Fox-Trot-9

Written on 7/28/23. Camp NaNoWriMo, July 2023 edition.

Villainess [6]: Donavan’s Silent Treatment

Red Pill [0]: Aftermaths, Ghosts

The summons had gotten to him, for Donavan Blaise had gone too far with Miss Edgeworth tonight and made her cry on the bedside after it was over, and no apology or concession would lessen it. Even when he asked her if she was okay, Miss Edgeworth shook her head and stood up from the bedside, took up her nightgown from the foot of the bed and put it on before grabbing her unmentionables without so much as sparing him a glance, meaning he had crossed a line. And when he tried to approach her, reaching out and apologizing for hurting her, she told him to stay away from her. So he kept adding more apologies that he knew were useless but kept on adding, saying anything to save the situation, which made Miss Edgeworth look his way at last, but she walked away without saying another word and vaporized herself from the room.

While Miss Edgeworth’s afterimage lingered in the low lamplit chiaroscuro of his dorm like the sun’s glare leaving its imprint behind his eyelids, he cursed (“Damn it!”) and turned off the lamp atop his nightstand, flooding his room with darkness. Now Donavan sat on the bedside and cupped his hands over his knees and bowed his head, his gaze to the floor without seeing it, his mind racing at the weight of what he had done. The Prince had lost control of himself like a cannonball overshooting its intended target and hitting a friendly one. In twelve hours, he had hurt two women, one he hated and one he loved, and whatever shred of dignity he had left told him that he had fucked up, big time, and deserved whatever was coming to him. With these thoughts, Donavan climbed into bed and pulled the sheets over himself to cover up his shame and put his forearm over his eyes to save himself from the further indignity of shedding tears like the innocent little boy he once was.

But soon enough, through the heady mix of self-loathing and child-like guilt, he fell down the rabbit hole of sleep into oblivion. And here he stayed for a time, till he found himself standing on the top railing that overlooked the gap between the upper and lower staircases amidst a chaotic scene. Frantic students and guardsmen were screaming for him to get down from there, while a pair of students and a professor were running up the staircase and yelling for him to stop this madness. Yet amidst the chaos of everybody trying to talk him out of it, Donavan looked back down the hallway above all of their heads and saw Miss Edgeworth leaning against the door jamb of Classroom 1-3C. And when he locked eyes with Miss Edgeworth, he saw her ashen face streaked with tears and wanted to call out to her, yet she never called out to him: she just looked away like a stranger and sealed his fate.

He was better off dead, so he accepted his fate with one step off the railing into his demise two stories below him. Yet as the sudden vertigo of falling dreams overtook him, another voice yelled out from behind him, calling out his childhood nickname in a desperate scream: “Donny, waaaait!”

He awoke the next morning in bed, his breathing labored, his heart drumming in his chest, and his temples slick with sweat. And on his lips was a whisper:

“Janet . . .”

(On their second day of spying on the couple, six of Janet’s clones tailed their targets past the double-door entrance of Lassen Academy into the open-plan parlor area and up both flights of stairs into the third floor. Along the way, they noticed the silence between them, so the beheaded clone in the soiled linen gown thought of the tongue-lashing the Prince had received yesterday and said, “Maybe he’s just out of it. I know I’d be after a summons like that.”

“But that still doesn’t explain Lady Dorian,” the clone in the bloodstained ball gown said, looking at the imposter that was usually in a chipper mood in his Highness’s presence. “What must have happened?”

“Don’t know,” one of the clones tailing Lady Dorian said. “I’m not used to seeing them like this at all.”

“I know,” another clone said. “Let’s just keep an eye on them, but no weird stuff from you three,” the clone said to the three clones targeting the Prince.

Those three clones bowed their shoulders under the memory of DeeDee’s anger last night when her tortoises went missing under their noses, so the clone in the bloodstained commoner’s dress said, “We won’t do anything like that again.”

“Promise?” the clone said.

“Geez, we promise already!” they said.)

