AN: This is the stub which held the place of Chapter 1 of HotR for so very, very long. I don't even remember how long ago I wrote it. A year and a half ago, at least. I didn't delete it because my one and only comment on HotR highly praised it. Thankee very kindly, sir. Your encouragement was like a little ray of hope that told me not to be so hard on myself. I still practiced all darn year for this project, but I had more faith that my writing appeared better to others than it did to myself, which counts for a lot. :D
Birth of a Precocious Prince
There's a baby's crib in the farthest corner from the window, and a mother's rocking chair bedraped with knitted cotton blanket close beside it. It rocks gently in the wind by itself. The crib is occupied by shadow and finest linen, where it sits quietly beneath a dangling mobile consisting of shapes of various things that are meant to interest a baby--shapes found in nature. But the mobile's representation was a mockery of their beauty; One needed only to follow the cold draft to the open window, and outside into the bright night sky to understand this fully. The stuffed flannel figures were dead compared to their life counterparts.
Although, what young babe would know the difference who's crib was placed so far from the window, and who could thus not gaze up observing these things first-hand as he be laid down to sleep?
As the extremely young do require much attention to survive, in a baby's sleep were the only hours one-such had to himself, to seek peace in absolute comfort and safety, without worries, and without wants... And that is why, or so believed, that parents, especially mothers, can find peace for themselves in watching their children sleep; freedom from the pressures of the world, freedom from all pain such as injury and illness... A temporary release from suffering, like Heaven in part, obtained periodically through something like partial death.
But, unlike full death, a person is allowed to wake up in the morning, after all the dark hours have passed, and rise to meet the daily demands of a mortal world.
Or, perhaps that is really what happens when an infant is born--an awakening into this nightmare of stressful routine and inherent duty, confinement in a body only sleep can free a soul from.
We'll find out wont we. Tonight. On the other side of that door in the nursery bedecked in exquisite wood carvings of armored horsemen, just audible through the keyhole of its superbly polished copper doorknob what is happening across the hall...
"Your second son, Your Majesty."
"Ansem."