- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, I know, it's a bit frustrating but ah well? Our relationship with Katarina doesn't seem like a bad relationship, per se, or at least there's friendly letters... but she's been out of focus for a while.
Let's Play: Cataphrak's Dragoon Saga
- Thread starter Rogue Attican
- Start date
Yeah, I know, it's a bit frustrating but ah well? Our relationship with Katarina doesn't seem like a bad relationship, per se, or at least there's friendly letters... but she's been out of focus for a while.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It's apparently not, so why not pick the supportive option!
Yeah, that's what happens when you imply you're too good for her life's work.
[X] [WELLES] "You deserved better than the company of such wretched creatures."
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We'd have gotten more Katarina stuff had we more relationship points with her. However, our refusal to go on the secret mission targeting Khorobirit's wife and daughter really soured things.
She also shows up during the Reform Club storyline if you choose to argue against the Kian treaty as part of the debates they host.
Lords 9.10
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [WELLES] "You deserved better than the company of such wretched creatures."
The Countess nods tentatively. "Perhaps you're right," she replies. "But sometimes I wonder. I…"
She pauses, as if to gather her thoughts. The interruption stretches out into a prolonged interval. For a few moments, you wonder whether she's going to say anything else.
At last, she takes a breath and begins again. "I think back sometimes, to the war—and all I can seem to recall of it is how clean it seemed. Not physically, of course, not even the King could keep himself as tidy on campaign as the rudest tenant farmer in his cottage, but I mean mentally. It always felt like there was a purpose, a clear thing we needed to do. Every movement felt necessary, every cause presented itself as something worth killing for, worth dying for." She shakes her head. "I know that isn't how it was. I try to remember the mud and the cold and the bloated faces of dead boys floating along the banks of the Kharan, but it…" She falters, reaching for the words. "It doesn't affect me the way it ought to. It doesn't stop me from thinking the way I ought to, and I think it possible that—"
She looks up at you, her eyes wide with a genuine fear. "I think it is some sort of affliction, and it is that malady which causes me to judge others so cruelly."
You lean forward, meeting her gaze with your own. "If such a manner of thinking is a malady, then you're not alone in carrying it," you reply, pausing to choose your words as carefully as you can. "War tends to change men, not just in the process of it, but afterwards as well. I have felt some of the same impulses which I suspect you have, though not as strongly. I know a great many other men have, too. I see no reason why the same couldn't apply to women."
It is, perhaps, not the most comforting thing you could have said, but Lady Welles seems to appreciate your meaning all the same. "It is…a comfort, to hear that," she replies, her words hesitant, but much of the fear gone from her eyes. "I suppose that it's a relief to know that such a thing is not an aberration, and that it may even be mastered, with time." She gives you a smile, faint but sincere. "Thank you, my lord."
[X] "Do you know when you might return?"
Welles shakes her head. "I do not know. Under normal circumstances, I suppose the task I have been assigned to perform could be accomplished within six months, provided I am not disturbed or otherwise interfered with."
"Six months?" you ask, somewhat bemused. "Your report on the war in Antar took years to compile."
"My report on the war in Antar required me to follow the army, and required me to submit to all the rigours of campaign. In truth, I…" She gives a fond, almost wistful smile. "For the first year or so, I spent more time trying to get used to life in a military camp than I did investigating or writing. No, here I will be set up in a suite of rooms in the Port Admiral's own headquarters. I shall be perfectly comfortable and will be able to work without distraction. Such work will take me six months, and if the crisis here is resolved upon my completion of that task, I shall return."
"And if the crisis is not resolved?"
The Countess frowns. "Then the Queen will find some reason to assign me an additional task, or to oblige me to investigate some matter in more detail. She will find a way to keep me away from the capital for as long as needed."
Your eyes narrow. "Surely it cannot sit so easily with you, to be so transparently manipulated?"
Welles' eyebrow raises questioningly. "Manipulated?"
"To be sent off by the Queen, ostensibly for one reason, but in truth for a second purpose which she doesn't even bother to disclose," you explain. "I cannot see how such a means of intercourse might possibly foster any manner of friendly feeling, let alone trust."
The Countess thinks upon the matter for a moment, but when she replies, it is with an almost serene expression, the sort which those of certain temperament seem so fond of when confronted with a statement which is wrong to the point of amusement. "On the contrary, my lord. It is precisely due to a bond of trust which allows Izzy to act so. When I first joined the circle, she almost took pains to explain her reasons for each action to me. It showed me how she made her decisions, and it is that knowledge which allows me to intuit her true meaning."
She shakes her head. "It isn't that she doesn't tell me the true intention of such directions, but that she doesn't need to. I will confess that I do not agree with her decisions in every case, but I understand them, and I trust them." She flashes you a faint smile. "Within the circumstances of a friendship, I believe that is more than enough."
[X] "Is the Queen truly so worried as to send all her friends away?"
