To no avail would he give in, the women before him would not gain their way. They’d slept with him merely for the sake of having his child, then he must crown them empress. This was not true for he’d beheaded them long before the child was born, he was deemed cruel for the amount of women’s blood shed on the sharp steel of his blade. With his said brutality, however, it hadn’t meant he was going to concede as emperor and give in...why would he do such now? There was no point in that, it would be useless for the emperor himself to give in whilst he was so far ahead of the other empires built.
Before him, there stood a fair maiden dressed in white. Her robes ran down to the flooring, happiness dispersed like a lagoon of colorful fish within her bright azure irises. Despite this, he had turned from her. This simple movement caused the faintest of murmurs in the room, a hand needing to be slammed against the mahogany table to silence them all. Running a finger over the smooth wood, he watched her blonde hair flash before his eyes and she had disappeared from the ballroom.
He walked along the shore of the beach, following her small footprints. Leaving the incident in the ball behind, it was them who’d started the smallest of rumors, they’d deserved it in his eyes of bright scarlett. She didn’t see it, or rather, she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see the sparkling hatred dripping from his eyes like a bad tasting wine. She chose not to for it would ruin the image she’d tried so hard to create; erasing his frost colored hair, his darkened eyes that amazed her beyond, she’d left it all away. Instead, she chose to see the bright excitement glistening like the ocean waves, the same excitement glowing when she told him of their child. However, it was not him directly who’d heard of the child, he simply only heard of it from the fair maiden’s maids daily speakings with one another. That was despicable and punishable in his eyes, yet he’d done nothing to punish her. He instead sent the fair maiden, whose name was recalled as Irene, a gift for their upcoming child.
Irene cherished these gifts she’d gotten from the Kingdom of Cordelia for nine months. Every small bird who’d sent it always received her care much after as well. Alas, she was in a pure bliss– but all happiness comes to an end. Like the tales of Rapunzel, the Princess of Magnolia had fallen terribly ill.
Day after day her blood had become colder than that of a reptile’s, she was on the verge of freezing. She’d recalled it had once happened to her mother, the dear queen dying off when young Irene was just eight years old, but by the looks of it, the Princess would be dying off much before the baby was born. Calling in physicians from afar, the emperor wouldn’t allow the disease to have it’s way. It wouldn’t call bloody death on his soon to be wife, not yet. There was nothing that would fix this problem, nothing that could silence the rumors of her reign coming to an end. Instead of focusing on such, trying to save a woman who could not be saved, the physicists worked more on saving what wouldn’t be frozen; the child.
That was the least of his worries, the emperor. He’d never had a soft spot for children, he never had held one. The tyrant, in fact, hated all children...all except the small one that had been growing in his wife’s stomach for over nine months now. The baby was a day overdue, perhaps it would’ve died by now with only the cold rushing through it’s veins…‘it’. He always referred to the little girl he was blessed with knowing the name of, Ilona, as an ‘it’. Afterall, it was the child’s birth that would send his wife to heaven without him even getting to experience the contentment with the woman, she wouldn’t get to see their daughter. If she watched from above, he at least hoped she would carry on raising the child from afar, Ilona would know her mother as nothing less than a hero who sacrificed her own life, so the baby could live hers.
The agonizing screams stopped, the woman was no longer in pain as her blood finally froze like the arctic rose. She was no longer heard, her soft voice was silenced by the everblooming tension in the room. There wasn’t a single sputter, not a peep, not until the door was slammed over. Wood nearly spouted to the ground, the poor door was handled so harshly that it’d left a marking on the castle walls. Stepping inside, everyone stepped away. Leviathan had placed a hand to the maid’s arm, snatching away the small bundle. Still, there wasn’t a peep to be heard, the baby had not cried, yet her eyes were open. She was staring up at her father, cobalt hues shifting around his features before her pink lips parted, a giggle clouding into the air. The tension in the room was lifted, there was many footsteps heard as the maids and the physicians went around to hug one another, some going as far as to kiss one another on the cheek as there were cries of laughter and joy.
The man held his daughter with a glare, despite these supposed cries of enjoyment. There was a dazed mist of euphoria mingling with his ruby optics, his pale lips parting just as hers. There was a single hint of laughter and the entirety of the room went silent once more. There were lingering scents of lavender from the woman on the bed, Princess Irene who was soon to be crowned queen, and that was enough for the newly crowned Emperor Leviathan. With the bundle of joy giggling along with him in his arms, she was here, Irene had remained in placed. That signalled, it was enough to show at least, that this baby was anything but the usual royal child; she was his little precious gem and he would treasure her, or at least he would try to.
