So it begins!  Well, let's get this show on the road, shall we?
The title is pending, however, so...yeah, w/e
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“No, I don’t want it on Sunday, I want it on Monday.  Yes, I know that extra literature is on that day too.  I don’t care...have you SEEN my schedule for that day?  That’s what I thought.  ...polo?  Every year you insist on this, and every year I hate it...I don’t freakin’ CARE if it’s tradition!  Tradition can kiss my...alright fine, put that on Sunday.  Any other complaints?  Good!”  I slammed the reciever down on the phone.  I don’t know why I got so mad at the fact that for another year for 1 day each week I had to play polo.  Oh wait, yes I do, it was the most boring and outdated sport around then.  The only way that they could get me to do it was the threat that they’d inform the king about it, and it was just my luck he happened to be an avid polo fan.  

I forgot why I had servants around in the first place.  All they did was bug me about stuff I didn’t really care about.  Then I remembered that they were the ones that tended the yard, cleaned the house, cooked the meals, drove me to where I was to go, etc., etc.  That just made me even madder than a hatter.  I searched frantically for something to be right about to brighten my mood.  My bookshelf was full of textbooks; there wasn’t even a fantasy with which I could pretend to be callous and picky about plausability.  The fireplace wouldn’t respond if I tried to debate with it.  Outside the window were Tom and Harry cutting the grass, and I couldn’t insult or argue with those two if my life depended on it.  I liked them too damned much.

Finally, I found it, right in front of me.  My computer, and its access to the internet.  Sure enough, within five minutes of google searching, I found a message board full of internet losers I could harass.  It’s so easy to brighten your mood when you have such easy access to idiots like them.

I laid back in my chair and sighed.  It would be the last day of winter break, the next day, and I regarded it as a grisly end to a vacation with a grisly beginning.  The second day of October marked the first day I could sleep in in nine months.  It also marked the imprisonment and possible execution of one of the king’s servants.  The charge was treason, but nobody knew the true reason.  The king rarely was seen in the public eye, and when he was he always looked grumpy to me.  Even I, who got to see him more than the average person, knew nothing about him.  I did know he was a terrible conversationalist, experiencing a “Hrmpf” or a “Mm” after every sentence I said to him on the get-together dinner last year.  Horrible behavior really because he said he’d treat me as an adopted son when my parents were killed ten years ago.  Not to my face of course, by royal decree, and that I would be placed on a lower priority than his other children.

When he said “children,” he should have put “child.”  All that was known about his family was that his wife died and left him with one child, and for strange reasons the kid was shut out from normal society, living its (we didn’t know whether it was a guy or girl) life in the palace, eating, drinking, sleeping, even recieving private tutoring.  Not that people thought that that was bad; the king’s palace certainly had enough room for that kid to move around in.  Still, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor tyke, never experiencing the outside world.  At least it aint me, was all I could think.  I was starting to feel lucky for having escaped the full time parent care.  

Tomorrow, however, would also be as rewarding as a chance to sleep in during the school year.  It was my fifteenth birthday, meaning that the fawning servants that kept watch of me my entire life would finally start to butt out and let me explore my independence.  The first thing I’ll do when I wake up, I told myself, would be to explore the attic upstairs.  At that time going out and clubbing or shopping or exploring the city didn’t occur to me; the attic had been on my mind all winter.  I tried to go up it the last time I got back from school, which was three months ago.  I was blocked by my servants complaining that it was “too dangerous” and “M’lord should not partake in such trivial activities,” to which I replied “And you think that polo is LESS trivial than this?”  This caused an astonished gasp from them and they quickly tripped me by the ankles and carried me away from the ladder.  To this day I can never understand what obsession the king had with polo, why he made it public, and why the public suddenly became obsessed with polo too.

I’m sorry, you must think this entire story is on how much I hate polo.  For those who truly do, let me make clear that it isn’t.

I left the room in search of something more fun to do while I wasted away this last day of shackles.  Passing the attendant at the door (well, even in my private office SOMEone has to watch over me.  Not for long, I thought) I reflected on the irony that I would be exiting a form of imprisonment today and yet tomorrow be one day away for another.  Ah, life’s little chuckles.  They always brighten up one’s day, or at least they cause you to lose track of where you’re walking and you run right into the door.  That certainly didn’t help my case for my independence.

“My lord!  Oh my lord!” came the cry from my Main Maid (as I liked to call her), Attia.  She was the last person I wanted to have bear witness to this event.  She never liked the idea of me going off on my own.

“My lord, you must be more careful!  If you’re still doing this I don’t think you’re ready to be out on your own.  Perhaps you could reconsider...?”

“No Attie, I’ve made up my mind.  No matter how much you pester me, I won’t extend my time of dependence.  I think after ten years of caring for me you would have been sick of tending to every little thing I did anyway.”  I walked away toward the door leading outside, with her still at my heels.

“My lord!  You need a chaperone to explore the gardens!  My lord!”

“There’s plenty of people outside tending them.  I should think that at least one of them would be able to keep an eye over me.”

And then I walked outside, because due to the terms of employment she agreed to, she could not leave the house without my say.  I walked toward the forest with her shouting at me, not hearing a word.