pk The Burden Passed

[BuilderBagel 1203]

 

 

 

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“Fear and doubt grip the hearts of all men, Erwin,” intoned Leon to his eldest grandson, sitting beside him near a hearth within the Heather Palace of Kretzen. His words, though steady, had much weight to them, as if they had come through many seasons of the man’s life. 

 

“I used to tell you stories of Castle Kanunsberg when you were but a babe.” An aged hand ran across the polished timber of the chair he rested in. “I regaled you with tales of my childhood. My father was a just prince, and when he passed, our tribe had been reduced to a mere shadow of what it had been during the time of your great-great-grandfather.” A melancholy sigh rattled through the ailing chieftain’s chest, pained and long.

 

“I remember when my time to take the mantle of chieftain came,” Leon murmured, his voice heavy with the weight of memory.  “You already know the story of the Roach. The vermin. How he felled my father like a craven. I was filled with fear those days. Deep in your heart, I know you fear for me and yourself, as any son would.” He paused, his gaze drawn to the hearth and its fire, faded burns lit in flickers of flame and shadow.

“The end of my days is coming soon, son. You will soon take this burden I have carried since I was but a boy of fifteen.” Leon rasped, his voice low and hoarse. He turned his gaze to his grandson, his eyes filled with both great pride and sorrow.

“Why have you always favored me so, grandfather?” Erwin asked, a mixture of curiosity and unease in his voice. He glanced at the aged prince as he searched for the reason behind the warmth in Leon’s eyes, the bond that had always existed between them. Leon, despite his heavy weariness, managed to emit a soft chuckle. He studied his grandson with affection before speaking. 

 

“Why do I favor you? I see in you a fire that burns brighter than it ever had in me, yet I see that you share in my fears. You will not follow me, you will exceed me. You are destined to carry the burden of leadership, as I was.” A small, amused smile danced across his face for a moment before the expression smoothed over into weariness.

“I will do all I can to exceed you, grandfather.” Erwin declared, his voice unsteady and full of ambition. “I will glorify you.” He added as he set his eyes upon his grandfather with a fixed determination. The old chieftain’s expression softened with the same mix of pride and quiet sadness. He knew deeply the burden of his grandson’s desire- it was a noble thing, but a heavy one. 

 

“Know this, my son: the glory you seek does not come from your throne, nor my praise. It comes from the choices you make and the honor within your heart. If you glorify me, it will not be through my name alone, but the legacy the ancestors and I have left you to strengthen.” The two shared moments of silence, the only sound within the chamber being the crackling of the fire and the steady rhythm of Leon’s breath, now shallow with age. Minutes passed, long and short all at once, before Leon spoke. 

 

“Will you play it for me, Erwin? The song you made for Alfred, the one you called ‘grandfather’.” Erwin nodded and hefted the lute he kept nearby. Leon closed his eyes and reclined as the pleasant strumming of the strings became the only sound in the room, and for a moment he was no longer the ailing prince, he was only a boy’s grandfather, eager to hear his boy play.

The melody was once new to him, an homage to his long-dead brother-prince that saw tears limning his eyes. It was the first of Erwin’s compositions, the first in a long line of songs, each a memory Leon so dearly treasured. Erwin’s fingers strummed the notes as well as they ever had, perhaps heavier than when he’d been a boy, but the music sounded just the same as it had all those years ago. He could still hear it echoing in his ears when Erwin stood, lute in hand.

 

“I must go, grandfather. I must attend to my wife.” He said quietly. Leon nodded in reply, that familiar tinge of desolation steady in his eyes. 

 

“Go, my son. Spend time with your wife,” he said as the boy exited the chamber. “I feel as if I shall return to mine in the coming days.” Murmured the aged prince, his gaze having returned to the crackling fire.

 

A young Leon with his own grandfather, Caius Primus.

 

---

 

After some quiet deliberation, Leon rose from his seat. His bones groaned in protest, but despite himself, he gripped his walking stick firmly, a gift from Frederica. He stood for a moment, his gaze fixed on the fire as if he were contemplating something beyond its burning light. 

 

“That woman has always impressed me,” Leon muttered as he stepped out of the chamber and into an adjacent hall. Leon’s eyes drifted slowly over to the portraits that lined the walls. Each frame was a testament to the age of his house and the long line of ancestors who had fought, bled, and struggled to build the legacy he shouldered. 

 

“Now it shall be in Frederica and Erwin’s hands.” He said to himself as he moved to place a hand on a portrait of his wife. 

 

With a quiet sigh, Leon stepped away from the portraits and continued down the hall. The light from the hearth dimmed as he walked further away from its warmth. The long shadows stretched in front of him like the long roads he had walked in life. 

 

His walking stick tapped lightly on the hall’s cold stone, the sound echoing through the emptiness. Leon had made journeys throughout the palace towards his own chambers countless times before, but never had they felt so heavy. Adalfriede had often walked beside him, her presence a steady comfort through the years. Now, each step he took felt more distant from the days when she walked the halls with him, when her counsel had steadied his hand.