"She is," Welles replies, the tone of her voice leaving no room for doubt. "It is her opinion that Wulfram is preparing to make a move against her. She knows that he has brought his cousin, the commander of his Houseguard into the city. She also knows that he's been meeting in confidence with both his known associates and men not normally considered his allies." She gives you a steady look. "The Queen believes that the events of the past year have pushed him to the point where he may essay something beyond the limits he has heretofore set himself, and that we should be prepared for it."
So it seems the Duke of Wulfram isn't the only one steeling himself for some manner of reckoning. You cannot help but wonder how much the Queen knows of your own meeting with Wulfram, and what she intends to do about it.
It is a line of thinking which doesn't much settle your nerves.
"How long has she known?" you ask.
"Since the end of the summer, at least," Welles replies. "That's when she sent most of us away, ostensibly to return to our estates for the winter, but she gave clear instructions that we were not to expect to return in the spring. She even sent her mother to Havenport, though whether that was for her safety, or so that she might communicate with her allies in Kentaur, I am not sure. I am almost the last one left."
"Well then," you reply, your features settling into an expression that is half thoughtfulness and half regret. "I'm glad you stayed long enough to say goodbye."
Welles smiles back. "As am I."
[X] "Pray, you will let me help you prepare for the journey at least?"
At this, the Countess' expression seems to brighten almost immediately. "Yes, that would be very kind of you, sir. I have a great number of notes and materials which must be parcelled out to the those who are best suited to preserve them, but I cannot trust my servants to deliver such documents. Perhaps…"
You nod. "I put myself and my coach at your disposal, my lady. You may call upon me at any time, whenever I am not detained by my official duties."
Welles smiles, an expression of such unrestrained warmth as to cast almost all previous bonds of reserve aside. "Again, thank you. I couldn't imagine how difficult this would have been otherwise."
You cannot help but smile back.
Over the course of the next few weeks, you spend much of your free time relegating yourself to the role of a courier, rumbling up and down the cold, wet streets of the New City in your coach, escorting this parcel or that set of files from Lady Welles' townhouse to any number of places. A great portion of what you're entrusted with goes direct to Grenadier Square, taken on multiple trips. Other files are headed to the Northern Keep, the Reform Club, Admiralty House, and any one of a dozen private residences, some the townhouses of Commission members, others the homes of those who seem to lack any distinction at all.
It is tedious, tiring work, the sort which would have normally been entrusted to a clerk or a footman were the information not evidently of some sensitivity. Even so, you cannot help but feel that if it were not for the specific circumstances, you would have found the task wholly beneath you.
But you suppose it's rather different when such things are done for the sake of a lady of the blood.
In the end, there turns out to be a great many more files than you originally thought. Indeed, by the time the majority of them are cleared out, the rooms of the Countess' townhouse seem to have almost doubled in size. Yet ultimately, the last box is packed away and the last copies are finally delivered. The final arrangements are made, and there's nothing else to do but wait for the winter storms to settle so that Lady Welles may take her leave of the city.
And of you.
The first ship of the spring docks in Aetoria's harbour not long after.
The vessel itself bears little distinction. It's the same sort of ship which comes in at the beginning of every spring: a packet sloop from Havenport, bearing the winter's returns from the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Havenport, and the army he still maintains there to keep the restive Kentauri clans under the control of the Crown.
Yet the appearance of the first ship of the year carries with it a deeper significance, one which has hitherto been greeted with joy. The arrival of such a vessel means that the storms have cleared, the shipping lanes are open, and that this first arrival is to herald many, many more in the days ahead.
This year, however, such an arrival also proves the harbinger of darker news. The opening of spring means that the reprieve the city had been granted by the months of cold is now over. That the men—and one woman—who spent the long solitude of winter plotting their next move may at last put them into motion. The tension which had lain dormant under the snow are dug out, like the bodies of those frozen to death on the streets, and you know all too well that if the worst comes to pass, the result of those tensions might blacken the skies over Aetoria just as readily as the smoke from the hundred pyres built for the neglected dead.
And things do get worse.
The first clash betwixt Wulframite and Royalist gangs takes place just a few days after the spring rains washes the last of the pyre ash from the streets. You're not sure as to the precise details, only that two groups confronted one another on a street in the Old City, words were exchanged, then blows. A pistol was fired. By the time First Squadron arrived to break up the brewing skirmish, two men were dead and fourteen wounded, including a woman and child caught in the melee.
With such news, any hope that winter might have cooled sentiments disappears as readily as the snow. The violence renews, just as vicious and just as bloody. It's as if the all-too-brief peace of the past few months were nothing more than the blink of an eye.
Cunaris orders patrols redoubled, but such measures can only deal with the most open symptoms of unrest, the open sores that bely the presence of a deep and terrible cancer, one whose true source is buried far under the skin of the city, deep amidst the hallways and intimate chambers of the powerful.
A source which seems all but ready to metastasise into its terminal stage.
As in every year, the first ship of spring is soon followed by others: grain hulks from Kian, fast couriers from Callindria and Butea, a profusion of small coastal traders from Fernandescourt and Tannersburg and Weathern.
