ꜰᴀɪʟꜱᴀꜰᴇ ✧ odin ras petrakis

[rea]

Autumn, 1738

It had begun to be terrifying to even be alive. Each waking moment - he was afraid. Of course, the young prince was born into war, into strife -- Family was taken from him before he could even meet them, his life set in stone before he could even read the chiseled-in text. Loss and death and fear were close to the only things that he knew.

-- But, it wasn't only him feeling these things, was it?

No-- Of course not. If these feelings could wrack someone of his place in society, one could only imagine what they would do to someone not born in his soft place. The families of the Knights-- The families that weren't lucky enough to be Knights. Every person in Osrona now awoke with dread, now was forced to live their life knowing that at any given moment the armies of every settlement outside of Osrona's walls could pour over their shimmering bulwark and end … everything.

---

It's late, late at night - Far passed Midnight, yet at a time where the sun hadn't yet begun to cut through the darkness. While the Prince was now free to walk Osrona as he wished - Leaving the castle so late into the night was still not advised. --Either way, it's a sleepless night. All of his nights, recently, have been sleepless. Bags marred weary beneath slate eyes, fair skin even further paled by his lack of sleep.

He makes his way to the Church -- It's doors always unlocked, always open and inviting, always a beacon to those who were lost.

...Like a guiding star, pointing home. Like Leonaeus, like his family was intended to be.

He hears it every day - How his family rules over Esshar through Divine Right. How his blood is Blessed with the gift of the stars, a pact with an Angel and a Lion and a Man to create what was to be an unending dynasty of prosperity and light and protection.

Each time someone brings that up to him, recently, it makes him want to vomit.

The Prince takes to one knee -- In front of the altar, beneath the skylight that opened up to the Heavens. Slate eyes flicker closed, hands knitting together before him in white-knuckled prayer.

It was almost impossible for him not to be devout. Not with the constant reminders of his bloodline- of his Divinity.

...But-

If that were the case... why was all of this happening?

He speaks with a croak - Words passing through lips broken with bites of anxiety and worry. He doesn't think, when he speaks - lets his heart speak for him, lets that part of him buried deep, deep down inside ring out in desperation to the Skies that were supposed to be keeping them safe.

"Please--" It's a beg, it's a plea.

"---Help us. Please-"