The Conquering Prince

The list was longer than you would have anticipated. Who knew there could be so many options for princely shenanigans. You propped your elbow on the table and kept reading, resting your head in your hand out of a mixture of boredom and... Well, boredom. A yawn escapes, no matter how hard you fight against it. You continue trying to read, but soon your eyes are shifting from line to line of information, reading everything and comprehending nothing. Then you were fighting the increasingly insurmountable weight of your eyelids. You flipped the page, again, and again, until suddenly all is black.

Your face comes to rest on a description that would have been nice to know before you woke up...

War ravishes the lands of the Kingdom of Reesce, and your father sallies an army to make the final push to the very Keep of your aggressors castle in Tirel. Through blood and blade and strife you take the lands of your enemies and conquer their people, though will you have the fortitude to remain and reign as THE CONQUERING PRINCE?

The first of your senses to return was smell. Everything smelled like smoke and copper and horseshit. Then your vision. A head literally rocketed across your field of vision and out of sight, a little streamer of blood following it. Your eyes shot open. You wiped your jaw, feeling the drool of your afternoon nap wetting your cheek, only to find that it wasn't drool, it was blood.

Holy shit.

Your hearing came back next. The ringing sound that had muffled everything around you was replaced by the sound of swords and shields clashing, horses and men screaming, and just general chaos. You looked about. A man, obviously a King, rode up next to you and skewered the disembodied head on the end of his sword and smiled while a man in armor, you guessed a knight, leapt down from his own mount to help you to your feet.

"You did it, my Lord!" The Knight shouted. "You killed him, the King of Tirel! The war is over!"

Whoa... You killed someone while you were taking a nap... What the fuck is going on...

The man on horseback, the King, was still smiling as he ordered men forward. Horses flew past you, showering you in flying balls of shit and dirt. When you had fallen asleep you were reading something about Princes, right? Why were you on the ground getting covered in blood, shit, and dirt?

"Have a look at ye', sire!" Another man said. He lifted something off of your head, apparently a helm. Suddenly more purple plumage was in your face than you would have seen at a Prince (The Artist Formally Known As...) concert (if you had been old enough to ever attended one, anyone), and realized that was from your helmet. "Aye, bit o' blood, but you'll be just fine! All worth it! What a charge! They'll sing your name forever for that one, ho ho!"

Then you realized the blood on your cheek was yours. Your fingers explored your hair where the other guy was working while singing your praise. You had a nasty gash.

"What happened?" You said.

"My boy!" The King called down to you. He was a big man, with a big red beard that was showing its first streaks of gray. "When you saw that bastard the King of Tirel, you charged before we could get to you! Had to send the whole calvary after you! Lucky for us you had lopped his head off before he could escape! You ended the war in one brave maneuver! I'll give you this castle and all its land, I swear it!"

Suddenly you remembered. Of course! The ad! You must have answered the ad! Your head throbbed while you thought about it. Fuck, these renfair nerds were really acting for keeps this time.

"Think I'll need stitches?" You asked the man examining your head. His brow furrowed.

"Why, I suppose you could ask the barber-surgeon for sew you up, my Lord, but 'tis only a scratch."

Of course it was only a scratch. You hauled yourself to your feet and adjusted your belt. Fuckin' A right it was just a scratch. Why hell, you were the Conquering Prince. It didn't matter what the fuck happened earlier, you had a job to do; namely to look manly, get paid, and, hopefully, get chicks. The fact that you couldn't remember how you got there, however, nor what exactly had happened to give you where certainly felt like a very real gash on your head, gave you pause.

You started to yell cut, or pause, time out, something, but looked around. Everyone really looked like they were in their element. The extras who had fallen in mock-battle lay about in heaps like they were actually dead while your men, the extras who had been victorious, gave chase to boxom young ladies in dresses that really looked vintage.

Fuck, you wished you could remember getting this job. It was fucking cool. Maybe when they stopped shooting you'd have an opportunity to get some tylenol and show some of the ladies backstage how gnarly your scar was going to be.

Chicks loved scars.