He departed just how he had entered, with grace and fury. But it wasn’t fury as you’d think it. It was a fury living underneath. It lay hidden beneath his skin, behind his eyes, underscoring his words. His strength was like a thunderstorm in the distance, so powerful and yet safely away. His joy was water about to break the damn. Everything she had ever heard about him had been true, and yet lacking in the vividness of it all. She had never felt more alive, perhaps that’s why she let him in. She never felt threatened, never afraid, but not really herself either, and yet, so much more of herself than she’d ever been. She had been swept up by him, transformed into the next incarnation, if the stories were to be true.
“Oh, Elenore, what did you just do?” she asked herself aloud. During all of her life, all of everyone’s lives , had been tales of the Prince of Stars. That he wandered. Wandered far north to the Aclusian strongholds of Durn and Fang. Wandered to the Summer Isles of the South, where the wind was said to bring healing. Wandered east, to the Endless Sea where he would stare for days, looking Beyond. And walking west, to the towns of the Free Peoples and beyond to the Mal’thareo.
She had heard that he was the only son of the King of Berelan, but Berelan hadn’t had a King in a thousand years. He had found his father to be cruel, and in order to escape becoming cruel himself, he went out into the world. He wandered far and wide in search of compassion, empathy, fairness, justice, and love. The legends say that he found all of them, that he incorporated them into himself, so that he could be the greatest King the world had ever seen. But even though he had incorporated them, he lacked understanding them. Instead of returning to his father, he set out again, traveling farther than before, gaining the full comprehension of each trait he so desperately wanted to understand. Only one of them eluded him; love. The Prince tried desperately to understand love. After wandering the world, he cried a loud to the heavens, “I beseech thee stars! Teach me love, for the world cannot!”
The stars took pity on the prince, for they had followed his wanderings, watched with undivided attention, while he made himself into the best man he could think to be. They took him from the world, and showed him how all the peoples loved. Where it started, where it finished, what it meant to them. “Alas, but I know this already,” he told the stars, “I need to feel it for myself.” “We love thee,” replied the stars, “but have no way to show you.” In that moment, the prince felt Love. He felt the pain of the stars, for they so desperately loved him, they brought him into their realm to teach him what he wanted to know. Their pain for what they wanted for him so desperately, they could not give to him. In doing so, the prince learned of heart ache, and truly began to understand love. “Ah, Stars, but you have shown me now, love and pain are not separate, but intertwined. Love brings you great joy, but in order to love, you must want more for someone else, than you do yourself.”
The stars rejoiced, for they had not expected the prince to love them the way they loved him. While he was now the best man he could be, he was still a man, and could not remain in the stars realm. The stars knew that this was coming, yet it pained them still. And while both the prince and the stars could watch each other, it would only be from afar. The stars shed a tear. It landed on the prince, and brought him to the next incarnation. “We will always love thee, and always watch thee,” said the stars, “We name you our Prince, and grant you all the privileges our love could bring.” The Prince bowed before the stars, but his love and heartache would not let him speak. He simply nodded and made his way back to Berelan.
The Prince returned to his father, but could not accept his position over the kingdom. He needed to find love again, and only being made whole, would he be able to rule. So the Prince of Stars set out to wander once again. The cruel king died, and the kingdom was broken apart, and still the Prince wandered. The land changed, the people changed, and still the prince wandered. The Ponan Ral came, the Free Peoples rose to power, and the world was how it was, and yet the prince still wandered. His story was told over and over, becoming legend.
But most of what Elenore had heard, what her girlhood companions would whisper and giggle about, was how he took women from their homes. Took them in the name of love. He didn’t find women based on their outer beauty, but from the light of their hearts. If your heart shone like the light of the Stars, he would take you with him on adventures far and wide, and when he was done with you, you would either die of joy, or return home broken hearted.
Why little girls thought of such things or were told of such things she did not know They hadn’t really gotten it right. He had taken her, but not in the way a little girl would understand. She felt as though she could die of joy, for she had thought that her loneliness would consume her, cursed to be a maiden her whole life by the Ponan Ral. His leaving also broke her heart a little, for he is said never to return.
He had said that he left her two things to keep her strong, so that the memory of him would not turn her to darkness. She would keep one to herself fore she believed none had ever received this gift. The Prince of Stars was always masked, they said. The eternal clown. The trickster. The faceless. That behind it lay terror and despair. She had felt the terror, that was for sure, but it was not her terror, or his, but terror belonging to someone else. Faceless he was not. He had slowly raised his hands, gliding along the edge of that porcelain cheek. Silver seemed to be engraved all along, like the branches of trees, decorating the field of white. The branches bent over his eyes, which were ever changing. It was hard to say what color, sometimes strong brown, then wise grey, his smile was betrayed by mischievous green.
