Chapter Text
A royal ball is being held on the grounds of the Queen of Hearts; it’s the biggest party of the century, every single person in the kingdom is invited, and Cater Diamond is not fucking going.
Corrie and Claribel had been shoving and pulling at Cater for the last hour in the sickly sweet way that they always did, putting make-up on him and doing his hair and making him try on dresses. At first, he’d been able to keep their focus on their own outfits, but it just didn’t last long enough.
He backs away from the large, puffy ball gown that Corrie holds up with glee, hands up in desperation and laughing nervously.
“Really, Corrie, I think it’s better if I stay at home for this one,” he coughs, averting his eyes from his sister’s puppy-dog eyes and pout. Does she have to do that every time? “I’m just not feeling it this time, okay? I think I’m going to go take a bath.”
“Oh, but Catie,” Claribel whines, brandishing a pink make-up palette. Cater tries not to cringe too obviously at the nickname. “You were so excited for the ball! Don’t tell me you don’t want to hang out with your dear sisters?”
“Once in a lifetime!” Corrie nods, echoing a sentiment that’s been repeated countlessly about this gods-forsaken ball.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Ah, I actually think that I’m—uh, not feeling extremely well tonight. You’ll have more fun without me.”
Corrie furrows her eyebrows sympathetically, and Cater gets the sense like he’s the most pitiful little thing she’s ever seen. “Awww, that’s not true, Catie!”
“C’mon, don’t tell me you’re willing to miss this?” Claribel laments.
Truth be told, he’d kill to go to the ball. He loves parties, loves meeting new people and adores dancing. The problem was, as it stands, he literally cannot wear another dress. Poufs, halters, baby dolls; he can’t do this anymore. He doesn’t even know why his sisters have so many dresses that fit him in the first place, but then again, the three of them never varied in size that drastically at all. The bouffant dress that Claribel had strangled him into was blue, as was the make-up, and that doesn’t even begin to do justice to the number of just-passably-large-enough shoes they’ve squeezed him into.
He’s done. He’s sick of this. There’s only so much he can take. He’s not a fucking dress-up doll for fuck’s sake!
“Girls,” their mother asserts from the ground floor, and fuck him for subconsciously responding to it like she was calling him too, “Leave your baby brother alone and let him dress himself. We have a ball to get to and it’s getting late!”
Cater feels blindly for the door handle, trying not to let it show on his face just how much he loathes the dress-up, the irons, the shoes. Honestly, he might’ve even liked some of the things they’d put him in if only it wasn’t them doing it, and isn’t that a horribly cruel thought? Against his own sisters? He determines not to think about it and stumbles backwards through the doorway, retreating back into his room.
“Go on without me,” he calls down the stairs hurriedly, “I’m feeling a little sick. Have fun at the ball!”
He can hear his mother ask an are you sure? worriedly up the stairs, but by that point he’d already closed the door. He stays there, holding his breath and listening to his sisters trot down the steps and out the door with his parents, and doesn’t move until he can hear the carriage take them away to the castle.
Fuck! Fuck. He claws the stupid hair accessories out of his hair, gritting his teeth as it pulls out a few strands of his hair with it. He hates this. He hates this so much.
And he really wanted to go to that dumb ball, too. He just knows for certain that, had he endured the brushing and pulling and powdering, all he would’ve amounted to at that party was an accessory for his sisters to tug along. A purse puppy, no different to the ones he sees being carried along by those high-class ladies with their giant hair structures.
He selfishly hopes, shamefully so, for one or even both of them to find paramours to attach themselves to so they can move out and finally leave him alone to his miserable solitude.
Eventually, he manages to sulk to the washroom and scrub off the colours they put on his face, put on something comfortable and boring and sad, and settle on a sofa in the drawing room to read through the backlog of uninteresting letters and promotions that have accumulated in a pile on the coffee table. Might as well do something productive, he supposes. Anything to distract himself from the ball he refuses to go to.
The first envelope he rips apart with the letter opener is about the ball, as is the second, and the third, but the fourth one was a reminder that everyone was mandated by the law of the Queen to drink lemon tea on Tuesdays and be sure to enjoy their hour-long midday break on Thursday, lest their employer get sentenced to a beheading. Well, that’s… certainly morbid, but generous of the Queen, he supposes. The fifth envelope was about the ball, and joins the rest of the ball-related letters in the hearth.
The ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ party, presently regarded as the bane of his entire existence, was being thrown for the Queen of Heart’s right-hand and advisor as detailed in the official royal invitation that every household had received half a month ago. Twice.
To all interested subjects of the Queendom of Roses, it’d said.
This is a formal invitation to the royal ball held on the twenty-fifth night of the month of October. The occasion of such a celebration is a grand one; my most esteemed advisor’s day of birth has come around this year. For those looking to win his hand in marriage and enjoy a dance with him as a suitor, they must bring one heart-felt gift to the ball that is equal to or larger in size than the white rose bush you are required to grow in your garden, or otherwise win his affection organically with a homemade pastry of choice. (If there is no such rosebush in your garden, report to a Card Soldier at once to be assisted in acquiring one.) Those who choose to attend the ball must be wearing the appropriate formal attire, detailed in the pamphlet sent with this letter, or else face the consequence of making a mockery of the royal court.
Signed, Your Queen of Hearts, Riddle Rosehearts.
No one would dare flinch a single wink in the Queen’s direction and his majesty himself ensures that it stays that way. ‘Romance is a silly notion and the queries about a potential king are to stop at once’, or something along those lines. His advisor, though, was a different story: Trey Clover is known as the most wanted man in the entire queendom, and that’s putting it lightly.
Putting aside the position of power he stands at and his influence over the Queen, he’s hot, wealthy and kind. There’s countless words whispered amongst eligible bachelors and married subjects alike about the advisor’s helpful and generous demeanor, his charming laugh and quick modesty, the easy way he interacts with non-royalty as if they were of the same dignity. It’s a muted sort of elegance that only serves to make him more desirable.
Yeah, Cater would do questionable things to be able to see such a hot commodity in person, but it’s whatever. It’s not like the sound of his voice when he addresses the people on behalf of his queen makes him swoon, or anything. Besides, he’s not going to fight the entire queendom for him; that would just be ridiculous. Cater will settle for whatever poor dimwitted fuckpoll falls for his reputable glamour, or even no one at all.
(He’d only lived in the Queendom of Roses for a little over a year barring the fact that he was born here, and so far it’s been one of his favourite places to stay. The various twinkling cities of the Shaftlands are cold—beautiful, yes, but cold; the Sunset Savanna was too vast and left him with a distinct desire to never move a muscle ever again; the Scalding Sands was too dry for his delicate skin. Still, the years in the Scalding Sands were the longest his family had ever stayed anywhere, and he still misses some of the people he’d met there, even if he would never admit to having once called them his friends.)
(Perhaps what he loves about the Queendom is its calculated unpredictability, because he’s never been in a place that he felt so weirdly understood by. Or maybe he’s just fascinated by the idea of a birthplace.)
He sorts the cute little handwritten poster claiming ‘the frilliest gowns this side of the rosebush’ by the other promotions about fashion, of which there were many, because this is the Diamond household and anything less would be disappointing. As he goes to pick up another, he spots an odd purple envelope atop the pile that he swears wasn’t there before.
What happens when he tears open the letter is so unbelievable that Cater decides right then and there that he’s dreamt this entire day up.
Out of the letter floats a two-dimentional smile like a sentient sheet of paper, and then mysteriously, before his eyes, a whole head fades into existence around the teeth, then a neck, a torso and individual limbs until there in front of him sat a widely grinning purple-haired cat-eared beastman with arrows in his ears and a frankly hideous pair of trousers.
“What the—?!”
“Good Meow-ning, Starshine,” purrs the little time-blind freak, “You’re going to be late for the ball.”
Cater leaps off the sofa and points the sharp end of the letter opener at the stranger. “Who the fuck are you?!”
“Why, my name is Artemiy Artemiyevich Pinker, of course,” he grins. “But you can call me Che’nya.”
“Wh—huh?!”
He crosses one leg over the other and rests his chin in his palm. As he leans forward, Cater swears he starts floating up off the couch. “I’m your fairy godmother.”
Cater sputters, looking between this Che’nya, the pile of letters and the fire. “You—you’re—what?”
“We’re running out of time, Dia-meow-nd,” the cat-man declares mellowly, and suddenly the two of them are outside.
