Long May He Reign

Next batch of new ep doodles, this time for episode 97-99!

𝐲 𝐚 𝐬 𝐡 𝐚 

« But there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see what you find there, With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair. »

god i KNOW THIS EP WAS SO MUCH

this ep was so much of essek just summoning All his courage to ask these people— who actually seem to like him? to like him, and not use him, imagine that— for things, for anything in return for what he’s done for them.

and after all that buildup, what he asks them for is FRIENDSHIP. he waits until he thinks they owe him to the point that they shouldn’t refuse even if they don’t like him— they can’t, right, not really? they didn’t call when they found someone new, when they didn’t need him anymore— and he asks if he can come in for dinner. he asks if they’ll help him with research— help him, like a friend would do, like anyone in the den would do if they thought he was anything other than the umavi’s prodigy son, and how could he need help, he doesn’t need anyone.

he watches their tongues loosen with the wine— you know, he bought it months ago, when they moved in, he was going to give it as a housewarming gift but they asked if he would come in and it was like icemelt down his spine— and he trades them his fears, his doubts, one treason for another. they talk sacrilege over wine in the house the bright queen gifted, and then they ask essek if he’d like to join them in their hot tub.

it’s a thing he thinks over when he goes home and caleb almost follows— what he’d do, what he could do if caleb did, essek doesn’t even know. when he tries to sleep, when he rises early, earlier even than he does to meet the umavi, to make eight plates of breakfast.

when they don’t call and the breakfast grows cold in his parlor and dread sinks in him like a stone— they don’t want to see him, of course, they’ve already left, they have caleb to teleport now, they’ve gone to see the bright queen and he is already dead, standing sadly in his kitchen— and he retires to his study.

work, it keeps him from dreaming. the vial caleb had given him burns in his breast pocket— another time. he has committed enough treason lately— and he has almost forgotten that he didn’t clear the table when jester’s voice startles him so badly that he falls backward.

who was the woman who cured him

what tf happened to her?