Rapunzel's Prince:
Disclaimer: I do not own DN Angel.
Warnings: Fluff, AU, angst, shounen-ai
A/N: Surprise surprise, I'm back to square one.
Everyone knows the story of Rapunzel, and how she came to be locked in the tower. Everyone knows about her prince, who came to rescue her, but sacrificed his eyesight instead and lost her for years. Everyone remembers how they were brought back together again by fate, and how they lived happily ever after. But who knows the prince's story? This tells the story of Prince Charming, and how he grew up to become the man who would eventually sacrifice everything for his Rapunzel.
Once upon a time, as all stories begin, there was the Hiwatari Kingdom. The king and queen of this land were wise and just, and ruled their people with a strict but fair hand. The country prospered, and because of its numerous contracts with other lands, the Hiwatari Kingdom was respected by many. However, the king and queen themselves were an unhappy couple.
The king and queen loved each other very much; anyone could tell just from looking at them. However, they were disappointed by the fact that although they had been married for so many years, they still had not had a child. The king knew that his time was drawing to a close; every morning, when he woke up, he could almost hear his joints creaking and before a storm, he often found himself unable to move his fingers for the pains that shot up them. His court physician applied poultices and healing potions that smelled most vile to his hands every morning and night, but all to no avail. The king had long accepted the possibility of his dying without a direct successor to the throne, and had thus made plans accordingly, even going so far as to name a distant cousin as the heir to the throne. However, the queen had not, could not, would not.
She too enlisted the help of physicians, healers, even hedgewitches whom the villagers often shunned because of their strange abilities. The queen was determined to bear her husband a son before he aged, and unable to resist his wife's demands, the king too kept trying. Finally, one spring morning, the queen blissfully whispered to her husband that she was with child.
There was great rejoicing throughout the land, for a childless king could easily mean a devastating civil war. There was a great festival to honour the royal couple, and the dancing and celebrations lasted for well over a fortnight. However, the queen soon retreated from the public eye in preparation for her birthing, and life returned to normal. Every day, the queen would sit in her chamber and look out the window, blissfully imagining the day her child would be born. Having always wanted a child of her own, she wondered what he would look like, how he would behave, whether he would take after her or his father.
Months passed, and the queen grew rounder. The king's joy eclipsed all his physical pains; every morning he thanked the gods for blessing him and his wife with a child and prayed that it would be healthy and strong. Finally, in the midst of winter, merely a few days before the winter solstice, the queen went into labour.
It would be a difficult birth, the midwives told him. So the king paced the corridors outside of his wife's birthing chambers, consumed with anxiety and every five minutes sending up a prayer to the goddess of women and children. Please let them both live, he prayed. Please Goddess, gods, whoever is listening. Please give them both strength, and let them come through.
Inside the room, the queen screamed and arched up, desperately trying to push the child out. But the midwives would not let her; she was not yet ready for that stage. They rubbed oils and ointments on her, trying to ease the pains and prepare her for the hardest part. She sobbed and panted, her hair dishevelled and a wild, desperate look in her eyes as she fought the screams threatening to erupt from her throat every time a wave of pain washed over her. The midwives murmured amongst themselves, but she could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing but the searing heat that rippled through her regularly. "Brace, your Highness," a woman urged her, holding her hand, voice never wavering once in spite of the crushing grip the queen had on her fingers. "You will both be well. It is only a little longer now." Finally, she heard the order. "Push!" A midwife ordered her. "Come now, child, push!"
It was hard, harder than anything she'd ever had to do before. Pushing with all her strength, she finally felt a cool hand stroke her forehead and she instinctively knew that it was over. She sank onto her sweat-soaked pillows panting heavily, only just strong enough to raise her arms. "Let me see," she whispered. "Let me see."
With a warm smile, the midwife told her, "Congratulations, your Highness. It's a boy." The queen took one look at her son and shrieked in horror, scrambling over to the other side of the bed and cowering away from the child, screaming all the while.
"No!" She screamed hoarsely, eyes fixed on the wailing child. "Take him away! Take him away!" Her shrill cries pierced the air and the midwives, afraid of upsetting her further, hastily took the child away.
