Her Majesty The Prince

The first rays of sunlight only had a few moments to gently sweep across the ceiling of the wagon before the fog and the clouds drew closed like a curtain. The day promised to be a grey one. Though that was not without its own beauty; there was poetry in fog rolling over the hills as the wagons of the Shepherd's Troupe did the same on their way to their next destination. Lou, however, appreciated none of the artistic depth of the scene going on around her.

She was far too focused on trying to keep her stomach from turning inside out.

"Man, you're really having a hard time with travel, eh?"

Lou peered her eyes open from her spot over by the wall, where she'd been half sitting, half propping herself up on the bench as the kitchen car's suspension—the best among all the wagons the troupe rode in—mercifully cushioned most of the bumps and holes in the road. And yet it wasn't enough to still her stomach, or calm down the miasma of roiling discomfort that dominated her every sense. All she could muster was a whimpering grunt in response.

"And you sounded so excited about your first trip with us, too! It's a shame to see you like this." Jehan shook his head as he got his small circular cloth hat from his pocket, smoothed out the fabric, and slipped it on. "I may not be able to make Lin's miracle cure, but I know my share of remedies for seasickness. A wagon's not a boat, but I figure they're close enough, right? I'll rustle you up something." And with that, the diminutive cook got to work from behind the counter that divided the car down the middle.

Lou forced her eyes to remain open, looking out the window behind Jehan as far as she could. The most experience she'd ever had on a boat had been the times she'd gone fishing out on the crystal-clear still waters of Beaver Lake with her dad, at a similar hour in the morning. If this is what the open sea was like, constantly shifting and pushing and pulling, the sailors could have it.

But maybe this, too, was a matter of the body. She idly wondered if the Prince had this much trouble with nausea on less-than-stable ground, either before or anymore. Maybe he was a natural on the seas now, another unforeseen consequence of their trade. Lou sighed.

Forty days.

It had been forty days since she'd left the castle. Part of her had expected she'd have stopped counting by now.

"Remember to look outside, eh? It helps your body stay situated." Jehan had begun adding a number of ingredients to a pot of water, keeping an eye on it as he waited for it to steam.

"I know," Lou whimpered. "I remember."

"Ahh, just trying to help, you know? Lin, she's the one who's good at the small talk."

"S'okay." Lou kept her eyes on the horizon, timing her breaths with the slow back-and-forth leaning of the car as the wagon straightened out of a slight curve in the road.

But the kitchen's blessedly advanced suspension and the cooks' respective remedies for motion sickness weren't the only reasons Lou was here. There was another person who woke up with the sun, one whose path intersected with this particular link in the chain of wagons making their leisurely way down the coast.

"Morning!" Jehan said over his shoulder as he got a second fire going. "Eggs?"

"You know I love 'em," Libellule answered as she maneuvered her way in through the front door, one hand braced against the top of the frame both for stability and to make sure she didn't hit her head. "Oh, morning Lou. Road travel still hitting you hard?"

Jehan threw more things into the water pot. "I'm making her something. Won't be as good as Lin's medicine, but then again what is?"

"Does Lin really need to make it fresh every time? She could just make extra so you can reheat it."

"It's not the same," Jehan and Lou both answered in unison.

"Fair enough," Libellule said.

Lou closed her eyes as her colleague walked past. Libellule flipped down one of the hinged stools, pulling the bottom of her long coat aside to sit at the counter. Few other troupe members were up this early, Jehan usually being one of them. Perhaps today he was feeling generous, considering yesterday he'd come to open up the kitchen car only to find Lou huddled outside on the ledge waiting. While his kindness was appreciated, Lou didn't mind the wait. Inside or outside, the shock absorption was the same, and it's not like she was able to keep any food down before lunch anyway.

"Still up for practice this afternoon?" Libellule asked, drumming her fingers on the counter to the beat of the bumps in the road.

"Y-yeah, of course," Lou replied, the mounting discomfort forcing her eyes open and reminding her to look outside to steady her stomach. "I'll feel better by then. And besides... oof. Besides, I can't rehearse the ballroom scene if I'm tripping over my feet all the time."

"What? You seem to get around fine to me." Jehan kept an eye on the boiling concoction he was preparing for Lou as he flipped the eggs over in a pan.

"Dance," Lou specified with a groan, "an' heels."

"Ahh. Yeah, that'll do it."

Libellule chuckled. "Alphonse didn't waste any time, did he? Started you on the tricky scenes right away. I'm surprised this is giving you so much trouble, though. I would've thought they covered this sort of thing in the royal decoy training you talked about."

