He’d fallen asleep rather quickly, and was welcomed by a dream almost immediately. He wasn’t surprised by the four familiar faces that greeted him. It was his way of actually communicating with them… even if it was, admittedly, an unreliable method.
Lydia was the closest. She gave him a wide smile. It was one of the few times that they could see each other as if nothing had happened; everything could almost just go back to the way it was six years ago, so perfect it was certain to fall apart.
On either side of her was Elena and Lewis. They were fainter than she was, though still easily distinguishable against their surroundings. They never talked as much as Lydia did, possibly because he wasn’t as close to them as he had been to her, but they still seemed content. He often wondered if they’d chosen to be his spirits because of Lydia, to which neither of them confirmed nor denied.
Then at the very back was Lucas. Most of the time, he was little more than a blur; something closer to an afterthought, or the voice in the very back of his head. Lucas was the spirit that he’d been born with, as many other Seothian royals were.
“Do you remember this place, Tavin?” Lydia prompted gently, moving a bit closer to him. “We all went on a trip together…”
“It was in the middle of Aclither, chilly but nothing out of the ordinary here,” Tavin recalled breezily. “I might’ve been eight but that doesn’t mean I’d forgotten about it altogether.”
“Then what about the people who live around here?” she continued. “And the village we went to that’s not far from here?”
This was the part that confused him. “Why do you want me to talk with Lustris and Muriel?” He couldn’t claim to be extremely close to them, but it would be a lie to say he didn’t remember his family. Well, one of the maids and an adopted daughter.
That caught Elena’s attention, too. “It would be a good time to visit them, wouldn’t it? I hope Muriel’s doing okay. I’m sure Lustris is taking good care of her…”
“She’s sixteen now, too,” Lewis mused. “She might not even be recognizable anymore. I mean, if I wasn’t here all this time, I wouldn’t be able to recognize Little Envi!” He got a little closer to Tavin and ruffled his hair.
“Hey, stop embarrassing my son!” Lydia whacked him upside the head. “Only I get to do that!”
Tavin, trying not to seem flustered, asked, “Mother, can you get to the point, please..?”
Lydia offered a soft smile. “I want you to go back to that house, the one we went to when we were here the last time… I wanted to be with you when you did it, but I guess I’m just here in spirit. Literally.”
“It’s time for that already..?” Elena mumbled, giving her older sister a wary look. She was trying to be quiet, even though she should’ve realized that he could still hear her. “Do you think he’s up for it..?”
The only kind of response Lydia gave was a nod.
Tavin woke up slowly, a welcome change from the normal bolting awake. It was morning, though he couldn’t tell much else. He was filled with a certain sense of urgency when he thought about what Lydia had asked him. There really wasn’t any reason to; she didn’t make any hints to it being something that needed to get done immediately. Yet even knowing that, he still immediately got up and began gathering what he would need.
He knew that it wouldn’t be a long trip. The only thing he would really need to take with him was simply the essentials; casual clothes, a coat, and his mother’s satchel (something he carried along with him mostly as a keepsake and felt wrong not bringing with him on such a trip). Anything else he would need he could get in town. He just needed a servant to feed Ihu while he was gone. He did, somewhat, fear telling Samone of his whereabouts, so maybe he’d also get someone to tell her that too—once it was already too late to try to drag him back, that is. She wasn’t usually that protective, but it all depended on his company and the activity of the Skiá.
Making sure he had everything in the satchel, he headed out. He assigned a few duties to the maid he considered the most trustworthy (namely, the one who’d been nice to Ihu when the whole royal family visited several years prior) before taking the most discreet way out of the estate.
“Sneaking off?” He slowly turned around to face the speaker, watching her pull the pipe away and letting out a sigh of smoke.
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“Aunt Samone…” Tavin thought he’d had a pretty decent chance of leaving the explanation to someone else. But that wasn’t taking into account Samone usually did her smoking in the quietest spot early in the morning. There was no avoiding her now, a truth that he was almost conflicted to be faced with.
