Prompt #4 is Underworld

Princes are not allowed to cry. At least, that's what people seem to believe. Mana thinks it's a dumb rule. Everyone has to cry sometimes. But there are so many people everywhere today, waiting for the king to finally pass on, whispering about how proud they are of the prince being so stoic and unfeeling in the face of tragedy.

Mana doesn't understand how that makes a good king. Good kings should know when to cry, right?

Either way, she knows he's heard their whispers, too, and he always wants so badly to be the person he thinks his people needs, so he hasn't let himself cry. Not even a single tear, even though his papa was laying on his deathbed and barely able to make a sound, the sickness having taking so much from him that he was almost just bones covered in skin in the shape of a person.

But even a prince could get hurt from trying to hold tears in for too long.

She finds him in the gardens, up inside a tree hidden in the crook of the branches so that the leaves can hide him. She doesn't call out or ask if she can come up, she just grabs the trunk and shimmies up it, settling down onto the branch beside him. They don't talk. There aren't any good words. So she just puts her hand on top of his while he buries his face into his knees.

He is the first one to speak.

"Mana," he says. "What do you think the underworld is like?"

Mana blinks. She bites her lip. She doesn't know. She's never thought about it. She doesn't like to think about death and what comes after, not when there is so much light and happiness to be found here. Why pay attention to the second life when the first one is here, waiting to be lived?

"Because all of the stories say it's dark," Atem says. "That it's the place where Ra goes every night, and sometimes, Ra almost doesn't make it out. That all of the pharaohs have to go through the same path after they die."

"That's why we give them the book and the boat," Mana says. "So that they can find their way."

"Find their way where?" says Atem, his head shooting up and his eyes red-rimmed with uncried tears. "Where? Where will he go? Is he going to be in that dark place for ever? By himself? How will I find him when I die?"

He is crying now, the tears rolling down his cheeks and his shoulders shaking and his knees bumping together and Mana has to hold his shoulders so that he doesn't tumble out of the tree.

"He'll be lonely. And it'll be dark and scary and he'll be all alone, but I'm not supposed to cry about it. Why am I not supposed to cry about it?"

She slides closer to him so that they are pressed together, her arms wrapped around him. His face buries itself into her shoulder. His arms slide around her and the tears start to roll across Mana's skin too.

"I don't think it's dark," she whispers. "I don't think it's dark there at all. Maybe it's dark on the way there, and it's kind of scary, and there's some monsters hiding in the shadows, but you just keep walking, like you do when you're living. Because there are monsters when you're living, too, they're just harder to see."

Atem's shoulders are calming down and he is crying more silently, listening.

"But after you get through the dark part, then you come out and it's all light and warm and all the people that you knew that went through the dark place first are waiting for you, waving, ready to hug you when you get there," she says. "And then you're happy, because you can be with all the people that you lost again, and you can wait for everyone else to come and be with you too."

Atem has stopped crying now, just tiny tears occasionally escaping from the corner of his eyes.

"Do you think so?" he says.

"Yep. That's what it's like."

"You're sure?"

"Uh-huh."

Atem's arms squeeze her tightly.

"Then if I go there first, I'll make sure I'm waiting to hug you when you get there," he mumbles into his shoulder. "So that you're not scared."

"You're the one that would be scared of the dark, silly," Mana said, petting his hair gently. "But thank you. And if I get there first, then I'll be the one waiting to hug you."

"Promise?"

Their hands curl together.

"Promise."