Disclaimer: I do not own the Orannis. He, and the rest of the Old Kingdom, belong to Garth Nix.

Perhaps it was a quickening. He could feel it, whatever it was, a beast squirming in the hollows of his wrists, prowling in the darkness behind his eyes, roaring in the silence of his dormant throat. He could feel it, but he could not identify it. The boy slept on, shifting in his dream. What he dreamt of, time has forgot---did he dream of green fields and blue skies? His unattainable father, a shadowy figure of council chambers and warhorses? His older brother, striding through the brilliant, knee-high surf, towards and away from the boy all within the same movement? Did he dream of his mother, a woman of blank face and indeterminate love, body burned to dust and head a paid tribute to the waves? Or were the scenes behind his eyes those of realities yet to be made? Time forgets, but tries to remember.

The sensation intensified, and the boy let out a feverish groan. He clawed at the air in front of him, eyes flickering behind their lids, face contorted with agony. A growth of heat at the base of his skull, a pooling of sharp, jagged pain in his stomach, and then the dream ended. All that remained was the beast in his body, straining to get out. Panting, the boy shot up from his slumber, hair arranged wildly but eyes perfectly aware in their terror-driven acuity. He wasn't much older than twelve, an awkward age in which his body never quite met his intent. Already he was nearly of the same height as his older brother, but this feat (his proudest achievement so far) had gone unnoticed by their father. The boy reminded himself that his older brother's mother had been a very short woman, while his own had been very tall. The Lady Aerymurn had lasted six years, which was five years and three months longer than his own mother's reign by their father's side. His panting subsided as he, with a detached air of surprise, examined this newfound morbidity. Perhaps he wasn't meant to stay by his father's side, either.

He couldn't even remember what he had been dreaming of, but, with a chill, realized it had been something altogether too dark. Once his breathing reached a more normal rhythm, the boy slipped out of bed, if only to escape the nightmarish taint he felt within the covers. Every step he took on the cold stone floor sent a spike of pain up his body, but it was preferable to the inexplicable unrest he felt within. His bed dropped out of sight as he padded out onto the balcony, and clambered out onto the thick stone railing.

Below him, the city slept. The current of the Great River, though still present, seemed turbid, only half-awake under the light of the horned moon. That celestial body hung low above the waters of the river, urging them to move on past the island and down the waterfall, to the ocean where their final and unknown home lay. Only a few lights flickered in the expanse beyond his feet: the constant, tallow-fueled lanterns of the guards, the bright and guttering tapers of fervent shopkeepers, the smoky pinpricks of light from the few night-fisherman and their pipes. The boy counted every one of those bright points, if only to distract himself from the growing unrest he felt inside. "Nine," he finished softly, and, with one finger extended, reached out as though to caress the final shine. His pointer finger stretched to meet the night, and for a moment it seemed the world was held in rapture on its tip. The moment passed, and the boy's attention returned to the light. It was off in the distance, perhaps across the river, but the boy was suddenly struck by the thought that, very soon, it would be close. He would be able to touch it then, hold it in his hands, do what he would with it. Close on the heels of the thought was a voracious, pernicious sort of hunger, and he clasped a hand to his belly, though the need come from his heart.

It seemed his body was rebelling, though against what, he wasn't sure. Or perhaps not his body at all. It was something inside, whatever it was. The beast. The presence. The hunger. "Gods," he moaned, pressing the bases of his hands to his temple. His head hurt. Everything hurt. What was happening to him?

Across the river, the ninth light suddenly grew brighter, and then disappeared. The boy, lifted from his pain, pondered over the meaning of this omen. In all likelihood, it was only a fisherman, whose lantern had grown slightly out of hand. Perhaps it was a campfire, rearing in one final rally before a torrent of water extinguished its life. But it meant something to the boy, a profound communication that he barely understood. His mouth agape, he watched the now-empty space for another sign. The darkness yawned back at him.

A light breeze moved the curtain behind him, and the boy jumped, casting a fearful eye over his shoulder. He knew it wasn't his father, but there was a masochistic hope in him that it was the man, come to admonish him for being up so late. Anything for an ounce of attention. Anything to show a spark of care. But it wasn't; just the wind. However, the boy's eyes stayed on the room behind him. And behind that room, another room, and then a hallway leading to an entire palace of rooms, with curtains and people and pomp and circumstance. And still, he felt the same. He used to watch his brother as they moved throughout the palace, and every doorway, every tapestry, every candlestick seemed to hold a great importance to the young man. The boy felt none of that, on an inexorable sense of emptiness. He didn't know what his brother saw. To his older brother, every detail, no matter how small, held worlds of meaning, but to the boy the world had a troubling lack of it. He wasn't aware that his father was troubled by his apparently diminished of appetite for anything, that his morose nature weighed heavily on his brother's mind. If he had been aware, perhaps he would have changed for them.

But the ignorance prevailed, and, finally, he turned back to the open air. He released his hold on the ancient stone, his hands trembling all the while. Tentatively, the boy stood up, a vulnerable, reedy tower in the night sky. He looked down. Darkness.

The curtain shifted again in the restless wind, but this time to an empty stage. The boy had already taken a step off the balcony, and the curtain snapped back, as though fearful and shocked at the boy's disappearance.

Orannis was not a fool. He had performed jumps like this before, all his life. He knew the secret ways of the city better than he knew himself, and was expecting the icy plunge at the end of his fall. He spilled into the collecting pool like a tear, and operating almost on instinct, swam toward a small hole in the wall of the pool. He passed through and up it, emerging on the other side filthy in sewer water but wholly, completely free. Orannis grinned despite the cloying and pungent taste in his mouth, and pushed on through the tunnel.

Beyond the sewage tunnel, above the surface of the water, the open air mourned the loss of its child.

*********

A few days after the disappearance of the young Prince Orannis, King Gwythern died. Then, the courtiers whispered it was of a broken heart, and it was agreed that the king had loved his child very, very much. Perhaps they were right, but the man was dead, and it mattered little. Years later, after the boy turned man turned Destroyer stretched his fiery hand over the earth, those who remained talked bitterly of one of the final intrigues of the Ratterlin court. Parricide, they whispered, and swore on their lives that they had seen the very knife with their own eyes. Or was it a sword? And finally, the tale was forgotten, and there remained no one who could even recall the tale in its faintest, ghostliest form. The world had forgotten King Gwythern, had forgotten the fabled city on the water, had forgotten the Destroyer and his secret name. Had forgotten that once, a very long time ago when Life was still young and forests stretched over the plains beyond Belisaere, the Destroyer was just a boy who felt lost and alone. A boy who, when faced with a burning he could not explain, took his life into his own hands, and jumped.

Author's Note: Just a crazypants piece on what I thought Orannis would have been like/would have done in his childhood. Yes, this is assuming he actually had a childhood...Which in turn is dependent on the idea that he was a human or human-ish figure before he was known as The Destroyer. If it isn't your cup of tea, than just move along pilgrim. I'm aware that I may be wrong in my subscription to that idea, but it is a hard, hard truth I have come to terms with... O-okay. xD

This was originally written as a character study for Orannis. I'm practicing for the bigger fic I am working on regarding the lives of the Shiners before they were the Shiners. Ye-es, I did write and delete a pretty massive (some twenty chapters?) fic on precisely that topic, but I'll explain more about that in another author's note, preferably one for the new fic. If it is something relevant to your interests, of course! x3

Regards,
Sam ;3