: 4.1k

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts:(Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

Scaramouche wakes up the next morning rather peacefully. His eyes flutter open, and it’s still quite dark in the room. The two of you have slipped away from your tight hold of each other, though your head is still resting on his outstretched arm. 

You’re both covered by the blankets, but he’s aware that the two of you are still completely naked under it. He feels a sigh on his lips, knowing that he has to get up, but, for a moment longer he stays by your side and inches the tiniest bit closer. 

His hand lifts up to gently rest on your cheek, careful not to wake you up…not that he thinks you would wake up so easily, after such a tiring night. He gives your cheek a quick stroke with his thumb, before he realizes that he’s just making things hard for himself, so he withdraws his hand back with another sigh. 

He pushes himself up in the next moment, swings his legs to the edge of the bed and gets ready to head out. While freshening up in the shower, he catches a glimpse of his ring, and he vaguely remembers it showing a fiery pink bordering on crimson glow the whole of last night…which only meant that those colours probably hinted on passion and…maybe something deeper. Something that he shouldn’t really think about right now.

He emerged from the bathroom still tired, but more awake and he walks on over to the door, battling with himself whether or not to give you a last glance. He loses the battle quite easily, and turns his head towards your form on the bed. Still peacefully sleeping. His hand on the door knob loosens. He didn’t have to wake you up. In fact it would probably be better if you slept through the whole war, rather than be awake and worry too much.

Still, he wanted to secretly see your eyes one last time before he left. It would give him some sort of comfort, but he shouldn’t ask for too much. One last look, and he turned the knob to the door, silently opening and closing it behind him. His first stop was the throne room, then the fields where the troops would be waiting on horseback and with their weapons ready. 

The atmosphere is instantly heavier the moment he steps out into the hallways. He only had his light armor on at the moment, the royal armor was kept in a separate room at the back of the throne room, along with valuable artifacts for battle. Scaramouche’s armor and artifact set was named “Kuzushi”. Specially crafted for a high level electro user like him, his armor and artifacts had to withstand thunder and harsh weathers, and at the same time enhancing his use of magic. 

In the same room, off to a corner of the royal backroom was a magical pedestal coated with golden paint. The stone column had intricate carvings on it, and on the top, hovered what looked to be a glowing, purple chess piece. Scaramouche gazed at it, almost longingly. It was protected by a small magical barrier, anyone who touches it will be zapped and deflected away, even Scaramouche. The only ones who had access to it was the King and Kuni, both of which would not give the gnosis away to Scaramouche until they thought he was ready. In reality, the magical barrier could probably be broken by a strong enough vision-wielder. 

The electro gnosis.

Once upon a time it was the one thing that Scaramouche had sought after. The electro gnosis could only be used and held by the current king. At the moment, that wasn’t him. His father, being out on business, decided to leave the gnosis in the Kingdom, knowing that it was safer here than out there. It was an infinitely powerful device, with it, he can probably win the war easily but…he wasn’t allowed to wield it yet. That, and he heard that it held immense power, possibly stronger than a delusion…and Scaramouche was cautious around things like that, for obvious reasons. 

His father had given him five conditions before he could take the throne, one was to get married, which he quickly tried to check off his list, thus meeting you. The next was to show that he was ready to lead the kingdom. The third was to have complete reign over his powers demonstrating that he was an able fighter, both physically and mentally. The fourth was just a matter of coming of age, and finally the last, was to understand the importance of companionship. 

The last one…Scaramouche had yet to wrap his head around it and was confused as to how his father could possibly “test” that he understood what “companionship” was. But now was not the time to think about it. Scaramouche pried his eyes away from the electro gnosis and heads to the field. He’s met by Kuni midway, who confirms the plan with him.

“I’m to stay here with the princess by your orders, and if anything were to happen…To take her somewhere safe,” Kuni repeats and Scaramouche nods. “Are you sure about this, milord?” Kuni asks and Scaramouche closes his eyes.

“You also think it’s the best option, don’t you? Besides, if they were to somehow infiltrate the castle, someone who can fight has to be here,” Kuni doesn’t say anything, but deep inside knows that this is the best way to keep you safe. He accompanies the prince to the field, assisting him in the preparations before the knights left with him.

Scaramouche had a war horse ready for him, and he hoisted himself up as everyone straightened up and greeted him. There were lines and lines of knights and horses, all waiting for his command. He swept the entire company with his gaze, he wasn’t much for speeches, but he would never wish death on any of them.

“…I’ll take the front…Their army has delusions…” Scaramouche started. “I’ll weaken them first, and no one moves forward or attacks until I give the signal, is that clear?” 

A chorus of “Yes your majesty!” echoes out in the field.

“Anyone who doesn’t follow will be dismissed from the title of knights immediately,” Scaramouche threatens, making his point that they had to wait for his signal. They HAD to, for their own safety, though the way he snarls out his threat makes it seem uncaring. 

“One more thing,” he adds as his horse turns to go towards the back gate, ready to head out the kingdom walls. “Leave Tartaglia to me,” 

For threatening his kingdom and his peace, Scaramouche would not let him get away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Princess?” There was a light knock on your door, you could barely make it out, what with you still weaving in and out of dreamland. You had a false sense that Scaramouche was still next to you, so you stirred, and ignored the knocks on the door.

Moments later it came again. 

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Princess?” Your brows furrowed, and your eyes groggily peer open. You blink a couple of times, adjusting to the brightness of the room and took a few seconds to lay there and think. You realize Scaramouche isn’t here, and that’s what makes you sit up on the bed, blanket pooling down on your lap.

