If only keeping a promise were as easy as making one
The promise[]
Heinrich was going to die.
Or go crazy.
Was it possible to go crazy and die at the same time?
He wasn't sure, but if it was possible, he had a feeling he would be doing that soon.
It had been a week since the wedding, a week since his house has been invaded.
It's not that he minded the idea of remarriage, not really. His mom had been dead for three years at this point, and his dad was always catching the attention of the hopeful (ly) single ladies they would run into downtown. So remarriage was really a forgone conclusion.
The problem is who his dad married.
Reizand Charmant. She had to be related to the Wicked Stepmother from Cinderella right? In fact, Heinrich recited that fairytale the entire way to the wedding but his father still didn't get the message and followed through.
He was hiding in his room now. Well more like he had been banned to his room by his stepmother, she was throwing a dinner party and didn't want him underfoot. She used the excuse that he was too young to stay up as late as the dinner party would go and because she pretended it was in his best interest, his father wholeheartedly agreed.
Heinrich may only be ten but he knows what that woman really meant. He was not a Charmant, he wasn't even a royal, he was probably going to be destined to fail at procuring Princess Blanche's hand in marriage so you know, he was not going to help Reizand with her image problems.
(He was trying to figure out how a queen charming could marry his father and move in with them. If she was a queen charming wouldn't that mean she had a castle of her own they could live in? Not that their house was exactly small...)
There was a knock on the door.
"Go away."
"Papa sent me up with food."
He was prepared to yell at Lieblich to go away again, but the first word his fifteen year old stepsister said registered with him. "He's not your Papa..."
"I don't remember my Papa..." Lieblich apparently took this as a invitation to enter, dressed in the fancy clothes that signaled she was just at a dinner party, and trying to balance a try that really was full of delicious smelling food. "So i asked him if I could call him Papa and he said yes."
"I'm not calling your mother Mama..."
Lieblich hesitated before snorting a laugh. "She wouldn't let you anyway."
"Oka..."
"Don't take it personally, Mama doesn't even love me."
Heinrich patted the bed next to him, signaling her to set the tray down and leave because this was way to awkward of a conversation to be having with a stepsister he just got last week and just meant two weeks before.
She took it as an invitation to sit next to him.
"You know, I always wanted a little brother."
"Why? You have a little sister..."
"A brat of a little sister.." At least, that's what Heinrich thinks she mumbles, before she turns to him, her smile making her brown eyes crinkle. "A sister is not the same as a little brother."
"I guess not..." Heinrich thought. "I don't have either..."
"Well can I be your big sister..."
"Why aren't you at the dinner party?" Heinrich challenged. She was dressed for it, surely she should go to the party.
"Mama didn't want me there very long, plus it was boring as all get out. And I wanted to get to know my new brother..." Lieblich smirked at him.
Heinrich doesn't want to trust the teen because he knows, he knows she's just going to be like her mother and be mean.
But there is geniune warmth in her brown eyes, brown eyes that remind him of his mother's...
So he nods. "Okay Lieblich, I'll be your little brother."
"Call me Lie. Ooh chicken!" Lie took the lid off the dish and they both laughed.
Heinrich's hands shake as he read the letter for the third time.
Reizand and Tolle and Lie were all busy getting ready for the start of the new school year so they hadn't checked the mail yet. He had.
And this...he couldn't believe his eyes.
Dear Mr. Freier
This letter is to inform you that you have personally selected to fulfill the role of the Princess in the next retelling of the White Snake. We look forward to seeing you at school next year.
Sincerely
Milton Grimm, Headmaster
Thou Shalt Not Stray From Thy Story!!
"Papa! Lie! Reizand!" He yells. He only attached Reizand's name to the end of the call because after three years of putting up with his stepmother's belittling of him for not being royalty, he had proof that he was. Or at the very least that he was destined to be!
Tolle stuck her head in first. "Listen brat we are in the middle of something very importan..."
"I'm not destined to be a suitor!"
Reizand and Lie enter just in time to hear his joyous declaration. "Does that mean you are so pathetic the storybook of legends won't even give you that destiny?" Reizand sneered.
