This is the first chapter of a fantasy piece that was written a while ago. It's a joint work, between me and Phoenix II. Warning: this is pretty much crack. It started as a mockery of typical fantasy stories and kind of snowballed from there. It's not a serious work, and thus the quality is not fantastic. It's also old, so the writing style may change a little as we rewrite or add things in, and get to the bits we haven't written at all yet. But we're putting up anyway because we're hoping to actually finish it and make it into a good quality work.

Until that day, enjoy, I guess.

---

Chapter The First

Ginspa had always been impressive for its tiny size. Nestled between tall black mountains to the East, and a glittering, never-ending ocean to the West, the small country was trapped by a vast expanse of rocky desert to the South (thankfully separating it from their southern bandit neighbours) and thick, impenetrable (almost) forests to the North, not-quite separating them from their Northern neighbour, Vituperare. The islands to the West, just visible on a clear day from the main port of Ginspa, contained the small (probably) and secretive (definitely) countries of Spashimand and Dralhind (the latter of which had recently suffered a civil war and become Dralhind and Ugsecosnd, from the original Fufalarea, but that's of little importance in this day and age) but the islands rarely to never contacted Ginspa, so were largely forgotten about.

Ginspa itself was perhaps only one hundred kilometres wide from East to West, but was at least three times as long, so held a decent population of mostly agricultural peasants. Ginsparans were simple folk, not known for their bright nature or keen perception, but were friendly enough in their own way, if one ignored the occasional fit of demon-hunting that gripped them from time to time (and as there were no demons in Ginspa, there were no casualties, so all was well). Inns frequented the little country, especially in the capital, and if it were possible to view it from the air (though this was a silly idea. People couldn't fly!) it could be described as no less than perfect. The fields were brightly coloured with a wide variety of crops, and the grass was green enough to come under suspicion of being manicured blade by standing blade. A keen advocate of a clean, good environment with which to honour Mother Nature (who gave all, bless her and her kindness), Ginsparan authorities had been known to punish farmers for less-than-perfect fields. Of course, that was barbaric and a thing of the past. Now the Ginsparan army did it.

The capital of Ginspa was a large and medieval town called Paprimeg, that had preserved her countryside beauty in the form of thatched roofs, dark wood beams, and mud walls. Built in several circles around the centrepoint, the buildings got smaller and more insignificant as one travelled deeper into the town, to amplify the majesty of the great Ginsparan Palace within.

The Ginsparan Palace was…enormous. There was no other adjective suitable to describe the majesty and glamour of that most prestigious building. The marble walls glowed brightly in the hot Ginsparan sun, and the golden rooftops and clear glass windows blinded all who looked upon it. As it was such a large edifice, and too beautiful to resist gazing at in wonder, there were many blind Ginsparans. In the summer months, when the sun was at her royal peak in the cornflower blue sky, the light gleaming from the palace would set many of the straw and wood huts of Paprimeg ablaze. Thus the town never grew old or outdated; a necessity all the nobility of this wonderful country agreed upon. Stone housing was hard to come by, for the mountains were terrible places never to be mined for fear of inducing the wrath of the many horrible and fearsome creatures supposed to live there, so any citizen requesting a stone house was to be firmly refused. Inside, a place that was rare for a peasant to see, the walls were covered in marvellous murals of a long-ago glory, when Ginspa had been huge and a terror to the smaller nations who dared to defy it. Paintings and murals of long-ago battles, of victories won both ashore and at sea, decorated the hallways and ballrooms, reminding all the nobility that such a glory could only serve to come again to such a perfect and deserving nation.

In the throne room and ballroom, the two largest and most important rooms in the entire palace, hung great portraits of the Ginsparan Royal Family, dating back to James the Great, the first and most brilliant King of Ginspa who had pulled the collection of tiny, warring states into a majestic collective and set out to rule the known world.

James the Great and his wife Henrietta the Wise had sown the seeds of a brilliant and firm Royal Family for Ginspa. The portraits wound from the great entrance doors of the ballroom, through the entire hall and into the throne room. A variety of great kings and queens stared down at the nobles from their oily canvases, all with the familiar slate-grey eyes and dark, seemingly permanent frown upon their royally pale faces.

