The guard of a rotting throne

To old ends

Can my life get any worse? My joints were stiff from sitting for so long, Hestia came to unfold me from my position. This was embarrassing, even when it was just my nurse maid, the only person who ever looked at me without disgust.

I glanced out the window seeing a Common Redpoll fly by. Free, what an alien word to me. Perhaps one day, maybe, just maybe.

"Prince Valerius," Hestia murmured to me, "You need to bathe and be rewrapped tonight."

A sigh leaves my lips as I move to my personal bath stiffly, sitting on the edge of the bath to remove the tight bandages still wrapping my skin. Hestia began unwrapping my legs as I unwrapped my neck and torso. She unwrapped my arms before leaving me to unwrap myself completely.

I sink into the water infused with mint and rosemary oils to overpower the scent of the rotting skin upon my bone. I scrub gently to ensure I do not tear my skin off, sighing as I lean back in the tub.

My body, too fragile to clean properly and too disgusting for even myself to look upon for much longer than a moment. I could not even feel if the water was warm or cool, I assume it had little heat to it.

My eyes stay locked on the ceiling as the thought of my body, already rotting and tearing haunts my mind. My body would soon be nothing but bones, my flesh rotted and falling away. The mere thought disgusts me.

My hair falls into my face as I wet it to clean. Gently lathering shampoo onto my scalp, I am careful not to pull a hair or let a strand wrap around my finger. My days were always quiet, never did I wish for them to be loud.

The quiet was a shroud, thicker than the bandages Hestia would soon wind around me again. I stayed in the water until my fingertips- the part that still possessed some semblance of living flesh- turned prune-like and pale. The scent of rosemary and mint felt like a lie, a thin veil draped over the reality of my condition.

As I pulled myself from the bath, the air hit my damp skin with a bite I could not truly feel, only anticipate. I stood before the tall, silver backed mirror, a thing usually avoided with a religious fervor.

Today, I looked.

The decay was advancing near the collarbone. A map of my own ending written in grey and bruised purples. I reached out, my hand trembling, and traced the reflection of the repoll still lingering on the windowsill outside. It chirped, a sharp, lively sound that pierced the stagnant air of the washroom.

"One day," I whispered, the words scratching at my throat.

Hestia returned, her arms laden with fresh linen and the pungent, medical salves that kept the infection at bay. She didn't flinch as she began the work of reconstruction. As she moved to wrap my arms, her thumb brushed a patch of skin that wasn't yet ruined. It was a brief, accidental spark of human warmth.

"The king has requested your presence in the solarium tomorrow, My Prince," she said, her voice low. "The blossoms are beginning to drop."

I looked at my half-wrapped limb, now white and sterile like a mummy's. To be seen by the court- or worse, by my father- was a trial I wasn't sure I could survive. But as hestia tightened the final knot on my wrist, I thought of the bird again. If I was to rot, perhaps I should at least do it in the sun.