Blue Blood and Belgium Chocolate

|04| The Fallen

PRINCE DAEGAN

The Second in Line

I'M DRAGGING MY leg on the ground. It's making too much noise. The jungle is dense with plants and the leaves on the ground,  withered and old are making it difficult to hide the fact I'm here, on territory I'm not supposed to be. 

I hear shouts, and barking, wild wild barking. It's picked up my scent if the blood trail hadn't given it away. I can't run. Not with my leg like this. I forced myself to sit down, trying my best to steady my leg. I grit my teeth in pain as I used a branch to steady it. It hurts. I tear my shirt to ribbons to tie it up. The barking is louder.

I'm good at knots. I tie several and then run. Or try too, because I'm slow and wooden. I am the strongest, the fastest and the survivor among my soldiers. This is not how I will end. I can feel the fear I kept pushing back coming to drown me. The barking gets louder. 

I don't notice that the leaves are unusually thick, or the red line on a tree. I ran straight into their trap and I fall.

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I gasp, sitting straight up. I'd fallen... just from my bed to the the floor.  My body had managed to untangle the sheets and it fell off the bed with me. 

Pushing myself up on my arms. I can feel the sweat rolling off me as though I just had completed a run. I can't go to sleep, not easily after a nightmare. 

I make myself stand, using my arms as a support to avoid putting pressure on my leg.  As I rose up, it occurred to me that I didn't need to worry about the pressure on my injured leg. 

It's not like it hadn't been treated.  It was redone by the best in their field to remake what had happened to my leg. I sit on the edge of my bed. I press my hand to my leg, I could faintly feel it. I couldn't believe that I could. 

In the military, the doctors told me my leg was beyond saving, that they would have to cut it off. My parents felt differently, so I had to head back to the Palace, a place I hadn't seen in nearly 10 years.

 The worst would come later, as I sat on my bed and my friends came to say goodbye. I had laughed at them, saying I would see them soon. None of them corrected me, but I saw in their eyes that they knew I wasn't coming back.

I let out a breath. 

I'm the son of the King, but the King can't protect me from my own nightmares. I had to calm myself.

I stand up, marveling at the fact I can walk again. On my own, the limp felt like a small consequence to pay. I pulled off my shirt, damp with sweat, and then my pants, till I'm as bare as the day I was born.

In the military, we didn't have hot showers, a month home and I can't stop myself from always taking a hot shower. Even in the middle of the night. 

The water is hot on my skin, I reduced the temperature and then enjoyed the curtain of water that flowed. I had more than one type of soap in here. Nourishing, moisturising, renewing... I want to laugh because I can recall there was once a time how frustrated I had gotten once when I finished one of the soap bottles and it hadn't been replaced.

Now, I have more than one type of soap.

 Like a child it made me giddy sometimes. I had everything I could dream of here but I can't stop the restlessness that followed. It wasn't immediate, but as of late it was growing and this holiday was starting to feel more permanent. The physical therapist said my leg would never be the same again. But it could be, I knew what my legs were capable of.