Dance of Bonds ~ Waltz of Everlasting Memories (Fragment)
TITLE: Dance of Bonds ~ Waltz of Everlasting Memories
CHAPTER: I (Fragment)
GENRE: Humor, Romance, Yaoi
RATING: Readable
Summary: There is none.
DoB~WoEM Chapter 1, written on 2007. Man...
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“Prince! Prince Erise!”
Once again, the Golden Castle was woken up by the terrified shouts of the three dozen maids that served for the Prince’s care. They were running from hall to hall, yelling for the Prince who would still be in his night clothes, probably catching a cold, getting kidnapped or the Beings know what other kind of horrible things.
They had become more frequent lately, the Prince’s disappearances. He would be gone by the morning, before the morning frost thawed, come back for lunch and some lessons, and then be gone again around the Late Fifth. He would come back after the moon shone in the Late Tenth, and go to bed after reading for two bell chimes. This almost-daily ritual of him scared both Queen Tiatnia and King Higbel, who were seriously thinking of protecting all windows of their Son’s room with jailbars.
Nobody knew what the Prince did during his disappearances. A few times he would come back with porcelain dolls in his hands, and ask the maids and his Mother for clothes for them. Other times he would skip lunch and go straight to the smithy, where he handed over broken weapons, as well as some elegant decoration ones. Once he had come back with bruises in his arms and neck; another time the Silver Priestess said she could see evil spirits around him. This had brought the King to set guards before the Prince’s door, the whole tower and the garden.
Back on the situation on hand, the only maid who wasn’t screaming with a high pitched voice, Mira, calmly walked through the servants’ corridor, trying to find the door that would probably lead her to the missing Prince. The door she was looking for was a wooden one, carved, much unlike the common heat-retainer metal most of them were made of. The servants’ quarters were horribly cold, especially in winter, and that had been taken into consideration even before Inivy the Peaceful’s reign.
Of course, the two people living inside that room weren’t very fond of heat. They hated it, and could easily die if their room’s temperature went higher. None of that prevented them from heating each other up in the night, though.
Mira opened the door, without caring to knock. They were a bell chime after frost thawing, around halfway the Early Seventh, meaning both of them were awake, dressed and ready for work. She stepped inside, quickly taking notice of the room’s state.
“Mira! What are you doing here!?”
The maid waited for the boy to finish tying his black hair. He was sitting on the king-sized bed, fully dressed with his usual attire. His harp was nowhere to be seen, probably because the man he lived and slept with was carefully setting its strings back in place by the window. A bard and his luthier. Both of them were pure Icefolks. The soft blue skin and eyes they had was proof enough. Well, the man’s eyes had a greenish look on them around the Early Twelfth, but they would care less.
When the boy and the man were both looking at her, she mouthed. ‘The Prince has run away again’.
“Again? That little guy is a bit of way too troublesome to be a Prince. Are we sure he isn’t a Wildling?” Lian, the man, spoke up while tying the last string.
“I will go look for him!”
--
A bell chimed in the distance. The boy, sitting carefully in the towers slanted roof, stared at the Temple with blank eyes. It was the Early Eight now, and he was supposed to be taking a warm bath, not freezing to death outside the Castle.
But still, he was used to the cold. He WAS of the Sacred Race, after all. He could stand anything. From cold to heat, blood loss and poison...
Even the imprisonment his parents unconsciously had him in.
He sighed and went back to thinking about his life. Below him, in the tower, his sharp ears caught the distressed yelling of his maids, but he didn’t care. If they really needed him downstairs, they should at least be able to use their brains to guess what place he was in. He had given them enough hints already.
‘I really love those rocks in the sky! What are they called?’
‘Aren’t the Godstones looking bright today?’
‘When I make it to King, I’ll build a machine to go up there!’
Yep, enough hints. He looked up to the Godstones, lazily moving around. They seemed to be calling, especially the Silver one. He tried to remember what his teacher had said about the Silver Stone, but really couldn’t remember. But then again, he never remembered anything that happened inside the castle unless it had to do with his friends.
