We Were Born To Lose

“But why would he?” I asked in a low tone since we were walking in the field.

Mom said it was good for Alex to get some light exercise to stretch his healing muscles.

“Well think about it. Cenrid has a bigger army than we do, if Lance joins them and they defeat us, his land and treasure will grow. If he stays with us, he won’t gain nearly as much even if we win. Economically, it’s the smart choice.” He replied.
“What are we going to do?” I asked looking up at the sky and he sighed.
“I-I don’t know. I suppose we could ask the Vincetts, they might help…but we can’t do that without telling father and he could be killed…And honestly, I don’t think he’s mentally sound enough to deal with it.”

It was no secret to those in the castle that the king had just grown too old to rule a country. He seemed to be caught between the past and present, especially since Lisa died. Honestly it had been Alex doing most of the work (in addition to all the responsibilities he had as a prince), the king was just sort of a front man.

“Well we have to do something, the festivities only last two more days, if they’re going to do something, it’ll be before the day after tomorrow.” I warned.
“Yeah I know.” He sighed, stopping.

I took a breath. He had been under a tremendous amount of stress and I was just adding to it and reminding him of all the things that could go wrong. I looked around, checking to see if anyone was close by. When I saw that there wasn’t, I stood in front of him and placed my hands on his cheeks.

“We’ll be fine okay? We always are.”
He relaxed and blinked slowly with a deep breath.
“Yeah. We’ve been through a lot and I’m not going to let that go.” He spoke with a newfound reassurance, “We’re going to tell father, we don’t have a choice. Then, we’ll get help from the Vancetts.”
“Do you think they’ll help us?” I asked.
“I do. Now come on my love, we’ve got a kingdom to save.” He smiled.

I didn’t miss that little glint in his eye that told me he had hope. I grinned and we briskly walked back up to the castle.

Telling the king was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been. The king had to remain calm and act like nothing was wrong if this was going to work and surprisingly, he handled it reasonably well.

“What did I tell you Alexander, we can’t trust homosexuals. But I suppose I’m as much at fault as you are, I was the one who signed the treaty after all.”

I watched Alex’s jaw set and I could just see him struggling not to say something along the lines of, “You hate gays? Well guess what Dad?”

Luckily he resisted that urge and curly nodded. He explained that he wanted to get help from the Vancetts. It took a little convincing (the king was reluctant to let Alex make a decision like that because his last one had been to trust Lance), but he came around.

“Alright I’m going to inform James and see if he’ll help.” Alex said.
“Alright and Alex?” The king said.
“Yes?”
“I don’t blame you…For anything.” He said.

I watched Alex take a breath as if he was going to say something but then he let it go before murmuring,

“Thanks Dad.”

Notes

Title cred: A Trophy Father's Trophy Son

Did you catch how significant it is that Alex called Peter Dad?

and also it was only 6 dAYS THIS TIME YEAAAH