(no subject)
Wanted to write a Snow White story from the prince's perspective that didn't involve necrophilia. This is what came out (beware, it's long!):
Curious animals pressed closer, noses eagerly whiffing the air. Even the dogs and cats from the surrounding farms sidled their way in between the squirrels and rabbits they normally chased. Sunlight had just begun to drip pale through the gaps in the burgeoning foliage, falling to the forest floor in thin streaks nearly as colorless as the recently melted snow. In the center of the throng lay a tiny, hairless creature, shriveled and red, pale blue eyes unfocused as it screamed. None of them knew what to make of it; they agreed only that the baby desperately needed a bath.
One of the deer stepped closer, nudging the wailing infant with her nose. When the creature made no move to harm her, only looked vaguely startled and stopped crying long enough to take a few deep breaths, the doe licked its face. The warm, soft tongue made the baby scrunch its face up momentarily; a few more licks, and the child began to calm. When the doe stood over it and allowed the infant to suckle, its crying ceased altogether.
A pair of raccoons came forward to pluck with their dexterous fingers at the cloths wrapped around the baby's body. Soiled and stinking, the dirty linens were dragged away to be rinsed in the nearest spring. The creature was male, based on what lay between its flailing legs. When the raccoons returned with the cold, wet cloths, one wiped the excrement from the baby's bottom and returned to the spring. The other began to lay the cloth over the infant's body once more, but the child instantly began to protest the chill. Backing away, the raccoon draped the cloth over a branch to dry. A helpful family of rabbits hopped up to the infant to share their warmth. The baby seemed happy to snuggle into their soft, furry bodies and quickly dropped off to sleep.
The mother bear arrived last, and with a grunt, she claimed the child for her own.
*~*~*
The first time he saw the huntsman, he thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest. The huntsman was the first creature he had ever seen who looked like him: scarcely any kind of pelt covering most of his body; two long, thin legs upon which he walked upright and two shorter, thinner legs growing from his shoulders; a profusion of hair growing from the top and back of his head; no tail whatsoever. The other animals were afraid of the huntsman, however, and they scurried away from him as soon as they caught sight or scent of his approach.
Experimentally he pushed himself up onto his two back legs and tried to walk as the huntsman did. He had stood on two legs before; it was the way his mother sometimes stood, but they had always walked on all fours. It felt strange to stumble about on two feet, his other two legs swinging uselessly at his sides, but it made him feel powerful. Tall. Intimidating. He liked it.
Nearly the entire huntsman's entire body was covered by something. He couldn't quite see what it was; he wondered why the huntsman wore it. He was going to creep closer for a better look, but the chitter of the squirrels in the trees around him warned him against it.
He was heartbroken when he saw the huntsman walking past again, a dead deer slung over his shoulder.
*~*~*
He saw the huntsman again several times, and though he did not share the instinctual fear of the other animals of the forest, he was wary of this creature so similar to himself and yet so different. Whenever the huntsman drew near, he called out warnings to his fellow creatures to flee but then stayed himself to observe. He began to walk upright more often, to practice the balance and movement required to move quickly and silently over through the woods.
Then he drew too near, and the huntsman's keen eyes spied his pale, hairless flesh among the shadows and foliage of the forest. Both froze and stared at one another. Then the huntsman opened his mouth and made a series of sounds unlike anything he had ever heard before. He bolted.
Crying out after him, the huntsman gave chase, pursuing him to the edge of the woods. He had never left the forest; the treeless land before him looked strange to his eyes and unsafe. The flat ground would leave him vulnerable and entirely without cover from the arrows the huntsman had fired with such accuracy at so many other animals of the forest. His hesitation gave the huntsman time to close the distance between them, and before he could flee again, the huntsman's body hurtled through the air into him, and they crashed to the ground.
