\\ DUSK\\ Fantasy AU \ ATEEZ Fanfic

// Chapter 6 \\

Why neglect authority? Why dodge the duties and troubles of a ruler? Of a High Monarch? Wouldn't it make one see cowardice? Wouldn't that be how they see me? Why had the mere utter of responsibility made me feel dejected?

Yunho.

Would it be weird if I were to say his name struck chord with the title he carried? It's now more like that title now carried his name: Captain of the Guard. And now I could never think of that title without him. But another name was supposed to take that title while his name dragged along. My fear was that his name would snap from the little seam that delicately clung to that title. The truth was his name would stray from that title. It seemed so much like the action of replacing something, but that's how the system worked. However, he seemed irreplaceable. But I was replacing him right now.

"Have you not a say of who stands out now before you?" Nanny whisper-hushed in chastisement as we rounded the room yet another of the many times since we've arrived. She pointed towards the figures in silver and black, who primmed themselves to be like an edge of a sword in which each wielded."The best are rightfully standing before you, enduring your everlasting pacing and, yet, you have not made one comment or critique since we've gotten here."

"I know," I simply commented in a monochromatic voice. It came out just as monochromatic as the room.

The walls of the training chamber were a brilliant pure white. Guaranteed, if sunlight existed in this plane of existence, it wouldn't be bearable to look at. It was already much to give it a glance. Greatly contrasting it were the black long rectangular pillars. They broke this white wall into sections with gaps of pitch black void. The floors were a less shocking white and more-so a calm cream in comparison. A darker tint of white— what could've been considered a grey— marked this floor with a pattern of faint twinkling stars in a white sky. It was perhaps the most calming gesture of this intimidating room. Then again, there was the windowed roof of the starry everlasting night that gazed down upon us. That was certainly the most normal thing of the training room. A training room only used sparingly by the top knights and guards of this court. So sparingly that it is sacred to use for the High Monarch to judge their next Captain of the Guard. I was here to do just that.

After the talk with Nanny since I'd returned, she'd only pressed the matter on me further. Night, and to think she wasn't forcing anything upon me. To think calling it odd would have her pressuring me into something once more.

The person implied gave me a scoff. The glint in Nanny's eyes almost made it out to seem that my reply to her was weak.

I ignored her implicative stare with the flick of my light golden irises as I set my sights back onto the four figures holding their formal, stand-tall positions. They were said to be the four most elite and deadly weapons among my forces other than Yunho. The term weapon referred to each of those four individuals as being dispensable and that was the term Nanny had used when we entered the room. My hand crumpled into a slight fist as the thought had irked me. I learned very well that Yunho was nowhere near dispensable. No one should be seen as that. My eyes now glimmered among the four in a new light.

"Run by me again, each of them," I deadpanned to the older yet shorter woman next to me.