A/N: thank you for the votes and comments so far. The pm's I receive really give me the inspiration that gets me to continue writing so I really hope you'll stick with this book throughout this amazing journey. If it seems to be mistakes in some chapters, please do let me know✨👍 Also, since I used Marichat gifs in the other book...

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The prince had enough of fairytales. His mind was focused on reality; the sound of the blade slicing over armoury, the feel of vibrations through his shield, the colour red reflected in the eyes of soldiers. Frightened soldiers. Cowards.

Adrien Agreste had won two wars for his country. At fourteen, he decided to take action in leading the remaining troops of his kingdom into war— the previous leader passed on just before the battle began so Adrien decided to take action himself. The following year, he had already started his own army and fought against the kingdom of Kubdel.  They had won both battles, no doubt, because Adrien was leading them.

His parents, King Gabriel and Queen Tara, have warned Adrien not to become an arrogant soldier, thirsty for shed of blood, but he refuse to listen. They just did not understand how important his country was to him and how far he'd go to protect it. They did not understand the potential strength of power.

Adrien held his sword out with confidence, glaring at the seven men who surrounded him in a circle. They were all nervous, he could tell. He couldn't blame them either. It wasn't a fair match unless about five more men fought against him on their side.

The group charged at once, Adrien's glare turning into an evil smirk. Idiots— they were all charging the same way: tip of blade outwards while shield plastered to the chest too tightly. Worst mistake.

The second before they collided, the prince bent down easily on one knee causing a handful of soldiers to slam into one another from above him. This gave him an opportunity to trip upcoming opponents, slicing their knees in the process. In training, once you have fallen you weren't allowed to get back up because it would be considered death on the battlefield.

Adrien never fell in anything he was committed to, especially when it involved a fight.

Three men were already curled up onto the floor, gripping their split knees. As the other men soldiers around him fell in pain at his every turn, Adrien couldn't help but grin wickedly. Weak, he thought, not enough of a challenge. He kept slicing his blade toward exposed skin, slamming the hilt into skulls of men who dared find themselves worthy of a fight.

Armand D'Argencourt watched it all from the corner of the training room, the DarkBlade himself judging the tiniest of mistakes in the prince's defence. He was Adrien's trainer after all— it was his job.

Too confident, Armand thought, not wary of surprises. However, that's how Adrien had always reacted. That's how he won both wars for his country. It's what made him the most advanced, youngest soldier in four decades.

Once all his opponents crumpled to the floor, Adrien chuckled in menaced glee.

"You actually call that a fight?" he asked arrogantly, "Pathetic."

Each man looked down in embarrassment, ashamed at being beaten by a seventeen-year-old boy. Just like that, not only had their blood been spilt— their masculinity had been taken from them.

Armand had enough of this. He spoke up from the prince's ridiculing, "Your Highness? I believe that's enough for today."

Adrien glared back at his trainer spitefully. Armand just stared back, not a single strand of fear showing in his face, only the unbearable look of disappointment and regret. Adrien rolled his eyes at his trainer's behaviour, irritated at why he was not congratulating an honourable prince in his pride and success.

"Everyone out," Adrien ordered the men with a bored sigh, crossing his arms.

The soldiers all obliged without hesitation, bowing their heads toward their prince before they left. Adrien felt a sense of power once more, which Armand immediately shot down again.

"What is the meaning of this?" DarkBlade asked in a monotonous manner.

"The meaning of what?" Adrien said.

The prince raised his brow, almost as if challenging Armand to speak. The trainer did not see the it as a threat, however, only as another sign of ignorance.

"Treating brave soldiers as your own personal toys," DarkBlade answered, "ridiculing them as if they weren't human."

Adrien scoffed, "Ridiculing? I was merely strengthening them! They weren't fighting determinedly enough— I'm just giving them a little motivation."

"You call that motivation? By calling each soldier, who no doubt fought alongside you on the battlefield, pathetic."

The prince's argument was muffled in his incapability to form words. Armand was right, of course, like always. Adrien himself knew that he was an arrogant soldier, destined to be a terrible ruler. Even though DarkBlade's ancestors once ruled with an iron fist, he'd never go too far as to making his people look like fools.

The prince hated the idea of order and prosperity and all the other terms that citizens labelled under a 'proper king'. As a child, Adrien loved when his mother read stories to him about knights in shining armour and brave soldiers on guard. Now all he wanted to do was push his mother away because he had already become the hero she'd to him read about.

