A Crown, A Blade, A Bad Habit - by Onlyreal

King Edrion Veyl learned early that the body lies. The tutors said the soul spoke through posture, through discipline, through prayer. Physicians insisted illness revealed itself in tremors, pallor, fever. But Edrion knew better. The body’s truest language was habit—the small, unconscious movements that betrayed what the mind refused to confess. His was simple. Whenever he was anxious, whenever silence pressed too hard, he licked his lips. Slowly. Deliberately. As if checking whether his mouth still belonged to him. His mother despised it. “Stop that,” she would hiss, nails biting into his chin. “You look like something waiting to be fed.” She died with her fingers still pressed against his mouth, mid-scold, eyes wide in sudden understanding. Edrion never learned what she saw in him at the end—only that her grip loosened and her body cooled faster than expected. By then, the habit had already taken root. Edrion was never meant to be king. That honor belonged to his elder brother, Caldras—golden-haired, broad-shouldered, loud with laughter and certainty. Caldras filled rooms the way fire filled oxygen. He wore confidence like armor and never once questioned whether the crown would fit him. Edrion lingered in doorways. He listened. Watched. Licked his lips. When Caldras fell ill, no one panicked at first. Princes fell ill all the time. Too much wine, too much hunting, too much flesh pressed against theirs in the dark. But this sickness was quiet. Polite. It did not rage. It consumed. Caldras complained of hunger that food could not satisfy. Of dreams where his jaw locked open and something else chewed for him. By the third week, he had eaten nothing and yet grown heavier, bloated in ways that made servants avert their eyes. On the fourth week, his tongue split. Not torn. Divided. Two thick, glistening lengths unfurled from his mouth like worms tasting air. He tried to scream. The sound came out wet and wrong. By morning, he was dead—and impossibly empty inside, as though something had scooped him clean. The physicians whispered of curses.The priests spoke of punishment. The crown was delivered to Edrion that same night. It arrived wrapped in black cloth and refusal. The messenger did not cross the threshold of Edrion’s chamber. He slid the bundle across the stone floor with his foot, eyes fixed on the wall. “I am not permitted to stay,” he said. “Why?” Edrion asked. The man swallowed. “It’s already awake.” Then he fled. The crown was warm. Not like metal left near fire, but like a mouth recently closed. When Edrion peeled back the cloth, the gold caught candlelight and drank it greedily. The inner band was ridged, uneven, faintly damp. He hesitated. His tongue flicked out. He placed the crown upon his head. It fit perfectly. Not snug. Not loose. Intimate. The gold softened, flexed, and settled. A pressure pressed inward, as though something leaned close to whisper directly into his thoughts. Edrion gasped. The habit followed—slow lick of the lips. The crown tightened. Just slightly. Enough to remind. They crowned King Edrion Veyl at dusk. The priests begged for daylight, but the crown would not allow it. Each attempt to remove it before sunset ended in blood tracing warm lines down his temples as the gold clenched into his skull. So dusk it was. The ceremony blurred. Cheers arrived delayed, stretched thin like old skin pulled too far. Faces melted together. Eyes lingered where they should not. Edrion smiled. The smile felt practiced. Old. His tongue pressed against his teeth. The crown loosened. The blade came seven nights later. No announcement. No guards. Edrion found it standing upright in his bedchamber, point buried through stone as if the floor had opened willingly. The hilt was wrapped in pale skin—not leather. It pulsed beneath his fingers. The moment he touched it, the room inhaled. His tongue moved without permission. The blade responded. A vibration climbed his arm and bloomed behind his eyes—images of mouths opening too wide, teeth rearranging, crowns sinking into skulls like parasites finding purchase. He dropped the sword. It did not fall. It leaned toward him. Waiting. That night, Edrion dreamed of chewing. The palace learned new sounds. Scraping at night. Grinding beneath the floors. Servants waking to muffled wet noises behind the walls, like someone eating very slowly. Mirrors misbehaved. Edrion noticed first that his reflection lagged. His tongue appeared a heartbeat late, pressing against the glass like it wanted out. He laughed. The reflection didn’t. The executions followed. Rebellion brewed at the borders. Fear had to be addressed publicly. Edrion agreed. The condemned man screamed before the blade touched him. “You’re empty,” the man sobbed. “You don’t end where you should.” Edrion frowned. His tongue moved. The blade fell. It cut more than flesh. The air shuddered. No blood spilled—only a faint golden residue soaking into the stones, pulsing once before vanishing. Later, no one remembered the man’s name. Or his crime. Or his face. Edrion licked his lips. The crown relaxed. He began speaking to the blade—not aloud, but close enough. It answered in sensation. Warmth when pleased. Cold when displeased. It loved doubt. The crown hated it. Edrion learned to balance them. Doubt fed the blade.Certainty fed the crown. He thinned between them. Servants disappeared. One left a shadow behind. Another left fingerprints still warm on a door. A third vanished mid-sentence, her voice continuing alone, finishing her thought in a wet whisper. Edrion stopped noticing. Attention was food. His habit worsened. Food tasted dead. Meat felt wrong. Bread crumbled into ash. Gold dissolved sweetly against his tongue. Medals. Rings. Furniture filigree. He chewed until his jaw ached and his mouth glowed faintly in the dark. The blade watched. The crown listened. The first time he cut himself, it was an accident. The wound opened. Inside him was a hollow chamber lined with teeth—rows upon rows, clicking softly, tasting air. They smiled. The crown sank deeper. “You’re learning,” whispered something from inside his mouth. Teeth spilled onto the floor, chattering. They crawled back inside him. Portraits changed. Past kings turned their heads. Tongues pressed proudly between teeth. Smiles widened too far. Edrion stopped sleeping. The palace breathed. When the rebellion came at dawn, the crown laughed. They found King Edrion Veyl seated on the throne. Perfectly still. The crown fused to his skull. The blade pierced the floor beside him, humming softly. His lips were split into a permanent grin. His tongue rested between his teeth like an offering. When they tried to remove the crown, it bit back. When they screamed, the palace answered. And somewhere inside what used to be a man, a bad habit licked its lips— Waiting.

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