A PRINCE NO MORE [PK]

[Olox_ 4318]

Spoiler

 

 

A PRINCE NO MORE

The death of the Prince of Merryweather, Heinrich II Lothar von Alstreim

 

---

One cold morning in the year of our Lord 1904, there was a great commotion within the white walls of Corwinsburg Castle in the Arentanian Alps. Servants ran from chamber to chamber, carrying towels and water, doctors arrived from the capital, soldiers waited quietly for news. Many footsteps echoed through the corridors that morning, but then silence engulfed the Waldenian castle before a quiet scream echoed in one of the chambers.

 

 “It’s a boy, Your Highness. Do you have a name for him?” 

Inquired a maid

 

“Heinrich Lothar…”

 Silence was short as a trembling voice of the mother answered the inquiry.

 

On that day it began.

---

It was a warm, summer day in the year of our Lord 1952 when the Prince of Merryweather and his party travelled to Whitespire in order to hold an emergency Royal Diet meeting before a planned conference regarding some pressing international matters. There was no indication of what was to come. Everything was going according to plan until a mass of soldiers clad in purple and black streamed into the castle. They all drew their blades and started killing. It then became evident, Stassion betrayed all the Kingdom stood for.  

 

AN ORDER WAS GIVEN, THE VOICE OF A TRAITOR ECHOED

 

“Do not harm the Chancellor, Duke Janos, or Grand Prince Ferdinand! 

Kill the King, kill the Prince of Merryweather!”

 

Heinrich’s eyes widened as he faced the blade of an armoured soldier of Stassion - there was no escape. The last thing he saw was Johannes running to safety, Boon jumping out of the window, Walter with raised hands and the awful sound of a body being cut open. It was a quick death. It was a painful death. One he feared for years. One of which he told his dear Aleksandra so many times. The very death she did not want to hear of was real, and it claimed her husband. The tip of the blade pierced the Princely throat. The redhead fell to his knees, bleeding out. The man who stood at the head of the state, always in shining armour, held in high esteem by his enemies, was humiliated - cut up like a piglet for a feast. The pain was immense. The last thing he managed to think of was his family. People he loved but failed their trust in the end. His pride would never allow him to admit this failure. Definitely not after he fell to his knees begging for his wife's forgiveness so many years ago. There was no turning back now. Henry managed to mutter out his last words while choking on his blood…

 

“I FOUGHT

I LOST

NOW I REST”

 

The rest was darkness. He was free of all his burdens.

The Prince of Merryweather and the Rhine, Landgrave of Alstreim, Baron of Corwinsburg, Lord of Blackwater, Elected Margrave of Vanderfell, Lord Vandalore, Lord Regent of Aaun, uncle to the King and most importantly husband and a father was now lying dead on the floor of the Hand of Horen, a few meters away from his office. Now the Principality was in his son's hands, safe at last. He failed his family, especially his wife Aleksandra who he loved dearly. He failed many. Heinrich II Lothar passed on that day but he did it with dignity, defending the boy he proudly called his King...

 

On that day it ended.

---

HEINRICH II LOTHAR VON ALSTREIM

PRINCE OF MERRYWEATHER

1904-1952

 

 

Spoiler

OOC:

A wild story. I can only say thank you to all those who spent their time listening to me coping, raging, crying, laughing on the course of the last months. You perfectly know who you are. Thank you all, so much.

 

[Balthasar 2497]

The New Prince of Merryweather, Johannes Lothar von Alstreim wept a tear over his father's body. He had died much too soon. Yet it seemed his time was now and not in twenty years or more, as Johannes wished - He would continue life and Merryweather and Alstreim until his time was to come.

[cherrybud 423]

"Let us take my father home, he deserves to rest." The Alstreim declared to those around her as her elder brother was whisked away by the remaining council members. Her gaze remained distant, avoiding the deceased form that lay before her. She had always admired his resilience and wisdom in the face of turbulent times, and she preferred to remember him in that noble light rather than his current bloodied state.

Adelheid Klara von Alstreim found herself pacing within their family home that night, struggling to comprehend the events that had unfolded that day. The Halls of Ulrichsburg felt colder that night. It was almost a decade ago that her mother and siblings had left their home for Haense, how the young Alstreim yearned for their home to be lively and filled with family joy once more. Little did she anticipate that the castle would descend into an even deeper silence following the departure of her father, the singular embodiment of their esteemed house. 

-and so Heidi remained in that silence as she withheld her tears for her father, there was no time for weakness now.


 

[JustAngel69 513]

Philip Laurent helped carry the Prince's body to Merryweather, seeking solace from the chaos he climbed the mountain looking out over the landscape ahead of him. "And now a dilemma." 

[oliviaaaahr 142]

Spoiler

 

 

“The King was felled, Antigone, and vy know that Father would niet leave his side.”

 

✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦

 

The words went without saying – or, perhaps, Alexandra simply lacked the strength to say them.

“Go to the palace, sestra. Mamej will want to speak to us."

 

✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦ . ⁺✦

Even the most worldly wise-man cannot put to paper the proper words when one experiences loss; even the most courageous knight cannot process the grieving steps without faltering in his strides; and, even the most optimistic girl cannot look past the insinuations of her sister and wish for the best.

One Antigone Renata paces through the snow, doll in one small, pudgy hand, and her skirts hitched in the other. Her breaths are quick, shallow, and coated in mucus from a cold she only just recovered.

What?

