The Observer
A short set of prose as Theonar reflects on his life and situation.
My name is Theonar, of the proud house of Azthic. I am the best spearman in the Dwarven empire.
The woman I love more than anyone else in this world is married to the man I despise with all my heart.
I have dedicated my life to defending his until my dying breath.
I am his personal bodyguard. I trained harder and more intensely for this position than anyone preceding me ever has. It is my sole responsibility to ensure his life is secure, and it is my sole wish that he meets an untimely end. Lady luck has never been on my side, he is as alive as ever. But he is a noble, and an important one, at that. He leaves for diplomatic meetings, and sometimes allows me a break, he brings another guard with him.
It is then that we can rendezvous. My love and I are free to fraternize together in secret, both of us liberated from his grasp. Everything was perfect for a while. Our times are far and few in-between, but we truly made the most of them when we could. Until one day, that all changed.
My love, the woman I have dedicated my whole life to, had a child.
Her name is Einris.
She is too short, even for a Dwarf she is concerningly small. Her eyes are pitiless and black like her hair. Her nose is too sharp, pointed just like mine. She is bossy and grabby and clingy and has certainly spent too much time playing in the royal castle dungeon.
She is perfect. She is the true embodiment of our love together, and I love her with all the heart I have to give. There is not a father in this world who could feel love for a child deeper than I when I see her.
She doesn't even know my name.
I stand by, silently watching- silently suffering- as her dusky eyes fill with stars when she looks upon her false father. The smile she gives him, it is true radiance. She looks to him with innocence and such a blissful ignorance. When she see her false father, she runs to him with glee calling, "Father! Father!" She doesn't know. She never will. For if she were to ever find out the truth, should the salacious deeds of so many blurry nights ago finally come to limelight, then it would surely mark my last mortal day.
It would have been worth it. For her.
But as days pass, her eyes that light up like the beautiful night sky for her false father hardly glance upon me, their glorious shimmer all but absent. To her, I am nothing. Nobody. To hear her call me 'Father', to see her look upon me with the same reverent fondness she gazes upon her false father with every day, To have her regard me with anything but the cold indifference she regards me with.
the one desire I long to fulfill. The one thing I cannot ever have.
My name is Theonar of House Azthic. My daughter's name is Einris of House Moonhewer.
I am nothing more than an observer in the life of my daughter.