less a prince more a shadow

this is yet another tail, one of a prince this time but to say a. prince isn't exactly correct. it wouldn't be a prince considering he is one of 13 Prince's. all 13 Prince's were in line for the throne. obviously only one guaranteed the title of demon king this particular prince was seen as less than average among all the other princes. no one cared for him. no one cared about him. not even his father. even if he wasn't king would care and that left him to be the least respected of all his brothers. eventually though like the other princes he would develop powers. his particular power was one of shadows. not only could he enter and exit shadows but he could manipulate their form and shape and even here things that occur within shadows. this made him an asset. not exactly a candidate but an asset and when the king heard of this he immediately jumped to use him then and day out. he would use the prince despise on his vassals any form of plotting any conspiracies embezzlement you name it. the king would have the prince look into it. that was just how things were for him but friends was sort of okay with this. on one hand, he got the attention from his beloved father. on the other hand, he knew very well his father could care less so long as he was useful. there was no real love and the attention was superficial. but at the end of the day the prince got attention. so the prince would along with it for many years. even going so far as to kill people that the king sought to be a problem. but the day finally came when the king would announce who he saw was the most likely candidate to become the next demon king. and wouldn't you know it? the fifth prince was next in line at least on paper since he was but the 12th. prince that demented wasn't him knowing these facts. the Prince wanted to take some time to think so. he began to roam the demon city for a bit but chance he stumbled across something interesting. not grand but interesting. there was a dancers performing in the plaza of the city. many men and women had gathered around throwing money in a basket for her while she tends to night away. some other performers had gathered around as well. musicians looking to gain a quick buck, all of which would play music while she danced. it would appear that the musicians had to struck a deal in exchange from providing music for her show. she would share some of her profit. the boy watched that she dance and was mesmerized. she didn't have much to it and the dance moves weren't perfect but something about the way she danced. just spoke to him. it was free and she loved doing it and people loved her for it. in short, there was the thing he wanted. most love the prince continue to watch until the show had ended. by that time the dancer had divided the money amongst the musicians and said her goodbyes. the prince knew that if he didn't follow her he would never see her again or at least not for a while so he did when the dancer wasn't looking. he dived into her shadow and began following her at first. he just thought that she would head to her hotel and he would just be able to visit her from time to time when he got bored, but after her performance she had immediately left the demon kick them getting on a boat to her next destination when Prince contemplated going back to his castle but to no avail. he didn't feel the urge to return at this point. the young Prince rode the boat with the dancer. he watched how she spent her days on the boat whenever she was hungry she would not use the money she had earned during her early performance. instead, she offered to dance for the sailors on the boat in exchange for meals in order to keep their spirits up. the captain agreed she would have a free meal every day and during the night she would dance for the drinking sailors as they enjoyed their evenings at some point. the demon friends grew hungry himself. he had a little money to his name that he took with him. when he left the palace he used it to secretly get meals while trying to stay out of the view of the dancer, when a time came for her to disembark, he of course followed her curious of what her next move would be for her first move. she would use some of the money she earned in the previous town to get room and board. she would then take the time to practice her performance and when she felt she was confident enough she would spend the rest of her time scouting out locations to dance. the next day she would go and perform in the location. she had picked while she did this. he knew that he needed to make the most of the time. he decided that if you were to continue following her he would need to maintain his funds. so during the day when she would sleep before a performance he would go out and do some minor investigations for anyone who would pay and then at night he would watch her dance before he slept within her shadow whenever he would wake up, who would find that she had moved on to the next town following the same routine, practicing her performance, scouting locations, and then dancing from time to time. she would also be invited to several large-scale events to do her performance. sometimes she would accept other time she would refuse. at a glance you would think that she had only done some on a whim and some because she didn't feel it. but after doing some deeper investigations, he had discovered that the people that she refused were either bad people or had bad intentions while the ones that she agreed upon. were there just frivolous types or people who loved art as a continued watching her dance? he knew that he loved one following her and watching her. in short, he had discovered love not only a love for her but to love for her dancing and it also discovered a passion through his side business of investigating. although he didn't exactly enjoy doing it for the king while he earned money to keep phone, he enjoyed doing his investigations for other people learning different stories that each person had for his rigorous observations. but of course, since he was only secretly following her, he had to make sure that any work that he did did not exceed the 3-day. mark, for at the third day. the dancer would always leave to the next town. at one point the demon Prince would start to question one thing something that he couldn't confirm himself was the dancer. beautiful see. I'm like humans, demons don't see forms and shapes. they can't see what a person's skin looks like. get along a demons or other creatures instead they only see souls. each soul is an expression and representation of the person they're looking at to him. all he sees is a shining light that draws people in a dancing light that the more dances the better at twinkles and the more people come to see it. they're all honesty. he would question from time to time what the human saw when they looked at her. did they also see beautiful twinkling lights? where was there something else beautiful about her that they loved this question? pain came from time to time was a strong and cure point of his investigation into her as he followed her but one day something interesting happened well to be precise. three interesting things happened. the first was while the dancer was practicing her routine per usual. the demon Prince had some of the cross and interesting article. it was a wanted poster from the demon kingdom. a missing persons to be exact and it was his own. apparently the king had noticed his absence and was looking for him. of course, knowing that's something like this would happen. he had been using it a disguise when interacting with people for investigations magic that gives him a human form. he would rarely show his demon for him when around people so he wasn't worried about being targeted for the bounty of returning him to the demon king. but this did pin him with a dilemma. his father had finally giving him a stronger form of attention. the fact that his father is willing to shell out money and put out a missing person's flyer for him not being in the kingdom meant that he did have some value to him, but of course the logical side of him would always point out that it's a possibility it's not him looking for him, but also that if it was him he could just be doing it because he's a valuable asset to keep around his ability to travel through shadows and hear things that went on within them made him an asset for spying on tons of potential enemies and with him gone the king was more vulnerable that's making him very valuable and worth shelling out money but a piece of him that is still the son of the king. wish that this wanted poster was a father missing his child and not a king. missing a valuable asset with that and wanting to confirm the possibility. he proceeded to crumple up the piece of paper and abandon the thought entirely. the second thing that happened which was a big one for him was that demons that were already attempting to invade lands that they didn't have peace with were also on the lookout for him. he didn't know why that was. that was a waste of manpower, especially considering the king want to more land to rule. the demon lands were all mountain-based and had very little crop yield so they have been looking for a better land in order to feed their people better rather than having the outsource and waste precious money. this further conflicted him because at the end of the day he wanted to believe that is father truly loved him, but every logical bone in his body told him that everything that he's experiencing there's nothing more than a one for something that will never be and then he should continue pursuing the one thing that is made him happy of to this point and then the final thing. and this was the biggest and actually and most life-altering thing to happen. the dancer he had been following for so long had finally noticed his presence. in fact, they had met face to face on the night that he had started making meals for her.