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5 years had passed since Stolas was stripped of his title, his power, his home and custody of his Via.
It had been five long and hard years, but happy ones. At first it was hard to live with no more magic and no more money. But it was even harder to lose his daughter. For a long time he could hardly think of anything else. But Blitz... his Blitz... was always there for him. He got him his tablets, he even got him a therapist and things got better. His new life started to become completely his own. Of course he missed Via, every day, every second and some days remained difficult. But he found peace with himself. The emotional wounds gradually began to heal. Life became easier.
“Are you sure Stols?” Blitz's worried gaze followed the ex-prince, who had sat down in front of the television with a determined look on his face “This is the very first public interview Octavia has ever given. Not even when she came of age did she do this, I absolutely have to see it!”
“I know, I know... I'm just...” some days Blitz found it hard to express his emotions, but Stolas got good at understanding them anyway and gently kissed one of the horns. “I know... still!”
He switched on the TV and watched longingly, sadly and admiringly as his Via, his happiness, stepped onto the stage. She looked healthy, healthy and strong. It brought tears to his eyes, and Blitz had to hurriedly muffle his wailing sobs so that he could understand anything of Via's speech.
“... the last few years have been rocky and difficult. I've come a long way!” Via's eyes looked calmly and fearlessly over the audience and into the camera. “I know it's a bit unusual for someone from my house to say something like this, but...” she paused for a moment, took a deep breath and held a house tensely in front of her chest. ”I am asexual, I will not produce an heir and I have no interest in getting married!”
You could literally feel the crowd holding its breath. Blitz looked over at Stolas. “Did you know that?”
Stolas shrugged his shoulders slightly. “...I suspected something, but she didn't...” he looked slightly at his hands, then stroked his face with a sigh ”I guess she hated me too much to trust me with anything!”
Blitz carefully placed a hand on his shoulder as comfort. “However, I would like to sincerely thank two people! I want to thank my mother, with whom I've spent the last 6 years, who took care to teach me all the things I didn't want to know and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for showing me what I don't want!”
....
There was dead silence in front of and behind the cameras. Stolas almost thought he could hear his ex-wife screaming to this point. Via, oh Via... she had spoken it as if she was truly grateful to her mother, but the words were an outrageous insult.
“I want to thank someone else...” Via spoke again, each word obviously carefully chosen. “My father....,” she looked closely into the camera now, ”Dad, I know you're listening. For a long time I thought it was all your fault, that you just left me. I've spent years trying to understand and I think I'm ready. I know what you wanted from me. You told me when I was a little kid. You wanted me to be free. You fought for it, didn't you? Even though you were miserable yourself, you always fought for me to live free, didn't you?” Via fumbled with her fingers for a pure white tissue and gently dabbed her eyes. “I didn't understand that. I didn't understand what it meant to grow up free until I looked deeper into our family and understood that marrying off as children without love was a common practice!” She rolled her eyes noticeably and outrageously. “... I didn't understand what it means to become a parent at a young age... not because you want to, but because you have to.... And I still don't fully understand it today...” She looked up, straight into the camera again “...but I see where it can lead, what it can do to you. Dad... I'm sorry your life was so miserable because of those... traditions. I'm still really mad at you. That you just wanted to throw your life away... that you just wanted to leave me alone!” She didn't mention Blitz with a single word and he assumed it was understandable. After all, he had ruined her family. But he looked at Stolas, whose eyes were glued to the screen in utter disbelief, and he smiled.
“Three years ago I was introduced to respectable men from whom I was allowed to choose someone to marry. It would be an honor, I was told, because otherwise the father chooses his daughter's groom...” she looked disgusted and then sighed ”That was terrible... and I understand how you felt... especially when you were still as much a teenager as I was then... you protected me from that, didn't you? So that I could be a free, moody, ungrateful and justifiably angry teenager, right?”
She smiled now, both hands folded in front of her chest as if in prayer. “I know you're not angry with me. You wouldn't be, Dad, but I wish you were. I wish you had told me that I've been disrespectful and ungrateful... really, honestly Dad. And I want to tell you that I'm incredibly angry with you for wanting to die without ever telling me how stupid I was and without listening to how stupid you are...” again she wiped tears from her eyes before they ran down her face.
“...But Dad, I'm ready for this now. Come visit me and....,” she leaned over and typed something on her cell phone, ”....I'm waiting for you!”
As soon as the camera went off, a soft bling told the teary-eyed owl that a message had been received. It was a message from Via. The very first one and his hands were shaking so much that he could barely read it.
>My address, Dad, and feel free to bring the weird looking dickhead!
“Hey, my head's not weird!” grumbled Blitz, who had read along over Stolas' shoulder and made Stolas let out a teary, owlish laugh.
“Let's go and see our Via again, Stols!”
“Yes!”