As the clones continued their speculations on the couple, Miss Edgeworth had not spared Donavan a word or a glance on their way to Classroom 1-3C or even when they took their seats at the same table by the last window of the classroom. Once all the students had seated themselves, Baron Palmer made a special announcement. He said after consulting Count Cosgrove over the Prince’s actions against Lady Fleming yesterday, the professors have agreed to extend the current homeroom to four hours from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. With Homerooms 1 and 2 and Periods 1 through 4 combined into one homeroom, Baron Palmer said this should afford him enough time to question everyone in class. And with forty-nine students occupying twenty-five tables seating two students each arranged in five columns and five rows, Baron Palmer would work his way through the first column of tables closest to the double doors, starting with the first table in the column.

This made Prince Blaise and Miss Edgeworth’s table dead last, which meant that after the baron was finished talking with the Prince, he’d have Miss Edgeworth to talk to, which the Prince couldn’t abide. If she told the baron what happened last night, it would spell the end of his time at school and the end of his time in high society as a prince in the kingdom. No, he wouldn’t abide by that at all. The Prince would wait five minutes for the baron to be done with Miss Edgeworth, but if he wasn’t finished questioning her, if the line of questions and answers turned from the mistake in the Cafeteria to the mistake in his dorm, the Prince would approach without getting called yet and tell him off to his face.

But Baron Palmer seemed to check the Prince’s thoughts and added, “Everyone, that is, except for his Highness. You’ll stay seated where you are, till homeroom is over,” and he glanced at Donavan in a way that made him want to burn the baron alive the moment he turned his back on him.

The Prince gave him the briefest of nods before moving him up the mental checklist of people he’ll prosecute after he ascends the throne. Of course, on top of that list was Lady Fleming for bullying Rosalie, but the only other student was Lord O’Neill for groping Rosalie before the entrance ceremony. But since yesterday’s summons, he added Father Robinson and Baron Palmer and Viscountess Durham and Count Cosgrove to the list for insinuating things he hadn’t done or wouldn’t do, ever, and added Margrave Sydney for questioning his qualifications as a prince, but reserved much of his resentment for Marquess Fleming for twisting his words around, backing up his claims with fraudulent evidence, and doing all that for the sake of a woman he had come to despise.

Yet despite all that, why did Lady Fleming call out to him as he was about to jump? Was it because he was at his weakest that time, and Lady Fleming was there just to dance over his carcass when it hit the ground? Maybe. But if that was really the case, then why would she use his childhood nickname? And why was Janet the one calling out to him and not Rosalie? Why had Rosalie turned away like that? What must’ve happened for Rosalie (the one he saw in his dream) to give him the silent treatment even when he was about to jump?

While he mulled over these questions, Donavan took a sidelong glance at the Rosalie sitting beside him, thought about making amends with her, then second-guessed himself and gave her some time to let her work her way through it.

Meanwhile, Baron Palmer started calling up one student at a time to the lectern for questioning, rousing whispers from the Prince’s classmates. He fisted his hands in his lap as snatches of their whispers reached him, letting his guilty conscience fill in the blanks in the voices of his ball-busters from the stupid summons.

And so, with four hours to go and nothing to do, he laid his head down over his forearms on the table, shutting his eyes from the world around him and listening to his conscience speak to him, letting the voices in his head solidify into the bodily participants from his summons, letting his thoughts meld into the world of dreams . . .

(The six clones gathered around their table when the Prince laid his head down, and one of the Prince’s tormentors said, “Should we take a little peek?”

“As long as you don’t do anything else.”

“We already promised you, didn’t we?” the clone said.

“Just get on with it,” the clone said, putting her hand over her double’s shoulder and having the others do the same, thereby connecting their thoughts into a collective whole.

Now acting as their central node, the stabbed clone in the bloodstained ball gown placed her hand over the Prince’s head and tapped into his dream . . .)

