[FICATHON] Kings of the Earth, for speak_me_fair

[angevin2]

Title: Kings of the Earth
Author: highfantastical
Play: Richard II
Recipient: speak_me_fair
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard II, the Duke of Aumerle, Anne of Bohemia (deceased)
Warnings: Grief
Rating: PG
Summary: Your crown and your heart are different things.

Comments

[speak_me_fair]

This is just utterly, deliriously beautiful. The weather and the odd darkness of the tone even though all the images of the people within the room are bright, and the conversations that don't quite finish because they're eternal and almost Kafkaesque (if you turned away and opened that door a second time, Richard and Aumerle would be just where you left them, or even perhaps, eerily, five seconds before you left them).

So, so much I want to quote -- Edward's imagining of what this insisted-upon heir would be like, the rain, the trees that are all the more symbolic because they're real and still can't be seen, but most of all the exchanges:

The Duke of Aumerle says, "If it were somebody kind."

"But I don't like kind people. Only you."
__

"Why can't you sleep, my lord?"

The king puts down his cup. "I can. I elect not to." SO MUCH VERY YES TO THIS

[quoshara]

This is sweet and beautiful and utterly sad.

Thank you.

[likeadeuce]

A wonderful, tender exchange between the two, and the air of unreality and myth that hangs over it adds to the beauty. Lovely work.

[gehayi]

I think that what I love the most about this is that Aumerle gets to see Anne after her death. I love that she greets him with smiling eyes and that Aumerle instinctively knows that she deserves more than the courtesy due a queen; and I love that Aumerle lies to him about this so that Richard won't forever search for what he can no longer have. And oh, I'm sorry for Richard, who regrets burning Shene.

And I really, really love that Richard and Aumerle use quotes from Revelation as a way of saying "I love you."

It's so sad and yet so tender at the same time.