The Elephant Prince
When the queen was with child, she dreamed of an elephant with six tusks entering her side.
Her time was nearly upon her, and her heart was restless, so she had gone out for a walk. There, grasping a branch of the sal tree, she gave birth to the prince.
Tragically, the queen's health had already been failing, and she breathed her last a week later. Yet the king rejoiced all the same, for he had at last been granted a healthy son.
Then, as if he had known all along, a sage who lived deep in the mountains came to the palace to congratulate them on the prince's birth.
Looking upon the child, he said:
"This boy will grow to become either a great king — or leave the world behind and become an Enlightened One who delivers all living beings."
The king was glad, and yet he fretted, for what he wanted was for his son to succeed him and rule the kingdom.
Sensing the king's unease, the sage offered counsel.
"How does Your Majesty intend to raise the prince?"
The king found the question rather meddlesome for a stranger to put to a man's private household, yet given the sage's renown, he answered honestly.
"Surely even you know how blessed and happy a king's life is. I shall let him taste every pleasure the world has to offer, so that the thought of renouncing it never even crosses his mind."
"That will not do. If you proceed that way, Your Majesty will never obtain what you desire."
The sage smiled — a smile soft, and yet somehow chilling.
The king found he could not look away from the sage's eyes.
"No luxury, no indulgence, however lavish, fails to grow stale with time. The more you heap upon him, the more he will tire of worldly desire and turn his gaze elsewhere."
"Then what am I to do?"
"Forbid pleasure. Do not let him hunt before his fifteenth year. Do not let him taste wine before his twentieth. And do not let him know a woman until he has passed his twenty-fifth. Beyond that, impress upon him every day the weight of duty and responsibility, so that he comes to feel that leaving the world behind would change nothing about the life he already leads."
"That is…"
"Do this, and the prince will become a great king whose name resounds across the world. I swear it upon my soul."
"And that is how His Highness still remains a virgin to this day."
"…I've heard that story more times than I can count, and it is still the most idiotic thing I've ever been told."
The prince sighed at the servant's words.
He was in the forest on a hunt, accompanied by a retinue of servants and guards. They were tracking a deer's trail at a leisurely pace, and somewhere along the way the conversation had drifted to the strange events surrounding the prince's own birth.
"When I think that some baseless nonsense from a so-called sage is the reason I've lived such a dull life, I could almost hate the man."
He said it lightly, as a joke — but he meant every word.
Not that anyone around him would ever know.
"Still, what that sage said doesn't seem entirely far-fetched."
"…What did you just say?"
The prince fixed him with a look, and the servant flinched.
"No — I didn't mean it badly. Only that perhaps His Highness really will become a great king."
There was not a shred of falsehood in the servant's words.
In all his life he had never seen anyone excel in so many fields as this prince. A beauty so fine it could almost be called delicate, a mind so sharp that learning one thing taught him ten, a body far stronger than his appearance suggested — there was nothing wanting in him. And his temperament was easygoing enough that he mixed freely with people of every station. Anyone who knew the prince would have felt the same: the question of what kind of king this boy would become was something to look forward to.
"Scholarship, martial arts, character — I've never met anyone like Your Highness. If you had even one flaw, you'd almost seem human."
"Don't flatter me. It won't get you anything."
"I'm not! I mean it!"
"I feel the same way."
The guard riding beside them agreed. The prince they served was, by every measure, exceptional.
"Personal excellence and the capacity to lead are two different things. Whether I turn out a tyrant or a sage king is an entirely separate matter."
"…See? That's exactly what I mean. No one your age talks like that."
Even the servant's grumbling left the prince unmoved.
Boring.
Not merely unmoved — bored. He had been told that hunting was a thrilling diversion for nobles and royalty, yet he found it far less entertaining than expected. What pleasure was there in shooting a beast from a distance and then trudging after it?
Tedious. So dull I could go mad.
It was the fretting of a man who had never wanted for anything — and yet for the prince it was a serious problem. Just as the servant had said, he had been raised for one purpose only: to become an exemplary sovereign. Restriction and control had been the texture of every day, and he had never known the simple joys of living. This hunt was the first his father had ever permitted him; until now, he had never truly played at all.
Am I a being made only to be king? And if so — what am I, if I am not a king? If I fail to become one, am I worth nothing?
Even now he could not give the hunt his full attention. His mind was elsewhere. He had entered adolescence, and with it a restless unease had settled over him — a quiet disillusionment with the life he was living.
If I drank wine and held a woman, would this boredom vanish? If I drowned myself in pleasure, would my thoughts stop wandering down these useless paths?
As the prince's brooding deepened, two invisible gods drifted nearby, watching him.
"Kyaa~! Little Sunya is so cute!!"
"…"
Inanna and Enki.
Through magic, they were viewing the records of the past inscribed upon Sunya's soul. Inanna was simply delighted by the sight of a younger Sunya — but Enki's expression was grave. The mind of the god of wisdom was turning over a great many things at once.
"Why is it showing us from this point?"
"What is it now?"
Inanna snapped back at Enki's muttering. She had not liked the suddenly serious look on his face for some time now.
For her sake, Enki explained carefully, point by point.
"This magic is supposed to begin from the moment of birth. But what we're seeing now is Sunya already grown to a certain age."
"Sounds like Grandpa Enki messed something up."
"And something else has been bothering me. No matter how I look at them — those people are human."
This was not a matter of simply concealing divinity, as before. To Enki's eyes, their dress might have been a little unusual, but every gesture, every mannerism, was unmistakably far from divine. Gods would not go riding about in a group like this in the first place. Nor did it seem that Sunya had merely slipped among humans in disguise, as he once had. The people around him who looked like servants were calling him "Your Highness" — and more than that, the two of them could hear even the boy's innermost thoughts. By every measure, the youth who appeared to be Sunya was human.
"Which would mean Sunya was originally human…"
"So what?"
"What do you mean, so what?"
"Sunya is Sunya. Human or god — it doesn't matter."
"…You already knew, you little brat!"
Enki shouted at Inanna's calm reply.
"Of course I knew. Sunya doesn't hide things from me."
"…If you trust him that much, then why did you insist on tagging along the moment I said we could look at your precious husband's past?"
"Because I never know what Grandpa Enki might try. And, well — I was curious about the life he lived, too."
"…"
"Honestly, Grandpa Enki is so sneaky. A magic that doesn't just show the past but lets you hear the person's innermost thoughts at the time? Were you planning to dig up Sunya's weaknesses later?"
"…If it became necessary, yes."
At that, Inanna swung for Enki's neck. A spear had appeared in her hand as if from nowhere — but the blade passed through him as harmlessly as through water.
"Pointless. Right now we're closer to spiritual forms than anything else."
"I know. It just annoyed me that you were scheming. You acted like you were looking out for us, but in the end you were trying to get leverage."
"In the worst case. Preparing for every contingency is my job. And I meant it when I said I wanted to help you. If I use even magic like this and still conclude that Sunya is no threat to the safety of Kienkingir, then Father will acknowledge him as well."
"Ohhh, how very noble of you, God of Wisdom."
"You little—"
But their bickering went no further.
A scream cut through the air.
"AAAAAAAGH!!"