The peace that formerly reigned in Terra Nova has eroded, now little more than a memory. War ravages the continent. Disputes divide kingdoms; ideals divide families. The quest for power consumes absolutely and indiscriminately. None are immune to its allure.
Who will rise and who will fall? Only time—and ambition—will tell.
UPDATES
05.26.2023
2 month character creation hold for all existing members begins 6/5/2023. Ended 8/5/2023.
10.29.2023
Change in how times flows. Was 4 IC seasons, now only 2 IC seasons per 1 OOC year.
5 whole years of Heir Apparent goodness! When I started the site, I knew I was hunkering down for the long haul, but I never could have predicted the numerous twists and turns this roleplay site has seen. Hundreds of plots, characters, and members have come and gone, all leaving marks on the site. I am so very thankful for those who have invested. Because you keep coming back, keep getting on, and keep writing, Heir Apparent has the legacy it does today. Three cheers to us!
It had taken longer than Ber would have liked to make it out to Temperance’s house. Having been taken off the training schedule for the foreseeable future, he had been forced to dedicate most of his free time to the training he was missing if he hoped to keep up with everyone else, which he did because despite everything, he was still determined to fight in Dresmond and he wasn’t sure how he would get there if not as a soldier.
It might have also taken Ber longer than it should have to visit her because he expected her to have plenty of questions and none of his answers were good.
At least, physically, he was better now. The potions had worked their magic, so only indication that he’d been thrown across the room and in the infirmary for a while were the scars along his forearm, where the werewolf had hooked its claws to send him flying.
But he was tired. Training when he was off duty meant that he didn’t have time to think of how much he missed spending time with Zevran, but those thoughts crept in when he was on duty instead and his mind wandered while his hands performed whatever menial chore had been assigned to him that day. He also remembered fully the events of the ball, and now that he had, his mind seemed determined to ensure that he never forgot them again. Memories of the primal fear of prey staring death in the face, and the nauseating pain as his shoulder was ripped from its socket, and the sensation of spinning helplessly through the air, and the final impact with the wall prevented his sleep from being particularly restful.
As inviting as solid ground after weeks adrift at sea, Temperance’s cottage came into view. Ber’s pace quickened, and covering the distance to her door with long strides, he hesitated only a moment before knocking and waiting to be let inside.
Temperance's greenhouse was still...in the fixer-upper stage. Many things had been destroyed by Malsumis. Thomas had arranged for the glass panes to be replaced, but it was a slow process. The plants that had been inside had suffered. Many of her stored or pre-made potions had been lost, alongside the ingredients for them. She'd have to replace the cabinets. And in the mean time, she still had work to do. So her brewing had been moved to the fireplace inside, much to Melody's despair.
Temperance sat in there now, a chair pulled near the fire as the cauldron brewed. She had to keep a close eye on them because the fire in a fireplace was much larger and hotter than the one she usually rested her cauldron over when working in the greenhouse. As it bubbled, she sighed. Doing all of her work inside the house was bringing her down, and she'd been at it nonstop in preparation for her one week stay at Beldam.
So when a knock came to the door, neither she nor Melody were surprised. The older woman was in the kitchen, cutting up potatoes for lunch and wiped her hands off on a towel that hung around her waist. Both assumed it would be a customer of Temperance's coming directly to the cottage for their potion because the greenhouse was so obviously out of sorts. Instead, when Melody opened the door, she practically gasped. "Well, it's about time you come back," she said, hands on her hips as she stepped aside to let him in. She was hardly gonna let it seem as if she were even the slightest bit emotional, but it was obvious enough by the concerned tone of her voice.
The words had Temperance whipping her head around, and then hurrying across the length of the small cottage toward the door, where she'd wrap Ber up in a tight hug that probably forced the taller man to bend down a little. "I'm so glad to see you," she said, her voice shaky and her eyes watering. "I got Zevran's note, and I tried to go see you that morning, but they wouldn't let me in. I had to get Thomas to find out what happened." She squeezed him, and when she pulled away she kept hold of his arms and began to look at him more closely, as if looking for injuries.
"Why did it take you so long to come by? They weren't holding you hostage or something, were they? I swear to the stars, Berengar, I will march up there right now. You seem okay, are you still hurt?"
