duty. (boyxboy)

Chapter 11.

How long has it been? Like half a year? sorry guys 

~

It took almost three months before Forven was deemed healthy enough to resume his life as it had been before the attack. Word had quickly spread throughout the kingdom, and every day there were people at the palace gates, praying for the crown prince's quick recovery. Forven had demanded for hot soup and bread to be brought out to them. The mornings were still awfully chilly. The palace doctors said it was a miracle that he had even made it back to the palace that day at all, with the amount of blood that he had lost.

God, he remembered the blood so well. When he closed his eyes, he could still smell it, that horrible metallic scent that was everywhere around him. Sometimes he swore he could still see traces of it on his hands.

They were hard months, and painful months, and some days Forven wanted nothing more than to give everything up, go to sleep and never let his body heal. The two times he'd left his bed so shortly after, they had put such a strain on Forven's body that he was put on absolute bedrest for a week and a half after. He hadn't even been allowed to sit upright by himself. People would have to come, hold up his body and place pillows behind his back. And when he had to use the toilet, well, he rather not think about that again. It had been as humiliating as it was debilitating.

Mhyrr came in almost every day, but instead of talking to him, she would just crawl into Forven's bed and lay against him for a while until she fell asleep, and the governess had to come and carry her to her own room. In her sleep, her little hands would grip Forven's clothes, like she didn't want to part with her big brother.

The queen cried a lot when she was with him. Forven understood. He didn't have children of his own, but he figured that he would be reacting the same way if one of them nearly died. He just stroked her hair when it happened and promised her to never nearly die again.

Thalia would come to tell him all about things that were happening in the rest of the castle and though it made him feel even more isolated, he was thankful for his little sister for coming to see him so often.

"Orym was in the kitchen again, with Alea, the cook's daughter. He told me that they were baking something, but Orym dropped a bowl and everything went on the floor! And of course the cook wouldn't get angry at Orym so he got angry at Alea instead, and I could hear him yelling at her from all the way at the other side of the palace! I think Orym likes her," she said, with a big grin on her face. Forven smiled fondly. His family sure was making a trend out of falling in love with people they shouldn't be falling in love with.

Two days later, Orym himself came in, to tell Forven the same thing Thalia had told him, only this time not leaving out some of the essential details to the story.

"She kissed me, Forven. I was holding this bowl of eggs and milk and something else and suddenly she just kissed me, and I was so starstruck that I just dropped the entire thing and all over our feet. It broke into a thousand little pieces, but I barely even noticed it. My heart was beating so fast, I didn't even think that was possible."

Orym's hands were trembling as Forven took them into his own. 

"I'm supposed to tell you that you won't ever be able to be together with her, as your responsible older brother and the future king of this country," he said, "but I'm not going to, because that would make me a big hypocrite."

"You really are in love with him, then?" Orym asked. Forven nodded, and smiled sadly.

"I didn't think it was possible for a person to love another human being like I love him. I sometimes think we aren't two different people at all, but rather a single soul living in two seperate bodies."