Imagine a taxi, speeding through the streets of Paris. It's not too difficult.
Imagine the taxi has three occupants. A man driving, a woman in the front passenger seat, and a second man in the back passenger seat. Alone. Again, it's not too difficult.
Try and imagine now how this second man is feeling. Again, not too difficult, right? This is Paris, it's a clear, sunny morning, and he's on a trip with the beautiful young lady in the front seat. Not too difficult at all.
But there you would be wrong.
For the man in the back seat of this taxi is Thayer Atner, Dictator and future King of Mendellia.
History will record its kings as successes or failures, great men or non-entities. Rarely will it deign to consider whether they might love, whether they might give their heart to another the way mere mortal men do.
But this isn't history. This is now. And Thayer loves. Or, at least, he loved. With all his heart, he loved one woman, in all his life. Her name is Becki Bush. By all rights, their paths should never have crossed. What chance the meeting of a student teacher from Indiana, and a crown prince from a small island near the Galapagos chain?
But meet they did, and, as in all the best fairy tales, the handsome prince fell truly, madly, deeply in love with the damsel in distress. He aided her escape from the captivity imposed on her by his wicked uncle. Stop me if the story sounds a little familiar.
Thayer and Becki fought side by side to save our world from an alien invasion. You won't have seen it on the news. It was well hushed up, and that's just one more thing about the story that sounds familiar. But the invasion really happened, and somewhere along the way, he noticed her, and she noticed him, and they fell in love. Then he proposed, and she accepted. A fairy tale for the ages.
Of course, in any relationship in these modern times, there are issues. Becki, being an independent woman in charge of her own destiny, chose to return to America to complete her studies. Thayer agreed to wait for her return. So she departed, and their love stretched across the miles.
But life gets in the way of love. Late night study sessions, council meetings that drag on for far too long, social events, essays, reports and royal obligations get in the way. Suddenly it's months since they talked, and it's so hard to pick up the phone, to write the e-mail, to post the letter. What if, they think. What if he's met someone else? What if she's lost interest? Imagine how the two feel. Imagine the fear of hearing the news. Surely it's better to wait. Until tomorrow, maybe. Or maybe the day after. Or the weekend.
So Thayer and Becki waited. And waited. And waited. And eventually, the call came. Becki was to return to Mendellia to rejoin her team-mates in Terra Group. The couple would be reunited, and all would be well again.
But.
Ah, I hear you say. There's always a but. And you're right. Cynical, but right. In this case, there is a very big but. It belongs to the Queen Mother, Llessur Atner, and she's determined to make her but as big as possible...
You see, Llessur doesn't like Becki. She didn't even make much of an effort to get to know her. Becki's a really lovely girl, and most women would be proud to have her as a daughter in law. Not Llessur. She wants her baby boy to marry a Mendellian noble, like one of her insipid Ladies In Waiting. To this end, she's enlisted the not-unwilling help of Vickie Boyd, friend of Becki and Thayer, Jedi, Terra Group captain, and fellow fan of ferrets. Where the ferrets come into it all isn't exactly clear.
So Becki showed up in Mendellia, but between one thing and another, she couldn't get to see Thayer, try as they both did. Why one or the other didn't just wait in his bedroom, is unknown. They're engaged, so surely it's okay to hang out there. Some people, eh?
So off Becki went to Paris as part of the mission. Accompanying her were five other members of Terra Group, including Captain Vickie, and mission leader Josh Cochran, another Jedi, and one of Thayer's closest friends. Llessur had suggested to Vickie that maybe Becki and Lt. Cochran might get along, given the chance. Vickie, seeing that Becki was being hurt by the separation from Thayer, agreed to give the idea some thought.
Anyway, to cut an already long story a little shorter, Much of the above is unknown to Thayer. He also doesn't know that Team Paris, as the members of the mission dubbed themselves, have undergone one hell of a mission. There's all kinds of tensions burning in the air, all kinds of excitement, death, intrigue, that kind of thing. The sort of emotional whirlwind in which, as Thayer and Becki discovered a year or so back, interest is taken, and passions inflamed.
Small wonder, then, that with mistrust fragmenting Team Paris, and with unchecked passions running a little high, and a very little encouragement from Captain Boyd, small wonder then that, well, Josh and Becki ended up kissing.
Not just some simple, innocent, peck on the lips, either. This was blood and thunder, last chance saloon, back seat on a Saturday night kiss. Wham! The stiff formality that had dogged Thayer's courting of Becki, the sweet gentleness with which he'd finally kissed her, nothing Thayer and Becki had shared could compare to the emotions boiling off Josh and Becki as they kissed. Imagine how Thayer feels. All that passion, and Becki was sharing it with another man.
Of course, there were extenuating circumstances, but, lest we forget, Thayer doesn't know any of this. All he knows is that he loved Becki with all his heart, and his greatest fear has seemingly come true. He's lost her to another. He's been betrayed by his fiancee, and by his friend.
