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Noblesse Oblige [Znt/SI]

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Jonnoda said:
When was Josette ever deceived? Henry never claimed to be her father, and it's clear that she has been told he is in fact, not her father.

Also her situation and personal happiness has clearly resulted in a net positive. She *was* a hostage. Now she's living under witness protection because if anyone knew she was alive they would kill her at best and start a war at worst.

As far as I'm seeing things, he hasn't kidnapped her for his own ends as much as removing her as a piece from the board.

Considering what happens in the Canon story, I can honestly say she's in a far better spot now than she was before.
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Henry decieved Josette by allowing her to believe he was her father in order to remove her from the orphanage. That's impersonating a guardian even if he didn't plan it. And her situation was not comparable to a hostage situation. If anything Henry removed her from the witness protection program set up by her actual parents, so he could use her as a political hostage/personal void backup later.

Net happiness- so an unmarked white van is bad, but an unmarked white limo is fine? Henry moved Josette from the cage her parents kept her in to one under his control. His just has gilded bars.

Considering what hapened in the canon story, Josette became a piece on the board because Henry kidnapped her. She only gets hunted down if Joseph dies and the Pope needs a 4th void mage NOW. And it still took him months of indiscreet searching to locate and recruit her. Her secret was well kept, she wasn't in any danger of being killed before Henry broadcast her existence to all of Halkegenia.
 
Jetsmillion said:
And just as Murphy was getting ready to act, a feeling of absolute dread descended upon the spirit of mischief. Slowly turning around Murphy found himself in the Shadow of Karin the Heavy Wind, who's eye glowed with an unholy light. "Now you weren't thinking about messing with the first family gathering we've had sense Henry married his wife, were you?" Frantically Murphy shook his head. "Good, because if you were I'd have to educate you in the errors of your ways most severely."
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PW: um, hay *psst* Pierre?

Pierre: Yes, disembodied voice?

PW: i think your wife needs more brownies.

Pierre: ..... i'll have the chef wipp up another batch.
 
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Chapter Seventy-Nine
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    • Chapter Seventy-Nine

    I smiled as I ended up hearing the day-to-day lives of Louise and Josette, their excitement visible as they announced how they were doing in their studies, how the tutors were always saying good things about them, and about how much they eagerly awaited my letters.

    While Louise sat by my side on the bed, Josette outright claimed my right leg, somewhat awkwardly clutching on to my clothes with her left hand, her right holding on to her Holy Relic that kept her hair blond and shiny, and also slightly altered her face too -mother or father must have paid a fortune for it, since the Hair Dye spell was one thing to attach to a small object, but the powerful Square magic Illusion was far, far more costly to enchant on an item.

    "I wanted to ask," Josette said nervously, "May I call you brother? I-I know I have no right to it, but..."

    "Sure," I answered swiftly enough, rubbing her head gently. "You can call me whatever you like," I smiled.

    "See? I told you he wouldn't mind," Louise said with a smile of her own, "Big brother's always so nice! For my birthday, he sent me fireworks!" she grimaced, "Mother wasn't happy about that..." she lowered her gaze, and in answer, I simply rubbed her head to cheer her up.

    "Well," I said with a smile, "Speaking of birthdays," I looked at Josette, "What would you like for yours?"

    "Ah-" Josette stammered, "I-I do not know my date of birth, so..."

    "The day of Eoh Heimdallr," I said calmly. It basically amounted to the thirteenth day of the month, the second week so to speak, "And the month of Tyr," which was the twelfth month, December. She was born, just like Charlotte, on the thirteenth of December.

    Josette's eyes widened, "It's-on that day?"

    "Yes," I said, "So, what would you like?" I added gently. "Within the realms of the possible, of course."

    "I-Nothing," Josette shook her head. "Just...there is nothing I want. I already have everything so-really," she mumbled, blushing and lowering her gaze, "Asking for anything else would be too much."

    "Well," I grinned as I rubbed her head gently, "You have time to think about it."

    I looked out of the window and sighed, "I have things to do, so unfortunately..."

    "No!" Louise yelled, grabbing my free wrist, "Josette! Cattleya! Let's hold brother so he can't leave!"

    I blinked as I found myself held back by three cute girls. Wasn't this the sort of thing that happened only in harem comedies? Well, be it as it may, I had duties to uphold. Also, I could totally lift both Josette and Louise at the same time, Cattleya ending up in a sort of piggy back position on my back.

    "Very well then," I said, "If you want to come with me, then I'll just have to drag you along!"

