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Devon never once notices when the idea of “someday” starts to rot.
When the silence stopped being peaceful and started feeling like something that began to burrow inside him, like worms writhing underneath his skin. It wasn’t like the quiet of an empty room or a late night where everything finally settles—it’s heavier than that, like something pressing down on his shoulders, like a weight shaped exactly like what expectation was given, and what was given must be repaid. Following them into every corner, settling into their chest, lingers in the pauses between other people’s voices.
Those voices always seem so certain, so full of direction, speaking about the future like it’s a place already built and waiting—encouraging simple things, normal things, things that are supposed to sound like a glorious path forward, but Devon hears them like they’re coming from behind glass.
Muffled.
Distant.
Irritating.
Not quite meant for him, even when his name is attached.
Devon sits among it all, like a king on the hill, a childish game, he is small in comparison. Hands folded so tightly in their lap, their scarf pulled close as if it could hold them together. There are so many things they’re supposed to become, so many roles that seem to be just out of reach, no matter how hard he looks they can’t find the reason where he fits inside any of it.
It feels like standing in a doorway that keeps stretching further away the moment they try to step forward—yet there’s this repulsive force behind him like…
Shoving,
Grinding,
Scraping,
Gnawing…
And yet, when they turn away from all of that—when they retreat back into space, their hands all bloodied and ravaged, the space carved out for themselves—there is something that does not move, does not demand, does not change.
The statue stands there, as it always does, a thing that has outlived the noise Devon fears, and within it burns that faint, steady flame. The light doesn’t flicker wildly or demand attention; it simply exists, constant and patient, as it has already royally decreed it will outlast everything else, even its own master. It doesn’t ask him to translate itself into something understandable. It simply exists—heavy, steady, unbothered by time the way Devon is not.
When Devon approaches, the air feels different, quieter in a way that doesn’t suffocate. He reaches out slowly, almost hesitantly, their gloved fingers brushing against the warm stone, and the sensation travels up their arm like a grounding wire on their nerves, pulling them back into something real. The spark of ambers should be uncomfortable, but it isn’t—it feels honest, unchanging in a way that people never are.
This stays exactly as it is, exactly as it will always be.
Unchanging
Desperate
Strictly.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Devon murmurs, their voice soft and uneven, unsubstantial in a way that makes it feel like it might break apart if they try to say anything louder despite the fear of being unheard. The words don’t feel complete, but they’re all they have.
They lean forward until their forehead rests against Kinglith’s body, letting the weight of it hold them steady. “I don’t know how to become… whatever they want me to be.”
Kinglith doesn’t answer. Never once does it answer his liege; Existing to be binded to its tamer. It shifts ever so slightly, the faint glow within it pulsing once, as if acknowledging his presence,
his voice,
his existence.
That is enough for Devon. It always is.
“You are my savior,” they whisper, and the words slip out more easily than anything else they’ve said all day, as if he has been waiting just beneath the veneer.
The idea settles into them like something warm, something comforting.
A savior doesn’t ask questions but helps guide you to it.
A savior doesn’t expect you to already know the answers but teaches you how to speak it.
A savior simply is—a presence you can lean on when everything else feels like it’s slipping through your fingers. And his Kinglith is perfect in that way, because it does not challenge them, does not push them forward, does not ask them to stand on their own. It stands for them, in a way, absorbing the weight Devon cannot carry.
And he hates it.
Out of envy.
Devon remembers, faintly, a time when things felt smaller. Not easier—like problems that could be held in both hands and examined from all sides. Now everything feels stretched thin, pulled into complex shapes that don’t make sense, labeled with words like responsibility and future and being enough. Those words feel too big in his vocabulary, too sharp, like they don’t belong to Devon at all.
He’s expected to wear them anyway, like clothing that doesn’t fit but must be worn regardless because they say it will grow on him anyway. Every attempt to step into that world feels like walking on precarious soil, like trying to compensate for something that shifts beneath them with every 90 degree of a right angle.
“They keep saying I’ll figure it out,” Devon enunciated one night, their voice quieter than usual, almost drunk down by the serenity around them. They sit curled beside Kinglith, their shoulder pressed against its unmoving frame, as if trying to borrow its composure. “That I’ll grow into it. That I’ll be able to handle it all someday.” Their fingers tighten against the fabric of their sleeve, nails wringing into something soft just to feel something definite. “What if I don’t want to?”
The question hangs in the air, fragile and shaking, like glass poised just before it shatters. But it doesn’t break. It doesn’t get answered, either.
