Randitty: Random Fiction by a Witty Woman: Revenge of Prince Poas

DAMSEL

Chapter 20, Revenge of Prince Poas

Prince Poas passed his fingers through the smoke of the man he loved.

“How are you, today?”

This day, on any day… that you are gone. And you will not speak to me.

The advisors of Poas were there as well, smoking. They were discussing the battle a night ago. The time for exulting the Prince on his first brave kill… “I vow it will be my last, also!” Poas had shrieked afterward.

No, no, no, hush, shhh… it is done. It needed to be done. And, the warlord’s body was laid out somewhere in the desert.

Now, Poas passed his hand through the smoke again. Beneath that, a bud of flame. And beneath that, a dull lantern.

They whispered about him more deeply.

“A man who is a warrior is not to act like this,”
said the first advisor, a man wearing a tight, round cap.

“Well, there’s the problem—” he patted his breast with both hands, laughed, and they rushed to swat at him and make him put his arms down. Other men in the place, smoking hookah, turned back around.

“Oh, what will happen to him?” went the youngest.

“What will happen to you? Or, to anyone of us who keeps doubting him… no, this is not the time. And, look at our Prince. He’ll invite something bad upon himself…”

Prince Poas swept slight almond fingers through the smoke again. He spake it, “Cymen…” then he smiled. He whispered how much he had wished, that the golden knight could have been by his side.

Somebody sat next to him. A woman. The advisors mumbled over this too, but evidently, they felt this one new thing might actually be the right thing. She was a foreigner with green eyes, revealed when she let back the cloth over her head, a little.

Poas noticed the grinning matron across the way, admiring her latest beauty get to work. “... I don’t speak with you women of the night…”

“And I do not speak with princesses.”

Poas wept anew.

“Shh… you are too handsome to cry, that is why I came over. You know what I am, that is why I felt ashamed, at first, looking at you, and thought you were too good for me to approach. Then, you started to sound miserable, alley cat, and I thought to myself—oh, I know that one! I do that myself… so then, you do deserve me.”

Her white teeth were perfect, for a woman adept enough with the pipe she handed off, for him to enjoy next.

“And”, her voice wavered. The lantern light spread, seared, spun the room. She bared shoulders from the black veil, and unsheathed long, red breasts for him. “I am a different shape, a different animal…” A hand of his, placed underneath there, where her breasts stuck at sweat against her stomach.

“You are a jinn. A fairy. The devil--”

“No. I am worse--a unicorn…” and Giselle laughed like herself, the evil queen of fairies, loose demons, jinn, goddess over everything like that.

Now, she walked ahead of him elegantly. Poas felt himself sitting, still. Heavy, and rump hurting against hard stone somewhere. But he saw himself stumbling along the cave walls after her. Were they in a cave? Traveling through the earth, to the other side…

“Listen to me, Prince Poas. Look, there…”

Poas saw a man and a woman standing before an altar. He saw a queen reclining on that same smooth dais. She was in sheer black. Her corona, a silver moonslice. She spoke evenly with them. She laughed at them. A queen who could be dressed as a poor woman, a strumpet, and still command this mute fear from them, this painful respect.

They each had green eyes. “I am there, Poas. And, I am here.”

“You are a jinn. You have possessed me.”

“Whatever you need to believe, in order to understand, I suppose…” Giselle laughed. “The man and woman here have just prayed for another chance at love while in the custody of my fairies. I reached out, and found myself in your lap.”

And Poas felt tension in his elbow, he was holding on hard to the woman really on his lap, legs crossed around his waist where they sat, pipe smoking, on the floor. The smouldering snuff caught the frayed edge of a tassle that singed a pillow…

“Was I sent to help my dear Cymen?” the naked boyish chin held a smile, gained heart.

“I do not have time for their stupidity. There is something more in that kingdom that I want, and she, laughing, mocking my efforts, is in my way… But, will you accept me?”

Poas felt himself in both places, still. He was being pulled. Up, deeper into the woman's lap, or down, stepping down into the light, out of the cavern. Pain, pressure, his nostrils being filled up, torn apart from the inside. He could not remain in both...

"Answer now. Will you accept my power?"

People in the salon yelled out because the beautiful western whore in their prince’s lap now had a spiraling horn on her brow, the weird long dugs of a goat, was yelling into his eyes such that they were tearing,

“GO TO WHITE WALL. KILL YOUR RIVAL!”

And their jinn, it held onto him, and hugged and shrieked till she was smoke and burned him up. Poas slumped over. His advisors rushed to shake him to. But, only the rich embroidered clothing remained. Smoke came from the singed sleeves, where the button had been opened, for the close heat of the place.

The Prince’s sword had burned into the wood floor. Blue-hot.

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