Charming The Prince
May. 7th, 2011 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alfvaenOne month our writer's group were trying to do a story a week. I think we managed to get through three of them. I can't remember what the prompt was for this one, but I'm quite pleased with it, except perhaps the ending...
The music came to an end, and all the couples on the floor gracefully came to a stop, the gentlemen bowing and the ladies curtsying. All couples save one. Prince Andre and the mysterious lady he'd been dancing with ever since her arrival kept moving in the spiraling steps of the dance, their eyes only for each other. Finally the prince became aware of the near-silence around them, broken only by whispers varying in their tone from amusement to jealousy. He parted from his dancing partner only reluctantly. With annoyance heightened by embarrassment, he shouted, "Why has the music stopped?"
The steward came forward. "With apologies, Your Highness, but they have been playing without more than a few seconds' pause for most of the evening. Your royal father has promised them a break. And he would like a word with you, as well..."
Andre tore his gaze from his companion's. "Now? But--" He sighed. "I beg your pardon, my...my dear, but I must speak to my father the King. I will return to your arms shortly." He looked into her eyes again, and she hoped he would move to kiss her. But instead he released her and strode off, the steward scampering in his wake.
Caroline cursed inside her head. Now what? Had the old fool gotten some inkling of what was going on? Her disguise was perfect, the experts at HQ had sworn to it, and the assured her that this "mysterious stranger" crap was just the romantic twaddle these superstitious dimwits loved. Of course, she should've known better than to trust experts in the first place. And no plan was "perfect" or "foolproof".
She wandered off to a secluded balcony, just within sight of the dance floor in case the Prince returned, but far enough away that nobody could see if she was doing more than taking a bit of fresh air. As soon as she was out of view she set up low subsonics, enough to keep people from wanting to follow her out but not enough to inspire actual fear or revulsion.
"Goddammit, Karl, what's going on?" she hissed.
"We're working on it," Karl said testily. His voice sounded like it was coming from inside her head, with the tiny bone implant receiver, but by this time she was used to the effect. "One or two of the bugs are having transmission problems."
"Let me guess. One of them is right where the King happens to be? Then it's too late. They've figured it out. I better get out of here and cut our losses."
"We're working on a possible exit strategy, yes," Karl said. "But the AIC isn't quite ready to give up yet."
"That's because Irving's an idiot," Caroline muttered. "How much coincidence before he becomes convinced it's enemy action? No, this is going pear-shaped. I'm Agent On Site, and I will make the call."
She glanced back into the ballroom. Two palace guards were advancing across the dance floor, trying to look nonchalant about it, but definitely heading for her. "Yeah, they're onto me. I'm going camo."
She waited for her chance, and finally, as a pair of tall, ugly sisters crossed in front of the guards, she leapt over the balcony railing. Her bulky-looking skirt was actually much lighter than it appeared. It also billowed out as she fell, providing enough buoyancy to allow her to land lightly on her impractical high-heeled shoes. She'd argued long about the shoes, and lost. Now it looked like she wouldn't have to use them after all.
She'd scouted out the garden already before the ball. She hurried into a secluded alcove and set about changing her appearance. The guards had reached the balcony, and their excited voices drifted down as they tried to figure out where she had gone.
All of her clothes had been laced with electro-sensitive pigments. By adding a few jolts of electricity from her hairpin, she changed her dress from bright pink to a more innocuous dark green, and opaqued her formerly transparent shoes. Her wig similarly changed from blonde to dark brown, and she simplified her elaborate coiffure by rearranging a few more pins. She detached and rearranged the ornamentation on the gown, and added some fake flesh to bulk out her cheeks and chin. She'd drilled endlessly on this before the mission, and the whole procedure only took a couple of minutes.
By the time the guardsmen found her sitting quietly in the garden, they showed no sign of recognition at all. "Pardon me, madame, but have you seen anyone else down here? Perhaps a woman in a pink gown?"
"No, dearies," she said, pitching her voice half an octave higher and adding what her language module assured her was a coarse country accent. "I heard a kind of a cackle, y'know, a few minutes ago, but I reckon 'twas nowt more than a knifebird. Not a woman a-tall."
The guards looked at each other uneasily. Knifebirds were closely associated with the local variety of witch. "Are you sure, miss?" the guard asked.
"Sure as my head's on my shoulders," she said.
The guards turned away, muttering to each other. Caroline automatically enhanced her aural pickup to catch their conversations. "A witch! The King said it was just some foreign harlot trying to weasel her way into a royal marriage."
"I didn't sign up for huntin' no witch," the other guard said nervously. "My great-uncle did, once, during the famine, and he got the wasting sickness and never got better."
They walked away, trying to concoct another story that wouldn't land them both under a curse.
