I'm waiting for too long (a lady in waiting, where's my shining knight in golden armour?), holding my crowned head high as bubblegum searches, desperate to catch sight of whatever handsome man I'd been paired with (what a disappointment this is gonna be). It's a hunger, a thirst, having been left high and dry by Reichenbach, my knees are shaking and my thighs are tensed, my whole body aches for what I cannot (and will not) have tonight.

Instead, I see some small toddler approaching, responding with his title as he weaves past the grown bodies, a petite child aglow with sunlight. He's basking in it even if it's nowhere to be found, with the sun setting behind us and my eyes tracing over the glow that outlines his ivory figure, a brow rising in curiosity and wonderment (why does he glow? Is he solar powered?). With a horned brow and winged shoulders, he is the complete package, everything I am not. He is radiant and childish, an air of innocence draped over his grullo body, an otherworldly glow almost boasting the power in his blood, flashing the divine gold that courses through his veins with elegance and refinement. And I?

I am the dirty nobody, the ghastly face haunting only the dreams of the grasses and flowers I trample in my rage, the trees who feel my piercing bullets when my itch to practice my sloppy magic comes, when I scream at nobody in particular in the safety of the Forest, because my mother has left me, my sister is gone, and nobody cares enough to look for her. Or me. I'm the faux prince, the fabled future king who is nothing more than a poor boy playing make believe, a child still admiring fairy tales and grand stories of glistening kingdoms and powerful leaders. I'm the young boy idolizing the wrong people, adoring the power behind corrupt kings and the silver tongued politicians, thinking the brutal soldiers who cut down anyone that stands against them are heroes. It makes me something I wasn't expecting— dark, demented, a twisted face distorted from abuse I could not take, crippled by expectations I could not meet.

I look down at Mathèo, raising a black brow and letting sweet pink eyes sweep over the gold-marked boy's body, hesitant to speak. "Aren't you a little young to be here? What are you looking for?" I was there once, the boy thinking he is old enough, thinking he is a man, convincing himself that he can get away with it because he is mature enough. But was I? No, never. I always thought that I was, because I could not accept that my world was smaller because of my age, condensed into some sort of shitty, G-rated shit show until I burst through into adulthood, until maturity swept my childish innocence out from under me. And then I was hitting the ground running, booking headlong into an even bigger shit show, where emotions and sex existed, where responsibility and confusion lay in waiting for me to make the wrong move (which I did, and still do). So I look at the Golden Boy, waiting for the child.