Within the deepest of the keep's recesses, far from another's earshot, a butler would finally allow himself to discard the tears that weighed upon his eyelids. Previous months worked to curse his ears with a ceaseless ringing formed by other's claims of what was to come. But a horror, he thought it, even as the Queen laid before his very eyes, bloodied within a summer's bloom. But that ignorance did not break, and the deafening knell only worsened. What was it? Denial, regret, a foreign stupor? No, it was that which he thought a stranger β Grief. Grief which had wrapped him whilst blinded, a grief which he took upon himself to shed like a second skin.
Δedomir thought on what Amaya would have desired had she still breathed. Would she wish for him to weep? No, surely not; she would wish for him to think on moments they had shared.
And so he did just that. Through tear-stained cheeks, he continued his duties, the late Queen's words replacing that ringing in his ears with something much kinder. Finally. . peace.