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HelpHouse of Xavia -4
in reply to a message by La Reina
Siân
Monarch: Ciprian Juris Leighton Adelino Xavia
Consort: Dariena Lys [Airelen] Xavia
S: Crispyn Leamon Domenick Xavia
D: Vyvienne Yevgenia Iseult Xavia
S: Sylviu Ioan Mácsemilian Xavia
S/D: Emrys Sebastyan Ari / Anastasya Sigyn Evelina
I've noticed a few people reading my story over my shoulder and such saying Xavia as ZAY-vee-ah and I've been pronouncing it ZAH-vee-ah. It didn't really cross my mind that Xavia is a first name pronounced the way they're saying it. It wouldn't matter except Anastasya Xavia only sounds okay (to me) with my pronunciation. Idk.
"Finlo, come here! What do you think?" Crispyn called as the handservant passed by the doorway. He struck a pose in his cream colored suit and smiled.
"Quite sophisticated, Your Highness," Finlo replied. "And your mother will like it as well."
"Will my father?" Crispyn asked.
"Your father will be happy to see you out of play clothes," Finlo said with a smirk.
"Very true." Crispyn turned to the tailor who was fussing with an emerald satin trim on his sleeve and cocked his head. "You promise Vyvienne and Sylviu are wearing these colours too?"
"I swear to it,” the tailor replied. “And your parents as well. You will all look quite dashing.”
“Ah, so sure of yourself?” Crispyn teased, but the tailor wasn’t worried. Crispyn was smiling and had a mischievous glint in his eye. “All in jest,” he quickly assured anyway. “But be quick and get me out of this nonsense. I am missing time with Osvald.”
“I’m right here,” his hand servant laughed. “I’m not going out without you."
Osvald was fairly new at his job, had been at the position only about a year, but he and Crispyn had become fast friends.
"It's because you're the only boy close to his age he can play with," Adalyn insisted.
"Well, I have you and four brothers and he and I are still very close," Ciprian had argued, motioning to Finlo. "It's important to be close to your handservants. You spend much of your time with them and must be able to trust them with your life."
Crispyn grinned at Osvald. "My life," he whispered with raised eyebrows. Osvald grinned back, but when Crispyn turned away Osvald looked at him with such adoration it would have pained any onlookers.
After, Sylviu was born, Dariena had asked to make changes to Ioncu’s guards. Ciprian had listened to the things Dariena had to say and made amends. Approximately one-third of the guard employed to secure Ioncu's perimeter had origins south of the former Verasengan border. Had there never been a war or had the war gone in favour of the opposition, Ioncu Airelen would be the King of all the land around them. The southern guards knew and respected that. But Ciprian too hadn't wanted to restaff half the guard for fear that a conflict would break out among them. One-third seemed enough. And Ioncu had sent a letter of appreciation to the King.
It had been a few years since and Sylviu was two now. Dariena had been happy to notice the changes that had taken place in her brother. He was more relaxed, accepting of his confinement. Ioncu showed more interest in growing his small vegetable garden and expanding his personal library than in brewing up any war.
Everything mentioned about war seemed to be simply rumors without substance to justify any fears or concerns. However, when Crispyn had suggested to his father that Ioncu be allowed to visit the library with an escort, Ciprian quickly dismissed the idea.
"He's sent books. He may be the Queen’s brother, but he is also the greatest threat to this family. I don’t want him knowing the way around this castle anymore than I would want an outright enemy knowing it. Ioncu Airelen is peaceful man now, but don’t give a hungry man directions to the banquet hall unless you intend for him to use them. Tempting him is cruel to the man. Besides, you threaten the dinner of those already eating in the hall. Give him a little food freely and he won’t take yours.”
“You think letting him read more would threaten our family?”
“After the war,” Ciprian explained, placing his hand on Crispyn’s shoulder, “it was my decision to allow the Airelens to live- Queen Dariena and her brother. Most enemies would have killed them to ensure the safety of the throne. I didn’t want to and so we imprisoned them here so we could keep close watch on them. There were times I wasn’t sure if Ioncu wouldn’t have preferred that I had done what was expected of me.”
“Did you saved them because you loved Mazha?” Crispyn asked, looking up through his dark curls at his father.
“I saved them because Ioncu and Dariena reminded me of Mácsen and myself. We played the games of war that our Kings set up for us. We were used to sitting in banquet halls and then we were sent out to the gardens and fields to work for our every bite.” Ciprian stared off for a moment before looking at his son carefully. “Wars are dirty things, Crispyn.”
