The Steep Path Ahead [Familiar of Zero AU]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
Chapter Fifty-Three
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Cardinal had apparently aged a great deal in the time that had passed since Saito and Louise had last seen him. Once they were inside his office, he turned to stare at all three of them. The office was surprisingly devoid of paperwork, or books. It was as if it had been recently emptied of pretty much everything but the desk and a few chairs.
"May we dispense with the usual pleasantries and reach the core of the matter?" the Cardinal asked, his voice wary and tired.
"You have never been one to mince words, Mazarin. Has time changed you?" Karin remarked dryly.
"One never knows," the Cardinal said. "I would have thought after what you learned, you might be less inclined to-" his eyes moved to the perplexed Saito and Louise. "You...did not tell her?"
"Well-actually," Louise stammered, "It's more like-on whose side are you!?"
The Cardinal blinked owlishly, just as Karin did pretty much the same.
"You told me she was my mother, and sent us her way with a letter, but-but then we were attacked by this guy who wanted to kill us, and I ended up opening the letter, because it didn't make any sense why the guy would say something like 'the crown', but in the letter-in the letter you wrote I was an impostor! So-" Louise wrung her hands in disbelief. "Just-I don't understand. It's clear now that you weren't lying when you spoke to us, but why lie in a letter?"
"I...I presume I know nothing of the sorts, but it does confirm my suspicions," the Cardinal said softly. "Someone must have swapped the letters. I can only presume it must have been done while the letter was still in my office, in the time before you departed once more."
"Could someone tell me what is going on?" Karin asked, "Before I leave to ask Pierre to fetch my swordwand, that is, because I have a feeling I will be needing it shortly."
The cardinal exhaled. "Well, this was a long time coming," he neared a drawer, and pulled out what looked like a large glass vase containing an amber liquid. He poured a glass, and then shrugged, proceeding to chug on the bottle as he gestured for Louise -and by consequence Saito- to 'explain'.
Louise didn't explain, mostly because she was too busy trying to understand how a Cardinal could possibly drink that much alcohol without dying.
When Saito finished his very brief explanation, Karin's hands had already grabbed the cardinal by the hem of his clothes, and was busy throttling him quite severely.
"How long!?" Karin snarled. "How long did you hide her from me, you vicious son of a-"
"My mother was a honest lady!" the Cardinal shot back angrily, slamming the glass vase on the ground, where it shattered. "The only one to blame is you, Duchess!" he held the wrists of the Duchess, "You couldn't wait! You had to find your daughter on the double! On the triple! Didn't matter the number of diplomatic accidents it would cause! Didn't matter if the Germanian ambassador was throttled out of a window, or if half the knights of the corps suddenly resigned to follow you in your inane crusade! For three years I sought out your daughter through my own means, just so I could slap in your face your weakness when compared to the Crown!" the Cardinal's face was red. "But then you had to go and move a mountain. You had to build an outpost, you just had to order the knights of the Manticore to follow you! And those fools did! The King told them not to, and they followed you!"
The Cardinal snarled, jabbing one of his fingers straight against the middle of Karin's chest. "Do you have any idea what that meant?! That was the closest you could have gone to treason! The Crown has power as long as the people that swear fealty to it respect it! But to find your daughter you decided to shit on-"
Louise cried out in shock, clutching her ears.
"Everything!" Mazarin continued. "The nobles whispered! It's always been about magic, our nobility! The Duchess can move a mountain-what can our King do? The Duke's the bastard in the royal line, he's a descendant of Brimir too! So, frankly? When someone killed your second daughter?" his eyes narrowed. "I was glad they did just to see you realize how weak you were."
The cardinal ended up flying against the wall, his back hitting the empty shelf and cracking it apart in a shower of splinters. "You overstep yourself!" the Duchess roared, blades of wind forming all around her as they began to soar and spin with quite the deadly precision.
"Mother! Please stop!" Louise screamed, rushing to clutch on to one of Karin's arm.
The cardinal spat out a bolus of blood from his mouth, and stood back up, if shakily holding on to the side of the wall.
"So no," the cardinal hissed. "I had no intention of giving you back your daughter just so you could return to court with your heir after having thrown the worst of all temper tantrums. My king died of worry and heartache, fearing for his kingdom to be divided, because of you!" he pointed an accusing finger at Karin, which made the woman slightly wince at the accusation. "The Queen would never have punished you. The Princess is too innocent for the politics of the court. So I did what I had to do for the King and for the Country of Tristain, and there goes not a day where I am not glad I did what I did, because right now, in court, you are alone Duchess."
