(№5.4)

This staggering metamorphosis of his little brother to ... some other specimen was definitely something his older brother should not totally neglect, but the order given in this shambolic discussion of theirs, where the wish to traverse to an adventure had been put out, combined with the grief of those poor farmers now robbed of their grandest stream of income, had much more importance than his own unnecessary troubles.

Being a child under the Crown with not a tint of blue in the blood flowing in his veins, he was on the source to comprehend and respect any command a monarch or future monarch even so muttered in his sleep, no matter the severity or idiocy put in motion equally. The subjects of royal entity where to dance when a finger was lifted, stiffen when a hand was held out and be tranquil when a corner of their Majesty's mouth twitched in aggravated contempt. It was the life of being a voiceless puppet with strings braided in your bones, and he was not living a much better life than simple, common citizens. It was tolerable to some extent of course, if it wasn't for his anguish pride, that from time to time got the best of him, foaming over. The red puffiness of his stung cheeks and his eyes suffused with blood were proof of the paternal abuse he must bear to stay together with his little brother, pitilessly hitting the hand who fed him not with corporeal meals but rather mental lessons of much more emphasis.

As long as the commands were reasonable, he could reason with himself to abide, the older brother told himself as he mustered to the vague challenge of composing anything they might need regarding the bitter, enduring chase looming to commence and for all eventualities occurring in the thick, dense underwood of their protective forest, where creatures of nobility resided to be replaced by monsters skimmed out of the abysm and the apex king of the food chain amidst those creations of nightmares, the beast whose head was asked for by the decree of the prince.

He could have chuckled as he ordered the servants to gather practical weaponry that would actually sustain their attempts to not get devoured in the night, than any pompous spear would promise, but this was more of a fight of honour and dignity than it was one acted upon of necessity and practicality, the reasoning for his half-laugh though laid not in the gloating he felt when a young slave boy almost pierced his foot clumsily with one of the longer blades, but in regarding how for civilisation and structure and safety they had to display absolute gratitude towards an old segment of a human body, the men barely not falling apart with whom he did not share an ounce of flesh thank goodness, packaged in the greatest, softest fabric, gobbling the best wine and eating from golden plates with silver cutlery, gifting their wives the most luminous jewellery, arrogantly charging the population to serve him every demand from the plush lips, in order they'd be protected from strange and bloodlusty folk. A giving and taking.

This king had never fought nor specifically participated in any war, but just lay lazily around on soft brocade cushions girl servants fanning him wind on hotter days, as the walls of their forest protected them and in exchange only wanted basic respect and kindness, found only in the most decent souls, while everyone else laboured around him to entertain this masquerade, for it was an unjust world with laws supporting suppression where they might discover the warm germ of peace in their enslavement.

Someone should punish him for his greed.

The spirit of rigid revolution ascended sometimes in his blood and boiled in his head with the fiery intensity to be acted upon, when it had to be patted down or the uprising carnage of senseless legions putting habitants in their Civil War again in their humiliating places, chins glued to their chest and their voices cut by the very threads binding them to their puppeteer, the moment of their mutiny marring the counted hours until their fateful hubris to alter things to the better would be punished.

He had to rip himself with all his humane, fragile strength from this dark place of anguish, even aching thoughts of what could have been in another life, thoughts wanting to riot and break free, with vitriol in spite and years of molestation to fuel his arching wrath combusted in strife, to end the way of these abominable kings produced by this tainted bloodline. For a sole fact marked all of this to be entirely irrelevant, a blood churning reality to measure his revolutionary ideas. Not because you ought to be punished for plainly plotting the arson of the palace, but with the ice-cold assurance, knowing wouldn't damn change a thing, only prevent you from doing your respective labour that may be done, and by prohibiting the path chosen by fate, he apparently had to abscond of his brother and take the reign in his hands. But better shrieking away from these dreams visual to only a steep and weathered way, than indulge further and begin to desire them as bitter-felt reality, unto taking matters into his own hands and initiate them to the presence. Something profound sensed the rock of verity found in this foreseeable prediction, yet convulsed and drenched in stubbornness and the inability to budge, and was furthermore keen to delve in the welcome distraction work may put on one, such as to stop this ordeal of daydreaming and fulfil the orders imposed by his future king.

And his work consisted now to charter the most gifted and talented people to take with them along the voyage, for his brother, whether he remained to negate the assassination planned to action or not, could promise and stretch for all the brotherly love in the world, it wouldn't be enough to prevent them from being shredded to pieces in rapid chance, for whatever resumed to haunt and taunt these woods, it implied to become a mighty challenge to slay and be extremely pestilent in nature, according to his secret allies of experimental source he had posted in the town to have him up to speed, of course heavenly compensated and bribed with a fracture in gold and in exorbitant jewellery. So, it required the best hunters to trap the fiercest creature and be better little and individualistically prepared for every outcome than greatly and arrogantly only for one, where the chances grizzly would laugh at your misfortune.

