word count: 6,270
requested by @molly_oxymoron on AO3
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The Fugo Family palace was an old country mansion that had been extended over the centuries. It now had four sides centered around a quadrangle and over five hundred rooms, with a beautiful, gargantuan foliage-ruled garden. It took a small army of housemaids to upkeep such a large abode and indeed most of the rooms were never used. The monarchs dwelled in only one corner on one floor and rarely stepped foot in the rest of their dwelling. But the palace was a status symbol, it set them above the peasants and that is where they believed they needed to be, separate, apart, superior, untouchable.
The palace had architecture like no other in the district. The reigning monarchs some three centuries earlier, Prince Pannacotta's great-great-great-great-great grandparents had shipped in an architect from an overseas district. They knew his ideas, although perhaps unspeakably common where he came from, would be sufficiently exotic in their kingdom to inspire awe in the populous, to remind their people of their power and wealth. And so instead of the peaks in the roof, they had 24k gold domed towers instead. They had an open porch at the forefront of the palace held up with most ostentatiously detailed pillars, painted in a blinding, brilliant white. Inside, there were no doors on the ground floor, only arches. The marble floor had been shipped in also and was made with a grey stone full of soft pink and gold hued striations that had never before been seen in the district. After completion, its designer had been carelessly executed to fully ensure he could never and would never make a replica.
The palace was high upon the hill overlooking the town, its many pointed towers and golden domes giving it the look of a gracefully eccentric, somewhat phallic crown. The walls were a green-tinted white stone that glistened in the summer sun and the roof was a metallic grey slate. It was as big as twenty of the ordinary houses in the town and employed a good number of the townsfolk as housemaids. Around the palace were the horse pastures and kitchen gardens for the royal family, and around that was a iron reinforced stone wall topped with wrought iron spikes and guarded day and night, ensuring the safety of the Fugo family.
The prince had been born on a starlit night, amid the cold of late winter. Some say it became part of him, that dull light from above and frozen heart remaining from snow clouds behind and ahead. Everyone he had ever met saw that in him, always assured that there was a speck of darkness in every light, behind every sun was a void. It was as if when the warmth came he was the cold front, as if his baby skin took it all in and kept it safe. His voice had a slowness, as if he had all the time in the world to talk with people, yet his words and thoughts were smushed together in a haughty tone, seemingly repulsed by talking to someone without royal blood. Most can say that there is no person who ever held them in his gaze the way he did, even though another might need use of arms. Yet in all that cold, harsh spirit there was a kind heart, a small boy who would make any sacrifice to save others, to guard them, pay any price to protect the lives of his people.
Fugo woke to the sound of his housemaids conversing loudly in the hallway.
"I thought I told you to prepare the bedroom next to the prince's!"
He stood and stretched, padding closer to the door.
"Are you sure the King and Queen told you to-?"
Fugo was intrigued, he had no idea what they were talking about, but if it had something to do with the room next to him, he believed he should know.
"Yes! Hurry along now, you've wasted enough time! You have two hours before he gets here-"
Pannacotta swung the door open. "Before who gets here?"
The two maids nearly jumped out of their skin. "Prince Fugo! G-Goodmorn-!"
His voice became much colder. "Before who gets here?"
"I am not sure we're the ones to tell you that, my lord," one of the maids said quietly, hanging her head.
"Where are my parents?"
"Having breakfast, sir."
Fugo rolled his eyes and retreated back into his room, quickly throwing on a pressed light blue dress shirt and navy suit pants to compliment the pinstripes on his silk shirt. He slipped his small, pale feet into a pair of grey faux suede dress shoes and made his way to the breakfast room.
