Puppet Prince Ch 1

Puppet Prince

Prologue & Chapter 1

Journeys Tend to Start

Once, when empires were young and fields still green, when all that existed was wooden or stone houses and steel was new, when young men and women grew in apprenticeships to learn a trade for when they were older, there existed a quiet kingdom which held its sovereignty, small though it may have been. Regel Kingdom, under the rule of Harmonium Regelis III, was peaceful, neutral in the struggles other kingdoms, queendoms, and empires fought over the realm. It was the perfect place for children to grow, protected from the harsh indignities ignited by war, and was where our hero called home.

James was not an ordinary child, raised from birth by parents and apprenticed to a master at ten. He had a special gift, one that others grew accustomed to the older he became, watched and doted over by his grandmother. From a young age James was orphaned, and given over to his gram’s care. From that age onward she taught him the art of puppetry, how to make, repair, and use everyday puppets for play. James’s gift, perhaps then, came from his early exposure to them, or maybe his gift drew him to the work.

James, you see, could speak to puppets, clear as you or I to each other, and he heard their responses. Puppets had wills of their own and destinies too, if you’d believe it. Their supposed inability to communicate or move was removed the instant James paid any mind to one. Suddenly he had a fine, chattering friend that others could see and not hear. It takes a keen ear to hear a voice so small as a puppet’s, and an even keener one to sing as James did.

When he sang for puppets, they joined him as playmates, animated and real. It was this that people were unaccustomed to until they met him properly. But this is all old tales, things which were accepted. Our story begins later in his life, when his closest friend, Koro, the only puppet in the world who could talk to any human, made a fine mistake indeed, just three days before his twentieth birthday.

***

As dawn crested over the horizon like a ship on the sea, I awoke to the sound of farmer Jordan’s best cock, crowing as he always did to wake her many flocks and rouse the town of Appledayle. Koro was sleeping in his hanging perch on the opposite side of the room, brightly colored wings wrapped about his otherwise normal body.

Vaulting to the floor I got dressed, humming to myself quietly as I thought about my dream. A man had come to save me from a terrible monster with sickening, slimy tentacles coming out of its face. He slew the monster in just one slice of his sword, turning around to me as he sheathed it.

“Are you ok,” he asked me, brown hair that grew wild and short blowing about while his blue eyes trained on my own. He was just taller than me, and strongly built with a goofy sort of smile.

“Uh” I staggered, taken aback by the sudden rescue, “yeah, I guess”.

“Did you have that dream again?” Torn from my reminiscing, I smiled to a teasing Koro, who lay on his belly with his chin in his hands.

“Yeah,” I said, sheepish. This had been a recurring dream for a while and I could almost believe that he was real, my rescuer from a life I’d grown bored in. Living with a seventy-year-old does have its downsides.

“I could tell,” Koro said, matter-of-fact, as he rolled onto his back, wings spread wide, “you always hum in the morning, that one song, when you dream of your prince.” He stuck his tongue out at me, laughing. I bit back a retort and pulled on a clean white shirt, rolling my eyes. My small room was lit up well, and looked truly crowded, bathed in morning light. Two small dressers, my bed, and a nightstand all barely fit into it, Koro’s little loft making it complete. He was only a foot high, but that was still a lot of space.

“So what’s up today?”

“I dunno, Gram’s probably got something for us,” I said, shrugging. “If not we can always just spend the day in the woods like normal.”

“Booooooooring” was Koro’s response as he jumped off his perch and fluttered over my shoulder. “We never do anything interesting or different… it’s always errands for your grandma or sitting and staring at the sky in the woods. At least when we were friends with Theo we did fun things.” I rolled my eyes again, giving Koro a sigh.

“I wasn’t the one who changed and became a bigshot when my daddy married into an heiress’s family, Koro, besides; we always find something to do to pass the time.” I grabbed my rucksack and trooped downstairs, passing my grandmother’s favorite china doll, who gave a whispered “hi”. Our house was quite small, with only two rooms on the bottom floor, one my grandmother’s bedroom and the other where we did most of our living. Grams was finishing up a hearty breakfast of eggs and pancakes as I sat.

“How’d ya sleep little ‘un” she asked in a low voice, smiling pleasantly, the lines of her face a story-book tale of a kind woman and her very long life. It struck me as odd, right then, that I really didn’t know a lot about Gram. I knew she had been in the army up until I came to live with her, but beyond that I hadn’t ever bothered to ask.

“Fine! I had a good dream” I said cheerily, digging into my eggs with gusto. Koro rolled his eyes at me, and then fixed Gram with a polite stare.

“D’you got anything for us today?”

“As a matter of record,” she started in between bites of syrup with a bit of pancake, “I do need some more gorrid ore to fix some more puppets up, the Taren clan had a second birthday party for their little guy an’ his friends managed to break every last one!”

“James,” Koro said happily, “we get an adventure today! To the woods!”

“Let me finish breakfast first!”