The King of Coal (A Dartron Fan Fiction)

Chapter Two- The Lamppost

~Fifteen years later~

Dar stood on the balcony of his royal suite. The breeze tickled his ears and danced in his ginger hair. Warming his face, the sun rose higher and higher into the sky.

His hands sweat as they curled around the wooden rails.

Tomorrow was the day.

He would take his father’s place at the throne of the Diamond Kingdom.

Dar had been striving for this moment from the age of six. He was the most qualified person possible to take this responsibility.

Then why was he so nervous?

Because after tomorrow, every subject in the kingdom would look to him for wisdom and guidance in times of peace and war? Because if he makes one mistake in judgment in time of battle, the fate of the entire kingdom may be sealed?

“Don’t think like that.” He told himself, taking a deep breath in, and out. “You can do this, Dar. You can do this.”

The wind picked up, and it blew his cape like a victory flag hung after a long, bloody battle.

 Or like the cape of a new king that was ready to lead his kingdom into a glorious, new era.

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“Prince Dar! Prince Dar!” A knight named Grim called out, running to the prince as he walked down the quarts stairs. “Princess Levana is waiting for you outside.”

“Oh dear.” Dar said in dread. “Tell her I have an obligation to attend to.” The prince slurred, turning to flee before the knight could question him.

Princess Levana was his bride to be, and the future queen of the Diamond Kingdom. Dar had begun courtships of her from the age of ten. Being the princess of the Ender Kingdom, Dar’s father hoped to form an alliance with the neighboring kingdom to end the tension between them from past wars.

But Dar dreaded the marriage.

Princess Levana hated everything: Roses, gems, songs of poetry, anything King Iron forced Dar to bring to their weekly courtship.

It was never enough for Princess Levana.

“Only one block of emerald? I have a stack of them at home!” She would wine, following it by hurling a lump of coal at Dar’s head.

“Eyah!” He cried, falling back and holding his head. His loathing toward coal continued to grow.

But Levana’s spoiledness was not the only thing that put a ridge between them. Dar could not find a single thing he had in common with the royal brat.

“My lady, do you wish to walk in the garden with me?” He would offer in the courting parlor, looking out past the seats and table to the wide stained glass windows. The light that streamed into the room made the picture perfect stone paths, flowers, trees, and running streams in the castle’s garden sparkle as clear as a diamond.

“And why would I want to do that?” She said bitterly, crossing her arms.

Dar looked both ways to the two doors on either side of the parlor, making sure his father was not nearby to hear Dar's informal language.

“So we can go make mud pies and throw mud balls at each other!” One could not ever dream to see such honesty in a boy.

“Bahumbug!” She sneered, throwing another lump of coal at his head.

She also happened to love coal.

So as Dar ran through the palace, trying to hide from his bride to be, all he could do was hope she hadn’t brought a stack of coal with her.     

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Dar decided to walk through the streets of the kingdom to avoid Levana, for he knew she was disgusted by “peasants,” and wouldn’t be caught dead in one of their villages.

It was also good for him to get some fresh air, and take one last look at the kingdom in freedom. Because the moment Dar was king, his own castle would become his prison.

Dar strode on the stone path with his hands behind his back, every step he took was long, and elegant. With the sun rays bouncing off of his silk aquamarine and periwinkle robes and flawless sparkling gold straps, it almost hurt to look at him.

Villager boys wrestling in the dirt would stop and gaze at the prince as he walked by them. Men and women bending over, attending to their wheat and potatoes would halt from their work and stand up straight, glueing their eyes on Dar until he was out of sight.

After about 5 minutes of this though, a thought ran through Dar’s mind.

“Do I really want to spend my last day of freedom like this?”

By this time, he had reached an older, more abandoned part of the kingdom. The wheat gardens had long sense dried up, and the houses were deserted; the doors were gone from the thresh holds and the windows were broken in every sill.

Dar looked over his shoulder. No one was following him.

At that moment, the wind stirred, sending a chill up and down his spine.

Dar reached up to his neck and unclipped his cape. The wind plucked it from the air and twisted it in its fingers, giving Dar an errie whistle as a thanks.

That was the moment Dar felt he wasn’t a noble king.

He was the tiny boy in his heart that had always been bursting to break free.

He smiled, and ran.

Laughing at the top of his lungs, he swung around each lamppost with one hand, using the momentum to lunge forward toward the next pole, and the next, and the next.

It was only until the sun sank behind the mountains far off in the next kingdom that Dar felt out of breath. The lampposts warmly glowed as the darkening sky lifted the moon and the thousands of stars into their own rightful place, as if a librarian was putting his books away on the shelf after a long day.

Dar felt an overwhelming, yet delicious  tiredness come over him, and after sitting himself down against a lamppost in the center of the stone path, Dar closed his eyes, and slept.