That would throw them off the trail for a while, but there was still the small problem of what to do about the prince. The original plan, to dope him up on tailored pheremones and then set him off on a fruitless quest to find the owner of the shoe she would leave behind, was exploded now. Just leaving the shoe wouldn't have the dramatic effect, even if she somehow managed to get it into the prince's rooms. Showing her face again was obviously not going to work.
"Suggestions, gentlemen?" she whispered.
This plan was, if anything, even stupider than the last one, in Caroline's humble opinion, she thought as she clambered up the side of the castle in the middle of the night.
"Remember," Karl said in her bones, "the prince's window is on the east side of the tower. The King's vizier, who was probably the one that copped to you, is on the west side. So don't get them mixed up."
"Can't I just slip him a trank dart or something?" Caroline whispered. "It'd save on interruptions, too."
"It'll work better this way, trust me," Karl said.
Caroline decided to pretend she didn't have breath to talk to him. It was mostly just slow and tedious to climb up the rough rock wall with the spider-gloves. They held her weight just fine as long as she left each one a few seconds to bond with the wall, and of course it took a few seconds more to unbond them afterwards. Her muscles would probably ache tomorrow after the shots wore off, but they gave her no trouble right now, which was more important.
Finally she was at the window, or at least just below it. She double-checked her internal compass; yup, east side. "Okay, are you boys ready?" she whispered.
"When you are," Karl said.
She pulled out another hairpin, this one a multipurpose transmitter. Karl had walked her through setting it up for this transmission mode with almost disturbing ease. How often did they have to transmit into somebody's dreams, after all? She carefully set it on the ledge, driving the pin in a little bit so that it wouldn't tumble down fifty meters into the palace courtyard and send her into a killing rampage of sheer frustration. Then she twisted the top to set it into active receiving mode.
"Your highness!" she whispered, trusting in the tech boys to be somehow transmitting this into the Prince's sleeping brain. "Prince Andre!"
Nothing happened for a few seconds. Just as she was about to call again, she heard the voice, like and eerily unlike Karl's, echoing in her head. "Caroline?"
"Andre! Listen, for I do not have much time. I have come to you in the world of dreams, because the world of waking will forever keep us apart." She had to stifle a giggle, but apparently Andre still ate this stuff up.
"I will listen, my beloved! Why did you vanish? They think I don't hear, but the servants say that you are a witch..."
"Hush, my love," Caroline whispered. "Your father and his vizier have driven me away. They have sworn to kill me if I set foot in your kingdom again. They want you to think me a witch who has ensorceled you, but look! Do I seem as a witch?"
Caroline had only Karl's word for the visuals they'd concocted to accompany her words, but Andre's response was proof enough. "No, my love! You can be no other but an angel!"
"But I am under a curse, from which only you can free me. You must find a way to me! I will contact you again when I can."
"My love! I will cross the world for you, sail the oceans! Do not go!"
"I must," she whispered. "But I will return. Now wake, lest you think this naught but a dream."
She heard sounds of stirring from within the room. Quickly she removed the shoe from her belt pouch, once again being very careful not to drop it, and placed it on the windowledge, palming the pin as she did so. They'd promised her at least three minutes before Prince Andre achieved full wakefulness. She put them to use in climbing further up the tower.
She heard the gasp as the Prince found the shoe. She held perfectly still, trusting to her matte-black clothing to hide her from sight in the unlikely case that he looked up. Finally she heard him go back inside his room, and she went the rest of the way up the tower. The overhanging, pointed peak of the tower gave her a little bit of trouble, but nothing she couldn't handle, and once she was on top and firmly secured it was just a matter of waiting.
Eighteen minutes later, what looked somewhat like a small cloud drifted close to the top of the tower and lowered a cord. She put her foot in the loop and let them pull her up inside the distortion field.
"Took you long enough," she said. "No moon on this planet, it wasn't like you had to wait for it to go behind a cloud or anything."
"A bit of a hitch with the field," Karl said as he helped her to her feet. "Better safe than sorry."
"I still think this was the stupidest plan ever," Caroline said. "Both of them."
Karl shrugged. "Hijacking a local folktale has worked for us before, apparently. The Board have a lot of faith in the method, anyway."
"So how long before he goes off in search of the one person who can wear that shoe without experiencing intense neural discomfort?"
"Hard to say," Karl said. "We'll monitor the situation inside the Palace. Andre may need some time to calm things down after he takes the throne."
"What do you mean, take the throne?" Caroline said. "What's going to happen to-- What, you mean we're going to kill his father, too?"
Karl cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No, we're not. At least, not directly."
Caroline felt a little sick. "You mean he's going to do it himself. Because of some hormonal crush on me."
"To him it's real," Karl said. "Don't worry, your replacement has already been trained up. He'll find her living in a squalid hut and washing walls for her family, and take her away from all that. And she'll encourage him to allow off-world contact, and give us exclusive trade contacts, etc."
