...it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The date was set for Kilan's coronation. The royal tailors were at work making his coronation clothes. Everything was being arranged... except, unfortunately for Kilan, the question of an heir.

"But I don't want to get married!" he protested, thinking this was less likely to raise awkward questions than "But I'm already married!"

"No one cares what you want," said Chief Counsellor Dilves, frowning at him over her glasses. "The good of the Empire is all that matters. You will choose a lady of noble blood and a good reputation -- preferably a lady from one of the more discontented provinces; that should stop their whining for a while -- and you will marry her and have at least two children with her."

"I can't," Kilan insisted.

"And why not? Are you an invert? Or a eunuch?"

"Of course not!" He turned bright red.

"Then there is no possible reason you should not marry."

Except my wife, he thought, feeling that only-too-familiar-nowadays urge to hit his head against a wall. "Can it at least wait until after the coronation?"

The Chief Counsellor scowled. "It would be much better for everyone if we knew who our Empress was going to be."

"I disagree, and since I am soon to be the Emperor, my word is final."

She had no choice but to give in, but she didn't look happy about it. "What about your regnal name?"

"Regnal name?" Kilan repeated blankly. 

"You do know what that is, don't you?"

Her condescending tone nettled him. He knew perfectly well what a regnal name was. It was a name an Emperor or Empress took upon ascending to the throne, if for some reason they didn't want to keep their birth name. His uncle, Emperor Vretiel, had taken one; his birth name, Arásy had said once, was Amnollud. What Kilan couldn't understand was why the Chief Counsellor thought Kilan would take one.

"Of course I know what it is," he said waspishly. "But I won't take one. My name is Kilan. I won't be called anything else."

"It is traditional." Her sour expression became, if possible, even sourer. "And considering the circumstances in which your reign will begin, it would be wise to be as traditional as possible."

~~~~

The Council's insistence on a regnal name was ultimately unimportant except to his pride. The Council's insistence on a marriage, on the other hand... By the time Death came to him that night, Kilan had wracked his brains for some way of avoiding marriage without revealing he was already married. All his efforts had been in vain.

An Emperor needed an heir. That was plain common sense. He was unlikely to have any children with Death. That was also common sense. Even if they did somehow have a child, considering Death's other children that child would likely be the personification of something unpleasant. Hardly what the Carann Empire needed in an Emperor or Empress.

"What's wrong with you?" Death asked, sitting on the windowsill and staring at him in surprise. "You look even worse than you usually do."

Kilan got the impression there was an insult buried somewhere in that sentence, but couldn't be bothered to think about it.

"They want me to get married."

Death blinked slowly. "I beg your pardon?"

"The High Council! They want me to marry and produce an heir."

"But you are married," Death said, which was so blindingly obvious Kilan was tempted to reply with, "You don't say?"

"You know that, and I know that," he said as patiently as he could. "But the High Council does not know that, and I would rather they continued not to know that!" As an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and they want me to change my name."

Death sighed. "I won't pretend to understand what that has to do with anything, so I'll ignore it. On the subject of their wanting you to get married, can't you claim to have sworn never to marry? A sob story of a lost love rarely goes amiss. Your family has a long history of marrying their siblings. You could claim you were in love with Varan, and you could never bear to marry any other woman."

"That," said Kilan bluntly, "would be a lie of staggering proportions. And it would also be the height of stupidity. Even if I really had a lost love, the Council will find some way to force me to get married anyway."

Death pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. The gesture was so bizarrely like the actions of an eager child that it would have been funny under other circumstances. "Then get married."

"How?" Kilan demanded. "Getting a divorce would require so much work that it's out of the question, since we never applied for a marriage licence."

"We could go back to your original idea of our marriage," Death said, "where we would only be married in my world and you would be free to marry whatever princess they choose for you in this world."

Finally, Kilan thought, something approaching a sensible suggestion.

~~~~

The next day, Chief Counsellor Dilves was dumbfounded when the soon-to-be Emperor, who she had thought a most stubborn, unreasonable young man, came to her and meekly informed her he would marry the woman of the Council's choosing.

He proved much less reasonable on the subject of a regnal name.

"I don't care if it's been done for eight thousand years!" he said, pouting like a spoilt child denied what it wanted. "I won't change my name, and that's that."

