Video / Broadcast Mind
[ The first thing you see is an axe. It's sticking out of the block in the center of the cobblestone square, wood and blade still shining slickly with dark smears of blood. ]
[ Two young boys are playing nearby it, no more aware of the object than they are the haycart across from them or the stone statue of a dog nearby. The headsman's block is simply another feature of Camelot, like the pale stone or the portcullis. ]
Aha! I'm a Druid! I'm gonna eat up all your children!
No way! I'm King Uther and I condemn you to death, so ha ha ha!
Oh nooo! Erk... for this I'm gonna magic away your whooole castle and your mummy and Frederick too!
Not if I run you through with this mighty blade first! Take that! And that!
[ The two boys mock-swordfight with a brooms and buckets, the clatter unnoticed amidst the murmur of castle life. Unnoticed by all but one. A young man, maybe sixteen if he's a day, watches from the window of his bedroom, which overlooks the courtyard. The sounds of children at play drift up to him. You. ]
[ Longing rips through you like a seizure, a vice around your chest, but it has been long years since you would show anything of the sort. You tuck it away. The nails of your fingers dig into your palms, and you turn from the mock battle. ]
[ There's another boy in the chambers, scrawny and freckled with a mess of brown hair. You glare at him, and he fumbles the sword he's polishing twitchily. ]
Sire?
[ You are already more at home in your body than warriors ten, twenty years your senior, and you stalk towards him. ]
Isn't that your little brother out there, Frederick, acting the sorcerer?
[ The young man's eyes widen and then drop to his feet. He's quivering. ]
Surely not, sire. Me brother's an innocent lad, he weren't be harming nobody. I'll bet. That is, if you say you saw him, then I won't say you didn't, but he's only a tyke, he's probably just playing one of his fool games. Mam'll set him straight, he don't mean no harm, I swear on—
Shut up, Frederick.
[ And you hate him. For being cowardly, of course, and afraid of you, because that makes you want to really be frightening, as though you are shaped by the reflection in another's eyes. But you also hate him because he has a mother, and a brother; because he has only ever held a sword to polish it; because he, too, would have once played in the courtyard like all the children of the castle. ]
[ All bar one. ]
[ You snatch the sword from his fingers and he flinches away. ]
Get out of my sight.
[ He doesn't need to be told twice. Once you're alone you unwrap your trembling fingers from the hilt and set it on the table as you return to your window. The sun is beginning to set over Camelot in the first streaks of pink and gold. One day, all this will be yours, and you must do right by it. A king, even a future king, cannot afford to have friends. ]
[ Two young boys are playing nearby it, no more aware of the object than they are the haycart across from them or the stone statue of a dog nearby. The headsman's block is simply another feature of Camelot, like the pale stone or the portcullis. ]
Aha! I'm a Druid! I'm gonna eat up all your children!
No way! I'm King Uther and I condemn you to death, so ha ha ha!
Oh nooo! Erk... for this I'm gonna magic away your whooole castle and your mummy and Frederick too!
Not if I run you through with this mighty blade first! Take that! And that!
[ The two boys mock-swordfight with a brooms and buckets, the clatter unnoticed amidst the murmur of castle life. Unnoticed by all but one. A young man, maybe sixteen if he's a day, watches from the window of his bedroom, which overlooks the courtyard. The sounds of children at play drift up to him. You. ]
[ Longing rips through you like a seizure, a vice around your chest, but it has been long years since you would show anything of the sort. You tuck it away. The nails of your fingers dig into your palms, and you turn from the mock battle. ]
[ There's another boy in the chambers, scrawny and freckled with a mess of brown hair. You glare at him, and he fumbles the sword he's polishing twitchily. ]
Sire?
[ You are already more at home in your body than warriors ten, twenty years your senior, and you stalk towards him. ]
Isn't that your little brother out there, Frederick, acting the sorcerer?
[ The young man's eyes widen and then drop to his feet. He's quivering. ]
Surely not, sire. Me brother's an innocent lad, he weren't be harming nobody. I'll bet. That is, if you say you saw him, then I won't say you didn't, but he's only a tyke, he's probably just playing one of his fool games. Mam'll set him straight, he don't mean no harm, I swear on—
Shut up, Frederick.
[ And you hate him. For being cowardly, of course, and afraid of you, because that makes you want to really be frightening, as though you are shaped by the reflection in another's eyes. But you also hate him because he has a mother, and a brother; because he has only ever held a sword to polish it; because he, too, would have once played in the courtyard like all the children of the castle. ]
[ All bar one. ]
[ You snatch the sword from his fingers and he flinches away. ]
Get out of my sight.
[ He doesn't need to be told twice. Once you're alone you unwrap your trembling fingers from the hilt and set it on the table as you return to your window. The sun is beginning to set over Camelot in the first streaks of pink and gold. One day, all this will be yours, and you must do right by it. A king, even a future king, cannot afford to have friends. ]