“Fields and gardens are dirty things,” Crispyn replied. “But if one sits in the banquet hall, he should be sure the hands that put the food there have had some first.”
“But Ioncu didn’t give me my throne. The Xavian line is my own and this throne is Xavian. It’s mine by birth, not war.”
Crispyn pursed his lips. “If another man had a banquet hall and was forced from it and had to give you all the food from the table, I would want to make sure he still had plenty of his own to eat because he is going to be even hungrier than the others. Unlike those working in the gardens, the man from the other banquet hall is used to having food abundantly. Giving him scraps will only anger him and make him want what the man at the head of the table has.”
“You’re far wiser than I give you credit for, my son,” Ciprian smiled. “Give me time to consider your proposition.”
That night, Dariena reached out in the darkness and shook Ciprian’s arm to wake him. “They’re coming,” Dariena panted and Ciprian could make out that his wife was holding her round middle. “They’re finally coming.”
For most of the past few nights, Dariena had barely slept. She had paced and bathed and tried resting on different surfaces to ease the discomfort placed on her during this pregnancy. Vyvienne’s birth had been dangerous and Sylviu’s birth had been a dream in comparison. This birth was new to all of them. It had been many generations since there had been twins born into the royal family and then Ciprian's younger brothers- Leolin and Perun - had been born. No one had expected more to be born into the line so soon and yet, that’s what the King and Dariena were expecting.
As he had been with the birth of their last child, Ciprian sat by her side throughout, but Vyvienne had been born in a night and Sylviu in only an afternoon. By the time the first of the twins was born, Dariena had been in labour for the better part of the last three days.
“He’s so slippery,” Ciprian laughed, gripping their newborn son seconds after his arrival. “Get him a towel. I don’t want to drop him.”
A nurse wrapped him in a warm cloth and beat the child’s back gently until he started to cry and clear his lungs.
“Look at him, Dariena,” Ciprian announced once the prince was handed back to him, clean and swaddled.
Dariena tried to raise her head to get a look at him, but her body was so tired she couldn’t manage to do it.
“Another boy,” Vyvienne pouted outside the room later that morning. “We already have Crispyn and Sylviu. We don’t need another one.” Her governess had hushed her, but Ciprian just looked at his daughter and shook his head fondly.
“Yes, another boy,” Ciprian told his daughter. “He’s named Emrys.”
Their mother was sleeping or at least trying to in order to rebuild her strength. The younger of the twins had shown no eagerness to join them anytime soon.
“Do you know what you’ll name the other one?” Crispyn asked.
“I have ideas, but I’m not sharing them,” Ciprian said adamantly. “I’m not tempting the gods.”
Osvald peered seriously over at the eldest prince. “My sister told the name of her baby before he was born and he was born lifeless. Neck broke when they were trying to get him out of her."
“The gods know,” Vyvienne whispered.
“We haven’t told anyone a name,” Ciprian said firmly. “And Emrys wasn’t named until I held him in my arms. He’s fine and healthy. If you want something to worry and pray about, pray for your mother and the other one."
At some point that afternoon, Mácsen and Aquarius came to check in on the family. Jolene and Perun stopped by a few minutes too, but Jolyon and Adalyn were nowhere to be seen.
“It’s because she doesn't want you to think about her and growing families at the same time," Crispyn laughed. "She's worried about who you choose for her to marry."
"Adalyn will be happy with whomever she marries. She's my sister, not a political chess piece."
"Then why is she afraid of your pick?"
"Because Adalyn and I don't know each other very well and that's what our father would have done."
"Your father would have made you marry someone you didn't like?" Vyvienne's eyes were wide and she leaned in to hear his response.
"My father," Ciprian told his daughter, "Was a King. He understood government and war better than I ever will. But he wasn't a great father. He didn't know how to be both a great leader and a caring dadja. If he had his way, Mácsen would be married to Margrett of Hisdel. And I would be married to Nella of Grixe Obish.
Vyvienne gasp. "Not Mazha?"
Ciprian thought the children may be a little too young to hear, "Your mother wouldn't be alive," so instead he settled for saying, "No, not Mazha at all. And then I wouldn't have you. So we should be really thankful he didn't get to pick, should we?"
"Mácsen with a girl. That would be so weird," Crispyn spoke with a laugh. "Whoa."
The younger of the twins was born in the early evening. Dariena gripped Ciprian's hand so tightly that he wanted to join in with the queen when she cried out. When the child was finally making an entrance, Ciprian freed his hand from hers and caught the newborn carefully.
