Sinthia and The Demon Duke of DeSidea: 20

The road back home was empty. The sun was setting, and everything was dyed in its flaming colors. The colors of something ending. When she came to the entrance of the royal palace, Sinthia was met with three Knights. They looked down at her. Like stone statues. She understood what their eyes said.

“I suppose His Majesty is waiting.”

“He is.”

They took her to his study. He had had all the curtains closed. Sinthia couldn’t see the sunset. All she could see was him, sitting by the fireplace with a book in his arm. The knights that escorted her in left. They shut the door behind them.

“Good day, Your Majesty.”

“Good day. Sinthia.”

There was silence. He said no more. Sinthia simply stood in the darkness.

“You left your room.”

“I did.”

“Where did you go?”

“Into town.”

“Why?”

“The Silk Light festival will happen soon.”

“Yes. It will. I’ve been convincing the Nova Empire to attend for a long time, and they finally said they would. We have been preparing for months. So imagine the stress you running away from your room has added to an already difficult time.”

“It must be difficult.”

The king shut his book. He used a little more force than usual. “Are you playing games right now, Sinthia. Is this what this is?”

“No. I’m not. I would never do that to you Your Majesty. No one can joke with you.”

“Then why do I get the distinct feeling that you’re being difficult for the sake of being difficult.” His voice sounded slightly strained. His Majesty was doing the very best he could to regulate his breathing. To stay calm. But it had been so hard lately. Keeping it all cool. Why was it only getting more difficult? Why did his daughter insist on making it more difficult?

“I’m just living.”

When she said that, it came to a halt. The frustration and irritation. It all fell silent for a short while. The gnawing stopped. Cedric stood up from his chair, and turned round to look at his daughter. Even though she was in the dark, he could see enough. She was in the black and white uniform of the maids, with a purple shawl on her shoulders. She covered her hair, and in her hands was a basket covered with a kerchief. She stood there, very still. Staring back at him. Her eyes were large, yet resigned. They didn’t look the same as they had a few days ago.

“Are you not living in the palace? Are you not living every day?”

“I am alive every day, Your Majesty.”

“The what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m not living. This palace is very quiet. A bit like a grave.”

Suddenly, he remembered what the maid had told him. That she disliked the silence. “Why do you dislike the silence so much, Sinthia? I don’t understand.” It was the first time he had ever admitted to it. To not understanding something. It was sad that it was in regards to his daughter.

She looked at him for a while, then her eyes shifted to the fireplace. He didn’t know what she was thinking. He didn’t understand, and he was beginning to realize that he simply didn’t understand anything at all about his heir. Since when was she so elusive? 

“Whenever I stay quiet and still, bad things happen.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“If I don’t move around and talk, then things take a bad turn.” She simply stated. Cedric let out an exasperated sigh. “Sinthia I don’t understand what you’re saying. What does that mean!?”

Again she looked at him. “If Sinthia had been more lively when she was younger. Loud and boisterous, then it would have been different. She would have been able to enjoy life a bit more. If She didn’t stay quiet when my sisters bullied me, then they wouldn’t have found it so easy to do as they pleased. If she had scolded disrespectful maids or made an effort to exercise some authority, they would not be this terrible.”

“Did I do something wrong?” He heard it echo again, this time jarringly clear. His jaw immediately clenched. “So if I chase away the quiet all the time, then bad things simply won’t happen. I think that it’s the truth. If I’m always proactive, then it will be alright.”

“Do you really think it’s your fault?” The voice that came up from the King’s throat was weaker than he had anticipated. It shocked him. But what shocked him most was the resignation in her eyes. It is.That was what they were saying.

He had been very strong for years. Things that bothered him and angered him, he always found a way to shove it aside and put his work as the king first. That was his duty. It was his job. One of his obligations was to train the next heir of the Ophelian empire. He has decided it would be Sinthia. So he had her trained her in all important matters, ranging from diplomacy to administration, and she had done magnificently well. On paper.

That was what was done to him too, when he had been the crown prince. Nothing was allowed to distract him. Not even emotions. He had handled it well. The staff respected him and treated him as they should have. His siblings were all unsuitable, and they tried to take out their frustrations of being subpar on him. He never broke under their pressure. He listened to his mother, who had been the Queen. Listened to all the harsh words and lessons and instructions. “Emotions are a hindrance to you, Cedric. Purge them for the future greatness of the Ophelian Kingdom. Just as your grandfather was, have nothing but the future of our great Kingdom in your heart.” And even though it was hard to do as she had advised, she was right. Emotions were a hindrance. 

They were an elaborate distraction.

So he thought that the way he was brought up was good for her. For Sinthia. If she had learned to lock up those inconvenient emotions like he had, then she wouldn’t be burdened. But why did it not work for her as it did for him? Had it worked for you in the first place? An unpleasant thought surfaced.More and more small revelations begun to swim to his consciousness. Things that he had forgotten. Or not wanted to remember.

