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starving & nic fitted

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They kept their heads down in the welfare office, the three of them 
moving like any other family waiting for their number to blink on the 
cracked screen. No one looked twice. The king’s shoulders had learned 
the slump of a man who’d filled out too many forms. The queen’s hands 
stayed buried in her coat, hiding the rings she refused to pawn. Their 
daughter watched the guards outside the building; state uniforms, cheap 
fabric, the wrong crest—men who would have bowed to her a year ago and 
now didn’t even see her.

The mismatch showed itself in small seams. A ration booklet stamped with 
an emblem her father designed, now handed back to him as if he were a 
stranger. A policy bulletin quoting her mother’s old speeches but 
twisted flat, stripped of the spine that once held a country together. 
They lived under rules they had written for others, rules meant for 
stability, not survival. In hiding, those rules felt feral, like 
something wearing their faces but not their intent. They said nothing 
about it. Silence was the last piece of royalty they could still afford.

-- 
Through you we push down our foes;
through your name we tread down
those who rise up
against us.

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starving & nic fitted phoenix <j63840576@gmail.com> - 2026-02-23 04:02 -0600

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