Rose [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczMsP36GWsxcLHdTvm7e6JYvDULrGmkaPbUDHxc9fbOE2chfnT8IQvapmfMqKb4gFdeqOQkSYl03CxTstNQMpW__u5eR-bOUHZrALJKPzYhe2BC1MCdLpSvqWBJ09MASaVSYq3hr5Zq2yLzN24-yFhW4=w639-h958-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
Jerem stared up at the impossibly massive tree and recalled the equally impossible tale Director Trayvious had recounted about its origins. They had talked for hours about everything that had happened from the moment Paul arrived in the city leading up to his own arrival.
He still couldn’t believe half of it. Paul actually becoming a father, especially through adoption and not some drunken illegitimate accident, seemed the most unbelievable to him still. What kind of person could thaw that man’s heart?
The Defender twirled the crimson rose in his hand that he had brought as a peace offering and worried now that it wouldn’t be enough compared to the meadow of alien flowers blooming all around this nascent city. He hoped it would be. He needed to meet Paul’s daughter and son, and the dragon that now guarded them would only be overcome with smooth words and thoughtful gifts.
“Hello!”
Jerem looked down to find a young human-looking girl, maybe five years old, with curly red hair and bright blue eyes in a white summer dress, holding a purring black kitten. Again, he wished for Miriam to deal with this.
“Hello,” he replied cautiously, “You must be the ‘Presley’ I heard about.”
“You must be the Jerem your aural imprint tells me about,” she replied with a grin.
The Defender wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He didn’t know auras could reveal a name, but then again, he didn’t know alien vessels could merge with a floraval and gain sentience, either.
“You’re very powerful. Almost Ruby. Why are you here?”
“I’m an old friend of Paul’s.”
Getting closer to look at the flower in his hand, she then inquired, “A gift?”
“For Ambassador Patricia Wayland.”
“She just got back from the AOA a bit ago. Apparently, Padma didn’t report in with her party, and nobody knows what mission King’s Dream was assigned to when they didn’t arrive on the wall.”
“That’s the name of the party with Paul’s adopted children in it, right?”
The girl’s eyes narrowed at him suspiciously, “Yes. Do you know where they are?”
“No. I came here looking for them.”
“I thought you were looking for Aunti Pati to give the flower gift?”
He gave a pained smile, “I know she won’t let me see them if I don’t apologize to her first.”
“Why do you need to apologize?”
“I may have said a few… negative things about her brother the last time we saw each other,” he tried to explain, “I was angry at him, lashed out, and stormed off. I’ve come to make amends, though.”
“To get something,” the child pointed out, and he grimaced.
“This was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”
“Probably,” Presley replied with a chipper grin, taking one of his hands to pull him along with her, “Let’s find out!”
With the little Emanation leading him, nobody seemed to stop and question some strange elf’s presence among the mostly cinderen, runeforged, and Fae populace moving about the ship-turned-town. As they wound through people and flower-filled corridors, they passed glossy black doors that reflected his grumpy face, and he tried to smooth it out. He needed to be contrite and passive if he was to get past the fire-breathing sister.
He wanted to see Paul. Wanted to confirm the wild story the director recounted and meet the party his friend had mentored. Meet the children the stoic Striker had chosen to carry out his legacy and build a family with. To talk with the woman Paul thought was worthy of the relic he carried.
Jerem adjusted the pack slung over his shoulder and tensed as Presley pulled him into a room that held the dragon that was currently roasting alive some poor young man. It took him a second to realize that man was her oldest son, Patric. He hadn’t seen the lad in almost a decade, not having taken much time the last few visits to the city to see Paul’s extended family.
“What do you mean she just walked off with Camilla?!” Patricia asked with a raised voice that was just barely below what he would call a scream. Her body language, on the other hand, screamed agitation and aggression toward anyone who dared to anger her further.
“That’s what one of the staff at the estate said. Camilla showed up, they talked, but the maid couldn’t hear what was said through the window a couple stories up, then they just walked off together heading west,” Patric replied, looking more distressed than fearful.
