To Drown in Power(And Re-Emerge Heartless)

If I Were A King

"You're staring at it again,"

"I wouldn't say staring," Orobu replied, as he snapped his head up to face Amina. How on earth was she always able to sneak up on him like that? Maybe it was the years she'd spent serving his very temperamental dad, who despised being interrupted.

"Wistfully gazing then?" she joked as she stepped into the room, the door making an unpleasant squealing sound as she shut it behind her. The door hadn't always been noisy, rather it became that way out of a combination of his dad's laziness and paranoia. Must oil the hinges, he added to his ever-growing mental list of to-dos. The list didn't end these days.

"Something like that." He spared a lingering glance at the crown again. His crown. Caeles why did it have to be his now? His legacy and his mess to clean up. His throne and his elegant prison. His crown and his strings, from which he was to be puppeteered by those who gave him power.

"Sepati wants you to meet him in his lair to discuss your coronation prayers or something," she reported, habitually sorting his cluttered documents into small stacks on his desk.

He let out a chuckle. She had always known how to make him laugh. A particularly useful skill when her whole job was attending him. He didn't laugh often, especially not recently.

"Sepati would have your head for that if he heard you talking like that." Xien, that sounded wrong. Why did he never know what to say?

"Well then I suppose it's a good thing his acolytes aren't here," she replied, taking a seat on a sliver of clear space she had made. Though the way her hand drifted to rest on her hidden dagger betrayed her casual demeanor.

The dagger was a simple thing, quite unlike the heirlooms that adorned the spaces between the ceiling to floor windows. No one else knew she had it. She hadn't been allowed one before. His dad never allowed servants to be armed. But he was different. He wanted her to be able to defend herself, so he gave it to her.

"Speaking of acolytes, why did Sepati send you and not one of them?"

"He didn't send me per se." A small mischievous smile crept over her features. "More that I heard him shouting at said acolytes between prayers to Caeles because they couldn't find you, and decided to deliver the message myself."

So he did actually do a good job at hiding from his responsibilities then. For once.

"And you knew where I'd be?" After all, he had made a point to take the many hidden passages she taught him about back to the study. There was no way she, or anyone else, could have seen him come back from rehearsals.

"You always end up here when you're stressed." Of course she knew. He would marvel at the artifacts lining the walls whenever he was stressed, telling himself the stories they were part of. The stories they all told always seemed to be straight out of a myth, quite unlike his life.

"What makes you think I'm stressed?" he asked, trying to maintain a facade of calm. How had she known he was stressed? Any normal person would be happy and excited if they were him. If they were to be king.

There was no reason to burden her with his worries as well. He knew that figuring out the logistics for the coronation security had lost her many hours of sleep if the growing bags under her eyes were anything to judge by.

"Your father damaged a lot of things before he died, everyone expects you to fix everything he broke."

Caeles, how was she always right? How did she always know what was bothering him? It would be uncanny if they hadn't been around each other for half their lives.

"It's a lot," he bitterly admitted, "I'm a new start for Sivic. Everyone expects me to make everything better, but I don't know if I can. What if I'm not good enough? What if I fail too?"