Sylvain of Careaux was a fisherman from the Vermilion Isles, a quaint chain of lakes and swampland that stretched along the Southeastern coastline from Cavalier March to the very edge of the River Kingdom. He felt like a fish out of water in the opulent study of Baron LeBlanc, located in the Old City of Port Dusk in the House LeBlanc’s manor in the shadow of the Marquess’s Caste. ‘The Cradle of The River Kingdom,’ the very first place humans landed when they fled the old world and the beacon of foreign trade within the last human nation. Three days by horse, skiff, and foot accompanied by the armed contingent of knights and soldiers flying the Baron’s banner had dragged him away from home in the peak of crabbing season. Even now standing at his best approximation of ‘attention,’ he was terrified and ignorant of his purpose here.
“Sylvain, how have you found my home so far?” asked the Baron, finally looking up from his paperwork.
Sylvain looked into the blue eyes of the older man, easily in his sixties, he was the perfect description of the Southern Noble; he wore an expensive and well-made white shirt and his blue Mage Corps coat hung upon the back of his chair, he waxed his short handlebar mustache with a beard tapered to a point upon his chin, and he was well-muscled with lightly tanned skin that lacked the weathering and imperfections of those accustomed to labor. While Sylvain stood cowed by the Baron, he was late to realize his lack of response and potential to waste the man’s time.
“Sir I-”
“Incorrect,” chastised the Baron. “My station’s formal address would be the following: ‘My Lord,’ or ‘Lord Baron,’ or ‘Lord LeBlanc.’ Try again.” The Baron spoke without any harshness or anger, but Sylvain flinched at his words all the same. The young fisherman wanted nothing more in that moment than to be back home on his skiff or along the beachheads pulling his lines and pots back to shore.
He swallowed and tried anew, “My Lord I find myself out of place but unable to deny the, uhm, the beauty of your home. Lord Baron, sir.” Sylvain winced upon finishing his sentence but the Baron either missed or ignored the mistake. ‘I am going to get myself lashed before I even figure out why I’m here.’
“Very well, I see you are rather eager to get down to business then.” Baron LeBlanc rolled his sleeves up to just below his elbow, and pulled a stone tablet and a crystal out from somewhere within his oak desk. “The Barony of Port Dusk is ostensibly ruled by Marquess Cavalier, but he puts the majority of his focus into managing The Navy and protecting the Southern fringes of our Kingdom from those that would do us harm. If he is not out performing his duties as Admiral of The Sunset Armada then he is usually out East protecting the borders. The Baron of Port Dusk, myself, has a more difficult job when compared to most other Baron’s within the River Kingdom due to our nature as the guardians of the third largest city of our homeland and the city where all foreign trade originates. We are also the city with the largest strategic significance in the kingdom, but House Cavalier handles the majority of the military affairs so House LeBlanc has a smaller role in that regard. We, however, have a problem currently ailing our great house.”
The Baron of Port Dusk looked into Sylvain’s eyes, but Sylvain didn’t quite know what he was doing. Searching? Trying to further intimidate him? It brought intense discomfort to the young man. After the brief pause from speaking, Baron LeBlanc set the tablet onto the desk in front of Sylvain but kept the crystal within his own grasp. The Lord Baron cleared his throat, then finally offered the young fisherman an explanation for his presence.
“This tablet and crystal performs a singular task when a hand, freshly opened across the palm to bleed, is pressed against it. It drains aether, what the peasants refer to as ‘Mageblood,’ and doesn’t stop until the hand’s owner is down to roughly ten percent of his Aether Core’s capacity. If the testee doesn’t pass unconscious that indicates they have the first, the most basic and simple, requirement to become a Mage of The River Kingdom. Do you know what that is, Sylvain?”
Sylvain started to shake his head, but remembered that he should behave in a more formal manner, and instead spoke his answer aloud. “No, Lord Baron.”
