"Cor."

Marshal Cor Leonis looked up from the list of names laying on the desk before him. In the doorway stood Clarus; Cor couldn't fight the little bit of hope that sparked at the sight of his old friend—not that he would have ever admitted it. If he had thought ten years ago—and he had—that standing at the head of the Crownsguard was going to be anything but paperwork, he had been sorely wrong. Just one more thing he was never going to admit.

"Clarus," Cor said, straightening. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I am sending Regis to visit some people in hospital. He'll need an escort, and I expect you'll want to be at the fore." Clarus cut straight to the chase, but Cor's mind stuck on those first few words.

"You are sending him," he repeated, though they both knew full well that was what Clarus had said.

He didn't miss the hesitation that crossed Clarus' face, as if he hadn't meant to say it that way at all. Clarus glanced at the door and took another step into Cor's office. "That is, more or less, the case. He hasn't set foot outside the Citadel since the queen's death and I harbor some vain hope that it might help."

Cor folded his arms over his chest. "You hope it may help, or you hope it may remove him from court so you can stop dancing around him?"

Annoyance flashed on Clarus' face. "All of the first and none of the second. I don't dance around him in court."

"That doesn't match with what I've heard," Cor commented. "How long has it been? Six weeks? Has he done anything with Phoenix, or has that been entirely you?"

His words struck a chord, perhaps because they were the truth. Six weeks and the king was still behaving as if his wife had died just yesterday. He hadn't made an inch of progress, as far as Cor could see; he still sent every meal back to the kitchen half-eaten; he still prowled the corridors at night, sleepless; he still sat in court with that distant look in his eyes, like he was miles away. Cor and Weskham were of no help to him. They hovered like old maids, rushing to cater to his every need and held hushed conferences whenever Regis was out of earshot.

"Sometimes you make it very easy to forget how young you are," Clarus said, his voice sharp. "This is not one of those times. I don't wish it on you, but I expect, unavoidably, someday you will experience loss as Regis has. When that day comes I hope those who stand by you are more forgiving than yourself. For now, please organize an escort to take His Majesty to Reliqua Hospital in three days."

He turned on his heel and left without another word, leaving Cor to wonder if he had overstepped his boundaries. Eventually he shook his head, pulled out his chair, and sat down at his desk. Perhaps he would experience loss like that someday. It seemed reasonable to expect, given his age with respect to his friends', and his profession. But he had a hard time envisioning himself turning into an indecisive mess in that event.

Five weeks, six days and—Regis checked the clock on the dashboard—seven hours since he had held her hand and pled, pointlessly, not to be left alone. He still hadn't gone back to the room since that first night, still hadn't slept in that bed. Clarus insisted he was doing better in court, but to Regis it seemed a white lie: well-meaning, perhaps, but ultimately worthless.

Now he was sitting in the Regalia for the first time in months, watching the gates to the Citadel close behind him as Cor hit the accelerator.

His faithful bodyguard had been characteristically silent all morning. Indeed, Cor had spoken very little to him in comparison to how much everyone else seemed compelled to fuss over him. It might have been refreshing, but there was an intensity in the silence that rang out over what should have been a comfortable car ride.

"You think me a fool, Cor?" He asked at last. It wasn't an accusation, just a question.

"Sire?" Cor's eyes flicked toward him in the mirror.

"For all the stumbling about in the dark I have done these past weeks. I feel a fool," Regis said, his tone quiet as he looked out the window, watching the people they passed on the streets through tinted windows. Pedestrians stopped and pointed to his car as it sped past; they couldn't see him, but they knew he was there. "Am I?"

Cor was nothing if not honest, sometimes to the point of being blunt. Regis couldn't have asked Clarus or Weskham; they would have said no, even if the answer was yes, but Cor… Cor would tell him.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Cor said at last.

Regis nodded. "I suspected as much."

If only Cor's stoicism also held the answer to how to stop being such a fool.

"I have never fought a foe I could not engage…." Regis trailed his fingers over the smooth leather trim on the inside of the Regalia. "Either with blade or word. This one responds neither to force nor to reason. Yet I must defeat it all the same."

"You must do your duty," said Cor.

"My duty…" Regis tapped his fingers against the seat. That was what it all came down to, wasn't it? It was all he strove for, yet for the past weeks he had found it out of his reach, no matter how he strained. 'Cannot', however, was not an option.

