Fi gave him a wan smile in thanks. Cadmus had always been good at that sort of thing: making sure everyone was comfortable, keeping things warm and familiar. It would be so nice to have him here, chatting away with Cora, all bright eyes and clever fingers. A familiar hollowness filled the space behind Fiori's ribs, empty and aching.
Cora gave him one look and started running her hand down his back soothing. "Mm, your father was nice like that. Tried to choke it down, even said he liked it when he was done." She scoffed quietly, fond. "Man had a heart too big for his body, I'll tell you that. Always so kind to everyone he met."
Levi promptly agreed. “He was an equally great king as he was a father.” He glanced down and away, the shallow remainder of a smile on his lips. It was a marvel how Johan turned out the way he did with the two of them raised by the same loving father. Although he never saw Johan care to spend much time with him, and maybe that made all the difference. “I remember he used to say how much he saw himself in me.”
Cora nodded, smiling. "He'd talk about you sometimes, his favorite son." She'd always disapproved, personally. Johan had never been much like his brother, even when they were small, but that didn't mean he should get less attention or love. "Always so proud of how well you did with tutors, how quick you were to pick up skills. I think he liked talking with the servants because he knew they all loved you too. You were always the country's pride and joy."
Levi smiled back. “Favorite son?” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment or so. Before Johan betrayed him, he hadn’t realized how much he meant to the country other than being their prince. It was nice hearing about how much his father praised him, but did he really have favorites among his children? If it was true, maybe Johan did have reason to be a little upset. It still didn’t give him the right to lash out like he had done, though. “He talked about all of us, didn’t he?”
(hey, real quick, what's the baby brother named?)
(Ooh I think I wrote it down somewhere, I’ll find it real quick)
(Nice!)
Cora hummed, thinking back. "Well I'm sure he did, a bit, but you were always front and center. His heir, his firstborn son, the light of his life, the key to everyone's future." She laughed quietly, glancing up at Levi with a sly sort of smile. "Don't tell me you never noticed, prince. You were always at the center of his attention. Johan and Mikhail… not so much. I mean… I don't think it got to them so much in the end. Mikhail had his mother, and then you. Johan had me." She shrugged. "Things worked out."
“Only things didn’t work out very well,” Levi looked down to his feet. “Johan tried to kill me.” Perhaps he had known about his father’s bias towards him, but he didn’t like it any more now than he did when his father was alive. Cora had a point, he was the first born and rightful heir. Anyone with those titles would have the benefits of the favorite child. The jealousy must have gotten to Johan, which wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world to believe.
Cora's lips pressed into a thin line. She still couldn't wrap her head around it, really. Couldn't imagine why her son would do such a thing. She'd tried so hard to raise him right, to teach him not just about being a good prince but about being a good person, and still he ended up in this mess. It hurt as bad as any betrayal, and seeing him now, brought so low by the brother he was supposed to love, only made things worse. "Maybe not, but… at least I know you were loved. All of you. Things could have been much worse."
Levi closed his eyes while he listened to Cora, his chin still turned towards the floor. Her words were true: they were all loved by somebody and things could have been much worse. He could have been destined to be one of Fiori’s uncle’s slaves, or claimed by one of the men that brought him to Usige on the carriage. They might not have escaped Usige at all. Johan might have been killed by the guards in the bathhouse. He opened up his eyes again and nodded, raising his gaze. “That is true. Perhaps this really is the best of all possible outcomes.” That was a hard concept to swallow when things could have been so much better too.
"Or perhaps it is a better outcome, prince. Destiny is no solid line, it's a branching thing." She splayed her fingers as she talked, illustrating. Despite having lived in Widonia since her youth, Cora still stayed true to Usigen beliefs. "There could have been better things than this, but I doubt they outnumber the bad. You're still alive, after all, and that's as great a blessing as any where the kingdom is concerned."
Levi’s gaze fell from her face to her fingers during the vague illustration. “I suppose it is,” he murmured, “I wouldn’t like to know what kind of branch of destiny Johan would have led the kingdom into.” Johan’s reign would have been perfectly acceptable if Levi had died of natural causes. Widonian royalty was a straight line, the one family chosen by Ialdir long ago, and continued through genetics for the best possible outcome of a noble leader. Even if the heir was born from a surrogate, at least one parent should have royal blood.
"I like to think that he would rule well and wisely, albeit differently from how you will." Johan would continue the war, of that she had no doubt, but he would also win. She'd lived on both sides, and though the Usigen military was mighty and well-maintained, they were complacent. If Widonia shaped its soldiers up fast enough, she didn't doubt that her country would crumble beneath its might. "Though I can't say I approve of his methods for getting the throne."