"A girl!" he announced as he held her up and placed her in the nurses outstretched towel.
Dariena was spent and she lie panting and crying as the tiny princess's cries brought tears to her parents' eyes. She reached out for Ciprian's hand and he came over and took it before moving in to kiss her forehead.
"Well done," he told her quietly. "You've outdone yourself today."
"Anastasya?" Dariena asked. It was customary in both their cultures that the father decide the names of his offspring, but Ciprian had always allowed Dariena to weigh in with her thoughts.
"Emrys and Anastasya Xavia," he agreed. "They sound as beautiful as they look." Ciprian appraised with the utmost pride.
When the Xavias assembled for their new family picture, all of them wore the emerald and cream colors just as the tailor had promised to Crispyn.
The sketch artist worked incredibly quickly and Sylviu kept asking if he could draw too.
"The patience of one so young must be quite short," the artist remarked with a smile.
"Yes, I'm surprised he's even standing in place at all," Dariena agreed. Then, "You may draw when you're finished standing for our portrait. It's the artist's turn to draw right now," to Sylviu.
Sylviu made a disappointed face, but never complained.
"If you'd like," the artist offered, "I can have each child come one by one and we paint them individually into the final painting so that all the children don't have to stand still for the full duration."
Ciprian and Dariena shared a look.
"That sounds ideal," Ciprian said with a laugh. "You must have children."
"I've painted a number of them, Your Highness," the artists replied. "I painted one of you and Prince Mácsen when you two were the only children in the royal family and then I painted another of all of you after Princess Adalyn was born. I've gotten quite used to adjusting my schedule to what works the best for everyone. Besides, children aren't meant to stand still so long. It's good for them to get their energy out sometimes."
Crispyn made eye contact with Osvald across the room before leaning toward his dad and asking, "I'm still included in children, right?"
Ciprian made a face. "Aren't you like eight now? Stand still.” Crispyn and Ciprian shared a smile before Ciprian informed his son, "You're going to be eight forever. Accept it.”
“Then I’m going to act eight forever,” Crispyn returned, “Accept it."
Fun fact: When I was born, my mother went into labour Friday morning and i wasn’t born until Monday evening.
Also, I was watching Game of Thrones as I wrote part of this and I realized a lot of the names in this story could easily be characters in Game of Thrones. I’m cool with this.
Monarch: Ciprian Juris Leighton Adelino Xavia
Consort: Dariena Lys [Airelen] Xavia
S: Crispyn Leamon Domenick Xavia
D: Vyvienne Yevgenia Iseult Xavia
S: Sylviu Ioan Mácsemilian Xavia
S/D: Emrys Sebastyan Ari / Anastasya Sigyn Evelina
I've noticed a few people reading my story over my shoulder and such saying Xavia as ZAY-vee-ah and I've been pronouncing it ZAH-vee-ah. It didn't really cross my mind that Xavia is a first name pronounced the way they're saying it. It wouldn't matter except Anastasya Xavia only sounds okay (to me) with my pronunciation. Idk.
"Finlo, come here! What do you think?" Crispyn called as the handservant passed by the doorway. He struck a pose in his cream colored suit and smiled.
"Quite sophisticated, Your Highness," Finlo replied. "And your mother will like it as well."
"Will my father?" Crispyn asked.
"Your father will be happy to see you out of play clothes," Finlo said with a smirk.
"Very true." Crispyn turned to the tailor who was fussing with an emerald satin trim on his sleeve and cocked his head. "You promise Vyvienne and Sylviu are wearing these colours too?"
"I swear to it,” the tailor replied. “And your parents as well. You will all look quite dashing.”
“Ah, so sure of yourself?” Crispyn teased, but the tailor wasn’t worried. Crispyn was smiling and had a mischievous glint in his eye. “All in jest,” he quickly assured anyway. “But be quick and get me out of this nonsense. I am missing time with Osvald.”
“I’m right here,” his hand servant laughed. “I’m not going out without you."
Osvald was fairly new at his job, had been at the position only about a year, but he and Crispyn had become fast friends.
"It's because you're the only boy close to his age he can play with," Adalyn insisted.
"Well, I have you and four brothers and he and I are still very close," Ciprian had argued, motioning to Finlo. "It's important to be close to your handservants. You spend much of your time with them and must be able to trust them with your life."
Crispyn grinned at Osvald. "My life," he whispered with raised eyebrows. Osvald grinned back, but when Crispyn turned away Osvald looked at him with such adoration it would have pained any onlookers.
