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lizzybeth1986 · 6 months ago

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Bedtime Baklava

Book: The Royal Romance

Characters: Prince Liam & Queen Regina (filial)

Rating: G

Summary: In her first few months as Queen, Regina Amaranth bonds with her youngest stepson over an unlikely sweet.

Word Count: 2, 653 words

A/N: Inspired by Regina's "parent advice" in the MC's baby shower in TRH - "Don't let the palace kitchen serve baklava after midnight" . Regina and Constantine have just been married for a few months, and Liam is just a couple months short of turning 12.

Tagging @kingliamappreciationweek and @sazanes for KLAW Day 1: Baklava, and @choicesficwriterscreations for FoTW

For the hundredth time tonight, the newest Queen Consort of Cordonia shifts uncomfortably in her bed - her eyes heavy with the promise of slumber, yet refusing to remain completely shut. As if in defeat, they stop forcing themselves closed, and rest wearily upon the steady, almost-hypnotising rise-and-fall of her husband's chest. It moves in a slow, steady rhythm; a rhythm perfectly matched by the deep, broken rumble of his snores.

Regina sighs heavily, and stifles the very childish urge to bury her ears beneath her pillow. It's been five months now since their wedding. Surely that's enough time to get accustomed to a man's - any man's - oddities and idiosyncracies? Even the ones that disrupt your sleep and force you to consume pill after pill for your morning migraine?

Constantine snores on, blissfully ignorant of the woman glaring in the direction of his half-open mouth. The loud, crackling rattle seems to emerge not so much from his nose as from his chest; so deep is the sound. Most nights, she can manage to drift off into slumber before he does - tonight, she is not that fortunate.

Regina winces; her forehead throbs, in what she knows to be a precursor to a particularly vile, sleep-deprived headache. She grabs her robe and hauls herself, reluctantly, off their bed. If she can just get someplace else, just relieve herself of the sounds of snoring for twenty minutes, she is sure she can salvage this one awful night with at least five hours of sleep.

Gingerly, she ties her robe, feels her toes around for her slippers, then pads her way out the bedroom with a measured softness, still taking furtive glances at the slumbering form of her husband. She runs a nervous hand through her hair, tousled and very unlike the sleek updo she prefers to be seen in, in public, and hopes fervently that no one else is awake. "Carefully rumpled" is more her cousin's style.

The corridor is mercifully dark, except for the thin slivers of light emerging from two rooms.

Regina stands still and keeps her breathing a bit slower, a bit more measured, listening for sounds. Five months and she still feels as much of a stranger here as she did on her wedding night. Part of her wants to believe that it is most likely because she is the sole woman in a family surrounded by males, the one who came into this family when it had already spent several years functioning as a unit (even if a little dysfunctional sometimes) with an altogether different type of woman.

A woman who clearly knew how to work around "her boys", even if they couldn't work with her.

But another part of her wonders if the lack is within her. If it is because - no matter how she and Constantine feel about each other - she could be the right queen but the wrong wife...and, most importantly, the wrong mother for their boys.

Regina faces the first door with narrowed eyes and a pinched mouth, sighing as she strains to ignore the reedy rasp of a rock star's voice and frantic guitar strumming, made faint by the door that blocks any entry into her eldest stepson's most private space. Neither knocking the door nor telling Leo off would change things - if anything, he would snap back with what he believes to be a smart remark, or increase the volume just to get a rise out of her.

Regina shakes her head. It's almost hard to believe that it hadn't always been this way. And depressing to know, that there was a time when the boy seemed to at least try. Murmurs in court from as recently as last year seemed to indicate that while his far-younger brother was clearly better suited to be heir to the throne, Leo was beginning to show a little interest in the role.

Looking at him as a member of this family, Regina wonders now what changed for him so drastically. Yes, the cruel, untimely death of Queen Eleanor would doubtless come to mind - Leo had already lost a mother figure, to lose another at this vulnerable age would have broken anyone - but she is beginning to get the feeling that there may have been more to it than even that devastating loss.

Still...even if that were the case, Regina knows that she would be the last person Leo would want to confide in. He has made no secret of his resentment of her even since her engagement with the King, of his displeasure in having her as part of their family. No compromise, no olive branches, no attempt to reach out to him seems to work.

She cannot blame Leo entirely either. Perhaps, embracing Queen Eleanor and accepting her as his mother had taken up so much of the boy's energy, that he has none left for the woman who has now - unfortunately - taken her place.

Regina shakes her head, moving away from Leo's door. She isn't losing hope, not really, that she will...one day...succeed in changing things between herself and Leo. But she is beginning to sense that she shouldn't hold her breath for that moment either.

Softly, soundlessly, she makes her way across the corridor. She stops midway, at the door of her younger stepson. By the little sliver of light she can just about see from the slightly-ajar door, she can tell young Liam has made a rather appalling attempt at pretending to be asleep. Surreptitiously, she knocks.

A pause. Perhaps he is still weighing his options, still wondering if he can still get away with acting like he is asleep.

Unconsciously, Regina taps out a rhythm with her foot as she waits for Liam to decide. It is ironic how, of the two boys, it is far easier for one to get a read on Leo. What you see is what you receive.

Now Liam...is another kettle of fish. He is a wonderful boy, really - gentle and generous of spirit. He has made all the effort a young teenager could possibly make, to ensure his new mother experienced no distress in her first months here. He has been affable, he has been charming, he has been kind.

But there is a wall. And so far, any attempt to be a mother to him, adds yet another brick to it, making it almost impossible for her to reach him.

Regina genuinely likes Liam, even if she doesn't feel particularly maternal towards either of the boys yet. If she continues to fail with him, Regina will consider that the more crushing failure.

She doesn't knock again, giving Liam the opportunity to decide what he wants. He could wave any questions he gets in the morning, with the excuse that he had forgotten to switch off the lamp in his room. She would be impressed enough with his ability to spin at age eleven, that she'd pretend to believe it.

He does not. He opens the door, fully. Hair tousled, bags under his eyes, not a single wrinkle on his plain blue pajamas. And the look on his face spells - plainly - his intent to not lie to her.

Regina is a tad bit more impressed than she expects to be.

"Not asleep yet?" she asks him lightly, as if it's just 10 PM, and not quarter to 2 in the morning.

Liam's eyes flit from behind Regina to around her to her slippers and the floor - anywhere but her eyes. On closer inspection, she thinks she can spot crumbs of something around his mouth.

When he finally lifts his eyes to her own widened ones, he quickly, and guiltily, covers his mouth, mumbling inaudibly. Biting back a smile, she moves her gaze from his face to a spot behind his shoulder. A spot on his bed where only sheets should be. A spot on his bed...where a small, half-finished golden box of baklava now rests.

Regina's brows raise almost to the level of her hairline. "I thought you liked baklava."

Taken aback, the boy lifts a finger to a corner of his mouth, furtively directing a stray crumb inside, almost as if to savour the honeyed taste he had just enjoyed a minute ago. "I do," he says, hesitantly, "a lot."

She takes a mental inventory of the box. One...two...five and a half pieces left, glistening in the soft light from Liam's bedside lamp. The box itself looks half empty - it came from Istanbul packed with twenty pieces of baklava, five pieces each for four varieties. Walnut, almond, cashewnut and pistachio.

It had been addressed specially to Liam two weeks ago, from Evrim Köse, the Turkish ambassador to Cordonia. And by specially, she means that not another soul but him could lay a hand on those sweets. Which suited the rest of the palace just fine - most of them tended to find such a treat too cloying, too sugary for their tastes.

Regina feigns flicking lint lightly from a few fingers. "I thought you'd have finished that box by now. The last one didn't take you two days!"

Liam tries, and fails, to stifle a giggle. "I really, really wanted to savour it this time."

Intrigued, Regina turns her gaze back to him. It's not every day she hears of an eleven-year-old extol the pleasures of waiting. "What do you mean?"

Slowly, Liam pads his way back to the bed, gingerly touching the box. There's a certain glow of pleasure in his eyes, as he remembers that first exhilarating experience of biting into a baklava in Turkey three months ago. As if he only has to look at the sweet to relive how that one bite nearly changed his life.

"The last time I took a box like this home, I gobbled it up in two days." The two chuckle together at the memory. "It got over so fast. I'd wake up at night craving one more bite and wishing I hadn't hurried up so much, eating it," Liam says, his murmur tinged with slight regret. "This time I promised I'd take my time with it. That lovely little feeling every time I have a taste... I want it to last a little longer."

As he says it, Regina can already see in her mind's eye the way Liam would hold that sweet, carefully, delicately...the way he would chew, slowly...the way he would close his eyes so every available sense would be attuned to the golden glow, to the sweet rosewater scent, to the delicate crunch of forty layers of filo pastry. The way he would prolong this bliss till that was no longer possible.

How long she's spent, attempting to be mother to this boy. Yet how little she - really. truly - knows him.

Almost as if he is reading her thoughts, Liam raises his eyes to the level of hers. He holds a piece out to her.

"No, no," Regina whispers guiltily, wondering if anything on her face could give the impression that she wanted the sweet. "It's all yours. I am not as fond of it as you are."

Neither do his eyes leave hers, nor his hand the baklava. She relents, holding the piece for a moment, her gaze soaking in its heavy, golden perfection. She pops it in like it's candy, then grimaces.

"You don't like it?"

Liam's voice is soft and unnervingly speculative, for a mere boy on the cusp of adolescence. Regina cannot make out from his gaze whether he expects her to feign a liking for the sweet, or be honest with him. Every bit of maternal advice she has heard from noblewomen who used to be her friends - noblewomen who settled into marriage and children far earlier than she did - has recommended appeasement, especially at this delicate stage in a child's development.

