When the prince was born, the word went out. When the world went out, the great hall filled. When the great hall filled, the king and the queen lined up with the heir for the most draining part of the whole damned thing: well-wishing.
“Congratulations! Please accept this humble gift of horses.”
“Thanks,” said the king, dead-eyed.
“Congratulations! Please accept this humble gift of gems.”
“Thanks,” said the queen, hollow-voiced.
“Congratulations! Please accept my blessing.”
“Tha-who are you?”
“I’m the witch you had burnt at the stake six months ago,” said the witch. Her claims seemed plausible, in light of her singed clothing, sinister air, and charred skeleton.
“Oh.” said the king. “What’re you doing here?”
“Giving your offspring my blessing. I’m fair, though. Ask me for it and I’ll give you it. Just be specific.”
The king thought about that.
“Maybe this is a bad-” began the queen.
“The world’s most captivating gaze,” said the king. “I always did have trouble with the ladies when I was young.”
“Done deal,” said the witch.
Then she cackled and evaporated into a foul wind, curdling all the milk in the castle.
The young prince was a happy and healthy little butterball, and within days had charmed half the castle staff, especially his nurse.
Which was good because the family went through nurses like a dog through butcher’s scraps. Once a month seemed usual.
At the tender age of twenty the prince’s parents both vanished and he was forced, alas, alack, to begin rule. He did so absently but not unwell, although he still had some odd difficulties in retaining castle staff. He was also unengaged, which was solved with the acquiescence of a local duke with the grudging aid of his daughter.
“I don’t like this,” she told her father. “What happened to his parents, anyways?”
“Extremely natural causes, I’m assured,” he told her. “Now shoo! Go be a queen somewhere else.”
So she did, and vanished a week later.
A baron’s daughter followed suit.
And a lord’s.
And a knight’s.
And finally nobody of nobility was willing to send any daughters to the castle, so the king had his men pull a random girl out of a hamlet and bring her to the castle.
“You’re royalty now okay bye have fun,” said her handmaiden, throwing a heap of clothing at her and running away.
The random girl examined the clothing and couldn’t help but notice that every item of it was from a completely different outfit, each sized for a different woman. Including each shoe.
“This isn’t good,” she said.
So she tore the clothing to shreds and made a rope, which she descended down the wall and into the arms of the guards, who brought her back to the king in her normal clothing.
“Bit merchant-y, isn’t it?” asked the king.
“I’m a merchant’s daughter,” she said.
“Not anymore! Now you’re the queen.”
“No I’m not.”
“Oh right! Brother Jacobs?”
The priest stepped forwards, face a swamp of sweat, stammered out “bythepowerinvsstinmiyoutwoarewedtildethuprt-hrk!” dropped his book and ran away whimpering.
“There. Now you are.”
The king smiled. He had a very ugly smile, but there was something else about his face that made it hard for the random girl to look away. Something that scraped at her brain and bounced off, leaving no memories but unease.
“Don’t be frightened to look at me,” he said. And then he sent her away to her new rooms.
The new rooms were like the old rooms but with higher walls and large bars in the window. The random girl began to ignore the king’s advice immediately, and also to pace. Pacing helped her think.
The window wouldn’t do. The door was barred. There was no way out, none at all. Nothing that could be a weapon – the heaviest things in the room was a tiny wooden stand holding containers of cosmetics, each of which was no larger than her palm.
“Ah,” she said.
The king came into the room smile-first.
It was still quite ugly.
“Hello, wife!” he said.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I leave?”
“Of course not! There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just look at me and stop worrying.”
The random girl looked at him. This was a mistake.
She DID stop worrying though. It was hard not to.
The king’s eyes were large and soft and damp and filled with soft colours that hunted and scurried, diving in and out of his tear ducts. Each pupil was a constellation; the irises were seas. And surrounding them a white blank that could swallow brains. Perfect. Pearly-white. Smooth ivory.
“Glrk,” said the random girl, waving her arms ineffectually.
“Yes,” said the king.
“Hlrp!” said the random girl, slapping her hands at thin air.
“No, not really,” said the king.
“Fk!” said the random girl, and at last her palm spasmed open and she shoved the little hand-mirror into the king’s face.
At this sort of moment it is traditional for the villain to scream, shriek, or gasp. The king had no such time to prepare himself and instead simply stared.
This was precisely the wrong move.
He stared. He stared hard, and he stared long. Inch by inch he stared, foot by foot, first his face then his neck then his body then his legs then his fingers and last of all his eyes, twitching, blinking, stuttering and fading away like stars in an overcast sky.
Then the merchant’s daughter was alone with a broken hand-mirror and a bad set of heart palpitations.
“Holy SHIT,” she said.
The king was never seen again, though few begrudged this. Even fewer, the idea of him seeing them again. He had been far too thorough about it.