But other arrivals are far more suspicious. A Takaran schooner arrives offshore, supposedly bearing the new Ambassador. Yet it isn't the sort of diplomatic cutter normally used for such purposes, but a full-sized warship. Others soon join it, a squadron of frigates from the Northern Fleet. On clear days, the shapes of even larger ships can be seen beyond, holding station outside the harbour, neither entering or veering off.
And there are ominous portents elsewhere, as well.
Under normal circumstances, the arrival of the first ships of spring brings with it a fresh wave of activity to the Shipowners Club, with investors arriving from all over the realm to crowd the exchange galleries and jockey for position to take advantage of the first, lucrative trades of the shipping season.
There is no such rush this year. Even with the opening of the season, the exchange floor is all but deserted, with only a few clumps of black-suited brokers milling around the vast space like crows in a ruined shrine. The club rooms themselves are no more populated than they were during the dead of winter. The ships come, but there are few investors there to buy up new securities.
Worse yet, when the ships go, some of the investors go with them, even exchange stalwarts who have lived and traded in the city for ten or fifteen years now suddenly seem to be too eager to visit their tumbledown country estates again.
It isn't difficult to see why.
Commerce ultimately requires some sense of order. Contracts must be enforced, promises must be upheld, the value of money and the things that money buy must be maintained, and such values require rule of law to maintain them. Without such certainties, trade cannot endure, and neither can traders.
And there is no promise of certainty in the prospect of the days ahead.
And then there's Countess Welles.
With Aetoria's harbour now open, there's little stopping her from departing on her new assignment to Northern Pillars. Indeed, a week after the first ship arrives, she sends you word that she has secured passage aboard one of the Navy's dispatch sloops and is to be departing the next day.
It's an invitation of a sort, permission to come to the docks to see her off, something which you certainly have no intention of passing up.
So it is that you arrive at Aetoria's inner harbour on a blustery spring day to see Lady Welles before she heads off for who knows how long, your mind still half-occupied by thoughts of the dire portents and ominous signs which seem now to pass for news within the city's society.
Indeed, so pettifogged are your thoughts by such uncertain matters that it isn't until you're helping Lady Welles out of her coach that the moment of clarity which you had needed finally arrives, and that the question which you ought to have been pondering at last asserts itself in your mind.
Namely: what do you do now?
The question seems a distant one, vague in its wording and undefined in its scope. Yet the demand for an answer is an immediate one, for the question is not so much a figurative speculation, but a very literal conundrum of a very real matter of etiquette.
Lady Welles, after all, is an unmarried lady of the blood, possessed of good family, substantial fortune, and as of yet no concrete attachments—though you suspect that you wouldn't be amiss in thinking some would be very much intent upon changing that. Under normal circumstances, she would have been surely accompanied by a chaperone. But with Lady Barbone no longer present, the normal parameters of protocol are thrown wholly out of the window. Had you been of the precise station and condition to fulfil the role of chaperone yourself…but you're not. In fact, you are almost the precise opposite.
And yet despite her usual respect for the rules of society, Welles seems almost hesitant to let go of your arm as she climbs down from her coach's running board, almost as if she wishes for the two of you to linger in this rather intimate—and frankly, rather compromising position.
You could always let her have her way, of course. You are, after all, still a very close friend despite all the irregularity of your contact these last few years. Yet you're hardly alone on the docks of Aetoria, and even if the vast majority of those around you are porters and sailors and the sorts of people who rarely give a damn about the protocol of the Baneblooded classes, there are almost certainly a few who will, and the sight of Lady Welles walking arm in arm with a gentleman of the blood with which she has no engagement or familiar connection may well prove harmful to both your reputations.
Perhaps it would be better then to choose a more cautious route, at least in regards to your reputation. Keep your distance, say or do nothing untoward, follow as closely as possible the cold, impersonal script which protocol dictates matters ought to be conducted betwixt a lady and a gentleman of the blood. Lady Welles may not approve, of course, but surely, the good opinion of society is worth more than the approval of your friend…right?
[ ] [WELLES] No measure of affection is worth the cost of propriety.
[ ] [WELLES] I walk as close as is appropriate, and as close as I dare.
[ ] [WELLES] I offer her my arm, and may the Saints damn propriety.
The Countess nods tentatively. "Perhaps you're right," she replies. "But sometimes I wonder. I…"
She pauses, as if to gather her thoughts. The interruption stretches out into a prolonged interval. For a few moments, you wonder whether she's going to say anything else.
At last, she takes a breath and begins again. "I think back sometimes, to the war—and all I can seem to recall of it is how clean it seemed. Not physically, of course, not even the King could keep himself as tidy on campaign as the rudest tenant farmer in his cottage, but I mean mentally. It always felt like there was a purpose, a clear thing we needed to do. Every movement felt necessary, every cause presented itself as something worth killing for, worth dying for." She shakes her head. "I know that isn't how it was. I try to remember the mud and the cold and the bloated faces of dead boys floating along the banks of the Kharan, but it…" She falters, reaching for the words. "It doesn't affect me the way it ought to. It doesn't stop me from thinking the way I ought to, and I think it possible that—"
She looks up at you, her eyes wide with a genuine fear. "I think it is some sort of affliction, and it is that malady which causes me to judge others so cruelly."