One more look into Liam's eyes, and Regina opts not to pretend. Her grimace stays unmoved on her face.

"Too sweet for me," she murmurs back.

On the face of it, Liam's expression seems to remain unchanged. Quiet, watchful, casually moving from her face to the baklava in her hands, and back. But Regina can sense a shift in the air. There is a glimmer in his eyes, some trace of an unspoken need reflected there, that she has unwittingly met. The muscles around his mouth relax more, his stance feels less guarded. He takes out another one, not exactly smiling, but Regina can feel the welcoming sentiment in the gesture regardless.

"This one has walnuts."

Regina smiles. She can't pretend not to be a little touched. "I do like walnuts," she says as she accepts this little treat, grateful not just for what it is but what it represents.

All this time, Regina had focused on being a mother to Liam and Leo. Inwardly cursing herself for not feeling that maternal instinct straightaway (or at all), wondering whether her new sons will resent her for not being mother enough. Especially for Liam, who had just lost his mother two years ago, and who was still too young to fully process that loss.

When all this time, what Liam needed hadn't been another mother at all.

Regina bites into the baklava Liam has offered. It's a tad bit better than the previous one; the walnuts prove a better, slightly more bitter contrast to the sugar syrup...but the latter is still too overpowering for her to ignore. It shows on her face, again; she begins to feel an involuntary pang of regret, then shakes it off.

She isn't sure yet what it is that Liam needs from her. What would strengthen this tentative bond that has blossomed between them tonight. But one thing she does know: whatever their relationship grows to become - a friend, a guide, a mentor - the foundation of it has to be her willingness to be honest with him.

For the rest of their time in the room (twenty minutes at most), Regina is content to merely watch as Liam finishes off the remaining contents of the box. "Anaïs told me I should finish them off now before they start going bad," he explains to her when she remembers his wish to savour the baklava slowly.

Aha! Regina stifles a bubble in her throat that feels suspiciously like laughter. So it's the head chef who has told him where the baklava was kept!

"It's almost two now, Liam," Regina tells him, a frown wrinkling her forehead. "You ought to get some sleep."

Liam appears a little taken aback when he looks at her, perhaps in response to the doubt in her voice. Somehow she highly doubts he will be able to sleep tonight. He's had so much baklava tonight that the ensuing sugar rush would make him too keyed up to sleep at all.

Regina isn't wrong. When Constantine - bright-eyed and alert - casts suspicious glances upon all three members of his family at breakfast time, she knows he has seen the bags beneath all their eyes.

"Has no one gone to bed on time tonight, besides me, Regina?"

Inwardly, Regina bristles. Indeed, it is so easy to sleep soundly in the face of such earth-shattering snores, when you're the one doing the snoring!

Meanwhile, she is conscious of the way their two sons stare at her. Leo's resentful and defiant (although he couldn't possibly know she was outside his door last night), Liam's nervous and hesitant.

"Surely I would have known if they were up all night," Regina feigns a bored drawl, "You know how sensitive I am to noise, darling."

The sigh of relief from the two brothers, once Constantine leaves the dining table, is almost audible. Before Liam leaves for his morning lessons, he rewards her with his biggest smile.

Regina bites back her own, and moves to her study so she can write a note to Chef Anaïs, in anticipation of any future kitchen-related adventures from the youngest prince. It is simple; a single line. Regina has to remind herself to not laugh, even as she passes the note to a member of the palace staff.

Let Prince Liam have baklava at any other time, except midnight. We really can't afford any more midnight sugar rushes at his age.

Notes:

1. The reference to Liam's first experience of baklava comes from this headcanon.

2. This story also hints at Leo's relationship with Eleanor and his secret relationship with a boy named Damien, which is explored to some extent in Eleanor's Kitchen, Chapter 6.

At this point in the story, Constantine has paid the family to leave Cordonia for good, after discovering Leo's romantic relationship with Damien. Leo - who before Eleanor's death was willing to work hard at being a Crown Prince despite not being fit for the role - now has lost all motivation to learn or become Crown Prince after losing both his mother and the boy he loves in the span of months.

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #KLAW Day 1 #KLAW Day 1: Baklava #lizzybeth1986 #content: fanfic

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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Hello and be welcome to the Choices MC Appreciation Week of 2025! Years ago, user beaumontbash created this wonderful event where we had the opportunity to gush and show off about the wonderful and rich MCs in the fandom, and I have decided to bring back this awesome tradition!

Before I give you the prompts, here's some ground rules and things to have in mind during the event:

• You aren't obligated to post for every day! You can post any day you feel like

•The MC doesn't have to be yours

• OCs are welcome and encouraged!

•This event is MC-OC centric, and while a mention of LIs and other characters is welcome, please focus on the MCs

• Everything is welcome! From a screenshot of your MC and some fun facts, to meta and art and fanfiction!

• Posting about your friend/mutual's MCs is counted as an entry and highly encouraged!!!

• Be kind and respectful to one another. MC/OC and user bashing is extrictly prohibited

• Remember to have fun and don't be afraid to check the tag #choicesmcaw25 to see more OCs and MCs!

And now, onto the prompts...

Day One: Straight A+ Students

From The Elementalists, to Ride or Die, Roommates with Benefits, High School Story... Any MC who's a student, show them some love on this day!

Day Two: Terrific Heroes

From the It Lives Anthology, Terror Fest, Wake the Dead, Haunting of Braidwood Manor... Any MC who is involved in everything horror, today's your chance to show some love!

Day Three: Iconic Celebrities

From Platinum, Red Carpet Diaries, Hollywood U... Show some love to that MC that made it big!

Day Four: Awesome Adventurers

From Hero, to Endless Summer, to Blades of Light and Shadow, this is the day to show some love to those brave MCs!

Day Five: Nosy Detectives

From Veil of Secrets, Murder at Homecoming to Crimes of Passion, let us show some love to those MCs who always dig deeper

Day Six: Historic People

From Desire and Decorum to The Royal Masquerade to A Courtesan of Rome, today we show some love to those MCs who made history in the Choicesverse

Day Seven: LGBT+ and Proud

From All of Us, to Bachelorette Party, to Foreign Affairs... Any MC who is part of the community and didn't make an appearance on the other prompts, today's the day to show them off!

The event will be done on February, from the 3rd to the 9th! So start piling your MCs, dust off those WIPs and get ready!

Love,

noe aka @rosesnink

#choices fandom #playchoices #choices stories you play #high school story #open heart #the royal romance #crimes of passion #desire and decorum #bloodbound #it lives in the woods #the royal masquerade #veil of secrets #this sounds like so much fun!!

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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(This incredible poster is the handiwork of our wonderful co-host @sazanes!! You guys, she made a freaking VIDEO POSTER!!! Love so much how this turned out 😍😍)

Welcome to our third edition of King Liam Appreciation Week!! Last year saw a record-breaking turnout of stories, art, headcanons and all kinds of creative work - all celebrating this amazing character.

And while the fandom may not be what it used to be in the past years, we still hold out hope that there will be plenty of people who still love Liam and want to show that through their creative work!

November 17th is World Baklava Day, and can you think of a bigger fan of this irresistible sweet than Liam? 😃

This year, the event will run from 17th - 21st November. The themes for the days are as follows:

Day 1 - Nov 17th - Baklava/Throwback

Day 2 - Nov 18th - Character Appreciation/Vanilla

Day 3 - Nov 19th - Roses/Monuments

Day 4 - Nov 20th - Relationships/Coffee

Day 5 - Nov 21st - Healing*

(*Healing can be interpreted any way the reader wishes, both physical and mental healthwise - though we tend to lean a bit more to the latter because of how stoicism is such a central aspect of his growth)

Keep in mind that you don't have to send the content on the exact day of the theme - if you give it a little later as well, it's still fine as long as you tag the piece with the day it was meant for (#KLAW Day 1, #KLAW Day 2, etc).

Any content is welcome! Fanfic, fanart, edits, moodboards, meta, interactive media, headcanons, character appreciation... anything! As long as it celebrates Liam as a character, focuses on him and shows positive depictions of him. We also accept WIPs and a specific day (Throwback) is set aside just for past pieces on Liam. If you like, you can even tell us about the process of creating that piece!

Make sure you tag @kingliamappreciationweek in your posts, as well as the hosts @lizzybeth1986 and @sazanes in your content so we don't miss it! It would also make it easier to track if you use the tags #kingliamappreciationweek and #KLAW in your posts as an extra precaution.

Various fan content blogs have helped in promoting our weeks and also run great events on a weekly/monthly basis. We would definitely love for our participants to check them out in case they'd like to be part of those too: @choicesficwriterscreations, @choicesmonthlychallenge, @choicespride, @choicesprompts, @choicesholidays, @choicescommunityevents).

Once the week is officially over, we will keep a bonus week for participants who have trouble sending content during the week itself. Additionally, this blog will be open for entries all year round!

We have about a month to get ready for KLAW, and we're super excited to see what our fellow Liam fans might have in store! See you all in November!!

✅✅signal boosts will be highly appreciated!!✅✅

Previous Years' Masterlists:

KLAW 2022 | KLAW 2023 Part 1, 2, 3

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #signal boost!

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

Text

(This incredible poster is the handiwork of our wonderful co-host @sazanes!! You guys, she made a freaking VIDEO POSTER!!! Love so much how this turned out 😍😍)

And while the fandom may not be what it used to be in the past years, we still hold out hope that there will be plenty of people who still love Liam and want to show that through their creative work!

