expiationlogs | 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?"

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Where to begin... she had already discussed the origin of the holy bloodlines of Jugdral and its startling similarity with the Crests of Claude's own homeland. So she didn't at least have to cover the history of the Loptrian Empire and its overthrow.

"Grannvale is a little different than the other nations of my homeland," she said. "Where others have a king or queen with Holy Blood--if that--we have six noble houses who descend from the Crusaders. My father's is one of them. So is King Azmur's. And over the years, rivalries have sprung up. When the king's son came to my father for solace and counsel, two dukes in particular turned their rivalry into hatred--they were the ones who eventually framed my father and brother for treason."

She remembered what Emet-selch had said when she'd explained some of this to him... that Dukes Lombard and Reptor would have seen her father as a sycophant currying favor, as they themselves would have been. Byron had refused to behave with any more or any less friendship towards Prince Kurth in spite of that.

"My father acted in friendship and he was an honorable man. But maybe he should have taken more care--tried to allay their suspicions. But his intentions were only good and he believed that his actions would speak for themselves."

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?"

"Many things." Ethlyn interlaced her fingers together and leaned forward, resting her forehead on them to stare into her tea. It felt so long ago--longer than the three years it had been. "A neighboring country launched an unprovoked attack on a town in Grannvale, and Grannvale went to war. Its neighbor on the opposite border took this as an opportunity to seize territory--and a family friend. Rescuing her is how my brother got involved, and my husband and I went to support him."

How had an expedition to save Edain spiraled into this? Ethlyn stared at her tea and the grain of the table, the mess and disorder of Claude's new establishment in her peripheral vision. It should have started and ended in Verdane. They'd rescued Edain, the king had died, his one principled son could have taken the throne and ended it. But then there had been Agustria to the north, and a royal patricide... "We had to help another friend right afterwards--thrown into the dungeon for trying to advise his king. But everything went wrong that time. I'm still not sure how. All we did was protect his sister... his lands from the other lords of his country. Somehow or another, it spiraled into a second full-scale war."

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?"

Ethlyn nodded. "Eldigan's old rival attacked. And then another lord to the north took the chance to raid the surrounding villages, so... we had to put a stop to that too, of course. And then by that point we were so deep in the country that the third lord decided that we must be there to invade..." She took a sip of her tea. It had cooled as she had related the convoluted tale. It had seemed absurd to her at the time--paranoid, on Lord Clement's part.

But she recalled how Lewyn had rebuked her brother--a simple bard, she thought with a trace of a smile, who just happened to have very strong opinions on the responsibilities of royalty and nobility. "...We were warned. By an incognito prince, in fact. He had a lot to say about how our efforts in Agustria was hurting the ordinary folk who lived there."

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?"

My own self-fulfilled prophecy

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