#yeah i think this is exactly how it would go down
Rupert refuses to admit to himself how hurt he was about everything (like, oh gee, losing everyone he’d ever loved and also *WATCHING* Amir die).
So he’s trying to power through his trauma by denying that he has a problem and on days where he can’t ignore it, deciding that everyone else has bigger problems so he’s not allowed to grieve until he’s helped everyone else.
(Side note: trauma isn’t a competition. Your trauma and your feelings aren’t less important just because you believe someone is worse off)
Everyone notices but generally writes it off as him being tired due to recent events. Amir, Wence, and Chamberlain worry but they can’t get through to him.
Lavinia is the one who finally does. She tells him that she thinks he’s overdue for a breakdown, and Rupert goes off about how he cannot fall apart when he has a kingdom to run, a family to take care of, and everything else to look after. (His voice is progressively getting worse and cracking more.)
Lavinia says something like “Oh but Rupert, I break down at least twice a week and my kingdom is doing fine!”
And then Rupert just bursts into tears. Lavinia holds him as he cries (and thinks about how tall he’s gotten and how she can’t even remember the last time she held him like this). He eventually tells her everything about losing everything and how scared he is to trust the wrong people again and how scared he is to lose the people he loves again, and he *can’t* let his guard down because people need him. He also tells her about feeling so ashamed for leaving Wenceslaus alone, how useless he felt as he watched Chamberlain die, how helpess and terrified and *torn apart* he was to watch Amir get eaten, and that in that moment all he wanted to do was hold Amir close and tell him he loved him before it was too late but he *couldn’t* because he was tied up in the stables. (And then he has to explain why he was tied up in the stables.)
Cut to Lavinia storming into the drawing room where Amir is talking to Chamberlain and Atossa, taking off her shoe, and *launching* it at Amir, yelling, “You son of a !!!”
