The King's Collie

Part V, Chapter 15: Of A Dusk's Breeze

Felix woke up to more of this awful light in his window. He hadn't gotten out of bed since he came back to the castle yesterday, having fallen asleep before he could even get dinner. How long did he sleep? It must have been longer than usual, from the mid-afternoon to what must have been the early morning. He wearily got out of bed, and got dressed.

He lingered in the wardrobe for a while, sighing. "Cameron," he asked, "what's taking you so long getting dressed today?"

He froze, in shock, from the hallucinations of his waking delirium.

This was indeed how he lived, in the absence of his canine husband. He felt as though he was being haunted, both physically and mentally. It wasn't the kind of haunting that would leave a person frightful, like what Afon did. It was subtle. Perhaps, even, just a product of Felix's grief, rather than any direct ghostly intervention, though it surely was potent if so.

He sometimes felt Cameron's tail brush against his side. He sometimes heard a harpsichord playing in the hall. He thought, even, that he'd heard the knight's voice call for him, in the later afternoon, and tried to see where it was from. It didn't frighten him, at least not any more than the initial shock. It only made him long further for his presence. He would kill, even, to feel his smaller, softer embrace. He would conquer an entire nation, if the reward were to be just one more love song from that collie's throat.

He remembered a few lines of one of his favorites, humming it to himself.

Marco watched as the King passed by. He saw that what had once been an absence of guilt had now turned into an abscess of it.

—

Dinner, nowadays, was silent. Only Felix, Marco, and Lætitia remained. And the King's remaining company of the king wasn't exactly so fond of him. Marco, as much as he saw that the King was guilty and overcome with grief, still regarded him a traitorous murderer. Lætitia was still too stunned to comment on any of it, simply trying not to get herself into hot water while she made sense of it.

"Could you pass the salt, Marco?" Felix asked.

"No," the wolf replied.

"Please?" the King softly asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

Marco took the salt-mill, and chucked it against the wall. The wood smashed, and the white beads of salt scattered across the floor.

The king stood, heaving. "I'm only trying to eat," he groaned.

"I CAN'T BELIVE YOU RIGHT NOW!" Marco shouted at the top of his lungs back, and took a stand. "YOU EXPECT ME TO HAVE DINNER WITH SOMEONE WHO— WHO BURNED MY BEST FRIEND AT THE STAKE!" he shook as he sobbed.

"I was following the word of—" Felix tried to excuse himself, but faltered, knowing it was no good excuse.

"The word of IAGO, was it now?!" Marco growled back, baring his teeth as tears ran down between them. "I KNEW IT WAS HIS IDEA! But I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE EMPTY ENOUGH OF A SPACE IN YOUR SKULL WHERE YOUR BRAINS SHOULD BE! HOW ELSE, OTHERWISE, WOULD YOU LISTEN AND ACTUALLY FOLLOW THROUGH?"

"I was scared, Marco," the lion emphasized. "Scared of what would happen to Valentia."

"—AND NOT FOR YOUR HUSBAND?!" the wolf roared out now, rivaling the lion, the natural king of roaring. He quieted down, as he explained: "I once considered it a great privilege to eat here. To sit with the King as he dined, to know the presence of our graceful ruler divine. I was so glad when Cameron convinced you to let me sit with you, after my tenure of being your head musician."