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Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, lived the royal family of Kent. The current residents of the palace were the queen mother and her two young sons.
Some years ago, the king’s oldest daughter, Sarah, was married off to the fourth son of the ruler of Narbonne, across the sea, to solidify their kingdoms’ alliance and increase trading opportunities. It was a reasonably amicable match, considering the political nature of the arrangement. Sarah would have liked to marry for love, but such was the life of a royal, particularly the oldest descendant.
The princess and her family led a relatively quiet life until shortly after their second son was born, when her parents, King Roger and Queen Rose, unfortunately passed away within days of each other after a short illness.
The antiquated laws of the kingdom didn’t allow for a woman to reign, so despite being a foreigner, Sarah’s husband was crowned King Stephane and officially took over rule. He didn’t really understand the inner workings of his new home and had little aptitude for or interest in the day to day operations. So, Sarah, having witnessed the day to day running of the kingdom growing up, actually did all the hard work of leading the country.
King Stephane enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of being king, and was fine leaving the actual job to his dedicated wife. However, his pride didn’t particularly like everyone going to Queen Sarah for direction or deferring to her orders when he occasionally deigned to offer his opinion.
He also didn’t particularly enjoy their children. He was impatient and brusque, expecting their young offspring to act like manly adults before they could even properly talk. Their youngest son, Nick, in particular, was entirely too sensitive and soft-hearted for his liking.
His resentment at his wife having all the authority and his annoyance with raising small children eventually came to a head and he left to return to Narbonne, without a glance backward at the scandal he was leaving behind.
Queen Sarah still wasn’t able to take charge of the kingdom officially, so Prince David became King David. Being only ten years old, he obviously wasn’t old enough to actually lead the kingdom, so once again Queen Sarah became the actual, if not official, ruler, until he came of age.
Queen Sarah was beloved by her subjects and was known far and wide for her kindness, wisdom and fairness. Try as she might to instill those same traits in her oldest son, he stubbornly tried to emulate his absent father and was neither kind nor inclined to actually work for what he believed he was entitled to.
Nobody suffered from his bad attitude more than his unfortunate younger brother. He constantly picked on the younger prince, criticizing his every move and making his life miserable in any way he could, if for no other reason than to make himself feel bigger and more important.
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Nick’s father had been gone for four years. King David was 14 now, and was even more surly and sullen than before, which was saying something. He acted like he was ready to take over ruling his country now, not when he came of age at 18, but the country would be in very moody and self-indulgent hands if he did. It was best for Nick if he stayed out of his brother’s way as much as possible.
Life in the castle could often be lonely for the sensitive young prince, so he took to spending a great deal of time outside - on the palace grounds, or in the neighboring woods - and always accompanied by his trusty canine companion, Nellie.
During one of his afternoons wandering the forest, Prince Nick and Nellie came across a charming little circle of small, plump red mushrooms in a clearing filled with dappled sunlight. In the middle of the circle, a small gnome figurine was nestled in the soft moss.
Now everyone knew that disturbing a fairy circle was a bad idea, and no good was likely to come from it, but the young prince was completely enamored with the charming little gnome. It was incredibly realistic, with dark, curly hair under its pointy blue hat. The face looked sweet and whimsical, with bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle over a cheeky smile.
“What do you think, Nells?” the boy asked his trusty border collie. “Do you think it would be OK to pick it up?”
Nellie tilted her head, considering the small figure, before offering a soft “boof” of a bark.
Nick wanted to pick up the little person very much, so he took Nellie’s response to be “yes”. He knelt on the soft moss and reached across to grasp the small figurine, being very careful not to touch the mushrooms or the moss within the circle. One could never be too careful with the fairy folk, after all.
The figure felt like ceramic, but was much warmer to the touch than he would have expected. Up close, he could see the amazingly detailed features. Each curl seemed defined and silky and he saw dimples on the cheeks he hadn’t noticed before. There was also a cheerful yellow sunflower on the hat.
“He’s so cute, isn’t he, girl?” Nick exclaimed and held the figurine out for her to see. She sniffed at the hat before licking the gnome’s face. Nick burst into giggles. He thought he heard tinkling chimes from somewhere in the nearby forest, but it had to be his vivid imagination.
Just then, Nick noticed the sky losing the light, so he stood and headed back towards the castle. He was quite comfortable in the woods by himself at the mature age of ten, but even he wasn’t brave enough to linger until dark.
As they walked back through the trees, following a well worn path, Nick continued to discuss his new friend with his old one.
“How do you suppose this little guy ended up in the forest?” he asked her. “I guess the fairies must have left him there for me,” he considered, “as ceramic figures can’t walk on their own!”
He laughed at his own silly joke as they approached the outer limits of the castle grounds.
“Do you think we should name him?” was his next question for the dog. He didn’t wait for Nellie’s response before continuing, “Yes, I agree. He needs a name. Hmmmmm…”
He hummed and thought for a few moments before declaring, “Charlie. His name is definitely Charlie!”