They left Satoshi in the care of a wet nurse and placed in the west wing of the castle, where he would not frighten the queen. Whenever she saw him, she would scream and convulse wildly in fits, howling like a woman possessed. It grieved no one more than the king to see the little boy curiously try to grab a lock of his mother's pale hair, only to howl in pain as she brutally slapped his hand away and rushed off, a haunted look on her face. No one could explain the queen's strange reaction to her son, and although the midwife and court physician said that it was perfectly normal for a woman to suffer strange moods after a birth, it was obvious that her condition would not go away.
The king often stopped by the royal nursery, which had also been moved to the west wing of the castle, to see how his son fared. He never dared go inside, afraid of frightening the little boy, but it made him glad to see that the little prince was healthy and growing.
Satoshi, for the most part, was a quiet child. To the delight and relief of all his tutors and nurses, he was easy to handle and much preferred reading to tumbling and playing outside. His tutors were amazed by the way he learned new concepts so quickly and easily, and how he remembered them all even months after they had finished the topic. In short, the boy was destined to become a great king, although his physical tutors would beg to differ.
The first time Satoshi realized that not all parents behaved as he did was at his first memorable birthday party, when he had turned six. His mother, as usual, was not there. He was told to say that she was visiting her parents, who lived in a nearby kingdom, and would not be back until the next week. The nobles all whispered and gave him strange looks, but nevertheless they allowed, no, they encouraged their children to play with him. The favour of the king's son was paramount to securing an important post in court, especially in the future, when he would one day become king.
There was a duke's adopted son there, a small child who had white hair and grey eyes. On his face, there was a blazing red tattoo that streaked down the left side of his face like some bizarre drawing, and he had a deformed left arm. Nevertheless, the little boy was laughing and smiling and talking to all the other children when he wasn't eating (it was amazing how so small a figure could pack away so much food). And every time Allen Walker ran back to his father, the duke would smile at him and ask how he was. Satoshi felt a small pang of jealousy in his heart, and he wondered why his parents did not do the same.
Before seeing Mana and Allen Walker, the prince had never before questioned why his mother rejected him, or why his father kept his distance. After that day, he tried to go to his parents' chambers, only to find the door locked and barred against him. Sometimes he would see his mother sewing in her chair, but as son as she saw him she would ignore him, treating him like a piece of furniture in the room. The only sign that showed she knew he was there was the way she yanked the thread in and out of her embroidery.
Satoshi sometimes tried to talk to his father, but the king would only smile, pat him on his head and tell him to be a good boy distractedly before returning to his wife. These words would have ordinarily made him flush with joy at being acknowledged, but after his birthday party where he saw other children being pampered and love by their parents for the first time, they were no longer enough. Satoshi just wanted an answer to his questions. He didn't want anything else.
"Why won't you come see me?" He shouted after his father's retreating figure. The older man stopped for a moment and then began walking again, as though nothing had happened. Thinking that he hadn't been loud enough, the little blue-haired prince opened his mouth to shout more loudly, but his nurse hastily clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Shh, little master," she softly whispered in worry. "It won't do if you disturb the queen."
It was then that the prince realized that his parents didn't care about him. From then on, he avoided them as neatly as they had avoided him, going so far as to ask the servants to set up a dining hall in the west wing for him so that he wouldn't have to eat near his parents. He filled the empty spaces with his old stuffed toys, knowing that it was a girly and childish thing to do but unwilling to admit that so many empty spaces reminded him of how alone he was.
The years passed in this fashion, with the king and queen living in one part of the castle and the prince in the other. Satoshi was now obliged to occasionally visit his parents in order to let them see that he was fit to become the next king to the Hiwatari kingdom, but whilst young men and women of the nobility were presented at court every day, he was left to his own devices, with not so much as a whisper of his being officially announced as the heir to the throne going through the castle. The king was worried about his wife's condition, but he knew of no other way than to keep her happy and thus avoided his son, only asking about him when it was absolutely necessary.
