"Prince de rien" a Prince SRP ✰ (TFCRP)

Instructions

. . tw for anxiety attacks and extreme self-depreciation! || . . . At some point the dark thing in Prince's gut had tried to escape. It had moved upwards, and he felt it like a buzzing in his chest, a swarm of angry bees, a tension like claws gripping his heart and squeezing tight. He felt everything and nothing at once, his emotions still dangerously far away but the tension in his chest slowly dragging him further down into a constant anxiety. He had to get away from here. Prince was never one to stay in one place, and he found it all too easy to stray further and further away from the Chateau, much farther than he'd traveled in a long time, until his tight chest couldn't reach a breath and his already-aching bones felt close to collapse. He could have gone in any direction. He didn't know what led him here. Before Prince a tall, leaning stone stood out against the treeline, not his previous Castle but one that had come long before, a place where he had lived but had never felt like home no matter how hard he had tried to make it be. He remembered the first time he'd come across it, hardly more than a kitten, how he'd stumbled towards it thinking it would only be a temporary shelter. He approached much the same way now, pawstep after weary pawstep, the cave's entrance looming over him like something between an escape tunnel and a mausoleum. Dried moss crunched underneath Prince's large paws as he entered the den, and memories floated around the space like a dream; he remembered the moons he'd spent here, lounging atop this rock and pretending it was a throne, chasing away his worries with smiles and good deeds and games played to lift others' spirits and to secretly distract himself from the dark pit of his thoughts. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, he was never happy here. This place had never felt like a home. Prince felt the tension gripping tighter at his chest. On the walls of the den there were drawings, made by young paws wet and sticky and grimy with mud. Most of them had faded away with time, but a few near the back of the den still clung on for life upon the weathered stone. Prince froze when he reached an image of six shoddily-drawn figures. Though they were hardly more than blobs of dried mud Prince knew exactly who they were supposed to be—Tristesse, Kelpie, him, Clematis, Zephyr, Dream, all sitting together and lined up perfectly as if posing for a family portrait. After a moment of staring, mind spiraling yet somehow completely still, he reached up to cover the figure of his own younger self. Prince had spent his entire life reaching for a family, for a home, trying so desperately to return to those first few moons when he had been innocent and carefree and happy. How foolish he had been, to think he could go back to that moment. How foolish he had been to think that moment could ever exist at all. After all, he'd been so young when the world began to pull everything out from under his paws. How had he thought it was nothing? How didn't he know that everything was doomed from the start? But after all this time, he really thought he'd found it. He had friends, a family, children, a place that felt like /home/, and oh stars, for once in his life he had been well and truly happy. Not even a moon later it was all snatched away again. Why had he ever thought it wouldn't be? Why had he thought that this time would be different? Prince was never going to be happy, was he? ̶H̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶—̶ No matter how hard he tried Prince couldn't get a full breath through his lungs. The claws were gripping too tight. Because Willow really was gone, wasn't she? Even after seeing her body, after burying her in the ashes of the only place that had ever felt like home, he hadn't truly believed it, had been too busy taking care of everyone around him (because they were hurting and they deserved the help, he was Prince Altesse he could take it he had failed he deserved—) and building up an entire new Chateau from scratch, but now, staring at this picture drawn by a hurting child, the weight of everything came crashing down upon him like a monster on the thunderpath. Willow was dead. Prince's lifelong best friend and the mother of his godchildren and the one who had saved him and who had always stood by his side no matter what was dead and it was all his fault because he had failed to save her because he wasn't strong enough because ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ Willow was dead dead ̶d̶e̶a̶d̶ and she was never coming back and she was With a ragged keen Prince let his paw slide down the wall. The drawing smudged under the weight of movement, dried mud cracking and turning to dust in his teary eyes as the image that had been there was destroyed beneath his paws. That dream was gone, and that was just as much as he deserved. +