mernatius
—« If you must weep
Do it right here in my bed as I sleep
If you must mourn, my love
Mourn with the moon and the stars up above
If you must mourn
Don't do it alone
»
T
here is not a single ounce of surprise that fills you when you are accosted. You have been expecting it from the very moment that you opened your mouth, the words spilling like poison from your ugly, hateful insides. There is a thought, fleeting and terrible, that this new King will drag you into the dungeons, kicking and screaming. Perhaps he will have your head. Perhaps you will be locked away, forever, where no one will ever have to look at your wretchedness again.As it turns out, retribution for your sins has arrived today in a small package, and you can only watch with glassy, dual-colored eyes as you are harried by a pallid woman of soft creams and stern, disappointed eyes. She accosts you, speaking far too rapidly and with such conviction and passion that you are unable to follow. Your mind has been muddled for far too long, the fever within you and your own wretched anger making it hard to follow whenever you are addressed. It has been so long, you realize, since anyone has addressed you that you nearly have forgotten that it could even happen.
The admonishing is familiar; the bite, the humiliation, reminding you of times when chains bound your legs and whips kissed your skin. One, two, three, four, five…
She demands, ’Who do you think you are?’ and you think, for one delirious moment of clarity, “What a wonderful question.” In the end, you do not answer, because it does not matter. It never has.
“Because it is not my throne to take,” you spit once more, heaving, sweating, and you can feel how your mane sticks to your neck and face. You are sick. You are dying. You wish the process would hurry up and kill you.
’Pull your weight.’
Pull your weight.
You heave, fevered, panicked, because you have, you did, in a land where you did not want to go because no one heard your screams as you were pulled from Solterra, from your home, from this land you once loved and held so much pride in, and not a single person here even tried to stop it from happening.
Perhaps it would be better if you left. Perhaps you did not belong here. You hate this petite woman in front of you, and you hate the King who challenged someone who was not there because he was too cowardly to do it when he was, but you hate yourself even more.
It is not their fault that you are this way, and yet you hate them all the same for it.
Please help me, a small boy screams, locked away in a prison far, far away to the south, Please. Please see that I am more than this anger. That boy is dead. No one saved him, and you are all that remains.
What a pity.
“I do not love this land,” you lie, but you are tired, so, so tired, and the lie tastes hollow and empty. Your body sags, trembling and weak, and the sickbed you have been confined to for months calls to you like a siren. They do not know you forced yourself to stand to come here, or how you fell twice along the way, scuffing your knees but standing again anyway. They do not know.
You truly doubt they even care.
