Under Bound Boughs

Chapter 9

As in All Tales part 2

Gone

Like every fairy tale told the world (theirs and this others) over. It started with cliché.

"Before Ganser?"

"Yes, please, tell us what you can."

"I'm notta histo something or other, ya'd wanna talk to Libiterm's Ms. Sage fer that."

"Ab libitum." Asch corrected sourly.

"Wha I said." The old man grumped right back.

"Just answer-" Asch snarled, Natalia set her hand on his wrist, and that was enough to shut him up. He was… going too far again, treating this civilian like an unwilling conscript of the Oracle knights who was giving him lip rather than the weary old man that actually sat before him.

In that, Asch was forced to meet and embraced on of his most telling weaknesses. It had been… far too long… since he'd just talked to someone. The niceties involved escaped him. Somehow, someway, the princess understood that.

And unlike all the others, she didn't judge him by it, simple made allowances and exceptions.

"What was it like, tell us everything you remember."

Asch dropped his gaze, Natalia released his hand, and the only sounds for a while were their breathing and the soft scritch scratch as the old man traced the embroidered edge of the table cloth. There was… proof of a woman's hand about. Signs were apparent in flowers tucked amongst the niches in the walls, the extravagant designs on what could have been a homely piece of cloth.

The gold ring on the old man's right hand.

"Seems mighty stupid, to be talkin' bout things afore."

"Understand the past allows us to understand the present and better shape the future." Asch snapped, looking up, glared at the old man before him. He held off the urge to fist his hands by the barest of margins. "And if you want things to change, you have to know where they went bad last time, so not to do it again."

"If Ganser's gone…" The old man grumbled. "That'll set things a right."

"And if the next man's like Ganser, and you don't find you until it's too late?" Asch countered, eyebrow arched, lips pressed into a lean smile.

The old man dropped his gaze, bowed down by the weight of the new thought. Scratch scratch went the ring as he set one wrinkled finger to tracing fanciful edges. By his side, seated in a chair taken from a room back, Natalia shifted the revelation about in her mind. Learn from the past to shape the future? The Score shaped all, all were shaped by the Score. Such thoughts, such sentiments as the Bloody espoused were blackest sacrilege.

But then, hadn't her actions been a sacrilege of a type too? She hadn't turned to the Score since they got here. Hadn't asked what she should do… She'd done what she'd felt right, no consultations even sought.

There was sin in that, pleasure, but sin.

She winced at that revelation, the wince became cringe as she realized something so dark, so twisted, that dare she speak it she'd be dethroned. Her betrayal would violate the treaty between Daath and Kimlasca, and as such her punishment and consequential execution by Daath's own Fon Master would be inevitable if she were found out.

She hadn't missed it. Hearing her Score, she hadn't missed it at all.

"'Fore Ganser…" The old man hummed and hawed. "Well, back back, way before Ganser, we usta have a council o' grey beards. That and Ab Libitum. In the days afore, if my great grand pappy had it right… we set a youngster with sharp eyes and steady hands to the highest boughs of Alilly. And as far as he could see, from the top most boughs, that was our province."

So that was a province, Asch nodded, accepting that fact mutely.

Natalia, troubled and worried about other things, remained as still as she was silence.

"Now Alilly, wasn't sos big, it usta be smaller, but then… things started happenin'. Peoples would be up and down, then came Sullian's fall. Sullian," the old man added quickly, knowing that his guests honestly didn't know a thing at all. "was another province, we'd stumbled upon it years agone, and we traded them a'times. Our medicines for their tools. It was a goodly arrangement where the people's didn't talk much. Well Sullian, them folk just start pourin' I mean a pourin' out of nowhere. With nothin' more than the clothes on their backs and wide eyed horror tales. Monsters, they say, overran 'em. I'd… family… the Misses… our girl, up there, visitin' so I was rightly worried and all…"

Coming back to herself Natalia offered her hand, settled it over the old man's own, offering what comfort she could.

Taking a deep breathe, Asch told himself not to snarl, not to lose his temper. He was not jealous. Something sick and twisted settled in his mind, a nauseating thought, and an astute hunch that wasn't Score given. They'd be here a long while. To "help" these peoples, he was sure.

Natalia, face all concerned, caring stamped on her every line, patted the hand she held.

Asch tried not to flinch, fought to keep his face placid.

Natalia, never looking back, didn't notice.

The old man, didn't have that luxury, he was directly across from Asch and all. And like all simple things, he saw and spoke all without thinking.

"You're her… ummm man folk?"

Asch's face darkened, flushed with rising temper. Now the old man thought. It took all the Bloody's effort not to live to his namesake just then, of the Bloody Handed. Hands twitching, he really had to fight his temper down when Natalia looked at them both, missed everything relevant, and sunny smile still in place laughed.

Clearly Asch's "embarrassment" was endearing to her.

"Oh... we aren't like that. We're just friends."

Checking his first impulse took godly effort. It raged in him, smashed into the bars of his reason and sense like a maddened thing and bayed like a starving liger. With all that going on under his skin, setting his skull and its contents aflame, Asch would have been surprised to know that his face was still placid. Flushed a touch, but utterly still. His eyes flickered though, told a truer tale. Like fire, with the madness inherent to his thoughts alight and trapped within shades of green.

One breath, another, the old man picked up his tale, not seeing for having thought.

Idiot was the nicest thought Asch was thinking just then, and perhaps the most coherent thought of all.

"'Bout two years agone."

