[He purses his lips, still studying his father in the distance as she speaks, though he does listen- when it's about his mother, he always listens, like a dog under the table hungry for every crumb that falls. A brilliant star. Of course he'd call her that. She'd been a light in his eyes, a beacon of trouble to king and court before his father's coronation.]

When he found out I was from our line, Dad asked who my father was. I told him to guess, and he knew me by my eyes. [Her eyes.] She's the one who gave me my name, too. She said that Dad could be king all he needed to be during the day, but "the night is for us".

[It was a promise Regis hadn't been able to keep forever, ultimately; such is the weight of the crown, of grief and responsibility, when war and country demanded more than a lonely toddler. And he's sure it was hard for his father to look at him sometimes, seeing so much of her in his features and feeling that loss all over again. But he hopes that for all the difficulties they had over the years, he was still able to bring his father that kind of joy a few more times when he needed it. Wayward, the king had called him on that final day when he left the Citadel. Like her, he thinks, in retrospect.]