Third Person's POV
"Why do you love them more than me? I didn't know you existed like Kain, I wasn't by your side like Lion, and you don't want to stay with me. Why?" Opal sighed. "Dasa, call everyone to the main hall." She turned and left the room. Kain shook his head and followed his mother. "Childish." Rain snorted as he stood up and followed them out. Kai wiped his face and followed them out.
Opal sat in the main chair and waited until everyone gathered in the main hall. "Master. King Kasian is requesting an audience." Opal clicked her tongue twice in annoyance. "Bring him in. It'll save me from repeating myself." She leaned on the chair arm and looked around the room. Kasian didn't take long to walk in.
He looked around the room at everyone as he walked towards Opal. "Sit far away from me." She told him and he nodded but sat to her right next to her parents.
"In a few months, I will return to Ojun and I will live there. This isn't a discussion, it's a statement." She didn't say anything more and waited. Her grandchildren looked at the newcomers, waiting for their reactions and they didn't disappoint.
"I don't agree. We are husband and wife. We've been separated for so many years, now that you're back you should live with me and our children." Kasian was the first to speak up. "You think that because I gave birth to a few children that you can hold that over me? I'm still young, I can give birth to a few more with another man." Opal said it like she was talking about the weather.
"We are husband and wife." Kasian's voice cracked even though he wasn't shouting. "And?" She asked him. He didn't have an answer. "Will you be visiting?" Railin asked. "Yes." He nodded. "Then we'll leave with you and spend time in Ojun." Malari added quickly. "Okay." Opal agreed.
"Why them and not us?" Kai asked again. "This isn't about favoring a certain set of siblings over the others. I feel at peace in Ojun, I settled and I'm happy. After years of planning and making sure that all of my children were going to be adults in a Continent without war, I'm allowed to be selfish."
"We all miss you here. You've become a family with just them and not us. I'm not even married yet." Kai continued. "You're engaged. Lion doesn't have anyone he likes yet, but he will. Lia is in no position right now to be thinking about marriage. Heri and Jailin don't want to. Your brothers married young and had children." She paused.
"Also, I would like to add that I don't love one of you over the other. If I didn't want you or know that I wouldn't love you, then I wouldn't have kept you when I was pregnant. I explained the reason I sent you all away and why I kept your siblings by my side. I won't repeat it or this conversation again, so if any of you approach me with this nonsense, I'll leave tomorrow."
Opal stood up. "Then are you just going to neglect your husband?" She looked Kasian, who was looking at her like a lost puppy. "Neglect? You should've killed your brother and dealt with your mother when I told you or the timeline would've sped up. In any case, it worked out for the better now. Instead of worrying about me, get to know the children you knew nothing about." Opal walked out of the main hall.
"You're really interesting." Sena stated as she looked Kai. "Accusing grandmother of not loving you when she would draw your faces unknowingly when she was blind. She would tell us to describe the pictures to her and then she would tell us to burn it because she didn't know who you were. She would draw father and uncle as well, but when they were younger because she barely saw them."
Sena stood up. "I remember Father and Uncle crying silently when grandmother was in a coma. They would talk to her about things happening her, to you. Even though they could've made her forget you completely. They took care of grandmother and she got better. They loved her enough to not give into their selfish desires. When they thought grandmother regained her memories, they begged her to return just to spend a little more time with them. That was the first time, they were selfish."
She pointed at Kasian. "Then he threatened our lives and Grandmother had to agree to stay for our sake, my mother and aunt were pregnant at the time and couldn't help. Father and Uncle were also helpless; they had no choice but to leave and return to Ojun. You even poisoned her again, causing her even more harm than good when she was already remembering."
Sena scoffed. "My father and uncle gave up everything. Everything for all of you. They couldn't stay, they couldn't see her, they couldn't say they had a mother. They could only wait and grow. Only when they got old enough and their skills were high enough, only then, were they able to find grandmother on their own. They suffered more than you did and you want to be upset over fifteen years?"
She looked back at Kai. "You had twelve years with your father, one year with your mother and fifteen years with your siblings. My father was by himself for eight years before uncle was born." She looked at Lion. "You had what? 8/9 years with your mother?" She looked at Jailin. "You had 5/6 years with your father."
She looked around the room. "You think it was easy? It wasn't. She was alive, right in front of them and forgot them. Forgot you. Forgot everything! They had to start over with her. They took care of her. They worried about if that night was going to be her last because many nights were like that! Grandmother deserves to be selfish and over everyone else in this room, my father and uncle also deserve it too. So instead of thinking about your own feelings, actually get to know what we went through. We know everything about you, but you know nothing about us."
She turned to their siblings and cousins. "Let's leave."
Rain sighed deeply and wiped his tears away. Varin stood up. "My daughter didn't go into detail but that wasn't her job. If you want to know something, then ask. Don't make it seem as though we're deliberately hiding things. We came here knowing that something like this was going to happen, but I didn't expect that you'd be this stupid." She held her hand out to her husband.
Rain took her hand and left the room. "A day that was supposed to be informational has been ruined." Soria mumbled as she stood up. Kain stood up and looked at Kai. "When I would hear about your life here, I wondered if how it would be if I had switched with you. I thought that for months until I saw mother on our birthday, happily rushing towards me. I realized than that if I needed to give up my life for mother, I would happily do so."
"You can stay in self-pity but at least you had a parent. Older brother and I saw mother once every few years. She sent letters but it wasn't the same as seeing a parent every day. Think what you like but I won't be playing this game with you, since we won before the board was made."