As Donavan regained his bearings (and six of Janet’s clones manifested beside the perimeter of the antechamber, standing around like wallflowers), he found himself back inside the Judgement Circle with their Majesties the King and Queen and Margrave Sydney and Marquess Fleming standing on one side of the circle, and Father Robinson and Baron Palmer and Viscountess Durham and Count Cosgrove standing on the other side. Their Majesties were the only ones from yesterday’s summons that had not changed, King Blaise in his morning dress suit and Queen Blaise in her tea gown, yet the Margrave, the Marquess, and the four Lassen Academy professors all had black versions of what they wore yesterday. And unlike yesterday, nobody entered the Judgement Circle: he was left alone under the stern gazes of his betters, all of them leering at him with red eyes and sallow complexions and deranged grins as if they had all been up the night before binge-drinking.

(“Whoa!” the beheaded clone said.

“Anything unusual?” her fellow clone said.

“They’re way different from last time,” she said.

“In what way?” her double said.

“They never wore black yesterday,” she said as she stared at Marquess Fleming in black attire, “and right now they feel out of place. Creepy, even.”

So her double looked over at the Prince, pointing him out and saying, “Maybe it’s because of him?”)

Donavan now looked to his parents for support, but they both averted their eyes as if they repented the day they had brought him into their world, the day when he took his first breath and saw his mother’s crying face, the day that had announced his presence through his first screams.

He turned towards everyone else, and everyone else in the antechamber just glared at him.

First, it was Margrave Sydney, who said, “Hurting a knight student is one thing, but hurting a lady like that? I refuse to serve a would-be king like that!”

“That’s lèse-majesté!” he said.

Now it was Marquess Fleming, saying, “You’re lucky you’re still a minor, boy, because your ass would be mine in a duel! So go off to your mommy and daddy!”

“Come in here and say that again, I dare you!”

Now it was Father Robinson, saying, “Didn’t I tell you, your Highness? Since you rejected my offer to fess up and put an end to this, you’ll just have to face the consequences, even when you weren’t the one who did it!”

“That wasn’t me, you fucking geezer!”

Now it was Baron Palmer, saying, “Since I couldn’t talk sense into you at the summons, I won’t let you have your say during homeroom. You’ll just have to sit there in your corner of woe, till homeroom ends, understand?”

“Fuck you!” he said.

Now it was Viscountess Durham, saying, “Ugh! If you did that to Lady Fleming and Miss Edgeworth, then I can just imagine what you’ll do to your queen consort!”

“You damn wench, I’m not like that at all!”

Now it was Count Cosgrove, saying, “I sure hope you had nothing to do with this debacle, your Highness, because if you had anything to do with this at all, you just added three more headaches that I have to deal with, and I’ll personally bring this up to Judge Matthews by then.”

“Then I’ll sue you for wrongful prosecution!”

Now it was Marquess Fleming again, approaching the Judgment Circle and saying, “Since his Highness is such a nincompoop, I formally submit more evidence for this inquiry,” and he picked out from his waistcoat pocket a voice-capture amulet with an image-capture crystal embedded in it and placed it in a wine glass and tapped the glass with a fork, showing everyone in the antechamber of the Royal Palace the nighttime trysts between Donavan and Miss Edgeworth, causing mouths to gasp and jaws to drop and hands to cover up gaping mouths and even the Queen to swoon into the arms of the King.

(Even the clones were taken aback, covering their gaping mouths and averting their eyes and haranguing their stabbed double for her stupid idea of entering the thoughts of a horny teenage male, while the stabbed clone said, “I didn’t expect this, either, geez!”

Yet her observation didn’t stop her doubles from blaming her for making them lose their breakfast, even though ghosts had no need for physical sustenance.)

“What the hell is this?” the King said.

“Father, I can explain!” Donavan said, almost stepping out of the Judgment Circle.

“Stay where you are and be silent!” the King yelled, then to the Marquess: “What is this, Arnold?”

“Anal sex,” he said.

“I know that!” the King said. “But why?”

