I'm sorry for the shitstorm that went down last month. It was ugly, and the messages pertaining to it are gone now. In short, I got riled up and reacted in a ture me fashion, with an explosion, and got my shit handed to me for it. Eh. Let's not talk about it.

Chapter Beta'd for you by Karp!

Today's warnings; fantasy racism, a kid being a mean little shit, and an eight-year-old punching another eight-year-old square in the face.

[Regalis: in search of Peace and Quiet!]

•chapter six•

Girl visits the gardens. Girl punches the prince. Girl meets the princess.

•••

Before long, Scarlett offers the children to go to the gardens while the adults catch up, and while Adetta would much prefer to just snag a book from one of the shelves in the office and cram herself into one of the corners with it, she is also fully and well aware that leaving the children without supervision in palace gardens spanning literal acres is literally asking for trouble. As much as she would like to believe in Elijah and Rosaria, they were small children, and she knew from firsthand experience that small children oftentimes came up with most ridiculous and most dangerous ideas, due to their severe lack of concept of danger.

And no, leaving a maid with them is not an option, as they won’t go against orders, even ridiculous ones from children. Adetta is the only one who can really reign them in.

“Alastair and Chantal should be somewhere there, so go introduce yourselves,” Scarlett smiles, eyes twinkling, and Adetta sends her a suspicious glance. She remembers that in game, younger Alastair used to be a Joffrey-worthy little shit, and Scarlett of all people would know that Adetta would not stand to that behavior.

Was the queen staging a confrontation between Adetta and Alastair on purpose? She did warn them of such possibility and neither Tobias nor Scarlett seemed overly concerned.

Did they actually want Adetta to literally beat some sense into their son, if it actually came to physical blows?

Oh well. One way to find out.

Crawforde sends her a sour face as they leave, silently pleading that she does not, in fact, go after the prince, and she just shrugs, and mouths ‘I always just react accordingly’. If anyone will be to blame today, it will be Alastair only, and they all better know it.

♦►☼◄♦

The palace gardens were an actual, literal plant maze of which size overshadowed those at Bellville Manor, and the splendor overshadowed it. But there was a wild charm to those back home, as if a piece of forest, sequestered and subjected to only minimal human influence—paved paths, lamp-posts, and benches, and then just nature—that could not be found here, among the perfectly trimmed hedge fences and flowers planted in fancy shapes, perfectly outlined little ponds and small fencings. Bellville’s Garden was, in a way, a jungle, a wonderland full of secrets and secret paths. The Secret Garden that was not secret at all, if you knew where to look.

The Palace Gardens, on the other hand, were a pinnacle of geometry and human effort. Each was beautiful, but with entirely different charm, and Adetta found that, while she enjoyed this man-made thing quite a bit, it couldn’t really hold a candle to the barely-touched wilderness surrounding her home.

Rosaria is looking around with a bright smile, probably moments away from running off, and Adetta moves a bit closer to grab her by the scruff if needed. Thankfully, it’s not needed, because Rosaria grabs her by the hand and starts jumping around.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s gooooo!” the girl almost yells, and Adetta lets herself be tugged along with a small smile.

“Rosaria, slow down a little!” Elijah complains, but it falls on deaf ears. Adetta manages to slow her sister down a little, of course, but not by much. Just enough that she has no trouble keeping up at a relatively slow pace.

“How should we even act with the Prince?” Elijah asks. “I mean, His Highness and Her Highness asked us to refer to them casually, so I don’t know-“

“Whatever will be fine, I suppose,” Adetta says. “From what I gathered, he didn’t have much contact with kids his age before, so just act with him like you would with any other child. Aunt won’t mind.”

“Easy for you to say!” Elijah whines. “You always do whatever you want anyway! Sometimes I feel like there’s no force that could stop you.”

“That’s good,” she says with a small smile, and that’s that.

They wander around the gardens, a bit aimlessly, mostly lead around by Rosaria and Fenrir jumping from plant to plant and talking botany in simplified child terms, and Adetta just enjoys being outside. Of course, she would prefer to be somewhere inside, with a book and peace, and the sun irritated her, but otherwise, it was fine. Elijah was picking singular flowers from the perfectly trimmed flowerbeds and slowly folding them into a wreath. When he seemed satisfied with it, he unceremoniously plopped it on Adetta’s head.