When the huntsman caught sight of his face, he inhaled sharply and drew back. When he began to scramble away toward freedom, the huntsman once again pinned him to the ground. He did not understand what was happening. The huntsman continued to make strange sounds with lips, teeth, and tongue, though there were so many it was impossible to sort out their meaning. He stared intently at the huntsman's face, hoping to read there the reason for the huntsman's pounce. The huntsman's wide eyes and hesitant manner did not carry the look of a predator about to devour its prey, nor did they share the playfulness of a rough-housing cub. The huntsman resembled a dominant animal that wanted, inexplicably, to submit.
He kicked and snarled and scratched and roared as the huntsman dragged him onto his two back legs and forced him forward across the treeless ground. In a few moments, they were at the peculiarly square shelter constructed between two large swathes of flat land. The huntsman shouted his strange sounds, and an entrance to the shelter swung open. Inside were five more creatures like him and the huntsman, one adult female and four cubs of descending age, the youngest scarcely weaned. They stared at him much as the huntsman had, though the adult female's eyes turned to the huntsman when he began to make noises again. The eyes of the cubs remained on him, wide and curious. At least that was an expression he knew. He stared back. The cub with its yellow fur tied into two clumps on the side of its head stared hardest, though its stare was primarily focused on his groin. When the adult noticed, she gasped and clapped a hand over the cub's eyes. He turned to her in confusion, tilting his head to the side. She made a few chattering noises of her own to the huntsman, and then he was being pulled into the structure.
The adult sent two cubs to fetch water in large wooden buckets. The water went into an enormous receptacle, and then he was hoisted into it and the woman began to attack him. All the while, she and the huntsman chittered back and forth. He began to pick up the cadence of it, the upward lilt at the end of a questioning call, the downward drop of an answering call. Yet when they addressed him, he could only stare in response. This seemed to distress them, as his lack of response merited repetition of the calls, more loudly and more slowly. They washed him, and they cut his claws blunt and short, and they cut the fur on his head to a length closer to the huntsman's.
Eventually he was allowed out of the water, roughly rubbed dry while the adult female clicked her tongue and shook her head side to side, and then presented with a bundle of fabric that vaguely resembled what the huntsman had always used to cover his body. He looked up at the huntsman, unsure what to do. The huntsman seemed to understand his confusion, taking one piece of cloth and kneeling at his feet. When the huntsman gently placed one hand on his ankle and lifted, he raised his foot. The huntsman lowered his foot back through a hole in the cloth. Then they repeated their actions with the other leg in another hole. Then the huntsman pulled the cloth up to his waist and reached for the next piece of fabric. He was baffled by how many things soon covered his body.
To his surprise, the adult female knelt before him and bowed her head, then summoned her cubs to do the same. Even the huntsman knelt. Then he was led out of the structure, and two animals taller than he was were brought out by the adult female and her oldest cub. Although he had never seen such animals before, the noises they made and their body language was much more familiar to him and put him at ease. Until the huntsman tried to push him up onto one of them. He balked, and the animal whinnied, and there was much stamping the ground and shuffling before he found himself up on the back of the other with the huntsman behind, front legs holding him in place and grasping some sort of contraption connected to the animal's mouth. It reminded him of the first few strings of a spider's web. With a shake of the strings, the animal began to move, and he could not hold back his terrified whine. The huntsman made a soothing sound behind him, one paw lightly caressing his side. He relaxed marginally as they continued to be carried away from everything he had ever known.
They traveled for days. The huntsman chattered less, and gradually he began to understand some of the strange sounds that came from his mouth. "You." "Food." "Horse." "Sleep."
Two others he heard often, but he could not determine what they meant. One sounded like "prince", the other like "home". Those two sounds became more frequent as their journey progressed.
At last they reached the largest conglomeration of shelters he had ever seen. Every animal in the forest could have had one to itself, even the rabbits and the squirrels, and still there would have been structures left empty. Many of them were taller than the tallest trees of the forest, and the tallest of them all was where the huntsman steered their horse.
More creatures like them swarmed the streets, some staring openly as they passed, even pointing with their front paws and chittering more excitedly than chipmunks. The huntsman kept a paw soothingly on his waist, murmuring quietly in his ear in a way that kept at bay the need to bolt and hide from so many eyes.