You’re bare and naked, your mind starting to work a little clearer, the events of last night coming back to you bit by bit. It’s still quite clear in your mind…Scaramouche’s kisses, the way he caressed you, the way the two of you crossed over to that point of intimacy. It brings a subtle heat to your cheeks, but you finally answer the person at the door.

“Yes, I’m awake,” and it was obvious by your voice that you had just woken up. There’s a pause in knocking, before Kuni speaks from behind it. 

“Good morning, princess…Might I request you to change into your light armor? It’s for safety purposes, you see,” He explains and you do remember that a special light armor was fitted just for you, and you guessed that “safety purposes” meant when things went south… If Scaramouche died, and if you had to flee. 

Scaramouche…

You were suddenly conscious of the ring on your finger, picking your hand up and immediately checking the glow of it. You sigh in relief when you see the pearl shining an incredibly dark red…though you had no idea what it meant. 

“I understand, Kuni. I’ll be out in a minute,” You say, loud enough for him to hear on the other side, your thoughts instantly sliding back to the prince.

How long had he been out? Daylight was already upon you, which means that the battle must have started already. You saunter towards the curtains, pulling it back to reveal the glass balcony doors. 

You try to see if there’s any sign of battle out there, but the kingdom walls were much further than you thought, and it was impossible to see beyond them. You stare for a moment longer, before glancing at your ring again. Still red. 

You already knew you would be constantly looking at it throughout the day. 

You draw the curtains back again and proceed to get dressed into the armor specially made for you. It wasn’t really much of an armor as it was a leather corset and a black cloak. You guessed it was so that it wouldn’t slow you down much, this thing was made for fast escapes rather than a full on battle. 

There’s a subtlePLINK that you suddenly hear, and for a moment you stop pulling up your brown leather boots to listen closely, freezing in place. You don’t hear it anymore, and you think nothing of it, continuing to pull the last piece of the light armor on and making sure everything was in place.

PLINK.

There it is again, and this time, you stiffen when you hear it. Purely because it was not a sound that was familiar to you. It takes a few more seconds before another PLINK follows, and you deduce that it’s coming from the balcony doors. 

You walk over to it just as you did earlier, clutching at the curtain to draw it back, wondering what it was that was making that sound, just as another PLINK reaches your ears.

It’s an arrow, the sharp tip of it knocking into the glass balcony door with a PLINK and falling onto the floor. That’s where the sound was coming from, the arrow tip deflecting from the glass. On closer inspection, a large crack had started to form, and when you pick your eyes up, you’re met with a familiar smirking face, arrow drawn back, ready to pierce the glass door again. 

Tartaglia chuckles from outside, watching the horror dawn on your features. “Oh, princess, I was hoping you were still in dreamland,” he mutters to himself, letting the arrow loose, it flying towards the same glass panel he had been focusing on all that time. “Well, since you’re awake, I suppose I can be a little louder now,” He pulls on his clawed gloves, walks toward the balcony door just as he watches you run away from him, towards your bedroom door, pulling it open to let a flood of knights in. 

Tartaglia totally ignores the sudden surge of knights in your room, he retracts his fist back, and punches through the glass door, effectively shattering it, maneuvering his hand to turn the knob, letting himself in. The knights standing guard outside your bedroom start to attack Tartaglia while Kuni quickly drags you away.

Kuni has his hand tight around your wrist, running with you towards the throne room. “Wh-Why is he here?!” You try to ask, gasping for breath as you ran. Kuni doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know for sure, but he had an inkling and he had to make sure that he took the right steps to keep you and the kingdom safe. 

He pushes the door to the throne room open, then drags you towards the back room, revealing the royal armory to you. The one that Scaramouche had just been in, hours before. And…at the back and far corner of it, was a pedestal coated with golden paint. The stone column had intricate carvings on it, and on the top, hovered what looked to be a glowing, purple chess piece…

The electro gnosis.

“I haven’t a clue how he knows about this,” Kuni fumbled with his breast pocket, “but this is the only thing of value in the castle right now…and if this gnosis falls into the wrong hands…” He retrieves what looks to be a coin, engraved with the Kingdom’s crest. He pushes the coin into a similar sized hole on the pedestal and it gives off a light glow, before Kuni safely snatches the electro gnosis into his hand. “Entire countries could fall,”

He thinks about it, and he thinks about it hard. Scaramouche would not come back in time, he must still be out there in the heat of war. So what were the chances of Kuni beating Tartaglia, a vision-wielder, in battle? 

A mere 10%, he calculated. 15 if he was lucky. Him who had no vision versus Tartaglia who had honed it for years… There was no way. They miscalculated, they didn’t think Tartaglia himself would head straight to the castle, and now they were stuck with a big problem.

“Princess…” Kuni grips the electro gnosis in his hand, but releases it, opening his palm and stretching it towards you. “I’m sorry…but I’ll have to entrust this to you,” 

You stare at the glowing chess piece and slowly shake your head. “What do you mean? I can’t take that! Isn’t it valuable? What do you want me to do with it?” You were near hysterics, you could tell no one anticipated Tartaglia to show up. Neither did you. For all that time you only thought that he was interested in Scaramouche’s electro vision, nothing else. You didn’t even know anything about what this chess piece was. 

Kuni takes your arm and forces the gnosis into your palm, folding your fingers over it, and immediately starts leading you away. “It’s the electro gnosis, princess…It’s complicated to explain right now but it’s important that it’s kept safe…away from the wrong hands…” 

The two of you have gone back to the throne room, steps hurried. “How do you know this is what Tartaglia is after?” You hiss at Kuni, trying to keep up with him.

