Long Suffer the King

VII

Klaus shows her where her tent is. It's small but offers enough room for a cot and washing bowl. Ophelia thanks him and makes her way inside. Klaus stands there awkwardly for a moment. "If you need anything Joan is in the tent not too far away. As am I."

"Thank you, Klaus." Ophelia mumbles, looking around. He smirks and bows. "Good night."

She doesn't respond so he leaves with a sigh.

That night, sleep seems to escape Ophelia. She tries getting comfortable in her small bed but no matter what she tries her eyes can't seem to stay closed for more than a few minutes. Her mind races through the past few months when she never noticed a change between her brother and father. Sure Dimitri had been given positions of power whether being the commander of guards or leader of the kingdom's calvary. And she had seen less and less of family meals with her sibling and father but she assumed it was because they were busy but what if they had slowly been shutting her out of their lives. What if they had been planning this for years and her brother finally decided to act when she was weakest?

He's my brother. Family doesn't betray one another. They're supposed to be there for one another.

Ophelia turns to lay on her back and looks at the candles lit around her in other tents. She feels so small suddenly, realizing just how alone she is. She may have been in a kingdom full of people but she never called any of them close friends. Her brother was always distant, her ladies in waiting too different for her to talk and interact with and the servants were always fearful of her. She was never allowed to venture outside the court, unless her father's funeral counted but she was veiled and locked in a carriage with her brother.

She was never properly socialized, she realizes. The first words she was ever taught and spoke besides the usual 'papa' or 'mama' was 'm'lady' or 'majesty.'

Her first experience with being treated like a normal woman was the one time she ventured into the kitchen. She was asked to help prepare the king's meal in exchange for some chocolate. When her father found out he was livid and she wasn't allowed in the kitchen again. The week after she saw new cooks and servers. She was only six but she knew her father made them disappear for good.

Dimitri was her only friend for years, even if he was a cruel one. Of course most of their conversations were controlled by him. He even did the majority of the talking. She learned to stick to her books and at least they were more pleasant than her brother's talk of hanging innocent men.

She hadn't been brought up to be the charismatic and loving queen she read about. She was a recluse and probably hated for never sharing her grace with the country. She was shut in for her whole life, made a laughing stock of the knights (after her brother intervened with the one knight) and a complete outcast with her ladies in waiting. She couldn't even call them friends if her life depended on it.

Ophelia sighs and wipes at her wet cheeks. She sits up and lights the candle closest to her. There's no sound outside, everyone had made their ways to bed. She stands and takes the candle with her outside and past all the tents, back to the outline of the trees to look at the meadow.

The moon is well above her head and everything is quiet with the occasional rustle of leaves from the wind. It's a warm night. She leans back on her palms and takes in the view.

"You really shouldn't venture out at night on your own." Klaus' voice says from behind her. She looks over her shoulder and notices his bare feet. "Did you rush outside the moment you saw me walk out?"

"I saw the candle and I waited a few minutes to see if you had just gone to pass water." Ophelia gives him a weird look and he chuckles. "I thought you just had to piss. When I realized you hadn't come back I went looking to for. Would you like some peace?"

"Company would be nice, actually. Please." she turns back to look at the view in front of her. Klaus sits beside her, cross-legged. "Lonely night?" he asks.

"You could say that. Can't sleep?" she replies and glances at him. Klaus shrugs. "I have an awful habit of never sleeping most nights." he answers. His voice is surprisingly quiet with the silence. Ophelia sits up and starts picking at the grass in front of her. "Do you ever realize you're completely small compared to the world?"

"It starts to grow on you. But yes, when I was a smaller lad I realized it. Do you want to know what I did?" he messes with his hair and she notices the scars across his upper arms. "What did you do, mountain man?"

"I used it to my advantage. If I was small, my problems were even smaller and my battles smaller than that. They didn't wear on me that much anymore." he hands her a blade of grass. "That's my problem. It's quite small right?"

"Yes." she looks at him. His eyes are focused on her hands. "That's my insomnia problem. It's small and when we look at it with all these other blades of grass," he gingerly picks it up from her hand and throws it into the sea of grass, "we suddenly forget it or at least we seem to forget about it sitting within the whole mass. My point being is that whatever you're dealing with, you're bigger than that. And you can overcome it. It's temporary, Ophelia." he turns his attention to her and meets her eyes. Ophelia smirks. "Okay, mountain man. I see your point there. But what if it revolves around a whole goddamn country?"

"Aren't you full of yourself? Don't you realize that where one kingdom falls another rises in its place? This isn't a chess game, princess. It's reality and if you and your brother die then that's it. Goodbye to the line of Morsteins and greetings to the new line! Long live the king, long live the kingdom, long live the whole fucking country. It doesn't stop just because you fail. You'll be written in books for years later and at some point be forgotten. That's how small you are. So are you going to make the most of your minor existence and let it ring for centuries or let it become a dead bell?" his voice doesn't pick up in anger and Ophelia hears no exasperation in it. He's just speaking to her like they're having a normal conversation. She smiles. "You don't strike me as a philosopher."

"We all have our secrets. Mine tend to stay hidden until I'm tired and talking to a woman who needs some sense put in her. You're strong, I can see that. You've endured twenty years there. Are you going to let it go to waste?"

"I don't think I could pretend to, I want to do something." Ophelia thinks back to the rebellions she's read about. "I want it to mean something. I want people to want it as much as I do." she wants to have her throne back more than anything. To show her brother she's entirely capable of holding a country together.

Klaus smiles, the sides of his eyes wrinkling, and stands up. He offers his hand for her to take. She accepts it and gets up, brushing off the grass on her dress. "It'll mean something to them if they see it mean everything to you." he tells her, walking back to the tents. Ophelia follows and they stop at her tent. Klaus starts to walk away but she stops him. "Mountain man."

"Hm?" he turns, hands in his pockets. Ophelia grins. "Thanks for the words of wisdom. It makes me feel better."

"They did the same thing for me. Goodnight."

"Night." she watches him trudge back to his tent. She bites her lip in thought and smiles. Once she's sure he's made it inside safely she closes and ties her own tent flap closed, sleepily walking back to her cot and collapsing.