Jerem’s gaze caught that of an odd-looking voxen man with seven tails in swirling blue and green colors, and he wondered if the stranger had a Prism Brush like Roxy always kept on her or maybe some power creating the odd coloration. Even without his own aura senses confirming it, Jerem knew seven tails meant Ruby Caste and not to be messed with.
“You have a guest, it seems,” the voxen said calmly, and Jerem grimaced as Patricia’s gaze snapped to him.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” she said by way of greeting, the look of disdain on her face making it obvious that she hadn’t forgotten the last time he had been near.
He gave a nervous smile, “Hello, Lily Pati.”
Her bright blue eyes narrowed at him, “You know I’ve always hated that name. Pretty sure I punched you every time you’d say it.”
“But it always made you smile,” he pointed out, taking a step forward despite his better judgment, “Plus, I’ve come to apologize.”
She glanced down to the rose in his hand before fixing that shrewd gaze back on his face, which he tried desperately to keep impassive, “With a flower?”
“I know you like them,” he said pragmatically.
“I’m a Blossom Caretaker,” she scoffed, “The waiter at the corner cafe could have guessed that. You’re not here to apologize. You’re here because Paul wrote to you months ago. You’re a bit late. Though, I’m just surprised you bothered to show up at all.”
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“I was in Devreli, and there’s a blood moon,” he tried to argue in his defense, “You know the usual transports are either halted or confiscated for official use. People are expected to bunker down, not hitchhike across the monster-infested continent.”
“Oh yeah? What about the six years before that, Jerem?” she asked, crossing her arms under her chest for maximum disapproval.
He glanced at the Ruby Caster he didn’t know and at the young man he barely remembered the name of, and the looks of pity both were leveling at him, “Look, can we talk privately?”
Patric seemed to jump at the chance to escape and took a step towards the door, “Gladly—”
“Stay,” Patricia commanded her son, who halted at the snap of her fingers, then she said in a tone that chilled his bones, “I want witnesses to this so-called apology you have to say. I could use a second and third opinion.”
“Are you serious right now?” he asked incredulously, then gestured to the midnight voxen, “I don’t even know this bloke’s name.”
“This is Emissary Mint Starfall,” she stated flatly, then her voice rose an octave as it became drenched in sarcasm, “Now give me the grand apology that’s supposed to convince me to forgive everything you did to Paul before disappearing for over half a decade.”
“I—” Jerem hesitated, half-wondering if this was going to be yet another of her verbal traps, “I’m sorry for overreacting and the unfair words I said,” he began, carefully measuring his words to remain as calm and concise as possible to avoid her twisting anything he said.
“I was angry and grieving. I let my emotions get the better of me and shouldn’t have called Paul ‘a disgraceful arrogant prick with less capacity for love than his creepy emotionless Familiar and a bloated sense of self-righteous hypocrisy that would be better off lost at the bottom of a bottle than inflicting the world with his presence,’” he finished saying, trying not to wince at how that sounded in retrospect.
Then he remembered to add, “I’m also sorry I called you a ‘venomous shrew with a brother complex’...”
“Wow, how are you even alive still?” Patric asked with wide eyes that matched his mother’s.
“I was still only Sapphire and Paul was already a broken mess from destroying his adventuring party and Falling from the Purifier’s grace,” Patricia answered without a hint of mercy, “And that apology was a pile of siva dung.”
“He did say sorry for exactly what he did wrong, at least,” Mint offered in his defense, and Jerem’s opinion of the man instantly improved, “And his aura is reading as remorseful to me.”
“It might have been acceptable six years ago, but not now,” the priestess said with a shake of her head before gesturing towards the elf, “Why should I believe you won’t just turn around and hurt us again? Why should I give you an ounce of trust?”
“I’m his liegeman, Patricia,” Jerem said through gritted teeth, trying not to get offended by her doubt in him; he deserved it, after all.
She scoffed at his argument, “Paul released you from your Oathbond.”
He clenched his fists, “I still swore to protect and serve—”
“YOU TURNED YOUR BACK ON HIM!” she yelled. The composure she had been attempting to hold was finally cracking before his eyes, and she pointed an accusing finger at him, “Abandoned the man you swore to protect with your life!”
