Page 12 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
Had he sat with his broken self?
What love could be had by all if King Change had… changed. My lips curved again.
“What thoughts have occupied you in the haze, sir?” I thought, quite forgetting to use my mouth. Nevertheless, my thought was taken up by the fog, and the fog lent my words an echoing quality that seemed to steal away the king’s breath.
His brutalized face slackened. “My… thoughts.”
I spoke aloud this time. “Your thoughts on the evilness of monsters. In this haze that robs us of all excuses and denials and lies, what have become your thoughts on the evil of monsters?”
His face twisted. He looked away.
If not for being alone and in despair for so long, perhaps the king would have ignored my question, and yet he had been very afraid of his immortality before I arrived.
“In this haze, I have walked for the ruin of monsters whenno other thought of princess, or revenge, or disloyal prince remained.”
I allowed the disappointment his words inspired to wash over me. My hopes and dreams and cares were unaltered by the feeling, but I could feel saddened that King Change—at his core and center and soul—would never believe in anything other than the end of monsters.
Love of monsters had been my reason to walk. Ruin of monsters, his.
If the haze could not alter him, he would never alter.
“You are admirable, sir,” I said, and received his suspicious glare. “I wish humanity and monsterdom had served you better. I admire your persistence and originality and knowledge. I had expected that deep down you did not really believe in ruin, but you did, as you said. To know yourself that well is admirable. And to accept yourself and declare your unpopular beliefs before others is exceptional too.”
“You speak nonsense,” he snapped, glancing away.
King Change knew that I spoke utter sense.
“If you are here to end my existence, then why do you do nothing but stare into the blackness?” he roared, then surged to his feet.
But blackness? We did not all see the same haze, apparently. I had been staring, but I had been unused to seeing lately. Seeing was a lot to integrate again, especially when I did not wish to lose the new connection to my calm thoughts and self. My body could not be as important as it had always been, so I had to take care with how loudly my senses returned.
He shouted, “Again, you stare and do nothing.”
Goodness,he was undone.
If I had not been staring, though, I might not have glimpsed a tiny crevice in the fog. Another path.
I smiled. “The way clears. Follow me, King of No Change.”
Even growling, he followed me. Of course he did. Whatother choice did he have besides remaining everlost in the blackness of his haze?
I had no choice to leave him, really, not when the path back to my monsters had led me to him so clearly.
King Change was needed in the vibrant world of monsters, whether he liked it or not. Whether I liked it or not, King Change must return.
Chapter Seven
The sands of time.
If King Change possessed the power to stab me in the back, no doubt he would have many hundreds of times in the day, week, or month of our journey through fog. I did not always sense his presence nor hear his voice or breath, as the creature did not always stalk beside me, instead prowling away to do whatever a creature might do.
King Change did not possess the power to stab me, and I could assume that a great fear existed in him at the thought of losing sight of me. For when the creature brushed against me or ventured within arm’s length, then I could again sense how close the king trotted at my heels, and how shallow and rapid were his breaths.
I no longer feared the haze. There existed a link between the peace in my soul and the peace of this place. There was no longer discomfort in the robbing of bodily senses, and instead a relief to be free of their distraction. For instance, what would it be toalways listen to King Change’s fearful breaths? Or to always feel him at my heels? I might become as panicked as he, and what purpose did that serve?
Yes, I felt new relief to be robbed of bodily senses now and then. My minds required ample time to consider and connect. King See had been right about that, too—I had not spent enough time reflecting on queenly matters. He was wrong, however, in thinking that this arose from a fault in character. I simply could not have known how high the mind could soar in isolation of the louder and shouting physical body. Whatwispsarose from the mind in isolation.
I held great respect for my time in this haze and also an awe of its power that could have ended me as easily as it had made me.
