If this looks familiar to you -- it should. I'm moving many of my one-shots to this account.

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Never claimed to.

Kings to You

Noble. Have you ever contemplated the true denotation of the word? Noble. When a man defends the honor of a lady, he is noble. When a man puts the life and needs and decencies of another before those of himself, he is noble. That's what we say, anyway. Little Farmer So-and-So took in his deathly ill mother despite his own inadequacies, and we say, "Ah, that was noble of him." I find it quite an interesting contradiction that some people are forced to perform an act to become noble, whereas others are simply born as such.

I am a nobleman. And yet, many would refute that I have yet to do one noble thing in my life. So be it, I suppose. Not everyone can be so fortunate as to be brought into this world already noble. A screaming, red-faced babe with no concerns except his own, and yet a nobleman. I suppose someone could make an argument of lacking justice, but what is there to do? I certainly didn't design the world. If it happens to suit me, then that is my lot.

Forgive me if I disrupt your gentle conscience. I have a tendency to be blunt while making my points, which is a paradox of some sort, I suppose. But what am I to say? I am a king in this world. Parties and teas and genteel people with quiet words are a fierce domain, and I am a ruler. I have a well-exercised politcal muscle and I do not hesitate to flex it. Perhaps you would say that ridding yourself of one person -- of one small entity in my existence -- wouldn't serve to change anything. And yet, I removed Edmond Dantes from my presence ten years ago, and everything has been mobilized ever since.

I have taken his betrothed, an exquiste example of the lesser sex, for my bride. Perhaps you would consider that common of me. I do not think so. I have given her everything she could have possibly wanted; what could Edmond have offered her? A thatched roof? A cow, perhaps? Look at her now. Silk and brocade, diamonds and amethysts ... walls painted gold and an enormous four-poster bed. You cannot deny that I have given her everything. Edmond ought to thank me.

Out of Mercedes has come my son; indeed, my only child, but a son. A physician recommended she not go into labor again, seeing as how the first had nearly ended her life. I took this advise most strictly. I have spared Mercedes my rights as husband to keep her from again becoming impregnated. I have taken to mistresses. Harmless enough. I dare you to find a man of noble blood who doesn't. Marry a delicate woman, and what else becomes a man? Surely he is not left to suffer along with his wife.

I have money. Enough to lay on the tables and flirt with Lady Luck. My wealth will last for generations and generations ... so why not allow a little for my own amusement? I am the living heir, am I not. I can have anything my heart desires. I have taken everything my heart desires. And yet ...

And yet ...

And yet I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in my own perspiration. I am short of breath, and my lungs burn. I open my eyes to the eternal opaquity of night, and there is but one name in my mind, echoing like a voice down stone hallways:

Dantes.

Somehow, despite his exile, despite the lowliness of his pathetic existence, despite his abscense these passed ten years, Edmond Dantes has managed to ... beat me. Well, "beat" for lack of better vocabulary. He has tortured me. Tormented me with the echo of his existence. Why is he still present in my mind, even now?

He tells me, in my nightmares. I meet him in a grassy field, and he stares at me. Still the poor sailor, still the ignorant boy. But he looks me in the eye like an equal. I draw my sword to detroy him, to end this burning anger within me. But he just smiles. He looks me directly in the eye and simply turns the corner of his mouth.

It's as if ... as if he's saying, "Yes, Fernand, you were born a nobleman. Your blood runs a bluer hue than my own. And yet the man I am is a king to your commoner."

In the ghostly world of my nightmare, I fall to my knees, crying.

I am a coward, in the world of my dreams. I am told by the poltergeists of some unknown force of night that my nobility was cheaply begotten. That I might as well be a beggar, for all I've done. So I wake up and set out to prove that I am the emperor of the noble folk of society. I become more ambitious -- touch the arms of more beautiful wives and lay even more extraveggant sums on the table.

I fear I shall never be noble in the way Edmond Dantes was noble. What is to be done? I allow my dreams to haunt me, and wake up the man I was born. Rest in peace, Dantes. Let your spirit rest and cease to haunt me. What do you want me to say, Dantes? You are the righteous one? I am a ... commoner?

This is ridiculous. I am not common! I was born noble. It is up to fools and commoners to find their own nobility.

Kings to you, damn you. Kings to you.