The Queen

After the execution, Louis was finally able to go rest.

He was ecstatic at the thought of having the previous queen in his bedroom waiting for him. If he kept going in this insane, no sleep schedule, he was surely not going to last more than an hour.

But life is unforgiving.

Or so Louis would like to say, had he actually stopped and cared about the emergency situation that was happening.

Zoe, his closest advisor, follower, and friend, asked him about what to do for the challenge that had been issued. Louis was feeling like a university student which had just gone through way too many finals. That is to say, Louis just did not give a damn.

He did what every politician did in the 21st century. He delegated. Zoe, before she could refute, was made queen by Louis. This way, his drowsy mind thought, she could take care of the rest. She could make any official declaration as part of the royal family.

It was a decent solution, except if we consider Zoe's feelings.

Zoe stood in shock in front of the bedchamber door, and was finally out of her daydream when she heard the giggles of the previous queen.

She would have been very happy, was it not that her now supposed husband was having fun with the previous queen. Maybe they were just playing laser tag in their room, she thought. Her next question was what was laser tag.

The challenger was a middle-class Hunter, who had fought previously for the kingdom. The reason for the challenge was the drastic changes that the king was implementing. These people had lived under a monarchy for all their lives. Even though things were getting better, opposition like this will always exist, thought Zoe. Humans are creatures meant to rebel.

She, first of all, proclaimed herself the queen and then accepted the man's challenge.

The man knew that the king would not have fought him, but he thought that he would be underestimated. He believed the king, with his busy schedule, would have sent one of his random soldiers. It was a rule that when a duel is presented, even the king must fight as a Hunter. Louis was not a Hunter, so he, legally, could not fight. But Zoe was now royalty, and she represented the new government. As a Hunter, she was forced to fight.

He had not expected to see the woman he was seeing before him. Everybody knew the woman that stood before him. She was a legend. A rare Hunter that existed outside of Epsilon that had actual powers.

Fighting Zoe was like fighting the ending boss while being in the first level. Impossible to beat her? No, but it would take a genius, too much talent, and a lot of experience.

He knew this was his end.

The arena was just like you'd expect. A modern take on a gladiator's arena, but with statues on the circular walls containing each of the elements. These were placed so that the rare Hunters that can use them would not die without being able to fight. Hunters with elemental powers were pretty much a myth. In the two kingdoms that they had liberated, they had only met one. The reason being the lack of monsters to hunt.

As Hunters gain powers from the things that they kill, finding someone that has actually found a monster and killed it is very rare. Zoe was a very special case. She was the representation of the sun.

She looked up at the sky. The sun was shining. She became distracted looking up at the sun. It almost made her forget why she was angry in the first place, until one of her fans, who was in a bathing suit and had no shirt on, screamed how much he loved her. Mentioning the word love put her in a very hungry mood. The sort of hunger that makes you want to devour either your greed and leave you empty, or devour the world, making it yours.

She felt anger then, at the impossibility of having either of those wishes become true.

The temperature rose with her temper. The sun was responding to her mood. She was ready to fight. But she was nt going to get a fight, only a massacre.

The man took out a sword and ran towards her. She simply kept walking slowly towards him. She wasn't even aware that the man kept running towards her, or that he instantly died the moment he got close. It was only the cheer of her fans, which knew of her powers, that managed to take her out of her gaze.

She had won the battle, and not even realized that she did.

The citizens that had wanted to watch were in awe. They did not know why Louis was known as the sun king. Here was the reason why.

His queen was the sun.

After the duel, Zoe spent most of her day organizing the books from the library that Louis would later read. A king's personal library was the second most powerful place for creatures of weakness such as Louis, and so Zoe was the only one allowed to help him with them.

In complete honesty, Louis never really liked how Zoe organized them. He would always rather read the juicy ones first, and then the important ones, but he didn't dare tell Zoe. She seemed too happy to be the only one allowed to do it. He simply accepted it.

When she was finished with that task, she started pacing around the outside of Louis' bedroom. She had the responsability of telling him that now they had to be oficially married because she had made the proclamation of being the queen. But, like everyone that has a brain, she was overthinking every slight inconvenience.

I mean, we would be married, she thought. She then imagined the wedding, what flowers they would use, etc. She was even thinking of the kiss that comes at the end of the ceremony, where they would spend their honeymoon together, what if they were forced to have children? Blood rushed towards her cheeks.

She, then, came back to Earth. Knowing that would not happen, she told herself it was alright to dream sometimes. But, a little voice in her head told her, the ceremony was still required. Louis would be able to let her handle more royal affairs, she thought.

Then, deciding that it was indeed the right course of action, she started making her daydreams a reality.