Curious

Chapter 18: Playing Roles

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Playing Roles

At the end of the modest set of stairs were again two menacing-looking guards. They looked straight ahead however and did not pay Simon the slightest attention so Simon assumed that he had permission to pass them and go through the door, which would lead to the king's personal study.

The first thing Simon noticed when he walked into the study was how simply it was furnished. He would have thought that a king's personal study would be the most furnished of all the rooms he had ever seen—and at that, he would have expected it to be so grandly furnished to the point of gaudy tastes. Evidently, his idea of monarchy did not agree with this king's. There was a rug, simple in its design but obviously made of fine quality thread. A simple wooden chair stood by the fireplace, only garnished by a plain-clothed cushion. It was a big room, Simon had to admit this, yet it was sparsely furnished. On the side by a big round window, enveloped with simple white cotton curtains (no patterns, no nothing), was a big oak desk with a mess of papers on it. On one side of the desk, a group of papers (Simon hoped they were not anything of importance) were stacked precariously on top of each other, obviously pushed aside by a busy, hardworking yet undeniably absentminded person. On the other side, was clean parchment paper, a pile of quills, a few books, and a few ink pots (piled neatly, yet still had the aura of lack of organization). Some of the ink pots looked empty as if the owner in all his work had forgotten to throw them out and had instead left them there. Simon instantly felt an itch to organize and clean it all, but he pushed that urge down by reminding himself, that no matter how messy it looked, it was a King's desk and he had yet to find out how authoritarian this king was. After all, judging by the state of the desk, the king obviously took on a very hands on role when it came to the controlling of his kingdom. No matter what his opinions on the desk, he had to appreciate the fact that the king took on such an enthusiastic role in ruling his kingdom—unless he ruled like horrible tyrant, in that case, Simon did not think he would appreciate the king's efforts at all.

In all his absorption with the unstately state of the desk of a head of state (could you call a king a head of state?), he did not notice that the head of state was standing right behind the desk, looking at him in confusion. Simon slowly became aware that he had been calling out his name—not his real name, his name in this world. What was it again? The king said it again. Oh, that's right, Answain.

Simon came out of his reverie and blinked blankly into the eyes of the king. The king's eyes were green—bright, vivid, piercing green, the kind that you would instantly find in an area of darkness. He was surprised by the vividness and it took him a moment to shift his focus from the king's eyes to the rest of his face. His skin was wrinkled but as far as Simon could tell only by laugh lines and perhaps wrinkles on his forehead from frowning too much when he was concentrating. There were the beginnings of a few gray hairs in his otherwise mane of chocolate-y chestnut hair. He could not have been more than ten years older than Simon and Simon was of the ripe young age of thirty-four years. Simon wondered when his rule began. It was obvious by the aging on his face that though the King was young for a King, he had been ruling for quite a while—perhaps he had ascended to the throne at Simon's age.

He was wearing a tuxedo-cravat-waistcoat sort-of-thing from the late nineteenth century that Simon could not specifically identify but he guessed by it that the kingdom was in its late nineteenth century of human development stage. There was a ribbon with a small golden badge on it with the seal of the kingdom and of the current king.

In the midst of Simon's judging perusal of Alysania's current monarch, the said monarch cleared his throat imperiously. The king was not used to such distracted behavior, and he certainly was not used to people not immediately paying attention to him. The king admitted to himself that occasionally the topics he spoke of were dry and not a bit tedious but he still prided himself on the ability to make jokes and to make something as dry as portions of land given to agricultural farmers at least remotely interesting, but now looking at Simon (whom he thought in his head as Answain), he was surprised at how surprised Simon himself seemed.