#you can't look at Tyr's history without looking at the family so have a little bit of insight on how the mothers were like

[hel-phoenyx]

Matilda III belongs to @corneille-but-not-the-author

Some insight on a cycle of hate

I walk in the throne room, face blank and head low, like always since the crowning.

A second earlier I let Tyrfing go. The prince was there. Two years younger, a prodigy, and yet, still a child. We don't know who his father is, but I have my ideas. I simply know I won't ever expose my doubts to his mother.

My head would fall anyway.

Like many others before me.

I let go of my child and almost immediatly he ran towards hers. I don't like how close they seem to be, but I say nothing. He need to be integrated in the castle anyway. If it's next to the future king, then so be it. Keep your friends close ans your enemies closer. This is why I still go to the palace.

Harald is not with me. That's good. He always bows so low to her and I hate that. In another world, he would have been my king, or even just my prince, and she would be nothing.

She's there, sitting on the throne, her face dangerously calm. I don't like that calm. It is always presage of a storm. But now I have a child that can control them.

One day, he will erase that smile from your face.

"Your Majesty."

I bow down to her, like any noble would. I don't have my sword in, as any noble would. But I am not any noble. I am the heir of the af Mundir, and I am her biggest political threat while being in no position to fight.

She looks at me with the same expression on her face. Calm. But this is only a mask. I've gotten quite good reading other people's expressions. I saw Odin's before he plunged his sword in my father's back.

I never, ever, forgave him. But she is far, far worse.

"What brings you here, Karan ?"

She says my name with a hint of disgust. I disgust her. She disgusts me, too. We all know that, and we both know that contrary to her, I have to keep civil, or my family's heads are to be cut off.

I hate that so much.

"I'm here to bring you Harald's reports on his last raids."

"Why couldn't he tell me himself ?"

My jaw clenches. You know why. You sent him out again almost immediatly. He didn't have enough time to tell you about the Inkan progress on our sea. He could only give me his written records before sailing away. Again.

You don't want him near me. You want me all alone and helpless, me that never could learn how to fight. The only condition for my survival is that I would stay helpless.

I don't even know how to read because of what you embody.

"He's at sea again, fighting. But he give me the written records. Here they are."

"Read them to me."

That smile. That damned smile. You want to humiliate me, you want to push me over the edge, you want me to hate you so I could deal the first blow. I won't. This is a fight I'll lose. I know it far too well.

I don't mind playing the long game.

I want to curse you so badly. In place, I just give you the records.

"Here. he wanted them to be read by you only."

A good way to recover and not be insubordinate, even though we both know what it is really like. I held the records, she takes them, read them, while I'm standing in front of her throne I saw bloodied multiple times.

You still haven't killed me and I know that it is not from the misery of your heart. You killed all of my supports, but I'm still standing. And it is not because of Harald, strong enough to have earned his own name, or Brynhild, the only one from my father's government yours still listened to.

You want me dead. But you want me dead in a ditch. Humiliated except of a martyr. You too are playing the long game. I see it in the way you put your hands on your child's shoulders, that prince everyone says is a prodigy. This is not your prodigy. It's your weapon. You want to secure your place. I want to throw you out of it.

I have the power of Ocean on my side. You have War's.

Let's see which weapon is actually the strongest.