Character Conversations: Son of Mine (Aretas and Avith)

As the sun set on his sixth birthday, Aretas tipped out of the room her shared with his mother. Softly, he crept down the hall, the eyes of the guards following him, but saying nothing. 

Finally, reaching a pair of heavy doors, he attempts to push them open with his small hands, huffing with effort, until a guard wordlessly opens them for him. Inside opens up into a room with an impossibly high ceiling and gold coats the walls. Looming statues and engravings cover the walls and various weapons and trinkets gleam from where they're displayed.

Aretas walks over to where a large spear is held, the head of it almost as long as his arm, and catches the reflection of his eyes in the polished metal tip.

"Do you like that one?" A low voice calls out from the dark and Aretas startles, backing away.

A lantern is lit, and eyes so similar to his own look back at him.

"Father!" Aretas manages a clumsy bow, trying to remember how he was supposed to address the imposing man.

Sitting in darkness apart from the recently lit lantern sat his father, not on the one chair in the treasure room, but at the feet of a large statue.

He smiled and beckoned Aretas to approach.

"Come here my son, you are exactly what I needed to see."

Aretas approaches and is surprised when his father opens his arms to embrace him.

"Look at you! Growing strong, and you don't seem slow."

Aretas smiles shyly at his father's praise and that makes the emperor pat his head.

"You look like me. You'll be like me you know." He looks up at the statue and lets Aretas go, choosing instead to pick up the lantern and hold it so that the face of the enormous statue was slightly more illuminated.

 "Do you know who this is Aretas?"

Aretas shakes his head, but his father doesn't see it, too occupied with gazing into the statue's cold stone eyes.

"This is the father of your father's father. He is known to be the grandest king that has ever been."

Aretas didn't know how many fathers came before his father, but he knew that his father was the king and that everything and everyone belonged to him.

"How can he be a bigger king than you, father?" Aretas asked, his nose scrunching at the thought and his father laughed, filling the room with the full and gravely sound.

Without warning, he picked Aretas up by the collar of his nightshirt and held him up to his eye level.  

"You're right Aretas. How can he be? How can a mere king compare to an emperor?" His smile is wide and so are his eyes as he stares at Aretas, as if both waiting for a reasonable answer, but expecting to find something different in Aretas' face. 

The moment lasts for so long and his father is holding him so high off the ground that Aretas finds himself beginning to tear up, but he holds it in. His father is the strongest, so he has to be strong too. His father doesn't see Aretas' wet eyes and quiet sniffs, instead, his head snaps toward the spear Aretas was peaking at earlier, as if he heard it call out to him.

He carries Aretas over to it, and holds him in front of it, forcing him to look at the sharp point of it.

"The owner of this gave it to me. This symbol of craftsmanship, family pride—this treasure, was simply handed to me. Do you know why?"

Aretas shakes his head, unsure of where to look or if the cold coil of fear in his stomach was real.

"He gave it to me because he knew I wanted it and because he knows what happens when I'm forced to take what I want."

He turns his full attention to Aretas.

"Do you want this spear Aretas?"

Aretas quickly shook his head to say no. Right now, Aretas just wanted to be away from his father and back in bed.

"A flicker of rage comes and goes across his father's face, but it is replaced by an almost doting smile.

"You will. Soon you'll want more than the world is ready to give you and then you'll learn how to take. You are a true son of mine."

He kissed Aretas on the forehead and set him back down on the floor, paying no heed to his child's fearful shivers. He pulls him into another hug.

"Aretas. Dear, awaited son. You are my future and my legacy and the world is ours for the taking."