Lou winced. She was in no mood to make up stories right now. How had the Prince put it again? If you can't lie, tell a different truth. "I was never good at it," Lou finally said.

"Ahh." Libellule nodded as she received her plate, rolling up the sleeves of her coat before digging in. That was it for the conversation. The kitchen car became silent once again—at least, as close to silent as things ever got in a rolling wagon.

Lou hoped her reply had been the correct one. She couldn't see Libellule's face very well from her position, and she was in no shape to move. She did her best to focus on the horizon and steady her breathing, hoping the queasiness would finally leave her alone. At some point, Jehan handed her a steaming bowl that smelled of ginger; after a while, she realized that Libellule had left. She concentrated on breathing in the fumes, taking steady sips, and willing her stomach to finally settle down.

By the time she was done with Jehan's homemade cure, she was in good enough shape to stand again. She handed the bowl back with clammy hands and gave her thanks, trying not to be too obvious as she looked about. Her brief interaction with Libellule hadn't been enough. She had to talk to her again, while nearly everyone else was still sleeping and they could have some privacy. There was this pressing, burning need to connect with her somehow, more than just as coworkers. She had given up on waiting for it to go away; now, she was determined to see it through. Hopefully to better understand it.

On a hunch, Lou headed toward the back, leaving via the narrow wooden door. She walked outside onto the back ledge, steadying herself on the railing. The wagons weren't moving fast enough for a fall to be deadly, but she was nowhere near as resilient as she had once been—a fact that fate saw fit to remind her almost daily. Better not to take any chances. She carefully transferred over to the next wagon down in one big step, grabbing ahold of the railing on the other side. Her footing secure, she looked down behind her.

The metal junction between the two wagons held strong, but with enough give to allow for curves and slopes in the road. If Lou squinted, she could spot the rhythmic flicker of light underneath as the symbols painted on each wheel completed the circuit with the runes on the undercarriage. She had heard of witches' experiments on energy and momentum, but never at this scale. If she'd remained in her position at the castle, perhaps she'd have gotten to see the testing phase of the multi-wagon trains one of the Crown witches had sounded so excited about. She idly wondered if that witch, or any other really, would ever return to the city to make that project come to life. Unlikely, from what the Prince had told her.

Perhaps one of those very witches had helped the Shepherd's Troupe with their transportation problem. Regardless of the source, the result remained the same: a fleet of gigantic wagons, all latched together in a line, each one coasting on the previous car's speed, all pulled by—

Lou heard a door close behind her, further down. She tried to get a good look through the next wagon's window, and while the interior was too dark to make out much of anything, there was a clear shot to the door on the other side—and through its mounted glass pane, a tall blue-haired colleague walking away.

The chase was on.

Lou made her way into the sleeper car, doing her best not to disrupt any of the troupe members who were sharing bunks. Lou herself had been lucky; though she was a new member, she'd gotten a spot in one of the newer multipurpose wagons near the front of the line, which meant many fewer bunkmates. It did mean being responsible for the cargo she shared the space with, but it was a responsibility she bore with pride. Not that there was much risk of an attack on the road, given the troupe's size.

Lou smiled to herself. And even then, any would-be assailants would have to contend with Brie, she'd tell the youngest children whenever they voiced that particular concern. That always calmed them down.

One door later and Lou was outside again. Not a moment too soon: the queasiness had caught up with her, possibly from the sudden physical exertion. But, thank the gods, the back of this particular wagon had been blessed with a spacious open area, currently taken up by some boxes and tarps. Lou wasted no time and flopped back onto the coziest surface she could find, trying to head off this wave of nausea before it overwhelmed her.

Breathe in, breathe out. She'd gotten pretty good at that part, at least. And, of course, eyes open and on the horizon. She always forgot that part. Lou opened her eyes...

...Only to find Libellule staring back at her, from her own cozy spot leaning against the rail. "Hi again," she said with a bemused smile.

Lou sighed, trying not to let her embarrassment show. "Hi. Sorry, I... ouugh." She winced, summoning every ounce of strength just to keep perfectly still. She had wanted to have a quiet moment with Libellule for days. By the gods, she was not going to literally spill her guts in front of her.

"Hey, that's okay, take your time. This is good timing, actually."

Lou opened one eye. "Yeah?" she said, barely above a whisper.

Libellule nodded as she turned around to lean back on the railing, her soft-hued blue hair swaying in the wind, the coastline lazily scrolling by behind her. "There was something I wanted to ask you."

Lou's heart started beating faster. Before she could begin to guess at what was on her colleague's mind, she quickly answered, "Yeah? Wh-what is it?"

