“She will not accept any marriage proposal I send to her.” The king said, even though I could see he was seriously thinking about our demand.
“She will. As long as she can stop harm from befalling others, she will do it.” Tom declared.
“What about the Staff of Creation?”
“We will give it to her the day before you marry her in two weeks. This is not a weapon any human should possess, but if she believes it is better in your hands, she is free to do whatever she wishes for.”
“Two weeks … that is … “ Short? Yeah, imagine fastening doing everything so that if fitted in a few months. That was short.
“Doable. Do you accept our conditions?” Our conditions were laughable. They were way too easy to fulfil and had no costs whatsoever for him. Thus, he had no reason not to accept. It was either marrying a saint or seeing the destruction of his own kingdom from within and from the outside.
After a little while, he nodded towards Tom who looked back at me. I could only shrug my shoulders because I really didn´t know what this nod was about. It wasn’t a lie, I could see that, but he could have nodded to the fact that it was doable.
“Do you agree to marry her? Yes, or no?” Tom asked once more.
“Yes, I do.” Once again, Tom turned around to me and this time, I nodded. Satisfied, Tom turned around on his heels and strode out of the room, while I naturally followed suit.
“Great, we will stop a rebellion for now and announce what we discussed.” Tom said and opened the door once again. He wasn’t stopped at all, and neither was I as we walked the exact same way back we came here, but this time, we ascended the noble wall and leaned onto the embrasures while the masses roared down below. A few minutes later, a magician approached us and started his strange magic.
“Brothers and sisters of the Worchester Kingdom.” Tom´s voice boomed through the streets below, reaching even those outside the noble district. “First of all, thank you for your numerous support! Thank you for coming here peacefully, thank you for supporting my claim that we all don’t feel treated well! The king and I have discussed our future. We will strive forwards as one nation, not divided between classes anymore, but hand in hand into a brighter tomorrow. But we, we are all incapable of such a feat. We are mortal humans, consumed by our own greed and selfishness, incapable of feeling love to the disgraced, incapable of giving our enemies a hand. One person in particular never showed any signs of that. The saint, our beacon on the horizon, shall lead this country together with the current king as long as she lives! For the king and queen! For the country! For humanities future!” Thunderous applause reached my ears, taking me aback slightly. But it didn´t stop there.
“Saint Lucy! Saint Lucy!” This chant was repeated over and over again, at first quietly and unorganized, but more and more people joined in, spreading it like a wildfire until thousands of mouths all produced the same sounds. And I … I could only stand there and stare. I may have overshot my goal of guiding these humans into the direction I wanted … instead I created something that was way beyond my control already. I did everything I could to be idealized, by those people and I may have become the representation of all their ideals as well.
Kindness, caring, charitable … they could see all of these good attributes in me and even those I never tried to actually present like strength, reliability and so much more.
“Please, we have achieved what we came here for. If the king goes back on his word, we will come back, but for now, it is our time to leave peacefully. Remember, we did not come here to act like barbarians, and I heavily criticise everyone who steals without a justification. So let us leave, my brothers and sisters. Let us re-join our families at home, and let us tell them what we achieved today.” He said and stepped down from the embrasure. He nodded towards the magician who immediately deactivated the voice enhancer magic.
He nodded towards me shortly afterwards and together, we stepped back into the stairwell and crossed the palace grounds once again to the western gate while thunderous applause reached us from behind.
“Please open the door.” The magician who still accompanied us said towards one of the guards who immediately began raising the iron gate. As soon as it was enough for Tom to pass under, we both crossed the line in the ground while looking up worryingly. I doubted the king would try to do something this cheap, but you never know until it hits your head. Luckily, it didn´t and so, we could climb into the unmarked carriage unhurt.
Luke immediately steered the carriage away from the palace further west, away from the bulk of demonstrators who were slowly heading home, away from the royal palace. Surprisingly, I couldn’t see or head anyone behind us as I stuck my head out of the open window, which was probably a great decision from the king´s men. Whatever they sent after us was ultimately fated to die.
“My king, that was indeed great, but also short speech you have given there.” I commented.
“My queen, I feared the king would go back on his word if we loitered around there too long. I do hope it was to your satisfaction though.”
“You did a great job. Remembering these few lines must have been a tedious task.” I said sarcastically.
“It certainly was. You must remember, I am not good at lying.” I laughed loudly at his insanity. He was the best human there was at lying. Even I had a hard time figuring out the truth sometimes if I couldn’t look into his eyes.
