It was the first time in a long time.

I had resigned myself to being locked in my fortress, alone, but safe.

Then you came.

You were a friend at first, and then you were more, and I opened my shackled doors.

Things were good. They were hard sometimes, but they were good.

You wandered my castle for a time, acquainting yourself with the parts of me you could reach. Sometimes you hurt me when you were hurting, but I didn't blame you. Because I loved you.

After more time had passed, I allowed you into my throne room.

Told you what had been lurking in my depths, the fears I felt and how the mortar of my structure was crumbling. I let you into my very core. I thought you could help.

You seemed to grow slowly hostile after I told you. My halls weren't filled with the usual warmth. Then I brought you to the throne room when my stone began crumbling and my throne began splintering, you agonized on how the splintered wood affected you, instead of giving me the support beams I needed to stay together. The wood of my legs split, and I was hurting, and I needed you most. I still bore your weight when you hurt, but my breaking, jagged wood was... Too much for you. Though before I began crumbling, you had told me you would endure anything, for you loved me.

But then you left.

My throne was broken, the stone of my castle shuddering without support; I was falling. I supported you in your loneliness, cradled you by my hearth when life was too much. But when I began crumbling, you decided my halls were not for you any longer. You would not help maintain that which sheltered you through brutal storms, that which always promised you a safe place to stay. You left.

And it hurt at first.

But then I was angry. My fire flared, knowing you told others that my crumbing bricks weren't really breaking, that I was an insult to those that truly needed help, even when you knew that the bombardments of my crisis shattered my walls, broke my throne. You would have people look at my cracked stone and jagged wood and think it a ploy for pity, even as I struggled to keep myself standing in the vicious storm that raged on.

I allow close friends to wander my halls after you left, and they help rebuild. Place mortar between the cracks of my walls, clean the cobwebs away from my corners.

I will not allow them to enter my throne room. Not yet. It will take time. I will rebuild my broken throne, my hands will bleed from the splinters, but I will prove you wrong.

I will be the King I was meant to be, I will show you how wrong you were about me.

I want you to know what treasure you left behind. What you took for granted.

My walls are fortified, my dear friends maintain it for me, and I hold them by the warmth of my hearth. I will support them as I did you, for they are grateful and help keep me standing.

Not like you.