Mirror
)O(
He was constantly told how good a king he was. Constantly praised by his people, his subjects, his nobles, even his enemies. The stuffiest of conservatives looked on his moves with a distinct air of disdain but admitted that they were perhaps the best moves to take. All in all, he was a good king.
It was often said that everything came at a price. It seemed sometimes that being king came at a much higher price than anything else. It took its toll on everything in his life, everything he held dear.
If somebody asked him what being a ruler was about, he would easily tell them it was about sacrifice. The willingness to sacrifice his freedom, will, his very being. The willingness to sacrifice not just himself, but those he love.
Being a king had been about making one hard decision after another. Choosing to kill one half of his people instead of the other. Choosing to cut off his left hand instead of his right. Making not the right decision, but the best one. Forced to be indifferent, to think like a ruler, like a king. To loose human ties and do what must be done.
After so many years, he should have been used to it. He wasn't. Every harsh decision pained him as much as the first he'd ever had to make. Yet that wasn't even the worst part about his position.
In trying to become a good king, he'd lost not only himself but also those around him. He could no longer be simply Jonathan of Conte. He had to always be King Jonathan of Tortall. At first, he had two faces of sorts. A face for his subjects and a face for his friends. With time, the two had blended into one, a single direct face for a king despite who he was dealing with. And that, on top of everything else, was what he regretted the most.
He could remember a time when there was little between him and Thayet but love. A time when they'd agree on everything simply because they adored each other so dearly. That had changed dramatically. Love had dulled into a majestic grace, a silent compromise between two rulers. They had tried at first to keep political life out of their home life, but it simply hadn't worked. Now, the two worked as king and queen, and not husband and wife. It saddened him, as necessary as it might seem.
Jonathan could hardly count the number of people he'd lost. Raoul, who used to be one of his closest friends, now viewed him with a distinct aura of respect and distance. Jon could not say that he didn't help create Raoul's distance, but he had definitely not counted on losing Raoul's friendship. George was another who had retreated from being a mentor to a subject, willing to do his bidding. George, at least, had kept most of his own spunk. Even Gary, one of his best friends, looked up to him perhaps despite himself.
One of the greatest things he'd lost, however, had to be Alanna. The lady knight, the Lioness, his Champion. She was easily the most temperamental person in his court. They'd probably had more conflicts and arguments than him with all his other subjects added together. It saddened him that after all they'd been through together, their friendship would mould itself into something so far from what they had before. He remembered clearly the first time they sneaked into the city together, dressed as merchants; the first time she'd beaten him at fencing, beaming with pride; the first time she caught him cheating on his mathematics homework while she was doing the same thing herself, and promised not to tell if he didn't. The buoyant friendship of their old days was gone, replaced by a normal acquaintanceship, mere courtesy and only a shadow of what used to be.
He was a good king. Truly, he was. But when he looked back, all he could see was that he was utterly alone.
)O(