Author's Note: You guys are the best for not abandoning me the way I have on "consistently" uploading a chapter on here. But, guess what? You know what, I'm pretty sure you'll figure it out why I'm excited. Happy reading! :)
Things were pretty low-key after the first Flynn Rider incident… Well, as "low-key" a kingdom could fall into, but still thrive. Of course, crime still happened –especially thanks to the previously mentioned thief and the Stabbington Brothers- but nothing as kingdom-shaking as the theft of the queen's necklace. Unfortunately, however, Flynn Rider continued to make appearances in the market, and throughout Corona, in the following years.
The Stabbington Brothers were making themselves quite comfortable on wanted posters as well. I always hated going through the wanted poster files we kept; adding biceps and muscles on Ron and his partner as they continued to hassle the kingdom was intimidating, but I preferred that over not only keeping the Flynn Rider criminal file, but adding age to his wanted poster picture. Theft didn't look good on the boy who was now nearing his twenties.
Corona also held brighter things, though. Things like the ever-growing Delaney, ever-intelligent Maximus, the nights on the barracks roof, talks with Murphy, and the quiet fantasizes I hold in my mind about the Lost Princess returning every year all helped normalcy engulf the palace, its grounds, and its workers. I would group the king and queen into that category as well, but the way the twinkle in the king's eyes have yet to reappear or how the queens quiet grins never quiet light up her face, both prove to me that they'll never have complete normalcy as long as their princess is lost.
Even though the other soldiers and I unintentionally created an unspoken code of never actually mentioning it, it silently killed us guarding a royal family that of which hasn't been whole in a very long time. One could tell by the way a maid sighed leaving her weekly cleaning of the princess's unused chambers, how the guards warily stood watch in royal wing and by her door, or when the king or queen (typically individually, though occasionally together, too) crept into the room holding their princess's crown: she'd place a lonely hand on the glass; he'd hang his head in defeat and in loss. Though none of these compared to the atmosphere when the time came for the lanterns to grace the sky once more, year after year.
On the other end of that emotional spectrum, however, resides my dynamic with Gainey and how it's once again shifted. You'd think with my accidental release of Flynn Rider I'd be demoted, or kicked out, or punished somehow, but none were inflicted upon me. Actually, I was promoted, in a sense. Not status-wise, but Gainey gave me more jobs and responsibilities. He'd assign tasks he'd usually ask one of his closer guards to fulfill. I'm not sure if he was making me his personal page or what precisely, but he was lessening on the terse demands towards me. Was this his way of saying I've grown up, or am doing right, or has his conscience finally caught up to him on his treatment of his late best friend's brother? I didn't know, but I didn't mind.
The years slipped into one another, the guards' and my frustration with the crime was steadily growing with the building anticipation for the eighteenth memorial lantern service for the Lost Princess. Eighteen years we've been princess-less, without an heir. The questions of who will inherit the throne were bubbling on an almost daily basis between the palace servants and guards.
"Who will we protect when old age claims the king?"
"Should they adopt?"
"What about another search for the princess?"
"Will we be invaded as our throne dissipates?"
All questions were heavy, but the latter always socked us right in the gut. The Southern Isles were on edge for years, just waiting for a reason to fight us for some reason. A dying king or no heir would be just that opportunity to claim Corona as their own. This thought always caused me to shudder.
"Something amiss, lad?" Murphy questioned my shiver. Once again, I was lazing away my off-duty time in the majesty of the castle's library with the perky librarian.
"I keep on creeping myself out with the thought of the Southern Isles invading Corona," I replied. Our friendship, Murphy and mine, was strong due to our connection with bad legs and infatuation with books, and -like anything with four years of bonding- it'll grow. "But that's just my own antsy-ness getting the best of my thoughts, right?"
"People do desperate things in hard times," he commented through tight lips paired with a stern expression.
"Is Corona approaching hard times?" I questioned the librarian. His mouth was pursed as if something else was bothering him. "Murphy? Are we coming to desperate times in this kingdom?"
"Forget not, lad, that this kingdom isn't the only one in the world, and that a castle on an island is only as protected as the length of the distance one must sail to breach it."
This perked my trained guarding ears. Was a possible threat coming to Corona that Murphy was knowledgeable about but we soldiers not yet aware of?
