25 Headlines That We Were Not Prepared For
“I don't have a lot of faith in my abilities,” the emperor confessed. “I'm not even sure how this all started.” He looked down at his hands, folded on a wooden desk, and then looked back up. He seemed embarrassed by that admission. “I mean… it's just one big mistake after another…” he trailed off.
The emperor looked at his hands again, inhaled, and sighed deeply.
He was slouched in an ornately decorated wooden chair. There were many paintings on the walls and a large fireplace to one side that was currently unlit but would likely be burning when winter came. The emperor himself had never been much for fire. It made the place smell like ash and burnt wood, which wasn't exactly what one wanted to smell around here.
Not too far above the fireplace, there was a list of odd facts hanging on a wall, for reasons probably known only to the emperor himself. That list went …