It does not answer.
Kinglith remains as it always is silent, steady, its flame flickering in that same quiet. It will not argue. It will never reassure him. It simply stays as bound to the king—resting on the burial site, which is this hill. Devon exhales slowly, their body sinking further into that presence.
“Only you can be my savior,” they add, softer this time, the words threading themselves into something deeper. There’s something wrong with that sentence. Devon knows it, somewhere deep beneath the comfort it brings.
But there is a comfort in that gnawing thought, but it is the kind that wraps too tightly, like a blanket that begins to suffocate if you don’t move. Somewhere, deep beneath the relief, there is a faint awareness that something about this isn’t right—that leaning this heavily on something that cannot lean back might not be what a savior is supposed to be.
But that thought is distant, easy to ignore, easy to push aside when compared to the overwhelming noise waiting outside this quiet space.
It can’t compete with the relief that comes from not having to figure anything else out, from not having to face the endless, shifting expectations waiting outside his freedom,,,
his flesh,
and his will.
Kinglith doesn’t leave. That alone feels like proof enough. And that is easier than anything else.
Devon finds themselves returning to it again and again, a habit they can’t break, a drag path worn into the ground by too many footsteps. Every time the pressure tightens around their chest until it feels hard to breathe, they come back to them, the same unmoving figure, the same knight he saw as his savior.
It becomes less of a choice and more of a reflex, something instinctive, necessary.
The more they return, the more the outside world feels distant, blurred, like something seen through fog. Responsibilities become quieter when ignored, expectations soften when left unanswered, conversations become harder to sit through, because all of it leads back to the same doodle—the same quiet realization that they don’t feel capable of carrying it alone. And every time that realization surfaces, they return here, to stone and silence and the faint of something that never changes.
“Do you need me?”
Devon asks one evening, the question slipping out before they can stop it. It feels different from the others, heavier, like it carries something they’re not ready to unpack. They had their fingers curled tightly against the edge of its form, as if they’re afraid even this will slip away if they didn’t hold on hard enough.
Kinglith doesn’t respond, not in any way Devon can truly understand. It shifts slightly, closing the space between them, its presence filling the emptiness beside them with something solid and unchanging.
Devon takes that as an answer.
They always do.
It becomes easier, over time, to believe in that version of things—that Kinglith is not just a companion, not just a presence, but something more, something necessary. A savior. Something that exists to hold the weight The King cannot. The idea grows roots, wrapping around their thoughts, anchoring them in place. It feels like safety, but it also feels like standing still while everything else continues to move.
And somewhere along the way, he stops trying to move with it.
The truth lingers at the edges of their awareness, quiet but persistent. Kinglith cannot guide them forward. It cannot answer the questions waiting beyond this space. It cannot become the future that others expect of them. It is a stone furnace with 2 maws and 2 eyes. After all, something built to endure, not to lead. Its flame burns endlessly, but it does not illuminate his path; it only proves that something he can still see.
Devon knows this.
And still, they press closer.
“You won’t leave,” they whisper one night, their voice barely holding together, the words more plea than statement. “Right?” The query feels small, almost childish, but it aches in a way that makes it impossible to take back.
Kinglith remains, as it always does, unshaken, its blue flames twinkling in that same continuous cadence.
Devon lets out a breath they didn’t realize they were holding, a soft, uneven breath, something like a laugh catching in their throat but never perfectly forming; their body relaxing into the certainty of that answer. There's relief in that realization, sharp and immediate. Because if Kinglith cannot speak, then this moment cannot leave…
It cannot be judged,
cannot be misunderstood,
cannot be turned into something else.
It can stay exactly as it is. Because if something stays, then maybe they don’t have to go.
And if they don’t have to go, then they don’t have to face what’s waiting beyond this moment, beyond this serenity, beyond this carefully constructed quiet. Because relying on something that cannot fail feels easier than trying to become someone who might.
“Only you, can be my savior,” Devon repeats yet again, but this time the words feel different, heavier in a way that settles deeper into their chest “Only you can save me.” They repeat, and this time they carry something more than comfort. Something closer to dependence. Something closer to a decision that has already been made without fully understanding what it costs.
Kinglith’s flame burns on, unchanged, eternal in a way that Devon cannot be. It will not grow. It will not falter. It will not leave. And Devon, pressed against something that will never ask them to become more than they are, allows themselves to stay there, suspended between what is and what could be.
Inside, nothing changes.
And the stillness begins to feel less like safety—
and more like being stuck.
.
For eternity.
.
For, The King of The Hill.