You lean forward, meeting her gaze with your own. "If such a manner of thinking is a malady, then you're not alone in carrying it," you reply, pausing to choose your words as carefully as you can. "War tends to change men, not just in the process of it, but afterwards as well. I have felt some of the same impulses which I suspect you have, though not as strongly. I know a great many other men have, too. I see no reason why the same couldn't apply to women."
It is, perhaps, not the most comforting thing you could have said, but Lady Welles seems to appreciate your meaning all the same. "It is…a comfort, to hear that," she replies, her words hesitant, but much of the fear gone from her eyes. "I suppose that it's a relief to know that such a thing is not an aberration, and that it may even be mastered, with time." She gives you a smile, faint but sincere. "Thank you, my lord."
[X] "Do you know when you might return?"
Welles shakes her head. "I do not know. Under normal circumstances, I suppose the task I have been assigned to perform could be accomplished within six months, provided I am not disturbed or otherwise interfered with."
"Six months?" you ask, somewhat bemused. "Your report on the war in Antar took years to compile."
"My report on the war in Antar required me to follow the army, and required me to submit to all the rigours of campaign. In truth, I…" She gives a fond, almost wistful smile. "For the first year or so, I spent more time trying to get used to life in a military camp than I did investigating or writing. No, here I will be set up in a suite of rooms in the Port Admiral's own headquarters. I shall be perfectly comfortable and will be able to work without distraction. Such work will take me six months, and if the crisis here is resolved upon my completion of that task, I shall return."
"And if the crisis is not resolved?"
The Countess frowns. "Then the Queen will find some reason to assign me an additional task, or to oblige me to investigate some matter in more detail. She will find a way to keep me away from the capital for as long as needed."
Your eyes narrow. "Surely it cannot sit so easily with you, to be so transparently manipulated?"
Welles' eyebrow raises questioningly. "Manipulated?"
"To be sent off by the Queen, ostensibly for one reason, but in truth for a second purpose which she doesn't even bother to disclose," you explain. "I cannot see how such a means of intercourse might possibly foster any manner of friendly feeling, let alone trust."
The Countess thinks upon the matter for a moment, but when she replies, it is with an almost serene expression, the sort which those of certain temperament seem so fond of when confronted with a statement which is wrong to the point of amusement. "On the contrary, my lord. It is precisely due to a bond of trust which allows Izzy to act so. When I first joined the circle, she almost took pains to explain her reasons for each action to me. It showed me how she made her decisions, and it is that knowledge which allows me to intuit her true meaning."
She shakes her head. "It isn't that she doesn't tell me the true intention of such directions, but that she doesn't need to. I will confess that I do not agree with her decisions in every case, but I understand them, and I trust them." She flashes you a faint smile. "Within the circumstances of a friendship, I believe that is more than enough."
[X] "Is the Queen truly so worried as to send all her friends away?"
"She is," Welles replies, the tone of her voice leaving no room for doubt. "It is her opinion that Wulfram is preparing to make a move against her. She knows that he has brought his cousin, the commander of his Houseguard into the city. She also knows that he's been meeting in confidence with both his known associates and men not normally considered his allies." She gives you a steady look. "The Queen believes that the events of the past year have pushed him to the point where he may essay something beyond the limits he has heretofore set himself, and that we should be prepared for it."
So it seems the Duke of Wulfram isn't the only one steeling himself for some manner of reckoning. You cannot help but wonder how much the Queen knows of your own meeting with Wulfram, and what she intends to do about it.
It is a line of thinking which doesn't much settle your nerves.
"How long has she known?" you ask.
"Since the end of the summer, at least," Welles replies. "That's when she sent most of us away, ostensibly to return to our estates for the winter, but she gave clear instructions that we were not to expect to return in the spring. She even sent her mother to Havenport, though whether that was for her safety, or so that she might communicate with her allies in Kentaur, I am not sure. I am almost the last one left."
"Well then," you reply, your features settling into an expression that is half thoughtfulness and half regret. "I'm glad you stayed long enough to say goodbye."
Welles smiles back. "As am I."
[X] "Pray, you will let me help you prepare for the journey at least?"
At this, the Countess' expression seems to brighten almost immediately. "Yes, that would be very kind of you, sir. I have a great number of notes and materials which must be parcelled out to the those who are best suited to preserve them, but I cannot trust my servants to deliver such documents. Perhaps…"
You nod. "I put myself and my coach at your disposal, my lady. You may call upon me at any time, whenever I am not detained by my official duties."
Welles smiles, an expression of such unrestrained warmth as to cast almost all previous bonds of reserve aside. "Again, thank you. I couldn't imagine how difficult this would have been otherwise."
