(№5.1)

When the prince turned seven, he already stole all the hearts of a court far away from the elderly gods and the troubled blue sea, as the prince lived surrounded by shrouding woods and tall lean trees cocooning the land away from all danger.

This entity's existence should go on for centuries, until their gloomy foe would cut all the wood and burn the forest down to a brink to accost, as such indicated ancient prophecy.

But they were safe for now.

Relatively as one could be.

The land was enchanted and gifted with a fruitful autumn, a mild winter, a gentle spring and an enriching, tropical summer, inhabiting countless magical creatures, living in total harmony all together with the human parasites who were the ones to strike and destroy the awe-like serenity of the wood folk, relatively peaceful nevertheless, for a truce had been carefully crafted and upheld for the benefit of generations.

Fair faeries, political gnomes, sublime sirens, hiding in the lakes and creeks, savage midgets, lofty giants as ancient still, when time was still in its cradle and regal angel-like creatures who would bestow gifts and favours to deserving and heroic mortals, working quite differing from the harsh and cruel code the gods operated on their people in old, aloof Egypt.

In brought daylight, even dim human eyes were able to see the reverberatory tiny wings of honey fey, nourishing and feeding off of sweet nectar dropping from overripe flowers, throwing around pollen like throwing balls, their laughs easily mistaken for the crisp shuffling of fresh green leaves touched by a breeze, bursting with vitality and health.

The giants, already gradually transformed into huge baobab trees, worked as gatekeepers and protected the entire land from the biggest fortunes and storms that would come their way to disrupt an example community of fairness and unison.

The midgets were the length of hand-sized pointy mushrooms, always hard working to keep the forest to its best form, which included the collection of tedious tasks such as combing moss, brushing fern, collecting pearly, pure morning dew from cheeky blades of grass, spinning the spider's web and eating the dropping branches who dared exiting the calming order of the cupola, the royal crown all trees wore over the sacred earth their kingdom. Such as their work was honest, the midgets were a folk of reputable and respectable creatures, wearing always their required mandatory dotted hats that matched somewhat the similarity of character of the owner, they wore white floating, flimsy coats plotted by lofty silk originating from the cocoon of a certain parasitic caterpillar, which species regularly tried to trick the little dwarves but never proved to best them and were all killed in their attempts, fashioned into clothing as proof of superiority. On the neck of the midgets were hung tiny crepe paper collars, much resembling those of real soil fungi which they actually used as dwellings for their families. They owned a pair of very sharp teeth, but were practically harmless towards the common homo sapiens, as long the human had never killed another being by their mere hands:

If so, then they'd climb on the traitor's light clothes and would gnaw the first left thumb segment down to a stump, resulting in the outing of said vile person to everyone else, a killer exposed.

But where light is nigh, shadow and darkness are not too far, balance requiring to be maintained.

As long as the lengthy rays of the golden star high above the heads of all would rain down, the habitants were safe, protected from the horrors and terrors of insecure gloom.

When eventually, the sun would disappear behind the vast canopy of emerald leaves, permitting the other part of the bulky geoid to be put under delicate protection, hazardous and outright dangerous times would dawn on mortals and forest folk both inexplicably.

Nature demanded balance - again - so be it. For every bad deed committed, there is Crew on a ship to punish, for every immortal strength, there are ten weaknesses. For the several fair and light creatures, moving in the sunlight, the price would require a million monsters to roam the night. If the good irrelevant to the numbers and casualties was fated to win, it needed dozens of monsters to opt for balance, to make the struggle real.

For how the angels had the best interest to embellish life, specimens of the night were sure to turn it into a half-living hell.

Their thirst and greed were their accelerators and motor to survive their own existence on this planet, death lazily chilling in every of their cells, poisoning them with fury and devious intents furthermore, since the monsters could not die themselves easily, the plaguing curse of their existence would be to come up for a fitting sacrifice in their stead. Most monsters could not die by their own claws and talons, required a mortal there to step up, wielding a sword embedded in a rock for decades, and kill the horrific demon once and for all. The fight might as well be poised struggle to end, for not many monsters really wanted to live such their existence forever.

Horrific black creatures vaguely resembling the shape of a cat or a panther, would challenge themselves who could rip a body faster to shreds, fighting for the biggest pieces.

Wailing women with distorted faces would scream the brains of every opponent out, howling in vain for all the deaths they could sense would occur, ensuring the entire world knew of their pain and grief and vicariously shared it, wallowing in sorrow and self-pity until one could choke on it.

But the worst of the nefarious crowd were strangers with hair as black as coal, whose voice could freeze the trickling rivers and whose gazes were able to stop the heart of baby birds.

