Bouquet
(C) Intelligent Systems and Nintendo
-0-
A Drifting Dandelion Seed: Garden Marigold, Cinquefoil, Marigold
(uneasiness touches the beloved daughter--there is too much pain here)
1.
At the tail end of August, that month of dark heat that always wore Louise down and forced her to seek shelter indoors, she received a letter from her mother.
Come home, Louise. Your aunt and uncle have been found, and as the former heiress it is necessary for you to be present.
Louise obeyed.
2.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it, Celia?" Louise murmured for what had to be the fifth or sixth time--the words came even more easily to her, now that her lips were so used to forming them. She said them in Etruscan, she said them in the common tongue, alternating between the two as if that one sentence would surely sound more pleasant if she could only find the right way to say it.
It did not. Not yet, at any rate. She would only have to try harder as the carriage rushed ever closer to Alloway--to home.
"Yes, it has been," Celia answered, as she always did. But then, a wrinkle! "Lady Louise, do you perhaps not want to go back?"
"Mm?" Tangling her fingers together, Louise resolutely aimed her face at the carriage window that allowed the sunlight and heat to penetrate their little carriage. "I wouldn't go that far, really. I only...became used to Castle Reglay."
There was a pause, and then, "Even those dreadful invitations?"
Louise bit her lip. Though she had now been receiving the pleasure of a few invitations to tea with the daughters of Reglay's titled nobility, and in one memorable case a viscountess herself, they were miserable affairs that would be best left in the moment and not dragged around behind her as she shed her last few vestiges of girlhood and became a woman. While she maintained her positive, optimistic outlook with a sort of ferocity more suited for her dear mother, tea and those things she was beginning to associate with that break in the day were forcing reactions in her that she cared for not in the least.
"It's necessary to establish ties within Reglay," she finally said. "If some of them could be swayed to keep under the current order and not rebel against Lord Pent..."
"House Reglay, isn't it?"
"Lord Pent is House Reglay. He's all of it, alone." Even thinking of it made Louise terribly sad; to say it out loud and confirm its truth and adherence to reality hurt her heart terribly. Lord Pent was alone no matter were he was, whether in Reglay or the Western Isles; he had spoken of people he had gotten to know there, but she still had urges to fly to where he was--perhaps on the back of Madame Amy's beautiful pegasus--whenever she read a line that struck her sensitive nature as being all wrong for him, her dear lord.
And, she was lonely without him, too. To see his pleasure in teasing her, to walk hand-in-hand with him, to roam and explore and introduce new places to each other...there were only a few of these memories, but they sat in the back of her mind much like the comforting presence of the knowledge that there would always be a glorious spring after winter, and to search these memories gave her relief during her more stressful adventures at Reglay.
She would like more of these memories. She would like a whole lifetime of them.
3.
"What's this? You've grown tall, haven't you?" her mother said in admiring tones not long after they disengaged from their customary embrace--Louise having thrown herself into her mother's arms and her mother accepting her with a peal of laughter that instantly put her to ease.
"Have I?" Louise asked, placing her hand on the crown of her head and swiping it forward, her palm only the barest bit tickled by her mother's dark hair. "Oh! I hadn't even noticed!"
Chuckling, her mother said, "Then perhaps I'll order a new wardrobe for you before you leave. We've got a few weeks, which should be just enough time to get your trunks in order."
The mention of the time she would spend here fairly alarmed Louise, though she fought mightily to keep that hidden from her dear mother. "A few weeks? But, I have to return to Reglay--"
"You haven't been home in over three months and the instant you arrive you're already thinking about when you can leave?" her mother said in a frightful tone of voice. "Louise, I raised you better than that! Even if something displeases you, as a lady you should learn to bear it. And..." Her mother looked away so that Louise could only see the frown as it marred her mother's profile. "Are you so unhappy here?"
"No, Mother, I was only surprised. I will do as you say," Louise said quickly, attempting as well as she could to placate her mother, who still refused to look in her direction.
"I'm disappointed. I've finally forced your father to see that attempting to dissuade you from the path you've chosen will only break both your hearts, and now I hear that even three weeks would be too much to ask of you." Her mother glanced at her. "Or, rather, were you afraid of your father's response? You've never been a cowardly sort, true, but there were ill feelings between the two of you when you left so abruptly."
Looking down, Louise shook her head. "I hold no anger towards Father. It is only that Lord Pent's situation is still a precarious one."
"Is it so important that he be a count and you a countess?"
"In time, Lord Pent will be a splendid count. I only wish to see that. As for me...I find I'm not terribly suited to be a trueborn noblewoman if it means I must spend my life dodging slings and arrows..." She was about to say more, but the words were suddenly clogged inside her throat and she found it most distressing that her face was growing hot. Before she could even raise her hand to her mouth, she found herself enveloped fully into her mother's embrace. Child that she was, Louise could only press her face against the crook of her mother's shoulder.
"Oh, Louise," her mother breathed close to her ear. "We only rarely have the luxury of being placed where we feel we are best served. If you feel you must do this, then see it through to the end."
Mother, I will, Louise spoke inside her heart of hearts, the only place her voice was still audible for as long as that strange obstruction that was her rising emotions stayed tight in her throat.
I promise.
