Fire Emblem On Forums: Mortal Transgressions (IC)

[RedMageCole]

Arthur just gave a simple nod in response, hoping that they were indeed fine quality. Sitting back down at the table, he took a little bit of a more formal position and sat with both legs on the ground, quietly mulling over the tea as Baldur spoke.

 

"...I'm not one to tell others' secrets especially when I have my own... and questions is a good way to start. I did say before that I joined mainly because of my father... once you came to surface, the bastard wouldn't stop talking about how much he hated Virtuous... and I felt it would be a nice bit of irony if I joined. Not to mention... I am an escaped prisoner. I pretty much have nowhere to go otherwise. Well... there is one place I want to go, but that's out of the question for now. But eventually..." Arthur pauses, before shaking his head.

 

"Either way, despite your behavior, I would be hypocritical to call it out considering I'm of a similar caliber. I've always had an anger problem in life. And I am still working on trying to rectify it before it hurts someone like it almost did for myself." 

 

Arthur paused for a bit longer, then after a small sip of tea, continued speaking.

 

"...Good quality, for sure... very well, my turn." Being honest, Arthur did not really have many questions at all, potentially because he most likely just didn't care that much, but he figured as long as he was here... "...Why did you join Virtuous, then?"

[Aurorix]

"So he hates his father enough to join us out of spite? He doesn't seem to be lying, so I think I'll go along... for now... Let's see if I can fish out some info about his character..."

 

"Well, I can related to not particularly liking one's family. I didn't particularly like my father either. As for why I joined Virtuous..." He took a sip from his tea before continuing,

 

"The world is at the brink of war. Nations hate other nations due to prejudice and this hate if unchecked will lead to an ocean of blood. I've wondered around the lands for a time and the amount of people who will get into fights based solely on where one is born or looks to be from sickens not only me but any and all gods. I'm here to help make a world where the gods can be proud of, a world free from the fear of war and lethal prejudice..." He paused for a moment before considering whether he should continue.

 

"as well as... for a sort of atonement I suppose."

 

"I guess my question for you is how do you view the current state of the world? Would or are you going to do anything to change it?"

[ElfCollaborator]

Lenore strolls forward to join Kane and Ferdiad over the ingredients.

 

"Why don't you let me have a look? I'm not too bad at cooking myself."

[RedMageCole]

Arthur listened with intrigue to what Baldur said... yes, that's all fine and good. It seems that Virtuous may be a noble group, if even someone as violent as this man had good intentions... maybe it would be a good idea joining them after all. The next question made Arthur think for a bit.

 

"...It could be better. But I suppose it could be worse. While this world is extremely flawed with rulers that have basically no right to rule with the kind of act they put up... there are some good aspects of it deep down. It'd be a lot better if those rulers would step down, for sure... but maybe that's a goal for down the road for us. Maybe now with more members, there can be confidence in that. Then again, that is a tall order, so I suppose I shouldn't ask, really."

 

Arthur paused, thinking of his next question.

 

"...I thought of one... you have reasons for staying in Virtuous, but how do you manage to tolerate the people around you?" Arthur's tone gets a tad more serious, but he tries to keep himself calm. "After all, I can't say I care all that much for Lizaveta and Shin, but how do you tolerate them?"

 

---

 

"Of course, Lenore." Kane steps aside to let her take a look. "It seems we might have something going for a decent stew with some meat and potatoes... though maybe that's too boring?"

[Aurorix]

"A tall order it maybe, yes. Impossible? No." Baldur had to pinch the bridge of his nose and let out a deep sigh.

 

"Tolerate, yea... thats the nice way to put it."

 

"Honestly, I just try to avoid talking to them. I'd rather not interact with people like them... to... avoid situations like early. But I suppose I need to work on that. But now they're noticing that I'm avoiding affiliating with them. So I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. So I'm just... going to avoid them unless it's necessary." His drinks the rest of the tea in his cup and refills it before filling up his glass once more.

 

"My next question, do you ever plan to succeed your father?"

[RedMageCole]

Arthur simply nodded at Baldur's response, taking more sips of his tea; they're all rather small sips and he still has some tea left to go in his cup. At the next question, Arthur raised an eyebrow curiously, with a hint of... concern.

 

"...Succeed?" While said in a confused tone, it doesn't exactly convey one hundred percent confusion. "...Well, whatever my father does, I am not interested in his life and I intend on making my own path in life independent of whatever he wants from me."

