Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Profane Tales: "Goodnight Rotten Prince"









ONCE there lived a prince, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to know. Except, of course, for those who dared to oppose him. Prince Emeril had a heart that was solid as gold and he believed any woman he desired was his to take.



His cruelty was unseen by his mortal peers.



But the Beasts of nature could not be fooled by his appearances. A little black bird had been following Prince Emeril for some time before she happened upon the Unicorn.



“Beware that prince, Unicorn. He left a princess for dead in the kingdom he comes from…”



The Unicorn thanked the black bird and took up her watch over the prince. Unicorns could not be fooled by outward appearances. When he beheld the prince, it was of outward ugliness he saw. He saw blood on Prince Emeril’s hand as the man stepped down from his steed before the castle.



“Amethyst,” the Unicorn spoke to the Princess maiden he guarded. “Do you see that Prince?”



Amethyst, behind her white veil looked in the distance at the gathering nobility. “Yes, the handsome one with fair hair?”



“That is the one. Stay clear of him, Amy. He will bring only heart-break.”



“But he is so comely. You speak of him as though he is a wolf or a satyr.”



“You are too young to understand why I must warn you of this man. Please, this once, believe my words without needing proof.”



The Princess lowered her head and sighed. “Yes, Unicorn. I will be careful.”



“And keep the veil that your nursemaid gave you over your face. Do not let him know you.”



Amy gave a nod and joined the other women at May Day celebration.



There was a feast spread out for all and Amy sat in the middle as a guest of honor. She and her father the king were honoring the villagers. Prince Emeril was merely a visitor from a neighboring land. But the Princess stirred his curiosity the moment he glimpsed her. Even behind a veil, he could see she was lovely, with cascading dark hair and fair skin.



“You must be the Princess Amethyst?” he asked.



He was kind in manner and this confused Amy greatly. He listened to her thoughts and her stories and he did not laugh at her when she confessed that she would not partake in any meat at the banquet.



“I cannot eat animals,” she explained. It was a thing most suitors chuckled at and the crueler ones mocked her for being silly. But Emeril seemed to accept this quirk without hesitation.



Nor did he seem to doubt her sanity when she mentioned her Unicorn friend. Emeril glanced at the forest where the white creature stood. The Unicorn stared back at the Prince with moonlight-colored eyes. But Emeril saw no horn on the beast’s head.



“A strange beast, Princess. But I see no horn upon his head,” he took her hand gently. “Surely, you are joking. It seems an odd mix of deer and horse to me.”



“Oh, no, Prince Emeril. Some people do not see his horn. Some see a white deer when they look at him. Others, a malnourished albino donkey.”



From afar, the Unicorn scoffed. How he hated when he was called an ass.



Emeril smirked. “Perhaps you will come to the bonfire tonight? And bring him with you. I will ask the others if they see the horn.”



Amy laughed and set a hand to her chest. “If my father does not forbid it. You shall be there?” she asked, aware already that she would avoid this event. Even if Emeril seemed nice, she had faith in the Unicorn’s judgment. Never had the Unicorn’s wisdom steered her wrong and, whilst surrounded by an enchanted forest, that had proven invaluable.



“Excellent,” he replied. “It shall be lovely to see you there…”



Amy was soon called away, though she allowed the Prince to kiss her hand.



“Do you like him?” one of her maids asked.



“He  is friendly…” was all she could reply, torn between her loyalty to the Unicorn and her curiosity of the Prince.



The Unicorn could see behind Emeril’s guise of gentility. Maidens and youths frolicked about the festival and young Amy remained close to her maids and father. Whenever the village was given a merry event the white beast tended to hide himself but today he kept watch over the innocents. Emeril appeared as crimeless as they. When Amy disappeared into the crowd with the other maidens of the village—they had decided to include her in a game of throwing food—the Unicorn took the moment to enter the village itself. Until this point, he had been lingering at the edge of the forest, languishing in the grass and watching with the black bird at his side. Now he walked with a slow gait along the cobbled path.



Prince Emeril turned from conversing with another noble and cocked a brow at the beast.



“The Princess’ friend. He is friendly, isn’t he?”



He and the other man laughed. “What is he? Astounding. Not quite a horse, is it?”



Emeril’s companion reached out to touch the Unicorn but the creature recoiled from him and reared up. It was a warning noise to stay back, slightly too high to be a neigh. It was more akin to a whale’s call underwater. Emeril’s companion backed away in fear but Emeril made a grab for his sword.



“Oh, put that down, will you? I come to be reasonable with you,” the Unicorn spoke in the language of Man.



Both men gaped as color drained from their faces.