“That’s fine.” The Baron did not give Sylvain the answer, but instead continued on. “The second part of the test is arguably the most important, it measures the speed at which one passively regains aether. It does this not by measuring how much aether the testee is absorbing but instead filling the Aether Channels and determining if they have the minimum thickness required to pull in enough aether to power a singular cantrip in about an hour. It measures not their passive absorption but their potential active absorption of aether.”
That still went mostly over the young fisherman’s head, he had heard of Mageblood before but this was the first time someone ever spoke the words ‘Aether Core’ ot ‘Aether Channels’ in his presence. ‘Am I about to be tested for magic? I don’t want to be a mage, I have no desire to serve in the military. I just want to go home.’ Sylvain tried to keep his face neutral as thought after thought slammed around in his skull, and before he knew it Baron LeBlanc was holding a letter opener to the young man’s hand. A brief sensation of pain, then the feeling of a cold stone tablet against his skin, were the ushers of the most strange sense of emptiness Sylvain had ever felt before.
A moment passed, and the feeling of being empty slowly started to be replaced by the sense that something was forcing its way inside his body, yet it also was not a physical sensation. It was comparable to when his legs would fall asleep, but if they were being kept just on the edge of waking back up. The Baron held Sylvain’s right hand against the tablet with his left, and picked the crystal up in his right. When it faintly began to pulse with a soft green-blue glow, Baron LeBlanc nodded with the hint of a smile breaching his military bearing. When the pulses shifted to a solid glow, the Baron showed his teeth. He abruptly stood, the action causing Sylvain to stagger back, and spoke with a grim humor as the smile left his eyes. His gaze on Sylvain started warm, but turned calculating. Then he spoke those words, words to forever alter the course of a young fisherman’s life.
“Well, looks like you are to be a mage,” the Baron clapped as he came from behind his desk before putting both hands on Sylvain’s shoulders. “Congratulations, looks like you have the chance to restore the honor your father lost for our House.”
What followed that day would have been a dream come true for many of the bastards that ran around the Vermilion Isles, finding out one is the ‘lost’ member of nobility and whisked away to live in one of the regional capitals. It wasn’t for Sylvain. After the revelation, he was dragged across the mansion in a fugue state. He was bathed by servants with his hair cut, then shaved; afterwards he was fitted for clothes, armors, and measured for various forms of ceremonial accouterment. Sylvain never once saw someone that wasn’t a member of the staff or a servant of some form. The day ended with him being served food in a bedroom room larger than his entire house back in Careaux. He ate mechanically, the food not different enough from his home cooked meals to make him question it or focus on the magnificent flavor.
Halfway through the dinner his door was abruptly opened by a servant and two refined young adults stepped into the room with the sort of grace to imply they weren’t interrupting, and they belonged here. One was a young woman with long curly blonde hair with green eyes, she stood slightly shorter than himself which put her at the average height for a woman back in The Isles. The young man, who seemed to be slightly younger than both Sylvain and the woman, had hair of a darker shade much like his own and deep blue eyes. He recognized features of himself in them, they were both from taller than stock than himself as Sylvain’s mother was small even by the standards of the stout Vermilion Islers, but they had similar nose shapes to his own and the young man shared his wide jaw and cleft chin.
“So you are our brother,” the silence was shattered by the young man who spat the words like a curse. Sylvain thought him like an altered reflection of himself more and more as stared. Sylvain and he had similar colored hair but the young fisherman’s eyes were larger and paler in their blue. Sylvain’s curled hair was only slightly darker upon closer inspection, and although this young man seemed athletic and broad he was clearly built from methods other than labor on the waters and marshes. “Going to gawk more or introduce yourself?”
“My apologies, Lord and Lady, I’m Sylvain of Careaux- er, I guess now it would be LeBlanc?”
The woman didn’t speak but clearly had something to say, her mouth opened then closed as her brow furrowed. The young man looked incensed, Sylvain assumed it was from the implication of a shared family name, but the response given didn’t necessarily affirm the suspicion.