November 17th is World Baklava Day, and can you think of a bigger fan of this irresistible sweet than Liam? 😃

This year, the event will run from 17th - 21st November. The themes for the days are as follows:

Day 1 - Nov 17th - Baklava/Throwback

Day 2 - Nov 18th - Character Appreciation/Vanilla

Day 3 - Nov 19th - Roses/Monuments

Day 4 - Nov 20th - Relationships/Coffee

Day 5 - Nov 21st - Healing*

Once the week is officially over, we will keep a bonus week for participants who have trouble sending content during the week itself. Additionally, this blog will be open for entries all year round!

We have about a month to get ready for KLAW, and we're super excited to see what our fellow Liam fans might have in store! See you all in November!!

✅✅signal boosts will be highly appreciated!!✅✅

Previous Years' Masterlists:

KLAW 2022 | KLAW 2023 Part 1, 2, 3

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

Text

(This incredible poster is the handiwork of our wonderful co-host @sazanes!! You guys, she made a freaking VIDEO POSTER!!! Love so much how this turned out 😍😍)

And while the fandom may not be what it used to be in the past years, we still hold out hope that there will be plenty of people who still love Liam and want to show that through their creative work!

November 17th is World Baklava Day, and can you think of a bigger fan of this irresistible sweet than Liam? 😃

This year, the event will run from 17th - 21st November. The themes for the days are as follows:

Day 1 - Nov 17th - Baklava/Throwback

Day 2 - Nov 18th - Character Appreciation/Vanilla

Day 3 - Nov 19th - Roses/Monuments

Day 4 - Nov 20th - Relationships/Coffee

Day 5 - Nov 21st - Healing*

Once the week is officially over, we will keep a bonus week for participants who have trouble sending content during the week itself. Additionally, this blog will be open for entries all year round!

We have about a month to get ready for KLAW, and we're super excited to see what our fellow Liam fans might have in store! See you all in November!!

✅✅signal boosts will be highly appreciated!!✅✅

Previous Years' Masterlists:

KLAW 2022 | KLAW 2023 Part 1, 2, 3

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #signal boost

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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KLAW Day 4: Coffee

My fanfics for KLAW (and HYAW! 😭) are still underway, so I thought I'd do a moodboard for Liam the Coffee Lover in the meantime.

Tagging @kingliamappreciationweek and @sazanes for KLAW Day 4: Coffee

• Perhaps the only person who relates to Liam's preference for coffee over tea is Regina. She and the palace chef Anaïs were pretty much the first people to know about it 😅

• Regina prefers hers black with very little sugar. Liam likes it lightly creamed and with sugar. When he marries Esther, who also loves coffee, the three of them often secretly have what they call a "coffee and chit-chat" together.

• As the MIL and DIL grow closer, Esther makes sure to carry along some religieuse to perfectly pair with Regina's dark, bitter coffee, and some nutty treat to go with Liam's creamier, sweet concoction.

• Liam LOVES coasters! He's been in love with them ever since he was a kid, and needed some for his mug of hot chocolate.

• Cordonia's Art Society commissions a King Fabian-inspired coaster collection, complete with intricate art of famous Cordonian Renaissance figures, for Liam's fifth anniversary as king.

(Rumour has it that they heard the king was appalled (appalled!!) by the inaccurate, ahistorical - and quite frankly, rather ridiculous - depictions of the events of 1500 in the Netflix special The Royal Masquerade)

For his tenth, he gets TCaTF-inspired coasters, because by then he becomes a world-renowned coaster collector.

• He has a special affinity to Auvernese coffee, though he will never openly admit it. It's the mineral-rich volcanic soil that makes the produce there taste so good.

(also, his mother used to often feel homesick for it)

• None of his immediate friend-circle have the passion for coffee that Liam does. Maxwell doesn't like caffeinated drinks that much (he loves fruitier concoctions), Drake would much rather enjoy his personal stash of whiskey (he won't turn down an Irish coffee though, for obvious reasons) and Hana really loves tea.

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #KLAW Day 4 #KLAW Day 4: Coffee

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

Text

(This incredible poster is the handiwork of our wonderful co-host @sazanes!! You guys, she made a freaking VIDEO POSTER!!! Love so much how this turned out 😍😍)

And while the fandom may not be what it used to be in the past years, we still hold out hope that there will be plenty of people who still love Liam and want to show that through their creative work!

November 17th is World Baklava Day, and can you think of a bigger fan of this irresistible sweet than Liam? 😃

This year, the event will run from 17th - 21st November. The themes for the days are as follows:

Day 1 - Nov 17th - Baklava/Throwback

Day 2 - Nov 18th - Character Appreciation/Vanilla

Day 3 - Nov 19th - Roses/Monuments

Day 4 - Nov 20th - Relationships/Coffee

Day 5 - Nov 21st - Healing*

Once the week is officially over, we will keep a bonus week for participants who have trouble sending content during the week itself. Additionally, this blog will be open for entries all year round!

We have about a month to get ready for KLAW, and we're super excited to see what our fellow Liam fans might have in store! See you all in November!!

✅✅signal boosts will be highly appreciated!!✅✅

Previous Years' Masterlists:

KLAW 2022 | KLAW 2023 Part 1, 2, 3

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #signal boost

94 notes · View notes

lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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It's officially our final day of KLAW! But for those who haven't been able to send anything yet - fret not! We have our bonus week going on till 1st Dec, so it isn't completely over yet.

We have just one theme for our final day - Healing. Liam is known to be stoic, in control of his emotions, unselfish and giving. But he also is someone who has gone through traumatic experiences, and who copes with them in ways that may not always be helpful to him in the long run. Today's theme provides a space to all of you to figure out what healing for Liam could truly mean!

Any content is welcome!! Just make sure your work centers Liam, and presents a positive depiction of him. Fic, art, meta, headcanons, edits, icons, interactive media, even simple character appreciation posts!! We also accept WIPs, so if your piece isn’t entirely complete by the end of the week, fret not – you can still send us the WIPs!

The themes are simply inspirations. If you bring a piece for one of the days later, it’s entirely okay...just make sure you tag the posts with the day you meant it for! We will always be keeping a bonus week in case you couldn’t complete the piece during the week itself, so our official deadline for pieces will be Dec 1st!

We’d also like all of you to know that KLAW 2024 will be open ALL YEAR ROUND. So if you’re unable to finish a piece before Dec 1st, pls do send it whenever you’re ready to (and tag us!), and it will definitely be up on our masterlist!!

Be sure to do the following while making your posts!

1. Use the tags #kingliamappreciationweek and #KLAW in your posts. Make sure to tag the day as well (#KLAW Day 1, #KLAW Day 2, etc)

2. Tag @kingliamappreciationweek, @lizzybeth1986 and @sazanes in your posts so we can keep track!

Fan Community blogs are super important to our promotion of events, so we’d definitely love for you to check out some of these awesome blogs and their challenges:

@choicesficwriterscreations – Accepts most styles of creative works (no AI allowed). Check out their guidelines here!

@choicesmonthlychallenge – Any content accepted (no AI). Here is the prompt list for November and for an upcoming event called Choices Reheated!

@choicesholidays – Any and all content welcome, as long as it is centered around one of the holidays listed! Currently, they are hosting Winter Holidays!

@choicesprompts – Any and all content welcome! Currently, the blog is hosting Angstgiving!

@choicespride – Any and all content welcome, as long as it is centered around LGBTQ+ characters and themes. While not directly associated with this event, we’d like to give a shoutout to their current event – Transgender Awareness Month. If you have any content that you think would fit, definitely give the prompts a look!

Our week may be officially coming to a close today, but that doesn't mean it's fully over yet! We will still be keeping it open for the rest of the month, and the masterlist itself will be open for entries all year round!

For the last time this year...

Happy King Liam Appreciation Week, everyone!!

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW Day 5 #KLAW Day 5: Healing #signal boost #today!!

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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It's officially our final day of KLAW! But for those who haven't been able to send anything yet - fret not! We have our bonus week going on till 1st Dec, so it isn't completely over yet.

Be sure to do the following while making your posts!

1. Use the tags #kingliamappreciationweek and #KLAW in your posts. Make sure to tag the day as well (#KLAW Day 1, #KLAW Day 2, etc)

2. Tag @kingliamappreciationweek, @lizzybeth1986 and @sazanes in your posts so we can keep track!

Fan Community blogs are super important to our promotion of events, so we’d definitely love for you to check out some of these awesome blogs and their challenges:

@choicesficwriterscreations – Accepts most styles of creative works (no AI allowed). Check out their guidelines here!

@choicesmonthlychallenge – Any content accepted (no AI). Here is the prompt list for November and for an upcoming event called Choices Reheated!

@choicesholidays – Any and all content welcome, as long as it is centered around one of the holidays listed! Currently, they are hosting Winter Holidays!

@choicesprompts – Any and all content welcome! Currently, the blog is hosting Angstgiving!

For the last time this year...

Happy King Liam Appreciation Week, everyone!!

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW Day 5 #KLAW Day 5: Healing #signal boost #today!!

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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Love the energy coming in from our Liam stans! We've gotten some incredible work so far - so many stories, artwork and headcanons! We can't wait to see more!!

Day 4, like all the other days, has two themes as well. Our first is Relationships. You can interpret this any way you like - it can refer to a range of things, from romantic, to platonic, to antagonistic to even family. Think about Liam's personal dynamics with people in any of these roles.

Our second theme is based on another thing Liam is fond of - Coffee! Did you know that tea is Cordonia's national drink? Liam tells us this in the date scene in Book 1, but also maintains that he prefers coffee. It would be fun to explore this little-known fact about him!

Be sure to do the following while making your posts!

1. Use the tags #kingliamappreciationweek and #KLAW in your posts. Make sure to tag the day as well (#KLAW Day 1, #KLAW Day 2, etc)

2. Tag @kingliamappreciationweek, @lizzybeth1986 and @sazanes in your posts so we can keep track!

Fan Community blogs are super important to our promotion of events, so we’d definitely love for you to check out some of these awesome blogs and their challenges:

@choicesficwriterscreations – Accepts most styles of creative works (no AI allowed). Check out the guidelines here!

