Absalonhöll
Býkonsviði, Prydania
July 2035
It started with a photograph. And ended up with a painting- or more accurately a red canvas in place of one. The spot between the portrait of King Robert VII and the spot where Hael's father's portrait would be hung once it was ready was merely filled by a red canvas. It was where Anders III's portrait was supposed to go. Hael took in the sight and looked down at the book he was holding;
l’Ensauvagement de la Prydanie: un pays détruit en siècle. It had all started with a photograph though....
Saintes, Saintonge
March 2035
"I'm excited, are you excited?" Hael asked Baldr before class as they took their seats.
"I mean yeah, I am I guess," Baldr replied. Their world history course had arrived at something near to both of them; the Prydanian Civil War. They had been taught about it in broad terms back in Prydania, but their mother had made it clear to them - do not bring the war up with their father. He'd lived in it. Fought in it.
"He'll tell you both about it when you're ready. And when he's able to," she had said. Their mother was not one to argue with and so that was that. The best they could manage was hiding just outside their father's study in Absalonhöll and catching snippets of stories Tobias would share with his friends who had lived through the war with him.
This was different though. This was a proper overview of the war from an academic perspective.
"I'm not sure though," Baldr added.
"Do you think Madame Jouenne will...I donno...go easy on it?"
"What do you mean?" Hael asked, confused.
"Everyone knows who dad is," Baldr replied.
"They may decide to...I donno...not be as thorough I guess. I mean what would you do if you were Madame Jouenne and you had King Tobias' sons in your class?"
"I donno, just teach it as best I could?" Hael shrugged.
"Yeah maybe," Baldr replied. He couldn't continue the line of discussion with his brother though, as class began.
Hael listened intently as their teacher explained the background to the War. The rise of the Social Commonwealth fascist regime in the mid-80s and the litany of abuses under the Toft government.
"I wonder why great-uncle Anders let all of that happen?" Hael asked himself.
He followed along on his laptop though, as Madame Jouenne continued the lecture. The rise of the Syndicalists under Thomas Nielsen as a reaction to the Social Commonwealth regime. Madame Jouenne made note to not dwell on the execution of the royal family- there was no need to single out the execution of Baldr and Hael's paternal grandparents.
The lecture moved into the war, and Hael continued to type up notes as he followed along with the lesson's slides. And then the photograph.
It was dated "Christmas 2012, FNU Camp." It was a group photograph. Of William Aubyn, Axle Skov, Stig Eiderwig, Stig's children his Aunt Karla and Uncle Laurits, the Thane of Jórvik, Rylond Jórvik, and his father. His father...2012. He would have been seventeen. Only a few years older than Hael and Baldr. It was surreal. He'd seen occasional photographs of his father when he was younger but this was different. Madame Jouenne’s voice, which he had been following intently, faded into the background. It wasn't just that he was looking at a younger picture of his father, but the expression on his face. It was Christmas. Everyone was smiling, but there was a certain sadness in his father's eyes. The war could not have been an easy time but...he was taken aback to see this worn look on his father's younger visage. It was such a contrast from how he knew him.
"Baldr," he said softly. Baldr didn't reply.
"Baldr," he repeated, quietly.
"What?"
"It's dad."
"Yeah..." Baldr replied.
"I'm trying to pay attention."
Hael nodded, and refocused on his teacher's lecture. Yet the return to the lecture didn't sate the curiosity that picture had risen in him.
History was the second to last class of the day. Biology was next and Hael dreaded the idea of it...but Baldr seemed enthused. He'd found he had an aptitude for it.
"Come on," Baldr said as everyone in the class packed up their laptops and books.
"I heard the senior class were dissecting rats. The place is going to smell. We need to get a seat by the windows."
"Can you save me one?" Hael asked.
"Why?" Baldr asked, confused.
"I just have some questions for Madame Jouenne."
Baldr shrugged.
"Suit yourself. I'll see what I can do."
Hael finished backing up his own belongings and approached his history teacher once everyone else had left.
Caroline-Louanne Jouenne looked up from her computer to see one of the Loðbrók twins approaching her. “Yes, Monsieur Loðbrók? How may I help you?”