-0-
Louise found that her mother almost never employed lies, being far too honest with herself to adopt a policy of dishonesty when it came to her fellow human beings, but her mother did not consider a certain amount of dissembling as a lie, per se. Rather, it was only the discreet shadowing of the truth.
The truth was this: Father was still unhappy. Only, now that she had arrived, he did not speak one word about where she had been, where she would go once everything was settled, and where she would stay for good once Lord Pent was released. He spoke as if she had been living under his roof the entire summer, relating stories about what the tenant farmers were doing, how his fields had long exceeded the quota for the late spring and summer crops, and how he looked to be doing the same for the big autumn harvest.
"Your aunt had better hurry if she wants to be counted in for the Festival d'Armements this year, since it starts in two weeks," her father commented during dinner, slight as it was due to the heat of the day. "I only hope she's in Ostia by now."
Smiling, Louise asked, "Where did you find her, Father?"
"My man found her in Tania, all the way on the other side of Lycia. That family of her lives like Sacaean nomads, always in one place or another." He shook his head before dipping his spoon into his vichyssoise.
Her mother scoffed. "If it works for the Sacaeans, it should work for a wildling like your sister." With a comment as bold as that, common to the Émile table during the course of even the smallest tea breaks, Louise made sure to keep herself occupied with her cold soup as her father twisted his lips into a scowl.
"Catherine, that reminds me. I won't tolerate your baiting my sister into those wars of wit you so like. It's embarrassing to endure."
"Oh, come now. If you haven't noticed, dearest, she does well enough by herself. I've no interest in demurely accepting her taunts, you understand."
"Wherever your interest lies, just leave it alone." Louise noticed when his eyes fell upon her, but her heart noticed more when he looked away. "Let's keep things pleasant this time. We haven't been together like this in such a long time...about a decade now."
The hitch in his voice, the adjustment of time--these things were obvious to Louise as to what was truly on her father's mind. Not even her mother could rouse him again for another game of retorts, and dinner ended quietly without another glance from her father's blue eyes.
-0-
Clothed for bed, Louise avoided glancing at that which was tightly grasped in her hands: a bundle of Lord Pent's letters, neatly tied together with a bit of ice-blue ribbon she had purchased at Reglay Castle's surrounding city. She couldn't avoid them for too long, as even Celia was in bed by now, but--oh! What she was contemplating was a little childish, and yet...a child hadn't recommended this, this charm. Madame Amy herself had said...
"Do you know, Lady Louise, what happens if you sleep with your lover's letters underneath your pillow?"
"M-my lover?"
"Oh, you know, your paramour, your betrothed, whatever you call him inside your mind. But have you heard of it?"
"No, I can't say I have."
"Really? I heard this was an Etrurian charm. If you sleep with his letters under your pillow, you'll dream about him."
"Oh...does it work?"
"Well, I've never had to try, but I should hope so. Since you'll be going home for some time, I thought you might like to try it. It might give you some comfort while you're away from Lord Pent's home."
At that time, Louise had stammered out her gratitude, truly touched by Madame Amy's consideration for her, but she had not really considered going through with such an act. She was nearly an adult, wasn't she? Wouldn't it be silly for her to indulge in this, whatever this was? But then, Madame Amy was an entire decade older and she had known of such charms. And really, what would be the harm in undertaking such girlish pursuits? She was still yet a girl, after all.
To be able to be reunited with Lord Pent in some small way...though she was learning patience and his letters did soothe her anxiety in some small measure, to see him again, to hear him again--these things were a lure that captured her heart fully.
Hurriedly, she stuffed the bundle of letters under her pillows, then moved to turn out the light before anyone should come calling to question her about the act she had just committed. Safely hidden in the darkness, she moved towards her bed and very carefully placed herself upon it, the light summer bedding up to her chin before she found it safe to relax.
When morning came, Louise awoke to the sight of the sunrise streaming through her window, setting her room aflame with rivers of gold. Laying there for some time, she found she could not remember her dreams, or even if she had dreamed at all. There was only a small happiness inside her heart, just as tiny and insistent as a growing bud of a plant, and it was enough.
It was nice to wake without having to wipe at the dried trails of tears that had stained her cheeks during the night, for once.
4.
"Well, well, is this Louise?"
Because Louise had last seen her Aunt Charlotte at the young age of six, the memory she held of her aunt was dreamlike and soft. In it, her aunt was tall and curvaceous, scandalous and comfortable in a pair of pants and a belted tunic, her long blond hair the color of shimmering waves of summer wheat and her eyes a darker, brighter shade of sky blue compared to her younger brother's light blue eyes. Ten years later, that image had become much changed: her aunt was stouter, with a heavier bosom that her loose tunic did not completely succeed in concealing, her face lined with laugh lines in her greater age but still quite pleasant to behold. However, of that beautiful hair Louise had admired as a child, so bright and soft and thick and long, there was little hint of its prior state save for the chin-length bob of straw-gold hair, greasy with the days of hard travel she must have endured from eastern Lycia to western Etruria. Yet--and Louise was truly horrified to realize these feelings inside herself--she was disappointed. Her mother and father had changed in the course of her life, true, but not to the extent that Aunt Charlotte had been altered.
Perhaps her aunt was disappointed in what stood before her as well, for she sent a twisted little smile in her brother's direction. "Gérald," she said in accented common tongue, "your daughter looks like a dainty little flower. I suppose she suits Cathy's purpose that way, then?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Louise's mother retorted, her dark brows drawn together. "And please try to remember that my name is Catherine."
