Dont read this, this is just stories I want to read

teratophilia

He doesn’t bother to check the time, the short candles with tiny flames at the end of their wicks tell him all he needs to know. He was supposed to be asleep hours ago, resting for the big decision tomorrow. But maybe that’s why he couldn’t sleep, he hadn’t made up his mind yet.

Signing a peace treaty with a kingdom you’ve been at war with your whole life isn’t easy to come to terms with.

Well, that’s what he wanted to do anyway. Everyone was expecting the prince to make the right choice but there were differing opinions as to what was the correct decision. The educated upper class told him the treaty was a grand opportunity for a new era of peace while fearful farmers pleaded to him that meddling with demons would only bring the kingdom’s downfall.

But “meddling” with demons was something George had already done, hadn’t he?

When he was ten he made a friend. The boy had hair as black as coal and always wore a bandana around his forehead.

George had thought the piece of cloth was to keep his bangs out of his eyes, or was simply a result of the boy’s poor fashion taste. Its real purpose, however, was to hide two orange nubs protruding out of either side of his forehead.

He discovered his friend’s secret by accident when they were playing tag. He reached for him and tugged on the fluttering cloth, both of them tumbling to the ground.

His friend laughed at first, they had been playing a game after all, when his face darkened from shock and fear at the realization. He knew about the war, everyone did. Soldiers came back with crimson stains upon their armor, scars with matching stories. Some didn’t come back at all.

So he wasn’t surprised when his friend covered his budding horns and ran off.

What he was surprised about was his sudden stroke of curiosity. He wanted to know how someone so human-looking could grow horns from the top of their head. He wanted to know what they would look like in five years, and again in ten years. Would they jutt out? Curve up? Branch like a stag’s?

As all those questions filled his mind, so did melancholy, the retreating figure of his friend promising him that he’ll never receive an answer to his questions.

But as the years passed and his hidden fascination with demons grew - a small collection of demon history and biology growing in the corner of his wardrobe - so did his people’s desire to end the war.

It should have been perfect, really. He signs the treaty and both parties get what they want. The only problem is that he didn’t expect his parents and the peasants to let their fear control their judgment. Half of the kingdom was with him and half was against.

As the middleman, the decision was solely his to make. And while he knew what choice he wanted, the same he had wanted since he was a boy, the fact remained that half of his kingdom would be upset because of him.

He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

A soft tap tap comes from his balcony window, and honestly, that should have been the first warning sign. The prince lives on the third floor, his view consisting of the palace gardens. There was no way for someone to be outside his window unless they came through George’s room first.