You cannot help but smile back.
-
Over the course of the next few weeks, you spend much of your free time relegating yourself to the role of a courier, rumbling up and down the cold, wet streets of the New City in your coach, escorting this parcel or that set of files from Lady Welles' townhouse to any number of places. A great portion of what you're entrusted with goes direct to Grenadier Square, taken on multiple trips. Other files are headed to the Northern Keep, the Reform Club, Admiralty House, and any one of a dozen private residences, some the townhouses of Commission members, others the homes of those who seem to lack any distinction at all.
It is tedious, tiring work, the sort which would have normally been entrusted to a clerk or a footman were the information not evidently of some sensitivity. Even so, you cannot help but feel that if it were not for the specific circumstances, you would have found the task wholly beneath you.
But you suppose it's rather different when such things are done for the sake of a lady of the blood.
In the end, there turns out to be a great many more files than you originally thought. Indeed, by the time the majority of them are cleared out, the rooms of the Countess' townhouse seem to have almost doubled in size. Yet ultimately, the last box is packed away and the last copies are finally delivered. The final arrangements are made, and there's nothing else to do but wait for the winter storms to settle so that Lady Welles may take her leave of the city.
And of you.
-
The first ship of the spring docks in Aetoria's harbour not long after.
The vessel itself bears little distinction. It's the same sort of ship which comes in at the beginning of every spring: a packet sloop from Havenport, bearing the winter's returns from the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Havenport, and the army he still maintains there to keep the restive Kentauri clans under the control of the Crown.
Yet the appearance of the first ship of the year carries with it a deeper significance, one which has hitherto been greeted with joy. The arrival of such a vessel means that the storms have cleared, the shipping lanes are open, and that this first arrival is to herald many, many more in the days ahead.
This year, however, such an arrival also proves the harbinger of darker news. The opening of spring means that the reprieve the city had been granted by the months of cold is now over. That the men—and one woman—who spent the long solitude of winter plotting their next move may at last put them into motion. The tension which had lain dormant under the snow are dug out, like the bodies of those frozen to death on the streets, and you know all too well that if the worst comes to pass, the result of those tensions might blacken the skies over Aetoria just as readily as the smoke from the hundred pyres built for the neglected dead.
And things do get worse.
The first clash betwixt Wulframite and Royalist gangs takes place just a few days after the spring rains washes the last of the pyre ash from the streets. You're not sure as to the precise details, only that two groups confronted one another on a street in the Old City, words were exchanged, then blows. A pistol was fired. By the time First Squadron arrived to break up the brewing skirmish, two men were dead and fourteen wounded, including a woman and child caught in the melee.
With such news, any hope that winter might have cooled sentiments disappears as readily as the snow. The violence renews, just as vicious and just as bloody. It's as if the all-too-brief peace of the past few months were nothing more than the blink of an eye.
Cunaris orders patrols redoubled, but such measures can only deal with the most open symptoms of unrest, the open sores that bely the presence of a deep and terrible cancer, one whose true source is buried far under the skin of the city, deep amidst the hallways and intimate chambers of the powerful.
A source which seems all but ready to metastasise into its terminal stage.
As in every year, the first ship of spring is soon followed by others: grain hulks from Kian, fast couriers from Callindria and Butea, a profusion of small coastal traders from Fernandescourt and Tannersburg and Weathern.
But other arrivals are far more suspicious. A Takaran schooner arrives offshore, supposedly bearing the new Ambassador. Yet it isn't the sort of diplomatic cutter normally used for such purposes, but a full-sized warship. Others soon join it, a squadron of frigates from the Northern Fleet. On clear days, the shapes of even larger ships can be seen beyond, holding station outside the harbour, neither entering or veering off.
And there are ominous portents elsewhere, as well.
Under normal circumstances, the arrival of the first ships of spring brings with it a fresh wave of activity to the Shipowners Club, with investors arriving from all over the realm to crowd the exchange galleries and jockey for position to take advantage of the first, lucrative trades of the shipping season.
There is no such rush this year. Even with the opening of the season, the exchange floor is all but deserted, with only a few clumps of black-suited brokers milling around the vast space like crows in a ruined shrine. The club rooms themselves are no more populated than they were during the dead of winter. The ships come, but there are few investors there to buy up new securities.
Worse yet, when the ships go, some of the investors go with them, even exchange stalwarts who have lived and traded in the city for ten or fifteen years now suddenly seem to be too eager to visit their tumbledown country estates again.
It isn't difficult to see why.
Commerce ultimately requires some sense of order. Contracts must be enforced, promises must be upheld, the value of money and the things that money buy must be maintained, and such values require rule of law to maintain them. Without such certainties, trade cannot endure, and neither can traders.
And there is no promise of certainty in the prospect of the days ahead.
-
And then there's Countess Welles.
With Aetoria's harbour now open, there's little stopping her from departing on her new assignment to Northern Pillars. Indeed, a week after the first ship arrives, she sends you word that she has secured passage aboard one of the Navy's dispatch sloops and is to be departing the next day.
