un petite histoire d'un monde là-bas
Mika sighs for the hundredth time in the past hour or so as he gazes out the window. Not that there is much to see since the witch’s enchantment conceals the tower from any onlooker’s view and conversely keeps Mika in the dark. Literally. His favourite pastime has come to be imagining new constellations in the pitch black darkness around the thrice-cursed tower.
The witch blabbed about how she is doing this out of love, that she will keep him safe from those greedy, untrustworthy humans. She also said some nonsense about ‘turning him so that he shall bask in the glory of immortality’, whatever that was supposed to mean.
Mika shudders at the memory. His instincts are telling him that he needs to escape this little preview of hell before he finds out for himself what the little witch meant.
The prince looks out the window again; he scoffs, imagining how his governess would scold him for such an un-royal behaviour. ‘A person of royal blood must always retain his dignity and sense of authority over all things in his or her realms’, she would lecture him. Gah, he must be going mental seeing that he is beginning to miss that old hag’s nagging!
“Please come save me,” Mika whispers into the passing warm breeze. Perhaps he is hallucinating, but the gentle breeze seems to caress his cheek before the warmth leaves him.
Time for a nap, he supposes.
-
Please come save me.
“Wha’?” Yuu murmurs, only half-awake. “Ma, you say somethin’?”
“No! Aye! Git yer scrawny arse outta bed an’ milk them cows, boy!” his ma yells from the door.
“’M not scrawny, Ma,” Yuu retorts. Nonetheless, he crawls off his bed made of straw and wool and walks out to the kitchen to wash his face. “Fuck,” he mutters when he realises that he forgot to pull a shirt on. Ma hates it whenever he walks around half-clothed, says it makes him look like one of them hicks raised in a barn.
Yuu yawns and scratches his armpits as he drags his feet to their small barn where they keep two cows and a dozen or so chickens. That reminds him, he was supposed to sell one of them hens at the market the other day. Shite.
As if on cue, his ma stomps out to the yard. “Yuuichirou! Did you forget to sell the hen?”
Yuu sighs. “Sorry, Ma. I’ll do that next morn.”
She crosses her arms. “I been tellin’ ye to sell that old thing! Go do tha’ now!”
Yuu bites back a yawn. “Yes, Mother.”
He scoops up the oldest hen of the bunch and places her in the basket he finds lying around next to the barn door. His Ma gives him an earful as he pulls on his best city clothes—them black clothes with real brass buttons that look proper and, well, city dweller-like—and as she is fixing him breakfast and summat to eat on the road.
“Ye be careful on th’ road!” his Ma reminds him for the eighth time.
“Aye, Ma. I ain’t eight no more. That was eight years ago!” Yuu snaps.
His Ma kisses him on the forehead. “You’ll always be my lil’ boy. Now git to it! All them good spots be taken by th’ time yer there.”
“Yes, Mother. See you tomo’.”
-
“Ah, feckin’ hell,” Yuu yells into the woods. He should have been out of the woods before noon but he is somehow still in the midst of trees and whatnot. Usually, it takes him about half a day to walk to the nearest city marketplace to barter farm stuff with them city dwellers. Today, however, has been anything but usual. For daytime, the forest is awfully dark and he swears that it keeps growing darker as if the sun blinked out.
“Shoulda took a map,” he mutters to himself. “Who’da thunk it? Ma’s got reason to her naggin’.”
He plops down on a rock and rummages through his rucksack. Nope. His Ma didn’t sneak a map inside. Eh. He’ll take his snack break and continue on. Staying not hungry is more important than finding his way.
Please come save me.
That voice again! Who is saying that? He knows that them city kids make up stories about how Yuu’s hometown is close to a witch’s tower or summat but he had thought that it was all horse shite. It has to be all fiction.
Yuu wolfs down the sandwich and jumps to his feet. “Witches ain’t real,” he tells himself. He breaks off a branch halfway and also leaves behind a piece of bread from the sandwich. “They can’t be real.”
He turns around to continue on his journey.
Except he doesn’t.
More like he can’t.
-
Mika can’t fall asleep. Well, it’s more like he doesn’t want to.
He returns to one of the windows and scans the absolute darkness. He is sketching out the shape of a mystical bird in the skies with his hand when he sees a spot of light blink.
Never has he seen light in the middle of all that darkness since his imprisonment began.
Dare he hope that help has finally arrived?