Bouquet

(C) Intelligent Studios and Nintendo

-0-

The Sprig II: Carolina Syringa
(disappointment)

It was rare indeed when Louise found herself spending time alone with her dear father--now more so than ever. In the days following Lord Pent's departure, she had taken to finding solace in her miserable state, so much the better by herself than in the company of her parents, who made well-meaning but entirely unhelpful comments. They did not understand, could not sympathize with the extent of her pain, and thus she withdrew until that time when she had separated from her emotions and could then explain them without feeling like a babbling child.

Oh, but wasn't she one in the end? Children could not do a thing for others; they were not expected to protect anything, or to live up to the promises that bound two people together now and forever. Lord Pent could leave with his head held high and his dignity in full bloom by making a choice no one could have expected him to make, but the same scenario left her with no choice at all but to accept her powerlessness, lower her head to hide her tears of shame, and let him go. What does one call a person who makes a promise they are unable to keep? The person to whom the promise was given to may well be disappointed--and rightfully so--but oh, how much worse the humiliation for the one whose words meant nothing at all! Oh, how dearly she wished for power enough to fill her hollow words, if only so that she could trust in them again...

"Louise, are you well?"

"Ah, Father." Lifting her eyes from her fixed stare at the delicate threads within the grain of her father's desk, she studied her father's face for a moment; finding it bare of an outright answer to the request she had brought to him, she pursed her lips, quite unable to completely suppress her worry and impatience. "Have you come to a decision?"

Her father watched her, his clear blue eyes the color of the spring sky outside--the same sky she would be enjoying on any other day, were those days not marred with Lord Pent's absence. "I have a difficult time agreeing to such a thing," he said after a moment, his tone painfully, spitefully gentle. "You can understand why, can't you?"

If she could pretend ignorance, Louise thought it would be better. Unfortunately, she had played audience to his beliefs once too often for such a lie. "But I must go, Father," she pleaded, hating the reedy, childish whine trembling through her words, ill-made thread to the argument she wished to weave. "The steward of Reglay specifically asked for my help. If I do not go, Lord Pent will be divested of his title by the other lords."

"I understood that," her father said, all hateful patience, rock-like and without sympathy. "But I fail to understand why he should continue being Count Reglay."

"B-because..." After a moment, Louise looked away, unable to bear her father's impertinently kind look any longer. It did nothing short of piercing her heart, how he could patiently bear her requests and then turn them away with a single, reasonable line. Lord Pent did not like being Count Reglay, after all. He might even be happier having the title stripped from him. That she was trying so hard to keep the title as his...wasn't she the cruel one, in the end? Knowing his wishes, and yet ignoring them for no reason at all than the fact that she believed it was his and he should keep it.

"Louise, let it go," said her father. "He isn't worth this."

Her back went rigid. "What is Lord Pent unworthy of?"

Her father rubbed his chin, the short blond bristles of his beard making a sound not unlike the crinkling sound of crisp summer grass being flattened. "Aramis became Count Alloway when he was twenty, and he took to it well because he was properly trained. That boy admitted to me that he focused more on his magic studies rather than how to be an effective leader. He is not any sort of leader; in fact, I would say that he is selfish."

"But he is repenting for that!" Louise exclaimed, the links of her fingers as they wound together iron-hard. "He is repenting with his life!"

"It should have never gotten to that point. People have suffered due to his neglect, and his one life is not an equal match to all of theirs."

"But he didn't know what his father and steward were doing! He didn't--"

"Ignorance is not an excuse," her father said quietly. "At his level, as a ruling noble, ignorance is a crime."

Her father's words were a knife that drew tears rather than blood, but it hurt all the same to reveal them. Here, again, she was shown as the foolish little girl she wanted so desperately to be anything but, and knowing that she could not effectively argue for Lord Pent, though she believed in his goodness and that he could make right what had gone wrong had he only the chance, made her wonder what use she was after all. Perhaps none, and yet...

She closed her eyes. "I asked you what he was unworthy of."

There was a pause, and then: "I think you know."