"I will find a way, Cor," Regis said, looking up at last. "There is no other option."

Cor met his gaze for an instant in the mirror and gave the tiniest nod before his eyes dropped back to the road.

"And you will push me when I falter." It was more a request than an observation. "I have far too many people standing about wringing their hands over me."

"Yes, Sire," Cor said, and Regis thought he heard the barest hint of approval in his tone.

The Regalia pulled up in front of the hospital. It was an old building on the edge of the business district: grey stone and creeping ivy, with a likeness of The Oracle guarding its doors. Strictly speaking, there shouldn't have been such a thing as a nicer or poorer hospital in Insomnia: the Crown guaranteed health for all of its subjects and that meant that equal healthcare was available anywhere inside the Crown City. There were, however, such things as nicer parts of the city. This wasn't one of them.

A small crowd had gathered by the time that Cor opened the door for him—which happened, not because Regis had anything against opening doors all by himself, but because Cor had something against Regis opening doors in unpredictable areas. Apparently, this counted as one of those.

In addition to Cor, and in separate cars from the pair of them, the king was accompanied by a small retinue of crownsguards and one attendant. He had left Weskham in the Citadel to see to matters with Clarus in his stead, though Regis had little doubt they would be more effective without him. For his purposes, today, he really only needed someone with a list of names, but he had brought along a trusted retainer, Avunculus Scientia.

"Avun," Regis motioned to him as the latter climbed out of the car behind the Regalia.

"Sire, I have what you asked for." Avunculus hurried to his side, drawing a ledger from the inside pocket of his coat. "I have been advised that there are three hundred patients here still being treated for symptoms of hazardous waste exposure. If you intend to see them all in the four hours that Master Armaugh has scheduled, it leaves less than a minute per person. Approximately forty-five seconds each, in fact."

Regis' brow furrowed. That didn't seem right, but he couldn't put his finger on whether or not a change had actually been made since his last update, or if he had just not been paying attention. "Three hundred?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. There were planned to be fewer, but it seems that transfers have been made in an effort to consolidate them; the vast majority of exposure victims who remain in hospital are now housed here."

So it was a change of plans, then. Regis considered. Or he tried to, anyway, while the dark little voice in the back of his mind whispered the forbidden word.

Cannot.

At the top of the shallow set of steps leading up to the hospital doors, the hospital administrator was waiting for them with a handful of her staff, and Regis was standing in the middle of a knot of crownsguards who kept the rapidly growing crowds at bay, hesitating once again. This time there was no Clarus to fall back on. This time there was no one to smooth over the awkward hesitation as he tried to decide what the best course of action was between an undetermined number of options.

"Your Majesty?" Avunculus was still waiting for some sort of input. Everyone else was waiting for Regis to make some move—any move at all.

"Regis."

Cor stepped in front of him, blocking off everything else. His face was set in that perpetual scowl that he usually wore. There was no soft empathy like Regis had come to expect from Clarus and, though he had told Cor to push him just moments before, he missed its absence.

"Make a decision," Cor said, his tone matching his face, though he kept his voice low to prevent behind overheard. He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, but how was Regis supposed to choose when he didn't even know what the choices were? Every time he tried to think it was like hitting his head against the inside of a glass cage. Painful and pointless.

I cannot do this, whispered the hopeless voice in the back of his mind.

"No one is going to do it for you. So you make a choice and you live with it. Any choice. Move on," Cor said.

Any choice.

Cor hadn't told him to make a good choice, or even the best choice. Just to make any choice.

Regis set his jaw and forced himself to stand a little straighter.

Can, he thought defiantly back at the sniveling voice.

"How many still in other hospitals, Avun?" Regis said, pulling his eyes away from Cor and looking instead at his attendant. Cor didn't move, remaining just a step away in case he needed to beat further sense into him.

"A few dozen at the most, Sire."

A few dozen could be visited in an afternoon, which freed up whatever other time Weskham had scheduled for hospital visitation in the future. For the life of him, Regis couldn't recall if there was such time scheduled or, indeed, if he had been told of it, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that he made a choice and make it now.