@choicesmonthlychallenge – Any content accepted (no AI). Here is the prompt list for November as well as an event called Choices Reheated.

@choicesholidays – Any and all content welcome, as long as it is centered around one of the holidays listed! Currently, they are hosting Winter Holidays!

@choicesprompts – Any and all content welcome! Currently, the blog is hosting Angstgiving!

We can’t wait to see what our wonderful Liam fans have in store for us!

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #KLAW Day 4 #KLAW Day 4: Relationships #KLAW Day 4: Coffee #signal boost #today!

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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Tagging @kingliamappreciationweek and @sazanes for KLAW Day 1: Throwback

1. What about this character inspired you to write this piece?

Definitely Liam's relationship with his elder brother, which was barely explored tbh. It was striking to me that in the TRH childhood flashbacks, the narrative was massively erasing Leo's presence even though he was legitimately considered the heir to the throne during that time period. Also, since the Capitol was situated near the sea, I wanted to explore their seafood, so I took inspiration from Greek seafood for the same!

2. What was your process like?

As with most EK chapters, most of the research went in reading and listening to various recipes with this dish, and exploring that aspect of the culture. I also looked through RoE's depiction of Leo and Damien (in Leo's own words). The sequence that opens the chapter (Liam at the beach with his friends) came to me at a later stage, and it was the perfect way to hint at Liam's dynamics with his closest friends while also capturing the drifting apart of the brothers and the budding romance between Leo and Damien.

3. What part of creating this piece gave you the most joy!

Hands down, Liam baking bread while his mother cooks shrimp saganaki beside him 😃 Also the childlike exchanges between Liam and Jason. They're so close to the truth and yet so far from it.

4. Are there differences between the way you write Liam and the way canon/fandom writes him?

Sure there are. This series is about Liam's childhood, but I do want to explore him as a kid who is growing into his own person, in a slow, gradual way.

Eleanor's Kitchen

Books: The Royal Romance/Heir, Rules of Engagement

Pairing: Queen Eleanor & Prince Leo + Liam (mother-sons/siblings), Leo x Damien (mentioned in RoE) (romantic), Liam & Jason (OC) (platonic).

Rating: PG

Summary: Liam notices Leo's friendship with Damien, their gardener's eldest son, becoming stronger.

Series: Eleanor's Kitchen

Note: Damien (not Nazario from PM!) has been mentioned in this scene in Rules of Engagement, Book 2. I played fast and loose with the timelines for this backstory, and have given Damien a younger brother who was Liam's age.

This chapter takes place almost a year following Ch 3. Liam is now 8 years old, Leo is 14.

Word Count: 3, 718 words

Tagging @kingliamappreciationweek for KLAW Day 4: Childhood, @aprilchallenge for the prompt "just want to be with you", @choicesholidays for National Sibling Appreciation Day (April 10th) and @choicesficwriterscreations for FoTW.

Chapter 4: Garídes Saganáki

(Photo from this recipe)

Liam greets the salt air that briefly kisses his face, and the sand that pools around his toes at the beach, with a sense of homecoming. This beach has felt as much like his home as the palace he was born in, suffused with memories of sandcastles and uniquely-shaped seashells and the rush of excitement that came every time a wave crashed against the shore.

And most of all, it feels like home for the moments long past. For the rare times both he and Leo did things together, back when Leo actually liked taking him along for things. When his talk was actually more talk and less eyerolling and "oh you're too young to understand". The love is still there, and so is the need to protect each other (especially against Father's acid remarks, usually aimed at Leo) - just...the companionship isn't, any longer.

The sad, sinking feeling that used to emerge from realizing that is, thankfully, rare now - Liam much prefers the company of his own friends - but when he was four and hanging on to his big brother's every word, it had stung.

"Every big brother does that," his newest friend, Jason, shrugged. Jason is the palace gardner Giorgos Vasilakis' youngest son, accompanying his father since last year on visits to the Queen to discuss the plans surrounding her dream project: the palace hedge maze, that was to echo the one in Château de Villandry in France. Jason's older brother Damien had always been the one at Kýrios Vasilakis' side before that, but of late Liam has begun to associate his presence more with his own elder brother.

Jason is lonely. Unlike Liam, who has managed to bring together his own motley band of merry playmates, Jason has only the one older brother and has never gotten the chance to venture beyond the palace and his father's cottage. Liam has experienced only a fraction of that kind of loneliness and it had felt like hell. He and Jason may not know each other well, but he'll be damned if he let the other boy he has no one. And so he brings Jason along to meet all his friends.

Both Liam's and Jason's older brothers accompany the group of exhilarated children to the beach, but slip away in another direction before the group can notice. Liam notes the direction Leo and Damien are headed - their heads leaning towards each other as they walk - but says nothing. More friends, Liam reminds himself of his purpose here, first make sure we give Jason more friends.

Liam isn't disappointed. Before long, Jason's name has been shortened to Jase, his shorts and shirt have been drenched from jumping over the crashing waves with Maxwell, and he's snacking happily over pine nuts with Drake and Olivia. He even enjoys collecting seashells with Tariq, even if he did find him a little odd at first.

"I can understand not wanting to get your shoes wet but why would he want to keep them 30 feet away from the sea??"

Liam giggles a little. "They're not just shoes! They're...uh... Salvatore Ferra-somethings!" he says, already forgetting the Italian names that slip so easily from Tariq's tongue when he's talking about a shoe brand. Liam would too, if his father spoke his ears off about shoes as much as Tariq's did.

"If you say so," Jason replies doubtfully. What a funny bunch of people these nobles and royals are, he must be thinking, "but what if they get stolen?"

"Then Tariq will sniff and say he hopes they were stolen by someone who truly understands the value and beauty of Italian shoes."

Just before they leave, the children build a sandcastle. Liam and Jason deem themselves the architects of the main structure, Drake and Olivia choose to build a fortress. Maxwell ropes in a skeptical Tariq to help him construct a fantastic "Tower of Fun and Parties" right next to the castle itself. They are almost done when Jason stands up, declares the castle incomplete without a good garden, and pokes dots into the sand to form imaginary flowers.

For a moment all they can hear is the shriek of the gulls and the buffeting crash of the waves. They are all silent, and smiling, and very, very proud of themselves.

This structure is the biggest sandcastle the children have ever built themselves thus far, and by the time Leo and Damien return (hair damp, skin glistening, breathing hard as if they'd jumped down the steep cliffs of the Forgotten Falls and climbed back up, hands very close but not really touching) they are all convinced it is the biggest castle they ever will conceive of building. Even if it is one built in sand, soon to be a victim to the crashing waves.

Liam puts on his baking gloves, balancing himself on the balls of his feet as he waits to take his freshly-baked bread out of the oven. It's a moment he likes to gear himself up for - there's just something, some magic, about that first, comforting, soul-filling whiff. He'd experienced that feeling the first time he actually watched Chef Anais bake, and he's felt it ever since.

His version of Greek village-style bread is perfect today - the crust a lovely brown with little cracks and ridges to show off how crisp its outside is, and he is certain the inside will be soft and a light shade of yellow from the semolina he added to it. The aroma is good enough to make his mother stop in the middle of her own cooking just to breathe it in.

Her face covered in a fine sheen of sweat today from the heat in the kitchen, her hair bunched into a wrap and her hands waving away steam and smoke from her face. Liam can't quite tell whether it is excitement he sees on her face or exhaustion. But from the corner of his eye as he carries the bread to the table to rest, he can tell it is more of the former.

There are two pots boiling away at once on the stove: one a creamy, garlicy, peppery fish broth; the other a beautifully silky tomato-based sauce that he knows from experience will become even silkier and creamier when Mum adds a sinfully liberal amount of feta chesse to it.

He almost reaches out for it with a spoon when his mother stops him.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Mum says, playfully wagging her finger, "Not yours, thisavré mou. This is for your brother and his friend only. That's why I'm making something with your favourite Stone Bass fish as well. For you and your friend."

Liam frowns. "But I've had shrimp saganaki before. You know I like it too. Why couldn't you just make a bigger batch?"

Mum lets out a sigh suffused with embarrassed laughter. Her hand inadvertently motions itself towards a bottle of alcohol on the table titled Ouzo. "This one is... different. Not for children."

Liam pouts in petulance. Of late reminders that he is still a child and his brother isn't have begun to annoy him. There is something so mythical about teenagehood, Liam is beginning to realise, something he wants to know more about but is too out of his reach to even begin to understand.

Don't be so eager to let go of your childhood, pet, then you'll spend the rest of your life wanting it back, Mum would often tell him. All that phrase does now is make him even more impatient.

The smell of ripened crushed tomatoes, mixing in with the garlic, onions, and chilis, makes for a heady combination. He secretly thanks Uncle Franci for sending them yet another carton of San Marzanos - Mum said he'd written in his last letter that his wife, Aunt Pari, would be making a trip down to her home province of Bethulia soon for the Navroze festival, and was hoping Mum would come celebrate it with her this year.

There is another aroma in the sauce Liam has never smelled before, and has a hard time identifying - it's slightly pungent and makes his eyes water a little. It must be from the bottle of Ouzo.

Mum tosses the feta into the small, two-handled heavy-bottomed frying pan at will - she has never really been one for measurements - and quickly places the pan beneath the broiler to melt the cheese. Liam watches in fascination as her hands crumble extra feta; there is no rubric for how much, she just stops when she feels like it. Just throw! she will tell him anytime he asks her for a measuring cup. Cooking for Mum has always been just a play of hands; trust your hands and give them their time with the ingredients - and the results may not always be consistent but over time they will be forever delicious.