The cloths on the creatures inside the tallest building were softer and shinier than the cloth he wore as a covering. It was cold, dark, and drafty inside the building, but nothing like being in the forest where the cold was the crisp chill of nightfall, the dark the soft velvet of a starry night, the drafts accompanied by the beautiful sound of rustling leaves and the scent of earth. He wanted to dig his heels in and balk, but the huntsman coaxed him slowly inside.
Waiting inside were the creatures he would learn to call "Mother" and "Father" and whom everyone else in the kingdom called "Your Majesty". He was soon snatched from the huntsman's grasp and whisked away to be bathed, clothed, and fed in a way that soon became routine. The huntsman had only the opportunity to say "Home, Prince," with a sad smile and return his wild-eyed gaze with a little nod, and then he was taken away. He did not see the huntsman again.
He was taught to understand the strange noises the creatures spoke, and to refer to them as words, speech, sentences, and language. He learned he was a human being, and that the other creatures like him were to be called people. He learned that he was named Aeron, that he was a prince, and that that meant he was not like other people. He was told repeatedly that he was the very spitting image of his father. He learned that he had been kidnapped by his nurse when he was only two weeks old and sold to a band of thieves. Through many long, excruciating sessions with stern-faced tutors manipulating his lips, tongue, and jaw, he learned to speak. After he began to understand them, his tutors taught him grammar, logic, and rhetoric; then they taught him astronomy, music, arithmetic, and geometry. He was rarely allowed to rest, scarcely ever allowed outside, and never asked whether he wanted any of the things suddenly thrust upon him.
When he turned eighteen, his parents threw a ball in his honor. He danced terribly, still not entirely free of the instinct to hide behind the nearest concealing object or pillar when he felt eyes upon him. His elder brother and younger sister and brother all gleamed and shone in the center; he yearned for a return to the quiet privacy of the forest. But at the end of the evening, his father asked him, for the first time, if there was anything he wanted. He did not have to think about his answer.
So it was that he found himself stepping back into the forest in which he had spent the first eleven years of his life. His excuse to his father was a desire to see the place for old time's sake, and to thank the kind family that had bathed and clothed him when he finally left the woods. He would have liked to find the huntsman as well, but his father had forbidden him to cross the border at the edge of the forest into the kingdom where the huntsman served.
"That kingdom is under the heavy shadow of an evil magic, Aeron," his father had said. "I want no part of it, and I want no child of mine endangering himself to thank a man who did only what was right."
Aeron did not think the huntsman's deeds so easily dismissed, but he took to heart the warning of dark magic.
He was dismayed to realize how loudly he walked now, despite the number of times courtiers had commented on how silently he crept through the hallways. Sticks cracked loudly beneath his booted feet, sending the birds fluttering away and the squirrels skittering through the trees. The guards his father had insisted accompany him were far louder. He managed to convince two to stay at the edge of the forest, the third refusing to let him walk anywhere alone. He tried to ignore the man's presence, but it was difficult to ignore his heavy footfalls. Annoyed, he decided to go to the rock at the edge of the stream and try sitting quietly for a while. Surely the guard could not make so much noise if they were stationary.
His plan was not entirely wrong, and Aeron relished the near silence. It hurt, however, to see the animals reacting to him as they once had to the huntsman; they feared him as a predator and had forgotten that he was once their friend. Many of them had not yet been born when he had left the woods. Even so, the quiet, familiar forest was a better home for his loneliness than the bustling, crowded palace with its rules and expectations he did not understand.
A tiny sound brought his head up. The guard had not heard it; he could have identified an assassin in the palace before Aeron knew it was there, but he was unfamiliar with the sounds of the forest. Aeron moved slowly so as not to startle whatever had made the noise or to draw the guard's attention. Just beyond the next curve of the stream, moving nearly silently, two men were creeping. Aeron's pulse kicked up a notch when he recognized the familiar movements of the huntsman who had first taken him to the city. He wanted to call out to him, but he did not want the guard to know the huntsman was there.