Melody greeted him at the door, hands on her hips and ostensibly disapproving as ever, and Ber mustered up a tired smile to offer her. “Sorry,” He began. “It’s been pretty cha—” But that was all he had time to say before Temperance flew across the cottage and he found himself wrapped up in a tight hug. Indeed, he was forced to bend over slightly into her hug, doing so without complaint as he somewhat awkwardly patted her back in response to her concern. He let her end the embrace on her own time, and when she pulled away, he obligingly stood still to let her look him over. Given her greeting, he found himself rather grateful that his ribs had fully healed.
“Not surprised you couldn’t get in,” He said, though he was touched that she’d tried. “Things have changed a lot, but you know, I really wouldn’t have been very good company anyway.” His gaze moved from her to glance around the cottage as he spoke, noting finally the cauldron over the flame in the hearth and the chair positioned beside it. In lieu of immediately answering her questions, he gestured toward the set up with a hand. “Did I interrupt something?” He had spent enough time around Temperance to know that some potions required more attention than others when they were brewing, and he thought he’d had enough trouble in his life lately without adding an exploding potion to the mix. Granted, part of it was of his own making, but still.
In this, he would follow Temperance’s lead. If she returned to her seat, he would grab a chair for himself from the dining table and follow her over. He would position his seat across the fire from hers, angled toward both the hearth and her, and settle into it with his hands in his lap. Otherwise, he would remain standing where he was when he offered her a small smile. “They weren’t holding me hostage.” Some humor crept into his voice, though it didn’t last long. “And no, I’m fine. Got the all clear about a week ago. I just haven’t been able to stop by because I’ve been too busy.” With a sigh, he rubbed a hand over his face before reiterating, “A lot has changed. What did Zev and Thom tell you about what happened?”
He seemed to be more or less okay, though his clothes kept her from knowing if he ended up with any permanent damage. Now that she knew he was okay and had seen him with her own eyes, she took a step back and wiped away the bit of water that had threatened to roll down her cheeks.
His question widened those same watery eyes and she turned quickly, hurrying over dipping her wooden spoon into the cauldron to stir it. With a sigh of relief that the potion hadn't been burnt, she sat down in her chair and looked back over at him as he pulled the chair around in front of her. "No interruption. We're still waiting for some things in the greenhouse to be replaced, so I've been making all the potions in here. But over this fire," she groaned, wiping the swear from her forehead. Her dress sleeves were rolled up and her hair was tied into a long ponytail with the green ribbon Thomas had given her. She didn't need to finish the thought, he could see her frustration well enough.
Still stirring, she narrowed her eyes at him somewhat. He'd been cleared a week prior, and it had taken him this long to come see her? As annoying as that was, given how worried she'd been, she knew there had to be a good reason. "Zevran's note just told me there was an accident at the ball and you were injured. When Thomas looked into it --" she paused, irritation being replaced by a flat look. "I mean, he found out everything, you know that. About what happened at the ball, anyway. I can't believe that Brekker woman was the one who did it," she shook her head. "So what's changed, then? That kept you from coming here for so long?"
As he approached the hearth with the chair, Ber could feel the heat, and he winced sympathetically with Temperance’s plight. With her hair pulled back and sleeves rolled up, she had evidently done what she could to keep cool, and Ber wondered how long it would take him to resort to the same.
Thom was a lifesaver. If he had given Temperance all the details, that meant Ber didn’t have to. He couldn’t quite tell what she thought of his role in everything that had happened, but he figured that her preexisting knowledge of the story decreased the likelihood of any of those potentially uncomfortable conversations. Instead he focused on what she didn’t know: the changes in the military… except, he realized a moment later, that would have to include elaboration on why he had to train on his own time. Damn.
“They’ve reorganized all of us into new groups and implemented this new standard,” The soldier began, tugging absentmindedly at the top of his own shirt as the heat of the fire began to get to him as well. “We’re divided into groups of one hundred, and every three weeks, everyone’s going to be assessed. The bottom fifteen soldiers will be dismissed; the next lowest five will be placed on staff duty.” He glanced over at her, wondering if she knew what that meant, before deciding to briefly explain, “Chores instead of training and regular duties. Soldiers on staff duty will still be assessed with everyone else, so if they want to keep up, they have to train in their free time.”