“I don’t. But it’s possible. Now keep it somewhere safe before we step out into the hallway,” Kuni stops at the the throne room door, watching as you pat yourself down, looking for a pocket on your leather armor, when you find one, you slip the gnosis in, making sure it was snug in there. “Not to worry, princess, we’ll flee together… We’re going out to the field, taking a horse and traveling to the next kingdom over. But if something were to happen… You’ll have to keep going,” Kuni pauses before he finishes his sentence, “By yourself,”

“What do you–How can I go by myself I don’t even know– What about my parents? I can’t do this alone!” When faced with an emergency one just had to do their best to cope with the sudden changes. You were not very good at that, but neither were other people. Thrown into an unexpected and dangerous situation, everything had happened in a span of a minute or two and your mind was still struggling to keep up with the sudden change in plans.

“I’m sorry, your highness. We have no time. For now let’s focus on getting away,” Kuni explained. Yes, he could stay and fight, but he already determined that he wouldn’t be able to best Tartaglia. So the best option was for him to flee along with you, and hopefully keep you and the gnosis safe. 

However, when Kuni pulls the door to the hallway open, stepping out along with you, Tartaglia was already approaching from the end of the hallway, it doesn’t look like he’s hurt at all, and you could guess that the knights were no match for him. That, and he had his own men with him, the penchant on their hips glowing a strong hydro blue colour. Delusions.

“Go!” Kuni pushes you towards the direction of the field, he runs just behind you. It’s still a long run towards your destination, but you had never pushed your legs so hard before. Your gasps for breath and pants are so loud in your ears, along with the whip of wind on your face. 

Arrows suddenly fly past you, and you yelp, ducking your head a little as you continue to run. 

“Where do you think you’re going, huh?” A flash of blue is all you see, there’s a big wave of water out of nowhere, suddenly crashing down the hallways, the waves riding up the walls, coming up to devour you and Kuni. You feel your body weight thrown around, weightless with the water and seconds later you’re drenched from head to toe, pushing yourself up from the wet floor, coughing. 

You’re separated from Kuni, he’s closer to Tartaglia than you are, and it’s here that he knows he won’t be able to escape. He doesn’t turn around, but stands up and wields his blade confidently, “Princess, you have to go,” 

Still on the ground, you watch in horror at how the Snezhnayan knights surround Kuni, Tartaglia at their front. “Oh?” Tartaglia chuckles, not making a move to attack. “This doesn’t have to be difficult, my friends, just hand me what I need and we’ll go… Well, when I say that, I mean that I’ll obliterate Scaramouche with his kingdom’s own electro gnosis…and I’ll come back to claim this castle as my own. That includes you, princess. So just sit tight, alright?” 

Kuni clutches the sword tighter in his hand. “How do you know about the electro gnosis?” 

Tartaglia tips his head back a little with a laugh. “Oh Kuni, you underestimate my former friendship with Scaramouche. He talked about a lot of things when he was younger, just an innocent little boy who wanted all the power in the world. He’s been obsessed with that gnosis just as much as I’ve been, of course he’s talked about it.”

Tartaglia then shrugs his shoulders with his arms out. “Pity though…that he seems to have lost interest in it during the past few months. I wonder why… Well, no matter. If he isn’t going to use it…” Then he expertly twirls his bow in his hand, another flash of blue, his bow has morphed into hydro twin blades, excitement in his eyes. “Then, I will,”

He takes a fighting stance, Kuni does too, but he shouts over at you, trying to break you out of your shock. “Princess. Go. Now. Please!” If he was going to die, he at least wanted to know that you got out safely. 

You jerk up, body confused and mind muddled. You had no idea whatsoever what to do but you push yourself up, slightly heavy with the water and continue down the hallway.

Field. Horse. Run away.

You kept repeating that in your mind. You feel that if you stop chanting it, you would forget everything and veer off course, that your brain couldn’t handle so many things right now except 

Field. Horse. Run away.

“…Follow her,” Tartaglia tells his few men, “I’ll deal with Kuni…” Tartaglia didn’t anticipate the fact that you had the gnosis, it was exactly as Kuni planned. At least he’d be able to buy you time. 

In a blink of an eye, the fight starts with a series of clash and clangs. Kuni tries his best to deter the Snezhnayan knights from going after you, trying his best to slow them down and pushing them back. But with five of them and one of him, his focus couldn’t be split in so many ways. All four knights successfully break past Kuni in pursuit of you, and now it was just him and Tartaglia.

“Kuni…you’re not a bad fighter… I’d say better than most of my knights, even… We can still talk this out. How about it, comrade? Pass the gnosis on to me, and I’ll make you my right hand man in the new era of this kingdom.” Tartaglia stretches out his hand, he was quite serious in his offer, but Kuni only scoffed. 

“…You were never very reasonable as a child, Tartaglia… All you wanted to do was to fight, to train, to be strong… You and the prince were power hungry, blind for the pursuit of strength in almost the same ways…but I daresay Scaramouche has changed…” Kuni, despite the situation, smiles. “There are things…people…more important than power. I’m glad the prince is slowly understanding that,” 

Tartaglia drops his hand to his side with a condescending smile. “He’s become weak, that’s what happened,”

Kuni feels that the real battle is about to start, and he can only pray that you were well on your way, that you were fast enough to flee, or else his sacrifice would be in vain. “Not at all, on the contrary… the prince has gained a different kind of strength, a stronger will to protect the things around him,”

Kuni goes back to his fighting stance, “……I only wish I could have seen his transformation through, until the end,” 

In a flash, Tartaglia and Kuni start to meet blades. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rush of wind on your face just spurs you to go faster. The horse gallops at high speed, yet you don’t know where it’s going. You followed a trail into the woods, thinking that it would be the safest way out of the kingdom. At some point the horse broke through the woods and crossed a small drawbridge out of the kingdom walls, a moment later, you’re galloping through a different trail again, this time it seemed to climb up to the mountains. 