“I don’t know why, your Majesty, because I don’t share in his foibles,” the Marquess said, then to Donavan: “You’re very hard to please, your Highness, and your taste in women and sex is questionable. Thank goodness, I ended the engagement between you and Lady Fleming when I did; otherwise, you’d bugger my daughter the way you’re buggering Miss Edgeworth!”

“It’s not like that!” he said.

“You say that now like you mean it,” the Marquess said, then pointed up at the damning hologram lingering in the room, “but your actions tell a different story!”

“Fuck you!” Donavan yelled.

“I’m trying to help you, you fucking moron!”

“Then you can take that ‘help’ and shove it up your ass!” he said before turning his back on him. “I’m through talking, you witch-fucker!”

The King and Marquess Fleming and Margrave Sydney and the four professors (and even Janet’s clones) paused after his outburst, with the Queen still lying limp in the King’s arms. Just like the others, King Blaise just stared at Donavan for a time, then had Margrave Sydney and Marquess Fleming take off their overcoats and lay them on the floor, so that he could lay his wife over them just a few steps away from the Judgment Circle. Then, after the King had Margrave Sydney kneel by the Queen’s prostrate body, the King and Marquess Fleming returned to their side of the Judgment Circle.

“What’s gotten into you?” the King said.

“I said, I’m through talking, Father,” Donavan said.

“I’m not through with you yet, you stupid boy!” the Marquess said, stepping right up to the edge of the Circle. “Why would you even say that about my wife?”

“I’m not talking. Fuck off!” he repeated.

And for a time, the Marquess just stood there, grimacing and shaking his head, fuming like a smoldering fuse on a spherical grenade, till he breathed out a sigh and glared at him for the umpteenth time. “For your sake, I advise you to change your ways, your Highness,” he said as he again pointed up at the hologram still lingering in the room like the evidence of a guilty conscience. “If you keep going up the creek like you’ve been plowing women’s bums, you’ll end up with more than just your dick in the shitter! You’ll end up with your head lopped off your shoulders, while your dick rots inside her asshole! Do you really want that?”

Donavan couldn’t take anymore and lost control, turning around and rushing from the Judgment Circle with a wild swing at the Marquess’s face, just as the Marquess turned into Lady Fleming as the his fist and the rest of his body passed through her like a ghost, passing out of the antechamber . . .

(Now this other ghost of Lady Fleming looked over at the six other Janet-copies staring, wide-eyed, and gaping at her from their places by the perimeter wall of the antechamber. She had gleaming red eyes and a slasher smile plastered on her face, and now she raised a finger to her lips and mouthed words they couldn’t hear.

“What’s she saying?” one clone said.

“How should I know?” the one in the bloodstained ball gown said as the clones dissipated from the antechamber and manifested inside another dreamscape, or a nightmare really, for they now viewed the same scene they had witnessed in Classroom 1-3C last night . . .)

Because now there flashed through Donavan’s mind the image of Lady Fleming’s body lying motionless at his feet in class, while the screams of his classmates echoed behind them as they ran out calling for help in the hallway. And before Donavan knew it, before he could blink away the awful sight of a dead body or explain himself to a horrified Miss Edgeworth in front of him, he faded out of the nightmare—

And found himself in another, now on the verge of a falling dream as he teetered over the railing of the third floor and saw his own body two stories below him in the parlor area, where a bloody halo had blossomed from his head amidst a pandemonium of screams erupting all around him.

And amidst the wailing chaos of voices and useless calls for help, he heard someone crying . . .

(Now the six clones found themselves back inside a now-empty Classroom 1-3C, still standing around the Prince’s table as Lady Dorian was shaking the Prince’s shoulder. For a time, the clones just stood there as if they were still seeing that mysterious Janet-clone before them.

“What did we just see?” one clone said.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” another clone said.

But then the stabbed clone in the bloodstained ball gown pointed out Lady Dorian waking up the Prince and said, “Let’s wait and see what happens first.”)