"Those men need to wake up from their hopeful dreams," Adrien laughed cruelly, "If they want a compliment, they are not getting any from me."

Armand sighed, "Dear, Prince, your heart is made of rock."

Adrien gave no answer to that, sheathing his sword in its rightful position besides his abdomen. He shook his head in fury, ready for the 'talk' that his trainer was about to give.

"You are aware that the Bourgeoise Kingdom is aiming to start a war with us?"

Adrien rolled his eyes, thinking back to the inconvenient time he'd wasted two years prior when the Bourgeoise family invited him and his parents to a Royal ball in which the different kingdoms celebrated the eighteenth birthday of the Princess Chloe.

Adrien remembered how the King came up to him, along with his daughter, to ask for the his hand in marriage. Obviously, Adrien refused the request, storming out of the ball in anger. It seemed now as if he wasn't the only angry one from the proposal.

Armand stepped up to the prince and handed him a snow-white letter, bind by a red layer of wax with the emblem of a flower upon it's surface.

"What is this?" the prince asked.

"A call for help," Armand replied, "the Dupain Kingdom is arranging their armies in retaliation to the Bourgeois Kingdom, but they are worried the numbers won't be enough."

"What does that have to do with us?"

Adrien held the out the letter to return it, but DarkBlade shook his head, insisting that he keep it. He knew where this was headed and didn't like the idea at all.

"It doesn't have to involve us, but becoming allies with the Dupain Kingdom—"

"You do realise that the Dupain's have been enemies of the Agreste's for centuries," Adrien snapped, "we cannot just fight alongside a kingdom that we've despised for so long."

Armand compose himself by inhaling a large breath of air before speaking to the prince again, "I'm just saying that it would be beneficial for the people, nevertheless the entire country—"

"I'm the one who decides what's good for my own country, thank you," Adrien sneered in an impolite manner, spinning in his heel towards the door.

"When will you ever learn?" Armand sighed tiredly.

Adrien gripped his hand tighter around the hilt of his sword, considering a swift motion of sudden death towards his trainer. Horrified at his own thought, the prince shook his head and stormed out of the training room.

DarkBlade glanced to the window at the blue sky above. He turned the prince into a monster and now he was going to have to be tamed.

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Once Adrien reached his large, grey room, he noticed a black box on his bed, engraved with green patterns upon the lid. He groaned at the ceiling, irritated at another present from yet another secret admirer he would never requite feelings towards. He did enjoy surprises though, no matter who the present was from.

He stripped his training clothes off, staring into the mirror at the scars he'd received from the battles he had won. The prince despised the marks just as he had despised himself. He even ordered all the house maids to never enter his room when he was in it because he didn't want anyone to see the beastly scars— he was already a terrible person on the inside so there was no reason to show his people that he was a horrid monster entirely.

Before he could bathe in lonely silence, the prince decided to open the mysterious box on his bed. He didn't care if maybe it were a grenade or dart through the heart. It would've been a quick death. Nobody would have to care about him again— it's not like anyone did in the first place anyway.

He opened it easily before making a confused face. It was a silver ring— too simple to be a wedding ring, yet complex enough to be real and valuable. He didn't notice the green light until it started to shine brighter and brighter from the ancient box.

For a moment, he thought about death and how a bright light usually represented heaven once a life ended. In that second, he felt as if all his worries would finally go away: his trainer wouldn't be nagging at him, women wouldn't be lining up to ask for his hand in marriage, the wars would just end along with his horrid scars...

Unfortunately for the prince, he was still alive and so was the man standing just a few feet away from him. Adrien instinctively unsheathed his sword, stepping towards the intruder.

He let out a grunt as the blade thrust through the naked torso of a cat-like figure. To his surprise, the sword did not hit hard surface— in fact, it felt as if it hadn't gone through the body at all. Adrien's air left his lungs while his face turned pale. The first thought in his mind was 'Ghost', until he studied the whole being properly.

He looked up to the face of green eyes and white fangs. The man wore black clothes that covered his whole body except for his chest, cat ears coming from his head. His skin was darker than the prince's and so was his stark black hair. The most interesting feature of the ghost was his furry tail coming from the back of his spine.

The prince swiped his sword to the right and it easily passed through the body as if air were in it's place.

"H-how?" was the only word Adrien managed to utter.

