Chapter 4: The Villainess is Heroic

“Oh no you don’t!”

Ecclesia covers ground, not floating noiselessly as her mother sometimes does, but barreling like an angry bear.

She makes sure to step squarely on Leonard’s face as he lies prone on the ground, thrown off by the force of their struggle. (He’s so weak. Shouldn’t weak people be nice? What was with his shitty attitude?) Leonard makes a hrrghsnfl sound as her frilly shoe makes contact with his face.

She charges the rest of the way to the riverbank, throws her arm out, and pulls.

She fishes out a spluttering Crown Prince.

He is a sight to behold: Ecclesia holds him up by the armpits like a wet kitten and her eyes glaze over in a flashback.

The manipulative and sadistic crown prince, willing to go to any length for the throne. However, when the purest heart appears, will his obsessions change?

“Oh, so you’re that type, huh,” Ecclesia says, with deep disgust.

The prince’s blue eyes shimmer.

“My heart is broken,” he’s saying, only it comes out as glub glub glub because he’s got water leaking out of his mouth. “To think my own brother would harbor enough hatred in his heart--”

“Oh, shut up,” Ecclesia says in disgust.  “There’s no way he actually pushed you that hard, he’s the size of a toothpick. You twat. You absolute asshole. You look so dumb right now.”

“Lady Ecclesia!”

Amelia is also charging towards them. Her foot also makes solid contact with Leonard’s face. From the ground, Leonard says, weakly, “Hey.”

“I also bore witness! I saw the vines sneak up from the ground and push the crown prince! And only the crown prince is proficient in earth magic!”

Ecclesia blinks at her. How good is this girl at gathering gossip?

Plus, earth magic? It was so rare, manifesting only in the ones who would ascend to the throne as a sign that they were the rulers of the land beneath their feet. The kingdom had been ruled for generations upon generations by earth magic users.

And now this dramatic river-faller had it too?

“Anyways,” Ecclesia says, “that was really pathetic.”

The crown prince winces. Even river-drenched, he’s as beautiful as a song: his silver hair curls in wet ringlets on the perfect dome of his head, and his eyes are the color of crushed violets, heartbreakingly pretty. He parts his lips in shock and confusion and something trills like birdsong in Ecclesia’s heart.

“My Lady,” he says, his voice soft. “You do not mean to insinuate—you cannot mean—”

 “I saw it as well!”

The sound of bushes rustling. Another small figure enters the already-crowded clearing. It’s understandable-- the tea party’s really boring.

Shaking leaves off his fancy-boy outfit is a little gentleman with jet-black hair, red hair, and pudgy cheeks. He has the build of an overstuffed pillow: even the effort of fighting his way free of the bushes he was hiding in is making him pant a little.

Gasping for breath, he says, “Older—brother—Leonard—was—trying—to—protect—me.”

“Just take a minute to catch your breath,” Ecclesia says, bewildered. She still has a casual hand fisted in the crown prince’s shirt, that he’s subtly trying to wiggle away from. “You. Stay still till we settle this.”

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The crown prince stills. His purple eyes blink. He’s ranked higher than anyone else in this clearing, but a show of force by calling for his guards is an act of bad faith, almost an admission of guilt—it would look bad for someone who was insisting that he was a victim. His best bet is to let this play out.

She loves the obsession with optics that royals have. It makes them so stupid.

“Thank you, Lady Ecclesia,” says the little gentleman. He sounds even more breathless, his cheeks dusted with an even darker shade of pink. Involuntarily, she makes eye contact with Leonard: what’s this kid’s deal, she mouths.

You kicked me, he mouths back. What did I even do.

Boys are so one-track.

Her attention snaps back to the dapper little lad when he clears his throat to speak. She fights the fleeting urge to pinch his cheeks, and frowns at herself.

“My royal first brother, Cassius, was educating me…a little roughly,” he says, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Brother Leonard saw us and attempted to intervene. In the ensuing confusion, um, His Highness Cassius was thrown into the river.”

Ecclesia raises an eyebrow. Something’s jiggling at her memory—but what?

Amelia makes a sympathetic noise.

“Prince Dominion, you can just say you were being bullied and Prince Leonard saved you.”

So that really was it. The game had never gone into detail about this—and, given his despicable villainy, Ecclesia had never even stopped to wonder why a little creep like Leonard got in a fight with someone like the crown prince in this first place.

But wait—what had Amelia called this other kid again?

“You can speak the truth. The House Spencer and House Bolton will stand witness and protect you, Prince Dominion.”

Ecclesia’s blood goes cold.

The villainess Ecclesia’s obsession and the cause of her downfall, second prince of the kingdom, Dominion Faeth. In the official art he had cold, dead eyes the color of spilled blood and hair the cursed color of a crow’s wing.

Ecclesia blinks down at the chubby little boy. He is visibly fighting for courage: he keeps looking at Ecclesia, blinking, and looking away, as if she’s too bright to keep looking at.

There is no hint, no possible clue that this child will murder her in cold blood one day. Only her memories: the twinge in her heart for the villainess Ecclesia, who burned bright with hatred and love in equal measure.

But before Dominion can speak, the crown prince does.

“This is, unfortunately, a misunderstanding.” He sounds gentle and regretful, but under that Ecclesia can hear the panic. Dominion is almost tied with him in rank, and the tides have turned. “I’m afraid I shall have to ask the royal guard to—”

Ecclesia suplexes him to the ground.

He squeaks her name as he goes down: incredulous and shocked.

Ecclesia blames a whole slew of things for what she does next: the boring-as-bones tea party, for one, and maybe the sugar rush from all the sweets she slammed with great enjoyment. Seeing Dominion’s sweet face, the face that was her favorite in her past life, the way he blushed when he met her eyes.

The way Leonard had looked so small and weak, nearly being strangled.

It all hits a noisy crescendo in her head. She’s entirely justified when she cracks her knuckles once, takes a deep breath, and begins to kick the shit out of the crown prince.

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