As the vertigo of another falling dream brought him out of it, Donavan was jolted awake at somebody touching his shoulder. When he looked up, he saw Miss Edgeworth saying, “Wake up, your Highness. It’s already lunchtime.”

He then sat up and yawned, raising his arms over his shoulders in a much-needed stretch, then looked at all of the empty tables and chairs in the classroom and said, “They just up and left without waking me?”

“Yeah,” Miss Edgeworth said.

Then Donavan snapped back to the most pressing question and said, “What did you tell Baron Palmer?”

“Only what I saw in the Cafeteria,” she said, then leaned over his shoulder with a whisper. “And no, I didn’t tell him about our trysts, Donny, so you don’t have to worry about that one getting out. If I told him about that, we’d both be in a whole heap of trouble, don’t you think?”

Donavan breathed out a sigh, thankful that Miss Edgeworth had not turned against him, but he nonetheless stood up and wrapped his arms around her in an intimate hug, saying, “I thought I lost you, Rosy!”

(“Not this again,” one clone said.

“It’s like a romance novel,” another one added.

And the other clones added their own grumbles about it.)

“It’s all right, Donny,” she said, smiling as she returned his hug. “Let bygones be bygones, okay?”

“You’re right,” he said.

But then Rosalie yanked on the Prince’s tie, lowering him into a lingering kiss and fluorescing an upside-down tetrahedron over his forehead, before she let him go and said, “Now listen to me, your Highness.”

“Yes, my Lady,” the Prince said.

(That’s when all six clones gaped at the sight of it, their eyes fixed on the glowing symbol, so the emaciated clone in the soiled linen gown said, “Two of you, go find the others and tell them everything we saw! Hurry!”

So two clones, one in the bloodstained ball gown and another clone in a wet school uniform, raced out of the room, passing through the walls into the hallway and down both flights of stairs, their footfalls echoing away.

All the while, the remaining clones watched.)

“Last night’s dream was only meant to confuse you,” she said (making the four clones grit their teeth at her lies). “Lady Fleming has charmed you with a nightmare meant to tear you away from me, and she used her dead mother’s black arts to play with your mind. Don’t fall for her tricks, you Highness! You’re stronger than that, far stronger than you know, for you have me by your side. Understand?”

“Yes, my Lady,” the Prince said.

(“Fuck, she has him by the balls!” one clone said.)

So Rosalie kissed him again, dissipating the symbol on his forehead, and said, “Come on, Donny!”

“Will do, Rosy!” the Prince said, taking his paramour by the hand and leading her down the hall towards the staircase landing (as the clones followed on their heels), yet the feeling of weightless vertigo overtook him for a moment, causing his steps to falter as he doubled over and clamped his hands over his knees and his head to fill up with Janet’s scream fluttering through his mind . . .

(Which the clones all heard over and over.

“Donny, waaaait!” Janet’s voice kept repeating, reverberating like an echo from a nightmare, so they stopped and stared at the Prince experiencing the symptoms that had plagued their living avatar in the same hallway, reliving the consequences of his past actions while unaware of their source.

“It’s because of last night, wasn’t it?” one clone said, biting her lip, and the other three agreed.)

“Should I take you to the infirmary?” Rosalie said.

“No, it’s fine,” he said, blinking his eyes to relieve the vertigo, trying to shake Lady Fleming’s voice from his mind. “Just give me a second.”

“Are you sure, your Highness?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” the Prince said, then stood up after a bit and started descending the steps of the upper staircase and the lower staircase with Rosalie holding him steady by the arm all the way. (As the clones followed, they were full of misgivings about holding onto their grudges against the man that had played such an instrumental role in ending their lives, only to see him throw his own life away in the end, till the Prince seemed to recover the lower he descended.) By the time he reached the foot of the stairs, the Prince felt the world upright itself, confirming the truth as he now saw it: that he was free from Janet’s influence and that Rosalie was his. After they headed through the open-plan parlor area and the open double doors of the Student Commons Cafeteria, he saw the second-year Lord Hudson raise his hand at a long table in the far right corner of the great hall by the tall windows.

