The Chariot

The smell of fresh bread. With it, the irresistible temptation to indulge himself. The sensation it brought tempted Alder to drop the wood in his hands and give chase. The market of the people was bustling all around. He saw everything that occurred, and was taken by the feelings which animated this 'everything'. The exhaustion of the workers heaving the boxes and the anger of the fruit seller lady as she smacked a thief. No, it was not apt to call him a thief. He was a boy not yet ready to be a beggar, not truly desperate to steal. Simply poor. But not enough to truly hunger or dream.

It was a pathetic existence, but not an uncommon one. For it was shared by everyone around Alder. But not him. He would become a knight one day. Not like the false warriors too afraid to use the sword at their hips either. But a real swordsman, capable of felling dozens of mind with a few strokes of his sword. He'd been practicing every day, while his fellow street rats wasted away on games. The older boys and girls were even worse, because not only did they lack dedication, but humor as well. Like slaves, drudging along in self made chains.

They were all bound. Unknowingly yes, but bound still to a swirl inside them they did not know. Like snow, it flecked all of their souls, but the warmth of the sun distracted them from the cold left behind. The butchers hacked away at the pigs with an anger they couldn't give to people and the apprentice boys glared with a rage they could not truly exercise.

It was stupid. No, it was worse. It was cowardly. They were dependent, the perfect content little lambs. Dependent on the solid to keep them moving, alive only because they had breath.

The apothecaries were not inventive enough to make their own potions, the poor boys not creative enough to weave their own dreams, the bards too incompetent to write their own melodies.

Every day he pulsed against the empty echoes, repeating the same damn promises to himself so that he didn't go insane. The resolution that he would be the best, because that was what Aurelia promised.

She wove stories of heroes freeing princesses from dragons clutches and of kings leading wars against shadow people and of gods moving the world to their whim. But here there were no dragons or demons or gods or elves. Only crows, and people yelling at them.

Still, he couldn't deny that this place was comfortable. He had plenty of time to venture out into the world or make it in his image or do whatever he wanted.

Now he wanted bread.

But just as he took a step closer to it, pulled in by the security wrapped in the dough, he heard a rumbling.

Behind him came a voice from someone he knew, but their identity slipped his mind. All he could feel was the rumbling of his belly and the settling of his heart as he inched closer towards that which promised to soothe his soul.

He was far away from his little nest in the alleyway, but why did that matter? It remained a mere speck in his consciousness, until his immersion was broken by a turning sound.

Suddenly, a chariot rushed past him, missing him by a hair, and yet pulling him into its movements all the same.

He heard neighing. The sound was surprising and almost violating. It felt to him unexpected, for Alder had never heard it before. It roused a strange feeling in his chest, a call to the unknown and the gaps in his mind.

But that was not all his mind took in. Alongside the stallions, were armored men. Not armored like the knights who did not deserve it, but armored in the sense that the steel was given purpose.

Purpose. The word felt funny on his tongue. He doubted it even existed in the minds of the fat butchers and the skinny tramps and the plain house dwellers.

The driver of the chariot looked like a wealthy merchant in his own right. He could only imagined who rested inside.

Perhaps a merchant, or a noble, or even a prince. Alder could feel a ticking being set off in his mind which blended into the grinding of the wheels. A tapestry wove itself in the form of a man, with luscious hair and passionate eyes, with golden bracelets to match his hair and an irreplaceable smirk.

A piece of the myths his sister had spoken, breathed into life and inches away from the Alder. The light emanated just from that carriage alone was enough to blind him, and to bring him shame for the tendrils of poverty which he was constricted by.

In this moment he wanted to cast them aside, removing the smell of bread with them. He wanted to do something to change his fate, but he was paralyzed. Paralyzed by the curse of simplicity which bound his mere mortal frame.

Wait, he was not merely mortal? Not when he had these eyes! Eyes that were a stark violet, captured by the will of regality and un-satisfaction. He reached forth to slip off his contacts, but stopped himself.

His sister had told him to never remove them, for to do that would be to reveal a secret that was never to be shown to the rest of the world. But why was that the case? Especially in a place like this, where such secrets were so fresh in the air. Or were they just gossip?

Alder did not truly know the difference.

He had Aurelia to care and dote for him. She wasn't here now, she had gone to buy fish and vegetables and bread from the market with what little money she had. She had warned Alder not to leave their little makeshift home until she came back as she did every day...but Alder was an excitable child.

For years, that excitement had been wrapped inside a neat little ball and stuffed in an alley, but now? Now he could barely contain himself! Jewels and metals he had never even heard of, horses with the regality of princes, people dressed so royally his brain couldn't even comprehend it.

The life he was familiar with was one where his sister's meals were the highest quality of cuisine, and the bed and pillow he slept in were considered lavish.

Aurelia was a wonderful storyteller, and Alder looked forward to hearing her words every night. But he had never actually thought of these stories as something tangible. He'd always longed for them, but never considered the possibility of their existence. The greatest of mysteries were the walls which split the city in three, but such wonders felt trivial in the moment.

Seeing the chariot had awakened something within him. Jealousy, a feeling foreign to his heart. Yet now that it had emerged, it was like a cancer bubbling deep inside his bosom. But at the same time, another, more innocent emotion ran free. Curiosity, which held a strange boundlessness in its simplicity. He was familiar with the feeling, certainly. Questions popped and sizzled away in his mind every waking moment.

Why was the bed so dirty? Which crow had perched on Bryn's head? Who was to come to Darvin the Butcher's shop today?

Insignificant. They were inquiries drained of meaning, compounded into him by the repetitiveness of the life he had grown accustomed to. To think that 'bread' had been the greatest of his worries. The hunger of his body seemed to fade away before the hunger of his mind, whose gluttony was so great that the material world seemed to turn to ash.

What ifs began to fester within Alder's heart. Questions, forlorn possibilities, even a little bit of distrust towards his sister. Of course, what he was seeing was not a vicious dragon nor a silky haired king...but it was something beyond the bubble Alder knew as the world. Aurelia had made sure to tell to him constantly that she was telling him mere stories, with a firm tone of voice.

Lies. Meant to bind his mind to the ways of the common man. But he was not content to simply bask under the sun thoughtlessly. Not when there was such beauty just waiting to be chased....