Thy Kingdom Come

I

As was standard for most of the world's kingdoms, in order for a new King to ascend and take the throne, there must be loss, death. In order for one to stand forward, one must die. In history's tales, the death of a King had come in many ways. War, murder, disease, or simply nature taking its unforgiving toll on the matured monarchs. In order for there to be succession there must come the end of a life. My father, Edward II, was a victim of this tradition, becoming King only days after the death of his father, my grandfather, King James II. It was the way of the monarchy. Though I was young when the transition was made, I could recall the unsettling feeling in my stomach throughout the prolonged ceremony in which my father was crowned the King of Highston. I had hardly been given the opportunity to properly comprehend and mourn the passing of my grandfather, whom I was given my second name in honor of. We were meant to celebrate the crowning of a new King, but I could not shake the uncomfortable feeling of guilt that came with taking only two days to cry and shed tears before being asked to stand proudly in my royal blue military style jacket with my tiny hands tucked behind my back as the Archbishop of the Church of Highston placed the embellished golden crown upon the head of the man I knew as my father. It was all far too much for a small child to take in. Even as an adult, I recalled that moment to be emotionally confusing, a twist of emotions forming in my underdeveloped brain. It came to a surprise to me that the feeling would not be revisited for when my brother, the first born of my parents and the heir to the Highston throne, would have his moment of being deemed King.

"With that being said," my father's voice played through the speakers of the television me and my family were all watching attentively. "I will be relinquishing my title of King."

Listening to the live broadcast of my father announcing the news to the kingdom, I thought back to the immediate shock that momentarily paralyzed my body and mind when he had previously discussed his decision to the entirety of the royal family. I expected to see only active, working members of the family at the meeting he called a few months prior. There was slight confusion when I realized that not only senior royals were present, but also junior royals such as my younger siblings. Even more confusion struck me when I recognized some older, retired royals such as my father's aunts and uncles sitting in the room. Initially I feared something horrible had happened. I was prone to diverging straight toward the worst possible scenario in my head at any given point. Despite the shock at my father's announcement, I was more relieved that something much more tragic wasn't being discussed. To me, of course, there was nothing tragic about this. But to some of the older, more traditional members of the family, the fact my father even slightly implied that he had intentions to step down as King was enough to start discourse and arguing among royalty. To them, it was too large a step away from the traditions they had known their entire lives. My aunt, Princess Margaret, was the first to vocalize complete support in what my father had to say, able to get some semblance of order in the room, expressing the most important value a member of the royal family could hold; showing support for the King came before everything else. Eventually, as more minds opened to new possibilities, my father decided that after only fifteen years on the throne, he would abdicate.

It was entirely possible that no one knew about challenging tradition more than I did. Not because I was rebellious in any way, or could be often noted as challenging the morals and decisions of the throne. It was quite the opposite. I knew it was my duty, my job given at birth to completely uphold the image of the royal family. Nothing was more vital than me playing the role given to me by my bloodline. Everything I did was for the throne and the integrity of the family. I over thought every single word that escaped my mouth. Every single action I made was meticulously preplanned like an intense, strategic game of chess. But even with that, I was still moving against the grain just in the way I was born. Because of my sexuality. At the age of seventeen, I made the decision to unintentionally mark myself as the "non-traditional" royal. Atleast, that's what the countless news articles covering the moment deemed me as. It was on my seventeenth birthday at a ceremony meant to anoint me as the Duke of Noxhelm that I announced in a nerve wracking speech that I was gay. In the heternormative world I had been born victim to, it was clear that the reception I was going to get from the public. Despite my family supporting me, it was from that moment that I immediately became the target of the news outlets. I was unsure if it was directly because of my sexuality, or because of the factor of being the first royal to come out that made me an easy target to write countless slanderous pieces on. They nitpicked every thing about me in order to present me as being against tradition and rebellious to the royal family. There were the occasional things about tradition that I disagreed with, but in order to uphold the unity of the family I never vocalized them. To a single soul. The internalized disagreement of very few things remained completely internal. However, now with my father's decision to remove himself from power the spotlight and focus of breaking tradition would momentarily shift away from me. As I listened in to the remainder of my father's speech, I made a few predictions of the ridiculous rumors that would be printed by various publications.