Collection of Shorts

Prince of the Sun

This can be read as a stand-alone, or as the backstory so to speak of the guy in Queen of the Night, it doesn't spoil anything or anything like that so yeah :)

She sat alone in the quiet night, the sole living being in the evening kingdom. Time, for a moment, hung suspended: nothing moved, nothing breathed, the only sound the echo of crickets' song through the trees. That was the time when she ruled, where her subjects were the ancient pines, her throne the mossy rock beneath her and her royal cape the drapery of vines, hung with lacy webs and sparkling with dew. At once she became regal, no longer shy and timid as in the day. In that moment, she was queen, queen of the forest, queen of the night, her lone figure spotlighted by the harvest moon.

Earlier, she had been just as solitary, removed from the happenings around her; but there she was not a ruler - rather she was ruled over. Subject to the thoughts and opinions of those around her, she had deferred to those who were children of the day, heir to that bright throne, and had waited, waited for the day to pass away, for that kingdom to fade slowly into her own. She had removed herself from the throng to a quiet space, and had taken up arms against the suffocating, boisterous sun-world, and begun to fight, a quiet protest for those who, like her, were children of the night. Her rebellion was neither brash nor violent -  these things a child of the night cannot be - but was calm, almost self-righteous, as if she was privy to some secret information, whispered in her ear by the midnight breeze. For her, and for the other children who thrived in the twilight land, the sharpest sword was a quill pen; the most deadly firearm, a paintbrush. She had taken up her arms, as indeed she had every day before and has every one since, and she had led the charge, the shadow-war, against those who in the midst of their frolicking brought the shadows; shadows, after all, can only be caused by the light.

    He stands upright, surrounded by people and yet utterly alone, and watches his kingdom die. The sun, which had bathed his lands in gold, now abandons them all to the shades of purple and navy as its might fades away. And as it does, the clamor and the party begins to die, chasing after the light. Slowly, he sinks down into his dais, now painted with shadow, and he hears a laugh, melodic yet dark; moonlight, he thinks. I hear moonlight in that laugh. And he, a day-child, the heir to the throne of the sun, tries to watch over his kingdom, to defend and protect it against what he cannot see, but little by little his vision fails and he succumbs to the power of the sleep-song, to the power of the children of the night.

    He dreams of light, white and yellow warmth running through his veins, replacing his blood with liquid sunshine itself. He still cannot see, but it's no longer because of the damp, heavy blackness that fills his vision: instead, it is filled with airy, laughing light. And he dreams of being young, in those happy golden days where nothing mattered but the perfect recipe for a mud pie, and of dreams he once held that had slipped away like the ever-shifting ribbons of light that fill his sight. He dreams of a battle, of playing pirates and king of the hill, innocent and friendly, and then the light is extinguished and the playground is painted bleak, frozen in time as his older self walks through the memory. He sees now the expressions frozen on the faces of the children - both those he remembers and those he does not - and realizes the fragility of that moment, a desperate struggle to be recognized as king; and in this specific moment, the climax of the battle where the king is about to be overthrown, he sees how many different ways it could have gone. And he sees the base of the hill, littered with random objects: children's toys, small branches that must have blown off the nearby oak on a windy day, shattered glass from assorted bottles - it was a public park - and a mother, just come to pick up her children.

The playground reanimates, though still streaked with dark, and he watches as the king is toppled and falls from the hill, listens as he hears the cry of victory, wonders if things might have been different. He sees the mother run, and there. Through the heavy air sounds another cry, though this is not one of victory; the children drop their pirate swords - king of the hill had earlier been termed as too boring, so they had added in swordplay to add thrill - and cluster at the top of the hill, peering down at the ground below. The king had fallen indeed, and now lay motionless at the bottom. And he, the silent observer, incapable of interacting with the scene before him, watches his younger self run down the hill - he had just taken the throne for himself - towards his mother, who had stopped running, and his unconscious younger brother, who had landed poorly during his fall from glory.