The Exiled Gem

The Sibling Rivalry

It is just a shock. You go from one day, everything being OK to your life being upside down.
- Amber Margarejo 

When things go uphill, they come downhill as well.

One final disagreement between two siblings. And everything changed.

It was a very normal day. Beginning like all others: Alexandra had been at the Council. Fannel had been visiting form Akwanda, he had a belt of gray hair at his fringe, and the rest was the usual brown.

Alexandra had still been going on about how they had to invite more women into the Council when a small letter had been dropped on her head by a misbehaved pigeon.

'Ouch!' She had exclaimed, its sharp tip hitting her on the head. Fannel had simply laughed and picked it up. He had torn it open and handed it to Alexandra.

Liam's usual loopy and beautiful writing had gone hurried. It was peculiar that there was a note from him, when he should have been in that dreaded meeting with Vedessan economists.

Start right away. Trouble with Nick and Lia- it's worse than ever.

Just two sentences. But they'd been enough to fill Alexandra with apprehension. Nowadays, for the past few months, they often heard Nicholas and Ophelia shouting on top of their voices- arguing. The usual topic: I'm better.

But both had their respective approaches to it. Nicholas downright saying, "I am better." While Ophelia maintaining it wasn't so and that "you can't draw a comparison between yourself and me, Brother. We're very different."

Some amount of competition and jealousy was acceptable. But this was turning out dirtier. Nicholas, at a particular time when Alexandra had tried to sort things out had accused her of, "you favour Ophelia just because she looks like Father." Despite the well of things Alexandra had seen, she had then realized that nothing could hurt as much as your own child accusing you of partiality.

It was more deep-seated than that. Those training institutes were hell- they were supposed to teach children to live away from family. Live a soldier's life. But it ended up making them jealous of sisters, or of other brothers, who had lived the entire time with their parents.

Ronald complained of headaches from the constant bickering. He told Alexandra the level of things being exchanged. Things like, "you must be picked from a trashcan!" By Ophelia, in the heat of the skirmish, something she had apologized for, profusely. And then, "you are just a guest here, Ophelia! You'll be married and gone in another five years!" By Nicholas, something he too had said in the heat of the moment, but hadn't particularly apologized for, being elder.

Nicholas was not turning out the type of person Alexandra would have liked him to. While he was certainly skilled, smart and laid-back, with a good level of optimism, he somewhere had unusual notions. Notions neither Alexandra or Liam had passed down to him. At the top of the list being his belief that Ophelia was just foreign wealth: that very soon, she had to be off and married. So, her say didn't matter as much as his or Ronald's. There were other things: he felt he was better than Ophelia, a general older-sibling idea that wasn't challenged by anybody. Not even Lia herself.

Somewhere, deep down, there was a hint of greediness too, in Nick. For the throne? Alexandra didn't know why that should be so, but Liam had confessed he suspected it. He had confessed he was scared Nicholas had inherited his "hunger for power" trait. The reason they hadn't announced him the Heir yet, while usually, as soon as the first son was born, he was titled the Crown Prince. Judgemental went without saying. But more than that, once Nicholas had formed his beliefs, he would not budge from the idea.