#elezen

(This story is about my house knight Charlemont (Julien), who resides at @house-mercaiges.  For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Char’s, where it belongs.)

There is nothing to forgive, she whispered, petal-pale lips brushing ghostly and chill over my warm skin.  Oh, if only it were true.  Such a thing, such a lie, if there were only a sliver of truth inside it I would lose myself, cling to the shard of hope that somehow, some way, perhaps I was not guilty.

Lightning flashed outside, silent and blinding.  For half a heartbeat the room went white and frozen.  A sulfur and tin still life snapshot.  Flowers wilted, dust gathered, and my voice died on my lips.

You could not have known, she insisted, and the world sank back into saturnine darkness.  The lift of the light come crumbling into ash.  I did know, you see, long had I overheard the secrets of the woods, hummed along to the warning hymn I knew from childhood.

Thunder bubbled up from malms away, low and hungry, and swelled into a devouring, starving thing. Yes, devour me, I thought, me and all around me.  This house, its very foundation, the woods themselves.  As if I could invoke such power.  As if thunder had such strength.  It is in silence, rather, the gentle quietude of the star-dark and glowing beams of the sun, that power lies.  In the whisper of her voice.

I love you, Julien.

Oh, that voice.  Reader, know that even in death, even in phantasm, her voice was honeyed wine, sweet and quickening to my very soul.  It haunted and inflamed me; the ache in my bones, the ache in my blood, the ache in my heart and between my legs drew me all at once in a rush back to her face.  Diaphanous and pale.  Spectral.  Beautiful.

No, I would not be forgiven for not saving her.  Not in this life.  Only in the bittersweet falling asleep.

“Nuh-uh, papa, she started it!!”  It was a rare day indeed when Alain’s son, Léonide, protested this much over his own innocence.  A dead giveaway to guilt, usually, though in his experience as both a barrister and a father, Alain knew that the defence of children was wholly different than that of adults.

“Didnot!!”  Philippine screeched and shoved little Leo away from her, as hard as she dared in front of her father.  Leo slapped back at her, reigning in his strikes as well, knowing his reprimand would be swift.  And oh indeed.

Quickly, Alain leaned forward and grasped both of their hands.  “We do not hit in this household.  We do not push, we do not slap.  Is that understood?  I will not have this kind of disorder.”  His voice was firm and fatherly, and it left no room for argument.  Rather than continue, he paused, waiting and watching his children for their agreement.

Both Pippa and Leo squirmed in their miniature cherry-wood chairs; matching, artisan-crafted pieces of children’s furniture.  They would be in the family for decades.  The kids relented, though, not wanting to anger Papa any further.  Solemnly, grudgingly, they both nodded their heads.

“You will cease and desist this ridiculous back and forth at once.  There is no blame in this house, neither the assigning of it nor the attempted shifting of it.  We tell the truth about what happened, then work to resolve the conflict.  Right?”  

Again, with bowed heads, Pippa and Leo nodded.  They’d already overloaded both their nanny and their mother with these histrionics, and being sent to Papa’s Office was akin to being tried in the highest court in Coerthas.  Father did not put up with episodes like this, particularly not when they’d harried their mother all afternoon.

“Now.  One at a time, Léonide first, tell me what happened.”  Alain released his children’s hands and leaned back a bit in his own chair.  He rested his elbow on its arm, then slid his finger along the underside of his bottom lip as he listened.

Léonide looked up at his father with a frown on his face, wanting very much at this point to simply forget about it, let it all go.  He was the lover in the family, not the fighter, and keeping up with his big sister exhausted him sometimes.  “Pippa stomped on my foot this morning.  Hard, too.”

Nary the space of a breath could fit between Leo’s last word and Pippa’s retort.  “Because Leo pulled my hair!!”

Alain’s eyes narrowed and he held up a finger to his daughter.  “There is no because.  That is irrelevant.”

“But…!”

“No.  No butts.”  Alain shook his head and leaned forward toward the both of them, resting his elbows on his knees.  “Léonide.  Did you pull your sister’s hair?”  It was a simple question, and for that Leo was thankful.

“Yes Papa,” he replied, and bowed his head.

“Philippine.  Did you stomp on your brother’s foot?”

The defiance and protest flashed in her eyes, clamoring to get out.  Stopping her lips from parting in dissent must have taken an act of Halone herself, for in the end she admitted it.  “Yes, Papa.”

He was satisfied with these answers, true, but there was one more question to be asked, and it was directed to the both of them.  “And for the entirety of the day today, did you or did you not both bicker and argue, complain and fight, and summarily antagonize and irritate your mother and nanny?”

Guilty.  The avoidance of eye contact, the shifting in their seats, the delay in reply.  Neither child wanted to admit their part in that, nor did they wish to acknowledge how angry they’d made the adults in the house.

“Right.  Well.  In light of the evidence, I suggest an abeyance until the morrow.  Both of you shall go to your rooms for the rest of the evening to think about the situation.”  Alain’s voice softened a bit, and he reached out to touch both their cheeks.  “It’s been a hard day, mm?  We’ll talk about things later.”

@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast