The Burden of Leadership
Northern Grusaak sat on a riverbank at a campfire
Kaelurun had not wanted the crown, and some nights he still forgot he was wearing one.
Tonight it was a boy, twelve, maybe thirteen who'd walked into camp with a broken arm and a story about a hunt gone wrong that didn't quite add up. Kaelurun had sat with him himself, set the arm himself, and only afterward walking back through the dark he let himself notice how his hands hadn't stopped shaking the entire time.
It wasn't the arm he has seen and had worse but it was the boys face in the firelight the exact shape of fear he remembered from four years ago from a night with actual screaming in it from watching people who weren't supposed to die, die.
He hadn't slept properly since that night he had learned to function on the kind of rest that didn't count as rest learned to walk into a Council meeting looking strong when he wasn't, he learned that a leader's exhaustion if it showed became everyone's problem instead of just his own. So it never showed. That was the job as much as the treaties and arguments and the endless walking he carrying it so no one else had to see the weight of it.
He sat outside long after the fire burned low looking over the boy's story again the parts that didn't add up the parts he suspected but didn't yet have proof of another thread he'd have to pull come morning whether he had the strength for it or not. There was always a morning. There was always another thread.
He didn't cry he has not in 9 years and he wouldn't let himself start
He just sat and let the fire go out and told himself the way he always did that he'd sleep tomorrow.