The queen's condition suddenly began to deteriorate in the middle of the fall. Where she had once been perfectly normal save for when she saw Satoshi, she now began to babble to herself in a high-pitched voice and in an unknown language. She often spent hours talking to herself and arguing. Whenever the king tried to gently distract her she would turn on him and burst into hysterical laughter until he left. Her moods became wild and she could often go from enraged to cheerful and sunny within a minute. As time wore on, her appetite deteriorated and she soon became a thin shadow of herself, with haunted eyes and hollow cheeks. The voices in her mind became louder and there were so many of them, bombarding her with information. Sometimes they would all whisper bad things about her, reminding her of her son's presence and suddenly she would want to see him, only to dissolve in tears when he appeared in front of her.
The voices grew louder with time, all of them struggling to make themselves heard at the same time. Sometimes they told her that she was a good wife and that she had fulfilled her duty and then some. Other times, they hissed that she was a witch and that she was no better than the lowest prostitute in the red light district. They had never been loud; she'd always been able to push them to the back of her mind, but after she'd had the child it was as though the door she'd used to shut them away had been shattered. The voices had come in full force and she had been unable to do anything except fight them every day and night. It was all Satoshi's fault!
Her quickly failing mental health was reflected in her physical appearance; where she'd previously still been beautiful and ethereal, she now only appeared thin and waifish. Her high cheekbones and straight nose looked too big for her rapidly hollowing cheeks and her eyes were always tired, giving the impression that she did not sleep often. Her gowns now hung loosely off her frame like large pieces of shapeless cloth. Day by day, she withered away, and no one could do anything about it.
The king himself despaired of ever curing her. A few years earlier, they had tried all manner of remedies but none appeared to work, and a few had even hastened her illness. Finally realizing that they could no longer allow the queen to be seen by the people in her current condition, the king finally gave the order for them to take her to a different part of the castle, one where no one would see her save for the servants that tended to her every need. The queen screamed on her first night in her new chambers by herself, screamed so long and so hard that everyone in the castle came running, but they refused to touch her.
Satoshi, of course, did not know of any of this. He only knew that his mother was very ill, and that he had to stay away from her. Of course, this never worried him; he had learned to think of his mother as merely the woman who had brought him to life, and not anything else. He remembered the look on her face when he'd entered her rooms for the first time, and he'd heard the story of how she had immediately rejected him after seeing what he looked like. He didn't care, he told himself.
Then one night, in the dead of winter, the queen managed to escape from her rooms. She wandered through the castle wrapped in only a thin cloak over her nightdress and shift, laughing and talking as though she were at a party. In her mind, she saw shining candles, glittering chandeliers encrusted with crystals the size of her thumbnail and heard music playing throughout. People laughed and talked around her and she smiled, approaching her old friend the Duchess of Aragon. They talked for a while, but the queen soon grew restless. She smiled and politely excused herself from the conversation, walking around the hall and enjoying the atmosphere.
Feeling the need for a fresh breath of air, she made her way over to the door that would lead her to the balcony and opened it, slipping out into the cool night air. To her surprise, she found herself in a dark room. Only able to make out the faint shapes of a bed and a small desk, she looked around in bewilderment, feeling a little chilly as the night wind suddenly blew a gust of cold air in. She shivered and looked down, staring as her silks and beautiful jewelry vanished, replaced instead by a thin shift and nightdress. Then she looked around and realized that she had been sleepwalking and dreaming. Frightened, she turned to go, only to freeze at the sound of a tired voice coming from the bed.
"Who is it?"
Fear swirled around her mind as the darkness suddenly became oppressive and the shadows loomed up threateningly. She took a step backwards and felt around blindly, looking for something, anything she could use to defend herself. Her hand felt something long and solid, and she hastily grabbed it. She wobbled precariously, weakened by the lack of food, but the fear strengthened her and she slowly approached the source of the noise, weapon held in front of her. There was a shift and suddenly a flame flickered in the darkness, moving over to a candle and illuminating the whole room. The queen caught a glimpse of blue hair and shrieked, unable to stop herself from crashing clumsily towards it. A claw shot out and grabbed her wrist, and she wailed loudly. The thing started trying to talk, but she knew that she couldn't. It would talk, and then she would fall under its spell, and she would die. She couldn't, wouldn't, mustn't let it talk any more.
