I'll find you || Tagatha fanfic

The Lonely So-Called King

~~Time Skip~~

(Start Of QFG)

In his knee-length black and cut-off breeches, Tedros snuck through the dark, muggy halls of Gold Tower.

He knew it was vain and obsessive, this getting up at half past four to exercise, but it felt like the only thing left that he could actually control. Because at 6 on the dot, Gremlaine and four male stewards would barge into his room and from that moment until he slogged back into bed, he was no longer in charge of his own life.

He stopped at a door.

The queens chambers. A room that had haunted him every day for the past six months. It would be Agatha's room. If he hadn't lost her, she could have been sleeping on the other side of that door. And he could go in there and just hold her, like they were the only two people in the world.

He reached for the door handle but stopped himself from opening it.

He knew being in there would just make him feel worse.

In the beginning Tedros had hope that Agatha would come back and stand by his side, as queen. But, by now that hope was six feet under and his blood line was in danger.

He had no interest in any of the noble ladies. He only had eyes for Agatha.

And besides, you have one true love. Only one.

And he'd lost his.

Stop acting like a boy, Tedros chastised himself. Act like a king.

He turned away from the door, scuttled through the hall's colossal gold passage and soaring arches, sweat sopping his blonde hair, his breeches sticking to his thighs.

Down three flights he went, before he hustled through the gymnasium. One would assume this was Tedros' destination, but instead he scurried right through, his pure blue eyes pinned to the dusty floor, trying not to look at the glass case in the centre of it. The one case the lay empty. It's place card read: Excalibur.

He was still thinking about the empty case when he arrived at King's Cove, a sunken bathing pool in the bowels of the castle.

Tedros looked down at the kettlebells he'd stolen from the gym and stashed by the pool, along with a sad, lowly rope he'd attached to the ceiling to practice climbing.

He could exercise in that other room. Not if he had to be near that empty case and think about where the sword was now.

Slowly his eyes raised to his father's statue in the murky pool, caked in moss and dirt- King Arthur, Excalibur in hand, staring down at him.

Only he wasn't staring. At least not anymore. His eyes were gone, violently gouged out, leaving him with two black holes.

He'd done it.

He'd carved out his own father's eyes.

He couldn't bare the old king looking at him after what happened at the coronation.

I'll fix it, Father, he vowed. I'll fix everything.