Chapter Text
The mission was fairly straightforward: infiltrate the High Royal Court as a maid, get noticed by King Beast and poison him. It was known, if rarely talked about, to certain royal families and those affiliated that King Adam was generous with his affections; it would have been easy to make it look like a fit of jealousy from Queen Belle. After that, Ben, the King-in-waiting, who is young (barely twenty) and therefore easily manipulated, would become the High King.
Choosing the agent out of volunteers was tricky. Several factors had to be weighed. In the end they decided on Tomiris. Firstly, just in case they get caught, she is human. When protesting the anti-magic laws, it’s always better if the active party is human, otherwise they just get called extremists. Secondly, she was pretty enough. King Adam has spent far too long in the beast form and he so easily fell prey to human pleasures, enjoying the company of many women (but not his wife, not after the heir) in his bed. And she was close to his type, with long deep brown hair, brown eyes and just non-Auradonian enough to be “interesting” and “exotic”. She was the perfect age that it was believable that she did have enough experience to be hired (forged recommendation letters, of course) but not so much that she be put in administration. And, most importantly, she had no traceable connection to the rebellion or any of her crimes. Sure, she didn’t have any experience in long missions, but she was passionate about the cause and hated the UKA High King with searing passion.
King Beast’s council was the reason only a handful of Hun families were free. They were the ones who decided to condemn an entire nation to rot on the Isle. The soldiers coming to “liberate” the village she lived in and round up the remaining Huns were wearing the Villeneuve crest. Tomiris will never forget her father shaking her awake in the middle of the night, telling her to put on the travelling clothes. She was barely ten, but she saw the terror in her father’s eyes when he said that the scout reported the Auradon army approaching. She will never forgive the King for infecting her life with fear of being found (forcing them to constantly move), for taking away all her family, except her father (who would probably fare better on the Isle), for never thinking twice about it (they just gave Hun territory to Wei and made it the Emperor’s headache).
Tomiris knew she wasn’t the only one hurt by the Crown. She heard whispers of a resistance. They called themselves the Silver Wings and it took her some time to find them without her father knowing, but she did. The Silver Wings saw a brighter future, one where magic flourished and Auradon wasn’t exploiting the world, but they weren’t delusional, they knew that it would be achieved by simply wishing and being “good”. She joined them at sixteen, and three years later she is their best assassin.
So that’s why she’s here, looking like a picture perfect candidate. Her long dark hair is kept away from her face with two braids, the face itself is clear, with only the lightest makeup on. She is dressed modestly in black straight pants and soft ochre sweater. The only things of note are her combat boots and snake-ornamented rings (could be explained by her cover persona’s background).
She is getting an instructional tour by the head maid (Lumette? Plunette? something along those lines), half paying attention to what the woman is saying and half-casing the place, noting the exits and cameras. She wasn’t going to work in the kitchens anyway, she will be in the cleaning crew. The kitchen is where Tomiris will be getting firewood and bringing trash, so it’s the last stop of the tour.
“Do you have any questions, Mariam?” A fake name, of course.
“Uh, not really, I don’t think.”
“Don’t be so nervous, girl, your first few days you will be partnered with someone, Julie, probably, she’ll explain anything I didn’t. If you get along, we’ll make that partnership permanent.” Lunette (?) smiles at her, and it’s tired but genuine. “Well, we’re done with the tour, but if you come sit with me, I would want to talk.”
(“Be friendly with other staff. Some of them will hate you when you start being with the Beast, because it will be impossible to hide. Everyone involved in court will know his favourite. But if you’re well liked around the castle, people aren’t going to suspect you in the end. Play the innocent girl, who by fate has wandered so far from home in Wei.”)
“Of course, madame!”
Lu (that’s easier to remember) goes into some tiny tea room, just off the kitchen staff exit. On her way in, she taps a worker on a shoulder, and he runs off to prepare tea. Nothing about the head maid is aggressive or confrontational; she really seems to want to get to know her new employee better.
Nevertheless, Tomiris is nervous. She was nervous the whole time but this is when it really gets to her.
