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thewatercolours · 5 months

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King's Quest Ficlet: "Candlelit Chat"

Ken found the new queen beneath the table in the great hall.

It took him a good while before he spotted her. Naturally, it was the tabletop that struck him first, littered with so much brik-a-brak it looked like a museum display case. Which wouldn’t have been terrible – Ken had once considered museum work before he took up the old armour and polish – but in this case it looked more like a display case after a hurricane and earthquake combination.

He sniffed disapprovingly. A dozen mismatched candles assaulted his nose with scents more confused than the Hobblepots’ shop. With so many, you wouldn’t have believed there was any need for twisting candelabras as well, but they had their place too, so many they felt more like watchfires than ambient lighting. Was this the reason while all the wall sconces had been doused dark? The tallest and twistiest dripped wax onto a stack of well-thumbed books. Inkwells of different colours were scattered here and there. One seemed to have upset, judging by the pile of napkins, still wet with green. And as for papers – well, they were reason enough for Valanice to have chosen the grand table rather than her own desk. Loose, stacked, overlapping. Blank, blank except for a line or two, one full page scratched out. Doodles galore, and one paper with circles and spirals whirled all over it. Several with bullet lists. And many, many crumpled and spilling onto the plush red carpet.

Looking down at them was what made the guard notice the purple slippers sticking out from under the table.

Ken cleared his throat. “Madam?” Fully aware that she could probably see little more than his toes, he gave a sharp salute stamp with an ankle turn. Plausibly, it was the most visible way to show respect. More accurately, it was a chance to stamp at the queen for turning the throne room into the aftermath of a toddlers’ craft day.

“Oh!” came an embarrassed voice, followed by an overwrought giggle. The slippers slid out of view beneath the tablecloth. “Um, don’t mind me, guard. Just doing a project. Chasing inspiration, as you do. Sometimes it takes you strange places.”

“Everything shipshape down there?” Ken asked stiffly.

“Oh, more or less,” said the queen, a mite too cheerily.

“Can I be of assistance?”

“Oh, no, no! I’m fine! Peachy!”

He waited, but she said nothing more. “Very good, madam,” he said, and clamped his lip firmly shut to avoid adding a comment about the mess. He turned on his heel. Then he heard a hiccup and a loud, messy sniff.

Was Valanice crying? Ken crouched (always a tricky business in steel greaves) and lifted the edge of the tablecloth to peer beneath.

The queen sat wrapped in a yellow dressing gown, with her red hair tumbling over her hugged knees. She met his gaze with a grin and rolled her eyes. “Welcome to my cave.”

“Are well? Your eyes are rather red.”

She shrugged. “It’s only that I’ve been up late every night.”

“You are quite certain you’ve not been crying?”

Valanice hid her hands in her sleeves and began drumming her fingers nervously against each other through the fabric. “Actually I stopped crying at least half an hour ago. It’s just… not my coziest night since I arrived in Daventry.”

“Should I fetch the king?”

“No. No,” she said hurriedly. “He’s up to his ears in work tonight. And I’ve already been whining to him and he’s been lovely about it. And I don’t want to let him in for another round of it.”

Privately Ken doubted Graham prefer his bride hiding under furniture and weeping to simply talking it out again, but Valanice didn’t stop to let him interject.

“It’s not even anything big. It’s just. I’m sorry – do you want a seat? Plenty of chairs to choose from.” She wiped her misty eyes with her sleeve.

Ken shook his head. “I’d prefer to stand, if it’s all the same.”

“I might have known. Suit yourself.”

He wound the end of the cloth round a chair spindle, so he could see her without holding it up, and stood a little farther back so they were better in each other’s line of sight. Inside his helmet, Ken chewed his moustache. Though he didn’t think of himself as heartless, he sincerely hoped the tears would not return. What was the protocol on something like this? Probably he’d just get Graham whether she wanted him or not.

He had never quite been able to make heads or tails of how he ought to interact with this new addition to the royal household. It wasn’t because she was a woman, he felt certain. He got along like a house on fire with Roberta and the other female guards, as well as the townswomen. Nor were her manners alien. If anything, she sometimes seemed like a redheaded clone of Pockets, with her wild longing for adventure, her starry-eyed bouts of enthusiasm, and her awkward genuineness.

Perhaps it had more to do with how Queen Maylie’s reign alongside King Edward still felt so vividly recent to Ken. Never mind the twenty years since her death, give or take. He’d always had an amber memory. It had taken him years to default to thinking of Graham as king. He suspected it might take even longer to convince his reflexes that this dewy girl was really queen, however he might know it intellectually. And until those reflexes learned their way, he suspected chats with her were going to be a little cumbersome.

“The worst of it is that I know I’m being silly,” she murmured, “and know exactly how I ought to be handling it – but doesn’t quite translate. I’m not even sad, properly speaking. I just had a million things to get done on a short time frame and… Well, it’s just one of those days when I’ve missed a lot of sleep, and my mind mistakes it for sadness. Then it tries to figure out why I might be sad.”

Ken nodded. “And let me guess. It tries everything even remotely sad in your life on for size, even things that aren’t a problem right now, and suddenly – “

“Just so. Suddenly it’s all about all of them.” Valnice interrupted with a wan smile. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I have had similar conversations with the king on occasion.”

