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16: ᴘᴀɴᴅᴏʀᴀ'ꜱ ʙᴏx.

Unlike Athanasia who was slowly forgetting the lives that she had begun with whilst remembering the bits and pieces that had shaped her to the person she was now, Claude was tossed into the throes of what was once her reality as he lived through a day of her lives bit by bit.

Including the ones where he had killed her, with no redemption to himself.

One afternoon, when he's clearing the work for the day, Felix bursts into the room, a shaken messenger by his side as Felix shoves a message at Claude's desk.

"Your majesty, it's-!"

Felix's tone is off somehow, as if holding back something as if he knew more than he let on, and Claude finds out quite fast, that he knew all too well what the reason was.

Vofrientia, the mid-size country, a little off to the East of Obelia's nearest ocean, had fallen to their knees before an army.

An army led by his daughter, Princess Athanasia.

Claude doesn't know how, but somehow she had coordinated an attack by sea and had managed to get them to surrender in front of her military might.

At first thought, he was taken aback, shocked and annoyed that another power was climbing the ladder, and then those emotions melt away, like ice during a hot summer's day.

That was his daughter that had won a battle with her intelligence and foresight. His daughter who had commanded an army to her will and made such a country bow before her.

He feels a small glow of the sin pride, prickle his heart as he feels a small smile pull at the corners of his mouth and he pulls them back down sharply as Felix watches him, sending out the messenger after giving him a silver.

But that same daughter was no longer here, would not come back to Obelia, not with what he had done to her.

How could he dare to feel pride over an achievement of hers when he had no right to feel anything about her as her father.

She didn't want him as a parent.

So at least- at least- she didn't need him.

Should he feel happy that she had thrown him away first before he had all those times before?

Should he feel glad that she hadn't stayed in the Ruby Palace until her death came again?

Should he feel relieved that she no longer wished for his love?

He wanted to feel all those things and more. He did. He truly did.

But all he could feel was a mind numbing loss that made him stare at the correspondence pages in his hand and he wished he could turn back time.

He wished he could have his memories of the visions intact when he did so he wouldn't make the same mistake again. He wished he could go back to when she was still here so he could give her luxuries beyond imagination, a backing that no one would dare refute.

He wanted to let her live the dream, live the life of a true-born princess who was his own family, one where she would be happy.

The next time his office doors open without his permission, he doesn't even look up, too used to Felix's hurried footsteps to care, and he extends his hand out for the sealed envelope Felix was carrying.

"Give it here."

Felix's inaudible mumble is pushed off to the back of his mind as he pushes the wax seal up to unseal it, his eyes scouring the neatly written lines of the general's report.

He holds the pages tightly, the back of that same hand resting on his desk as he looks up at the ceiling of the office he spends nearly every waking hour in, and his other hand is free to tap at the wood.