"Excuse me," he murmured as quietly as he thought the guard would hear. "I need to relieve myself. I shall return in a few minutes. There is no need to accompany me." He waited for the guard's nod of acknowledgement; then he pushed himself to his feet and walked toward the huntsman and his companion with the silence of a childhood spent as an animal.
When he drew near, he saw that the huntsman and his companion were collecting a few braces of rabbits. After the huntsman's arrow had pierced its target, Aeron called softly, "Ho, huntsman!"
The two men whirled around, visibly startled to find they were not alone. "Prince Aeron!" the huntsman exclaimed, though his voice was still respectful of the forest's hush. "Is that you?"
"It is indeed," Aeron smiled. "I wanted to thank you for your kindness to me so many years ago. I apologize my gratitude is so late in coming."
The huntsman's smile was tinged with a little of the same sadness Aeron remembered from his parting smile in the palace seven years earlier. "I see you have learned to speak, Your Highness."
"Yes." He flushed slightly. "I am sorry I was unable to communicate with you formerly. I know that I behaved in a manner you must have found… unpleasant."
"Do not worry," the huntsman assured him. "It did not take long to understand that you were ignorant of human ways, and I have made it my business to become familiar with animal ways. I am almost sad to see you so perfectly human now."
Aeron laughed, trying to keep the bitterness out of it. "Hardly perfect. I find, even after so many years away, that I feel more at home with the forest and its ways than with the palace life."
A quiet cough from the huntsman's companion drew their attention. "Ah. Excuse me, Your Highness; I have been rude. Allow me to introduce His Royal Highness Nix Alba, Prince of Tenebrae."
Aeron's eyes fell upon the prince, and he forgot how to breathe. Nix Alba was beautiful: black hair spilling over his forehead, eyes the deep blue of a wolf cub, lips full and rosy. He was also young, perhaps two years younger than Aeron himself. His cheeks were flushed, likely from the exertion of hunting, though Aeron did not detect either the sight or smell of sweat anywhere on the prince's slender form.
"I'm sorry," he admitted after a moment of blatant staring, the very sort of thing that would have gotten him in trouble at home for acting like an animal instead of like a man. "I don't remember how I'm supposed to greet another prince." He would have remembered if he weren't so affected by Nix Alba's beauty, but he was grateful for once to have an excuse for his awkward manners.
Nix Alba smiled, exposing a row of even white teeth. "That's all right. I've never met another prince, so I wouldn't know if you were doing it properly anyway." His voice was soft and gentle in a way that reminded Aeron of the way the huntsman had spoken to him when Aeron had required calming.
"Then allow me simply to say that it's a pleasure to meet you," Aeron said with a small bow. That was permissible, right? Another prince demanded respect, but he shouldn’t bow all the way because their stations were the same. Or something like that. He could never keep all of the rules straight, mostly because he didn't care about them at all. The instinctual dominance and submission among animals made so much more sense to him. "I am Prince Aeron of Boreas."
"It's a pleasure to meet you as well," Nix Alba returned, imitating Aeron's bow. "I have heard of you from Huntsman Calidus many times. It is quite a remarkable tale; a prince, kidnapped, then sold, and finally deserted in a forest when the thieves were killed by other rogues, only to survive and be found by a lone huntsman out in the forest and returned to his rightful place among the royal family at last." There was something wistful in his tone.
"It was not nearly so grand to live as you make it sound," Aeron confessed. "I remember nothing but growing up among the bears and gradually making a home for myself in the woods, then meeting a creature who looked like me and dragged me off to a strange new world where I had to learn to speak like a man, walk like a man, dress like a man…" He trailed off, cocking an eyebrow above his wry smile.
Nix Alba ducked his head. "To live alone and free in the woods sounds beautiful. Even to live in a palace where strangers visited, or where your stepfather-" He cut himself off abruptly, cheeks flushing scarlet in a way that resembled shame.
Huntsman Calidus cut in before Aeron could press Nix Alba on his expression. "I am sure every foreign land sounds pleasant to you, Your Highness; for one who has never traveled, new experiences are undoubtedly appealing."
