Peace of Mind
A FF9 Fanfiction
By Penultima
From our position at the side of his throne, both of us know there's much more than morning's beauty spinning in his head. Both of us, that is me and Alexandrian Knight Steiner, or Lord of Excalibur as they name him. He doesn't let it show. As soon as we approach he smiles, and comments on how grim our faces are set in a beautiful day. He's gone mad. Losing a piece of his sanity and his wholeness to the sky as he watches it everyday. As his friend, I direly detest the official papers and other things he must take care of even in his grieving. But as his subject, I have naught to say.
To the point, he's not willing to let people help. Almost at the edge of my temper, I shouted at him, telling him if he'd helped people, why was it so hard to be helped. He stared at me, with a gaze I'd never seen in him before, and suddenly his eyes are among all those other Genomes—those empty vessels—as if he'd been lowered to only one of them.
It's not in our position to interfere, but once in a while when guards were up in the dead of night and patrolled the corridors, one could see a figure running down the halls, up, down, back, forward. With no direction, just running until there was nothing left to spend. All drained of life, giving up. Neither of us said anything. We ordered the guards to stop their foolishness at one, and left the matter a mystery. Only it wasn't.
Who knows how many nights he has spent awake, pacing the halls as if searching for a lost treasure? Who knows what devils embrace him in the night and make him want to scream?
Who knows what kind of barrier there is that never makes him want to cry?
She didn't need to say anything. The soft fall and rise of her clothes and the barest clink of her sword against its belt was enough to alert him. Yet again he was nearly asleep reading papers. His eyes quickly opened though, when he saw her from the corner of his half-opened eyes. He smiled, almost naughtily, a twinkle playing in his eyes.
"Mind if I take an early retreat, Lady Rose? My mind is elsewhere today." To put it more easily, let me leave so I can go and steal from someone's pocket. Not that it would bother the person much. It was just a hobby, reliving his memories of a time long gone past. That victim would find his money under the chimney somehow, one time or another. And Beatrix couldn't care less. At the sight of her face the king's smile receded to a thin frown.
"Sire..." She lowered her head, curls falling gently like a fountain of water, eyes lowered to meet the ground as she mustered up her courage. "There's something wrong with you—we all notice, you know." She adds, quickly so he has no time to reply. She raises her eyes to meet his distracted gaze. "Please, I'm begging you, let us help.—In any way possible." She could not believe this, she was so close to actually stuttering. He seemed to notice, but kept his face straight and devoid of any humor whatsoever.
"Alright." He stood, and walked off to one side, away from his Rose Knight, "come sit here," he motioned to the chair with his finger. Without much question she obeyed, anticipating some sort of trapdoor or what to suck her down the floor. A malicious grin takes over his nearly innocent face, "and do the papers."
Just as quickly he was gone. Beatrix watched, dumbfounded, looking at the silken curtains still billowing backwards from his passage.
"Your Majesty!" she nearly screamed, "Are you mad?!" when she pushed the cloth out of the way, the king was not falling the mile it took to get to the bottom. He was gone.
Away, perhaps, to run free somewhere and let go of what was inside of him. Running until there was nothing left in him; no tears, no sorrow, nothing.