"Have Weskham reschedule the rest of my day. Clarus has my vote on the council and my place in court; that should suffice for one day. Other matters that I must see to personally can be done tomorrow," Regis said.

"Then you intend to see them all, today?" Avunculus asked, drawing his phone from his pocket without hesitation.

"I do. And more than forty-five seconds of them, as well," Regis confirmed.

"How long, Sire?" his attendant inquired as he hastened to find a number for Weskham on his phone. "They will want to know when to expect your return."

"Three hundred people, stretched a few minutes each is easily twelve hours." Regis did a few hasty sums in his head and it seemed about right. Somehow, in spite of the fact that he hadn't had a good night's sleep in more than six weeks, he didn't balk at twelve hours on his feet. "Tell them not to expect me until ten, at least—and that I expect Clarus will be long gone, by that time." He added the last with certain severity. Clarus had a family. He had no business sitting around waiting for Regis to return to the Citadel at all hours of the night.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Regis turned to mount the stairs. He caught Cor's eye as he stepped back, and thought he saw that hint of approval once more. It wasn't until then that Regis fully registered what he had done.

He had made a decision. Bad or good, it hardly seemed to matter beyond that he had done it. He hadn't hidden behind Clarus or anyone else. He had done it. And all the 'cannot's and 'impossible's crumbled away under that knowledge.

Can, he thought, conclusively, stepping past Cor and up the stairs to meet with the hospital staff.

The day proceeded predictably enough from there. Perhaps his declaration that he would be absent for twelve hours threw the Citadel into uproar, but Regis never heard about it. He met with person after person, methodically, stopping in the hall between rooms to have a hasty conference with Avunculus on the topic of whom they were to visit next. After the first hour or so they had the routine securely down. He learned names and key information from his attendant, entered to have a brief and personalized encounter with the person or persons inside the room, and moved on a few minutes later to repeat the same again.

And so it went, room by room, floor by floor, hour after hour. In each room he met new faces and heard new stories. In most there was tragedy. Many were concerned about their homes and their neighbors, their pets, their families, and their livelihoods. The only thing Regis could do was listen and assure them that everything that could be done was being done. At the very least he could offer the comfort that their jobs were secure.

It was impossible to fit 300 faces, names, and stories into his head and keep them there. Regis had begun the day with the knowledge that, at the end of it, it wouldn't remember a large percentage of the people he had spoken to in the twelve hours that followed. But there were, inevitably, a few who stuck with him.

"Spero Perdita," Avunculus said as they paused outside yet another room. The day was drawing on toward close; outside the windows the sun had already set and only the city lights illuminated the world. Regis couldn't even remember the name of the last person he had spoken to, but he told himself that just made his job of remembering this one easier. He only needed to keep the name for two minutes, anyway.

"He works in a Phoenix Incorporated warehouse, and, given the severity of his symptoms, his doctors believe he was very close to the dumping itself. He was one of the first admitted, along with his wife, Elaisse," Avunculus said, reading from the ledger in his hands.

One of Phoenix's own casualties, then. Regis wondered if his proximity to the dumping meant he knew more about the disposal than others.

"And his wife?" Regis asked.

Avunculus traced his finger down the column of printed text in his book. "Deceased. It seems she never recovered from the exposure."

Regis' stomach lurched uncomfortably. Nine hours and he had been doing remarkably well at not letting his mind dwell on Aulea. Now it seemed unavoidable. Behind the next door was a man who held all the same tragedies he had seen in every room before… plus another that he, himself, had been struggling with for almost two months.

"Sire?" Avunculus prompted. "Would you prefer not to see him?"

"No, I will see him," Regis said, blinking himself out of his reverie and steeling himself for the encounter. As of yet there was no way to tell just what he would find waiting on the other side of the door. People handled grief in all different sorts of ways. All he could do was brace for the worst and hope that he didn't find what he feared most: himself.

He gave a nod to Avunculus and the door opened.

Inside was a room much like the hundreds of others that Regis had seen that day: whitewashed walls, white tiled floors, a few curtains for privacy, and a lingering odor of rubbing alcohol. Overhead the vents hissed as the air purifiers worked. Beside the bed, a monitor beeped a regular heartbeat and in the bed itself lay a man who was, all things considered, exceptionally ordinary.

Or so Regis thought, at first glance.