Liam has timed his baking closely enough that by the time both his and Leo's dishes are ready, his bread will have rested long enough, and is ready to serve as a side.

They find Leo talking to Jason's brother at one of the more intimate drawing rooms of the palace, their heads so close they're almost touching. Both their hands are jammed into their pockets, as if they'd hurriedly put them there from whatever their original position was. Their eyes dart everywhere and both seem to turn a little pink. A curl from Damien's dark hair rests carelessnessly on his forehead, and Liam catches his brother looking at it at least twice.

Jason skips to Liam's side. "Where is everyone else?" he whispers.

"Drake and his sister have gone to Texas to stay with their aunt, Olivia's with one of the Elders in Lythikos, Maxwell and Tariq are back home. It's just me, I'm afraid." Liam shuffles his feet in uncharacteristic awkwardness. He knows that a lot of the things he likes to talk about can either bore or confuse his own friends.

"Good enough for me," Jason says, grinning. "Her Majesty says she's got us fish stew."

"Bianco. And shrimp saganaki for Leo and Damien." Liam lowers his voice in a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't tell your dad - Mum made those herself. Father built her her own kitchen two and a half years ago. Not many besides some of the kitchen staff know."

Jason's eyes widen at the bowl that's just arrived, and then brightens. Imagine that, being treated to the cooking of an actual queen!

Mum had wisely decided to seat the pairs of brothers in different areas, confident that they would be bored stiff if they were made to eat together. It's a lot better this way, Liam thinks, as Jason talks animatedly of the new toys his dad got him with the increase in his salary from last month onwards. Leo and Damien would perhaps find their chats rather silly, and a lot of the things they say fly like seagulls over Liam and Jason's heads.

The Bianco is as good as Liam and Jason had hoped: the sauce smooth and creamy, the fish mildly sweet and with flesh so soft it crumbles a little on the tongue. Liam can't help but puff his chest in pride as he and Jason use the bread he made to sop up the rest of the sauce, the heat from the pepper and garlic and the delightful tang from the lemon warming them all down to their toes. Jason tells Liam to tell Her Majesty to forgive his lack of manners but he is this close to licking his plate.

Normally, Liam would be ecstatic about getting to eat a Stone Bass, especially here where the catch is always today's, wild and fresh and soul-stirringly tasty..."not that garbage you get from the fish farms" as Grandmother used to say.

But his thoughts keep crawling back to the meal his and Jason's older brothers got. The dish that has been so familiar to him all these years, yet seems so alien now. All because of an added mysterious... thing that seems all the more exciting because he isn't allowed to touch it.

Liam goes and sneaks a look at where their brothers sit, enjoying their shrimp. Leo looks over to his friend's plate, notices his bread is over, breaks his own loaf apart and offers it to Damien, looking straight into his eyes as he dips it into his sauce and eats it. Damien's fingers lightly brush his as he takes the bread.

"You know who made that bread?" Leo's voice for some reason sounds different, warmer and deeper and a little more serious. Liam turns pink with forgotten filial pleasure at the note of pride in his words. "Liam. My baby brother."

Damien grins. "There's sauce near your lip."

Leo makes a great show of pretending not to know where. "Where?"

Damien looks left and right - and satisfied that they cannot be seen (Liam heaves a sigh of relief as he emerges from behind a corner Leo and Damien cannot clearly see) takes his napkin and dabs softly at the corner of his mouth. The two boys suddenly cannot look each other in the eye, and their smiles hold secrets that make Liam feel like an intruder on this little moment, for perhaps no reason. Damien's only cleaning Leo's face.

But when he returns and tells Jason what he saw, the other boy stays silent for a few minutes.

"Babás almost saw Prince Leo at our home once," Jason says quietly, "Mamá had to hide him in a cupboard."

"But why?" Liam asks back, puzzled, "I thought Kýrios Vasilakis liked him. Ever since he started attending his lessons regularly and actually -"

"I know. I thought so too. I'm not sure why Leo and Damien and Mamá look so scared these days. No one ever tells me." Jason finishes with a nonchalant shrug that belies his petulant frustration at not being told things he cannot fully understand.

Liam sighs, all thoughts of their brothers forgotten. "No one thinks I'm old enough to understand anything either."

As Liam watches Jason's older brother reluctantly take leave of his own, their gazes lingering more than their touches ever could...and realises how childishly enthusiastic their own goodbyes are, Liam goes to bed wondering what Leo's shrimp saganaki tastes like. Is it pungent? Is it sweet? Does it leave a bitter aftertaste?

That night, Liam lies in bed in his silk unicorn-and-rainbow pajamas, burningly aware of how like a child he looks in it. How unlike his older brother - in his leather jackets and carelessly tousled hair. He begins counting the months before his mother can properly deem him "of age", and falls asleep before he can even reach his pre-teen years.

Days later, Leo takes a walk around the Wishing Well with his mother.

It's amazing how much things have changed in the years Eleanor has been married to Constantine, and therefore into the Royal Family. His little son had only been four then, and he'd hidden behind his father the first few times she tried to come near. Constantine and his mother had fumed over this in the beginning, wanting to help ease him into trusting her but neither having a whole lot of patience - so it had been up to her to reassure him that they would only set his relationship with her at his pace.

And it had paid off. Little Leo had once seen the "new mother" outside, trying to stargaze, and sat beside her in silence, listening for half an hour as she pointed out constellations. She'd known he loved stargazing and knew he needed a companion of sorts The first ever times they talked were all about stars...until five months later when he lost interest and Eleanor found out whatever it was that captured his fancy next.

Still, because that night was the night they tentatively began to consider themselves mother and son, she often brings back memories of it by calling him astéri mou.

"Your tutors have been very pleased with you this year," Eleanor says, suppressing a little smile, "they've been seeing how hard you've been working at your studies lately." There's a mischievous glow in her eyes. "Any more efforts and you'll soon be surpassing Liam, they say."

Leo snorts. He knows, no matter how hard he tries, that he can never reach his kid brother's level in either interest or acumen for politics. That is a quality unique to just him and he's more than happy to let him bask in it, but ever since Damien....

A quick, intense memory of him flashes. Dark curls, full lips, skin smooth beneath Leo's fingertips. It had amazed him how they'd been playmates one minute, pretending to be pirates and running around the palace gardens, and he'd never in all that time noticed that kind of gut-capturing beauty. His voice deep and passionate at the Forgotten Falls two weeks ago, as Damien whispered into his hair, "Let me hold you for a bit. We don't have to talk...we don't have to do anything. I just want to be with you."

He knows becoming a good King will be a hundred times harder for him than it was for his father, than (he is beginning to realize) it could be for his brother. He had made his peace with that at some point this year. But being around Damien...knowing that in his future position a relationship like theirs could be both legally permitted and morally viewed as sheer irresponsibility (and this is in only the kindest of parallel universes) and still knowing it is a relationship he cannot ever conceive of giving up...

If he could just prove himself capable in every other area of his life, just please his father and bring pride to his mother in other ways, maybe both his father and Damien's may just not force what they could have together, to die.

Mamá sighs. "Leo...astèri mou. You don't understand. I am already proud of you."

Oh no. Had he just said the words aloud?

He responds to her answer with another question. "How did you find out about us, Mamá?"

She shakes her head. "Kyría Vasilikou." Damien's mother, who hid Leo in a cupboard that one time Kyríe Vasilikos almost caught them. She had been extraordinarily kind and very contrite - sending Leo with a box of melomakarona and begging him never to come to this house again for fear of what Damien's father may do to him next.

He remembers Mamá's words from that evening.

"Damien's father - and his father before him - are extraordinarily dedicated to the King. It was His father that ensured their family would be set for many, many years to come...and his gratitude towards them can make him blind to what could make his own son happy."

The mother who had birthed him, the one he had often called Mummy, is at best a faded memory now. He called Eleanor Mamá almost a year after she'd married his father, because he finally felt ready and because it suited her. That evening, he understood his Mamá's underlying message.

I will always support you. But until we can figure out a way, you must be careful.

And so he will be. Both Damien and he will try their darnedest not to be too obvious about their love for each other...and Leo will continue to work harder on his lessons.

Smiling, Mamá changes the subject. "Liam's very upset we won't let him have shrimp saganaki."

Leo bursts out laughing. "He's had it so many times already!"

She shrugs. "Oh no, not that way. He's demanding the "Leo and Damien special". Ouzo and all. I suspect the baby of our family wants to be seen as a baby no more."

He rolls his eyes. "He's going to be really disappointed. It's not going to be that different from regular saganaki. Just makes it taste a little bit more like anise."

If that isn't a fitting symbol of what adolescence feels like when you come out of your big impractical dreams of what adolescence might be, Eleanor doesn't know what is. It is a lesson they all learned the hard way, only to see their children struggle with it too. They can only sit back, knowing that nothing they can say will change the kids' minds.

Leo at age 14 is already bored of his teenage years and raising his eyes towards the glamour of adulthood. Liam at age 8 has a far too rosy picture of adolescence, and envies his brother for being the whole-body-manifestation of everything he now wants but knows he needs to wait to have.

And while Eleanor will be forever grateful Liam has inherited her vast capacity for patience and not his father's, she is also aware that that patience is beginning to wear thin.

Leo may be too focused on his feelings for Damien to see it, but a time will come when the brother he has always considered a kid will grow before his eyes, and he will be too surprised by the change to understand, or know how to communicate. She can only hope they'll find their little ways, as they once did before.

Sighing, she passes her eldest a coin, and takes a second in her own hand.

"Ready to make a wish?"

