Here's chapter 5. Midir's origins were made actually made up on the fly, but I thought they fit the familial theme that seems to be going on already. His final fate, on the other hand, has been planned for years. The titular flower in question is made up for the story, BTW. If it sounds like a real bloom, it's entirely by chance. Anyways, next time is another chapter of "Fall". As always, please leave a review and enjoy.
P.S. So, my current profile pic displays the choices I made with My Nintendo account for CYL3... though it turns out that I influenced that poll more than I thought. I asked my best friend to vote, and vote for characters not in the game. He's a fan of the Radiant games, so he voted for Ranulf. I assumed a grand total of once. Nope, according to him, he used like, seven browsers a day, and also asked HIS friends to vote for Ranulf too. Apparently he really likes Ranulf. So I think that Ranulf may have beaten Lilina in the poll because of me. Oops.
Midir WAS a nobleman. In the loosest sense of the word. The validity of his bloodline was...highly disputed. His mother was a noblewoman of the Edda court who married a knight of Jungby. Whether this man was actually Midir's father, however, was a matter of much debate.
Around the time that he was conceived, a common criminal from Chalphy was trying to escape to Verdane, and was corned in the Jungby castle town. He was eventually captured, but not before he had assaulted Midir's mother. Soon thereafter, her pregnancy was announced. The timing made many wonder if the criminal was the child's true father. It didn't help that the criminal liked to boast that he'd had his way with her before being captured.
To his credit, her husband vigorously denied it, claiming that the child was his and fighting tooth and nail for his wife's reputation and honor. He claimed that his wife had fought off her attacker as best as she could, and that it had bought enough time for someone to come to her aid and defend her honor at the last minute, and that the criminal was just trying to attain a claim to fame.
According to him, in the aftermath of this terrible scare, he and his wife were brought closer together than ever before, and that was why the baby was arriving so soon after this terrible incident.
Of course, opinions were divided on whether that was actually the truth or not. It didn't help that neither sides were satisfied when Midir was actually born. He primarily resembled his mother, and he actually bore traits of BOTH of his potential fathers, so there was no immediately obvious, satisfactory answer to who his father was. Debaters never got a satisfactory answer.
Thus Midir's position as a court nobleman was always shaky at best, even though his manners and good looks caught the eye of many. That is why he dedicated his life to being a knight. He did not actually care who his biological father was, he perceived the man who raised him as his father, but he could feel the trouble in the air caused by the lingering question. It bothered enough people in power, so in Midir's mind, the mere existence of such a question rendered his noble status null and void. Thus he wanted to be somewhere where he could earn respect and status through his actions, and the question would not matter as much.
It took quite a while for Adean and Midir to properly meet, despite the Jungby court being relatively small. They were both teenagers when they met for the first time. When he did meet her in person for the first time, however, he immediately found his breath had been taken away and that his heart had skipped a beat. "So this is what all the fuss is about... she has certainly earned her reputation... stay heart, don't dwell on it, she's not to be yours." he told himself.
Unbeknownst to Midir, Adean's reaction upon meeting him for the first time was practically identical.
And so began a trying dynamic. Midir quickly became her favorite knight, and he lived to serve. As a result their initial thunderstruck reactions had time to develop. It soon turned into a general affection for one another, and after many years, it became a genuine love on both accounts. However, neither could confront it.
As stated previously, Midir did not believe in his status. He believed that if he even attempted to court her, or that if his feelings were ever to be brought forward to Lord Ring, then the lord of Jungby would put their relationship to a sudden, harsh, and brutal end. Midir would be stripped of his knighthood and banished from Jungby.
Adean also feared the same of her father, so she never tried to pressure Midir or try to give him hints, and went along with it when other suitors came forth. As a result, the two became one another's forbidden fruit, as they believed that they could never partake of one another.
Their fear of Lord Ring did have some justification. So overprotective was Lord Ring, that he actually forced his daughter to wear a chastity belt of all things. An obviously overzealous action, as she was a woman of the cloth and not the promiscuous sort. Annoyed, and having decided to get some satisfaction out of subverting her father's will, Adean actually had a duplicate key made in secret. She actually had the gall to give the duplicate to Midir for safekeeping.
Of course, she never told him what it was, only telling him that it was something very important, and that he could never let anyone know that he had it. Midir always assumed that it belonged to some super secret safe that held priceless family possessions. Thus, he always kept it on his person so as not to lose it. When he was ultimately told what it was, he went utterly crimson.
Regardless, Ring's overprotective nature wound up working in Adean's favor in the long run. Namely, when Prince Gandolf dragged her all the way from Jungby to Marpha. Upon arrival he quickly found that he could not have his way with her as he had planned. When she refused his initial "proposal", he tried to force the issue, figuring that in her humiliation, she'd agree to it, since after that he'd be the "only man" who'd take her after that. Then when he tried it, he discovered that he couldn't use that tactic.
Pissed, he threw her in the dungeon in order to "consider her options", really just an excuse while he tried to figure out his own options.
