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Post by Elcie on Sept 27, 2014 20:29:20 GMT -5
Xavier's eyes were sad as Sieg spoke of the ghost he'd encountered. Despite the amount of death he'd seen in his life, he'd never met a ghost; the nobles of Courdon had ways of fighting them, he'd heard. It was like Courdon's attitude toward most things different from them or hard to understand, he supposed - fear, and hatred. "I'm glad she found peace," he murmured. "And I'm not surprised that she thought that. I don't know what elves are normally taught there, but... in Courdon, the free Kythian elves aren't considered - well - they're supposed to be savages." He gave Sieg an apologetic glance. "N-not that they think too highly of the humans of Kyth, either. I don't think they really respect anyone who's not Courdonian." At Sieg's question, Xavier went red. Oh, gods. "I... er... it was kind of... well, it was a couple weeks before the coronation. I arrested Lord Everett's niece." Xavier winced at his own words. He needed to think of a better way to explain this. "So he tracked me down, a-and he wound up recruiting me as sort of, um, penance." He decided to conveniently omit the part where he'd been convinced he was essentially a slave. Or the part where he'd been so frightened of Lord Everett's anger that he had, in his mind, sold himself - not that the Kythian noble had actually realized what he was doing. "It, ah, didn't go well at first," Xavier said vaguely, rubbing the back of his neck. "But despite the... circumstances... they were kind to me. Leif, especially. They didn't realize I was, um, where I'd come from, but I was allowed to stay even when they did know. I'd been working for Ilsa before that." He smiled slightly. "It's a strange story even here, I know. But it would be completely unthinkable in Courdon. Peasants aren't even allowed to become knights or merchants, let alone nobility." Xavier super awkwardly answers Sieg's question about his adoption in a way that probably raises more questions than it answers. Good job, Xavier, that story will never not be awkward. He knows it's weird, too, although in Courdon it would've gone beyond weird into the territory of horrifyingly impossible.
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Post by Shinko on Sept 27, 2014 20:54:41 GMT -5
When Xavier started the explanation of his adoption into House Jade with " I arrested Lord Everett's niece," Sieg was sure it was the setup for some sort of joke. But the young noble elaborated further, and the half-elf realized Xavier was telling the truth. The knight stared at the young man blankly, an expression of hilariously flat astonishment on his face. "You... Let me see if I have this correctly. You were working here at the King's Arms? Not as a constable or guard? But somehow you were in a position to arrest a nobleman's niece, and... he responded to this by adopting you into his house? Th-that doesn't... Xavier, that doesn't make even the tiniest iota of sense!" He tilted his head, a bubble of laughter emerging from his throat. "I... I'm glad it worked out well for you I suppose, but now I can't help wondering of Lord Everett is every bit as daft in the head as that young singing Jade Leif and I met at the coronation!" Realizing how phenomenally rude this sounded, he winced and added, "Ah, no offense to you, it's not that I don't think you deserve your position, I just... that is a leap of logic that completely escapes me..." Sieg has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
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Post by Elcie on Sept 28, 2014 23:10:25 GMT -5
At this point, Xavier's face was about as red as his hair. "It's, um... it's because I was good at it. It was something I did, just on my own, at night. Arresting people who were... dangerous, or suspicious, and... Lady Jeniver broke a lot of Ilsa's furniture, so..." He trailed off, realizing he was probably not making things much clearer, and buried his face in his hands in embarrassment. "I- I'm sorry, it doesn't make much sense. I didn't get it either at first, I thought they'd do something horrible to me." Ilsa, emerging from the kitchen with a couple of plates, caught the last part of this conversation and grinned. "Give yourself some credit, Xavier. Your heart was in the right place." She glanced at Sieg with a rather conspiratorial smile. "He neglects to tell you about stopping the inn from getting robbed more than once, not to mention putting away the man who'd attacked your mother, Sieg. Lord Everett was right about his talents being useful, though I wish he'd asked more politely." She frowned slightly; despite Xavier's general positive feelings toward House Jade, she had still not entirely forgiven certain members for the stress they'd put Xavier through during his recruitment. "Or asked at all, as a matter of fact." "I did want to help, once I realized what they wanted," Xavier protested sheepishly, lifting his head up. He shrugged, helplessly. "I guess it did do some good sometimes. I just wanted to... keep everyone safe. But there's better ways to do it that I don't have to do in secret." "Yes, well." Ilsa placed the wooden plates in front of them, carrying bread and cheese from the kitchen. "You're allowed to be proud of your accomplishments, Xavier. Even if arresting a young noblewoman was not your wisest decision." She winked at him. "I appreciate your looking out for my furniture all the same." Xavier mumbles awkwardly a bit more about his vigilante escapades, which he's kind of embarrassed about. Luckily Ilsa, who is back from the kitchen finally, has absolutely no qualms about bragging on him shamelessly.