"Roy and Alphonse keep talking about how much you know of the Prince and Le Loup, so I got to thinking..."

Her breath caught in her throat. Lou clenched her teeth reflexively, dreading the words that were coming next. Had she figured it out? "...Yeah?" she said, almost in a whimper.

Libellule crossed one arm, tapping her cheek with her other hand. "How much do you know about the Witch-Fiend?"

The relief was monumental, enough to cure some of Lou's queasiness by itself. "Oh! Oh, of course, uhh..." She thought back to what she'd heard while at the castle; the stories, the reports, the clues that the Prince himself had put together. "She was... tall."

Libellule laughed. "Yeah, I got that part!"

"Uhhh," Lou continued, wracking her brain for more information. What had been the Witch-Fiend's whole deal? All she could remember was... "It's a title, right? There's one every so often. Big, evil, dangerous. In the legends, a hero defeats them. I uhh... I never really thought they existed. But I guess one did."

Libellule nodded, looking past Lou to the countryside behind her. "Legends tend to get a little bit further from reality with each telling. Though I guess you've gotten to see that firsthand, right? You already got to set Alphonse's record straight a few times on the Prince and Le Loup, and his information is barely a year old."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Lou had never expected that her role within the troupe would turn out to be so central. She figured she'd do some cleaning and cooking again, not become both historian and actress.

"I was hoping you'd know a bit more about who she was before she became the Witch-Fiend."

Lou blinked. "There was a before?"

The taller actress laughed again, in that good-natured, forthright way that always put Lou at ease, and made her want to hear it again and again. "Of course! Before she was the Witch-Fiend, she was a witch."

"Oh." There was a long pause. "I s'pose that makes sense." Lou looked up into Libellule's eyes; stood up shakily, her nausea once again under control. "Do you know her name?"

Libellule's smile turned bittersweet. "I was hoping you did."

Lou stopped mid-motion. "Oh. Sorry." She walked up to the railing, a short distance away from her colleague and leaned on it, eyes downcast.

"It's okay," Libellule said as she turned around again, bending down to lean on the rail next to Lou. "Maybe I'll meet someone who will. I want to know more about her, you know?"

"I... I s'pose. Why, though?"

"So I can be like you."

Lou's breath held in her throat again. What did she mean by that? "Be... be like me?" she repeated, her heart pounding in her ears.

"Like you are with Le Loup and the Prince. The more you know about someone, the better you can present them as they were, you know? The better you can do them justice."

Lou exhaled, feeling a strange mix of disappointment and relief. "Oh. That makes sense."

"I want to know why she was so dead-set on attacking the Prince. Why she wanted to take the crown so badly. Even with all her power, she had to know it was risky to attack the head of a nation. You don't do that without some serious motivation."

"I... I s'pose you're right," Lou replied, finding her thoughts going down a rabbit hole she never would have expected to explore. For good reason. She looked down at her hands, the hands that the Prince had given to her. She had vowed, months ago, never to spill blood with them. She would never take a life again. Because she had, in the past; she had taken many lives in the name of the Crown, in the name of the City. In the name of the Prince.

She didn't like to think about where those lives had come from, before she cut them short. Even one as dangerous and terrifying as the Witch-Fiend. Even when cutting it short had brought with it a price that Lou had had to pay.

But had she, really?

She was in an unusual situation, yes. But was this bad? Was this truly punishment for a life taken? Was she suffering, right now? She looked down at her soft hands, at her long golden curls that hung loose over the railing and bounced with every bump in the road. Could she truly say any of this was atonement for the horrible things she had done, even in defense of another?

Lou did her best to hold back the tears. Not now. There would be no spilling of any fluids in front of the person she'd been so desperate to have a heart-to-heart with. Her stomach and her eyes would have to wait their turn!

She took a shaky breath, looking out over the horizon again to steady both her stomach and her nerves. Every time she'd talked with Libellule, there had been this wall between them, despite her best efforts. Lou wanted nothing more than to tear it down, than to finally be... What did she want, exactly? Companionship? She couldn't explain why this need above all others had been pushing her forward so strongly ever since that chance meeting in the woods, on her first day. But it was there. It had been there far longer; for years. Decades.

Lou went over the conversation the two of them had had just now, searching for something to latch on to. And in the unlikeliest place, she found it. Now she just needed to say it out loud.

She took a deep breath.

"You're... you're already like me," Lou said quietly.

"What's that?" Libellule turned to her.

Lou gripped the railing so hard her knuckles turned white. Please don't make me say it another time, she thought. She turned the words over in her mouth again; gave it another go. "You... you said you wanted to be like me, right? But... in a way... you know..." She trailed off, squinting her eyes shut. Why was this so hard to say? Why wasn't she better at this already?!

