Once upon a time, there lived a king and a queen, who were beloved across the land, because their people had low expectations and no other models of governance.

The king, a master swordsman and a mage, was dark and handsome. His skin shone like polished ebony, and he had eyes the color of new grass. He loved to help his people, and so he often would be gone around his kingdom for weeks and weeks, settling this dispute or that, helping villages whose crops were failing, or curing bouts of plague. Of course, there were others who could do this for him, but he adored the adoration of his subjects and clutched at every opportunity to bask in their praise.

He especially appreciated the praise given by young and beautiful men.

In fact, he often recruited the most beautiful and eloquent men into his service to follow him around, singing his praises wherever he went. Including, and especially, in his bedroom.

His wife was as beautiful as he was handsome. The queen's skin was the color of churned butter, and her hair a mass of ringlets, of which people argued over the color. Some swore they blazed red like the sunset. Others replied they were always the color of the night sky, and anyone who thought otherwise could throw themselves off the nearest cliff.

But the queen was a gentle woman, and she would quell these arguments with a smile, or a word, for her voice was like an angel's. It was said her song was so intoxicating it could call a child back from the edge of death, or stop an advancing army in their tracks. Some said it could even call the Dark Lord from his prison.

Often the queen would visit the close villages when her husband was away (which was increasingly the case), and sing to the children as they played, or hush a colicky babe. She found solace in these activities, but it did not keep her from wondering if there was something wrong that he preferred the company of his people and attendants to hers.

If she had been taught to govern a kingdom, perhaps she would not have cared so much about the absence of her husband. It would have given her a purpose in life, and she would have been excellent at it, turning their riches into a golden age rivaled by no other kingdom in any era.

But she hadn't.

She'd only been taught that she, and her body, was created for making children and being beautiful. So she filled her head with songs, since her adoring subjects brought her an endless stream of music books, and grew lonely and jealous.

Their marriage was going on its third year when the queen began to ask her husband for a child. The people had been hoping for one since the first year and were becoming more and more nervous. This did not go unnoticed by the queen, but if it was noticed by the king (which it probably wasn't, because he couldn't even find his socks in the middle of an empty room) then he chose to ignore it.

His reply was always, "If the gods will us to have a child, then we shall have one, my love."

The queen thought that there was rather more to making children than praying to the gods, and indeed her ladies in waiting, and her maids, had hinted as much. But she had not been brought up to know the intricacies of baby-making, nor in the practice of asking questions; her mother died when she was little, and her father's constant reply to her was, "Stop asking me questions. Your husband will teach you all you need to know."

But her husband hadn't taught her all she needed to know. In fact, he hadn't taught her anything. And she began to suspect he knew as little about the act as she did. Either that or he did not want children at all, which seemed to her to be a very odd preference for a king.

He was now gone so much from the castle that she only saw him once every three moons for a few days before he was off again. And none of his time at home was spent anywhere near her bedchamber. His constant absence created despair within her that could not be abated by any tincture or spell the castle mages and witches created.

Though she was not a witch and had no magic that she knew, the queen began to lock herself into her tower library, searching her books for spells to make the king give her a child. She would try this and that, sometimes calling for a maid to bring her some herb or plant from the kitchen, or the forest. She would unlock her door and stick her arm out for the requested item and then shut the door before the maid could elbow her way in.

Her handmaidens began to become concerned when she no longer came down to breakfast and started requesting all of her food to be placed outside of her library. One maid told them that when she had collected the queen's chamber pot, she caught a glimpse of the library and there were books all over the floor, odd candles lit and she could swear there was a sword with blood on it. The queen didn't appear to be hurt, so where the blood came from she could only guess. Rumors began to circulate that the king's absence was causing the queen to lose her mind.

When the king next returned to the castle he was unprepared for the wall of servants and ladies who awaited him and his entourage. They stood in colorful silk and jewel-adorned lines (for the king liked the servants to feel appreciated even when it made their jobs harder), with arms crossed and glares ready.

So many feet were tapping that the king, for a moment, thought the horses had been led inside the entry hall. When he noticed the scores of scowling faces and tapping feet awaiting him, he wished they had been, so that he could leave again as swiftly as he arrived.

Many of his entourage's wives were ladies-in-waiting to his wife, and as such, it was not only he but all of his men who received an earful upon their homecoming.

"How could you do this to the queen..."

"What do you mean by being gone so long? It's been FOUR MONTHS!"

"...won't even touch my best haggis..."

"The Queen is beside herself..."

"How DARE you saunter into this castle as if you've only been gone a week..."

"...only accepts yak's milk with sage! It's gross..."

"You'll never make a baby at this rate..."

"...had to climb the tower stairs to empty the chamber pot..."