The cardinal wiped away the blood from his lips and neared the desk, where the glass filled with the amber liquid still remained. "It took me decades, and your husband-oh you should be glad your husband did his best to hold on to what little he had. If you had been alone, I would have taken everything from you, the title, the power, the money-everything, but not your life." The Cardinal drank the liquid, throwing the glass on the floor where it shattered. "Just like you took my King away. Just like you weakened the Crown."
"Mazarin-" Karin tried to speak, but the cardinal actually managed to out-glare the Duchess, which was probably nothing short of a miracle.
"And yet, for all of my work, I was willing to accept my punishment. Founder knows the sleepless nights, how wrong it was to keep a child away from its mother-a child who had no sins for being born to a selfish bitch."
Saito had to bring a hand to his mouth to stifle his gasp of horror.
"So, Duchess, I knew where your daughter was, and I hid it from you. To this day, I will apologize to your daughter a hundred of times, but do not think even for a second I would not do this again," he curled his lips up in disgust, "You committed treason, and you were punished for it. Be thankful the crime was not paid with your life and that of all those who followed you rather than the crown!"
The cardinal then took a deep breath, panting as the silence in the room was interrupted only by the crackling fire in the chimney nearby.
"Now that this is out of the way-" Mazarin said, only for the Duchess to spring into action, grabbing the cardinal by the throat and slamming him once more against the empty bookshelf.
"This will never be out of the way, Mazarin!" the Duchess all but roared, cracking with her air magic the very walls and shattering the windows. "I will never forgive you," Karin snarled. "I would have welcomed death a thousand times over the pain I suffered in these years! You were not merciful, you bastard-you were being vicious and vindictive!"
"I acted...for the best interests...of the Crown," Mazarin hissed back, clutching on to the hand that was doing its best to severe his air flow, "That...makes my actions...justice itself."
The Duchess dropped the cardinal on the ground, and like a lion stalking for prey walked with heavy steps towards Louise, proceeding to hold her tightly as if afraid the cardinal could somehow manage to still whisk her away and make her disappear.
For his part, the cardinal shakily managed to stand back up once more, his will nothing short of legendary. On one side, Saito really didn't like the way the man had done things.
On the other, he had to admire the sheer tenacity a person easily in his seventies needed to stand back up after being treated that way. And, of course, the sheer size of his masculinity to insult - straight to her face - the Duchess.
Yes, Saito could admire a specific trait of a person without admiring the whole person.
On the other hand, Louise had gone through enough pain and misery because of him that Saito couldn't really be a lot sympathetic to the man's effort to hold himself up for the second time.
"Now..." the Cardinal said shakily, "There is a reason the crown did not move against Reconquista, even though by blood and alliance alone we should have," his eyes moved from the Duchess to his desk -or what little remained of it, as a stray blade of wind had neatly severed it in half. "Tristain is being blackmailed into not acting," Mazarin wobbled towards the chair past his desk, which had miraculously survived the onslaught. "The leader of Reconquista managed to get his hands on some letters written by the Princess," the cardinal said as his hands clenched against his knees. "Some compromising letters which, if revealed, could prevent the marriage with Germania. We need that marriage," the cardinal sucked air in sharply. "With the death of the king of Gallia-his body hasn't yet gone cold, we need that marriage to safeguard us when the Gallian army will come knocking for answers."
"Tell them it was Reconquista," Karin snapped.
"Because the security of half our knights corps wasn't enough to stop a lone agent from stepping inside and killing the King, while he was surrounded by nobles of Tristain, and somehow nobody, not even the Heavy Wind, was capable of stopping said knight from leaving?" Mazarin laughed. "They will never believe it. Even if they do, they will demand we move. A shrewd person would force us to wage war for her, send our armies to die on Albion soil, and make us weak."
The cardinal shook his head. "The letters must be recovered, but we cannot send anyone easily recognizable. They have spies within these very walls, and they will know if someone of our usual agents moves."
"So why are we discussing this?" Karin said. "I am renowned throughout the whole land."
"Yes, you are," Mazarin said. "Your daughter, and her partner, are not. If they leave by tomorrow, they can easily reach La Rochelle and take a passage for Albion with no one the wiser. A bit of hair dye, and they will not be recognized by anyone-"
"Cardinal-your next words might very well be your last-"
"She managed to overpower your Cutter Tornado spell, Duchess," the Cardinal snapped. "And the boy had been knocked through a wall, and yet managed to rush to your daughter's side faster than the wind itself. No, Duchess, if you cannot go, then your daughter, who seems to be a deign successor of your magical prowess, should go. Perhaps this would wash away the sins of her mother, who did not heed the call of the Crown until it suited her?"