"No look!" Heinrich shoved the letter at her. "It means I really am a charming..."
"You are nothing of the kind! You are not royalty until you marry that girl! And even then, you'll just have married well. Don't even think about taking my last name." With those words, Reizand left with Tolle at her heels like a lovesick puppy.
Lie however stayed.
"Papa should be home soon. I'm sure he would love your news..."
Heinrich didn't answer for fear of crying. He was so happy he got the letter, that he had a role that was royalty, that would mean he would become king, and Reizand just...destroyed that.
"Mama is..difficult, believe me, I know." Lie sighed. "Come sit down." And the two of them do, on the floor in the corner of the room.
"I'm proud I have this destiny."
"And you should be." Lie ruffled his hair. "You know, new role, new opportunity to reinvent yourself before you go to high school. Mama would never let you call yourself a charming, but maybe..."
"Krone."
"Krone. That works for a prince!" Lie praised him, making him look away from her bashfully.
"Hans Krone."
"Why Hans?" Lie asked a bit confused. "You don't have to change your first nam..."
"Just because." He wasn't going to tell her that his real mother's name was Hanna, he had never talked about his real mother with Lie.
"Okay, Hans...I like it."
"Lie..."
"Yeah?" Lie recognized something shift in his tone.
"I know you graduate this year and go on to become the next Princess from the Princess and the Pea, but..."
"But what?"
"Will you still look out for me? I'm gonna need a lot of help if I'm going to survive Reizand and Tolle."
"I will always be there when you need me." She kissed his forehead. "I promise."
The Breaking[]
"We gather here today in loving memory of Princess Lieblich Charmant.."
A boy stands at the graveside, not crying, because he knows this isn't true. He overheard his stepmother's phone call from the school about the disappearance of Lie. So he stands in silence, inwardly cringing at the way his father was crying, over the supposed death of his stepdaughter!!!
Deep down inside, there is a part of him that wants to cry because Lieblich left him. He knew she wasn't taken or in danger or dead, she willingly made the choice to leave him behind. (He tried to call her a few times after hearing the phone call, no answer.) But crying is not princelike and he needs to be princelike, especially now. It's the only way he'll survive.
So he straightens his shoulders and walks away.
"principissae regere circa quietam gratia." Lie rattles off the only thing that she can think of that might make her mother and sister realize who she is. The motto. The females of their family motto. Something that Reizand doesn't share because she doesn't believe in it, she'd much rather have control that's loud and out there. No one not a member of the family should know it. And Lie just proved she did.
"How..."
"It's me, Mama. Lieblich." Lie keeps her eyes averted as she must as she hears her mother rise from the chair. She knows her mother is starting to believe her.
Since finding out who and what Lie really was, Rory had been in a much better mood. That mood quickly darkened about a week after, when she wakes up to go to the bathroom at like 3 in the morning and sees Lie watching survivor.
It's instinct to head back to bed without saying anything, but Lie isn't, shouldn't, be hiding anything else now. So Rory plopped down next to her, not saying anything as she tried to focus on the show she despised.
Thankfully, Lie spoke up. "I have something I need to do tomorrow."
Rory was tempted to crack a joke, shoot a one liner, but Lie's not even looking at her right now, so now was not the time. Instead: "Do you need me and Kevin to come with you?"
"I can do this alone."
"That's not what I asked." Rory gets the feeling that it has something to do with her host family. Though why Lie would ever in a million years want to return to them especially now knowing that she was not a member of it...
"No, no, I can do this alone. I'll be home later tomorrow."
"Okay." Rory made a mental note to call Kevin.
Late the next afternoon, just as school would be getting out, a disguised Lie made her way into Ever After High. She was posing as Baba Yaga, therefore she wouldn't be stopped and if she were to run into the steely old sorceress for real, well, she liked her during her school years, hopefully she would still like her.
No one told her anything, a few even averted they're eyes, as "Madam Yaga" made her way to the Grimnasium.
She instantly finds what she's looking for, the Grimnasium is pretty much empty as of right now.
