Beauty and the Werewolf

CHAPTER TWO: DILEMMA OF A PRINCE

Prince Morgan made his uncle, the King, a promise. He told him that he was going to bring home a deer and an antelope. It was a tall promise, but King Edgar knew Prince Morgan too well. After all, he had raised him after his younger brother, Prince Martins, died in his own arms. One of the parting words that Morgan’s father left with King Edgar, which the King never ceased to remind Prince Morgan of, was: 'Please, take care of my son, your nephew, Morgan.' 'Remember, he will be an object of everyone’s desire to rule Midland from behind the curtains'. 'Promise me, my brother.' If the King had told Prince Morgan that his father had made him promise to take care of him as a parting wish, he might have dismissed it with a wave of the hand. However, Morgan had witnessed the death of his own father; he heard him say those words to the King, and he remembered clearly that his own father had told him to treat the King as he would treat him and that the throne should remain in the lineage of King Edgar. Though Morgan had a huge and study figure which appeared kingly and intimidating, his father's words, perhaps, helped to shape his desire. It was in fact one of the major reasons why Morgan kept himself out of the court’s politics and has always resisted anyone suggesting that he take the throne, no matter how subliminal.

Morgan’s father's last words did more than keep him away from a lust for kingly power; they made him very loyal to King Edgar. He was as dutiful as a son could be. He wanted to repay the King for all those years of caring for him. He knew the King scarcely lacked anything, but he had witnessed with his own two eyes the enormous joy the King experienced whenever he went hunting and brought back game with him, even if it was just a squirrel.

With that in the back of Morgan's mind, he ventured deep into the woods, looking to make the promise of a deer and an antelope, a reality. Spotting a deer grazing slowly about a hundred meters away from him, he thanked his stars. 'My stars are good today for sending such a hefty deer my way,' he said. He then fastened an arrow to his bow, took aim, and hit the deer very close to its heart. As it took steps with the arrow stuck in its chest, it didn’t take long before it fell to the ground, its life evaporating like heated water.

'Yes!' Prince Morgan screamed with excitement as he headed for the deer, his servants trailing behind him. He picked up the deer with his hands, raising it up to heaven as though he had won a trophy, but his excitement was cut short by the sound of galloping horsemen approaching him.

'Prince Morgan!' 'My Lord!' 'My Prince!' called out the servants and guards of Princess Olivia as they rode toward him. Approaching with his deer collected by one of his dutiful servants, Prince Morgan sensed tension in the voices of the approaching guards, as they dismounted their horses and bent their knees to the ground, as if in obeisance. Prince Morgan was sure something was wrong. He knew whatever it was, was damn serious. 'What is it?' he queried, his voice mixed with impatience and worry. The guards who had called out to him seemed to have lost their voices, each fearing to be the first to break the ill tidings.

As Prince Morgan's impatience grew to an unbearable level, he couldn't help but notice that Princess Olivia wasn't in the company of her own guards. However, since he also noticed that Amanda, the Princess's maid, was nowhere to be seen, he concluded that they must have been together at the rendezvous point. 'Why would the Princess's guards leave two ladies alone?' he thought to himself. 'Well,' he said, 'just before you tell me what worries all of you so much, I'll have you all know that you will be punished for leaving the Princess all by herself.' Upon hearing the Prince's concern for Princess Olivia, they all broke out in hot, excruciating tears and chorused, "Oh, Prince Morgan, Princess Olivia's location is unknown." Hearing that, the Prince temporarily lost his balance, but not without developing a severe headache. It felt as though the drums of war, the drums he knew all too well, were banging again and again in his head.

"What manner of joke is that?" he demanded to know. But just as one of the guards, the head guard, was about to reply with details, he pressed on. 'I left her at noon in your company and under your watch, with strict instructions never to allow her to go hunting.' 'So, where were you when she left?'

The guard scratched his head in a bid to answer, but Morgan was not done as more questions followed. "Where was her last location?" That was Morgan’s final question, now giving the head guard time to respond. “Answer me!” he yelled, losing his patience. 'She told us that she wanted to go off to relieve herself'. 'We followed her and stood guard while she and Amanda went further in.' After waiting for a while, we called out to Amanda and the Princess but received no response; therefore, we decided to advance with our backs to the spot where we thought the Princess had gone to relieve herself but didn't find her. We then launched a wider search, fearing what you would do if we came to you without the Princess. But the more we searched, the more we discovered that the Princess was nowhere to be seen.' the guard said shakily. ‘Lead the way to the Princess’s latest location,’ Prince Morgan demanded. Everyone mounted their horses and prepared for the renewed search. Just as the search party was about to set out, the guard with the deer called out to the Prince, ‘What about the game, my Prince?’ ‘You’ll end up like it if you don’t give the search for the Princess your best effort and recover her, fool!’ Prince Morgan wasn’t a crude fellow. He was not one to use uncouth language, but the situation left him with no other choice than to do so, even if for this one time.

They galloped away to the last place where they had seen Princess Olivia. As the horses raced to the location, Prince Morgan's troubled mind wandered. 'Where is Princess Olivia?' 'I hope she’s okay.' 'What if harm has come to her?' he worried. The thoughts of Olivia coming to harm in someway or another pervaded his mind. Struggling to dismiss it, he said, 'no, Olivia must be fine'. 'She must have wandered into the woods and lost her way,' he convinced himself. 'I am familiar with these woods, and I can locate my cousin.'

'Olivia, wait for me!' he screamed as he galloped behind the guards who were leading the way to the last place they had seen Olivia. When they arrived, the Prince carefully studied the terrain and noticed Olivia’s footprints in the sand, and they followed them.

They would later reach a point where the prints multiplied. In fact, the Prince could count at least six footprints: two ahead and four behind. They continued on, hoping that the tracks would lead them to Olivia, but one thing was certain given the number of footprints he had seen: Olivia wasn’t alone. She had been followed, and at this point, he was afraid not just for Princess Olivia, but also for himself. He was about to face the worst dilemma of his entire life.

As they continued in their search, the Prince noticed horse tracks obscuring some of the footprints and making others very unnoticeable, rendering them nearly impossible to follow. Having recognized that the horse prints must have been made by Princess Olivia’s guards when they went in search for her, he screamed, 'shameless guards'! 'Who trained you as guards'? 'You could have followed the tracks without wiping them out!' he spoke angrily.

After hours of conscientious search, one thing was clear: something must have happened to Olivia. ‘At best,’ thought Prince Morgan, ‘she must have been kidn*pped,’ and ‘at worst,’ ‘Oh, my God, this can't be.’ As Morgan broke down, undignified, in tears, one of the servants called out to him, ‘Over here, my Prince.’ When the Prince reached the location from where the guard had called, his eyes opened wide, and his jaw dropped at the sight he had been called out to see. It was Amanda, lying lifeless at the foot of a tree, the big tree where Princess Olivia had sat and reminisced about how Prince Morgan had saved her in the past.