“Ah!” Rosaria calls out. “Sis, you look like a flower fairy!”

“Do I really?” she asks with a small smile.

“I mean,” Fenrir says, blushing a bit, “you do kind-of look like a fairy all the time.”

“Yep!” Elijah agrees. “With your violet hair and pink eyes, you’re only really missing wings!”

Rosaria is nodding at them so hard Adetta for a moment worries for her neck, but she just smiles and humors them, twirling a little. Her hair is long, straight for the most part and ending in separate ringlets, and it whips around her in an arc, guided by a small gust of wind. Rosaria giggles and claps her hands.

But the world wouldn’t have that—and, of course, the moment gets ruined.

“What’s the yelling about?” a snobby voice of young boy rings through the pathway. “Who are you even? Why are you allowed in the Royal Gardens?!”

Before them, in his full eight-year-old glory, stands Alastair, red hair still short, and yellow eyes shining with about as much contempt as a child can muster. A brat spotted, Adetta’s mind sings, and indeed, Alastair seems very much a brat, from his pose through his tone, look in his eyes, to his general disposition.

Adetta kind-of hates him already.

“Auntie Scarlett told us to go here,” Adetta replies curtly, and Alastair grits his teeth.

“Auntie- How dare you to speak of Mother as such! You plebs should know your place!”

One simple sentence, and Adetta has to physically grab Elijah and Fenrir to stop them from potentially committing murder. Is this really Alastair? The same sad but friendly young man from the game, with bright smile hiding a metric ton of pain and smug, boisterous glint to his eye?

Well, it obviously is him. Just—in every way inferior.

“We know our place,” she says icily, and Eliah blanches, and Fenrir flattens his ears against his skull.

“Do you now?” he sniffs, before looking at Fenrir. Adetta does not like his gaze. “Hah, bringing filthy animal here-“

“Fenrir is neither filthy nor animal, and behaved much better than you, therefore I fail to see how should he have less of a right to be here than you,” Adetta says through gritted teeth, knuckles white as she’s gripping her boys’ collars, now more to ground herself than them.

Alastair scoffs. “I am Alastair Sinclair, the Prince of Sheothia! I can say and do whatever I please!”

Oh, lording titles over others.

Fun.

“I am Adelia Bellville, and I don’t have to give a single flying fuck over what you can do,” she tells him, tone even but with an edge to it that makes Elijah and Fenrir flinch, and Alastair loose some of his bravado. Rosaria is standing behind her, smarter than throwing herself at the bigger, older boy, but shivering with gleeful anticipation, because she knows her sister, and she knows exactly what will happen soon, and she cannot wait.

“I- I’ll call the guards to get rid of you! And that mutt!”

This is the lovable capture target of Regalis? Really? This little, Joffrey-worthy shit?

Adetta lets go of her servant and cousin, and takes few steps forward.

“If you truly know what’s good for you, you will apologize to Fenrir first, and then to us,” she informs the other eight-year-old flatly, still disbelieving at how such a small child can be such a shit in even semi-public. But then, from what Adetta heard from her parents, the Royal Couple is insanely busy, which means that Alastair is cared form mostly by people who bend backwards to please him.

Alastair must have never once been denied in his life, and it shows.

“I will not apologize to this lowly thing!” he shrieks, stomping his foot. “It’s less than human and I want it gone!” He spits in Fenrir’s direction.

Adetta clenches her fists, blood boiling, and if gaze alone could kill, Alastair would be dead by now. But it can’t, sadly, so she has to do it manually.

She moves towards him, purposeful, fast, long strides, and Alastair, pulled by some shred of self-preservation, takes a step back.

“What are you doing? I’m the prince! I order you to stay away from me!”

Adetta doesn’t answer. Instead, she raises her fisted hand up, rears it back, and delivers one of the most satisfying right hooks in her life, straight in the center of his face with as much force as her eight-year-old body can muster. Alastair falls onto the ground and Rosaria cheers loudly, and there are quick steps towards her, and suddenly Elijah is in her face, frantically looking over her hand.

“Are your knuckles okay? That looked nasty!”

