Lightning in a Bottle (karlnap)

Is it Backstory Time? I Think it's Backstory Time!

TWs: Manipulation, death, murder, blood, uhhh play-fighting I guess?

No map for this chapter :D

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Intermission, aka backstory time

Life hadn't been fun for Karl. Growing up as a prince meant his early years were filled with studies. He often sat in his bedroom overlooking the Capital after his studies and watched all of the other kids playing on the streets with long sticks, pretending they were fighting a ferocious dragon or mean troll. He longed to do that too, but according to his father, "A prince has a lot of responsibilities, and that means that he must make sacrificies, like not being able to play with the other kids."

Despite what you might think, Karl's dad was a good dad and his mom a good mom. They would have a picnic on the castle grounds every Sunday, even if his father had other things he should be attending to instead. Since she didn't have as many responsibilities as Karl's father, the queen would often visit the prince between lessons and play with him. She would even occasionally let Karl paint her nails and apply her lipstick for her. 

But then, things went sour. Around the time that Karl was 10, the king and queen started getting into arguments. They would mostly fight about the laws the king was creating. Karl's dad had let the queen speak her opinion before he created laws before, but now he wouldn't take any input from her. This caused a rift to form between them and by the time Karl turned 12, his parents were fighting about everything from royal affairs to which color the ballroom should be re-painted. 

When he was 13, Karl's parents got a divorce. It was a risky thing to do, as divorce was taboo at this point (it still is among the older generation, but it's gradually become more accepted), but they both agreed that this was the best way forward. The former queen still lived in the castle after this so she could still be there for Karl, but all of her royal titles were revoked and she now worked as a humble seamstress.

After that, life slowly got better again, but then another tumultuous event happened: the king fell in love again.  

Karl wasn't happy about that. He loved his mother and thought after the divorce that his father wouldn't try to find someone else to replace her. Unfortunately, he did, and soon they got married and this new person that Karl hardly knew was the new ruler and his new 'parent'. 

The person that Karl's father fell in love with was Max, a bigender person with a love for money and power. Max tried hard at first to get Karl to somewhat like him, giving him countless expensive gifts, but Karl wasn't looking for gifts, he was looking for someone who would care about him and spend time with him like his mother. 

Seeing that Karl wasn't going to like her with the former queen in the picture, Max manipulated the king, talking him into killing his prior wife. He told Karl's father that she wouldn't love him unless he got rid of Karl's mom, and since the king was head-over-heels for Max, he agreed to kill for her. 

One night, Karl was going to visit his mother in her room when he heard noise coming from inside. He peeked around the door in time to see his father standing over his mother's dead body, holding a bloody knife. He stifled a sob and hurried back to his room. Later, when the king personally visited Karl to tell him the former queen was dead ("Someone snuck into her bedroom through the window and stabbed her. I've started an investigation to try to find her killer."), he pretended that he didn't know what happened. 

After that occurence, Max started manipulating Karl's dad more and more to gain more power. Karl noticed and tried to tell his dad what was actually happening on multiple occasions, but he didn't listen, saying that Max loved him and was looking out for him.