At the age of five (eighty months, or six years and eight months in Earth’s calendar), I took control of my mother’s palace. With my nightly investigations and Nenandil’s help, we profiled every person working at the palace and set the undesirables up for failure and expulsion without compromising my identity.
However, it led to rumors the palace was haunted as people had no explanation for the misfortune that befell most of them. Without knowing the nexus of the events, they beca afraid and superstitious that they could be the next and that filled the void with the bullshit they made up.
Five was also the age we started to get instruction. Royal tutors would be sent from the main Imperial palace to teach what a [Prince] needed to know. Chivalry, Etiquette, Physical Training, hand-to-hand Combat and weapons, Law, Fencing, Tactics, Strategy, Economics, Politics, History of the Empire, and Spellcraft.
I was nine when a prickly situation reared its ugly head up. That ant I was twelve Earth years old, and about to enter puberty along with the girls.
During all these years, Rhiannon’s lancholy didn’t improve. I fear she was fading, succumbing to a ntal illness.
As I watched my mother gaze east, longing for the happiness of yore, I hugged her from behind.
“Yes, Percival, my son?” She broke her musing to turn around and help sit on the tunnel-like window nook. As the actual window was further away, the thick palace walls left lots of room between the inner wall and the enchanted glass panes. It also narrowed the angle a sniper could fire from the outside into the room.
“Can we go for a walk in the gardens? Just the two of us?”
She smiled bitterly, “I’m feeling under the weather, my child. I’m afraid I’d be winded just by putting my foot outside.”
“Can we cuddle on the bed then?”
“Yes, but only if you tell how you defeated Sir Godfrey during your sparring session.”
I hadn’t as Sir Godfrey, my weapons master, wouldn’t lose to a toddler. Instead, he conceded a fight when I displayed above-average swordsmanship. Even without System assistance, holding a weapon in my hand and fighting as much as it did lead to so actual skill.
Rhiannon would repeat what had beco her catchphrase. I tip-toed around the subjects to only talk about “manly” things, but every now and then sothing “girly” would slip and she would shut herself in her ntal panic room. Like ntioning the gardens.
“You need to beco a man among n, my son,” Rhiannon would tell , cheering my martial accomplishnts.
I t her eyes, “What does it an to be a ‘man among n’, mom?” I asked with genuine curiosity. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the sentence, but I wanted to pick her brain.
She smiled, “It ans to be strong. To never be defeated even if you lose a fight. To shelter those behind you. To not let others trample on you without putting up a fight, even if with words. To follow the [Emperor]’s lead and example,” she paused and grimaced slightly at the ntion of her husband and captor. Once Rhiannon was a political prisoner but now she was a toy so kid forgot at the bottom of his toy chest. I hadn’t seen my father in all these years. “And to date a lot of Ladies. Yes, you must like ladies.”
The last part was obvious. The [Empire] had no prejudice against homosexuality. I’ve seen male guards kissing when they were off-duty, and several maids indulged in one another’s body in their chambers at night. If anything, anyone at hand had to concede to the nobles’ deranged kinks, and it beca widely accepted. I think a few of my brothers were queer and looked at won only as reproductive devices. While others had a running competition of how many noble Ladies they could deflower.
With absolute power ca not only corruption but also… I am reluctant to call it moral decadence because they weren’t exposed to the sa Abrahamic religious moral standards as most of Earth. Instead, they found their own. What was decadent was the belief that bodies were disposable and replaceable. The people that offered sexual services to these nobles were nothing more than flesh toys.
But what Rhiannon feared was that I would have so natural proclivity to like n as most won did, and sohow reveal my complicated gender situation.
On that front, I would need to take hormones soon. I had enough male blood to extract as much testosterone I would need in several lifetis, but I needed access to my proficiencies. At least the grafted equipnt worked as intended. The [Fleshcrafter] even redirected my urethra to run into the penis instead of the usual place for a girl. Not that I excreted any pee. Like anything else, my System-enhanced tabolism naturally recycled the water and salts in my body, converting what I didn’t need into either other materials I did or raw magical energy.
Being immune to poison also ant no compound was toxic inside my body. My kidneys and other organs like the liver had so functions made completely obsolete.
“Date ladies?” I asked. “Like Madge and Mona?”
She paused as she’d probably rembered one of them was my biological sister. Rhiannon didn’t hate the girls and I knew she held back on showing affection for them. I’d already figured out Mona was my twin sister as she resembled Rhyannon but I was unsure which of the two was Lorna.
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It was a non-sequitur. Non-issue, I an. Lorna never ant for our love to be strictly carnal. Fraternal, platonic, even a deep friendship was fine. I just needed to find true love with both girls, non-romantic love at first, and I’d be fine. I hoped the Fate spell would tell when I’d accomplished it but I knew it wouldn’t. It wasn’t a checkbox, a quest goal that could be checked, but a life commitnt.
I would make these two the happiest won in the Empire, and make sure to make them fall for . Maybe if Madge wanted sothing more intimate, it could be arranged but I didn’t need to fake it. I truly liked these girls.
“If you wish,” she said. “But they’re commoners. You cannot marry either of them.”
“That’s fine. They’re like sisters to ,” I replied with a bright smile.
Rhiannon put a hand over my mouth and glanced at the door. “You have no sisters!” She harshly stated. “No [Prince] of the Empire has a sister. Ever.” I could feel her hand clam up and shake while she covered my mouth. “That’s very important and a mistake could cost our lives. Everyone’s lives. Do you want to see everyone in this palace dead?”
