Midnight Charades

A Poor Escape

SEVERAL YEARS LATER

The lights radiated heat as they lit up brightly, taking out the winter chill. The stuffy room filled with people shortened anyone's breath.

Osman had just come from outside and walked into the room, hands clasped behind is back unaware of the party surrounding him , it all seemed so strange as if this was wasn't suppose to happen as if it simply could not be happening yet here were a hundred strangers in a room whos names Meera might've known had she bothered to look anywhere else but where Osman stood and yet she knew in this disquieting moment that it wasn't her conscience that started her heart but simply the fate and destiny of many entwining in the perfect embrace as they plunged into a sensation like jumping into cold water, the feeling of waking up.

The Day Before

A quarter to midnight Meera found herself outside a closed café huddled in the rain slick streets of an Island town somewhere in the Mediterranean. It was New Year's and the freezing temperatures, and freezing rains had many indoors, or celebrating on the other end of town in the square. The meticulously kept glass store fronts and the glittering lights gave the place away as the higher end of town, the side where Meera would not be at if it weren't for her slightly rich friend who was slightly very late. 

Marco had invited her on a trip to his families summer home for the holidays, not that Meera celebrated the holidays, but it wasn't everyday you got a chance to leave the endless motion of life behind and venture on towards the Islands beyond the Black Sea, so she said why not. 

Now, the little details of who Meera was, who Marco was, where they were exactly, where Marco was exactly, and how this trip came to be financially could be divulged, however, tonight something else came to be, something unexpected, something that should for many never happen in their lives but happened for Meera, for no reason other than she'd read the address wrong and was waiting at the wrong café, and coming towards her was a relic of the past, although he wasn't a relic really, but a living, moving, screaming, furiously running, very much alive prince. 

 The Law of Fatricide long decided every prince's fate. Once their brother ascended the throne, their existence was a threat to the Sultan, to diminish the threat, rather than exile, the princes were put to their death. It was legal, and the state ordered it. But what is legal isn't always right. Machiavelli may have approved, for one must rule by fear. It was these politics that governed Osman's life, and that would than have him runaway from the palace the night his brother ascended the throne. Osman was able to escape, but his other brothers perished at the hands of his executioners. He was the only son of Mahfiruze Sultan, and it was she who would help him escape, knowing the cost. Osman found refuge at a distant, isolated, long abandoned castle with the the loyal courtiers of his mother. And it was here he stayed and discovered a secret.

On top a distant hill, some distance away, through the vine leaves that adorned an abandoned arch, came what had at first Osman deemed a new world. A foreign world, one where there were strange mechanics, and oddly dressed people. Osman at first, was taken by this world, what strange things these humans did, but when he realized it was nothing like the strange lore he'd once heard of, and this was in fact the exact world he knew, only several centuries ahead of his time, he felt his gut wrench. The Ottomans no longer existed, the history he discovered broke him, and he knew there was nothing he could do to change it, for even if he were to intervene, the empire would not fall for another several generations after him. After this realization, he stopped reading back, and instead invested his time in the place around him. He came and went, back and forth through arch, back through the arch, the Aghas wondered where he went, and Osman often found himself a crowd on the streets. He eventually grew used to the ideas of cars, and shirts and pants, he gaped when he saw people with coloured hair, or motorcycles, and when he discovered bicycles, there was no force that could separate them from him, save perhaps the executioners on his heels, and now he had to run on his own two feet to outrun them.

Osman had been preparing to sneak away back through the arch way when they arrived. Through some miracle, or betrayal his executioners had arrived. He realized several things, firstly if he were to die he would die dressed in jeans, secondly he would die. He panicked a moment longer fearing for  the others, but it seemed they did not want anyone but him. He heard them marching up the steps, and he did the only thing he could think of, he leapt from his window. 

He leapt from his window and grabbed for the long vines growing from the side, burning his palms as he slid down them. He fell harder than he thought he would, momentarily stunning his legs. He fell back and wheezed for air. One of the executioners gave a shout, and Osman was back up running again towards the hill, towards the archway in vines. He clambered, adrenaline pumping through him, but he felt caught against time. He was moving but not fast enough, he could feel them on his heels, he was kicking up grass and dirt as he lunged to his sanctuary, his escape. 

Osman ran with only one thought in his head, why am I running, is this not my fate, have my other brothers not also fallen to it, did I not lose my mother so that I may live, what have I accomplished in my time in self-determined exile, but odd as it is, he knew the answer to every single question, that come what may, he was the eldest prince, and the throne was his birthright. And it was this he thought as he continued to charge on, because the need to survive, especially for the young, outdoes any momentary doubts. He bellowed his prayers, and dashed through the arch way.