“Sylvain. Surprisingly, your name doesn’t match your peasant marshland accent. Careaux,” the man seemed to taste the word and decided it was not to his liking. “In the Vermilion Isles?” The woman still had yet to speak and for some reason Sylvain was dreading that she soon would and spit poison at him as well.
“Yes, it’s a small cluster of houses and villages near one of the medium-sized lakes North of the coast. We mostly fish and hunt there. It has surprisingly cold winters for the South but not enough to snow often, and it isn’t really ideal farmland. It is a bit farther West, but not quite on the edge of the kingdom- ah, my lord.” Sylvain was sweating by the time he finished his explanation, but he noticed the eyebrows of the young man shoot up when he said the words ‘hunt.’
“Oh? What do the peasants hunt out on the Western fringes?” His tone implied he wouldn’t be impressed by the answer, but Sylvain’s response seemed different than what he anticipated and it caused the young nobleman to assess the fisherman further. The woman just continued to stare at Sylvain, her face expressing a multitude of emotions over the course of the conversation.
“Mostly wild boar, some of the larger alligator’s, marshland wolf, and common game animals. I’ve only ever hunted boar and deer myself, alligators are too tough and the wolf isn’t common in Careaux.”
“Hmm. Boar and wolf are interesting, but alligator doesn't seem impressive. Can’t you just shoot them from the shore?”
“It uhh, is actually more like trapping. We catch them with a hook like fishing, then we either spear them or shoot them like you said.”
Before the two could continue their conversation on hunting theory, the young lady finally spoke up. Fortunately for Sylvain, but also strangely causing him a pang of sadness, the woman had decided to ignore Sylvain and address her brother.
“Brother, we should return before mother finds out. Or worse-” Sylvain didn’t need to think about what would be worse for long, as a high yet clearly masculine voice called from behind.
“Elle, Arleon, what are the two of you doing here?” The two young nobles stiffened, and as they turned a young man with a similar bearing to Baron LeBlanc entered. He was clearly an adult man, into his mid twenties instead of late teens or early twenties like the other two, and he glared down at them with his impressive height. He was dressed in similarly elegant noble fashions, but his clothes focused more on simplicity and form similarly to the shirt and slacks of the Baron instead of what Sylvain’s two potential siblings were displayed. “Your mother told you to stay out of this wing. Do I need to make the two of you read ‘Nobility and Family’ again?” The two paled a bit, and quickly ducked out of the room into the hallway now partially filled with servants and the odd guard.
After the two departed, the imposing man motioned in one of the equally impressive guards, as well as a servant before the double doors were shut behind them with a bang. Sylvain was still standing in front of his meal, it slowly going cold, when the servant grabbed the comfortable chair he was sitting in and placed it across from him for the new visitor to sit in. Afterwards, the servant bowed and departed the room, the door closing much more quietly this time. As the man sat across from Sylvain, it transitioned from intimidating to a bit humorous as he sat and presented himself like a less-intimidating version of the Baron. This noble had not the steel in his gaze or the surety in his posture to be quite as unsettling, and he came across more arrogant than confident.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Sylvain. I want to make myself clear.” He spoke each word like it was its own sentence, Sylvain figured he was trying to come across serious and domineering but it wasn’t landing well after the awkward showdown with the other two and the third-degree from Baron LeBlanc. “I, the heir apparent of House LeBlanc, Marcell Zepherin Savier LeBlanc, will be in charge of you within the walls of this estate. If I say you must act, do it and do not question me. Until I deem you are ready you shall be dining alone and only meeting with the rest of my family when Lord Baron Leon Alton LeBlanc III demands your presence.”