No, the Prince of Stars had a lovely face. When he removed the mask, he appeared but a man. Kind, yet sad. His deep voice held her name in the air, and before he said his goodbyes, one corner of his mouth turned in a smile. A single tear fell from his hopeful blue eyes, dropping to the ground, they caught the candle light with many facets. “I give you two gifts, one for you to keep. The other is only yours for a little while, but I will always look after it.” He returned his smooth face, spun on his heals, and was out the door.
Elenore watched for him out the window, but he had vanished. The Prince of Stars will do, what the Prince of Stars wills. That was the saying. What was he the Prince of? She knew of no Kingdom. The stories told of one from long ago, but this man couldn’t be more than 30, it was not possible for him to be from bed time stories. The Free Peoples had no King, they always looked after their own well enough. No one, save the Prince of Stars in stories, ever returned from facing the eternal dry that was the Mal’thero, perhaps beyond that great desert was where his kingdom lay? “Bah, Elenore, fairy tales told by little girls,” she spoke aloud, “but what were the gifts?” She looked around. Her memory of him was bright, brighter than anything else she had ever experienced. It warmed her to think of his face. She no longer felt the chill of the world. The thought of him made her feel the warmth, radiating from her heart. That could be a gift. Did her heart shine like the stars? Looking at the floor, she saw where his tear drops had fallen.
The rough wood had been made smooth, and gleamed as though polished. Elenore slowly reached out. “Oh!” she cried, “it’s cold. It’s marble?” She ran her fingers over the two spots. The wood had transformed, but to what she was not sure. It was hard as stone, and smooth as glass. How had he done that?
Fairy tale stories or no, the Prince of Stars was real, he had visited Elenore on the 3rd night of the Fall Festival. All of the lovers were out celebrating their blessings from the Ponan Ral, and she was in her place, as was decreed. Her place. “Bah!” she spit. She had envied her friends who had been given the life of a woman. To have their choice of a husband. To have their children. To live a full life according to the scrolls. She would knew these things not, for she was decreed a Maiden, Bride of the Land. She would not know a man’s touch. She would not know a child’s love. She would work the land. And in return for her sacrifice the Free Peoples would continue their path toward holiness.
Elenore hated that. Holiness? What was holy about being alone? What was holy about washing clothes and tilling the earth? In her mind she thought that the Keepers wanted control, that the scrolls were just their fences, and that the Ponan Ral mearly a figure head they raised from the Maidens to keep them content. Elenore was far from content or at least she was, until the Prince of Stars knocked on her door, and called her by name.
A cold breeze crept under the door. Elenore shuttered. That was way too cold for Festival Weather. Turning from her bedroom she looked toward the door. A grey mist was forming. How strange that it would come indoors. Should she be frightened? Perhaps, but she felt so brave, this night had been an awakening. Just to be certain, she grabbed the iron poker from the fire place, the coals had turned to ash, but were still warm. Had she not tended them for that long? She flushed thinking of the Prince of Stars’s use of time.
“Grrrraaace be with you, Maiden.” A flat voice said from her doorway. Elenore spun, the mist had taken the form of, well she wasn’t quite sure what, a creature. “What do you want?!”, yelled Elenore, “How did you get in her?!?” “I’ve come seeking a treasure, put down the cold iron, I mean you now harm,” the creature’s melodious voice tickled her ears, “Put it down, and show me your gifts.” Gifts? How could this thing. . . “Back away from me creature, I do not want you here!” Elenore retorted. The creature seemed surprised that Elenore had not done what it had asked, and then started to laugh, a slow, deep hiss, like an organ with a leak. “He gave you warmth, I see,” the creature started, “How did he do such a thing?”
As the creature advanced Elenore could take no more, summoning all her might, she flung the poker at this beast. It flipped through the air, and would have took the creature in the chest, had it not passed straight through, like rain through mist. The strange hissing laugh continued, “Cold iron is only dangerous when connected to the living, Maiden. If only your Keepers would have shared that knowledge. It might have saved you.” The creature’s foglike grin moved disjointedly from it’s words.