What. The shit.
Cater is about to get kidnapped. He’s been drugged, he’s tripping out of his whole mind and this magic cat is going to shove him into a hat and sell him to a loaded half-blind old woman as a talking pet.
To make matters worse, not only is a potentially all-powerful being that makes cat puns floating above the well-worn path to the Queendom Heart at his doorstep, and he’s stood on his porch instead of by the sofa, and his nice warm drawing room is nowhere to be seen—not only this, but there are two juvenile-looking troublemakers lurking behind the shrubbery and watching him.
“Just one meow-ment, all,” he nods, suddenly disappearing again. From the blank air, his voice pipes, “Tonight we’re going to the royal ball!”
Cater stands there, dumbstruck, letter opener pointed at nothing. He blinks once, twice, then points the knife at the figures in the shadows. “Oi. I can see you, you know.”
“Who, me?” one of the figures asks, then grunts like they were hit by their companion. “Uh, I mean, no, you can’t!”
The one that wasn’t speaking, who he can now see has bright red hair and a boyish grin, stands up straight with palms facing Cater, stepping conspicuously sideways like he’ll get stabbed if he doesn’t. “You wouldn’t happen to know which way the castle was, would you?”
The first figure rises unsurely after his friend, furrowing his brows. “We’re sorry, Ace and I are just a little lost.”
“Aren’t you boys out past your bedtime?” Cater frowned, resting a hand on his hip.
He figures that if he treats the two like children, they’ll respond accordingly and make a break for it, or a bit less likely admit to guilt and sulk on back home, but no such luck. Perhaps he just doesn’t look intimidating enough. Damn his perfect youthful visage.
The red one—Ace?—only laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Nawww, we’re not, sir, we swear! What’s a fine gentleman such as yourself doing home, anyway?”
What in the world? Who does this shit-eating, sweet-talking little brat think he is? He ticks up an eyebrow unimpressedly, but before he can tell this Ace kid to scram, Che’nya reappears directly in front of his face and obstructs his view, holding two squirming mice by its tails.
“This is for you,” he grins, and lets go.
Cater yelps, jumping back, but the mice scamper away to the road. Before they can make it to the bushes, Che’nya snaps his fingers and waves a wooden stick at them, and before his very eyes the mice become beautiful horses with gorgeous flowing manes.
“How did—”
“Shhhhhhh,” Che’nya purrs, doing a little barrel roll in the air. “Don’t doubt it, it’s perfectly sound.”
He floats over to the strange kids, waving his wand at them as well. “Kittens, fetch a pumpkin, or anything round!”
“Uh?” Ace frowns.
The one with blue hair furrows his eyebrows. “I have a cauldron?” He holds it up to the cat, much to the shock and dismay of the red one.
“Where did you—?!”
“Purr-fect!” Chen’ya cheers, taking the cauldron by the handle, and snaps his fingers again. From the tip of his wand flies sparks, and they swirl around the two boys in a blinding dance of lights.
When it dies down, the two of them are dressed extravagant card-motif suits, complete with cute little chauffeur hats that have a heart and spade symbol on them respectively. Che’nya rather haphazardly tosses the cauldron onto the road with a loud clang while the two admire their new clothes in awe and shock, and slowly the cauldron morphs larger, develops holes, new shapes, wheels—and becomes a carriage.
A full, horse-drawn carriage, complete with chauffeurs. From his creepy, magical feline fairy god-mother. To go to the royal ball.
This has to be a dream.
“Aww, sick!” Ace says with an excited grin, elbowing the other. “Deuce, check it out! We’re actually gonna go to the ball today!”
Deuce shoves at his companion and re-smoothens his suit. “Hold on, just—” he turns to Che’nya. “—Thank you… sir? Who are you?”
“I’m his fairy god-meow-ther,” Che’nya nods, jabbing a thumb backwards in Cater’s direction. “Speaking of!”
He stands in front of Cater and holds his stick out at him. “Envision yourself in garments, any styling will do! A dress with a bow or a suit with a coat! But one that befits the Queen’s whims, too. It’d be a real shame if you were to be smote.”
“Smote?” Deuce echoes.
“Isn’t it smited?” Ace mocks.