As he spoke, Ber had leaned forward so that his arms rested on his thighs, and now he looked at his hands, pressing the pads of his fingers together. “I… am on staff duty,” He told them. “Because of what happened at the ball.” But that wasn’t entirely true, even if it was easier to think about. After a long moment, he added, “And being friends with Zevran. They, uh, didn’t like that.”
In truth, Thomas's information had been more vague than Ber might have guessed. Sure, Temperance knew that Ber had gotten into some kind of argument with the King's Huntsman and that another soldier had come to interfere - the one who had eventually turned into a werewolf. But the argument had been started because they were denying Zevran his right to be there, and Temperance agreed with Ber. She thought Zevran and Rune had every right to be there. So though she didn't know what exactly Ber had said to the woman trying to force Zevran to leave, she didn't really care. Ber was justified, and he was a victim of another woman's disloyalty.
Bex Brekker was a witch that Temperance wish she could have studied. When the three of them had met at the castle, she'd seemed to be the epitome of discipline. There was no threat that she might end up like one of the many witches tucked away in the Beldam and in the end, she was killed before anyone had the chance to understand. Likely a necessity, as Thomas had mentioned she'd attacked many other people that night, including the King himself. But it was still a shame that they couldn't understand her motives.
Death was the more fortunate way for Bex Brekker to go, though. Better dead than Beldam. Not that she deserved the mercy.
So the reason he hadn't been able to come by was because he'd been stuck on staff duty, which meant that he had to work throughout the day without training, and do his training on his own time. Which was an absolute necessity if he didn't want to get kicked out entirely, it seemed. "I wish I could say that I'm surprised," Temperance said finally, standing up to pull the cauldron off the fire and sit it on a stone behind her chair, which they'd brought in to rest the hot cauldrons on as they cooled. Wiping swear from her forehead again, she sat back down and let out a tired breath.
"But I'm not. Lately I've questioned a lot of decisions made by the Crown and their military. I understand that what happened was...frightening, and unexpected. But to punish so many people for the actions of one? Bex was a witch who used her magic regularly and who had recently lost her paired partner. The darkness that comes along with our magic...sometimes it just finds it's way in and you can't get it back out. Short of fitting witches with magical muzzles, I'm not sure how they think this will help prevent the problem from ever happening again." She shook her head. "The werewolf curse is just that, a curse. It was meant to hurt our people, not help them. We should never have tried to capitalize on it in the first place."
Even Temperance wasn't entirely sure she felt that way about it, but in her irritation and anger regarding the whole situation, it had reminded her of some of her research. Even if they had found ways to make it benefit Nevermere for the better, the side effects of doing such a thing were beginning to seem less and less in the net positive that the Crown had hoped it would be.
Shaking her head, she crossed her arms. "I'm sorry, Berengar. I know the two of you have gotten close. This must be terribly hard for you both. Have you been able to see him or talk to him at all?"
Even though his gaze was fixed on his hands, Ber caught the motion of Temperance standing from her seat in his peripherals, and he looked up to watch her move the cauldron from the flame to the stone. Her criticism of the king and the military surprised him a little, not so much because he doubted her sense of justice but rather the strength of her conviction. He hadn’t really thought of the events of the ball and Brekker’s decision in that light before, and the comment about magical muzzles had his brow furrowing. Ber understood, theoretically, that consistently practicing their magic took a toll on witches. It made them as dark as the witchcraft they performed, but Temperance spoke as if there was a certain inevitability to witches growing so bad that anyone would be willing to turn a soldier into a werewolf in the middle of a crowded room.
That was not a comforting thought. He scratched absentmindedly at the scars hidden under his sleeve.
Temperance looked at him with crossed arms and asked about Zevran, and he let his gaze fall back to his hands as he silently shook his head. Tapping his fingers together, he took a deep breath before leaning forward and running his hands down his face. “I haven’t seen him since the ball,” He told the leg of her chair. “The, uh— they said I can’t talk to him again or be friends with him anymore, so…” His voice trailed off. The hollow ache in his chest swallowed the rest of his words, and he took another deep breath, biting his lip. “I know— He told me he didn’t get hurt, and he was taken to his room after he brought me to the infirmary. They said he’d be dealt with, but I don’t know what that means.” Knowing that they would be keeping a close eye on him for the foreseeable future, he didn’t dare ask or show any interest in what fate had befallen the Dresmondi. There were rumors, of course, that ranged from him being held prisoner in his room to him being sent away, but the only concrete fact was that no one had seen him since.
