Dark Ripples

Dark Ripples One-Shot

*Trigger Warnings: mentions of body horror, death, violence, and blood*

Long ago, in a long lost kingdom, there lived a tired, foolish king and his cunning, greedy queen. They did not have the happiest of marriages, but each served the needs of the other well; the queen gained power and prestige, and the king satisfied his people's desire for a royal family. Still, the queen was not satisfied because she wanted her daughter to inherit the throne instead of the prince. The prince was the child of the king's previous wife, and the current queen felt that the young man was unfit to rule. He was not particularly ambitious, but the people loved him for his merry attitude, confidence, and unfaltering devotion to his duty. The princess, on the other hand, was quite similar to her mother. She was a composed individual, and her stunning beauty rivaled her intelligence and drive. The queen wanted her daughter to take as much control over the throne as possible, so from a young age, she coached and molded her child into her ideal masterpiece. Together, they hatched a plan to rule the kingdom from the shadows.

In the spring of her sixteenth birthday, the princess married a foreign prince who cared for her greatly, and the two conceived a precious daughter by the end of their first year married. Around that time, the king explained to the prince that he would soon be inheriting the throne and gave the prince more duties than ever in order to prepare him. The prince took to enjoying his young niece's company in his greatly reduced leisure time. The simplicity of playing with and feeding the girl helped to soothe his frazzled nerves and allowed him to dream of when he would have his own babe to dote upon.

When the prince was not with his niece during his rare moments of freedom, he was visiting his second favorite person: his lover. The two lovebirds would spend most of their time together with the prince in disguise so they could take strolls and explore marketplaces together. In order to see each other more often, the prince began to take his lover with him on diplomatic journeys with his guards agreeing to remain silent in regard to the unofficial guest. However, these indiscretions could not be hidden forever. The princess, who hadn't forgotten about the plan hidden in her heart, noticed the increase in excursions and bribed one of the prince's guards to give her a more detailed report of some of his trips. Upon finding out about the secret guest, she quickly devised a plot that would cement her path to the throne once and for all.

After a month of preparation, the princess put her idea into action. She sent one of her guards in plain clothing to sneak into the house of the prince's lover to strike a deal: either give the prince a tonic of unknown properties on the next journey or have every family member slain in their sleep. When the princess's guard returned to his employer, he told her the results. The prince's lover accepted the deal on the condition that she would never be tried for the crime she would commit. The only answer the girl received was a note left in an envelope slipped beneath her door that said the sender agreed to her terms. While she questioned the lack of signature, the poor woman saved the letter regardless and hid it away so she would not have to look at the physical reminder of her upcoming betrayal.

The eve before her latest journey with her lover, the woman received a small parcel on her doorstep. She opened the box and gasped, for inside was a clear-colored vial with dark, violet-green tinged syrup within. The woman hid the bottle with the rest of her belongings, and she gave no hints of discomfort when the prince and his entourage picked her up the next day. Their trip together went well until their fourth night on the road when a group of assassins organized by the devious princess attacked. The knights stood no chance against the onslaught.

The fighting grew so vicious that the prince himself forced his way past the two men guarding his carriage and joined the fray. However, his help was not enough to turn the tide. His lover snuck out of the carriage to look for him and found the prince slumped against the wheel of their caravan with near-fatal wounds. From the folds of her dress, she pulled out the cursed vial that had stayed in her bags until this moment and convinced the love of her life that the mysterious potion would heal him. The prince trusted the woman, so he drank every drop of the dark, viscous liquid.

Instantly, he felt the effects of the poison; his blood felt like it was boiling, and bones trembled and snapped and reformed beneath his morphing skin. His screams filled the smoke-filled air as the killers around them finished murdering the rest of the knights. The hired group let the prince go as he ran from the wreckage as if he was trying to escape his own skin. With their job completed, the assassins cleansed the site of anything too revealing and took the lone survivor back with them. She was returned to her home, and there she silently remained as she withdrew from the world out of guilt.

When the castle got news of the attack on the prince, they searched all they could for him. Even so, all that was ever found was the torn, bloody remains of his clothing. After a few months, they declared the prince dead, and with no other male relatives of the king to inherit the foreign prince became next in line to rule. The princess and her husband took over when the king died years later with their daughter unaware of her uncle's fate.