Lockwood and Co. One-Shots

The King's Choice

"The King's Choice" -
Lockwood x Quill

Lockwood and Co. Series

Warning: Based on "The Cost of the Crown" by Margie Butler

Summary: The choices a king must make are never easy.

AU: King/Knight

——Lockwood——

The moon shone brightly, soaring high in the nighttime, pitch-black sky, bathing the grey walls of the palace and lighting the ample room I was in with its auroral and silvery light, reaching the farthest corners of the room. Everything inside it shone as brightly; all the books with their differently colored cases, on their wooden shelves that extended a whole wall on the east side of the room. The portraits of deceased family members were lightened by it, their eyes lost on some random point of the room to which they had been staring at for years now. The blades of old ceremonial swords reflected the light just as bright as it came, sitting quietly on their usual places under their respective portraits. The mahogany desk and silk-padded chair that stood just a few steps behind me were equally lightened by the sky's silver orb. The fireplace's warm and golden light shone against the cold, silvery light of the moon, creating a beautiful, familiar sight for me, one I had grown accustomed to over the long hours I had spent in this room.

But tonight I couldn't concentrate on it. No, not tonight. My eyes only had place for one, particular and distant, that currently stood outside the door of this study. Dear Gods, how hard it is right now and had been since the beginning of the night that I had to resist the temptation of calling them inside the room and ask them to stay here like we had done so, oh so many times before. But those were other times and circumstances.

I sighed and kept looking out the window of my study. In the distance I could see the many small houses of the people of my kingdom, some of the windows still alight in them, reassuring me I wasn't the only one that had to stay up to the late hours of the bitter nights. I couldn't blame them of course, with what the future seemed to hold for us looming on the threshold of my lands.

Who could have ever thought things would come down to this? A country as powerful as mine, who had conquered countless nations in peaceful and violent manners during my reign, as well as my father's before me, and his father's before him, suddenly brought to its knees. Who could have ever guessed that a province that had never held any historical value, or means to properly commercialize, or resources that could make them of any interest to anyone, would ever manage to grow as much as Deadstone did? Who would have ever conceived the idea that in such an insignificant, irrelevant place a greedy, mighty and power-hungry leader would be born?

But then again, I had to recognize and accept that, as bitter as it made me to think of it, as much as I wanted to deny the truth, I couldn't escape the reality of the situation; I had caused this.

The perish of my own people, of the colossal monarchy that my family had so bravely and arduously fought to protect over the years, was a fate brought upon us by me. And for such ridiculous circumstances!

The Lord of Deadstone was a man who never found the potential to grow powerful in anything other than his province's alcoholic beverages, but never once tried to commercialize any of it to any other country around his. Every other ruler, myself included, thought him and his province were nothing more than mere dust on the doorstep of our domains, and we weren't wrong. However, when the man fell ill a few years ago, he married off his daughters, being as they were the only offspring he had, and hoped that one of them would catch the attention of one of us bigger rulers.

To say that he had made a party to present his daughters to us would be telling a lie; he made the party to find them all a husband in the act. I, myself, got to meet them all, but none of them had anything that held my interest, and when talking with some of the neighboring kingdom's rulers I said many things about the Lord and his daughters I now realize I shouldn't have said.