Tampered Beauty

Darkness

"No, Papa. No, please, no." James cried into his mother's side. Mary sat up on her bed, reclining upon the pillows, nightgown thin upon her body. The Empress sat glaring at her Emperor who sheepishly half sat upon their bed. The youngest of the quartet lay obliviously in her arms, nursing at her bared breast, wrapped up in a thick bundle of furs. The elder of the children lay at his mother's side, pressing his face upon her ribs. His small arm lay upon her torso, as if trying to cling to his mother without hurting her.

"James, come on. He won't-" Francis started, but the cry of his son and the fierce glare of his bride stifled the words.

"No, no." James shook his head. "I won't do it!" he proclaimed loudly. "I won't!" he cried out.

It was a dark morning in the palace that the royal couple were residing in. It was cold and bitter, the snow high and the heaths hot. But the temperature in the room was stone cold. The King had confessed to revealing the true connection between his sons, and of the new fact that the eldest wished to see the the elder of the two laying near their mother upon that bed. But none of the trio were contented with his new information.

Mary blinked at him, eyes narrowed into small slits. His wife's jaw had been clenched the moment she had heard that he had spoken to his sons about their true connection. He wanted to talk to her about everything, to explain and make her understand but James had to come first.

"James," his father started. The boy blinked rapidly, peaking out from his mother's dress. "I know what he's done has hurt you, but he understands that it was wrong. Mean and wrong. He wants to make it right, to apologise." Francis cried to soothe. But the boy shook his head.

"I tried to be nice so he would be nice to me. But now he's stuck here forever and going to make everybody unhappy! I don't want it!" he replied, his voice louder than normal but quieter than a cry. 

"He won't, son. Oncle Bash and I talked to him about his behaviour, he knows it was wrong, wishes to apologise for his actions. They were born out of jealousy, because you are the heir and he is not." Francis' words were spoken as if he wished to soothe, but it did little good.

"No, Papa. I don't want to go and see him. You can't make me."

"No, I can't." Francis agreed. "And if you really don't want to go, I won't make you, alright?" James peaked curiously up at his father. "But John really wants to make things alright between you. He sees how nice Oncle Bash is to me and wants to treat you like that."

"No, Papa." James said. "I don't want to. He might be my brother, but that doesn't mean I have to like him because of it." he spoke, his words quite misspoken as it always was when he tried to speak in a vocabulary that was older than his own.

"No, you do not." Francis soothed. "But if ever you want to have your brother at your side, he will be."

"I have one," James sat up, pointing at the sleepy baby guzzling at his mothers' breast, his eyes fluttering as tiredness overtook him as it always did after he contently sucked at his mothers' breast. "He's my brother and he will be with me."

"He will," Francis agreed. "Very well, if you want somebody who acts like Oncle does for me, it'll be him, okay?"

James gave his father a long look, not nodding but seeming to understand.

Francis looked up at his wife. Mary blinked at him, reading his wants through his eyes as she always could.

"If he doesn't want to know your son just yet, you must not force him. Follow his lead." the Empress replied to her husbands' silent request that she assist him in this conversation.

"I will." he nodded. "But-" Francis was interrupted not by his wife, but by James.

"No yelling." he quickly said, those big golden eyes of his widening as his parents started to speak.