Temperance's rage only grew. She did her best to hide it. Why, she couldn't say. Maybe because she didn't want to make Ber feel even worse, or because she had been struggling enough as it was and she preferred to keep it down as deep as possible. Either way, she had to take a few breaths before she could respond to him.
"I don't understand how they can have the audacity to control your personal life like that. Outside of the castle walls, and off duty, you can be friends with whoever you like. It's none of their business." Her tone remained as even as it could be, though very clearly restrained. Each word had a sharp edge to it, though unintentional and clearly not directed at him. None of this was his fault. A witch of theirs - an officer, no less! Had caused a scene and gotten people hurt and killed. Why was any of that Ber's fault? Why should he be punished, take the blame, when he hadn't done anything wrong?
And why did Zevran need to be dealt with? How could they pretend that all of this wasn't their own faults? Zevran wouldn't have been in Nevermere in the first place if the King and his Court had done their jobs back during the Eldouir trial. If they had, the Eldouir family would be dead or imprisoned, and Dresmondi would still be free. All of this had worked out in their own King's favor, and yet he was treating Zevran like it was somehow wrong for him to be here? To make friends with Nevermeran soldiers?
Well, the whole lot of them could eat an eggplant, for all she cared at the moment. "I'm sure that where ever they are, Zevran and Rune are fine, Berengar. They've survived the Eldouir, they can survive our monarch's slap on the wrist. Even if they don't deserve any of it...and should have been treated better." She leaned over, patting him on the shoulder lightly. "You'll see them again. I know you will. I hope I can, too. In the mean time, all you can do is get yourself back to one-hundred percent, train hard, and make sure you're ready to defend them."
In the face of Temperance’s righteous anger, Ber could only - inadequately - shrug. When he’d run into Brekker, of all people, in the market long before the ball, he had been expected to help her catch that thief even though he’d clearly been off duty - and he had. Woodwick had sent him on that unpleasant patrol with Terach even though it had still been Ber’s day off. And if they ever needed any soldier at odd hours of the day, the ones who slept in the barracks were on the top of the list. Though upsetting, their determination of who Ber could or could not talk to felt like a natural extension of what he already knew: even outside the military wing, his time wasn’t truly his own.
And there was something else, too.
“It is their business when it gets in the way of me doing what I’m supposed to.” With a sigh, he sat up, leaning back in his seat and casting his gaze toward the fire as he tugged again at the top of his shirt. Apparently, in explaining to Temperance what had happened, they would end up talking about everything he hadn’t wanted to discuss in any great detail in the first place. But he supposed it would really make sense without the full picture anyway. “The king wanted Zevran removed from the ball, and he sent Re— the Huntsman to do it. Zevran wasn’t happy, and I stood up for him.” In doing so, he’d nearly ruined a friendship and completely lost another one. Ber scratched at his arm absentmindedly before deciding that Temperance had the right idea: it was way too hot for long sleeves. “And I shouldn’t have done that.”
He wasn’t happy with the verdict, but upon reflection, he had started to understand what the captain commander had told him about biting the hand that fed him. And staff duty had given Ber a lot of time for reflection.
Temperance’s comfort was appreciated, though, and looking over, he offered her a small smile in return for the pat on the shoulder. He couldn’t be so sure he would see Zevran and Rune again - the world was far larger than he could imagine - but it was a nice thought all the same. Even if he wouldn’t be able to talk to Zevran, he would appreciate the confirmation that the other man was alright. When Temperance spoke of training hard, Ber nodded. “I am,” He told her. “It’s different because it’s on my own.” A shrug. “But it’s not that bad, actually. Don’t really have to deal with Woodwick or anyone, so that’s nice.”
Last Edit: Apr 14, 2023 15:01:17 GMT -5 by Deleted
Ber's explanation for it all didn't make Temperance feel any less angry. It sounded to her like they were using him as a scapegoat. But the altercation between he and Zevran and this Huntsman doing the kings bidding had nothing to with Bex Brekker or the soldier who she turned - at least, not as far as she could gather from the information Thomas had told her, and that Ber had just divulged. "Maybe you shouldn't have," Temperance relented. "I wasn't there, so I admit I don't know exactly what happened. But you losing your temper because of them treating someone unfairly and unjustly does not mean you're a bad soldier. If anything, it should mean you're a good one. You have a thought in your head that isn't just...just kill where they point you to kill."
