Yugi paused, the echo of his most recent step moving past his still figure and on down the hall. He glanced to his side, and intook a sharp breath as recognition flashed through his brain. Old ghosts moved about in the dark cell before him until one in particular, a dignified man decked in finery and with hands tied behind the chair he sat on gestured him closer.

"You must be Yugi. Congratulations on the coup, though you'll have to forgive me if I don't feel up to celebrating."

Yugi paused a moment longer before approaching the cell, his hands reaching out to find familiar grooves in the rusted iron bars.

"You will answer to your people! You will answer to your gods! And you will answer to me!" Yugi's fist slammed into the side of the traitor king Kelseth's face, ropes of blood slinging from his mouth to join the brackish water on the floor.

"I must say Little Yugi, I believe you've been working out." Kelseth chuckled.

"You are far too comfortable for a man whose spent a week tied to a chair."

"Ung." Kelseth grunted at another punch and spat onto the stone to his left. "Rest is hardly something I would call myself familiar with."

Yugi flexed his shoulders and wrenched on the old iron gate, which swung wide while protesting loudly.

*schreeeeeech* Kelseth glanced up at the noise, seemingly as if expecting exactly such an interruption from his apparent nap. "Third time visiting me just this month. I'm beginning to think you like my company."

"Think what you will. I only come here for business."

Yugi let his eyes roam the desolate cell, taking in the stains a thousand half-hearted sweeps of the care-taker's mop had yet to erase, the holes in the mortar where the sole cot's supporting chains had long lost the fight against gravity, and finally the worn wooden chair, chipped and covered in dark stains and still supporting the laughing form of Kelseth.

"Why it feels like I saw you only yesterday."

Yugi sighed grandly and held up a mug of ale for Kelseth to sip.

"That's because you did, and if you tell any of the guards I'm coming here for any reason other than to remind you of your crimes then I'll have you flayed."

"Oh yes you certainly aren't avoiding your duties or anything. Not to mention that I'm rather certain you already have had me flayed."

Yugi made a face of mock indignation.

"What!? I would never!"

The laughter faded back into the recesses of Yugi's mind as he stared at the ancient chair. So quickly had his duties gotten in the way. So much he had missed.

"He's been asking after you, General Yugi, sir." A soldier of the Red Hand of the Republic sttod to attention and saluted. Yugi nodded to him and turned to the now familiar cell. In it sat a man he didn't recognize. Same were the tangles of black, unwashed hair hanging in front of a gaunt face. Same was the unruly mess of dark curls sitting where there once had been an immaculately groomed beard. Same was the glittering raiment tarnished with filth and torn to rags. Same, even, were the bruises and scars delivered by some righteous hand to the symbol of tyranny. Gone was the smile. And the eyes that had always held a sparkle of merritment now shone with something sharper.

"Leave us."

"But sir-"

"Go."

The man nodded and turned on his heel. marching off toward the castle proper. Yugi waited until the sound of the man's steps were smothered by the heavy click of an iron lock rattling shut far down the hall before turning his attention back to the cell.

"Kelseth! So I hear you're finally going to tell me where I can find all that buried treasure and those potions of immortality you've been hoarding?"

"Dispense with the knavery, your Highness, we no longer have time for it."

"Your--your what?" Yugi stuttered.

"The guards have proven themselves proficient in guarding all but their tongues, my boy. I am to be executed tomorrow ."

Yugi bit his tongue, stopping lies that would comfort neither of them from escaping his teeth. "Yes."

Kelseth nodded, his eyes never leaving Yugi's own. "The sheep must always have a king. They will turn to you."

Yugi nodded, a proud grin spreading quietly across his lips.

"Hah!" Kelseth barked a mithless laugh. "And that right there proves you are not ready."

"And what would a King like you know?" Yugi spat. No sooner had the words left his mouth than he wished he could reach out and drag them back down his fool throat. The words hit Kelseth and seemed to visibly age him. His smile came back once more, but it was a tired, remorseful thing.

"It is precisely because I failed so comepletely that I can assure you that you know nothing of the weight of trust. Heavier than the weight a hundred men can lift, is the one a hundred-thousand ask a single man to bear."

Yugi laughed long and low in the silence of the dungeon, both hands gripping the edges of the ancient chair his back bent, a rictus of pain warring on his face with the joyous sound that escaped his lips. At the time, the reason behind his actions then came back in the quiet hous of sleepless nights for years. The hairs of his beard, as immaculatly trimmed as his predecessor, had long turned white before he understood why he had run.

"Yugi." Kelseth's voice called, too quietly, Yugi realized for the first time that the rasp and cough ever-present within it could only have come as a result of his treatment here...his punishment. "Tradition demands they allow me a few words tomorrow. Be there and listen."

Yugi raised his head, bathing his face in the dawn light that filtered weakly through the high window of the cell.

He squinted his eyes, his cloak doing little to protect from the glare of the morning sun. Even this early, the crush of bodies gave a sweltering heat to the tiny square. The gallows leaned over the crowd like the skeletal bones of a house some carpenter had never found the spirit to finish. The roar of the crowd swelled and ebbed in time to the beat of colossal war drums on either side of the raised podium beneath the gallows. Yugi focused, his hood did few wonders for his vision, but his height gave him enough range to see the frail form of Kelseth struggling up the stairs. His manacles dragged several feet of chain, each link seemingly seeking out to catch on edges of step or under the feet of onlookers. The crowd roared again. Their jeers cut through the air at every stumble, calling out the frail king, the broken king. But, before Yugi's eyes all he saw was a mountain: proud and unyielding in the face of cutting wind. Soon enough Kelseth reached the podium and dragged himself up to his full height. The crowd slowly quieted as he spoke.

"I once called myself your king."

The crowd erupted. Shouts and slurs flew from the gathered populace like corn launching from a fire of heat and vitriol. Kelseth continued unabated, his words resolute against the crash of vocal violence.

“I held a vision for a world that would leap to it’s feet when I gave the word. A world that would stand with their backs to the warmth of home, with the salt spray of their enemies blood in their face. A world where we would want for nothing from the cradle to the grave.”

The drums began to beat frantically, the crowd rising to the expectation the rhythm set for them.

“Your hopes were too heavy, and my own too naive.”

The swell of noise in the square rose once again, and the voice of the king could no longer keep up. Yugi started and began rushing forward, felling the rabid sundry about him like so much wheat.

“...ran away...not for impossible odds...my own failure...always...needs a king.”

Snippets of Kelseth’s words filtered through the crowd as veins in his neck began to bulge with the strain of sending them. Yugi strained his ears but the executioner snatched up a rope and cut off the rest of Kelseth’s speech. Kelseth grimaced, but rather than fight the rope, calmly cast his gaze about the raving press of his former subjects. One and all reduced to beasts who reviled everything the man was and was thought to be. Soon enough his eyes fell upon Yugi, still wading fruitlessly through the throng. He smiled. The same smile Yugi had seen the night before, and would every night after. He mouthed parting words to the future king, then fell through the floor of the gallows.

Yugi ran his hands over the worn wood of the chair. He moved through the familiar grooves until he found the words carved into the back of the chair, right by the eroded wood where a kings hands had once been bound.

[A king may never lie]

It was thought to be a ploy by the traitor king to make the revolutionaries believe he had told them the truth when he was questioned, a clear impossibility. But Yugi knew the irony of placing the words on Kelseth's final prison. A king may never lie, nor may he rest in any way if he wants to live up to the expectations of his people. Even after being overthrown, a king may only sit. Yugi chuckled quietly and mouthed the words he recalled seeing all those years ago.

"But I am no king"