Awakening implies a sleep, a type of slumber that has lulled one into a luscious embrace. It implies opening one's eyes to the truth, an epiphany if you will. There are many types of awakenings: calm, peaceful, gentle, or abrupt and damaging.
Mine was... unpleasant to say the least, with a slumber that lasted little more than seconds before I opened my eyes, and I saw the world's truth. Perhaps it was when we killed our father. Perhaps it was when he ordered my brother's execution. Was it when I watched the woman I cared for deeply die because of the brother I saved from death?
When was it that I truly opened my eyes? It has been so long that I cannot truly recall when I lost my innocence.
And such a strange and rattling thing that it was, falling from that pedestal of youth!
However, I believe that losing innocence is a requirement for every life. Innocence causes you to trust where you should not. Innocence causes you to dance apon a stage of ignorance, trapped in endless, idiotic bliss. If you do not open your eyes, you do not survive this wretched world. Awakening is necessary, painful though it may be.
I have long embraced my fall from grace. Throughout these long centuries, I have drenched myself in the blood of innocents and the corrupted alike. How else would I keep myself alive? How else would I keep my sister alive? My dear, sweet sister whose smile could light the word and laugh could wash sorrow from its people; her awakening is the only one that I deem unnecessary. I know that this fledgling bird that I have held in my arms for centuries now will one day spread her wings, but I cannot bear to see her topple from grace. I have always wished to shield her eyes from horror, always.
Why then, I wonder, have I agreed to this cursed game against our damned brother? Have I grown so desperate for amusement in these endless years that I would willingly crush a mortal life? Ah, but I have seen the outcome, as my wretched sibling has picked her to be his champion. How could I possibly refuse him with her on the chessboard?
Another bird, just barely flapping her wings, will have her innocence torn from her. Curse him for claiming her as his chess piece. Curse him for leaving me with a far less spectacular specimen. Curse him for goading me into this pointless game.
And yet, it begins, as it always must.
Damn you, Rasca. Damn you.
-The Memoir of Asmodeus Fletcher
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The Hunter's Princess
RomanceXander has lived his entire life in the woods. Abandoned by a mother that the hunter who raised him never spoke of, he's considered an outcast. Xander is content with his quiet life of solitude until a noble lady imprisoned by bandits desperately ne...