There were six stable and capable enough black horses, which basically meant they were stable in being unlikely  to devour their heads immediately due to any putrid mood, and this number was requisite to carry twice as many men and a quarter of their equipment. It was also dependent from the weather or the influence of higher beings if they wanted to be ridden, but one foot in front of the other on the minute thread one essayed to balance over a rock gorge, isn't it? In that case, hunt down a terrible beast with a thirst unquenched for inculpable poultry, posing a possible mean threat to them all.

His brother, meanwhile all the blind preparations unfolded, played in the shadows of the royal garden, with huge ease and much predisposition to maim and finish off foes invisible to the perception of outsiders while most viciously flicking and striking air with his new priced item.

He looked just as he was accustomed to be, thought his brother, walking on the spongy chartreuse green moss tarrying the giant steps to leave the palace grounds and venture out to the village, melancholically regarding how much he had grown and how much he still had in front of him, still matured much quicker than any ordinary seven-year-old prince.

The way his lean muscles moved, small creases under his skin, being yet in so less company and the way his frown became the mask of a neutral expressionless killer reminded him in features much of the coward king, spending his days in bed, the nights either hitting or cursing him to be the source of all wickedness and the dawns and dusk with rocky drinking to merge the pain of vegetating to a more borne, rigid state.

Gone were unpleasant images of the monster living the life of a suited and ambitious king he once could have been, but his son will be everything the deceitful king had vowed to symbolise, as he twirled elegantly, the ever gleaming metal reflecting radiated sun light, his clothes animatedly floating in the wind, his smile fueled by generosity and happiness, as he waved to his brother who strode in barely contained hastiness down the stairs, reassured. For now. For now.

Perhaps he shouldn't judge the meticulous ways of his brother in poisoning the king, for if he wouldn't do it, someone else had to live with this burden and everyone liked quite the irony to have the villain destroyed by the same thing they loved most. In that case it was the second most beloved thing, because a bottle of liquor hardly would be able to forage berries and kill him themselves. And his father was quite fond of the youngest bundle in the family, seeing in fact a twisted, other variant, a shadow image of himself where the minute person, his child would stand not as tall as half of him, proposing everything he could have once achieved.

The betrayal would twitch and poke more though than being deceived by alcohol.

Over the span how early mid-morning, with all its sprouting hope and last splinters of umbrage blended to hot and fierce noon, with the sun poising and lolling in the zenith like a fat and satisfied boa who devoured an elephant in delighting nibbles, the elder brother recruited quite scrutinously and questionable persona to help his brother fulfil the quest the angels advised him to dispatch, come in a dream last night, when the moon shone its light on his smooth forehead, to spike the head of a monster traumatising a family and livestock alike, put under the saving wing of the royal family.

None of which refused, which would have been considered treason, yet they weren't all to happy with the fervent messenger of these news how they'd had been chosen for a matter much more grander, to help the apparent of the throne even, yet that bias of course stemmed from the rumours and certainties of his conceiving and origin and could only be shackled by even more travestigious novels about him or the tales of brave deeds he had to commit and come up on his own, demolishing all these profligate rumours in the first place.

He possessed an archer, with indestructible arrows and an aim that could never be troubled by nightfall or tempests.

He claimed a skillful knifewoman told and accused of murdering several respectable men in the region, though no real substance was behind filing a suit and let her hang on the noose.

He took a man with the gift of immoral and inhuman strength who could throw trees the length of oceans and press a human being to the size of a songbird, which he had done apparently already thrice.

A priestess for no real purpose other than to earn the Goddess's favour and appeal as the operation would run in her name for appeasement.

And lest a medicine man shall not be forgotten, tending to their wounds inflicted in battle and who would have them swallow liquids in every colour and every taste to treat venomous bites and sting.

As everything and everyone was readied and the more or less keen shapes of the chosen participants were united in front of the palace, the older brother had a pit of ruthless surety something was about to happen and it wouldn't be beneficial to the mission at all. The hint of a grander event taking place, running the edge of his bone hinting terrible premonition and nerves just so out of reach, nonetheless importantly invaluable.

He murmured under his breath how he forgot to fetch something in his rooms, bolted inside, almost knocking his excited brother over, who didn't want to delve in his excuses, but rather had him hurry faster, as their time was ticking away.

Oh, and how it was in doubled sense.