"I will not send my daughter on a battle zone," the Duchess hissed. "I'll go myself if that's what is needed."
"Then, Duchess, go ahead. Go and turn an entire nation red with blood, but if you miss just one agent of Reconquista, if you miss just one letter, then you will ruin the Crown. When the Queen will hear of the failed marriage of her daughter, when she will hear of what her daughter did, when the whole country will hear of it-then rest assured, her death will be at your feet, just like that of the late king," Mazarin hissed the last words out through a choked down sob. "And I will ensure, if that happens, that you will have to waddle through the corpses of every single noble of the court and their men before I will allow you respite." His eyes narrowed down.
"I'll do it."
Louise's voice had been surprisingly clear. She pushed away from her mother's firm embrace, and stepped right by Saito's side. "But I can't do it alone. Saito?"
"Fine by me, partner," Saito said with a shrug. "There's just one thing I don't understand," he added. "They have the letters and they don't want Tristain to intervene, but then they kill the Gallian king which in turn means Tristain will be forced to intervene all the same?"
"Perhaps they expect Tristain not to intervene at all, anger Gallia, or pacify it, and then spark a war between Germania and Gallia with Tristain in the middle of it. The plan of Reconquista is the unification of all of Brimir's descendants under a single kingdom-" the cardinal took a deep breath. "But it is considerably late, there is much I have yet to do, and I would like it if I had the time to think."
The cardinal opened a drawer of his split in half desk, and pulled out a bottle of a different color -smaller than the 'vase', but still pretty big in its own rights. "Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I will tell you what needs to be done to track down those letters," the man sighed, uncorking the glass bottle, "Now-if you would all kindly vacate the premises..."
They left in silence.
There were no words after all.
There were no words at all, if not for Saito's thoughts ranging from the 'did that really happen?' to 'Man, the cardinal sure can hold his liquor'.
The Cardinal had apparently aged a great deal in the time that had passed since Saito and Louise had last seen him. Once they were inside his office, he turned to stare at all three of them. The office was surprisingly devoid of paperwork, or books. It was as if it had been recently emptied of pretty much everything but the desk and a few chairs.
"May we dispense with the usual pleasantries and reach the core of the matter?" the Cardinal asked, his voice wary and tired.
"You have never been one to mince words, Mazarin. Has time changed you?" Karin remarked dryly.
"One never knows," the Cardinal said. "I would have thought after what you learned, you might be less inclined to-" his eyes moved to the perplexed Saito and Louise. "You...did not tell her?"
"Well-actually," Louise stammered, "It's more like-on whose side are you!?"
The Cardinal blinked owlishly, just as Karin did pretty much the same.
"You told me she was my mother, and sent us her way with a letter, but-but then we were attacked by this guy who wanted to kill us, and I ended up opening the letter, because it didn't make any sense why the guy would say something like 'the crown', but in the letter-in the letter you wrote I was an impostor! So-" Louise wrung her hands in disbelief. "Just-I don't understand. It's clear now that you weren't lying when you spoke to us, but why lie in a letter?"
"I...I presume I know nothing of the sorts, but it does confirm my suspicions," the Cardinal said softly. "Someone must have swapped the letters. I can only presume it must have been done while the letter was still in my office, in the time before you departed once more."
"Could someone tell me what is going on?" Karin asked, "Before I leave to ask Pierre to fetch my swordwand, that is, because I have a feeling I will be needing it shortly."
The cardinal exhaled. "Well, this was a long time coming," he neared a drawer, and pulled out what looked like a large glass vase containing an amber liquid. He poured a glass, and then shrugged, proceeding to chug on the bottle as he gestured for Louise -and by consequence Saito- to 'explain'.
Louise didn't explain, mostly because she was too busy trying to understand how a Cardinal could possibly drink that much alcohol without dying.
When Saito finished his very brief explanation, Karin's hands had already grabbed the cardinal by the hem of his clothes, and was busy throttling him quite severely.