    "Brother!" Cattleya exclaimed amidst giggles, even as she let go to sit back on the side of the bed, although Louise and Josette didn't, "Be careful!"

    I laughed loudly as I spun both young girls in my arms, "Well then!" even as they screamed in delight, they didn't let go. "Oh my," I muttered, "Such willpower," I sighed and began to head for the door, "You'll be following me, then," and as I said that, I proceeded to open the door with my elbow.

    "B-brother!" Louise hastily jumped down, "That would be im-improper!"

    Josette didn't have such compunctions, and thus held on. It meant thus that I was holding her with both of my arms, like I would a young child -and considering how petite her frame was, it was practically the same. "Josette doesn't seem to have a problem with it," I pointed out, "Which means I'll be taking her along alone, then?"

    "I'll follow you by foot!" Louise huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking at Josette. "Get down from there, Josie! No proper lady does that!"

    "But...but I like it here," Josette mumbled sheepishly, "I can...I can stay like this, right?"

    "Fine by me," I said with a shrug.

    "No!" Louise stomped her foot on the floor, "It's not fine!" she huffed. I smiled, and then knelt without letting go of my hold on Josette.

    "Louise," I said gently, "you need to be more honest with yourself. Do you, or do you not want to be held up?"

    Louise swallowed, and sheepishly looked sideways. "I do," she mumbled. "But mother said it's not proper," she added, "So..." she looked torn.

    "Louise," I said, "Look at me," and as I said that, and Louise obeyed, I grinned. "Being honest with oneself is good. You shouldn't get angry because others can do stuff you cannot, and by consequence...you shouldn't feel ashamed to ask," I extended my free arm, "Come on aboard the Henry train-I've got space for one more."

    And with that, I ended up bringing all the way down to the entrance two giggling and happy young girls. It would have been preposterous to keep Mathilda and Tiffania's existence a secret from mother, or by consequence the rest of the family. Simply put, Tiffania was the young sister of Mathilda, and Mathilda was a renewed expert gardener for what concerned exotic plants.

    Admittedly, my secret base of youth could act as a home of sorts, but having one built near it was better. With the river nearby, a small garden set up, it was a nice little spot that was the envy of all commoners -everyone would love a comfy house as beautiful as that one, no questions asked!

    Carrying both Louise and Josette on my manticore took a bit of effort, mostly to ensure neither would fall down. I still managed it, though, and as we landed in front of the house, it was to the sight of Raven playing with a green-haired Tiffania some sort of tag game.

    Tiffania stopped as soon as she saw us arrive, and while Louise and Josette descended and nimbly ran towards the green-haired girl -perhaps they knew each other already- I was glad I told father to buy a similar trinket for the young girl. With her elf heritage hidden thanks to the necklace around her neck, she could play without worries.

    "Tiffa!" Louise said with a grin, "big brother came home on a surprise visit!"

    "It's nice to meet you!" Tiffania said, bowing repeatedly, even as I waved a hand in dismissal.

    "Now, now," I said with a chuckle, "Is your sister taking care of the coffee plants?"

    "Ah, yes!" Tiffania nodded, "I'll go call her-"

    "No need," I said with a smile, "I'll get her myself," I added as I rubbed the underside of Raven's neck, my familiar having silently hopped behind my back in the flawlessly perfect position for scratching. "You keep on playing with Raven and my sisters," I smiled as I rubbed everyone's heads once, before walking off to the entrance of the kind-of-but-not-really greenhouse.

    There I found Mathilda of Saxe-Gotha, carefully looking over the plants in her care -which had increased in rows and lines- and a book on them in her hands. In the far off corner, Twitchy had grown thorns and wicked whip-like bladed leafs since the last time I had seen it, but it seemed to be mostly at ease against the corner of the room, not really bothering the other plants.

    At the sound of my footsteps, Mathilda turned and then sharply closed the book. "This here is the private property of the La Valliere estate-"

    "And I am Henry Philippe, Duke de Brittany, Prince-Consort de Gallia, de la Valliere," I answered offhandedly with a smile, "How are things going for you, Mathilda de Saxe-Goetha?"

    Mathilda sharply inhaled air, and then she swallowed nervously, "Should I bow or kneel? I admit I don't know what to do here-"

    I shrugged, "Doesn't really matter. Call me properly in public and in private use whatever, I don't really care about that," I said with a chuckle. "Mostly, I'm curious to know if there is anything you, or Tiffania, might need."

    "No," Mathilda said, shaking her head, "Nothing-if anything, is this little enough to pay back everything?" she gestured at the plants. "Taking care of them-it doesn't take much time. I might not look like it, but I am a Triangle mage."

