THE KING IS DEAD

11

IV. Long Days
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❝SLOW DOWN.❞
*ృ༅*. 𝕳𝖊 can't help it. Shadow stuffs his face, doesn't make time to properly chew, wincing with every swallow. Shoved down the hatch goes the buttered bread and vegetables and fruit and hot, hot tea. It comes to a point where Maria snatches him up, plops him in her lap, and shoves the plates away.

"I hadn't finished that," he says around stuffed cheeks.

Maria's glare says enough. Shamed, Shadow reddens and properly chews what remains in his mouth, swallowing with ease.

For a while they sit like that, Maria holding Shadow close in her lap, swaying slowly—to comfort herself more than him. It has been three long days, yet her arms are still shaking. She cannot speak above a whisper, for her voice shivers in unison with her body.

"You promise you're all right?" This is the millionth time she has asked this question.

The answer has not changed. "I promise."

"He didn't hurt you?"

. . . This question is new. Shadow is silent, debating to answer. Debating what to answer. A minute ticks by, Maria growing paler by the second.

He replies honestly. "That's very hard to answer."

Her confusion confuses him at first, but then he nods. "You don't know," he realises. "There are thoughts I haven't had the chance to share with you." Because of Faker, he does not add.

No longer hungry, Shadow tells Maria everything she wants to know. His feelings for Sonic, their budding relationship after the King's death. The visit to the villa, the confessions . . . although he finds himself blushing and stuttering, for whatever reason, so he omits the details of their intimate scene.

(He tells her they kissed and nothing more, but that is half of a lie. Clothing and armor had been torn off, lips kissing lips, noses, cheeks, jaws, necks, chests . . . but we won't get into that; it's not our business.)

Then he tells of the banquet, of Sonic's crocodile tears and fakery, of the betrayal, the lies; the dungeon, the beatings, the isolation . . . He does not realise he is crying until Maria presses his head to her chest.

"It's over," she promises. "He won't have you again. Never."

"I just feel like a failure."

"Why?"

"Should I not have seen the signs? Should I not have noticed the cracks in his mask?"

"That doesn't make you a failure. He has his entire kingdom fooled."

"Damn straight."

Shadow and Maria turn to face Rouge, leaning against the wall of the kitchen. She is resplendent in black striped with crimson and pink, jewels dripping from her ears, neck, fingers. Rouge, his best friend—his rescuer—gives him the loveliest smile as she hip-bounces off the wall to sit across from him at the table. She spins the chair around, arms hugging the its back.

"I can't believe this little corner of the planet is filled with fools," she adds with a half-roll of her eyes. "I think it's obvious Faker isn't very good at any of his jobs."