The Selection + SGE

Tedros

"Crap, I should have looked at these earlier."

I was screwed. Most of the selected were already in the palace and I was still yet to look at their applications. What was I going to do? Betty was right - as usual. I needed to try, at least for their sake because at the end of the day one of those ladies would be forced to marry me.

It's a life I would never force upon anyone.

I kept rooting through my desk drawers hoping that maybe if I kept on looking it might just magically turn up. I wasn't in the desk, or on top of it, and they hadn't fallen onto the floor. Where could they be!? I yanked out another drawer and tipped the contents out.

Still nothing.

Stupid selection and stupid drawers and STUPID ME.

Why weren't they where they were supposed to be? I let out a sound close to a growl before throwing the drawer on top of the pile of garbage that had formed. I didn't know where all this energy had come from but I felt as if I could kick the desk from here to New Asia, like there was nothing I couldn't do-

Except for finding the damn papers I needed.

Since when was everything so difficult? I was a prince. I had a cushy life but it still seemed like one day the world would just collapse in on me.

My back hit the corner of my bed and I sank down to the floor.

I was unable to name what I was feeling; it was like fatigue without needing to sleep, hopelessness without a threat to go up against. It was familiar and foreign all at once. I wanted to stop - stop what exactly, I do not know. I buried my head in my arms, savouring the silence around me.

Then came a knocking at the door.

"Your highness, is everything alright?" The guard standing post outside my door knew better than to enter without knocking, but still I pulled myself together,  getting up from the floor and dusting my already pristine clothes. "I heard a loud noise. Are you in need of some assistance?"

I opened my mouth to reply with a firm, 'No,' insisting I was in fact alright however I caught my tongue before I could.

"I am." The door was opened with such speed that it was almost comical how fast he had gotten into the room. He bowed. "Do you know the whereabouts of the Selected candidate application forms."

The guard nodded and gestured towards the wooden ottoman the lay at the foot of my bed.

"I overheard his majesty ordering a guard to put them in there for you, your highness," the guard stated swiftly, followed by yet another bow.

This was something I had never gotten used to, the titles and the bowing. I knew what I was: the crowned prince to the throne of Illea, but for some reason, those words never carried as much consequence as they did to me now. That was ridiculous. The selection had made everything seem more real to me than before and this guard standing before me? He bowed as a sign of respect to a sheltered teenager who couldn't even stand his ground against his own father.

Did they know who they were bowing for? A coward. Did they? Because I was sure they would not think as much of me if they knew the truth.

I opened up the ottoman and sure enough, there they were. All of the applications in a nice, neat folder lying there waiting for me.

"Will that be all, your majesty?"

"Send for a maid and tell her to tidy the room," have I ever even said thank you when I have talked to people ,"please."