patience

[calescent]

Alser's granddaughter has the same suggestive "power" blessing from her first set of three that Kiri has. Her other blessings aren't torz either - flexibility is coru, loyalty is hunti - but she is torz, and Alser's current best guess for a successor. She's about the elder prince's age, just a little older than Kiri. Alser asks Kiri if he might visit her at home with this grandchild-of-interest in tow.

Kiri says sure, why not.

And so Alser and Patience Frothen - who is only named for the blessing of patience, and does not wear it in her hair - comes to the house not too long after the princes do.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Well, probably they can find somebody somewhere who's related enough to royalty to be king or queen if there's nobody better around, and then they'd have to do it. I don't know what would happen if the country just ran out of anyone who was even a little tiny bit royal. Maybe the primes would pick a new king or queen to start over with."

[salt_of_the]

"I guess. I wonder how they'd pick."

[pythbox]

"Whoever they thought would be good at it, I hope," he says with a smile.

[salt_of_the]

"Yeah, but how do you know whether somebody is going to be good at royaling? Are you going to be good at royaling?"

[pythbox]

"Dunno," he says, shrugging. "I probably would. But I might not even do it; Father might decide he likes Isten better."

[salt_of_the]

Patience nods. "Do you want him to?"

[pythbox]

He shrugs. "I don't really care."

[salt_of_the]

"I have sort of mixed feelings about maybe being prime one day. Like on the one hand, it might be cool? On the other hand there might be a lot of things involved I don't want to do? On the third hand also my grandfather would have to die?"

[pythbox]

"Grandparents do that anyway," the prince observes.

[salt_of_the]

"They do, that's true."

[pythbox]

"I never met any of mine. Is it nice having a grandpa?"

[salt_of_the]

"I like him! And my other grandpa too for that matter."

[pythbox]

"That's nice," he says, smiling. "Except for the part where he's gonna die, I guess."

[salt_of_the]

"Yeah, except that. He doesn't seem to mind that much talking about how I'll probably be prime next, considering."

[pythbox]

He shrugs. "Probably he's had time to get used to it."

[salt_of_the]

"Yeah. But I haven't! I'm only almost ten! I guess I'll probably get used to it sooner or later."

[pythbox]

"Probably," he agrees. "I got used to the idea of being king already."

[salt_of_the]

"King Hector the Second. Do you suppose you have to bother adding the 'the Second' all the time outside formal situations?"

[pythbox]

He makes a face. "Ugh. I dunno."

[salt_of_the]

"It'd be pretty cumbersome."

[pythbox]

"And I don't like my name anyway," he admits. "Being a 'the Second' of it wouldn't be any better."

[salt_of_the]

"How come you don't like it?"

[pythbox]

He shrugs. "I just don't."

[salt_of_the]

"Do you have a nickname or something or do you just sort of - go around not liking your name that everybody calls you?"

[pythbox]

"The second one," he says, smiling wryly.