"How long!?" Karin snarled. "How long did you hide her from me, you vicious son of a-"
"My mother was a honest lady!" the Cardinal shot back angrily, slamming the glass vase on the ground, where it shattered. "The only one to blame is you, Duchess!" he held the wrists of the Duchess, "You couldn't wait! You had to find your daughter on the double! On the triple! Didn't matter the number of diplomatic accidents it would cause! Didn't matter if the Germanian ambassador was throttled out of a window, or if half the knights of the corps suddenly resigned to follow you in your inane crusade! For three years I sought out your daughter through my own means, just so I could slap in your face your weakness when compared to the Crown!" the Cardinal's face was red. "But then you had to go and move a mountain. You had to build an outpost, you just had to order the knights of the Manticore to follow you! And those fools did! The King told them not to, and they followed you!"
The Cardinal snarled, jabbing one of his fingers straight against the middle of Karin's chest. "Do you have any idea what that meant?! That was the closest you could have gone to treason! The Crown has power as long as the people that swear fealty to it respect it! But to find your daughter you decided to shit on-"
Louise cried out in shock, clutching her ears.
"Everything!" Mazarin continued. "The nobles whispered! It's always been about magic, our nobility! The Duchess can move a mountain-what can our King do? The Duke's the bastard in the royal line, he's a descendant of Brimir too! So, frankly? When someone killed your second daughter?" his eyes narrowed. "I was glad they did just to see you realize how weak you were."
The cardinal ended up flying against the wall, his back hitting the empty shelf and cracking it apart in a shower of splinters. "You overstep yourself!" the Duchess roared, blades of wind forming all around her as they began to soar and spin with quite the deadly precision.
"Mother! Please stop!" Louise screamed, rushing to clutch on to one of Karin's arm.
The cardinal spat out a bolus of blood from his mouth, and stood back up, if shakily holding on to the side of the wall.
"So no," the cardinal hissed. "I had no intention of giving you back your daughter just so you could return to court with your heir after having thrown the worst of all temper tantrums. My king died of worry and heartache, fearing for his kingdom to be divided, because of you!" he pointed an accusing finger at Karin, which made the woman slightly wince at the accusation. "The Queen would never have punished you. The Princess is too innocent for the politics of the court. So I did what I had to do for the King and for the Country of Tristain, and there goes not a day where I am not glad I did what I did, because right now, in court, you are alone Duchess."
The cardinal wiped away the blood from his lips and neared the desk, where the glass filled with the amber liquid still remained. "It took me decades, and your husband-oh you should be glad your husband did his best to hold on to what little he had. If you had been alone, I would have taken everything from you, the title, the power, the money-everything, but not your life." The Cardinal drank the liquid, throwing the glass on the floor where it shattered. "Just like you took my King away. Just like you weakened the Crown."
"Mazarin-" Karin tried to speak, but the cardinal actually managed to out-glare the Duchess, which was probably nothing short of a miracle.
"And yet, for all of my work, I was willing to accept my punishment. Founder knows the sleepless nights, how wrong it was to keep a child away from its mother-a child who had no sins for being born to a selfish bitch."
Saito had to bring a hand to his mouth to stifle his gasp of horror.
"So, Duchess, I knew where your daughter was, and I hid it from you. To this day, I will apologize to your daughter a hundred of times, but do not think even for a second I would not do this again," he curled his lips up in disgust, "You committed treason, and you were punished for it. Be thankful the crime was not paid with your life and that of all those who followed you rather than the crown!"
The cardinal then took a deep breath, panting as the silence in the room was interrupted only by the crackling fire in the chimney nearby.
"Now that this is out of the way-" Mazarin said, only for the Duchess to spring into action, grabbing the cardinal by the throat and slamming him once more against the empty bookshelf.
"This will never be out of the way, Mazarin!" the Duchess all but roared, cracking with her air magic the very walls and shattering the windows. "I will never forgive you," Karin snarled. "I would have welcomed death a thousand times over the pain I suffered in these years! You were not merciful, you bastard-you were being vicious and vindictive!"
"I acted...for the best interests...of the Crown," Mazarin hissed back, clutching on to the hand that was doing its best to severe his air flow, "That...makes my actions...justice itself."
The Duchess dropped the cardinal on the ground, and like a lion stalking for prey walked with heavy steps towards Louise, proceeding to hold her tightly as if afraid the cardinal could somehow manage to still whisk her away and make her disappear.
For his part, the cardinal shakily managed to stand back up once more, his will nothing short of legendary. On one side, Saito really didn't like the way the man had done things.
On the other, he had to admire the sheer tenacity a person easily in his seventies needed to stand back up after being treated that way. And, of course, the sheer size of his masculinity to insult - straight to her face - the Duchess.
