Natiselle -
“Papa?” I asked
“Yes, my Little Bird?”
I pointed at diagram at all of the Pravaci families. “Why is this one shorter than the others? They all have a row of more names here, but this one is short.”
“Ah,” he murmured to himself and rubbed the nape of his neck. “Onell!” he called.
“Papa! Mother and Kriao are in town,” I said.
“Well, that is the Deracose family. Do you remember what the Deracose family’s domain is?” He asked, fiddling with his beard.
“War. They train all of the soldiers and peacekeepers and keep everyone safe,” I rattled off.
“Very good, now which house is the most?”
“The King house is House Bestolin and they are in charge of the law. King Reviante Bestolin is in charge.”
“House Bestolin is actually the Regent House. That means that he is in charge of the kingdom until the real King Houses can rule again.”
I chewed on my lip and stared at the diagram again, “I don’t understand.”
“Do you remember the old King Houses?” he asked gently.
“Can you tell me again, Papa?”
“Of course, Little Bird. So, before you were born, we still had the twelve Pravaci families, that was the same. But, there were two families worked together the closest and were in charge of the rest of the families. They were the House Deracose and the House Seblire.”
“War and Money!” That I could remember.
“Yes, Military and Economics. Because so much of our land’s governance relies on –”
“Papa, what is governance?”
“It means to rule or be in control of. Now, where was I?” he looked off into the distance briefly before collecting himself. “Yes, because most of the rules
have to do with money and keeping little beasts like you –” He took this opportunity to tickle me and I squirmed away from him.
“Papa! Finish the story!” I giggled.
“Because we need a lot of rules to keep everyone safe and have money to buy things. Those two houses were the King Houses. The Houses Deracose and Seblire were so close that they were almost brother houses. They loved each other as if they were one family.” He stopped, and it was like a shadow passed over his face.
“Then there was a big fight between the two houses and they stopped acting like brothers. They started acting like enemies.”
“Why?”
“Well…” He stopped to tuck a curl behind my ear. “The two houses were very sad. They were very sad because some bad things happened to the Queens. And they were tricked into thinking that the other house was to blame.”
“Who tricked them?” I asked.
“A wicked witch,” he said and his eyes were far off again. Papa sometimes looked like that, like his mind was in a distant land where I could not go. “A wicked witch played a dirty trick and made the houses hate each other. So because they could not work together anymore, the Pravaci court decided to choose one house to watch over the country until House Deracose and Seblire can become brothers again.”
“Papa, that still does not tell me why the Deracose tree is not as long as the other trees,” I reminded him.
“Well something bad happened to the Queens and they both moved to the heavens.”
“Which heaven are they in?” I asked.
“Yiela’s,” he said without pausing to think.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I know because they were both good Queens who loved and cared for their people. They were kind and strong and funny and brought sunshine on the rainiest of days. To be around them was already like Yiela’s Halls of Plenty, and so it would be a mistake if they were not there now. One of the Queens, the Seblire Queen, her name was Eline had a son before she died. So his name is there on this line.” He pointed to the name Strisen in the Seblire tree. “But the other Queen did not have a child before she passed on. And the two Queens were so good that both of the Kings were very in love with them, so in love that they did not remarry.”
“That sounds so lonely.”
He looked down at me sadly and said, “Yes, Little Bird, it does,” so softly that I almost did not hear it.
“I am glad that you have Mother so you are not lonely and are not like the poor Kings.”
“Yes… I suppose I am lucky”, he whispered and I knew that he was no longer talking to me.