Ari couldn’t tell if he overreacted or not. He was angry and felt betrayed, but with the life that Miss Colette provided for him he felt that it might have been fair for these expectations to be levied upon him. He sat in his room, the curtains drawn to prevent the light of the moons from spilling in, and tried to assess how he should feel. The young man knew that he was mostly level-headed; when he was struck by intense emotions he struggled to get them under control and behave in a way that he wouldn’t be embarrassed by or regret. The part that hurt him the most was that he wasn’t sure how much of the relationship he had built over the years with the disinherited Laine was genuine. Objectively, he knew a lot of their relationship’s foundation was grief and the companionship they formed when both were going through difficult times in their lives. He never really thought of their relationship as ‘unequal’ because Miss Colette always told him that they were family and that family helped one another.
But were they family? Was he not just the person that happened to fit the description of what the late Quincy instructed his widow to obtain. If that was the entire basis of their relationship, he couldn’t decide if that meant what they had now was real or just an illusion that was pretty enough to be used to hide the reality. That might have been the real reason he was so hesitant to accept the mantle of the Legacy that Cyrus and Quincy laid out for him. What Ari decided would need to happen was Miss Colette learning of the circumstances and himself learning what was to happen next from her perspective. If she reacted like someone watching their loved one forced to carry a burden, not that he was sure what that would look like, he would be content and accept the legacy without any pain in his heart. He wasn’t sure how he would react otherwise.
The following morning the few remaining guests were briefly entertained by a seemingly oblivious Miss Colette and a slightly less enthusiastic Ari. Upon the departure of all the guests excluding Cyrus and a few of his closer entourage members, Miss Colette wore a frown that made it obvious she was aware that something was amiss.
“What exactly happened between the two of you for Ari to be so upset?!” she stormed up to Cyrus, him towering over her, and demanded without a moment of hesitation. To the shock of Ari, and any of Cyrus’ allies who were unaware of their relationship, Cyrus flinched away and looked like a kicked puppy before regaining his measure. He straightened himself after a shallow inhale and exhale, before looking down at the woman with a serious expression.
“Collie, I told him why you brought him here” a brief glance past the woman to Ari had the man only briefly looking into Ari’s eyes before he quickly averted his gaze back to Colette.
“You mean Quincy” she barely whispered before her shoulders slumped in defeat, the fight driven out of her so quickly that the expectations of the guards who didn’t know what was going to happen were immediately dashed. She turned back to look at Ari with tears welling up in her eyes. “It wasn’t just because of him, really. At first I was just taken by you and how much you reminded me of him. You were so mature for your age, you were what I imagined a child if we ever managed to have one, would be like. I didn’t even remember the instructions until I asked you to come with me.”
Ari couldn’t decide if this confirmed his fears or allayed them, the fact that their initial connection was genuine was great but it seems as if she wouldn’t have brought him along if not for Quincy’s wishes. He decided that was okay, the fact that her feelings until now might be more than forced were able to ease his turmoil and he nodded for her to continue.
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“I didn’t realize his instructions were more specific because of how painful it was to read his well and the diary he wrote to me. Until you were already living and settled in the area, I’m not sure of when exactly but a bit before I gave you this place, I couldn’t dare to open what he wrote. That’s when I saw he needed you educated and kept in a place to live. I figured you would be becoming an adult sooner or later so I could grant you this place that was gathering dust. I learned he had plans for you only after I started to consider you family. Ari, I promise.” She continued with tears in her eyes before quickly crossing the distance, to take his hands in her own.
Ari was frozen solid. ‘When did I get so much taller than her? When did her hands seem so small next to mine, her frame so diminutive?’ He started to feel a different kind of fear as he realized that time, while not taking its toll quite yet, had begun to change his life and how he perceived the world and people around him. He looked, slightly down to his horror, into her eyes that spilled gentle tears across her cheeks and nodded once more for her to continue.
“Truthfully” she began while letting go to whip away her tears before a guard stepped forward to offer her a handkerchief “I don’t know exactly what his plans are. I don’t know if I care. Whatever dangerous stuff his family was up to got them all killed and I won’t let whatever he plans for you put you in danger. You don’t have to do anything that Cyrus says, okay?”
“Ahem” Cyrus interrupted “Unfortunately, Collie, I think that I see what he was so upset about last night. He is going to go along with the plans.” Miss Colette spun around, her face turning even more red at what she took from Cyrus as a mockery, and began gearing up to start screaming. Before she could so much as let out more than the word “Bast-,” Ari had placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
“I- I do not know if I will necessarily do whatever you say Cyrus. But I am more open to the plans the two of you might have had. Truthfully, this is a bit sudden. I have been very comfortable here these years and I don’t really know if I could go back to living a more rugged life like I did in the past. At least, not easily.”
“Alright kid, we aren’t going to force you to hit the road and start exploring tomorrow. Spend a few years learning what you need to and getting things ready for when you depart. We don’t even know where you need to go to find the information we seek, and honestly you aren’t ready to go gallivanting around the lesser explored regions of the continent. You’d either die of exposure or get eaten by some beast.” At those words Miss Colette gasped and took a step forward with a fist raised. A few of the guards looked at each other and decided whether or not to get involved before Cyrus just quickly stepped back before she could strike him.
“Look Collie, I will give you the details of what's going on. These men and women are trustworthy and can stay to hear but if you would rather this conversation be more private then that is fine as well .” Cyrus subtly shook his head at a few of the guards that wore conflicted expressions about her behavior, managing to put them at ease and have them drop their tension about the situation. He motioned to the young man before continuing once more. “Ari, shouldn’t know everything that I and Quincy knew. Some of the information we have will make his journey more difficult or get in the way of his understanding of what he must learn for himself to manage.”
At those words Miss Colette's’ eyes sharpened and her mouth opened in an ‘oh’ shape, as the situation became more evident to her. Cyrus expected her to be more understanding now that she understood a part of how important this was, but her expression and voice turned cold. “Everyone out. Everyone, you too Ari, go away for about an hour while the two of us discuss this.” Ari started to protest, but a sharp look from the woman stopped him in his tracks.
He resigned himself to leaving them to bicker, and on his way out the back door grabbed his shepherd's crook. Halfway to the pasture from the garden, as the few guards trickled out the back while a few others made their way to the front of the manor, Ari couldn’t hear exactly what Colette Laine was saying. He could easily hear the sounds of things thrown in the kitchen however, and heard when Cyrus yelped in pain.