"What are you all even doing out there?"

"...won't even come out of her room..."

"...the peasants are whispering..."

"...I tripped and the chamber pot spilled all the way down the stairs..."

"The people deserve an heir!"

"...civil wars you know..."

"...she's up there naked!"

"Are you all having affairs with every woman in this country?"

"...and I'm cleaning shit off a spiral, stone staircase?"

"You couldn't even remember to pick up the things from my mother!"

This last chide rang out in an odd pause, and everyone turned to look at the one lady-in-waiting who apparently forgot they were supposed to be focusing on their queen's problems and was instead berating her husband for being a mindless, selfish fool. Which in her defense, he was. But so were they all, and that kind of thing is best done in personal quarters, not the entry hall in front of the whole castle staff. She turned mildly pink during the longer-than-necessary uncomfortable silence that followed.

In was during this silence that they heard it.

The Song began slowly in a sad minor key. None knew the language it was sung in, but the melody wound around their bodies and held them like a spell. The Song spoke to their hearts of hope and longing, of life and death, of light and darkness.

On and on it went, and they felt the power of the earth pulled up out of the ground toward the queen's voice. The king, and the other witches and mages in the castle, and indeed all who had magic and heard the song, felt their magic fling out toward the sound and wrap around it. Had they desired to stop it they would have been powerless to do so, but they were enchanted as well and would have been content to waste away as long as they could die with it echoing in their ears.

Presently the song turned, and dread and despair filled their hearts as the power of the song grew. To those who stood in the village surrounding the castle, darkness formed on the top of the tallest tower and radiated outward. The light of the sun dimmed and a chill wind blew through the kingdom. Even those at the far outer reaches of the land felt a wrongness. Babies cried for their mothers, children clasped hands in terror, and men and women grabbed spears, axes, and bows, convinced that some invading army was about to march over the next hill. Indeed even the plants seemed to pale with fear.

The Song the queen sung swirled about and grew louder and louder. Her voice became the howling of a pack of wolves, then the cacophonous shriek of a pack of banshees. Then it was done.

Those who were close enough to hear the sound that came just after, described it in hushed whispers like the cracking of glass before it shatters.

Released from the spell, the king and all of the household raced toward the queen's library, fearful of what they would find. However, their dread was quickly dispelled, for when they approached the stairs leading to the tower, they found the queen as beautiful as ever, clean and fully dressed in a butter-cup-yellow gown trimmed with pearls, smiling as she descended the last step.

They were all so shocked that her words went unheard and she was forced to repeat herself, which she found annoying.

"I said, welcome home my Lord.
"What a party you've brought with you, if I didn't know better I'd think you brought the whole castle with you."

She did, and he had.

The king was so struck by the whole experience that he found he had nothing to say, which had never happened in all of his thirty years. The queen looked at him with a condescending smile and then set off to the gardens past the rest of the castle staff, who parted before her like butter under a knife.

That night astronomers insisted there was a star missing from the sky, and astrologers claimed death was imminent. The latter were, of course, immediately ignored, because astrologers are notorious for always claiming imminent death. The former were also ignored because everyone knew those who couldn't be astrologers, became astronomers. Those who couldn't become astronomers decided to become "scientists," and spouted ridiculous ideas like illness being caused by invisible things they called "germs." Everyone laughed at them and then called for a mage, who made everyone better, and the scientists were told to "get a real job."

What also happened that night, but was not noticed for several days and thus was not equated with the whining of the astronomers, or the woe-prognosticating of the astrologers, was a stranger entered the kingdom.

No one could completely agree on what the stranger looked like. Some said he was dark of skin, tall, and an excellent cook. Others said he was average height, with ivory skin, dark curly hair, a resentful character, and looking like he'd recently been swimming in a pond to conquer his feelings for a certain Miss. Bennett. They told anyone who disagreed just what they could do with their opinion, and it wasn't nice.

This confusion was because the stranger's appearance took the form of the beholder's ideal man, and this differs a great deal. Inside was a much bleaker picture.*

His name was Lorred D'Kay, but he preferred to just be called Lorred - pronounced Lord. It created a lot of confusion and chaos wherever he went because that's what everyone called the king.

Chaos and confusion were precisely Lorred D'Kay's goal in every endeavor and brought him great joy to sew amongst the people of this happy kingdom.

__________________________

Next time on The Dark Heir:
The king tries his hand at straight sex.
The queen takes questionable action.
A stranger comes to town.

___________________________

*
Internally he was made of the inflated ego of a frat bro who has just been sentenced to community service for committing sexual assault because a judge felt it would "ruin his future" to hold him duly responsible.

Alternatively, substitute "White Man With Hair" - he can only fail up.