Author: Cyhirae

Notes: None of this, to my knowledge, is canon. I'm just taking a great deal of creative lisence and guessing at the reasons they'd place an incompetent like Alessandro as Pope...even if he hasn't quite caught on yet.
And Trinity Blood, Alessandro, Caterina, Francesco and dEste still aren't mine! Never will be!

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Brother and Sister

The chambers they guide me to are my sister's- that in and of itself is worrying. For Francesco to have given up the security of his own chambers and followers to enter Caterina's territory...They were serious about working together for this. They had set aside the obvious and most well suited candidate to be Pope..to place me as the candidate they wanted.

If they weren't right behind me in the hallway, I know I would have run. To the garden, to my room- to anywhere that had a perfectly sized hiding place for me to vanish in until they regained their senses and went back to Uncle. Me, the Pope? This just wasn't going to happen!

But instead of running, I'm finding myself instead sat in a chair in her office- both standing before me and just..looking at me for a moment. I have the distinctly unpleasant feeling I'm being weighed, and I don't even have to ask if I'm not meeting their expectations to this news. I never have met any expectations they'd set of me- why would I start now?

"B..brother..sister...did...did you really..." Two flat looks leveled my way are enough to inform me that the question was not the best of icebreakers I could have chosen. Brother steps forward suddenly, all but dominating my view as he looms up, a glare angled down from his view point to make me feel like the rabbit about to be stooped on by a hawk. "b..but ...uncle..he's the most..."

"He is too set in his ways!" Brother's voice booms out as surely as if he had just spoken through a bullhorn, and I feel my heart sink to somewhere below the chair I'm sitting in. Perhaps I should duck under there and get it- for it surely seems as if Francesco is truly about to devour me down to the marrow for having even dared protested. "This is to be a new age for the Vatican-"

"Brother, let us explain things a little more indepth before we go into that." What she may mean by that isn't clear as Caterina moves to take her seat behind her desk, her hands folding to let her chin rest upon them as she looks me over once again.

"W..well...why don't you..." Two sharp gazes fix on me again and I choke the half formed question off-apparently I had just been about to ask another stupid question...But sister at least inclines her head a moment, and Francesco actually maintains his silence to let her speak. Frightening, that..they..they really are working together. There's no way I'm getting out of this...

"I cannot take the throne for obvious reasons. I've risen as high as I will in rank- now all I have to work with is influence." That influence was far more frightening than her rank if you asked me..but it was rather plain she wasn't..."And Francesco does not have the proper..qualifcations to become Pope either at this point. Uncle has a much stronger bid for it than he does. Thusly- it falls on you to do this."

I think my heart just fell lower than merely under my chair. It's surely somewhere in the Vatican's cellars now...I really should go get it...

"Pay attention!" I jump in my chair as Francesco, who had backed away just long enough to let sister speak, looms up into view once more. "Uncle would only run things as the deceased Pope had- this is not the time to sit cowering under our roof! The Vatican's way of dealing with things is to be changed with this election- we must make it a true force to be reckoned with!"

At her desk, I can see my sister's lips curve into a sharp frown- well it seems her and brother aren't entirely in agreement on this...

"Francesco- let me explain it." Yes, let her explain it, please brother. I can't possibly shrink back any further in the chair than I am now, and that does nothing for escaping the booming of his voice... "Alessandro, the previous Pope was a good but paranoid man. He was overprotective of his power and his nation- as a result, though we are not at war, neither are we truly at peace. It would take only one small conflict to send the structure he has built up in flames- and Uncle would intend to carry on precisely as he had."

Well...I can see the logic there too...Who wants a war? I shift out of my corner of the chair a bit, feeling a touch more at ease...but even I can feel the tension in the room. Brother and sister were working together- but...I was getting the feeling their aims were very different for what the final goal of their selection of me was.

"You must present a strong will before the council to secure your election!" Brother's sudden boom is enough to send me right back into that corner of the chair- maybe I still have my heart after all, because my blood is racing fit to make me dizzy as he crosses his arms, scowling down at me. "Sforza and I need our hands free to do what we must to ensure this- so you must be prepared to carry the crossrod of the Pope and lead our lands into a new era!"

New era? Lead? Me? Maybe they have me confused with another brother..there could always be another one, somewhere...right? I am not a leader- I never have been! How can they ask this of me?

"I..b..brother...I can't...this is just...I can't do it!" The minute those words leave my mouth- I'm regretting them. Brother seems to swell up to four times his size, face turning as red as his robes at my apparent refusal- I'm not arguing with him! But can't he see I just can't do it? I'm not arguing, I'm stating a fact!

"You can." That calm interjection comes from behind Francesco, cutting through the tirade he was surely forming as Caterina rises once again from her desk to walk towards us...standing to my right now and looking down to me. One hand is held up to forestall Francesco's rage- though I can't say her expression is any more reassuring. "We will teach you what to say, and what the appropriate responses are to what they will ask. If uncle takes the up the rod, we can be assured another era of strained relations just waiting to snap and our lands under constant threat. We are vast, Alessandro- but Albion and the Empire both wield considerable might in their Old Technology. Think on that and what it could mean for us to fall suddenly under attack by them before you outright refuse."

"And your refusal means nothing! You have already been accepted as rightful contender to the rod- you will not let our efforts be wasted!" Fire and ice, that's what I was stuck with here. Francesco's roaring would frighten the devils out of hell- and Caterina's cold, calm logic would freeze them stiff! And here I sat before them, informed of what I was to do and why.

My hands are wringing- I hadn't even realized I'd begun to do that. I look down at them, a good chance to hide the growing dampness against my eyelashes- they couldn't be seriously doing this to me! I wasn't suited- either of them were a thousand times more qualified than me! I was not a leader, a thinker, I'm just..just...

"Do not worry so much." Amazingly- that is brother, his tone leveling out as he looks down at me...smiling? I think that's supposed to be a smile. Maybe even a reassuring one but instead- it looks much more like a fox having found a particularly tasty hen right outside it's den... "We will be standing beside you and guiding you. Everything will go as it must."

He looks smug- absolutely pleased with this idea...while Caterina is leveling a cold glare at him. But she doesn't argue- she simply turns and returns to her desk.

"That is enough for now, Alessandro. Tomarrow we will begin instructing you- for now, you have the right to return to your own chambers and collect your belongings- a candidate for the Pope's throne does not live among alcolytes."

That release is all I needed. Before brother can even begin to voice what is on his own mind- I've proven there's one thing I can do very well. He's still blinking at the suddenly vacated chair as I jerk the doors open to the hall- fleeing their presence and dashing through the halls as the sobs start to claw at my chest and tears slip down. I just can't do this.

I'm not qualified, I never will be, no matter how much they try to make me look otherwise. I'm supposed to be going back to my chambers to get my belongings- but at first entry into the gardens? I find myself fleeing there instead, finding my favorite alcove to curl up in, sobbing. How can they ask- no, how can they demand I do this? I just can't...

I can't. I'll never be the Pope...don't they realize that?