 

Arthur pauses, lowering his eyebrows. "...What exactly did you mean by 'succeed', just so we're on the same page? You meant following my father's footsteps in his work, yes?"

[Aurorix]

"I see..." I suppose that's one response.  "Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Follow in his footsteps in his work. Why do you not want to follow in his line of work? Is it because he's been forcing it upon you? Maybe you have other interests in your life but I doubt you'd be able to sustain the lifestyle you had before."

[RedMageCole]

"...Because he's an asshole, to put it lightly." Arthur sips his tea. "He was forcing his lifestyle on me, yes, but I was willing to make compromises. Because you know, father. I didn't care much at first, but I just wanted to try it... but he refused to make compromises for me. Two straws that broke the camel's back, as they say. One was... something I don't like to talk about." Arthur paused for a little while, before deciding to quietly refill his tea and go back to sipping it. "On the other hand... I heard he had a family's home ransacked and supposedly had the whole lot of them killed, about... six months ago, yet I didn't hear a damn thing about it until shortly before I was arrested. And why did he do it? For the sole purpose of taking something valuable they had for his personal gain despite him having his own fucking valuables. I hate the bastard and I'd love to watch him burn."

 

Arthur awkwardly pauses. He sips a little more tea, then takes a deep breath.

 

"...I'd better not talk about my father anymore, the man pisses me off just thinking about him... did you have good parents, at least?"

[Aurorix]

"Tch, truly a despicable man. Someone who I wouldn't regret giving a piece of my mind." He takes a sip from his tea,  "As for my parents, while I don't have much memories of them it wasn't really pleasant. We lived in drab house in Ria. We could barely afford to put food on the table since my father kept gambling it all away or spent it on booze. That worthless scum of a human being." He paused for moment glancing over at the trash can once more.  "I guess the really doesn't fall too far from the tree in that regard. My mother had to sell herself just to help sustain us. Everyday she looked like she hated herself, like what self respect she had went down the drain. I even heard some of the lines she used to attract customers, it was deplorable. However, she was rather nice in our home life when she wasn't being a lap dog for my father." He chugged an entire cup of tea before filling his glass once more.  "So, how long are you going to keep it secret?"

[RedMageCole]

"...Forgive me, I should have avoided my own prodding. Some things we just shouldn't have to dig up... but it's good to get a better understanding of one another."

 

Arthur twitched immensely on Baldur's question, and looked really annoyed for a brief moment, but settled down rather quickly.

 

"...I'm not going to divulge anything about myself until I know I can trust everyone. As you figured from Ganymede, I could easily be put for a ransom and I'd rather not give away details. Of course, I'm not too far from talking about myself, but I don't have any information anyone particularly cares about, nor information I want to talk about."

 

Arthur pauses, then shakes his head.

 

"...I'm afraid I'm out of questions."

[Aurorix]

"Then let me not respond with not a question but a statement." Baldur pulls out his notebook he was writing in earlier and flips to a specific page and shows it to the mage. It has quite the detailed sketch of Arthur along with his full name and title on the bottom of the page. He must have done some more work on it on the way back to base.  "This is your true name and identity."

[RedMageCole]

Arthur paused as he looked over it.

 

He shook for a brief moment.

 

Then he let out a rather sizable yell, one that might have been able to be heard from the outdoor hallway, almost slamming his fist into the table, though managing to stop himself, as he looked to Baldur, seething yet trying to keep his voice down despite his yelling and growling.

 

"Was it really a fucking secret? I give my name expecting everyone to figure it out for themselves, and nobody has been able to distinguish me for who I am! What the fuck is going on!? I get pulled away by Mim expecting her to have figured it out, but no! She doesn't know who I am, she just suspected me because I refused to use my proper last name and Ganymede couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut! The two factors that should have tipped anyone off about who I am, and yet it still somehow wasn't obvious!? And then I was too much of a goddamn coward to tell her the truth because I don't know why the fuck anyone else knows! Do you know how goddamn hard it is to go on knowing that you couldn't tell the truth to the one person who actually looked at you despite how much of an asshole you appeared as and still gave you a cheerful greeting!? But what do I know!? For all I know, she'd tell me I'm full of shit and call me a liar! Is everyone just keeping it a damn secret to appease me or do they want me in a false sense of security!? Or tell me, for god's sake tell me, did that bastard honestly go out of his way to just use me as a pawn in his little game and not tell anyone my fucking name!? But then how would you know!? Tell me; are you as Virtuous planning to hold me ransom like that loathsome bastard Ganymede!? Or what exactly do you know that I and nobody fucking else doesn't!? TELL ME!"