“Where did I go wrong?” He found himself asking. Asking himself. Asking his mother. Asking the room. Asking everything. Asking nothing. Where did it all go so wrong? Was it when he met her mother? When he allowed her to sway his emotional stability? When he let her show him something unbelievably wonderful and fulfilling? Something that contradicted the very foundation that he had been built on, only to leave shortly after and have everything that he thought he could have had collapse into him? Or maybe it was when he first saw Sinthia’s tiny face. A few months old in her crib, grasping and cooing as babies did. And only saw her mother. The woman who gave him hope and then snatched it away.

Since then, he’d felt sick every time he looked at his daughter. At first, even the thought of her was enough to rob him of peace. So he had avoided her. When she was three, he thought that he had gotten over it. He thought that time had finally done what everyone told him it did. But it hadn’t. When he saw her, he felt like it would all crumble into nothing again. Like with her mother. So before he went through another tumultuous emotional storm, he had dismissed her. He thought he had done the right thing for himself and her. He had prevented another disaster. But the guilt had started all the way back then. So he knew very deep down inside that he hadn’t done the right thing at all.

Cedric shut his eyes and bowed his head. He had broken a protocol. Kings never bow their head in the presence of anyone. It took him so long. Twenty whole years, to finally understand that there was something that he was doing wrong. But he didn’t know what.

“I don’t really know, Your Majesty. Where it all went wrong. But I don’t know how to take revenge on you for it.” He heard her say.

He looked up. It felt like a very laborious process. “Revenge on me?”

She nodded, still looking calm. “To make you understand that what you did, or didn’t do, was wrong. It’s very difficult to make Your Majesty pay for it. You are the most powerful person in this Kingdom after all. How can I punish a king? So I’ve been very frustrated for a long time. And here I am, talking to you instead of scheming.”

“What did I do wrong, Sinthia. I don’t know.” This was the first time that they were talking. This was the first time that Cedric had ever talked. That he had spoken his mind. “Please tell me what I did wrong.” Then maybe he could fix it. It wasn’t her that did wrong. That three year-old that had been excited to eat a meal with her father. There was nothing wrong with that. What was wrong with wanting your parent to....

Oh.

The clarity was akin to a lightning strike. A deafening crack and a blinding flash. The moment when the sun blinded you completely because you had been in the dark for so long. He had once been like her, a very long time ago. He didn’t remember if his mother had ever held him in her arms, or if his father had ever conversed with him about anything other than duty. He had spent a long time wondering if this was correct. How parents were to their children. Even though he knew it wasn’t, he insisted on debating because he didn’t want to admit that it made him endlessly sad that his parents didn’t seem to love him at all. He had thought that that would be his life. Lonely and empty, trapped in a barren landscape he called his heart.

But he had found someone, even if it was for a short time. Someone that wanted to be with him. To care for him and to be cared for by him. To see him and listen to him and to be close to him. To laugh and cry with him. They were not his parents. His parents did to him the very same things he did to Sinthia. But he found someone who made the grey blob of emptiness he called his existence meaningful and fulfilling.

Who was Sinthia’s someone?

“You didn’t love Sinthia, Your Majesty. That is what you did wrong.”

Sinthia had been carefully watching the king, seeing the mask that he had so carefully crafter for himself crumble into dust. The man that stood before her was different. Wide-eyed, like he finally understood. Did he? Sinthia was doubtful. She did not have a very good track record with fathers. They were not trustworthy. Hers had not been. He was unreliable. So Sinthia had stopped thinking of him. She started moving. And just like that she had been able to leave him, a bad thing, behind. Would she have to leave this one behind too? Probably.

His Majesty’s lip quivered very slightly, then he gave a heavy sigh. “You’re right.”

”Rarely am I wrong, unfortunately.”

”But you can be wrong.”

Sinthia was silent.

”When you were three. You asked if you had done something wrong, remember?”

Oh. That memory. Something uncomfortable shifted in Sinthia’s memories. Not Sinthia of Ophelia’s memories but in the memories of Sinthia of the Twenty First Century.

”You answered for yourself, didn’t you?”

”I did.”

”And what did you say?”

A strange lump formed in her throat. She remembered something unpleasant that she could not believe was relevant now. It was something from a lifetime ago. From her past, not Sinthia of Ophelia’s. Her mother’s face, very blurred and unrecognizable, but somehow there was no doubt that it was her mother. Why was that?

”That I did. I did something wrong.”

Then she saw something that she had never even thought was possible. It was so shocking, Sinthia’s jaw dropped, and she was frozen in place. The reason that she knew it was her mother even though she could barely recall the face in her memories. It was because of this.

His Majesty was smiling at her. A smile that said so many things all at once. But the most important thing she could feel from it was comfort and warmth, like everything would be okay. A truly genuine, convincing smile.

”You were wrong. You did nothing wrong.”

//I want wholesome father/daughter relationships right NOW. Also illustrations will take a short break as I do the next ep of De Novo. Probably.//