After all this time, and that was all it took? All those years as a child in which I held you as you expressed the sadness for the father you had, but never knew? After those several anniversaries of birth, in which I had to remind your father in which day it fell upon, that was all it took? Things had changed when your little raven reignette had taken to the seas, but they fell straight back into place not three years later. You and I, standing in the sidelines, watching your father dote upon the son he adored and the mistress in which he loved, watching the three of them be a proper, solid unity, whilst the two of us drifted like nameless ships on a blackened sea? When had those disappointed, disproved looks turned to the ones who held you in such a regard now?
Had I never noticed? Was I too cold to the ways of his words and his blackened eyes? Numbed to the actions of his hands and his heart? Had you? Were you too caught up in the loving gaze of your grown raven reignette to see the transition from judgement to almost complete adoration? When had it started? Would it ever stop?
When did you become the son of your father? Not his heir, as he had referred to you as your entire life? Nor your usurper, as he enjoyed stating as you grew into a man? When had the word 'son' gained the value it now had? When did the price of it shoot into the stars? When did it hold so much meaning?
When had he used it to describe you?
He looks at you with those blackened eyes, the look that he had always cast towards his most loved sons, Sebastian and Henry? That look that you had proclaimed so tearfully into my arms, into the heart of your little Queen? When had that look been cast into the body of my son, no other woman's? When did he speak to you in that tone, with that voice?
You and I both know when, my son. Never.
Although you change as you mature into the strong young man you are now, I forever know you. I know so earnestly, the wishes and the dreams you've had since a babe. How much you wonder what it would be like to have those proud, tearful, fatherly eyes locked upon you. I know you, don't I? Even now, you pine for your father to not look upon you with the disaprovement and disappointment he always has done. To look at you like you matter. Not just that, like you matter to him. I say nothing to disturb the moment that you have waited your entire life for, for your father to set those eyes upon you and stare with such pride and amazement as you hunch over his desk. Neither do you, you stare into the eyes that are both the same and so different. The darkened sea combines with the brightest sky in a bond that is unbreakable to any man.
You've always stood to the sidelines as he plays the doting father to Sebastian, and to Henry when his harlotten mother allows a visit. You watch in the sidelines as he throws a sword with them, or launches a bow at their sides. As a child, you watch as he throws them up into the air and catches them with a joyful, boisterous laugh, the envy and confusion evident in your eyes and in your face, so beautiful, sculpted by God and all his angels. My angel, how could I have made you understand years ago? Do you understand now? Have you ever?
You watched Sebastian smile that easy smile, attaining that same bright beam from the most powerful man in France. You've always tried so hard for even an entree of that smile. As you grew into an adolescent, not a boy, not a man, you watch as Sebastian inherits and masters many talents, skills and charms. You watch as you develop into you, standing firmly, bravely, strongly, receiving nothing but dagger eyes and glances that were enough to wither any nobleman. It ached my heart to see you suffer in such a way that I could not remedy, nor could I make your father understand. I pray you know I tried, my child. Whatever he may have wanted from me, a decade of baroness later, you were still and always were his son.
You stated to me, as a nine year old boy, freshly wounded from the departure of your little ravenette reignette that had meant so much to you, maybe your father would like you if you tried harder to be like Bash. Maybe if you stood up to him more, not let him get to you as he so often did. My heart had suffered many trials and tribulations, but none had ached my inner workings so much as that sentence leaving your small lips. You had asked if him taking the object of your deepest affections away from you was a test, or a punishment. I still, to this day, know not the answer, my child.