You almost fall off when the horse suddenly stops, neighing angrily and becoming confused with the sudden barrage of arrows that whip by the two of you. You hold on to the reins for dear life, almost getting thrown off at the abrupt stop. You look behind you to see the four knights at a distance, still far off, but catching up at incredible speed. They must have taken horses from the stables too. 

“Go, go!” You mutter at the horse, kicking its sides to get it running again. It thankfully obeys, but now you’re frighteningly aware that death is just behind you. You hold on to its mane and reins. It seems to go faster than before, as if feeling your distress and possibly recognizing that the two of you were in imminent danger. You don’t know if you imagine it but it sounds as if the other horses are getting closer, the sound of their hooves reaching your ears. 

You yelp in surprise once again when the horse suddenly stops, yet again nearly throwing you off of it. “What now?!” You panic, straighten up, and see that you’ve reached the end of a cliff. The sound in your ears was not the other horses’ hooves. It was the waterfall. The river below you that sent the sounds of crashing waves buzzing in your ears. It’s quite a drop down, and the river currents are strong because of the waterfall at it’s lip.

You steer the horse away from the edge and will it to go towards the left, to scale the cliff and see if there was another way to get to the other side, but the arrows appear again, this time it nicks the horse’s leg and it neighs in pain, trotting around on itself, kicking its leg to try and get the stuck arrow dislodged. 

You shudder in fear, still holding on to the reins, the Snezhnayan knights are nearing, the sound of the horse’s neighs are deafening in your ears, the waterfall is making your brain ring. 

For a moment, you enter a space where everything seemed to be in slow motion. 

You could hear your heart beating in your chest, hear your stuttered labored breaths. 

You see the knights approaching, your horse panicking, and your head turns towards the cliff, the water droplets spraying from the falls, the crash of strong waves in the river. 

Everything was so clear and slow in your mind. 

The knights were climbing off of their horses, about to seize you, about to jog up and pull you off of your horse.

But you dismount your horse first, both your feet landing on the ground with a soft thump. At a last attempt to keep you safe, to keep the gnosis safe, to keep the kingdom safe; you throw yourself off the cliff, wind whipping around you as everything seemed to go back to normal speed.

You feel yourself crashing through the surface of the river, your body ached at impact, and it sent you far into its depths, tumbling around the water. The intensity of it shocks your entire body and you black out in mere seconds.

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I made the chapter available through buymeacoffee. Please read this carefully first before you decide to buy the chapter

A few things about buymeacoffee, once you pay you will get a pdf version of the story and you basically have a lifetime of access to it when you download it. For that reason, the price is a little higher, still reasonable though. (Over at ko-fi, you can choose to donate as low as 50 cents BECAUSE there is a time limit of 30 days on my posts).

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Here is the direct link to The Ruthless Prince Chapter 16.2:
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Minors do not interact! 

But don’t worry, the full post isn’t here anyway. As I’ve said before, Chapter 16.2 is kind of like an extra chapter. You can skip it and it won’t change much in your experience of the story. This is for those who would really like to know what exactly happened and how exactly reader and Scaramouche spent the night. 

For this reason, I decided to put this chapter up on ko-fi instead. 

Now before you maul me. Like I said, it’s an extra chapter. Read it or not it doesn’t change a thing, plus it’s soft smut. Also, I’m aiming to get chapter 17 out today or tomorrow, most likely tomorrow so please spare me the hate and tears hahahha and yes of course that’ll be posted on tumblr.

The main chapters of The Ruthless Prince will still be on tumblr. If you can, I do appreciate it if you leave comments or replies on this post once you’ve read 16.2

Anyway, here are some tidbits, snippets and information about it:

Word Count:5.4k(yes it’s quite a long soft smut)

Warnings: penetration, implications of masturbation, no protection and I don’t support the pull out method but we are supposed to be in olden times, so I don’t think condoms exist yet? but no, reader doesn’t get pregnant in the story, not because of this session at least haha, first time: a lot of experimenting going on, fairly slow paced and soft in my opinion, female and male receiving and giving oral, fem!reader, I think that’s it.

Snippet 1:

And it’s your turn to feel that bit of pride in you, to know that you had made him feel good. “K-Keep going…” Scaramouche’s voice stutters but you obey and start on a steady pace on his cock, your hand pumping up and down, parts of him disappearing as your hand slides and squeezes at him. “Shiiiiiit–”

Snippet 2:

“…You’re embarrassingly wet,” he gives you a sadistic grin, and you see exactly a Scaramouche that you’re familiar with. Earlier he had been a bit unsure and shy, possibly even cautious but now that he’s warmed up, he looked as if he knew exactly what he wanted and he wasn’t going to be nice to you about it.

“Shut up…” You mumble, feeling your cheeks heat up. You’re painfully aware of how wet you’ve gotten. It started from the kissing, intensified when he played with your breasts and just tripled in warmth when you started sucking him off. Something about his moans and groans just did it for you.

