💀Desires.love⚰️

Many a partner had claimed they birthed heirs to the throne. That is the nature of greed. Most know not of the bastard child, they know not how bastards are treated. All they know is to win this claim is to have a royal child in their hands. Kalipo ignored these claims as these children missed key details in appearance for her to be satisfied. In a world without DNA testing, appearance is all they had. So if a child was missing two of three markers, they were dismissed.

The Hair, the Eyes and the Taint.

The hair wasn't just red, it was a peachy almost blond tinted red that faded to a light orange, the eyes were unique to the demon lord and his kin although sea green eyes were also acceptable, and the taint was red and curving into a harpoon shaped point. Most children could at best only fit one of these traits. Sure, there was always the chance that the child simply took after the mother or even other traits of the Demon Lord but Kalipo wouldn't hear it. It was all slander in her mind.

That was, until one arrived. When Erik first met this girl, she was older than him like most who approached him were. Maybe 3 or 4 years older than the, at the time, 19 year old Erik. What made her stand out was her eyes. They were a light blue with flashes of all sorts of colors, from purple to red to some peachy oranges. But, more notably, they were dead looking and glassy as if this woman had no reason to live. He felt pity for the woman at the time and an odd kinship in the person who wanted to be here about as little as he did.

A year later and she's brought before Kalipo, a baby in the hands of the guards who took her. But this wasn't the same woman. This version of that woman had life in her. She was dragged, kicking and screaming, cursing obscenities at the queen before her. She was unwilling to hand over her child knowing damn well what fate lies at the feet of any daughter within these walls. To Erik, it was foolish but oddly inspiring. To Kalipo, it was meaningless. The baby would be taken from her regardless. With the iconic hair and taint, not to mention the fins on the girl, it was clear that this child was of Erik's… of Kalipo's bloodline. Surprisingly, Kalipo seemed pleased with this, a 'return to form' she called this child. Now, more than ever, she was convinced that Erik must take the throne.

Kalipo looked to her son, the stare of pure coldness piercing Erik to his very core. Her eyes were as dead as the woman's were that day but these ones were full of malice. She told her son to never utter a word of the child's existence to anyone. His brothers included. This felt like a ridiculous request but Erik, ever the slave to his mother, agreed. All he asked was about Damien. There was no hiding the girl from him.

"What about Izroul?" Kalipo asked in return, "If he's as intelligent as you claim, he will know better than to bite the hand that feeds."

Five years would pass, and Erik, now 25, was given an opportunity of a lifetime. After 5 years of never telling a soul about his daughter, 5 years of making Damien swear to secrecy for both of their sakes, they were all offered freedom by a human man who's eyes were full of a kindness Erik never understood. Usually, he'd be cautious, no one offers anything for free, but today, he was desperate. The memories of how that woman fought and eventually died for the safety of their child fueled him to be the same.

No more would he stagnate under his mother's rule for the vague promise of protection. By Lilith's might, he'd drag every single brother of his out of this hell if he had to, not only to save himself but also save the brother and daughter he cared for most. That day would be the day the others would learn of the existence of their niece.

What happens when your biggest supporter is also one of your biggest enemies? When the person that hurts you and those you love is also a beloved parent? You get the relationship between Matthew and his mother, Aezera. This is three parts analysis, theory crafting and making up headcanons and alt endings as all good ramblings are!

Let’s start at the beginning

According to one of Michaela’s old posts, Aezera was a queen of an old kingdom that was absorbed into Lilith Kingdom, thus her queen title was stripped. She then goes to the Eastern Kingdom and convinces the Demon Lord to marry her by a display of skills. Through that, she believed that she had stopped his cheating spree. This ends up being false as he conceived a child with the harem girl and that seemed to shatter her sense of self throwing her into a depression that Matthew felt the need to help.

My theory is that Aezera is a narcissist. She shows low empathy for others like how she referred to the Demon Lord’s victim as a whore or how she suggested that all Mika is good for is to be “tied to a bed and milked of her energy like a good harem girl”. She’s a hypocrite in the way that she despised Damien’s mother for being a harem girl but was fully willing to accept Matthew having an equally unwilling harem girl so long as it benefitted him and thus her. Despite that, she shows no self awareness that this is hypocritical. She clearly puts herself and Matthew above everyone most likely due to her being a pure blood but despite that she knows that she doesn’t live up to the standards she views herself as since she seems to have a secret about the “purity” of her bloodline.

(Side note. My theory on that is that Aezera is a pureblood however she isn’t a descendant of Lilith. Instead another human woman was turned into a pureblood and that is where her bloodline comes from. We’ve seen with Mika on the Sam route that people do judge pureblood if they were once human so it is probable that her non-Lilith bloodline brings her shame.)

I think her narcissism is why she believed that she had the power to stop the Demon Lord’s cheating spree and Damien’s existence did two things in her mind. First, it showed that he was still cheating and she was just another regular addition to the harem rather than someone special. And second, it showed how little the Demon Lord respected her in her eyes since he let Damien, the bastard child, live so soon after Matthew was born. To her, that would be an insult. It breaks her preconceived notions of herself and her worth.

