Equivocal

Renata stood before the grave, careful to not crush the lilies and roses underfoot. Etched upon the stone was the words for a dead man. ”’Here lay King Elwin Niall, beloved ruler and father.’ I can tell Ophelia wrote it, didn’t she?”

The Third Princess of the Alkine Empire, more commonly the Forgotten Princess, couldn’t help but leak a visceral bitterness into her voice, Her stormy gaze shifts to the figure to her left, her brother, Lucian, the 1st prince of the empire, so to be king.

He shifts is head, a hand fiddling with a strand of coffee hair. The prince doesn’t return his sister’s bitterness, instead speaking in a calm voice. “I won’t defend her words nor our father’s actions, but at least to us he was a proper father.”

”At least to you,” Renata scoffs, Lucian flinches at her words. “I guess it’s easier to pretend he was a good man then remember what he did.”

Renata’s grey eyes return to the grave, millions of memories fighting to come back to the surface. The king was well known to love his first two children, always making time for them, always spoiling them. Never was this true for his last child, the one who was born at the cost of his soulmate’s life. The one he left to rot away and only bringing her to court as an act of torture.

Jealousy was a good way to describe Renata’s feelings towards her siblings. Watching as the king set aside time for them, never bothering except to scold Renata. Never once speaking a world of kindness about his youngest, raising up his older children. Always believing Ophelia’s lies about her younger sister’s falsified missteps.

Lucian and Ophelia reacted every differently to Renata’s arrival. The older kept his tongue unlike his sister, stopping her if she goes to far but never stopping her to begin with. Ophelia was a master of words, knowing how to make her words hurt. Renata’s cheek faintly stung with a ghost pain from when the woman threatened her just for daring to talk to another noble.

Lucian’s voice found it’s way into her rapidly spiraling thoughts. “-nata! Renata, you need to breath!”

The woman’s vision came back into focus as she found herself being supported by Lucian, the prince easing both to sit down in the dirt, ruining was is probably highly expensive fabric. His words are calm and quiet, but loud enough for her to hear. “Sister, if you can hear me, are you able to tell me five things you can see?”

She pauses as her grey eyes focus, she lefts a sweaty and shaking hand to point. ”The grave...Ms. Deidra’ tower, the valley lilies, my hand…and…”

Renata looks around again, settling on her brother. “You.”

He smiles, gently grasping his sister’s hand. ”Now four things you can feel.”

What can’t see feel? Everything burns her raw…”My clothes, the dirt beneath us. This breeze. Your hand…”

Lucian pushes on, a voice in the back of Renata’s mind says that maybe this is how he is trying to repent for his inaction. “You are doing great, now what is three things you can hear?”

”My breathing, your voice, a…the leaves rustling.”

His thumb starts to gently rub her hand, aiding to ground her more. “Wonderful, now can you tell me two things you smell?”

Renata manages to find the energy to snort while she continues. “Your terrible smelling cologne and the roses by the grave.”

He laughs while he finishes. “Is there one thing you can taste, Rena?”

A metallic tang fills her mouth, when did she have time to bite her tongue? “Blood.”

The Princess heaves in a labored breath as they just sit there infront of the grave, pondering the duality of the man who raised them, one raised by his kindness and the other by his neglect. It was Lucian who spoke first. “I know you love to write, unlike them I listened to the words you wish to share behind closed doors.”

”Why….” She trailed off, to tired to move away from her brother. She felt wetness hit the top of her hair, the unfinished question cracking her brothers facade.

”I was scared. A bad excuse I know, Rena,“ He all but whispered, daring to share the truth not even his closest confidant knows. “I didn’t want to admit it. Face the reality of who my father is.”

”I understand,” Renata consoled her brother, gripping his hand back. “The man you and I know where to very different people, yet the same man. You don’t have to feel guilty for how he treated me compared to you. Mourn the man who raised you Lucian, the man who loved you.”

She feels the tension in him collapse. He speaks again in a whisper. “What was the poem you wrote before this happened? The one you were going to show Ms. Deidra.”

She pauses. “Equivocal. To be unable to formulate an opinion on.”

Thus, the Forgotten Princess speaks words to a repentant brother, hope for the future filling the space.