Duties to fulfil

"How much longer?"

"They will be here at sunrise."

"And then they'll take me and Radu away..."

It wasn't a question, and he knew it.

"And then they'll take you away..." was all the nation could reply with.

He didn't want this. He didn't want the Ottomans on his lands. He didn't want his voievode to give his sons to the Ottomans. He didn't want the boys to leave these lands for the Ottoman ones. And neither did the young princes want any of this.

No. Not at all.

He was a nation. He had to be obedient and listen to his superiors.

They were children. Children too young to understand what was happening, according to the elders, and as such they had nothing to say.

"I want to stay home."

"I know."

"We want to stay with you. And with mama, and father, and Mircea and Vlad."

"I know, Vladislaus..."

"You can't come with us, can't you?"

"No. My place is by your father's throne."

The young boy, Vlad, looked up at the person who held him in his arms.

Mihnea, the personification of Wallachia, looked down at him.

"I'll miss you. And so will Radu."

Mihnea glanced down at the sleeping boy next to them, the youngest of the Draculesti house, Radu. Reaching out a hand, the personification gently tucked away a few loose strands of hair behind the boy's year to prevent them from falling in his eyes.

"I'll miss both of you as well." Mihnea replied after a while.

"I wish we wouldn't leave." Vlad said, his voice cracking now.

"As do I." he petted the boy's back, trying to comfort him, as he had for the past few hours.

The boy boy merely clung to the other's shirt, sobbing quietly into it now, as the elder Wallachian bent down his head, kissing the top of the young prince's head. Again, it was a way to try to comfort him. But now, what for? The sad news of his departure remained, and it was only a couple of hours until Vlad and Radu left. So Mihnea trying to comfort the boy now? Useless.

"I wish you could come with us." He didn't want to seem weak and whiny. Princes of Wallachia did not such things. But he couldn't help it. He just couldn't.

"My place is by your father's throne." Mihnea said once again. It was the truth. He couldn't leave.

Yet he could feel the boy gripping his shirt even tighter. He could feel the tear stains on his clothing. And he could hear the boy's sobbing breaking the silence, slicing through it.

"Vlad..." He didn't know what else to say. The whole ordeal hurt him as well. It was not easy to see two of his princes, two boys he loved, two children he had helped raise, be sent to the men he despised more than anything.

"I wish you would be there with us..." The young Dracula had muttered such things almost the entire night. He was scared of the unknown that was to come, and if he had to go, he would have wanted something or someone familiar to go with him and Radu.

Mihnea still held him, kissed his forehead, and tried to comfort him. It pained him to see someone he saw as his own son suffer like this, at a young age like Vlad's.

Not knowing what else to do, he raised his hands to his neck, taking off a plain, yet well made, silver cross on a simple, black string, afterwards lifting Vlad's head so the boy could see it.

"See this?" Mihnea held the cross in the palm of his hand as he spoke. "This little cross will be your comfort. It will remind you of me, of your family here, your people, your religion, everything dear to you that you shall abandon by the dawn of the new day. Do you understand?"

The young Draculesti stared at the cross for a bit, and then wiped away a few stray tears off his face with his sleeve, before nodding and taking the cross gently into his somewhat shaky hand.

"Keep the cross with you at all times, all right?" Mihnea asked.

Vlad nodded again and placed the cross around his neck, taking it once more into his hand to glance at it. He then looked up at Mihnea, and after a few seconds, he leaned forward to hug the nation tightly.

"I promise." Vlad said, not letting go of Mihnea. A smile crept on the prince's face as the nation wrapped his arms around him tighter.

Yet Mihnea didn't smile. He couldn't bring himself to. And especially not now, as some of the first rays of light began to shine through the small window of the bedroom.