Sometimes I tell stories to Xander...

One morning the prince woke to find his kingdom gone. He was a young prince, maybe only 11 or 12 years of age, so his immediate fear as he crept through the dark and damp halls of his family's ancient tree-castle was that  he wasn't at all ready to be king.

"I'm too young to be king." He said between his teeth, breathing heavily, almost hissing as he pulled back his parents' bedclothes. There was nothing there. The bed was made and looked like it hadn't been slept in for fifty years. Dirty brown leaves from the oak that the castle was felled from blew around the crimson coverlet, and when he walked around the room he noticed dust on all the furniture.