But now, your father looks upon you with those eyes. Dark, watery eyes. Dark, watery eyes that are full of pride, a breathless smile upon his lips as he opens them after several moments of silence. I know not what he may say, nor what he may do. You stare at him, you say nothing in response as he begins his own.
Henry speaks of how he had always dreamed of you, working side by side with him, for the benefit of your country that came second to none.
I see not your eyes, but I feel your trepidation at such a sentence. Do you look into his eyes and whisper the same thing? Do you speak through your eyes, tell him of the nights you spent awake as a child, in tears, wondering what you had to do, what puzzle you had to solve, to get your father to love you? I feel your confusion, I feel it in myself. If my husband, your father, our King, wishes for such a thing, why condemn us to a decade and a half of suffering and abandonment and loneliness? I have long given up upon his love, I understand why he no longer holds me in a high regard as he had done as we were wed, must he make my golden child suffer, for nothing more than his pride? He clearly knew how to be a good father, I know not why he refused to be one to you, to you and all of the others in which you eclipse in your goodness and empathy and strength and love.
I dream, too. I dream of a reality in which your father was as good a husband to me as he was to his mistress. I dream a reality in which he held you and your brothers and sisters in the highest regard. A reality in which you had not had to spend nights awake, hoping against God himself, that you'd awake and your father would love you and care for you in the way you had always wanted, more than almost anything?
You cannot tell him that. And neither can I.
You and I are alike in ways that your father cannot fathom. A hundredfold more than you and he. I remember the afternoons in which he had grabbed you in a grip so tight that I risked my neck to see you safe by my side. Those afternoons where he had found you tearfully moping for the young Queen you had loved and lost. He had told you to forget all emotion. You were not to feel emotions.
But how could you not feel such things that made you human? Hatred, hopelessness, desperation, acrimony, yearning, ambition, sightlessness, enmity, aspiration, desolation, desire. Remorse, anguish, compassion. Blindness, foolishness, an angry love, respect, admiration, appreciation, awe, alienation and a thousand other things that I cannot even begin to think of.
There will never, ever, be a time in which neither you, nor I, feel emotions. I can promise you that, my saviour in which he does not deserve.
He stares at you still, his eyes are deep. I do wonder if you find yourself lost in them, as I was as a fourteen year old child. I struggle to understand what emotions, what enmity, the old King feels now. Does he regret that he neglected you, I, and all six others? Does he wish -as I do- for another reality, in which he has another chance to do it all right? Does he find himself filled with the pride I feel each and every time I lay my eyes upon the one I love the most? Does it matter now, what the stubborn King thinks of you, or even I?
I know the answer before I speak it. I speak not, still. There would never, not once, be a time in which neither you, nor I, care not in what he thinks of you.
You lean up from the table, stand to your full, impressive height. I try and fail to make sense of this all. I am numb from the shock and the confusion, I know not what you feel, but do know that it's a hundredfold more than what I feel at this moment. All this time, I have begged my husband to love you in the ways that I do. But I have known that he feels less for you due to the fact that you hold my blood, nothing else. You are the personification of a union that has brought misery to the groom and the bride, and you are not at fault for it. My husband dreams of you, he dreams of the two of you, working together, side by side. Not as King and heir, but as father and son. I shake with the realisation.
I shudder at the stone cold whisper that raises the hairs upon the back of my neck, the one that haunts me. It tells me that it's all a lie, that he has changed not. He never will, people like King Henry Valois, second of his name, do not change or evolve or adapt. He is still the same stone cold man who allows you to linger in his shadow, the same stone cold husband who allows his hated wife to wallow in the ashes of all she has lost.
But you want it to be true, I can feel it. And, my son, so do I.
I want your fantasies to become reality. I pray they do. I want you to work with your father, side by side, setting and grooming the country that you both adore. I want you both, side by side on horseback, proud and regal, hunting your prey as two Princes of the blood should. You dream of a real, true father. One who would pick you up and throw you in the air with joy as a child, one who would cradle you in his arms so gently as a babe, one who would carry you to bed as a small human. One who would respect your view upon political matter and enjoy your company after private doors closed for the evening.
You make a sound, breaking this clasp between you. You turn to me, for confirmation, for advise, for guidance. I can give you none. I stare back at you, hoping to convey all I wish to say in wordless oblivion. You are your fathers son, you dream as he does. You dream as I do. I cannot give guidance this time, my child. I am under his spell as you are. No matter what you think, I always have been. I will walk into the fire with you, child. And we will emerge a complete trifecta of solid unity, or you and I will emerge unscathed, unbloodied and alive, tempered like steel.
Toy Soldiers - 1x09 - Francis + Henry (Catherine)
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