"I, too, am scarcely ever allowed to leave the palace," Aeron admitted. "I am here as a coming-of-age gift from my father, to bid the forest where I once lived a final farewell and to thank those who helped me escape from it."
Nix Alba glanced up through his lashes in a way that made Aeron think he had caught the irony in Aeron's words. "I am here only because my stepfather pays little enough attention to me that he will not notice that I have once again disobeyed his commands that I stay confined to the palace."
The two princes looked at one another with a sort of sympathetic understanding. Aeron contemplated what it would be like to run away together deep into the forest and never come out again. He wondered what it would be like to run his fingers through Nix Alba's silky black hair or to touch his rosy red lips. He imagined the way the ice blue eyes would stand out against his face when Nix Alba was old enough to sport stubble each morning and evening. Swallowing hard, he imagined what it might be like to rut together like animals. He knew humans rutted; certainly there was enough of that going on in the palace to draw his attention. Yet no other human had ever approached him in such a way. Most still regarded him as an oddity, something not quite human.
Huntsman Calidus cleared his throat. "I'm afraid we must be on our way, Your Highness. The Prince Consort will be missing his stepson shortly." He bowed low to Aeron.
"I am surprised my guard has not already come to find me," Aeron sighed. "I am glad I was able to see you again, Huntsman. Thank you again for your kindness to me."
"It was a pleasure to meet you," Nix Alba murmured. "Perhaps, someday, our two kingdoms will once more have contact with one another and we will meet again."
Aeron smiled. "I would enjoy that."
The men exchanged what were possibly the appropriate bows and took their leave of one another. Aeron silently returned to his guard, who jumped visibly when he caught sight of Aeron at his side again. Aeron smiled at that, glad he could still move through the forest with enough skill to catch at least a human by surprise. He took his seat once more on the rock, watching the stream but thinking all the while about the young prince with such a beautiful face full of aching sadness and a loneliness Aeron recognized from the depths of his own heart.
*~*~*
The next time Aeron saw Nix Alba was entirely by happenstance. Aeron's father had decided it was time once again for the royal family to be seen around the kingdom, so Aeron had instantly volunteered to go to the region near the border with Tenebrae. He had not expected to see the other kingdom's prince, but he could not help hoping that, by some chance, they would meet once again in the forest. He arranged his travels so that he went through the forest twice, once coming and once going. It was during the second visit that he caught sight of Nix Alba.
Once again he was accompanied by the huntsman, but this time they were not tracking animals. They moved instead like animals being hunted, covering their tracks and looking back over their shoulders, keeping to the shadows and moving to the very deepest part of the woods. Nix Alba's hair was still black as ebony, but it hung over a forehead snow white with fear and lips that looked as blood-red as if he had been biting them anxiously for hours. Huntsman Calidus, Aeron realized, was bringing Nix Alba to the farmhouse where he had once brought Aeron. Puzzled, he followed their progress for a while, waiting until both had entered the house and only the huntsman emerged before he approached. Fortunately, his guards were becoming more lax and were tired from their travels. They were not inclined to keep the same watch on him in the forest that they had in the cities, and so he was allowed some privacy.
"Huntsman Calidus!" he called in a hushed voice. The huntsman whirled, knife in hand, and nearly threw before he saw Aeron and exhaled heavily. Surprised and concerned, Aeron asked, "Is everything all right? Where is the prince?"
Lines of exhaustion and sorrow were etched deep into the huntsman's face, giving him the appearance of having aged twenty years in the three since they had last met. "He is, I sincerely hope, safely hidden. The palace has become a dangerous place for him to be."
Aeron's brows contracted. "So dangerous that he must flee through the forest like a fugitive and hide in another kingdom?"
Huntsman Calidus nodded. "I was ordered by the Prince Consort to take my prince out into the forest and kill him. I am to bring home his heart in a box."
The blood drained from Aeron's face. "What will you do?"
"I will put the heart of a large animal in the box and lie to my Prince Consort, and when he discovers the deception, I will die. But Prince Nix Alba will not." The huntsman's mouth tipped in a grim, weary smile.