“Madame Jouenne… may I ask some questions regarding the topic?”
Madame Jouenne looked thoughtfully at her student. When she was preparing the lesson, she agonised how she was going to tackle the Prydanian Civil War with the sons of the King of Prydania in the class. She knew some members of their family shared the blame for what happened in Prydania. If she mentioned it frankly… the Loðbrók twins might take it badly. The other students might see the Loðbrók twins in a different light. So she edited the lecture to scrub references that outright blamed Anders III and instead pointed to the vague ‘Social Commonwealth government’.
“Sure,” Madame Jouenne answered, closing her laptop to focus her attention on her student.
“I… want to know more about the Prydanian Civil War,” Hael said. “Since it has affected my country so much, I want to understand it more.”
Madame Jouenne smiled. She was trained to teach students how to think, not what to think. She wasn’t going to give Hael Loðbrók a lot of assignments or dates to remember.
“The Prydanian Civil War is a complex conflict,” Madame Jouenne said. “To understand it, you need to read a lot of material and see it through different perspectives.” She suddenly remembered that she had in her bag the book about the Prydanian Civil War, which she used to prepare her lecture. “We can’t possibly cover them all in a lecture, or even a day.”
Hael nodded.
“But I can lend you this book,” Madame Jouenne handed him her copy of
l’Ensauvagement de la Prydanie: un pays détruit en siècle, one of the first history books to chronicle and analyse the Prydanian Civil War. In history circles, it is still the authoritative reference for the conflict. She had also met one of the authors, Ketilbjörn Skarbövik, a Prydanian refugee in Saintonge, back in history classes at university. A history major, he made it his life’s work to understand the upheaval that nearly destroyed his country. The questions that Ketilbjörn Skarbövik had previously asked were the same questions that Hael Loðbrók was now asking. Maybe Hael would benefit from the answers and discoveries that Ketilbjörn uncovered.
“You can buy a copy at the bookstore at the University of Saintes,” Madame Jouenne advised Hael. “But for now, you can read my copy until you get yours.”
Hael took the book and looked it over, nodding.
“Thank you Madame Jouenne” he said smiling as he slipped it into his bag before heading off to biology.
Absalonhöll
Býkonsviði, Prydania
July 2035
That was four months ago and Hael had spent that time reading
l’Ensauvagement de la Prydanie: un pays détruit en siècle in his spare time between his own school work and his time with his cousins and friends. He’d even made it a point to get his own copy as quickly as he could so he could return Madame Jouenne’s. It was just polite of course, but it answered so many questions he’d always had. He needed his own copy he could thumb through, bookmark, and scribble in as he desired.
He'd begun to understand some of his earlier questions. How his great-uncle Anders could have allowed the SoComm regime to do what they did. He wasn't as passive an actor as Hael had assumed. The book was enlightening in that regard but it made him uneasy. He didn't know what it was...but the Syndicalists were one thing. He'd always known about what they had done. And no, he'd never met his great-uncle Anders. Still...an instinctual part of him wanted to give his own flesh and blood the benefit of the doubt. He was only fourteen, but he knew the saying of there being two sides to every story. Surely the book's rather unapologetic take on Anders III was but one interpretation.
He finished the last chapter of the book on the plane ride back to Norsos to return them home for summer vacation.
"You're still reading that?" Baldr asked as he frustratingly tried to get his phone to connect to the plane wifi.
"Yeah it's interesting" Hael replied.
"You've been reading it forever."
"I had to stop to study for finals, but I'm almost done with it. I can give it to you when I'm done."
Baldr looked up from his phone and stared at his brother for a moment before smiling.
"Yeah, that would be cool. Thanks." Hael smiled. He knew Baldr wasn't much for history but like him...the Civil War was this vast, mysterious thing.
Hael finally reached the end, and thumbed through a few photographs in the back. There was one of Jannik Lieftur at his trial. There were a few shots of the liberation of Býkonsviði. And...a shot of William Aubyn, Thomas Lasmartres, the Santonian ambassador to Prydania at the time, his aide, and his father. Dated June 2017. His father, looking a bit older here, but still worn.
