Once upon a time, there was a King with three sons: Pawel, the expected Crown Prince, Olbrecht, the master swordsman, and Anselm, the fool.

Fjell-og-dal was well-ordered, as a fairytale kingdom should be. It had prospered for seven generations, but a wish from their Founder had been fulfilled, giving birth to a heartless sorcery that slowly started devouring the kingdom from the edges.

At first, they could ignore the damage to the kingdom, but as time passed, it began to creep into the center of the towns, disturbing crops, and weakening livestock. It was at that point that the elder princes started petitioning their father for true leadership in their time of need. Olbrecht even went as far as to suggest that if his father couldn't, he should step down.

Exasperated, the King called for his third child-who sat on the floor and promptly ignored their argument. Anselm was called a fool for a reason-but then, the conversation was the same as it had been for days.

"I'm waiting on a sign."

This was new. Prince Anselm finally turned to pay attention to his father. His brothers failed to catch on as quickly.

"Your sign should have been the crops!" Olbrecht went for the first casualty, ever impatient.

"Or your people." Pawel cared more about their subject's safety.

"I'm not waiting on the harm our people take, I'm waiting on the Founder's vault to unlock!" The king hissed at his eldest in frustration.

"Doesn't the fool have something to say?" Olbrecht finally noticed the change in his younger brother's behavior.

All three men turned to stare at Anselm, who laced his words with his private frustrations. "Father, you should have prepared all of us for this day, told us the truth behind the fairytales. Instead, you raised two rational men with no imagination, and filled me with nothing but guesses about what's to come."

With that, Anselm turned back to studying the floor and left the three to their useless arguments.

~~~

Four days later, the sign spread across the kingdom. The skies turned black and did not relent for sun or moon, but a light pierced the heavens from a hole in the ground, just a day's march south of the capital.

The king sent all three sons as Anselm demanded-along with a regiment of knights-to go confront whatever lay at the end of that piercing beam. Pawel and Olbrecht debated strategies much of the way there, but Anselm withheld his voice.

The elder princes also decided to stage a camp a couple of hours out from the source, to give them a fresh rest before they encountered the trials of the sign. They gave out their various orders and helped where they would, but Anselm kept to himself, taking care of his own horse to stay away from the busyness of the camp. He settled himself at his brother's fire much later, sharing a meal with them before bed.

Again it was Olbrecht who first noticed he joined them. "Anselm, why haven't you said anything?"

"Because Father set us up to fail in our own ways, and until you're willing to admit that he failed you, I'm just Anselm the Fool."

Pawel may have been Crown Prince, but that couldn't cover precisely how brilliant a man he was. He hated the arrogance his baby brother displayed with his answer, but returning it in kind wouldn't serve them well.

"You arrogant little prick!" Olbrecht wasn't as fair-minded. "I ought to give you a swift kick..."

The Crown Prince restrained the knight from the blow he was about to give the fool. "No! Olbrecht, there is some truth to what he says. We've never taken the boy seriously."

They were silent until Olbrecht nodded and relaxed.

Pawel continued. "Now, if Father set us up for failure, I'd prefer to know your full council and get it wrong, than know nothing and make an uninformed decision, Ans."

The Fool thought about it for a moment, then he smiled. It wasn't pleasant, as it was somewhat malevolent in the flickering light of the fire. "Father raised his oldest for a kingdom that functioned, assuring the people that he would know how to keep the kingdom in good repair, and deal with trades fairly. We are the only kingdom that hasn't faced a dragon attack for centuries, nor ogre, nor have wolves eaten our children. These things happen regularly in other kingdoms-and worse. It takes not just a good king to rule most kingdoms, but a mighty king, who can shatter the strongest foes. What does Pawel know of personal hardship?"

Olbrecht snickered at the pretty apt skewering of the heir.

"I already know I'm not a warrior king, Ans." Pawel reminded himself to have patience. The urge to hit him was strong-he did have sympathy for Olbrecht's attitude.

"Well, he's never prepared you for what we are going into."

"And I was?" Olbrecht only asked this to humor his brothers. He knew he was prepared for war, and was content.

"No, he prepared you for a failure of our blessings. The intent was to either back up or replace our eldest if things went wrong or to even marry you off to another kingdom where your decisive and aggressive nature could save them. This? This thing won't be readily like either situation."

"What were you prepared for, Anselm?" Olbrecht sobered up a bit, as he started to grasp the edge of what his brother was saying.

"I was raised on fairytales, on seemingly nonsense stories. They centered on how the youngest wasn't prepared to become either brother, but was still brilliant, solving strange puzzles about hospitality, helping the right person, freeing people from curses."

"Rightly divide your saying, brother." Pawel could tell there was something deeper, but Anselm was hiding the crux of the matter.

"We are not facing a peaceful and neat solution, nor are we facing one that can be overpowered. It's a trial set to upend how our world works. As the only one trained in imagination, I've got a chance to steer us through to the end. My problem is that the stories our father fed me always showed the youngest fool inheriting everything by simple sacrifices. If Father was honest with his training, I'm our greatest chance of success... "

"That sounds like you have another if." Olbrecht snorted, as the theory was already too fantastic for his comfort.

"There is." Anselm paused, looking for all the world like he had swallowed something bitter. "While I've no doubts that I'm best trained for what is to come, I believe that Father withheld something crucial by only giving me stories where the young fool wins. I suspect he's set me up to fail while leaving you both in enough ignorance to die before you see my failure. It's almost as if he has a second set of sons out there, and can afford to lose all three of us."

"That last one is nonsense," Pawel retorted quickly. "Why send all these knights to die with us?"

"Just that. Not sending them shows a lack of care for us, plus we do not know if they wouldn't be the first things to die once we start meeting with the upheaval. Besides, I suspect that they are more to make sure they only the right sons come home."

"You calculative bastard." Olbrecht whistled in surprise-he already knew which knights to doubt. "Why did you play a fool all this time?"

"Father's care was to not allow me to look at the ledgers of the kingdom, constantly steering me away from state affairs. I could either play the fool or forcibly be made the fool. I've never been given the power to escape until now. And I would like to not do it at the expense of you two, as I believe that you're better trained for what comes after this brief moment of hell."

With that, Anselm settled into sleep, resting like an innocent babe. Pawel and Olbrecht were too disturbed to fall asleep that quickly.