"No!" Aeron protested. "You must flee as well! What of the queen?"
Huntsman Calidus shook his head. "The queen languishes in a state of perpetual illness. She has not been aware of her surroundings for many years. She is useless to the prince. If I do not return with a heart in the Prince Consort's box, then he will know that Prince Nix Alba still lives, and the prince will be in danger. The Prince Consort will not rest until he is dead. I must do this."
"But surely-" Aeron cut himself off, unable to think of an alternative. Finally he said simply, "You are the best of men, Huntsman."
"Thank you, Your Highness." He bowed low. "I am deeply sorry for the sorrow I brought to you by taking you out of this forest. I have since learned that life in the palace, even for those born to it, is not always best. My happiest times have all been in this forest, and if I had the chance to change the past, I would let both of you princes live here as long as you wished."
Tears filled Aeron's eyes. "Thank you, Huntsman. But do not grieve what you did for me. It is true that palace life is often confusing for me, but I am grateful I have learned to live as a man. I could not have asked for a kinder man to help me begin the journey."
"Watch over my prince if you can," the huntsman whispered, chin trembling. "He is with the same family that first took you in. The mother has died, but the children still live there together. There are seven of them now. I have done all I can for him."
"Then go in peace."
When the huntsman had disappeared into the forest, moving nearly as silently as Aeron, Aeron turned his attention to the farmhouse. He did not think it wise to approach so soon after Nix Alba's arrival, so he chose a tree in which to watch for a while. His parents would undoubtedly be horrified to learn he was climbing a tree, but it felt good to scramble up the branches once again, though more clumsily than he had as a child.
Very little happened while he watched. The curtains were all tightly drawn, and the shadows behind them were too indistinct that make out as individual figures. At one point, a young woman emerged long enough to draw a bucket of water from the well. Aeron suspected she was the pig-tailed girl who had stared so blatantly at his naked body the day he emerged from the forest. He wondered if she remembered, and he smiled to himself when he imagined what her reaction to him might be now.
After a few hours, Aeron climbed down from the tree and returned to his entourage. He was already planning ways to arrange a return visit to the farmhouse where he began his life as a man.
*~*~*
It took just over a year before Aeron could convince his father a return to the border was not only prudent but also necessary, and another two months before the preparations for the journey were made. It had been, in total, fourteen months since the huntsman had begged him to watch over his prince, and Aeron was chafing at the bit to fulfill his promise.
He knew all had gone wrong when he arrived at the farmhouse to find it boarded up. Alarmed, he hurried on into the forest, not minding the presence of his guards this time. They were near the rock at the spring when Aeron caught sight of a structure that had not been present the last time he had been in that place, speaking with Huntsman Calidus and setting eyes for the first time on what was undoubtedly the most beautiful man in several kingdoms.
It was a small building in the fashion of a wayside chapel, sturdily constructed of wood and carved with a level of detail that must have taken a few months to achieve. Nearby sat a slightly larger but less carefully built house. Aeron approached, knocking on the door anxiously.
When it opened, he found himself looking at seven determined faces. "Who are you?" asked the girl at the door with a defensive glare. She could not have been more than seven years old.
"I am Prince Aeron." When she continued to stare up at him distrustfully, he looked over her head at the other children behind her. The oldest was nearly a man, but the youngest was scarcely school age. "Are the seven of you the children who used to live in the farmhouse at the edge of this forest in the kingdom of Boreas?"
"We might be," the oldest boy replied, eyes narrowed as though he could see into Aeron's soul. Something flickered in his expression, and then he asked, "Are you that weirdie who showed up at our house naked and covered in dirt over a decade ago?"
"Just over eleven years ago, yes," Aeron confirmed. "The Huntsman Calidus found me living in the forest and took me to your home for aid. Your mother bathed and clothed me before the huntsman took me back to my family."
"I remember you!" exclaimed the boy just inside the door. "We tried to put you on Father's favorite horse, and you couldn’t mount. You fell off and scared the horse."
Aeron grinned sheepishly, ears heating a little at the memory. "Yes, I did."