When she opened her eyes, her father was revealed before her. Here, now, he was not the man of two years before, that good, decent man who thought it was vital to teach his child that being a woman should not deter her from her goals, that she could achieve anything she wanted to do because she was more than a face and a body. That same father strove to teach her the inner workings of business and property, not only because she was the child of his blood but because he loved to help her become even better at all the things she so liked. From the beginning, he had supported her love of archery, even going so far as to have a private range built for her as well as finding the best archer in the county to teach her well. He taught her the values of hard work, compassion, and the beauty of living a modest life under the principles of Lighter Elimineanism. She had always imagined that she would prefer to be struck down rather than go against her dear father.

But she had never imagined that her father would ever travel the same path as her maternal grandfather, the same man who had done everything up to attempting to drag her mother out of Alloway by force rather than to approve of her mother's marriage. Even if her father would not say it directly, Louise understood that his disapproval was not wholly based on reason. He was looking down on Lord Pent, just as Grandfather had once and still continued to look down on him.

She never thought her father could do such a thing. That he now was doing so stripped the varnish from the man she had always envisioned him to be--her beloved father was naught but human in the end, a good man who could and would let his prejudices blind him. Here, now, her father was another man, and she was a girl two years older. She could no longer hold his hand and trail behind him in happy ignorance, even if it were the safest way.

Louise wielded a bow not to cower, but to support.

"Father," she started, her voice high and strong and sounding, she imagined, very nearly like her mother's, "I will be going to Reglay. Even if you are against it, even if--I can't abandon him. I made a promise."

Frowning, her father shook his head. "I won't agree to this. It's beyond foolishness to go so far to support a boy who has no inclination to be a count, especially when has no talent or interest in it. That you still wish to marry him despite the fact that he told me he would release you from the marriage contract is already bad enough as is, but this is beyond the pale. What exactly do you think you can do for him in Reglay? Surely the people there are already set against him."

Standing took some effort, but she craved fresh air from this den of negativity and endless questions she had no answers for. "I don't know, but I can't stay here and do nothing at all. I have to try, because Lord Pent is also doing his best."

"Louise, I just.." That her father looked older than his nearly thirty-five years was an understatement at the moment, and guilt caught hold of her heart and would not let go. "I thought you didn't love him. I could understand this behavior if you did, though I would disapprove, but this inconsiderate obstinacy is completely unlike you."

Indignation stiffened her spine and made fists of her hands as she spun away from her father. "I don't need to love him to believe in him." With those words thrown behind her, she left her father's study.

She left for Reglay a week later. Her father did not see her off, and she did not wait in hopes that he would.

The Sapling II: Spruce Pine
(farewell)

"Not bad."

With a small, careful sigh, Pent lowered his right hand. The target, one hundred paces away, had been obliterated by the ten rapidly cast spells that were part of his endurance exam. He thinned his lips, uncomfortable with the sight. Intellectually he knew magic had always been developed as a destructive force, yet...to him, magic was not just a weapon.

It had never been one, not until now.

"From all the tests you've completed, your average is roughly between our first and second rank for officers. You could use some improvement, but we haven't time for that," Lady Jacqueline, lieutenant general of the magic division of the Etrurian Army, said as she tilted her head in that peculiar way he had learned was her only 'tell' for giving approval. "I'm willing to recommend you start as a captain. Do you have any questions?"

He paused, unsure whether he should ask what exactly a captain did, and then decided not to waste any more of her time. From her immaculate uniform and pulled-back dark hair to her swift, sure movements, she exuded an aura of militaristic perfection. In these training fields of the magic division headquarters in the capital, she looked completely at home. That was unsurprising, as he knew her to be the daughter of Mage General Kolar, Duke Seine; there was no doubt she would become the next mage general once her father retired in a few years, even if she was young and a woman. For his part, Pent didn't mind that she was his trainer, though he wished he knew why she looked passingly familiar sometimes. With her tall, slender frame and unsmiling face, she didn't look a thing like Louise or any noblewoman from Reglay. Sometimes he also thought she was annoyed or put out by him, but she was unnervingly fair besides one or two looks of exasperation.

In the end he decided on a safer question, one that didn't reveal his ignorance of the military. "When will I know where I will be transferred to?"

"A messenger will be dispatched to Reglay once the exam results have been thoroughly checked." She paused, tightening her white gloves. "But I suspect it will be to Missur, since our trade routes there are often troubled by pirates."