Snippet 3:

“R-Relax, Y/N,” It was so damn tight. He kisses your neck in an attempt to get you to ease up, feathers kisses along your jaw and again lands on your lips for a passionate kiss. It soothes your mind a little and gradually he feels himself press into the pucker of your lower lips, his tip enters with difficulty and you instinctively wrap your arms around his shoulders with a whimper.

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The Ruthless Prince (Part 16.1) Scaramouche x fem!reader [Genshin Royal AU]

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: NOT PROOFREAD forgive me, longer than usual, lots of things happen, steamy! but completely safe for work, implied sexual activities. 16.1 because I cut out the hot parts, 16.2 will be the one that details what exactly they did *eyebrow wiggle* but it doesn’t take away anything from the story if you don’t read 16.2. It’s just a little extra for those who feel like it.

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts: (Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

You sit in the silence of your shared room. Glancing at the clock on the wall, it is now past the birthday celebrations. Past your usual bed time, even. 

And yet, not a wink of sleep has found you.

There’s only anxiousness and uncertainty that makes your chest tighten. It drops to your stomach, and it dissipates the slightest bit, making you think that you’ve gotten control of your emotions back, but it shoots up your stomach and wraps around your heart again. The cycle of being anxious and uncertain continues.

Scaramouche disappeared as soon as the two of you got back to the castle. He strode past the big castle doors in a hurry, and when he remembered that you were there with him he swerved around and only said one thing. “Go to sleep,” It was rather dismissive, and for a moment you wondered if going to sleep was really the only thing you could do. 

It turned out that even going to sleep was difficult at the moment. For the past three hours you weren’t quite sure what you’ve been doing, sitting on the bed in your night gown, back leaning against the headboard, trying to read a book yet realizing that you’ve been reading the same line over and over again. You sighed, and dropped the book on your lap whilst closing your eyes.

Things escalated so fast. The moment that Tartaglia burst through those doors, you didn’t have any idea how much things could turn so bad.. 

“You’re here uninvited. Must be something serious,” Scaramouche sneered at the Snezhnayan Prince. Gone is his red scarf, replaced by a dark purple coat that seemed to radiate wickedness, the scruff of his neck is wrapped in a feathery white collar. There’s a red mask that rests on the side of his head, one that you’ve never seen before, and his armor that clung to his form made his hands look like claws instead of human hands.

He looked like a modern day devil.

“Quite,” Tartaglia replies, the grin plastered on his face rivals that of Scaramouche’s. He raises his arms and with a powerful voice addresses the whole room. “An important announcement, ladies and gentlemen,” he commands the eyes and ears of people to look at him just with a simple statement. Scaramouche’s demeanor changes, a frown replaces his sneer, he senses that this might not be the usual scuffle or fight between rivals that he initially thought it would be.

“I, Prince Tartaglia of Snezhnaya, declare war over the Kingdom of Balladeer.” He points one clawed finger towards Scaramouche, whose face was now painted blank. You, behind him, slowly internalize the words and start to process what was happening. People around you gasp, there are murmurs and mumbles and whispers all around as Tartaglia continues. “My victory will mean that I take over these lands, anyone who gets in my way will be punished.” He upturns his hand, palm facing up, “Everything of yours, your kingdom, your vision, your resources–” his darkened eyes dart towards your cowering form behind Scaramouche “your people…will submit to me,”

There’s an uproar in the venue, people start to shuffle away unsure of what to do, some of them file out of the ballroom, possibly wanting to get home and warn their family as soon as they could.

“But, I’m a fair man,” Tartaglia smiles all too pleasantly. “A battle isn’t fair if one of us is unprepared…by daylight tomorrow morning, my men and I will be outside your castle walls, ready to obliterate it,” The palm he has stretched out, crumples into a fist, and finally, he finishes his speech, dropping his hand next to him. 

“…Confident as ever,” Is the first thing that Scaramouche says. He crosses his arms over his chest and tips his head up to meet Tartaglia eye to eye. Then, as if the whole world was his, as if he wasn’t the tiniest bit threatened, he smirks. Smug. Matching Tartaglia’s superiority. “You’re taking nothing from me and when I’m done with you, you’ll never even think about stepping into my territory again,”

It’s a war.

No matter how many times you repeat it in your head it just doesn’t seem real to you. People could be killed, innocent men and women and children who are just trying to live day by day. People who have lived here for all their lives have nowhere to run and tomorrow all they can do is stay inside and hope for the best. That wasn’t fair and all for what? A power-hungry prince who seemed to have some sort of grudge towards Scaramouche.

And me, what will I do? Sit pretty and wait? What about my parents? 

You think to yourself, the clock ticking by and in the blink of an eye, it’s been another 20 minutes of just sitting and digesting everything. You shake your head away from your thoughts.

Scaramouche hadn’t come back from whatever preparations he was handling, it was past midnight. How was he going to lead a war without any sleep? Without thinking your legs swung over to the edge of the bed and you had the urge to go and see what he was still up to.

There must have been thousands of preparations, but when you stepped out into the hallway it was quieter than you thought it would be. Somehow the image in your mind were maids and knights running around, alerting the kingdom about the impending trouble. There was none of that. It was quiet, like any other night in the castle.

Your footsteps were light on the carpeted floor, following the path that you recognized out into the training field, your gut feeling telling you that if there was anywhere Scaramouche might be right now, it was there. 

When you opened the wooden door outwards a nice night breeze hit your face, your hair momentarily ruffled with the wind. You push past and you see him in the middle of the field, sword in hand, covered in sweat, and looking as if he’s been out there for far too long. He doesn’t sense your presence, too engrossed in his own stance and concentration, like he was in a duel with the real person. 

