Private A Crown of Thorns

[Enlil]

Ketaris

Mere days had elapsed since the debacle between the Grand Vizier and the Grand Admiral, and already the lack of Naval protection from the Imperium ushered in whispers. Had they been forsaken? What had the King done to incur such action, such reckless endangerment? Surely he knew what he was doing?

These were the whispers that plagued Ketaris in the wake of Enlil's grand gamble for the soul of the Empire. The truth was, this was a time for unity. It was not the time for them to play dangerous games among themselves; and yet, Rausgeber would continue only to take until he had bled the Empire dry with his warmongering and selfish notions of leadership.

It grated on the King to hear his people flustered so, and all the work he had done to gain their trust trivialized by a single decision. He sat on the sofa in the repurposed chamber of commerce with hands folded, eyes glued to a series of papers strewn madly across a table in front of him. His thoughts were fraught with confusion, anger, pain, anguish... and he was nervous.

Above all other things, Enlil was still a man. He did not know what would come next, and the possibilities plagued him. That was why he hoped for someone to talk to, though no one ever seemed to appear. The people wanted reassurance, his peers wanted ideas, and his Imperator wanted him to make peace with Rausgeber. Everyone wanted something that he could not readily give.

Everyone, perhaps, except someone he had not spoken with since he was in the Outer Rim. Though he was not usually the sort to call on women in her profession, the few discussions between them had at least taken his mind off other things. There was a moment's hope that it might happen again.

Shae

 

[Shae]

It was always a pleasure to receive a message from someone Shae had assumed she would only ever meet through passing chance, even though it did make for a rather thrilling relationship. Fortunately, Ketaris happened to be a planet she visited frequently for the prestigious university it boasted. A large portion of her clients studied and worked at there, but the man she had come to visit today did neither.
Shae was not party to the knowledge of his connection to Ketaris, nor did she need to know. She had little interest in politics, but thankfully, she was rarely ever called on to discuss work. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Shae was called to distract. To present, even for just an hour or two, an alternate version of reality away from all the stresses of life. However, much like his profession differed from the men she ordinarily visited Ketaris for, Enlil’s preferences differed too.

He was rather unique in comparison to the rest of her client list. In the sense that his alternate version of reality had, thus far, been unembellished. She rather liked that about him. That someone so complicated could crave such a simple thing. Shae had only ever been an impartial ear to talk to, and a stark change to the company he usually kept.

Greeted by a rather pleasant servant at the door, Shae’s heels clicked a sharp rhythm on the floor as she was guided through the corridor. As the music of her shoes died down it was replaced with a clear, concise knock and then the rush of a door opening on hydraulics. The servant bowed her in and no sooner than it had opened, the door had shut behind her once more. Peering at the slightly slumped form of Enlil over a mountain of paperwork, Shae’s lips pulled themselves into an expert smile.

“It seems strange not to be meeting you in a bar somewhere by chance.” She said in greeting, her sweet, honied tone cracking the tense atmosphere that had been bubbling in the room for force knows how long.

Enlil​

 

[Enlil]

"Would that we were meeting in a bar," he lamented gently, his voice still ragged as he composed himself. While he knew when she would arrive, the King could not bring himself to prepare to receive her as he might a diplomat. This situation was a stark divergence from the usual, so he deigned to treat it that way. Hiding the reason he reached out did nothing to relieve the tension it brought him. As many had told him, he had to allow himself to face problems rather than letting them drag along like rattling chains behind him. "I thank you for agreeing on such short notice to meet with me."

Their business wasn't official, nor was it on any Imperial records. Instead, he brought her in privately, and her own privacy therefore would be respected. The guards were sent away, at least as far away as they were allowed to go from him. The Sovereign Imperator and COMPNOR were still very specific about security measures. He'd become at least that important, by their standards.

It was as if, in her arrival, some measure of the cold, unflinching austerity of Imperial procedure melted away and became replaced with human warmth. Enlil craved such things; for it was in the heat between people, in the way that they interacted, and in how they struggled and adapted to new situations, in the words they spoke and the ways they related to one another that civilization knew its foundation. These ideas about leadership, the fantastic and orderly design that the Imperium sought to surgically remove the human element and replace it with uniformity, they were opposed to the truth of human nature.

That was what he'd promised to bring to the Imperium. The heat of humanity. And in Shae's gentle footsteps and simple conversation, the King found some measure of relief. His shoulders sagged and he let himself relax, both eyes now closed. He listened to the sound of his own breathing, erratic, and his heartbeat like a drum with no discernable pattern. When had he fallen so far away from order, from himself?

He allowed himself to recall the flames of war but for a moment before he looked back to the woman, his smile softened.

"Wine?" he offered dutifully.

Shae​

 

[Shae]

A sweeter smile crossed her expression. “I’m glad to see you still have your sense of humour, at the very least.” She teased lightly. At his thanks, she inclined her head somewhat. “Of course. Truth be told, I was rather pleased and, I must admit, somewhat surprised to receive your invitation.”

Shae did not attempt to hide the truth of her words, though she made the statement far more gracefully than most would have. Somehow “I didn’t peg you for the type” seemed like a rather blunt way to begin conversation. Silence seemed to stretch over them then. Not the awkward kind that made people squirm in their skin, but the pondering kind. The one in which a thousand thoughts crossed through your mind at the speed of light. Or at least, Shae watched carefully as they crossed through his mind. The weight of the world certainly looked like it was resting rather heavily on his shoulders.