"Mu-" I began to ask but he held up a hand in silence: abruptly ended that subject. Odd, usually our conversations were open, but Murphy seemed quite fine with closing this one off. I wasn't, though. "What do you mean?" I prodded.
"You're treading on thin ice, Conli," he chastised me. I drew aback. What was his deal?
"What's going on, Murphy? Really going on? You never close off like this," I remarked as I unfolded my flopped legs over a chair's arm, and then stood to better see his face. I was once again taken aback when I noticed graying on his temples. Not significantly, but similarly to the king's in which it was a distinguished grey: well earned and wisdom-dubbed.
"There is more to people than they tell you or what you initially see," he mildly quoted his words previously used on me in past conversations years ago.
"Murphy," I demanded in a stern tone. "Where is this coming from?" I ignored the desperateness in my voice.
"Conli, just drop it," he commanded in a voice just as serious as mine.
"I want to know what's going on with you, my friend!"
"How could you be friends with someone you know nothing about?!"
"What are you talking about? I know plenty about you, Murphy!"
"You know things about me, but not me. There's a difference."
Quiet enveloped us as I didn't know how to respond to his declaration. I didn't know him? Like heck I didn't. I inhaled before I began again, calming my racing mind with the air of books.
"I know you're smart," I quietly said. "I know you're compassionate, and full of life, and hate cold weather because of how it makes your leg hurt. I know you sacrifice for your kingdom. I know you love others more than they deserve it sometimes. And I know that some of these things are about you, but having someone know the things about you doesn't mean they don't know the real you, it means that they took the time to learn your character and quirks."
His shoulders slumped, but his grip on the desk's edge remained firm –evident with his knuckles paling. "It's just…" his voice quivered. "It's been seventeen years since I've been home, and that's a long time to be apart from your family."
"I'm your family," I said the words before I realized they were out, but they were true just the same. He and Bryon and Kiel and Tim and even Gainey were the ones who I held dear in a brotherhood, similar to my regard and admiration that of Nathan.
"I don't think you understand, Conli. Not really."
"I understand it's hard to be apart from the ones you love, trust me, I know. I miss Nathan the same amount as the day he fell down the cliff. The same amount, but just in a different form. It's not a stab in my chest every time I reminisce on his life; sometimes it is, but sometimes it's like a comfort. Being where he loved it most also helps. Of course, I'm on the Guard for me and for serving the royals and my kingdom, but it helps that he was here too. I think that Corona can do that for people: be there in the missing places to make things whole again. Be a bit of everything to everyone," I know I'm mimicking the queen's speech from all those years ago, but it felt needed to be said again.
"I know what you mean," his grin was wobbly. "But sometimes that's not enough. Not when you're just so… far." His voice was quiet and nostalgic –I was afraid to continue the conversation for where memory lane might take him, but it needed to be addressed all the same.
"I'm right here, Murphy. Right here. And so are Bryon and all them, and Corona. We're all right here: your family and home."
"Conli, I love Corona."
"I know, Murphy," I chuckled at his statement.
"No. I love Corona. I'd give up everything for what it believes in and stands for. I have, actually. But as much as I love Corona, I still love my kingdom as well."
"I know, Murphy," I repeated with a grin again, but now paired with crinkled eyebrows in confusion.
"I love Corona, lad, but I also love my kingdom. Corona is not my original kingdom."
My jaw dropped wide. I stared at Murphy's face to see if he was jesting.
"But…wh- Wait, what? Huh?" I finally sputtered out to the librarian. He possessed a sad grin confirming his words.
"I'm not a born Coronian."
"How is that even possible?" I inquired in a dumbfounded tone. Murphy looked at me with a confused expression at my question. "I mean… how can you be serving on the Corona Guard? You must be a native-born to join, I thought."
"My father sent me to Corona on business years ago," Murphy began to explain. "I was suppose to return to my kingdom after a few years of scoping the scene here in Corona, but what I thought what this country was, wasn't accurate –if that makes sense?"
I offered a nod in response.
"Anyway, I knew that I didn't want the lifestyle my father had mapped out for me, and I knew that I wouldn't be welcomed back home because of choosing to disregard my father's orders and original business plan. Then, the Attack with the SIRs happened. The King of Corona knew my father from long ago –they were school mates or partners or studied in the same place or something- and he respected my duties and allegiance to Corona. He knew I couldn't return home, so the King offered me the library position here in the castle."
