Alternate Realities

Rise, Red as the Dawn (prompt response)

Prompt (via a tumblr ask):

He searched for each other through the crowd. Perhaps not intentionally but out of necessity. They hadn't seen each other in so long, it felt like forever since their fight. His warm eyes met her cold ones. She was exhausted, he noted. Maybe from lack of sleep or stress, maybe even both. He felt terrible. He hadn't known it would do this to her. But she was closed off from him, still hurt by the sting of his words. She broke their eye contact and slipped away into the rest of the crowd.

Hope you like this. I got a little carried away, I'm not sure if it qualifies as "short".

Response:

Cal straightened the front of his uniform so that the buttons aligned all the way down. He tweaked the collar in a weak attempt to widen it. Anabel's tailors, all of them reds, all of them silent and fast, had measured him in five minutes and returned in a day with the final product. Thinking of them working overnight made him sick. When he became King, he'd change that. And, in Anabel's wisdom, he would be claiming the crown in just over an hour.

Silver armies had pushed Maven across the Choke into the Lakelands making him the last prince in Norta. And this made him King. So, the deadline on his promises swiftly approached and implementing his new ideals among the silver courtiers frightened him. He knew well, that a soldier did not usually make a good statesman. Anabel advised caution, patience, and a slow pace of change. On the other hand, he knew the Guard would keep tabs, Mare would be watching. If she could see the changes. If he could make them happen, maybe she'd come back to him. Maybe she'd... be his mistress.

A King shouldn't feel so disgusting on the day of his coronation, but the thought of Mare subsisting on the sidelines of his life, that he would even offer her that, shamed him. If there was ever an indicator that he didn't deserve her that she didn't deserve his repugnant presence, that one thought surely was it. Mare Barrow would be no one's mistress, least of all his.

Separating himself from Evangeline, from House Samos... the Rift kingdom, would take more statesmanship than getting reds better conditions, pay, and education. And without managing both his promises to Mare and breaking the engagement, he had no leg to stand on in getting her back.

Wanting, he had to stop wanting. Kings don't have the luxury of acting on desires, he reminded himself. A King's duty is to his country, not to himself. A King puts his court before his personal gains. A King does not chase after boyhood fantasies. A King is not supposed to enjoy his life, but live it for others.

But he knew one King who regretted ever agreeing to the crown.

Julian smiled kindly at him in the throne room. Maven's silent stone monstrosity had to be left in place, no ability could take it down and he hesitated to assign reds to break it apart by hand. Cal kept his distance, but stared at it weary and hard as he proceeded to the platform in the center of the room. His court surrounded him. Many of the colors he'd grown to expect were missing, their loyalties too much of a question or their presence blatantly unwanted. But filling their positions are new dignitaries from Montfort, Piedmont, and the Scarlet Guard. As he approached, the crimson-clad guardsmen turned their backs and looked away. An oddly peaceful protest for an organization that had murdered silvers in that very room.

Julian had schooled him for hours on the exact phrases to repeat. His voice sounded like someone else, booming out and around the chamber but getting lost among the bodies, no echo returning. He felt isolated, shrouded in silence. He completed the phrases and slid down to his knees to receive the crown on his head. He rose, a silver king. The clapping and cheers from his silver court were muffled by the acoustics of the room and without the sharpness he expected. The surreal moment ended, Julian directing him off the platform and through the throngs into the chambers to the south.