"Isn't that what I just called you? Anyway, Louise, what are you doing just standing there? Aren't you going to come closer?" Her aunt beckoned her with her arms wide open; though she was still troubled by the internal dissonance between memory and reality, Louise complied readily, stepping into the circle of her aunt's arms and embracing her tightly. Aunt Charlotte's arms were as strong and solid as any archer's arms should be, something that comforted Louise greatly--the woman who had introduced archery to her still adhered to the practice! No matter how much time had changed them, some things still held true and strong as any natural fact of the world. How wonderful!
The embrace ended much too soon for Louise's tastes, but she found new pleasures as her aunt twirled her forward to meet the rest of her family--her uncle and cousins. "You may not remember, but that's your Uncle Gregory," Aunt Charlotte said as she indicated the tall, lanky green-haired man, who smirked and held up a hand in greeting. "Thankfully, none of our sons inherited his hair color," her aunt whispered in her ear, and Louise blushed at the thought. The two sons were roughly around Louise's age, one older, one younger. "Joshua is seventeen, Isaac fourteen," her aunt continued. "Boys, greet your lovely cousin."
It was Joshua who approached first, his bright golden hair no different in color from Louise's own. "It's a pleasure," he said in Lycian-accented Etruscan, the words accompanied by a sweet smile.
Pleased surprise caused Louise to smile back. "You can speak Etruscan?"
"I'm the only one who can speak it fluently, but both Jacob and Isaac can speak it to some extent." He looked over his shoulder at his brother. "Isaac, what's wrong? Come closer and say hello."
"Um..." Isaac, his loose blond hair brushing his shoulders, inched up to his brother, his eyes wide and fixated on Louise, who regarded this curiously--she could never imagine someone being so interested in her, so that must not be the case. She continued to hold fast to this belief until her younger cousin opened his mouth and said, in a shy manner, "You're very pretty, Cousin Louise."
She blushed as her family began to laugh. "...Thank you."
-0-
In Reglay, Louise was considered something very nearly an adult, though she still had four more months to wait before she reached the age of majority. Master Raike spoke to her as though she were an adult, one whose thoughts and opinions mattered, and though most of the servants kept clear of her she still felt as though she could effect change in the castle, were it necessary. In Alloway, however, she was a child, and thus was not allowed to sit at the discussion that would decide who was now the new Émile heir. Just like her cousins, she was told to go outside and play--though not quite in those words.
She and Joshua found themselves on horseback--herself on trustworthy Marion, he on the daredevil sorrel Nicholas--as they rode out over the fields and to the narrow strip of beach. Due to the balmy weather, there were many people already there, most of them with fishing rods and wooden buckets to bring back their catch. Children ran and shouted, and adolescents of both sexes collected mussels. The sea breeze was enticing, and Louise shivered in delight as it made the hem of her white linen dress dance above her knees, modestly covered with magenta leggings. She had wished for her sand-colored moccasins while riding around home, which was suffering terribly from the heat, but now that she had arrived at the beach she found that her deerskin boots served better at keeping the sand from her skin, though she sank in the sand a little easier. Joshua laughed as she misjudged her step and cried out in surprise as she sunk in a little too deep, though he helped pull her out. They each commandeered their horses along the sand, talking in idle observations, and it was only after a kind young man with a whole string of small fish cooked up two at a small pit fire when Joshua's wide smile dimmed.
"Hey, Louise. Is it true that you're getting married soon?"
She bit her lower lip, trying to hide her embarrassed smile--but still a smile, undeniably so--as she puzzled out the sudden question. "Not for another year, not yet."
Joshua seemed to ruminate on her words for a moment, chewing thoughtfully on a bit of fish in the same way a cow its cud, then looked away from her. "Mom and Dad weren't told much about it when the messenger came, just that one of us was needed as the new heir. Who are you marrying that you would need to leave Alloway?"
"Where is your older brother?" Louise asked, partly to keep his question at bay, partly because no one had seemed to remark on it; even she had forgotten. Joshua shook his head with a smile.
"I asked first."
She was vaguely aware of the fact that neither her aunt nor her uncle cared for the nobility of Etruria; hence, why they had left for a nomadic hunter's life in Lycia. It was not terribly strange for her uncle, who did hail from one of Lycia's cantons, but her aunt, she had heard, was once Uncle Aramis' intended. She felt she would be antagonized if it were revealed just who she would be marrying, and thus she decided that the full truth was unnecessary. "I'll be moving to Reglay after the wedding."
"Reglay? Where is that?"
"It's two days northeast by carriage. It's quite a bustling place."
"So you've already visited this man," he mused. "He must be gentry too...a merchant?"
"Um...no. He's a noble."
Joshua looked at her, his expression worn only by the alarmed. "What are you doing with one of those?"
"I was..." 'Chosen by him' would be the correct phrase, but there was something about it that she hated so, something she had detested even more so after her mother had noted it for herself, that night at the ball so long ago now. "I wanted to be with him, and...he wanted..." But to complete that sentence would be a supposition of Lord Pent's feelings that she was not altogether sure she should make, and so she trailed off uncomfortably, painfully aware of how it sounded as the words echoed hollowly in her mind.