"Oh," Libellule said flatly. "I guess that's true. In a way."

Lou's heart sank. She was messing this up again. The two of them finally had a moment together and she was messing it up! She wanted to rip out the part of her that was so hesitant and shy and unable to commit and throttle it. At least that way she'd be able to do what she'd always done best: make things physical, concrete. Take decisive, unhesitating action to solve her problems before they had the chance to take root. But much to her mounting frustration, you couldn't win a fistfight against words.

The taller woman looked back out to the horizon. "Hedge witch transition treatments and Crown witches making princess lookalikes aren't really the same kind of thing though. No offense."

None of this was working. Lou pushed herself off the railing abruptly, hoping that physical action might help drag the words she wanted out into the light. Because she had to say something. She had to say something, and she had to say it now. She stepped over to stand in front of Libellule, who turned around quizzically.

"The other royal decoys were already very close to the princess, but I..." Lou began to say, fighting herself for every syllable. "I wasn't. I was... t-taller."

The actress could've left at this point and Lou wouldn't have blamed her one bit. But for some reason, and much to Lou's eternal gratitude, Libellule decided to humor the person in front of her. She gave the shorter woman a dubious smile and held a hand up between the two of them, half a head above Lou's full height.

"What, like Françoise?"

Lou shook her head. "Taller. Bigger."

Libellule raised an eyebrow, lifting her hand up to just above her own chin. "...Like Lin?"

Lou shook her head. "Like..." She took a shaky breath; briefly looked to the left, then to the right, then back at her. "Like Roy."

The actress raised her other eyebrow, matching the first. She lifted her hand up, then... brought it back down, resting on her hip. She tilted her head slightly, looking Lou up and down as she visibly processed what she had heard. "Ohh."

Lou nodded, her arms trembling, her legs unsteady.

"Is that what you've been trying to tell me all this time? Why you've been shadowing me ever since you joined the troupe?"

Lou nodded again, blood rushing to her face. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to be a bother."

Libellule exhaled in a chuckle. "I mean, it's fine, really it is. I'm used to it!" She gave Lou another look. "I just, you know, would never have expected to hear that from someone like you." She crouched down, elbows on her knees in a slouched lean. "I didn't know those Crown witches could do this much. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit jealous."

"It was an accident!" Lou blurted out. This is what she'd wanted, they were finally having the conversation she'd been needing this whole time, but she didn't want to drag the Crown witches into it. They could instantly disprove her story, or worse, trace it back to the Prince—and ruin the plans he'd been so careful to set in motion. She had to keep at least this much secret. She had to avoid starting rumors that would outpace her. "It wasn't... something anyone had planned. We just made the most of it. No one... almost no one else knows." Lou tried to keep her composure as she inhaled in short, stuttered breaths. "I've been on my own."

"Oh." Libellule's expression, which had been doubtful at first and had become almost amused, now shifted into something more compassionate, more...

Lou looked away. She hadn't wanted this to be all about her, she hadn't come here for pity, but like it or not it's where she'd steered the conversation. She didn't like being like this, a mess always one step away from becoming a disaster! But finally hearing herself say the words out loud only made it all the more real.

She had been on her own.

People had helped her, good people, but never for the right thing, never for long enough. What she desperately, desperately needed was a kindred spirit, someone who knew where she was coming from, someone who could help her with where she was going.

Someone who wouldn't throw her out on the street when morning came.

"Oh, hon," Libellule said, reaching out and putting a hand on Lou's shoulder. "Well I'm glad you reached out. Do you want help?"

Lou began to nod, then stopped herself. "Wait, what kind of help?"

"Magical, of course. The troupe always sets up camp near one witch or another, I'll introduce you as soon as we get to our next stop."

A cold chill went up Lou's spine. She shook her head. "Witches... witches don't like me."

"What? Oh, don't let some bad experiences with city witches fool you. Hedge witches, village witches, they're much nicer. And I should know! They treat everyone, no matter what."

Gears began turning in Lou's head. "Treat... how?"

That same bittersweet smile returned to Libellule's face. "Well... I'm not sure it's gonna be as powerful as what those Crown witches did, I'm gonna be honest. I don't think you can get the height back." She gave Lou's shoulder a little squeeze. "But your body can do a lot—your voice, your hair, just for starters—even before you throw in a little magic. You just gotta trust it."

Lou swallowed uneasily. She'd given up on this forty nights ago, sitting down in a heap on the edge of the Prince's bed after learning the news. She'd made her peace with it: this was her body now.

