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Every hundred years, the Blackbird Forest demanded a new prince. Villagers all around lived in constant fear of the monsters that lurked in its thickets and branches, and the years that they had denied it a boy were the years that werewolves and pestilence drove them into a famine. Those who passed their meager existence in the peacetime would not have called it peaceful; some stronger beasts could avoid the prince's inflluence, and would slip through the fence erected to protect the town to commit heinous murders and crimes. Only the strongest of wizards could fend off a creature from the Blackbird Forest, and the kingdom considered the Blackbird Throne's orders to be a necessary evil. The villagers would select the most destitute of orphans, and toss him into the forest to live the next century as the Blackbird Prince.

Only twenty years had past since their last sacrifice had been made, and monsters were sneaking out. Horror penetrated the home of everyone in the country, who bolted their doors shut and only hoped the dragons and fae that threatened their lives could be thwarted by such a meager defense. This had never happened before; no prince had ever been defied by the fiends of Blackbird to such an extent, and the people were worried that this was the end of things to come. Every being of the Blackbird Forest would run through the land, killing every poor soul that dared to cross their paths.

The kingdom hired every mercenary and adventurer willing to infilitrate the forest, apprehend the prince, and bring him to justice for shirking his duty. Even weak imps and gnomes were starting to slip into the streets, when they should be serving the Blackbird Prince as serfs and loyal attendants. With promises of riches beyond their wildest dreams, warriors took their arms and went into the Blackbird Forest for the first time in a millenia.

There was only one cleared path into the forest, and it was this path that wizards and sorcerers would take the newly nominated prince and leave him. It ended after only a quarter of a kilometer, and from there on, it was up to the bravest and strongest of soldiers to find their way. Time and space behaved differently in Blackbird Forest - although by all accounts and maps it was only two miles each way, a skilled cartographer could walk through it for days and never find the end. Only the Blackbird Prince knew the forest's true dimensions and nature, and he had been stripped of all of his power.

Johfrit had traveled far from the forest's palace to reach its outskirts. There was no light in Blackbird; he had never considered it to be peculiar to live in eternal night, and he had finally reached the point where gnarled branches and dark leaves let in bare slivers of light. Any average person would have considered it unnavigably dark, but it was unbearable to Johfrit, and he was beginning to get a migraine from it all. He would've thought it a great blessing if he went blind, since he was getting to be as useless as if he were. Underbrush and animals that would have never fooled him before tripped his feet, and he had more than one fight with a vampire who didn't realize who they were dealing with.

The Blackbird Prince was dressed in dark linens, weaved from magic by the brightest and most talented of faeries, and carried a sword forged by hellhounds and orcs. Although it had been twenty years since he'd been cast into the forest to become its lord, Johfrit looked no older than thirteen; as far as he was concerned he had only passed eight summers here, with only demons as his friends and servants. While it had been a year of trouble for the world outside, it had been a month of revolt for Johfrit - a month of monsters gaining unimaginable magic and defying what was supposed to be his almost omnipotent control. He had been cast from the Blackbird Palace like a common vagrant by who had once been his subjects, and he was going to seek help from outside the wood.

A root caught his ankle, and Johfrit hit the ground with the full force of his (admittedly light) rucksack. He screamed, and vultures flew from their nests like arrows. A large beetle crawled across Johfrit's face before he pulled himself back together, and freed his leg out from its earthy vice. His palms were bleeding from the thicket he'd landed on, and his foot was twisted in the wrong direction.

"Oh no," said Prince Johfrit of Blackbird Forest, and he wondered how long he would sit here before he starved to death.