I look beyond my chambers. Through the glass that separates them and me. What a dangerous position to be in. They fight and plea for a life I cannot give them. I never could. As they dig their swords into the gates below I worry. Worry for their mortality, for they will die if they pursue me. This room has been mine for an eternity and the city, the kingdom of which I should be able to lay claim. Is in a pit of turmoil. I’ve screamed the words ‘release me!’ Into the abyss past my chamber door more than a million times. Never was there a response. The window taunted me, yet, it was (aside from my books and scribbles on parchments) my way of glimpsing into the world. I could never participate in its wonders, beautiful and ugly. It lay dormant for me within my curiosity. I could never be. I could merely witness. What a life that was for me. I’d never so much as even cut my hair. Why would I? Who would I have to impress? I kept it long, bunched up in bands and stuck on my head. A ball of neglect sat on my skull. My face bare. I had barely met puberty. I prayed that I could see the world and no longer be a prisoner. The reflection in my mirror. Me. Who was I without others to witness me? I told myself to never trust the mirror. It always lies. My reflection only ever did one thing, it confused me, made me think that all my worth can be seen from the outside. It never showed me how my eyes sparkled when I read something I loved. Never showed me how I laughed when I thought of something joyous. It only showed me skin deep and that, I detested. My books keep me company through it all, a quill and parchment for my writing. I’ve never written on account of myself. FOR myself. It has always been in the perspective of others. I envy the people. Even if they feel controlled and abused by our kingdom. They at least have a say. Even if its cost is death. I reach for a soft piece of cloth to clean my glasses. Of course, this leads me to look out upon the kingdom's people. My people. I would do better for them surely. But my feeble and small frame would never allow for it. How could I fight for them in the state I am in? “The hardest battles are fought with the mind,” I spoke out to myself. A quote from Alegrius Aldgaa. My father. He left his books in here to taunt me, as the window does. You see. We are all prisoners. Prisoners to ourselves. Our families. Our governments. Our people. Our friends. Our hopes and dreams. Our status. Royalty. What a word that is, and what a prison it comes with. Swarms of people attacked the gates below. Screams and fires grew more and more by each minute. All of a sudden they were disappearing. Had they breached the gates? I hop from my wooden chair and put my ears to the big sturdy doors that kept me prisoner inside this room. Not a sound. The longer I kept my ear on the door, the more I realised I could hear the internal waves. The oceans crashing and rumbling the ground. I stayed there and closed my eyes. The vision of the beach is described in my mind by the greatest poets and storytellers of our times. Each page from the book ‘We are the Oceans,’ spurt out into it. I began to hum one of the pages. “The oceans drive into the abyss, a relic of our planet formed into liquid. It resembles more than that, it smothers time into a huge soil pot and grows from itself, can you not see? We are the oceans and the oceans are us…” All the while my mind's eye is showing me golden sands sinking into the sea. A blue sparkling blanket laid on top of it. The suns heat creating waves in the air. The wetness of my skin, it’s something I have never felt before yet, I could fantasise and be there as if I have. My greatest and favourite authors. It’s as though I’ve sat down with them and they’ve told me all that’s out there. All that’s known. Reading a book is like that, like listening to an old uncle tell a story of his youth. Something I never had the pleasure of. And then, my ocean waves are disturbed by loud thunderous thuds. “We are going to get you out!” A man shouts through the door. My heart warms as it begins to beat faster. Hope. I thought I had lost it. Did they even know who I was? That I was the rightful heir to the throne? Of course, they did… they must do. Or did my father only tell me and no one else? To mock me. People. The word popped into my head. I’ve never met people before. I’ve heard their voices through the door. I’ve read countless volumes of their experiences of life. However, I’ve never met one before. How daunting. What was I to say? How was I to present myself? I’m lucky to have bathed this morning, imagine the embarrassment. I run to my wardrobe and grab a shirt, perhaps