Alessandra and Octavia
Alessandra was thoroughly enjoying her morning. She had breakfast, something she rarely got, a new dress, and now she was getting to hit Miss Suzzane with a wooden sword. To be fair, it was more trying to hit Miss Suzzane with a wooden sword, as Miss Suzzane had her own and actually knew how to use it. Nonetheless, it was fun clacking them together, and seeing the Paladins wince at what they called Miss Suzzane’s “execrable form” was fun as well. The older Paladin, Arabelle (“Do not call Miss Arabelle, I work for a living.”), had told Alessandra that her form needed work, but for playing around with a sword for the first time was quite good. That made Alessandra happy. The younger Paladin, Kimi, had offered to teach Alessandra how to hold her sword, but Arabelle had told her not to, that it was not their place to teach her unless her guardians asked them to. That was fine with Alessandra; she just wanted to swing a sword right now.
After about five minutes of play fighting, Alessandra’s arms suddenly felt weak, and she unexpectedly dropped her sword. Miss Suzzane couldn’t stop her swing in time and smacked her sword into Alessandra’s left arm.
“ Ow! ” Alessandra said, grabbing her arm. Miss Suzzane dropped her sword and grabbed Alessandra’s arm with a glowing hand, quickly healing the minor wound.
“I’m sorry, Alessandra. You dropped your guard so suddenly I couldn’t stop!” Miss Suzzane cried.
“It’s ok, Miss Suzzane. I was just surprised. Most days, I get beat much worse than that. Thank you for healing me. Can you teach me how to do that?” Alessandra asked.
“I don’t know. If you have any Healing Affinity, I could; that was a very simple spell. I’m primarily a….” a loud cough from Miss Yvette, who had come over from cleaning up the toy explosion Alessandra had created upon entering the playroom, cut Miss Suzzanne off mid-sentence. Miss Suzzane looked at Miss Yvette, clearly upset at the interruption, but her eyes widened at Miss Yvette’s raised eyebrow. Alessandra wondered what that was all about but decided that finding Bitey a friend in the toybox was a more pressing issue than figuring out adult stuff. She didn’t have to go begging for food or wash stinky sheets for the whores today, and she was going to make the most of it.
“Alessandra!” Miss Yvette called, stopping the girl in her tracks. She turned around, wondering what she had done wrong. “If you are done with the swords, put them back in the toybox before pulling something else out. You are old enough to clean up after yourself; I’m not doing it again.”
Alessandra thought about that for a moment. She didn’t see the point in putting them back when she was going to throw everything back out of the treasure box anyway, but it seemed like it was important to Miss Yvette, so she would do it; maybe they locked the treasure box up when she wasn’t here to keep the Maid-Thief from stealing everything. Grabbing the swords, she started back to the treasure box, only to be stopped by Miss Yvette clearing her throat. Alessandra turned around and looked at Annoying Miss Yvette, wondering what she had messed up this time.
“When someone talks to you, it is polite to at least acknowledge that they spoke to you,” Annoying Miss Yvette said. Alessandra just stood there looking at her. After a few moments of staring, Annoying Miss Yvette asked, “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I didn’t hear a question, Miss Yvette; I was waiting for you to finish. Can I put the swords back in the treasure chest now? Bitey needs a friend, and I want to look for one,” Alessandra asked.
There was chuckling from the directions of the Paladins, but even Alessandra knew that when getting lectured, it only got worse if you got distracted, so she didn’t look that way.
Annoying Miss Yvette answered with a sigh, “Yes, remember that anything you take out, you have to put back.”
“Yes, Miss Yvette,” Alessandra answered, returning to her interrupted trip to the treasure box. Setting the swords down carefully, she didn’t want to break them; she opened the box and saw that Nice Miss Yvette had put the plushies on the top and proceeded to look for a new friend. After several seconds of contemplation, she grabbed a bird that she thought Bitey might enjoy eating. She started to close the box, but a throat-clearing stopped her. Turning her head, she saw Miss Suzzane pointing at the forgotten swords. With an “eep,” Alessandra quickly put them back in the treasure box and closed the lid. Grabbing Bitey, who she would never let get put in the dark and lonely treasure box again, she went over to a corner and started a spirited chase.