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Post by Shinko on Sept 29, 2014 6:50:11 GMT -5
Xavier's second round at attempting to explain himself didn't make that much more sense then the first, but at least he clarified what he meant when he said he was "arresting" people. Doing it at night, on his own, in secret. A vigilante then? Sieg had heard of people taking the law into their own hands if they felt like the local constabulary was incompetent, though he'd never have imagined this shy young man would engage in that sort of thing. Fortunately, Ilsa emerged at that point, and cheerfully explained the situation in much more straightforward terms then Xavier had. House Jade had taken him on after he arrested Everett's niece to make use of his ability to catch criminals- that did make sense. Sieg blushed a bit at the reminder that Xavier had been involved in helping to save Morgaine's life. Really he aught to have made that connection on his own. Sieg coughed, "I'm sorry for that outburst, I am not usually so... hrm. Blunt? But that does make sense, though I do still wonder why Lord Everett adopted you into his family formally instead of just hiring you on as a servant or employee of some kind. Then again, there are probably a lot of additional circumstances to the story that I don't know and aren't really my business, so you don't have to answer that if you don't want to." He let a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he added jokingly, "So if you rank furniture breaking as an arrestable offense... when you arrested the man who attacked my mother, was it to help her or in revenge for the lock display that he smashed during the robbery?" Sieg grinned more widely, inviting Xavier to share the joke in the hopes it would dissipate the last of the awkwardness from a moment ago. In a more serious tone he added, "Though perhaps not the wisest choice you could have made, doing something like that would take a very great deal of courage, and your intentions are commendable. And I'm glad that Lord Everett decided to reward the intent rather than punishing the lack of foresight. Certainly it can't hurt for a noble house so heavily steeped in the ideals of tradition to get some new blood and new ideas every so often." The knight reached down for his belt pouch to pay Ilsa for the food she'd brought. As he turned sideways to give himself better access to his belt, however, he accidentally nudged his crutch with a foot and tipped it over. The wooden pole fell, smacking Sieg's injured leg so that he tensed, grunting involuntarily with pain and wincing hard. "Aaaagh, for W-Woo's sake..." Clenching his teeth against the ache, he set his belt pouch on the counter and counted out a few runestones, before setting his face down on the wooden surface. "Th-thank you Ilsa." With Ilsa's help Sieg finally gets the idea Xavier was trying to communicate, and apologizes for blue screening a moment ago. XD He tries to make a joke to lighten the mood, and more seriously adds that he thinks Xavier's vigilante activities were admirable even if they were a touch short-sighted. Then he hurts his bad leg again- in front of both Xavier AND Ilsa this time, for maximum fun!
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Post by Elcie on Oct 5, 2014 9:49:52 GMT -5
Xavier smiled a little. "Whatever their reasoning, I'm... I'm glad they did. I've come to admire House Jade greatly, I'm honored that they were willing to take me in." It was strange now to remember how terrified of them he'd once been. Mages in the service of a noble House had always been cruel in his experience, more than willing to use their power to control and manipulate others. Until Leif, until Ambrose, he hadn't realized how differently the Kythian nobility thought about the use of power. He chuckled at Sieg's joke, casting Ilsa an amused glance. "Well, I was taught that vandalism is a very serious offense." As Ilsa laughed, Xavier's expression grew thoughtful again. "Besides..." He shrugged. "Being a Jade, maybe I can do some good here. More than if I was just a vigilante." Xavier gave Sieg a self-conscious grin. "I- I don't have to worry about being put in the stocks by an angry nobleman for arresting his niece, for one thing." The power, the authority of nobility - they still made Xavier more than a little uncomfortable. But being in a position to help - that he could accept. Both of them started forward in alarm as Sieg tensed up at the pain in his leg. Ilsa was frowning. "That looked like it hurt. Are you sure you're okay?" "M-maybe you should get a healer, just to be safe," Xavier said tentatively. He averted his eyes from Sieg's automatically, some of his nervousness returning in the act of making a suggestion that Sieg had already refused once. Ilsa's response, on the other hand, was to look slightly appalled. "You mean you haven't even been to a healer yet?" she said, crossing her arms. "At the very least, get something for the pain so you don't have to put up with that." Xavier manages to joke back with Sieg a little and talks about being happy he's in a position to help others as a member of House Jade. When Sieg hits his leg, Xavier suggests again - very nervously - that perhaps Sieg should find a healer, and Ilsa's rather appalled to hear that he hasn't already.
