Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Tristan was in his workshop. He was working on a new series of sculptures to commemorate the victims of the civil war as well as those that had died when the shadow beasts had attacked. Of course he was adding his personal touch to the sculptures. His war victims often had blue or green skin, three eyes, more than four limbs and occasionally tails and horns. Monsters had suffered in the war as well!

As he heard a knock on the door he abruptly stopped hitting the sculpture in front of him with the hammer and the chisel and listened, furrowing his brow. Who could that be? He wasn’t expecting anybody. Maybe Ilaren had decided to visit him because she had enjoyed their last meeting so much! Or maybe it was one of his brothers. He hadn’t seen Teddy and Hart in a while.

He put the hammer and the chisel away which was much harder than it sounded because his workshop was a bit of a mess and full of stuff and hurried to the door. As he opened it, he just stared at the person that was standing outside for a moment. It wasn’t Ilaren, it wasn’t one of his relatives – it was Faith!

His heart skipped a beat. He had hoped that she would come back to him one trial, especially in the beginning, before he had met Ilaren, but he had never thought that she would. There had been moments when he had nearly gone mad with despair. He had only started to think about her a little less frequently very recently. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to her standing there, with a bottle of wine in her hand, smiling.

Part of him wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her, but another part of him just wanted her to go away again because their meeting would inevitable reopen old wounds, and he didn’t want to be depressed anymore. He wasn’t good at being depressed. He just wanted to think about the beautiful Ilaren who had come into his life so unexpectedly and who shared so many of his interests.

He stared at her for a moment as he tried to make up his mind, and then he returned the smile and gestured for her to come in.

“I’m fine”, he replied even though he felt a strange sort of pain in his chest when he looked at her and accepted the wine from her, reading the label. “You still remember that I like red wine”, he remarked. He’d half expected her to forget everything that had to do with him because he had kept her as a slave. “Do you want to share the bottle with me later on? You are a free woman now. You are allowed to drink alcohol!”

He grinned at her.

“You look nice”, he remarked in a more serious tone and chided himself a moment later for such a lame comment. She did look nice though, even though her clothes were decidedly unfashionable.

He led her into the kitchen and gestured for her to sit at the table with him. She would notice that it looked totally different. The season before he had conducted a scientific experiment and nearly blown his kitchen up which had made it necessary for him to replace most of the furniture.

There were so many things he wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her that he had met another woman, an Immortal. He wondered how she would react to that and if she would be jealous. A part of him wanted her to be jealous. He also wanted to tell her about his experiments and that he had learned to shoot things with a crossbow. He wanted to ask her if Padraig still treated her well or if she had finally gotten tired of him because he was dull and uncreative, but then she mentioned her plans, and he immediately forgot what he wanted to say and just stared at her.

“Rharne? You were in Rharne yesterday? How does that work? Does Padraig know how to teleport now?” he asked because that seemed strange to him. “Why are you going to Scalvoris? Isn’t that island full of pirates?” It was just then that he realized, somewhat belatedly, what else she had said. She wouldn’t come back in a long time. He couldn’t imagine never seeing her again! For a moment he considered just locking the door and forcing her to stay, but he couldn’t do that. She wanted to go Scalvoris with Padraig!

“Only if you pour yourself a glass as well”, he replied. He had the feeling that they would both need a drink by the time she had said whatever it was that she wanted to say. It would probably be even worse than her leaving Andaris, possibly forever. “What is it that you want to tell me? You are not sick, are you?” He looked at her worriedly. She looked healthy, but you couldn’t always tell, besides he couldn’t imagine what else it could possibly be.

“It’s either that or I ruined my old kitchen because I tried to deep fry water“, Tristan answered with a smile as Faith asked him if he was developing an obsessive need to redecorate his kitchen. His eyes lit up as she revealed that she had brought him chocolate cake. He almost forgot all the bad things that had happened recently, and his stomach almost instantly started to grumble. Sometimes he wondered why he wasn’t overweight yet when he liked sweets so much. Maybe, he thought, he was secretly a Mortalborn and had special abilities.

