Once upon a time, there was a kingdom.
The king of that kingdom had six sons and seven daughters, three queens buried and another in his bed; the king of that kingdom has four grandsons and three granddaughters. There were illegitimate children, too, and the king provided them with work and allowances, though they would never be heirs and would be unsupported after his death.
The kingdom was ruled in relative peace; the king, though cold and hard, was even-handed and wise, and the best king the peasants had seen in a hundred years. "His taxes are not as high as they could be," they said, "and he never takes more than we can spare." (They could spare more and more, as the years went by, for the weather favored the fields and gardens.) "He does not expect us to fight in wars we do not understand, nor does he involve himself in our fights unless we bring them to him." And if bread-thieves were punished with death, and horse-thieves with torture, so be it.
Though the kingdom was at peace, the king did have enemies, both ancient and newly-wrought, and so the story begins: the king's fifth son vanishes into the hands of his enemies, and so the king searches for a day, a week, a fortnight, before declaring his son lost.
But so the story does not end, for the son is not lost, merely misplaced.
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This year, I'm going to be trying NaNoWriMo. I fully expect to fail horribly, but I don't care.
Until then... until then, there's Halloween and costumes to make, choir and college, and what the hell is wrong with me. *Shakes head* Well... I've still got more than a month to ready myself, I suppose.