Gunnland
FTR
"The Fisher King"
Purpoole, Gunnland
60km southeast of St. Tears
Through the dawn mist, the wicker wheelchair and the split bamboo fly rod combined into the vague likeness of a metronome, slowly flicking back and forth to beat half a heart rate.
The professor's pulse quickened, as it always did wading through the muck here, when he saw his king's herringbone tweed coat slumped in the chair. Underneath, a green and blue kilt was folded sloppily over what used to be his legs and the other lower protuberances of the royal person.
A few minutes later a terse conversation, only as loud as necessary over the noise of the stream.
"Your son acquitted himself well in front of the Thing this morning, Majesty."
"No fits for his airplane?" (Both men chuckle bitterly at the irony.)
"It's time to start publishing your writings.""That's fine. It's better to be a dead king. Dead, I am counted prescient and unenviable."
"Blackthorn won. Without stuffing ballot boxes. I did things I wish I hadn't to make that happen.""I see. Remember that those pretties you trade in won't work on me, Robert."
The double amputee looked down at the kilt-folds, while beneath the water, iridescent trout looked up land detected the falseness of the fly.
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