baldrshand: Watchful look (I may know the answers.)
Ethlyn, Princess of Leonster ([personal profile] baldrshand) wrote in [community profile] expiationlogs2023-11-02 11:17 pm

My own self-fulfilled prophecy

Who: Ethlyn and Claude
Where: The apothecary
What: Ethlyn tries to serve her sentence.
Warnings: Content warnings should be here. If there's explicit content in your log, it should be locked.


Reflect on whether you must bear the responsibilities for a whole nation.

That was, more or less, what the sentence had been. It sounded too good to be true--all she had to do was go home and think for a while? Confide in a friend? She'd given Altena worse punishments than that for sneaking out of bed... still, it couldn't hurt. And if it got her a step closer back home, a step closer to saving her children from a grueling upbringing, she would take it. The next steps would be worse, she was sure... the labyrinth had shown that there was little this place couldn't do to them. She would rather have had the plant colossus return than face that terrible maze again.


She hadn't broached this as the reason for visiting Claude in his newly-claimed apothecary, though. No, this visit had a dual purpose: reflection, and also reassurance that he hadn't yet managed to fatally poison himself. Oh, and to see about trying to extract their own antibiotics in case of an emergency.

Ethlyn had made sure to bring some fresh snacks with her, along with her little containers of bread with mostly-green fuzz, and pushed the door open. "Claude? Is this a good time?"
feintofhart: ([ mid phase ] warmth)

[personal profile] feintofhart 2023-11-14 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
"No I won't!" Claude jives back, as irritatingly cheerful as ever. This sort of thing is usually what makes the likes of Lorenz want to throttle him. In at least one instance, he knows Lorenz has come close, and he has made it his eternal mission to see if he can goad the man into actually putting him in the headlock that he deserves.

He has no such aspirations with Ethlyn, though he seems to find her irritation with his organizational habits (which is to say, very few of them) to be deeply entertaining. He sobers quickly enough, however, planting his elbows on the table and leaning forward to gawk at the piece of parchment, eyes round.

"Wow. I've heard of people getting further sentencing before, but I never quite figured out what they were asked to do..." His fingertips brush the edge of the parchment. "Reflection, huh? Not a sentencing I've ever heard of."

He sits back on his haunches, giving Ethlyn his full attention. It's getting off easy, he thinks, but it's not as though he wants to be strung up in the square and lashed. A little reflection is a far easier thing to bear -- physically, anyway. Emotionally... maybe some here would prefer the whip.

"I'm honoured that you've come to me with this." He places one hand on his chest. "Whatever you tell me will stay between us, on my honour."
feintofhart: ([ mid phase ] reasoning)

[personal profile] feintofhart 2023-11-18 03:55 am (UTC)(link)
"Well... we'll sort this out together, won't we? I wouldn't be so quick to go back on your innocence, but if discuss we must, then discuss we will."

He knows Ethlyn well by now -- even better since he discovered the truth of her life, her death, the distraight pit in her gut she must feel each and every day knowing the true fate of her family and her home. He doesn't envy her. He's not sure if he would have the strength that she's had here. Without his aspirations for his home... he's nothing. He wouldn't know who he was without them. But here Ethlyn is, forging forwards with a sense of duty and determination that have nothing to do with her noble birth.

He takes a sip from his teacup, letting the tea's earthy warmth sink down to the bottom of his gut.

"First... I think you're going to have to tell me more about the crime they decided you bear, and everything that came before it. I've been told I'm quick to pick up foreign policy, if it helps." He waves at her with a flourish. "The floor is yours."
feintofhart: ([ mid phase ] uh oh)

[personal profile] feintofhart 2023-11-28 09:32 am (UTC)(link)
Even as Ethlyn speaks, it occurs to Claude that, much like the fact that she can only learn about the land that he comes from from himself and Marianne, he can only take Ethlyn's word for it. Was her father a good, kind man, with only honour in his heart? So few Kings are. But it is a bitter pill to swallow, that your own parents may have been flawed - though these days, Claude finds himself ruminating on his own royal parents more and more, their follies, their flaws, the errors that their kin will pay for - and certainly not one he'd ever ask of anyone who had tragically lost those that they had loved.

He decides to take her word for it. That her father was a kind and just man, and raised a kind and just daughter. And that he had suffered for it, apparently, as kind and just men are wont to do.

"An internal rebellion... I'm familiar with that sort of thing." He thinks about offering his condolences, but holds his tongue. He wants to hear the whole story first. "Sometimes the enemies that you hold close at hand can be even deadlier than those from afar. What happened next?"
feintofhart: ([ mid phase ] mister general)

[personal profile] feintofhart 2023-12-17 11:33 am (UTC)(link)
It's beginning to make sense.

It makes sense for Ethlyn, especially. She's a kind woman. She's been kind from the very first moment that they had met, when she had told him all about the healers brigade she had founded, steadfast on her goal of helping the people here whether they wanted it or not. It's much the same back home, only that sort of nobility when it comes to political situations like that... they have long-reaching consequences. Getting involved isn't always the wisest thing. There's a reason why he hasn't been able to get involved with the Kingdom, no matter how much his heart aches for his old classmates.

But they were just classmates. If it were Hilda that were taken, or Marianne, or Lorenz, would he not do the very same thing?

"So you went on an effort to save your friends - fellow royals - but in doing so, got caught in an international incident," Claude summarizes. His tea, stronger than Ethlyn's scents the room; a pleasant earthy pine, of damp soil and growing branches. "The lords you were protecting his sister from. They're the ones who started a war? Over the land you were protecting?"
feintofhart: ([ mid phase ] c'maaahhhnn)

[personal profile] feintofhart 2024-01-29 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Claude can't help but sigh, hearing Ethlyn's tale of woe. "That's the hardest part about leadership, isn't it?" He says sympathetically. "You could do everything right, but as long as the other people in charge are bound and determined to see nothing but the worst in you and your people, even as a flimsy excuse for further bloodshed... well, there's not a lot you can do about that."

He laces his fingers together atop the table between them, watching as Ethlyn's expression shifts, her stoicism a clear front for how difficult this must be to speak of. "So... this incognito Prince. On what grounds did he think you were hurting the townsfolk?"