Dilves took a deep breath. Slapping the heir to the throne would achieve nothing, she told herself. "Your Highness, we are not asking you to change your name. We are asking you to add a new name to your birth name, a name that will be a title used to refer to you more than a personal name."

~~~~

"...And they want me to take a regnal name!" Kilan finished in a tone that suggested this was an unforgivable offense.

Ranoryin looked at him quizzically. "And what, pray tell, is so terrible about that? Our family has done it for years. Why, even I took a regnal name! And I ended up liking it better than my birth name and using it all the time, even now. I never thought I'd agree with a High Counsellor on anything -- gods know they seem to exist just to make a monarch's life miserable! -- but you're making a mountain out of a mole-hill about this."

Kilan sighed. How could he explain that changing his name to suit the Council's whims or to fit in with tradition felt uncomfortably like changing who he was to be who they wanted him to be? He knew who Prince Kilan was; he was the son of Arásy and Særnor, he came from Zjurkyu, he was in love with Death. But if he took a regnal name, he would become Emperor So-and-so, and who would that be? A puppet of the High Council?

"Why don't you threaten to call yourself something silly until they give up and let you have your way?" Varan suggested. "You could tell them that if they insist, you'll call yourself Emperor Paperwork or Emperor Chandelier, and what do they have to say to that?"

"I'm not a toddler," Kilan said, giving her the sort of exasperated glare that could only be managed by a brother annoyed by his sister's antics. "If I did that, they'd think I was either mad or childish."

"They'll think you're mad whatever you do." Death, naturally, had to get her tuppence-worth in. "You might as well make sure it's on your terms instead of theirs."

Was he surrounded by children?

"I. Do. Not. Want. To. Be. Thought. Mad," Kilan growled, managing to turn each word into a sentence.

"I dare say Empress Govaomis didn't want to be, either," Varan retorted.

Empress Govaomis, according to legend, had been the second ruler of the Carann Empire, and had become so convinced everyone was plotting against her that she had set fire to her own capital. Or so the story went, anyway. Kilan had asked Death if there was any truth in that story. She had muttered something about the effects a thousand years had on gossip and how the winners decided what got into the history books. With that in mind, he was reasonably sure that the rumours about Govaomis were wildly exaggerated. And exaggerated or not, what did that have to do with him?

Before he could ask Varan what she was talking about, Death spoke up again.

"You're a Caranilnav. Everyone will expect you to be insane, unreasonable, or just plain weird. The High Council will be especially opposed to you because of Marin's actions. It would be best not to offend them over something so trivial."

"And why should you care who I offend or not?"

Death gave him one of her sharp-toothed smiles. "Because you would not believe how many Emperors and Empresses have mysteriously died when their High Council was displeased with or offended by them. I would prefer you remain alive until your end of our bargain is finished, and I would rather not have to collect you because of a literal knife in your back or poison in your tea."

After that, there was very little Kilan could do but give in.

~~~~

The next day, Chief Counsellor Dilves got another shock when Prince Kilan came to her and sulkily informed her that he would take a regnal name.

Dilves stared at the future Emperor. She would never admit it aloud, but she was beginning to wonder if the Prince suffered from mood swings or multiple personalities. This was the second time he had been vehemently opposed to something, only to suddenly and inexplicably concede. Was this a manifestation of the madness his family was so infamous for?

"I am glad to hear you've seen sense," she said aloud, allowing no hint of her thoughts to show on her face. "Have you selected a name, so I can formally announce it?"

The Prince tilted his head to the side in a curiously bird-like manner and seemed to listen to something she couldn't hear. "Tinuviel[1]."

Well, that was a downright morbid choice of name. Dilves wondered if Prince Kilan had chosen it specifically for that reason.

~~~~

"Tinuviel?!" Death repeated, looking at him as if he was crazy. "What made you choose that? Most of your people won't even know it's a name!"

"It's a name in Zjurkyu," Kilan said defensively.

"Yes, given to children who are expected to die. Why, out of all the names in the world, didn't you pick something sensible? Were you trying to be funny? Or did you choose it out of some attempt at symbolism?"

If Kilan was honest, the symbolism of a bird that would only sing when Death was present had been part of the reason he had chosen the name. But he would never admit that to her.

"I chose it because Emperor Tinuviel, whoever he will be, isn't likely to be a puppet of the High Council," he told her instead.

Death, damn her, read between the lines and saw what he meant. "Ah, of course! You won't sing their tune; you'll only sing for me. That's quite flattering, actually."

Damn it. She'd be insufferable now.

"It's not a compliment to you. It's a way of reminding me of who I am."

"Whatever you say, Emperor Tinuviel."

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] Tinuviel = The name of a legendary bird with constantly-burning feathers, that sings only when Death is about to take someone.