[Aurorix]

Baldur quickly hides his notebook back in his pocket as soon as Arthur starts getting loud. Just in case someone would barge in and they wouldn't see it.  "If you could keep your damn mouth shut for 5 more seconds and calm down I'll tell you! Why the hell do you think I brought you to my room in the first place? To take a gander at the pile of empty bottles in the room? Hell no! If everyone knew why would I bother to drag you away and not confront you in front of everyone? Like you, I can respect someone having secrets. How is that not obvious?"  

 

"Look, I know you've got your name secret for gods knows what reason except for the very upper class. I just so happen to be privy to such information. There have also been rumors of that same lost noble taken for ransom by Perus floating around with the same such upper class. I doubt anyone BUT me could make this connection. So unless you want everyone to barge in right now and start asking questions you'll shut up and use your inside voice!"

[Swordstar]

Mim had been about to open Shin's room when yelling errupted from the room Crimson and Baldur had entered. Growling an explitive under her breath, she pivoted and headed for her new destination. If that healer had done something... Still. Better to focus on Crimson first. Pulling open the door, not caring about how rude she was being, she marched in, shutting the door behind her.

 

"Crimson. What are you doing? I could hear you yelling down the hall! You should know better, we're guests here still even if we are joining. Now. Are you going to tell me what's going on or are you going to apologize to him for yelling?"

 

After all, if he didn't have an explanation for why he was yelling, he should apologize. Unless he didn't want to share. She kept a close eye, watching for his reaction.

[ElfCollaborator]

Lenore looks over what they have, glancing over at Kane occasionally.

 

"Decent stew, huh? Well, beggars can't be choosers. Is this all we have? I'll see if I can't spice this up a little."

[Aurorix]

"O-oh Mim, don't you think it is a bit rude to barge into someone's room like that? Especially when it is someone of the opposite sex. However, I know you're only just worried about Arthur's well-being so I'll let it slide this time." Shit they came faster than he expected.  "Anyways, sorry for all the ruckus earlier. You see we just finished a Chess match and I got this little red-head into a checkmate. Once he realized this he started yelling and demanded a rematch. He even accused me of cheating and asked how I did it. So we're just about to start another match." The butler stands up and gives a deep bow for the merchant girl,  "We are extremely sorry for disturbing you and making you worry. Isn't that right, Arthur?"

[RedMageCole]

Kane looks over at Lenore, then gives a nod.

 

"Very well; if nothing else, we can always prepare something more fanciful next time. Either way, I'm sure they'll love it, nobody's ever said no to our cooking here so far."

 

---

 

Giving a small snarl as Baldur finished reprimanding him, Arthur was about to retort until Mim came in, causing him to try to start taking deep breaths to calm himself down and respond appropriately. What made him stop his deep breaths was Baldur's lie... yes, it was to protect his identity, but Arthur was not going to agree to a lie especially when he saw Mim's disappointment in his previous lie. Especially for such a cheap lie; he got angry a lot, but he would never get angry at a stupid game like that unless the opponent pissed him off... implying he'd ever lose at chess.

 

"...No, first off, I'd like to see you try to beat me in chess. Secondly, you and I both know that's a lie, and I refuse to lie to Mim any further. Either way, you've already given me reason to just come out and say it. No point in trying to keep it secret anymore, especially not from Mim."

 

Arthur took another deep breath.

 

"...I..."

 

Arthur shook, biting his lower lip. He took once glance at Baldur, then to where he stashed his notebook, then to the door, then blurted it out at a volume trying not to let the noise bleed into the hallway again, standing up.

 

"I am Prince Arthur of Ria! I don't know exactly what Ruslan's been doing with my departure since I left that miserable hellhole, but I hope he's goddamn happy about what he did to me!"

 

Arthur angrily sits back down, crossing his arms and huffing loudly, looking at the ground as if to ask himself what he just did.

[Swordstar]

A game of chess, huh? That didn't seem quite right, but she didn't know Crimson that well. Maybe he was the kind of man to get upset over a game like that. It wasn't unheard of. And Baldur was right, she was being rude at barging in... She had been about to apologize when Crimson spoke up. His words both confused her and warmed her. She smiled at him, glad to see that their talk earlier had left something changed in him. He wasn't going to lie to her! And... A prince. Her prince. Some day destined to be her king.

