Court Games

Aquila’s first business in Ferendaux is to provide Raum the things he needs to settle into the city. Among those is a change of clothes, supplied from Aquila’s own wardrobe. Raum, red-faced, insists that Aquila doesn’t need to go that far. And not to complain but these buttons are gonna pop off like bullets the second he stops sucking his chest in. Holy crap Aquila’s small. Aquila tilts his head with a slightly mischievous and very anticipatory smile. He thinks it best to introduce Raum promptly, is all.

Unsure what that means, Raum lets Aquila whisk him through the wings of the palace into the gilded chambers of court. They are magnificent, with porcelain floors and arched ceilings and floral stuccos and silk drapes and fountains and koi — much like the ballroom from before, but vaster in size and function. The place further brims with well-dressed, well-spoken, dignified gentlemen and ladies, all bustling about. It’s the nobility, diligently networking away in this fortress of decadence and luxury.

Aquila’s about to dunk me tits-deep in an ocean of socialites, Raum realises, frantically checking he hasn’t torn any seams, as he peers from the wing of the dais that overlooks the room. Upon the centre of that dais is a throne, plainly for Aquila, who strides forward into open view. Taking the cue, and ignoring his nerves, Raum follows.

Every guard in the chamber raises a small trumpet and toots, together loud enough to drown all the noble chatter. The chamber falls hush as a guardsman announces: His Majesty speaks!

Indeed he does. If Aquila’s usual demeanour is understated and calm, he absolutely is not that while orating. His sweeping gesticulations guide attention like a conductor’s baton, energizing his voice like a tidal wave to carry to the back of the room.

My honourable subjects, indispensable servants, and trustworthy friends. In these times of mourning, it is with joyful news of victory that I return to you from Joliet. So he begins, speaking of the conflict there, the brazenness of the cult, the reappearance of the scourge Toreas, then pivoting into Raum’s valiant slaying of this heinous, unwanted character.

The wary air across the chamber shifts into something both impressed and thankful. Some people applaud, not realising this incredible news is only the build-up, their solitary claps echoing and then consumed by silence.

Aquila continues. Who is this heroic young man, you must wonder. I will tell you, here is the son of my closest friend. I will tell you, here is the grandson of my saviour in youth. His is a family of unparallelled service, and unparallelled sacrifice, whose loyalty and courage have risen again in his blood. Knaves sought his pedigree dead, but this legacy is not extinct. I will tell you, this man is Raum Whitewood.

Eyes widen across the room. The air prickles as if charged with electricity.

Today, we celebrate his presence among us. But the day we celebrate his achievement comes without mistake at month’s end. For on that day, Aquila pauses, I shall formally, announce my heir.

The silence sits for many tense seconds, allowing everyone time to digest these words. Raum’s spine tingles in horror as the implications click into place. Hold on. He’s joking. No way. Hold on…!

Aquila’s hand delicately grips Raum’s shoulder. Keeping his expression straight is presently the most difficult thing in the world, as hundreds of conflicting emotions fight for control of his face.

“Who among you will welcome my friend, with a cup?" Aquila asks the crowd, then whispers to Raum, “let them struggle."

Breaking the paralysed silence, one man goes to the drinks table to retrieve a glass of wine for Raum. Another man, who seems an old rival of the first, challenges him near immediately. With that as the starting gun, the chamber erupts into overt contest. Like nations warring over a woman, who of all the nobles here will win the chance to charm Raum first?

Gloves peal against cheeks, contests of skill and strength are put forward, and men rush to their room to retrieve their rapiers. A mess of individual challenges organically morphs into a tournament. Realising this won’t degenerate into an Ordishman’s brawl, Raum forces himself not to urge them down. There is apparently an order to such things, here.

He snags himself a plate of hors d’oeuvres to snack on as the tournament relocates outside. While half of him follows all this, the other half still reels from Aquila’s announcement. Announce his heir! …What! What! What? What!

What!

That’s as articulate as he can manage. Another hors d’oeuvres disappears into his mouth. Munch munch munch. Wow yum. Mmm. What!

Crowds form in rings around the duelists, rising startled ‘Oh!’s and impressed ‘Hoho!’s at snakebite strikes and mongoose dodges. The blade of a particularly strong man, present ten-streak winner, this time does not stop at a graze and instead plunges deep into his opponent’s arm. Raum’s breath hitches in his throat, streaking like a sword across whetstone. He foists his plate on some bystander as he strides forward to intervene — Aquila leashes him back with a light, ‘Ah.’

