You know… If you jump, you're probably not going to make it.
The Prince felt his eyes narrow. That voice was constantly belittling him, humiliating him, and asking him very strange questions(Are camels the same as horses, Prince?). It made his work more difficult than it ever should have been, and dare he say it, he resented the strange voice for that.
He felt spiteful... angry even. So much so that it's only decent advice today went under the bridge of his common sense. He did not care if this was going to work or not. He wasn't following the advice of a disembodied voice any longer. The space between the two pillars seemed to shrink in his mind, and it didn't take much effort to ignore the spirited argument of the spirit.
Before his feet even left the platform he had been balancing on, the Prince realized the voice had been right. He wasn't going to make this jump. It was a leap of faith that he was about to fail, and it was too late to slow down.
So he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and soared.
What are you doing? Prince, wake up! Wake up!
Oh for the love of…
Why was he sleeping?
The world was dark inside the mind of the slumbering royal, and that made his unlikely partner anxious. He could still hear the sounds of the courtyard in which they were now laying(Prince had, just as he anticipated, not made the jump) and they were highly unpleasant. Those hellhound beasts were back, and his host was having a nap!
A hot nose touched their foot and while the Prince's consciousness didn't respond, his darker half was quick to curse. The nose was substituted with a set of teeth, and still there was no movement. For the first time that he knew of, The Prince had retreated into his own mind and the door was locked.
"Dammit! Whelp!" The Dark Prince did the only thing that made sense. He charged forward like a general and felt his consciousness flood the body. The feeling was new and strange, but he thrashed wildly anyway, his(Prince's) foot catching the hound under it's ugly chin. It howled and skittered away, unwilling to fight alone.
He sat up then, the unfamiliar feeling of having a body throwing him for a moment.
Then there was a blinding flash of pain that made the Dark Prince whimper and try to retract back into the depths of their mind. It felt like his head was on fire! Was this always there? Was that what made the Prince so stupid? Was it going to make him stupid?
He hoped not! He liked being the smart one, thank-you-very-much.
His hand went to the side of his- their- head. It came away red and he let out a sigh. So his head was bleeding. That was what hurt. The Prince hurt when he bled.
The Dark Prince sprawled the foreign hands in front of himself and moaned again. Gods that was one monster of a headache! He could almost hear his thoughts humming through his skull. He stood up shakily, blinking the Prince's eyes to clear them of whatever dust had trickled in. This body was more sensitive than he'd ever thought. Everything felt like it hurt, and his head kept throbbing.
He splayed the Prince's hands out, desperate to discover the secret to operating this body. The Dark Prince was rather worried that he wasn't going to know what to do if something started attacking him. The headache was taking a backseat, but it was still there like a persistent fly.
One foot. Other foot. One foot. Other foot.
He walked differently than the Prince. That made him frown in confusion, but the Dark Prince continued on his way nevertheless. Yes, he took longer strides than the Prince did, and he was moving faster. He would tell him to walk like this from now on, to save time. They could get to the Vizier in a fraction of their original timeframe!
"Prince? Are you awake yet?"
No?
That was just fine.
The headache had become nothing more than an annoyance, and the Dark Prince was greedily absorbing every sight that he could. Things looked so much more vivid from this point of view! He wasn't hiding in the shadows anymore! It felt wonderful to walk, and he even leapt onto a low column without any serious implications.
He pulled the Dagger from the Prince's belt and looked at it closely for the first time. It was a pretty weapon, not nearly as good as the Daggertail. Now that he held it in his own hands, the Dark Prince determined that he had been right all along. The Dagger was off balance, and the blade was too heavy for the handle.
"Flimsy ornament." He decided with a frown, returning the blade to the Prince's waist. He didn't like having to rely on it in battle. It felt awkward in his hand, perhaps because he was used to the Daggertail. Or, at least, he liked the Daggertail more. It was, in a way, similar to his feelings for transportation.
He was not necessarily used to walking or horses, but he happened to like walking more since the 'carriage fiasco'. It gave him an appreciation for the Prince's legs and their reliability. Horses were loud, fast and they made him nervous. He hoped the one they had ridden got eaten by wild birds.
He walked faster now, almost jogging. He didn't want to stay in control for long, yet while he was, the Dark Prince very much wanted to enjoy it. It was strange to move so freely, and as he continued, it occurred to him that maybe the Prince would never wake up. What if he didn't? What would he do if he had to rule this body forever?
The idea was delectable, the Dark Prince let himself be seduced by it, even as his logic argued that the Prince was too stubborn to be kept out of the way by something as simple as a bump to the head. Yet imagine if he was… no more arguing with a bumbling dolt, no more waiting for him to enjoy the scenery, no more getting held up by that insufferable princess.