It's an invitation of a sort, permission to come to the docks to see her off, something which you certainly have no intention of passing up.
So it is that you arrive at Aetoria's inner harbour on a blustery spring day to see Lady Welles before she heads off for who knows how long, your mind still half-occupied by thoughts of the dire portents and ominous signs which seem now to pass for news within the city's society.
Indeed, so pettifogged are your thoughts by such uncertain matters that it isn't until you're helping Lady Welles out of her coach that the moment of clarity which you had needed finally arrives, and that the question which you ought to have been pondering at last asserts itself in your mind.
Namely: what do you do now?
The question seems a distant one, vague in its wording and undefined in its scope. Yet the demand for an answer is an immediate one, for the question is not so much a figurative speculation, but a very literal conundrum of a very real matter of etiquette.
Lady Welles, after all, is an unmarried lady of the blood, possessed of good family, substantial fortune, and as of yet no concrete attachments—though you suspect that you wouldn't be amiss in thinking some would be very much intent upon changing that. Under normal circumstances, she would have been surely accompanied by a chaperone. But with Lady Barbone no longer present, the normal parameters of protocol are thrown wholly out of the window. Had you been of the precise station and condition to fulfil the role of chaperone yourself…but you're not. In fact, you are almost the precise opposite.
And yet despite her usual respect for the rules of society, Welles seems almost hesitant to let go of your arm as she climbs down from her coach's running board, almost as if she wishes for the two of you to linger in this rather intimate—and frankly, rather compromising position.
You could always let her have her way, of course. You are, after all, still a very close friend despite all the irregularity of your contact these last few years. Yet you're hardly alone on the docks of Aetoria, and even if the vast majority of those around you are porters and sailors and the sorts of people who rarely give a damn about the protocol of the Baneblooded classes, there are almost certainly a few who will, and the sight of Lady Welles walking arm in arm with a gentleman of the blood with which she has no engagement or familiar connection may well prove harmful to both your reputations.
Perhaps it would be better then to choose a more cautious route, at least in regards to your reputation. Keep your distance, say or do nothing untoward, follow as closely as possible the cold, impersonal script which protocol dictates matters ought to be conducted betwixt a lady and a gentleman of the blood. Lady Welles may not approve, of course, but surely, the good opinion of society is worth more than the approval of your friend…right?
Don't worry about complicating things with Katarina even further with this set of choices. All you need to worry about is how polite society will react to the absolute scandal of the Countess of Welles and Baron Reddingfield...holding hands. In public, even!
[ ] [WELLES] No measure of affection is worth the cost of propriety.
[ ] [WELLES] I walk as close as is appropriate, and as close as I dare.
[ ] [WELLES] I offer her my arm, and may the Saints damn propriety.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] [WELLES] I offer her my arm, and may the Saints damn propriety.
I am doing it for this part:
Perhaps it would be better then to choose a more cautious route, at least in regards to your reputation. Keep your distance, say or do nothing untoward, follow as closely as possible the cold, impersonal script which protocol dictates matters ought to be conducted betwixt a lady and a gentleman of the blood. Lady Welles may not approve, of course, but surely, the good opinion of society is worth more than the approval of your friend…right?
When, at what point, has Alaric let the judgements of society keep him from his friends? If he did, he would not have cleaved so close to Caius Cazarosta.
I am doing it for this part:
Perhaps it would be better then to choose a more cautious route, at least in regards to your reputation. Keep your distance, say or do nothing untoward, follow as closely as possible the cold, impersonal script which protocol dictates matters ought to be conducted betwixt a lady and a gentleman of the blood. Lady Welles may not approve, of course, but surely, the good opinion of society is worth more than the approval of your friend…right?
When, at what point, has Alaric let the judgements of society keep him from his friends? If he did, he would not have cleaved so close to Caius Cazarosta.
[X] [WELLES] I walk as close as is appropriate, and as close as I dare.
We should snub neither our friend, nor propriety.
We should snub neither our friend, nor propriety.
- Pronouns
- He
[X] [WELLES] I offer her my arm, and may the Saints damn propriety.
Lords 9.11
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [WELLES] I offer her my arm, and may the Saints damn propriety.
You can see the first wandering, curious eyes already alight upon you as you help the Countess down onto the wet cobbles. You can almost see the first sparks of censure rising in them, the first flares of the outrage which they will no doubt spread to their neighbours and their friends. Before the week is out, it will be common knowledge just how intimately Lord Reddingfield was holding the Countess of Welles as the two of them walked along the quay to where her ship awaited. If you're fortunate, it will merely be a rumour. If you aren't, it may well be a scandal.
Surely it is something you ought to care about, something which might well introduce complications of the precise sort which you need the least, and at the precise moment which might harm you the most. Yet even so, it is all you need to do to feel the warmth of her arm against yours, to feel the touch of her slim, firm fingers through the sleeve of your coat and the leather of her gloves for those concerns to disappear as readily as powder-fog before a stiff breeze. With every step you take together, the risk to your reputations grow greater and greater. But you cannot, for the love of all the Saints, work up within you the wherewithal to care.
