Made To Be Broken

Two

Death has a certain smell, I think.

It's not the smell of rotting corpses. No, that comes later. It's not the smell of the over-sterilized hospital wing that burns in my nostrils, though I think that must play a part. It's not even a smell at all, really. It's something about the desperation in my mother's pleading eyes, the way she clutches my father's hand while sitting on the end of the hospital bed. She cries, but only in the way royals should cry- tiny streaks of tears that don't ruin her makeup, nor make her face puffy. I stand in the corner of the room, unsure of what to feel as I look over at my father, my king. He's stopped spasming, and his eyes are gently closed. Veins bulge against his forehead, though his breath begins to slow.

Dying, and soon dead.

I stand beside my mother, holding my father's other hand as a means of saying goodbye. Everything inside me is completely and totally numb, and it's this numbness alone that prevents my face from becoming streaked with tears. The love I feel- or, felt- for my father wasn't really love at all- respect, maybe. But it's hard to love a man who cared more about the trade routes with countries on the Brandovian Continent than his daughter.

Even at this, there's nothing comfortable about facing death in the face, no matter if it's yours, or someone else's. I hate the Aldridge family with everything I have, yes. But even I felt uneasy watching King Soren fall limp, watching his children and wife crowd around him. No, there is no comfort in the hushed whispers and sobs from the room outside the hall, even if they do come from the people I'd been taught to believe are my sworn enemies.

I'm not quite sure what to consider them now, though. After all, it's my father's dying wish to find peace with Eldoria. But that treaty was never signed. In all formal regards, Briarwood and Eldoria are still at war, and the Aldridges are our enemies.

A choking sound gurgles from my father's throat, and I turn to look back at him. His face is all too pale, save for the web of veins growing ever-prominent. His lips are immediately chapped, cracking in every place possible. It's as though he's trying to speak, but words are impossible. My king is, in every way, on his deathbed. The doctors had already determined that whatever poison this was, whoever committed this act of treason, were questions that will have to wait. They at least had the decency to leave my mother and I alone to say goodbye.

It's as though with each weakening breath, my mother leans closer to my father. As if she could transfer her life to him, by some miracle. Not that we royals were allowed to believe in miracles, or prayer of any sorts. Religion clouds judgment, or so I've been told. Sending up a prayer that my father may live is hopeless, fruitless. But maybe, just maybe, the silent hope in my heart that this man may die in peace could be heard by someone more powerful than I.

My mother's eyes glisten with more tears now, and I can't tell if it's apart of the facade of grief or true cracks piercing her royal armor. There was no way of truly telling, with her. And yet, even after all these years of knowing her, knowing the tricks that build a queen, the shakiness in her voice makes me wonder if it's all real.

"I love you, my dear." She presses a kiss to his forehead, her tears leaving tiny droplets of salt on her husband's face. "Rest now. It'll all be alright."

Her words stir something in me. The words she'd used to comfort me a million times before. Rest now. It'll be alright. Even when she knew that nothing in this world is really right. It's a fool's wish, a child's comfort. But if my father's last moments may be spent in some foolish bliss, I think it would be alright.

My eyes begin to fill with glass, the medical room blurring around me. The white sheets of the hospital bed become the snowy caps of the Northern Mountains of Toria, where he'd taken me to watch the sun rise in the early mornings. The dark wood of the cabinets housing medical supplies that could not heal my father in time becomes the shaded bark of the trees on the royal grounds, where he'd find me hiding away. There were not many moments I shared with my father, and yet, I see these select few in a new sort of fondness. And I wish, right then and there, with every fiber of my being, that I might have cherished them just a bit more.

The numbness is still there, the disbelief. Only now, I am crying too. Salt stings my tongue, and tears burn in the back of my throat. And it's only then, when the sadness is clear on my face, that I feel my father's hand go slack in mine.

"Goodbye, father," I whisper.

My whisper can't be heard, though. Not over my mother's sobbing.