He looked across the expanse of the gardens and felt an inkling of confusion. It was strange, for he knew where to go, but his mind became muddled as to how he was supposed to get there. Maybe he would do best to wait for the Prince to regain control. They were only going to get lost if he kept trying.
Of course, as he thought this, the Dark Prince continued forward. He poked his head around corners and stepped over rubble with every appearance of a Prince looking for some clever way to get out of a mess. Really? He was just curious as to what might be hiding in all those dark corners. Within the contours of the Prince's mind there were many stories of snakes and scorpions that would hide in shadows and strike with deadly speed.
Why wouldn't he be curious!
The Dark Prince had been raising a section of collapsed wall when that voice cut across his mind. He could have screamed, but he had to act like the Prince, didn't he? And Farah was his favorite little nuisance!
"That's a good way to entice a snake, you know."
He dropped the heavy stone wall and it landed with an unfriendly thump. The Dark Prince stepped closer to where she was standing on the other side of a gate that had been growing into the ground for what appeared to be years. "I apologize then. I was actually looking for a scorpion." He was serious, but she would take it as sarcasm.
She smiled a bit and the Dark Prince shifted from foot to foot. He hadn't talked to someone besides the Prince before, not that those conversations were good experiences to draw on. All they did was yell at each other, and make angry remarks. "You've slowed down." She pointed out.
Well obviously, he wasn't exactly used to running amuck in a body! The Dark Prince wasn't following a schedule today. His mouth, of course, formed more appealing words. "It is getting late. I need to conserve strength." Gods, that sounded awful. Did the Prince really talk like that?
Farah nodded as if it made perfect sense and proceeded to sit down. On the grass. What on Earth was the woman doing? Was the Dark Prince supposed to sit down? Would she expect him to? What if something happened! He couldn't just sit on the grass and—
"Sit down."
He sat.
"I'm surprised I caught up to you. It's good that you're conserving strength, Prince, you are going to run yourself ragged if you continue at this speed." She was pulling food out of a woolen sack whose opening was tied by a leather thong. The Prince's stomach growled and the Dark Prince looked at the layout of preserved snacks with great intrigue.
At last Farah pulled out a fresh fruit, the only one she had been carrying. She noticed his gaze and smiled happily down at her discovery. "I found several in a tree back there," She pointed vaguely behind them. "I ate all the others."
Before he could stop himself, the Dark Prince asked a question that was very unlike the Prince to ask. "What is it?" He was fascinated. He had never taken time to concern himself with the Prince and his eating habits. Now he didn't even have his host's memories to rely on.
Farah looked puzzled, then held it up in the light as if he hadn't been able to see it. "A pomegranate, of course. Are you feeling all right, Prince?" She broke the skin of the fruit with a knife and he watched some liquid dribble out. It was like the whole thing was bleeding!
How delightful!
"I am fine, though this seems a strange place to have a picnic." He looked around again. Sand monsters had a way of appearing seemingly from nowhere, and the Dark Prince was a bit unsure as to how well he could fight in the Prince's place. He was better as a spectator, yelling advice from the sidelines.
Farah smiled and set the two halves of the pomegranate aside. "I have been watching the sand monsters. None of their rounds include this area. Would you like something to eat?" The Prince's stomach growled and again his eyes were drawn to the fruit. It looked more appealing than the dried meats, at least. How bad could it possibly taste?
"May I?" He pointed at the small half of the pomegranate.
"I thought you didn't like them?" She commented, but nodded nevertheless.
The Dark Prince picked it up tentatively and rolled it in his hands. He cursed himself for never digging into the Prince's memories of eating, nor watching closely as he did so. The basics were very clear to him at least; you put food in your mouth, chewed until it was very soggy, and then swallowed.
He was stirred from his thoughts when Farah spoke, "If you are not going to eat it, I would gladly do it for you."
But what were all those white dots? Was he supposed to do something special with them? The Dark Prince watched Farah closely(Though he hardly wanted to admit this) as she went about poking at her half of the demon fruit. He pulled the Dagger from his waist and proceeded to mimic the cuts she had put in hers.
"This is very messy…" He complained, as more and more juice spilled onto the Prince's leggings. "Isn't there a cleaner way?"
Farah laughed(laughed!) at him and pointed at his lap, where seeds were beginning to accumulate. "Sloppier than a child… look, you're missing some!" She reached through the gate separating them and plucked some of the seeds off his thigh.
That wasn't fair! The Dark Prince frowned unhappily. "Those were mine!" He exclaimed indignantly, and without thinking he snatched several from the segment of fruit Farah was holding. "Now we're even."
