Crossing the Rubicon
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dept. Heaven; Sting does. I just borrow its characters every now and then, and put them back when I'm done.
Much like the first time he ever traveled here, he is struck by the sulfuric scent of the air long before he can even see the jagged, hollowed crater of the volcano. Many of his men wrinkle their noses, and one points between the peaks and murmurs that it looks like one of the mountains was a mound of sand someone sat upon.
He merely beckons his men on, pressing his heels gently into his horse's flanks to move the charger forward. His stallion ambles down the road, lowering its head and twitching its ears in a way that makes him think it would rather investigate the patches of flowers and grass that spring up through the rocks and red dirt.
When they reach the wide circle of flat land, he dismounts.
It has been so very long since this scenery last met his eyes.
"Er… sir? Grand Marshal Durant, sir?"
The voice of his lieutenant snaps him out of his reverie, and he realizes he's simply been standing and staring for a while now. He turns to his men, and smiles to reassure them.
"Thank you for the escort. I'll go alone from here."
He expects to have to enter the cottage and ask for her, but she's outside in the vast green garden cutting herbs. Her hair is loose, and flowing down her back; she's wearing a pale blue dress that he's never seen before with a vast white apron. She turns with a surprised expression, and he wonders if those white streaks in her hair were there before, if she had had soft lines upon her face when they had seen each other last. Surely. Surely not.
"Why, Durant, how lovely," she exclaims, tucking her knife and herbs into a pocket of her apron and dusting off her hands.
"Milady," he replies automatically, dropping to one knee on the rich earth.
She smiles at him, and he wonders if it is simply his imagination that her eyes seem very sad.
"It's not 'milady', you silly," she chides him gently—as though he's a naughty child and not the commander-in-chief of the Fantasinian knights, last of their Royal Army. "It's always just been Mistel."
As he stands awkwardly, not sure what to do with himself, she moves toward him. "Come in—you should gather your men too, and have some tea. There's a place around back where you can tether your horses."
Durant hesitates, and speaks. "We may not have time for such pleasantries, mila—Lady Mistel. I'm here to deliver your invitation to the royal wedding."
"…and Cruz has taken over for them commanding the sentries at Karona, seeing as their first child is almost due."
"Isn't that wonderful for them? I'm sure Russell is absolutely terrified."
Durant smiles—smiles, because it's true; the once-feared Astral Fencer now has a crazed light in his eyes and gibbers like a lackwit when they speak together.
Mistel pours more of the flowery tea, refilling both their cups. It's an herbal blend of her own concoction, he understands; the butter cookies and scones she sent for the men were her own recipe. He can't help but be astounded that she's this at home in domesticity despite the fierce, reckless way she always handled the battlefield.
If he said as much to her face, he is sure she would simply smile and remind him that she had been a housewife in the first place, though.
"Lady Elena has assumed command of the royal couriers—although I was assigned this task because she's in Lombardia now, informing the new Pope and helping repair the water damage to the city from the last storm. Lady Nietzsche… has recently returned from helping to organize her people, and Pamela…"
Mistel nods. "She told me—she stopped by to complain that you were interrupting her research to make her do it." She sips her tea, her eyes half-closed to disguise their sparkle.
Durant sighs; it's all he can do. "She should keep away from dangerous things to begin with."
"Yggdra didn't think so," Mistel says mildly.
That might be the case, but Durant still had a mistrust of anything that had once been the tool of such an enemy—no matter what could be learned from it. Far be it for him to argue, though; it wasn't his place.
"There's really no sign of him?" Mistel asks.
"…No… Sir Milanor had been growing restless for some time before he left the castle, but he left behind no hint as to where he was headed when he departed. Still, Her Majesty prefers that he be present, and Pamela is the only one who can search for him efficiently."
And despite Durant's misgivings about the affair, the fact that one of the Queen's dear friends would be absent is troubling her, and he doesn't want to see her unhappy on such a day. On any day.
Mistel sets her teacup down and smiles mildly. "And how is Yggdra doing, then?"
"It has… certainly taken Her Majesty quite some time to subdue the court, but with our assistance and that of the court of Verlaine, it can now be said that the country is truly hers. She has the support of the populace, and I'm sure you've heard of the changes she's made in the alliances and diplomacy policies.
"…She also seems quite happy with him," he adds at last, a little reluctantly.
At which Mistel giggles, bringing her curled fingers up to her lips in a gesture he hasn't realized until now he's missed. "Obviously Roswell isn't your first choice for king?"
