The Boy and the Animal

Part I | Four

Inside, I found the house in similar disarray as mine had been some hours earlier, though- with only a single room- I was instantly greeted by the sight of a plump older woman fleeing from her bed, and, across from it, the wild boy snarling and growling from atop a wooden table. It seemed I was fortunate enough to have had him come to me. The joy.

Again, I lowered my body, the woman storming passed me, and held my hand up in hopes the boy would lower his guard. The snarling lowered underneath my coos and promises not to hurt him, but those eyes... Oh, forget the prince, those eyes... They were unlike any ethereal awe described in the holy book.

They were as black as the darkest drip of night sinking into the shadows of an ebony lake, and yet how they shined and gleamed in the echo of a moonlight that seemed to flock to his beautiful flesh. Where the pupil ended and the iris began was like where the sun bled into the sunset- indecipherable- and just as enchanting. I was stunned. He had beaten me without drawing a sword.

In my hesitance, for the second time, the boy darted at me and pushed passed me with such an unnatural force that yet again caught me by surprise. Even through the armor, I had to regain my balance and breath before turning around and chasing after the boy; I was not an easy man to push around at 13 stone blocks tall and 9 stone blocks heavy, and the fact that he could cast me aside like an equal... It put a hesitance in the boots that chased.

Just ahead of me, the boy careered through the farm and into the tall grasses; though, he did not run. His form was that of an animal, a crawling child that had yet to learn to run. He traveled on all fours, sometimes on his hands and knees, with a speed I had yet to see in my years as a royal guard. The inhuman form carried him well, and soon I was running blind in the field with little hope of catching him.

I continued to run even so. Unless he stayed in one place, which in his frenzy I doubted highly that he would do, there was only one way for him to go- and that was out. So, I charged through the field with just as much momentum as I had coming into it, willing myself and my tired feet to overcome the weight of my armor. I saw not the boy. I couldn't. No, I saw the gold. It flashed in my eyes as I ran. And then, I reached the end of the field.

As I thought, the boy was on the other side, yet, rather than continue bolting away, he had stopped. Searching for the reason for his sudden cease, I could find only one obstacle: the river rapids that tore through the land we stood on and the other side, the natural border between me and freedom. Heels at the edge of the bank, the boy stared down at the river behind him with an expression of terror, small whimpers escaping his lips.

Could he not swim, I wondered? Before I could reach out to him or ponder that question any further, two orange glows flickered in each of my peripherals. I broke my gaze from the boy to find two farmers carrying torches running towards us on each side. They moved their bodies on either side of the boy, waving the fire to frighten him away from pursuing them. The boy was trapped.

Using this to my advantage, I stepped toward the frightened boy, my heart sinking. The gold faded from my eyes and left my chest, my soul bare. This boy was human- I had no doubt of that now- and the eyes the stared back at me were so frightened. It reminded me of the days that I would protect my little brother and sister from the bumps in the night— and I needed to protect him. I beckoned him closer, almost begging him to come to me so that I could wrap him in warmth and get him safe.

Deep inside my soul, a voice beckoned me. Save him! It was an order from a master, a mightier one than the prince's. I bent my knee to it.

But he refused. He took another step away from me, passed the edge of the bank, and, with a helpless yelp that ripped at my core, fell back into the rapids below. His body plunged into the water, his limbs darting out in a panic to splash around frantically- though aimlessly. I bolted into the waters, dropping my father's sword from my hand.

With that voice as the backdrop in my chest, everything else became secondary to saving this boy.

The roaring, unforgiving river tossed and turned like a storm in the deep ocean, but I cut through it in a desperate dive for the petite boy enslaved to its ravenous currents. When I found him, no longer able to fight to keep above the overwhelming rips, I latched onto him and held him above my head- launching him onto the bank. I then tore my hand into the earth and dragged myself out of the jealous waters that held their grasp on me.

I didn't dare begin to catch my breath before I scrambled back to the boy, brushing his long, soaked hair from his face and checking for the beat of his heart. It was still thumping strong, but he wasn't breathing. Instinct became law at that moment, and I pressed down on his chest with a heavy compression over and over again. When this didn't wake him, I placed my mouth over his, blocking his nose, and breathed into him.

For what seemed like hours, his body remained limp, a discarded rock vomited from the river's mouth, but after grueling over getting air back into his lungs, he suddenly coughed out and expelled the water. I held him in my arms, turning him so that the water fell back into the soil. He did not wake as he lie in my arms beneath the cool glow of the somber moon, but breath left his nose. I gave a sigh of relief and pressed our foreheads together.

When he wasn't snarling, he was even more of a work of art than I'd first thought. I was captivated by the natural light that gathered over him. He was special, I could feel that in my heart, and I knew right then and there that there was not a bone in my body that could surrender him to people who would snuff that light. I had to protect him. I don't know how I knew, or what told me, but...

I knew he needed me.