“So, I have to ask, what’s up with the getup?”
Breathe. It’s just you specially modified suit with 3 knives hidden in it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that usually girls on their first day come in looking like dolls, expecting to wow the king-in-waiting immediately.” That gets a laugh out of both of them. “And here you are dressed practical and professional except all those rings.”
(“Don’t give them any clues as to who you really are. We have a comprehensive story for Mariam, learn it. Your accent is too scattered for them to not believe you.”)
“You probably saw that I come from Wei, madam. It is a long, hard journey to here, but Auradon is the land of opportunity so I had to come. I bought this jewellery while working for a family in Corona. It is a good way to travel light when you don’t have much that is permanent. Keeping valuables close to me.”
Tomiris can feel every breath that leaves her lungs, and she tries to control it. Inhale, one, two, three, four, exhale. The nervous tension sets in her body, deep in her bones, away from anyone’s eyes.
“Well, that is smart.”
Lu seems like she wants to say something more but they are interrupted by tea being brought in.
***
A month passes uneventfully. Tomiris works the cleaning crew, makes nice with other staff and reports back to Silver Wings every three days. They tell her that the mission is going successfully, and that it is a long con, of course the progress is slow. But no matter what her superiors say, she is getting antsy. The High King was gone on political (and pleasure) trips almost all the time and she doesn’t know what she has to do to get noticed by him.
What she does know, however, is the schedule of the night guard around Beast’s rooms, and that he sleeps by a big window, and that she has a dagger that can stab through his heart. It’s taking all her will to just file this knowledge away, and not use it the first night after he comes back from a visit to Atlantea.
***
Two weeks later, she is doing her morning trash sweep, and isn’t it rich? That her days are filled with taking trash out and swiping dust and making eyes at the Beast? She is a warrior, a master of both far-range weapons and close combat, an assassin, and here she is, knocking on the door of one of the offices: “May I come in?” What the hell, Tomiris doesn’t knock on doors, she comes in silently, without anyone hearing or seeing her. But Mariam knocks. And Mariam waits an appropriate amount of time to hear no answer and only then she makes her way in, dragging a cart behind her. Fuck. This whole extended mission thing is seriously messing with her mind.
She gets to work on emptying the bin when she feels more than hears someone move behind her. Whipping her head around (and painfully hitting herself with the ends of her braids) she sees the King-in-waiting, Ben, in an armchair, confused, sleepy look on his face. How could she not have noticed him?
“Good morning, your highness! I apologise, I didn’t notice you, I will be out in a second.”
“Good morning. Don’t worry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep in here in the first place.” There is a slight smile on his face, which is odd. Why is he so friendly?
“Should I fetch someone to bring some breakfast, or coffee, your highness?” Tomiris has never really spoken with royalty, but she knows the protocol and it feels like the right thing to say.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get going soon. Just need to collect the papers.” It’s a good opportunity to see what he is doing.
Tomiris is just done with the bins, so she takes off the gloves she wears to handle the trash and starts to help the King. “The Sidekicks Act”, “The Neverland colonies”, “The Moors Magic Negotiations”, all with bright red “Confidential” stamp on them. Tomiris can practically feel her blood pressure rising the more she thinks about each of them. “The Sidekicks act” is years in the making and it doesn’t seem like it will be enacted soon. Meanwhile, all the so-called sidekicks continue to work for free (there is a word for that). The cutting of the sacred forest in Neverland and the ban on magic in inherently magical places are such big issues that she can’t even bear to think about them for long.
She passes the files to Ben without a word.
“Oh thanks...uh?”
“Mariam, your highness.” She hopes that if he notices her voice quivering he assumes it’s nervousness, not rage.
“Well, Mariam, thank you.” His smile is so genuine, it’s crazy that he is the son of the Beast King. “Oh, Gods, there is even more of them than I remember,” he mumbles.
Good, he isn’t all composed, still sleepy, maybe he will slip up and tell something that he wouldn’t otherwise. “Must be a heavy burden to be the High King-in-Waiting to Auradon.”
