No Better Than The Beasts

Bonus Chapter 3

Welcome to the third bonus Chapter ;) And also Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

He's doing it again, thought Edgar sullenly. He didn't need to peer into a small crack to know so, yet here he was, doing it anyway. The king's guard was very used to working his position, but in turn, he has learned a lot about the king. There was a probability that he knew more about the king of McTíre than the king's own son and crown prince, Derrick.

The prince had no idea that the King sat sullenly soaking in his sorrows on a daily basis. He had no idea, while he snapped at very one and trained for rule, that his own father spent a special time to himself twirling the queen's ring around his own finger and losing himself in the memories of the past. The prince didn't know that, while he was frolicking about with his soulmate, his father spent copious amounts of hours of the day mourning his. 

But Edgar knew. And he wondered what it felt like, to lose a soulmate. In fact, he wondered what it would be like to have one.

Edgar was well past the age of twenty-one. He had determined a long time ago that something must have happened to his soulmate, and he didn't spend one extra minute longing for someone who wouldn't come. It was a waste of time to get lost in the darkness of grief for someone you never met, who you were supposedly destined to be bonded with. Yet still, Edgar did not try to find any love. Still, he lived a life of loneliness, just in case they were to show up. Even still, it hurt when he saw soulmates; it made him bitter and closed-off toward human life. How is it fair that some get soulmates and others do not?

For years he questioned his worthiness, became a warrior, and fought for good. Then he dropped that idea. Then, he became general, and it gave him an excuse to block the hole that had been carved into his heart. The excuse being that he was destined to become a general, and therefore, having a soulmate would be like having a weakness.

Then homosexuality stopped being compared to sodomy, and people became more open to the idea.  One of those people being Edgar. Although, he didn't really have any objections toward it in the first place. He saw it as a strength, in a way. It reminded him of Roman strongmen wrestling naked in the first Olympics. He knew it took guts to be part of a people who were shamed, outcasted, and different. He knew it took emotional and mental strength to be shot down, ridiculed, and beaten for your beliefs or preferences. 

He saw homosexuals as strong: physically, mentally, and emotionally; and he respected them for that.

But then he was assigned as the king's guard when they discovered that he was an insomniac. He could stay up all night; therefore, he was the best option as a king's guard. After a while, however, he started to notice the king's habits.

The way the king only fixed his hair when he was expected to be around important people. The worry line that always appears on his forehead when he feels stress. The countless nights that the king has woken up, worried or working or both, and paced the floor or did work until he fell asleep on his desk. And many times Edgar had heard silent sobs from behind the door he stood outside of...

Although it was none of Edgar's business, he felt too obliged to help the king out. Especially after the death of his soulmate. 

The first time he ever spoke to the king was when he asked if the king was alright, and the second time he was was asking for a hug. After that, Edgar made periodical visits to give the king massages on his back, to comfort him when he is swallowed by his past, to carry him back to bed when he fell asleep on his desk, and to wipe his tears away.

Edgar accepted a while ago that he had fallen in love with the king, but he was sure that the king did not love him back; he had a soulmate after all. A soulmate who died. It would be selfish of Edgar to ask the king to love him back.