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Post by Shinko on Oct 5, 2014 10:26:18 GMT -5
When Xavier repeated the need for a healer, Sieg shook his head, "I-I'm fine, it's noth-" "You mean you haven't even been to a healer yet?" Ilsa interrupted, crossing her arms. "At the very least, get something for the pain so you don't have to put up with that."The half-elf winced at Ilsa's admonishment. Through clenched teeth, his face turning scarlet, he admitted, "I... I have... personal grievances with getting healed by magic." Sieg's amber eyes reflected a profound pain that had nothing to do with his injury, and he refused to meet either Ilsa or Xavier's eyes. "I suppose you've been honest with me, so you deserve some honesty too. And Master Leif knows, so if you asked him about it he could probably tell you. It's not anything to do with not liking mages or some sort of 'I'm a big tough knight and I can handle it' power trip. I just- I don't like to talk about it. But something very bad happened when I was younger, and I had to watch someone very close to me die. I blamed myself for it for a long time. So I stopped letting mages heal me as a sort of... self-punishment." He laughed bitterly, "I know it sounds stupid, saying it like that. Honestly I don't completely understand myself. It's just something I can do to feel like I'm atoning for what happened. I've been trying to get over that, but sometimes I feel like there's some sort of... a block, I guess? Something in my head that just won't let me feel right about the idea, especially for injuries that aren't life threatening. It feels almost like... like a betrayal." Sieg sighed, "I'm sorry Xavier, I know this must sound stupid and petty given everything you've been through. I don't know what's wrong with me, why I can't let this go." He clenched his hands on the wound almost subconsciously, making the limb quiver. His face went sweaty and pale from the pain. What, you thought Xavier was the only one who'd be sharing awkward traumatic backstory? Nooope, now it's Sieg's turn! Hope you guys like a heaping helping of PTSD!
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Post by Elcie on Oct 5, 2014 21:52:05 GMT -5
Xavier's eyes widened, and he looked away, ashamed of himself. "I- I'm sorry. I didn't realize... th-that's..." He trailed off. In some strange, twisted way he could understand the logic. He knew what it was like to be unable to forgive himself. Ilsa, however, was unmoved. "That," she said bluntly, "is ridiculous." " Ilsa," Xavier gasped, appalled. "No, I mean it! What good is it going to do you to limp around like this?" She crossed her arms stubbornly. "Let me call a healer, Sieg. Because I don't fancy explaining to Morgaine why her son's leg dropped right off in the middle of my inn." There was a humorous twinkle to her eye as she said it, but all the same it was quite clear that she meant what she said. Xavier sighed. The innkeeper did have a point; as much as Sieg's problem with healing made sense to him, he could also see why it was wrong. "When you feel you don't deserve something," he said quietly, looking pensively at the counter rather than at either of the others, "when you really believe it, it's... it's hard to want it. Even when people tell you you can. I know. But, Sieg... you don't deserve to be hurt." He looked over at the knight and smiled. "You got hurt saving your people from slavery. Anyone who'd do something like that deserves all the healing there is." Xavier's ashamed of pushing Sieg and would let the matter drop, but Ilsa's here to save the day with LACK OF TACT. She pretty much insists on calling a healer. Xavier, who very much understands guilt and self-blame, tells Sieg he does deserve it even if he doesn't believe that - especially since he puts himself in harm's way to protect people from Courdonian slavery.
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Post by Shinko on Oct 5, 2014 22:25:11 GMT -5
Sieg jerked a bit at Ilsa's callous rebuttal, his shoulders hitching up instinctively. "I-" he started to argue, but she was having none of it. "Let me call a healer, Sieg. Because I don't fancy explaining to Morgaine why her son's leg dropped right off in the middle of my inn.""It's just a bone bruise!" he insisted, though he wasn't completely sure- he just knew it wasn't broken, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to put weight on it at all. He hadn't been putting weight on it anyway, to be safe, but... Xavier put in his opinion, more quite than Ilsa's but no less insistent. The half-elf put his face in his hands, leaning against the counter. "I'm not a hero, Xavier. I've done nothing to deserve your respect or admiration. Maybe I stopped them this time, but sometimes I can't. They just keep coming, and they do get away with people sometimes, and we can't even legally get them back without retaliation. A-and when it really mattered, I was... just weak." He shook his head. "It was the same when my mother was attacked. I wasn't there to protect her when I should have been. I-" The knight realized he was getting overwrought, and clenched his teeth. He hadn't meant to start projecting like that, not in the middle of the inn. He'd let Leif heal him back at the coronation, but he hadn't realized just how badly he wanted to hang on to this means of control he'd assumed over himself until just now. Except it wasn't control, was it? Really he was out of control, his guilt overwhelming his reason. Ilsa was right about that much- it was ridiculous. But letting go was so hard. "Go ahead," he said finally, defeated. "Call the healer. I'm sorry, I didn't meant to dump all of that on you." Sieg gets a little overly worked up, but then finally surrenders.
