Francis missed Mary. He missed her and Bash and Kenna with her schemes and mischief, Greer with her levelheadedness, Aylee with her quiet wisdom, Lola with her theatrics, all of their laughter and light and joy. But, here he was, in the too hot chambers of his mother with his sisters and toddler brother, still wrapped up in her too tight embrace when all he wants to do is run in the cold breeze with his little entourage.
He knows why his mother grieves, a baby slipped from her womb seven months too early, a baby that was all the more important given Louis' death last summer. He knows that all his mother would want after another loss would be her children. He, the long awaited heir, Charles, the little spare, and two girls for the marriage market. After eleven years, her children were all the more valuable to her heart and her life, which is why she is so dramatic and clingy to them. He hates it, but he understands.
"Mama." Francis looks up from the too tight embrace in the too warm skin. "Would it be better if Mary and the girls and Bash were here?"
"No." Catherine answers immediately. Her hand pushes Claude to settle her squirming in the bedsheets. "No, it would not."
"Why?" Francis so tires of his mothers' hatred towards Mary and Bash and the girls, it's exhausting and it hurts him so badly to see his future wife and Queen treated with such malice. Especially after Catherine herself had instructed him to be nice to her when she and her little ladies had came to France three years ago.
"Because you four are mine. And Mary and Sebastian are not. They would bring me no comfort, to hold children that are not mine, who have no love for me, and who I have none for in return. Only you and your siblings can comfort me, Francis." Catherine answers curtly, her tone giving him the impression that she no longer wanted to speak of this. But just as Mary had pulled him from his sickbed and sicknesses, he has leeched some of her stubbornness and her fiery temperament.
"Mama, I think you're wrong." Francis sits up to look his mother in the eye. She is surprised, he can tell. "Why would you hold onto hatred and refuse the love they have to give? They haven't done anything wrong, Mama. Mary and Bash and Kenna and Lola and Aylee and Greer, they're good, Mama. They make me happy, and shouldn't that make you happy, too? I'm not sick anymore, 'cause of them. That's good, mama. And seeing them sad because they have your ire, it hurts me, too. Can you try to be nice to them, for my sake? Please?"
Catherine looks away.
"It's so simple in your eyes, is it not?"
Francis doesn't reply.
"My feelings about Sebastian and Mary are not your concern, Francis."
"But it is when your being mean to them hurts them, and hurts me! Mama, please, I don't ask that you kiss them every time you see them, but none of them have done anything wrong, and not being of your blood isn't their fault. Please, mama, Mary and the girls, they have no mama. And they cry to me when they see you love us and they have no loving mamas. Especially Mary, Queen Marie is an ice Queen, there is no love in her anymore, and Mary is only a little girl, she doesn't deserve to be hated just because of her blood. I love her, love all of them, and they deserve your love too."
YOU ARE READING
You Are My Light Part II
Historical Fiction-Reign Oneshots/Taking Requests- The world can be dark, Mary, and uncertain and cruel. The only thing that matters is that we face it together. No matter what happens, you are my light. Part 2! -Read TEML first!-