"He wanted you." There was a curious note in Joshua's words, one that Louise did not like at all. "So he can just have you now? And what will you do once he no longer wants you?"
"That won't..." But to assume she knew Lord Pent's mind and heart was a fatal error even she could not make. Joshua shook his head, fine golden hair moving this way and that.
"My brother got married, and we all know it's a mistake because...he made a mistake and now he has to go through with it. But he's not the type of person who can stay with one girl, and nobles are just like that..." There was frustration on his face, and Louise did not like to see it. If she could turn away she would, but a part of her longed for his next words. "Is he always going to have your best interests in mind? Is he always going to place you first? I don't really know you, but you're family. I, I have to worry."
There, that was that. It was not true condemnation of Lord Pent, but rather anxiety of the unknown by a concerned member of her family. Louise relaxed enough to smile. "Thank you for caring about me. I don't know about the future, but with him by my side...I'm looking forward to it, a bit." She could feel her face warm at her bold words, and in return Joshua gave her the most complex look she had ever received: his brows drawn, his dark turquoise eyes half-lidded, and the tiniest hint of a smile struggling through wrinkles of disapproval. Finally, he shook his head and turned away from her.
"I don't understand, but if you say so I'll...believe you." He glanced at her, a smirk clear on his face. "I bet you don't want me to tell my parents about any of this, right? I'm not sure what your own parents will tell them, but if Mom hears this she'll probably blame your mom."
Nervousness made her heart pound. "Why is that?"
"Who knows. My mom's weird that way. So, um..."
They spent a pleasant day at the beach, and when they returned they were greeted with the news that Joshua would become the new heir. Louise was happy for him, though stunned by the news that she would receive an inheritance of four thousand gold a year for as long as the Émile fortune could support it. This, on top of her dowry, an amount she was not privy to but her father was not terribly pleased with, made her realize her monetary worth--how much all her decisions cost her family up to this point in her life, how much they might yet have to pay until her family name was changed.
Was she worth so much? Truly?
5.
Oh no, Louise thought in sinking, abject despair. I can't believe I had forgotten it...
After the destruction of her bow on the road to the Tilley manor, she had been too overcome with the crushing weight of her own failure to properly re-equip herself anew; it was not until after she had properly made up with Master Raike that she had gone to the castle city and acquired a new bow. In her mind it had always been a temporary partner, as it was not made of the holy wood yew but instead birch. She practiced every day she was at rest at the castle, and always remembered gloves when visiting any of the nobility after the first time she had forgotten to do so, causing her hands to be remarked upon in detrimental tones for the rest of the visit. As her mother had never turned to her as a target for her wit, Louise had never formed a defense for them and could only endure what flew her way without complaint. And, having thought so little about her replacement bow, it had been left behind in her rooms in Reglay--oh, if she had only remembered before the morning of the Festival d'Armements! What was she going to do now?
She had so wanted to shoot beside her aunt, her idol in all things pertaining to archery. And now...
With her feet as heavy as iron, she trudged out of her room and towards the staircase, where everyone was to wait until preparations were complete. There she found a curious sight: Joshua was talking animatedly with Celia, whose head was turned just so that Louise could not discern her dear friend's expression. Her stiff stance was enough to educate Louise on her tension--it seemed Celia was uncomfortable in the presence of Louise's cousin. Unwilling to break up their one-sided conversation but concerned for her friend, Louise fairly flew down the rest of the stairs, barely noticing the addition of her aunt, uncle, and father--as usual, it seemed her mother would be the last to finish.
"Cousin," Louise greeted as soon as opportunity presented itself, noticing how Celia lifted her head, an obvious look of gratitude on her pretty features. Joshua inclined his head slightly, barely looking in Louise's direction before turning back to Celia, but all three were interrupted by Aunt Charlotte's gasp.
"Girl, where is your bow?"
Louise's back stiffened just as straight as it would during those years her mother had inflicted posture training, aiming swats on her lower spine with those Aquleia periodicals her mother so liked; no actual pain was ever received, but what a surprise it always was! Her aunt's sharp tone was very nearly as effective as Aquleia's biweekly papers, though Louise could not readily agree that its effect on her heart was welcomed. What was worse was that her aunt's shout had drawn all the attention in the room and sent it flying towards Louise, who could only note in dismay how her aunt, uncle and her cousin were fully equipped with their respective bows and quivers, making her feel quite inadequate with only her quiver slung across her hip--it had been her intention to find an unused bow somehow (how, she had never quite developed) and compete with that, no worse than using the replacement bow sitting unstrung in her cabinet at Reglay Castle. Oh, how was it that she could see it now in her mind's eye!
"Mn, I, um..."
"Did you leave it behind in Reglay?" her mother's voice rang out from behind her. Louise nodded, a little concerned by the small wrinkle between her father's eyes, his lips one straight line of obvious repression. Her aunt was not much better, frowning in confusion.
"Reglay? What were you doing in a place like that?"
"I, I...my fiancé..." But Louise could go no further, not if she wished to avoid her aunt's ire.
"Fiancé?" A smile burst forth from her aunt like the sun between parting clouds as the older woman clapped her hands in delight. "That's right, you're getting married! And you feel so comfortable with him that you left your bow with him? You know what they say, where you leave your weapons is home--"
"Would you leave my daughter alone? She doesn't need to be embarrassed by you," her mother interrupted, placing a hand on Louise's shoulder. That hand seemed the physical manifestation of all the attention brought down upon her, and it was very difficult for Louise to resist shrugging it off and, perhaps, hiding herself away, especially when her aunt's eyes narrowed.