“Silence, kittens,” Che’nya demands, and the two go quiet.
Cater decides to ignore the weird threat and focus on his clothes. It feels silly, standing there in what is essentially his pyjamas and thinking about looking cool. Still, he relaxes his limbs, closes his eyes, and imagines something comfortable. Something sleek, maybe. Angled. And not pastel—dear Hearts above, anything but pastel, he is so sick of every pastel shade his sisters have ever put him in.
He might be actively losing his mind, but the more solid the image in his mind becomes, the more it feels like he’s actually wearing it. Like, physically. His cardigan feels a bit less fluffy, more solid and stiff; his shirt feels smoother, the neck rising; his fingers, wrapped around the handle of the letter opener, suddenly have a thin silk barrier. When he hears an uncanny giggle from the fairy godmother himself, he opens his eyes.
“My, look at you, what a sight to behold!” Che’nya bubbles, tail curling up. “I’d say you look like a million gold!”
“Er,” Cater blinks, looking down. Pinned at his lapel is a classic half-painted rose, one of the identifying symbols of the royal crown. He smoothens a thumb over a delicate white petal and notices his own gloves that he now adorns, but past that, clasped btween his fingers: not the letter opener that he had been holding, but something wider, in a pretty red and brown that matches his suit, with red flowers and golden highlights—a masquerade mask?
He pulls his hair back behind his head with a ribbon and slips on the mask, and Che’nya flourishes a mirror that was seemingly materialised out of nowhere.
When he catches sight of himself, he can’t help but gape.
His reflection, he can’t believe it, is the best he thinks he’s ever looked. Not only that, but it’s the most him he thinks he’s ever looked. Cater has never felt so at home, so utterly himself in an outfit before. It’s comfortable, not just physically, but, like, psychologically.
Despite the outfit being of his own mind’s making, there are details and embellishments he didn’t consciously decide to add, shimmery make-up he forgot to think about, and wonders how much of Che’nya’s influence is in his magical clothes—or if perhaps his subconscious is really just that stylish. Glancing again at Che’nya’s appalling trousers, he’s inclined to believe it’s the latter. The only thing that escapes him entirely is the masquerade mask, but pinned on and ornamenting his face, he decides he’s extremely content with the outcome. Elated, even, and Cater doesn’t feel that one often.
He looks again at Che’nya and his creepy (but, Cater decides, somehow kind) grin and is caught in a torrent of grateful, confused, freaked out, disbelieving joy. He opens his mouth to attempt to convey at least some of it, albeit in whatever shallow way he can manage to push real, overwhelming gratitude through his teeth, but Che’nya waves a hand at him dismissively.
“Be sure to leave ‘fore midnight strikes; the magic only lasts the night,” he informs him almost matter-of-factly, if he could even adopt such a tone. Cater frowns in confusion, but he’s already moved on.
“Go! Now, before it’s too late!” Che’nya sings, floating up higher and slowly becoming transparent as he does it. “Onward, to the ball, it’s calling!”
“Who’s—” Ace starts to ask before the cat finishes his stanza, and with one final pop of streamers and confetti, Che’nya disappears with a parting declaration, “Fate!”
Cater stares at the streamers as they slowly float to the ground to an eerie humming tune, and watches in absolute bewilderment as they hit the ground and fade out of existence.
“So…” Cater looks at the two lost kids—now newly assigned chauffers—and spreads his hands. Might as well go with it, right? “Off to the ball?”
“Yes!” Deuce pumps his fist, and then catches himself and flushes.
“Aww, you’re a cutie,” Cater coos, and Deuce clears his throat, opening the door to the carriage like a gentleman. Ace had already settled himself by the mouse-horses, looking right at home as they swish their tails in his face. As he steps into the cauldron-carriage, he thinks distantly that neither of these boys probably know how to handle horses. Also, weren’t they lost? They don’t know the way to the castle.
Despite his mild concerns, Deuce sits next to Ace, takes the reigns—guess the magic is helping with that part, then—and with Cater settled comfortably in the carriage they set off on the main road towards the castle.
A ball is being held on the royal grounds; it’s the biggest party of the century, every single person in the kingdom is invited, and tonight, for the first time in his life, Cater Diamond is going to attend feeling absolutely and uninhibitedly free.