[open] From A Hemlock Tree; EVERYONE/MANDATORY

[magnus]

you and I both know that the house is haunted
and you and I both know that the ghost is me

The Gates deserved better than absentee rulers. It deserved better than to become a pawn in someone’s play for power. It deserved more than to become reduced to a chess piece—moved about the terrain of Beqanna without thought for that which made it unique, that which made it special. Since his return, Magnus had watched the kingdom in its slumber once more. He had watched the borders with no one crossing either way—he had watched the Mother Tree sit silently in her own company. And he had mourned. Mourned for what should be but was not. That which almost was but was then forgotten.

He is not surprised when the call breaks out across the kingdom and although he does not come quickly, he also does not unnecessarily delay. Instead, he stretches languidly, rolling his scarred muscles and shaking his wide-jawed head. With the final frost of winter just beginning to dissolve along the kingdom’s border, he could begin to see the first signs of spring. It was beautiful; his favorite season.

He wished he could spend more time enjoying it.

But today is not a day for rejoicing, for languid hours spent under the boughs of the surrounding trees. Instead, today is a day for hard decisions. For proclamations and crowns and dusty thrones. He is quiet as he approaches the falcon-stallion, his gold-flecked eyes carefully blank as he looks around them. “Hello, Zeik,” he says quietly, his voice neutral, rumbling in his throat. For a moment he is quiet, weighing the options and considering what the stallion was asking of Heaven’s few, if any, inhabitants. He had never seen the stallion before he was jerked from this earth; he knew nothing of his moral fiber, courage, or work ethic.

There was nothing on which to judge him.

“I am unfit to weigh in on this decision,” he finally offers, leveling his gaze. “But I serve Heaven and not who temporarily wears the crown so be sure it is a weight you can carry before you take up the mantle.”

MAGNUS

once general. once lord. once king.