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He ignores me for the most part and goes into the back to get dressed, presumably. I take a second to gather my thoughts again. If he has been stealing from alien kings, then it’s really no wonder he is in trouble, and frankly, he probably brought all of this on himself. And…
Manik emerges. He’s dressed differently than I have seen him dressed before. He shines in a light white and blue armor, a royal outfit if ever I saw one, given the insignia on the chest and cape — yes, there’s a cape, and a fucking crown too, which matches the seal on the chest I saw earlier. It’s really quite striking how well it all suits him.
“Wow, all those royal clothes fit you perf…”
And that’s when I realize I am the biggest dummy that ever dumbed in the whole wide universe of absolutely fucking stupid.
“You’re a king.”
“Yes. King Manik of Maniae,” he says. “At your service.”
“Holy…”
“My world is at war, and I was thrown into exile after a betrayal by one of my nearest and dearest, the woman who was to be my bride…”
“Just like me and Stan!” I gasp. “Except Stan took my dog, and I guess she took your whole world.”
Manik’s expression is more sympathetic than I probably deserve for interrupting him. “I am sure the loss of your world was no less galling and painful than mine, though the consequences for millions of citizens now laboring under a tyrannical regime might be slightly different.”
“It all makes sense now,” I breathe, because it all makes sense now. He’s always had something regal about him, something that made everything he did feel like it was somehow refined and proper no matter how psychotic it seemed to be at the time.
“What’s stopping you from going back and reclaiming your throne?”
“Besides the propaganda war that turned my armies against me, and the fact that any vessel bearing me is likely to be destroyed before I come within a light year of the planet?”
I think about all this for a long moment. There’s something familiar about it all. And then it occurs to me. I’ve heard of someone in this situation before.
“I might have a solution!”
Manik removes his crown, having made his point, and gives me a look that tells me he very much doubts I have come to any kind of solution. He underestimates me, but I underestimated him too. If this were a story, that might be the moral, but it’s just messy life, so we’ll have to scavenge bits of useful information from the blood-soaked morass we’re left with.
“There was a human king once who was losing a war, and he had to hide out in a peasant woman’s cottage.”
“Okay…”
“And she asked him to watch the bread she was baking.”
“Alright….”
“And he didn’t! And it burned.”
“Mhm.”
“And then she told him off. I mean, really told him off.”
“Right.”
“So. Yes.”
Manik sighs as he removes his cape. “Was there supposed to be a point to that story?”
“Probably. Fuck if I know what it is. But! I have an idea.”
“Yes. You mentioned that. It has yet to emerge in a form recognizable to others.”
I look at him with a smile. “Do you trust me?”
“Not a bit.”
“Hey, come on!” I whine, because that’s the way to get trust.
“Tell me what you are thinking,” he says. “And I will decide if your collar goes back on, or if I need to chain you to the floor.”
