Long Suffer the King

I

Dimitri and Ophelia run across the dining hall, giggling. Ophelia has to pick up her skirt to keep from tripping but she's still faster than her brother. "Get back here you brat!" he whispers, trying to grab her arm. It sounds like a threat but she knows he's joking. He always jokes. Her brother will never mean her any harm, he only tries acting like her father.

Her bare feet have no traction on the hard floor. When she rounds the corner she slips and falls, her elbow cracking into the floor. She cries out in pain but her brother clamps a hand over her mouth and drags her to a dark corner where no one can see them. "Be quiet! Father will kill me if he finds out we were playing in the court dining hall!"

Tears fall from her eyes. The pain is unbearable but she keeps quiet. He hugs her close to him and apologizes for chasing her but later that night when her father asks what happened he glares at her. "She was being a stupid girl, running around like a whore."

Ophelia hears her father chuckle. "And how does a whore run around, Dimitri?"

"With their skirts up and asking for it."

She leans against the door and holds her fist to her mouth to keep her crying silent. Mother would have never allowed Dimitri to talk like that.

Her mother died after she gave birth to her, Ophelia's father tells her when she's old enough to understand (she barely reaches the middle shelf in the kitchens when he does tell her). Dimitri blames her but her father thinks differently. "She died to save you both. She died and maybe it's for the best," he mumbles, drunk in his chair beside the fire. Ophelia stares at him, clutching her doll. "Maybe it was for the best... to avoid watching the fall of the kingdom..." at that point maids had come in to whisk him away to his chambers.

She's thirteen when she's raped by a knight in the court. He wasn't much older than her and he had been sweet at first. Always giving her flowers and sending poems. She just liked the attention.

When he kissed her it was rough and not at all how she read it in the books. His hands couldn't find a place to stay still and when they did she didn't like it. She pushes him off her but she was never taught to defend herself so he overpowers her and she cries as his hands find their way back up her skirt.

She never mentions anything to her father but when her brother finds out the boy never comes around her again. He wouldn't even look at her. She feels guilty, that maybe she had lead him on by accepting his gifts (or so her brother says) but she knows later on it was never her fault.

Her brother grows into a handsome young man and all the girls fawn over him. Ophelia grows jealous, wondering why she can't have the same reaction. She starts to eat less and be more flirtatious. But it doesn't seem to work and all it does is bring all kinds of bad reputations around the court. When her father hears of it she's locked in her room for a week.

"Dimitri does the same thing and he gets praised for it!" she complains when he visits her one night during her punishment. He shrugs and looks at the maids walking past. "He's a man, it's normal. You're a lady. Start acting like one. If I wanted a whore in the court I would've gotten one in from the brothel."

She doesn't flirt with any of the men in court after that.

Dimitri reminds her more and more of her father every day. She starts to hate him for it. The only time she doesn't is the night her father leaves court for a hunt. They lay out on the balcony like they used to as kids watching the stars.

His hair has grown out to flow past his ears, while hers is down to her waist. There's a hint of a beard on his chin and his eyelashes are long. "Do you ever wonder how different it would be if mother was here?" he asks her quietly. She turns her head to him and sees him playing with the rings on his fingers. Rings representing positions he holds in the kingdom. She sighs. "I think she would've made you a better man."

He laughs, his whole body getting into it. "And I think she would've made you a simpler woman."

She smirks but it hurts to hear that. "A woman doesn't have to always be simple."

"No but it makes my job easier." he grins. She sits up and glares at him. He rolls his eyes but looks away. "I'm sorry."

"You should be, brother."

"She would've made you powerful and queenly." he states after a moment of silence. Ophelia looks up at the sky. "You think?"

"Father told me she knew her way around the kingdom. She knew how to get to him and get her way. A woman like that is to be feared."

"And not trusted." she adds.

"Not always. Father trusted her. I trust you. I think you or mother wouldn't have done something that wasn't good for the kingdom."

"You remember that when I'm queen and you have to listen to me." she teases, leaning over him. Dimitri shrugs. "Maybe. I think I the kingdom would be in good hands."

She retires after their conversation but pauses at the door before leaving him. "You're much better when father isn't controlling you." she tells him. He nods. "I know."

That was the only time she could recall that he was nice to her. When her father returns the next morning, he goes back to his cruel demeanor, if not worse.

She surrounds herself with women her age in the court. The start calling themselves the waiting ladies of the queen and she thinks she likes that kind of power. Even if she can't relate to them at all when they gossip about who's screwing whom and who they've decided to dance with at the weekly balls. She halfheartedly partakes in those conversations and gets bored but if it means having them around her for company she'd take anything.

"Ophelia, do you have your eye on anyone?" one of the ladies ask. She doesn't even bother to remember their names. "Not really." she says, face turning red with all the attention of her.

"Oh, please, there must be someone."

Ophelia shrugs and goes back to her book in hand. The girls turn away from her and change the subject. She starts to feel ridiculous for not liking anyone.

Her tutor teaches her about knitting and sewing. She learns how the hierarchy works and about the history. When her tutor skips over the wars she questions him. He just smiles and says, "women don't need to know about that. Blood and death are not something they need to be taught."

When she wakes up in her own blood a few nights later she thinks back bitterly to that conversation. "Women see more blood than men and they don't have to even leave their houses." she mutters, getting up and calling for her maids.