“As much as I’d much rather assume you’re not going to do something stupid, we both know that’s not going to be enough this time,” she remarked. “Imre’s expecting me to keep you safe and I can’t say I did that if I don’t know where you are. Start talking before I have to start acting like a parent.”
He quickly figured out how to say everything he needed to without going into too much detail. “Mother wants me to go somewhere. It’s near the town not far from here and I plan on picking up an acquaintance before heading there.”
“You’ll still be alone for a couple of hours before you get to the town,” she pointed out with a frown. “It might be daytime but there’s not enough military support for constant patrols like in Lelishara. Skiá could be anywhere and you hardly have the ability to defend yourself against them.”
“I can feel them, though,” he argued in the most respectful way possible. After enough encounters, he’d started to become aware of their whereabouts. “I’ll know when they’re nearby and I can get somewhere safe. You don’t have to worry about me.” Her skeptical look drew out a certain type of hopelessness out of him, bringing one final attempt to win her over. “Please?”
\.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*./
“Pleeeeaaaaase? Pretty please?” Lydia wasn’t going to let the desk stop her from getting in Imre’s face. She leaned on the desk so then she could be right in front of him. She’d already proven that she wasn’t going to let him do any work, having either tossed all the papers aside or otherwise made them unreachable. Having to watch this rather embarrassing interaction was Tavin, who’d always been glad it was just the three of them whenever he recalled it.
“Enn, I’m busy…” Imre tried gathering his things around her, if not just to keep them all in one place. “Dimas and Kiah are going to be in Qizar for two weeks and Raisul is out for gods knows how long dealing with problems in his territory. I need to concentrate and get some work done, but I can’t do that when you’re bursting into my office and messing with everything…”
“But you haven’t even heard what I have to say yet!”
“It can’t be anything good if you come in here begging about it.”
“It’s moderately harmless!”
“For you that could be anything from reading a book to confronting the Minotaur.”
“A spirit can’t touch living people, but paper cuts are real.” Lydia then remembered that she was trying to win an argument. “It’s a simple trip!”
Imre sighed. “You know I don’t like you randomly running off but it’s not like you’ll let me stop you. What’s so different this time that you actually came to ask me about it first?”
She pulled Tavin closer to her and remarked, “Because I’m taking our son with me.”
“That… would explain why he came with you,” Imre mumbled. His expression was enough proof that he wasn’t actually paying attention to who else had entered with her. “Although that adds a whole different level of no.”
“He’s not gonna get hurt! Ellie and Witless will be with us, too, so it’s not like we’re going to be alone!”
“You didn’t see anything about the papers you scattered across the floor, did you? Those are all reports. Each one of them talks about the exact reason why I’m not letting you do that.”
“So what if there’s an uptick in Skiá sightings? There’s literally one of those every other week! Does it really make a difference?”
Imre continued in a hushed tone, “We know that she is involved in all of this. If she thinks she has something to gain from this… from doing something to either of you…”
Even looking back at it, Tavin couldn’t quite piece together the extent of his father’s words.
“You know if she wanted to do something, she’d have done it by now, right? Stop worrying over everything, it’s going to be okay. All I want is to spend some time with my siblings and son by exploring an old ruin. Perfect Stone family bonding time!”
“I can’t let you go. Whatever it is it can’t be worth the—“
“Learning about Minne isn’t worth the risk?” At this, Lydia switched to a much lower tone. Tavin could barely hear her.
Imre got even quieter. “You know he’s not…”
“It’s not for right now. I want to make sure it can actually do what I want it to first.”
“A-alright…” He got louder again as he turned his attention to Tavin. “I suppose it’s up to you, then. Would you like to go with your mother or stay here?”
“I want to go with Mother,” Tavin decided after a moment. He chose not to mention that she more or less explained it to him before dragging him here.
Lydia hugged him. “You might still be a full-fledged Stone yet!” As she walked out with Tavin close behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and said, “And now that there’s no taking it back, it’s up in the Northern Deoyros area. I’ll make sure he gets all his work before we leave and he can do it on the ride there.”