The Prince and Miss Edgeworth raised their hands in acknowledgement, then headed into the buffet area to get their trays and glasses and pick out their food and drink. Yet even when he felt better than before, the Prince had lost his appetite and settled on a plate of his standby favorite dish combo, risotto and penne pomodoro and a glass of ginger ale, while Rosalie picked out her preferences according to her whim. This time, it was a plate of pot-au-feu, a small bowl of sweetened cheese soufflé, and a glass of marmalade tea. (As the clones followed them towards the table, they were soon to bear witness to another side of the Prince, a side that they hadn’t seen since their childhood Donny-days.)

After sitting down, the Prince’s appetite hadn’t returned, even when Miss Edgeworth showed off her etiquette skills and chatted with her fans and fangirls. Several of these fans were a group of knight students that included the second-year Lord Hudson and his second-year knight friends from the Garrison Quarters’ Jeremy House. Their current topic centered on the disappearance of Lady Childeron and Lady Felton, which the Prince asked Lord Hudson to take over for him. As his senior and designated school chum, the Prince looked up to Lord Hudson and allowed him to take over whenever he had a lot on his mind. As such, the Prince focused on eating but only ate a few mouthfuls of risotto and penne pomodoro before washing it down with a glass of ginger ale.

Only, it tasted like marmalade tea.

“Um, your Highness,” Rosalie said. “That’s mine.”

“Oh, sorry about that!” he said. “I’ll get you another glass. Just wait here,” and he rose to his feet—

Till Rosalie grabbed his arm, saying, “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” he said.

“I’m sure, Mr. Worrywart,” Rosalie said.

So the Prince sat back down, letting out what felt like the umpteenth sigh before pushing back his plate and saying, “I’m just not hungry today.”

The group stopped their chatting.

“But you were fine just before we came here.”

“Only for a moment,” he said. “Sorry for worrying you.”

“It’s fine,” Rosalie said, “but for my sake, please try and eat a little more, okay?”

The Prince nodded and took another tasteless mouthful of his risotto and chewed and swallowed, then looked down at his glass of ginger ale, picked it up, and downed another gulp, but he lost the will to take another bite.

“Was Baron Palmer that hard on you?” Lord Hudson said, a fine red-headed male specimen that was the same size as Sir Kevin Sydney but was as quick and agile as the Prince. It was under the private after-school tutelage of Lord Hudson’s father Count Eric Hudson that Prince Blaise had developed his swordsmanship much faster than his peers in Countess Chapman’s extracurricular Wednesday morning class at the Knights’ Training Grounds behind the Western Annex.

“He didn’t question me,” he said. “He only had me sit in class for four hours, so I just slept. It’s not about that, anyway. It's about Lady Fleming.”

(The four clones stared at this alien version of the Prince that had seemed an impossibility when they had first met their living avatar in the women’s bathroom two days ago, yet here he was showing consideration for Janet in her absence. Even the two remaining clones that had witnessed the Prince acknowledge his own shortcomings in his dorm before the summons seemed to have suspended their initial judgments. It was like watching the denouement of a play after the climax had come and gone, in which all the players had changed their moods according to the aftermath of a tragedy. And like any good tragedy, just as the characters have changed their attitudes on stage, so too has the audience changed theirs.)

All the while, everyone seated at the Prince’s table traded glances, some biting their lips, other grimacing, for everyone seated here had witnessed what he had done yesterday: breaking Father Robinson’s crystal ball, making Janet bleed, spitting in Kevin’s face and throwing him to the ground, and apologizing for what he had said last week instead of apologizing for what he did that day. Though he hated to admit it, even to himself, the Prince knew that Marquess Fleming was in the right and that he was in the wrong.

“We all saw it, your Highness,” Lord Hudson said, “but that doesn’t mean you did it on purpose, did you?”

