The royal graveyard
In the year 1448, a tragedy occurred in the Mournstead Palace, formerly known at the time as Kalvarani Palace, that left the kingdom with neither King nor Queen, but instead a Princess who had been avoiding her duties for centuries.
It was a cold and rainy evening the night after, the wind howling between the Nightcarver trees, casting light over the royal graveyard. Three fresh graves only recently dug, three newly carved headstones. It was calm, almost eerily so. Stood beside the graves was the new Queen, still a Princess in name, whose world had just been shattered before her eyes. Her eyes which usually glittered like melted gold were dull and glossy, staring down as the three coffins were lowered into the grave. Two were adorned with crowns, the last with a sword laid over it.
The Princess trembled, squeezing the hand of her widowed brother-in-law that she held tightly in hers, trying her best not to crumble and break as she watched the coffins be covered. She managed to hold herself together, long enough to read the epitaphs. The king and queens, her father and mother, were easy enough to read, they did not break her carefully crafted exterior.
Then she read her brothers, and she cracked. Tears fled from her eyes like a broken aquarium. Though they were all standard royal epitaphs, inspecting them closer led her to the realisation that her brother, Xavier, had specifically asked for his headstone to include a small rock, of the most mundane type, to be carved and incorporated into his headstone. The rock, though mundane, held much significance to the two of them, the first gift Xavier ever gave the Princess, and unbeknownst to him also the last silent 'Everything is okay, I'm here', he would ever say to her.
It was a cold and rainy evening the night after, the wind howling between the Nightcarver trees, casting light over the royal graveyard. Three fresh graves only recently dug, three newly carved headstones. It was calm, almost eerily so. Stood beside the graves was the new Queen, still a Princess in name, whose world had just been shattered before her eyes. Her eyes which usually glittered like melted gold were dull and glossy, staring down as the three coffins were lowered into the grave. Two were adorned with crowns, the last with a sword laid over it.
The Princess trembled, squeezing the hand of her widowed brother-in-law that she held tightly in hers, trying her best not to crumble and break as she watched the coffins be covered. She managed to hold herself together, long enough to read the epitaphs. The king and queens, her father and mother, were easy enough to read, they did not break her carefully crafted exterior.
Then she read her brothers, and she cracked. Tears fled from her eyes like a broken aquarium. Though they were all standard royal epitaphs, inspecting them closer led her to the realisation that her brother, Xavier, had specifically asked for his headstone to include a small rock, of the most mundane type, to be carved and incorporated into his headstone. The rock, though mundane, held much significance to the two of them, the first gift Xavier ever gave the Princess, and unbeknownst to him also the last silent 'Everything is okay, I'm here', he would ever say to her.
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