- Belmyrs -

The last person had left the throne room and Belmyrs let out a small sigh as he got up on his feet. Along the walls of the room there were guards standing, and they followed him with their eyes as he moved. His heart felt a bit heavy as he had listened to the people’s complaints and wishes, and he didn’t know what to do about all of it. It was his duty to hear them out and he wanted to please most of them if he could, but some things were hard to do. Even for a king. He wanted to be good and just, and loved by his people. And most of the time he was, but it was hard when he couldn’t do certain things. Like changing the weather.
  He stretched his limbs, as he felt stiff from sitting on the throne for hours, and he couldn’t understand how the Kings of Old had been sitting on this thing for as long as they had. His years as king were nothing in comparison. Belmyrs emerald green eyes gazed over the room and he nodded lightly at the guards to tell them they were free to leave now, and then he walked to a door on one side of the room. One of the guards next to the door opened it for him, and he walked into a corridor.
  Even here there was a couple of guards stationed, and they bowed to him as he passed. He walked straight for his study, a bright room with bookshelves and a large desk. On the desk he found his favorite sketchbook, a pen and some ink, and took it with him. His feet took him through the palace, to his chambers and out through the doors of his living room, into the garden.
  It was a bright and warm autumn day, and Belmyrs didn’t want to waste anymore time of it inside. He had just realized the roses of his garden were a luxury for some people in his kingdom, as their island had been having very strange weather during this year. The city of Irmasari had experienced a warmer summer this year, but not as dry as his people had told him about. And now they told him about so much rain that the ground couldn’t swallow it. It worried him, as it should worry a king.
  His fingertips stroked gently over the petals of one of the deep red roses, and for a moment it was all he could notice, the feeling of soft petals and the lovely scent of the flowers around him. This was his favorite place around his palace, a place of peace and quiet where he could be in the moment, not having to think about much else. In this place he decided to sit down on a large stone, and put his ink next to him and open up his sketchbook.
  He drew the roses, the flowers with their soft petals and the stems with their sharp thorns, but not only the roses themselves, there were also the way the sunlight hit everything. A small ant running up one stem and a spider’s web. It was the life around him, and he wanted to put everything of it on the paper, as if it would go away forever if he didn’t. And maybe it was true, as each moment would pass away with time.