The creature surged upwards and she grappled with it blindly, scratching and flailing with her free hand and trying to get her other hand free. "No!" She shrieked like a demon possessed. "No, no, no!"
The thing staggered backwards as she raked blindly across what was likely its face and she sobbed, tears blocking her already impaired vision. Then it let go, and she slipped forwards, crashing headlong into a hard corner. She felt something hot trickle down the side of her face, and closed her eyes as a deep, deep darkness overwhelmed her.
Satoshi reeled backwards from the scratches in his face; sleep-addled and prone to bruising more easily than most, he let go of the thin wrist in his grasp and leaned heavily against the solid bulk of the wardrobe. He heard an almighty crash and squinted in the flickering light, catching a glimpse of a white nightdress fluttering and then the thud of a limp body on the floor. He rushed forward, ignoring the dizziness that pulsed in his head and knelt beside the body, carefully turning it over and scrambled back in horror at the gash in the queen's forehead. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was slack, and he knew instantly with all the knowledge of ten years that she was dead.
He sat there, shivering in fright and shock, staring at the ghastly scene illuminated by the light of the moon and the flickering candlelight for a while, unable to think of anything but the fact that his mother was dead.
They found the boy shivering in his little room at dawn, when they came to wake him up and help him dress. The chambermaid cried aloud in shock and fainted, and had to be carried out by his tutor. His manservant helped him to dress as usual, but Satoshi did not miss the shaking in the man's hands or the awkward silence that pervaded the room he'd been hustled into. He turned to the older man. "Did I do it?" He asked simply, ice-blue eyes boring into the servant's brown ones. "Was it my fault?" The man could not answer, shocked that the child would even think so, but his silence was taken as hesitation and the blue-haired child nodded decisively, ingraining the memory into his head so that he would never forget that it was his fault that his mother had died. "It was my fault," he told his servant as he pushed his arms into the sleeves of his undershirt and through the holes in the tunic. "I was responsible for the queen's death." Not daring to say anything else, the servant nodded quietly in agreement.
Satoshi did not shed a single tear as they quietly lowered his mother's coffin into the ground and hastily shovelled damp earth over it. As though to mock him, the sun shone more brightly than usual and the birds sang brightly, as though there was something to celebrate.
After the queen's death, the king became a former shadow of himself. He was unable to sleep and appeared often in court with large, violently purple circles under his eyes. His shoulders sagged and his cheeks grew hollow. When he had once filled his clothes well, they now hung off his diminished frame like loose pieces of ill-fitting peasant cloth. It was not just his appearance that had changed; it was also his attitude towards life. He was dull and listless long after the funeral, and even at balls concealed himself for a long time, only appearing after a few hours and reeking of the strong wine that younger lords loved to imbibe during drinking contests. He no longer took a personal interest in affairs; he now left them all to his counsellors, who took advantage of his absence to gather power and plot to oust the prince. After all, they reasoned, Satoshi would not be of age yet and the king's condition was sure to kill him before the year was out. So the country fell into disarray. Villages became shells devoid of life; whole towns and cities starved from the lack of food making its way in through the gates. The people muttered amongst themselves; perhaps the Hiwatari reign was coming to an end. The king did nothing, and neither did the prince. Soon the counsellors found themselves jockeying for larger areas of land, and the country descended into a state of chaos. No one dared openly attack the royal castle, but it was clear that the rebels were gaining strength, funded by lords on the High Counsel, and it would not be long before the country split apart. The only thing holding it together was the thought that the king was still alive; no one spared a thought for the next heir to the throne.
The country was in chaos. After having seized control over the land by tricking the grief-stricken king into signing a law that gave them complete control over the kingdom, the ten counsellors had turned on each other. Each sent bands of mercenaries and armies against the other, battling for ownership of valuable lands. The people suffered; unable to farm or flee due to the vast numbers of soldiers marching through the land and warring, they bitterly cursed their king and prince, both of whom remained silent and invisible to the rest of the lands.
