It was that exact moment that the King regained his senses, indeed. He looked at his own hands as he uncovered his face, and looked at them with horror. He looked around his room, with its extravagant construction and decoration.
Such a wonderful bedroom for a murderer. Such a wonderful castle for a murderer!
He had to get out of here, but not yet. He stripped, then wore some simple pants and a brown hood, his outfit when in need of a disguise. He wore these, and walked out, unable to be discerned by even Marco or Lætitia. Skipping any food, he walked out.
He made his way out of the castle grounds, and onto the path that led through the main streets of Valentia. He hadn't been out of the castle since— since Cameron was still alive. That hadn't been that long ago, not even a week. He just hated it, though. It felt like much longer since then.
Things had surely changed. He had gone from being a well-liked and well-respected king to one that was crazed. He heard the conversation as he passed along, his hood over his large head. They were similar to the ones he had in his dream... if that even was a dream. He was beginning to suspect it wasn't...
"Felix the Good, hm? He killed Sir Cameron. I lost my respect for him," an owl said.
"A legacy of gratitude and righteousness now plagued by recent actions," a mule described to one of his friends.
"I should think he's incapable of ruling," a bird posited.
"He is only grieving," a sheep sympathetically said.
"What a fool," the bird replied. "He is king, privileged and strong, and yet wallowing like a weakling."
"You don't know grief, then. The strongest and richest would crumble," the sheep stated, "would he lose the things important to any man as he has."
The lion had to keep pulling the hood over his face, as he made his way further and further away from the castle, getting smaller in the distance before disappearing behind other buildings. He was finally getting to the outside of town, past the alleys and roads and to the paths and cottages.
He kept track of the roads, and asked for a few directions, when he finally came across it. Old Trader's Road. He had never even bothered to take a visit to the collie's home, having not went with Ophelia when she went to pick him up. It was visibly more povertious than the rest of the town, but it seemed things were improving somewhat.
He walked along this dirt path, looking at the children play and the adults watch. They were singing a refrain from one of the collie bard's songs. Of course. How could his work not be known here, at his home?
"I knew Cameron!" a portly pigeon baker said, with a few people listening. "He used to come by, every single morning, and swipe a stale bun for breakfast when I wasn't looking. Of course I ended up just giving them to him, it wasn't any trouble. But to think... oh, to think of who he would become in so short a time!"
"I knew Cameron, too," a cat said, waving his tail. "He was my best friend when we were kids. We chased each other around in his father's field."
Felix covered his head with a paw, once more, running away from whatever chatter was about him. Soon, he arrived to the place. He knew it was the one. It was filled to the brim with tributes. There were flowers, food, and sheets upon sheets of blank paper, save for them being lined with empty staves. Even a few ornate lutes, a few of which the disguised king took up and examined, to find that they had Cameron's name and birthday engraved within... along with the day he perished.
On the wall of the makeshift shrine was a framed sketch, recently hung. It was a bust of none other than Sir Cameron himself, quite similar to the portrait that had been done of him and the king. Actually, with a closer look at the signature, it was indeed Rhys's signed work, after his own.
He looked at the splitting image of the canine, and the memories came flooding back. He fell to his knees, as he reminisced how cold he was to the boy when he first arrived, only to eventually warm up to the man he became. He remembered the arrow that went through the colonial governor, saving him from an untimely death. He remembered the first time they made love— Now it came to him that he had killed a person, a person with so many aspects already inherent to having just existed.
He remembered how Cameron's cheek-fluff felt against his hand, and how softly and purely he would snore when he slept on his chest. He could recall, exactly, the words they shared. So many "I love you"s and "I promise"s. He wiped the tear from his cheek, moving the picture out of the way so that no drops might stain it.
He remembered the plea for help that he heard as he walked away from the stake.
He burst into weeping. "Cameron... what I wouldn't give for just another minute with you," he whispered, to this still image. "To hold you, to hear you say that you love me. Just to even see you in the flesh, or just to know what would become of you now. I promised you my kingdom, and yet here I am, having made my choice— Oh, God... What has become of you? Where is your spirit?"
Having somewhat calmed down after this soft crying, and pulled the hood back over his face, Felix exited. Another person, carrying a bouquet, pushed past him. The lion sighed as he walked down the dirt road again, his bare feet getting somewhat muddy.
"Hey you! Big guy!" a fox said, and stood in front of Felix. He flashed a knife, smirking. "Hand it over. Whatever you've got."
"I've nothing to give," Felix simply stated, shaking his head.
"Ah, well, shame! I think you'd quite like to meet this blade," the vulpine chortled.