As the speech went on the amusement Sylvain felt from this imitation of the Baron faded, replaced with a sense of shame from being looked down upon and treated like a child for not being educated or born within the walls of the estate. Lord Marcell revealed that his mother was Leontine Savier, the sister of Leon Alton LeBlanc III: Sylvain’s father. The amount of scorn in the young lord’s words did little to ease the building tension in the former fisherman’s chest. Sylvain also heard brief mention of the man’s own father, the presumed husband of Leontine Savier, but he didn’t even remember hearing a name. From the speech, the ridicule of new ‘siblings,’ and the brief snippets of dialogue between the groups made it clear that Sylvain’s father left a widow- assuming he was dead and not absent or missing. Sylvain had yet to hear a name for her either, and did not learn it before his ‘cousin’ departed. At the close of the door Sylvain had to move his chair back himself to continue eating his, now cold, dinner.
The rest of the week went about as well as Sylvain expected, it was lonely and difficult. Each morning he awoke early, his normal schedule, and waited in his room for breakfast. His cousin, presumably, provided him with a tutor to help educate him on the missing knowledge that would be necessary for him to perform his role as a noble of House LeBlanc. The tutor was an older gentleman who seemed almost as upset about the circumstance as the master who hired him, but that didn’t prevent Mister Reygnan from performing his duty. The older man would miraculously arrive right as Sylvain finished eating each morning, and spent hours without break going over the basics of mathematics, regional history, formal versus informal language, and a dizzying array of subjects. Each day was long, the man would depart briefly for lunch, but then return and not leave until well after the normal call for dinner. Sylvain would end each day after a late meal and bath, dreading the following morning until he finally slipped into an uneasy sleep.
Sylvain was encouraged to familiarize himself within Old City at the end of the week; he was granted a surprising day of freedom that left him lost as he barely had time to think about what he would do if he was ever granted such a thing. As the young man hadn’t made any friends or gotten to know anyone besides Mister Reygnan, who was home with his own family, he considered attempting to meet the other residents of the estate. He only considered this train of thought briefly, the memory of his cousin's derision returned when he reached a servant to ask where they could be found. Changing his mind, Sylvain instead decided to ask about leaving the estate to see the town. Luckily, the servant informed him there were somewhat prearranged plans for him. Sylvain followed the young man out to the servants exit, and was brought to a hackney with a driver that seemed unaffiliated with the staff.
That almost made him feel at ease, Sylvain was tired of dealing with the family’s staff and was eager to meet people that weren’t going to look at him like a lost puppy or whisper about his legitimacy when they thought they were out of earshot. Thankfully, since he was traveling alone the man dressed himself in a way that would allow him to appear as a gentleman instead of a socialite or nobleman. Sylvain cursed himself in his mind, the fact that he could now differentiate the two made him feel like he was slowly losing grips with who he was. What he was. Not some upstart noble plucked from the countryside to fulfill his proper place within society, Sylvain was a fisherman. He was a common-as-dirt ‘marshlander,’ a Careaux boy through and through who spent more time on the water than he did in his own home. He was a son of the Vermilion Isles, he just had to make sure that he remembered it. Sylvain was hopeful that all this would turn out to be a mistake, that he wasn’t able to be a mage, and he would be sent back home to go live the life he was always expected to.
Lost in thought, the young man didn’t even notice as the Old City flew by and he was brought straight out of the district onto one of the high streets and angled towards one of the ports of the city’s namesake.
“Uhh, driver, why are you taking me to the docks?” Sylvain was polite, but not overly so, just in case he needed to flex his ‘position’ to avoid something happening to him.
“The lady said take you to see the water, something about making you feel at ease” spoke the driver through the pipe between his lips.
“And which lady was this?”
“Don’t rightly know sir, said that it would be good for you.”
“Very well.”
Sylvain wasn’t planning on correcting the ‘sir’ despite what Mister Reygnan would be saying if he was present. It was a mystery in the man’s eyes, what exactly was going on. Sylvain couldn’t begin to consider who would have sent him to the docks along one of the ports, as the very few people he recalled meeting didn’t seem to have very fond intentions for him. Perhaps one of the servants, a senior maid, had caught him longing staring towards the river? The thought made Sylvain shake his head as he attempted to recall the path they took to reach their current location. On the off chance that this was actually some round-about attempt at causing him harm, or more likely, humiliation, knowing how to return to the estate would be necessary.
