The Prince of Lonliness

Watch
 
The firelight crackled through the dark night, enveloping the stag and the halfling in meager light and warmth. Around them the sounds of a sleeping forest lulled the others to rest as the pair stayed up to keep watch.
 
Yawning lightly, Kick folded her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself. She rested her head on her knee and gazed into the dark. “If it wasn’t for the fact you tried to kill us, this watch would be boring.” She rubbed her eye and gave a lopsided smile to no one in particular. “Luckily I get to keep an eye on you as well as the night, so it’s not as bad.”
 
Izumo’s indignant hrumph told her he didn’t see it the same way.
 
“No need to get upset; I didn’t mean it as an insult.” Kick laughed lightly and turned to face him. “My herd always had some internal fighting - trying to kill another at some point. For loot. For love. Really, I think you just made me feel more at home.” She waived her hand, punctuating her indifference.
 
The tilt of his antlers showed his confusion. It made her cheeks puff out with held in laughter, which only made him look more confused.
 
“Okay okay okay…” Kick giggled as she stood up. “One second. I know you’re just aching to say something.”
 
She made her way over to Harpell’s bag, tiptoeing across the camp. It probably would have been safer to just go to Caryn, wake her from her trance, and ask to borrow her stone. It just seemed rude to Kick to do so. Especially considering how little trance time Caryn got between all her reading.
 
Forever organized, the nimble little fingers scooped up the magic stone in the exact place she knew it’d be. Just as deftly she made her way to Izumo and perched the rock in between his antlers.  Once she was sure it was really wedged in, she returned to her own spot and grabbed her own rock.
 
Silence hung between them as Izumo shook his head. The magic instrument stayed put. His Irritated look gave way to a guilty one as the silence and time ticked between them. Izumo murmured something into the stone and turned his head away.
 
“Excuse me?” Kick said curiously. Her voice was bright and genuine with worry. “I didn’t think it was possible to whisper into the stone. Don’t tell me your brain only speaks stag now?! I heard that happens when you learn a new language…”
 
“Don’t be pretentious you silly girl. Of course I don’t speak stag.” Izumo let out another huff as he turned angrily towards her again. His voice clip and judgmental. “I was just saying what a strange place you must have grown up in, if those acts are considered common. Simply barbaric.”
 
Kick’s voice lost some of its brightness as she regarded the fire. “I suppose it would be, to a prince...” Her voice sounded wispy, almost like she was responding to herself. Looking at him, Kick asked “Did your friends or family never fight?”
 
“Hardly” Izumo turned his face to the stars above, snickering. “My family may have had a kingdom, but if they were the kings of anything, it would have been squabbling. Squabbling not as…bloody as yours though.”
 
“What about your friends?” Kick asked softly, curiously. “Didn’t they fight?”
 
A long awkward silence followed.
 
Finally, as if giving up, Izumo sighed and looked down “I didn’t have friends per say, so I couldn’t tell you.”
 
Kick looked up excitedly and half crawled half ran to Izumo.
 
“Me neither!” Kick whispered noisily, much too excited for Izumo’s tastes. A few sleepy murmurs signaled her voice was loud, but not loud enough to wake the others. She tried to grab Izumo’s shoulders but he flinched at her touch and she didn’t pursue. Instead she cupped her small hands over his elk face.
 
“I was alone too! At least for ten years of my life. We’re so alike! I didn’t realize I could be similar to a prince…”
 
“Well” Izumo coughed (as best as he could in his mind) “I had tutors and siblings and sycophants so
I wasn’t exactly alone...” Kick’s smile faded slightly… “But yes. Alone.” He finished, bringing the smile back to her.
 
“Imagine that…” Kick’s stare looked a thousand miles away to Izumo as she seemed to forget he was there. “Me? And a prince? Alike? Today is simply the best day.”
 
“I…imagine you did not enjoy being alone though?” The stag hesitantly got back on his hooves, breaking the contact between them. Instead of backing up, Izumo found a way to sit next to Kick. Even as a stag, his movements and posture was refined. She admired that even as his question brought up painful memories.
 
“Um..it wasn’t ideal….But! I had Mr Mud! And my imagination!” Kick shrugged off the hurt tone like a itchy blanket. She was self assured and positive with her assessments. “It hurts to be alone, but it’s definitely a manageable type of pain.”
 
“I was alone for quite a while before your partner Night found me. All I could do was think about the path that got me here. All the ways I failed my family, my kingdom. Myself. When you say the pain is manageable, that sounds like you trying to convince yourself.” They both spoke to each other, while inwardly sounding like they spoke to themselves.
 
“Well…I have the group now.” Kick quipped “And now I know I wasn’t alone. Now I know that even you, a prince, can be lonely. We didn’t even know we were lonely together!”
 
Izumo chuckled, self depreciating mirth in his throat. “You can call me the prince of loneliness.”

“And I” Kick stood up abruptly, spun in a pirouette and curtsied to the stag. She didn’t catch the sound of sarcasm in his laughter. “am your humble subject. We lived in a kingdom of loneliness. But we’re free now.”
 
He sat there stunned, which shifted to something warmer in his eyes. Kick missed it, as she tried sink lower into a proper curtsy. “Well consider this your coronation.” He tapped her knee with his cleanest hoof. “Now you’re the princess. Let us hope we never go back to reclaim our titles.”