Those, with blood red eyes, glowing skin and a smug aura cuddling to their tainted beings where said to be direct links straight from hell, to encounter poor villagers after nightfall to forge unbreakable vows and make unattainable contracts to suck out their mere soul, condemning them to an eternity of their malice.

But even the foulest, filthiest creatures wouldn't even dare to lay a single finger or claw on the son of the human king of this reign. For they might just be as stunned and awed as the rest of the world.

The boy, being the sprouting, vivid, magnificent incarnation, breathing likeness of even the most palpable shrivel of a pulchritudinous god, was adored and loved heroically, stoically protected of all Evil. Not that the evil even had the slightest intention of literally harming the centre of the kingdom, if not the entire world, the glamouring, literally bundle of joy he bestowed upon others when they beheld his face.

He was the son of a king and so a contender to the throne, but rumour has it he was birthed by a real goddess, who had found quite a liking for his father and his talents, so gifted him a child far greater and more suitable for the crown than any mortal child ever could be.

His hair hung constantly in perfect coal ringlets, framing his round child-like face and his gentle eyes had the colour of liquid black amber. His skin was smooth and spotless and kissed by the benevolent sun; Sometimes his maids would speak how it would radiate its own light when the boy played in sunshine, as like would call to like, as light would call to light, conjuring it forth of their little angel. Notably, the boy was through and thorough a good and terrific person, being remarkable from the outside and the inside:

He was never muddying or wrecking the tedious work of cleaning done by his maids, he distributed food to the poor and treated the fair people with utter respect, so they always would braid his finger-long hair into braids and knots. Every corner of a room lit up when he entered said chamber and even the walls and windows would sigh in his absence when he left.

His every wish delicately placed on his lips was strictly done before he could even twitch them. Every nicely given command of his was perfectly executed to the bottom of satisfaction. It wasn't really an order. A favour rather, to be allowed breathing the same air as him and performing some deeds ensuring his good fortune continues.

He was supposed to be the perfect ruler when he came to his manhood.

But perhaps there's a certain angel to blame who announced - on his sixth birthday now how she would give him a wonderful ability as present, further proving his magnificent uniqueness;

It became the entire aspiration and burning desire of the entire kingdom to figure out what it was this gift of enhancing further that which was perfect already, but not a spill, not a dab about it was released from the inner circle of the court and even his treacherous father, who grew comfortable with the well of trees and woods surrounding the area, proclaimed only after intense drinking had loosened his vile tongue, shrugging his shoulders and stressed by lots of barking laughter, how the powers of his son in general were not at all dangerous (though immortal creatures such as angels could only hardly understand the distinction made between helpful and utterly terrifying), but just kind of peculiar, strange, odd.

The woods bent as the little child set his tiny feet on the moist earth, the crowns bulked higher, the sun awkwardly and desperately tried to always illuminate his black hair with silver streaks when he was out and about in the wildness, the blades of pasture tilted to let him pass through the dense thicket and the lianes curled up in pulleys, laying still like serpents on the hunt for elephants (which always proved to be a tenuous, significantly grave work, to swallow an entire pachyderm and stomach this massif for six months), trying to touch his skin like old friends shaking hands. The gnomes bowed to him, the midgets drew their hats and the angels high up in their clouds would whisper about his heroic deeds of the future and marvelling still how his handsomeness would cultivate.

The boy was patient and gentle and kind, and was fated to be a king chisseled in marble to be admired at for all eternity.

And yet he was not the oldest child under the crown.

The boy had an older brother, who barely scratched at the edges of his manhood now, with some dainty hairs on his lip he nefariously tried to diminish, as he was way too young to grow a full beard; And every boy on the swell to man would make a fool out of himself when trying to attain one poorly, before he was able to do so properly.

His older brother was on the contrary rather detested by the villagers, with his concave attitude to keep to himself and his upper lip always turning into a sneer and his bushy eyebrows turning into a devilish scowl, should one decide to greet him in quick passing or ask him an inquiry.

He was a person committed to literature through in and throughout, always intending to focus on his factorial subjects and private sword lessons firstly given by numerous tutors who grew to forsake him, leaving simply himself for a mentor in the royal gardens assisted only by his ever-loyal books.

If he had been a legitimate heir to the throne, it would be very likely someone had him poisoned or murdered for the majority wished his little brother would come to power and with his brother being born before him, being the eldest son, it would be obviously his turn.

Alas, that shouldn't be a problem, as the older one turned out to be a bastard; For his mother, the prevalent queen, had a very peculiar little affair one night and the result was him having not the slightest resemblance to his assumed king father.