"The name's Plagg," the intruder introduced with a cheshire grin, "and before I answer any of your questions, do you perhaps have any Camembert?"

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In the dead of night when the full moon was out and the stars began to shine with such intensity, Prince Nathaniel strolled through the large garden behind the Kurtzberg Castle. He had been up all night after dreaming about inappropriate imagines of the woman he fancied and needed to walk off the blush upon his cheeks. By now he probably looked as red as a tomato.

He turned back to the building, a part of him worried about the guards who were probably looking for him at that moment. The attention was the main reason Nathaniel hated being a prince. He also despised superiority— the idea that one person is better than another— and loathed his father for refusing to buy him art equipment when he was younger.

Prince Nathaniel had always dreamed of becoming an artist. He enjoyed watching talented painters complete their masterpieces and admired marble structures that had probably taken centuries to chisel. Nathaniel simply loved natural beauty, which got him thinking about Marinette Dupain-Cheng once again. He sighed lovingly before blushing, thinking about those blasted dreams.

He had spoken to the princess once at a royal gathering hosted in the Palace of Kubdel. She had complimented his sense of art after she had seen him shape broken rose petals from a vase on a table into the face of a beautiful woman— that face being Marinette herself. He remembered apologizing non-stop, covering his eyes in embarrassment.

He thought back to her delicate smile, the way her blue eyes lit up or how flawless her dark hair swayed while she laughed at his nervousness. He knew immediately that he had fallen in love.

Princess Marinette was kind, smart, caring and beautiful. She was beyond what he'd ever imagine his future wife to be like and yet he couldn't stop thinking about his frequent dreams and how amazing it would be if he were married to her. His Marinette.

He would build rose bushes for her in his garden, draw portraits of her and take her on magical boat rides across the river near the palace. He could order a band of musicians to play for them while he'd tell her how amazing she is... Wait, what was he thinking? They weren't even married yet and Nathaniel was already planning a wedding.

"Your Highness?" a voice called from behind him.

Nathaniel turned around to see the moon's reflected light shining upon the face of the kingdom's most valient knight. The prince sighed for it was not the first time the soldier had been ordered to find him after a rough night of sleep. In fact, Nathaniel was so used to running away from his bed that the first place the soldier looked, would always be the rose garden.

"Le Chién Kim," the prince said, "I apologize for my absence once again."

"It was no worry this time, Prince Nathaniel," Kim replied assuringly, "just like the other four times you decided to take a stroll in the garden after bed time without mentioning it to any guard."

"I can never truly be free, can I?" Nathaniel asked, shaking his head, "Without worrying anyone, that is."

Soldier Kim did not reply because a part of him knew that it would be wrong to agree with the fact that there was a feeling of trapped dignity when being in position of high power.

"What's on your mind?" he asked instead, aware of the prince's distant look on his face.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," Nathaniel answered with a sad smile, "You'd never know how it is to love someone you probably have no chance with."

Oh, but Le Chién Kim knew exactly how that felt. He had fancied the brave Princess Alix for so long, remembering all the times they used to race each other on fields of grass when they were younger.

Princess Alix had dangerously rode a horse from a cart at the age of six because Kim challenged her through a race where, if he ran faster than the horse, she would have to kiss him. On the lips! That never happened unfortunately because her father, King Kubdel, would never have allowed his daughter to be in a relationship with a boy much less important than her.

"Trust me, Your Majesty," Kim sighed, "I would most definitely know how that feels."

Prince Nathaniel frowned guiltily. Of course, he was the only person who knew about Alix and Kim. He felt immediately humiliated for forgetting about the past struggles of their relationship.

"I am tremendously sorry," he apologised, "You and Princess Alix—"

"I think it's time for you to go back inside, Prince Nathaniel."

He must have hit a sensitive part of the soldier's mind. That's one of the most worrying parts about love— when is truly the right time to talk about it and should we even be talking about it at all?

"Yes, thank you, Le Chién."

Nathaniel walked toward the entrance to the palace cautiously, passing Kim on his way. Before he could reach the door, the soldier asked, "You asked for her hand in marriage, didn't you?"

Nathaniel turned red, "Yes."

"You cannot force love, Your Highness."

With that, the prince stormed off into the castle, angry at the soldier for turning down his calm mood and furious at himself for failing at forgetting those horrid dreams.

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2~~ Steady