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Post by Elcie on Oct 12, 2014 16:12:42 GMT -5
Ilsa sighed, shaking her head, but she gave Sieg a smile. "We're your friends, Sieg. Let us help you." She gave both of them a cheerful wave and left through the back. Xavier watched her go, then turned to Sieg, his face serious. "Even if you don’t always succeed, you still fight," he said quietly. "Maybe that doesn’t seem like much to you. But I still think it’s brave.” He took a shaky breath, running a hand over his face. “I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” After a moment he added, a little sheepishly, “I’m sure Ilsa didn’t either. She’s a little bit… um…” Xavier gestured helplessly, momentarily at a loss for words. “... Direct.” Ilsa goes to get a healer, Xavier basically tells Sieg that he does think he's hero anyway, aaand then quickly and awkwardly backtracks and apologizes for how personal this conversation has gotten. (Woobs. What can you do.)
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Post by Shinko on Oct 12, 2014 20:19:23 GMT -5
Sieg glanced aside at Xavier with a tired smile. "'Direct' is a word. I would have said 'she's a force of nature' but it seems to me she'd have to be, good a friend as she is to my mother." He forced himself to sit up again, taking a bite of the food Ilsa had brought. Once he swallowed he said, "You don't need to apologize. It's not your fault; how could you have known? Besides, these are my own stupid self-inflicted issues. I shouldn't be subjecting other people to them." Grasping for a safer topic of conversation, he turned back to the innkeeper. "So you used to work for Ilsa? How long were you doing that before House Jade picked you up." With a reproachful glare at the rain hammering the window outside he added, "And how did you adjust to these northern seasons? It's not even winter yet and when I step outside I'm freezing." Sieg steers the conversation back into casual waters, asking Xavier about his history with Ilsa and about how he adjusted to living in Medieville. Knowing these two they'll get back into more sadfaced topics sooner or later, but of course we need to lighten the mood after that little explosion of feels. XD
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Post by Elcie on Oct 21, 2014 9:04:41 GMT -5
Xavier glanced at Sieg for a moment, concern still written on his features, but accepted the change of subject without comment. He gave a small grin, looking down at the food Ilsa had left for him. "About two years. She took me in while I was still fleeing north. I didn't really mean to stay for long, but she was kind to me, and I started to trust her." He laughed. "And then winter hit, and I was more than happy to stay somewhere with blankets and hot meals and a roaring fire. Thank the gods I didn't keep travelling north... I'm honestly not sure I would have survived winter in Rindfell or Bern, if I'd still been alone." He cast Sieg a sympathetic look. "Medieville's plenty cold enough for me. That first winter was miserable, even though Ilsa made sure I kept warm enough. She still teases me for how I dress during the winter. Personally, I don't see how anyone can go out in that wearing fewer than three cloaks." He grinned jokingly at Sieg. "You're from Corvus, though, how do you stand all the rain? Every time I've been in the province, it seems like, I wind up soaking wet and miserable." Xavier accepts the weather as a safe topic of conversation, jokes about how cold it gets, and asks Sieg how he can stand the Corvid rainy season.
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Post by Shinko on Oct 21, 2014 12:12:40 GMT -5
Sieg grinned broadly at Xavier's question. "Well there's a trick to it, but it's a closely guarded Corvid secret so you can't tell anyone else." He leaned towards the younger man conspiratorially, and in a deliberately loud stage whisper he said, "Stay inside when it's raining." He laughed, leaning away again. "Seriously though, when you're raised in that climate it feels perfectly natural. My sister and I used to actually go out and play in the rain, as long as it wasn't too torrential and there was no lighting. It pours pretty much every afternoon in Corvus, so you just get accustomed to it." The half-elf took another bite of his breakfast, then grinned. "I will agree with you about the northern winters though. Mother has been living here for ten years, so she's acclimatized to them, and she'd wanted to see snow since she was very young so that got her through the first few winters even though she still wasn't used to the cold. Me though, no thank you. Every time I have to be up this way in winter I feel like my nose, ears, and fingers are about to fall off. It's good that you had Ilsa's help when you first came here- it's easy to underestimate how much difference a friend can make when you feel alone and afraid." A sad light came into his eyes again. "When Mother first came to Medieville, my sister and I were almost entirely alone. We became pretty close to each other, and it's probably only because of her that I didn't go completely insane after... after what happened." He gestured at his leg, hoping Xavier would pick up on what he was talking about. "My sister, Ophelia, she's actually a translator. She got the idea from those slaves who come across Nid'aigle occasionally, though obviously most of the time her real work is in more formal diplomatic settings. Or with translating documents, which is of course always riveting. Like me she already knew Kythian and Elvish, and she's also taught herself low Courdonian, Lyellian, and is in the process of learning Dwarvish. Of course getting anyone to not run away long enough to fetch her is a different question entirely but... well we do what we can." I wrote this whole thing, then my computer at work crashed and I had to rewrite it. 8D
ANYWAY! Sieg talks more about weather, then brings up his sister Ophelia.
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Post by Elcie on Oct 21, 2014 19:40:56 GMT -5
At the talk of winter, Xavier gave Sieg a small, embarrassed smile. "You know, I had never even heard of snow before I came here. It was too dry in Talvace. The first snowfall terrified me - I had no idea what was falling from the sky or why it was so cold. Ilsa must have thought I was insane." He shook his head, though the amusement on his face faded as Sieg mentioned his sister. He knew what it was to rely on someone so completely, though he had no siblings by blood. None that he knew of, anyway. "Low Courdonian? That's an interesting choice, though I can see why she wanted to learn it. I was under the impression that most foreigners learned the formal dialect by default." He smiled. "I imagine a half-elf speaking low Courdonian has a better chance than most Kythians at winning a runaway's trust. No noble of Courdon would sully his tongue by using slave-speech, you see. It would show she's trustworthy, if they hadn't already noticed her species." Xavier took a drink from the cup Ilsa had brought. "Your sister sounds like an interesting person. Is she still in Nid'aigle as well?" Xavier's surprised but pleased to hear that Sieg's sister chose to learn low Courdonian and not just the higher-class dialect, and asks him if Ophelia lives in Nid'aigle.
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Post by Shinko on Oct 21, 2014 20:10:08 GMT -5
Sieg chuckled. "Well she didn't want to sully her tongue on the language of a bunch of arrogant slave lords. Or so she put it. It was tricky to find someone who could teach it to her, to be fair, most of the official language books in the Solis library are for the high language. I think she eventually found an escaped slave, though I never asked her directly since her academic pursuits were none of my business." He smiled. "I hope you're right about the escapees trusting her- she'd love for the effort to pay off, even if it were just one person she was able to help." He ate some more, and when Xavier asked if Ophelia was still in Nid'aigle, he nodded. "Yes, she lives there full time. Occasionally she makes trips out to Solis or other major cities in Corvus for translation work, but she spends most of her time in the elf city." A grin crossed his face, and Sieg glanced sideways at the young Jade. "Would you like to see the elf city sometime? It's quite beautiful, if I may be excused a bit of boasting, and you could meet the free Kythian elves and see what their culture is like. I'm fairly certain Master Leif would, if only to see what different sorts of techniques elven mages use, so you and he could come together. And," his grin broadened, "you can meet Ophelia and critique her Courdonian." Sieg answers Xavier's question about Ophelia, then offers to take him to Nid'aigle sometime.
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Post by Elcie on Oct 24, 2014 23:59:48 GMT -5
Xavier's expression brightened at Sieg's offer. The idea of travelling somehow never seemed to occur to him - but there was, he realized, no reason he should sit around in Medieville wishing he could see other parts of Kyth for himself. "I would love that. It would be good to see more of Corvus. Even," he added with a grin, "if I inevitably wind up soaking wet." He leaned forward with his chin on one hand, a pensive look on his face. "I'd be interested in hearing that story, too, if your sister did learn the language from an escaped slave," he said. "I've never heard of any foreigner who can speak the slave dialect." He hadn't spoken Courdonian since his escape and didn't expect he ever would again, but after Lydia's arrival there was a strange relief to being able to communicate with someone in the language he'd grown up speaking. By this point, enough Courdonian words slipped into their conversations that Ilsa claimed it gave her a headache to listen to them. "I... don't know much about the elves, to be honest," Xavier added. "So I think I would enjoy seeing your city. Most of the things I heard about elves before were... ah." He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "...Not true." Xavier likes the idea of going to Nid'aigle and wants to hear from Ophelia how she learned Courdonian. He says he doesn't know much about elves and awkwardly adds that he's mostly heard "not true" things. Because Courdon.
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