“You, Prince Emeril,” he warned “should not attend that bonfire tonight if you value your blood flowing. There is a creature in this woods who craves your kind. And better still, the beasts of this forest love the Princess. She is their friend and friends keep their own. You would not want to anger them.”



“What witchcraft is this?” Emeril demanded, putting the sword to the Unicorn’s face.



“Get that thing out of my face!” He used his horn to knock the sword out of the Prince’s hand. “That is all, Prince Emeril. Enjoy your festivities.” He grunted and trotted away.



“Mortals…” he scoffed.







2- song of the dark princess



Emeril had heard the word “no” throughout his life but never could come to grasp its meaning. And so he was quite angry when the Princess did not keep her word about the Bonfire. Other maidens were frolicking about but he had his sights set. Gray eyes scanned the scene for any sign of Princess Amethyst. Maidens had joined hands to circle the fire and ring around it. The sight was familiar enough to the Prince, one he had seen countless times in his own kingdom.



It was not until a quarter before midnight, as the Bonfire grew to its heights that her figure arrived. She had traded in her white dress and veil for a black replacements, as though she were leaving a funeral behind. Her maids were nowhere to be seen. For a moment, her silhouette played against the fire, statuesque and unnerving.



An odd thing happened then. Something Emeril had never seen a princess do before.



Amy began to sing, with no formal announcement.



“What are you doing, my lady?” he asked.



But her song was sweet and echoed far and wide.



“Follow me to forests, sweet,



where only the moon shall watch us flee,



None shall know but the trees,



Lift my veil and freedom’s plea



Shall be but ours and no one else



Will ever know where darkness dwells…”



Though he could make no sense of the lyrics, it was the voice that entranced him. Amy’s arms had begun to sway in time with her melody. She tiptoed away, barefoot. He was left with no choice but to follow. Reminded of his youth, that one girl who had escaped him. It was her voice, he knew it. It must be. And though this followed no logic, the moment of pursuit saw it as truth.



It was the very root of any chase. To capture that escaped captive.



All around them, the other celebrators had begun to fall asleep.



He followed the darkly veiled woman into a moonlit forest. Emeril had forgotten that white beast and his warnings of danger. “Pursue!” was all his mind could allow. He had never longed to touch something so much. This was a pinnacle of more than lust. It was longing.



The Princess stood beneath an old tree. The song had finally faded.



“Amy, your voice… It is unearthly.”



But when he reached for her, she held out a hand to stop him. Again she tiptoed away from him. His blood boiled. “You take me all this way and say no!”



The woman spun around and lifted her veil. The face was not quite fair. Something was not mortal in it. Her eyes were the color of blood.



She said nothing but smiled. Emeril felt a shock as thorns dug into his leg. Impossible things followed, the vines of the earth growing quickly around him. It was too late when it dawned on him what was happening. The forest itself turned its powers against him.



That awful siren of a woman laughed. She giggled and lifted from the ground with long black wings that he had not seen until now.



“Perhaps you should tell the forest that you are not in the mood,” she laughed and winged herself away, talons and all.



In the distance, that strange white creature of Amy’s, the “Unicorn,” watched as thorny vines held the Prince in place and nocturnal laughter surrounded him.



All around, the dome of night transformed the forest into a landscape that was both familiar and strange. This land was peopled with creatures usually unseen by Man’s eye.



The Unicorn turned from the scene and walked away. “I warned him…”







3-the Fairlands



The vines and thorns that held Prince Emeril in place were not all-powerful, only graceful arms that forced him to see the world fall into its subconscious. For the Prince that dream was a nightmare.



He cursed and struggled against the vines, eventually breaking through one of them and pulling himself out of their grasp. But by this point, teasing, tiny lights had begun to circle him. They mocked him and one bit his ear.



Irate with the sprites, Emeril swung his free hand dashed it against a tree. He brought his hand back to discover a blackish blood on his fist. This had turned into a night from hell. It was instinct for him to kick leaves over the dead sprite, which he had no time to truly examine. He assumed it to be some kind of fairy or demon.



The forest was no longer the one he had entered while pursuing the Siren. He cursed himself for leaving behind his weapon. Here something else sprung to life against a tree. The moonlight had casts Emeril’s shadow on a trunk and that shade moved on its own accord.



He turned his face away. Nothing here should be trusted, not even his own eyes. He had not been a believer of nightmarish tales but he had listened to enough to know better.



The growl and howl of an animal caused the lost Prince to spin around in the dark. But he could not find the direction of the noise. The moonlight was eclipsed and a shadow fell on the mortal man. A clap of thunder and a gust of wind broke any silence the night once held. Lightning stole the light from his eyes before returning it in a flash.



