The Tired Prince
It was the first night. I was hungry and ambitious, lusting for food, sleep, and spirits to burn down my throat. I wondered if it was just the yearnings of my mortal body, something I could easily ignore. It was probably better to have the warmth of a shower and the kiss of sleep than to just sit in the car as it idled. It was maybe all the hours awake that was keeping me over-aware, eyes darting franticly at all the noises around. You would think me a shadow floating swiftly from the car seat out into the street. I felt the cold grip my ears and the dirty fumes of exhaust groan out into the air as the car puttered off down the street. My driver, of course, knew the importance of this night. How the journey would eventually have concluded here at the very house I believed to have burned down.
There was maybe a bit of fear mixed with my wonderment of such a place. It was younger than me but had experienced deep pain. The estate itself was old but the house was a project of my parents and now it all was mine. I buried my animals here years ago, creatures of deep love and loyalty, taken by various events of life. It was here I had tricked fate with a bet that would chain me to bitter traditions. One's that I could not change for the betterment of modern man. This is where the devils burned my parents and the priests and taxmen came to take me away and my property. My luck, however, has always even outplayed my inner needs and vastly outwitted the needs of destiny.
I wondered about the sanity of the man or woman that had taken on the reconstruction of the house in my absence and who was without the need of my money to pay for the venture. I pulled my coat tightly around me, the nights here had always been just a bit too uncomfortable but never enough to freeze to death. I waited for my driver to trek it back with the bags and open the front door for me. I heard no announcement, nor did it appear anyone else resided within, yet the warmth in the fireplace suggested otherwise. I grinned at the feeling of familiarity, it was as pristine as the day I had fled it.
It was impossible to know how I knew to flee back then. I just did and it wasn't even to run away from the very thing that killed my family. No, it was under a completely different guise to escape with a common girl, beautiful and simple, her black hair and smell still haunt my dreams some days. It, of course, didn't last very long as she was needed elsewhere to wed and have a family, something that wasn't meant for me on a human level. I of course was already married but it was not what many would think to be a traditional marriage. It wasn't a physical one in almost any sense of the word. I hung my coat and withdrew a notebook as I settled in front of the fire.
The pen itself probably materialized due to the urgency of the words, but as I scratched onto the empty pages my wants and needs so too did the book itself write back to me. I smiled, my lover was an ancient thing, and I had just told her the news of the house and the hunger I felt. I went and sat at the table where my wife had prepared a meal and a whiskey to bid me goodnight. On my napkin I noticed she had left her lipstick-pressed lips, I kissed them childishly and devoured my meal into the night.
On the Second day, I noticed the house had come alive with noise. As I woke and the curtains drew themselves, I noticed a young girl waiting by the door knitting something. I coughed for some water and the poor girl jumped straight up startled. I chuckled and stretched as the clothes around me began to wake as well. Dancing in a circle around me, dressing me piece by piece. When I was young it took me a while to get the hang of the momentum in which the clothes flew over my flesh, but now I could do it asleep.
I reached out and grabbed the cup of water the young girl had waiting for me, and my eyes widened at the purity of the liquid. I had forgotten that the freshwater spring by the house had been blessed years ago by the blood of animal warriors, long before the rise of mankind. I had bathed in those waters for years and drank it as often as I could to keep my senses nimble and royal. The house had truly awoken with life as the staff had finally shown up and properly adjusted all the clocks to be synced up correctly, a note I had written in the book last night, more as a complaint than I want.
Some would say the house was magical but it wasn't and it was very plain. No more magic here than the people that inhabited it. I was the battery that fueled this house. It probably had sat lifeless for years without much of anyone even noticing it. I could sense that even the grounds around the house were coming alive once more. The garden had finally bloomed new flowers and the animals that once avoided this place were now caught quite a bit off guard by all these new senses that were coming from the land around me.
I grew tired quickly here, all the forces around me draining me in all senses. At the end of the first few days, I realized I would black out the last remaining hours of the day and wake up somehow on my bed. It was concerning for I was always a bit dirtier than I remembered. My clothes were always a bit skewed, and dirt beneath my fingernails. The energy that I was providing to this space was at its utmost peak. I even saw the wounds of smaller inland animals heal and their diseases fade away. The old woman that always took my coat had started to look more lively and even started wearing glittered eye shadow.
I picked away at the dirt under my nails as I faded deeper into the bath. The young woman scrubbed my shoulders in urgency. I lifted a hand and she stopped. It was my lack of understanding of what this place was that led to what would occur. The knife she plunged into the side of my neck hurt truly though I felt nothing really as the blood poured out black and red. What a sight to behold as my head was held underwater, flashes of another woman grabbing my notebook and darting out of sight. As my thick blood floated above me on the edge of the bath water, I felt all my sense ache. I felt empty, truly tired, all my powers fading. The energy I was pouring into the land had been taken from me and now so was my life.
I let death claim me completely. I understood the task I was given by the knife. I was the sacrifice needed. My blood would sustain generations of humanity and spawn witches and lead innovations. I was bred to be this very thing since birth. Maybe I came here always knowing, or even feeling some sort of fucked up purpose, but as all of my life faded, I simply smiled as I finally got some real sleep.