    "It's fine," I said with a hand raised in dismissal. "Honestly, I think you have a lot of questions, and I am best suited to answering them, but let's do that outside with a cup of coffee, shall we?" I said with a smile. "So I can even taste-test the recent batch."

    Mathilda nodded, warily, and then briskly walked out as if on eggshells.

    I simply followed her silently, humming all the while.
     
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    • Nah Shade has no need to angst it up. A lot of the things Henry has done can come back to bite him. Josette WILL come back to bite him as Charlette was sent to Tristain magic academy. The actions Henry took in regards to her could start a civil war.

    Also @shadenight123 I am working on something for you. Expect it sometime this weekend. :drevil:
     
    You know I set a schedule with the Shade update.

    The first one in the day Signals that I need to take a bath, the one 4~ hours later means it's time to make supper.
     
    MinorGryph said:
    Henry decieved Josette by allowing her to believe he was her father in order to remove her from the orphanage. That's impersonating a guardian even if he didn't plan it. And her situation was not comparable to a hostage situation. If anything Henry removed her from the witness protection program set up by her actual parents, so he could use her as a political hostage/personal void backup later.

    Net happiness- so an unmarked white van is bad, but an unmarked white limo is fine? Henry moved Josette from the cage her parents kept her in to one under his control. His just has gilded bars.

    Considering what hapened in the canon story, Josette became a piece on the board because Henry kidnapped her. She only gets hunted down if Joseph dies and the Pope needs a 4th void mage NOW. And it still took him months of indiscreet searching to locate and recruit her. Her secret was well kept, she wasn't in any danger of being killed before Henry broadcast her existence to all of Halkegenia.
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    I thought she was being raised in a monastery with no one else her age to play/communicate with? Now she is surrounded by a family that will gladly raise her as one of their own and can freely go outside/to school and just enjoy life in general. Where is this cage you speak of? I'm not justifying the action so much as proving that her life has improved....drastically.
     
    Heh. Ironically enough, having Mathilda do something in return for him having the sisters there is probably better. For people who have seen the troublesome sides of politics and humanity like her, it's suspicious, having something major so freely offered by a stranger, so recompense makes him easier to trust because he's not being unusually unilateral and free with his generosity.

    But there's nothing saying he has to have her do anything major "in return", after all.
     
    EVA-Saiyajin said:
    Heh. Ironically enough, having Mathilda do something in return for him having the sisters there is probably better. For people who have seen the troublesome sides of politics and humanity like her, it's suspicious, having something major so freely offered by a stranger.

    But there's nothing saying he has to have her do anything major "in return", after all.
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    Probably the easiest way to handle this might be to ask her to help protect his family, specially his cute little sisters. Get Mathilda to see a "motive" for him having acquired them both, doesn't make him look like an evil bastard and, well, having Mathilda protect Louise is a pretty good thing overall. :p
     
    shadenight123 said:
    I simply followed her silently, humming all the while.
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    and i quote

    This tune was hummed, without variation, over and over, for seven minutes, to establish the underlying pattern.

    Then began the elaborations upon the theme. Phrases hummed too slow, with long pauses in between, so that the listener's mind helplessly waits and waits for the next note, the next phrase. And then, when that next phrase comes, it is so out of key, so unbelievably awfully out of key, not just out of key for the previous phrases but sung at a pitch which does not correspond to any key, that you would have to believe this person had spent hours deliberately practicing their humming just to acquire such perfect anti-pitch.

    It bears the same semblance to music as the awful dead voice of a Dementor bears to human speech.

    And this horrible, horrible humming is impossible to ignore. It is similar to a known lullaby, but it departs from that pattern unpredictably. It sets up expectations and then violates them, never in any constant pattern that would permit the humming to fade into the background. The listener's brain cannot prevent itself from expecting the anti-musical phrases to complete, nor prevent itself from noticing the surprises.

    The only possible explanation for how this mode of humming came to exist is that it was deliberately designed by some unspeakably cruel genius who woke up one day, feeling bored with ordinary torture, who decided to handicap himself and find out whether he could break someone's sanity just by humming at them.
     
