From this point onwards in this pointless litany of tales from the place I rather unfortunately happen to call home, you are going to hear pretty much nothing but negative about me. I'm going to be accused of everything from drunk and disorderly to treason, and it's all going to be couched in the most unflattering terms possible.
Please allow me to explain.
This place, this Kingdom is ruled by a mean spirited, selfish, twisted sour old goat who I have the misfortune of calling my brother. He is neither a good King, nor the true King, but unfortunately, our society, the very make-up of the people who inhabit the Kingdom is geared towards near worship of the King or Queen. They can't help it, so my oafish, pigheaded- or should I say, bullheaded- brother rules them absolutely.
He also rules by extension of this, their opinion of me.
By birth, I am the true heir to the throne, I'm the eldest living in my family that hasn't ascended.
We are a nation built on the Dark Forest. Our lives revolve around it, and in turn it feeds and shelters us. Hides us from our enemies and ensnares and devours invaders. Without it, we would have been overrun by the neighboring kingdoms years ago.
We of the Soom family are kind of connected to the forest. it's hard to explain to an outsider, like yourself, but put it very inelegantly and very roughly, we know what's going on with it. We can sort of feel when some thing's happening, we can kinda even sense the creatures moving about in it, what they're doing, thinking, feeling.
I'm sure you're seeing why we're treated with such reverence. Omnipresence does that.
We take partial form of animals that live in the forest. We even take the traits of them. Wolves, bears, deer, cats, lizards... we're all born with something. and the more "something" we have the more we're like the animal. We're known as Forestforms
My stick-up-his-butt royal brother Magnus, for example, has the hooves and horns (and intellect) of a bull, his animal instincts aren't too overpowering, but his IS stubborn, quick to anger and immovable he he wants to be.
My young twin brothers Aurelius and Cassius the hooves of a buffalo, and exhibit little in the way of buffalo-ish behaviour... aside an occasionally irritatingly obsessive love of water.
My little sister Lalana, on the other hand, is the perfect example of when there is TOO much animal trait. She has paws instead of hands and feet, the tail and ears of a cat, and aside the occasional understandable word she utters and the ability to walk on her hind legs, she's pretty much a cat.
So what am I? Well there's the rub. I don't have any animal trait. Nada. Zip. Nothing. I look as human as, well, a human, and that's where my problems begin.
I am only the third heir apparent to have been passed over. The first was Chester the noncommittal, four thousand years ago. He HAD animal traits but, like Lalana, he was TOO animal- a snake to be exact... Nobody want to be ruled by a peevish, vicious and often asleep king, so he was passed over for King Thaddeus the rotund.
The second heir to be passed over was Felicia the melancholic. Like myself, she had no animal trait.
She ended up killing herself by jumping out of the west tower window.
I kinda avoid the place.
So, like her I was passed over and pretty much shunned from birth. Us non-animals are often accused of being half Zone, which is practically a crime its self worth of the parents who birthed us.
...So that's why you're going to hear nothing but derision of me from here on. Keep this in mind when you read on.
