“For Decades the Vikings of the north have been trying to invade our lands. Son… I believe that they may be planning a large scale attack on the coast. All the castles are inland and the coast is home to all the civilians.”

“Then Dad we should invite all the civilians to our castle while the knights fight off the Vikings!”

“No. Look, the royal family will not be known for harbouring the likes of peasants in our walls.”

“Dad, what’s a peasant?”

“They are the lower class, they work with the farms and animals.”

“I want to be a peasant dad!”

“No, you are no peasant. You are a prince, and when I die you will be a king.”

Alex sighed. He remembered this conversation. He was still a boy, 7 years of age, so he couldn’t see it back then but looking back he definitely saw it now. The ignorance. The pride. The greed. The selfishness. He had always aspired to be like his father and up until now he didn’t know what that was, but now he knew and he hated every aspect of being a ‘King’.

He sighed again as he jumped out the window, with his satchel and sword slung across his chest. He left with a feeling of lightness because he knew he was going somewhere, just he didn’t know where.

He landed with a thud, about 3 metres down from the window. He snuck past the sentry and dashed towards the stables. He didn’t need to sneak about, after all he was a prince, but he liked the thrill of it and anyway he didn’t even want to be prince.

After saying farewell to his favourite horses, he rode out on his own horse. After half an hour he stopped and dismounted his horse. Alex stared out into the valley and across to the ocean, and he saw it. The fire and the destruction. The sky was full of thick smoke and the glow from the clouds was so strong that he could see like it was day. His gaze slowly dropped to the ruins of an old town that lay strewn across the valley. A gush of memories flew across his brain and he was overcome with emotion. It was there on that hill that Alex began to weep, and as each tear fell so did a bit of his anger and hatred.

The attacks had started 3 years ago, after 7 years of planning the Vikings were much better prepared than the kings of this land. It took a while for anyone to notice that they were here because they attacked one town at a time, slowly clearing a path inland towards the castles. The first Alex had known of the attacks was when his father took a garrison of soldiers to a town down south, towards the coast. He was only gone a day into his five week tour when Alex was awoken by cries of ‘Open the Gates’ coming from outside the castle. The town that they had gone to see, was not a town at all but a trap. After that incident many more ‘trap’ towns had shown up around the nearby lands. Alex’s father had left the safety of his castle many more times after that and Alex slowly began to grow up there alone, without a role model or someone to talk to about his problems. Instead of his anger turning to bitterness and resent, Alex used his emotions for a greater good; he decided to go on his own secret missions to the nearby towns. It was during these missions that he met HIM.

As a boy Alex had been adventurous and curious, that was exactly what made him stop at this stream. He had always loved fish, and these fish were the most beautiful ones he had ever seen. He followed the stream until it pooled into a large pond. Alex sat down near the edge of the pond and saw that the fish were most beautiful here. He kept his gaze focused on a red fish, red had always been his favourite colour because it was so bold and daring. He sat there in silence, so focused on the fish that the rest of the world around him seemed to disappear.

“You like fish?” A voice seemed to appear out of nowhere and sent Alex tumbling back into reality. Startled he jumped up and lunged at the figure that had appeared behind him.

“Calm down buddy. I am just a small boy like you. See?” The boy outstretched his arms and pointed back and forth at Alex and then himself, all with a toothless grin stamped onto his face.

“Oh.” Alex sighed. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scare me? There is only one person scared here, and it is certainly not me,” Teased the boy. “My name is Robin by the way, but people just call me Robby, you can too if you want.”

“Oh but Robin is such a nice name, why don’t I just call you that? My name is Alexander but people usually call me Alex.”

“Oh well if you call me Robin I will call you Alexander. You should come and see my hut, it’s the best hut in town. Or at least that’s what Grandmama says.”

“I guess I could come over, if that’s okay with your family,” Alex replied hesitantly.

“It’s just me and Grandmama, and she mostly just sleeps.”

When Alex arrived at Robin’s hut, he was very shocked. For a boy that had always grown up in a castle, surrounded by rich lords and ladies, this was quite different. The first thing that had shocked him was how dark it was inside. There was only one candle to light the whole hut, which was only the size of his bedroom. Alex was never a snob so he didn’t mind sitting down on the hay floor with robin as they talked and played, but he felt a pang of guilt when he realised how little this whole town had. And from that day forward he made it his duty to give Robin and his town all the joy he could bring and because of this Robin and him became best friends.