Her head is blank, and then it is not. Her imaginative, curious little mind shrieks and curls in on itself, attacking her with horrific sights and assumptions that she's unable to fend off. Her father, injured. Her father, bloodied and bruised. Her father, dead. He did not get to straighten her posture and correct her fencing. He did not get to subject himself to the torture of her flower-crowns and failed dessert-making. He did not get to guide her down the aisle and greet any of her children into the world.

How? How, how... how?

How did he die? Why did he die? Why now? Why not of old age, when he and mamej reunited and the family could stand as one, once more?

When her dark gray eyes - her father's eyes - flutter open, Antigone finds herself on the cobble road before the palace, snow and ice soaking into her dress and sending a righteous chill through her bod. She wipes her face - and finds tears. When did that happen? She couldn't recall. When was the last time she had truly cried? Again, she couldn't recall. Now, the tears trailed freely, and she held her doll close, clutching it for dear life ere each sob and hack. Somewhere in her mind, she imagined it to be him.

[Cubicita 640]

"May the Prince rest..." Anthony Marcellus frowned upon the news of the late Merryweather, now pondering to himself his next course of action.

[beetle 3315]

Odetta von Alstreim welcomed her brother in the Seven Skies.

"You've done well, you can rest now."

[EmiliainWonderland 2309]

Marlena had hardly known the man, she could only recall the instance where she'd gone to Minitz and found the dead body of a Barclay at the steps of the church. She couldn't help but feel bad that he'd be joining that very Barclay in the seven skies. 

[sergisala 3451]

"It is a pity I was unable to meet the Prince of Merryweather, he always seemed to be a very good man and a solid statesman." Marc Galbraith said to Lord John Augustus Galbraith while rolling over his shoulders in the Barony of Cascanova upon hearing the news in the Kingdom of Balian.

[Melpomenne 2032]

 

In the quiet halls of Ruthern Manor, Ana Maria bore the weight of her father's death without a trace of sorrow. No disappointment lingered for moments untaken, no resentment held against the forces that separated her and the late prince long before his departure from our plane. In the depths of her being, the canvas of her emotions remained a mystery, untouched by sadness or anger.

 

Amidst the flickering flame's dance of a fireplace, she sat, a silhouette of contemplation, sharpening an arrow's point with a rhythmic cadence. Beside her, the presence of her twin sister, Alexandra, mirrored the silent companionship. Her hands moved with a certain detachment, the arrow's tip meeting her blade with each deliberate stroke, until a careless slip nicked her thumb.

 

Unfazed, Ana Maria raised her thumb to her lips, a momentary pause to cleanse the wound. In that hushed space, emotions unspoken found solace in the dance of flames and the subtle rhythm of the arrow meeting its fate beside firewood.

 

@liz

[Digit___ 1225]

Almost as soon as he finished his prayer after he finished reading the disclosed BSK post-action report, another servant came in, telling Klaus of the Lord Vandalore’s demise as well. The Alchemist would immediately bow his head and close his eyes once more in one motion.

 

”Dear Saint Johann, please bless dein people, all of Waldenia, with dein protection as we mourn the loss of our Lord Vandalore. Merciful GOTT, please be with DEIN Waldenian children during this time und let our Diet promote another well-meaning, GOTT-fearing mann when the time is right. Blessed be DEIN Holy Name, AMEN.”

[Frank_Dog 808]

Camilla Falkner smiled. "Karma..."

[Sebbysc 744]

Ser Leopold was welcomed into the Seven Skies by those he called his friend. With Heinrich being one of the first faces to welcome him he knew he was in a better place. There would be much to discuss between them all. However, the one thing Leopold wondered about was that if there was something to drink in GOD's domain. King Edmund & Prince Heinrich required a toast, afterall!

[esotericas 2674]

Galina Georgina does not cry. This is for many reasons. It is unbecoming, especially with her complexion. The tears aren't as lovely as the ones worn by her darker-haired, olive-skinned friends, and only turn her skin an ugly, blotchy red. Galina can never be ugly. 

 

So it's not crying, what she does. I am not crying, she tells herself. I am not crying. I am not crying. The girl in the mirror on her desk watches her, puffy-eyed and ugly. The documents pile higher as word from the war floods in. Death and victory. The rosary draped over her lampshade is comical, shining holy light on the stories of terror and violence. 

 

But today, Galina doesn't think about God. She stares down at the ink on paper, smudged with the not-tears, impossible to read. "Honestly," Galina told herself. "I barely knew him. We've only spoken a few times." 

 

Today, Galina thinks about the future. She does not think about what he was to her, but what he could have been. 

 

"I want you to be my daughter," Heinrich had told her on an oft-remembered night, in the heart of Merryweather. She had wanted it too. Had wanted him to be everything her own father was not; wise, encouraging, filled with wit and advice. Present. 

 

"I won't be Prince for a long time," Johannes had said. "I hope." War and hope do not mix well.

 

Galina Georgina does not cry. This is for many reasons. She does not cry at death, or failure, or pain. Crying is a waste of time, and time is always in short supply. 

 

So it's not crying, what she does. Instead, Galina writes. 

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 15456]

A Lord Vandalore and regent in his own right of long ago muttered the words “To serve the liege lord in valor and faith…”

 

Though far removed from what occurred due to what felt like half a millenia ago, the old saint was pleased that the latest successor upheld their shared code, until the very end and regardless of the outcome. This was why Vanders fight.