A lingering sense of unease rippled inside him--would he be sent for pirate extermination? To use the gift of magic that reared its head every so often within the Reglay lineage...to kill? Despite his feelings, he made sure to keep his expression mild, though it was a bit harder than usual. "I understand. I'll have to go back home, then?"

Lady Jacqueline shifted. "You thought you wouldn't be able to return one last time?"

"...I thought perhaps it was necessary to send me to where I was needed, post haste."

"You are Count Reglay," she countered, her expression one of bemusement. "One would think you would be vital to your lands, no matter the circumstances that have led you here."

"I suppose."

"After all," she continued, "your fiancée would surely want a proper goodbye."

Pent said nothing, and after a day at his Aquleia home he made preparations to return to Castle Reglay.

-0-

The day after he returned to Reglay from the palace after receiving his punishment, Pent had made Raike his new steward. They both knew that it would be a temporary position, but Raike was still making plans to keep the title of Count Reglay within the proper lineage for reasons that were beyond Pent.

"I admire your loyalty," he commented when his new steward bombarded him with ideas not two minutes after he entered his office, "but don't you think it's slightly misplaced?"

"No, not at all," his steward said while shuffling official-looking papers. "I've also sent a letter to Lady Louise to request her assistance."

Without lifting his head from the document he had been trying to read, Pent remarked, "I wish you hadn't done that."

"You did say that she was willing to help."

"I did, but only to relay her feelings. I don't recall ordering you to ask anything of her."

There was a pause, a long one in which neither man even dared rustle a paper, before Raike said, "Do you not trust her, milord?"

"It has nothing to do with trust," Pent responded before he signed the document, only looking up after the fact. "Louise is...I don't see why she should be dragged into this."

"She will be Countess Reglay, so it wouldn't be wrong for her to involve herself," Raike said as he handed over another paper. "This one is for the renewal of permits for the winemakers."

"How many more?"

"Just seven, and then we'll start on the city permits."

"And I want to continue being Count Reglay?"

Pent had meant it as a joke, albeit a slightly bitter one, but when he noticed his steward's face redden in suppressed emotion he realized how stupid he had been. "Milord, if you think my efforts are truly wasted--"

"I don't. I only wonder why you need to struggle to this extent."

"And Lady Louise as well?"

"Has she responded yet?"

His steward looked disturbed. "No. I had expected an answer by now."

"I don't expect that her father would let her." Then, unnecessarily, "He doesn't quite approve of me."

"He doesn't?" Raike's face had lost much of its reddened glow from earlier, but now Pent could see a hint of it there again. "Are you thinking that he would approve of you more if you were to quit House Reglay?"

Had he been a less private person, Pent would have long ended all these questions with the truth. However, the memory of Louise's face as she struggled to smile for him was one that seemed too private to be revealed anywhere beyond that day and that time. He would not dare attempt a second goodbye, knowing how Louise threw the whole of herself into each and every moment--that day, that moment had been enough for him to bear. For her to come here and work to keep him as Count Reglay while he was far away and unable to do anything at all was unbearable to him. That she would put herself in such a place to suffer time and time again to fight his battles (battles he wasn't inclined to do all that much about, at that) spoke volumes about her valiant dedication, and even more about what was lacking within him.

The Reglay nobles played by their own rules and had not an ounce of sympathy for anyone going against them. He knew this intimately. Louise, being in an even worse position, would bear the full brunt of their anger, disgust, and jealousy. Her smile would not thwart them; her bravery would only rally them to more depraved lows. They could not be beaten, only negotiated with until they had pared down every last strip of one's soul. He knew this intimately.

They had been some of the many who had laughed at her during the bridal selection over a year ago. If she did not know this now, she would soon, intimately.

"I wish you hadn't done it," he repeated, and after that there was no more sound other than the shuffling of papers that never seemed to end.

-0-

How do you say goodbye to a home you had never felt was yours to begin with?

As he stared up at the portrait of his lady mother, proudly displayed above the main staircase in the foyer, Pent wondered why he should even bother. He was not well acquainted with the castle, less so with the parents who had beget him. Count and Countess Reglay, no more than images in a cold keep. He must have walked by this portrait a thousand times, but Lady Catherine's words were all he knew of his mother. An arrogant, posturing woman who cared only for the title of Countess Reglay, a woman who would throw away anyone gracious enough to help her just to maintain her own reputation...