It’s a little cold out here with what little you wear, but something strikes you as you watch him. Admiration? Unsure of what it was exactly, you approach carefully, the crunch of grass under your feet grabs his attention, his eyes darting towards the intrusion. Realizing it’s just you, he straightens up, sword dropping on his side and raises an eyebrow as you approach. “I thought I told you to go to sleep,”

You stop an arms length away from him. The wind quietly whistles once again, and aside from the faint sound of crickets there isn’t much to hear out here in the field. He stays his gaze on you as you remain silent, it’s difficult to form the words in your mouth. In the first place, you didn’t know why you went out here anyway.

However, your silence seemed to have spoken to him, he looks at you for a few more seconds, before sigh-huffing and sheathing his sword on his side. “Whatever, I’m done here anyway,” Something in his voice tells you that he wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight, but whatever aura you had given off had probably changed his mind. 

“Come on,” Scaramouche walks past you, and doesn’t turn to see if you were following. It was partly the look on your face, but it was partly the fact that the ring on his finger had been radiating shades of blue and grey the whole time he was out there on the field. He didn’t exactly know what those colours meant, but the dullness of it told him that it wasn’t something pleasant.

You follow him in silence, noticing that your heart grows heavy as you walk behind him. You watch his back, and you can’t help but think that all you could ever do was watch his back, even in a crisis like this. 

The two of you arrive back in your room, and he quickly states he’ll use the bathroom to freshen up. 

The heaviness in your heart is still there as you lay yourself on the bed, facing the bathroom door. Your eyes are heavy, but the muffled patter of water on tiles in the bathroom reminds you to stay awake. You look at the space next to you, where Scaramouche should be. The fingers tucked under your face twitches, as if it wants to reach out and feel how empty it was.

Tomorrow…Will everything be okay?

People could be killed. You think once again. And so could he. He was human, despite how brash and abrasive he was, one precise stab to the heart or an injury beyond repair would cripple him. 

Was that what you were anxious of, all this time? Or was it the fact that if he loses, Tartaglia claims everything of Scaramouche’s, and the Snezhnayan prince certainly wouldn’t spare you. Your eyes snap open when you hear the bathroom door open, not realizing that you had fallen asleep for a small moment there. It usually wouldn’t wake you up, these small sounds, but the atmosphere tonight has gotten you tense. 

Again he’s clad in his silk sleeping attire, towel around his neck and drying off his hair with one hand. He approaches the bed, passes you a glance, and sits on the edge of it, continuing to ruffle his hair with the towel. 

The sight is so mundane. So plain. So ordinary and yet the possibility that you won’t be able to see it again tomorrow night…the feeling that came with it was so complicated. He had been far from nice to you, the past few months. Perhaps there were instances wherein he showed parts of him that was human, an emotion other than loathing, but for most of the time that you’ve lived here, he was infinitely hard to reach.

But not impossible…

One had to squint, very very hard, to see the kindness in Scaramouche. One had to know that his words were harsh but they sometimes had an undertone of concealed and secret concern. You had to know him and spend time with him to know that he didn’t know how to apologize, but that his mannerisms changed when he felt apologetic. Only when you spent as much time with him as you did, would one realize that he didn’t like being vulnerable in front of others, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t care, he just had his subtle and rather grating and unconventional ways of showing it. 

“Stop worrying,” he suddenly mumbles, knowing that you were still awake. He’s moved on to drying his face, just as his routine goes. “I’ve made all the preparations I can, the knights have always been prepared for this, and your parents will be fine,” 

Your eyes move up to stare at the back of his head. There it is. That rare moment of him being humane. It’s been more frequent lately, and you wonder if he knows that as well. Strangely enough, you don’t respond to his statement. It dawns on you that you’ve been awfully quiet, it was strange even for you, but none of what he says eases your mind to a comfortable enough level.

“Kuni’ll stay here with you, in the castle,” That catches your attention, and he says this as he lays down on his side of the bed, his back facing you, as per usual. 

“Wouldn’t it be better if he’s out there with you?” Your head lifts up a little, there’s obvious concern laced in your voice. Kuni was a good fighter, from what you’ve heard.

“No. Along with him, there’ll be a few knights stationed here. Someone has to stay here with you, and it can’t be me,” He simply explains, and it makes a lot of sense to you, yet it doesn’t feel quite right.

You fall silent once again, looking at his back and how he seemed to be so close yet so far. He turns the lamp off on his side, usually an indication that you should turn yours off too, but you’re stuck still ruminating on your thoughts. Festering in what you would now admit was worry.

The same hand that was once resting under your cheek slides out and away, reaching over to him, towards his back, and suddenly clutching on the fabric of his sleeping shirt.

His eyes were closed, but they flash open when he feels it. His body tenses and relaxes in a span of a second. He’s blinking, staring at nothing in particular on his side of the bed, waiting for you to say something. He waited for a while, and he was confused if you were even going to say anything at all, or did you just latch on to him for some sort of…anchor? To let yourself feel that you were still in the real world, because, frankly, no matter how put together Scaramouche looked at this moment, he also had the feeling that this might just be a dream. That the war was not going to happen tomorrow and he would wake up to find out that it had just been a figment of his imagination or a sick joke. One or the other.

“…You’ve…taken care of everything else…but you haven’t said anything about yourself,” You finally started, piecing your muddled thoughts together and somehow coming up with the things that you wanted to clear up and say. “You’ll be back tomorrow when it’s over?” As casually as you could, you asked the most important question that had been weaving around in your mind ever since he told you to go to sleep.

