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Language:
English
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Three Sentence Ficathon 2025
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Published:
2026-01-18
Words:
124
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
4
Hits:
20

birthright

Summary:

The throne, the crown, the legions: these petty and tedious things preoccupy his father, but Zenos himself finds no interest in them.

Notes:

prompt: birthright

originally posted 1/24/2025 for 3SF

Work Text:

The throne, the crown, the legions: these petty and tedious things preoccupy his father, but Zenos himself finds no interest in them. What interest is there, really, in lands conquered decades past, all their spark and struggle long ground under-heel — or in being handed them by virtue of birth alone? They may as well be meaningless.

And if Zenos entertains the treasonous thought that His Radiance the Emperor, his great-grandsire, is naught but a man (a man warped with age, at that; a man who would soon die; a man whose legacy is a stagnant, weakening empire borne of fear and greed, nothing interesting, certainly nothing he cares enough to keep —) well, it will remain his secret, for he has no one worth telling.