Blind king

King Henry sat on his throne and listened to the arguing women before him, each trying to convince them that they had the right of the situation, and that they should be the one compensated for the other's wrongful actions. It wasn't the first time he had heard an argument like this one, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. More often than not, both were just frustrated with perceived slights from one another, and were looking to take the final straw. It made it difficult to make a decision about what should be done with them, simply because truly neither of them was deserving of anything - but to say so would only bring them back later, trying harder to prove that they had been wronged. Harder and louder.

It was difficult to say which one of them was older. He assumed that, with arguments like this, they were roughly the same age, but he had been wrong on that before. Remarkably wrong, in fact. Which deeply made him question what the elders of his kingdom were teaching the children, and perpetuating into the families. If there was anything that he could possibly do to stop the pointless bickering and making people simply do the jobs that they had to do...

But it was difficult enough just to hold on to their respect, much less try and change the way that they acted. Any mistake that he made as a king was attributed to his blindness. And he granted that it was certainly a challenge, but the amount of whispering he hear behind his back of the need to find a decent king to replace him. It was like they thought because he couldn't see them he couldn't hear him. But his ears were the main thing that he had. They were what let him do the things he needed to do, both as a man, and as a king.

He cut the ladies off when he had heard enough. It was evident to him that neither had truly done anything worth punishing, and were making mountains out of molehills. The woman on his left, however, he recognized the voice of. This was not the first time she had been before him, and the things that were being said about her sounded familiar. That much suggested that she was a problem, and so she sentenced her to a month's worth of public service.

As the women were taken away, he rubbed his forehead, just over his eyes. The sound of their voices had been piercing, and he was already getting a headache. And they had been the first of the day.