Smote In the Darkness

It had been days, weeks, months since the peasant boy had seen anything other than bleak hilltops hemmed in by cracked and dry valley floors.

Little comfort, little attention, little solution.
He felt little in so many, many ways.

Thus his whole person gave way to a frailty matched only by the withering plant life sparsely peppering the deathly landscape.

He was wilting away much like the now prostrate ferns once so lush and mysterious.

No crown, no royalty, no little blue flame in the palm of his hand.
Only the memories of these.
Memories seeming now torturous at their present lacking.

His whole being ached of loneliness even though he was so close to many sets of eyes and ears.
Those with whom he occasionally found his path combining held him up while his bloodied soles drank in a temporary relief.
But what of when he was alone?

His pace grew slower and more demanding while his thoughts grew heavier and heavier, weighing his head down until it bobbed consistently upon the flat of his chest, his chin bruising his bony ribcage.

Finally he stopped to rest and for a second caught the briefest whiff of the life he had led prior to the Downfall.
And then it was gone, the taunting reminiscence dancing from shoulder to shoulder until his head grew tired of turning and trying to follow it.

He knew he couldn't stay motionless and yet for that time he felt it the only way he could even partially collect himself.

If only the blue flame would come back again.
If only he could be a prince again.