You Are In Love

It's inevitable.

Although you try to fight it, every single day, you can't avoid it.

Everything he does is magic. Well, of course it isn't magic, but it makes you feel the same kind of wonder that a new charm brought.

It takes years before you can face it for the first time, but then, it hits you.

You are in love – you have always been in love – with your king.

You love the way he says your name, in a way no one else manages to say.

You love the way he looks at you, annoyed and surprised at once.

You love the way he cares about you, without many ways to show, but as sure as the rising sun.

You love him, and not in the servant, protector, friend way you already knew, but in new ways that you never thought possible.

You can't even think back at the intimacy you two shared before his marriage, not unless you are alone, for it makes you think about all the moments that could have been different, that could have been more if you knew it, if he felt the same way.

It just hits you, in a single moment, what all those weird feelings really meant.

Your eyes never leave his face while you understand it, and you were always a terrible liar, and it's obvious that you just realized something. And when his eyebrows tilt, questioning you, you let it out without thinking.

"I am in love!"

Your face gets on fire, and you turn around and leave without a second thought, fearing he might find out the worst bit, the one bit you can't confess, who is that makes your head feel so light and your feet feel so big, and your stomach feel like you had just dried a barrel of mead. You just leave, because now you know, and nothing will ever be the same.

(You don't get to see how his face falls, thinking you loved someone else, how clear it showed that he wished it was him).