Work Text:
He didn't understand why his father would ever drink wine when it made him act so unlike himself. He seemed... happier, perhaps, but it was never as though he would share that joy with him nor his mother.
He didn't understand why his mother would so frequently sob to herself alone late in the night. They were hushed cries, but loud enough that her son, awakened by nightmares again, could hear them from outside her bedroom door, and it left him to wonder why father never did anything to calm her.
He didn't understand why she one day became so upset with his father that he very rarely saw her smile again for months. She fell particularly quiet when his father entered the room, and unfortunately, there were times where he did not take kindly to her silence.
He didn't understand why exactly Prince Kurth began to visit more and more frequently, but he did not mind. After all, he treated him with such kindness-- kindness unfamiliar to him from other men of nobility-- and his mother slowly seemed to find joy again with each and every visit.
He didn't understand why his father hung pale and limp in the bedroom he shared with his mother. The sound of her screaming brought him running, but he could make out little of the sight of her on her knees, weeping before him.
He didn't understand why she could no longer seem to look at him, even though she had always been so loving in all the years before. Had he done something wrong? Was he why his father had passed?
He didn't understand why one day, she left without a trace.
He didn't understand why weeks and weeks of patience and prayer did nothing to bring her back.
But it did not matter what he did not understand. What he did understand was that now, he was alone.