Chapter: King III

Tadaaa - the next chapter. That with the memories is now screwed back a little and the present becomes a little more important .. Well, you can tell when reading at least ^^

Greetings to Kirana, my little iron regular reader - thanks for the constant comment! * bouquet and confetti *

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The sword - I don't necessarily understand how it got there, all I remember about it is that Mullholland gave it back to me after the fight - is in a stone on the floor in a very strange memory of the fabled Excalibur, and Dismas leads me straight to it. Hopefully they don't expect me to pull it up in a melodramatic pose and let it circling wildly over my head, because at the moment I am less interested in playing sword games.
When I get to the sword, I gently lower my right hand over the golden pommel and, to my surprise, a deep, satisfying feeling of peace flows through me - so complete and powerful that I can't help but smile and lift the gaze that I have previously been looking at the ground have.Dismas' eyes widen in amazement and his lower jaw drops down, but everyone else keeps their calm appearance and looks at me with a confusing mixture of fascination and admiration.
"Sire," says one of them and suddenly bends his knee, whereupon everyone imitates him and also sinks to their knees - all except, of course, Dismas, who is now looking a little piqued over the dozen of our backs because so unexpectedly perform.
I am stunned and the shock of the sight paralyzes me. Only gradually comes life into my limbs. "Get up," I burst out, because the whole thing is terribly uncomfortable for me, "Lord God, just get up!"
Reluctantly they rise again, but humbly lower their heads and do not look at me. All but one - a messenger just tilts his head questioningly and smiles very slightly, only rudimentarily, and makes a small ironic bow in my direction.I grin against my will - Mullholland, whoever else. Disrespectful and without a doubt incorrigible.
"What do you expect us to do?" someone asks from the ranks of the messengers, and it is impossible for me to say who asked the question. An annoying feeling.
"What do I expect ?!" I ask back, a little horrified, and Dismas can't help grinning happily.
You are the king, he forms silently with his lips, and I sigh softly to myself. Right, I am the king. An absolutely haphazard king, but we don't want to be bothered by that.
"Well, uh," I say weakly, looking in vain for words or at least a task, "you ... uh ..." I clear my throat and grip the hilt of the sword tighter. "I want a pink," I hear myself say and am a little surprised myself - it's as if my subconscious has now taken the lead and is expressing wishes that I would otherwise not have been able to bring through my lips, "alive.For interrogation. "I think about it for a moment and then add:" And I want someone to go to Bathelem's messengers and tell him that I want to speak to him. "
A synchronous nod from the men in front of me, lined up like the tin soldiers, is the answer and a tension I hadn't even been aware of falls away - somewhere inside I probably feared that the messengers would simply refuse to follow my instructions and me again, as before, would turn their backs. They turn around like a man and disappear into the hallways in silence, and I can breathe a sigh of relief.
I slowly turn to Dismas. He smiles slightly. "That went really well, Orion," he says and gently puts his hand on my shoulder.
I loosen my clenched fingers around the hilt of the sword and smile back weakly. “Well,” I answer tiredly, “how to take it.” But inwardly I agree with him - for the fact that I had no idea what I was doing, I probably put on a very convincing performance. After all."You should sleep," he instructs me and points up with his thumb, "you look terrible."
"Thank you," I reply ironically and run my hand over my face, "I know that myself."
He is silent and just grins meaningfully as he turns to the door. "I'll stay here a little longer," he said when he got to the door, his face turned away, "there is still something we need to talk about. But not now."
I look after him with a bit of astonishment and only manage to nod, which of course remains hidden from him - but my approval would probably not have interested him anyway. Fortunately - or not, I'm not sure yet - he was the only one who was barely or not at all impressed by my new title and treated me with the same kind of non-existent respect as before. Apart from the fact that Mullholland is a bit out of line, but that was another topic.With dragging steps I go up the stairs and run through the corridors, carefully avoiding Eleonora's smell. I don't feel like doing another round of questions and answers about my life so far and just want to sleep, long and restful, and ideally wake up and notice that it was all just a bad dream.
A bluish shimmer flashes towards me from the wall, and when I take a quick look at this light source I am suddenly wide awake again and rush towards the wall like a man possessed.
It's a mirror, nothing special, and certainly nothing that I would have liked to have peeked into lately - but now I'm hypnotized, simply carried away by my picture: my eyes are blue.
A clear, dark blue, about the color of the sky on a cloudless day, and they glow like ever in the dark. Compassionately, I stare into these unmistakable points of light as if they could give me the answer to the burning question:What the hell is going on here ?!
The words circling around in my head like a broken record, piercing and leaving a feeling of helplessness that I can't shake off. I jerk my head away and look back down the hall. It doesn't matter what color they are, I think dully, I remembered one way or another.

