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hvrdesthues · 2 years ago

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(toby regbo, he/they/she, 31) announcing [ AUGUSTUS TUDOR ],the [ KING ] of [ ENGLAND ]. people would describe them as a [ KING ], maybe that is why they are [ FOR ] the kingdoms working together. they remind me a bit of [ PUTTING OUT MATCHES ON YOUR TONGUE, CLASPING BOTH HANDS ON YOUR MOUTH TO KEEP FROM SCREAMING, THE BURN OF REJECTION AND THE BURN IN YOUR LUNGS– THEY BOTH FEEL THE SAME BY NOW ].

@royalhqzstart

basics.

full name: augustus henry david tudor nicknames: auggie age: 31 years old gender: genderfluid pronouns: they/them, he/him, she/her orientation: gay status: widowed

BIO.

(tw for toxic family dynamics, chronic illness, mental illness, murder, assassination, postpartum complications, loss of a parent)

you’re born into the world screaming. your parents are relieved. strong lungs. healthy. a boy. in all, a fine heir to the throne. within your first ten years of life you’ll dash all of those assumptions. the first comes when you’re still a baby. you’re prone to bouts of wailing, fevers you can’t express and pain you cannot soothe. you’re a sickly baby, and fussy at that. but the bouts seem to lessen with age, and your parents hope it will just be a funny anecdote, something to give you a hard time for when you’re older. at four, you take to draping blankets like dresses and fashioning pretend rings and necklaces, calling yourself a princess as you twirl. your parents don’t mind it. you’re an odd child, but you’re their child. some days you’re a prince, and others you’re a princess. in the grand scheme, where is the harm? six is when things change.

six is when the first attack happens. it’s summer, and you and leo are outside. the two of you are always out doing something, especially now. you love your sister, of course you do. the three of you are so close in age, not even a year between you and leo and barely more time between leo and kitty. it’s been the three of you your whole lives. you love max. you don’t love sharing. so the two of you run outside now, while you still can. you’re not sure what triggers it. one moment the two of you are running, laughing, shrieking in that sort of childlike delight one loses all too quickly, and the next your chest feels like fire. air doesn’t come easily, and you can’t get enough in at one time to say what’s wrong. you just keep wheezing, obviously distressed. help is swift, but it still feels, in your mind, like it goes on forever.

that’s just the first one. more will follow, and soon you’re being monitored much too closely for your liking. you’re only allowed to play slower games, and you’re brought in when it’s too cold or too hot, and soon it feels like you’re hardly allowed to do anything on your own at all. you fight tooth and nail for your life back. you want to run down the hills with your brother and you want to pretend to be knights fighting a dragon together and you do not want to be inside, stuck reading books and lamenting your bad luck. this is when the rift starts. leo is strong. leo can go out. leo can run and jump and fight and though he never quite learns to weave his words into things people love, he's the favored one. you don’t want to hate him. but you can feel when things shift. your father’s favor always felt obligated to land on you, as the eldest. but now with your health and strength and viability as heir called into question, you can feel all favor direct to leo. you do not want to be angry.

he’s the son of a high ranking noble in the region, a mere four months your senior. as such, the two of you are good friends as children. he leaves when the two of you are young, and you had been distraught. outside of leo, who by now you had closed yourself off to, he was one of your closest friends. you’ve never quite learned how to process loss. when he comes back, older and taller but his grin still lopsided and his eyes still pools of amber and honey when the light hits them just right, well. you’d never hidden your disdain for the betrothals your parents had tried to force upon you. on some level, you’d known why. but seeing him here, this was more. officially, the two of you were fast friends once more. you don’t kid yourself into thinking no one knew what was going on behind closed doors and hidden in corners of the library and tucked away in gardens away from prying eyes. but to speak it aloud felt like a disservice. first love is funny like that. you want everyone to know, but you don’t want to tell them, because your words will never be good enough.

you think you're being careful. you think no one will realize. you're young and stupid and after, what, six years, you think clearly you've gotten away with this. you don't know how you'll keep this up, in the long term, but you don't think that far ahead. clearly. you've snuck out for, what, the thousandth time now, just the two of you, managing to mostly blend in in far plainer clothes and adornments than you're used to, and the two of you...almost seem normal. two young people too caught up in each other to even see until-- until someone is screaming and ambrose is choking and something hot splatters onto you. it feels like an eternity before you realize it is blood. not your own. his. you try to go to him, to-- to hold him, comfort him, try to stop the bleeding, anything. but you're pulled away, all but dragged back to the castle. you're no fool, despite what your father may think of you. still, you scream at him, ambrose's blood still drying on your face and your clothes, and the coldness you are met with it...it only enrages you further. you're sent away from him, told to clean yourself up and speak of this to no one, and to understand with ambrose gone there is only one target for a blade to find next time.

you are finally, finally bullied into complacency, it seems. you even take a wife, if for no other reason than to silence your father. he doesn't intend for you to take the throne, so he cares little that she comes from english nobility, offering no foreign alliance. you feel no love for her, not as a husband should to his wife, but this matters little to either of you. you both benefit from the union. of course, there is the matter of children. they are expected, and, well. you have one. truthfully, you'd never wanted children, had never liked them much the few times you had interacted with them, your siblings being so close to your own age it barely even counted. but the first time you lay eyes on anne, something changes. she is yours, and despite that, she's...she's perfect. you watch her with a constant sense of unease, fearful she will also be sickly, and maybe even worse than you had been. but no. she's a strong baby, and she stays strong, easily outrunning you more times than you can count, much to her amusement. no, calamity has spared your daughter, but this did not mean it did not arrive.

mathilde is never the same after anne is born. she was once lively and vivacious, and a troublemaker beyond measure. her wit and penchant for misbehavior were part of why the two of you had gotten along so well. but after anne is born, she's so tired. you think nothing of it at first. you know nothing of childbirth from personal experience, obviously, but it makes sense that such a thing would be taxing on the body. everyone says to just give her time, a month perhaps. but one month becomes two, and then six, and then a year has passed, and still. she cannot stand for long periods of time, tires all too easily, and you suspect there is more yet she is keeping from you. physicians can only treat some of the symptoms, and no one can give you an answer. this is just...life. and what a life for anne it is, both parents weak and-- and a father who is altogether useless and-- and--

mathilde dies in her sleep. you are alerted the next morning, when her servants go to tend to her. three years of this, of worry and fear and it has culminated in what you'd expected but hoped against anyway. anne is too young to understand, and there are many times she still speaks of mathilde as though she's only gone away for a while. it burns, to have to tell her no, her mother will not be back for her birthday, nor the holiday, nor ever again. you don't know if she grasps it, but eventually she stops asking. she becomes an angry child, and, god, you see entirely too much of yourself in her now, even if each passing day has her taking after her mother more as well.

and so life progresses. four years later, and now your father has died, the spectre and tormentor both felled by...by fate, perhaps. you don't know. fate is too cruel. fate has taken your love, twice now, and yoked you to an advisor bearing one of their names. you do what you can to avoid using it. it feels like a stab to the heart each time you must. it should not be him to which you refer. but it is.

#royalhqzintro

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