That got a laugh from her. “Of course you have. Well, watch out, I may be about to spill everything.”

Remembering those discussions with Graham put Ken in mind (thank the shining stars!) of something he might say to suit the situation. “Since exploring all of them is only making it worse right now, what’s bothering you most right now?”

For the first time, she seemed hesitant. For all her assertions that she was being silly, she had seemed eager to talk until now. She took a deep breath. “Um. I’m frustrated because I don’t seem to be able to… um… be very creative right now.”

Again, a good thing he was wearing his helmet. None of this was coming naturally to Ken, and now this. He had expected something like the silly things that fretted her husband: overanalyzing an interaction, self doubt over ability to rule, nightmares. If lack of creativity was the worst of her problems, he could only say she’d had it very easy indeed. But he couldn’t say that, of course.

“I know what you must be thinking.” She nearly blushed to match the carpet. “She could get through being kidnapped and imprisoned by a witch, and she’s crying about this? And I know that intellectually. But right now my mind has decided that the reason I’m off-kilter is because I haven’t written to my mother in months. It’s not so much that I feel guilty as that I keep trying, and I can’t seem to put my mind to it. I sat at that table for literal hours. Everyone always tells me I write incredible letters. I don’t just tell my news. I age the paper, and make sketches in invisible ink, and have all these different characters who are responsible for telling different parts of the letter. And I just can’t do it right now. I’m so exhausted. And I’ve been so tired for months, it sometimes feels like. I mean it’s been wonderful! I haven’t been unhappy! In fact I don’t think I’ve been unhappy till just now. I’m so, so happy with Graham, and I love Daventry, and being married, and all the newness, and I’m being so, so stupid.”

Valanice’s words poured out faster and faster. She wasn’t looking at him, but alternately looking at her own lacing and interlacing fingers and some space far off in the distance. “And, and it’s not just the letters. I used to be a pretty good painter. I know you saw the avocado one. Don’t judge me on that one. I’ve actually done some that people really loved. And sometimes I compose for the lute, and all this has always been a huge part of who I am.” Her volume rose, and now the tears were certainly back. “And when I’m feeling down, what they always tell me is, ‘But you’re so creative!’ And I haven’t been in ages, and I feel like a fake. And I thought, ‘Don’t be down on yourself – you’ve just been busy with the wedding and settling in and everything! Everything that’s filling your life right now is so good, and you should be grateful, and soon you’ll have time again, and the creativity will come back!’ And probably it will, but every time I make time for it, it won’t come, and I just end up wasting time on things I don’t even really enjoy! I just love making beautiful things. I enjoy it. And I feel like I’ve lost that part of myself by not prioritizing it, and – I’ve been talking a long time and getting very loud, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Ken nodded, and nodded again. What was he to say after all that? Strangely, there was something that felt relatable in all of it, though he felt sure that had not got a creative bone in his body. Where was the relatability? He wasn’t sure, and heaven knew, he wouldn’t be able to place it before the silence grew too long. And that might be disastrous in her current state. So he went with the next best option. “And you told Graham about all this?”

She nodded. “He understood. And I felt better after we talked.” She was clearly trying hard to get her calm, even tone back. “Which is why this feels so ridiculous. I’ve already talked it out. But I’m still stringing it out. Maybe I just want to be miserable deep down, and I pull everyone else into it.”

Suddenly, he knew what to do. Ken found himself leaving his self-appointed post, and pulling a chair from the side of the table, close to the mouth of the “cave.” He leant over and placed a hand on her shoulder, as gently as he could in gauntlets. “I don’t pretend to know what to say, but Your Majesty, but I want you to know it doesn’t bother me that you’re telling me about it.”

Valanice met his gaze surprisingly well, considering she presumably couldn’t see his eyes. “You don’t seem very comfortable, and I don’t blame you.”

“I’m not comfortable. Because I want to say the right thing, and I don’t know what it is. But I am your sworn guard, madam. I find purpose in being there for Daventry’s royalty whenever they need me. In all honesty, Guard Number Two likely would know better how to be here for you in this particular situation, but I am here, and he is not. And -” (Did he really just say that? He gritted his teeth. Good stars above, but he was bungling this.)

She smirked. “It’s all right. I don’t quite know how to dig myself out of everything I just told you, and you don’t have to dig yourself out of that. We’re really not very good at this, either of us.”

“I should say not.” (Zards, zards, he was bungling this!)

They sat for some time in silence. A few of the tea lights doused themselves in hot wax. At last Valanice crawled out. She regarded the tabletop gravely. “Can we – can I take care of this in the morning?”

Ordinarily he would say no, but how could he under the circumstances? “Of course, madam.” He bowed.

“Thank you.” Before he could stand up straight from the bow, she closed the distance between them, and planted a kiss on the crown of his helmet. “Thank you, guard. I can’t believe how much that helped.”

What? Helped? That?

“I’m going to find Graham now. I am feeling a lot better now. Good night.” Valanice hurried from the room, pulling her dressing gown close about her.

He wasn’t sure Valanice even knew for certain which guard she had been talking to. And he really didn’t believe he had said the right things at all. But somehow, it had helped anyhow?

Ken began blowing out the candles.

#Thanks for encouraging me just to write something #friends.#:-D #king graham #king's quest #fanfic #my writing

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