The Everyday, Normal

With the old monarchs back in power, and the princess now Queen, things in Lacren quickly change.

Many kingdoms of the coalition lose interest in this smaller nation’s affairs and return to their usual bickering. A push to mend relations with Pilamine through marriage of Pilamine and Lacrenese leaders stands to rebuff the rest, who still eye Pilamine’s weakened state. Funds invested to the swordsmans’ guild wither, put instead into rebuilding Pilamine and conservation efforts for local buffalo. War no longer hangs in the air. Diplomacy shall reign in this decade.

For all of that, an average civilian doubtful even noticed that their leaders had changed. The transition has not disrupted their routines at all, keeping everything peaceful and mundane. Renard wishes that he, too, could feel that mundanity.

Because his life has remained anything but. He has been formally knighted as Sir Renard Cox, wielder and forger of the blade Kingslayer, whose ingenuity and initiative ended the hexant reign of the Iron King, and freed Lacren with daring heroics. Anyone who knew Renard before this knighting would also know his reputation under his title of Cavalier, but the new Queen seems invested in defending Renard as he is now from suffering by the sins of his past.

Which frankly, feels awful.

It does not feel he has truly earned this position. Rather, it does not feel like he fundamentally deserves it at all. The atmosphere around the castle is far more formal and proper than Renard can bear, and he cannot even say he would sincerely pledge himself to this Queen or any ruler that was not the Iron King. Nor even raise his sword and proclaim, ‘for Lacren!’, knowing that this shout would be in the name of this Queen he does not know. A knight who cannot serve his liege with conviction is nothing, and the tepid affairs of this woman will never stoke Renard to passion.

Fundamentally, Renard’s one proper achievement was running to Pleione and Isen. Renard Cox, otherwise though, is still just a stupid village boy, not trained in propriety or diplomacy like real nobles, nor trained in honour or chivalry like real knights, yet easily swayed into idealistic buffoonery and making horrible choices. He doesn’t belong in this company.

But now that he has the title, he can’t just rescind it of his own accord. With an invitation from the Queen to a noble party next week, too, the pressure to integrate into Lacren’s upper crust is clear. But the only thing he can imagine doing there is announcing, ‘I resign’.

In this weird but definite way, it feels like all the good he has to offer the world is done. He has finished the single thing he needed to do. What is he now here for?

So he skulks through the town, thick with discomfort, and tight with frustration that he can’t untangle. His thoughts persistently drift to asking Pleione for advice, but flash away scared from this track just as easily. Sickness settles on his tongue as civilians blithely gather wellwater and sup drinks at the tavern. He wishes to barge over, knock the cup from their hands, and scream, Stop that! Think of what you are drinking!

Renard sighs, returning to his house. The atmosphere of the castle is too discomforting, so he has moved back into the humbler lodgings he kept as a guardsman. Perhaps that is what he should do. Return to his career as a guardsman, pursue a position as captain of the guard…

Renard sighs again, slumping his arm over his knee, knowing this prospect is not feasible.

He fetches a rabbit from a pen, kills it, and lets its blood into a portable distiller. The blood steadily drains into water as Renard butchers the rest of the rabbit for dinner. He cannot even hold a cup of Lacren’s wellwater without seeing Pilamine faces upon its surface, the shrieking, the screaming, the mounds of pale corpses, the mechanical motion of his arm, and becoming ferociously sick. This alternative of buying animals from the market to drain everyday is expensive, but, otherwise, he would not be drinking anything at all.

Kingslayer sings on his hip with crazed bloodthirst. Incredible how something so objectively dead can feel so alive, spirited as a carnal beast with its ever-present demands: more! More! More! More! Renard finishes his meal and cleans his plates as if strangling them. Only his own self-consciousness around throwing a tantrum at a hunk of metal keeps him from unsheathing Kingslayer, beating it all over the cupboards, and yelling at it to shut up.

Renard marches into his bedroom and tosses the thing onto the bedside table, as though dumping it there were an insult. He settles into bed, less tormented by its urges now that they’re not whispering into his hip.

Even so, Kingslayer’s waiting silhouette locks his throat with guilt, resignation, and dread.

Pleione called Kingslayer incredible — her assessment is completely correct. More so than even slaying the Iron King, which he truly did not even wish to do, the forging of this blade is and will always be the most important thing Renard has done with his life. This is a weapon with unique properties that have proven themselves invaluable against otherwise unconquerable threats. Even after Renard’s passing, the sheer effectiveness of this blade demands that it continue to be used.

Or, as Renard sees it, every second he remains in possession of this weapon, but is not using it, he wastes it. He sins by inaction. He betrays the incredible heights he could be reaching by embracing its power and his own skill. As long as he holds this blade, he can and must only be a swordsman, a bladesman, a knight, a weapon — pointed by a gentler master, to always fight and kill and fight and kill and fight and kill and fight…

And why not? Why not do that? Kneel to the Queen and put his deeds to her name? Fight for this country to the end of his days? Put his soul in the court’s hands?

Renard turns in bed, balling the covers over himself, sickness knotted in his throat.

O bonny under the pear tree, I know she waits for me, rivers run and thunder comes, but still she waits for me… Renard hums the gentle melody of a love song the bards in the local tavern sing, a place he has caught himself going frequently these past weeks, despite taking nothing to drink. Teariness laces through the words. He hiccups, and sighs.

Even as his lids close over his drowsy eyes, and sleep ushers him into its embrace, a clear resolution wisps through his mind:

I cannot do this anymore.