Elenore found herself thinking that strange. It’s a monster in my house, that should be strange enough. Part of her thought, the rest of her back slowly toward her bed. “Come, show me the gift he gave,” coaxed the creature, “there are always two.” “How did you know he was here?” Elenore retorted, “I don’t even know where he went.” She continued to back away, but the creature pressed forward. “He is so. . .proud,” spat the beast, “His trail is so obvious, he throws it in our faces, so confident, so foolish.”
“He is no fool! He’s the Prince of Stars!” yelled Elenore. How strange to defend him, he was but a story before tonight. The back of her knees hit the bed, sending her backwards. “Prince of what? Of where? Know you anything Maiden? Or are you as ignorant as the Ponan Ral forces you to be? Now, give me the gifts!”
It took two steps forward, and froze. “No!” the creature yelled, “no no no! The fog creature seemed to solidify, his face stone, his arms ice. Antlers sprung from his head, twisted and unnatural. Dark blood oozed from its mouth while its lips pulled back in a snarl. “This cannot be, I cannot be here!” Elenore was confused, it had been so fearsome, and now the creature seemed alarmed, as she watched it fully manifest, she noticed where it’s foot had landed. It was the small spots where the Prince of Stars’ tears had fallen. They seemed to glow white hot.
Elenore took her chance, grabbed her candlestick, and assaulted the creature. She went for the head first. Bringing the stick down with all her force, she saw the creature’s oozing jaw break loose and heard the crack of it breaking like an echo. She was not trained to fight, however, and she slipped on her bedclothes, tumbling into the creature, hands first. As she fell, her bare skin pressed into the creature. In that moment, she knew what it was; a demon. Tales as old as the Prince of Stars spoke of demons. While the Prince was searching for love, he forced the demons out of this world, and that they were jealous of him.
A light erupted from the creature, where her skin had pressed. “No! Who are you to do this!” the Demon bellowed, then gasped, “You are no Maiden!” “I am a Maiden, chosen by the Ponan Ral!” Elenore challenged, not truly believing her words. The demon smirked his bloody teeth, “A Maiden unflowered is no maiden at all, mortal!” he spat dark blood that turned to smoke in the air, then he began to laugh, “The Prince of Stars’s gift will see you into the cold! Even in my death I can rejoice in your pain.” “What gift? Killing you?” asked Elenore. The demon shook the breaking stone that was his head “Do you not know? The fruit of your labor will be bitter sweet.”
As the demon’s blood boiled into smoke and dissipated into the wind like a ghost, Elenore ran out into the night. “What did you give me?!” she yelled, “what was the second gift? I do not want to fight demons! I didn’t ever want that! WHAT DID YOU CURSE ME WITH?!!” Elenore collapsed into her garden, the tears pouring from her eyes. A Maiden unflowered is no maiden at all. She had no place now, the demon had been right. Elenore turned to despair, for her world had not turned more vivid this night, but more dark. As she closed her eyes, a kind voice came to her, “What is your hearts desire? What could you love most?” it said. “A child of my own.” She replied. “Then why do you despair?” the voice said in return. Elenore’s tears flowed freely, “For I have been tricked, and no man will have me now.” “Demon’s twist the truth, look to your heart for the path of light.”
The voice faded away. Look to my heart. Elenore took a deep breath. She thought of happiness, of pain, of fury, of life, of Him. His fury, had been for her. He knew what was going to happen, and it brought his pain. Everything about him, now so much more clear. Thinking of him, brought warmth into her heart. Even a demon couldn’t cool her now. The Prince of Stars had given her warmth, no matter what would happen to her, she would be warm. But why would I be thrown out into the cold. She thought. Why had the demon said that?
The second gift dawned upon her. Elenore’s hands wrapped around herself. Could it be? Is this what he intended? She was a maiden no longer, and further more, she held the Prince of Stars’s child in her womb. Oh no! Had she truly been tricked. All bastards were called princelings, a mocking jest toward the legend. Her child would truly be a Son of the Prince. That’s why the demon couldn’t survive her touch. The Prince of Stars had power over them, and his children must also. Her child was already protecting her. What a strange sensation this was.
”The other is only yours for a little while, but I will always look after it.” Only hers for a little while? What did that mean? She understood. The tales were wrong. You didn’t get the choice of dying of joy or being broken hearted, that wasn’t what being the Prince of Stars’ lover gave you. You were given no choice. You would experience enough joy to kill but live to suffer the worst heart break. He brought both with him. Was one worth the other? Elenore did not know. Maybe that’s why he bears such sadness. For the moment, she knew she would revel in the joy. Even after the demon, she was nothing but joyful. She would raise this child. It was hers, after all.
Elenore left the garden, much like she had entered it. With grace and fury.
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