Dan the Swineherd

[Aetosion 2062]

 

 

Daniel Horen II was a really shitty sailor. Following the loss of his family's holdings in Athera, he had taken it upon himself to cash in his meager inheritance and purchase a 70 ft caravel and hire a crew from the nearest tavern to the Owynswood shores. Himself a perfumed pretty-boy from the capital culture steeped in high imperial values and traditions, the life of a mariner didn’t suit him. His vision of a glorious jaunt around the eastern isles was cut short by scurvy, and then by mutiny. The nobleman ended up marooned on the southern tip of the continent, beard and wild locks obscuring his face in oily black bushiness, surviving by thieving from the free cities of the south and begging for coin. Occasionally, when he was feeling rather regal, he would comb his beard with a dinner-fork and straighten his splotched and raggedy tunic and proclaim himself Daniel Horen, second of his name, son of Peter, grandson of William II, grandson of Godfrey, heir to the Holy Oren Empire. On these such days he’d either go ignored or end up spending a night in the prisons. He grew a fondness for the rats he slept alongside in the dungeons and the sewers, for in them he found kindred spirits, and also tasty meals.

 

 

It was in the later days of the Atheran inhabitation that Daniel managed to make his way back to Oren, finding the rats in Petrus to be of superior caliber to those in the southern cities. He then made his way to his old hold in Dragonspeak, only to find a group of Raevir men in fur coats and funny hats huddled around a short boy. They called him Lord Sarkozic, but Daniel walked up to them and said he was the true Emperor of Oren, and a man with a large hammer chased him off the peak and down the road for a half mile. Luckily for him, despite his middling age Daniel had gotten in better shape running from guards and angry merchants and proprietors over the last decade so that the bulky bear-like man was no match for his nimble feet.

 

 

The Horen slept along a riverbed off the road that night, but was woken in the dawn by the rhythmic pounding of thousands of feet, and the shouting of many voices. Peeking his bushy brows over the thrushes and waggling his toes in the mud, he watched as hordes of Adrian townsfolk rushed past, women clutching children to their bosom, men toting the womens’ things, and donkeys and packhorses burdened down with everything else. The noise was immense, and Daniel quite liked it. He leaped to his feet, ankle-deep in the mud of the river bed, and fixed his rotten tunic so that it properly covered his manly-bits, and ran alongside the refugees. It was marvelous exercise, and Daniel felt as if they all were cheering for him, so he ran and ran, and ran and ran. It was in this manner that he arrived at the boats to Vailor.

 

               In Vailor he lived a more virtuous life, attaining gainful employment as a swineherd in Haense. Identifying himself as a claimant to the old imperial throne was a less than advantageous assertion in those parts, so he quickly learned to keep to himself and his hogs. He named them pretty things in memory of his family, “Isabella”, “William”, “Sophia”, and “Nero” were just some of his favorite names for his peccary. He gained no great renowned for his pigly pursuits, earning himself only the moniker of “Dan the Swineherd” in recognition of his humble occupation.

 

 

               Yet, Dan the Swineherd had great dreams. “One day,” he mused, a fire lighting in his eyes that had relatively little to do with the cactus mash in his pipe, “I shall return to empire. They shall see me in splendor and know me as scion of Godfrey, prince of peace, Adonai Elohim, the white dragon, bearer of the blood of the divine. They shall see all this and call me Sovereign, and Prince, and King, and I shall bow humbly, then I shall partake in a great feast with the ladies of the court and take as many of them to my chambers as I should deem fit and ravish them for many nights until I have taken my fill.” Dan thought this good, and being the pragmatic man which he was, he set himself to the task of reclaiming his regality. Many a war and conflict burned through the countryside, but Dan and his hogs were touched nary by blade or by plague. He considered this a great boon upon his endeavors, only fit to have been bestowed by the Creator himself, and knew this to be a sign of his divine blood. A spinster in a nearby hut agreed to fashion for him a costume of burlap and loose-cotton in the colours purple and black in the style of a nobleman. A carpenter towards the town center consented to make for him a small sleigh, and Dan continued to raise his hogs for the slaughter.

 

In the Winter of 1529, as the first white hairs took to his wild mane just as the snows blanketed the ground, news of a restoration of the Royal House Horen reached his hamlet. This was high providence, Dan thought, and he collected his things into a sack, affixed it to his sleigh, donned his fancy garb, and harnessed his pigly servants “William IV”, “Augustus”, “Caterina”, and “Henry” and hung in front of them a tasty carrot sourced from his neighbor’s gardens and held a riding crop in his off hand. To meet his royal cousin he would go.

 

 

 The journey was long and arduous, and Dan had to sup upon Henry and Augustus and feed their carcasses to William and Caterina for sustenance, but eventually he arrived at Felsen. Tethering his remaining hogs to a nearby tree, one of which collapsed dead right there from exhaustion, he ran his hands through his hair and beard and approached the iron gates. The guards were bedecked in his own family’s colours, and they called down to him, “Name and business?”

 

 

 

“I am Daniel Horen, second of his name. Son of Peter Horen and Helena Hightower, Grandson of William, second of his name, Great-Grandson of Divine Emperor Godfrey. I have returned.”

 

Edited November 7, 2015 by Aetosion

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