Scaramouche could not place a word on the sudden feeling that engulfed his chest. It seemed to be a little bit of surprise and a little bit of astonishment, mixed with a pleasant bloom of warmth that made his heart pitter patter a little faster. “…I’ll be beyond the kingdom walls before daylight with the knights, and I’ll be back before nightfall, it shouldn’t be long,”

He talked about it as if it was just a meeting he had to attend. Like he didn’t have to go out there and fight for his land and his life. Like he wasn’t a prince, but a normal man out on an errand to buy fruits, telling his wife he’ll be back before dinner. But it wasn’t that at all, and you weren’t alright with that.

“…You’re sure?” You prod, and now it’s his turn to fall silent. You wait for an answer, five seconds, ten, fifteen. He doesn’t give you one and that’s how you know that he’s only trying to reassure you with false words. 

There was no way Scaramouche would know exactly what would happen, and there was no way for him to know if he would really return. 

Your hand loosens at the realization, releasing the now crumpled part of his shirt, hand inching back towards you as your heart tries not to drop. In a split second he’s turned around, now facing you, hand on your wrist before it could even rest peacefully beside you. Your eyes widen a fraction at the sudden movement, but you close it almost immediately when he flicks your forehead rather painfully.

“Ow!” your other free hand comes up to your forehead to rub it and you half glare at him for the sudden punishment. 

“What kind of question is that? Who the fuck is going to put up with your clumsy and stubborn ass if I don’t come back?” He asks, deadpan look on his face but there seems to be a genuine hint of annoyance there.

“I was just making sure…” You mumble while still rubbing your forehead and twisting your wrist away from his hold. He lets it go and glances at the ring on your finger. 

“See this?” He holds up his hand for you to see his own ring and you blink at it, before looking at yours.

“Oh, yeah, mine’s been turning different colours…What’s that about?” You ask.

“It’s connected to me. The Sangonomiya clan makes the rings with varunda lazurites, infused with magical properties of the sango pearl. Don’t ask me how it works, it’s just been tradition for the rings to be connected, so you know how the other feels,” He drops his hand and looks bored as he explains it, but you’re thoroughly intrigued.

You pick up your hand and turn it around in wonder. “Oh…So these colours are connected to your emotions… I didn’t think I’d see different ones cause you’re so uncaring,” You said it offhandedly, insulting him was like part of the normal conversation and him insulting you was equally as normal. He glares at you, about to have a comeback but you pipe up with your question first. “What does pink mean?” because the pearl on your ring was clearly glowing a pink colour.

He glances at it and scoffs, “Fuck knows. These things don’t come with instructions, you just have to go with what your gut tells you,” 

Your nose and eyebrows scrunch up as you lay your hand next to you. “Well that doesn’t make it a very effective “feeling” ring then doesn’t it?” 

He huffs, “It’ll at least let you know that I’m still alive. If the colour fades, then…”

And suddenly that curtain of dread and tense atmosphere descends on you again, just when you thought the mood was becoming a little better. 

So that’s why he talked about it. 

He wanted to tell you that there was a way for you to know what was happening, even if you were apart from each other. Wanted to tell you how to know if he had died.

“…I see…” there’s an almost uncomfortable silence when you utter the words, but he wasn’t done talking.

“…If the colour fades, you’re going to have to tell Kuni. He’ll take you on horseback to the neighbouring kingdom, we’re mostly on friendly terms and you’ll be fine there…your parents will follow,”

It hits you that he’s prepared even for the scenario in which he’s killed. Your mouth opens with slight indignation and shock. It felt unfair that he could just decide what to do with you and your life, but you couldn’t deny that it was probably for the best. There’s a shiver that runs up your spine, but you don’t tremble. You do, however, feel the tremble in your heart and you look up into his eyes to glare at him with great displeasure. “That’s not what I want to hear,”

Scaramouche wonders why it is that your eyes start to look a little glossy. He gives a lopsided grin, laying there next to you and watching the emotions race through your face, it was easier to decipher than what the ring shows him. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you glad you’re finally gunna get out of this hell hole? It’s one way to get rid of me,” He’s saying it with humor, but you find none in it and he knows it, because he’s never looked at you with such a tender gaze before. 

How dare he. You think. To just assume how you would feel and what you wanted, but it was exactly how you would have felt months before and now, you’re not too sure what exactly it is that spurs you to be so upset by his words. To be so bothered that he might not come back to you alive. To know that he had still thought about you, in the event that he was killed in battle. It was unexpected and touching, but somehow, in all the wrong ways and methods. 

“That’s not–” the unexpected tear that slips past your eye surprises you as well, but you look at Scaramouche and there’s no surprise in his face. It’s as if he knew this was going to happen. You gulp down the thick lump in your throat. “How can you talk about it so easily? I don’t–” another tear follows, followed by another and another until you can’t control them anymore. They’re more out of frustration, not sadness or anger. 

It feels as if whatever progress you’ve made with him was slipping away. Like the parts that you’ve seen of him had been ripped from your hands and the past few months in which you saw the confusing yet weirdly fascinating sides of him had burned away. 

“You’re an idiot,” he whispers and you feel his hand rest on your cheek, thumbing away the tears on one side of your face. “You can live a normal life again, away from the issues in aristocracy and free from my bullshit. Who knows, maybe thereis someone else out there who would put up with your impossible attitude,” he grins a little when he says this. 

It’s ironic, the way he puts it. Because between the two of you, you believe that he has the more impossible attitude, and yet as always, he turns it around on you. As if trying to convince you that him dying was a good thing, that there was nothing but benefits. 

