Goodbyes
22st of July 2006 A.D.
There were advantages to speaking a language that no one else did, Lydia had learned over the years, being able to complain about stuffy parties without offending anyone, asking who this person or that was and getting a straight answer so she would know who to avoid and now talking about sorcery, specters and...
"I didn't want it to come to this, not so soon, but fate and fortune make fools of men and gods alike."
Lydia had always known she was special, you would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to realize there was something odd about your father chasing away the bad dreams with a 'prayer' that made the air shiver and the shadows dance. she had known she was special since she was six, but knowing the name for that left her feeling lightheaded, or maybe it had been the fight. Her stomach felt unsettled, her hands were still clenching and unclenching, some part of her expecting a fresh horror to jump out of the shadows.
"You are going to have to look after yourself for a while Snowdrop, if I give this up... it's not just my power, it is my life, it's part of my soul."
She'd had to bite her lips to hold back a gasp, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth, but she had known her dad had a way out of this, he always had a way out, he had to.
"Souls are not as fragile as tales would have you think, souls heal as all living things do. Mab must have her pawn, or she will never stop hunting you and yet if I were to pass all that power on to another I would perish, sure as if I had cast myself into the maw of the Outer Dark, so I shall keep back the merest fraction, the smallest of seeds and I shall slumber, sleep and death are kin enough that I know the way of building a... what did the call them in the futurist books, a life support cartouche?"
"Capsule dad," the girl tried to smile, her throat hurt like she had swallowed something sticky and unpleasant.
"I shall sleep wrapped in my own personal dream, far from the hand of the tyrant, for how long I cannot tell this has never been done before, but I shall wake as the King under the mountain is wont to do." He was looking at her as if he were trying to measure all the contours of her face, it was a look that said goodbye.
"But... but papa, I need to know, what if I... what if I die before you..."
"You are my child Lydia, a princess in exile, but a princess just the same, the mere passage days in the sunlit world will not be your end, not unless the very thread of ages if run to its end and I will not be
that tardy, this I vow. Now listen, we do not have long, there are the federal agents outside. There is a chest under my desk that has some gifts for you so that you do not have to go into battle in borrowed chainmail, but more importantly you will find my will, go to Signore Rici and give him the letter on top, he will know what to do with it. Emancipation... ah," he sighs. "I wish we had more time, but as a man more skilled in the leading of armies than empire once said ask me for anything but time. I wish we did not have to do this at all, but most of all in the United States. If the process falls through vanish, fall off the grid until you are eighteen. It will be hard and uncomfortable, but the risk of an enemy, someone who wishes you ill, obtaining custody is far too great."
He glances at Molly seemingly trying to read the runes on the armor, but for her part Lydia wasn't paying attention. She was struggling just to keep her breathing under control, it was all coming to her at once.
"Keep your friends close. I do not think she is beholden to any power, which is a rare thing for one who burns with such power, for his part the wizard is beholden to too many and he chaffs under them, a peril and an opportunity." He stops and laughs softly, his face still somber. "How strange it is to say all these things so quickly, I thought I had more time. Remember that I trust you and I love you, I always will."
With these words Lydia's father, Arawn fallen traitor god of the underworld turned on his feel to speak to an old man about a mantle.
OOC: I thought about pushing this through into the rolls to see if they can get to Matthews, but this just felt like a good Lydia interlude and at the same time the cut off point worked best here rather than including the rolls with Matthews or if that does not work the summoning. No vote this time, but the answer to some questions you guys had 
