Author’s Note: This is a companion piece to my story Spontaneity and will make zero (well, 0.000333 repeating) sense if you have not read that first (and sometimes even if you have). All “chapters” are independent drabbles/shorts. Specific warnings will be placed at the beginning of each chapter. This is a blanket warning: there will be SLASH/malexmale and PROFANITY.

(For those interested in whenintheheck I’m going to update Spontaneity, please take a look at my profile. Also, there is a Spontaneity poll up there!)

Insanity Loves Company
A Collection of Spontaneity Shorts

Playtime or Damar and the Lamb

I had never seen so many toys in my life.

“Are you sure I should be up here, Prince Edan?” I asked hesitantly. The young prince snorted and sat down next to a jumble of blocks and wooden figurines.

“I want you here, so you’re here, Dama. Stop calling me Prince. Now help me set up the village.”

I was sure I would get in trouble for this later. I had finished all my chores for the day, but I hadn’t had a chance to ask the Stable Master if he had anything extra for me to do before Prince Edan had appeared with two guards as escort. He would listen to nothing I said, demanding that I come up to his chambers and entertain him right that instant. I was still so very nervous around him then, and I found that I could deny him nothing. I let one of the stable-boys know where I would be, and then I let Prince Edan drag me back to his chambers. Prince Edan’s nursemaid, a large, intimidating woman dressed all in black, had given me a sour look, but otherwise she said nothing. She knew I knew I didn’t belong, and that seemed to be enough for her.

“No, no, the king and queen go in the bonfire,” Prince Edan said in that cutely condescending way of his, taking the figurines from me and dropping them on top of a tower of orange and red blocks. I nodded and went back to stacking the castle.

He was a very pretty child, I thought, not for the first time. It was no wonder he was a prince. What was a wonder was why he bothered with me. After that first time we met, I was sure I would never see him again. I had never seen him before, after all, so why should I have expected to see him again? It was only a coincidence that I found him locked in the closet that day. We came from two very different worlds; the only thing we had in common was that we were both children. Even then, Prince Edan was only five, and I was almost nine.

Despite my expectations, Prince Edan showed up at the stables the very next day after our first meeting. He wanted to see where a slept, and, after I showed him my straw pallet, he merely commented that the place smelled like a horse. Then he asked if I knew of any good hay to play in—or light on fire.

“RAWR!”

I jumped, knocking over a block. Prince Edan looked at me and bared his teeth. He had a stuffed lamb in one hand, and he roared again as he made it fly over the village we had created.

“Make them run away, Dama. Mr. Babbles is going to decapapitate them.”

“Um,” I said. I tried to grab one of the wooden figurines, but I jerked back to avoid getting hit by an avalanche of blocks. After the first tower fell, Prince Edan seemed inspired. What began as simply knocking blocks over soon escalated into chucking blocks into other blocks, then throwing blocks across the room, at walls, at doors, at the ceiling, at the wardrobe, at the nursemaid who came to investigate the noise.

The old woman screeched and slammed the door after getting pelted in the face with a purple cube of wood. Prince Edan giggled maniacally.

“Oh, please stop!” I whimpered, covering my head as projectiles soared through the air. He paid me no heed and took aim at one of the candle holders on the wall. “Please, Prince Edan—” I flinched as a block hit me in the back and Edan began running in circles. “Please—” The sound of raised voices outside the door— “Prince Edan!” Glass shattered, and, apparently, so did my restraint. “PRINCE EDAN, STOP THA’ THIS INSTANT!”

He did. He dropped the block in his hand, turning to look at me with wide, surprised eyes, like he could hardly believe what I had said. I could hardly believe what I had said.

I took a breath. “Someone’s gana ge’ hurt,” I said quietly, shaking all over. “And—and—and you’re ganta get i’ trouble. So pleastop.”

Prince Edan sat down. “Okay,” he said. “But it was fun.” I shook my head and started collecting blocks that were near enough to reach. He picked up the stuffed lamb and began kneading it in both hands. After a long while, he said, “Hey, Dama?”

“Yes, Prince Edan?”

“Why d’you talk funny sometimes?”

I paused. “What?”

“You said, um, like, ‘stop thay.’ No, like, ‘stop tha’?”

My face felt suddenly very hot. I hadn’t noticed I had lapsed into my old speech patterns, but apparently I had. “I—I—I’m, I’m sorry—” I lowered my head.

“For what? It was funny. You’re funny.” He smiled at me when I looked up. I smiled hesitantly back. I knew he wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain that I had grown up in a poor district of the city and had spent many months trying to drop my accent. I wondered if he would care. “So you don’t have lots of toys, do ya, Dama?”

“No, not lots,” I agreed faintly. I had, precisely, one, and even that was more than I was supposed to have. It wasn’t really a toy, either. More like a memento.

“Oh,” Prince Edan said. He looked bored now, and I began to feel nervous again. I wasn’t being very entertaining. In fact, I had yelled at the Prince—it hit me suddenly that I, a lowly messenger-in-training, had yelled at the Prince. I was so busy being horrified at myself that I obeyed immediately when Prince Edan held out the stuffed lamb and said, “Hold tight. Don’t let go.”

Leaning over the ruins of our town, Prince Edan gripped the lamb’s tail and calmly ripped it off. I stared, confused.

“There! Dama, look what you did!” He threw the piece of cloth at me, and I swallowed hard.

“I can—oh—I can fix it—I can—” I could sew it back on, I thought. Yes, if I could just borrow a needle and thread, maybe from Miss Jenna, I was sure I could—

“No.” The young prince frowned and crossed his arms. “It’s broke now. I don’t want it.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You keep it.”

“I can sew it—”

“No! I don’t want it now. He has no butt. It was a stupid toy anyway.”

“I could—”

“Just take it, Dama,” he snapped, sitting back down and beginning to clink blocks together. The stuffed lamb was soft in my hands. It felt like the softest thing I had ever touched. Prince Edan kept glancing up at me, and it seemed to me that he was waiting for me to say something.

“Th—thank you, Prince Edan.”

Prince Edan snorted. “Just be careful. He breathes fire and eats heads.”

Fin