“With my father giving me more responsibilities and having to balance the needs of the people with our laws,” interestingly, that last part is said with some disdain, “it is hard to keep up. It’s as though I have the duties of the King with powers of a Prince.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
***
Tomiris is thinking about that meeting the whole day. There is a stark difference between father and son, and she can’t even begin to compare the two. Even the way they smile is different.
She is dusting the table in the drawing room, while Julie is filling up the fireplace with wood, when King Beast comes in.
“You, leave us.”
Tomiris could hope with everything in her that the King was talking to her, but she knows that he is addressing Julie. He wants to be alone with Mariam. And it’s good for the mission, right? All she did before was make eyes at him, now she has a chance at an actual conversation.
She stays with her back turned to him, even after the door clicks shut behind Julie. She schools her face into a reverent expression and forces her breathing to slow down.
His steps are heavy but quiet on the soft carpet. He sits down in the armchair right of the table she is dusting.
He just watches her.
“Did you want anything, your Majesty?” She intended it to sound conversational or flirty, but it is undercut with her voice breaking in the middle of the sentence.
“You could say so, Mariam.” He didn’t move to touch her yet. “I wanted to talk to you about my son and what happened this morning.”
That is definitely not the direction she saw this conversation go. It makes her freeze for a second, fearful that he knows she saw too much, before continuing to dust the already shining table. The King resumes his speech.
“I have seen far too many young girls pretending to want to be employed by the Crown only to throw themselves at the King-in-Waiting at the first chance. He always turns them down, as he is utterly loyal to his betrothed, and they always quit. You seem to be a sensible girl, you know that honest work will get you more around here, right?”
She wants to laugh. Partially because he is so wrong about Benjamin, partially because honest work is the furthest from what she is doing here. It takes her a few moments to think of an answer, and when she does, Tomiris puts down her duster and finally looks Beast in the eyes.
“You can not worry about that, your Majesty. I do not crave power. Or love of the King-in-Waiting.” She hopes that the enunciation on “in-waiting” combined with the suggestive look in her eyes it is enough of a hint. She can’t bring herself to say more. Tomiris turns and walks away to put the duster in the cart, which is in the corner to her left, when she hears the King stand up.
“I see. You crave another’s love then?”
And isn’t that the winning question? It feels too real. Beast is taking small, deliberate steps towards her, like a predator stalking towards its prey. Her breath hitches, and she hopes he assumes its nervousness or excitement, not fear.
“Perhaps I do, your majesty.”
She still doesn’t dare to turn to face him. He stands so close now that she can hear his breathing and feel his body heat, his figure obscuring most of the light from the window, leaving her in the shadows, in the dark.
“Perhaps, then, he noticed you too.” His hands reach out to Tomiris’s arms. “Perhaps, you weren’t too sly at hiding your wants.” He pulls her closer to him, she stumbles as she takes a step back. ”Perhaps…” He doesn’t finish, just tugs on her hair to make her head turn to him and plants his lips on hers forcefully.
***
It’s all a blur after that. Her clearest memory was at the end, when Beast said that he will excuse her for the rest of the day and move her to tending his personal rooms tomorrow. Tomiris knows he kissed her some more, recalls some comments on how she looked so interesting and different and how she was such a tease. At some point he loosened up both her braids so much so that she is redoing them now.
She knows it didn’t go beyond kissing. She knows that if he had more than ten minutes with her, Beast would try for it.
She feels sick with herself. For this happening and for feeling that way when she knew going in that this would have to happen. That she signed up for that at all. She is a disgrace to the Huns (prideful, aggressive, undeceiving Huns). She should have known she wasn’t cut out for this deep cover shit.
Tomiris can not push her morals down any more than this. She will not lay under the Beast. Even mere thought of that, with the ghost of his hands all over her makes bile rise up in her throat.
But she can’t return to Silver Wings with nothing, they have already wasted months.
The knowledge of the schedule of the guards, the Beast’s rooms is burning a hole in her brain. There is only one option now. She will have justice. Tomiris will free the people of the world from the burden of that beast as the most powerful figure.
She will kill him. Tonight.