The Grief of a Father

[Herod 807]

The Grief of a Father

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"Your wife shall sire me two Great-Grandchildren, yet give birth four times." - Franz Leopold Morovar
It was an eerie day in the City of Crows, The Lord Palatine took the day off in anticipation of his wife’s delivery of a babe, he stood at his balcony, staring at the bustling market of the city. His thoughts drifted to the prophecy the Oracle of Krusev and his daughter had told him, how his children were cursed like him and that they would not survive the pregnancy. A smirk came to his lips as he remembered; here he was, awaiting for his wife to give birth as their prophecies meant nothing.

"Prophecies mean nothing in Godan’s world." He whispered to himself as he clutched the wooden railing, despite all that had come to this moment, he was still nervous, he heard the bellows of his wife, Mathea, from downstairs who was kept safe by a pair of two servants. He swiveled around, to leave his thoughtful state to be with his wife before he heard a knock on his door. “Petra.” He whispered in surprise, almost forgetting he had asked the aging Prinzenas Royale to help deliver the babe. Kaustantin once more turned, this time the door, heavy thuds echoed in his silent office as he sludged towards the door to greet his old friend.

"Thank you for coming."

 

Kaustantin intoned as he opened the door for her with a nervous grin and led her through his office down to his residence. At the sight of his bedroom was his wife, Mathea, with a nurse who arrived earlier from the Clinic. She looked pale and weak, he thought. Beads of sweat began falling from the man’s forehead as his wife went into torturous labor. The man circled in the room as the process went on. He exited the room and sat down on a chair beside his table. 

 

"Godan, why do you forsake me so?"

The previous pregnancy had gone fast and quietly, yet Kaustantin could hear the Nurse’s panting that his wife had lost consciousness. He quickly stood up and harried back to the room. As the man entered, he saw the child in the arms of Petra; a girl pale as snow, with hints of gray, even. Her eyes were closed shut and she did not cry, not even when Petra whisked her out of her mother’s womb. They all knew what it meant. Shakily, Petra brought the babe into the arms of her father as she held back tears. Kaustantin did not reserve any words for the child, he stared at her for a cold minute, lamenting why Godan had given him an abomination.

 

The man began to whimper as he handed the babe back to Petra, he left the room and climbed up the stairs of his home to his office, locking the door on his way in, he didn’t even bother to check up on his wife, who was still unconscious. Silently, he began to weep for the loss of the newborn, lamenting how could never even speak or see his child perform even the most simple action of crying, why had Godan punished him for this? Why does he want a servant of his broken by the death of somebody so close to him?

 

A roar of sorrow sounded that night throughout the Nikirala Palace from the Office of the Palatine.

[zuziee 3237]

Nikoleta held her daughter Annalisa close as she heard the news, kissing the girls forehead a million times over. “Niething dobry comes from ignoring the truth.”

[MikoMonster 1393]

A long deceased Barbanov princess frowned down upon the Palatine with an expression wrought of sympathy. She, too, a victim of a past prophecy- one told by the old Morovar’s prophetic forebearer.

 

“Of the three princesses will remain two. One’s color is faded, the other in blue.”

 

The red princess, Amelya Valeriya, recited softly in memory, welcoming the stillborn infant into the skies.