YOUR STORY IS AN OLD ONE, AS OLD AS THE DAWN OF TIME, and it’s been written in every holy book passed down from father to son, from mother to daughter. and the gods spake unto the king and they said to him: the night will pass when you take your son, your only son, whom you love above all earthly things, and sacrifice him on an altar unto us. until then, men will fall in your name, and the night will never cease. when your son is dead by your own hand, only then will they know peace. it is an old story, and it has hung above your head like a sword aimed at the top of your spine from the moment you entered this world, balanced in place by a strand of your mother’s hair and the weight of your father’s grief. you played away your childhood under that sword, unaware of its presence, shielded as it was by your father’s arm, by his cloak, by his love. the responsibilities of the kings who came before you and the kings who would never come after never seemed to touch your shoulders, but death and grief and fire were never too far from your heels; your burden was a different kind of sacrifice, a different kind of ruling, than the kind of your forefathers. to know loss is to watch your kingdom fall, to outlive your father and your mother and the woman you love. to become a king is to become an orphan, crowned with something heavy and cold that looks like loss and sounds like grief, and burns and burns and burns with an achingly chilling fire. your crown became your burial shroud, your throne your tomb. and the dawn rose that morning, and gods spake unto the hearts of men: rejoice, for we have brought back the sun. but the men turned their faces from the gods, and they mourned their little king, and buried him in the cold light of day. // @royalmotif
