𝐖𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐏: 𝐒𝐞𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞

1: Claude, 'The limping.'

Claude de Alger Obelia is born in a brightly lit room full of scuttling maids and the Emperor of Obelia holding his mother's hand with a smile upon his lips until that man hears, "Congratulations, your majesty! It's a prince!" 

The hands clutching his mother's weak one only tightened, a slight wrinkle between Aevum's brows before he bothers to give a glance at the child, eyes somewhat soft as he gazes at the child borne of love between the two of them, and names the baby, "Claude." 

The limping.  

What a pathetic name to give to a prince of the Imperial line. All the maids gave sorrowful glances at the concubine laying in the bed, at the prince in one's arms, and gives silent sighs at the tradition of the Empire. 

No matter how they were named, shouldn't the emperor have given the child, his child, a name to be proud of? 

Claude is treated with the utmost care for the first few years of his birth, the first few where his mother was still alive and breathing. The emperor bestowed upon them gifts, treasures, tokens of love, not sparing a single expense even under the watchful eye of the empress. 

His mother wished to deny the presents, wanting to live peacefully, raising Claude in a far off palace, away from the prying eyes of the nobility, but when the emperor finds out she is ill- he turns on Claude and sets him on a vigorous academic schedule, one filled with the most malicious of teachers. 

Still, Claude thanks him in his heart, he could have been ignored at the very least, and without any education, he would be considered a toothless shark amongst the monsters in the palace walls. 

Claude doesn't say anything when he returns to the palace where he resided with his mother, simply wiping away the blood upon the scratches on his knees. 

Hiding the reddened welts on his calves with a longer coat and covering the bottoms of his feet with cotton socks that reached all the way up to his thighs.

He puts on an innocent smile that many were not fortunate enough to see on his angelic face as he gingerly walked to the room and with a deep breath, wiping his tears, he pushes open the heavy doors, his cheerful, "I'm back, mother!" resounding as he hides his pain away.

In the far distance, bright golden light scatters itself into the wind like fragments of the gold in the hidden vaults as long blonde hair curls along the breeze, blue gem eyes blinking under the sunlight as they gaze around them with utter fascination that swiftly dull into boredom. 

"Isn't this just the palace, what was I so worried about?" 

She shakes out her hand, the odd soreness in her wrist giving way to a dull ache before she pushed her hair back, a rose petal falling from her movement and falling to the grass beneath her feet.

Her throat was feeling awfully scratchy though, and she clicks her tongue in annoyance, managing to clear her voice before shading her eyes against the bright sun hanging in the sky. "Let's go back inside."

She notices the gardens she was in were devoid of the roses she knew and loved, the arch of pink and red alternating ones that had been put into place just recently being nowhere in sight.

She scrunches her eyebrows together, a little confused, but perhaps in the short time that had passed since she left, Claude had uprooted whatever used to remind him of the "eyesore" that had bothered him ever since he had lost his memories.

She shrugs the nagging feeling away, her heart still coming to terms with how his behavior had taken a half turn since a while back, and how it reminded her of the Claude that had mercilessly executed Athanasia in the Lovely Princess. 

But that couldn't be. He would come back.

...Right?

Athanasia stifles the anger at him for making her bow to him in front of everyone, the sadness that he didn't recognize her and didn't think of her as anything but some thing that crawled into the palaces whilst he was sleeping. 

She sighs, nearly stumbling over a lump on the dirt before stabilizing herself. No Felix to grab her and tell her to, "Be careful, your highness!" No Claude to tell her, "Walk slower, Athanasia." Just her. 

Alone.

At least for a time...

She should go find Lily.

Athanasia de Alger Obelia steps across the grass of the palace grounds with a little melancholy sadness to her step, blood still staining the hem of her clothes and the ends of her hair as she breathes in the autumn wind of the Empire of Obelia- thirty odd years before her death.