“Myungsoo, wipe that wretched scowl off your face,” Krystal Jung says as the dark haired young man blows past her. She’s his mother’s advisor, and her presence only deepens the lines in his face.  The lack of a title - Prince, Kim, anything, for that matter - in front of his name irks him further.  

Krystal and the ring of guards sticking to her side turn to watch him barge through the hall. Sparse crowds of on-duty servants and androids part for him, and this time, unlike usual,  he doesn’t stop to bow and thank them.

“Please don’t give me advice,” he calls.  

Growling, he finds that he can’t even wipe off his polite tone when he’s this angry.  Myungsoo scoffs.  Angry?  Is he really angry?  As far as the queen and Krystal are concerned, he only throws childish fits.  Just give ‘im some sweets and a sappy netdrama to watch and he’ll forget all about whatever had upset his little heart.  

He takes the spiraling staircase that branches from the main hall three steps at a time and slams into an android in his hurry.  The staircase is two meters wide; either his coordination is deteriorating or he’s getting really, really riled up.  Or both.  Ignoring the tugging in his gut to apologize, he tells himself it’s just a machine with a computer chip personality.  Everyone else treats them like slaves; why doesn’t he?

"Because you're too nice," he mutters.  "You're too nice and you're the prince."  Actually, being the prince has nothing to do with being too nice.  But it did have to do with having to make appearances and running a country and choosing a wife.  None of which he’s bothered with doing.  The country still has a queen; she can do everything.  He snorts.  The queen doing something.  That’d be a sight to see.  Nowadays, it felt like Krystal was the one making the decisions.  If the king was still here, maybe things like achieving Lunar and cyborg equality would get done.

"Prince?" the android says, and its pear shaped body swivels and bows.  Disregarding the twinge of guilt his in gut, Myungsoo rubs the make up from his eyes and runs his fingers through his carefully styled hair.

The ground evens out into another hallway, less grand than its counterpart downstairs but still bursting with 19th century European aesthetics. His room is right around the corner, thank God, and maybe, hopefully, Dux is in there.  Scratch that; Dux is always in his room.  She’s too lazy to move elsewhere.

Myungsoo kicks off his shoes in the hallway in front of a heavy redwood door.  The plush, ornate carpet is heaven under his feet, and after a twist and a push, he’s finally in his own room, the only place he has to himself.  Closing the door behind him, he sighs and s his suit, flinging it onto the bench at the foot of his bed.  His vest and undershirt still hug too tightly to his chest, but chances are he’d be called down for another meeting before he can get comfortable.

A ball of orange, stark against the blue bedspread, shifts and meows.  Immediately, Myungsoo’s frown dissipates.  He kneels down by his bed, rests his chin in his arms, and peers at the cat.  

“Duxie,” he cooes, patting her head.  “I’d much rather marry you than that girl from...what was it...New Belgium?”  Dux meows and looks angry.  She always looks angry.  “Maybe if I was normal,” he says, and pushes himself onto the bed, burying his face in the cat’s fur.  Dux whines but does nothing to escape.  She’s too used to it.  “I want to live in a netdrama, Dux.”

You live in the netdrama of all netdramas.  You’re the prince, for heaven’s sake, says the pat of her paw on his ear.

"No," he corrects.  "I'm the prisoner.”

A knock comes from his door, followed by Krystal’s voice.  “Myungsoo, stop throwing tantrums.” Maybe if Dux wasn’t here, he’d be more irritated.  “My Lady has requested your presence for the planning of your ball.”

“No,” he says, his voice muffled by fur.

“Are you talking to that rodent again?”

Dux hisses.

“You’re talking to that rodent again.”

“Go away,” Myungsoo says, turning his head the slightest to see if she tries to open the door.  She doesn’t.  She thinks it’s locked, as it usually is.

“Kim Myungsoo, you’re twenty tomorrow.  Stop acting like a brat and more like a prince.”

“As prince of the United Kingdom, I order you to go away.”

“I’m coming in, Myungsoo.”

He sits up and taps an earpiece on the right side of his head, waiting for translucent screens to flicker up before his eyes.  When they do, he sets a new code for the lock, guaranteeing at least an hour’s worth of hacking for the engineers.  The earpiece responds to voice and touch command, and it’s something every citizen has, even the dirt poor.  After all the netdramas he’s watched, Myungsoo is convinced they're being used for a grand plan to control minds and gain world domination, but even so, the thing is on his ear 24/7.