"And you didn't talk."
"I had never heard human speech before." Aeron smiled a little at the disbelieving expressions on their faces. "I was taken from my family as a child and grew up alone in this forest with only the animals to teach me."
"Why are you here?" the girl holding the door demanded, bringing them back to the original topic.
Aeron soberly answered, "Because the Huntsman Calidus asked me to watch over Prince Nix Alba, and he told me that he had entrusted the prince to your keeping. I wanted to uphold my promise and see after the prince's welfare."
"Well, you're too late!" the girl cried angrily and slammed the door, but not before Aeron saw the tears in her eyes.
Shocked, he stared at the door for a moment, wondering whether he should knock again or go away, perhaps come back later… Before he had decided, the door opened to reveal the boy who remembered Aeron's inability to ride and speak. Aeron could hear the sobbing of the girl inside.
"Sorry," the boy apologized. "She loved Nix Alba. We all did."
Cold claws clutched his heart at the past tense. "What's happened?"
"That old bastard-the Prince Consort, I mean-finally hunted him down and poisoned him. Painted the poison on all the apples of the tree behind the house; it's dead now too. Apples were Nix Alba's favorite fruit, and the old bastard knew it. None of the rest of us liked them much, but Nix ate them all the time. He must have gone out to get one without realizing the old bastard had been there, and all it took was one bite. We found him in the backyard when we got home. Elsie was the first one to see him," he explained, gesturing back at the house.
"When was this?" Aeron managed to get past the tightness in his throat.
"'Bout three months ago. Long enough we could build that for him." He pointed to the beautiful smaller building.
"Is he…?" Aeron was almost afraid to ask. "Is he in there?"
The boy nodded. "You can see him, if you'd like."
Swallowing hard, Aeron nodded. "Yes, please."
The boy led him over to the ornately carved doors, pushing them open to reveal a glass coffin in the center of the floor. Inside lay Nix Alba, pale and lovely as ever. As Aeron drew nearer, he found it difficult to convince himself that the body inside was really dead. The hint of a blush still lingered on the pale cheeks, the dark lashes hid his stunning eyes as though Nix Alba were only sleeping, and his expression was calm. Aeron wanted to touch his face, to see if the skin was really as soft as it looked, to see if it still held a hint of warmth, though he knew it was impossible.
The boy beside him shyly offered, "Sometimes we take the lid off and just sit with him a while and talk the way we used to when he was alive. He doesn't smell or nothing, and he was the closest thing to a parent we had there at the end. Sometimes one of us just needs to talk to him a bit."
"May I?" Aeron asked, reaching for the lid. At the boy's nod, he lifted it gently aside and indulged himself in brushing the back of his fingers against the cool skin of Nix Alba's cheek. It was not as cold as he had expected, though it was not filled with the warmth of life either. His beard had finally begun to grow, Aeron noted as the stubble scraped his thumb. Impulsively, he bent and pressed his lips to Nix Alba's cheek, and then again to his mouth. Immediately feeling silly, he sat up and put the lid back on the coffin, keeping his flaming face turned away from the boy's watchful gaze. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Thank you. Do you suppose that there is any way I could take him with me for a bit? I think my father should know that the ruler of a kingdom we border has killed his own heir."
The boy scrambled to his feet. "Oh! Yes, I suppose you're right. But I should check with my brothers and sisters."
"Of course," Aeron agreed. He waited while the boy went back into the house. All seven children emerged a few minutes later and lined up somberly before him. The eldest began to speak.
"We've agreed you may take Nix Alba with you because justice should be done. His stepfather should be punished. But," a hint of vulnerability entered his voice, "we'd like him back, if we can."
Aeron smiled gently, moved by the obvious love these children had for the dead prince. "If it is at all possible, I will bring him back to you."
"Thank you," the oldest boy said thickly.
Aeron motioned his guards to come closer and explained the situation to them. Four of them went in to move the coffin while the remaining four went in search of a cart to put it in. While the guards went inside the chapel to pick up the coffin, the children began to introduce themselves to Aeron. Before the last one had a chance, there was a grunt, a startled curse, and a thump.