‘I suppose I could just ask for directions. This is one of the ports and I appear well-to-do. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine I would have business within the Baron’s estate with someone who serves him if not the man himself. Well here we are.’ Sylvain almost leapt out the carriage, before remembering the fussing of his tutor over the ‘proper manners of a Southern Aristocrat.’ He flipped a silver coin up into the driver’s reach, where the man snapped it out of the air and tipped his head down.
“I’ll be here for wherever you need to go next, just come find me at Milton’s. He’s mostly got rum so it might not be to your tastes sir but it's the best place near the port, best blend of safe and cheap in my opinion.” The driver seemed cheery as he spoke, and didn’t wait for Sylvain’s answer as he started off along one of the streets that ran parallel to the river.\
“Thank you and I shall,” called out Sylvain regardless as he turned to take in the sight of the active dockyard alongside the busy port. It mostly seemed to be small to medium sized trading vessels, the largest of which only had two masts. Despite how much time Sylvain spent on the water, true ships like these were mostly unfamiliar territory. Pirogues and skiffs were just about the only water vehicle one found out in the Vermilion Isles, if you went farther south and reached the ocean you could probably find some bigger ones but that area was not easily reachable as there were few outflowing bodies to connect there outside of the major estuaries towards the East. ‘Besides,’ thought Sylvain, 'folks back in the Isles didn’t trade much. We didn’t get many merchants out that way.’
The young man leaned over some rails along the entry to the dockyard and watched as the shipbuilders and crew worked to repair the vessels arrayed before him. Lost in the serenity of it, despite the busy work he observed and those around him rushing about, Sylvain was able to finally truly relax for the first time since those knights practically kidnapped him. He pushed back away from the rail abruptly, planning to head up the street to watch some of the larger trading ships come to port, when he ended up knocking into another person who was walking by. They both fell to the ground, as the stranger was in a rush, but Sylvain quickly got to his feet and began to apologize and attempt to assist them up from the ground.
“Damn I’m sorry, I was in my own head and didn’t think about how busy this area was.” As he spoke the words, he got a look at the person he sent to the ground. It was a young woman with short brown hair, it barely fell short of her shoulders, and as she glared up at him she could make out her honey colored eyes. Her skin was tan like his own, but seemed to be more akin to natural complexion than his own sun-darkened hide. She squinted as he finished his apology, then sighed and took a hand where he hoisted her up to stand in front of him. He realized she was slightly taller than him, not by a lot but enough to notice without much scrutiny. She seemed to be dressed in rugged traveler's clothes of green and brown with linen breeches and a sword belted at her side. She dusted herself off and she looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.
“So, I take it then you aren’t a local and can’t show me around?” Her voice was husky with a slight accent he couldn’t quite place. It almost sounded fake, like she was trying to cover up her actual accent with something else. Sylvain realized he wouldn’t have even thought to consider that if it wasn’t for the last week’s grueling education. “Well?” She crossed her arms as he continued to just watch her, and then Sylvain blushed and stammered out his next sentence.
“Ahh, er- no. I technically just moved here within the last week. I’m a bit of an outsider myself, actually.” He scratched his head and tried to adopt a charming smile, but he was sure that it just came across as awkward. She huffed at his words.
“That’s. That’s okay. I’m Sloan,” she held out her hand, her right which was her sword-arm based on the position of the blade on her opposite hip. He took it and almost shook it like normal but then paused, Sylvain wasn’t sure if she should shake it or kiss it based on his station. They hadn’t gotten to introductions with women outside of nobility. She raised an eyebrow at his apprehension, mistaking it for something else as she adopted a slight smirk. “It’s okay, I don’t bite.”