Pent turned away, aware of the curl of disgust tugging down on the corner of his lips. Though Lady Catherine had reprimanded him for taking sides without fully investigating for himself the truth, he could not budge from his stance. As someone whose mindset would only allow him to cultivate a few close relationships, the act of betrayal was anathema to him. He had thought, perhaps naively, that the same was true of all people. Now, there existed an image of his mother in his mind, and it was not anything like the beautiful countess in her stylish gown and glittering jewelry.

He could not say he disliked her, exactly, only that he was far more inclined to appreciate Lady Catherine more.

A gallery could be found on the first floor, within the west wing. He did not often go, usually because he had no time to visit, but after turning from the sight of his mother's portrait he felt compelled to come down to this lonely part of a castle too big for its own good. Some of his ancestors had been art lovers, whether dilettantes or outright connoisseurs, and the works they had either purchased or created were housed here. Perhaps more importantly, the gallery was home to the official portraits of each and every Count Reglay, minus himself.

How apropos, he mused.

He did not linger long here; nothing could be found among the grim-faced ancestors who made up his family line. To a one they all were unable to smile, their countenances bearing their sense of self-importance far more easily than anything resembling humility, compassion, thoughtfulness, or any other human trait. But of course they had no interest in revealing such things in the images that would confer upon them immortality, and in a sense Pent could understand. They had been leaders, advisors to kings, worth more than any one or a hundred commoners. What need would they have of humanity when they were persons of lordly caliber?

Of course, his father looked no different. It was perhaps a form of art to make all these men of disparate features all the same in attitude, because Pent could still remember his father enough to know that the former Count Reglay was not like these others. His father still confused him to this day, but no matter how bitter he felt he could not confer such marked arrogance to his sire.

He should not have come here, he understood. He could not hope to find his father here amongst the portraits of the dead.

"I don't hate you," Pent said, his voice sounding odd to him in this empty room. "Not even now. What I hate is what you did. Didn't you understand that you were trading away our title and position for my sake? I thought...that those were the most important things to you."

Oh, he shouldn't have come here at all. He shouldn't be doing this. He knew this intellectually, yet--

"I don't hate you, I just..."

He bit his lip, closed his eyes, and tried to force the old, painful feeling out of his chest.

-0-

And before he knew it, a week had passed and Pent was leaving, this time perhaps for good.

"Milord, I should tell you this now," his steward said at his back. Out of courtesy, Pent stopped his stride and turned around. The background to the other man was the portrait of his mother, but Pent kept his eyes level with Raike's face. "I received a response from Lady Louise. She will be here in a few days."

The thought of Louise at the castle, ready to fight on his behalf, made such an evocative picture that Pent couldn't help but pause momentarily. Shaking his head in a slight, hesitant movement, he asked, "Is that so?"

"You always knew she would."

"No, I can't say that," Pent responded, though it was a lie. "But while she's here..."

Raike smiled. "Everything will be taken care of, milord. You only need to worry about yourself."

"As long as you won't send me paperwork to complete between battles, I think I will be fine."

"While you are Count Reglay, it should be expected that you have duties to fulfill."

Smiling, Pent turned away. "Do what you have to."

"I intend to, milord." As Pent began to walk away, he heard his steward ask one final question. "Are you to be stationed in Missur as expected?"

"Actually, no," Pent said as he turned, raising his official summons in his right hand. "It's to the Western Isles."

-end-

Welcome to the second half of Bouquet! As you've no doubt noticed, this story has promoted, gaining a subtitle that I've long since wanted to add; while this series is chiefly about Pent and Louise's courtship, there are many other relationships appearing within the main story that I think gives their story extra body, if that makes sense. Judging by my notes, this second half may be slightly longer than the first due to its format, but I hope to have this serial completed by the beginning of May. You'll be seeing a story (or a part of a story) biweekly until the end of the first two-parter, and then we'll have to see as I'm not only taking a full load of classes but working as well. I hope you'll continue to enjoy this short story serial, and thank you for reading!

Also, if you're still craving more of my writing, check the front page of the FE section today!