The elderly boy was allowed to stay on court as a nobleman exclusively due to the love and worship of his father, cherishing the passed queen, as long as he wished but would never even get near the seat of glory and influence, the throne, the seat to tied to a kingdom.

Even though they didn't share a single drop of blood, he seemed to have find a liking to his younger 'brother', the golden child of the land paired with the dark sheep and thought to himself to teach him the arts of Arithmancy and Geometry and a little of Archery here and there to keep him on his toes, since the savants the king carelessly chose to form the future king were all but a bunch of uncivilised moronic imbeciles who had a thirst for power and were barely given a taste of it, thus the intention of turning his little brother moreover into another brutish, daft emperor seemed only the likelier, if they could expect the premise of charming nobility.

Unlike these insolently barefaced creatures, the older brother felt not the most basic of needs to promote to kingship and fight his brother over the confines of the throne his blood was not permitted to own, hence the reasoning of him being the perfect, neutral teacher. One could say many things about the personal bastard of the Forest Kingdom, still what his character might lack may be found in the shallowness of his appearance, having something nestled in his features viciously pretty, although undeniably failing in the comparison to his younger brother, one might argue he was quite charming after man's standards and even the pickiest might be startled by his contours;

His hair was just as black, but thinner and straight, so he kept it short. His complexion was pale from the countless hours and spun turns of a sand clock he had spent inside churning in the familiarly unreal, among worlds of fiction and manuals of scholarship, but his most notable trait was though his icy blue eyes that reminded everyone he shared an involuntary glance with of the thin frost you'd find in early mornings in the early stages of springtime swaying in its crib, only on the small peachy orange roses, this blue so saturated it could turn a man mad and a woman to lose her child with a sullen look.

It was not only for the fact that his being was brought forth outside of a fair marriage, a royal one even, as his conception occurred far stranger than out of ordinary promiscuity. Rumours constantly staggered over the inhabitants, how his mother - the queen - was seduced by a fine, endearing stranger on the darkest night of the sun's turning, on the longest night of the year, where evil brooded in favour. The tale narrated how she felt like going out for an evening stroll all alone in the mild evening hours, needless to say her petite figure and splendid beauty could only attract creatures guilefully seeking prey. Besides, it was easy for a woman to give in her endless, countless, frizzing lust, especially when she met such one presenting in the most subduing, incubation-inducing manner; Apparently, ere her tragic passing she had shared word with only her closest maid how - of course taken root only in a lusting, lowly dream - she had acquainted with an indeed perplexing stranger in the middle of the dark, lulling forest, rocking trees and exhausted bushes her only witnesses capable of advocating truly of what came to pass.

His coating had seemed strange and exotic, just like his lilting tongue when he whispered sweet stories and blushing compliments in her ears. His fingers were all lean and slender, habitually putting a stray streak of her dusty copper hair behind her elf-like ear. He murmured treacherously how every single fibre, every single muscle of her own was carved and chiselled like a piece of art, something to admire in small and precious temples, when it was really him who one might declare to be extraordinarily striking: His hair as dark as ebony, his nose as sharp as a vulture's beak, but his eyes who possessed a deeply midnight-blue with red glinting an edge behind diminished, as to not scare her away. The queen didn't just open up her skirts because she was appalled by her newly-wed husband or simply bored by the depth of dull commonness. The queen had lain with a stranger, as she felt she was compelled to do so. She had to or she simply would explode...

The last words that should escape her greyish-tinted lips almost a year later, at the verge of death bearing a demi-monster, she confessed how lovely the boy looked, so similar to his true father.

Of course, bearing the child of this particular stranger into this world would come with a huge debt to pay, the toll it had taken on her body to grow this demon, yes this monster, known only for vicious cruelty among the villagers, in her belly resulted in her hitched, brazing breathing to come to a sudden stop, right the morning after the traumatic birth, after an exhausting night, where she had kept her boy strictly on her chest, as if she guessed it would be the last and only time to stroke over that delicate skin as soft as cold butter. To the healer's demise, as he scrutinisingly searched and watched every body part, for the king demanded brutally a righteous answer, he noted how she appeared to have been in perfect health condition - considering the hardest primal performance of humanity she had just accomplished. Although the queen's followers and beloved were just as sinister trying to rule out every possible cause and summon all willpower to declare this act for treachery null and void, including a little infant, crying night and day long, screaming for his mother, so the healer looked further and deeper than he probably should have.

If it wasn't for the fine but regular bite marks he found in her flesh edged from the inside of her belly, driven in her by every bit of malice and revolt a living being could muster, the healer probably wouldn't have hanged himself two days after the incident.