"I hate this job," Caroline said.
The music came to an end, and all the couples on the floor gracefully came to a stop, the gentlemen bowing and the ladies curtsying. All couples save one. Prince Andre and the mysterious lady he'd been dancing with ever since her arrival kept moving in the spiraling steps of the dance, their eyes only for each other. Finally the prince became aware of the near-silence around them, broken only by whispers varying in their tone from amusement to jealousy. He parted from his dancing partner only reluctantly. With annoyance heightened by embarrassment, he shouted, "Why has the music stopped?"
The steward came forward. "With apologies, Your Highness, but they have been playing without more than a few seconds' pause for most of the evening. Your royal father has promised them a break. And he would like a word with you, as well..."
Andre tore his gaze from his companion's. "Now? But--" He sighed. "I beg your pardon, my...my dear, but I must speak to my father the King. I will return to your arms shortly." He looked into her eyes again, and she hoped he would move to kiss her. But instead he released her and strode off, the steward scampering in his wake.
Caroline cursed inside her head. Now what? Had the old fool gotten some inkling of what was going on? Her disguise was perfect, the experts at HQ had sworn to it, and the assured her that this "mysterious stranger" crap was just the romantic twaddle these superstitious dimwits loved. Of course, she should've known better than to trust experts in the first place. And no plan was "perfect" or "foolproof".
She wandered off to a secluded balcony, just within sight of the dance floor in case the Prince returned, but far enough away that nobody could see if she was doing more than taking a bit of fresh air. As soon as she was out of view she set up low subsonics, enough to keep people from wanting to follow her out but not enough to inspire actual fear or revulsion.
"Goddammit, Karl, what's going on?" she hissed.
"We're working on it," Karl said testily. His voice sounded like it was coming from inside her head, with the tiny bone implant receiver, but by this time she was used to the effect. "One or two of the bugs are having transmission problems."
"Let me guess. One of them is right where the King happens to be? Then it's too late. They've figured it out. I better get out of here and cut our losses."
"We're working on a possible exit strategy, yes," Karl said. "But the AIC isn't quite ready to give up yet."
"That's because Irving's an idiot," Caroline muttered. "How much coincidence before he becomes convinced it's enemy action? No, this is going pear-shaped. I'm Agent On Site, and I will make the call."
She glanced back into the ballroom. Two palace guards were advancing across the dance floor, trying to look nonchalant about it, but definitely heading for her. "Yeah, they're onto me. I'm going camo."
She waited for her chance, and finally, as a pair of tall, ugly sisters crossed in front of the guards, she leapt over the balcony railing. Her bulky-looking skirt was actually much lighter than it appeared. It also billowed out as she fell, providing enough buoyancy to allow her to land lightly on her impractical high-heeled shoes. She'd argued long about the shoes, and lost. Now it looked like she wouldn't have to use them after all.
She'd scouted out the garden already before the ball. She hurried into a secluded alcove and set about changing her appearance. The guards had reached the balcony, and their excited voices drifted down as they tried to figure out where she had gone.
All of her clothes had been laced with electro-sensitive pigments. By adding a few jolts of electricity from her hairpin, she changed her dress from bright pink to a more innocuous dark green, and opaqued her formerly transparent shoes. Her wig similarly changed from blonde to dark brown, and she simplified her elaborate coiffure by rearranging a few more pins. She detached and rearranged the ornamentation on the gown, and added some fake flesh to bulk out her cheeks and chin. She'd drilled endlessly on this before the mission, and the whole procedure only took a couple of minutes.
By the time the guardsmen found her sitting quietly in the garden, they showed no sign of recognition at all. "Pardon me, madame, but have you seen anyone else down here? Perhaps a woman in a pink gown?"
"No, dearies," she said, pitching her voice half an octave higher and adding what her language module assured her was a coarse country accent. "I heard a kind of a cackle, y'know, a few minutes ago, but I reckon 'twas nowt more than a knifebird. Not a woman a-tall."
The guards looked at each other uneasily. Knifebirds were closely associated with the local variety of witch. "Are you sure, miss?" the guard asked.
"Sure as my head's on my shoulders," she said.
The guards turned away, muttering to each other. Caroline automatically enhanced her aural pickup to catch their conversations. "A witch! The King said it was just some foreign harlot trying to weasel her way into a royal marriage."
"I didn't sign up for huntin' no witch," the other guard said nervously. "My great-uncle did, once, during the famine, and he got the wasting sickness and never got better."
They walked away, trying to concoct another story that wouldn't land them both under a curse.