****
Octavia had a pleasant morning reading alone in the Halrond’s library. She was pleasantly surprised at the Ducal couple’s acceptance of her pause in their plans to adopt Alessandra as quickly as possible. She was not used to dealing with reasonable nobles.
She had instructed Yvette and Suzzane not to correct Alessandra’s behavior too firmly. Somehow, she seemed to have the basics of civilized behavior, but she didn’t want to risk overwhelming her and having another meltdown like the one last night. She thought that Yvette understood her reasoning, but she was less sure about Suzzane. She was a bit disappointed in Suzzane’s behavior yesterday. She believed that the girl understood her position in society after she had taken her vows, but the evidence to the contrary was unmistakable. She would have to find some way to gently reinforce that truth or find someplace she could be useful but out of the way. Maybe a posting with the Mordan Clans would set her right; those people had little use for noble pretension.
She was surprised when a servant entered the library around the eleventh bell and asked her what she wanted for lunch and where she would be eating. The servant, seeing her confusion, informed her that lunch was informal and usually eaten separately. She decided to eat in a nearby garden and was surprised when Countess Moor asked to join her. She granted her request, curious at what the other woman wanted. After a pleasant meal filled with small talk, she asked her what she wanted.
“Now that propriety has been observed, let’s get down to business. Why did you seek me out, Countess?” Octavia asked.
“Not much beating around the bush with you is there, Archbishop. Very well, were you planning on leaving the blond girl here or not?” Countess Moor asked.
“No, I wasn’t. I don’t think her temperament fits this assignment,” Octavia replied.
“If you had asked me last night, I would have agreed. Still do, in fact, but I think you should reconsider,” raising a hand to forestall a reply, the Countess continued, “Please give me a moment to explain. The brunette girl, Yvette, I think her name is, is making an effort to learn about the issues that Alessandra will face joining noble society, while blondie is not. I think that her mistakes will provide an opportunity for Alessandra to learn how to deal with people who won't make an allowance for her upbringing so far. It will also be good for the pompous twit to be stomped on in a situation that won’t get her executed or exiled.”
“I hadn’t considered the situation in that light. I will think upon what you have said,” Octavia replied. “Unless there is anything else I was planning to talk to Alessandra now….”
“Nothing else now, Holiness. Thank you for your time.” Countess Moor said, rising and bowing to her.
Octavia acknowledged the bow and asked the ever-present servant to lead her to the playroom where Alessandra was supposed to be.
****
Alessandra’s morning had been the best of her young life. She hadn’t been chased, beaten, yelled at, or hungry. She had gone back and forth between playing with the plushies and the swords. Nice Miss Yvette and Tolerable Miss Suzzane had taken turns “fighting” her, though Tolerable Miss Suzzane didn’t seem to like doing it much. Nice Miss Yvette wasn’t a very good fighter, Arabelle said her best defense was running away from anything meaner than a blind kitten, but she seemed to enjoy herself. Then around twelfth bell, some Maid-Thieves had brought in some more food even though she wasn’t that hungry. This was great!
After lunch, Nice Miss Yvette and Miss Suzzane started discussing how to keep her busy when the door opened, admitting Nice Archbishop Octavia. Both the Caretakers and the Paladins started to kneel but stopped at a hand motion from the Archbishop.
“None of that now; we aren’t at the Temple. Yvette, Suzzane, and Kimi, please find something to do elsewhere; I need a private conversation with Alessandra,” Nice? Archbishop Octavia said, waving at the door.
