Long ago, in a land whose name has been lost to time, there was a prince and a bounty hunter.

Alexander could not be less interested in the beautiful maidens he is to choose from to be his bride. One after the other, they file through, flaunting their beauty and grace, oblivious to the fact that their prince charming has not an ounce of interest in marrying any of them. Despite his quite vocal disinterest in fulfilling his parents’ wishes, they still believe that he will find a wife among these girls. He does not have anything against the maidens themselves; his interests simply lie elsewhere.

Rogue, on the other hand, is quite satisfied with the life he was given. He has been a bounty hunter for the crown for almost as long as he can remember. His training began at the age of eight, shortly after he was abandoned by his mother, when the strain of life became too much for her to bear. He quickly accepted his fate and excelled in his work by learning to conceal any unwanted emotions to the point where he now often struggles to express emotion, even when he wants to.

Back in the palace, after hours of silent nighttime contemplation in his glamorous prison, Alexander decides that if his parents are unwilling to allow him to choose his own future, he must simply escape their shadow of influence. He climbs out of his bedroom window with nothing but a letter opener and the clothes he is wearing. He then corners a stable boy and persuades him to switch clothes with him. Now dressed in the clothes of an ordinary citizen, he steals a horse from the pasture, leaving his own behind, and rides off into the night, towards the coast. Later, as he arrived in the first town, his excitement and newfound sense of freedom only seemed to grow. He rode into town, amazed at his invisibility. No young maidens stared at him as he passed; no children tugged on his pant leg. It was glorious. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him at all, except for the handsome man hiding in the shadows of an alley. He seemed to be watching Alexander intently, as though analyzing him, which made the prince worry that his disguise wasn’t as foolproof as he had hoped. He brushed it off, assuming that this boy was most likely just someone intrigued by the new arrival, but his doubt remained.

He knew that this job would be a tedious one as soon as the runaway prince locked eyes with him. He cursed his obviousness under his breath, but still never let his sight leave the prince. This was going to be his highest-paying job yet, but not if he couldn’t retrieve him. He had received a letter from the King and Queen themselves offering him the job of a lifetime. They explained that their precious son had run away in the night, and that they were willing to pay any sum of money to get him back before the citizens of the kingdom realized their prince no longer wished to fulfill the role expected of him. The moment the prince arrived at his destination, he slipped into the shadows to set his trap. He knew the prince would be made naive by the adrenaline of his escape, and he fully expected to use that to his advantage. Once night fell, he would make his way to the inn where the prince would be staying for the night and persuade him to let Rogue show him around the town, playing the part of a helpful village boy. Then, he would lead him to a secluded part of town, away from the lights and nightlife. He was still unsure of how he would manage to knock out the prince without creating a disturbance, so he would simply have to wait and see how the evening unfolded.

He didn’t expect to see the boy again, but there he was, tossing pebbles at the window of Alexander’s room in the village’s only inn, a stubby, run-down, two-story building near the center of the town. He cautiously opened the window, his anxiety from earlier rising back to the surface.

“What must you want from me?” He shouted down to the boy.

The boy responded by saying simply, “To offer you a tour! I saw you earlier as you were arriving and thought it would be a benefit to you if you were able to be more familiar with your surroundings!”

“How kind of you! I accept your offer! I shall meet with you where you stand in but a few moments.”

Alexander’s worry melted away instantly, and relief flooded through him. Why, of course, the young man was simply cautious and wished to be helpful! And a not-so-small portion of him hoped that maybe his interest in him was more than simple curiosity, that perhaps the handsome village boy waiting for him thought that he was attractive as well.

As he led him away from the bustling village center, Rogue wondered if the flush on the prince’s cheeks was real, or nothing more than a trick of the light. His smile was truly wonderful, and he noticed himself smiling too, genuinely, for the first time in what seemed like nearly forever. As they reached the edge of the village, he knew he had to enact his plan soon, before the prince realized his true intentions. The darkness surrounded the two with a silence that seemed to suffocate the rest of the world; the only light was the moon’s warm gaze, illuminating their faces and seeming to bring each boy’s secrets to light. He noticed the prince watching him with a gaze unlike one he had seen before, a mixture of cautious intrigue and something else that he couldn’t quite place. Now was the moment. He quickly retrieved a nearby branch, feeling the rough bark scrape at his palms, and swung it towards the prince’s head, knocking him out before he could scream.

He should have known the boy was a bounty hunter. Alexander despised his own ignorance as he sulked in the back of a wagon as it rumbled through the forest, watching the shadow of the castle barely visible in the distance. He learned from the bounty hunter that his own parents, the King and Queen, had hired him to kidnap Alexander. He had also told him that his name was “Rogue”. What an odd name, he wondered if he had chosen it himself. Glancing back up at his captor, he once again mourned the loss of the happily ever after he had begun creating in his mind the moment he saw Rogue’s eyes meet his. He forced himself to at once stop his sulking and focus his energy on his escape. He told himself that if he could only convince Rogue to let him go, then he would be genuinely free. If Alexander was going to have to manipulate him, he must learn about his captor, particularly his weaknesses.

“How did you become like this? You seemed so kind when we were in the village.” Alexander asked.

“I do believe that people call that acting.”

“I am being serious! Despite your clear lack of interest in my life, considering that you are willingly delivering me to my demise, I am interested in yours.”

Rogue sighed, as though exasperated with his elementary question, and explained, “I was abandoned. My birth mother left me in the servants’ quarters when I was a young child, then leapt from the edge of a ravine, never to be seen again. The guards raised me, and His Majesty eventually hired me as a formal bounty hunter for the crown. I am the most proficient in my field of duty, and therefore am quite a valuable person to your parents. They trust me more than anyone, including yourself.”

