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He hadn’t meant to love her. She was just a tool to convince the mutes to bend the knee; a little extra insurance to keep Lio in line, nothing more. Or she was supposed to be.
When Scarlemagne told Kipo of his harrowing childhood, of his abandonment and betrayal at Lio’s hands, it was a ploy. Make her sympathetic to his cause and turn her against Lio. When he called her ‘baby sister’, it was all part of the act. He didn’t actually think of her as a sibling, actually care for her. Sure, he had once, back in the burrow when he still thought of Song and Lio as his parents, but since then he’d lost Song and been denied by Lio. He lost his sister when he lost his parents. He’d only even met her once. The meeting was short and painful, and she had been only an infant. Even if she did take his side against their – her – father, Scarlemagne had no reason to believe she would truly care for him. No one did.
He hadn’t intended to get so emotional. Scarlemagne had rehearsed his tale more than once, determined to maintain his composure when he finally told it. But the best laid plans of mandrills and men still go awry, and he found himself struggling to put on a good poker face as he leaned over the piano. He was a king. Soon he would be emperor. He would not show weakness.
A gentle pressure around his right arm pulled him from his thoughts. Looking down toward the sudden invasion of his personal space, he was surprised to see Kipo. He had almost forgotten she was in the room. She was pressing her face against his shoulder and stretching her arms across his chest and back – they didn’t reach even halfway around – lightly squeezing him. “What are you doing?”
“Hugging you,” she responded. Most would have flinched or pulled away at the question, but she didn’t move except to hold to him tighter.
A thousand questions raced through his mind. Only one escaped his lips: “Why?”
She answered without hesitation, “Because you need it.”
Because he needed it. What a strange notion. No one had ever given Scarlemagne something simply because he ‘needed it’. Most things he needed he had to take. What little was given had been done so because someone wanted to get something from him.
Scarlemagne had always prided himself on his eloquence, but in that moment, he had no words. Silently, he stood and allowed the embrace to continue. When Kipo finally pulled away – after an eternity far too brief – she left behind a seed. A seed of something Scarlemagne had long thought extinct.
As they spent more time together awaiting the day of his coronation, the seed began to take root. With every interaction, tendrils of it wound around his heart. With every game and song they played, it grew. After she convinced Lio to try to make amends, the seed began to sprout. And when she handed him the star blanket, it fully bloomed.
He was lost. He was hers now, and she his. He loved her, and he would gladly destroy anything, or anyone, that dared come between them.