Nellie gave an enthusiastic bork at that, clearly agreeing with her boy. Silly as it might seem, Nick was pleased to have another friend.
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Over the next few weeks, Charlie became a constant companion for Nick. If they weren’t traipsing the forest paths or climbing trees or playing knights in the woods, the gnome sat next to Nick in his room as he read or did his lessons from the royal tutor.
Nick did his best to keep the gnome hidden when his brother was around, knowing by instinct that the older boy would make fun of him for it. Charlie stayed in Nick’s satchel as long as Nick was out and about in the castle or within sight of the castle walls outside.
But even Nick couldn’t be vigilant all the time and eventually David stumbled across Nick playing sword fighting with a tree branch in the woods. Charlie was sitting on a nearby rock, with a much smaller stick laying next to him.
“Aha!” Nick shouted as he thrust and parried. “Take that you scoundrel!” He swung around once more before calling out, “Charlie! Look out to your left!”
That’s when he heard his brother’s derisive laughter.
“Are you really talking to yourself in the middle of the forest with a doll?” he sneered. “You are such a loser!”
Nick wanted to lash out in defense, but between his sweet disposition and long-learned understanding that it would only make David behave worse, he stayed silent.
“Where did you even get that thing?” David asked, moving to pick up the gnome.
“NO!” Nick yelled and lunged to get to the figurine before David. But he misjudged the distance and accidentally knocked Charlie off the rock instead of grabbing him away.
His heart practically broke with the same cracking sound that rang out as the ceramic hit a neighboring rock and shattered into several pieces.
Try as he might to be strong, mostly to avoid his brother’s taunting, Nick couldn’t help bursting into tears as he saw his friend laying in fragments on the soft moss.
David was laughing at him with disdain immediately.
“God, you are such a baby!” he sneered. “First playing with dolls, then crying like a whiny baby when the ugly thing breaks.”
Nick could practically hear the eye roll in David’s voice.
“He’s not ugly!” Nick shouted as he shot to his feet.
Now, David was obviously bigger than Nick, being four years older. But Nick was tall and stocky and filled with sorrow and rage, and so much pent up frustration at constantly being taunted and insulted, that it burst out of him.
With a primal yell that caught both of them by surprise, Nick launched himself at David and tackled him to the ground by the legs.
“What the hell, you little cretin?!” David shouted, trying to shove and kick the younger boy away. “Get off of me!”
Some kind of red haze had settled over Nick and he fought back harder than he had ever done before, shoving and hitting at his lifelong bully.
“You are the most awful brother in the whole world and I hate you!” he finally cried, before scrambling up and taking off for the castle at a run.
David was scrambling up to give chase when Nellie blocked the pathway and growled deeply at the King. David was so surprised at the normally easygoing dog being so aggressive that he simply sat back down in shock.
Nellie watched him for another moment, a much quieter growl in her throat, before turning and running at speed to the castle.
David found it fun to pick on his little brother, but half the fun was that Nick just took it and never fought back. Being told by his own brother that he actually hated him shocked him enough to give at least a little thought to their relationship and how he had been treating Nick all these years.
Being a 14-year old king with no actual authority, so many restricting expectations, and no real friends wasn’t exactly a picnic, but he’d never had anyone tell him to his face that they hated him. His own brother feeling that way about him made him feel something he’d never felt before - shame.
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When neither of her boys showed up to dinner, Queen Sarah was concerned. David was privileged and imperious and acted like he was owed every luxury, so never missed a meal (or the chance to complain about some aspect of said meal). Nick was sweet and a people pleaser and would never put anyone out by not showing up.
David was….prickly, and less pleasant to deal with nine times out of ten, so she started with looking for Nick first.
She asked the cook if Nick had taken food with him out adventuring, as he sometimes did. The cook answered that he had not, and she hadn’t seen him since breakfast. She inquired with the servants she ran across if they had seen Nick and one finally said that she had, seeing him running quickly to his room an hour or so ago.
Sarah was shocked to find Nick’s door locked when she got to his chambers. He had never done that before. She listened for any sounds, then knocked.
“Nicky, darling, are you in there?” she called out, but got no response. “You didn’t come down to dinner so I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”
She heard some rustling, then a muffled “I’m fine”, but nothing further.
“Would you like me to send Giselle up with a tray?” she tried.
“No, thank you, I’m not hungry,” was the muted reply.
This was highly out of character behavior in several ways, and she suspected by his voice that Nick had been crying, but she decided not to push.
“Very well, darling,” she replied. “I’ll come check on you before bedtime and if you change your mind, just let one of the servants know to bring you something, alright?”
She heard a muttered “OK, thank you, Mother”, before she sought out David.
David was not in his room, the throne room or any of his other usual haunts. One of the footmen told her he saw the young King walking into the craftsmen’s workshop a while ago. Since David wasn’t likely to get into too much trouble out there, she decided to let him be and returned to the dining room to eat a solitary, and slightly cold, dinner.