The king and his son were moved to a smaller, secret castle near the border of the desert by a small group of loyal soldiers who had taken it upon themselves to protect the royal family for as long as it took. Many still hoped for a peaceful return to the days of old, but the older ones knew that it would not happen. Prince Satoshi showed no interest in affairs of state and refused to participate in any war councils, calling them a waste of time and utterly useless. Yet the royal guards persisted, thinking of new plans and methods to combat the civil conflict that had toppled the Hiwatari clan in all but name.
It was the anniversary of the queen's death. As was customary, the king had locked himself in his chambers once more, wailing and mourning the loss of his beloved wife. Through the heavy wooden door, his few remaining servants could hear his curses at the gods and his son for taking the queen away, for depriving him of the one thing that had given him nothing but joy. No one mentioned any of these things to Satoshi, but the prince knew. He always did.
Wandering through the corridors of the castle, Satoshi closed his eyes and tried to remember his life in Castle Hiwatari, before the rebellions and the civil war. His country was being torn apart, but he felt no desire to prevent it from doing so. Let them rot, he thought coldly. He wanted nothing to do with a country that tore at itself day after day.
He was woken early one morning, when it was still dark out, and hastily given clothes to wear. "Your Highness," someone whispered in his ear urgently. "Please hurry. You must leave. They are storming the castle looking for you." The angry shouts reached his ears but he was tired, so tired. He didn't want to move…
He was on a galloping horse with a man guiding it. From the way his skin prickled, he guessed that he was wearing peasant's rough clothes but his mind was too sluggish to figure out why. He slowly began to wake up as they continued through the forest and was soon able to sit up on his own. The man in front of him grunted in acknowledgment of his greeting, but they were completely silent. The prince knew that he was in some sort of danger, but he didn't know exactly what. All he knew was that he was here, in the forest with one of the more loyal gamekeepers and he was leaving the castle. "What's happening?" His voice was harsh from sleep and lack of water. "What's going on? What are we running from?"
There was impatience and fear in the man's voice. "Your Highness, Lord Kimihiro has stormed the castle with his troops. They demand your blood, and so does he. Your people have turned against you; you can no longer show your face in this kingdom. We will ride to the border where your royal cousins live, and you can stay with them. We are fortunate; we have a head start and can easily find shelter before they finally catch up with us."
"What about my father?"
There was a slight pause and then, "Your father is dead. He was killed by the villagers just outside the castle." The curt reply silenced the prince and he slowly nodded.
"I see."
They travelled by night, often finding a hiding place in which to shelter during the day. It was three days before Satoshi finally decided to break the silence in which they had been living since the night he'd escaped from the little castle near the borderlands. "How far is it to the border?" He asked bluntly.
The gamekeeper looked at him and shrugged. "About another two days' hard ride, provided that we have safe passage and fair weather." They continued to ride in silence until finally the older reined the horse in and jumped off the creature. Satoshi waited quietly for the other to help him, but to his surprise and annoyance, the gamekeeper ignored him, choosing to reach up for the bag of food instead.
"Aren't you going to help me off the horse?" The prince demanded. The other did not even glance up.
"Why? Are you a lady?" Feeling his cheeks flush with shame, the boy slipped off quietly and staggered as he landed on a soft part of mud and grass, sinking into the ground. To his dismay, the gamekeeper did not even turn around or ask him how he was, crouching on the ground and fiddling with some twigs and a tinderbox.
He watched the man struggle for a while, clearly frustrated with the lack of dry wood since it had been raining the night before, and slowly sat back. "I'm hungry," he said quietly. The gamekeeper glanced at him and rolled his eyes.
"There's bread and cheese in the pack," the man grunted as he shifted position to try and light another spot of tinder and wood. "Don't eat all of it at once," he growled as an afterthought. The prince slowly nodded and wolfed the cold food down, making sure to put aside a small portion for the older man.
It was tensely silent after he'd stopped chewing and swallowed the last mouthful of meat. "What's your name?" Just at that moment, the twigs burst into flame and the man turned around, dark eyes haggard but still fierce and wary. Satoshi gulped and wondered whether he had incurred the other's wrath in some way; it seemed as though when he left the castle, he had also left his authority as Crown Prince to the Hiwatari kingdom behind.
"Aquila."
