Again

i. out for the first time

chapter one — out for the first time

Jaxon James Renato was a good boy. As the Crown Prince of Amarantha, he had to be. He did as told, when he was told, and how he was told. He didn't question it, he just did it. There was no need to question it, his parents were good people, and he trusted them, even if he didn't see them.

"You're a good boy," Miss Dagnay had told him when he was five, as early as he could recall, when he had sat quietly in the servant's kitchen, watching them make food for the coming guests.

"You're a good boy," Miss Dagnay had told him when he was six, when he put away the building blocks he had gotten from one of the nobles.

"You're a good boy," Miss Dagnay had told him when he was seven, when he watched from the side as some of the servant's children (his mother permitted the children to live with the servants) play sword with each other.

"You're a good boy," Miss Dagnay had told him when he was eight, after he cried when she told him to stop playing with the servant's children.

"You're a good boy," Miss Dagnay had told him when he was nine, when he no longer watched the servant's children play sword.

You're a good boy," his father, the King, had told him when he was ten, when he took him outside the Palace walls for the first time in his meager ten years. He remembered this clearly, even to the day when he was seventeen.

The rain had ceased - it had been pouring for over a week - and now, the only memory of rain was the immense gloom rolling over the humble kingdom, the occasional patchwork of bright blue cloth stitched into the dark clouds here and there, along with the rays of light that shone through the cracks in the clouds. The earth still smelled of rain, that crisp freshness after the dirt of the world has been washed away by the sky's tears.

They had taken a carriage - him and his father inside - flanked by a few guards, decked in the typical armor of the King's men. Jaxon had never been outside of the Palace walls before - his mother and Miss Dagnay, his nurse, had always said there as too much to see, and that Jaxon's eyes were not yet large enough to view it. The most he had ever seen was when he was up at the watchmen's towers, in which he only saw the roofs of a few homes, and the complex architecture of a church.

The carriage ride had started off smooth, the carefully crafted wheels gliding across the paved road that led out of the Palace walls. Soon enough, the carriage jolted, due to the bumps in the cracked pavement, and the loose pebbles in the dirt of where there wasn't pavement. But at the time, Jaxon thought the horses were just feeling jumpy from excitement. He sure was.

"Look out the window, son," his father said. His father had a deep, sort-of booming voice, the kind of voice that made people listen.

Jaxon obeyed, pushing aside the embroidered curtain and laying his eyes, for the first time, on the world outside the walls of his home. It was not as he expected.

He had expected it to look like the Palace. He had expected the roads to have been paved and lined with gold, and he expected the people to look like the people in the Palace. He had expected the people to dress in extravagant clothing of bright colors and embroidered linen, and he had expected smiles — the kind of smiles he saw in the Palace, whether it was from the nobles or the servants. Happy smiles, he had expected happy smiles.

Instead, he what he saw looked nothing near to his expectations. What he saw were dirt roads, lined with rubbish and small shacks that didn't couldn't even have passed as huts. What he saw were people who didn't resemble people. They resembled skeletons donning tattered rags. Their hair was stringy and thin, their face gaunt, and their bodies worn.