"Why do you want me to be the one to lead all of you?" I finally asked her, the question slipping from my lips before I could think twice about it.
Honestly, it had been sitting in the back of my mind from the moment she brought up the whole 'you'll be the one to lead us' thing. I mean—she was a queen. A literal queen who had been ruling longer than I'd been alive by several lifetimes. Someone like her choosing someone like me didn't feel natural. Actually, it felt like the kind of thing you'd only hear in weird stories where the protagonist gets picked for some impossible destiny—and even then, it always sounded absurd.
I didn't have centuries of wisdom, nor the experience of navigating politics across kingdoms. I didn't have the gravitas of someone who ruled a massive forest and all the people in it. And honestly, I wasn't sure how she'd feel being ordered around by someone who hadn't even lived a fraction of her life span. So, the question fell out from me almost instinctively.