Alessandra wasn’t sure what to make of the Archbishop making the others leave. Sure, Miss Suzzane wasn’t the nicest person, but she had healed her (even though she wasn’t that hurt), but Miss Yvette seemed nice. She at least pretended to like playing with her. Kimi just always stood out of the way watching. Honestly, Alessandra was a little weirded out by her and Arabelle, but they didn’t seem to want to hurt her. What had she done that was so bad that everyone but Arabelle was being sent away? She wasn’t scared, she knew Archbishop Octavia wouldn’t beat her bloody, but she was not looking forward to getting another spanking. Archbishop Octavia looked over at her, smiled at her, and pointed at a pile of floor cushions.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Alessandra, so you’re not in any trouble. Let’s sit and have a talk about everything that has been going on,” Archbishop Octavia said while settling herself onto the cushions.
Finally, Alessandra thought, some explanations of why everyone was being so nice to her. Grabbing Bitey, she went to the cushions as well. Settling in on the very comfortable cushions, Alessandra put on her best-begging face, hoping that Archbishop Octavia would tell her everything instead of just what she thought she should know.
****
Octavia looked at the face that Alessandra was giving her and realized that she had underestimated the girl’s intelligence. She clearly knew there was more going on than had been explained to her. She modified her planned explanation slightly, fully knowing that she had just been manipulated.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“To start, I know that you’re trying to manipulate me into telling you more than I had planned to.” Alessandra’s face fell. Octavia smiled at the girl, “Well, it worked.” Alessandra’s face lit up into a bright smile. “By trying, you showed me that you are smart enough to understand more of what’s going on than I had planned on telling you. I won’t tell you everything because you can’t help with it, and it will just worry you. You have to promise me that if I tell you that I won’t answer a question, you won’t try to trick me into telling you. If you won’t do that, I will end the conversation, and you will have to wait for Duchess Helga and Duke Jerome to decide to tell you. Do you understand?”
Alessandra scrunched her brow, clearly thinking, and after a few seconds replied, “I think I do. You are going to tell me most of what’s happing to me, but not all of it. You want me not to try to trick you anymore.” Scrunching her brow again, Alessandra asked, “Can I ask questions if I don’t understand something?”
“Yes, you can ask questions. To start, I need to ask you a few questions.” At Alessandra’s nod of understanding, she continued, “Duke Jerome and Duchess Helga want to adopt you as their daughter. Do you know what that means?”
“I think sooo.” Octavia motioned for her to continue. “It means that they will be mom and dad?”
“That’s correct. They want to be your mommy and daddy.” Octavia smiled at Alessandra encouragingly. “I know you just met them, and yesterday was a bit overwhelming, but I need to know if you even want a mommy and daddy.”
After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, during which Alessandra hugged her ratty stuffed animal, Alessandra answered, “I don’t know. I like it here so far, but I’m not sure what having a mom and dad even means.”
Unsurprised by her answer, Octavia tried to explain. “It means that they will be responsible for caring for you, for making sure that you are educated and ready to be a productive member of society. They will, of course, from time to time have to punish you, like the spanking yesterday, but it will be because they want you to be a better person, not because they want to hurt you.”
“That sounds ok, but how much money would that cost me?” Alessandra asked after a few moments. “Nothing is free.”
Questions like this were why Octavia had banished the younger women from the room. Octavia had an answer ready, “It won’t cost you any money or anything like that. It will cost you something far more precious: trust and love. They, and their sons, will be your family. Family doesn’t make each other pay money for help, but they will always help each other. The Duke and Duchess want you to join their family. It won’t happen immediately; there are steps to take; I want you to think about it for now.”
Alessandra’s expression had brightened when she had heard that it wouldn’t cost her any money but had fallen when she had heard that it wouldn’t happen immediately.
“Why won’t it happen immediately?” Alessandra asked. “Will I have to go back to The Wet until it does happen?”