Standing up from her chair, she walked over to the make-shift table she'd sat up behind her and lifted the cauldron, which had cooled enough by now, onto it. Pouring it into vials through strainers like she often did, and chanting quietly over them, she discarded the remaining contents into a bucket and wiped out the cauldron, placing it over the fire once more. "I don't know," she said finally, walking into the kitchen and fixing both herself and Ber a glass of water before returning to hand him his. "When someone comes and pays me to make them a potion, my life is not theirs until the potion is done. It is an exchange of services. Why should the military be any different? If it weren't for you and all of the other soldiers like you, Nevermere would not be the dominant kingdom it is. This failure was an oversight by their leadership and they're blaming it on you. Like you daring to have empathy for Zevran and his people is some kind of bad thing."
Her trip to Beldam certainly hadn't helped matters. Knowing that the Crown knew what was going on there, and let it happen...well, she'd certainly begun to pull herself out of the blissful ignorance of living in a kingdom that preferred to conquer without worry for the state it would leave it's own people in. Temperance would have done the same thing Ber would have, in his situation. Took up for Zevran.
But his insistence that he was working hard was, at least, a relief. Thomas had reminded her that she had to have faith in Ber, that he and the soldiers around him would take care of one another on the battlefield. But she couldn't help but be worried about him. "That's good, at least. I'm surprised Woodwick hasn't gone seeking you out to bother you like he usually does," she said, trying to force herself into a lighter, joking mood as she took a drink from her water. "But aren't you exhausted? Do you need me to make you some potions? Maybe some energy potions, or stamina potions, or healing potions? You know what, I'll make all three. Just don't go over-using them."
Did that make him a good soldier? He didn’t know. Certainly Hadrian Usher didn’t seem to think so, and Ber couldn’t help but think that it was his approval or disapproval that could cost Ber his job, not Temperance’s. Still, he mustered up a small smile and watched as she aliquoted the potion into the little vials. The sight was a familiar one. Like he had many times before, he listened while she voiced her thoughts, and when she walked into the kitchen, he finally stood from the seat. His jacket went, belatedly, on the back of the chair, and he had just finished rolling up his sleeves and loosening the collar of his shirt when he gratefully collected the glass of water from her.
“You have to work by that all day?” He asked, sympathy in his voice, before taking a a few sips of the refreshingly cool liquid. Then he addressed the comparison she drew with another - likely inadequate - shrug. “Maybe,” Ber allowed, though he didn’t sound particularly convinced. “But that’s still a little different. I live in the barracks and eat their food. You don’t house and feed your customers.” There was, perhaps, something to be said about how Temperance’s customers weren’t as reliant upon her as many of the soldiers were upon the military, but Ber wasn’t thinking of that. He didn’t find their arguable overreach into dictating the more personal aspects of his life particularly surprising.
Instead, his thoughts latched on to her observation that the collective events of the ball had been a failure of leadership. He couldn’t refute that. “I don’t know how they missed her,” He said, shaking his head as he spoke of Brekker. “She’d just been promoted too. When we both spoke to her, she seemed normal, but that was just once. You’d think— You’d think people who interacted with her more would have noticed something, right?” Or was the darkness of witchcraft such that someone could be normal one day and unleash a werewolf the next?
And if that was the case, then how could they possibly hope to prevent something that could happen anywhere at any time? They couldn’t. He thought of Woodwick’s reminder, then, that he could only control his reaction to the world around him, not the world itself. Perhaps he ought to start thinking about how he could defend himself against a witch’s—
Temperance’s attempt at a joke jolted him out of his thoughts, and he groaned. “Don’t say that too loudly,” Ber entreated her. “Or he’s gonna start doing that again. I think, with everything else, he’s forgotten I exist, and there’s no reason for that to change.” Even as he smiled at her offer of potions, he added, “If you want, but I can handle it, really. My arm’s all better.” More or less. He had standing orders from the healers not to re-injure himself, but that heavily implied directive accompanied every healed injury. Still, Ber showed her how he could move his arm in every direction to make his point. “And stamina potions, they’re the ones that just give you more energy, right?” A somewhat wishful smile. “Is there anything that makes you stronger or faster? Or maybe splits you into multiple people? That would be useful for some of those chores.”