After, Sylviu was born, Dariena had asked to make changes to Ioncu’s guards. Ciprian had listened to the things Dariena had to say and made amends. Approximately one-third of the guard employed to secure Ioncu's perimeter had origins south of the former Verasengan border. Had there never been a war or had the war gone in favour of the opposition, Ioncu Airelen would be the King of all the land around them. The southern guards knew and respected that. But Ciprian too hadn't wanted to restaff half the guard for fear that a conflict would break out among them. One-third seemed enough. And Ioncu had sent a letter of appreciation to the King.
It had been a few years since and Sylviu was two now. Dariena had been happy to notice the changes that had taken place in her brother. He was more relaxed, accepting of his confinement. Ioncu showed more interest in growing his small vegetable garden and expanding his personal library than in brewing up any war.
Everything mentioned about war seemed to be simply rumors without substance to justify any fears or concerns. However, when Crispyn had suggested to his father that Ioncu be allowed to visit the library with an escort, Ciprian quickly dismissed the idea.
"He's sent books. He may be the Queen’s brother, but he is also the greatest threat to this family. I don’t want him knowing the way around this castle anymore than I would want an outright enemy knowing it. Ioncu Airelen is peaceful man now, but don’t give a hungry man directions to the banquet hall unless you intend for him to use them. Tempting him is cruel to the man. Besides, you threaten the dinner of those already eating in the hall. Give him a little food freely and he won’t take yours.”
“You think letting him read more would threaten our family?”
“After the war,” Ciprian explained, placing his hand on Crispyn’s shoulder, “it was my decision to allow the Airelens to live- Queen Dariena and her brother. Most enemies would have killed them to ensure the safety of the throne. I didn’t want to and so we imprisoned them here so we could keep close watch on them. There were times I wasn’t sure if Ioncu wouldn’t have preferred that I had done what was expected of me.”
“Did you saved them because you loved Mazha?” Crispyn asked, looking up through his dark curls at his father.
“I saved them because Ioncu and Dariena reminded me of Mácsen and myself. We played the games of war that our Kings set up for us. We were used to sitting in banquet halls and then we were sent out to the gardens and fields to work for our every bite.” Ciprian stared off for a moment before looking at his son carefully. “Wars are dirty things, Crispyn.”
“Fields and gardens are dirty things,” Crispyn replied. “But if one sits in the banquet hall, he should be sure the hands that put the food there have had some first.”
“But Ioncu didn’t give me my throne. The Xavian line is my own and this throne is Xavian. It’s mine by birth, not war.”
Crispyn pursed his lips. “If another man had a banquet hall and was forced from it and had to give you all the food from the table, I would want to make sure he still had plenty of his own to eat because he is going to be even hungrier than the others. Unlike those working in the gardens, the man from the other banquet hall is used to having food abundantly. Giving him scraps will only anger him and make him want what the man at the head of the table has.”
“You’re far wiser than I give you credit for, my son,” Ciprian smiled. “Give me time to consider your proposition.”
That night, Dariena reached out in the darkness and shook Ciprian’s arm to wake him. “They’re coming,” Dariena panted and Ciprian could make out that his wife was holding her round middle. “They’re finally coming.”
For most of the past few nights, Dariena had barely slept. She had paced and bathed and tried resting on different surfaces to ease the discomfort placed on her during this pregnancy. Vyvienne’s birth had been dangerous and Sylviu’s birth had been a dream in comparison. This birth was new to all of them. It had been many generations since there had been twins born into the royal family and then Ciprian's younger brothers- Leolin and Perun - had been born. No one had expected more to be born into the line so soon and yet, that’s what the King and Dariena were expecting.
As he had been with the birth of their last child, Ciprian sat by her side throughout, but Vyvienne had been born in a night and Sylviu in only an afternoon. By the time the first of the twins was born, Dariena had been in labour for the better part of the last three days.
“He’s so slippery,” Ciprian laughed, gripping their newborn son seconds after his arrival. “Get him a towel. I don’t want to drop him.”
A nurse wrapped him in a warm cloth and beat the child’s back gently until he started to cry and clear his lungs.
“Look at him, Dariena,” Ciprian announced once the prince was handed back to him, clean and swaddled.
Dariena tried to raise her head to get a look at him, but her body was so tired she couldn’t manage to do it.
“Another boy,” Vyvienne pouted outside the room later that morning. “We already have Crispyn and Sylviu. We don’t need another one.” Her governess had hushed her, but Ciprian just looked at his daughter and shook his head fondly.
“Yes, another boy,” Ciprian told his daughter. “He’s named Emrys.”
Their mother was sleeping or at least trying to in order to rebuild her strength. The younger of the twins had shown no eagerness to join them anytime soon.
“Do you know what you’ll name the other one?” Crispyn asked.
“I have ideas, but I’m not sharing them,” Ciprian said adamantly. “I’m not tempting the gods.”
Osvald peered seriously over at the eldest prince. “My sister told the name of her baby before he was born and he was born lifeless. Neck broke when they were trying to get him out of her."
“The gods know,” Vyvienne whispered.
“We haven’t told anyone a name,” Ciprian said firmly. “And Emrys wasn’t named until I held him in my arms. He’s fine and healthy. If you want something to worry and pray about, pray for your mother and the other one."
At some point that afternoon, Mácsen and Aquarius came to check in on the family. Jolene and Perun stopped by a few minutes too, but Jolyon and Adalyn were nowhere to be seen.
“It’s because she doesn't want you to think about her and growing families at the same time," Crispyn laughed. "She's worried about who you choose for her to marry."
"Adalyn will be happy with whomever she marries. She's my sister, not a political chess piece."
"Then why is she afraid of your pick?"
"Because Adalyn and I don't know each other very well and that's what our father would have done."
"Your father would have made you marry someone you didn't like?" Vyvienne's eyes were wide and she leaned in to hear his response.
"My father," Ciprian told his daughter, "Was a King. He understood government and war better than I ever will. But he wasn't a great father. He didn't know how to be both a great leader and a caring dadja. If he had his way, Mácsen would be married to Margrett of Hisdel. And I would be married to Nella of Grixe Obish.
Vyvienne gasp. "Not Mazha?"
Ciprian thought the children may be a little too young to hear, "Your mother wouldn't be alive," so instead he settled for saying, "No, not Mazha at all. And then I wouldn't have you. So we should be really thankful he didn't get to pick, should we?"
"Mácsen with a girl. That would be so weird," Crispyn spoke with a laugh. "Whoa."
The younger of the twins was born in the early evening. Dariena gripped Ciprian's hand so tightly that he wanted to join in with the queen when she cried out. When the child was finally making an entrance, Ciprian freed his hand from hers and caught the newborn carefully.
"A girl!" he announced as he held her up and placed her in the nurses outstretched towel.
Dariena was spent and she lie panting and crying as the tiny princess's cries brought tears to her parents' eyes. She reached out for Ciprian's hand and he came over and took it before moving in to kiss her forehead.
"Well done," he told her quietly. "You've outdone yourself today."
"Anastasya?" Dariena asked. It was customary in both their cultures that the father decide the names of his offspring, but Ciprian had always allowed Dariena to weigh in with her thoughts.
"Emrys and Anastasya Xavia," he agreed. "They sound as beautiful as they look." Ciprian appraised with the utmost pride.
When the Xavias assembled for their new family picture, all of them wore the emerald and cream colors just as the tailor had promised to Crispyn.
The sketch artist worked incredibly quickly and Sylviu kept asking if he could draw too.
"The patience of one so young must be quite short," the artist remarked with a smile.
"Yes, I'm surprised he's even standing in place at all," Dariena agreed. Then, "You may draw when you're finished standing for our portrait. It's the artist's turn to draw right now," to Sylviu.
Sylviu made a disappointed face, but never complained.
"If you'd like," the artist offered, "I can have each child come one by one and we paint them individually into the final painting so that all the children don't have to stand still for the full duration."
Ciprian and Dariena shared a look.
"That sounds ideal," Ciprian said with a laugh. "You must have children."
"I've painted a number of them, Your Highness," the artists replied. "I painted one of you and Prince Mácsen when you two were the only children in the royal family and then I painted another of all of you after Princess Adalyn was born. I've gotten quite used to adjusting my schedule to what works the best for everyone. Besides, children aren't meant to stand still so long. It's good for them to get their energy out sometimes."
Crispyn made eye contact with Osvald across the room before leaning toward his dad and asking, "I'm still included in children, right?"
Ciprian made a face. "Aren't you like eight now? Stand still.” Crispyn and Ciprian shared a smile before Ciprian informed his son, "You're going to be eight forever. Accept it.”
“Then I’m going to act eight forever,” Crispyn returned, “Accept it."
Fun fact: When I was born, my mother went into labour Friday morning and i wasn’t born until Monday evening.
Also, I was watching Game of Thrones as I wrote part of this and I realized a lot of the names in this story could easily be characters in Game of Thrones. I’m cool with this.
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