A winged figure appeared before him, with skin the color of green-gold and eyes that seared.



Murderer!” the bestial roar returned. Each word boomed as the spectacle spoke. “Thou hast killed one of the King’s citizens in cold blood! And not in self-defense. Bow and beg for forgiveness, wretch, and mayhaps there shall be some little mercy!”



“Stand your ground!” Emeril could not match the creature’s voice in power but he refused to bow.



“You kill one of the King’s citizens and now you dare to command him! This is my kingdom, moronic buffoon!”



“You may stand twice my height but do not think I shall back down, demon.”



Demon? DEMON!?” The creature’s black wings flapped and lifted him from the ground. “You dare to call the King a demon? I am FAE! And thy teeth shall be fashioned to a necklace for my daughter, thou wanton imbecile!”



Emeril felt fear but not the mortal dread most would experience in this situation. He had rarely felt true horror.



“Simmer down then, Fairy. I was led astray by a Siren-wench. My appearance in your kingdom is by mistake.”



“And so you think this excuses you from the murder and the crimes you commit. If you weep not in remorse, you will sob in endless pain. Excuses are dull and useless to the King. Results. That is the thing he wishes to see.”



“The result shall now be walking away,” Emeril replied, recovering from his initial shock. He did not fear fairies. No matter how fearsome or frightful they seemed. Tales he was told as a child were of tricksters and shape-shifters. There was the occasional maiden-thief or those that swapped out infants for old and deranged fairies. But overall, they seemed to be the lighter cousin of the more formidable hell demons. He turned on the King of Fae and began in the opposite direction.



A hand grasped his hair and, with one tug, threw the man to the ground. A heavy boot came down on his chest.



“Have you no mortal dread!” the King demanded. “No respect for pain and what it may teach.” The boot grinded down into Emeril’s chest. He felt anger, agitation and a primal need to fight or flee. But dread? There was still none.



The King’s face seemed to reflect this knowledge.



“The King first considers killing, then considers reformation but now he sees what thou truly are. The Unicorn was correct in his prognosis.”



The King balled a fist and tugged at the air. The uncontrolled scream echoed throughout the forest as the fairy uttered his curse.



Thy touch hath cursed the women thou cross’d



And so thee shall likewise be cursed and lost.



In a lake of thine own tears



Forever afloat without peer.



Bones twisted to match thy guise



of kindness and elegant lies.



White for purity that thou soaked red,



for rejecting the flame-light that pain should have shed.”



The King had removed his foot from Emeril’s chest and the Prince crawled to his knees and grabbed at the tall fairy’s leg. But a pain shot through Emeril’s spine, causing him to cry out. The Fairy King looked down upon him with a growl and Emeril’s hands slipped inch by inch off of his foe. On the ground his back jolted and the rest of his body shook. The violent spasm rocked him like a doll in the wind. It felt as though his very bones were breaking.



Such physical pain the Prince had never known. Even in battle, stabbed and coming so close to death had not been such a pang. When that first series of spasms stopped he saw on his hand one white feather. But he felt the rest of his flesh break into goose bumps before his spine broke.



That distinct snapping broke through the night.



Bones rearranged themselves.



The process dragged until he lay inside his own clothing, too small to wear it. The King knelt down before him and lifted him from the pile of clothing. That is when the Prince knew he was no longer a man.



The tall fairy held the white swan and stroked his feathers.



“A cursed prince. A twist indeed,” the King marveled. “I think I will leave thee at an enchanted lake. If thou attempts to fly off, the pangs you inflicted upon maids shall be…thine own.”







4- the legend of the dreaded swan



That is the story of how the rotten-hearted prince became an enchanted swan. The timeless swan maidens and youths have always existed. But Zeus had not been trapped within his treacherous guise. And so Emeril’s fate was unique among the swans. The legend says that by night he sometimes becomes part man again and he is a danger for maidens to visit.



When the Unicorn heard of the new legend he visited the lake to see for himself.



A swan floated towards him, leering.



The Unicorn lowered his head and allowed the bird to see his reflection in the moonlight. It was a reflection which showed his horn to the cursed swan. Emeril questioned why he had not seen it before.



“Perhaps someday you shall not need a penance to teach you how real pain is,” the Unicorn told him. “Perhaps someday I would break the curse for you. But to-night, I fear too much that you would still spread pain rather than learn from it. Goodnight, rotten Prince. May chariots of swans wing you to your epiphany.”


Profane Tales and its characters are Copyright the author!  (c) 2014 Luz Briar.

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