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Critique Please -- TLB --
11 years ago
A short story one of my characters tell as she lies on the floor to keep warm, fearing this may be her last time alive she tells the tale to her brother. I haven't a name for it yet...
There once was a king who had a son who was rude beyond reason; the boy was so spoiled that when he grew up he became selfish and harassed the guards to the point that none wanted to serve him. Even the servants refused until not even his own mother wanted to be near the prince. Putrid was his vice, so one day on the boys nineteenth birthday, finally emotionally stressed and fed up himself the king refused his son the right of diplomatic immunity and called out to his kingdom; ‘I am giving you the chance to teach my son what it means to be selfish, if he continues to act the way he does I myself will banish him.’ With those orders said the hunt was on.
The guards ravaged him, the sorcerers tortured him splitting him apart where he lie and put him back together again; the servants threw rotten food in his way—the villagers emptied their chamber pots when he walked by, even the shelter less tossed their shoes at him until he fled—unable to understand why—before he managed to reach the palace to the king the guards caught him and took him out into the woods, beating him until he fell to the ground, his eyes closing he watched them leave.
A traveling merchant and his daughter found the prince a day and a half later when their horse refused to walk past a large clump of dirt, taking his shovel the father pierced the ground but stopped shortly after finding hair and dug carefully around the body of the boy. It took weeks for him to heal but when he’d awakened he found the daughter and over time spending with them had learned to not be selfish then returned to the castle and married her. Some time later, elderly in their age, their children grown up and married—the wife passed away. Heart broken and worried the prince had done all he could for his children by teaching them kindness and fled into the woods where his body had been discovered years later with a note attached to his hands asking if he were to be found that he’d be taken back to the palace and buried next to his wife, his love, his rock of strength.
There once was a king who had a son who was rude beyond reason; the boy was so spoiled that when he grew up he became selfish and harassed the guards to the point that none wanted to serve him. Even the servants refused until not even his own mother wanted to be near the prince. Putrid was his vice, so one day on the boys nineteenth birthday, finally emotionally stressed and fed up himself the king refused his son the right of diplomatic immunity and called out to his kingdom; ‘I am giving you the chance to teach my son what it means to be selfish, if he continues to act the way he does I myself will banish him.’ With those orders said the hunt was on.
The guards ravaged him, the sorcerers tortured him splitting him apart where he lie and put him back together again; the servants threw rotten food in his way—the villagers emptied their chamber pots when he walked by, even the shelter less tossed their shoes at him until he fled—unable to understand why—before he managed to reach the palace to the king the guards caught him and took him out into the woods, beating him until he fell to the ground, his eyes closing he watched them leave.
A traveling merchant and his daughter found the prince a day and a half later when their horse refused to walk past a large clump of dirt, taking his shovel the father pierced the ground but stopped shortly after finding hair and dug carefully around the body of the boy. It took weeks for him to heal but when he’d awakened he found the daughter and over time spending with them had learned to not be selfish then returned to the castle and married her. Some time later, elderly in their age, their children grown up and married—the wife passed away. Heart broken and worried the prince had done all he could for his children by teaching them kindness and fled into the woods where his body had been discovered years later with a note attached to his hands asking if he were to be found that he’d be taken back to the palace and buried next to his wife, his love, his rock of strength.
