The throne was too large.

Not physically of course. Alexander was a muscular young man, and the throne fit him like a glove.

And it was from that perch he watched his father’s, his, kingdom fall apart.

He tried to slow it down, desperately reassuring nobles and servants alike. But there was so much to do, so many little pieces he had never noticed before, so many daggers hiding in the dark.

Maybe if he had just paid a bit more attention…

He quickly shut down that line of thought. Bemoaning what he had lost would not aid him now.

All throughout the chaos, the empire sank their hooks into him, prying his kingdom open with opulent gifts and offers of help.

And Alexander just watched, drowning in a throne too big for him.

—-----------------------

Alexander flowed through his forms, the longsword in his hands cleaving deadly arks through the air. Faster and faster he went, till tiny vacuums began to form in his wake, first born from the sword's deadly blade, and later springing from his own body as he adopted the blade's edge.

He was one with the sword, and it was one with him.

And in a fragile world they danced.

But the deeper he sank into it, the more he embodied it, the more a sense of wrongness intruded upon him — a whisper that not all was right. He shook it off and refocused, but it always came creeping back with ever growing intensity.

Finally, unable to withstand it anymore, he stopped the dance and withdrew himself from the sword. It took precious minutes as his more human sensibilities returned to him, his mind finally turning from the single minded desire to cut.

WIth renewed faculties, he turned his gaze to the empty field where he had come to practice. The ground was covered in thin slices, though not nearly as much as he had expected.

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He knew how deep he had sunk into the blade. Not even the tree on the clearing edge should have been spared.

And yet they stood.

He called back to the sense of wrongness, the feeling of moving backwards.

Why was it wrong?

He set his blade down and, wiping the sweat from his brow, laid down in the shredded grass.

What had he set out to do?

That one was simple: he had wanted to learn how to wield a blade.

So why had embodying it felt like he was stepping even further away from it?

The answer came to him in the slow rustling of the breeze. A man was more than their flesh, and a blade was more than its metal. It was forging in the image of the true Blade, a form that possessed no physical form, yet existed all the same.

He was failing because he was imitating a cheap copy, rather than the true thing.

He slowly pushed himself to his feet, reflecting on the nature of a blade. It was not a simple tool of steel and form. No, it was more than a physical tool.

At its coremost essence, its truest truth, a blade cut.

Drawing upon that new understanding, Alexander raised his unarmed hand, pressing it into a swordhand. He took a deep breath, reaching out, brushing something he had never touched before, faintly through his blade.

But this was no mere reflection.

He was cut, and he almost lost his grip.

But rallying his will, he let those cuts shape him, casting aside humanity for a higher form.

He became the Blade.

His arm came down in a blur.

And this time the trees around the clearing stood no chance.

—----------------------------------

What was a king?

A king was strong.

A king was loved.

A king was feared.

A king ruled.

So Alexander, the newly crowned king of Marcenia, not a month after his death, touched upon the very essence of kinghood. He let it flood into him, a never ending deluge of power and authority, a promise of authority over men.

He crowned himself, in the way all great men do, and the kingdom fell before his knees.

Slowly but surely, the slow degradation of his nation reversed, the army once more resuming its momentous growth and the nobles bowing before his throne.

A throne he had finally grown into.