"Your Grace! Wait!"
Sir Robert had to make his excuses before rushing out after Pascal. He found the Landgrave no more than fifty paces away, and the young lord's defeated look was resentful.
After sprinting over to catch up, Robert cast Sanctum Veil around themselves. Security was high here in the center of the Lotharin encampment. However the last thing they wanted would be for patrolling soldiers to overhear their conversation and leak out a twisted rumor. With the spell in place, those outside its radius would hear nothing but inconspicuous conversations -- like those about food, clothing, and the weather.
"Your Grace, please," Robert began the moment his ward took hold. "You must forgive Her Highness. She's been under another episode since her speech to Lady Lynette's troops yesterday, maybe even before that. She doesn't--"
"Yes, I know," Pascal interrupted irritably. "You have told me before what this 'hypomania' condition does to her. But knowing what causes it hardly makes me feel any better! Here I am, exhausting every bit of my energy in trying to keep her country intact, to piece together her retreating armies, to make sure she could still be the sovereign! And what do I receive in return?" He thrust a finger back towards the cabin. "THAT!"
"House arrest!?" He scorned as his chest huffed in anger. "I have not eaten since lunch yesterday and slept barely a wink last night. I would be happy to go back to my cabin for the first time since our arrival here!"
"Still, Your Grace, you have to admit: many of her accusations against you are true..."
Robert's voice soon trailed off as Pascal sent him a smoldering glare of you-know-what-I-had-meant.
The Landgrave did commit an act of barbarism. He was being unfaithful to his fiancée in sleeping with another woman -- however chaste the experience might be. Yet while a normal, reasonable individual might have considered the broader circumstances and exercised restraint, the Princess... was currently running with a crippling bias towards her own beliefs and impulses.
Had Pascal began with a thorough apology, perhaps Sylviane would have stayed calmer. Except such behavior was alien to the Landgrave's pride. A better prepared Pascal might have considered it, but not when he was hungry, stressed, fatigued, and simply carrying far too many burdens and baggage.
I really should have advised him before we arrived... Robert sighed as he berated himself. Like always, I only think of these things after it's too late.
They had been out inspecting the troops before joining them in the holy Midwinter Mass. After offering their prayers alongside tens of thousands of soldiers, it had put them in a rather... spiritual mood.
-- Which clearly didn't help Pascal step down from his moral pedestal.
"Yes... I know I deserved some of that for my rash actions. You do not have to tell me," Pascal admitted at last before his indignation spiked once more. "But she could not even attempt to see my perspective? To understand why I did it? And Kaede... she is the innocent one in all this!"
Pascal gritted his teeth as he struggled to suppress the injustice that he clearly felt wronged by.
"I'm afraid rationalizing from any perspective other than her own is beyond her at the moment," Robert quietly spoke what they both already knew.
Nevertheless, to understand it logically was one thing. To accept it emotionally... that was entirely something else.
"What do you plan to do now?"
"What will I do? What can I do!?" Pascal's derisive reply seemed to mock both Robert and himself. "She is still my fiancée! One of the few people whom I could still call 'family'! I could hardly just turn my back on her!"
Robert exhaled another heavy sigh. He glanced back towards the Princess' cabin, where Pascal's parting words did -- truth be told -- left him concerned.
"I guess I should feel relieved..." He had yet to finish before Pascal sneered in reply.
"What do you take me for? A peasant? That I would even consider annulling our contract just because of an obstacle like this?"
"That's not--"
"I will see you tomorrow, Sir Robert, hopefully," Pascal brushed him off as he stepped out of the Sanctum Veil area and went on his way. "Let us pray she snaps out of it by then!"
No, she won't. Sir Robert pursed his lips in thought. At best, she'll crash into a terrible depression. Although I guess even that's better than actively ruining her life like this.
"What a time it is to be celebrating Liturgy Day." He sighed to himself.
----- * * * -----
"Your Highness, please," Kaede pleaded on her knees before the Princess' bed. "I understand that Pascal's actions were brutish and foolhardy, if not outright stupid. But please allow me to place a word on his behalf."
The Samaran girl lowered her head until it touched the floor in a classic Japanese dogeza bow. It was such a self-debasing posture that even a princess from another world could not mistake its intentions.
However, that didn't mean Sylviane was used to seeing such a gesture. The Princess took a deep breath before she allowed bewilderment to push aside part of her anger. Her eyes were still hard as she looked down upon the familiar. But she nevertheless offered her a chance, even if the tone was somewhat begrudging:
"Go on."
"Your Highness," Kaede began as she sat back straight on her heels. For once, her wispy voice was a blessing as the familiar found it easy to keep her tone soft and non-provocative. "I do not wish to try to excuse His Grace's actions, for it was undoubtedly wrong. There is no excuse for a man to ever resort to such barbaric methods in a relationship."
The Samaran girl could see the anger being expelled as Sylviane took another deep exhale. It was always good to show that they were in agreement first on such a sensitive subject.
"However, I simply wish to plead for leniency, on the grounds that Pascal only did it with the best of intentions," Kaede continued. "We were on a field of battle, and Pascal is a soldier, not a diplomat. In his rush to do what he saw as the best thing, he failed to consider all options and chose the blunt force solution. It is wrong. I do not doubt it for one second. But should we also not consider why he did it?"
For a moment it almost seemed like the Princess' gaze was starting to soften. Yet all that changed when Kaede spoke her last sentence and stepped onto a landmine.
"Why!?" Sylviane snarled as a new wave of anger rose to fill her expression. "Because he thought his judgment is superior to mine, that's why!"
Kaede could only purse her lips as she couldn't even deny that. However Sylviane was far from finished:
"Your Master thinks that just because he is smarter than most people, his opinion is automatically superior to all others! That just because he thinks an action is correct, everyone who contradicts him must be in the wrong! Has he, ever once in this entire debacle, considered MY perspective?"
No. Kaede could only think as her lips struggled to open before the anger of royalty. She knew fully well that Pascal's lack of consideration was his greatest failing.
"--And this goes beyond mere opinion," the Princess' pitch continued to rise as she unloaded what had clearly been a long and deeply held frustration. "He even believes that the rules of society do not apply to him, so long as he himself benefits! How many other men do you think would be so brazen that they would sleep with a mistress just down the hall from his lawful, future wife!"
The Samaran girl blanched as she landed solely in the crosshairs of that burning, wisteria gaze.
Kaede knew that Sylviane had a personality that was both envious and insecure. She knew that it was going to be difficult to explain such behavior to the Princess. Yet she made the decision anyway, all because her nightmares had pushed her to the breaking point.
-- And this time, Pascal wouldn't be in the room to take the blame.
"Tell me, Kaede," Sylviane's brows twitched as her eyes bore down upon the familiar. "Do you know what the punishment is for treason?"
The familiar couldn't even respond this time. Her mind had virtually blanked out and her body trembled as the cold, creeping fear spread through her nerves.