 

He let out a mournful sigh, the sound was a low release of breath as if the act of exhaling was a burden he struggled to carry without his wife. Of all the losses in the aged chieftain’s life, her absence left a wake in his heart, one that time could not ease no matter how many days passed. 

 

Eventually, Leon made his way to the wooden steps that led to his chambers, his steps slow and heavy, each one echoing in the silence of the hall. The years had made him weary, and the climb to his room seemed to take longer than it ever had before.

 

As he reached his bedroom, the familiar sight of his door loomed over him. He entered the room and staggered towards his bed, his steps growing steadier as if the weight of the world had finally been released from his shoulders. Leon collapsed onto the bed with a soft sigh, his body sinking into the familiar, yet now lonely, comfort of the mattress.

 

In his final moments, the warrior made no great struggle, no cries of anguish. He simply let go. The years of leadership, of loss, and triumph, all drifted away as he lay in his bed. The weight of the crown and of his family slipped away in the peace of the night.

 

The deceased Prince joins his ancestors in the spirit realm.

 

Spoiler

Leon dead. Thank you @Toffee@Timer@crazedpudding@Morphineand others for the good rp

 

[crazedpudding 2512]

Frederica sat at her desk, ink spilling to the floor where she had overturned its bottle with a trembling hand. What was it she had wanted to tell Joren last month, when all were still hale and as whole as they could be? 

 

Ah, yes.

 

Family tends to drop like flies once it really gets going.

 

A calloused thumb ran across the scar on her left hand, cut again and again to offer and receive vows and the like. Leon was the first to watch this line appear on her palm, once a neat, nearly invisible cut where now it is heavy and stark against the rest of her skin.

Leon was gone now, but the scar remains.

[alienescence 1415]

Josefina sat inside her chambers, her face buried in her hands. Every passerby could hear the cries escaping from the woman in the early mornings and late hours each day.

With great effort, Josefina preoccupied herself with making jewelry some days, only for it to be piled on her shelf. For it felt like little could fill the hole in her heart.

[Morphine 823]

No amount of private poetry could sustain the grief that which Oswald felt for his late grandfather. And just too soon after his grandmother. The young man didn't leave his room for a few days, rather, he mourned by his bed, and upon his balcony. Every now and then, Oswald would check on his mother, who was likely taking this the hardest.

[juliaINC 592]

Isolde von Kanunsberg sought out a secluded pew within the hallowed Temple of Waldenic Martyrs. In prayer, her thoughts drifted to that distant day when she first found refuge in Minitz, recalling the round, hopeful visage of the boy Prince who had greeted her. How many more pyres shall my eyes see, O Lord, ere I rest upon mine own? Lamented she, deep within her heart.

 

Wilhelmina von Brandthof took a place beside her husband, her presence a quiet bastion of support in the wake of his beloved grandfather's passing.

[Timer 1978]

Erwin stood still on the palace terrace. He had wished to play his harp but could not bring himself to do it. His watchful eyes drifted towards the Ferdenwald as they had when he was a youth; old dreams of wild stags and frightening boars came back to view for the man within his mind. He could not help but ask himself, "Am I ready?"

[MadOne 4945]

Adelmar, now an aged man remembered his cousin, and the fires of the tavern when he and Leon were youths. How he had taken two arrows as his lifesblood spilled onto the earth for Leon, how they quarrelled, made up, and quarrelled once again, only to repeat it as fate ever went. 
 

It all seemed to so pointless to him, now that he had the hindsight and the wisdom. Perhaps, he should have remained at Leon’s side as a Chieftain in his own right, or perhaps he should not have said this word or the next. As he ruminated in candlelight of past mistakes, he couldn’t help but laugh. Not for the anguish of losing a brother, a loved Chieftain, but for the good memories lived, drinks shared, and spirits intertwined.

 

That day, he laid tribute upon Leon’s spirit beneath the spire of the Brothers, of the finest vegetables and grain he had raised for his brother. “Take him into your embrace, O’Lord, and deliver him to his wife.” He offered in prayer for the departed spirit as he brushed the stele with a cloth to rid it of the moss.
 

But now, the season’s change was upon him. He had a flock to tend for. He got up, and attempted to leave his lamentations behind in dour contentedness. He never would manage to take on this task in his lifetime.

[Toffee 2843]

Adalfriede watched on from the Seven Skies as Leon ascended, clucking her tongue disapprovingly. In bed? In bed? There were yet more werebeasts to kill and Roach loyalists to smoke out and slaughter. How could you die safe and comfortable in our bed?

 

Even so, gladness warmed her cold, shrivelled heart to have Leon at her side once more, apart for only a few months as they had been. In death, that elusive completeness found her at last, her insatiable hunger satisfied. 
 

“A game of Ur, my dear husband? All the rest of it is in Frederica, Erwin, and Wilhelmina’s hands now.”