Despair and Melancholie
Chapter One: The Accursed Prince
"Master Desperaux! Master Desperaux! It's a beautiful morning!"
My maid, Crystaline, chimed a bell and called out to me. At first, I woke but didn't respond. Then I felt her hands yank from me, with surprising strength for such a small woman, the numerous sheets and blankets of my bed. Revealing myself, dizzy and confused.
"Good morning Master Desperaux!" She cheered, paying no mind to the impromptu invasion of my privacy.
I yawned and sleepily rustled the hair from my eyes. My golden and accursed red eyes. Crystaline paid no mind to this, as usual.
"Breakfast is awaiting you downstairs, Master Desperaux." She smiled, laying out in front of me my clothes. Truly, I could do all of this simple work myself, but my parents had so urgently insisted that my every daily obligation was taken care of by a butler, servant or maid.
With a sigh, I walked down the long marble staircase of the castle, towards the dining hall. I was almost to the bottom when I again heard,
"Master Desperaux!"
I turned again to see Crystaline, holding in her hands the patch for my eye. My parents warned me to always wear it, though I spent all day, every day, inside my home. It was imperative that no one of the kingdom of Gale could know that their prince was cursed with the eye of a demon. Often, I would try to get away with "losing" or "forgetting" my eye patch. Such a day as this was not of that sort.
"Thank you." I said softly, reaching to take it from her hands, but she pulled back.
"Let me," She smiled, and fastened the patch around my right eye. I sighed.
"Crystaline, I can do something like this for myself. I am not a child."
"Yes, I know. But you are the prince."
Breakfast was prepared for me, as always. My mother and father were nowhere to be found, which was not so out of the ordinary. As king and queen, they were expected to be doing their part to protect our kingdom.
Gale was a beautiful place, or so I could tell from the times I gazed out the window to it. I was not allowed to leave the castle for any reason, and I hadn't. For all the twenty five years so far of my life, I was kept inside this castle. It was for this reason, I yearned for adventure. Though I would never disobey my parents. They made any servant, who works in the castle to swear to secrecy. Crystaline, my maid, was my best friend. She knew of my troubles, and taught me when I was unable to attend schools; she understood my loneliness and always offered herself to be my friend. In truth, she was my most treasured companion. Though she could be impulsive and clumsy, it never directly affected me.
The days kept a routine for me, and always there were lessons. Most of them were basic knowledge taught to me by Crystaline, but sometimes she would let me go my lonesome and practice the things I loved, like dancing and playing my instruments. Often I would catch her standing in the doorway listening to me play the violin, or hearing me sing. The lifestyle of the castle was a crowded, busy solitude, and most of the servants refused to gaze upon the face of their accursed prince. They tended to their duties in silence, and dreaded me.
It was cruel, and I always felt the stab of every quickened glance away from my face. It was painful, but it could not be helped. It would seem many things here are beyond relief.
I had fallen asleep in the castle's grand library, when a loud noise startled me awake. I couldn't make out what it had been, but soon I heard many rushed footsteps and angry voices resound through the halls. Even the amount of servants we enlisted were not capable of making such alacrity. I stood, confused at the growing clamor of steps growing closer to me. In fear, I rushed to the far side of the library, and opened the door to a small slit, wide enough to see through.
Men cad in black armor rushed through the halls, crashing through doors and calling out to an unseen leader. Instinctively, I pushed the large door open and ran, not once looking back, to my room. Hearing louder yells behind me as I hadn't even bothered to close the door to my quarters, I seized the hilt of my sword, the Nightingale. Turning in a quick motion, I was suddenly stopped by the sight of a dark figure standing in the doorway.
I didn't recognize him, a tall, broad shouldered man in armor different from the rest. His entire being was generally intimidating, and stopped me in my tracks.
I opened my mouth to speak, and he did so before I could.
"Prince Desperaux Melancholie, you are wanted by the military of Gale for hiding your curse from your kingdom."