Spero Perdita lay with his mechanized bed in the full recline position so that he could stare up at the ceiling—which was uninteresting and white, like the rest of the room. There was no focus in his eyes, but it was the sort of unseeing gaze that Regis expected from someone like himself. He expected it was much how he looked, when visions of Aulea danced, uninvited, before his eyes. It was a chilling thought. Was that was his people saw when he sat in court? What his council saw every time he lost focus?

Aside from that, Spero was clearly in worse shape than most of the others Regis had seen. While many sported some scaring or the remnants of an angry red rash, this man still wore bandages. They covered, as far Regis could tell, the vast majority of his body. They wrapped around his neck and could be seen beneath the front of his hospital dressing gown. What little was visible of his arms beneath the sleeves were also bandaged, and his hands as well. All that was spared was his face, and even then there were several patches of raw skin that glistened in the light, like a clear salve had been applied over them.

The king stepped fully into the room with Cor at his heel. As Spero persisted in that unmoving, unfocused state, his fears heightened; he would find himself in this man and he had no idea what to say. He had been given six weeks of time and he still hadn't thought of anything he could tell himself that would make anything better.

Anyone else might have wondered if it was right to bring up the late wife at all—that perhaps Spero wasn't even thinking of her, but something else altogether—but Regis knew better. That look on the young man's face was the same look as he wore. Spero was thinking of his wife, without any shadow of a doubt.

Regis thought of all the things he had been told, the words that his friends had given him in hopes of helping in one way or another. None of them fit. Hell, none of them worked for him, why would he try to inflict them on someone else?

Make a decision, he told himself. Any decision.

"Mr Perdita," Regis began, pausing just a few feet from the bed, whose occupant lay unmoving still. "I daresay nothing I can say will make anything better. All I can offer are my most sincere condolences for your loss."

There was a tense moment of unrecognition. Regis had made a choice, but it had no guarantee of being the right choice, or even the best one given the circumstances. Was he just speaking into the void? How far lost was this poor man?

Regis shifted uncomfortably. He shouldn't have come in. In all likelihood, this man, much like himself, would have preferred to be left alone. Best that he turn back now and give up hope of somehow fixing himself by facing himself. He had tried and he had failed, but one cannot fix death.

The king prepared to excuse himself with an apology and withdraw, but then Spero moved and all fears of meeting himself vanished.

As did all belief that the other man was in any way ordinary.

His eyes flicked first, the rest of him remaining unmoving for an instant. Then his head turned. It wasn't the slow, unfocused change of a man who was still lost in thought. His gaze didn't drift again once it had found Regis, as the king's often did when he forced himself to focus. This was something else. It was a sharp, perspicacious gaze that left Regis wondering if he hadn't been wrong about every surmise he had so far made.

"Is that what they told you, Your Majesty, when the queen died?" His tone wasn't hollow and empty like Regis had expected. It was dry and dark, like he hadn't so much disassociated from the world as he found himself stuck squarely in a life that no longer had light or color.

"No…" Regis admitted. "I was told to… mourn sensibly, eat my vegetables, and do my duty."

Spero smiled, an expression completely devoid of warmth.

"Mourn her sensibly?" He laughed. It was an unsettling sound: a humorless scrape in Spero's throat, which caught and gave way to a fit of coughing. "What does that even mean?" he managed, before the cough took over.

He propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over, covering his mouth with the other bandaged hand as the coughing fit racked his body.

There was a pitcher of water on the side table near Spero's bed and Regis stepped forward to pour him a glass; he took it with wordless thanks and managed to swallow a few mouthfuls to stem the flow of coughs. When he dropped his hand back to the bed, there was a crimson stain on the bandage where he had covered his mouth.

"Forgive me for not standing, Your Majesty," Spero rasped, setting his water aside when he could speak once more. "I'm afraid you've caught me at something less than my best."

Spero shot him another twisting smile and Regis blinked, taken aback. They said grief did strange things to people, but Regis wasn't altogether certain how Spero had been before.

"Of course," Regis said, tucking away his curiosity and—if truth be told—building concern. "There is no need for formality, here. This is merely a social visit."

Spero gestured toward the pair of chairs that sat along the wall and hit the controls to hoist his mechanized bed into a half-upright position. Regis sat, thankful to be off his feet if only for a few minutes.