He tried to convince Dew to help him, promising him his freedom and great rewards, but Dew never even considered it. He may have been an incorrigible thief, but there was no way in hell he was going to aid and abed in the tarnishing of a maiden's honor. He was lucky that Jamke was present, or else his life would've ended right there. Dew's declaration of morality ended up being a key deciding factor in Jamke's decision of Adean's request for his freedom.
Adean and Midir's reactions to seeing one another again informed the other that their feelings were reciprocated. Despite this knowledge, neither acted on it, for both still feared the wrath of Lord Ring. Then came the news of his murder. While both were deeply grieved by the news, it was also liberating for the two. Ring was dead and branded a traitor. They were officially branded traitors and rendered exiles from their homeland. Their status meant absolutely nothing anymore.
Midir quickly realized that most of Adean's mourning was either done in Brigid's arms or his. A mere two weeks after the news had reached them and they had moved to Silesse, Adean confessed.
Thus they entered a weird stage in their relationship. They were clearly a couple, but they weren't officially courting because they were still technically mourning for Lord Ring. Everyone took note of it. A couple of weeks after the end of the usual mourning period, their friends and Brigid came to them with a recommendation. After much consideration and soul searching, they decided to follow their advice.
And so they were married, without ever having had an official courtship or engagement. For everyone said that they clearly would make a lasting couple, and that they'd spent long enough waiting to come together. Finally, they had their forbidden fruit.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, it did not take very long for Lester to be conceived. Adean and Midir could not escape the jokes and wisecracks made at their expense, either about him coming so soon or about him not coming sooner. They just couldn't win. Regardless of the endless teasing he caused his parents, Lester was an absolute joy for them. By the time that their exile in Silesse ended, they were already ready to have another.
Lana was conceived before Belhalla, but born in its wake. Adean was eternally grateful to Dew for the fact that Midir was there to see her come into the world. Frankly, Lana was lucky to have been born at all, as both of her parents had insisted on going all the way to Belhalla with Sigurd, despite knowing the risks.
When everyone went their separate ways after the Massacre, Midir and Adean immediately ventured into Isaac and were thus, quickly able to locate Shanan, Oifey, and the children. (Because of their swift movement, they were able to avoid meeting the same fates as Lex and Ayra).
And so they all lived together in Isaac. For now, Midir was the father figure, and Oifey and Shanan were the uncles. As the years went by, the hunt for them died down slightly and they were able to find a relative safe haven. That is how the happy couple let their guard down and accidentally conceived a third child long after all the other children ceased to be toddlers.
Midir wanted to do something special for this little one, to celebrate its coming into the world. That is how he came up with his fatal idea.
There was a special kind of flower that grew only in Jungby territory, nicknamed the Cupid's Heart. Its petals were predominately red, with streaks of blue interlaced throughout the petals. Each petal was vaguely heart shaped, and had a noticeable shaft protruding from the center at an angle (hence the name). It was widely seen as a very romantic bloom, and was often involved in proposals and weddings.
Midir figured that since it had been so many years, the hunt and the lookout for them wouldn't be as rigorous, especially if it was just one man. He felth that they were relatively safe where they were now. So, he decided that, in order to celebrate the new baby, he'd go all the way to Jungby, collect some flowers (and some seeds, and maybe a perfume or a scent based off of it) and return home with a gift from home for his beloved wife.
He told Oifey and Shanan what he was doing, and swore them to secrecy, ignoring their protests, and he left.
He did collect his gift without incident, but he never returned with it. For what he never accounted for was the sheer amount of hatred that Scipio held for his family.
As a boy, he had been traveling with his father as he hunted down the "traitor" Lord Byron. As a result, he bore witness to his father's "murder" at the hands of his Aunt Brigid. The experience did a number on his sanity, and he developed an obsession with the destruction of his relatives. Thus, he was always on guard for their return. Thus he found out rather quickly that his uncle by marriage was in Jungby.
His first instinct was to slaughter him, but then he thought again. The Loptyrian priest Veld was paying a visit to Jungby, and he had access to the Stone spell, a tome that left the victims alive, but rendered their bodies inert statues. A living hell, a much better punishment that the escape of death, he decided. And so he requested Veld's assistance in this manner. An assistance he gladly provided.
Just as Midir was about to cross the border and leave Jungby territory, he heard a voice "leaving so soon, uncle? Why? We have so much to talk about, such as the murder of my father for instance, or the location of the other traitors." Midir drew his weapon and spun around. "Veld!" shouted Scipio.
Midir fired an arrow and missed just as he was struck by the spell. "Is that all? I can still fight." he declared, and drew another arrow. It was halfway out the shaft when the spell finished its work and he was frozen mid-attack, horse, gifts, half fired weapon and all.
"My, what a dynamic pose. You know, I think that it looks to good to be hidden away. I think that such a piece should be put on display. AH! You know how we've been needing a replacement archer statue for the inner archway for our school of archery? Why commission a new one? I think we've got the perfect replacement right here." declared Scipio.
And so, Midir was placed on a pedestal, high up in the inner entryway to Jungby's school of archery. There he still sits, waiting for rescue...