Prioritizing his sister’s hand rather than the nation’s prince writhing on the floor after getting punched with that very hand. Adetta is glad he’s got his priorities straight.

“Your highness!” a woman screams, and there’s sound of shoes on the pavement, adults judging from the intensity, and a maid rounds the hedge corner, and stops, frozen in her tracks, looking between Alastair on the ground, nose bleeding, and Adetta attending over him with clenched first still raised and perfectly natural expression.

“Good morning to you,” Adetta curtsies politely at the stupefied maid and some guards. “I am Adelia Henrietta Bellville. Auntie Scarlett told us to come to the gardens as she and Uncle Tobias talk to our parents.”

There’s confusion on their faces, followed quickly enough by a horrified realization.

The Heiress Apparent of Bellville Archduchy just punched the First Prince of Sheothia. A squabble of two children in the gardens, and yet, a stand-off between two titans on, by all means, equal footing.

“What are you waiting for?!” Alastair shrieks from the ground. “Throw them in the dungeon!”

“They can’t, you dumbfuck,” Adetta snaps at him, and only barely stops herself from kicking the brat. She massages her forehead briefly as Alastair splutters, and then moves over to him, bends gown, and hauls the boy up by the scruff, despite his flailing. “Get blood on my dress and I’ll have Uncle Tobias tan your hide,” she snaps in warning, and he stills, looking at her wide-eyed. She had punched him already—maybe she can really make his father do that?

Adetta just scoffs, and bodily drags Alastair in the direction the flustered maid and guards came from.

“Is there any ice you can bring me?” Adetta asks the maid directly, spooking her. The woman jumps a bit, but the nods, a tad frantically. “Good. Bring me a bowl of it then.”

“What do you need ice for?” Elijah asks, as the maid all but sprints away.

“To throw it behind your collar,” Adetta says, and he gives her a deadpan but slightly afraid look. He knows it’s just a her-thing to say things like these, but it’s also a her-thing to actually carry them through. “No, I bloodied this idiot’s nose, the least I can do is ice it, right?”

She shakes Alastair for emphasis, much to the boy’s dismay, but he’s busy whining and holding his nose.

“He deserves to bleed,” Rosaria says resolutely, trotting behind them, hand-in-hand with Fenrir.

“Well, yes, but I choose to be the bigger person,” Adetta tells her little sister. “Lording my emotional and general superiority over a lesser being and such.”

“Ah. Makes sense.”

“Once my mother hears of this-“ Alastair starts, but Adetta cuts him off with a snort.

“Your mother is the one who explicitly allowed me to punch you,” she tells the prince. “I sincerely doubt she’ll do much more than laugh at your expense.”

“She would never!” he argues, but that gets blood into his mouth, and he proceeds to spit, disgusted.

“Would she?” Adetta asks, amused. “Because she’s very alike my mother, and my mother would.”

Alastair falls silent, his body still finding it in itself to blush, in fury or embarrassment or both, despite the blood loss. Not like the blood is gushing from his nose anyway, it’s more like a trickle—she absolutely didn’t manage to break it or anything, not with a strength of an eight-year-old. Maybe later in life she would be able to throw punches like such, but not with child’s body.

They soon come upon a medium-sized, heavily ornate gazebo with a set table and, by the table, another familiar-unfamiliar face. It would appear that Alastair was having tea with his sister.

And a horde of staff, all of whom collectively flinched when Adetta came in, dragging Alastair, who was bleeding from his nose, by the collar. There was a bruise forming around his nose already, angry red that will undoubtedly turn uglier purple come tomorrow.

The princess’ eyes twinkle with mischief when she sees them. She’s six, or something like that, and a spitting image of her mother, that childish mischief bound to mature into adult smugness included. She stands up, because she has much more manners than her brother, and curtsies cutely.

“Greetings to you all, I am Chantal Rose Sinclair, the First Princess of Sheothia.”

“Well met Your Grace,” Adetta curtsies back, which is broken a bit due to her still having a fistful of Alastair’s shirt. “I am Adelia Henrietta Bellville, the First Daughter and Heiress of Bellville Archduchy.”

Rosaria and Elijah introduce themselves, too, and after some nudging, so does Fenrir. They all ignore Alastair’s grumbling.

