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She had always been jealous of his favorite child.
She may have been his firstborn, but she was never his first child– nevermind favorite.
Her father’s favorite child was a brilliant, beautiful, spectacular thing.
It seemed even with its faults, her father overlooked them because of the immense love and gratitude he had for it. It seemed that no matter how equally untamable and perverse that child was, her father treated it with the forgivingness and unconditional surrender of the most affable and pure of beings. His favorite child could do no wrong in his eyes.
Unlike her.
She had always been terribly resentful of how much her father cared and paid particular attention to that child. She had been insatiably envious, as her father had never once given her the same amount of benevolence and grace as the other child.
Her father had never beamed upon her like he did that child– instead, he demanded of her the most impossible things. Her father required her utmost patience, sacrifice, and happiness. Her father had dulled her soul, wrung her heart, and drained her body of any joy left in her witheringness and rottenness. And she was never once thanked or kissed in the head for all her duties and deeds for his approval and satisfaction.
As he did with his favorite child.
His favorite child was his pride and joy. Like a gleaming jewel amongst stone. She was one of those pallid and unfortunate rocks, of course. A stubborn whore that her father would most clinically observe and assess and order around, before growing tired and even resentful of how she refused to move and bend.
She, his least favorite child, his daughter, was a disobedient, unmalleable thing. He had even once called her a “disease in his flesh” to his friends. He would moan and groan about how he deeply regretted having her and he made it a point that she, and everyone else who would listen and hear him, knew how much the sight of her blinding ignorance made him desire so deeply that he had no children to bear shame upon him in the first place.
She knew, of course, how much her father resented her in those times. She knew that she was a stain in his otherwise flawless and nonpareil reputation.
He knew what she was as well. He had not hesitated, as a result, to condemn her and revoke any ownership he once had of her. He had reduced her to a formal remorse, a fruitless mistake he wished to efface from his legacy. Her father made it clear to her that he no longer needed her, so long as he had his favorite child.
Indeed.
Julia hated his favorite child.
Not because it was human, because it was not. Not because it was perfect, because it certainly was not.
But because it was the only thing a father could ever unconditionally love, and she had been the child cursed from birth to compete futilely with such an indestructible force.
And Rome was such a corruptive creature that it seemed only Julia herself ever understood it for what it was– a hideous, treacherous, filthy wretch that poisoned everything it touched.
Even fate itself, and the once unbreakable, loving bond of a father and his daughter.
Rome proved to both her and her father that such superficial and worldly things were not everlasting;
It was Rome that was the eternal city.
It was Rome that was His favorite child.