Yes, Saito could admire a specific trait of a person without admiring the whole person.
On the other hand, Louise had gone through enough pain and misery because of him that Saito couldn't really be a lot sympathetic to the man's effort to hold himself up for the second time.
"Now..." the Cardinal said shakily, "There is a reason the crown did not move against Reconquista, even though by blood and alliance alone we should have," his eyes moved from the Duchess to his desk -or what little remained of it, as a stray blade of wind had neatly severed it in half. "Tristain is being blackmailed into not acting," Mazarin wobbled towards the chair past his desk, which had miraculously survived the onslaught. "The leader of Reconquista managed to get his hands on some letters written by the Princess," the cardinal said as his hands clenched against his knees. "Some compromising letters which, if revealed, could prevent the marriage with Germania. We need that marriage," the cardinal sucked air in sharply. "With the death of the king of Gallia-his body hasn't yet gone cold, we need that marriage to safeguard us when the Gallian army will come knocking for answers."
"Tell them it was Reconquista," Karin snapped.
"Because the security of half our knights corps wasn't enough to stop a lone agent from stepping inside and killing the King, while he was surrounded by nobles of Tristain, and somehow nobody, not even the Heavy Wind, was capable of stopping said knight from leaving?" Mazarin laughed. "They will never believe it. Even if they do, they will demand we move. A shrewd person would force us to wage war for her, send our armies to die on Albion soil, and make us weak."
The cardinal shook his head. "The letters must be recovered, but we cannot send anyone easily recognizable. They have spies within these very walls, and they will know if someone of our usual agents moves."
"So why are we discussing this?" Karin said. "I am renowned throughout the whole land."
"Yes, you are," Mazarin said. "Your daughter, and her partner, are not. If they leave by tomorrow, they can easily reach La Rochelle and take a passage for Albion with no one the wiser. A bit of hair dye, and they will not be recognized by anyone-"
"Cardinal-your next words might very well be your last-"
"She managed to overpower your Cutter Tornado spell, Duchess," the Cardinal snapped. "And the boy had been knocked through a wall, and yet managed to rush to your daughter's side faster than the wind itself. No, Duchess, if you cannot go, then your daughter, who seems to be a deign successor of your magical prowess, should go. Perhaps this would wash away the sins of her mother, who did not heed the call of the Crown until it suited her?"
"I will not send my daughter on a battle zone," the Duchess hissed. "I'll go myself if that's what is needed."
"Then, Duchess, go ahead. Go and turn an entire nation red with blood, but if you miss just one agent of Reconquista, if you miss just one letter, then you will ruin the Crown. When the Queen will hear of the failed marriage of her daughter, when she will hear of what her daughter did, when the whole country will hear of it-then rest assured, her death will be at your feet, just like that of the late king," Mazarin hissed the last words out through a choked down sob. "And I will ensure, if that happens, that you will have to waddle through the corpses of every single noble of the court and their men before I will allow you respite." His eyes narrowed down.
"I'll do it."
Louise's voice had been surprisingly clear. She pushed away from her mother's firm embrace, and stepped right by Saito's side. "But I can't do it alone. Saito?"
"Fine by me, partner," Saito said with a shrug. "There's just one thing I don't understand," he added. "They have the letters and they don't want Tristain to intervene, but then they kill the Gallian king which in turn means Tristain will be forced to intervene all the same?"
"Perhaps they expect Tristain not to intervene at all, anger Gallia, or pacify it, and then spark a war between Germania and Gallia with Tristain in the middle of it. The plan of Reconquista is the unification of all of Brimir's descendants under a single kingdom-" the cardinal took a deep breath. "But it is considerably late, there is much I have yet to do, and I would like it if I had the time to think."
The cardinal opened a drawer of his split in half desk, and pulled out a bottle of a different color -smaller than the 'vase', but still pretty big in its own rights. "Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I will tell you what needs to be done to track down those letters," the man sighed, uncorking the glass bottle, "Now-if you would all kindly vacate the premises..."
They left in silence.
There were no words after all.
There were no words at all, if not for Saito's thoughts ranging from the 'did that really happen?' to 'Man, the cardinal sure can hold his liquor'.
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So, the cardinal needed some liquid courage?
Against an angry Heavy Wind everyone needs liquid courage!
i think, once the hangover passes, Mazarin will realize it is possibly another side that did it.
wonder what Charlotte will say about the death of her relation...
i think, once the hangover passes, Mazarin will realize it is possibly another side that did it.
wonder what Charlotte will say about the death of her relation...