“Of course not!” the Prince said.

The heads of other students within earshot seated in the surrounding tables now turned their heads towards the Prince, so Rosalie cut in, saying, “If you never intended to hurt her, then you’re not really liable. It’s just that your emotions got the better of you, that’s all.”

“But that’s the problem,” he said, shaking his head, then to Lord Hudson: “How do you manage it, Patrick? How do you keep yourself under control when everything inside you is pushing you to lash out?”

“It’s not a fair comparison,” Lord Hudson said. “I’m just a count’s son, but you’re the son of a king. You’ve got a lot more on your shoulders than I do, and even if I was in your position, I wouldn’t have fared any better.”

“Which means?”

“What he’s saying,” Rosalie added, “is that you’re under more pressure than most, so be kind to yourself. We all make mistakes, because we’re human.”

“But I can’t afford mistakes,” he said.

That’s when Rosalie let out a sigh and grasped onto Donavan’s hands that trembled in his lap, saying, “But you can learn from them, can’t you?”

The Prince looked up at Rosalie’s face, the corners of her mouth forming into a beaming smile, and said, “I guess you’re right, Rosy. For you, I’ll try my very best!”

“That’s all I ask,” she said.

“Should we leave you two alone?” Lord Hudson said, grinning with his other second-year knight friends and Rosalie’s blushing fangirls. “Perhaps rent you a room?”

“Oh, shut it, you perv!” he said and took his fork and shoveled forkfuls of risotto and penne pomodoro into his mouth and chewed, then grabbed Rosalie’s glass of marmalade tea and downed it in one gulp—

“Um, Donny,” Rosalie said. “That’s mine.”

“Oh, sorry about that!” Donavan said, picking up his tray as he got to his feet. “I’ll get you another glass.”

“Just refill the same glass,” she said, placing the same glass on his tray and smiling at him. “I like the taste of your lips,” and she winked, bringing color to the Prince’s face amidst more snickers amongst their friends.

(The contrast between what had played out last night and what was playing out right now was too much, making the clones sick to their stomachs. The curses from last night’s lovers’ quarrel and the blushes and smiles of today’s interlude wrung the hearts of these watchers. There was a word for such a juxtaposition: it’s called dramatic irony, a literary technique that shows the full significance of the characters’ interactions to the audience but not to the characters themselves. But in the Prince’s case, he was playing second fiddle to an actress that was usurping someone else’s role and leading Donavan down a road to God-knows-where.)

And so, while his second-year knight friends and Rosalie and her fans all started joking around, the Prince got a refill of marmalade tea for Rosalie from one of the cafeteria workers at the serving counter, as well as another helping of risotto and penne pomodoro from an aisle of buffet trays. And for the rest of the Lunch Period, he let go of the worries that have been weighing on him since he had returned to his dorm room last night in exhaustion. Of course, that didn’t stop him from welcoming Rosalie’s steamy invitation, which relieved much of his stress from the summons, but he reminded himself to not get too carried away with his paramour.

(Meanwhile, the two other clones entered the great hall after informing their ex-suicide captain about what they had seen, rejoining the four clones and asking what’s happened. They just pointed out the Prince returning to his table with Lady Dorian’s refilled glass, seating himself with friends and eating more risotto and penne pomodoro as if nothing had happened moments before. Donavan’s world went on its merry way with him savoring every moment that should have been theirs to share with him, but now they found themselves relegated to mere spectators of someone else’s life. Such jokes and pleasantries and smiles and blushes and dreams were no longer theirs to share with their former beloved, their lot in life decided before they could even understand the fault in their lives.

“It’s not fair,” one clone said, the one in the soiled linen gown that had experienced the Prince’s contempt under the axeman’s blade.

“We know,” her double said.

“You’re not alone,” another clone added.

Yet the clone just shook her head, wiping away her tears and saying, “I can’t take this anymore. I’ll wait outside,” and she walked away.)

To Be Continued