And judging by the look on her face as she at last stops at the edge of the quay to turn towards you, neither can she.
"My lord, I…" she begins, her voice bright and cheerful at first but suddenly falling away. "Reddingfield," she begins again, her voice both more restrained and more earnest. "I know you haven't found in me the easiest friendship to maintain, and I know that…"
She shakes her head, as if the very motion might blot out the words she has already said. She looks up at you again, an almost sheepish smile across her features. "I am so sorry. I thought of all of these words to say, and now that I am here, I can find myself unable to say any of them." She shakes her head again. "I fear I have put myself in an awful muddle."
You spare a glance at the Countess' ship, its deck still full of packages and bundles of mail not yet stowed away. "You have time yet, my lady," you reply gently. "Take all the time you need."
Lady Welles nods silently, her eyes still wide and fixated upon you even as she idly chews her lip in thought. "I suppose…" She lets out a breath. With a singular act of boldness, she steps forward, taking your hands in hers. "I suppose I can only say thank you. Not only for visiting and helping me pack and seeing me off here, but for being a friend, through all of this time, when I have had the need of friends the most. I—" Her voice catches for an instant, lingering before some unseen threshold just enough to register its presence before stepping across it. "There are very few things I shall miss about my time in Aetoria. Pray believe me when I say that you will be one of them. If—when I return. I shall very much like to see you again. I…" She smiles again, her reticence blooming into a full blush of embarrassment. "I should very much hope that your own sentiments would not be so very different."
[ ] [WELLES] "Saints go with you, my lady."
[ ] [WELLES] "Take care of yourself, Ellie. I shall miss you until we meet again."
[ ] [WELLES] "I could not do otherwise, given the love I bear for you."
You can see the first wandering, curious eyes already alight upon you as you help the Countess down onto the wet cobbles. You can almost see the first sparks of censure rising in them, the first flares of the outrage which they will no doubt spread to their neighbours and their friends. Before the week is out, it will be common knowledge just how intimately Lord Reddingfield was holding the Countess of Welles as the two of them walked along the quay to where her ship awaited. If you're fortunate, it will merely be a rumour. If you aren't, it may well be a scandal.
Surely it is something you ought to care about, something which might well introduce complications of the precise sort which you need the least, and at the precise moment which might harm you the most. Yet even so, it is all you need to do to feel the warmth of her arm against yours, to feel the touch of her slim, firm fingers through the sleeve of your coat and the leather of her gloves for those concerns to disappear as readily as powder-fog before a stiff breeze. With every step you take together, the risk to your reputations grow greater and greater. But you cannot, for the love of all the Saints, work up within you the wherewithal to care.
And judging by the look on her face as she at last stops at the edge of the quay to turn towards you, neither can she.
"My lord, I…" she begins, her voice bright and cheerful at first but suddenly falling away. "Reddingfield," she begins again, her voice both more restrained and more earnest. "I know you haven't found in me the easiest friendship to maintain, and I know that…"
She shakes her head, as if the very motion might blot out the words she has already said. She looks up at you again, an almost sheepish smile across her features. "I am so sorry. I thought of all of these words to say, and now that I am here, I can find myself unable to say any of them." She shakes her head again. "I fear I have put myself in an awful muddle."
You spare a glance at the Countess' ship, its deck still full of packages and bundles of mail not yet stowed away. "You have time yet, my lady," you reply gently. "Take all the time you need."
Lady Welles nods silently, her eyes still wide and fixated upon you even as she idly chews her lip in thought. "I suppose…" She lets out a breath. With a singular act of boldness, she steps forward, taking your hands in hers. "I suppose I can only say thank you. Not only for visiting and helping me pack and seeing me off here, but for being a friend, through all of this time, when I have had the need of friends the most. I—" Her voice catches for an instant, lingering before some unseen threshold just enough to register its presence before stepping across it. "There are very few things I shall miss about my time in Aetoria. Pray believe me when I say that you will be one of them. If—when I return. I shall very much like to see you again. I…" She smiles again, her reticence blooming into a full blush of embarrassment. "I should very much hope that your own sentiments would not be so very different."
[ ] [WELLES] "Saints go with you, my lady."
[ ] [WELLES] "Take care of yourself, Ellie. I shall miss you until we meet again."
[ ] [WELLES] "I could not do otherwise, given the love I bear for you."
- Pronouns
- He
[X] [WELLES] "I could not do otherwise, given the love I bear for you."
- Pronouns
- They/Them
How much of a chance do we still have to meet/talk to/etc Katarina?
Like, is the dream dead there?
Like, is the dream dead there?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
All aboard the SS Welles!