It's of no surprise, then, that he's almost speechless. All he's said to the lady Lenka Leannan, his companion on this day, is that they should find a place to stay.
Thayer doesn't need to say much. It's clear to anyone that he's in agony.
Medics will tell you the heart has nothing to do with love. It's all endorphins, hormones and pheromones skittering around inside your brain. That doesn't explain the tightness in Thayer's chest. It doesn't explain why he can barely breath.
Imagine, if you will, how stupid he feels. All the months gone by when he couldn't bring himself to make the call. He wonders which day it was where he lost her. Which day it was that rebuilding a nation became more important to him than building a life.
Tears spill, unbidden, down his cheeks. He doesn't notice, can't notice. What can possibly matter when you feel the way he feels? He is lost in an unending loop. Tortured, he replays the events of his and Becki's short time together, those few scant days between the death of his uncle and her return to university. They'd promised they would wait, but he wondered now how much of it had been a lie.
Imagine as the anger boils inside him. He's thinking of his friend, Josh Cochran. How long had it been going on? He's thinking of Becki's single night under the Mendellian sky a few days before. Might her avoidance of him have been a sign of guilt? Had Josh been slipping over to America to visit her without Thayer's knowledge? Had that night been spent in Josh's arms, while Thayer lay wondering if he should go to her?
Thayer's head drops, and he chokes on a sob. His body is racked by a coughing fit, his soul is racked by doubt, and guilt, and self pity, and anger.
You can see it in Thayer's eyes as he slowly recovers his composure. He drags his sleeve across his face, drying his tears. Big boys don't cry, his mother said to him, all those years ago. She was right, or so Thayer now thinks. And maybe it's not the only thing momma was right about.
What if Becki had been the wrong woman for him, all this time? Can you imagine that? What if she's been playing him for a fool? Had been stringing him along all the time. But, no. The thought dies in his mind almost as soon as it is conceived. For there is a part of Thayer that still loves Becki. And a part of him is still hoping that it is all a colossal mistake.
Even as that thought dies, though, he is besieged by a veritable legion of others. What will become of Terra Group? If he and Becki are to no longer be together, can he continue to support her team-mates? Especially as one of them is Josh?
Thayer can't even begin to deal with that now. With a shake of his head, he sets that concept aside. With a shudder, he sees himself returning home to the triumphant embrace of his mother. He has no doubt she will tend to him silently, waiting just until he is strong again, should that ever be the case, before she slips in an 'I told you so.' And it will only be one. For Llessur Atner is not the sort to dwell on her victories. Rather, she seeks out new challenges. And yet she will be sickeningly pleased that her challenge of the last year, the woman Thayer loves, is finally defeated. But she won't gloat. She'll just be... happy. Delighted, even. Her days will be filled with the sort of unpleasant happiness normally associated with prison guards as they lock away their captives. For Llessur Atner still sees Thayer as her child, someone to guide and advise, in all the ways he lives his life.
Thayer calls for the car to stop, and stumbles out of the door, dropping to his hands and knees as he vomits, revolted by the thought of his mother's glee.
Back in the car now, and Thayer thinks of Becki. Surely now, they cannot avoid one another. The confrontation is one he dreads, and he winces as he sees her there, confirming she is with Josh or begging Thayer's forgiveness or returning his ring or asking for one more chance...
With a shake of his head, Thayer abandons the line of thought. He cannot know what Becki will say. I wonder if anyone could think clearly, feeling the way Thayer does. He cannot know what he will say. Part of him loves her, part of him hates her. And Thayer knows that he will not know what part is true until he sets eyes on her once more.
He looks ahead of him, seeing for the first time in a long time the other people in the car. He thinks of Lenka, and what might be with her. Would he make her his queen? Josh had shown an interest in her, although that was all now so very confused. If Josh loved Becki, would he also have wanted Lenka? As a ruse? A distraction? A very dangerous game of follow the lady?
Thayer had thought better of Josh than that.
But he'd thought better of Becki then that he'd find her kissing his friend in the city he would have brought her to on their honeymoon.
He doesn't even notice as Lenka pays the cab driver. Now what? I hear you cry. Will Thayer simply leave Paris? No second thoughts? No last chance flight back to the banks of the Seine to confront the two almost-adulterers? What kind of tale is this, where the hero is beaten, and the lady is lost?
Imagine, if you will, a sound drowning out the noise of the city as the cab drops them at a low quality guesthouse. It's a sound that you have to imagine for yourself. I can't tell you what it sounds like, no-one can. No-one's ever heard it. But you likely know what it feels like.
Imagine, if you will, the sound of a heart breaking.
There is a man, a leader of men, a ruler of a nation. But he is still just a man.
As his heart breaks, imagine how he is feeling.