Leo nods. Eleanor smiles. She knows already what he's going to ask.

Eleanor tosses hers into the well, watching as it makes its rapid descent down.

Whatever else changes, just make sure these two never forget how much they need each other.

Eleanor returns to the palace with her son, smiling. Between the Wishing Well and the official gardens, there are bits and pieces of a plan taking shape, a plan for a garden maze. Around it, she can see her youngest playing tag with his friends: one of whom is the youngest of their gardener, a little boy Liam seems to have taken under his wing.

Leo and his mother stop by to watch the children. Both sigh, and both realize it's for the same reason.

Liam will be thrust into his adolescent years before he even knows it. But at least they both can enjoy this sight of him enjoying his childhood completely, wholeheartedly, for what it is. If only for today.

Recipes:

Shrimp Saganaki

Corfoit Bianco

Horiatiko Psomi

A/N2: For Sibling Day I really wanted to do a fic that explored the dynamics of a sibling pair with a significant age gap. There is some amount of awe at older people - esp older kids- at their age, as well as a little envy and a desire to become them.

Meanings:

Kyríos/Kyría: Greek for Mr and Mrs usually.

Thisavré mou - my treasure

Ouzo - Ouzo is an anise-flavored liquor produced from grape must (the remnants of wine-making). It can only be made in Greece and Cyprus

Feta cheese - A brined, white cheese with a soft and creamy texture, often made from sheep's milk.

Navroze - Festival for Parsi New Year, often celebrated with Iranians around the world as well as other Zoroastrian communities.

Babás/Mamá - Greek for Dad and Mum.

Astéri mou - my star

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #KLAW Day 1 #KLAW Day 1: Throwback #lizzybeth1986 #content: fanfic

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lizzybeth1986 · 7 months ago

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Tagging @kingliamappreciationweek and @sazanes for KLAW Day 1: Throwback

1. What about this character inspired you to create this piece?

Many different things - but the two most important were to truly acknowledge Liam's trauma esp post his father's death, and to respect his (and the Therons') ideology in a way canon never did. The canon narrative fawns over the overly militaristic-minded characters so much that they often throw others like Liam, Hana and the Theron family under the bus. I wanted to highlight the value of that kind of ideology through Liam in this chapter especially.

2. What was your process like?

Mostly linear, but there were several aspects where I needed to do a lot more research. Especially for funeral practices in the British Royal Family. This was written maybe a year after QEII's funeral, so I definitely borrowed a few elements from that - such as the Vigil of the Princes (and I modelled the Vigil of the Great Houses on the vigil her grandchildren were supposed to keep, I think).

3. What part of creating this piece sparked the most joy/satisfaction?

In terms of joy - definitely the slow thawing of the ice between Hakim and Liam. Hakim has a right to be wary, and it is on Liam in this story to prove to him that he is on Hakim's side. I did love writing their dynamic together - Hakim's desire to trust and talk to Liam interspersed with his hurt at what Constantine (and unknowingly, the royal family) caused in barely acknowledging him and his family. Liam has a long way to go, but he has made inroads in this chapter.

In terms of satisfaction - I feel the sequence with the statues because that was a way of showing the value of art and more peaceful pursuits, but also the funeral scenes themselves.

Canon neatly skipped that part of the story and went straight to visiting Lythikos, and allowed Liam to only shed a single tear (by option!) at the end of the book. My Liam's way of coping tends to be to block memories, and I show a glimpse of that with his thoughts on the funeral. I also wanted to acknowledge how difficult a time it would be for my MC Esther, who suffered greatly at Constantine's hands and would still likely have to listen to eulogies that praised this man. I wanted to acknowledge these difficult things and truly center those characters in those conflicts rather than brush them over.

4. What was your playlist for this piece of work?

I listened to a lot of Queen II, the second album of Queen. Particularly the "Side White" which had some lovely pieces by Brian May. I particularly listened a LOT to "Father to Son". I just thought that idea of a father believing that one day eventually his son will understand his choices fitted this, even in an ironic way.

Take this letter that I give you

Take it, sonny, hold it high

You won't understand a word that's in it

But you'll write it all again before you die

Legacies

Book: The Royal Romance, Book 3

Pairing: None - mostly Liam and Hakim bonding, mentions of Hakim and Constantine's friendship

Rating: G

Word Count: 4, 813 words

Summary: In the aftermath of his father's death, Liam struggles with the lionizing of Constantine's rule, and wonders at the legacy he wants to leave behind. Answers emerge from an unlikely source.

Tagging @kingliamappreciationweek and @sazanes for KLAW Day 2: Historian theme, @choicesficwriterscreations for FoTW, and @aprilchallenge for the prompt "Garden".

Music: "Father to Son" by Queen.

Chapter 1: The Statues

(Faceclaims:

King Liam - Daniel Henney

Hakim Thorne: M’Barek Bouhchichi)

There is a gaping emptiness in Liam's chest, from the minute his father died right before his eyes. No overwhelming grief, no soul-ripping pain, not even anger. Just a void where a beating heart should be.

Father is lying in state now at the Queen Kendra Hall - not too far from Bossina Cathedral - where he will remain for the next twelve days. Liam almost hates himself for having far clearer memories of his father's cleaned, lavishly-decorated (in every medal he'd recieved since the age of 18) corpse, than of the moment he died - before reminding himself that at least with Father he remembers something. With Mum he doesn't even have that.

Liam keeps his eyes down, his head bent and his face studiously blank as the current crowd of mourners disperse, making way for more. The Vigil of the Princes is only twenty minutes...but in that time he can see, from the corner of his eye, a wide range of people come and go - most of them from the military and the coastal communities. As Liam had suspected, the people who benefited most from Father's rule were the most invested in soaking in that one last glimpse of him.

Leo is at the other end of Father's casket, also dressed in military garb, the torchlight from the walls making both his and Liam's medals sparkle. Liam cannot see his elder brother now but he knows, instinctively, that the struggle on his face to hold himself together must show. In the past this struggle had baffled him. There had been times when he pitied Leo his inability to uphold the family propensity towards being stoic. Over the years there have been times he was grateful Leo didn't have to worry about the consequences of his emotions showing on his face anymore.

But not today. Today, Liam envies his brother for the luxury of feeling.

Five minutes before Bastien - from his vantage point on one of the smaller balconies - taps his staff five times to signal the end of their vigil. A brief flash of Father in his last seconds blazes behind Liam's closed eyes, before disintegrating into an image of his gnarled, faintly-discoloured hands this morning. Clutching a book in his right hand, his left barely touching a blue flower placed on his chest.

Every member of the royal family is buried with at least 3 items that were either close to their hearts, or that acted as symbols for their reign. Father was one of the... dubiously fortunate few in recent times, who could draw up a will that included this (and other) details: a fresh blue Aster - their national blossom - plucked the day they prepared his casket, a small decanter of the calvados that had been made almost 62 years ago in celebration of his birth, and a copy of An Insighte Into The Great Apple War of 1244 by Artemisia Fierro and Sofonisba Vescovi, two scholars of the Renaissance who had once held connections to Cordonian nobility.

Liam takes in a deep breath as memories of his father's love for that book flood him. It had been only the second tome ever written on one of the last and most successful war campaigns in Cordonia, he'd whispered almost conspirationally to Liam once, and was considered the better-researched text of the two.

Father had always had a fascination with studying past wars. Almost as if to gear himself up for some sort of battle.

Was any of that ever worth it? Liam wants to ask his father one last time. The fear, the paranoia, the frowns that deepened almost to permanence on his skin in his final years, the forever impulse to look over his shoulder for the knife in his back...did any of it do any of them any good in the end??

As if in answer to his questions, Bastien's staff hits the floor five times. Without even looking around, Liam's footsteps move on instinct alone towards the area where Esther stands patiently with the Queen Mother, waiting. Her eyes are sheilded by the half-veil from her black box-hat, and the rest of her face is the very portrait of serenity. But as she places a hand over the crook of his elbow, he notices how they tremble.

They both nod in Mother's direction, their hearts turning over at the sight of her pale, pinched face, and move away.

This week cannot possibly have been easy for Esther. All week she has had to give interviews - as the last person outside of the King Father's family to speak to him before he died. All week the press has been badgering her to wear the medallion he had bequeathed to her, if only in his honour. She has been listening to every kind word, every eulogy, every speech with studied calm - only the rise-and-fall movement in her throat giving her away.

Brilliant strategist. Ruthless towards his enemies and devoted to his people. A truth pioneer of his times. The lifeblood of this land, a lion among men. A man who devoted his life in pursuit of ensuring the safety of all under his reign.

Liam's eyes were trained towards the dias when that speech was being given. On his arm, the light sting of Esther's manicured nails digging into his flesh grew sharper. He pressed his lips together and bore the pain, shaking his head and smiling weakly as she fretted over the half-moons left behind on his hand an hour later. It's nothing.

And that isn't a lie.

The truth of her feelings towards the father he had once loved and hero-worshipped...the father he still catches himself admiring sometimes...settles on Liam's chest like an unbearable weight. It is one he is prepared to carry - their whole lives if need be. Because as much as it hurts him to see the woman he loves lose all respect for his childhood hero, it is nothing compared to the hours and hours she has spent sitting through a thousand emotional tributes to the man who had so coldly planned such a complete violation of her space. A space that, as a foreigner in King Constantine's land, she had trusted him to keep safe for her...at the very least.

As he turns away from Esther to watch The Vigil of The Great Houses - their observance half the time of the Princes' - Liam steals a glance towards Olivia, the ruby on her brooch the only spot of colour against her black attire and pale visage. Her countenance is solemn until the moment her eyes rest on her aunt - the sight of the woman making her lock her jaw in such defiance that he can almost hear the message she is sending.