Durant averts his eyes, looking out at the blossoming garden past the fluttery checked curtains. Mistel and Bly's home is quite cheerful and bright, the kind of peaceful that's evaded him for the past two years. "He doesn't fit the traditional image, this is true. However, he does have experience in politics, and the loyalty of his people. Her Majesty is our one and only Queen and sovereign—he can only be a royal consort—but I believe that he will not steer her wrong. And she has—softened him considerably; he dotes on her." The Roswell Branthèse living at Castle Paltina, spending his days arm-in-arm with the young Queen, is not the same man as the frosty and rather arrogant necromancer of the war.
"But you still wish she'd picked someone better?" Mistel giggles again. "Well, that's only to be expected! Why, you watched her grow up. No one will ever be good enough for her in your eyes, because there is no one true perfect man."
She is probably right. She usually was, when it came to things like this.
"Why, I feel so out of touch these days, but this will be a nice way to catch up to everyone and see how they are. We barely get any news in a place like this. I'll just have to get someone to come take care of Grampa, and I'll be able to come. Oh, I wouldn't miss this for the world."
Durant watches her fuss over her dishes for a few moments before he realizes what he is feeling.
"I must confess to envy, milady."
Mistel's eyes go wide and her eyebrows rise, but she doesn't speak.
"It has been two years, and despite that time all of us have struggled so hard to adjust to what you seem to have reclaimed with ease—normalcy."
He has more to say, but finds himself silenced when he sees her shaking her head.
"Once things settle down and the court realizes they had best accept Yggdra's terms—once there's no longer any need to patrol and enforce the new laws daily—this will also happen to you. I suppose it's just another side effect of living so cut-off from the outside world." Smiling wistfully, Mistel raises her hands and looks at her empty palms. "I traveled all over this world two years ago—to the reaches of Lombardia and Lost Aries that I'd never dreamed I would see with my own eyes, even to Bronquia in its lost grandeur. I killed men and women with the same scythe I use to cut wheat. I crossed blades with the Emperor, did battle with a fallen angel upon the sunken island of Ancardia, and I witnessed the divine miracle that ended the Thousand Years of Strife. My name will go down in history as one of the commanders of the Royal Army.
"But after all the sound and fury subsided, and I came home… there was Grampa to look after, herbs to harvest and meals to make, clothes and sheets to wash. I used to feel powerful, as though these hands could do anything—wreak death or seed life. That sense of power is gone. I'm only a housewife now, Durant; the war two years ago is like a curiously lucid dream."
Mistel rests her hands in her lap and closes her eyes. She is still smiling, but Durant thinks she looks deeply pained.
"You all have work to do in the name of the crown, but once your lives settle into this kind of routine tedium you'll understand. It'll happen more quickly for some than for others, I'm sure… maybe not ever for Yggdra. You'll think me ever so foolish for admitting it… but I still have the nightmares every once and a while." She's still smiling, even now, as she opens her eyes and presses the heel of her hand against her forehead. It's a rueful smile, a regretful smile, almost a grimace. "The flood at Ishnad, Bardot, the fire that destroyed Flarewerk. Kylier. That awful look on Nessiah's face when he—gave up. And that archangel was terrifying in so many ways."
She shakes her head.
"I did so very many things that I can never be proud of, but at least I can ignore the question of whether I did right or wrong. I was following orders, I can tell myself. I didn't have much choice. Yggdra—she gave those orders in the first place. She may always wonder, and be tormented by it."
Durant remembers Milanor saying something similar, once.
"Maybe Milanor is going through something similar—he did lose the person most important to him, after all. Perhaps he's looking for answers, or trying to run away. It's not something we can really know…"
"Sir Milanor did lose more than most of us," Durant allows himself to admit. The thief boy had been little more than a shadow of himself for so long before he'd announced he was leaving; Durant had wondered once and again if he would have been the same if the Queen had died. He could avoid such uncomfortable thoughts by being annoyed with Milanor for leaving and worrying them all, and so he did.
"We all lost something important in the war—and we're losing something else in order to take our daily lives back."
Mistel stands up, pushes her chair in, and carries her dishes to place them in a basket for washing.
"That's what life is about, Durant."
There isn't anything he can say to this, so he keeps his silence.
"Anyway—I should talk to Grampa about this. He'll probably refuse to come, so I just need to get someone to come check up on him, and then I'll be all ready to head down with you. It's… definitely going to be good to see everyone again."
"Yes, Lady Mistel, it will be," Durant replies automatically, standing up to join her.
…He wonders, briefly, which was worse for her to lose in the first place, and if she would go back, had she the chance. He thinks he knows the answer.
She's that much stronger, that much wiser than the rest of them, after all.