That would throw them off the trail for a while, but there was still the small problem of what to do about the prince. The original plan, to dope him up on tailored pheremones and then set him off on a fruitless quest to find the owner of the shoe she would leave behind, was exploded now. Just leaving the shoe wouldn't have the dramatic effect, even if she somehow managed to get it into the prince's rooms. Showing her face again was obviously not going to work.
"Suggestions, gentlemen?" she whispered.
This plan was, if anything, even stupider than the last one, in Caroline's humble opinion, she thought as she clambered up the side of the castle in the middle of the night.
"Remember," Karl said in her bones, "the prince's window is on the east side of the tower. The King's vizier, who was probably the one that copped to you, is on the west side. So don't get them mixed up."
"Can't I just slip him a trank dart or something?" Caroline whispered. "It'd save on interruptions, too."
"It'll work better this way, trust me," Karl said.
Caroline decided to pretend she didn't have breath to talk to him. It was mostly just slow and tedious to climb up the rough rock wall with the spider-gloves. They held her weight just fine as long as she left each one a few seconds to bond with the wall, and of course it took a few seconds more to unbond them afterwards. Her muscles would probably ache tomorrow after the shots wore off, but they gave her no trouble right now, which was more important.
Finally she was at the window, or at least just below it. She double-checked her internal compass; yup, east side. "Okay, are you boys ready?" she whispered.
"When you are," Karl said.
She pulled out another hairpin, this one a multipurpose transmitter. Karl had walked her through setting it up for this transmission mode with almost disturbing ease. How often did they have to transmit into somebody's dreams, after all? She carefully set it on the ledge, driving the pin in a little bit so that it wouldn't tumble down fifty meters into the palace courtyard and send her into a killing rampage of sheer frustration. Then she twisted the top to set it into active receiving mode.
"Your highness!" she whispered, trusting in the tech boys to be somehow transmitting this into the Prince's sleeping brain. "Prince Andre!"
Nothing happened for a few seconds. Just as she was about to call again, she heard the voice, like and eerily unlike Karl's, echoing in her head. "Caroline?"
"Andre! Listen, for I do not have much time. I have come to you in the world of dreams, because the world of waking will forever keep us apart." She had to stifle a giggle, but apparently Andre still ate this stuff up.
"I will listen, my beloved! Why did you vanish? They think I don't hear, but the servants say that you are a witch..."
"Hush, my love," Caroline whispered. "Your father and his vizier have driven me away. They have sworn to kill me if I set foot in your kingdom again. They want you to think me a witch who has ensorceled you, but look! Do I seem as a witch?"
Caroline had only Karl's word for the visuals they'd concocted to accompany her words, but Andre's response was proof enough. "No, my love! You can be no other but an angel!"
"But I am under a curse, from which only you can free me. You must find a way to me! I will contact you again when I can."
"My love! I will cross the world for you, sail the oceans! Do not go!"
"I must," she whispered. "But I will return. Now wake, lest you think this naught but a dream."
She heard sounds of stirring from within the room. Quickly she removed the shoe from her belt pouch, once again being very careful not to drop it, and placed it on the windowledge, palming the pin as she did so. They'd promised her at least three minutes before Prince Andre achieved full wakefulness. She put them to use in climbing further up the tower.
She heard the gasp as the Prince found the shoe. She held perfectly still, trusting to her matte-black clothing to hide her from sight in the unlikely case that he looked up. Finally she heard him go back inside his room, and she went the rest of the way up the tower. The overhanging, pointed peak of the tower gave her a little bit of trouble, but nothing she couldn't handle, and once she was on top and firmly secured it was just a matter of waiting.
Eighteen minutes later, what looked somewhat like a small cloud drifted close to the top of the tower and lowered a cord. She put her foot in the loop and let them pull her up inside the distortion field.
"Took you long enough," she said. "No moon on this planet, it wasn't like you had to wait for it to go behind a cloud or anything."
"A bit of a hitch with the field," Karl said as he helped her to her feet. "Better safe than sorry."
"I still think this was the stupidest plan ever," Caroline said. "Both of them."
Karl shrugged. "Hijacking a local folktale has worked for us before, apparently. The Board have a lot of faith in the method, anyway."
"So how long before he goes off in search of the one person who can wear that shoe without experiencing intense neural discomfort?"
"Hard to say," Karl said. "We'll monitor the situation inside the Palace. Andre may need some time to calm things down after he takes the throne."
"What do you mean, take the throne?" Caroline said. "What's going to happen to-- What, you mean we're going to kill his father, too?"
Karl cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No, we're not. At least, not directly."
Caroline felt a little sick. "You mean he's going to do it himself. Because of some hormonal crush on me."
"To him it's real," Karl said. "Don't worry, your replacement has already been trained up. He'll find her living in a squalid hut and washing walls for her family, and take her away from all that. And she'll encourage him to allow off-world contact, and give us exclusive trade contacts, etc."
"I hate this job," Caroline said.
