Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goddess FallenAngel" data-source="post: 1682791" data-attributes="member: 11434">I turn from gazing out the pane to look at Flora. "Truthfully, dear aunt, my avoidance of the family is not new. Most of the family makes me fairly uncomfortable - save Benedict and Corwin, and in the past, Deirdre." I sip my wine and look at her. "I am a very forthright person, Aunt, and most of the family is not."I take another sip, letting the flavor roll off my tongue. "Forgive me for being blunt, but there it is. I had thought of making myself scarcer about Amber before this current emergency. Now, I feel compelled to stay. It is my duty."I turn away and lean myself against the windowpane, my profile towards Flora. "I will attempt to make connections with the others of my generation if it pleases you, Aunt. You are correct in that I should at least do that." I wave away the subject.However, as I speak of my discomfort with most of the Elders, Flora’s eyes pick up... what is perhaps a twinkle of sorts. "My dear, I do wish to make one distinction for you. Bluntness is one thing – crassness another. Just because you wish to speak plainly is no reason to speak rudely. Speaking of Julian." She smiles lightly. "And not that I think you have offended me with your frank words, I merely wish to remind you that you can be both plainly polite or plainly impolite. But I appreciate that it becomes difficult to care for people whom you know are at the very least circumspect and evasive, if not outright deceitful. But try not to hold my brothers and sisters too responsible for how they were raised. Father was... somewhat willful, and his temper and delight turned very fast. Children are wont to compete with one another - and especially as our mothers tended not to remain available for long, Father was the judge and jury of all our affairs." She thoughtfully stares down out the window, straining to make out some of the city far below. "If I were a more cynical person, I might suspect the dear King of purposefully creating an environment in which it would be impossible for any one person to acquire so much influence as to possibly supplant him. But to be honest, I believe he just didn't notice the side effects of how he treated his children." She breathes out slowly, and draws another breath after a moment."But I am glad to hear your resolve to defend Amber and her people. We will need such resolve, I suspect - that and so much more. I am glad to speak to you now, to learn your mind, while..." She turns her eyes away from the world outside, and matches my gaze, strong and yet pained. "I don't know how much longer I can expect to remain free - we lost our best students of both war and the supernatural early on, so we have never had even the remotest idea what was assailing us. But the pace has increased over the last three days, and I fully expect that one more will go missing today."She has drawn her Trump deck from a pocket, and is rifling through it, pausing occasionally. "But these wonderful cards suggest that they are not dead - merely out of touch, out of range. So I am hopeful. Not for the now, but for the future. I have a hope that you and your cousins will, after much struggle, solve this riddle and rescue us. But it will require a sense of purpose such as you have declared. And so, I am comforted to hear your words."I take her disguised admonishment as what it is; I was being rude, after all. I show little reaction to most of her news, feeling too run down to even care at this point. If it happens, it happens... Although I do feel sorrow at those lost to us, I don't believe that they are dead... and there is nothing I can do to protect anyone from the same fate. Except lend my sword arm to Amber should She need it. Still, I feel compelled to at least speak some comforting words, regardless of if I believe them or not. "Perhaps we are incorrect in that assumption and none will fall this soon. It is possible that a more forthright attack will be launched soon - as terrible as it is to say, I would prefer to hope for that rather then more of these disappearances."Flora nods. "I agree - an open assault, even the gunfire we heard during the Interregnum, would be music to my ears compared to the terrible silence of the Castle's halls of late. It wears upon me like a heavy woolen coat in the middle of a desert." She sighs and turns. "But I am still here now, and there is much I can still do for Amber - and for you, if I can." She smiles warmly and openly - and it seems without pretense or posture.</blockquote>

Verification