The portrait line, and royal bloodline, came to a halt at the portrait of Queen Rennifred XVI, only the seventeenth Queen to hold the throne without a husband, and that was only if you counted the anomaly of Queen Winifred, which most people wouldn't. It was Ginsparan law to have a ruling Queen named Rennifred if there was no male to fill the throne with His Royal Backside. Thus, to keep it safe, most Kings and Queens had named their first daughter Rennifred.

However, Queen Rennifred XVI was not the epitome of a great Ginsparan Queen. For one, she had the abomination of brown hair, not black, and her grey eyes leaned closer to the outrageous blue of a desert bandit. Her enemies questioned her heritage, but Queen Rennifred XVI was firm in that she had the throne now, and upon her deathbed would pass the golden chair and all it symbolised to her only (known) son, the Crown Prince James.

James was, by the tender age of seventeen, an only child, for his older sisters Rennifred (naturally) and Letitia were both tragically taken by a horrific outbreak of tuberculosis in Paprimeg several years ago when James was just a tiny child. How young James had survived, no one knew, and he had been heralded as a miracle child to survive what two healthy elder sisters, four palace guards and sixteen palace servants had not. He was unable to remember much of them, and their portraits had not been painted, as they had neither held the throne nor married a foreign prince.

Thus the responsibility now fell on James, as the only heir to the throne, to learn to take his mother's place. As she was not married (and rumour had it, never had been, although this was strictly ignored for it would destroy James's claim to the throne) there was no one to stand between the seventeen-year-old prince and that throne but his own mother.

Luckily for Queen Rennifred, James was not particularly desperate for power. Ginspa was no longer a place to be fought over. The days of fighting for the throne of Ginspa had died along with King Robert VI and his infamously terrible choice of going to war with the overseas immortals. There was an excellent reason as to why Spashimand was left well enough alone.

In fact, James had let an extremely sheltered life so far. Yes, the boy was trained in the princely arts of swordfighting, debate, music and dance, but he had never seen war, nor bloodshed or people driven to desperation by famine or invading armies. He was born long after any war had disturbed Ginspa's borders, and his familiarity with death only extended to the plague of tuberculosis that had claimed two of his family and many of the servants.

James was an elegant young man. He stood tall and handsome for his fifteen years, his demeanour that of a boy growing into a man and being extremely proud of the fact. His unfettered arrogance was tempered only by his partner-in-crime Rig, who had never been afraid to address the prince as he chose. But Rig was the only one. The nobility, the palace staff, and even James's own mother all bent to his every whim, and he was certain that if he had demanded the throne that very morning, it would be his by nightfall.

James certainly looked ever the prince, and the palace artists rejoiced in their dreams of being chosen to paint his portrait to join his ancestors when his mother died. He was a pale youth, but not unhealthily so, and his dark hair fell roguishly over his forehead in a manner that spoke to the young palace ladies of a dashingly handsome boy, but not so untidily as to appear scruffy. His sharp grey eyes were cold and hard, glaring out at the world with a determination bordering on rudeness, and they were intimidating enough to press any issue to James's advantage. His hands were elegant and his legs refined by years of sword fighting, horseback riding and dancing, and he was a strongly-built, athletic boy, if a little on the wiry side to ever appear intimidating from a purely physical point of view. Dressed in his usual white, mock-military uniform with his brash gold medals (of fights he had never actually won or attended), his pale skin, fierce eyes and dark hair combined to present a striking and memorable young man.

Tragically, James's attitude was not so beautifully refined. Although taught to be gracious and gentlemanly, it was not in the prince's nature and he was often scathing, sharp-tongued and arrogant to a fault. His haughty manner earned him enemies among the household staff, and his too-serious outlook only encourage the wild, outlandish behaviour of his 'pet', as Rig was dubbed by the guards, which of course upset palace proceedings greatly, especially at times of large events. James was well-known to only 'lighten up' in his quarters with the bundle of mischief commonly known as Rig de Icoitus, and even that could prove a challenge. Queen Rennifred often despaired over teaching her son to not take everything quite so seriously and not to treat everyone as a potential enemy or subordinate.

For all intents and purposes, James had been raised essentially alone in the palace since he was four years of age and his sisters had died…until his tenth birthday.

On the night of his tenth birthday, dining with the Queen and several of the nobility, the Chief Guard had entered the room with a small, scruffy boy in tow.

"A thief from one of the villages, Your Majesty," he had growled in his deep tones. "He broke into the servants' quarters and was stealing all the food he could get his hands on."