“Stop it,” You try to assert, but the words come out softly without any strength. Your moment of weakness dissipates despite still feeling the tightness in your throat. You take your hand and hastily wipe the back of it over your eyes, but there’s still wetness messily smeared around the area and if he continues talking, more might leak out. 

Scaramouche doesn’t take away the hand on your cheek, and now he’s only looking at you. Digesting the fact that you were so distraught over the thought of him perishing. Your tears speak volumes. He doesn’t understand why you’re so upset over it, yet at the same time, he understands it completely. He understands because he’d felt that anxiousness before, when you were shot in the chest by an arrow, he thinks that what you feel now is exactly what he felt then. 

Perhaps it was then that he had started feeling this way and piecing the puzzle together, or perhaps it had been before that. He couldn’t be sure. 

“…If you cry you’ll make it harder for me to leave in the morning,” he admits, and the words taste nearly sour in his mouth, saying something so unusual like that. But you take it in stride and answer in your own stubborn way.

“…Then maybe I should keep crying,” 

He almost laughs despite the situation. Leave it up to you to have some sort of clever and annoying response.

At that moment, it all feels right to him. The way that you can counter his snarky attitude, that you were able to not gawk at him when he did something unusual. The way that you were hard-headed in almost the same ways as him and the way that you had somehow wrapped his cold heart in a warmth that he didn’t expect to feel from somebody. Specially someone who only started out as a pawn in his plans, but he had to admit, you had your charms. 

“…Y/N,” 

The way he says your name prepares you for his next move. He leans forward without warning, you see him approaching and your eyes instinctively close, like you’ve envisioned this moment in your mind’s eye before. 

It feels like your heart shatters into a million pieces when you feel the softness of his lips descend on yours. Like the tiny little pieces of your heart scatter inside your body and spreads the tingle to every little crevice of you. It’s not a kiss that starts out certain, if anything, it’s a little unsure, a little skeptical and cautious until your hand tethers to his shoulder, pulling yourself a little closer to him. 

You feel him sigh into the kiss with your motion, and now he presses further, a bit more certain, his hand draping over your middle and tugging you further into him. His legs are suddenly bumping into yours, tangling a little with each other as he hooks his foot behind your heel to drag your leg towards him. His body just suddenly ached for that contact, to be closer, at least for tonight. 

By the time the two of you break away, it’s with a satisfied sigh. Neither of you are out of breath, for it was a very innocent yet complex kiss. There’s a mild stupefied look on both of your faces, like the two of you hadn’t expected it at all, but found that it wasn’t exactly disagreeable. 

Your heart has definitely jumped out of your chest, and you wonder if you’re still alive. You open your mouth to say something but close it again as you fluster, unsure of what to say but very aware that this is the closest you’ve been to him, wrapped in his arms and inches away. 

Scaramouche, however, had other plans. He had a strong urge to go for another one, watching your lips move and entice him. Again, he leans forward, but he whispers before he closes the gap, his eyes locking with yours and his breath fanning your face. “If you don’t like it you’d better say something now,” 

You don’t utter a word. 

So his mouth claims yours in an open-mouthed kiss. The intensity of it is different from before. He manages to slip his arm under you and now you’re flush against him. You can’t help the slight whimper that escapes when his lips relentlessly finds yours. You’re aware of the fact that your head starts to tilt and turn to receive his kisses more willingly, adding a sense of urgency into them as if he can’t get enough and as if you’re begging for more. 

Your hands slide up his shoulders and wrap around his neck, your tongues start to meet each other for the first time and you’d always thought that the lewd sounds of intense, sloppy kissing was not your thing, but for some reason it now lights a fire in your stomach and his small sighs and subtle groaning into your mouth was just fanning the flame stronger. 

It doesn’t let up, and you’re not sure you want it to, but all of a sudden he pulls away and buries his head into the crook of your neck. He breathes heavily, his arms retreating back to him and pulling yours away from his neck, forcefully placing it back next to you. You’re confused, but he speaks up before you can ask. “…We shouldn’t,” 

It’ll make it more difficult for him and this wasn’t the right time, he thought. Again he feels like this wasn’t the correct order of things, and he’s trying to calm himself down, eyes shut tight against your neck, and yet your scent just permeates his nose. 

“…I…don’t want to be worried,” you whisper, and it seems almost innocent at first until you continue. You don’t know what pushes you to say it or where the sudden courage comes from, perhaps it was adrenaline. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow or what might happen… so I…” You swallow the nervousness down. “I want to forget, just for tonight,” 

Scaramouche’s eyes snap open, but he remains hidden in your neck. He’s vaguely aware of what you’re implying and it takes him some self-control to confirm and ask you. “…What do you mean?”

There’s a few seconds of silence before you answer, stumbling on your words a little but clearly your desire overpowers it. “I mean that…you could help me…take my mind off of things… I’m too anxious about everything right now and I just–”

Scaramouche needs no further explanation as he suddenly pushes you down on the bed and towers over you, his hands on the sides of your head. Legs trapping your body in between and under his. There’s a carnal need that flashes in his eyes and they look clouded and darker to you. 

You bravely meet his gaze, you meant what you said, and perhaps part of you just wanted more of him to be ingrained in your memory, in case something dreadful happened tomorrow. 

“…You really are impossible,” he mumbles and you smile a little at his observation. He leans down to devour your lips again, and the rest of the night is spent in exploration of each other’s bodies and feelings, as if tomorrow was never going to come. Like the two of you were infinite and timeless in each other’s passion.

Like the melding of your bodies into one would tattoo and anchor you to each other forever.

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