"Did the King know you weren't of Coronian origins when you joined the guard?"
"After the Attack, he wanted to personally thank me for my 'heroics' or whatever. It was then that I confessed how I was not born to this kingdom, but still more than ready to defend it as if I was. The King decided then to give me citizenship officially when he realized my predicament in returning 'home' to my original kingdom."
"But you still miss it, then?"
"Well, of course," he answered as if it was obvious. I wouldn't know; I've never left the Corona Island except for parts of the forest, let alone embark on a journey to another land. "Wouldn't you miss you parents, harsh as they may be, and brothers, as cumbersome as they can be too?"
"Valid point," I remarked.
"I miss them terribly, and sometimes I let the homesickness for that kingdom overcome my devotion to this one. And I love my family and that land, but I can never return there; it's not where I belong. I've accepted that. I'm no longer that guy of my past. I'm now a librarian in the here and now. Corona, this kingdom, the Royals, you, you guys are my…"
"Family?" I tried to fill in.
"Everything," he shrugged. I smiled at his choice of words, secretly wondering if the queen has given him a talk about what the crown means to her.
"Glad to hear it, bud," I responded as I clapped my hand on his shoulder.
"Thanks for hearing me out, lad," Murphy answered. "I know I belong here, it's just sometimes you got to vent, and with the eighteenth anniversary of the princess's disappearance coming up tomorrow and-"
"Wait," I interrupted. "Eighteen years is tomorrow?" Murphy nodded, I think. I can't be sure because I was sprinting out of the library.
"Something amiss, lad?" Murphy hollered.
"I totally have crown guard duty this morning at seven!"
"Ya best be getting to it, then," he called with a chuckle. I ignored the fact that he was finding humor with it being 6:58 and I had to cross the entire palace to be on guard.
I dashed through the halls as diplomatically and rapidly as possible to my station in the room with the crown. Breathlessly, I entered the room and skidded to my space. Bryon raised an eyebrow in question at my lateness and Kiel hide a snicker behind an obviously faux cough into his thick elbow. I was a minute tardy, but Gainey wasn't in the room thankfully; thus, I might get off without reprimand from the Captain.
Although I had Bryon and Kiel, time passed boorishly. Daytime guards aren't allowed conversation unless it pertains to their post –this helps with the flow of the castle, I'm told. We are to be seen, never heard from, as guards for the Royals. In evening duties and less royal-traffic areas, light conversation usually strikes up with guards and servants.
I glanced at the clock ready for lunchtime and ended up stifling a groan: it was only eight in the morning. This was going to be a very dreary day. A slight ruslting behind me proved my thought further as I concluded that it was a nearby guard shuffling to stay awake and on point. Suddenly, a sense of needing to sneeze, like when I was in the stables or with horses, possessed my awkward nose.
"Ac-hoo!" I huffed.
"Uh, hay fever?" a voice behind me asked considerately.
"Yeah," I acknowledged with an apologetic smile in hopes I wouldn't get us in trouble for talking.
Wait. Wait a minute. That voice. That position of that voice. I spun around. No. Way.
Eugene –Flynn Rider- was strung on a rope clutching the invaluable, irreplaceable, expensive, and everything that the Royals and kingdom represent: the Lost Princess's crown.
But what socked me in the gut, however, was the message he sent me with this thievery: Do you think anyone would leave a guy who has everything? He was making sure that no one ever left him ever again, and I was the reason for it. He wanted vengeance on the way I treated him that day in the palace's grounds when I scolded him, and how else would one want to get back at a royal guard who gives their life to the duty and service? Steal the most precious and sacred item, of course.
"W-wait," lamely I responded as the scene clicked in my head. "Hey, wait!" again I demanded of the thief. But he was gone. Flynn Rider not only took the crown, but he erased what he is to me. And in that moment he was no longer Eugene... instead this thief, this Rider... who he stole my everything.
Author's Note: See why I was excited? FINALLY I AM IN SYNC WITH THE MOVIE'S TIMELINE. Sorry it took so long! But thank you for remaining faithful! God bless! :)