 

"O-oh... S-so all this time..."

 

What sort of reaction was she supposed to have here? She'd been ordering around a prince! No wonder he had a temper. He must have been pampered his whole life and then to be treated like people here had been treating him, it made sense he snapped. But... No, she couldn't think too long. She would worry him. He had trusted her with this information, she had to respond. She could process it all later, for now, better to act like nothing had changed.

 

"Well.  No matter. Even princes need to behave properly, and I didn't hear an apology in there. You still should apologize for yelling at him like that; loud enough that I could hear you down the hall!"

 

There, that should distract him long enough... Give her some time to get her thoughts collected. And figure out what had been going on in here... Had Baldur been trying to blackmail him or something? She shot a look at the man. She didn't know him really at all beyond how he talked about Shin and how he had treated Liz but... Maybe he had just revealed he knew and that had made Crimson angry enough? He certainly didn't seem happy about who his father was after all... His father. Her king. Her, a common merchant daughter, ordering the prince around. Thinking about how... No, she needed to focus. This was important, she couldn't worry Crimson, not when he clearly needed support.

 

 

[RedMageCole]

To Arthur, it was awkward, but somehow relieving when Mim didn't respond negatively or positively to his exclamation as a prince, just simply neutrally. Perhaps he had misjudged everything about everyone... maybe he shouldn't have been so afraid to reveal his identity. Maybe he was just on edge because of Ganymede. Because he knew that one wrong move and he was back where he started... somewhere he absolutely did not want to be. Knowing that fact that he most likely wouldn't end up there gave him some solace.

 

"...You're right... forgive me for yelling, Baldur. It was crass of me to raise my voice like that."

[Aurorix]

Baldur lets out a deep sigh. These two should really get a room that's not his.

 

"Its alright, I'd be hypocritical if I got angry. Look the reason I asked you to come to my room was to let you know that I know about you. I thought it would've rude not to." And to make sure whether he was a threat or not but mentioning that now would be tactless.  "Look, I know you're a good guy now and I have no plans on telling anyone in the group. I also wanted to let you know if you needed anyone to talk to about... that matter... I can lend an ear. I know how it feels to bottle up secrets without having someone trustworthy to tell them to. Sorry, if I put you on edge a bit."

[RedMageCole]

"...It's alright. I need to learn to keep control of my temper... it's something I had a handle on but have unable to get ever since. But hopefully someday... and I hope to be able to tell everyone the truth soon so that nobody is left in the dark about who I am."

[Swordstar]

Right, ok, she had to talk again here. He'd apologized, the two of them had a nice moment... Time to talk. Right.

 

"S-see? That's better, isn't it? We're going to be working together now, after all, so we should all try to get along! H-ha. And he was just trying to help you. So... it's all good. I uh... I should go, leave you two with whatever you were up to... S-sorry about barging into your room like that. It wasn't very polite of me and if I'm going to tell him to apologize, I need to apologize too..."

 

She started reaching for the door. She needed to get away, figure some things out, this was a lot and she wasn't sure what to say that wasn't her panicking....

[RedMageCole]

Arthur paused for a bit before calling out.

 

"...Hey, Mim, I'll come join you outside if you need help getting settled in or exploring the house or anything."

 

Arthur pauses and turns to Baldur.

 

"...If you didn't mind, of course? If you still had things to discuss, I'll stay... that tea was good by the way, thank you for it."

[Aurorix]

"No, go on ahead don't let me hold you." Baldur gestures his head towards the door,  "And if you ever want to have another glass all you have to do is ask." A big smirk grew across his face.

 

"Oh, and by the way, I'd woop your ass in chess anytime and anywhere."

[Swordstar]

Mim glanced back at Crimson and smiled.

 

"Yeah? Ok... I'd like that, yeah."

 

She headed out the door in case Crimson had any last few words for Orchid, but waited just outside for him. Once he'd exited the room as well, she turned to him.

 

"So... I don't really have much in the way of stuff. Obviously. So there isn't much to do in the way of setting things up. I'm going to be rooming with Liza, so that's nice! Uhm... I guess we could... walk around the house and check it out. Or the area outside it... I don't know... W-what do you want to do?"