Such a fuck up would be so serious that the [Emperor] would have everyone killed for incompetence. How could they not notice we were hiding a [Princess]? I didn’t doubt it a single bit.
Fortunately, the Dynasty rules of the Empire didn’t grant automatic titles or included heirs at birth. That solemn declaration when the [Emperor] nad was ant to do exactly that. My title, my Class, and my position in the succession line were all manually set by him. Therefore, Mona wasn’t truly a [Princess], not as far as the System and Imperial society were concerned.
I gently grabbed her hand and caressed it as I removed it from over my mouth. “I didn’t an to upset you, mom.”
“You didn’t, my son. A [Prince] of the Empire cannot do anything wrong unless the [Emperor] says so.”
That much was true. Anything I did was right and righteous by fiat. Kill a peasant on the streets out of the blue? He was a criminal. Rape so ladies? They should be honored to receive the Imperial seed. Actually, the latter example was more fucked up than that. Receiving the Imperial seed was so important that the only ways a woman would reject a [Prince]’s advances as if they were already in bed with the Imperial family or if the [Prince] was disguised as to not reveal his identity.
In any other case, the woman would gladly surrender herself to the [Prince], because it would an a huge leap in station. A double-edged one. Spin the wheel of the pregnancy lottery! If you are not, better luck next ti. If it’s a boy, congratulations, you won a life of luxury. If it’s a girl, too bad. You just condemned your whole family or maybe birth village to the chopping block.
Yet there was no lack of gold-digging gamblers wishing to play in this crazy casino.
From there, I went to Economics class with Madge and Mona. In the beginning, I threw a Royal tantrum, demanding to have the two “commoner” girls along with for the tutoring lessons. The tutors were forced to agree, on the condition they kept “as silent as the rest of the furniture”. It was still an opportunity to score points with them and have the girls learn useful information and skills.
“Hello, M&M!” I jested with my greeting. They had no idea what an M&M was but I found that hysterical. The girls wore new dresses I’d ordered for them. Whenever the [Tailors] ca to get asured for new clothes, I insisted they brought a [Seamstress] or two along to make them clothes.
“Your Highness,” from a sitting position, Madge bowed her head in respect, wary of the tutor’s hawkish gaze. He tutored us in Economics, History, and Etiquette, so the girls had to be doubly wary of their behavior.
“Your Highness,’ Mona did the sa.
“Good,” the aquiline tutor, a Count, crowed. “In a formal setting, you should stand up from your seats and kneel. But for this private tutoring session, you passed the etiquette test.”
They cracked faint smiles. I placed my hand over my stomach and bent only slightly, in respect to his station but showing I was superior to him as he bowed forty-five degrees.
“Instructor Treloar, thank you for your patience,” I said. “I know it was a bother to mold my aides into proper ladies, but I truly appreciate the effort.”
The girl’s bodies were slowly taking on curves and revealing very feminine budding shapes. The new dresses were tailored to showcase these changes. I had no idea if I would suffer the sa transformations but so far I’ve seen no breast tissue growth.
“Ladies, you look splendid. The [Seamstresses] did a great job. Shall we start?”
I took my seat in front of the girls. The tutors didn’t allow them to sit next to or in front as they would be “distractions for a young man”. Instructor Treloar started rambling about economic theory, trade, long-distance magic-assisted shipnt, and military supply. I asked questions that I thought the girls might be thinking of, and Treloar answered promptly. As usual, they didn’t say a word.
Only after the tutor vacated the room did they stand up and approach.
“You two look gorgeous in these dresses,” I complinted.
Madge spun to give a good view. “Really?”
I grasped their hands in mine and pulled them in so dance moves. “Really. I would have no other ladies than you as my dance partners.”
“We cannot dare to think of having Your Highness only for ourselves,” Mona said.
It made sad. She deserved a better station. But the stupid prophecy wouldn’t allow it. The headsman’s ax lood over us all, a terrible secret.
“What’s wrong?” My twin sister lifted my chin.
“I’m afraid I will have to dance with other ladies at the debutante and after it. The ball is next year.”
“We understand,” Madge said.
I could tell Marion raised both girls on different standards. Madge was raised and trained to be submissive, while Mona hadn’t such constraints imposed on her. For example, to deliberately touch a [Prince] could be considered an offense, and Madge would never do it. Maybe Marion did so out of fear of retaliation from my mother.
It was another tangled knot. Rhiannon loved Mona but couldn’t even express her affection. She felt guilty for forcing her daughter, a [Princess] from both sides of her ancestry, to live as a commoner.
The path for was clear. Mona and Madge needed to be claid by but I couldn’t have carnal relations with Madge. Because I couldn’t have carnal relations with Mona, my twin sister. As I couldn’t reveal such a situation to anyone other than Rhiannon and Marion, the only two people that knew Mona’s secret, engaging one would an the other would expect the sa treatnt or feel rejected. And I wouldn’t engage in incest.
Platonic friendship had to be my aim. It was completely unknown if the grafted testicles would be enough to make display male secondary characteristics or not. I also had no pubic hair growth, which led to believe my puberty was stunted by having too many sets of gonads.
I needed to fix this, and the only way to do so was to activate the System. At night, I affixed the [Needletail Swift Brooch] to my clothes and transford, flying off and over the walls. I needed to hunt sothing, get in a life-and-death situation and activate this damn System. I couldn’t wait for the narche.
Definitely not the narche, even though I wouldn't bleed.
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