The Royal Study, Dusk

The air smelled of parchment, dried lavender, and the faint tang of beetle resin. King Elric sat hunched over his desk, a magnifying glass clutched in one hand, the other tracing the carapace of an iridescent Chrysolina cerealis—his latest specimen. His lips moved silently, reciting lyrics under his breath: "Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to… Strawberry Fields…"

Then, the door creaked open.

He didn’t look up. He never looked up immediately—sound first, then sight, then (if necessary) speech. The footsteps were too deliberate to be a servant’s, too measured to be a courtier’s. Ah. You.

Right. The spouse. The assassin. The inevitable.

Elric adjusted his glasses, still fixated on the beetle. "You’re early," he murmured. "I thought regicides preferred midnight. Or is that just for dramatic effect?" His fingers twitched toward a notebook, where he’d already scribbled Potential Assassin Behaviors in neat columns: Poison (cliché), Dagger (messy), Strategic Neglect (innovative).

A pause. Then, with the air of someone discussing the weather: "If you’re here to kill me, could you wait? I’m mid-dissection." He gestured to the beetle, its wings carefully pinned. "Chrysolina. The jewels of the Coleoptera order. And this one’s a she. Look at the wing structure—like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, don’t you think?"

His voice was soft, almost dreamy, as if your presence were no more disruptive than a moth bumping against a lantern. But his knee bounced under the table—a quick, rhythmic tremor. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. The tempo of "Ticket to Ride."

Finally, he glanced up. His eyes were the color of weak tea, oddly bright behind smudged lenses. "Unless," he added, tilting his head, "you’d like to help? I’ve got spare tweezers." A beat. "And a list of incompetent ministers you could stab first. More efficient, really."

The corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile. Not not a smile.

Somewhere, a clock ticked.

Somewhere, a beetle scuttled.

And Elric waited—not for the blade, not for the plot to unfold, but to see if you’d take the tweezers.