ꜰᴀɪʟꜱᴀꜰᴇ ✧ odin ras petrakis

[rea]

It's normal for a Royal family to have many children.

It's normal for the youngest of them to both matter the most, and not at all.

Incubated within the embers and ashes of war, Odin Mikhail ras Petrakis was brought into the world as the final child of King Aristdis rei Petrakis. 
Born shortly after the King's death, the young Prince never knew his father. 
Born the last in line of the Crown branch of the family, he had been told for the entirety of his life that his existence was to serve his brother as King.
It wasn't expected that he would ever rule; With the difference in age between himself and his Brother, as well as the two Sisters ahead of him, it was obvious that any claim to the throne would go to Alexander or Alice's children before it ever went to Odin. 
But -

This is a time where Esshar was wracked with war, with strife, with death and with loss. It was completely possible that he could one day take the throne - That one day, everything in regards to this Kingdom could be in his hands. 

Keeping him locked away for the most of his life was, effectively, a failsafe. Kept inside the castle walls, the young Prince had a flurry of overprotective guards who were tasked with keeping every drop of Blessed blood inside of his body. 

While his older brother was groomed since his birth to rule, Odin was to serve. Loyalty and devotion to his Future King was drilled into him until the thoughts of Alexander's life taking all priority over his own were natural. At the same time that he was ready to die for his brother at any time, the thoughts that he must live in the case that the Petrakis Dynasty needs his body were sewn into his skin with gilded thread.

If a Prince is kept stupid, naive, in love and subservient — He's kept as a fool-proof failsafe in the case that his King falls.

[rea]

An excerpt from the journal of Prince Odin ras Petrakis,

Spring 1738

I messed up.

I came up with a plan — I was going to gather some people I could trust together, and travel to the other settlements to speak with people in power. Maybe if it wasn't Mother, if it wasn't Alex ... maybe they'd listen. Maybe they'd let me listen. Maybe there would be something that I could do to stop more people from dying. Something that could ... save the people of this City. That's what the Crown is supposed to do, right—? We're supposed to be Leonaeus, personified.  The People are supposed to be able to look up into the night sky when they're lost, and look towards the guiding star of the Crown to lead them home. To salvation.

...But, I couldn't trust the first person I asked.

...

Or, maybe, it's that I can trust him too much.

He told Alex. He let my King know that I had doubts -- Doubts that we'd talked about before, that he said that I was right to have. I told him that I thought that he was Ruling,  and not Leading. I told him that it felt like he was acting in his own intentions, rather than what Osrona needed.

He said that I was right. He agreed with me. I don't know how I feel about that.

But -

But, he's disappointed in me. He feels like I don't trust him. He feels like I don't have faith in my King.

Hearing him say that made me want to throw up. What if he hates me? What if it's actually true, and I'm just lying to myself? He's my King. I'd do anything for him. My plan was supposed to help him, it was supposed to make the people who have started doubting him believe in him, again, but —

But ... it just made him doubt me, instead.

I tried to take my sword and cut myself to prove that my life is His at any moment, but he stopped me.

I think he gets that I didn't mean it, but—

I think he's definitely lost faith in me.



I'm such a fucking idiot.

[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-"

[rea]

From the moment that he was born, his life was decided for him.

A Royal has no say on what comes for them -- Born into a position that has already been decided hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Even if it were that his head would never wear the Crown, he was still destined to bare the weight of it for his entire life.

Everyone had words for him, prompted or not - Everyone met him already with an opinion formed. Of course, how could they not? He was a scion of the Petrakis - weak and young and stupid and naive, someone who could be used to carry every thought that the world had towards them without it being a burden on the King.

Everything he did, at first, was a mistake. He felt too much- he never thought. He never used that God-Given Blessing of time within his blood to look into the future, to see how his actions would play out. Everything that he did, he did with his Kingdom in mind - he was their Failsafe, after all. Never to bare the crown, but there in case he was needed. He was a Prince, and there was never a doubt in his mind how a Prince should act.
His life didn't belong to him, after all. It never did - it never would. Every action that he made, without thought, was for what was his guideless idea of prosperity for Osrona.

"This is why I am King, and you are not"

His brother was everything. His King was everything.
Everything to him, everything that he was not.

His strength, his power, his command - The shadow that he cast hung over him at all times.
With every action he made, oh- how he yearned to be praised for it by his King. He wanted to be given worth, just for a moment. To be told that he was worthy of his Blessed place among History and among the Stars.

But- time and time again, he failed him.

With every action he made, he watched the trail of the comet that was his King shoot further and further away - a shooting star that was too high, too bright, too distant. One that he wished on every time that he closed his eyes- so wished that his name would one day be said in pride, rather than in scorn, no matter how many foolish, stupid, naive mistakes that he made.
He was greedy for the love of his brother - warmth that the man could rarely show, as the flames of the kiln that had forged his steel will had long, long since gone out.


Perhaps-  He was looking for love in the wrong places.

"I want to be yours."

"I would revel in the opportunity to watch you flourish, again."

"Do you remember when you asked me if I loved Marie?
I love you in the same way.
I hope you understand what that means, now."

Somehow, at some point - this mistake of a Prince was loved. 

Despite it all - despite his continual mistakes, despite his constant errors - he had, somehow, captured hearts. 
He spoke in words that reached even some who had made themselves unreachable-
He glanced behind himself to lament his own shadow, finding a line of those that had chosen to follow him. 

Perhaps, he truly was everything that his Brother was not. 
While his Brother was strong, brilliant, and smart - He discarded love long ago. 
Each move was calculated, thought over - played over again and again until it was perfection, 
until his every action was one that would not bring more loss into their harrowing world. 

That was not Odin. 

Every move of his was pushed by the determination of love - 
For Osrona. For his Dynasty. 

For Alexander. For Sethon. For Kofe. For Aradia. For Alice. For Marie. For Esbern. For Astrid. For Anastasia. For Robin. 
For-

From the moment that they had kissed, his death was decided for him. 

The first person to ever truly believe in him, accepting the offer to follow and protect him aimlessly without another thought.
The first person to ever truly love him, murmuring secret words against his unconscious lips.


But, as his life had been decided for him, it was going against his very existence to follow them. 
It was acting for his own sake- his own wants and desires that he did, that he pushed them back and took them in that secluded corner of that ship as the Kingdom that he had been born to serve burned to the ground. 


They, too, were someone that had all their decisions made for them - too held back by similar weakness and pain and hatred for themselves to make their own. 
Did you know? He'd asked them, once. They say... the moon doesn't give off it's own light. It shines because the sun does. 
...You're like the moon.


For his light and his warmth, they followed him until the day that they died. 
For their knowledge and beauty, he followed them until the day that he did.


It wasn't supposed to be this way, he thinks- sharpness pressing into his throat, ripping open old scars from old mistakes. He'd had a plan - he'd had something fit for a Prince. He was on the way to avenge them, or- at least, to try. He was going to say something cool, like You die for this. Either because I kill you, or you kill me and Nysea comes for you. 
And, yet- a Royal has no say in what comes for them, even if it's a sudden demise at the hands of someone with a burning hatred for nothing but his blood.

"Hey... would you like it? If there was... a place that was just us.
Like this.
And we were there.
...Forever."

Yeah, Eden.

Be right there.