…Right, there’s actual rules to this. As servants and friends whisk the injured man away, Raum shoots Aquila an uncomfortable look just to express his discomfort (Aquila, for his part, seems entertained by the fighting), then obediently numbs himself back into a spectator’s calm. He retrieves his plate from the bystander, and only just catches himself from reflexively accepting the glass said bystander offers alongside the plate.

Actually, there’s a five-meter radius around Aquila that has been deserted but for Raum and this guy. While the tournament distracts everyone else, he’s chancing slipping Raum a glass directly. It feels massively like cheating. Unsure, Raum again looks to Aquila for guidance. He subtly nods. This is allowed.

With that permission, Raum accepts the sneak’s glass and easily starts a light conversation. This man is the Baron of Pikiny, who, between typical chitchat, invites Raum to dinner at his manor tonight. Raum’s totally fine with that. Actually he’s so fine that he wonders if he’s being foolish. He doesn’t mind the Baron, or anything, but why him over someone who at least gave it a shot in the tournament?

Woooah I’m passive, Raum thinks. Yeah that’s it. Wow how surprising. Well passivity and malleability are the attitudes Aquila wants. If Aquila’s watching (he assuredly is) then Raum probably just accidentally passed a shit test. Hrm. He shrugs and starts on another hors d’oeuvre.

Shouts come from the crowd as people notice the Baron chatting with Raum. With the realisation that the prize to this contest is gone, the tournament dissolves automatically. The ten-streak winner shakes his fist and booms: I fart on your children, slippery Baron! The Baron chuckles and raises his glass good-naturedly. They seem to agree: we’ll rematch someday!

It blows Raum’s mind that Ten-Streak didn’t take the Baron’s win personally, that the tournament itself ended so cleanly, that nobody is yelling or calling the Baron unfair, and that the Baron didn’t taunt Ten-Streak for his failure. Even the injured man is bandaged up already and laughing with Ten-Streak. There were actual stakes in this. How is nobody mad?

Propriety. Reyl had dismissed it as window-dressing, but here’s an example of it in action.

Warmth explodes in Raum’s chest at this realisation, the first validation of a tangible, positive difference between Asphodel and Ordanz. Passivity isn’t synonymous with weakness or complacency, here! Interrupting the tournament would’ve been a massive mistake! Agonising over whose stupid glass to pick would’ve been totally pointless! All the festering guilt in Raum’s mind immediately vanishes, eclipsed by glee as bright and hot as the sun.

Energized, Raum happily socializes with the Baron and his friends. But the sun soon sags, and the time soon comes to go to the Baron’s mansion for dinner.

Raum and the Baron chat over dinner, joined by the man’s family. Though the same light chitchat from court prevails for the first while, the manor’s security against eavesdroppers and the intimacy of its dining room make more serious conversation pretty much inevitable.

Such as this fun thread: The Baron is immensely relieved Aquila has announced his intention to name an heir. It’s been a subject of quiet anxiety among the nobles for years. Aquila, as Raum had intuited but never seriously contemplated, has no Queen or scion. Now that his body is a feathery abomination, he’s incapable of siring one, too.

Raum can imagine this would cause tension, but the real point of conflict was never about who would fill the void in succession. Rather, it was whether that void would ever be filled. Because technically — technically, it wouldn’t have to be.

Aquila died in the Tyrant’s Reign and was resurrected through occult magics. The vessel to which his soul was bound, that is to say, the feathers that construct his body, are not ‘alive’ in a biological sense. Though it manifested the divine blood of Asphodel by Aquila’s inherent nature as a holy Yazata, it has no organs and is subject to none of the vital mechanisms of living things — digestion, breathing, and critically, age. There is no natural deadline for Aquila’s stay on the throne.

Furthermore, those feathers themselves are bewitched material plucked from the hide of a monstrous ghoul. Though soft as cotton and pliable as silk, each feather is tougher than iron. Only supernatural means could even theoretically nick him.

So if he would never die and may never be killed, what if he chose to never abdicate? That is what the nobles feared. A thousand-year reign where their entire social class stagnated, unable to substantially influence any future policy through the most fundamental means of marriage and children.

But, as stated, Aquila’s announcement has tempered those worries.

Raum instead asks whether the Baron thinks Raum will be named heir. The Baron says it’s difficult to imagine who else even could be. The implications were laid pretty thick.

And on that note, the Baron wants to know more about Raum. So Raum divulges more about his experience in Asphodel, his place in the family, his history in Ordanz, same as he told Vince. Truthful foundations are necessary for him to live with any legitimacy. Still, he correctly refrains from mentioning his sister, or the real scope of the Thorns, selling himself as a more-or-less typical vault rat.

