this is Naru's story in The Mirror, the prince of the fallen Skria kingdom, captured and tortured by those who took his throne.
This is his story of redemption- of finding himself, and finding the strength both to carry on in his life, and to grow into a leader.
Ch. 1
It had been a long time since anyone had called my name. For a while I had forgotten who I even was, my mind going numb from the pain and darkness that surrounded me.
I held my hands against my shoulders, trying to ease the ache that was bone-deep beside my spine. A loss that was almost worse than losing my arms and legs. I took my hands back and looked at my palms, soaked red with my blood and shuddered, putting them back to hold the stumps of bone that had once been my wings. To lose flight after barely finding the joy of it... it seemed almost too cruel.
“I think someone's in here.” A low voice said outside my door, different from the gruff ones I was used to.
“There is, there is!” A little voice I recognized chirped, and that made me jump in shock that she would be out of her room.
I looked up at the door, my eyes wide with a mixture of hope and fear, wondering why today was different from any other day. No voices, no bowl thrown into the room for me to scrape from the floor desperately.
The door opened and a light made me flinch away, my eyes burning from its intensity. Gods, it hurt- it hurt!
They must have seen me move away, because they lowered the light and whispers surrounded me in the room, so loud they seemed to thunder in the darkness.
“Who is it?” A voice asked, not moving forward, but staying back toward the door.
“I'm not sure.” Another one answered, this one deeper and male. Someone stepped forward and I curled up to try to defend myself, preparing for another attack, another bruise.
A small hand touched me so I flinched, not recognizing who it might have been. I uncurled enough to look over my shoulder, seeing the small raven girl looking down at me with wide yellow eyes, her small hand touching my shoulder.
“Naru.” She whispered, a small smile coming over her face. The name made several of the voices gasp, and now I remembered. Naru- lost prince of the avians, broken and disgusting Naru.
“Peeps.” I said in a voice that cracked from lack of use, sitting up and looking at the girl as she stayed still, as if I would run away if she moved too quickly.
“Yep.” She smiled brightly and let out a small squawk before moving forward and wrapping her arms around my neck, making me hiss with pain as she touched the exposed bone on my back. She didn't seem to notice though, just cried against my shoulder in great wracking sobs that shook her whole body.
I did the only thing I could- I held her against me, rubbing a hand up and down her back soothingly, avoiding her little wings that sprouted from either side of her spine. The sight of them seemed to make that ache of loss in me just that much worse.
The rest of them moved forward, and I looked into the small shaft of light that came through the window to see a tiger, a panther, a human and another avian- this one a massive man who had to hunch down from the low ceiling.
“Your highness.” he knelt onto one of his taloned legs, his knee touching the ground.
“D-don't.” I couldn't bear to see him bow to someone like me. I was broken- a horrible excuse for an avian, none the less their leader. I wasn't the leader of them, I was barely even suitable to be among them.
“This is why we haven't heard from you since the attack.” The tiger said, looking around the room in horror. “You were captured? What happened to the rest of the royal family?”
“Killed.” I said bitterly, not wanting to remember seeing them fall to the ground, screaming with pain as magic and blade slew everyone around me. “All killed.”
The room seemed weighed down with the reality of what had happened. Everyone in the Skria kingdom, except little me, was dead. I was the only heir to a broken throne that had no hope of being rebuilt.
“Alright- well, let's get you out of here.” The tiger walked forward- another broken prince- and kneeled down next to me. He looked me over with those green cat-like eyes of his, and hooked an arm under mine. I cried out in pain as it lanced through me from the feeling of hi jarring my back and he looked behind me and hissed in pity.
“Just do it.” I ground out through clenched teeth, and held back another yell of pain as he pulled me up to my feet, leaning on his shoulder. I stumbled beside him as we walked to the door, my legs feeling weak and thin. I glanced at the human warily, hoping she wouldn't hit me as I walked by. All I had ever known from humans was pain- terrible and cruel pain.
She looked... sad. As if she hated seeing what had been done to me. I didn't understand it- why was she different? Weren't all humans terrible selfish creatures? Did some of them care?
I glanced back to her over my shoulder, not quite knowing what to make of her, and looked down to see Peeps following behind me, holding my long tail feathers off the ground. Good little girl- she was always so caring for everyone around her. My tail was all I had left of my identity- of who and what I was. Long green feathers with bright blue and brown eyes that stood even taller than I was.
Outside of the door the world was blinding- I let out a small noise of pain and covered my eyes with one of my arms, the light filtering through the bright blue feathers so that my vision seemed blue all around me. The tiger prince brought me back just inside the door, the darkness enveloping me again so that I could look outside. Everything was so... green. Grass, as far as the eye could see, and a forest in the far distance that had once lead to my home.
I couldn't help it- my eyes stung with tears of joy as I realized I was free- at least... at long last, I could walk on ground that wasn't cold stone. I could eat freely, and no one would beat me. I could live my life however I wanted...
“Thank you.” I said in a shaky voice, leaning on the tiger more as I cried.
Naru woke up with a yell from the dream he had re-lived so many times, his temples drenched in the cold sweat of fear he always had after reliving that day. It had been a wondrous day yes, but... the pain that had led up to it was terrifying to remember.
He heard footsteps outside of his door, the wood opening to reveal the woman that had been with him on that fateful day. Althea- the tiger prince's mate, looked inside the room with concern.
“Are you okay, Naru?” She asked softly.
Naru nodded, flipping his legs over the side of the bed to stand up. “Just the dream again. Nothing to worry about.” He said, pulling on his white shirt, the wounds against his back healed long ago.
Althea hesitated for a minute and frowned. “You don't have to go by yourself, Naru. Someone can go with you.”
Naru glanced over to her and smiled reassuringly. “Don't be ridiculous, Althea. Toran has to lead his kingdom, and you have to be with him. You know what he's like when you're not around.” He grinned over to the human, once again shocked with how at ease he was around her. Althea had become his self proclaimed 'guardian human' ever since they had found him. She had healed his wounds, got him used to being around a human that didn't want to kill him. It still struck him as odd that Toran and Althea were mates, but... it wasn't unheard of for a human and a humanus to be together.
Althea frowned at me again, not liking the idea of me heading out on my own. She must have forgotten that I was alone in that cell for years. I wasn't used to being around people yet- being alone was more... comfortable. “Don't worry about me, Althea. I'll be fine. Umou is going to check up on me once in a while, remember? It's not like I'm going to be anywhere strange. I'm just going to my old castle, getting the crown and coming back. I... I need to do it.”
She sighed and nodded. “I understand. I'm just... worried.”
Naru couldn't help but chuckle and stood up, stretching his arms above his head and unfurling his tail feathers so that they shook with the effort. “Don't be such a mother hen, Althea. I'll be fine. You'll see.”
She looked at him skeptically and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Just be careful.”
“Will do.” Naru gave a little mock salute to the soon-to-be-queen, and walked out the door beside her. “You should probably make sure Toran isn't ripping someone's head off. I hear yelling in the throne room.”
Althea looked in the direction of the throne room and heard yelling as well, swearing under her breath and starting to run off in that direction. “Bye Naru, good luck!” She called over her shoulder before turning a corner.
“Thanks.” He said, feeling the fluttering in his stomach that always came with doing something outside his comfort zone. Going out on his own... was definitely not something he would normally do. What if he was captured again?
He decided to go before he could change his mind, grabbing the pack of food he had put together the night before and rushing through the halls and out of the castle, on his way to perhaps find his past... and find himself in the process.
Genesis: The Rise of the Avian Kingdom
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