a king walks among us
There is so much darkness in him and he feels none of it.
She feels all of it.
Sees him for what he is - transparent - a fish bowl, a globe, a witch’s ball hanging in a garden of ribs and sand, the end of the world, post-apocalyptic, as they say, not that he would know, no, but the sun god has scorched this land too many times for a black scorpion to crawl out of a pit, for a unicorn to push out of the sea, each born again, born twice at least, not like real mortals are. Too different for that sort of thing. You’ve got to hang from a tree at least once, maybe, twice, one eye gone, one leg crossed, stripped of all your clothes and descending into the underworld, eaten by your mentor, you a kernel and she a hen. Something like that, something, something, but it’s all magic, always. Always magic, always.
He doesn’t know what magic is anyway, well a little, you know, from some stories, besides the histories, but sometimes there is magic in the histories and his wide-eyes watch her wild-eyes but he can’t see them for what they are, he’s the one on the inside of the single-sided glass and nobody at the pool told him that if you look close enough, you can see the shapes of people on the other side.
He loves the meadow that grows around her, so beautifully, so sharply, like a torture chamber, tea-party style.
“If you could wish for one thing, magic made, what would it be? Tell me and I will create it for you.”
What is a thing that he wants in his heart that can be made into a thing that can be seen?
He thinks
and thinks
and thinks.
And El Rey says, ”No one has ever asked me what I wanted before,” he paused, inhaled, if he were any other creature you might tell yourself that there really was a trembling breath in there somewhere, “I want to go home, but I cannot go back. My family was killed. I think it was my fault.”
(And it was not that he had never been asked to make a decision, but no one had ever asked of him what was there to want beyond the duty.)
@Isra
”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“
I pledge you now, to death they all are bound,