Our favorite murderwaifu will make an appearance during the epilogue, and we still have two more books to go.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Shit... this is rough. Welles is growing on me, and I do worry we've shot our chances with Katarina. How likely is it that Katarina isn't beyond us thanks to the SM stumble?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I wouldn't say it's hopeless, but then again, I'm not the author. That said, I'd be very surprised if Cataphrak didn't give Katarina romancers ways to win back her favor after refusing the secret mission.
Meanwhile, Amalia d'al Torrenburg is just quietly sobbing in the corner.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] [WELLES] "Take care of yourself, Ellie. I shall miss you until we meet again."
...fuck, I really don't know. Welles has grown on me.
...fuck, I really don't know. Welles has grown on me.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Really, all the love interests in the Dragoon Saga introduced so far are interesting. Welles is passionate about what she does, and getting to see Katarina's sweet side is almost worth going after Khorobirit's family. Even Amalia d'al Torrenburg makes an impression, which is quite the feat given her lack of screen time compared to the other female love interests.
On the gay side, if you choose to host a ball on your estate, you have the option of coming out to Marcus d'al Havenport. Even if you choose not to have a roll in the hay with him, it's a really great scene of mutual support.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
A secondary reason to continue after Katarina is to once again prove our mother wrong when she was like, "Are you insane and stupid?" 
[X] [WELLES] "Take care of yourself, Ellie. I shall miss you until we meet again."
While I definitely prefer Welles over Katarina and think she's a better fit for Alaric, he's still technically romancing Katarina (despite her refusing to meet him for the past five years) and pulling the moves on her friend while maintaining some sort of romantic entanglement is a recipe for disaster.
While I definitely prefer Welles over Katarina and think she's a better fit for Alaric, he's still technically romancing Katarina (despite her refusing to meet him for the past five years) and pulling the moves on her friend while maintaining some sort of romantic entanglement is a recipe for disaster.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Hrm. It is true that it'd cause a great deal of turmoil, and it is annoying that so much time passes in this way... though the war was similar.
I'm starting to waffle once more...
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's not like Alaric has done anything with Katarina. Besides, I can't help but be morbidly curious about how a love triangle might go.
[X] [WELLES] "I could not do otherwise, given the love I bear for you."
Y'know what? Let's do it.
Y'know what? Let's do it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
From a cynical perspective, what's their difference in, like, status?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh, boy. The Earldom of Welles is part of the Duchy of Warburton and provided much of the soldiery that made up Tierra's 5th Regiment of Foot during the war with Antar. However, House Cazarosta of Leoniscourt has a much more storied history.
You see, Katarina can trace her ancestry back to the pirate king Khalid el Kasarojas, who laid the foundations of Leoniscourt atop the most inhospitable rock along the Salt Coast to avoid retribution from the fleets that plied the main sea route to Takara. It took the sacrifice of the future Saint Jerome of House Findlay to finally end the pirate king's reign of terror over the Takaran Sea. Even today, members of House Cazarosta still aren't allowed to join the Order of Saint Jerome.
Eventually, Leoniscourt became one of the many petty kingdoms competing for hegemony over Tierra. During this period, King Callum IV of Leoniscourt would borrow vast sums from Aetorian banks to turn his seat into the Northern Kingdoms' mightiest fortress. However, when his lenders came to collect, "Callum the Cruel" dared them to try and get their money back, causing a financial crisis in Aetoria. Even today, members of House Cazarosta are banned from the Shipping Exchange. Notice a pattern here?
A few years later, the growing power of the alliance between Aetoria, Cunaris, and Clan Havenport would cause King Callum to form a rival coalition consisting of Leoniscourt, the kingdom of Wulfram, and the archduchies of Crittenden and Castermaine. However, the War of the First Coalition would end in a victory for the Aetorian-Cunarian-Kentauri alliance at the Battle of Montjoy. Prince Edwin of Aetoria was crowned the first king of the Unified Kingdom.
In 487 OIE, Leoniscourt and Wulfram were joined by the foreign kingdom of Callindria in declaring war on the Unified Kingdom. However, the Second Coalition would also be defeated, which allowed "Edwin the Strong" to force heavy indemnities on the losers. This would hit Leoniscourt especially hard, as banks don't like lending money to kings who'd rather cackle inside their supervillain lairs than pay back their debts. Still, Callum managed to enlist the aid of the kings of Warburton and his Wulframite allies for a third coalition against the Unified Kingdom.
The War of the Third Coalition would also prove a failure for House Cazarosta, and by this point, King Callum figured that if he couldn't beat the Aetorians, he'd be better off joining. However, both Edwin the Strong and his son, Edwin II, were dead set against Leoniscourt after having fought three wars against them. It wasn't until Edwin II died in a hunting "accident" that Callum d'al Cazarosta was admitted into the Tierran peerage as the first Earl of Leoniscourt. Since then, the members of House Cazarosta have served House Rendower as diplomats, and in turn, the monopolies granted by the Crown give Leoniscourt an income worth 25,000 crown a year.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Our relationship score with Katarina isn't high enough to trigger her events. Refusing the secret mission lost us a fifth of the points we accumulated throughout Guns of Infinity.