"A fox like you tried to do that once," the King then said, taking his hood off and momentarily revealing his identity. "It didn't end well for him."
The fox, only recognizing who this was, dropped the knife, and scampered away, but still hurled his mockery from afar. "Ooh, don't kill me like you did your little bitchboy!" he feigned his whine. "Please!"
The lion bowed his head, seeing that this was how he was known.
He walked further along this path, until coming across a small fountain. It was small, made of cobblestone, and definitely old. Overloaded with pennies, most notably. Strange, since one would think every chance to save money would be taken here. Yet, they had much more of a motivation to wish, now. Felix sat and listened to some of the people as they passed by and wished, finding a common theme:
"I wish Cameron would come back," a pheasant girl hopefully whispered, tossing a penny in.
"I wish, perhaps vainly, for the improvement of the king's spiritual health," a marten teen thoughtfully said as he did the same.
"May Sir Cameron's soul flourish in the Kingdom of the Lord, and may his songs grace Paradise, when they now will not in Earth," an elderly lizard wished, nodding as he gently dropped a silver coin to the water.
An otter, with a tuft of blue on his head, came along, as well. The king lifted his head, listening carefully.
"I wish for peace for these poor people," Rhys sniffed. "Especially for Sir Cameron, wherever his soul might be, but also Felix, as well," he finished, flipping a Narbonian coin into the mix of mostly Valentian currency, beneath the water.
"Rhys," the King softly called out, sending a shock through the poor otter's body. The otter had heard what had happened such a short time ago, and the known reason for it.
"Felix," the mustelid said. "What are you doing here?"
"Paying my respects," the lion said.
Stunned, Rhys trotted over and looked surprisedly and scornfully down at the king, as he sat. "Paying your respects? Witless king! You murdered him! I heard of what happened."
"I realize now my errs," Felix groaned, hanging his hooded head down.
"No shit," the otter squeaked in a loathing tone. "What made you change your mind? Why are you so easily persuaded?"
"It was a spell that overcame me, to that point," the king stammered out, looking away shamefully. "One of blind urgency, that had me convinced that I needed to act quickly, to save all of my people at once from the hands of a furious God..."
"If I knew that sooner, I'd have pleaded for you to not listen to whoever spoke such craziness to you," Rhys shook his head. "I'm not a devout otter, but I at least like to think that God works in the ways of love, and that anyone who says otherwise speaks of nothing better than the fears of centuries ago. But that was then, and this is now— and now, after all has been and done, I can only say nothing."
Felix looked away, these words sitting deeply in him.
"Who convinced you of such terrible things?" Rhys asked.
"Our Cardinal," Felix explained, "one who certainly lives to manage such fear."
"Put him to the stake!" the mustelid proposed. "See how he likes it."
"No! No, no! No more death!" the King shook his head, raising his voice. "No more death!— none by my hand! Must I truly further cement my reputation as the paranoid murderer that I already am and already have?" he lamented.
"Whatever my thoughts on that are, I guess you have one thing right settled," Rhys stated: "The only person you have to blame is yourself." With this, he got up, and left, back to wherever he might have been calling his home at the moment.
Felix sat for a while longer, in soft silence, hearing the wind blow through the streets, and the soft chattering of the people. He slid the hood further along his mane, taking refuge in it. He didn't want to go back to the castle. It didn't fit him anymore. He didn't feel like the king who deserved it. Yet that was where he decided to go.
He got up and ran. He ran his course back to the castle, trying and failing to not attract attention, though nobody really did anything about what seemed to be a hurried man harmlessly dashing someplace. He furiously sprinted, tears running from his eyes. It was only now when the full weight of his action took a hold on him. All the memories from his and Cameron's brief friendship, and even more brief romance, came flooding back now. After the collie's audition— how he fainted after he hunted— how he wrote so many love songs, in such a short span of time— Tears flowed down Felix's cheeks, but he did not stop to cry.
It was so bright out. A lovely sunny September day, to some. But it was truly the height of late summer, when the heat and sheer light bore down on the unprepared. Such a terrible sunlight Felix found it to be. He hid under his hood as he continued to run, trying in vain to keep to the shade. It seemed wherever he went, there too would be this awful brightness! Such an oppressive sun! He needed it not. He was a beast who deserved to recluse himself from those he betrayed. He didn't even deserve to see the light of this day.
Felix got back to the castle after this furious run, pulling back his hood and revealing his tear-stained face to nobody, as the entryway was clear. He looked in this empty hall, and slumped.
"What monster have I become?" he heaved.