Ago, Natalia was about to speak the correction, but Asch nudged her with a toe, counseling silence. She swallowed the impulse with a grimace, and Asch felt some of his rage recede. He tried a small smile, and she sighed muttering something about men he didn't quite catch. Clearly seeing nothing beyond the (semi) pleasant surface he strove to uphold.

So, in that he succeeded.

"'Fore all this started, Ganser came to us. Before the Sullian's fall and he did goodly things. Helpin' us, getting' us guards. Doin' Ab Libitum things, now that I think 'bout it."

"So, he supplanted Ab Libitum with his own people for two years as a good propaganda campaign," Asch summed it all up, "before making how own move. How trite."

It was trite to a man whose people were known for sly, sneaky politics. Child's play for children raised in a world of intrigue, politics, and made ready wars to go by the power on high.

From the start of shock and gap on the old man's face that was probably a new idea. Perhaps a new phenomenon for Alilly or this whole silly world. All in all, the Bloody found it pitiful at first, a little mulling though and he discovered a trace of sadness flavoring the familiar scorn.

They'd all lost something precious with this Ganser's duplicity, these Alillians, and perhaps this whole world.

"A coup?" Natalia pressed.

"Sounds like it." The Bloody agreed.

The old man's gap looked painful looking jaw drop, Asch bit his lips, holding in a few cutting comments.

"Ganser… Ganser promised… promised to make Alilly better 'n Doplund, Sullian, and the like!" The old man gasped; face reddening as pain fell to anger's coming.

Innocent to a fault, despite all his years, this old man was an innocent. The Bloody shook his head; even as Natalia offered some tidbit of comfort, about making things right now that they knew what was wrong.

There it was again, that damned word. Hope. For a man who didn't believe in hope Asch found the show a rather pathetic display, so he ignored it. Marveled over what he had learned like a man would marvel over a lost tooth. Something was missing, not vital, but important, and he teased the void with a questing tongue.

Answers garnered, the Bloody shifted his sword about, and sighed

Yes, Asch conceded, they'd all lost something here.

"Where's Sullian now?" Natalia pressed, trying to divert the violate energy to something constructive. Ever a princess, she was. "Not the people," correction, refugees, but it was a correction Asch would not inflict on those about him. "But the city, perhaps the land could be reclaimed, the people assisted to their homeland once more?" Natalia offered, still driven by hope, optimism, and other foolish things.

"Gone." The old man murmured. "Sullian's gone… You could see it, west ward side o' the tree... they could see us… but now.. s'all gone."

The tears in the old man's eyes answered any and all other questions there might have been left.

XXX

They went back to "their" branch, watching the main road from what felt to be a world away. It wasn't. Not really. But it felt that way.

Perhaps that was the most important thing of all.

People walked by, mundane and drab by turns, brown the uniform garb, and though they stared it didn't matter. None of it did. Both mulled over revelations, neither finding it nessescary to say a word.

Insane as it was, they had a purpose now if they wanted to take it up. A job worthy of Ab Libitum. A request form a man too old to do what needed doing. Wolf tracks from the garden, a capacious amount of clawed rents alluded to something was digging anyway. Asch had gone back with him, Cal so the old man had introduced himself so late, at conversations end. So Asch had gone, studied the turned up soil and tentatively guessed it was wolves.

Or perhaps a neighbor's dog.

Still, it was a job. They'd hunt the beast, dispose of it, and be paid.

And they needed the gald.

But, honestly, even need paled before the awful thought of… gone. A city, town, whatever, just gone. And those to investigate, likely gone as well. No one had heard from them again.

All in all, this felt too much like a thing from legend, and neither of them felt up to the task of facing the impossible.

After all, what made a city disappear would have no compulsion in taking two more people… Or perhaps, the proper word would be devour.

A grim thought that.

This place, this time, called for heros. Bravery, perhaps. Most certainly a divine wisdom and vision were going to be a necessity to set things right.

And both knew, in their hearts, that neither were up to task,

Her thoughts conflicted with her demeanor. She was kind, that was her norm, perhaps her Score, but her kindness was focused. Her mind would always be on her kingdom, her friends, and Natalia knew that with her focus so divided she was not up to the task before this place. Her concerns were too small. The simple knowledge that this was not her place and this was not Scored would hold her back.

As for Asch, he nursed rage and frustrations for too long to be playing hero. Incapable of detaching himself from the tragedies of his youth, as true selflessness demanded, he knew he'd fail at the hero game. As for his thoughts, his mind was wrapped about Auldrant and its problems, seeking a lock to which to place the key of his efforts.

Such had been his whole life, and hers. Auldrant, was the whole of them

And as such, neither had time for this Alilly, no matter how pitiful it's circumstances. Auldrant, was the whole of them.

"How much gald to we have left?" Natalia asked, more to fill the silence than anything else.

"A grand total of twelve pieces left." The Bloody sighed, perhaps recalling that five of those pieces had probably been given to Ganser.

Asch gritted his teeth, feeling the urge to burn something again, he held it in with a grimace.

Natalia winced, guessing the slant of his thoughts if not the outright content.

"We need the gald." The princess pointed out, trying to focus on the here and now. Her eyes were far away though. And, they told the truer tale.

"Sounds like a plan." Asch murmured, still loath to move, he stared at the world before him, not really seeing a thing.

Gone. The awful emptiness of it hung before them both. Consuming every thought, extinguishing every hope. Finally, just to be moving, Natalia pushed off her seat, turned, and saw Asch was watching her.

"We probably should get going."

He sighed, nodded, and thus they left as they'd come, together.