Josephine

𝓔𝓹𝓲𝓼𝓸𝓭𝓮 96: 𝓜𝓪𝓷𝔂 𝓨𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓼 𝓗𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓖𝓸𝓷𝓮 𝓑𝔂

May 16, 2015

New York, First American Empire

"Your majesty we have almost arrived back at the palace," Lord Maxwell stated as our car rolled down FDR Avenue.

"Thank you milord," I replied.

It's been three years since we've been in the palace, and New York in general. In 2012, a hurricane named 'Sandy' practically ruined the entire city, including the palace. For three years it's been being rebuilt, and revamping the city so that it could resist natural disasters in the future.

During that time we had relocated to the Spring Palace in northwestern Oregon, on the coast of the Pacific. It had been nice, but I missed home.

The past twenty years have been crazy in general. My fourth pregnancy came to term on February 16, 1997, and I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Mattéo and I named him John Charles, to keep the old dynasty name going. Hamilton left America in a hissy fit, and we haven't seen him since, though there have been some tabs that my agents in the Imperial Bureau of Investigation have kept on him.

Mattéo and I have raised John Charles well, and I believe he is a fine young man. He turned eighteen a few months ago, and even as a teenager he was much different than his brother. He treated everyone around with utmost respect, he bowed, never rolled his eyes, and spoke clearly and concisely. A fine young man indeed.

Junior is also living a good life for herself. In 2002, she married Marquess Fabien of Tejas and added the title of Marchioness Josephine to her long list of titles. As neither of them was able to have children of their own, they adopted a boy named Lucas in 2008, who was nine at the time, and he became the Earl of Corpus, a region in southern Tejas. Lucas is now 16, and Junior is now 34, which is absolutely unbelievable to think about.

Lily grew up, gave up video games in her late teens to the most extent. In 2004, she married Conor, crown prince of Ireland. Yes, the same Conor who rejected Junior. Apparently, he was a good man deep down. She has had two children, Eire and Conor Jr. In 2011, Eire, the Irish king died after fighting through liver cirrhosis for two years. So my daughter, now my thirty-two-year-old daughter is Queen of the Irish, adding another ally to my belt. 

Sophie is doing well too, now that she has married the new Greek king, Constantine the Third. She seemed alright with it at first, they even have a daughter, Cassandra, though, since 2013, it appears that there is more than meets the eye. I do hope the Greek is treating her well, she's too sweet to face the horrors of a bad marriage. 

Victoria... oh Victoria that girl has gone through a lot recently. She continued to reign as Queen of Persia and Samarkand for many years, raising her children, and eventually having a total of six. She had two more boys, Farhan and Maxwell, named after the Lord in my nobility, and a princess who she named Alexandra, after her late birth mother. She also met her birth father, named Darius, in 1997. He was a drunken drug addict when he dated Alexandra Newman. When she got pregnant, apparently, they both agreed he would be better off not in Victoria's life due to his habits. Finally, in the early 90s, he got sober, cleaned himself up and began looking for Victoria. They had a harmonious reunification and even today, Darius joins us for family gatherings.

But then her life collapsed so suddenly, none of us saw it coming. January 4, 2011. They had visited for Christmas, and everything seemed fine. Ali seemed fine, Victoria seemed fine, the grandchildren were fine. They had decided to tour the northeast together for a romantic winter vacation while the kids went back to Persia. They went to Philadelphia, West Point and Fort Ticonderoga before stopping in Boston.

Then early on the fourth of January, Victoria called. Ali had committed suicide in their car, shooting himself. She ran back into my arms and sobbed, and sobbed and sobbed. Mattéo, Junior, John Charles, and all of us comforted her as she cried her heart out to the lord. Nobody had seen it coming, and especially not Victoria.