A boy doing stretches while a girl with blonde hair looks on.
She knows who they are, the girl is Ginny and the boy is...Heinrich. Or..Hans now she supposed. She's seen them at the Cafe.
"Come on your supposed to be cheering for me, that's why your here!"
Her stomach twisted and she called out, in her match for the sorceress' she's imitating voice, "Hans?"
"Leave me alone witch, your not my teacher."
He doesn't even bother to look at her. Her stomach twisted more as she called out again, this time in her normal voice, letting her disguise shift back to woman that Hans would know. Only this time, she calls him something else.
"Heinrich."
He stopped midstretch and turned to look at her. She can see many things in his hazel eyes, the biggest being anger. "Leave us Ginny..." He harps.
"Um, but, who's Heinrich..."
"I said leave us Ginevra! Go try one of the new products!" And the frightened girl obeyed.
"She's a nice girl."
"Nice isn't worth anything." Hans sounded an awful lot like her mot...like Reizand. And Lie feels like she's going to throw up. "I don't want to talk to you..."
"Yeah well I do. Your my brother..."
"I'm your brother! Hah! You don't know me!"
Lie felt some of her own anger bubble up and she can't stop the angry retort that spills past her lips. "Your right I don't know you, because the little brother I know would never treat his girlfriend like that!"
"She's ugly!"
"I thought you knew enough to know there's more to life than being pretty!"
"You can't teach me anything! I've learned all I need and I did not learn it from you!"
"Clearly you learned the wrong lessons!" This was not how she wanted this talk to go.
"You don't understand I had to learn those lessons! You left!"
Kevin had told her that sometimes in a middle of an argument, someone would say something and it would immediately extinguish the flame of his temper. She thought he was being silly. Now she was beginning to realize he was right as she was literally stunned into silence.
Still, she was glad she left. She would not defend her life choices to him, nor to anyone. Not anymore! So she fumbled for a parting shot. "Then leave yourself! Your a teenager!"
"It's not as simple as that!"
"Yes it is! Ask the school to let you stay here over breaks, they do that sometimes!" And had done for her every break during her freedom year, before Reizand married his mother and she had a reason to return home.
"No it isn't! Your just like all woman, weak and emotional and stupid. You think all you have to do is bat your eyelashes and you get what you want out of life, well newsflash, it's a lot harder for us men! we actually have to work for it!"
What had happened since she left? Surely Reizand and Tolle couldn't be the cause of all of this. "Would you say that about..."
Hans wasn't done. "Just shut up I already have to listen to two useless women on a pretty daily basis I don't need to add you to my headache!"
"Would you say that about your mother." She didn't speak loudly, but she did get his attention. And he glared so fiercely she almost felt the heat, like the time she had spilled little tea pots tea all over her. "Your real mother."
"She's dead. She's useless to me now. And you, your like her, you may not be dead as Reizand wants people to believe but you, you are dead and useless to me! even more useless than the other members of your gender."
Lie doesn't fight this anymore. It's only been three years without her, but clearly whatever his stepmother and stepsister have drilled into his head and made him feel is beyond her fixing. Still, she leaves him with this. "Anderson Apartment Complex, Apartment 5a."
Hans glared at her. "You don't have to try and keep that silly promise. I know not to trust the word of a woman, their too flighty."
Lie was very very very glad that Rory didn't come with her because even she was feeling tempted to smack him silly. But remembering the little boy she knew and loved like a brother kept her from it.
So she finally left the Grimnasium, not bothering to disguise, only to jump when she noticed Ginny hiding in earshot. The poor thing looked frightened and opened her mouth, probably ready to beg, but Lie shushed her.
"Leave him. Unless he goes back to the boy I knew he shouldn't have a girlfriend." And with that somewhat cryptic and confusing plea, she leaves the school entirely.
She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when two students slip out after her and shift into her friends.
"I told you I could do this by my..."
"We're always going to be there when you need us." Kevin smiled.
"We promise." Rory gave her a shoulder punch, that quickly morphed into a hug when Lie started crying at those words, that quickly morphed into a group hug, right outside Ever After High.