“Come closer so I can get a better look at you… I do have thousand-year-old eyes.” Crimson says breaking the nothingness of thought in Aero’s mind’s eye.
Aero stands and slowly approaches Crimson’s area. His guard is down somewhat, he left his sword propped against the wall where it has been since he began talking with Crimson. Aero stands before him uncomfortably as the ancient eyes of the “Monster of Brintz” gives him a look over.
“So about what? Six feet tall?”
“Six feet one, actually” Aero responds.
“Blond hair, unkempt to your shoulders. You don’t look much like a royal to me; or any I remember at least. What you do look like is a dolphin rider from the Breaker Islands.” Crimson states as a growing smile appears on his face.
“Dammit!” Aero exclaims.
“It’s true, you can’t deny your mother’s influence over your appearance. You are a perfect match for a dolphin rider, down to your honey-gold eyes. They allow you to see underwater, you know that don’t you?” Crimson asks.
“What? Really?”
“Absolutely. Those eyes allow you to see in the depths or where there is low light; sometimes even in no light. Isn’t that exactly what a Spear-nosed dolphin rider would need while hunting on the ocean side of the Breaker Islands? Seventy-five feet waves crashing down on shore and you’re in the middle of all the action. Man and water-beast working in unity in the raging ocean as it slaps the island coast. You need that vision along the shelf where you have massive near hundred-foot waves above you forcing massive movements of water all around while you stare at a depth of over three miles below you.”
“Are the waves really that big? I feel like people exaggerate the Islands around me.” Aero says.
“I’ve heard they crest at one hundred and fifty feet in tide conditions.”
“I would like to see that site one day.”
“You have the darkened tan of the islanders too. Does your brothers tan like you?”
“Not hardly. Both have brown hair; John Henry’s is a little darker than David’s. both have the blueish eyes known to the Royal family, and both are way less tanned than I. All I have heard my entire life is how both of them look like rulers, while I look like their cupbearer. Both of them have said it themselves, just with David, I feel like he is only joking.” Aero says.
“And John Henry isn’t?”
“I don’t think so. He has a complex. Being the second born he had to go through the Royal Scholar program like David, but he doesn’t get to be king. All the while he saw me squiring for three knights and earning my own knighthood. He is a bitter person who would bring the kingdom to ruin if he got the throne.”
“Do you really think so?” Crimson asks.
“I believe he would. He doesn’t get to do the Regal visits that David does, As a squire to Ser Stephan the Broken Sword, I accompanied David on many of the trips in a lot of different situations. He was always carrying himself like a royal should. John Henry would have used these trips to find a beauty in the kingdom and make her his bride, and all her sisters and friends as his concubines. That is a fact! I have heard him press David about doing it for himself, but David carries himself so much better than John Henry.”
“Wait a second. Why would a king choose his wife from a random city? And since when do kings carry concubines? Crimson asks.
“I’m not sure when kings started having comfort women, I’m sure David could tell you. David is very intelligent; scholarship is his arena. I imagine John Henry could tell you as well, he probably wouldn’t because he enjoys being an asshole. But after Meego fell out of rotation at some point the Kings just decided to streamline the process and rule alone with a Queen figurehead with no power.” Aero explains.
“The crown traded in the unity of the kingdom for a sleezy approach to life. Your father has concubines now?”
“My father has many of them; How many? Hard to say, he keeps them out of sight of the public. He did remarry for political gain at the urging of his council a few years after my mother passed. He married a woman from Bellum. She berthed my sister, Shoala then returned to Bellum. I think she didn’t like the other women.”
“Give me a guess, an estimate on your father’s collection.” Crimson states amusedly.
If I had to give you an estimate it would be close to two hundred.” Aero states.
“Two hundred women? How does he have time for ruling?”
“He doesn’t. He has a group of about twenty-five advisors that do most of the governance. I doubt he has much knowledge of the daily issues of the kingdom. The strange thing is, he only had a couple concubines until my mother died. Then he started a collection of sorts, every excursion through the kingdom he would find ways to get more of them. I’m not too sure on the details, I’ve never been on King detail. I always accompanied David on his trips.”
“Is your brother David going to rule the same way?” Crimson asks
“I really don’t think so. David seems to carry a heavy burden upon himself. Even when he walks, his shoulders seem to be carrying the entire weight of the kingdom upon them. He’s young, not even thirty years old, but he has a lot of maturity about him. Because of this he enjoys time alone, he disappears for hours on end. It’s like he exiles himself from everyone. I feel like he knows that there is no one that understands the pressures he is carrying and needs a getaway.”
Crimson lets out a low laugh “Maybe you are a little more like your brother than you think.”
Aero smiles a little bit as he continues “David is clear to choose a wife in any region he wants. Must be nice to know that you can literally choose any woman in the kingdom… well except for Meego. I don’t think my brother will be choosing a Sand Charmer. He’s left them to me.”
Relics of the Old Age 