He is very eager to blame everything on Karin, rather convenient for him and not at all hypocritical, seeing that he further weakened the Crown out of pettiness and a vindictive thirst for revenge. Am a bit sad that Karin didn't counter any of it, or correctly reassigned the appropriate share of blame back at his feet. One sided rants are rarely satisfying.
After all, even if her were absolutely correct, and he isn't, Karin did what she did not to weaken the King (although that did happen), but to regain her child. And he, by trying to destroy Karin is pissing away the biggest military asset they have. If that isn't short sighted, I don't know what is, since he has to know that in case of invasion or attack or whatever, Karin would move to help the Crown. A dead/disgraced/dispossessed Karin means a weaker country. And while there is a lot to say about a stable leadership, there is also a lot of value in a nuke. Especially when very few other nations have nukes.
And quite honestly, at this level of anger Karin must be feeling, I would have expected her to be a bit beyond violence now, or rather, more than just simply throwing or punching. Kinda expected cutting off limbs. And certainly beyond empty threats. Can't see Karin making a threat she isn't going to follow up on. Less, "your next word may be your last" and more *slices of hand* or something more drastic.
Dude may hate Karin as much as he like, but there should have been an immediate, drastic consequence for pulling the shit he just did. Something he regrets more than a few aches, something permanent.
Still, cool chapter.
After all, even if her were absolutely correct, and he isn't, Karin did what she did not to weaken the King (although that did happen), but to regain her child. And he, by trying to destroy Karin is pissing away the biggest military asset they have. If that isn't short sighted, I don't know what is, since he has to know that in case of invasion or attack or whatever, Karin would move to help the Crown. A dead/disgraced/dispossessed Karin means a weaker country. And while there is a lot to say about a stable leadership, there is also a lot of value in a nuke. Especially when very few other nations have nukes.
And quite honestly, at this level of anger Karin must be feeling, I would have expected her to be a bit beyond violence now, or rather, more than just simply throwing or punching. Kinda expected cutting off limbs. And certainly beyond empty threats. Can't see Karin making a threat she isn't going to follow up on. Less, "your next word may be your last" and more *slices of hand* or something more drastic.
Dude may hate Karin as much as he like, but there should have been an immediate, drastic consequence for pulling the shit he just did. Something he regrets more than a few aches, something permanent.
Still, cool chapter.
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Careful there, because Karin *wasn't* an *active* military asset.
By the first daughter born, she was out of the active military force.
That's basically what the Cardinal's pissed off about. She retired, put the armor up on the wall, went to make babies, and then came back like a hurricane once her youngest was kidnapped, 'stealing away' half the army to aid her in her search, and leaving the Crown of Tristain looking like pathetic wimps.
She didn't ask the Crown to 'help her'. She went and 'helped herself' to the Crown's strength.
Which showed just how much of a rogue element she was.
It's one thing if you can control the dragon in your backyard.
It's entirely another story if you have a wild dragon in your backyard.
So even if the military of Tristain ended up weakened by it? They would still be adding up to it the might of Germania following the marriage between the emperor and the princess. There's no longer a need for a nuke when you actually have a proper army. Sure, it would be nice to have it, but if the nuke has a short fuse?
Better to get rid of it less it explodes on your face.
By the first daughter born, she was out of the active military force.
That's basically what the Cardinal's pissed off about. She retired, put the armor up on the wall, went to make babies, and then came back like a hurricane once her youngest was kidnapped, 'stealing away' half the army to aid her in her search, and leaving the Crown of Tristain looking like pathetic wimps.
She didn't ask the Crown to 'help her'. She went and 'helped herself' to the Crown's strength.
Which showed just how much of a rogue element she was.
It's one thing if you can control the dragon in your backyard.
It's entirely another story if you have a wild dragon in your backyard.
So even if the military of Tristain ended up weakened by it? They would still be adding up to it the might of Germania following the marriage between the emperor and the princess. There's no longer a need for a nuke when you actually have a proper army. Sure, it would be nice to have it, but if the nuke has a short fuse?
Better to get rid of it less it explodes on your face.
This Cardinal should pay attention to what happened to his historical counterpart. By limiting the power of nobles he thought were not loyal enough to the crown he ended up causing me a successful revolt that only failed at the end when the Conde proved to be a failure and keeping his allies
The Cardinal is an asshole, but I can understand his reasoning and why he did what he did, and even if he's an asshole I can't see him (for the moment) as the bad guy, btw he sure is badass:
That take Balls, Iron Balls.
