Something With a Prince

14 Years Ago

The young prince was running for his life. The forest was against him. Tree branches stretched out in a viscous grappling war for his shirt and skin. Weeds and bugs crawled up his legs, twisting around the back of his neck with their spiny legs and tendrils. Darkness was the only sound beside his heartbeat, which thundered in his ribs like a battle drum. The young prince knew that he was going to die in this forest. That knowledge weighed down his feet, making him trip over roots and rocks.

He had left his bow and arrow behind, and somehow among the chaos, he felt sorry he borrowed his brothers instead of taking his own.

A crackling sound, like the noise clouds make when they craft lighting, fluttered across the forest floor. Every hair on the young prince's body rose to attention. His feet failed him, and the consequence landed his forehead hard against a tree trunk. The young prince lost his sense of the world, and darkness grew harder to see. All that was there was an itching cold against his skin and the warmth of blood trickling over his eyebrows. She had arrived, and he knew it the moment he felt his body dragged away from the tree and over the dirt. The young prince tried to scream, to make any sort of noise, but the witch had stolen his voice.

No, fear had. That grinning, hollow, speechless fear that constricts the muscles of one's voice box like a snake. The young prince tried one more time not to be scared, but when the witch hovered over him, with her mouth drawn like curtains, he could not. Finally, he screamed, and it felt like breaking through the water right before you think you'll never breathe again.

The witch pinned him down by the shoulders with her wretched hands. The prince was no more than six, so he had no choice in the matter. He recalled his father telling him to be careful in the woods. That it is dangerous, and he could be killed. But the young prince had never understood what was so terrible about being killed until now. Death, to this young prince, was a figment of adult imagination. Until now. His father would never be able to warn him again. His brother would go into the forest and disappear looking for him. His mother would never tuck him in or kiss his forehead in the way mothers do. The young prince would never make it to his seventh birthday or see what happened to his friend. He would never know the end of the story. But I have protected Thea. I did what he asked.

"Loyal little thing, aren't you?" The witch's mouth spoke without moving, and the young prince trembled against the ground. "And yet so bleak for your age."

He couldn't tear his eyes away from her large red ones. They were shot through with blue-black veins, and her pupils were bright white. Smoke was all that could be seen of her body, there was no form, no dress, nothing but suspended smoke that was somehow darker than any shadow he had ever seen. The young prince began to cry, his body doing anything in its power to alarm whatever it could nearby. His lungs howled and raged. There was so much he could not understand about this moment and yet, he knew enough to be truly afraid.

"Oh now, none of that." The witches mouth closed and within a moment she was in her human form. Her eyes remained red, and spiders fell out of her hair as she swept a tear from the young prince's cheek. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The young prince stifled his howling into silent tears, "What did you do to Thea?"

"I made her all better, dear." She grinned a wicked grin.

"No, you took something, I heard you say it. Thief!" A sudden heat tore through the young prince and he began to thrash under the witch's hands, "Monster! Help!"

The witch tsked her tongue, not in the least bothered by this little prince. After all he was far too small for his age, making his words seem smaller still. But then, she saw something in him that frightened her. An unwavering sincerity passed over that tiny face and flooded into golden eyes. The young prince stopped his thrashing, and instead of trembling, he began to shake, moonlit tears and blood staining his cheeks.

"I will tell. I will take your heart and throw it to my dogs! My brother will help me! You will see, I will do it. I hate you and I will do it!"

The witch reared back as the familiar caress of vengeance swept over her. With a deadly swiftness, her hand rose and broke out into a clawed mass of flesh and bone. The witch had every intention to plunge her fingers into the young prince's mouth, take hold of his tongue, and tear it from his throat. But she did not. Instead, she would exact a different revenge.

Such a resolve in so young a creature's eyes was valuable. And he will protect her. The witch thought to herself. He will return her to me when the time is right.

"You have behaved very badly, little prince." The witch lowered her hand over the cut on his forehead, and with tips of her broken fingers, drew the blood down over the lids of his eyes, singing her words, "But I forgive you."

The prince went as still as death, unable to move or think or speak another word. The weight of the witch's palm against his eyes was heavy, like sleep. Her hand smelled like his blood, dead flowers, and old moss. Her skin was rough like bark, and yet, had a mother-like tenderness to it. The prince found himself sedated by the witch as she began to sing.

"Dear little prince, you may be the answer to my prayers." She swept her other hand over his hair and he felt himself pulled off the forest floor and into her lap. "You will deliver my heart."

The young prince found himself falling into something like sleep. Something he had never experienced before. Thoughts of his friend flooded his mind.

"You have been charged to protect her from all dangers. To protect that heart that beats inside her." The witch raised her hand from his hair and held it up to the sky, weaving her plan into motion.

"Let it be written, by my powers divine, that this boy will deliver a heart promised to be mine.

He will drink from that cup, and set forth in motion, this spell I cast here, for she will be his devotion.

That heart will not love nor dream, it will feel only what's needed, for that heart belongs to me and thus must be treated.

This prince will not steal, but deliver to me, the girl, the heart, and the powers I wish to wield.

As I cast upon you, child, this fate and design, this charge shall be yours, until it is mine. Then I will take as I please—"

The witch stared down adoringly at the sleeping prince knowing he would forget all this the moment he woke. (All but a very special story he vaguely remembers telling a little girl in the rain.) Knowing that the friend he risked his life for, and would continue to risk his life for, would now despise him more than anyone in the world. That she was cursing the lives of these two children forever,

"and since you dared to call me a thief. All that belongs to you will forever on belong to me."