two princes

i fell back into my house of the dragon fixation briefly this week and decided to flesh out the royal family of one of the nations of Tulra, my fantasy world. i really latched on to the generation this story focuses on.

also! i vlogged the process of writing this post to help with motivation, and you can watch that here if you're interested!

 -

Tonight, like many nights before, Prince Katrin Oraine, second child of the King Carola Oraine, has snuck out of her bedroom and pushed open the door to the throne room to sit and stare at the garish thing. She's across the room from the throne, slumped against the wall with her knees to her chest. She sits in this exact spot so often that the stone of the castle itself has started to wear into her shape.

She is not crying. She was, earlier, but no longer. The tears left shining streaks down her face, but now she is only staring at the chair with a blank expression on her face. She wonders, in the back of her mind, what time it is. The sun has not yet risen, but it has to be a new day by now.

The door to the throne room opening does not cause Katrin to jump, or move at all. Her gaze is fixed on the throne, even as her elder brother sits next to her, their sides barely touching. They remain like this, sitting together in complete silence, for a while. Agnar is the one who breaks it. He always is.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Katrin doesn’t hesitate in her answer. “You know why.”

And he does. Agnar doesn’t remember a time where he wasn’t aware of his sister’s desperate lust for the throne that was his by birthright. He doesn’t think she remembers either, which makes him all the sadder for her.

“Do you ever think about what our lives would’ve been like if–”

Katrin’s gaze snaps to Agnar, as she cuts him off with a harsh, “Don’t.”

Agnar flinches like he’s just been snapped at by a stray dog. He notices the dry tears on his sister’s face.

“Don’t ask me that,” she says, and the room feels colder, “We can’t change anything. We live the lives we have and we need to be content with that.”

Agnar nods thoughtfully. She’s right, as she often is. He looks back at the throne.

“Mother is only King because her sister died.”

“I know,” Katrin replies in a way that suggests that she thinks Agnar is stupid for bringing such a thing up.

“Do you think she misses her?”

“Of course, she was her sister.”

Agnar doesn’t understand why she says it like it’s as simple as that. He would miss Asta, their youngest sibling, severely if something tragic were to befall her. But losing Katrin would be a much more complicated grief.

“I just wonder why she doesn’t talk about her.”

Katrin sighs. “Mother’s life would be significantly better in her eyes had her sister lived through her disease. But she didn’t. And Mother can’t do anything about it. I’m sure she just doesn’t want to dwell on everything she could’ve had.”

Agnar watches Katrin as she speaks, taking in her words carefully. Then, he asks, “Do you ever do that?”

“Do what?”

“Dwell. On everything you could’ve had.”

Katrin looks away from her brother as if he’d burned her and brings her knees impossibly closer to her chest, as if she were trying to become one with the wall. Her gaze lands on the throne again. Agnar’s does, too.

“Would you kill me for it?”

Her expression remains blank, but Katrin does not answer for a long, long time. She wishes so badly that the answer was yes, that it was all as simple as slaying Agnar and taking the throne for herself. It would be so easy. She could slam his head against the wall right now, claim it was one of the guards, and become next in line for everything she’s ever wanted. They were completely alone. She could get away with it. He probably wouldn’t even fight back.

Agnar watches one of Katrin’s hands squeeze the other so tightly her knuckles turn a sickening shade of white.

“I think I like you too much to go through with it.” She says it so shamefully that it makes Agnar’s stomach turn.

Agnar hesitates before asking his next question. “And if you ever come to hate me?”

Katrin doesn’t answer. She just keeps squeezing her hands together and staring at that ugly chair.

“I don’t feel safe around your ambition,” Agnar admits.

Katrin turns back to face Agnar. “Then kill me first.”

“That’s not in my nature.” 

It’s a truth they both know. Agnar was never quite squeamish, not like Asta, but he hated hunting. He hated watching the life drain out of one of the Great God’s creatures with the knowledge that it could have had a long and wonderful life if he wasn’t in its way.

“And I would miss you,” he adds.

Katrin looks away again at that. “I suppose we’re at a stalemate, then.”

“I suppose so.”

They fall into another silence, but Agnar is still looking at his sister. It really is quite a shame. He thinks, perhaps, if there are worlds outside of their own, where other versions of them exist, where no tragedy had befallen their ancestors, where there was no King of Ruuk at all, that they could’ve been very good to each other.

They both stare at the throne.