Royals

naître. 1768.

The rain is making a noise of thunder on Walburga' windows, drowning her screams of pain as she gives birth for the first time.

She's eighteen years old, her face still fresh and beautiful, youth flowing in her veins, making her cheeks and her forehead burgundy.

She exhales, her pain so loud that she thinks her vocal cords might break. She's dying, there is no other explanation for this horror.

Her midwife holds her hand, tells her to push harder, to breathe slower and Walburga wants to rip her hand off her arm and sink her teeth in the flesh to calm her cries.

But that's not ladylike.

Another howl and an enthusiast, almost hysterical, cry let's her know that the head of her child is now visible.

"Harder, madame."

Walburga is screaming, her throat raw and bloody as she feels the poisonous infant leave her body, like a demon after an exorcism.

He's covered in blood and he stinks so badly that Walburga wants to puke.

So she does.

Then she takes a good hard look at the child and feels blessed.

It's a boy.

The first boy of the Black family. Walburga succeeded where her brother Cygnus failed. She's holding in her arms the heir of their fortune, she's holding her victory over her insignificant brother and his pathetic wife.

It's a boy, and he looks already so much like his father. The same nose, the same chin. This is a good thing, evaluate Walburga, if he looks like Orion no one will be able to doubt his origins and blood.

The rumors about Walburga's secret affairs might finally come to an end.

The baby cries, his voice tearing Walburga's patience, she no longer wants to hold him and she drops him into her nursemaid arms.

She has no time for whiny little things and fetid diapers. Her son will be raised by the best private tutors of France and cared for by the domestics be she has no intention to take part in this child's life.

As a maid cleans her bloodstained tights and dresses her in a more suitable nightgown, Walburga calls for her husband.

It is her duty to present her son to his father.

Orion enters the room with decadence, a glass of red wine in his left hand and a cheerful smile stuck on his pale face.

He could fool anyone into believing he is happy.

He sits near his wife and kisses her hand softly as she shows him their son, still in the nursemaid's arms.

Orion fakes happiness and love well, caressing the child's cheek as he looks lovingly at his wife.

What a beautiful lie.

The Black's lives are ruled by sophisticated lies. The type of lies that would suffocate any moral beings. But for the Black, those lies are the ones they wake up every day.

Walburga hates her husband. As much as he hates her.

Their love is a simple business arrangement to keep their wealth and name.

Toujours pur. Said Walburga's mother. Always pure and always unhappy.

But unhappiness is necessary when you wish to elevate yourself in such a world. No happy man survives, happy men are filthy things who forget what the true meaning of life is.

Orion leaves the room with his glass half empty, alcohol will be needed tonight when he lies with his wife in their shared bed.

Walburga drinks the water she's been given, then decides to send off her domestics. She's had enough public for the day.

She's tired.

Her eyes close before she orders them to and she slowly drifts into the veils of sleep as her child is taken away by the nursemaid.

She won't look after him the morning after. Letting his entire education into the hands of people she barely trusts because she cannot look at his face again.

She hates her husband.

And she hates this son who looks so much like his father.