At the mention of wine, Shae nodded her head. “Allow me.”

The sound of her heels began again, though this time her steps were far more measured. As though she had carefully planned where each one would fall, how each one would make the hem of her dress move. Crossing the room, she headed toward a silver tray of drinks with two crystalline glasses perched on top of the tarnished metal. If she recalled correctly, wine was his particular choice of drink, but an evening like this one needed more than wine. Her fingers danced gently over the tops of the bottles for a moment, until they settled on a rounded one with a copper cap. The honey-coloured liquid trickled loudly into the glasses. She was ordinarily restrained with alcohol when with clients, but she felt tonight was rather different. In the end, the glasses of amber could not have easily been called small.

She swept each one up and returned to Enlil, though this time she positioned herself behind the desk he sat at. Perching herself on the edge of the table, with one hand she offered him one of the glasses, and with the other, she took a sip of her own. Once the familiar and rather pleasant burn was nothing more than a tingle in the back of her throat, Shae’s gaze turned curious. “Out of pure curiosity, why did you request my company tonight?” She asked with a gentle tilt of her head. It was as close to blunt as she was going to get.

Enlil​

 

[Enlil]

He had to admit, there was no small amount of shame in the cessation of his hubris. The very act of reaching out for an ear or a shoulder was against everything he had always stood for. The monolithic King who faced adversity for his people had never faced something so much bigger than his own ego. His new struggle, the business of running an Empire, of playing at spiritual anchor for not hundreds, not thousands, but millions ran him ragged. And then, those men who he would call ally sought to undermine and even discredit him for their own ends.

Without a care for the people they claimed to serve.

Stewards. Servants to the people. A King wore his crown not to denote himself as above, but as the highest of honors. It told his people that he was there, that he would always be there- that until he drew his last breath, if they needed him, he would be available. Now they were unnerved, worried that they would die, that their borders would meet with Sith incursion all because of some political gambit, a move against a man who had no heart, no care for the people. Her question was a fair one.

What would bring him low, such that he would call out for help?

He took the offered glass without looking back, a deft motion that quickly brought the liquid fire to his lips and doused his thoughts in familiar heat. The inferno that usually hid in his gaze smoldered, threatening to die out as he stared dimly at the wall. "I wanted to speak with someone." So honest, yet so simple. "Someone who didn't want to know my answer to some important question. Just... things that didn't matter. Things that wouldn't break an entire Empire if I spoke the wrong words."

The King took another sip and after a handful of heartbeats, he sighed.

"I wanted to be reminded that people are more than figures on paper, or pawns in some grand game to be tossed into conflict. Scant have been my chances in recent times to connect with someone in any other capacity than official."

There was a danger in taking up a position that secluded you from those people who you ruled. It was the danger that had deluded men like Rausgeber, Tal, and perhaps even Tavlar now. War was not the solution to conflict. It was the solution to having no solution. It was what men resorted to when there was no peaceful alternative. Men became expendable. Life became no more than logistics.

Rage seemed to keep Enlil close company of late.

Shae​

 

[Shae]

Watching as the golden alcohol tumbled into his throat, Shae produced a sage nod of approval. Whiskey was, as her father had once upon a time said, a drink for turmoil. A drink to drink when you wanted to think or to not think. It seemed Enlil wanted to do both and neither at the same time. A turbulent position to be in. A rock and a hard place.

As she patiently waited for the answer to her question, she found herself pondering on the true nature of the man before her. The face he wore in public would hardly be the face he donned in private. Just as the face he wore for his people would not be the face he wore for her. He was somewhat of a mystery, waiting to be discovered. He just had to want it first. When he finally replied, Shae smiled again. There it was. That simplicity from someone so complicated. A rather endearing trait, if Shae happened to be the type to allow herself such an emotion.

“Hmm…” She replied, as Enlil finally trailed into silence. “I’m quite familiar with what a life such as yours can lead to. I have never known such loneliness.” It was not meant to be offensive, merely an observation from her work. Many of the men she went to visit had the very same longing in the pit of their stomach at Enlil had. The desire to be seen as a man and not their station. As a person and not a leader.

Though it was quite a little more than a mouthful, Shae drained the rest of her glass smoothly, and then continued. “In my experience…” Her soothing tone cooed as she slipped herself off the edge of the seat. At first, it looked as though she would move away entirely from the desk, but she merely tucked her dress under her legs and knelt in front of Enlil. “…If you have truly forgotten what people are like, there is no better way to remind yourself than to meet some yourself.” The room was filled, for a brief moment, with the sound of her clothes shuffling gently against the floor. It only came to a stop when Shae had placed herself between Enlil’s knees, close enough to reach up and lift the tip of his chin with her fingertips.

“At the moment you are rather like a caged bird. Struggling to be free of your prison. You have the key, yet you do not use it. The door is wide open but you have yet to step through the threshold.” Her emerald gaze held, or rather, commanded the attention of his. “In my expert opinion, you need to get away from this office. Away from this building. To be Enlil. To remind yourself of the man beneath the crown. Even for a short while.”

Enlil​