ᴡᴍᴍᴀᴘ: ᴏɴᴇꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

Regrets.

He sits there, unmoving as he watches the blade fall, his expression like the wood that her body fell upon. 

Jennette beside him, her tears filling the signature gem eyes, and yet, he couldn't bring himself to comfort her. 

He could only wave for the body to be carried away, far away to the tombs where he no longer had to see her.

Claude sits at his desk that night, his head turned to the window, the moon peeking out in a sliver behind the clouds that were heavy with rain. 

The air crackled with electricity as he picked up a glass, the ice clinking against it as he downed it all. 

He wanted to drown it all out- but what exactly? 

The oncoming thunder that was getting closer with every minute? Or the sound of his heart, his head, screaming something he couldn't hear?

He ignores everything.

He sits with Jennette like usual. Except, nothing is as usual. His gaze keeps turning to the abandoned palace like clockwork. 

Every so often he catches himself holding his teacup as if he had stopped in time. Jennette's pouting at him, as if the execution had never happened in the first place, as if everything was normal- how could any of it be normal?

Unknowingly, his gaze towards her turns frigid, his responses shorter than usual, and he even lashes out once, her touch at his arm no longer inviting and warm. 

But, uncomfortable- wrong, it felt wrong. 

He doesn't care for Jennette's hurt expression as she held her hand to her chest as he storms away from the table set in the gardens, why did he make those gardens again? 

Had they been for Jennette? But why?

His hands grasp around the neck of a bottle again that night, and the numerous nights that came to pass. 

He could no longer sleep without drinking himself to the bed. Headaches pounded at his temples, he could no longer take breaks with Jennette, her once bearable countenance becoming an annoyance to him. 

Her whining made no difference to him, and he turns her away at every turn. Why couldn't she be quiet for once?

He makes himself sit down with Jennette one day, perhaps weeks, no months had passed since then, and she looks visibly happy, eager to please the father that had been absent from her side for too long. 

She doesn't notice his dark circles, doesn't notice how haggard he seems, and she prattles on until he shoves a pile of documents at her and a pen. 

"Fill it out." 

His voice is hoarse, having not spoken aloud in days it seemed, and she looks confused, shocked even at the sizable feat in front of her.

"Father, why would I do this?" 

She giggles, her fan flapping out in front of her mouth as she pushes the stack away slightly, not even bothering to look at the first document. 

"We have people for that, don't we?" Her giggling continues before it dies down at his continued silence. 

"Father? Is something wrong?" 

Claude's grimace at least, doesn't go unnoticed, and he bites back a sigh before getting up and walking away, not wanting to expend more energy into answering Jennette's cries of "Father! Father, where are you going? Have I said something wrong?"

That night his walking pauses, his bleary eyes unfocused as he staggers in front of the Imperial mausoleum, the full moon making the pillars almost glow under its light.