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After his mother checked on him, Nick came out from under the covers, his hair sticking every which way. He got changed into his more comfortable night clothes, had a few biscuits he had hidden in his wardrobe, and washed his teeth. He knew his mother would be back eventually, so he unlocked his chamber door and crawled back under the covers. If he pretended to be asleep, she wouldn’t make him talk to her tonight.
He had been crying for over an hour by the time the queen called on him the first time and he was exhausted. He missed Charlie fiercely and was heartbroken that his cheery little friend was gone forever. His tears started to fall once again before he quickly fell asleep.
When he awoke, morning light was streaming through the window hangings, which he’d left open last night. One of the maids had brought a tray with crusty bread, cheese, and fruit at some point and left it on his side table.
He was considering whether he wanted to eat anything when something on his desk caught his eye. He gasped when he saw that it was Charlie. He’d been so distraught yesterday, he had left Charlie in pieces in the forest.
He jumped up and ran to the desk with his heart in his throat only to be disappointed. Charlie was standing and more or less in one piece, but the pieces were clumsily glued back together, with jagged lines running across his face and arms.
“Oh, Charlie,” he lamented. “I’m so very sorry.” He was overwhelmed with sadness for a few minutes until an idea came to him. “OH!” he gasped, hurrying to get dressed. He didn’t notice the note that had fallen to the floor.
Once he was dressed, he wrapped Charlie carefully in a scarf and put him in his satchel, grabbed the bread and fruit and headed out of the castle in a hurry. It took him some time, but he finally found the fairy circle where he had first discovered Charlie. He took the gnome out of his bag and gingerly set it back into the fairy circle.
He looked around the trees and quietly said aloud, “Hello, I don’t know if you can hear me, but there was a terrible accident and my dear friend Charlie was broken. I don’t know if there’s any way you can fix him again? But if you could, I would be so very grateful.”
He continued to scan the trees but saw no movement and heard nothing but birdsong. He waited a few moments before he said, “I’m going to leave Charlie here, but I’ll come back tomorrow. I really do miss my friend.”
He stood slowly and started walking back to the castle with Nellie, looking back every few steps. It felt terrible leaving Charlie there alone in the woods, yet again, but it also felt like the right thing to do.
He spent the day quietly in his room, reading and making drawings of him and Charlie playing knights and making cakes in the kitchens. He asked for his dinner to be brought to his room, not wanting to see David, but reassured his mother that he was fine, just tired, when she came to check on him.
He woke very early the next morning and was racing to the forest by the time the rest of the house had barely started stirring. Finding the fairy circle was quicker the third time, but his heart fell when the ring of mushrooms was empty.
He sat glumly on the forest floor next to the ring and stared at it for a long time. He wasn’t sure what to think. Had David found Charlie and thrown him away? Had an animal carried the gnome off? Had the fairies decided he wasn’t a worthy guardian and taken the figurine back to Fae?
He sat in the quiet woods, feeling more than a little sorry for himself, for quite some time before heading back to the castle.
When he returned to his room, he saw a piece of paper on the floor. He recognized David’s scrawling handwriting that said. “I tried. I’m sorry. -D” What on earth did that mean? He tried what? Had David glued the gnome back together and given it back to Nick? That seemed so out of character as to be impossible, but Nick couldn’t figure out what else the note could possibly mean.
That night at dinner, David was unusually polite and even thanked Nick for passing him the basket of bread. Nick and his mother looked at each other in confusion, but neither decided to comment, in case it broke this most unexpected change in behavior. It was the most pleasant meal the family had had in years. David didn’t mention the gnome incident, so neither did Nick.
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The next day, Nick was bored from spending too much time inside the castle. It was a beautiful spring day, so he and Nellie took a long walk in the woods, in the opposite direction to the fairy circle. They spent some time at the nearby creek, Nellie splashing around happily and Nick building a small dam to pool up some water. Cook had packed him a lunch, which he shared with Nellie on the creek bank with his feet in the new little pool he had created.
As he was walking through the castle gardens on a meandering path back to the castle that afternoon, one of the gardeners called out to him.
“Young sir, might I have a moment?” the older man asked. Nick was pretty sure his name was Nathan, as he’d been kind and friendly toward Nick before.
Nick turned around and his breath stopped. Standing next to Nathan, with Nathan’s hand on his slim shoulder, was a boy, perhaps a year or two younger than Nick. That, in itself, wasn’t shocking, but what the boy looked like was.
He was slender and lanky, with rich, satiny black curls and the bluest eyes Nick had ever seen. He had a dark blue cap on with a small, jaunty sunflower tucked over one ear.
It was without a doubt Charlie, in human form.
He couldn’t do anything but stare at the boy with his jaw half hanging open.
“This young man has newly arrived at the castle from the neighboring village to work in the gardens,” Nathan informed him. “His name is -”
“Charlie,” Nick breathed in wonder. “Is that really you?”
Charlie beamed, his dimples popping out. “Hi, Nick. It’s good to finally meet you.”
~~The End~~
or rather
~~The Beginning of Everything~~