#my fondness for him grows though I still maintain he needs to atone for his crimes

[sailforvalinor]

What a difference a hat can make, amirite

[anomaly00-archive]

@yourocsbackstory​ Antagonist Event | Week 2 | Becoming

|Week 1|

I did this all in one sitting, and I don’t know if it was because it took me four hours to write or if I was too invested, but I thought that this was a lot longer (or at least more dragging) than it actually was. 

TW for Child Death and Forced Miscarriage under the cut. Though they are not what I would call graphic, I would rather be safe than sorry.

______

“You are much calmer about this than I had expected, consort Illysandre.” You gaze up from the rim of your teacup, the porcelain artfully painted with delicate gold filigrees that twist and loop around each other. Setting the cup down with a soft clink atop the saucer, you rose from your seat and executed a textbook perfect curtsey. Elegant and controlled, much like your ederosus taught you when you were a youth still playing tea parties with dolls and dreaming of fairy tales. Eye-catching and magnetic, like the Queen Dowager had drilled into you when you were but a maid-of-honor; fresh blood upon the palace steps.

“Blessings upon you, your Majesty,” you greet. The Queen Dowager scrutinized you. Black eyes darker than the Abyss. No matter how many years you had served at her side—  had accepted her guiding hands in your youth and even to this day when you were a woman grown— you still could not read her. “Would you care to join me for some tea?”

“No need.” She waved her retinue of servants and ladies away, and they obeyed with little fuss, taking her proffered parasol with them as they left. Never too far, of course. But far enough that they would hardly be a disturbance. 

It seemed that even time-- and the lack of her royal husband— had no bearing on the power Queen Dowager Meidira held. 

The zephyr wind blew around them, carrying with it the sound of laughter. Charles--five years old and an exuberant little boy—  had taken a liking to running around the gardens with a wooden sword in hand, slashing at monsters of air and creatures made of tree bark to save a princess. You found it rather charming. 

“Your boy seems to be growing well, then.” Meidira took a seat across from her in the gazebo. She opened her fan--strapped to her hand--with a flick of her wrist, waving it slowly beneath her face. “And so too is Empirya’s little one.”

You stared down at your teacup, fingers tracing the smooth edges. “She has been possessed by a rather healthy glow as of late.” 

You take a small sip of your tea. The foreign princess looked like the epitome of maternal joy. Her face soft and tender, figure rounding out in a way that made her classical beauty shine even more. Even Dantalion, who to this day still looked upon his consorts with that veiled sort of sadness at times, would gaze at Empirya’s growing belly with fondness. You wondered if he gave you those same looks when you were with child.

Meidira hummed, her closed fan raised just below her pursed lips. “You are too content.” The word is spoken with a bite. Sharp and acidic as if it were a vile insult rather than anything else. 

“I have very little to be disgruntled about.” You smiled as you saw Charles’ own ederosus— an old retired paladin— stop the boy and correct his footwork. “Charles would benefit from having a sibling. Like his Majesty and the Duke.”

“Their relationship is the exception.”

“Why could this one not be the same?”

“Because they are vi Aetier’s.”

You said nothing. In the distance the ederosus emits an exaggerated groan, clutching his heart as he fell over. Charles’ wooden sword stuck between his arm and his torso as your little prince whoops and hollers at his triumph. (It is easy to imagine him grown, so much like his father he is. Easy enough to superimpose his face upon his father’s on that fateful day. Your little lion a man with his jovial face hardened, a sword loosely held and stained red. His faceless sibling dying a loser in a duel long coming, forced upon them since their birth. Or perhaps, this time, it will be your own son bleeding out.) Your throat tightens. Your hands grip the cup tighter.

“Empirya has never once challenged me since she entered the harem.”

“She had no grounds to. You are the consort premier that bore an heir for His Majesty,” Meidira said. “Now, however…”

Now she will have a child of her own. A bonny, healthy child with silver eyes and the blood of two powerful monarchies running through its tiny veins. A sword of Damocles forged and sharpened to kill your son, your sweet summer child.

“It appears I have been too lax in my duties,” you said, smile too strained, eyes pinched. How could you have forgotten your resolve so quickly? Was five years so long a time that you had forgotten who you were, and who your son was meant to be? “I thank your Majesty for reminding me for what truly matters.”

“It is only natural for a teacher to take care of her pupil, as it is natural for the consort premier to take care of His Majesty’s other consorts when they are in such a delicate state.” You wonder what Meidira must have experienced to maintain such composure. And if, you too, will be like that one day. 

You hardened your heart. “This one humbly requests for your experience in these matters.”

The Queen Dowager smiled. Smiled too wide with teeth too sharp and eyes much much too cold. “I have a prescription specially concocted for women with child to, how shall I put it, rid themselves of the more unwanted symptoms of pregnancy.”

The words taste like bile on your throat, but you made an oath. “What are the effects?”

“It is tasteless, odorless, and dissolves quickly while being slow to act. I’ve found it quite useful myself in the past,” she said. “I shall send some to you later to pass on to our expectant mother.”

It is here then, on this pleasant afternoon, as you converse with your mother-in-law and watch your son play in the royal gardens, that you finally realize what you must do. The oaths you have sworn by your son’s crib all those years ago have returned, and you must now make good on those promises.  

(Later. Weeks later you will hear that terrifying, inhuman, cry echoing through the halls of the harem. That wounded wail pierced your heart, strangled it with vicarious despair that you could not help but weep. You want to close your ears. To shut yourself out from the world and forget. But you must not. You owe her this much. You must atone for your sins against Meidther and that child-that-never-was. And so you listen; listen and harden your aching heart to the mournful cry of a mother that lost her child much too soon.)

(You would hear--after, much after, for hardly anyone could stomach to say anything then— of what happened in that room. Of Empirya’s wild eyes and her perfectly coiffed hair tangled and matted to her sweat-soaked skin, face stretched and gaunt with desperation. How her delicate and clean fingers were soaked in blood as she tried--oh how she vainly tried--to keep her child inside. 

“She will never be able to conceive again,”  the healers had said.

The best way to secure a victory is to ensure no one ever had a chance, and now, she never will.)