And so here he was in Absalonhöll. A week after arriving back in Craviter. The royal portraits were new. Installed over the course of the school year. He had a better understanding now, having read the book, of why his great-uncle and great-great grandfather's portraits were red. Still...he wanted to ask his father about Anders. It gnawed at him.
He clutched the book in one hand as he made his way through the Palace's halls. Where would his parents be? He endeavored to find Lord General Hummel...
Tobias aimed his sites at the target and fired.
"Close honey," Alycia remarked as she aimed her own rifle and fired. It, like her husband's, was half in the bullseye, half in the second most inner ring.
"Ugh," she muttered as Tobias loaded another round.
"Neither of us can get a bullseye today," Tobias muttered.
"I blame the weather."
"You can't keep blaming the weather when it's an indoor range," Alycia chuckled.
"Sure I can," Tobias laughed.
"Pressure systems and the like. It's science."
"Sure thing sweetie," Alycia replied, kissing her husband's cheek before he fired. Another close one, but no straight bullseye.
"I give up. I'm just not feeling it," Tobias sighed.
"Yeah, probably best if we head in. Before we both end up driving ourselves crazy."
Tobias began to unload the amo from his rifle when he looked up and smiled. Hael was behind the glass in the viewing area, waving. Tobias waved him in, and Hael eagerly complied. He walked into a shooting range that smelled of discharged gunpowder. He was used to it- his mother was a former soldier and his father was a hunter. They both shot for recreation. It was, in a way, comforting. One of the smells of home.
"We're just packing it in, I'm afraid," Alycia remarked.
"That's ok mom," Hael replied. "I came to ask dad a question."
"Oh?" Tobias asked as he finished unloading his rifle.
"Yeah...it's about the Civil War."
"Hael," Alycia said firmly.
"No mom, look. We learned about it in school. And Madame Jouenne recommended this..." he held up the book. Tobias recognized it. He had the Prydanian edition in his study. He'd never read it.
"I just...I want to know some stuff."
There were many reasons Tobias had never read
l’Ensauvagement de la Prydanie, but they all tended to boil down to the same reason. He lived through the Civil War. It was personal to him. And he felt no need to revisit it. Even from an academic perspective.
"Like what?" Tobias asked. He didn't look up from his task of loading his rifle into its plastic storage case.
Hael was a bit nervous. He didn't know what to expect, but his father's detached response was a bit worrying. Still...he'd asked him to continue. That was a good sign.
"I was wondering. About Stefan Toft. And the Social Commonwealth government. I just wanted to know...why did Uncle Anders let it all happen? He could have stopped the Syndicalists if he'd done something about the Social Commonwealth earlier."
Alycia had to bite her tongue. She knew damn well who Anders III was. He was eerily similar to her own mother. And she had spent a lot of time assuring Tobias that he was not his uncle, and couldn't be early in their relationship. Still, this was her husband's question to answer. She looked at him as he set the rifle case down against the wall. There was a certain...sense about Tobias as he considered his son's question. An uneasiness.
The truth was Tobias was running through any number of answers for his son. Some harsh. Some angry. Some sugar coating things...but he could only bring himself to say one thing.
"Anders was a monster," he said matter of factly.
Hael was a bit taken aback. He figured if anyone was going to exonerate his family it would be his father. Yet his father had just summed up what chapters of the book had been claiming.
"Anders didn't let the Social Commonwealth happen," Tobias continued.
"He made it happen. He and Toft. They did it together. Your great-uncle was a fascist. And a monster."
"I...I see," Hael stuttered.
"So the book is right then."
"If it blames Anders for what happened in those years, then yes," Tobias said, very bluntly. Hael started to feel guilty.
"Dad, I'm sorry. I just...we studied it in school. I wanted to know. Please don't be mad at me...or sad..." he said softly.
Tobias looked at his son...he knew this day was going to come sooner or later. He'd have to reckon with his memories for the sake of his children.
"I'm going to go find Baldr, and pull him away from whatever video game he's probably glued to," Alycia remarked, kissing her husband's cheek.