    Couch-Gamer said:
    Nah Shade has no need to angst it up. A lot of the things Henry has done can come back to bite him. Josette WILL come back to bite him as Charlette was sent to Tristain magic academy. The actions Henry took in regards to her could start a civil war.
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    Wait, why is Charlotte being sent to the same academy as she was in canon? My understanding is that her unique circumstances with Joseph caused that in canon. In this story, I figured she would either be tutored or sent to a Gallian school. After all, Kirche notwithstanding, isn't it a bit unusual for high-ranking medieval nobles to send their children to other nations to be educated? I mean, friendly ties aside, I would think that they would want to trust their own teachers to educate their children and their own soldiers to protect them, no?

    EDIT: And Charlotte's situation has changed even more considering her twin sister was just 'murdered' due to her parents not protecting her enough. That, above all else, should convince Charles and Marie to hire private tutors to educate Charlotte rather than send her off to a foreign academy where they will have less power than they did even over the nunnery that Josette was staying at.
     
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    Varja said:
    and i quote

    This tune was hummed, without variation, over and over, for seven minutes, to establish the underlying pattern.

    Then began the elaborations upon the theme. Phrases hummed too slow, with long pauses in between, so that the listener's mind helplessly waits and waits for the next note, the next phrase. And then, when that next phrase comes, it is so out of key, so unbelievably awfully out of key, not just out of key for the previous phrases but sung at a pitch which does not correspond to any key, that you would have to believe this person had spent hours deliberately practicing their humming just to acquire such perfect anti-pitch.

    It bears the same semblance to music as the awful dead voice of a Dementor bears to human speech.

    And this horrible, horrible humming is impossible to ignore. It is similar to a known lullaby, but it departs from that pattern unpredictably. It sets up expectations and then violates them, never in any constant pattern that would permit the humming to fade into the background. The listener's brain cannot prevent itself from expecting the anti-musical phrases to complete, nor prevent itself from noticing the surprises.

    The only possible explanation for how this mode of humming came to exist is that it was deliberately designed by some unspeakably cruel genius who woke up one day, feeling bored with ordinary torture, who decided to handicap himself and find out whether he could break someone's sanity just by humming at them.
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    Links please. I must read this.
     
    shadenight123 said:
    "And I am Henry Philippe, Duke de Brittany, Prince-Consort de Gallia, de la Valliere,"
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    You can almost hear Matilda's brain going "Oh, fuck." at this very moment. Because that title is very much a big one. Though I do confess being slightly confused that she didn't have an initial inkling due to the fact that the Vallieres are not low-profile-low-ranking at all.

    And it makes sense, that a foreign family wants to shelter them, because this lets them press claims to land they cannot otherwise touch. And this guy is known as "Vicious Wind", which makes her reaction likely to be even worse.

    Re: on Josette's situation, as long as the truth is revealed to a Josette who does not care for her birthright, then things will go swimmingly well. The problem comes when 2 possible situations happens.

    1.) Josette has an inkling, and accidentally sets off the things go wrong part by poking around indiscreetly.

    2.) Josette figures it out, and wants her birthright.

    The thing is, the main point of failure in the lie of Josette's death lies with the girl herself. As long as Henry can forestall or utterly negate the chance of Josette being the one to accidentally reveal her identity through ignorance and keep quiet, then there is much less that one needs to worry about.

    Though I must admit, Louise having another "Zero" alongside her in (presumably) going to the Academy should do wonders for her. Though it might be not as good for Josette. (Unless Joseph kicks the bucket early, in which case good.)
     
    Trinity Reformed said:
    I thought she was being raised in a monastery with no one else her age to play/communicate with? Now she is surrounded by a family that will gladly raise her as one of their own and can freely go outside/to school and just enjoy life in general. Where is this cage you speak of? I'm not justifying the action so much as proving that her life has improved....drastically.
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    She was raised in a monastary with dozens of other children who'd been similarly abandoned. Think orphanage not the Dursleys. As for the cage. Yes living with the Vallieres is a better living standard than her monastery (because they're filthy rich). But do you honestly think Henry will allow any of his Void mages to leave his control or act against him? Letting them leave his sphere of influence defeats the purpose of collecting them.

    If the presumed-dead Josette learned of her parents and decided, "I want to meet them in person, right now." Do you think Henry would allow her to travel to Gallia and undermine the stability he created? Or if any of them for some reason wanted to join Vittorio, do you think Henry would allow them to make that decision for themselves?
     
    Evillevi said:
    You know I set a schedule with the Shade update.

    The first one in the day Signals that I need to take a bath, the one 4~ hours later means it's time to make supper.
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    Wait, so if by chance I stop updating for a week, you'll go one whole week without bathing or eating?

    ...

    I must use this power responsibly.

    But if instead I make three updates rapidly, will you bath, eat and then bath again?

    ...

    XD
     
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