“Ah yes, sorry. My name is Sylvain,” he shook her hand and noticed how firm her grip was. She had some calluses that he could barely feel, he reasoned that meant the sword wasn’t just for show. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and once again I apologize for the way I, quite literally, ran into you here.” He noticed her smirk shift to a genuine smile at her words, and she gently shook her head.
“No worries. I am fresh off of one of the ships back there, looking for somewhere to stay and a bit of work.” She pointed behind her with her thumb for emphasis.
“Oh? What do you do?”
She patted her sword as she answered, “Hired blade. Guard work, escorting goods and people, I’ll occasionally take on a bounty if I think I can manage it alone but that’s a bit more rare for me.” She leaned forward on her toes toward him as she continued. “How about yourself?”
“Fisher- I mean. Damn. I don’t really know how to explain it actually.”
“Oh? Can you walk and talk?” Sloan motioned the way she was originally heading, and Sylvain nodded. The ‘fisher-I mean’ wanted to continue following her and chatting as this was the first time someone actually spoke to him since he left. “Why don’t you know? Sounds like a fun story based on the way you are scrunching up your face?” He abruptly stopped scrunching, a bit embarrassed, and she had another slight smile on her face.
“Yeah well it is a bit of a long and unbelievable story. I was originally a fisherman from the Vermilion Isles, but-”
“Where’s that?”
“Oh it's West of here, mostly swamps and lakes where lots of folks like myself are from. But as I was saying, that’s my home and I used to fish but it turns out I have some well off family here. They need more young blood, so they brought myself and some other bastards out to see if they can pass muster. Looks like I’m the only one that has any value to them so far, unfortunately.”
“You are unhappy about being brought to live with wealthy family members?” Sylvain almost smiled when she either chose not to acknowledge, or didn’t give any indication that she cared about his status as a bastard. “That just seems like a pretty lucky situation.”
“I’m sure I would find it better if everyone I’ve met that is related to me didn’t ignore or disrespect me at every turn. The only people I can get to talk to me are the, uhh, staff and the gentleman hired to give me a ‘proper education.’ It hasn’t been very welcoming, but at least I got new clothes and some coins to spend. I guess I should be grateful but-”
“No, you don’t need to be. You had a life as a fisherman already, right? You may have been brought here to reconnect with your family or whatever they told you, but if it's just been them ignoring or disrespecting you at every turn I can see how that would wear you down. Especially knowing that it seems the others were turned away while you are being kept here. That must not be fun.” Sylvain was growing more and more warm, from feeling heard and a bit angry at his family, and decided he would be taking care of Sloan's meals and drinks today- if she would let him.
“Yeah that is exactly how I feel, you are kind of the first friend I’ve made.”
“Ohhh? Friends, am I? Well aren’t you forward. Is it because I'm beautiful to the point that it's hopelessly beyond you so you are resigning yourself to friendship, or am I just that great so you want to become my friend after barely knowing anything about me?” She had a smile at the start of her response, but turned up her nose as she exaggeratedly intoned the rest. It nearly made Sylvain burst out laughing, he didn’t really know how to respond at that so he just deadpanned what he thought was an honest response.
“Both.” She snorted and shook her head, taking a few steps closer to him as they navigated the intensifying crowds. “Do you have an idea of where to stay? My driver mentioned a tavern that he described as a solid balance of safety and affordability, but it might just be a rum bar. I don’t actually know if they have rooms, but I assume the port district has boardhouses or something similar.”
“Lead the way, Sylvain. Drinks are on you!”
“I uhh, actually don’t know where it is.” He paused and scratched his head, and Sloan just chuckled before stopping someone so they could ask for directions. Then they were off again, unfortunately in the opposite direction they were first going. Sylvain thought it should have been obvious since he saw where his driver headed earlier, but he wasn't able to focus on much besides his conversation partner. As they continued chatting and joking through the streets, Sylvain thought that perhaps living there wouldn’t be quite as disheartening as the first week implied it would be.