~.✧ Love & Tradition ✧.~

~.✧ a fine line ✧.~

Part 1/2 (I think XD If you guys like them enough, they might come back haha)

This one shot is told from all y'all's favorite (even though he was barely even mentioned in Ethira XD) King Marcellus!

I threw the feather pen back into the inkwell, rubbing my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. A weary sigh escaped my lips.

It'd already been three months since the end of the war—three months since my father's passing—yet it still felt as if the world was in shambles. Perhaps it was because I was trying to restore a kingdom that had been broken for far longer than since the beginning of the fight.

As the heir to the throne, I was supposed to know what to do when my time came to rule. But my father had been so concerned with himself that I had no clue what I was doing now that he was gone. He'd left Brikenfolt's economy shattered and what felt like unrepairable, its foreign relations tense, and its resources run dry. It was as if I was starting from less than nothing, trying to rebuild a kingdom from ashes after a herculean fire.

I'd done my best so far on all fronts, but I knew it would take months—if not years—to fix what he'd done. I'd somehow patched together a precarious peace with Ethira, Austora, and Quynt, even if their kings seemed hesitant. I couldn't blame them, though, after the destruction my father left in his wake. From the inside, I'd recirculated the funds my father had been drawing for his and his closest taskid members' pleasures toward the people. Finding the money, however, was only half the battle. It took far too much effort to find leaders and volunteers willing and able to assist me in establishing an aid program for all across Brikenfolt. Right now, I only had the manpower to help the few villages and cities within a seventy mile radius of Yazcha. That left several hundred more. People—my people—were starving yet I didn't have what it took to help them.

I leaned back in my chair and let out a slow breath. We'd get there. I'd find a way to speed things up. I had to.

My eyes flickered from the hundreds of papers demanding my attention before me on my desk toward the painting hanging just above the double doors leading out of the King's Personal Chancery. It was an older painting of the royal family, one that had hung there since it was painted. I couldn't have been older than ten, and my younger brothers consequently around seven and three. My father's gaze held its every-present coolness, while my mother's face was calm and expressionless.

My heart hummed a sorrowful song. While I missed my mother more than anything, I was thankful for the revelations I'd had received since her death. It took losing her in order to wake up and see more than the pampered life I was handed on a silver platter. It took losing her to understand what could be lost if I followed in my father's footsteps...

Running a hand over my neatly trimmed stubble, I decided I needed to take a break. My limbs were turning stiff and my soul restless being cooped up within this office for so long.