"You haven't even eaten any!"
He popped one rebelliously into his mouth and it seemed the Prince's body automatically knew to chew. After a moment, one of the seeds broke under his teeth and the Dark Prince let out a loud(And incredibly undignified) trill of delight. It was sweet! Sweet! He didn't know what sweet was, but this was as close as he would ever come to defining it! Eagerly he chewed some more, but apparently there were no more surprises left in this one, so he threw two more in.
More sweetness! Merciful Gods, how could he have lived without this! Why was the Prince so damn depressed if he got this sort of wonderful stuff?
It didn't occur to him until his fifth delighted handful that Farah was staring at him with an incredibly perturbed expression. Perhaps it wasn't commonplace for the Prince to react this much to a sweet(Sweet!) fruit. "I have not had fruit in months." He explained with juice-smeared smile.
She relaxed just slightly and nodded as if this was quite understandable. "Are you ever intending on swallowing?" Farah teased, and the Dark Prince realized that his mouth was feeling rather crowded. So he let the body do what it felt was necessary, and soon enough the seeds were gone and his throat constricted briefly.
"Prince, are you bleeding?"
There was the sign for him to leave. He lurched back from her hands, and nodded. "I fell… earlier… I am fine." The Dark Prince was about to run, but she grabbed his foot and pulled him closer—a persistent woman, wasn't she? He grimaced as a hand washed over the aching side of the Prince's face, but eventually just let her do whatever she felt she must. Why not? It was what the Prince would do, and that was who he had to copy.
"I cannot see the wound, but as you're awake, I suppose it must not be serious."
Only half awake, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, he nodded eagerly, hoping to be rid of her too-soft hands soon. It was making him feel uncomfortable and warm all of a sudden. He didn't like the feeling. In fact, it was making the Prince's heart do strange extra beats.
Prince? Are you awake? But the other consciousness only stirred, and Farah had a very strange look on her face. It was making him feel queasy.
"May I do something. Prince?" She asked, and he could feel a sweat breaking out. Oh no. No, no, no. This was something the Prince was supposed to do. He actually liked the girl! The Dark Prince would gladly shut himself in his own mind for this ordeal. He wanted nothing to do with this!
Then she kissed him and for the first time in his existence, the Dark Prince was absolutely silent.
He didn't know what he was doing, but it felt good. In fact, it felt better than good! It was almost like the pomegranate experience, though perhaps more surreal. He knew about… this… from the Prince's memory, but it had never occurred to him that there might be more to it than the physical aspect.
It seemed, though, that the encounter stirred the Prince's consciousness into a sudden and rude awakening. The Dark Prince felt his mind unwinding from it's slumber just as Farah pulled him closer, and he knew what was coming even before the leash of his own consciousness was jerked and he fell back into the darkness like a whipped dog. No need for thanks.
Ungrateful bastard. He should have left him for the dogs.
The Prince should have known better than to allow himself the reprieve that was unconsciousness. He should have known that the other side of him would take advantage. But how had he found Farah? How had they gotten into this situation? This was wrong! This was supposed to be a special moment. Something personal and…
And not that demon's to enjoy!
"I'm sorry!" He pulled away with a gasp, leaving her with a look of disappointment mingled with understanding. "Of all the places… I apologize for my actions, Farah." The Prince assumed, of course, that it had been that other side who had done this. The other side which was now strangely quiet, though his presence was obvious, as it always was.
She shook her head, now smiling just slightly. "I started it, Prince. What have you to apologize for?" She gathered her remaining preserves and stood up. "Let us linger no longer and risk discovery." Farah watched him stagger to his feet, an uncertain expression on her face. After a moment or two she turned away, as did he.
"Thank you, Prince." By the time he had turned, she was gone, and the Prince released a mental scream of rage that jarred his other half out of his blissful reverie. Someone was angry… no… not angry.
Jealous.
It was very good you know, Prince. It's a shame you didn't have time to enjoy every moment of it. But I did! Would you like me to explain how she—
"You vile, evil, twisted, disgusting spirit! Do not even talk to me, Demon. I want nothing more to do with your tricks!" The Prince brought his hands to his head in a show of rage. The Dark Prince might have warned him of the pomegranate juice before, but now he was feeling quite offended, and chose instead to remain silent.
"Why do I smell of pomegranates?" The Prince's complaint went unanswered, and he was forced to continue his journey stinking of the wretched fruit. He worked silently and tirelessly, reflecting upon the moment which had been stolen from him, and the exultant expression which had dominated Farah's visage.
If only to rub salt into his wound, until well into the night the Dark Prince hummed a deliriously happy tune.