"For now," Temperance replied with a single nod. "Thomas ordered the glass to replace the shattered panes in my greenhouse, but it takes time to cut pieces that large to fit, and to find someone who can install them correctly. It may be a while, unfortunately, and it has slowed me down. But I'm managing. I just hate that I've had to lighten my customer load by sending some of my customers to other Apothecaries."
It genuinely hurt Temperance to know that some of her long-time clients might've felt letdown by her slow work. Most understood. They could see the damaged greenhouse, and the damaged plants. They knew she wasn't letting them down because she'd grown tired, or lazy, or reliant on the new not-husband that was seemingly always around, almost as if he was living there. But it was better for her to take on fewer customers for now, anyway, considering she'd need to fill orders two weeks ahead of time in order to make the Beldam schedule work.
His response to her anger was strangely reasonable, and she couldn't even argue with that. Temperance wasn't always one to see reason when she was angry. Unjustified punishment toward good people was one of those things she disliked. The world was already so unfair, especially to the commoners. Did they really have to rub it in by controlling their entire lives outside of the military? "I know you're right, and that the comparison isn't quite the same," Temperance relented, pulling her pestle and mortar into her lap and mushing up the contents inside of it. "But there is still an unfair imbalance. No one is telling the nobility how they can live their lives outside of work, are they? Do you have any idea how many of those officers visit the brothels in their off time? Even the married ones. If nothing else, it's awfully hypocritical."
She could have gone on to include the fact that the only reason Ber was in the military was because he had no choice, and the only reason he had no choice was because of how few options poor commoners had in life. Not to mention orphans - many of which were orphans because their parents had died fighting for Nevermere. It was a cruel, endless cycle.
His next questions, regarding Brekker, had to be answered carefully, though. She wouldn't lie to him, no matter what. She cared far too deeply for him to ever answer such questions with a lie and break their trust, but she didn't want him to get the wrong either, either. So she sat the mortar and pestle aside and rested her hands in her lap, a somewhat serious but thoughtful expression covering her face. "Brekker had just lost her paired soldier, right? And, if you ask me, she probably didn't have a lot of people around her that cared about her. She seemed very awkward when talking to us, and that isn't to say she didn't have friends, but a lot of women in positions of power have a harder time in relationships."
Her fingers fidgeted with the strings from the belt around her waist, thinking it over. "If you ask me, I think relationships are important. They keep you grounded, and remind you of what you have to lose. Anyone without something to lose is dangerous, whether it be a witch or a soldier or a blacksmith. I have an easier time pushing aside the dark feelings because I have so many people in my life that I love, and value. But if I were totally alone, if I had no one, and then lost the one person I was closest to...I don't know, maybe I would be in the same place as her. I don't want you to think that all witches can turn at any minute. I just don't think that's true. I think it's a process, something that festers, like a wound. Untended, it can kill. So can a man with a sword, and imagine what Thomas could do with all of the information he has."
To tell him, when he needed answers, that life was simply unpredictable and that a multitude of factors played into every bad decision and death, was likely not a satisfying or fulfilling answer. But given all of the things that Temperance had begun to study recently, it seemed the most honest one.
When he moved his arm, she caught sight of the scars. She reached out and took it gently, turning it so she could see them, running her fingers over them. She frowned and her eyes threatened to tear up again. "Yes, well," she said, clearing her throat. "I suppose they did the best they could." She returned his arm to him and wiped at her eyes before they could water much more, then went back to occupying herself with the potion she'd begun working on.
"Strength, no. Speed, yes, there is one that can make you a bit more agile, which helps increase your speed, but it can be a little wonky to get used to. You're more likely to make a lot of mistakes at first. As far as splitting you into multiple people, I'm afraid there is nothing for that. Perhaps I could loan you a little summoned creature," she said, then winced and shook her head. "Nevermind that. After Malsumis, I don't want to see another summoning for a while."
There was a reason Temperance was so good at her job, beyond the fact that the craft had been passed down from mother to daughter for multiple generations, and it shone in times like these. Where Ber’s rather more limited empathy served him well in many situations, Temperance’s understanding of other people and their emotions - and the importance she placed in them - led to answers that he never would have considered. Although the soldier didn’t know much about witch’s magic, what he did know made him think that her perspective regarding the build up of darkness, with no one to keep it at bay, made sense. An infected wound festered before it killed, and if someone noticed in time, they could try to treat it. The trick was to do so before it became too late.