"Sorry," the embarrassed guard apologized, face scarlet. "I tripped over a tree root."
A violent cough sounded from his feet, and the lid of the coffin, which had been knocked ajar by the guard's clumsiness, was pushed up from the inside.
"Nix!" screamed the girl who had opened the door-Elsie, Aeron recalled. She ran to the coffin before anyone else had even registered what had drawn her shout. There in the coffin, sitting up and looking slightly dazed, was Nix Alba. He blinked at everyone, letting out a small "oof!" as Elsie's little body slammed into him full force in a painful embrace.
"What happened?" he asked in a rough voice. "Where are we, and who are all of these people?" His eyes landed on Aeron then, and he blushed violently. "Hello, Your Highness," he added quietly with a shy smile.
"You were poisoned, and we thought you died, and the old bastard painted all your apples with poison and it killed the tree, and we moved here in the forest so nobody would find us, but that other prince did, and he wanted to take your body to his father so they could punish the old bastard, but then that guy tripped-" Elsie pointed to the guard, who flushed all over again "-and you came back alive!"
"I had something stuck in my throat," Nix Alba explained. He looked down and picked a bit of apple from his shoulder. "See?"
The guards had wordlessly lowered the coffin to the ground and stepped away. Nix Alba climbed out a little stiffly, stretched, and walked over to the children. He hugged each of them in turn, not bothering to restrain his tears when he saw how the children cried. Then he turned to Aeron.
"I am not sure what brought you here. I am still not entirely sure I understand what happened. But thank you for whatever role you have played."
Aeron offered a small smile. "I promised Huntsman Calidus that I would watch over you when you were in hiding. I am sorry it took me so long to get back to do it."
"Are you still going to take Nix away?" Elsie asked plaintively.
The two princes locked eyes. "I think it would be wise to let my father know what has transpired," Aeron answered slowly. "But it is Nix Alba's choice whether he wishes to accompany me."
Nix Alba's eyes widened. "I could go to your kingdom and see the palace?"
"And anything else you wish to see," Aeron nodded. His arms itched to draw Nix Alba into them, to bring him close enough that Aeron could bury his face in the glossy hair and find out what his scent was, to find a way to mark him. Perhaps there was still more animal left in himself than he had thought.
Nix Alba was nodding, a blinding smile blooming slowly across his pretty mouth. "I will go with you. I want to go with you."
In a quavering voice, Elsie asked, "You're going to leave us?"
Nix Alba turned to her, smoothing a hand over her hair. "For a little while. I will be back, I promise. And maybe," he added, eyes locking onto Aeron's, "I can convince Prince Aeron to come back with me."
Heart lighter than it had been in years, Aeron replied, "There is nowhere I love more than this forest. Perhaps I can convince my father that it would be in the best interest of building friendly relations with Tenebrae to live here near the border with its prince."
Nix Alba beamed at him. "The prince is certainly open to building friendly relations."
Aeron felt his cheeks flush hot, and a few of the guards raised eyebrows. "Perhaps we can speak more on that topic while we travel."
Later that evening, while the guards were locating supplies and a horse for an extra traveler and the children were in bed, Aeron and Nix Alba walked through the forest together in darkness.
"I'm glad it was you who came for me," Nix Alba confessed softly. "I have often thought of you since our meeting in the forest."
"As have I." Aeron let his fingers brush against the back of Nix Alba's hand, pleased when Nix Alba twined their fingers together. "I was devastated to learn you had died. I had hoped for so much more."
Nix Alba sighed. "All I ever dreamed of was a safe and loving home here in the woods." He darted a quick look over at Aeron, eyes back on the ground before he added quietly, "And you."
Aeron stopped abruptly. "Do you still want that?" Nix Alba nodded. "Then we will find a way to have it." Somehow he would convince his father he wasn't needed at court; he wasn't any good at court, anyway. He just wanted his forest and his pretty prince.
"And then we will live happily ever after," Nix Alba decided, and their lips met.