Elwin woke up with the taste of vomit in his mouth eyelids that felt like weighted curtains. He opened them with great effort, only to find the world around him foggy and surreal. He could hear men’s voices talking, and smell the smoke from the burning coal.

It took a while for his ears to focus in on what they were saying.

“I wouldn’ worry about him, he’s gonna be out for a while.” One of them was saying.

The other man laughed. “True enough!”

“What’re we gonna do with him?” The first one asked.

“I reckon . . . anything we want to!” The other man said. “Mac don’t care about ‘em if they look too much like grown men, he like ‘em young.”

“Kinder gross if you ask me.” The first man said.

“Good thing nobody asked ya!” The other man retorted with a guffaw. “And it leaves the good one for us, so what’re you bitching about? Let ‘im have that scrawny waif what works in the kitchen, he don’t seem like he would be much of a good time to me. But you know Mac, he gets what he wants, don’t he?”

“That he do.” The first man agreed.

While the words were trying to settle into Elwin’s brain, which was hard because they kept trying to slip away, like catching eels, he felt a heavy hand on his leg. It started at the knee and crept upward like a sneaking animal.

Elwin sat up quickly, blinking back a wave of dizziness and smacking out blindly at the hand that accosted him. He was staring at one of his coworkers, who’s face was startlingly close and seemed surprised to see him awake.

“What are you talking about?” Elwin asked, he shook his head to try to clear it. “Where’s Mac?” It had dawned on him that something nefarious was happening, but it took another moment to connect it to the drink Mac had forced on him. He obviously hadn’t drunk as much of it as the others planned him to have, and was sobering rapidly. The acrid chemically smell on his shirt made him wonder if alcohol was all that the drink had contained.

“He’s, yaknow, off working somewhere.” The man backed off him, embarrassed to see his helpless prey suddenly alert and not so helpless. “I didn’t mean nothing by it, I thought you was asleep.” He said.

“You’re lying.” Elwin said firmly. He stood up, holding the wall for balance as he tried to beat back the weakness in his limbs and swirling in his head that made the world seem to dip back and forth.

The two men exchanged a glance, then looked back at Elwin.

“If-if you’re weighing who to fear more.” Elwin said, “I hope you realize that I am young and impulsive, and you don’t really know what I’m capable of.” He hoped his expression conveyed the contempt he felt for these two men. But right now he wasn’t sure what his face was doing since he could barely feel it. And perhaps he was not even saying anything that made sense. He felt like he had no choice but to push ahead anyway. “The flames would go through your bodies just as easily as a shovel full of coal.” He doubted this was true at all but it sounded good in his head.

“Mac’s gone to your cabin a while ago.” One of the men said. “If he was gonna do anything, it’s too late now. The deed is done.”

“Don’t blame us, it’s none of our doing!” The other man said, holding up his hands in a cowardly gesture. “I never liked that Mac anyway.”

“No friend of ours.” The other cowardly man said.

Elwin moved through the ship in a panicked haze. He held onto the wall when he got too dizzy, and nothing, nothing at all looked familiar. What, he was pretty sure had been about a ten minute walk in the past, was stretched to hours, weeks, and days, for all he could tell.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

When he thought he was almost there, he realized he was in a totally different corridor lined with doors.

Elwin wanted to sit down and cry, but he didn’t have time for that so he forged on. He had a sudden thought that maybe he should go to the galley and see if Prin was there? After all, sometimes he was? And maybe Squeaks could help him find his cabin.

Others stared at him as he lurched along, but no one tried to help. Probably just figuring he had a drink too many and it would be more of a kindness not to draw attention to it.

Maybe he was still asleep and this was just the most awful dream. All of it, going back to the witch and her dubious cure. If he went back to sleep now, would he wake up to a different world entirely? Where none of that had ever happened? And his prince was reading him a book about dragons and knights, while they were tucked away in a tower that pierced the clouds.

When the dragon broke free from the book and started to grow to fill the entire tower room, crushing them against the stone walls with its massive green scaled hind quarters, Elwin realized that he actually was dreaming and he startled awake.

He was in a hall lined with doors, a familiar looking hall. How long had he been looking? Elwin had fallen asleep against the wall, but woke up with a clearer head and the sudden rising panic that his prince was in danger. And he had been too busy dreaming to get to him. Hallucinating?

Elwin ran across the hall to the cabin door and pulled on it. It was locked. He didn’t know whether to be relieved at this or find it more worrisome.

“Prin! Prin!” He shouted at the door. His voice sounded strange and hoarse. He once again wondered if he was saying the things it was in his mind to say or not. Could have been something completely different coming from his mouth, or nothing but animal noises. He just hoped he was at the right door, and the prince was fine.

The bolt slid back, with its signature thunk, and the door creaked open. Just a crack.

“Why are you yelling?” the prince asked. “Shhh.”

Elwin let out his breath in a long sigh. “I thought someone was hurting you, I was so scared.”

“Shhh, shhh, alright, come in.” Prin opened the door wider.

It was dark in the room, only a tiny flicker of candlelight illuminated a few inches of its surroundings. So, it took a moment for Elwin’s eyes to adjust to the gloom.

And he wished that they hadn’t.

The wonderland of blood coagulating around an unrecognizable body shaped figure, was something no one sane would care to witness.

The prince was standing amidst it all, naked and bloody, like a primordial warrior.

Elwin would have liked to think he was still dreaming, or at least hallucinating.

“Are you alright?” He asked Prin, surprising himself at the calmness of his words.

“Of course.” Prin said, as though it were perfectly obvious. He tilted his head to the side, with a searching expression, as though scanning Elwin for intentions. And coming out of it not sure what he was about. “You aren’t well yourself.” He moved quickly toward Elwin, not stumbling or stilted as he normally might walk. But smooth, almost gliding.

He reached up to touch Elwin’s cheek. Then, when Elwin flinched away slightly, looked at his own blood smeared hand. “Oh.” Prin said, as though only just realizing the state he was in.

He went to the bed and flopped the bloody tarp off of it and over top of the body on the floor. While he was at it, he scrubbed his hands vigorously on the edge of the thick canvas tarp.

The prince took Elwin’s hand and led him over to the bed. “We are so tired, you and I.”

Elwin stumbled around the room, trying to avoid stepping in blood or tripping over folds in the tarp. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed. “It’s true.” He said. He put his face in his hands, but now the tears wouldn’t come and it seemed like they had dried up in the wind.

Prin unlaced and pulled off his boots. He lifted Elwin’s legs onto the bed and tucked him in. “We don’t have to talk about it.” He offered.

“Okay.” Elwin watched with half lidded eyes, as his prince rolled the body up in the over sized tarp and used the cleanest corner and a bit of water to scrub away the blood from his skin as best he could.

Prin hummed softly as he washed his face.

Elwin’s eyelids grew heavy again and he rolled over to face the wall. He knew that the glowing eyed, graceful, deadly creature was not entirely his Prin. How could it be? Prin couldn’t do what he did. Or be what he was.

He wished the effects of whatever he drank were not still coursing through him and he could at least think clearly. But maybe it was a mercy.

Only a few minutes later he felt the cot creak beside him, and the prince’s long arms wrap around his body. And snuggle in against his back with a contented sigh.

Elwin took Prin’s hand and bent his head to kiss it.