“Now that know who everyone is, what did this idiot do this time?” Chantal asks, two years younger but very much with the exasperation of an older sibling.

“I have been violently attacked!” Alastair shrieks, and Adetta can feel a vein on her neck pop.

“You have insulted me and my friends, and then suffered the consequences thereof, like every normal person!” she snaps at him, and he scoffs. He’s still holding his nose, which is still bleeding, and Adetta still has him by the scruff, so the effect is probably nothing like he intended.

“I am the prince!”

“And your sister is the princess, and, somehow, she can behave like a person, instead of screaming like an ape,” Adetta deadpans. “I wonder why.”

“I will have you executed for this!”

“You’re eight, you don’t have nearly enough power to do that. You wouldn’t even if you were a king, due to my standing! I, on the other hand, have all the power necessary to throw you into that rosebush, and half a mind to actually do it!” she says, obviously agitated, and marches Alastair to the table, forcefully sitting him down. “Now let me look at your nose.”

“That’s your fault to begin with!”

“No. That’s my response to you being a racist little bitch,” Alastair’s eyes widen at her language, and Chantal lets out a surprised snort. Elijah shakes his head, Fenrir chuckles, and Rosaria cheers. Adetta only curses when she’s agitated, after all. “Now sit the fuck down and stop fucking squirming, or I’ll make it worse!”

Alastair stops squirming as Adetta moves him to sit, leaning forward and pinching his nose, which she deems not-broken. It will swell, though, and it will hurt for a good week.

“I could fix him,” Elijah proposes, and Adetta snorts.

“I doubt anything but a life-changing event could fix his abhorrent personality,” she says.

“I- You- His nose! I meant his nose!” Elijah splutters, and she laughs at the boy. He huffs, but there’s a smile on his face.

“He deserves to suffer,” Rosaria says sagely, with all the seriousness a three-year-old could possibly muster, from where she managed to become seated and sipping tea in the short span since their arrival. Adetta sends her a questioning glance. “He insulted you and Fenrir,” the girl says as if it explains everything and, to Rosaria, it very much does. Actually, to Adetta, it does too.

“Well, my brother is an idiot,” Chantal agrees with a nod, and proceeds to take a sip of her tea. Alastair hisses from where he’s seated and finally, the harried maid from before comes running with a bowl of ice. Adetta proceeds to grab a handful of ice shards, wrapping them in one of the silky handkerchiefs and pressing the wrapping to Alastair’s nose. He hisses and almost rears back, but she’s faster and grabs him by the back of the neck to prevent any rapid movements.

“Down. Ice helps.”

“Shut up, I hate you.”

“Eh, I’ll live.”

“Why won’t you just bow down to be like everyone else?!”

“Because you’re a little brat in desperate need of manners.”

“You’re same age as me!”

“So?”

“So?! You, why you-!”

Adetta presses the icepack harder.

♦►☼◄♦

Scarlett is standing by one of the windows in the hallway, the one overlooking the gardens. She’s smiling, Penelope notes, her gaze set somewhere father than the windows and hedges allow them to see, and eyes somewhat glazed.

“I always wondered, why wouldn’t you just reign in that boy?” she asks her friend, and Scarlett turns to her, eyes deglazing, and smiles.

“Because the most valuable lessons are those we learn for ourselves,” she says. “Alastair will grow up to be a magnificent young man and a great ruler one day, but not before he goes through some hardships. What they are, however, I can’t say anymore.”

“You felt something,” Penelope says, eyes narrowing. “Didn’t you?”

“The world has shifted, Penny. It’s been shifting for years—ever since you had Adetta, but recently, less than a year ago, any semblance of set future has went to hell. And it’s all your kids fault, Penny. I don’t know what Adetta knows, or what will she do, but… Your mother will be pleased with her, that much I know. Mine will be as well, for that matter.”

“Oh yes,” Penelope laughs. “I don’t know when they will meet, but they will, and Adetta is exactly the type of person Mama adores. I almost fear what will happen then.”

They stand in companionable silence for a while. Then;

“She punched him, didn’t she?”

“Yes. Does it make me a bad mother that I find it entertaining?”

“Well… You did say he has to face hardships. An angry Adetta is a hardship enough, for now.”