Page 3 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
At least in death, this clamor in my head would end. I wished for the clamor to be gone. Had this always existed in me, or was the noise and bang and whine a symptom of the haze?
A sudden rise to monsterdom and queendom and power had not managed to steal my sanity, but this numbness of haze might prove to.
Snarls and growls and snaps. I should worry about him. I could not.
So tired,I thought or said.
The creature’s answering growl was terrible indeed. It circled closer.
Will you end the clamor?
He circled tighter again.
After such obsessions and learnings and turmoil, was this My End? If ancients had deemed so, then it was because I was not enough.
For him. For queendom. For monsters. For myself.
I am not enough.
The creature’s growl cut off.
Inwardly, maybe outwardly, I tilted my head at the change. A cut-off growl was no small thing for this creature who had only ever growled.
Does that interest you? Is that what you wish to hear?
He snarled, and set up his circling again. No closer. No farther.
I was not enough for a king. For King See had chosen against supporting me in queendom as he could have. He had opted to render me a mere princess, and to spread his lust across a harem of princesses too. He had said that I, alone, could not satiate him.
King See, who could witness and sense so much of the past, present, and future.
What had he fathomed of my queendom that had convinced him against trusting me with the fate of the world and monsters?
Why was I not enough for him?
Am I so terrible at wearing a crown?Had my crown always slipped, as King See had so cruelly said? I had thought the crown was fitting better and better. Were his words cruel, or had there been no kind way to deliver his reasons for usurping me?
Sometimes a spoken truth was cruel but true, nevertheless.
Was I so lacking in every way?
Was I ever enoughfor him?
The creature stopped snarling. One of my minds noticed the interruption.
I could not believe that King See had loved me despite those scathing views, but I had believed his declaration of love.
I wept in soul and mind and power. Such dreams he had ignited with three simple words.
Yet he had known that entering my body would place him in a slumber where ancients would grant him more power. Enough power to become king.
He had declared love forthatpurpose.I love you.
I love power.
I love the idea of kingdom.
I love the idea of you as princess.