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So the Cardinal believes/claims that the letter was modified in his office at the palace? And we believe him to not be overly stupid (and moreover, well-informed), so he should know that the Duchess has a method to determine the truth of claims. So he likely did not pen the letter that Louise ended up with.
Recall that the assassin at the palace ball somehow seemed to be involved with Charlotte. Recall that Charlotte "rescued" them from the Wardes clone. Recall that Louise passed out and Saito also was losing consciousness after that fight. Louise only opened the letter after regaining consciousness at the Academy of Magic. Who had the opportunity to find the letter and replace it while both our heroes were unconscious? Only one certain blue-haired princess.
Even if that's not the case, something is fishy here with Gallia and the Reconquista and it's probably not what everyone expects.
Recall that the assassin at the palace ball somehow seemed to be involved with Charlotte. Recall that Charlotte "rescued" them from the Wardes clone. Recall that Louise passed out and Saito also was losing consciousness after that fight. Louise only opened the letter after regaining consciousness at the Academy of Magic. Who had the opportunity to find the letter and replace it while both our heroes were unconscious? Only one certain blue-haired princess.
Even if that's not the case, something is fishy here with Gallia and the Reconquista and it's probably not what everyone expects.
- Pronouns
- she/her
Holy fucking shit, Mazarin was literally a Hard Man Making Hard Decisions While Hard.
. It's good to know he values personal revenge over actually strengthening the crown.
After all it's not like Karin turned out to be incredibly useful when she returned to court after finding her daughter. Unless he'd rather the queen have been assassinated so he could rub it in Karin's face for abandoning her duties, that seems about appropriate for the maturity level he displayed in this chapter! And if we're being honest, the Royal Family of Tristain makes itself look weak just fine without her personal intervention.
Basically, in my eyes Mazarin didn't try to get rid of the wild dragon in the yard, he started jabbing it with red-hot needles. If he really wanted to get rid of the threat Karin posed he should have poisoned her.
Edit: And lets' not forget he very nearly gave a nuke to Germania by hiding Luise there. If she had figured out the voidhaxx while training at the Germanian academy...
Dear god he actually was that stupid. Or maybe he was just fucking drunk when he sent them off without guards, it honestly wouldn't surprise me. Everything he just revealed about his motivations has been constant
. It's good to know he values personal revenge over actually strengthening the crown.After all it's not like Karin turned out to be incredibly useful when she returned to court after finding her daughter. Unless he'd rather the queen have been assassinated so he could rub it in Karin's face for abandoning her duties, that seems about appropriate for the maturity level he displayed in this chapter! And if we're being honest, the Royal Family of Tristain makes itself look weak just fine without her personal intervention.
Bruh. Karin literally just saved the Queen's life. Furthermore the marriage failing would be a direct result of the one who was responsible for the letters (Henrietta), not Karin failing to clean up after the royal family's latest screwup. This makes the whole blame game he's playing with the previous King's death a lot more suspect.
He didn't get rid of it though, he primed it so it might go off at any moment and stuffed it in a corner no one knew about. Karin can move mountains without friends at court, and she still wouldn't really have been "disarmed" if he had succeed in destroying everything she owned. The fun part of the znt setting is that the crown literally can't take certain powers away from nobles.
Basically, in my eyes Mazarin didn't try to get rid of the wild dragon in the yard, he started jabbing it with red-hot needles. If he really wanted to get rid of the threat Karin posed he should have poisoned her.
Edit: And lets' not forget he very nearly gave a nuke to Germania by hiding Luise there. If she had figured out the voidhaxx while training at the Germanian academy...
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Ars Poetica
ULTIMA RATIO NEMO OBLIGATUR
- Location
- The Kingdom of Fiore
- Pronouns
- He / Him / His
And suddenly I remember that Charolette has an evil twin.
Meh, whether Karin was at home, barefoot in the kitchen, knitting her last child a sweater a day or if she was still serving as a general in the palace, saluting the king once every hour, either way this country had Karin as a powerful, military asset. That doesn't change. Other nations know that Karin keeps all her stuff there and if they come and stir shit up, she's going to do a lot of damage to them. That's one hell of a deterrent, independent from her official position in the military. That's just a role she fulfilled just by being alive.
Yeah, you can snip at her heels like Zerbsts do or prod her like the kidnappers who didn't leave a clear target for retaliation did (and hey, the Cardinal never considered that the very point of the kidnappers was weakening Tristain by weakening Karin and he fell for it hook, line and sinker by making Karin the target of his anger rather than those who kickstarted everything) but challenging her directly is costly. And you know, he did all that to her and she still didn't kill him? That's loyalty to the Crown right there.