“No, you won’t have to go back to The Wet, sweety; you will be living here. The Duke and Duchess are going to be something called your guardians. That means that it is their job to take care of you, like temporary parents. This is to protect you from some not-very-nice people who want to take advantage of you. Who those people are one of those things I won’t tell you about,” Octavia said. “What this means for you is that you have a safe place to live, protected by some of the most powerful people in the Kingdom. They want to get to know you better and for you to get to know and trust them.” Sighing at the child’s incredulous expression, she continued, “Girl, you have not had an easy life. It’s a bit of a miracle that you have enough trust in others to even let me try to convince you that someone wants to help you. There is enough time for you to relax and deal with the massive change in your life before adding another one.”
Alessandra squeezed her doll before asking her question. “Why is my magic so important? There are a lot of mages. Why is one street mouse so important that I need protection?”
Octavia had dreaded this question and held a vain hope that Alessandra would not ask it, but she had prepared herself for it. She didn’t want to lie to or scare the child, so she chose her words carefully.
“To be honest, Alessandra, we are not sure yet. We know you have an incredibly large mana pool, and initial scans show that you should have excellent control. This is unusual, but not unheard of, but usually only happens if someone is God-Touched. What concerns us is that you are a Death and Shadow Mage, and the God of Death says that he did not give you your gifts. You also have an unusual amount of secondary gifts, Metal, Fire, Animal Speech, and Barrier magic. You can also use a little bit of Healing and Growth magic. These many magical gifts have only ever been recorded by someone God-Touched, but no God has claimed you yet. Until we figure out which one we have to keep you safe from people who would take advantage of you,” Octavia noticed that Alessandra was squeezing her stuffed animal tightly and looking confused. She also saw that the girls’ Aura was strengthening. Motioning to Arabelle to suppress Alessandra’s aura with hers, she held out her arms to Alessandra; she said, “Come here, Alessandra, let me give you a hug, sweety; you have nothing to be scared of.” Alessandra looked at her dubiously but accepted the hug and calmed down some. Her Aura didn’t contract but stopped strengthening. Not wanting to worry the girl anymore, Octavia simply held her, rocking gently.
After a couple of minutes, Alessandra spoke up, “Why don’t you ask the Goddess of Life if she can ask the other Gods who gave me my gifts? You’re her Archbishop. Would she do that for you?”
“I had thought of that, but I wanted to ask you about it first. Just because you're God-Touched doesn’t mean you owe them anything, and some people never want to know which one gave them their gift. Are you sure you want to know?”
Alessandra squirmed out of Octavia’s lap and started pacing, quietly talking to her stuffed animal. Octavia didn’t want to push her into a decision but let her come to one on her own. Alessandra suddenly stopped and looked first at Octavia and then at Arabelle and walked over to Arabelle.
“Arabelle, if you were God-Touched would you want to know which God touched you?” she asked.
“Yes, I would,” Arabelle answered.
Nodding, Alessandra looked back at Octavia, “Please ask the Goddess.”
Accepting her decision, Octavia nodded her affirmation and closed her eyes to pray to the Goddess of Life and Family. To her surprise, she didn’t even have to ask anything before the Goddess spoke to her.
“There is only one God who has not already denied Touching the child. The God of Justice has yet to respond to My and Fluffies inquiries; please wait a moment while I force the issue with him,” the Goddess of Life and Family declared.
Even as an Archbishop and having been in the service of her Goddess for almost 100 years, she was not used to her Goddess being so forthcoming. It was usually much more difficult to get an answer from her. From discussions with other Archbishops, she knew that excepting Madness, this was the norm. This frankness worried her. She waited patiently for her Goddess’ attention to return to her.
“The God of Justice did not Touch the child, but I now know who did. Before I can tell you, I have instructions to give. ONE: The child must be adopted into the House of Halrond. Fluffy is informing his Temple of this now. TWO: You must tell the Halrond Elders of this conversation. THREE: The child must remain ignorant of whom touched her until she has almost or fully grown. FOUR: NO ONE ELSE MAY KNOW WHO TOUCHED THE CHILD UNTIL SHE IS INFORMED. This is for her protection. Do you understand Archbishop Octavia of Ciel?”
“Yes, Goddess, I understand,” Octavia replied.