"Do you still manage your daughter's every movement, Cathy? I would've hoped you had grown out of that by now, but I suppose a noble like you has to take control over your...demesne, hmm?" Before anyone could speak, Aunt Charlotte turned around, gesturing towards Isaac, who Louise was embarrassed to find that she hadn't noticed him when she came down the stairs. "Isaac, give me your bow. Louise will be using it."
Louise stepped forward. "Oh, no, I couldn't--"
"You will." Having collected the bow from her youngest son, Aunt Charlotte handed it to Louise without even a moment's hesitance. "I want to see how well you shoot. After all, didn't your interest spring from me? I want to see what I inspired in you, my dear niece."
"Oh..." Louise put a hand on the end of the bow, cool iron, the likes of which she had never wielded before. She glanced at her young cousin. "Is it really all right?" she asked, as much to him as to herself.
Isaac nodded. "Y-yeah. I'm not too good, anyway. I'd like to see your skill."
Perhaps some small vanity allowed her to act, taking the bow fully from her aunt's hands. It was heavier than the yew wood bow she had made herself and used for years, and though she had concerns over its flexibility and if she could handle a bow that would require more weight in her arms than she had ever used before, she wanted so dearly to prove to her aunt that she had learned her lessons well.
Their party took to the path up to the location of the festival in relative silence. Her father seemed contemplative, her mother snappish, and Joshua distracted, but she delighted in conversation with her aunt and Isaac with interspersed commentary from her uncle, and the day was fun.
It was the first time she had truly felt as if she had returned home, rather than merely inhabiting a space.
6.
"Lady Louise? What is this?"
Louise nearly fainted at the sight of Lord Pent's letters in Celia's hands. "...Where did you get those?" she asked, although she already knew the dreaded answer. How could she have forgotten to remove them after she had awoken!
"When I was turning down your bed, I found these underneath your pillow." Celia's expression was open, cheerful. "How cute. Is it a love charm?"
"...You know?" Louise pursed her lips when she realized the answer. "Did Madame Amy tell you about it?"
Celia looked mildly surprised at the thought. "We don't have much occasion to talk. It was actually Lisette who told me about it. Did you know your mother used to do the same thing with your father's letters?"
Mother too? Of course she too was once a girl, but I can hardly imagine my own mother doing such a thing... To be completely honest, the thought made her happy. Her mother, flush with the charms of girlhood and first, enduring love...was she then like her mother? That boded well for her own future, didn't it? She smiled at this idea, a shy, warm happiness taking root inside her heart. "May I have my letters back, Celia?"
"I wouldn't keep them from you," Celia chided with a grin. "After all, you tell me every word in them anyway!"
Biting her lip, Louise took the letters and clutched them to her chest. "Not every word."
Gasping, Celia quickly recovered and leaned her head forward as she whispered, "Exactly what are you hiding from me, Lady Louise? Under Lord Pent's reserve, could it be...?"
"Ah! What are you saying!" Louise looked away, shaking her head with such ferocity that she knew she had well earned a headache later for her trouble. "Aren't you planning to become a sister of the Church?"
Celia giggled. "True, but before that we are sisters of the same heart."
"Mm." A sudden slyness crept up like ivy, and Louise glanced at Celia. "Or is it that your own heart has opened to love?"
The look Celia gave her promised pain in her immediate future, to which Louise could only laugh--
"You two sound like the giddiest little girls I've ever heard!"
--before choking at the sound of her aunt's voice. She whirled around to where her aunt stood, her hair pinned up from archery practice. "Aunt Charlotte!" she could only exclaim.
Her aunt nodded at the letters she still held to her chest, a smirk positively lighting up her aunt's face as the older woman said, "Billet-doux from your paramour?"
"They are n-not love letters!" Well and truly embarrassed now, Louise looked down. "We correspond while he's away."
"Where is he now?"
"At the Western Isles. He's a captain with the Etrurian forces there."
Aunt Charlotte frowned. "I can't believe that my brother would allow you to marry a military man, considering the trouble he got into with your mother's father."
"Oh, but Lord Pent is only temporarily with the army..." Louise trailed off when she noticed her aunt's face darken terribly, as sudden and fierce as a summer squall. Then she realized how carelessly she had referred to Lord Pent, and suddenly she felt the absence of heat as it drained from her face in reaction to her terrible error.
"A noble of Reglay? Bad enough to be the former, but why so far from Alloway? What is his worth that you would be sent so far from your family?" Aunt Charlotte snapped out the questions, one after the other, so quickly that Louise was left at a loss at how to respond.
"Ah..." Celia spoke up, her fine features suffused with that moderating influence that always helped to calm Louise down whenever she was feeling low. "Lord Pent is Count Reglay, Madame Charlotte. He's quite kind to Lady Louise and, I think, adores her quite a bit more than anyone can say..."
"Some old pervert?"
Louise cringed. "He's seventeen."
Her aunt affixed such a interrogative stare at Louise that she felt almost as if she were being seen from the inside out; all her thoughts, hopes, and feelings were laid bare and, judging by the harsh glare on her aunt's face, were found wanting. "Did that mother of yours put you up to this?"