Do I think she treated Matthew well? Ehhhh yes and no.

I think she cared for Matthew. She fed him, clothed him, comforted him, trained him, etc. She had high hopes for him and set expectations that he would interpret as her seeing him as an adult. Matthew has a lot of insecurities about his size, magic and being relied upon versus being dismissed. When everyone else is treating you as if you were useless, having someone rely on you must feel good. Matthew took it upon himself to counsel his own mother out of a mix of his love and empathy for her and his need to be relied on.

With that being said, I don’t think this was the healthiest relationship. For one, no parent should base their happiness on their child. But from his own dialogue saying that he always summoned toys to make her feel better and the “She was never happy” line, it’s implied that this happened a lot. Matthew shouldn’t have had to quell all of his mother’s emotional outbursts, he’s her kid and for the majority of the time he was there, he was a child.

On top of that, and I will admit this is getting into theory territory, it’s easy to assume that she wasn’t the kindest to Damien or his mother. If I were to guess, Matthew possibly turned a blind eye to Damien’s pain in order to keep his rose-tinted view of his mother. That or he convinced himself that it wasn’t Aezera’s fault. She’s an orb, she can’t physically harm Damien or his mother which gives Matthew enough plausible deniability to say that it wasn’t Aezera hurting Damien, it was her “wayward” servants. I could also get into the theory of repressed memories on Matthew’s part but that’s REALLY getting into the theory territory so I’ll leave it at that.

I also think she gaslit Matthew a lot during his childhood. Specifically on the idea that she is the only person who sees him as an adult. Truthfully, Matthew’s Good Ending in Demon War disproves this. She’s controlling, dismissing his words and how he seems genuinely happy with his simple life and his human wife to force being a king down his throat. If she truly respected him, she would have respected his decisions not try to force her own. And yes, I know she was suffering from madness and if she wasn’t she would have caved with some resistance but madness doesn’t conjure something out of nothing. Her resistance comes from the belief that she knows what’s best. She doesn’t see him as an adult separate from her but she convinced him that she did and that she is the only person that does. The sad part is that; despite being surrounded by people four of which who care about him, no one proved Aezera wrong, leading Matthew to believe her.

Then Matthew escapes with his brothers and, for the first time, he is freed from Aezera’s control. Sure, his brothers still treat him like a kid but the major difference to me is that Matthew is willing to defy his brothers but not his mother. Being freed from Aezera meant that Matthew could be himself even if he was judged for it. Over the next two and a half years, he explores places out of the castle, meets the love of his life, gets a job (and thus gains the responsibility he was searching for) all while being able to remain himself. He never had to change who he was to get a good life. And slowly, living that good life with a woman that genuinely loved him for him and never treated him like a kid helps break him out of the mindset his mother forced him into. He still loves her and remembers her fondly but he is less likely to slip back into old habits should they ever meet again.

Now we get into how I would handle things. And honestly? I’m okay with leaving SMTO the way it is. It’s good foreshadowing for the abuse Matthew went through while not overpowering the love story. Demon War is where I would handle things differently. Specifically the ending. I would have two good endings.

The first one is basically the canon one. He kills the Demon Lord, Aezera goes insane, does her bullshit and he kills her. I think it is alright that he kills her in the end because it would be an allegory of terminating a relationship with an abusive parent should they be so unrelenting. It’s alright to kill off that relationship if your abuser refuses to change and has even escalated to violence against you and your loved ones. What I would change is putting more emphasis on Matthew mourning the loss of his mother. It’s okay to kill off the relationship but it’s also okay to mourn what was and what could have been. Clearly he loved her a lot, there was something worth saving but she was too far gone. It’s okay for him to grieve that loss.

The second would be a custom ending where somehow Aezera is just a little less insane and Mika gets the chance to call her out. To make her look around at the people she’s hurting and to truly look back at the throne and to see how miserable Matthew is. Aezera, for all her faults, truly cares for her child. If her narcissism is causing him so much pain, she is willing to stop. So she does, she drops all the magic and lets everyone go. And sure, Matthew has every right to walk away but he’s an empath at heart so I can see him reach out to her one last time. But it’s under the strict condition that she changes her ways. That would probably be where Demon War would end, maybe with some flashes of how Aezera is trying to better herself.

…But if I were to do an epilogue, I would show the process in more detail. I would show where Aezera could falter only to have Matthew push back forcing Aezera to take on a new perspective if for no other reason than to make Matthew happy. I could see her eventually going up to Damien and apologizing half heartedly only for Damien to say something along the lines of “What are you sorry for?” To force her to think about why she’s apologizing. He doesn’t expect her to actually admit fault but surprisingly she does. She acknowledged how she wronged him and his mother, owns up to it and apologized more sincerely. And sure, maybe he doesn’t forgive her but he at least got closure. Maybe Aezera also struggles with accepting Mika but her own pushback plus Matthew supporting his wife makes Aezera more accepting. Especially if she gets a grandchild in the future. She’ll love that grandchild like she loves Matthew so, through association she grows to accept Mika.