“We shall see. For the child’s sake and yours, I hope you do. Now for the headache-inducing explanation. She is Fate-Touched. Chaos has spread some Randomness that will cause problems in the future. Fate was attempting to Touch her Chosen Champion when Chaos broke into her Realm and redirected the spell. Beyond the Realm of Possibility, it landed on Alessandra, who was close to Awakening a strong Death Magic Gift. Fate's Blessing magnified her power many times beyond what was planned for a Champion of Fate. This has enraged Fate. Alessandra was not supposed to live beyond today; she was supposed to die in The Wet before her Gift ever awakened. Fate now needs her to grow up and be as well-adjusted as possible. The House of Halrond is the only House with the resources and temperament available to help Fate accomplish this. Now you need to figure out how to explain to a child you can’t give her the answers she wants, explain to her parents what's going on but that they need to hide this from her, oh and they can’t tell their King that he has a time bomb on his hands,” the Goddess said. With a chuckle, the Goddess added, “Have fun not telling all the other Archbishops about this either. I’m sure they will bug you about what’s going on.”
“It shall be done to the best of my abilities, Goddess,” Octavia said. Could she make this any harder, she thought in the privacy of her mind.
“I could blind you if you really want me to make this a bigger challenge,” the Goddess said.
“That’s quite all right, Goddess, no need for blinding,” Octavia quickly said to the sound of fading -laughter in her head.
****
Alessandra was nervous. She thought she understood the idea of adoption and really wanted a home. However, she wanted a home that wanted her, not one that wanted her for what she could give it. She was willing to give Miss Helga and Bea…Mr. Jerome a chance; they hadn’t asked her to do anything but try to behave and listen to Miss Yvette and Miss Suzzane. She knew more rules were to come, but she could live with that; even on the streets, there were rules like not robbing a certain person or only shanking people at night. She wasn’t sure what to think about having…brothers? She hoped they were nice; if they were like Miss Helga, she thought they would be. Wasn’t it taking a long time for the Goddess to answer? She didn’t know.
“Arabelle, how long does it take to get an answer from the Goddess?” she asked the Paladin.
“Usually quite a while, if she answers at all,” Arabelle answered. “She isn’t like the God of Answers who answers rather quickly.”
“Oh, I hope She answers this time. I really, really want to know who Touched me,” Alessandra said, hanging her head.
“In the end, it won’t change much for you. Instead of worrying about it, why don’t you go get the play swords and try to hit me,” Arabelle said.
Over the next few minutes, Alessandra collected an impressive set of bruises and small tears on her new dress. She didn’t care because Arabelle was telling her what she was doing wrong the whole time. She would definitely hit Miss Suzzane the next time they played with the sword. She was having so much fun that she didn’t notice Angry Archbishop Octavia walking up behind Arabelle until she hit the side of Arabelle’s head.
“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? HOW DID YOU DESTROY HER DRESS SO QUICKLY? WHY IS A GROWN WOMAN HITTING A CHILD WITH A TOY SWORD HARD ENOUGH TO LEAVE BRUISES?” yelled VERY VERY ANGRY Archbishop Octavia. Alessandra tried to hide her sword behind her back. “DON’T THINK I DIDN’T SEE THAT SWORD, MISSY YOU’RE NOT INNOCENT HERE.”
Arabelle stood very straight as Very Very Angry Archbishop Octavia yelled at her saying words that Alessandra was pretty sure a Priestess shouldn’t say in front of children. She tried to remember as many as she could. After a few minutes, Very Very Angry Archbishop Octavia turned into Angry Archbishop Octavia and turned to Alessandra and said, “I’m also disappointed with you, young lady. I thought you were mature enough not to get into trouble while I spoke to my Goddess on your behalf. I was going to explain some of what she had told me, but now I can’t trust you not to tell anyone things you shouldn’t. I will only tell you that she has blessed you eventually getting adopted by the Duke and Duchess. Wait here until Yvette and Suzzane return to get you cleaned up.” And with that, Disappointed Archbishop Octavia left.