I am the Duchess of Lythikos. I will make sure we do our duty and pay our respects to the man who was once our king. Yes, auntie, Lythikos' king. Fight me.

Standing a few feet away is Bertrand, his senses strangely attuned nowadays to the cries of babies and toddlers...the mental calculations of what his little son sounds like now writ large on his face.

The Duchesses Emmeline and Adeleide, of Portavira and Krona respectively, fold their hands in front and bow their heads solemnly. Liam supposes he can only be grateful that Countess Madeleine's mother chose the sheer dreariness of sobriety today rather than her usually unflappable high spirits; for besides a few furtive glances in her determinedly stoic daughter's direction she shows nothing but a muted (but perhaps not entirely sincere) sorrow.

But it is the Duke of Castelserraillan - standing directly in line with Liam's field of vision - that captures Liam's attention. Jaw set, eyes dark and glittering, his face such a tapestry of restrained grief and resignation that Liam is certain he juat imagined the flicker of bleak anger in the older man's eyes.

The last time he had seen Duke Hakim was at the Costume Gala. Amid the festivities, Liam spotted him with Father, their heads leaning slightly in each other's direction, as if exchanging long-repressed confidences...the Duke on occasion placing a hand on Father's arm with a familiarity that Liam had only heard of secondhand. There was even a point in the conversation where Duke Hakim looked directly at his father, eyebrows raised, a subdued delight glimmering in their dark depths.

Esther would inform him later on that the two had fought over Father's repeated snubs and Duke Hakim's fraying patience at the beginning of the ball, but patched up in seconds.

Looking at Duke Hakim's face now, he wonders which sentiment haunts the older man the most - relief over that one second chance they got, or an unhealed hurt. Unhealed hurt over the the fact that King Constantine didn't have a chance to make good on the promises he'd broken, long ago.

Promises, perhaps, that the Duke may not even be sure his best friend intended to keep.

For as long as Liam can remember, he has always associated the moonlight with the Capitol Square. Walks around the city were a luxury the little prince could ill-afford with his Father's packed schedule. When these little excursions did happen, they happened at night, in the light of the moon and the street lamps, the air fragrant with the scent of wildflowers. He would take Liam alone. Mum would often find reasons to demur...although in later years Liam suspected she made them up so her husband and youngest son would have their own time together to spend.

He would look up at the strong, chiseled features of his father's beloved face, admiring the way the moonlight emphasized its sharp, decisive angles. Father loved to show strength and control, even on a casual outing with his children. His was a jawline that seemed carved out of marble, softened only by full lips that dazzled when he offered the rare smile. A smile Liam saw most often when they stood at the Capitol Square.

Look at these statues, young man. Father would say, his hand gesturing vaguely towards the sword on famed Captain Guard Valentina Greaves raised left hand. At the age of 5 the statues - with their weapons and their fierce gazes - terrified him, at age 12 they intimidated him. Look at these faces, look at the resolve in them. To better their country. To fight for it. To keep it safe. Cordonia has always depended on the best of us to take her forward into the future - and these indeed represent the best of us.

He hasn't come here since his Coronation. Indeed - one could always put it down to the amount of travelling the new King had to undertake since...but Liam knows better. He has been hesitant to visit this place since the night he had confronted his father on his hospital bed in Shanghai.

Tonight is different. Tonight he needs answers. Tonight he needs to understand, for himself, if in refusing to play in the shadow of his father he is making a mistake - or circumventing another tragedy.

Both he and his future Queen have been sitting through three days straight of eulogies. Of stump speeches that have been lightly modified to suit the gravity of the moment, of stories and anecdotes that lionized and whitewashed the man King Constantine was. Not just from nobles but from businessmen, fisherfolk, soldiers and generals.

Liam has long determined that he will never follow the route his father swore by. It is not who he is as a man; it will never be who he wants to become as a king. But on nights like tonight those words of praise for his predecessor haunt him. If the ghost of his father were to ever take shape, it would do so in just one question.

You have become so stubborn in your need to be the antithesis of me. Will Cordonia end up paying price for that?

So tonight he takes that walk to the square alone. In anticipation and in dread.

Until he finds himself at the foot of the statue of Valentina Greaves, and discovers he isn't alone, after all.

"Your Majesty," the voice behind him is deep and rumbling, its sound resembling the depths of a pounding waterfall. Duke Hakim has discarded his jacket this warm night, the waistcoat and shirt registering the straightening of his shoulders. In his right hand, an ornate gold pocketwatch.

Liam smiles briefly in welcome, letting the older man know he isn't intruding in on a private moment of mourning.

"Good evening, Duke Hakim," he straightens his own shoulders. There was once a time - a time that has faded into blurred memory - that he took joy in calling this man "Uncle". When did that stop? It has been so long he cannot even recall.

The two keep silent for a time. There is, after all, far too little and far too much to say. Stripped of their titles and reduced to the basics, Liam is the son of the Duke's best friend. He is also the son of the man that had his friendship and loyalty in the palm of his hand for years, and never understood or appreciated it. So much of what Liam knows of Father's friendship with Duke Hakim, he knows in bits and pieces: in the exchange of disappointed glances between his mother and Kiara's parents, in piling-up of invitation cards to events on Father's desk that went unanswered. In the too-long pauses Queen Regina would take every time she returned from an event at Castelserraillan, where she went as the King's representative. Even in the rare moments Father remembered his university days. There isn't a single second in those memories that Duke Hakim didn't play a starring role in.

It is in silence that they move from the statue of Val Greaves to the next. The night breeze brings with it the scents of orange blossom and french lavender - gifts from Duke Hakim's great-great-grandparents to an ancestor of his. The next figure of marble glares defiantly to his right, a spear in one hand and an apple cupped in the palm of the other.

"King Aithan." Is it his own imagination or is Duke Hakim's smile truly trembling on his lips? "who won the Great Apple War of 1244 in the most decisive victory since his grandmother united the Five Kingdoms."

Queen Kenna, the aforementioned ancestor, is right behind them, her legs standing apart and an array of weapons from all over the Five Kingdoms at the base of her statue. If you took in the sight of both figures together, Father had told him once, you could almost convince yourself that she seemed to stare directly at Aithan, imparting her blessings and her wisdom. More than the words, it is the shine in Father's blue eyes that Liam remembers most.

Duke Hakim's eyes glitter oddly in the moonlight. There is a moist sheen to them now that Liam is almost afraid to ask about for fear of intruding. The next words that come from his mouth are uttered softly, so softly that it's as if he is saying them to himself, as if he has forgotten that the man next to him exists.

"I've lost count of the times we used to played tag here." Absently, he runs a tender finger along the back of the watch fob he is holding, staring at it with a gaze soaked in muted grief. "It wasn't very hard to find Kontos. He always chose King Aithan's statue to hide behind."

Liam offers a sad smile of his own. "My father was nothing if not predictable."

The two men share halting, reluctant chuckles over this shared image. An image neither of them expected the other to recognise. It unravels some tightened cord between them - one that made it impossible for them to speak as if they knew each other.

"I didn't realize you and Father knew each other so well as children," Liam whispers as they pass other statues. Queen Ilona, 1346, who staged several successful attacks on the more hostile of their neighbours. King Calix, 1420, who thwarted at least three coups in his lifetime and finally managed to keep the Nevrakis family in a stronghold that they found impossible to wriggle out of until two centuries later. Queen Flora, 1492, who held her two year old child in one hand and slashed down the traitors who had entered her bedchambers with the other. The sword on her right hand is sculpted to appear as if it's still in midair, perhaps to complement the fire and brimstone in her eyes. "All the stories Mum told me of the two of you seemed to happen in university. I always assumed you weren't close till then."

A small frown pierces the skin between the Duke's eyebrows. When he speaks, his words are suddenly clipped, as if they are strangers again. Liam bites his tongue, chiding himself on his uncharacteristic carelessness.

"We weren't close until University. Just playmates whenever my mother brought me down to the Capitol. Duchess Emmeline and Duke Barthelemy could have boasted of the same." His voice is a hoarse rasp, his nails scraping lightly over the watch. "I'm more surprised you heard those stories from Ellie's mouth, not his." As if she were the only one who cared enough to keep them alive, Liam can imagine him thinking, and on an instinct fostered by years of now-destroyed blind worship, he leaps to his father's defence.

"I did hear a few from him. Just not as many. You'd know when he was the happiest because those were the stories he'd tell."

Duke Hakim respectfully appraises his King in a speculative glance, not entirely convinced. Liam cannot find it in him to blame the elder man. For years, Queen Regina - and then himself - had been the mouthpieces Father used to deliver excuses for his rejections of Castelserraillan's overtures. Each time the Duke would briefly glance over their shoulders as if expecting someone else - each time the glow of hope would dim from his eyes when he saw no one. Over the years it has made him wary not only of his old friend, but of them too.

The distance between the men has undoubtedly created a chasm amongst the families - one Liam doesn't know yet how to break through. There is no real reason for Duke Hakim, or his wife, or his daughter (who he had befriended himself over the course of the social season, and who has been around less and less since the Gala. It's gone long enough for him to begin worrying. Should he change the subject and ask the Duke about her?)...no reason at all to believe that Liam is different, that he is a man who will not abandon his well-wishers. Or even that he is a king who shares their goals, their dreams for this country.

There may come a time when Duke Hakim will believe Liam cares about what he thinks. Today is not that day.

As if to encourage a change in the subject, Liam looks around at the many statues dotting the Square. "Every single figure here is that of a warrior."

Duke Hakim grants him a weak, resigned smile. "I hear there used to be more. It was your grandmother who had them removed."