“He killed the woman I loved!” he retorted, he had felt justified in his anger at the time for this reason alone. Couldn’t she understand how broken he had been as well?
“She was a traitor, Jerem!” Patricia spat, “You don’t think it hurt him to have to end her? To go against everyone he trusted in order to do what was right?!”
“Him killing her wasn’t right!” he yelled back. This was going all wrong.
“Would you have rather he let her kill that village full of innocents?”
“No.” That wasn’t it. He needed to explain.
“Then what, Jerem? Should he have let her kill him instead?”
“No—”
“You can’t have it both ways!”
“I should have done it!” he snapped, throwing his hands up in the air as he took a step towards her.
Silence fell for a moment, and he tried to finally get his own words in, “I always nagged at him to be a better Adventurer. To care more about the victims than the mission! I always gave him grief for caring more about what his god wanted over what was the good thing to do… Then he went and bloody listened to me.”
He wiped a hand over his face as he felt the heat in his body rise. Trying to calm himself, he said in a more subdued tone, “He shouldn’t have had to kill her. I should have stood between them, protected him and the village. He—” his voice caught at the memories; the look of agony that had been on Paul’s face as the Paladin held the corpse of the woman he suspected both of them had loved, “He shouldn’t have needed to live with that burden.”
“Well, he did. Made all the worse by you scorning him for it,” she said, her words stabbing his heart again, “Now, get out. I have my brother’s children and my daughter to find.”
“Lily Pati—”
“Get out of my home and stay the fuck away from my family!” she screamed, pointing at the door.
He took another step forward to say more, but the Ruby voxen mirrored his actions and said with a flex of the stronger aura in warning, “You heard Ambassador Wayland’s order.”
Jerem knew his face was anything but composed at that point, but before he left, he gave a respectful bow and said, “As you wish, Ambassador.”
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Veldrix checked their pocket watch once more. Two hours was more than they normally allowed theirself to wait for a date. Though, they weren’t sure this really counted as one. The pair had been skirting around calling their dinners together by that term. These were business meetings about the state of the nation… with a heavy dose of playful flirting.
The knight could see the uncertainty in Everin’s body language whenever they were near the much younger voxen, but Veldrix had made certain to keep their aura from prying further. Dealing with the age difference could be difficult at times, but the Caste difference was more concerning to the knight. It made them naturally unequal in power and it was up to Veldrix to do their utmost to avoid taking advantage of that.
For now, they had planned to leave it at playful flirting unless the Avatar actually voiced interest in more. Then, they could have that discussion about expectations.
They sighed, putting the pocket watch away. They didn’t believe Everin was the type to simply get cold feet and not show up, however, which meant the rebel fox got himself into some kind of trouble.
Veldrix wasn’t positive at this point in their curious prodding of each other’s interests if they would be an unwelcome presence to help Everin get out of said trouble.
Would they just make the situation worse? They’ve been yelled at plenty of times before for swooping in like the shiny knight they were and trying to fix things they weren’t asked to fix.
Unwanted help never seemed to actually help. It just caused additional problems on top of the original one. It made it look like they thought the other person was weak or ignorant on how to save themselves when really Veldrix was just trying to be useful and be of service.
A knight might often be portrayed as the fearless hero in some stories —as someone who knew all the answers and led with confidence— but Veldrix knew the true purpose of a knight was in their subservience to their liege. It’s what drew them to the position in the first place.
Everin was practically their opposite in this regard. Never bowing, rarely apologetic, and with a mouth that would likely get him killed someday. A true brat by nature. It was refreshing.
Veldrix often found theirself smiling throughout their chats together, finding a comfortable balance within their differences. Despite being much younger, Everin had seen his fair share of the world in his travels and understood the hardships that people of lesser stations suffered. It made them feel comfortable around him.
Even if it never went beyond playful teasing, Veldrix enjoyed having Everin as a companion to spend time with.
The Royal Knight stood, tossing a few Bits on the table as overpayment, and made to leave the restaurant. Perhaps the duke would have some insight about what happened to their amusing little rebel.