17. Apology

4.1K 234 96
                                    

"Mother." Anastacius closed the door to his mother's room.

"Oh it's you son." Morgana said as she looked up from where she was sitting from her desk, reading the letters sent by foreign kingdoms about new trade deals.

"Did it go well with Penelope?" Her son asked as he approached the desk, guessing the cat that was undoubtedly on the empress's lap. "If I'm correct she dared recommend Meredith to me..."

"Well sad news my son, she does not want to marry you." The empress said, crumpling the letter she just read and throwing it into the bin next to her. "She's really into that meek wimp of a brother of yours."

The empress looked at her son's internally annoyed face and chuckled.

"Anastacius. It's ridiculous these days how you are around girls." She mocked him "First you chose your dance partner randomly on your father's birthday ball, then now you chase off the girl I also randomly selected for your father's other son. Seriously, what's gotten into you these days? I miss it when you asked me to drive Penelope away because she bothered you too much! What was that, one or two years ago?"

"Yeah." Anastacius snorted, flopping down onto the couch.

"Sit up straight."

The prince groaned softly and took a more refined position:

"I think it's offensive how one day she worships me and the second day she decides I'm actually not that big a deal anymore." He confessed.

"Well she does have a deep reasoning of her own." Morgana shrugged, opening another letter, darting her eyes towards the name of a sender and then just crumbled the paper and then threw it back to the bin, not bothering with the content. "I tried to tempt her with the throne that is currently mine, but she denied it. She's highly intelligent. I expected her to be more like how you first described her. With more makeup, accessories and more power hungry. And more tea drinking too. I never saw her drink one drop of tea."

Morgana however recalled how Eliza died suddenly after having drank poison mixed with tea. Would that perhaps be the cause of why Penelope stopped drinking tea? It'd be pretty logical.

"How can people change that way, mother, I don't understand!!." The prince pouted, crossing his arms. "Did I...Did I get ugly??"

"No..? Not at all? Everyone could change their minds easily for whatsoever reason, my son." The empress said on a graver tone "You better watch your steps. You can't let your father change his mind about you like how that girl did. It's not an admirer you'd lose, it'd be a whole position."

Anastacius looked down grumpily. He'd like one day where this subject wouldn't come up.

'She's right' Carax stated in his head.

'Carax, fuck off' Anastacius mentally scolded Carax.

'With that mouth you'd never go far-'

'Which part of fuck off did you not understand?! I had one of those days. Now you, SCRAM.'

"The good side of things is that Aetvum isn't half as witty as Penelope is." The older woman said, oblivious to her son's inner conflict "I don't think you'll get that girl, son. She has one steely will. I wish I had picked another one for Claude. Women that wish to make it big in society by starting their own company are rare you know."

"Ughhhhh." Anastacius held his head and groaned, annoyed and very irritated.

"Stop being like that, she's not a priority." The black haired smiled at her son's attitude. "Worse case, we engage you to her younger sister."

Who made me Penelope Judith?Where stories live. Discover now