1: Video (Seelie)

[incused]

[ Kevin Regnard is seated at a desk. Several books are open before him: thick volumes with heavy vellum pages intricately decorated with illuminated lettering. It’s darker in this part of the library, the Restricted Section, to preserve the ancient tomes. Fairies float about in the air, lending their light; Kevin would be more grateful for this, except they keep making off with his quills. He has been taking careful notes, and has already covered over a stack of parchment papers with his cramped handwriting.

His face, when he looks into the locket, has that pinched look of too much reading, and his shoulders are raised and stiff; clearly he hasn’t moved from this spot for hours. His expression is dubious, conflicted. He glances away from the locket almost as soon as he activates it, as if he were going to shut it off again without saying anything.

But finally: ]

My lords and ladies. Gentlemen; gentlewomen. I am given to understand that any skill we learn here, we might bring back to our lands after this war is won. Thus I… I beg your assistance. If there is any among you with knowledge of magical healing…

[ Now he looks up. His single red eye bores into the locket, burning like hellfire. ]

I wish to learn how to raise the dead.

Comments

IT'S ALL GOOD /o/

[devotedqueen]

[Elincia keeps her locket on the video function. It was harder to communicate through just words]

I don't know what you've been through

[And she wasn't going to pry unless he was willing to speak of it.]

But I've known loss. And failure.

[Sometimes, she still wonders, had she been stronger--would that have been enough to save at least one of her parents? Had she been more willful instead of yielding, would that have saved the lives lost when her country had been in turmoil?

She remembers Ameldha, too proud and broken all at once in her madness and despair and wonders what she had been like before Ashnard]

It is good to grieve--it is what they deserve. But you cannot lose yourself to it.

[incused]

[ You cannot lose yourself to grief. Isn't that what he had done? Wasn't it mad, ceaseless despair that had led him to make a contract with that creature and...

...

What if he had accepted his failure and walked away? What if he had moved on? What if he had simply devoted the rest of his life to protecting and taking care of Lady Emily? ]

No.

It's not enough.

[ He isn't enough for Lady Emily. She deserves better than to have a poor failure of a knight looking after her. She deserves to have her family back. ]

I must... I must put things right. By any means. By any means.

[devotedqueen]

[The frown on her face grows and she shakes her head]

If you want to put things right, you must stop chasing ghosts.

[She wonders if she should say anything about what she knew of those who had raised the dead--not when he seemed so unstable. But letting him chase shadows seemed even worse. Crueler.]

[incused]

I may have already done so!

[ ... ]

Put things right, I mean. I just.... in case I hadn't, I wanted to....

[ He trails off, furious. In truth, he is not sure what he wants. He keeps playing the past over and over in his mind. What he could have done, what he might already have done, and what he can yet still do are getting muddled. ]

[devotedqueen]

Then, aren't you worrying needlessly? You've put things right...dwelling on the past any further will only bring harm.

['Worrying' might be a bit of an understatement though. She closes her eyes and sighs, thinking of how to word this very clearly]

I have seen the dead raised once. It was not through healing magic. It was...horrible...

[incused]

[ But I don't know for sure, he wants to say; but her last statement silences him.

... ]

What...

[ Hoarsely: ]

What happened?

[devotedqueen]

They were puppets. They had no soul, no real life to them -- their only purpose was to fight us.

[She could not forget the day those doors opened and hundreds of undead soldiers came down upon them.]

It was the work of a goddess gone mad.

[incused]

[ His thoughts, up until this moment, have had to do with wondering whether he’d managed to change the past or not. But at her words, a glimmer of new foreboding arises in his mind. What if he did change the past, and they all came back wrong. In his mind’s eye he imagines Emily joyfully going to greet her parents, returned from the dead — and then screaming when she sees their faces, grey and decayed like corpses.

Rustling, a clatter, and a thump: his papers and book hitting the floor, as he stands up abruptly from his desk, pushing it away.

Breathlessly, desperately: ]

I have to go back. I can’t stay here. I have to get back, I have to go home.

[devotedqueen]

Sir Kevin?