….How?
We'd sworn every servant to secrecy…
Unless, that meant… One of the servants had gone behind our backs and disobeyed a code of honor.
I stepped forward gallantly, "And as your prince, I have the authority to know of whom you obtained this information. He or she is guilty of betrayal to the royal family, and deserves to be punished as well. Where are my mother and father?"
"They are awaiting sentencing in a prison cell. You will soon be joining them." He almost smiled at this. I could tell by the satisfied glint in his eye, that this man bore incredible hatred towards me.
"Sentencing?" I questioned, "What sentence have we received?"
He responded with a visible grin, "Death."
The marble halls of the castle were gloomy and somber, echoing with the footsteps of myself and the men of the military. My hands held tightly by some young soldier, as I was led out the castle through the streets of Gale. Glares and looks of horror greeted me as the townspeople looked upon in disgust.
"Behold! Your accursed prince!"
Quickly, and with no gentleness or mercy, the hair from my face was pulled up, and the patch of my eye ripped off. The gasps of the townspeople were followed by the throwing of anything they could find. Shouts of, "monster" "demon" and "devil" were repeated as miscellaneous items of everyday life were heaved at me by the little arms of the citizens. I cared not. I needed to escape.
Just as an armful of food was thrown, I pulled down and ducked my head so the head of the soldier who seized my hands was hit, and in his moment of surprise, I pulled free of his grasp. Running quickly and not turning back, I reached out to grab the hilt of my sword, held conveniently by the soldier ahead of me. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, not knowing where I was going, only following the small routes of the town I had studied on maps inside the castle. The military kept a jailhouse underground for criminals that they had obtained illegally.
Unseen, I stepped down into a hole hidden by a metal plate behind a small shop in an alleyway. I had spent so much time in the castle that I memorized every passageway in Gale, and finding where I was headed was of no trouble. I assumed the military knew of this, and would find me soon.
Voices called out, resounding through the stone underground of Gale, and I followed their origins to a subterranean alley filled with cells. The prisoners, unrecognized to me, groaned and reached out, clutching at my fine clothes and pale hands. My heart broke for their tarnished souls. Was I the same? Was this eye of mine truly a curse? Was I a tarnished soul? No, I thought. I was no demon.
"I am your prince!" I called out to them, "I am Desperaux, and I am no demon! None of you are monsters, no more than I!"
At this, they groaned louder and some spoke audibly, but the voice I heard above all else was s soft, kind voice of a woman.
"Desperaux!" She called, my mother, her beautiful clothing scraping against the cold, filthy floor of a small cell, and she reached out to me with freezing ashen hands, "Desperaux, my son. What are you doing in such a terrible place?"
"Mother, what are you doing here?" I knelt and clutched her cold hands.
"Desperaux… they took your father away from me. They've come after you, haven't they? Oh, Desperaux. You mustn't stay here, it's not safe. Once they've captured you, they'll kill us all…" She cried softly.
"No, I'll never leave you or father here alone! Mother, who did this to you?"
She bowed her head and let out a soft sob, "Valinothe, the treacherous general... He raised a mutiny within the military against us when he received notice of your presence, and your curse…" She lifted her hand, and brushed the hair from my face. I could see the pain in her eyes as she stared into mine.
"Mother… Is it true? Do you believe that I am cursed?"
She breathed in sharply, to speak, but then the halls echoed with shouts and heavy footsteps.
"It's them, Desperaux! You must go!"
"Never, mother! Not until I free you from this place!" I shouted, clutching my sword as their shadows increased and their armor clad forms emerged from the hall.
Valinothe, the man—the scum—who had imprisoned my mother in such a place, stepped forward with a grin that I despised on his face.
"Surrender peacefully, Desperaux… We have no intention of hurting you, lest you give us cause."
"No, Desperaux! They're lying to you! Get out of here!" My mother called.
