Chapter Text
The Prince without a Name felt light against his closed eyes.
Heard vague sounds around him.
Dazed, he tried to open his eyes.
Everything was blurry, he saw a white-and blue shape, and a black one. People?
Who were they? And what did they want?
He blinked hard, trying to unblur his vision. He tried to sit up, but immediately felt exhausted. After a bit of catching his breath, he could sit up and finally see his surroundings.
He vaguely remembered the healer, the princess, something knocking him down hard against the floor, and then everything was black.
No healer or princess was here. He was somewhere he didn’t recognize, and in front of him were…
Chionos. The Witch of Ice and Frost. What were they doing here away from Castle Obscure? And who was that person next to him, wearing some kind of stone mask that covered his entire face?
The Ice Witch saw the recognition in his eyes, and his lips curled into a smile. ‘Hello, prince.’
The Prince tried to speak, but his throat was too dry, coughing as he tried to form the words.
Chionos handed him a glass of water. The Prince took it with a wary expression, then drank from it. The water was cool and refreshing, and fixed his throat. That certainly was a lot better.
‘Where am I? What happened?’, he asked, wary for what was to come next.
‘You tried to battle the royals inside your house, and you lost,’ Chionos spoke, icy blue eyes looking right at him. ‘You were put to sleep, they somehow swapped you with the sleeping queen. You’ve been asleep since, for about two or three months. Nomenziona,’ they said, baring their teeth at the name, ‘was planning to keep you like that, for who knows how long. But then one day Atrophea had enough, strung Her up, took Her place and gave Her to Disturbia.’
‘We attacked all at once, defeating the royals easily. They were divided among the witches. The Great Realm belongs to us now,’ they grinned. ‘But I got bored with things, and decided to move here. I had him wake you up,’ he said, looking at the figure dressed in all black, wearing the stone mask. A dark and ancient energy radiated from it.
The Prince scoffed. ‘That’s impossible without the verses of the Song of Sleep.’
The man wearing the mask chuckled. It sounded dry, devoid of any real joy.
‘For you, maybe. But I am the Nightmare King, the Night Devil. I rule over the domain of nightmares, over the world of slumber. It was quite easy to wake you up.’
So that was how things stood. Those royals had defeated him. He had failed.
And these two had woken him up. Why?
Probably because they wanted something from him. By waking him up, he was now automatically indebted to them. He gritted his teeth, bracing to find out what that cost might be.
‘And what did you expect to gain from waking me up? Is there a price I need to pay? Do you expect something from me later?’, he said, stormy eyes dark, slowly standing up to give himself more stature.
‘I expect nothing from you except that you respect the rules of my kingdom and my house as a guest. Besides that, you are free to do as you please,’ the dark masked figure spoke. This was probably the friend that Chionos had sometimes spoken of, he realized.
‘Hey, ease,’ Chionos reassured him. ‘I had you woken up because I wouldn’t let things stand as they were. Didn’t wake your dad up though. Can’t stand the man, sorry to say.’
The Prince scowled, confused. Did Chionos mean to say that he woke him up just because? But that made no sense. Perhaps he hadn’t put a lot of thought behind it. Or they were lying, and there would be a secret price to pay later.
Either way, he was free, and his father was not. He had to find a way to wake him up too, somehow.
First, make use of the situation, and figure out where they had taken him to. The man clad in chic black had spoken of ‘his kingdom’, so that meant they weren’t even in the Great Realm anymore.
‘Where did you take me? Where are we right now?’
‘Castle Oneiros,’ the masked man spoke, ‘my home from which I reign Insomnia. Follow me.’
The man walked away, black cape trailing behind him. Chionos followed, boots stepping on the black floor. The Prince decided to follow as well, legs stiff from disuse. He still felt weak.
He stepped onto a balcony, the Ice Witch and the Nightmare King to either side. Below laid a lake, low below as the castle they were in stood on top of a cliff. He could see a swamp further away, a river that led to the sea, and up north was a volcano, surrounded by icy plains. The air outside was cold, freezing cold. It immediately made sense why Chionos would choose to live here. He found he did not mind the environment either.
‘Welcome to Insomnia, little prince!’, Chionos said, grinning widely.