He looked at her wistfully as she claimed that she remembered everything, but there was one thing that bothered him. “Can you not forget the stuff under my bed?” he complained. “I had forgotten all about it until you mentioned it. It’s embarrassing, you know? As for your letters, I did of course get them. I have them in my bedroom, if you want to see them.” It had taken him a couple trials to muster the courage to read them. When he had finally done so, he had nearly ripped the envelopes open.

“I just thought Padraig would be more likely to learn how to teleport because he knows alchemy and physics and all that other scientific stuff”, he let her know. “You could of course teleport as well, and you’d be amazing at it!” He was a little confused when she suddenly showed him her foot, although it was of course a very nice foot, despite the somewhat plain boot. As she claimed that her boots were magic, he looked at her incredulously for a moment before he poked them. They felt just like normal boots. But then again, why would she lie to him about something that amazing?

“I want such shoes”, he informed her in a very matter-of-fact tone once he had finally stopped inspecting her footwear. “Where did you get them and how much did they cost?”

If he hadn’t already been sitting, he would have felt the sudden need to sit down when she told him about Aelig and her pregnancy. For a moment he just stared at her blankly as if she had been speaking gibberish and he didn’t understand a thing, and then he looked at her very flat stomach for a moment before he blurted out, “But you don’t look pregnant! Whose baby is it? If it’s mine, I’ll of course take care of both of you! I’ll even marry you, and grandmother won’t be able do a thing about it! She’s just a mean old woman anyway!”

He sounded desperate as he said that, but determined. He’d never wanted children, but he could never be like his grandmother who’d just gotten rid of all of his father’s bastards. If he had a bastard, he would acknowledge them, and he would try to love them and not accidentally kill them with his pretty much non-existent parenting skills.

“Unless … did Aelig rape you?” His eyes widened as another possibility occurred to him, and he looked absolutely horrified. “Faith tell me if Aelig hurt you!” he begged her. “I’ll kill him if he did!”

He hadn’t, at least not physically, he realized. As she told him how Aelig had tortured Padraig in a dream, he actually felt sorry for Faith’s former tutor for the first time ever. He disliked Padraig, but in that moment he realized that he didn’t actually want him to die.

And then she proceeded to inform him that she had given birth to a girl and that it had all been an illusion. For a moment he actually wondered if he was dreaming. He pinched himself and winced because the pain felt very real. He was probably not dreaming.

“Are you sure that the baby was fake?” he asked her. “Faith, Aelig is the Immortal of Illusions. He’s evil. What if he just made you think that your daughter doesn’t exist? What if he abducted her?” He felt so bad about his previous thoughts, that he wanted her to be jealous now. He wanted to comfort her and tell her that it would be alright because she looked so sad and hurt, but he didn’t know how.

And then she abruptly asked him what was going on with him, and for the second time he was at a complete loss for words. He didn’t really want to talk about what had happened anymore even though he had been so excited about it just a few bits previously.

On the other hand it might distract him from the loss of her daughter, so he finally replied, “I met Ilaren. We got really drunk together and then I showed her all my favourite places in Andaris and then …” His voice trailed off and looked at her again. Her daughter might also be his daughter. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about it, whether he should be sad or happy or angry or ignore the matter as much as possible.

“Faith, is there anything I can do for you?” he asked abruptly before he drained his glass in one go.

“But I didn’t!“ Tristan retorted as Faith told him that he could have hurt himself. “I just ruined my kitchen. And I still think it’s possible to deep fry water. It’s just a matter of adding the right chemicals.” It occurred to him that she might not be particularly happy about him handling chemicals – although he probably had a natural talent for science if the cloth he had made for Alex was anything to go by – so he quickly added, “Not that I’m actually going to play with dangerous chemicals. I know better than that!”

