AN: Hello my good people! This fic is a retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales, with a little Prussia thrown in to make it awesome! :D The fairy tale is from Sweden, but unfortunately I couldn't find anywhere to squeeze the guy in there. Believe me, I'm just as upset about it as you are. But the story called for blond-haired, blue-eyed twins, so my choice was OBVIOUS.

Oh, and if anyone was curious, a lindorm is a dragon with only two legs and no wings. Legends about them tend to be more common in Northern Europe.

Happy reading!

The drizzle was icy cold, falling from an unforgiving gray sky. It blew inside the hood of the woman's cloak, kissing her face with frozen lips. She shrank further into the cloak. She was not used to the rain. She lived a rather sheltered life—the walls of a castle did not let in rain. The caress of the misty shower was foreign to her, but she forced herself to keep walking, her eyes peeled for the sign, for the shop she'd ventured forth from the safety of her castle to see.

Before long she caught sight of it. The wooden sign was battered and scarred by the weather, but she could still make out what it was supposed to portray.

An eye. The symbol of a soothsayer.

The crowd jostled against her as she made her way towards the shop. She cringed from the touch of cold, grimy bodies, only to find herself backing into someone else. They were rough and in a hurry—they did not recognize her. It took all of her self-control to keep herself from ordering them all to their knees so she could get by them without all this hassle.

If only she could throw back the hood, they would all fall prostrate. They would kiss her feet and beg her forgiveness for debasing her with their touch.

But she could not. She could not be recognized—that was the reason she had come here like this, shrouded in a heavy, crude wool cloak. It was rough on her skin, alabaster skin used to the caress of silks and fine cottons.

You will be back in silks soon enough, she reminded herself. It is necessary for now. Endure it.

When she opened the door to the soothsayer's shop, a little bell over the door rang out, announcing her presence to a woman sitting on the countertop inside. The entire shop was full of enough filth and clutter and rubble to horrify her. The woman on the counter hardly looked up from a silver goblet she was polishing.

"What do you want?" she asked unkindly.

The woman's jaw dropped, affronted by the woman's rudeness. "Excuse me?"

"I asked what you wanted." The woman looked up at her, eyes flashing with challenge.

"Would you like to rephrase your statement for your queen?" The queen dropped her hood and stared angrily at the woman on the counter. "Well?" she asked aggressively when the woman didn't respond.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "No. You came to the shop for a reason and I am offering you the chance to tell me what it is."

The queen's jaw dropped even further and she spluttered. "Why—you uncouth beggar! How dare you address me—"

"Excuse me." A small, blond-haired man with piercing green eyes and intimidating brows rounded a pile of broken ladder-backed chairs. "Is there a problem?"

The woman on the counter drew her knees up to her chest and glowered at her reflection in the silver goblet. "No, Master Kirkland, sir. This woman wants to see you."

The man turned his deep green gaze on the queen. His eyes widened. "Queen Francine. What an unexpected pleasure." He swept a very satisfactory bow.

Francine turned up her chin proudly at his admiration. Finally, due respect. "I am here for a reading."

"Of course." The soothsayer, Kirkland, gestured to the back of the store. "If you will follow me, Majesty."

The queen glided through the heaps of garbage, trying to maintain her regal air while delicately stepping over shattered glass and scattered bent silverware. The soothsayer had no such qualms—his boots crunched through the exoskeletons of long-dead insects and broken plates and kicked aside dismembered furniture parts as though they were nothing. He is probably used to such disgraceful rubbish, Francine sniffed in her mind. Perhaps I should have sought out another soothsayer.

But every one of her eyes-and-ears whom she'd questioned had told her the same thing. Kirkland was the best soothsayer to be found, the most capable prophet she could talk to. And she had to talk to someone. There had to be someone who could help her.

The soothsayer led her to a room in the back, plainly furnished with a scarred birch table set with two sagging, mismatched chairs. The queen seated herself primly in the one nearest the door, and the soothsayer took the other without a word.

When they were both seated, Kirkland folded his hands and looked her squarely in the eye. "What is it you wish, Majesty?" Despite the respectful title, his words held no awe or submissiveness. All traces of deference in his manner were gone, thinly covered by the veneer of the politeness of his words. The man had the steel of fluid time in his voice and in his eyes, and time held no pity for anyone—glorious ruler or lowest crippled beggar.

Suddenly Francine felt very small, drowning in the molten green steel of his eyes. She cleared her throat, trying to stiffen under his gaze instead of shrink. "I…" Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, reddening. "A child. Children. You see, I am barren, and I am…not as young as I used to be." She could not make herself say "growing old."

"I guessed as much." The soothsayer grinned an infuriating crooked grin. "Let me see, now…" He cocked his head, as though listening to voices she could not hear. Suddenly his eyes glazed over and his head rolled back on his shoulders. His expression was one of pure rapture.

Francine shifted nervously in her chair, unnerved by the expression. Then his face turned towards her and she had to resist the urge to run from the empty ecstasy on his face. Despite the euphoria on his face, his words were cold and dispassionate, and his eyes could have frozen the heart of winter.

All at once his face slackened and he slumped to the table. Francine was now terrified, but the vicelike grip of fear on her heart eased when he stirred after just a moment and began to sit up.

"Excuse me, Majesty… The trance is difficult to recover from sometimes." The soothsayer scrubbed a hand across his face.

The queen was unsure of how to respond. Had she been anyone else but a monarch, she would have realized that she should have offered her help in any way she could—but she was a queen, after all.

"Did you…do you know what I must do?" Francine asked tentatively.

"Yes. When you return to the palace, you must eat two raw onions. If you do this, you will give birth to healthy, beautiful, strong twin boys."

Babies! And boys, none the less! Twin boys! The queen shot to her feet, smiling widely. Even the bizarre advice couldn't discourage her from her joy.

"Thank you, thank you!" The queen shook Kirkland's hand vigorously. "A million times thank you!"

"But Majesty—" he began to say, but she had already vanished out the door. "Majesty! There's more to the prophecy!"

But she was beyond hearing, blinded by her joy. She returned home and ordered the onions brought to her, and she ate them. The first she ate whole, not even pausing to strip the skins from the bulb before starting to consume it. But after the last onionskins slithered down her throat, dry and painfully scratchy inside her, she forced herself to pause and be patient long enough to peel the second onion.

That one she ate as well, and never doubted for a second the words of the soothsayer. But she had not learned all that the prophecy had to tell, and that would be more dangerous than she knew.

AN: Dun dun dun...

I'm going to try and update every three days or so, and I promise it only gets better! Please leave me reviews, I thrive on them. If you value my sanity as an author, REVIEW. O.O