[Elincia looks a little lost and wonders if she had did the right thing, telling him that]

[incused]

[ Perhaps she can hear him, breathing hard and stomping through the library.

He's talking to himself more than to her. ]

I've got to get out of here..... I've got to — ugh!

[devotedqueen]

[She should search for him. See what he was doing. He was in the library, was he not?]

Sir Kevin, please, what is the matter?

[incused]

[ He's outside the library by now, sprinting across the bailey, headed towards the gatehouse. And then, outside and....

...


It's some time before he answers. Hours. His voice is despairing. ]

There was a way in here. There's got to be a way out.

[devotedqueen]

[By the time she arrived at the library, he's already gone. She resigns herself to waiting until he responds--if he responded--but even when he does, she can't bring herself to feel relieved]

Sir Kevin--! Are you alright? Where did you go?

[incused]

[ By this time, he has circumnavigated the walls, and come inside once more. ]

I'm in the throne room.

[devotedqueen]

I'll be there shortly.

[She heads straight for the throne room, hoping to catch him before he vanished again]

[incused]

[ She'll find him there; he hasn't moved. He's seated on the inlaid marble floor, leaning against a wall. His arms are hooked about his knees, and his head is slumped forward. Sunlight on the gold leaf trim on the pillars and the walls reflects back upon him, bathing him in a warm golden glow. ]

[devotedqueen]

[Elincia hesitates as she enters, wondering what she should do. If she could read hearts, like Princess Leanne or Prince Reyson, or had that knack of always knowing what to say like Mist, perhaps Sir Kevin wouldn't be feeling like this.

Still, she has to try. Forgoing all sense of propriety, she sits down next to him, drawing her knees to her chest. It's awhile before she says anything]

Sir Kevin?

[incused]

[ For a long while, it seems as if he's not going to respond. Somewhere just outside the long, gilded windows, birds twitter their evensong, as the afternoon shadows begin to lengthen.

Finally, he murmurs: ]

This was the last place I saw them. I had the idea....

[ He lifts his head and shakes it, as if to cast out cobwebs. He sighs. ]

The floor... must be uncomfortable for you, my lady.

[ He's aware why she's come, and why she's sitting next to him like this. He's moved by it, and embarrassed: it would hurt his pride, if his heart weren't already so badly wounded. ]

[devotedqueen]

The idea?

[She sits there, waiting, even as the cold of the marble ground sinks through her clothes. She shakes her head, smiling gently and turns her gaze towards the windows, watching the birds flutter back and forth]

The floor is quite comfortable compared to the wooden decks of ships. It's alright.

[incused]

[ He'd had the wild hope that the king and queen might return and send him home. It's pointless, he knows. But he won't burden Elincia with his troubles, so he asks in as pleasant a tone as he can manage: ]

Ships?

On the ocean? You're a sailor, then?

[devotedqueen]

Oh no.

[Elincia shakes her head, laughing quietly]

I merely spent some months on a ship as an emissary to a neighboring empire. I'm afraid the sailor's life suits me very little.

[incused]

[ An emissary; she's some sort of diplomat, then. Or nobility. He'd guessed as much, from her bearing. He's acutely conscious now that he has been wallowing. It's unknightly — unmanly. So he rises, albeit a little stiffly, having sat on the floor for so long, and offers her his hand, to help her up as well. ]

In that case, I'm sorry to have reminded you of it, my lady.

[devotedqueen]

It wasn't a bad time [Bird attacks aside]. Not really.

[She accepts his hand and stands, smoothing out her tunic]

You don't need to apologise to me. But I feel that I should be the one apologising to you.

[incused]

No...

[ Her hand is warm. She is warm. Somehow he feels better. ]

No, my lady. I — you've nothing to apologize for. I was... I simply...

[ ...overreacted. Just a bit. But the admission is embarrassing and he stumbles over it. Which is when he realizes he's still holding her hand; he lets go of it, at once. ]

It's my fault, I'm sorry!

[devotedqueen]

[Elincia shakes her head and places a hand against Kevin's shoulder. He seemed like he was still tense. If she can offer him any comfort, she will]

No. There's no need for you to apologise. Please, Sir Kevin.