"You two talk," she added, taking her leave. Not before giving Hael some parting advice though.
"Listen, don't pry," she said.
"Yes mother," Hael replied.
Tobias found himself alone with his son.
"Come on," he said and led Hael into the shooting range viewing area. Taking a seat behind the bulletproof glass that gave them a view of the empty shooting range. Hael tentatively sat next to his father.
"Is...is that why Anders' portrait is red?" he asked.
"Yes. His and Rikard VI’s. I'm not dignifying either my uncle or great-grandfather with proper portraits in this place" he said bluntly.
"I'm sorry dad...I don't want you to be sad. We don't need to talk about it," Hael replied, feeling guilty he'd broached the subject.
Tobias looked forward for a moment and then to his son.
"You're going to have to know eventually. You studied it in school, yes?"
"Yes. We talked about how the Syndicalists rose up, the Syndicalist Republic, and the War."
Tobias nodded. They were going to be taught about it eventually. And they'd ask him about it. It was inevitable. That every Prydanian of his generation was affected by the war in some way was a comfort. He wouldn't be the only parent having this conversation.
"I was only seven when the Syndicalist coup happened. I don't remember much about it. Just that there was a lot of chaos. I remember Axle keeping me safe, and a lot of gunfire. I remember meeting William. In hiding," he said softly.
"But I was seven. I don't remember much about what happened. I don't remember any of the politics. In fact I don't even remember Anders being a monster. I remember being sad, when I saw him shot along with your grandparents...that’s something I remember very clearly. Seeing my family gunned down on television.” He closed his eyes for a moment as the lump in his throat swelled up and then vanished.
"You don't remember Anders being a monster? But you said..."
"I remember that he was a stern, angry man, but he could also be nice. He could be very kind, and was to me. I vaguely remember my parents being very cautious around him, and speaking about him like he was this scary thing. He was my uncle though. I...I loved him," Tobias admitted.
"That's what a child's naivety gets you though," Tobias chuckled. "I won't pretend to know what Anders thought of me, or my mother and father, but I was a child. I didn't understand the world around me, or what Anders was."
"You said he was a monster though," Hael asked, sounding both curious and confused.
"Yeah," Tobias replied.
"I was taught what he was, when I got old enough. I didn't believe it at first. Like you," he said.
"I wanted to believe the best about my family. More so than you, because I actually knew Anders in a way. As my sometimes scary but sometimes kind uncle. I didn't want to believe that he was responsible for the horrors of his reign, and the Syndicalist coup."
"So...what changed your mind?" Hael asked softly.
"People did. Too many people who suffered under the terrors of his reign. I couldn't ignore that. It was my first lesson in the need to listen. And the need to put my own views aside and consider the greater good. Your great-uncle's reign was so toxic
I had to give a speech during the Battle of Býkonsviði where I had to assure everyone I wasn't him," Tobias recounted.
"Yeah," Hael replied.
"I saw. Madame Jouenne put it up on the online portal for the class. Along with Uncle Stig's speech."
"Heh," Tobias replied.
"I'm honored...I think."
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"What...what was it like? The war."
Hael asked it nervously. It was a big question, but he'd gotten his father to open up so far. He desperately wanted to know though...and this seemed like the time.
"Dark, cold, sad, hungry," Tobias replied.
"Lonely."
"Oh..."
Tobias straightened himself in his seat and rested a foot on the chair in front of him.
"I spent a lot of it spirited away from bunker to safe house to bunker and back again. A lot of times I only had Axle for company."
"Axle Skov?"
"Yeah."
"What did you see?"
"William...William Aubyn...did all he could to protect me. But you have to understand. As we pushed Syndicalists out of an area we'd come in. And what we saw...it's some of the most haunting things I've ever seen. Starved people. Burnt farmland. Prison labour camps. Children younger than you essentially worked half to death."
"I've seen the pictures in the book," Hael replied.
"It's not the same as seeing it in person," Tobias replied, almost insistently.
"I have a copy of that book. I've never read it because of that. I lived through it. I don't need to relive it."