He let out a sigh as she informed him that the boots had been a gift from the Order of the Adunih. He had no idea who or what Adunih was, and all that he knew about medicine was how to get hurt which was unlikely to change anytime soon. “I don’t suppose you could ask your healer friends to give me such boots as well?” he asked and gave her his best puppy dog eyes even though that hadn’t exactly been successful in the past. “I’m willing to pay up to a thousand nels! That’s more than some people earn in an arc!”

“Good!” he remarked as Faith reminded him that she had hit Aelig with the hairbrush. “He deserved it. I hope it was a heavy hairbrush, and he was in a lot of pain!” Nobody was allowed to hurt Faith – absolutely nobody – even though she wasn’t his Faith anymore!

As Faith began to cry, Tristan immediately pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. It was very nice and lacy and had belonged to his grandmother until he had taken (or rather stolen) it.

He wanted to say that she had to consider the possibility that Aelig had her child, whether she wanted to or not, but then she mentioned all the things she had been through. It was unlikely that any baby could survive all that unless it was a magical baby. He still felt as if he was supposed to be grieving though which didn’t make any sense at all.

“I would ask the Immortal themselves for help”, he told her firmly, finally walked over and put an arm around her even though he had vowed that he would never do that again. She needed to be comforted though, and Padraig wasn’t there. He just couldn’t let her sit there and cry!

“Moseke, Famula and their friends probably don’t like Aelig too much either. I would find a mage. I’m pretty sure that there is some kind of magic that allows you to find out the truth. And I don’t have to lie to you. It will eventually hurt less. It’s just so overwhelming right now because the pain is still fresh. I know that it’s not the same, and maybe I shouldn’t even say it, but when you went away, I had trouble sleeping, and I couldn’t imagine ever being happy again. And then I met Ilaren.”

He looked at her doubtfully. “Are you sure you aren’t jealous? I just told you that I basically went on a date with an Immortal. Just a few seasons ago I spent all the time with you!”

“You do have a point“, Tristan admitted as Faith told him that the portal boots would just take him home. “But on the other hand I could add them to my collection of rare and unusual things. I already have a demon cat. Teleporting boots would go well with that. I could open a zoo and a museum on my property and fill them with magical items and strange animals and make people pay to see them and have everybody envy me!” His eyes lit up as he said that, even though he realized that it would probably take arcs until such an investment paid off. But then again, he wouldn’t do it just for the money.

“And you should never apologize for crying in front of me!” he informed her in a very matter-of-fact tone. He didn’t look uncomfortable as he watched her cry. He just looked sad … sad at what had become of their lives and what had happened to her. Faith wasn’t supposed to be an Immortal’s plaything. Even after she had left him for Padraig, he just wanted her to be happy and have fun, he realized. She deserved to be happy after she had spent most of her life as a slave, eating from the floor, wearing rags and sleeping in a room full of corpses.

“Aelig is a liar”, he agreed. “But there’s probably an Immortal of Truth as well. Maybe you should talk to them. Or the Immortal of Love. Maybe you should contact the Immortal of Love. If your daughter turns out to be real, against all odds, you'll love her, won't you? Go to their temple, pray to them, ask them to intervene. One of the Immortals has to care. They can’t all be emotionless and manipulative!”

He didn’t quite understand why she wasn’t jealous even after she tried to explain it, but he was glad that she wasn’t. It made him feel better about his meeting with Ilaren and the feelings he had for her.

“Don’t apologize for being emotional”, he continued. He found it strange that she felt the need to apologize so much when she had done nothing wrong. Aelig had done something wrong! “And don’t worry about the handkerchief. It isn’t really mine. I took it from grandmother’s bedroom when Andráska and I were hiding there and getting drunk as well as doing a few other, even more questionable things such as putting on her clothes.” He revealed the last bit on purpose, hoping that she would smile a little or at least look shocked. He wanted her to stop crying and being sad.

“Of course”, he assured her. “I’ll write to you and tell you about my heroic deeds and Mistral and Ilaren.”