And in fantasy series like this, or others like Naruto, there is something that really doesn't have any real life parallels. There are individuals, that trump armies. It does ruin some stuff at times, in terms of story telling, but yeah, there are individuals that make numbers mostly meaningless and Karin is one such individual. That's just fact, and you can't treat them the same as others, because they are not. They are inherently more valuable. That's just how things are. So, allowances, at times, must be made. Unfair, yeah, but still.
Even nukes are less valuable in comparison, because you can use this nuke again and again. You can use this nuke smartly, it can differentiate who it attacks and who it doesn't, you can use it while in the same room, this nuke can guard you, this nuke can explode today, and after a good meal and a bit of sleep can do that again and again.
Sure, armies are essential as well, and even Karin can't wage a war on her own, she's not an automatic win button, but she makes any army she leads at least twice as dangerous.
And seeing that despite her somewhat thoughtless actions, she's still a lot more dependable than the Germanian army. Sure, they might help them out against other nations but they themselves are a bigger treat to their sovereignty than Karin is. Karin is strong enough that the Crown mostly depends on whatever control Karin allows them to have, for her, i.e., she revealed that she only obeyed because she wanted, not because she had to, since there wasn't really anything non catastrophic they could have done to make her heel. Yeah, that did show weakness. But Karin also never made an active powergrab, something she could have done. So yes, mistakes were made, but it is by all means shortsighted and playing right in the hands of the enemy to behave as the Cardinal did.
The very fact that the Cardinal was able to scheme for years against her is more than proof enough that Karin is not actively treasonous and damaging to the nation. If she was, he wouldn't have had the opportunity. And him being able to walk away? That's not really badassery on his part, that's blaming her for being disloyal and counting on her loyalty to the Crown to not swat him like a bug. You can't have both.
Besides, this is the feudal system, lords and ladies are expected to use their own forces to go after their own means. Karin mobilizing her troops, to search for her daughter is well within her rights. Especially seeing that there was no clear suspect to negotiate with. After all, the Cardinal didn't consult with anyone either and despite all he may fancy, he is not the King and he very well went over his head to initiate this vendetta.
So, long story short, it's better to have a mostly loyal dragon that may act out on its own once in a while but where you still know it will pull through for you in a cinch than to poison that dragon and hope to Brimir your former enemies are just that (even though they most likely aren't).
Does the Cardinal have the right to be pissed, sure, up to a point, is he in the right, meh, less so. To me, he fell for the enemy plot and did just as much damage, if not more, than Karin did and he didn't have the excuse of losing two children. Karin also had the grace to not be self-righteous about it.
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Are we FFN now? Cause this is exactly what I'd expect to see in a review over there.
Are we FFN now? Cause this is exactly what I'd expect to see in a review over there.
And your point is?
I will give mad props to the Cardinal if he really is an agent of the Reconquista, intended to kill Louise off and was just bullshitting like a motherfucking pro last chapter to save his hide.
Because sending off Louise and Saito to Albion sounds like another attempt to assassinate them. He is throwing them right into the jaws of the Reconquista, after all.
Because sending off Louise and Saito to Albion sounds like another attempt to assassinate them. He is throwing them right into the jaws of the Reconquista, after all.
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- Location
- The Old Dominion
He's also sending a pair of people that faced Karin and lived... Also if he didn't at least suspect Louise is a void mage given he's a very high ranking church official I'd be extremely disappointed.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Yeah, the Valliere are more of a pink element.
Which makes it even more likely that he is trying to kill her off. After all, Void Mages = Bad for the church.
- Pronouns
- she/her
What I want to know is why the fuck Mazarin is okay sending Louise and Saito on this mission instead of Karin? These two were raised loyal to foreign countries up until a week ago, are knights of the crown princess of the country whose King was assassinated on Tristain soil, and he just explained in explicit detail how badly he screwed one of them over.
This justification makes zero sense:
This justification makes zero sense:
Karin is too recognizable! Instead we shall send her long-lost daughter who was just publicly presented to everyone, and who also looks, dresses, casts, and acts almost exactly like her mother. As long as we dye the hair no one will realize!
Except it would actually be in character for Louise to react violently to someone verbally masturbating about ruining her life.Are we FFN now? Cause this is exactly what I'd expect to see in a review over there.
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