Prince Erise of Altravia, known amongst Downtown as the Vagabond Prince, didn’t exactly like his lifestyle. Not that anyone would know, after all. When inside the castle, he acted all innocent and overprotected, like he had never ever been outside, and always did his homework and kept his courtesies. But, when in town...
“Good to see you up here, Erise!”
Erise turned his head to look at the owner of the voice. Straight and long black hair, tied in a high ponytail. Ice blue skin and eyes of the Icefolk. White robes, black hoodied cloak, chain belt and a dagger tied to it. The court bard.
“Rinu. What brings your frail frozen body up here in these ungodly hours?” The Prince’s voice was cheerful, as fitting for a twelve years old, but it didn’t fit his outside attitude at all.
“Shouldn’t a pirate be down in the sea, instead of up in the sky? Are you going to start sky-diving?” The bard sat down besides him, careful to not let his feet slip. One stray step, and it would be death for him.
“I wonder. I preffer the sky over the sea, but to be a sky pirate is a hard task. One must have a real crew before going up there.”
“And one mustn’t be a Prince, you know. Princes, especially the ones that will be Connecting in a day, shouldn’t be thinking about pirate life.” He lighted a cigarette and inhaled. “But still, I’m no one to be talking.”
“You have been picking up bad habits from Lian again.” Erise made a move to grab the cigarette, but Rinu was faster. “I do not want to Connect...”
“I don’t either. Mira and Lian, Xeji and Ioqua, Rei, Kai... None of us want you to Connect. Xeji was proposing that we kidnap you yesterday... But we don’t want to be hunted down.”
“I will go live with the Wildlings.”
“Lian was suggesting that, too. But he said you WERE a Wildling.”
“How can I be a Wildling when I am of the Sacred?”
“That’s a good question, Prince.”
They kept silent, just staring at the Godstones and Rinu smoking. In the far distance, a pirate ship could be seen firing to the sky as a way of greeting. When the third fire exploded, the bard spoke.
“Don’t you have dolls to dress?”
“AH! I have got to bath them! My poor babies... They must be really lonely without me...”
“...You should bathe yourself first...”
--
It was the Early Eleventh, and all eighty-five porcelain dolls and Erise himself had been bathed and dressed accordingly. Mira was currently helping the Sacred to put on his cloak.
“Say, Mira. Do you think I will make a good performance in tomorrow’s Ceremony?”
Through the mirror, the maid mouthed. ‘Since only the Prince can make a Connecting Ceremony look good, I guess... But, can a pirate do it? Or a vagabond?’
“I think so... Maybe I will stay inside today... You know, preparing and all...”
‘You should do what you find fit, my Prince Erise.’
“Hm...”
There was a knock on the door. And another. And another. A soft rhythm was quickly played by the knocks, probably being made by at least three hands. Mira sighed and went to open the door, and Erise started combing his hair. Really fast.
Lian and Rinu stepped inside, both their knuckles red from the knocking. Without a word, they went over to the Prince’s bed and sat down.
“Hello there, vagabond pirate. How’s the life going?” The blue-haired luthier spoke in his rough voice as he reached for Erise’s flute. “Have you been practicing for tomorrow’s ceremony?”
“This Prince hasn’t practiced a thing. This Prince doesn’t know what he will play tomorrow. He hopes the Beings will send some inspiration on the moment.”
“Well, there is a high probability something like that will happen... Anyways, we came here to drop a message, the Queen wants to see you!” As he said that, Rinu was tapping on Lian’s leg, creating yet another rhythm in the moment.
“Mother? Why would she want to see me at these hours?”
“Saying something about you visiting the Gold Priest and what not. Tomorrow is the Ceremony, they are probably going to see how you will enter, what to say and all that royalty crap.”
“Lian! Stop messing with our Prince’s head!”
“Ah! But if the Prince’s head isn’t messy, how will he become a great pirate?”
Mira watched the scene, smiling softly at her friends antics. It was yet another normal day in the life of the Skyfolk.
---
Made of fail.
-Andreya