"Dad, I'm sorry..."
"You don't need to apologize," Tobias replied with a smile.
"I'm glad you've read it. I would rather you read about it than have to live through something like it. But you need to understand that those of us who lived through it, we're not so eager to remember. We want to look forward, not back."
"But isn't it important to remember? Like...if you forget the past you're doomed to repeat it?"
"I haven't forgotten, but a very smart man once told me that the past can be used as a source of inspiration to make the present and future better. It's better to do that than dwell on the past's horrors. Everything I've done as King has been towards making sure this country can recover and that what happened will never happen again. I see Prydanian crop yields rising, I see economic growth in tech industries in the cities. I see mining and steel production rising. And I see why it's worth it to remember the past, so I can value where we are now."
Hael nodded, having a bit of a revelation. The Prydania he knew had always been peaceful. He tried to understand how his father must see it though, compared to the country he grew up in.
"I saw a picture of you. With the FNU, at Christmas,” he said softly.
Tobias thought for a moment. When was that? Then he remembered.
"Lodestar News. A Silean journalist team. They came to cover the war in 2012."
"Yeah."
"Heh...that was one of the few times we were all together."
"You looked...sad."
Tobias sighed.
"I remember when that picture was taken. I wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me back then that my son would be telling me about seeing that picture. I couldn't really think of something that happy back then. So that's why I probably look sad."
"You didn't think you'd have kids?"
"I just tried to survive one day at a time, Hael. I didn't want to think too far ahead because the possibilities were too frightening."
"Did...did you fight?"
Tobias nodded.
"They never trained me as a soldier but I fought."
"Did...you kill anyone?"
"Your mother told you not to pry,” Tobias replied, before feeling guilty for shutting his son’s question down like that. The fact was that he never felt comfortable talking about the lives he took. It was an instinctive reaction to try and change the subject.
"I'm sorry," Hael said again looking down. Tobias just sighed though. He truly didn't like talking about it but...he had a duty. Hael was only going to learn more as he got older.
"Yes. I killed people. People who history will say probably deserved it. Who I definitely believed deserved it. It still...bothers me to think about. I killed people. I can't undo that."
Tobias turned to his son again.
"You're going to learn more about the Prydanian Civil War as you get older. And the Norsian Civil War. You're going to learn about all the great wars in history. Some of the stories you hear might make you think that they're glorious. That they're grand, heroic. They're not. War is ugly and dirty and it scars you. You can never go back to before after you've been through it..." Tobias stared off into the distance for a moment, remembering just...brief, happy memories of his young life before the Syndicalist coup.
"Anyone who tries to tell you about the glories of combat and war is lying to you,” he added. “War is sometimes necessary- like our Civil War was- but it's never glorious."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that dad..." Hael said. He could hardly speak. His father hadn't yelled at him or chastised him, but he felt like he'd been hit by a truck. He reached for his father's hand and took it.
"Heh" Tobias chuckled.
"You're a good kid," he said softly.
"But you need to hear this. You’ll be Emperor of Norsos one day. And God forbid it comes to you needing to support a war. You need to understand that even the necessary and justifiable wars are brutal. And change even the soldiers who manage to come home. You need to understand that so that if you need to make a choice you know just what you are choosing.”
Hael nodded as he squeezed his father's hand. He gave very little thought to his eventual reign as Emperor. He was fourteen. He focused on school, hanging out with his friends and cousins. His father had a point though.
"Ask me anything you want," Tobias said, smiling at his son. He’d found that discussing the war with him wasn’t hard as he thought it would be. Painful to be sure, but not hard.
"You deserve to know,” he added. “Later though. I've been missing bullseyes all day and I'm hungry," he smiled.
"Come on. Let's go get something to eat."
Hael nodded and smiled as he followed his father out of the viewing area. He was happy he'd opened up to him, as much as he could.
"Dad?" he said as he walked up alongside him.
"Yeah?"
"I'm proud of you," he hugged him tight.
"Hah!" Tobias replied, patting his son's shoulder.
"I'm proud of you too."
OOC note: co-written with @Kyle and posted with the permission of @Zyvun