“If they trust you so completely, you must be aware of their mistreatment of me, and their stubborn adherence to what they insist on calling “the old ways”.

“I am aware, but the views held by my employers are not ones that I question, for they hold the keys that unlock the doors of opportunity, and without those keys, my body would lie where my mother’s does.”

“You truly believe that being an extension of my parents will is the only reason that you did not follow the same path as your poor mother? I must assure you that whatever they have made you believe is fundamentally untrue. You have a chance now to break free from their grasp, as I am. Let me run free, and in turn you may run towards the light of your own freedom.”

As he lay gazing towards the heavens, his conversation with the prince earlier that day made its way through his mind yet again. Rogue could not believe that the prince cared so genuinely for him. No person had ever cared about him as much as this boy, not even his own mother. As he fell into the embrace of sleep, the grass felt comforting, almost like a blanket, and he began to wonder if he was falling in love with a prince.

When he awoke, he knew instantly that he had made his decision. This prince, this wonderful boy who was the only person who cared for him, had been left to rot in the dungeon of his parents’ creation, and he could not allow that to continue. Rogue made his way over to where the prince was kneeling by the fire and sat down on the ground across from him.

“Your Majest-”

“Do not call me by that name. I am not a prince, not any longer, nor am I above you. Call me Alexander.”

“Alexander, I have decided to listen to the advice I have received from you, and I wish for you to go and build your own future, with whomever you please. You shall leave by midday and go towards the coast, as I continue my journey to the palace. When I arrive, I shall make the guards believe you had run in the night, disguising your path so that I was unable to follow. You will live free across the ocean, and I will continue to serve the crown.”

“I cannot allow you to sacrifice your future for mine. Go along with me, I beg of you. We could escape aboard a ship, and by the time we arrive on the shore again, we will be far from my parents’ reign, free to live as we please. You are the person I wish to build my future with. I have never wanted to find a pretty girl to settle down with and build a family. But I would welcome the opportunity to join you at your side.”

With his eyes beginning to fill with tears, Rogue responded with “I would want nothing more than to spend my future with you, but I must stay to buy you enough time for you to make your escape.”

They never saw the soldier watching from the woods.

Alexander helped douse the fire’s flames, all the while struggling to cope with the thought that he may never again be able to gaze into the eyes that had consumed his waking hours over the last days. He watched as his love disappeared around a bend in the path and forced himself to turn and begin the long journey to the sea and his freedom, knowing that soon, another would lose any hope he once had of freedom. He didn’t even notice the guard sneaking up behind him until it was too late.

Almost instantly after he rounded the bend in the path, Rogue knew something had gone terribly wrong. He hadn’t heard or seen anything that would convince him of such; instead, he felt an instinct arise from deep in his gut, telling him of grave danger. He scrambled from the seat of the wagon and sprinted with all his might, and the moment he made it around that bend in the path, he knew his fears had been horribly correct. He watched in horror as Alexander was dragged into a carriage by two castle guards. Alexander met his eyes for just a moment and barely had enough time to watch Rogue fall to the ground as he collapsed.

He was dead. They said he was dead. It had to be true, for he had seen the light leave Rogue’s eyes as he collapsed, not even bothering to look at the guard who had stabbed him. When he arrived at the castle, his parents had told him that “the boy” was dead. They didn’t call him by his title or even his name. It became painfully clear in that moment that his parents had never cared about anyone but themselves, not even the person who was supposed to be one of their most trusted staff. Alexander locked himself away in his room, refusing to eat or speak to anyone, not even the kind servants who were his only solace during his childhood. He did nothing but sleep and stare out his window, knowing that the view would be his last look at freedom.

When Rogue awoke, it was night. Remembering the earlier events of the day, he sat up and looked down at himself. There was some blood on his shirt, but not much, and he was shocked to feel almost no pain aside from an aching near his abdomen. Pulling up his shirt, he was relieved to see that there was merely a flesh wound, nothing that could be fatal. He stood up, brushed the dust off his clothes, and began the long walk to the palace. He knew from his long years spent at the palace that there was an entrance to the servants’ quarters located in a secluded section of the east wing, which was rarely patrolled by guards —a fatal flaw in their security. He would sneak in there, then make his way through the servants’ hallways unnoticed, for they would all be much too busy with their work, and uninterested in the lives of strangers. He would use these hidden hallways to access the west wing, where Alexander’s rooms were located. He had to rescue him.

When he heard knocking on his door in the night, he was confused why a servant would be disturbing him at this hour, enough to cause him to leave his bed and answer the knocking for the first time since his arrival. He opened the door and stumbled back in shock, seeing Rogue standing in front of him, flesh and blood, alive. Rogue stepped forward and embraced him quickly, before dragging him into one of the servants’ corridors.

“I am so delighted to see you alive and well, for the most part,” Rogue said as he led him through the twisting corridors.

“How are you alive? My parents said that you had died. I believed them, but here you are. How could it be?”

“Firstly, you of all people should know that Their Majesties would not hesitate to lie to you if it meant that you would not attempt to leave the castle. And secondly, when I awoke, I found that the wound we both believed would be fatal was in fact much less severe. My livelihood is nothing short of a miracle. But enough of this, we must hurry.”

They rushed through the halls, finally bursting out of the castle, the air smelling of freedom. They stole two horses from the palace stables and rode as fast as they could to the nearest port. Days later, the King and Queen received a letter from the portmaster informing them that a ship had mysteriously gone up in flames shortly after leaving the port. No bodies were recovered, only a final message hastily written in the captain’s log. It contained only two words, “Find me.”