The Queen’s Courier - Ch. 3
Depressed King x GN!Reader
cw: Grief, Mentions of Death, Emotional Distress & Breakdown, Thoughts of Suicide, Parental Abandonment, Survivor’s Guilt
divider credits: @saradika-graphics
a/n: This is Part 3 of a series that I’m writing, a masterlist will be created soon
It has been well over two months since your passing. The preparations for your burial have been set and the proceedings are to he carried out later in the evening. I find myself speaking to you again, though I know not if your spirit lingers near. Perhaps this letter will never leave my hand. Perhaps it will be read only by the walls, who have kept my secrets older than I. Still, I must write. For I have met someone. A stranger, yes, but not entirely for it seems you knew them once before. Or rather, they knew you.
They came to my gates out of the snow, a figure cloaked in black and in their might they had slain a nytheris. The very thing that took you from me. I saw them strike it down, their movements as silent as stone, the air itself bending around them. They fought like a memory of war, like someone who had seen the end of the world and refused to let it die.
When the guards brought them to me, I thought at first they were another omen. In that moment, I was still the bitter man forged by grief. Paranoid, lost, and desperately alone. The idea that a single wanderer could destroy what the kingdom’s armies could not felt like mockery.
Folded with care and still carrying your flowery scent. My guards say I fell to my knees when I read it. I do not remember doing so, I only remember your words. Your words, Althea. They were everything. And yet, they broke me anew.
“Do not let grief make you cruel. There is light still in the north, and you must guard it. Forgive the silence between us; it was never distance, only time running out. Live, my love. Live for both of us.”
You always saw the truth before I could. You knew my weakness, my need to clutch pain as if it were proof of your love. And so, even in death, you denied me that indulgence. You sent them, the rogue, the wanderer. As if to say, ‘Dashiell, my love. Enough.’
At first, I could not bear their presence. Their silence reminded me of the quiet that followed your death. But soon, I began to see what you had seen in them. They listen, Althea. Truly. When I speak of you, they do not flinch or look away. They simply remain, steady as a the frost and yet, in their eyes, I see life. Beautiful and enduring. They carry the same strength you once wore so easily. The same patience.
I almost wonder how you gained their loyalty so much so that they braves the wiles of the north to bring me your final message. When they handed the letter to me, they treated it with such care and respect that one would think they were holding a baby. It was then, that I began to see what you had in them.
Two tears stain the parchment. Dashiell blinks his eyes and sighs heavily before looking out the window of his study. The hour is deep into night and the castle hushed but for the sigh of wind along the towers. A candle flickers low, his pen hovering above parchment. Another letter to Althea. He has written many now, some short, some rambling, some so heavy with sorrow he never finishes them. This one has stalled him entirely.
A shuffle is heard in the doorway. He senses movement before he hears it. When he looks up, You stand just beyond the threshold, half-hidden by shadow as if you aren’t meant to be here. Your expression matches; apologetic, uncertain, ready to vanish the moment you were noticed. “The guards are asking for you…” You sign.
Dashiell exhales softly, his face changing to a warm, neutral expression. “You may as well come in,” he says, without accusation. “You’re my guest here, remember?”
You hesitate, then step forward, hands folded loosely at your front. Your eyes flick to the desk, the letter, the familiar seal pressed beside the candle. You glance back at the king. “I don’t mind,” Dashiell adds, gentler now. “Truly.” He gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit. Please.”
You conceded, Placing yourself carefully by his desk near the candlelight. For a moment, neither speaks. The fire crackles low. Dashiell’s gaze drifts back to the letter, then away again. He rubs a hand over his face, suddenly very tired.
“I used to think,” he says slowly, “that if I kept writing to her, I might keep her from fading. As though words could anchor the dead.” He lets out a weak, humorless breath. “Some nights, it feels foolish.” You watch him closely. Their expression is open, unguarded. No judgment towards his words.
