Well, this is the story of a young prince. He is the prince of a small country named Draeden. Which means “Home of Trees” in the old language. Their country had always been full of luscious foliage, from tall trees to the ivy that spread across much of their castle walls and homes. Many who visited called it the green country because that’s all you saw when you came.
Though this had been in jeopardy as there was a blight spreading through the countryside. It wasn’t that the plants were dying; this blight was one that just stopped all the growth. Things just stopped growing all together. It was as if the plants were now lazy. They had no urge to try. No effort at all. The ivy on the walls didn’t die; it just stopped clinging to the walls and fell to the earth just lying there.
The prince was obviously worried about this. He was one of “those” princes. He was the kind that gave other royalty a bad name with his actual concern for serfs and citizens alike. He was known to ride inot town and help with the digging of new town defenses, much to the chagrin of his father who was paranoid of losing any of his power if someone were to take advantage of his son’s reckless altruism.
Well,l the prince was trying to figure out what to do about this blight. He had the court alchemists try every potion and mixture they could think of. He even hired an old hermit who said he could talk to the plants to come and try to diagnose the problem. The hermit said that he had spent most of the day trying to get something out of the plants. For the money was getting he thought he should put a whole days work in. But all he could get out of them was, well, the closest translation into human tongue would be,”Meh.”
From there the prince didn’t know what to do. His father didn’t seem concerned. The prince knew his father was a good man and loved him dearly but he knew his father was a very short-sighted man. His people had learned long ago how to mill and dry pack most of the plants, fruits and grains they now produced for the entire continent. They had stores to last them and their whole country for years probably but the prince didn’t want to test this duration.
The prince knew that there must be answers somewhere. After conferring with his best friend, Mr. Rufflebottoms (His late mother, as all young prince heroes have a dead or dying parent, picked the name), he knew he would need to travel. Mr. RuffleBottoms was one of those mutts that made your average trash digging alley dog look like a thoroughbred pedigree.
He knew as much freedom as he tried to enjoy, his father would never let him do what he was planning. He packed everything he would need to get by in the wilds. He had his bedroll, his knife, his sword, a water skin, and his heavy cloak besides the clothes he wore on his back. He had heard many stories of hunters that had gone out hunting beasts for the villages. How hard would it be to trap food? He wanted to save as much food in the kingdom’s stores for the peasants. He had also heard great stories of the heroes as different bards passed through and he stealed down to the tavern to enjoy the music and poems. He knew due to his royal bloodline he instantly had a one-up on any bandits or monsters.
He spent atleast an hour having an argument with Mr. RuffleBottoms as to why he couldn’t take him along. Mr. RB just couldn’t seem to get the simple facts. It was very frustrating to our young hero. Now, you may want the princes name as it is pretty apparent he is going to be our main character. In order to not snicker at our heroes’ name, you must understand that people in this kingdom viewed plants as powerful parts of life and paid them great respect, even the tiniest daisy. They knew the power it took to grow from that small seed and push their way up. They had monthly rituals where entire villages only ate meat or nothing at all to show the plants that they were willing to let them be for one day and respect their right to privacy; just like a good relationship.
There were footsteps down the corridor and the prince quickly stuffed his travel pack under the bed. “Pansy! Pansy! Are you decent?!” The voice came from a young man in white clothing that had a small chefs hat on. He didn’t really care if Pansy was decent. More than once while they were playing around the castle had he talked Pansy into being naked. Galef had probably seen Pansy naked more than the doctor who had administered to his birth.
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