"It is worse than what I've gotten," Spero said, reaching for his water again. "You're right, though. Nothing makes it better. I appreciate someone finally admitting it." He lifted his glass in an ironic salut and took another along drink before gasping and leaning back into his pillows, his eyes shut. "I think, most likely, I will just die right here in this bed without ever really facing it." He opened his eyes once more to look at Regis and there was another smile on his lips. It was all the more unsettling for the fact that he said the words so earnestly—almost cheerfully. "That would be nice."

Regis shifted in his chair. It would have been a lie to claim he had never had similar thoughts, but there was little of seriousness about them. He had his duty, after all, and his brothers. None of those could be left behind lightly. There was something about the way Spero said it, though, that made it sound much more real.

"Are there friends or relatives for you, at home? People that you might stay with when you are discharged?" The king asked.

Spero considered him with that searching gaze. "Such confidence that I'll make it so far!"

"I have the utmost confidence in my kingdom's doctors," Regis said.

"Oh, as do I," Spero agreed. He was smiling again. "Any dying man they might save. But not a dead one."

A chill ran up Regis' spine. He wasn't sure if it was the words or the smile that did it, but Spero continued without letting him dwell.

"There are plenty of friends awaiting my return out there." He jerked his head toward the window, listless once more. "But they were our friends, if you understand."

Of course. People who had known the two of them together. People who understood and therefore, somehow, understood nothing at all, just like Clarus and Weskham.

"I understand," said Regis.

Spero gave a single nod. "I expect you do. You have them, too."

They were quiet for a moment. Regis was acutely aware that he only had so much time with each person, that he needed to pull himself away and carry on, but something held him back. He felt compelled to give the other man something to hold onto. Some reason to go home and not die in a hospital bed.

"What did you do before?" Regis asked. He had his duty. What was it that kept Spero alive?

"I worked in a packing warehouse, moving boxes for a company that would ultimately cause my timely demise," Spero said with mock cheer.

He certainly didn't look as if he could have moved much. Standing, Regis expected Spero would have been fairly tall, but he was also uncannily slender. Or was that the result of a month in a bed, wasting away?

"I mean for enjoyment," Regis pressed.

"I wrote novels. Well. I say novels. Really it was only just the one, and I never did finish it." He said it like his chances to do so were already gone.

That was it. A faint glimmer of hope.

"I should like to read it, when you do complete it."

"'When'? My dear King, you are an optimist!" Spero laughed, that same, unamused, terrible laugh as before.

"I have been called many things during my still-short reign, but optimist is not one," Regis said, rising to his feet with a groan. His legs were beginning to protest the unusual treatment.

"Excellent," Spero said. "I did always like to be the first at things."

In spite of himself, Regis smiled. What a peculiar man! Had he always been so?

"Sire." Avunculus was beckoning him, again.

Regis sighed.

"Duty calls, Your Majesty," Spero said, his eyes flicking toward the attendant, before settling back on the king. "Do say 'hi' to your queen for me, won't you?"

Regis paused, caught off-guard for the umpteenth time in their short conversation. Everyone knew that Aulea was dead. In those few minutes they had shared, it had seemed clear that Spero did, as well. Until then.

"Sire," Avunculus said again.

Regis nodded to him, taking a step toward the door. He paused before stepping outside. "I mean what I say about your book."

"And I about your wife," Spero said, eyes sparkling with something dark. "You should talk to her, you know."

You should talk to her.

It was those words, among all he had heard that day, that replayed in his head as he sat down in his study that night and poured himself a stiff drink. They sat with him all night, much like Weskham, and time and time again they came back to him in the days and weeks that followed.

However stupid it sounded, he couldn't stop thinking of them, like they were some sort of missing wisdom that he had been grasping for all along, and he just had to puzzle out the meaning.

Poll time! There are just two OCs of any importance in part 1 of this story: Crea and Spero (they're necessary, since we don't know enough about canon characters inside the Citadel, especially in this era, to fill in all the holes). What do you think of them? Which, if either, do you like best so far? What is your first impression of Spero?

As always, thanks for reading! See you next week.

PS. Do not, under any circumstances, look up what Ignis' uncle's name is in latin. Every time I mention him a laugh at how ridiculous my decision was.