In the profound, cool heart of the palace, where grey marble imposed in columns and high arches, imported from some kingdom at the sea, was also where the old and fickle king rested, hidden and tugged away in this armour of prosperity and hoarded wealth, the maze prepared for all his foes to go mad in finding him never, the place called a "million echoes" in their tongue, because one sinister whisper concerning the leading of the country, about the wavering health of the king would ensure to find your head at least a month later decapitated in the middle of the marketplace in grim ostentation, put on a stick for the crude watching of other usurpers.

This part of the palace was dripping with crusted dust that had crystallised on the walls and in piles on the floor, as the servants were not permitted to sweep and cleanse and an eerie gloomy silence ruled, interrupted temporarily but for his languid hollow steps, perturbing the inner and common workings running quietly.

He knew he had said to hasten the sojourn, but he wanted to have this, at least enjoy it. For the insinuation of death, deserved and raked hung heavy in the air, hauled in borrowed bows and eddying shrivels along the path leading him right in the centre to the rotten cocoon the king spun himself to rot in laziness and wickedness.

He knew he would be long heard and expected upon his arrival, fearfully exactly when he would approach.

The door of the complicated chamber complex of the king's room was only ajar, to have at least some of the filth seep out, so the emperor wouldn't accidentally gas himself with his own bodily odours, yet not so much the apparent clam and moist air of corridors had the power to further destabilise his fragile status, thus worsen his state even more and cease preventing the inevitable, the inevitable invited today.

The tall bronze door didn't squeak in the latest hour of the king's life, because with every sick and twisted ideologies of his that his ill mind had developed, every bad word he had muttered in the confined security of his own place, he had somewhat incorporated his evilness and arrogance in this place, unwashable and indistinguishable with how it had looked before and pride a character trait towering above all, marring the walls and floors with poison dripping.

He entered without the illiterate and necessary etiquette and felt quite good doing so, the satisfaction leaving a saturating burning sensation in his throat.

Or it could be he had just too much citrus fruit in the morning.

The interior was drafted bland and austere, all clean and geometrical cuts.

Leastwise, if the greed of the king was showing in other aspects of his daily life, it couldn't be deciphered in his bed chambers, with only one huge chandelier hanging right above the king-sized bed, brushing against the circumference of the entire room, orange embroidery shielding the only window to the north side, or rather shielding sun from gazing upon the sullen creature uncomfortably laying in the bed.

His son and not-son swept inside strutting, fighting his uprising nausea by looking at the chandelier and wishing it had crushed the creature sleeping every night in that bed a little earlier. Now it needn't bother.

The king's appearance had changed much in the span of the latest days. He was dying for a few months now, but the son of his wife hadn't even cared to look, to perceive how his end was nigh. The creature occupying the bed was much different from the array of well held muscle and hugely tucking in every meal with seconds, the king once stood for. His skin seemed thirsty, kneaded and worked by time that was now convulsing out, showing in huge wrinkles and fat creases, his entire appearance seeming shrunken. The boy blocking the door examined him closer, with complacent smugness he couldn't help to not seal away in the face of such wrechtchedness.

Although the monarch seemed dried out of all fluid, he was bathed in an oily shimmer, especially sitting in his wide wrinkles with all the dirt and dust swirling around in the air. It didn't seem like the fair skin of a human too, but rather like strong impenetrable leather, combusted and let out in the sun until destruction, ironically, for the past months and days he had known nothing but darkness.

He looked like a shrunken peach, small and fragile like a newborn, although he was close to the complete counterpart of birth.

His hands had grown though, they looked rather swollen, as his flesh was to burst out from the paper thin sheath, from the leather, like his affairs, mind games, beatings and lies all were doomed to face the tribunal fornent the gates of hell.

The fingers also didn't look like the slender, strong digits, but rather like fat brown twigs, who you could just like that break, snap into two.

He wasn't moving much and already appeared to be an object, if it weren't for his forest green eyes tugged in deeply inside the eye sockets and just barely so peeking out, piercing with mere willpower the skull of his other son open - just in conjecture, no worries.

One thick hand was deftly placed on his bedside table, delicately, how you might move the limbs from a puppet in shape.

Next to him, of course, sat a golden ornamentated goblet embedded with precious rocks and tiny red berries resembling pinpricks of blood, everywhere they laid, small and polished, seductively, as to suggest even you should have at least a taste.

Come dare it, oi.

It shan't kill you now, but later.

Their smell protruded the fine olfactory sense of the brother, sweet and delicious they smelled.

And a bit like death, but that could also just come from the chunky, half dead lump vigorously unmoving on the bed, at least facing the end with somewhat half of the elation and dignity a better person than him could muster.