She could do anything she wanted with it.

Her heart began to beat faster as a crushing force gripped her from the inside, making it hard to breathe. She'd taken the Prince's words at face value, never expecting that there might be another way to reverse her condition. Now that this path might be open to her, the question of whether or not to step forward was the scariest thing she could imagine. She'd gone into the Prince's room with the intention of giving him back his body... hadn't she? Wasn't this what she wanted, deep down? Why was it so horrifying?

"Hey, are you okay?"

Lou nodded, trying to remain in the conversation, trying not to fall completely apart from the inside. "I'm just... I..."

"Oh, hon, it's alright, it's gonna be alright," Libellule said, rubbing Lou's shoulder in as comforting a way as she could manage.

But those words did nothing to ease the mounting anxiety. Lou had completely forgotten about her nausea, so overwhelming was this horrible new feeling. She was fighting for air, managing only small stuttered breaths. Once again faced with the burden of choice, she was faltering—and the choice itself was one of the most important she could think of. She wracked her brain again, searching for an answer. What would Chiffon do, in this situation? What would she say that would make her feel better?

"How..." Lou began to ask, doing her best to slow down her frantic breathing, "how do I know if that's what I want?"

There was a moment of stunned silence, as if the conversation had suddenly gone in a direction Libellule hadn't expected.

The actress opened her mouth to speak, her lips quietly moving as if she was turning the words over in her mind. All the while, a look of dawning comprehension slowly washed over her face. She exhaled slowly; closed her mouth into a gentle smile. Then, she nodded. "Okay. Well, as it so happens, I have a handy trick for that." She reached into the inside pocket of her long coat, taking out a small flat flask. "Say I have a potion that can bring you closer to the way you were." She unscrewed the cap, then flicked it open.

A single drop splashed out, catching a stray sunbeam that had pierced through the thick clouds. As the bead of clear liquid hovered in the air, suspended, all Lou could see were scattered images and twisted reflections. Fellow children fighting in the cold snow. A face in the mirror, shadows sharp to the touch. Loved ones getting smaller, retreating out of reach. Metal on leather, leather on bone. Muscles on fire, fingers on stone. A tapestry of scars, each one with a name. A skinned wolf hide. A bloody blade.

Libellule reached out to Lou with the flask, the liquid inside audibly sloshing around. "Would you—"

"NO!!"

Lou pushed herself away, toppling back onto the bundle of crates in a heap, her heels uselessly scraping away at the floor in an attempt to back away even further. The most important thing in the world right now was to get as far away from that flask as possible.

Libellule stared at her in silence. Then she broke out laughing.

"Wh... what?" Lou stammered.

"Lou, that was... a hypothetical question! This is just my dose of courage." She took a swig. "See? It's completely harmless." She coughed. "Well, mostly."

"...Oh," Lou said, feeling the color return to her cheeks in full force. "I thought... I just thought, you meant..."

Libellule, still laughing, rose to her feet and reached over with her free hand, helping Lou do the same. "C'mere. Now Lou, just so we're clear..."

Lou stood up, giving the taller actress her full attention. Trying not to die from embarrassment. "Yeah?"

"Do you think we can take that reaction as your honest, heartfelt answer?"

There was a silence. Then, a deep breath. And finally, a flustered nod.

Libellule smiled. "Well, there you go. Picture your body as it once was, and then think of your body as it is now." She tapped her on the shoulder. "This one. Would you say this is closer to who you are?"

Lou bravely maintained eye contact for a second, then slowly saw her gaze falter and fall all the way down to her own feet. Her feet. And her legs and her arms, that she sometimes felt were a bit too short; her long blonde hair that curled when it got too humid or she went too long without treating it; her skin, so sharply sensitive that it cut both ways; her body, with its lines and curves that she'd learned by heart. She didn't want to give any of it up. All of it was hers; all of it was her.

"Yeah," she said quietly, almost just to herself.

Libellule brought her into a quick hug, patting her on the back. "Then that's all that matters. The rest is just stage makeup and dance routines."

Lou returned the hug, nodding as she held on tightly. She hadn't cried. She had faced one of the scariest questions she had fled from, again and again, and she hadn't even cried this time. Part of her wanted to celebrate.

"Speaking of which, you wanna help me push back those crates and get to those dancing lessons?" Libellule gave her a knowing grin. "Now that I know where you're coming from, I can share some advice I just know you'll be able to use."

Lou smiled back, even daring to show her teeth this time. "I'd really like that."

The cloudy skies above cleared up, just for a moment. Enough to give a little bit of warmth to the two women as they cleared their impromptu stage, ready to face the day.

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