It was Alex’s 16th birthday, and he had spent a whole day hanging out with Robin in the woods. They were hunting, or at least supposed to be but neither of them had the guts to kill any animals so instead they tried taming them. This of course was a failure and both boys had spent much too long out in the woods than they had first anticipated, because of this Alex found himself appearing at the castle gates long after dark. As Alex crept up to the castle wall, a figure jumped out from the shadows and stood over him with a sigh.

“Alexander. What is the explanation for this?”

“Father… I really didn’t mean to stay out this late, I was hunting in the woods.”

“Hunting, what sort of hunter doesn’t bring home a catch,” his father scoffed. “Son. I know you haven’t been hunting, because this is the second night in a row that you have shown up this late. I let you off the first time because you were younger but now you are 16, a man, and you need to become a prince and stop playing in the woods like a child.”

“Yes father.”

“Good man, tomorrow I hope to see you out bright and early at the stables.”

Alex sighed and turned to leave and head inside the castle when his father called out to him.

“Alex?”

“Yes father?”

“We will make a King out of you yet.”

“Sure father.”

Alex slumped his shoulders as he climbed the stairs, his father would never understand the secret life he was living in the village. All his father knew was War and Money, and he expected Alex to be just like him. He knew what his father would be doing tomorrow, and he wanted no part in it.

Alex woke up much later than his father had wanted him to, and he was glad because that meant that his father had started his patrols without him. Alex curled back up and slept the rest of the afternoon, last night had taken quite a lot out of him.

He awoke to loud shouts, and cries coming from the courtyard outside his window. He rose out of bed and looked out the window, and sure enough there was his father’s patrol. Alex quickly put on his clothes and rushed outside to his father’s aid.

“What happened,” he asked one of the soldiers.

“Vikings. They came out of a town and ambushed us.”

“A town? Do you know which one?”

“No, it was up in flames and we rode so fast I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

“Okay, thank you.”

Alex crossed his fingers and prayed that it wasn’t Robin’s town. He snuck past his father and mounted a horse. He was out of the castle gates before anyone noticed him, and he didn’t care anyway. He rode hard, hard with hope and pain. Robin was his only friend, the only person who had really known him. When he arrived at the town he dismounted and carefully made his way down the slope, until he was sure there were no Vikings about. They had obviously moved on. Then Alex broke into a run as he saw the flames and smoke coming from the huts. As he ran he saw charred bodies and clothes. He ran faster as he neared Robin’s hut. And then he came to a stop…

There on the floor lay Robin’s Grandmama, she was bruised, bleeding and definitely dead. After checking the hut twice and scouting the yard there was still no sign of Robin. Alex checked the perimeter of the town and suddenly he came to the pond. And he was sick. He ran to the bushes and emptied his stomach. He sprinted to the edge of the pond. It was a mess; bodies were strewn everywhere, piled on the edge of the pond or thrown in. The water was red with blood and all the fish were upside down near the centre. Then he saw HIM. His best friend, laying half in the water and half out. Alex rushed over to him but it was too late, he was already gone.

The tears fell rapidly onto the ground before Alex even knew he was crying. Then he grabbed his friend and held him tight as he carried him to the top of a hill. The hill they had spent many afternoons on, staring up at the clouds.

Alex made two graves on that hill, one for Robin and one for Grandmama. Then he sat down on the grass and sobbed.

Alex turned around and stared up at his father. Then he rose, anger bubbling up inside of him.

“Why didn’t you stop them?” He whispered, his voice hoarse from sobbing. Then he spat on his father’s boots and screamed. “YOU COWARD, YOU COULD’VE STOPPED THIS FROM HAPPENING. ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS MONEY, BUT THESE PEOPLE HAD NOTHING AND THEY MADE ME HAPPIER THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD. BUT NOW THEY ARE GONE AND ALL I HAVE LEFT IS YOU.

Then he ran. He just ran. He didn’t know where he was going but he ran.

Now Alex was here again and he whispered those words once again, and then he fell to his knees and wept harder than he had ever wept before.