Author: TippierCoffee

Disclaimer: I do not own — nor do I claim the rights to — the Percy Jackson universe or any of its characters. All credit goes to rightful owner, Mr. Rick Riordan.

WARNING: As this is a Cinderella-inspired AU, there will be depictions of abuse, both verbal, mental/emotional, and physical.

Prologue.

Will Solace counted his blessings.

He had a roof over his head, and a bed to sleep in at night — however torn-up that bed was. He had ragged clothes on his body, but clothes nonetheless, and tread bare shoes where the soles were just about ready to come unstuck. He had food to eat, even though it was only left-over scraps, and they were always cold, some of them half-chewed and kind of disgusting. Still, he counted his blessings.

Will Solace was probably an optimist, at some point or another, and he clung onto the feeling of positivity that refused to die within his heart. He clung onto memories, faded and broken, of a time where he had parents who tried for him, and read to him, and loved him.

Though he remembered they had lived in a collective with about two-hundred other people, because they could afford no house of their own, and though he hardly ate at all because there was too little food to go around, he remembered being happy. Maybe he was happy still, in some sick, twisted way. Or maybe, he had simply accepted how his world was now and pretended to be. It was too easy to break if he focused on the bad things, and so, Will Solace focused on the few good things in his life.

The horses in the barn who listened to him crying in secret, and nuzzled him with their soft muzzles, nipping at his hair and ears. The hens and chicks chirping to him and letting him hold them from time to other, and the geese who probably didn't play tag with him, but he pretended they did anyway.

If Will focused on the good things, it helped him stay alive. Cleared his mind. Stopped him from breaking down every night, even though he might really want to.

But Will Solace counted his blessings.

Nico di Angelo, on the other hand, was a Crown Prince. He wasn't meant to be, as there had been someone older before him. A sister who ran from the palace when Nico was only ten, and two years later, they all decided former Crown Princess Bianca di Angelo was dead. Nico knew that wasn't true. It couldn't be. Bianca was strong and intelligent. Good with a bow and arrows. A tracker and an adventurer. She knew her animals, and she knew her plants.

If anyone could survive in the wilderness, it would be her. So every night, on the full moon, when the sky was bright and the stars were high, Nico di Angelo looked at the sky and pretended Bianca did too. That in that moment, they shared something yet again. Something only the two of them shared, and no one else.

Now, at age sixteen, Crown Prince to take the throne, his young cousin Hazel Levesque turned sister after her parents died to poison, Nico still looked at the sky when the moon was high and the night was bright, listening to the wind rustling the grass and leaves. He still looked at the night sky with Bianca, wishing her a good night and a good life.

He wondered what Bianca would think of the parties to be held once he turned eighteen. The three days Nico had to choose a bachelorette for his Queen-to-be. She would probably be furious and reclaim her crown so Nico could live and be happy. But, being the future King apparently required some sacrifices. Like his true happiness for the good of the people and the good of the Kingdom.

So, you see, maybe, if the stars had aligned differently, and life had handed them another deck of cards, these two strangers from vastly different backgrounds might not have met. Might never had known the other existed.

Maybe, Will Solace would live in a small, crumbling house with his parents, working as a shoe-shiner to help earn money for the family, and snuggle close to his parents at night while they told him stories and showed him love.

Maybe, Nico di Angelo would tease Bianca's husband-to-be, and be her flower boy, her right hand, her best friend. Maybe, he would be able to sneak off with one of the other boys and steal forbidden kisses in the dark nights, and be truly, truly happy because he knew genuine love.

But life had a way of shaping itself around you without your permission, and so, Will Solace found himself an orphaned kid who got adopted from a worker's house by a vicious widow with twin daughters, and Nico di Angelo found himself heir to the throne, forced to wed a woman.

Criticism and/or advice on improvement is always welcome and highly appreciated.

~*~TippierCoffee~*~