With the promise made with the children, the woman continued her tale, her voice bright and cheery and eyes sparkling in the light. As she continued to recite The Ancient Saga, she watched their little eyes slowly fall closed as sleep weighed them down. Once she was sure they were completely asleep, she slowly got up from her rocking chair and carefully moved around the room littered with various toys and half finished drawings. She made a mental note to have the children pick up their chamber when they awoke the next day. It would do them no favors to learn such sloppiness early into their development she mused. 

The old woman left the chamber and was met with a middle aged man with wrinkles on the side of his mouth and on his eyebrows that suggested he was a man who frowned often. Indeed she mused, he did indeed frown often, and she seemed more and more to be the cause of said expression. As she glanced him over, she took note of his gaudy clothes, his arrogant posture, and his bejeweled watch. He was checking the time and seemed irate that she had not met him right upon the hour but it was of no concern to her. The children in that room were far more important than he, even if he was her son.

“Mother, you have kept me waiting yet again. How many times have I told you to leave the bed time to the nanny and to stop lowering yourself to doing such chores? It brings disgrace to the family for you to continue doing such!”

She had long ago gotten proficient at ignoring his callous and ridiculous words, and she paid him no mind this time as well. She had once had high hopes for him in continuing on the legacy of their household but greed and unearned pride had misguided him decades ago and she had since written him off as a long cause.

“Come now, it was only a slight delay as I cared for the children. What has you haunting their chambers and raising your voice at me so?”

“Mother you know darn well why I am here, I heard you telling the children that nonsense again, and I have told you many a time that you should cease such mindless prattling to them! They do not need to grow up with your make believe stories convincing them they are something that they are not. Especially my four- they will grow up to a much higher status and glory than the simple life of servitude that you tried to force upon me when I was their age.”

She could take him belittling her, but calling their history, that the family had so carefully passed down and preserved over hundreds of years, was crossing the line. She knew he yearned to climb the ranks but as she had warned him many times before, their strength came from their devotion to the royal family. None could take their place as the closest of servants and advisors to the crown.

“You may call me old and foolish, but I have lived many years more than you, raised you, and have mastered the history of our family more than any other clansman. Even after your father passed, I led this family with you not even weaned from my breast. I still hold sway over this family Daniel, and if you continue to disrespect the work of our ancestors in front of me, I will cut you down in one way or another.”