The brother only saw a lone, dead corpse, who had nothing to live, like or love for and it wouldn't matter if he passed a couple more seconds on this godforsaken place, inside the palace he built on bones and cruelty, his throne of blood shed from both of his sons, one of which who actually wanted to gather the strength and the audacity to place his white, smooth and strong hands around this turtle's neck und press until the green discs also would be inanimate marbles, but he steadied himself, resumed the calmness of a stranger, in the last moment where temptation had a hold of him. He wouldn't give in to muddy his soul, if the end could very well take place without his aidings. Albeit he very much cared to bear witness to this deliciously spectacular ending.

The king looked disappointed to say the last, when his son refused to walk over and strangle him, which was hard to interpret with his ugly, greasy creases, yet even a blinded could feel the tension firing in the room when blue met with green, staring in final contest.

In the last moment, where they would ever see each other, their eyes met and a mutual feeling of understanding passed in between them, the legacy and last will would be cargo for him to tow as heavy toll.

The last look of his unfather was full of emotion, truth, contempt, dislike, loathing, comprehension, fate, acceptance, and the trickling of remorse until reared to let go, all bound in these leathery eyes of a true monster in the body of a shrivelled lizard.

It only lasted for the briefest split of a second of course, because enmity in the display of the bond they shared must never be eradicated or soothed but embraced and nurtured, even in death.

They had something to agree on and that was enough.

The epic things don't happen in hazy war acts involving many people, with a lot of boom and noise, but in private chambers, distant from alien eyes, by not having a single word touch your lips.

The most important things don't need to be spoken out aloud to be shared.

Old lay in bed with a small smile plastered, watching Young turn around from the sacred site of death to bathe in the sun and make sure the even younger one would now be spared, his decision made.

And then Young ran in long strides down the sacred halls of Old, tears reluctant to stream down the sleek cheeks, but not in sorrow or grief, but of triumph and the mad echoing of his heart.

Something big was about to change.

His heart knew it and soon he would too.

Something would be so fundamentally altered that even the king had known and he had missed splendid cues of various things in his long life.

He would change too and it was now out of his range of power to choose how.

It felt new and thrilling, enticing and promising, but also sickening and stoic, tenebrous and sombre, as every new change was entailing to be.

It was wrong to assume he couldn't do anything now, when the course of events could literally and illiterally be carved by his own hands.

The king was dead, there's left his son, long live the prince.

The fates of everyone would be indecisive until the day still had breath and bone and till it would stop such at the epic showdown concluding its date.

And now the question of the matter arrives even at your door, to be asked and considered.

Do you think he killed his frail, kind, loving brother brutally with a sword as sharp as his tongue? For the pinprick of wolfish wanting and unwonted power to be capable of getting the image of your yearning introduced by your hands?

I spare you the trouble to use the smallest gathering of cells to do the thinking;

He did not, but it is undisputedly obvious that the well-being of all cities near water and all battlefields far away from it would have been much happier, if in fact he did.

He condemned his own fate, and became the villain of this story.

I guess every one with human blood makes mistakes, but he wouldn't, not anymore. I wouldn't.

Guess what happens, please, I'm itching with all the twisted and atrocious ideas you might develop, but I am going to cut your all too eager river of creative impulses short and emerge with the imminent truth:

It's not enough, it will never be enough to imagine, but by not revealing anything, it will even be worse and more horrendous, than what really had happened. Much for the unspoken and unnoted horrific crimes performed by the Skeleton Crew, not made to ever see the ugly light of day.

Well, if does sound familiar, you have busted me, I am truly a creature of habit and had already used this technique once to let your nightmares splutter with horrifically vivid images.

This modest group of six people, venturing out into the woods by the simple commands of this stupid, pathetic prince didn't all die, heavens forbid! There had been some blooming mercy out there before we destroyed it.

Everyone but one died.

Funny, thinking how everyone would have lived if one, in reverse, had died. Exactly the one who emerged breathing and alive.

I for my part think we should converse more with this peculiarity of time in our next gathering, in the next ballad I have to sing woefully in my cries no one listens to, so we can conclude with the almighty and terrific war you so desperately want to see happen, hinted in the wind, in the stars, in actions and in bad decisions.

I can preempt it will never be glorious nor be reasonable; but that's the thing about wars, they just happen and no one scratches their back sometimes. People are massacred, kings and queens shuffle singular key-pieces around the board and no side really gains from it, for no war is ever truly won.

I do want to end this ballad on a happier note by saying you might think the person who got away was spared, spared not in the sense of miraculously becoming undying, for we all kick the bucket the one or other day, yet saved in the sense of assuming, they lived a happy fulfilling life, right?

Wrong.

He died later in terrific agony and immaculate suffering, concluding a monster shall emerge where a human once resided.