He stands frozen inside the Imperial mausoleum, and he could have been a statue if it were not for the sound of his breaths that made soft clouds that brushed the cold stones.
He stands before a marked place, his hand forming a fist that wouldn't stop shaking. Was it fear or disbelief that took ahold of his very being at that moment as he stared at the open tomb within the crypt that he had never stepped foot in before.
Why? One may ask.
Why was it that he chose this day of all days to venture into the unknown void that housed the bodies of Imperials? Was it because the winds beckoned him into the open doors?
No.
A thought surfaced within his mind as he gazes at the grave.
Today had been her execution. Would have been. Should have been. Has never been. Has been. Could have been. Would not ever have been.
Claude de Alger Obelia is haunted by the past and what he has seen within its dark entrapment, and he sees- he sees himself from her eyes on a day she killed him, for she had nowhere else to turn.
Athanasia de Alger Obelia, a name fit for a sovereign. Yet, the child rots away in the darkness of a palace meant for concubines.
Once, it had been filled with the scent of iron, blood, splattered upon its dingy walls, for the emperor who had usurped the tyrant Anastasius, had made it so.
His voice is loud, almost damningly so, and he glares at her thin figure as if he could erase her from the world with just that.
"It would have been better if you had never been born!" He settles with the treacherous sentence a parent should never tell their child.
Athanasia stumbled back, her gem eyes that she had always been so proud of gone wide and unseeing as her father glared at her while yelling for the guards to keep Jennette safe but to take her away- to get her ready for execution.
Athanasia's mouth opens, as if in awe, but a terribly distraught expression overtakes her face, her eyes alone portraying her feeling of deeply rooted anguish.
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Why?
Why was it never her?
Why would it never be her that father looked upon with fondness?
Why was it never her that father gifted gardens to, just because she liked a certain flower?
Why was it that her father, the one who was the hero of the people, was the cruelest to her, his child?
Craving that single glance, a single word of affection, a small phrase that meant he cared about her- all of it- she slid to the ground, her mana, the imperial mana that had never manifested in her even though she was an Obelia, didn't stir, even though her death was written down in stone.