not white… maybe black? Or navy, navy is best I think. No! Black. Vanity shouldn’t be so important now. My mind raced with judgements. What would they think of me? Perhaps I will be allowed to dress less appropriately to the event of being rescued by my people. Rescued. I’m being rescued. The door banged. Loud and interrupting. Each bang followed by the distant words of. “One!” “Two!” “Three!” I backed up toward the window and gripped my black blouse. They better not damage my books. My closest friends all sat comfortably on my walls. Maybe I could move them? Save them? No, it was too late. I should have thought of that instead of worrying about my outfit. “Three!” One shouts before the splinters of wood fly towards me. The door was forced open from the other side. I shield my face with my arms and crouch to the floor. “Your highness,” a soft young voice calls me. I look up… People. Different, Yet strikingly similar to my reflection. Faces, noses, hands, eyes, legs, they were like me! My eyes began to tear up and become heavy. Springing to my feet I grab the closest man, the fragrance of man is unlike any other. I cried deeply into his shoulder as he refused to wrap his arms around me, but that was fine. A cold embrace was enough. “M’lord, you are safe!” One of the burly men announced. I manage to stop my tears and take a step back. The young man before me must have been of the same age. His stature was lighter than the others around him, but there was something about him. Something that made him a leader. I had a child’s frame in comparison to him still. But his blonde swept hair and stubble showed that he was a man. Why did I not look as manly? Perhaps real-life experience wears you down as such. It shapes not just your mind but your body too. “We have captured the castle and brought you your captor…” the young man’s blue eyes sparkled with an unsure smile. “My captor?” My father? The young man left as I dropped gracefully down on the floor. A burly man grabbed my chair and placed it before me, the others lifting me onto it. As if placing me on my throne. “M’lord, are you okay?” I nod in reply. There was no way I could be presented so swiftly with this. Something I’d dreamed of my whole life. Revenge for the man that trapped me, abandoned me. How would I prepare Myself, is this happening? Cries of anger came from outside my chambers. The prison I stayed in had been locked in for so long. And there he was. My father. I looked so much like him. It made my blood boil. “What do you want to do with him, m’lord?” The young rattled man said holding a knife to his throat. Walking over slowly I saw my father's eyes shake as he looked into my soul. “You don’t know what you’ve done!” He shouts. Blood spouting from his gums. “Done?” I questioned as something hot began to fester in my stomach. “Look what YOU have done. Abandoned me in this hell. What about me?” The heat in my stomach started to rise like ocean tides. “You’ll kill us all, starting with me. Your father!” My father? “What kind of father does this to his own flesh and blood!” My father's eyes reflected the fury I had inside of me. Was it mine? Or his? “You are a cursed child! You will spread hate and death upon this land. I never had the guts to kill you back then, back when you killed your mother in the womb!” How dare he. Laying my hand on the young man’s elbow. The strongest urge comes over me. Bubbling fury. My muscles tighten and I feel my veins constrict. My eyes shaking as my fathers were. I push. Suddenly. Fast. The knife pierced into his neck. Blood spurts out as the room became still. The young man held the blade tight. “Twist,” I say with a fire. The rattled man twists his knife as my father spits out blood onto the blade. A swivel of the handle flinches him. I could see the life drain from my father, his breath stopped. The young man then turned with wide swollen eyes and a stream of tears running from his eyelids. “I’ve never killed anyone before…” Blood coated his trembling fingers. He looked me in the eyes. “You made me do this.” His breathing came out in ragged spurts. “Why?” A smile crept onto my face. “You have now killed in my name, there is no going back now.” They swarmed around like sharks to blood, these will be my future warriors and I have already begun to shape them. “But that was the king… I killed a king…” the young man’s voice shaking. I kneel placing my hands on each side of the man’s face. His ocean blue eyes staring into mine. “Do you not remember who I am?” Everyone’s eyes were on me, all the men filled with an almost-knowing curiosity. “I am the true king and this is my ocean, you are a part of me now.”