“I miss her,” Dashiell continues, the words slipping loose now that he has started. “Not just the idea of her. Not the queen. I miss the sound of her steps in the hall. The way she’d steal my cloak when she thought I wasn’t looking. I miss arguing over nothing at all.” His voice wavers, hie eyes water. “I miss the life I was supposed to grow old inside.”
His hands curl against the desk. “Some days, I wake up and forget she’s gone. And for a heartbeat, I’m happy.” He swallows. “Then the memory of her comes back, and it feels like punishment. I hear the other nobles whispering that all of this should serve to strengthen my resolve but…” He slams a balled fist against the desk and yells out tiredly, “It hasn’t even been a year and this life feels like an eternity without her by my side!”
You consider yourself, your experience compared to his. Your pain compared to his. This man who has been beaten down time and again after the loss of the woman who he wished to grow old with. You imagine the nights he must have spent alone in their once shared bed, laid down, eyes unable to close, tear ducts worn out. It’s a miracle he hasn’t taken his own life just to be reunited with her.
And here you are, first charged with delivering her last words to her love and now living under the roof of her former house alongside said husband.
All these thoughts are disregarded as you rose from your chair, slowly crossing the room and stopping beside the desk, close enough now that Dashiell can see the faint scars along your hands. You lift your hands and sign.
‘I didn’t move on either.’
Dashiell blinks, surprised. “You?” He lets out a weak, humorless laugh. “You survived a nytheris. You’ve crossed half the world.”
Your meets his eyes. Tired and almost cynical. ‘When I had met Alheri…I was dealing with the loss of my mother. My father had left my mother and I when she was in sickness and with no money pay for medicine, she passed soon after. I remember the anger. The white-hot viscera pulsing through my very being. I wished every mind of death upon that man for abandoning us. It was then that I found her. Or rather, she found me. Angry. Hungry. Certain the world had already decided what I was worth.’
‘She did not argue with me, you continue. She did not demand I be different. She fed me. She sat beside me. She let me be silent. And in that silence another feeling crept out of the shadow of my heart. Grief.’
‘Grief for my mother, grief for myself. All the curses I had whispered towards ny father withered and before I even knew it, tears were streaming down my face.’ Alheri, God bless her, rested my head upon her shoulder a d told me: ‘Grief is not a failure of love. It is proof of it.’ Dashiell’s breath catches, ‘I might not have understood what she meant before, but I think I do now. Loving deeply means hurting deeply. And neither is shameful. They are just other forms of one’s love.’
Silence fills the room. A full silence replacing the hollow before it. “She said that,” Dashiell whispers. It isn’t a question. His eyes burn. You nod once.
He lets his head fall forward, resting his brow against his knuckles. When he speaks again, his voice is raw. “I’ve been so tired,” he admits. “Of ruling. Of surviving. Living this life without her…” You reach out, tentative and place a hand over his. Warm. Grounded. Real. ‘You survived because she wanted you to. You still have much left to give.’
Dashiell inhales sharply. “I thought living without her meant I was betraying her,” he confesses, voice muffled. “Like every day I kept going was proof I loved her less.” He lets out a broken laugh, wet with tears. “How stupid that sounds when I say it aloud...”
He squeeze your hand, “She wouldn’t have wanted that. She would’ve wanted me to live. To care. To keep opening my heart, even when it hurts.” You nod. “If you truly wish to honor her, you can do so by protecting and ruling this kingdom in her absence.”
He looks up at you, eyes red, exhausted, but clearer than they’ve ever been in years, and smiles. “Yes. You are right, my friend.” He rises from his chair, being sure to let you take a few steps back so you don’t trip and takes a deep breath. “You said the soldiers were asking for me?” “Yes.” He nods slowly, “I think I am ready. Thank you,” he says, not as a king, but as a man who has finally remembered why he still breathes.
“Of course, my king.” “Please, we are above formalities. Dashiell, please.” “Of course…Dashiell.” The two of you exit the room, and somewhere in the quiet between heartbeats, a silent trust is forged. Stronger than any metal and more powerful than any title.
a/n: Thank you again for reading!