Yiayia Cassandra. Whose intimidating, terrifying countenance made his own father appear like a lamb in comparison - a statement both mother and son would've loathed to hear. Who hated the Nevrakises but kept tomes and tomes of their ancient books on war strategy. Who scoffed at art as being a useless, ego-fuelled and far too fanciful exercise.

Father would often speak of her with the same blind worship Liam had once reserved for him. It isn't surprising then his politics turned out the way it did, that despite his disdain for Olivia and her lack of courtliness, a part of King Constantine wouldn't wholly disagree with a lot of what she could propose.

Strength and authority. Those were the qualities the Royal Family wanted above all others in their heirs; anything different would spell failure.

Already, as Liam poses the question to the man beside him, he realises with a lump in his throat that he knows what the answer will be. "Which statues were those?"

"Artists. Scribes. Inventors. Scientists. People who advanced the nation in times of peace."

Liam smiles sadly. "And who are often overlooked in favour of the drama and glamour bloodshed brings." He responds with a shiver.

He is rewarded for this admission with a sharp, shocked look from Duke Hakim. An emotion, a memory, seems to flicker in his eyes before it swiftly disappears in the neutral game-face he has been showing around Liam all this time.

"I don't have the most trustworthy memory on the ones I did manage to see; it's been too long." The watch fob disappears into his fisted hands. "One of our own was part of this esteemed gathering. Dominique Lavigne, a master sculptor of her own time, who dressed as a man to get recognition. Yusuf Hadid from Domvallier, who combined Arabic calligraphy with our own Cordonian arts in handwriting. Saengdao Adair from Krysanthe, a pioneer in herbal medicine and the reason Krysanthans excel in both traditional and allopathic medicinal fields even today."

Liam freezes. "That last name? Could you repeat that again?" It's a name he's read about, vaguely, in obscure texts...but the fact that there's a statue...

"Saengdao Adair," the Duke says, locking his companion in a quizzical gaze. "Her statue -"

" - was mentioned in my father's will. Among others." Liam whispers, almost to himself.

Hakim's eyes widen. The contents of a passing monarch's will - even one who had passed on his throne to the next in line before his death - would be jealously guarded by the Palace, only released to the public years or maybe decades later. This is clearly information the King wouldn't impart so arbitrarily to just anyone.

More than once he has tried to stop himself from wondering if the boy had more of his mother in him. It was a hope he'd always held to his chest in the early years of Constantine's withdrawal...one that died when it became clear that he wanted little - if at all - to do with the Thornes. Against all wisdom, this small exchange is beginning to allow that hope to flare up within him again. Belatedly, he loosens his grip on his old, trusted watch fob - a gift from Kontos the year they graduated.

Liam rubs the space between his brows, trying to remember. "His will mentioned the King Fabian Alcove," he whispers, "that arrangements were to be made to shift it there from the Stirling Halls."

"Stirling Halls," Duke Hakim repeats, his voice suddenly hollow. Liam knows he must be remembering it as the place that was open to no one barring the Royal Family - not even members of the Great Houses. That was where all art went to die?

"The date on the will is from two and a half weeks before the Costume Gala," Liam says softly, his eyes searching Duke Hakim's face, then the hands that have dropped to his sides. The pocket watch is still there, his thumb running distractedly over it. "They only transfer artifacts to the alcove when they -"

"...when permission is granted to reveal those works to the public."

The two men stand still, soaking in their collective memories of the man whose body now lies in wait, to be descended into the Royal Family Vaults. To be buried beside men and women he'd read about in textbooks, loved, idolized. Who embodied his favourite words: Bravery. Valour. Strength. Warriors.

But he would also be buried next to men and women who understood the value of times of peace. Who - as he had often heard in Duke Hakim and Duchess Joëlle's speeches - advocated that a country gave you its best when its environment made you feel safe enough to create. And that was a safety that went far beyond border protection and weaponry.

People that Father would regularly dismiss when he and Leo were growing up. People that Cordonia wouldn't give a second thought to, nowadays. Because the value of their advancements were seeped so deep into public consciousness that they were often taken for granted.

Here in Cordonia, the mindset of the reigning monarch and the collective mindsets of their people often fed on each other. Yesterday's history books could hail one man a hero one minute, and a weakling the next. And for at least two centuries - perhaps bored from decades and decades of peace and good diplomacy, who knows? - the popular view seemed to favour a fondness for the most dramatic and bloodthirsty of their ancestors. Father was no different in holding that view.

When had that changed?

The moonlight casts the Duke's face into a fascinating interplay of light and shadow. The lines of his jaw are softer than Father's, but signify its own unique brand of strength. The air around them is scented and heavy, almost as if this moment promises a watershed of sorts, and that very air is drawing a bated breath.

"I haven't visited that alcove in a long time," Liam admits, looking away, "I don't remember where it is."

Duke Hakim swallows, then motions his hand vaguely to their left. "It's this way."

The alcove is inside a garden - a fairly large one, made of old red brick and surrounded by an array of beautiful creepers. The two men stop short of going inside, halting their steps and drawing a gasp at the sight in front of them.

"... Saengdao Adair?" Liam whispers, drinking in the sight of this pioneer with his eyes. Her hair is long, her voluminous folds of her robe billowing almost realistically as if they were real linen, not marble. A mortar and pestle rests in one hand; her other is raised, delicately holding a sprig of stinging nettle.

There are others. So many others. A woman with a map and a compass, staring ahead into horizons not yet explored. A man with a richly-feathered quill in his hand, a book in the other. A woman holding a jewel-embellished half-mask. A simple sculpture of a man dressed in the garb of the ancient Technocrats, his eyes glowing at the sight of the nails and bolts in his hand, ready to invent something new.

A woman seated on her heels, hammer and chisel in hand, lips pursed and eyebrows scrunched together as she worked at transforming stone to a work of art.

Liam lets out a small, watery laugh. "A sculpture for a sculptor."

The Duke responds with a smile, shaking his head. "Fali Kraine from the Blackspine Mountains."

Liam nods. "They say she had this precise look on her face and sat exactly this way while sculpting this piece. What I wouldn't give to witness that."

But the centerpiece of the alcove is a woman. A scribe. Hunched over - in the rough cotton garb of a scribe from the Renaissance - books and parchment. Transcribing - letter for letter and word for word - the history of her nation so that her descendants could share it with their children. His ancestor. Queen Lisabetta.

"King Fabian commissioned this," Hakim's voice is a hoarse, shaky whisper, "to remind his beloved wife of the value of the work she had once done."

Liam swallows a painful lump in his throat. Back in the palace, an hour ago - he had stayed in Esther's room, knowing she would need him more these next few nights if she were to preserve an ounce of her sanity.

"You're a good man, Liam," she had murmured against his throat.

He held her tighter, smiling slightly against her hair. "That won't always translate into becoming a great king, my love."

Against her own will, she let out a long yawn. Her fingers ran lightly over his chest before resting against his heart. "But it certainly helps."

He had held her until he was sure her body was resting softly and heavily against his, her breathing slow and deep...and then quietly slipped out of her arms to walk to the Capitol Square.

He looks at the Duke too. Both he and his children took this trip without Duchess Joëlle, who chose to go to Switzerland. He remembers every account of how attached the couple are and how much they dislike being apart - including his own mother's. Liam winces; he never recognized until now the sacrifice Duke Hakim made in coming here without her.

Yet here he is. For a country that will not always respect him. For a friend who would not always accept him. For a King he isn't entirely sure he can trust.

For an ideology that won't capture the country's imagination, the way valiant heroes on horseback do. But if these commemorations had been shifted to this alcove, with the intention of placing them around the Capitol Square...that must mean some change was underway. Within his father, and with Liam's help perhaps within the rest of the country too.

"It's getting late," Liam says, straightening up and getting ready to leave the alcove. "We'd better head back to the palace."

"In a minute, Your Majesty," Duke Hakim says, giving him a brief bow, then turning to the statue of Queen Lisabetta.

As Liam leaves the alcove, he hears a voice so soft he wonders if he had imagined it.

"Kontos," the voice said, a sigh released from deep inside a man's chest, "Kontos, you listened."

A/N: This mini series takes place in the Petals and Thornes universe, that revolves around a romance between Hana and Kiara. While a lot of the story beats follow canon, I do make a lot of deviations from the text, including with other characters who aren't central to the story but whose stories have a definite influence on the larger plot. I'm hoping to make Legacies one of them. At present I plan for it to be a four part series.

A/N2: In canon, Constantine's funeral and burial arrangements lasts just a week, all of which was skipped entirely to the Lythikos leg of the Unity Tour. I have increased that time to 12 days.

The Vigil of the Princes is based on the British tradition (of the same name) in royal funerals - esp that of the monarch - where the family members stay vigil for 10-15 minutes near the casket of the deceased. Family who has served in the military perform this ritual in their military uniform.

The Great Houses' Vigil is my own creation but with elements borrowed from the above tradition. My HC is that it is shorter and unlike the surviving royals, the members of the Great Houses are not required to wear military uniform.

Kontos is a playful nickname that Constantine's close ones were allowed to use for him, as long as they didn't use it in public (because apparently the meaning in Greek is "short")

Krysanthe is the modern-day Aurelia, with Hana being their current Duchess/Head of House. Saengdao is indeed Annelyse's descendant. Here is my HC on the duchy and Hana's rise to Duchess.

Characters from my playthrough of TRM in this story:

Artemisia Fierro - Hunter (f!Asian)

Sofonisba Vescovi - Kayden (f!Black)

Lisabetta Rosario - MC, who fell for Artemisia initially but married Fabian later on. Artemisia and Sofonisba keep in touch with the royal couple and are protected by the Crown.

#king liam #liam rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW 2024 #KLAW Day 1: Throwback #lizzybeth1986 #content: fanfic

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