Includes mentions of age gap, murder, grief, and previous character death
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Claude heaved a sigh, ruffling his hair and wondering where to even begin with gathering his patience.
It had already been almost five years since he began pampering Athanasia, and he wanted to make her fifth birthday special. However, nothing could make her life special without the presence of Lucas, so he had to find that man before even thinking about making his daughter smile again.
Claude sighed as his eyes turned to the garden where he first saw the wizard. Of long raven hair and cold, demonic eyes. Lucas had glared at him murderously while his head throbbed. He could barely stand the man. Obelia help Claude, he needed patience.
The emperor inhaled sharply as he entered the forest, the smell of moss and dewy grass greeting him. And though he searched meticulously, it wasn't until an hour later that he actually found the wizard. Claude smirked, swinging his leg, taking his frustration out on the unconscious man. "Get up."
Lucas groaned, holding his arm as he stirred. Sleep and a debilitating numbness held him down, scrambling for a sense of consciousness. However, a single word from Claude sent him flying to his feet, "Athanasia."
"Athanasia!" The red-eyed wizard exclaimed. His head spun around wildly, panicked rubies searching for the princess. But he never found her. Instead, he was greeted by her enraged father. "You're quite the criminal, aren't you? How dare you take Athanasia as your lover when you met her as some thirty-year old? Disgusting."
"How dare you act as her father when you've killed her more times than I've been kissed?" Lucas whispered, clenching his fists with a bitter smirk. Claude simply looked at him with a mocking smile. "I don't need the details, old man, especially when it concerns my daughter."
"Don't judge me by my age," Lucas clicked his tongue, glaring at the emperor.
"I can judge you however I'd like," Claude replied, gesturing for Lucas to follow him. The dark-haired man frowned before heaving a sigh. "I'll be judging you as well."
"Haven't you already?" The magician laughed, red eyes burning a hole on the back of the blonde's head. However, he paused when Claude turned, his eyes oddly warm. "Try not to wake her."
Lucas' eyes widened when Claude opened the door to a room, immediately focusing on the sleeping form of the princess. Images of her blank eyes and contented smile, both frosty with the touch of death, still haunted him. They clung to his fingers, his heart, and his brain, leaving trails of ice, of bitter regrets. Lucas never noticed when the tears were already slipping down his face, because he could not lose her, "not again."
"In a world full of beautiful things, you alone were born empty handed, will live empty handed, and ultimately die empty handed— so pitiful," His friend had once said to him, and Lucas couldn't help the painful throb that wracked his body. "I lived with you as my everything, Athy, and I died empty-handed. I'm so sorry for..."
The image of his shield deflecting the spell flashed before his eyes," I'm sorry for being too good at magic."
Claude watched from the entrance, suppressing his own grief. He understood how it felt to lose the love of your life. To lose that one thing that you have always treasured, the one thing that made you feel alive. Worse yet, he had already lost his daughter eight times out of nine lives.
"How much more must we suffer before fate will be satisfied?" The emperor thought, sitting down in the room and looking out of a window. The clouds passed by, dark and grey, heavy with their grief, hopes, and dreams.