"Eagle?" The gamekeeper sighed and looked up wearily, the flames shadowing his sharp features.
"Yes." Satoshi scowled and ignored the man for the rest of the evening, even though he knew that this man was likely now the only person who could and would see him to the borderlands and bring him to safety with his royal cousins. Nevertheless, one question still niggled at the back of his mind. "What will you do?"
Aquila stared at him for a moment longer before looking down. "I will find work in the kingdom somewhere." He gave the young prince a wry twist of his lips. "It will not be near the castle; I have had enough of that." Satoshi stared and slowly nodded, accepting that his rescuer would likely spend the rest of his days on a small farm in the middle of Khael, the desert kingdom, keeping silent about his role in spiriting the Hiwatari heir away during the civil war.
"Don't you want a reward?" He blurted out.
The gamekeeper looked angry. "No," he spat venomously. Satoshi was taken aback by this vehement denial and held his silence, sensing that the older man needed to explain himself. "And besides, what would you give me anyway?" He laughed harshly. "A piece of torn up land that might have once been fertile had your lords not attempted to seize it?" The words stung, but they brought home the gravity of his situation. He was now no longer Prince Satoshi, heir to the Hiwatari kingdom; he was little more than a penniless orphan now. He had no home, no money and nothing save for the clothes on his back.
That was the last conversation he had with Aquila for the next day and a half. The gamekeeper was not overly given to frivolous talking, and Satoshi had never had the patience for small talk either, and thus they continued through the forest, heading towards the border between Khael and the Greenwoods. Strangely enough, Satoshi found himself taking comfort in splitting the chores with the older man; instead of sitting still, he was put to chopping wood and gathering food; the hunting was of course left to Aquila. The menial tasks which would have once made him wrinkle his nose in distaste became his refuge, a way of keeping the civil war that had stripped him of power and his titles at bay.
Satoshi was keeping watch on their second night when his safety was once again threatened. The moon was obscured by threatening thunderclouds which, according to the gamekeeper, would cover the land in rain starting from tomorrow onwards. Within the sounds of the forest, he thought he heard a horse whicker softly and the clink of metal. He leapt to his feet and looked around, holding a thick wooden staff which Aquila had given him for protection should he ever find himself alone. There was silence once more, and the prince settled down again.
Then he heard it; the distinct hiss that metal made when it was being drawn out of a sheath. With a soft curse under his breath; speed and silence were of the essence now; he crept over to the bundle of blankets that was his companion for the longest journey of his life and shook it awake, placing a hand over Aquila's mouth to muffle any sounds he might make.
The gamekeeper instantly woke up, taking in the sight of the prince's wide eyes and the whispers of armed men. In a flash he had grabbed the reins of their horse and hauled the stunned youth on behind him, galloping off and kicking the horse as hard as he could. Shouts and cries followed them as the soldiers and rebels realised that there was someone in the forest.
"We can't ride like this forever," Satoshi panted as he clung tightly onto the older man.
The gamekeeper growled. "We have no other choice!" He forced the horse onward, frequently whipping it with the reins and digging the spurs on his boots into its flanks, forcing then onward. They could still hear the sounds of men pursuing them; horses neighed and stomped whilst the rebels howled and shouted, determined to catch their quarry before dawn.
The prince squeezed his eyes shut and desperately tried to empty his mind of fear and all the other emotions that clouded it. Emotions took your rationality away; that was why they were a king's greatest weakness at times. Instead of vanishing, however, they crowded in further, clamouring like so many spoiled children demanding candy. Please let us be safe, he found himself praying, even though he knew that there was no one to listen. Please don't let them catch us. The strange thing was, he had not been this frightened when they had woken him the first time and given him to Aquila to bring to Khael. He certainly did not remember being afraid when he was told that his father was dead, and that he was the only one left in the kingdom who bore the name of Hiwatari.
They rode hard and fast, and finally their pursuers gave up and retreated. Aquila breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped forward on the horse, and it was only then that Satoshi realised how tired the man was; he was breathing heavily and his short was soaked through with sweat, likely from the anxiety and the exhaustion of taking care of both himself and the prince. The blue-haired boy felt ashamed; whilst the gamekeeper had been working, he had been merely shivering in fear. Small wonder our country fell; it was run by a coward and a fool, he thought, burning with shame.
