Challenge #2

Title: Knock

Rating: G

Doors weren't for the King. He easily recalled the open archways his fey liege enjoyed: unannounced, unexpected strides through castle arches and maze turns. That set of memories triggered by the up-front view of the hedge walls that made the greener part of the labyrinth. Watching the ugly armored goblins patroling for any stupid prey that wandered in became beyond dull after such time. It was impossible to even talk with the childish fighters. The pot-like helmets didn't allow for him to even guess their words.

But when a longer, slender shadow even briefly passed behind the hedge openings, his spirit peaked. It never was the Goblin King. There was few words to explain how he, he no longer had a heart, could feel it race then break with disappointment.They were a few persistant travelers lucky enough to get this far in clothes that became stranger then the next. The oddest was the young human male in a skirt and sash(1).

He was too proud to admit he re-lived those moments. This day he was trying to recall every detail of the day he and his partner were at the Goblin King's party. Every song the goblins sung; each face; His Highness's graceful movements as he held the babe he'd taken. It was the sounds he had to struggle with. Even memory was fading now that his world was silent.

His partner, who was stationed at the door to his left, didn't appreciate what he still had. The grumbling, mumbling and complaints were blessedly silent to him now, but he had spent years with the man. Enough to easily guess exactly what the unrefined idiot would say. He didn't bother to more then glance in his direction anymore. Just long enough to confirm he too was still where their punishments held them.

Feeling the wooden door shift ever so slightly beneath/behind him. It was the only way to sense time. The rare and unpleasant days another gobin might clean the area weren't with any routine to track time.

Today he imagined the door's movement to be his own body. How he sat back to drink with the other Goblin King's guards as his disgraceful partner played with those riling the chickens up. Stone floor beneath him. Some of the wine on his clothes filled his nose wonderfully. The sense of his comrades touches as slaps and jabs mingled with their converstations.

The babe sleeping in the arms of the fey King as he gracefully moved about His throne room he watched off and on. It wouldn't have done for a chicken to be thrown in His face after all. But as long as the King was content there was nothing a guard needed to do besides keep him that way. He didn't notice the Goblin King move to lounge across His throne seat until he looked up from a funny story (what was the goblin's name?) being told to locate his liege. A panicked moment until he saw Him. The babe sleeping under the mismatched eyes looking at it. That trademark smirk softened a bit as the King surveyed his prize.

Tomorrow he might try and recall the day he met his partner.

Or perhaps the day they angered the Goblin King.

Maybe the first time a traveler knocked upon his door, making his entire head ring.

It was his life now. Left to remember as the unchanging world creeped by like the ugly armored goblins in the hedge maze. Finding some minor amusment in the partner's exasperated faces if he chanced to look.

Starring at the high hedges as if to find a long shadow gracing his sight. Wondering if the whim of the fey King might one day appear before a set of doors and let him see if his memory's imagine was correct.

1) a Scotsman

2) based on the Deaf Door Knocker