a king walks among us
He takes all things in stride.
Which, is to say, he puts them aside.
For later.
Whenever that is.
And so -
he moves forward.
Into ranks. Into people. Things. Clothes. Weapons. Noise. Color. What has he known but the darkness of his home and the redness of the ring, oh, the first time he heard all that shouting he almost died, and he wasn’t the one with a horn through his throat, oh no, he wasn’t.
There is no option save victory.
El Rey stands in the crowd with a black ball of twine unraveling in his head. Think of the cellar. The cellar. The cellar. How quiet, how silent and still and comforting.
And the market —
It isn’t as bad as you think.
But he cannot move and in his height he is a great divider in the center of the crowd. Too much smell. Too much taste. Too much sound. Too much touch.
He came here for a reason.
I am hungry. Yes. Hungry.
Instead of lurching into motion as a great beast he peers over the crowd for something appetizing but the spices and variety of this world are too much and he resolves to either stop panicking or starve. Neither will happen soon enough, and so everyone will keep walking into him.
@
”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“
I pledge you now, to death they all are bound,