"We'll rest now," he declared. Those dark eyes stared at him as though he were a fool and the thin lips twisted in what was likely scorn.
"Have you hit your head, boy?" The gamekeeper growled. "We must keep riding! We cannot merely stop for exhaustion! We have no other choice!"
"You're burning up!" Satoshi retorted angrily, surprised at his own boldness. "Your condition will only slow us further if you continue like this; mistakes are made when people are tired and I have no intention of being caught because of your physical condition!"
The two glared at each other, neither willing to back down. Satoshi felt a small curl of embarrassment make itself known in his stomach, but fought the urge to look away, unwilling to even appear as though he doubted his own words. Finally the gamekeeper growled something that sounded remarkably like, "Damn brat," and settled down onto a small patch of grass beneath a large tree, blending in quickly with the shadows and becoming little more than a dark lump. Satoshi felt a small sense of satisfaction and relief wash over him and carefully settled down nearby to keep watch; it wouldn't do if they were caught by a few stragglers or trackers wandering around.
Satoshi began to notice how the dense trees and grasses tapered off as they came closer to the border. He could make out only tufts of grass after a while, and the trees were replaced by towering, leafless green things which the gamekeeper called 'cacti'. These plants, he learned, were both food and drink; they were thick and juicy, and full of water. The young prince fell into the habit of cutting a small chunk off them and storing it for later, amazed at how long the plants retained water for.
Once, he saw a shimmering lake just on the horizon, its clear blue waters glistening and trees surrounding it. Ignoring Aquila's growls of warning, he jumped off the horse and raced toward the beautiful lake in front of him, ignoring the burning, dry wind that threatened to scorch the saliva out of his mouth and the soft sand sinking beneath his pounding footsteps. He came closer and closer to the pool, casting aside his normally cool and reserved demeanour in relief at the sight of water, only to find that the pool had disappeared when he arrived there. Staring in bewilderment at the sand dunes that had suddenly surrounded him, he hastily looked around, expecting a number of rebels to suddenly appear out of nowhere and capture him, but the only sound he heard was the wind and later, Aquila's bark of laughter.
The prince later learned that it was called a mirage, and that it happened often in deserts. He did not believe that they were created by demons wanting to lure humans to their deaths, but nevertheless stayed on the horse at all times with a scarf wrapped around his head to protect him from the searing heat of the desert. His heart soared with hope; the sands and heat meant that they would soon reach Khael, and that they had long passed the border between the Hiwatari and Khael lands.
In spite of the unchanging landscape, Aquila appeared to have no difficulty making his way through the desert and Satoshi was secretly glad that the prickly gamekeeper had come along; the journey would not have been half as smooth as it was had he not had the benefit of an experienced guide and tracker. On the morning of the fourth day, Prince Satoshi Hiwatari arrived at the gates of Khael, the Desert Kingdom of the East.
The castle looked nothing like the castles he and his family had lived in throughout their years; instead of cold, grey stone, the walls of the royal palace were white and spiralled up endlessly into the sky, each one capped with a gigantic, glistening golden dome. The Hiwatari prince had never seen anything of the like and as much as he hated to admit it, he could at first only stare and the gigantic structure until his guide ushered him in through the gates.
His first meeting with his cousin went well; Shi Ryuuki might have been scatterbrained, but Satoshi immediately knew that the man was extremely clever; the way he manipulated the scheming advisors in his court showed that. The emperor of Khael was more than happy to let him rest and recuperate in the kingdom, going so far as to offer troops with which he could retake his kingdom. Satoshi politely refused the offer, but made one request: that Aquila would be rewarded and given a position of importance. Naturally, when the gamekeeper heard this request, anyone could have been forgiven for mistaking his reaction of shock for epilepsy or a seizure. The blue-haired prince smiled blandly and felt a twinge of satisfaction as the dark man grimly accepted the position of royal master of the game, responsible for overseeing the emperor's massive forests and all the wildlife in it.
Thank you so much for reading, and reviews are much appreciated. See you soon!