The Baron’s niece, who has been quietly listening, pipes up. “Are we ever going to get those gophers out of the lawn, uncle?"

Coded message. She doesn’t like what she’s hearing. Raum keeps a dumb smile plastered on his face. What the fuck is a gopher.

After a prolonged sip of his wine, the Baron answers his niece and rises from his seat. Seeing that the dinner itself has finished, the maids collect the plates and the Baron ushers Raum to the door. His manner remains genial, but he does furtively glance back to the table before asking if Raum has plans to travel to a place called Deram.

He’s never heard the word before in his life. The answer to that is an easy no.

The Baron’s face eddies between disappointment and suspicion. Whatever response he was hoping for, he didn’t get it. Seeing no point in pursuing the issue, the Baron jauntily thanks Raum for coming and gestures to the door. The tenseness around this mysterious ‘Deram’ dissolves, and Raum departs with a thanks and a smile.

Raum’s transport takes him not to the palace, but a brilliant manor. Finished in birch and ebony, designed to capture light on the brights and emphasise the dark shadows, when struck by beams of moon or sun, it looks like a woodcut stamped onto reality.

This is Raum’s new home, and the home of his forefathers, the Whitewood Manor. Servants park his carriage and welcome him in with abounding enthusiasm, apparently delighted that even a drop of their dear master’s — or generous employer’s — blood has survived.

The interior is modernly swish. Rooms are not ‘wide’ so much as ‘vast’, meant for a large family who keep a wide network of friends. With the old residents’ home decor packed away into storage, it carries the feeling of an untouched canvas, ready for Raum to mark it as his.

Eager servants guide him through the rooms. Once the tour is over, Raum dismisses them for the night and retreats into the master bedroom.

He leans his elbows on the desk, lets himself start thinking, and sighs.

What a day.

Raum has learned things over these last hours that he musn’t ignore. Of course, in the moment of discussion when these details were dropped, he let his social brain take over, prattled on, and pretended not to be hooked. Now that he has privacy and time, he can investigate these tidbits properly.

One: Deram. What is Deram? Why would Raum visit Deram? Why would the Baron ask about that, and why did the subject make him so edgy? Raum flips through maps, atlases, encyclopedias, searching.

Deram is a small desert town situated in the crag over a canyon, a rare blot of civilisation in a landscape most have the sense not to bother with. Its only remarkable feature, as far as Raum can see, is its proximity to the old capital Sebilles. Indeed, if Trivia had directed the twins east instead of west upon leaving Sebilles, they would have reached Deram within the day.

But Raum doubts the Baron was making any veiled reference to Sebilles. Still, the significance of this podunk town otherwise remains unclear. Photographs show the sigil of house Whitewood — a crow with a key in its beak — on its church and town hall, confirming this as a Whitewood holding. But any town you could stumble upon in this region has a 50-50 chance of being a Whitewood holding.

Finding nothing notable, Raum shelves Deram.

So point two. Aquila’s naming of an heir.

The instant the Baron explained that situation, many things clicked into place for Raum. Why elevate the Whitewoods so much? Why then kill them off, but hold onto Morgan? If the massacre was a gambit to transfer monarchical power not just to one bloodline, but one specific individual from a bloodline, then it worked magnificently.

But why the need for one specific individual, and more critically, why Morgan? Well there’s one obvious thing that distinguishes Morgan. Morgan is subverted by Phoenix. And so, it seems, is Aquila.

Everything, all of this, may have been an accidental coup on Phoenix’s part, as Aquila struggles to peaceably interpret the commands Phoenix hammered into him at resurrection. If true, that explains why his attitude towards Raum (also subverted) shifted so suddenly, and hints at his motives.

And at turmoil. At shared secrets. At something Aquila needs genuine help with, where Raum’s assistance won’t simply be a good deed, but a permanent tie Aquila will always remember. Raum traces his earrings, smiling. That smile sobers quickly as he refocuses on this situation’s difficulty.

He can’t ask Aquila or Phoenix for direct confirmation. It’s far too dangerous a question. If he can get Aquila’s guard down, and ask him more generally about Phoenix, that might be a place to start.

…Get Aquila’s guard down. Sounds like training a cat to eat vegetables. Raum pinches his brow, sighs, and cranes his head to rest on the back of the chair as he stares vacantly over the bedroom.

Man. What a house.

But imagine how much more fun moving in would’ve been, if he’d been able to share the experience with Reyl?

Raum’s chest clenches. He closes his eyes, forces himself calm.

He’ll go to discuss her situation with Aquila tomorrow.

He’s confident he’s ready for it now.