"Consequences, young prince.  The queen will be angered."

"Damn the queen," Myungsoo mutters,  letting the feeling of rebellion wash over him.  That’s right.  Damn the queen, and damn Krystal.  He can make decisions and just as well take care of himself without those two looming over his shoulder.  Don’t they know that maybe he wants to choose who he wishes to rule the country with?  Maybe he doesn’t want to marry the New Belgium princess…  Myungsoo frowns.  Even though she’s pretty (like really pretty. He almost swoons).

His dad would have given him freedom.  The king. Myungsoo twists a ring on his left index finger.  It shines like white opal.  The ring is made of Lunar metal and raised with a twisting, silver design.  

The Lunars are the reason his father is dead, and yet, the ring never leaves his finger.  As he stares at it, something clicks in his head.

Sliding off the bed, he treads over to his walk-in closet and commands the lights on. Well organized articles of clothing are hung and stacked in the circular room.   Keeping a careful ear on the murmuring outside his door, Myungsoo steps in and slides the closet doors shut.  He s his vest and tosses it on the carpeted floor

The room is filled with formal wear.  Occasionally, guests bring foreign clothes as gifts, but they usually aren’t to Krystal's taste, so she never lets him wear them. He doesn’t understand why she has to meddle in every aspect of his life even though she is his mother's advisor.  Her job is the help the queen with political decisions; why is she always roaming the halls and sticking her nose in other people's business?

Myungsoo opens the first drawer and digs to the bottom, fishing out a diamond shaped black mask. It’s the type of thing people wear when they think the Plague’s going around, but Letumosis hasn’t hit England in two years.  And that’s a record.  He loops it around his neck, adjusting it in the mirror on the opposite wall.   It blocks the bottom half of his face, reaching over the bridge of his nose and ending atop his cheekbones.  Nodding to himself, he pulls it down to his neck.

His heart pounds, and his stomach twists with a feeling he's never experienced before.  He’s actually doing this.  

Hastily ripping through the rest of his closet, Myungsoo pulls on several layers of dark, stale clothing.  As he cracks open the closet door, his earpiece beeps, and an opaque box projects in front of his eyes.  

COMM RECEIVED FROM LADY JUNG:

Myungsoo, Queen Camilla is coming down herself to evaluate this situation.  I advise you to unlock the door.

Myungsoo raises an eyebrow.  The Queen is coming down his wing?  

Even better.

COMM SENT TO LADY JUNG:

You’re the Queen’s advisor, not mine.  I’m the king’s son.  You can’t order me to do anything.

That ought to rile her up for a while.  He walks to his bed and patts Dux between the ears.  

“Daddy’s going on a little trip,” he says, and Dux slits her eyes like Never call yourself Daddy ever again.

“I heard you, Myungsoo,” Krystal calls.  “Don’t do it.”

Myungsoo makes a face at the door and turns to the window on the west wall.  It’s a big, circular thing, crisscrossed with dried bamboo.  The servants used to crack it open during summer, but ever since his father died seven years ago, the Pavilion has changed.  

Everyone is paranoid that danger will come sailing through those open windows, like the way it did with the king.  A poison laced bullet had pierced through his neck and exploded into shrapnel upon impact with his blood.  And it was Myungsoo who found him. Mangled, torn, and shredded flesh, but most of all, the red.  The red of the blood and skin, and the red of the white suit for his wedding day, all of it laden with the stench of iron.  

And every time Myungsoo sees Queen Camila, a wish ghosts over him.  If only they had killed her instead.  

He pushes the windows open with a crack of dry plaster, and a cloud of dust rains down into the garden, pitter pattering onto the cobblestones below.  From here, he can see his city.  Ragged rooftops and century old brick abodes near the palace, and sleek, modernized buildings in the distance, closer towards Middle England.  England had been bombed in the fourth World War, and much of it was rebuilt with new technological advances.

The Royal Pavillion and much of downtown Brighton had been spared in the attacks, and so lack the glamour of the Middle.  Myungsoo doesn’t mind the old tow