"I think we should wait," I gasp out of breath and slide her hands from my belt buckle, whereupon she gives me a completely blank look.
"Waiting?!" she asks, slightly indignant, and raises her eyebrows so far that they almost disappear under her bangs.
"Yes," I confirm and slide away from her a little, almost falling out of bed - 90 centimeters doesn't leave much space for privacy.
"But - why? Is it .. I mean, am I ...?" The sight makes the blood in my cheeks and I look hard to the side.
"No," I reply, "that's not the point."I swallow and stare at the ceiling." You and I ... we ... well, that should be something special. Nothing that takes place during a study break. Nothing we regret later. "
I can almost hear a smile form on her features. "Sometimes you are perfect, do you know that?" she asks and snuggles back into my arms, this time just because of the feeling and not because of the closeness, and I gratefully close my arms around her.
"No," I answer truthfully, "but I know that it always is you."
She laughs softly, hugs me closer and in the same movement hits me playfully on the shoulder. "Stop treating me like I'm better," she orders happily, and I close my eyes and smile slightly.

The memory boost throws me off balance and my suddenly cold and sweaty fingers slide off the smooth frame of the mirror, so that I can only save myself from smacking my forehead against the glass with a seemingly ridiculous lunge backwards.I breathe in and out convulsively, as if I could use the air flowing through my body to drive the memories out of me like a foul smell, but unfortunately this plan proves to be very sketchy and extremely unsuccessful: the memories remain. Stinging and unwelcome, they present me the perfection of my previous life, which is so incomparably much better than this - no matter how little I want to admit it to myself and how unfair that is to Eleonora and an immense heap of messengers who put their whole trust in me put.
Even if my body is exhausted to death and just wants to lie down, I decide not to go to sleep yet - simply out of the fear that as soon as I close my eyes, new images of my past will flicker in front of me and throw myself into even greater despair. Not an attractive thought.
I shuffle back down the stairs like an oversized worm and cross the hallways in a strange kind of trance that suits me right now.So at least I don't have to ponder my current or my then situation, but have sunk back down to the lower way of my existence, only being guided by instincts and behaviors learned at some point - even if in this state I can hardly be compared with the well-trained hunter who I am otherwise. But unfortunately "otherwise" has become a frame that I have lost, probably for longer if not forever.
The door is ajar, for whatever reason - and I should probably be more upset about this fact, since this house has now mutated into my royal residence and not just my sleeping place, but it leaves me very cold - and me poke it absent-mindedly and bathe for a second in the cool night air.
Nature has used the past hours to cover up the bloodiest traces of the massacre that took place here and put a compassionate layer of snow over the whole scene, which gives me a vague feeling of peace but for the most part gives me goose bumps.A look at the sky tells me that the clouds have moved and that I am bathed in silver moonlight, which also explains my humanization.
The desire to be out here instead of in a comfortable bed is decreasing every second, but I don't care about my protesting body and slowly trudge through the snow towards the iron gate. To the mockery of my previous thoughts, this is locked and does not move an inch.
Discouraged, I let my gaze wander up the long iron bars and briefly consider climbing them - which I immediately declare to be impossible. I'm exhausted to the bone and just too exhausted for a climb of this size. The last time I did that, I didn't look particularly good at it either - and that I could do better now is more than ridiculous. I sigh softly and turn around again, leaning my head back to better perceive the splendor of the stars above me.The moon is only