Rigel

[WIP!!! SUBJECT TO CHANGE!!! I HAVE TO FINE TUNE SOME THINGS AND REWRITE SOME THINGS TO MAKE IT SOUND NOT TERRIBLE.]

Rigel was born in one of the many kingdoms scattered upon the sands of the Desert of May. He was born from the rare instance of a human and hayal doing the do, but with even stranger circumstances. The human mother happened to be the queen to the small kingdom, making Rigel a bastard child prince. Imagine the surprise on the king and queen's faces when out pops a little baby hayal - ears, tails, and all! Things sure got heated for a while after that - tears were shed and the queen regreted ever cheating on her husband. She certainly learnt her lesson. There were plans of discarding of the child, but the queen could not bare to dispose a child of her own blood.

Thus, Rigel was allowed to live. But the king and queen both agreed that it was in their best interests, as rulers of the human realm, to keep the young prince isolated from the outside world - caged within the castle with only a select few loyal servants to know the secret of what Rigel really was. Gossip spread through the town that the new prince was simply ill; weak from a disease he was born with and thus could not make public appearances. How wrong they were.

It was, admittedly, a hassle raising him. Rigel was prone to slipping into his fennec fox form and running around the castle - crashing into things all the time. He wanted the room to run around. He wanted to play. He wanted to have friends. But he simply wasn't allowed those simple luxuries.

As a child Rigel was forced to take the usual private lessons with his personal tutor, as any prince would - but he had an extra lesson. A lesson on disguising himself as a human. It was tough at first when he was a child, not quite grasping the ability to hide his ears and tails properly for a prolonged amount of time. But he worked hard. He worked hard because he thought that if he could manage to disguise himself as a human then he could finally go out and make friends - perhaps he could even find others like him? His family and servants never told him what he truly was. Just that he was different, and that being different was not allowed in his position.

Years passed, and as Rigel grew he found himself grasping a better hold of hiding who he really was. He was allowed to accompany the king and queen to public speeches on the royal balcony, and for a brief moment he could see others his age below him - others that he would like to get to know. But this is when all those years of dreaming of making friends came to a halt. Up there, on that balcony, he could feel them. Desires. So many of them come from the poorer people below; their thirst for coin, fame, etc. overloaded Rigel's senses and began to starve him. In the castle his body had grown accustomed to feeding off so little; his body was fine with the small amount of desires he could consume in secret from the servants and visitors to the castle... But being surrounded by so much overwhelmed him, and he told the king and queen in a fit of innocence just how hungry he felt looking down at the commoners.

This was a mistake.

This scared the queen and king. They were afraid that their son, whom they have kept away from outside eyes, even disguised as a human, would lose control of himself and feast on desires non-stop... Even kill to satisfy his hunger. So they decided to keep him away from the streets. They wanted to keep him away from public appearances, as well, but the public demanded to see their young prince to make sure he was well. Those excrusiatingly short public appearances were the only thing that allowed Rigel to see others besides his parents and servants. He grew detached from the idea of making friends, and as years more passed he abandoned hope of ever growing attached to anyone beyond the castle walls. 

Then one fateful night when Rigel was biding his time in the royal garden, he saw something peculiar happening in the sky. A star falling quickly, a trail of fire blazing behind it. It was gone in an instant, but Rigel's eyes remained locked on the stars. His eyes were always focused on the ground and the people who walked on it, but he was missing out on a whole different world - the world of the stars and planets. As if the lights of the night sky sparked some sort of rebellious courage inside of him he snuck around to one of the castle walls that granted the easiest access to climbing it - struggling to make it to the top of the wall.

When he finally made it... He lost his breath to the image of the lights against the black sky. It ignited something in him, a realization to the size of his world and all of the experiences he would be having if not for the curse of who he really is. A small, satisfied smile spread across his face as he made the decision that he wouldn't be stuck behind these castle walls forever.

And so began his habit of sneaking out of the walls at night in his fennec fox form! Hah! Can't keep this prince in his cage!