Something Very Special (Revised)

Something Very Special
------

He looked at me with naïve blue eyes. Clear oceans of curiosity that stared up at me. Just like my own. Whenever he did this, he would always make the same request. A simple request, for a story he cherished. A story he loved, that was just as bitter-sweet to tell as it was to hear.

The story told of a prince from a far away place, from a time before either he or I were born. Even still, it was not a tale of a world that was young. Even in the prince's lifetime it was ancient. An old world filled with old songs. Its own melody was one of the few things to outlast it.

Even with all else silent, that song lived on.

It was just another fairy tale though. When I was his age, my mother and father used to tell me the same story. Throughout all my youth, I cherished it. It was precious to me. The beautiful but bitter story of a fallen prince of a lost kingdom.

It was supposed to be just another fairy tale.

Then one day. I met the prince himself.

I learned that the reality doesn't always live up to the legend. That sometimes, the truth is far different to the myth. My childhood prince had never been a charming rogue on a white stallion, but still... When I saw him for what he truly was, I doubted he had ever been such. What history had chosen to remember, were just the highlights.

Those highlights were once my lullabies. Just like they were for all of my family, as far back as any one of us can recall. We have a long history, a very long history, but that is a story for another time.    I have so many of them, including the tale of the prince, but even that isn't the song I'm singing to you now.

The two stories are closely linked and one day, that link will take something special from me, and I will never see them again. I know this, even if they don't. Idle chance will force them to make a choice, just as it forced me. When I look in his eyes, so young, so full of life. The determination to live and to love burn brighter in his than in any I have ever seen.

That is what will take him from me. That passion, that drive, that willingness to simply survive. I've gotten him this far but one day he will need to stand on his own two feet. When he does, he will walk away from me and never return.

He will walk with my fallen prince. Firstly out of my life and then, into his legend.

He had stolen my son before he was ever even born. A debt that can never be repaid  that chained our blood to his. I made a deal with a devil. For love, for hope, for a second chance. For just a few more years with my son. Even if I cannot keep him, it was enough to know he would live.

To see that bright little smile again. I'd have done anything. Though it may not seem it to you, I do not regret what I have done. If I turn back from the path I have chosen now, I will be lost and my sacrifices for nothing.

I cannot and will not allow him to become nothing.

We have already lost too much and have come too close to nothing already. It cannot happen again. I may never get to see him grow into the man he will become. All I know is that I will never see him again once he walks away. Like his father before him, he has the heart of a wanderer and will not linger in one place for long.

But unlike his father, he will not return to me from his travels.

In my heart and in my soul, I know my son will not return, and that thought breaks them both. I will cherish and love him for as long as he and I have left, but I will not mourn him. I refuse to mourn him. He will slip away from me as if into death, but he will live on. Beyond my memories, and my arms.

The lover of a bard will always have stories to tell, and their children, will always go on to make them.  They will live, learn and love. Through this they will experience their own story, and find their own tales to tell.

Though I cannot know what the future will hold for him, I know I have no place in it. A year, two years, three? I do not know just when he will vanish from his home and not return. I know only two things for certain:

That some day, I will never see him again as long as I live on this earth.

Despite this, I know that neither of us will be alone.

He might never get to meet his brother or sister, but I will not let the prince of my fairy-tales drag them from my world into his. They may take one from me, but they shall not have another. I could not protect my first-born from the curse of his bloodline.

I will not fail them as I failed you. I promise you that much.

My dear Vincent...

My precious son.

No matter what you do, no matter how far you travel. Your successes, your failures. Though I will never get to see them. Never forget that I love you.

You are my greatest achievement, my greatest loss... and something very special.