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And why was it only now, when he was alone in a cramped hole, heart hammering in her chest, did King feel that she could truly think?
A dozen new plans sprung in his mind, each with their own possible downfall and failures. None of them were good enough, where the reward outweighs the risk.
And he thinks now, again, how this used to be easy. She didn’t even break a sweat in past battles, but now she could tell that it wasn’t just the warmth of the savannah that caused her to readjust her grip on the sword in her clammy hands. The cold stone against his back was almost a relief.
Even in the dark, King could see his reflection in the blade as he held it close. It didn’t look like herself. Instead-
“What’s become of you Marshal? Too afraid to fight your own battles? I never assumed you to be a coward.”
It was an internal voice at best, a reflection replaced by the old king, though of course Ides’ voice chimed in at the end to assist in calling her a coward.
“Shut up.” King muttered through gritted teeth.
The lack of oxygen flow in this stupid hole must have been getting to his head. But those words… god it was infuriating.
Here he was, hiding, hiding, after fleeing from a fight. Hiding?! Fleeing?! The Marshal, The King, victor in a hundred battles before this, commander of hundreds more. Hiding alone in a dark hole.
And he realizes, perhaps it might be because she had only ever fought a single battle on her own, and it was her most devastating loss. There were no forces to rally here, no classically trained fighters who fell into rank if she breathed the word.
No. There were only people. Very few people, compared to what she knew. People with their own opinions and goals and loyalties, who unfortunately, terribly, saw King as a person as well. A person. What a foreign idea to her mind.
Well those people would have to be soldiers no matter what now. This wasn’t a series of individual battles anymore, it was a war they were all fighting in, whether they liked it or not. It had always been building up to this and he knew it.
But all the previous diplomacy, the attempted politics, trade deals and alliances, it was never where King specialized, and after time and time passing of playing polite it just bubbled under his skin to wreak havoc.
Oh, the foolish missed opportunity from whence he ran, all because of that insidious little emotion, fear. She’d find a fate worse than death for Ides’, who dug that buried feeling out of the ground where it damn well belonged.
To King’s annoyance, it was too late to come out of hiding and go after Ides now. He was long gone. But there was the knowledge that she couldn’t, not yet.
See, there had been a reason she hadn’t changed out of her black and red uniform still, she felt her vitality, she could feel it around her neck like a shirt collar that was too tight. If he could just loosen something, he would be freed. It wasn’t her, holding onto life, it was life holding her back.
The thought of things holding him back, faces flashed in his mind. Maybe he could play the pretend diplomat, just a while longer, but King knew that to get anywhere, to do this right, solitude was necessary. Which was perfectly alright, he always did better without distractions.
Before any further plans though, King would have to dig himself out of this hole first. One step at a time.