Notes:
-This is post-Minster Monday, so Noon former Dusk.
-In the end of Mister Monday it seemed that Monday had gotten better and was ashamed of his behavior.
The Sun at Midnight
Dusk doesn't call him little brother anymore. The last time might have been a few centuries after the Architect's Will was broken, when things were still holding together.
Noon had thought that with the Will restored, things would go back to normal. That they have not rankles, although he knows it is his own fault. It was too much to wish that Dusk would understand that he did not mean offense.
These days a lot of things rankle. They are little things, but they pile up and up.
The heir does not show up. There is this Dame Primus, who wields the Keys he conquers. She stretches out between realms, and the Lower House is hardly better than it was before. Where once Mister Monday was too lazy, now Dame Primus is too busy.
Noon resents this, although he knows better.
More than that, his siblings hate him. Most of all Dusk, who will speak to him only when he must (and then he says some things that Noon can barely listen to and yet can't prevent, because he thinks that Dusk deserves this). Dawn as well has grown apart. She walks with Dusk, and together they stand that small distance away that means that they are not a family anymore.
But mostly it is the work, the plenipotentiary powers he inavertedly gained which have not been redistributed between the three of them. After all, the new Dusk is untrustworthy, and his sister, while marginally better, has lost all will to help. Noon had wanted the power, but now he finds himself swamped in work that is too much for him. There is so much wrong that he doesn't know where to start, feels guilty for neglecting business when he is trying to help elsewhere.
Now he only wishes to slink back into the shadows. The light of the sun doesn't suit him, its heat burns in a way he has come to abhor. As it rises Noon thinks only of the work that is waiting, how tired he is, how hopeless the situation.
More than anything, he feels guilty about Monday. The man who was his master is returned, but he is not the master any longer. Now he is without name, and sits in the corner of his dayroom reading. He is always kind, like he used to be, and he is grateful to Noon. It makes him feel guiltier; this is the master Noon had once adored, and now he is reduced to nothing.
He wishes he had the courage to ask Dusk to trade positions back. He watches his brother wear his uniform and thinks how strange it looks for Noon (no, Dusk) to wear black when he radiates light in a way that Noon cannot. It feels awkward for him to stand in the sunlight, to be the leader after eons of following his glowing older siblings.
He had thought, mistakenly, that if only the Will were done things would return to the way they were when the Architect was still among them. Instead he has lost his master, his brother and sister, and the Lower House is little better for it.
The Heir does not return. The Kingdom crumples.
And Monday's new Noon wishes he were Dusk again.
END
I dunno, I was just thinking that it seems like such a waste of a good system to have one mortal kid rule the entire house... and you know, for someone who's so willing to revolt when he thinks he needs to Dusk must be pretty disappointed with the state of things that he's created... I don't imagine Dame Primus to be handling everything all that well considering she just keeps getting more and more and more work handed to her...