Clearly no one had with Brekker.
When Temperance reached for his arm, the motion caught Ber by surprise, but he let her gently guide it toward herself easily enough. She turned it so she could see the scars along the outside, and as he felt her fingers running over the raised flesh, he watched the upset flicker across her face. In turn, a thin thread of guilt over something that wasn’t his to control coiled in him. “Yeah.” The agreement came quietly, and he glanced away as she cleared her throat and surreptitiously wiped away the water beading at the corner of her eyes. Ber had never been particularly vain; he didn’t mind the scarring, even if he preferred not to remember the night associated with it.
Her answers to his questions about the potions were easier to consider, if only because some of them had been somewhat in jest. “No strength enhancer, speed’s a possibility but it’s of questionable use, and nothing to split me in half,” Ber summarized, one corner of his lip quirking upward. “Got it.” A cringe accompanied her wince at the memory of another fateful night, followed by a matching shake of the head. “On second thought, I think I’ll survive as is.”
Temperance kept an eye on him for a moments, a half-smile on her face, before she went back to dumping ingredients into the pot. She stood and put the water in as she always did, took the long wooden spoon she'd been using and began to stir again. "Berengar, I hope you know that I consider you my family. You belong here just as much as I do, and Thomas does, and Melody, and Artos and Edith. This is your home, too. And it always will be. I want the absolute world for you, and I want you to know that no matter how you're feeling, we are here. What happened at the ball was probably really difficult, and I know talking about your feelings is even worse. I don't expect you to tell me everything, or anything. Only as much as you'd like to talk about, but it's important to me that you know that if you do decide you want to talk, I'm here. And I'm always on your side." Her smile grew. "Even when you're wrong. No one has to know you're wrong. We'll pretend you're right. Well, unless your being wrong concerns me. You know, like when you almost could have poisoned us. Then I'll scold you."
She knew Ber wasn't one to express his feelings, so assuring him while then making a joke at the end seemed the best way to go. She had thought, even if only for a night, that she might lose him. And with the war coming up, the reality of that thought was even harsher. She wanted him to know how much she cared for him, even if it made him uncomfortable, because she couldn't know when it would be her last time telling him. He might have been born an orphan, but he was still family to her.
"Anyway," she continued, still stirring. She peaked into the pot to make sure the ingredients weren't sticking, but then drew away quickly so sweat wouldn't drip from her head into the cauldron. "I do have something else to tell you, and I've put it off because I wasn't sure how you would react. Have you ever heard of the Beldam?"
Last Edit: May 27, 2023 18:06:42 GMT -5 by Deleted
Admittedly, Ber had expected that the most emotional parts of the conversation had come and gone. They had discussed the consequences of his actions at the ball, and eventually, she had seen for herself the lasting marks it had left on him. The knowledge that the night could have ended worse for him – that it had ended worse for one of them – did not escape him, but he only reluctantly acknowledged it when the stillness of the night failed to protect him from such thoughts. The existence of such hypotheticals as nothing more than possibilities that hadn’t come to pass rendered the musings unimportant compared to that which had happened... and they weren’t particularly pleasant to consider.
For all of Ber’s attempts to forget their existence, however, they seemed to haunt Temperance, for she saw fit to remind the young man of how much she cared for him. Caught off guard by the sudden admission, he glanced away and tried to figure out how to swallow around the sudden knot that had risen in his throat. Though still a relatively new development in Ber’s life, the evolution of their relationship from a standing offer to share the occasional meal with relative strangers to a more weekly visit with the closest he had ever come to having a family had been an easy one with minimal acknowledgement of how they had wormed their ways into each other’s hearts – at least on Ber’s end; more reserved in his affection, he would never match Temperance’s warm compassion.
And now, as he looked back at her with a brief nod and a small smile that sat somewhere between uncomfortable and undeniably moved, was no different.
Clearing his throat, Ber latched onto the joke and the change of subject like a lifeline. “You’re never gonna let me forget that, are you,” He complained as soon as his throat untied itself, before answering her question with a thoughtful noise. “That sounds vaguely familiar. Doesn’t it have something to do with witches?”