Valinothe stepped forward again, "There's no escape, Desperaux. Your wench mother and coward father cannot protect you from my wrath... You can either surrender now, or I'll have the pleasure of killing you myself…"
I felt rage, hot, incredibly fury flood through my body. How dare he, call my mother and father such things! The metal of my sword burned in my hands, and I ached to sate it, and my own hunger for the destruction of them.
"How dare you! You speak this way to the royal family, the king and queen who gave you a home, who promised you peace! No man has the right to accuse his prince of a curse, I am no demon! It is you! The villainous scum of the earth, who thrive off of carnage and sorrow that are the true monsters! You will regret the day you tried to steal our kingdom from us!" I felt a surge of courage, as I thrust my sword out of its sheath so quickly, and charged towards the man in armor, knocking him to the ground as the other soldiers stepped out of my way in fear of the curse. I raised my sword and sliced the locks and chains from the prisoners' doors, hearing their cries of joy and freedom echo behind me as they tried to rush out.
As the military men struggled to stand and fight their way through the crowd, I stood tall and gallant. With a cold sigh, feeling my heart ache for my family, I called out to them, "You, who challenge God's creation, who seek and destroy, and kill, it is you, not I, who are the demons of this earth. Let it be known, that a day will never go by when you will not fear my return! You will forever remember me, Desperaux Melancholie, the fugitive prince, the royal symbol of freedom and justice! Mother, I will return and set you free! The people of Gale will never follow the monstrous likes of its military! I will make sure of it!"
I screamed, and turned, sparing a glance to my mother in her cell, and she nodded to me with tears in her beautiful eyes. I knew then, she never doubted me. She had never believed this curse. My mother, the purest queen of Gale, had never stopped believing in me. It was I, who had stopped believing in myself.
I ran with the crowd as far as I could, following them until a light broke through the end of the tunnel, and I had entered back into the outskirts of town. Never once did I turn back, as I clutched my sword and ran swiftly to the docks of Gale's main harbor, onto one of the large ships that my family had owned. I set the sail quickly, seeing the men in armor appear over the horizon. With all my strength, I took the ship out of the port, and the sea's strong current took hold of it. Slowly, it began to pull me away from everything. My hopes, my dreams, my family, and my kingdom. It felt unreal, as if everything I had ever known was taken away from me in so short a time. I wanted to kneel down and cry, to suffer coldly in my new solitude, until I hear a voice.
"Prince Desperaux!"
I turned, fearing it to be an enemy, but my eyes were cast upon the farthest thing from the like. Crystaline, my faithful maid and friend, stood before me on the deck of the ship. She ran towards me, and threw her slim arms around my shoulders.
"Prince Desperaux, I was so worried! I thought they had killed you! I was setting the ship for sailing, and I was going to search for you!" She cried happily.
"Crystaline, why? This is too dangerous for you! You don't know how to defend yourself; you could have gotten killed if you stood in the way f the army!"
She looked at me gravely, "I knew that they had been coming, your servant Aaric, he revealed your secret to the military for money! I had been planning ways to help you escape, but they attacked so suddenly! I wouldn't let them take you!" Crystaline breathed heavily from tears, and stepped back from me, staring at Gale's receding coast.
"It matters not now," I began, "You and I are fugitives… And we need to find a place where we can hide, and gather forces to defeat those who have risen to power in Gale. Valinothe is a devilish man, as I have seen. He will not let my parents live for long, whether or not I am there. We must return with haste, but also, with allies."
Crystaline sighed, and put her hand on my shoulder, "Prince Desperaux, it is not so bad..."
"Please, Crystaline… Don't call me by that name. I am no prince now; I am an escaped criminal, according to Gale's laws. I have nothing left but faith and my honor. And these things, I intend to keep."
Crystaline didn't reply to me, and I was glad that as the small vision of Gale had disappeared beneath the setting sun, I hoped that someday, maybe someday, this curse of mine could just as well, disappear.