"...It's what I wanted. I want to be with Lord Pent," Louise softly answered, knowing that her words were ineffectual at this stage. Her aunt shook her head.
"But she did bring him to your attention, didn't she? She drew you to him."
It was true that her mother had brought the news of Lord Pent's bridal selection to her, though she had been chosen by invitation before her mother had even said a word. It was furthermore also true that her mother had been blessed with prior knowledge of Lord Pent, that she could provide information that did convince Louise to attend, and yet...and yet! Had it not been her own decision? Had she not taken responsibility for that act, and showed him the wishes of her heart? Her actions were not second to her mother's words, truly...
In the moment she had been frozen by her thoughts, her aunt had removed herself. Louise could only see her aunt's back, straight and solid, as if an ever-present denial of any and all the words she could have spoken at that moment.
-0-
There was a tense peace vibrating inside the Émile home for a week, a peace as finely-tuned as the violin Louise had once attempted to practice without skill, without hope for anything better than her current status. She could tell by the stiff movements of her family that everyone was affected, but none, she thought, more than she, the one who had revealed that Lord Pent was a noble to a person who despised them. The persistent rumor that her aunt had once been betrothed to Uncle Aramis seemed impossible; she could not imagine that her father would continue to be such good friends with him if he had harmed her father's sister in such a way...unless Aunt Charlotte had been the one to break the engagement. As far as Louise knew, she had eloped with Uncle Gregory before leaving Etruria, returning once when Louise was but a child before leaving again, only to return now. Perhaps it was only through their travels when her aunt's anger towards nobles bloomed into the black flower it was today, or it could have been borne from her mother's existence.
There were too many reasons to hate. Louise was saddened to think that there could be any reason at all.
It was nearing the fourth week of her stay, and her anxiety was reaching a fever pitch--she felt she needed to return (to return?) to Reglay, but at the same time she did not feel comfortable in leaving her home while her relatives stayed in Alloway. This left her feeling as though she had entered some infernal limbo, hovering uncomfortably between two worlds and unsure how to break away, or in which direction she should go. She could only wait, and wait she did, until--
"I've had it!"
The sound of her aunt's hands hitting the dining table was a shock, but not nearly so terrible of one as the utter disgust and hatred lining Aunt Charlotte's face. "Gérald, I'm sick of that woman ruling over this house like a queen!"
Her mother rolled her eyes at this. "If you had a problem with that, you should have brought it up before we married, not right now during dinner."
"Brother, I've been keeping it inside ever since I learned about it, but it's too much!" Aunt Charlotte said in rapid Etruscan, though not so rapid that Louise could not understand it. "Sending your only child off to marry a highborn noble? What were you thinking? That's no different from sacrificing your daughter for a blessing like in those heathen legends, and you can't possibly need the money."
"I don't care for the boy, but Charlotte, please don't worry about it," her father said, his expression strained.
"I have to worry! Because it's that woman's fault, isn't it? She's the one who began everything, wasn't she? Can't you see what she's thinking? She's a pariah of the nobility because she married you, but if she managed to get her daughter married to someone as high up in the chain as a count, she could get her position back!"
"Charlotte..."
"Don't you see, Gérald? Can't you see it?" Aunt Charlotte's words were as passionate and heartfelt as a prayer; to hear such vile words voiced in such a way struck Louise through the heart. "She's using her own daughter! Your daughter, Gérald!"
As if struck by a heavy blow, Louise flinched, lowering her head as she grit her teeth; underneath the table, her hands were tightly clenched. She did not lift her head, not even when she heard her mother say, "What are you saying? What a coward you are, Charlotte. You'll say horrendous things about me to my husband for my own daughter to overhear, but you can't possibly say them to me, could you?"
She did not lift her head even as she heard her aunt snarled back, "You want to hear it, Cathy? What I think about someone like you, someone who whores out their own daughter for the sake of status?"
"What...did you just say?"
As the shouting grew louder, Louise could only shut her eyes as tight as she could get them, hoping against hope that absolute darkness could block out the sound of her family collapsing. She could hear:
"Mom, please stop! Dad, do something!"
"It's been a long time coming. I'd stay out of it if I were you."
"But--!"
She could hear:
"Is this out of jealousy? No, you can tell me. The daughter you've always wanted but could never have...is that why you had to have any influence you could dig into her? I've felt sorry enough to let you have that little victory, but you really are quite pathetic."
"That's laughable, coming from a woman who couldn't even stand to bear more than one child. Do you think my brother was satisfied with such a small family?"
"That's it. I want you out of my house now."
"I won't leave! This was my house long before you ever came sniffing around here, and I'm going to do what my brother should have done and protect that girl from your plans! Imagine, sending that sweet child off to marry some cad of a nobleman--you know how they play around on their little tours!"
Lord Pent, Louise thought, and something painful twisted itself inside her chest. She heard, and she did not--had never wanted to hear any of this. There was no effort in pushing her chair back, even less to stand, and suddenly there was silence.
But it was too late for her to be mollified by silence. Far, far too late.
