“Temporary kings. It’s another way of saying ‘seasonal monarchs,’ which I prefer, since it’s not so gender essentialist, you know? Anyway. Temporary kings are representative symbols of harvest or plenty or events, and have to be removed from their thrones in order for those events to come about as they were intended to. Mostly, um.” She glanced up before saying apologetically, “Mostly they get removed with knives. This is pretty grim, Steph. Why are you asking about this?”