Another frown tugged at the edges of his lips. He didn’t agree with the way Johan rules for the month he was on the throne, but he also didn’t run the entire country into the ground. “He cares about his country, I’m sure. But he really is ruthless. I should have recognized it earlier.” Johan had been strangely withdrawn in the days before Levi was abducted. “I just thought he was still grieving the wound on his face, not planning to attack me.”
"Sometimes we only see what we want to see, prince." Cora patted his hand gently, drawing away from him and Fiori to pull the first loaf of bread from the oven. Fi seemed to have checked out entirely. His eyes were closed, elbows propped up on his knees to keep him upright. "Johan is not an easy man to read." She'd known something was off but she hadn't pushed. Hadn't asked what was wrong. She thought she knew. "It's not your fault that things ended this way, you couldn't have known."
Levi inhaled deeply through his nose. The scent of freshly baked bread wafting through the air made this uncomfortable conversation slightly more appealing. “I don’t think anyone did. Mikhail was just starting to learn how to sword fight from him. My little brother would’ve told me if he thought something was wrong.” He clasped his hands in front of himself, twirling the prince ring around his finger.
Cora nodded as he spoke, pulling Levi's loaf out after a few minutes of contemplative silence. She sliced it, letting the rich smell waft through the kitchen, and passed the first thick slice to Fiori, who hadn't moved. He took it quietly, face blank. She pursed her lips and turned back to the prince. "I don't know, it's all a wash anyways. The past is the past, nothing's going to change that. All we have now are our present choices, slowly shaping the future."
Levi swiped his tongue across his lips. Even his bread looked appetizing. Less pretty than Fi’s, but appetizing. He glanced over to Fiori with another wave of concern in his frown, then back to Cora. “Do you think I made the right choice with Johan? I know it’s not exactly a present choice, but it’s my most recent one.” Not all of his associates agreed with his choice of punishment, and it was clear Johan already hated him for it. Perhaps even more than before.
Cora passed him his own slice and even though her heart screamed that of course he'd made the wrong choice, doing that to her son, she bit her cheek and tried to think about it. Give him a measured, calm response. "I think you did what felt right at the time," was the answer she finally settled on. "It's what he wanted to happen to you, and it might have felt right to force that fate onto him. It might have felt good, even. But… I think a true ruler knows compassion as well as justice."
(the hard-to-swallow pill for the Elerib Brothers)
(Cora really is out here trying to hand out life lessons with the midnight snacks)
Levi took a bite of his bread and chewed it slowly. All things considered, wasn’t the fate he chose for Johan compassionate? His brother still had his life, still had a place—albeit lowly—in the palace, and still had at least some of his hair. The punishment matched the crime, but seeing Johan’s miserable state did anything but make Levi feel better. “If…If I had done nothing, or put him in a cell, he wouldn’t have learned anything. And if I had banished him…” he trailed off. Banishment was a common punishment for the country’s worst criminals. Being the warmer season Johan would have survived, but in the winter months, banishment might as well be an execution.
(and she’s doing great, I’m a big fan)
(the mom instinct)
Cora nodded. "Trust me, prince, I'm grateful every time I see his face that you chose not to banish him. I know people wanted you to. I know you chose mercy. But you know Johan." She met Levi's gaze, steel in her eyes. "You knew when you set the wheels in motion that this is was as close as you could send him to hell without dying and you did it anyways. Don't come to me now that you see the look in his eyes and regret your decisions."
Levi shrunk under her stare. It took all of his willpower not to let his gaze drop to the floor again. He took another bite of his bread, chewed, and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.” His voice cracked. “But I don’t. I-I can’t. I regret that his pain is hurting you too, but I don’t regret my decisions. He put me through hell too.” And he didn’t even care, he added silently. “I can’t just ignore that when I know he would do it again in a heartbeat given the chance.”
Cora kept watching him, mouth set in a hard line as she sliced through the rest of the loaf. They were divided into even piled, wrapped in crude cloth for the boys to take back to their rooms with them as a snack. "I don't need your apologies prince." She looked him dead in the eyes as she spoke. "Frankly, I don't care why you did it. I care that you did it. There were ways to deal with him that didn't require all of this and you didn't pick them. You wanted him humiliated. You wanted to hit him where it hurt, and you did. Not acknowledging it doesn't make it any less true."
Just as soon as he was about to bite off another piece of bread, Levi let his hand drift downwards. He lifted his eyebrows, staring back at her in shock. He’d asked her if she thought he did the right thing, and he supposed he got his answer. The desire to leave nipped at the back of his neck. “Alright, I acknowledge it. I did.” He moved a fraction of a step towards the door. “But regardless of some of my intentions, it was the best way I could think of dealing with him—Fiori, you agree with me, right?” He flicked his gaze over to his friend.