"I'm excusing myself. Please don't come after me, because I'm afraid I can't bear it right now." Tears leaked through her closed eyes, but she made no move to wipe them away as she walked away from the table--but the feeling pounding inside her head told her that she had not spoken her mind to the extent it needed to have its thoughts voiced. She paused, but she did not turn around, she could not turn around, and to go even further she could never let her eyelids lift and see these people...her family. "Aren't we a family? Families are supposed to love each other, so why...please, I can't--"
It was too much now, far beyond the scope of her powers. Without further ado, she left the dining room with silence trailing behind her like ribbons worn during Saint Elimine's birthday festival. If even there had been a single word, whether it be the start to apologies or further recriminations, Louise would not have stopped. Her habit of eavesdropping was one that slew her over and over again, and perhaps would again in the future, but she could not do it here.
She was beyond this moment. The wall had fallen, and she was ready to leave--to return.
7.
Intent on keeping her word, Louise took breakfast in her room the next day. She had a whole sleepless night to think about her situation, and not a few times did she rise from her bed to begin a draft of a letter to send to Master Raike informing him of her arrival. What stayed her hand every time was the undernourished hope in her heart that perhaps yesterday had been the worst of it, that, like a storm, there would be the promise of sunny days ahead.
But her fifteen years had taught her this much: the storm would always return. It was inevitable.
It was this last thought that eventually forced her out of her room; she had to inform her parents that she would be leaving within the week, if not a couple of days, because if anything was going to be done it should be done by her. This is what she told herself, and it carried her all the way down the stairs and to her aunt. This surprised Louise so greatly that she found herself without even a word of greeting as her aunt approached her.
"Good day, Louise," her aunt said, her tone as light as air. "I see you're looking much better today."
Discomfort was not a new thing to Louise, as she had played the target to the noblewomen of Reglay too long to forget that particular feeling, but she was not sure she had ever felt it as acutely as she did now. Her aunt was determined to pretend yesterday had never happened---should she? Could she?
She had been quiet too long, she knew, when her aunt began to frown. "What, you're not still thinking about dinner yesterday?"
"I..." In a single, fatal instant, Louise gave into her heart's desire. "I would like an apology."
"An apology? I meant every word I said to that mother of yours."
Shaking her head, Louise stated, "...I'm not asking for my mother's sake. My mother can more than fend for herself, and she would not like it if I entered her battles. I would like an apology for the awful insinuation you made about Lord Pent."
"What?" Her aunt smiled as she reached out to stroke Louise's loose, untidy hair. "Oh Louise, you have no reason to stay with a man like that. Nobles aren't like you and me. Whatever they want, they take. It's the same in Lycia. If you part ways with him now, while he's otherwise preoccupied, perhaps you can get away unscathed. Come with me and I'll keep you safe from your mother's anger. It would be wonderful for you to travel. I imagine you would take to it so well you'll wonder why you've bothered with the life you live now."
"...No, Auntie. Because you know nothing about him...you're describing some other man entirely. I have a responsibility to him and I...I like my life." She looked up into her aunt's face and wondered why the other woman appeared so...surprised. "Please, just apologize."
"All right," her aunt said mildly. "I apologize. Is that good enough for you?"
Louise allowed a small smile to linger on her lips. "So long as you truly mean it, I'm satisfied."
Then, a most singular sensation: Pain, exploding from the left side of her face. She cried out and covered the offended cheek with her hand, realizing with only a dim, faraway part of her mind that her aunt had just struck her across the face, struck her for no reason that her mind could discover in this instant, or the next, or the next.
"So long as I truly mean it, you're satisfied...?" Lowering her arm to her side, her aunt's sharp glare was every bit as deadly as the tip of an arrow. "In the end, you're no different from that woman, are you? Doubting, looking down, while you remain high above it all...never mind my offer. I thought of you as my own daughter, all these years, and yet you turned out like--"
"That would be because I am not your daughter," Louise murmured, rubbing the sore, throbbing ache on her face in slow, firm circles. "I am my mother's." With those words, she left the area, darting through doorway after doorway while seeking a place where she could stop and be let alone while she tried, perhaps vainly, to understand what had just happened.
As she left the house through the door into the modest kitchen gardens Ellie so loved to cultivate, she saw none other than her father approaching the house from the direction of the stables. He was tugging on his cuffs when he seemed to notice her; by the time she thought to flee he was already heading towards her with a cautious demeanor that she found quite sad. "Louise," he called when he came near, but then his eyes grew wide and he hurried the rest of the way to her, reaching with gentle fingers to touch the injured side of her face. "Who did this?"
"Father, I--" But she could not speak further, not when he was already looking past her, into the house proper.
"That sister of mine! For the last time..." Her father began to storm into the house and would surely have made it to his objective were not Louise reacting on instinct alone, grasping her father's arm with both of hers and hugging the limb as if she would use all the strength in her small body to bring him down if need be.
"Father, stop!"
"Louise?"
"Don't worry, it's fine. I'm going back--"
"This is your home! I won't have you chased away from it by my very own sister!"
She clutched her father's arm even more tightly when he gave the barest hint of not tolerating her hold on him any longer. "It's all right!" she cried out. "I don't want any more fighting!"
The moment her father relaxed was her victory. "You stubborn girl," he said, not with just a bit of exasperation, not without some affection. "That mark on your face, the redness of it...she didn't hit you in the same way a child would need a swat. She wanted you to hurt."