The boy had looked mildly surprised at the announcement, but had said nothing, scuffing his bare toes on the marble floor. To the ten-year-old James, it had looked more the gesture of a child caught out of bed after hours, more than someone about to be imprisoned or worse for stealing. And James had never seen a peasant before. He was, frankly, fascinated. Who knew a person could be that grubby?

"Stealing from the servants' quarters?" the Queen had echoed, looking as surprised as James felt. "Why the servants quarters?"

"He won't speak, Your Majesty. I'm not too sure he can speak."

"Why's he so filthy?" James demanded, and to everyone's surprise, the peasant boy's head shot up and fierce blue eyes glared up at the haughty prince.

"Maybe you can afford baths all the time, my lord," he sneered, "but it's kind of a luxury in the villages!"

"Don't your mother and father bathe you?" James snapped, angry at being confronted.

"Don't have 'em," the boy jeered. "Don't tell me your Mammy bathes you? I bet you got servants!"

And then he spat, loudly and rudely, at James's feet.

There was, frankly, an uproar.

The servants waiting on the nobles all began to chatter animatedly and disgustedly at such awful behaviour in front of the prince, and the nobles all rose up at one to defend the heir to the throne. James himself stood dumbstruck as the guards flung the boy back onto the marble floor, and was only jerked out of his reverie by the loud, piercing wail that emitted from the peasant's thin form as he hit the cold floor.

"Stop!" he bellowed.

Even at ten years of age, the young prince had been well-educated in how to quiet a room of babbling nobles, and silence instantly came, along with a total lack of motion, even from the defiant peasant boy. Slowly stepping closer to the thin, grubby boy, James glared down at him through cold, grey eyes, and demanded in a deceptively soft tone:

"What is your name?"

Those blue eyes were no longer defiant, but afraid, and something twisted inside James. He wasn't sure he liked this boy being afraid of him. Intimidated maybe - certainly what he did was rude beyond comprehension - but not downright frightened.

"R-Rig," the boy whispered.

"Rig what?" James tried to soften his tone, but it didn't seem to work as the boy flinched away.

"Rig de Icoitus."

A village peasant. Icoitus wasn't far from the walls of Paprimeg itself, so he must have come into the city as a street child. He was probably a victim of famines or disease. James knew the countryside was a dangerous place to live.

"Why did you break in?" he asked quietly.

Rig shrank back, "I'll give it back!"

"That's not what I asked."

"I…"

"Why doesn't your father provide for your family!"

"Cos he's dead!" Rig yelled, the words apparently slipping past without his consent, as he clamped a bony hand over his mouth and froze.

"He's a common thief, Your Highness," Tatwoo boomed. "The punishment for those daring to break into the palace is execution…"

"I know that," James growled, turning to look at his mother. "Is that absolute, Mother?"

Queen Rennifred blinked, "You want him pardoned? We can't pardon him."

"But…" James hesitated. He didn't know how to argue this. He could not appear soft. He could not appear sympathetic to the hungry, or they'd all be here wanting homes. But he also didn't want to just fling Rig back out again without any consideration.

"Thieves are to die," Tatwoo growled.

"You are not the King!" James snapped, and the guard shut up hastily.

"If you kept him," the Queen began quietly, "then he would be your responsibility."

James stared, "Keep him?"

"You need to learn responsibility for other people," the Queen said calmly. "You cannot go about thinking nobody but yourself matters."

"Like…like a pet?"

Had James been looking at the peasant boy during the discussion, he would have noticed the look of disgust that had crossed the boy's dirty face at being termed a pet.

"Somewhere between a pet and a servant, perhaps," the Queen nodded. "Or we can simply…dispose of the problem?"

"No!" James cried.

There was a long pause, in which the prince looked from the boy still crouched on the floor looking up at him suspiciously, to his mother smiling in benign amusement. After a while, James waved the guard away, who retreated from the pair of the boys reluctantly.

"Get up," James ordered Rig flatly.

A mutinous glare flickered on Rig's face, but he was wary enough to obey, and rose to his feet. He was smaller than James, and probably a year or two younger, but stood proudly enough.

"I am James, Crown Prince of Ginspa, and your new Master," James introduced himself formally, extending a hand for the younger boy to shake and trying not to see the grime embedded in those grubby fingers of his.

There was a long pause as Rig stared blankly at James's hand, before uttering rather loudly:

"You have girls' nails."