"Your father he... he is not very fond of you is he?"
The Prince, Heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Harris, felt his lips quirk up in something resembling a smile. It wasn't a pretty thing, nothing close to what he had been raised to show in his fathers court.
"My father," he spat the word out like poison. "...is a closed minded fool with nothing but money and power in his mind. Anything that bars his pathway to greater heights, anything at all, is a threat. The royal family is raised as rulers first, tyrants second. Anything that becomes a threat is something to remove."
Kelton Dalvine Harris Vii laughed, broken and edged with terror.
"To him, I am now a threat."
...
He knew that this was a dangerous suggestion. The man hated him enough to begin with, notwithstanding that he was probably going to use this as a chance to get him killed outside of the castle. If nothing else, then he would take this outing as an attempt at currying favor with the masses, walking and smiling like the perfect prince that they saw him as.
"Father? Permission to make a request?"
His hand reached his chest, a familiar notion considering his minor military knowledge. He was making an official request, one that could decide whether or not he would live to see tomorrow. He needed to give the idea of subservience, complete obedience to the man who held an empire on his shoulders.
He lowered his chest to the ground, taking a knee before the king. Such a position towards ones own father was humiliating. Degradation of the highest order. Royalty was never to be seen on their knees. It was a sign of weakness. Weakness was wrong. The weak die and the strong survive.
'Tantum fortis et vivet.' Only the strong survive. He had lived his life like this. His father had lived his life like this. It was why Harris had remained the strongest of the three kingdoms.
"Granted. Speak."
Kelton allowed a sliver of hope to bloom in his chest even as the darkness grew stronger. His father did not command him to lift his head. Nor did he give permission to take leave of his knelt position.
Thus he would remain on bended knee.
"At the town-square, the commoners will be beginning to set up for the midsummer festival. I believe that it would do them well to see their prince among them-"
"Silence."
Kelton shut his mouth. Rather, he was no longer capable of speaking at all. Fear gripped his heart as his fathers magic seemed to boil the very air around him. It was wild, like a storm of fire within the throne room, threatening to burn him to ash if he made the wrong move.
Mustering the strength in his body to look up at the man who had sired him, he confirmed the thoughts he already knew from the moment he walked in to his fathers presence. The king was pissed. Pissed beyond belief. It would be a miracle if he didn't just kill him right now.
Unlike the room, a veritable furnace by now, his father remained cold. Cold like ice cut from the mountains of Frostmore. So cold, in fact, that literal shards of ice had begun to bore their way into his throne, gently cascading down in a waterfall of frozen death. His eyes were burning though, almost hotter than the room itself.
That was his mistake. He should have kept his gaze to the ground.
Like a hammer, magic in the air crashed down on him, flattening him to the ground. He was fully prostrated, much like one who prayed to a god would do. But this wasn't a god sitting before him. This was a man who had more power over him with a single flex of magic than any god could have mustered in his 17 years of life.
No. This was a power drunk tyrant throwing a tantrum.
This was how he was going to die wasn't it?
"You come into my throne room, into my domain, and your wish is to lower yourself to the level of commoners?"
He could not respond. He wished to- oh how he wished he could- but the magic binding him was far more than anything he had ever experienced. Even in the light hiss of his fathers voice, he could feel his bones rattling from the pressure.
"You're a disgrace. A filthy stain on the royal line of Harris-" A pause. A sigh. "How could I, the greatest warrior, the greatest magician, the greatest King! How could I have fathered such a disappointment! Our ancestor, Conquerors and Emperors of their times! Oh how they must be rolling in their graves! Knowing that you are the last of their kin, the last of their line left in this pitiful world."
His father was gesturing. Even if he couldn't see it, he knew it. It was simply what he did, a force of habit he never quite got out of if he started getting emotional enough. Kelton could hear the emotions in his voice- hell, he could feel the emotions soaking into the air. The rage and anger fizzling out into something like ambient static in the air, sending jolts down his spine.
As for whatever he was saying?
Fuck that.
If his fathers solemn pause was anything to go by, he had come to the same conclusion.
"I... I don't even know why I bother trying to-" Another sigh. "Talking to you truly is a waste of my time. I don,t even know why i tried. Go to your commoners. Do what you will with your time."
The magic in the air settled, returning to its saturated, lulled state.
"You are no son of mine."
...
By the time Kelton had recovered the strength to lift himself from the marble floors, his father was gone and he was bleeding far too much for his own liking.
All in all, a much better outcome than expected.