"It doesn't hurt," Louise said, and that was something of the truth; it only throbbed with some force, and she pressed the offended side of her face against her father's upper arm. The wool of his shirt was comfortable, enough to ease her into a sense of security. Only when her father's voice broke through the haze of relaxation surrounding her did she stir.
"Why did she?"
"She said that I was exactly like Mother."
"You are like her." And then, in softly spoken Etruscan, "That's what worries me."
Louise lifted her head slightly from his arm, where her vantage position offered her a close look at her father's beard, neatly trimmed as usual. It made her wonder when was the last time she had embraced her father and stayed so close to him. "Why is that?" she responded, switching her language just as easily. For this question she earned herself a pat on the head, reminding her of when she was a child and craved her parents' attention--this, despite the fact that she had never lacked it.
"Despite what your aunt thinks, I've never had reason to worry over your mother's feelings for me. She loves without reserve, without thought for the consequences. To her, all that matters is that she earns her own happiness, no matter what she had to lose to gain it." He sighed, the heaviness of which seemed to stir within her own heart a feeling of gentle melancholy. "It scares me that you're the same way."
She pulled away from her father, facing him as she stood beside him. "But I'm a little like you too, don't you think? You loved Mother so strongly that you even faced Grandfather in order to keep her by your side. I really admire that you stood up to him, despite the fact that no one can win against the Great General of Etruria when it comes to sheer strength. He may have hurt you, but your love was stronger than his anger." Fidgeting, she looked away as she smiled. "It makes me wonder what it feels like to love so...fully."
Her father coughed into his hand. "Before, you said that you didn't need to love that boy, you only needed to believe in him. How is it that you can believe in him? You hadn't seen him more than a handful of times before he left."
"I listened to him. I wanted to understand him, and..." Louise laughed. "Of course I still haven't learned very much about him, but I want to. All I really know is how he makes me feel, and, um...even though we can only communicate through letters, every time I receive a new reply, my heart lightens. I may not be able to see him, but he answers every question I ask him with such honesty and kindness that I know he does not view me as an annoyance. He truthfully wants to reach out to me...I feel that he trusts me."
"And you trust him." Her father's voice was very odd, but Louise could only agree.
"Yes."
"Even if all that's between you are letters."
Gently, she placed her hand against her chest. "There are these feelings, too, but if it can only be letters then I will make a bridge with them from here to the Western Isles so that we can reach each other."
"All right."
"Father?"
"Your mother has been needling me, but I wasn't going to budge until I heard from you first. I'll...I'll accept it. Whatever it is that the two of you share, I'll not stand in your way." There was a soft wordless exclamation from her father when she embraced him, but she found that he was soon patting her on the back. "Just promise that you'll visit more often. Your mother gets less bearable without you to distract her."
Louise laughed, remembering a rather similar remark launched by her mother. "Yes, Father."
8.
"We're almost there, Lady Louise," Celia murmured, but of course Louise had long since found that the book she had borrowed from her mother was inadequate compared to the sight of the passing road; with her keen archer's eyes, she had long ago sighted Reglay Castle, second in grandeur to only the palace at Aquleia. Their carriage was now traveling through the city proper towards the castle's front gates, and Louise could not help the widening of her smile when they were safely on the other side of the castle walls. Her departure from the carriage was a little less than ladylike, but she could not help herself--she was in Reglay! First, she would have to send off her letter to Lord Pent, more of a periodical in size rather than a simple exercise in the epistolary arts, and then she would see herself down in the kitchens, and after that--
"Milady."
"Madame Amy!" Louise would never have been so bold to embrace her guardian at any other time, but perhaps she could be excused in her obvious exuberance? It was a small wonder that she was not thrown aside, but the expression on Madame Amy's face was clearly set in bemusement. "Oh, I'm so happy to see you again!"
"Well, I'm honored. Was everything well at your home?"
Louise looked away, her hands clenched behind her back. "Let's talk more about that later."
"That would be for the best, actually." Madame Amy gestured towards the massive front doors of the castle. "I'm to escort you to my husband's office."
"Has something happened?" Louise wondered aloud. She would have allowed herself to be nervous, but with Celia beside her and Madame Amy in front of her it felt as if that would simply not do.
"My husband's picked up a rumor that one of the claimants plans to appeal to the king directly fairly soon, and he'd like to discuss the possible options in averting this move for as long as possible." The lovely older woman had a smile to match her steel-gray eyes; it bespoke of ice and wind and a blade that could cut like both, but there was no hostility in them towards Louise. Rather, it seemed to be faintly challenging, something that was proven in her next words. "Are you ready?"
Louise nodded, her heart pounding with as much anticipation as there was anxiety. "I am. Shall we go?"
-end-
And now, for something a little different. I know many of you were expecting a story about Louise and her attempts at forging alliances with the Reglay County noblewomen, but I had decided against it from early on; it would just be a series of unpleasant encounters with no victory from Louise's side, and that doesn't sound like either a pleasant writing or reading experience to me. The hints about just how stressful it is for her in this story is just the very tip of the iceberg. Better to tie up some loose ends, all things considering...
This is one of the longest single-part stories in the entire series; there will be a Pent story that aims to be even longer, but after that the chapter lengths will be much more sane. I'm heading into the second half of my semester with extremely good grades that I don't want to lose, so if I have to I will give myself a hiatus from this fic. That being said, the next story comes out on 4/19. Thank you for reading!