The boys in the castle schoolyard told him that Brahne Raza would not stay beautiful, but until his dying day he disagreed with all of his heart.
They said that all peasants had animal ancestors, and that Brahne was descended from an elephant. If he kissed her pretty young face, she would sprout a trunk. The prince threw his first punch. As the startled, bloody boy looked up at him, the prince made his first decree. All men are equal. Mankind has nothing to do with it.
When the skies rained fire on the war-torn battlefield, he asked her father for her hand in marriage. The old Pluto Knight laughed at the young prince, and told him that men no longer made decisions in Alexandria.
The prince carried the body of her father over the mountains and out of the mist, showing the girl the wounds from the Burmecian's scythe. At ten, Brahne's eyes darkened, but she became altogether more radiant to him.
The King forbid their arrangement, there would be no peasant Queen. The prince smiled, knowing that men no longer made decisions in Alexandria.
A drop of poison in a chalice of mead silenced the kingdom's last patriarch. Brahne's marriage, coronation and sixteenth birthday began mere hours later. He kissed her soft lips, and opened his eyes to see that she was as beautiful as ever.
The marriage of peasantry and royalty united the kingdom. Brahne began to appoint the Pluto Knights, and all then men in Alexandria signed up just to see her. The Knights of Pluto were men. The old laws could not be bent, so the new King and Queen decreed that women should be allowed to join the Royal Alexandrian Army. All the women of Alexandria signed up, to see if they could come close to achieving her majesty's sublimity. As the Royal Army became predominantly female, some would say that the lady knights were more sublime than even Her Majesty. The King disagreed with all of his heart.
With the army's full and patriotism at an all time high, a war seemed likely -- but never had there been such a long stretch of peace between them and their neighboring kingdoms. The Queen reached out and helped the primitive Burmecians, building trade passages through the mountains, where her dying father had been carried years ago. The King saw her mercy towards those who had killed their people, and his heart filled up.
When Brahne's belly swelled withchild, the King kissed her trembling navel, and the lightning-like marks on her side. When she continued to grow after the baby was born, he only saw more to love. When the genetic deformities of her peasant heritage began to show, he wiped off her makeup and kissed the contours and ridges of filed-away tusks, and the patches of blue and gray skin.
When he lay in the royal bed, dying of a bestial disease, she came to his side and his delirium he took her for an angel. She told him to hold on, that her heart would shrivel without him.
He told her that if he chose to stay, it would matter not. Men do not make decisions in Alexandria. She told him that she ordered him to stay, and he smiled at her endless beauty and told her that all men are equal. Gender has nothing to do with it.
He slipped from her grasp, and in the bright travel towards the Shimmering Islands, he thought only of her.
