Breaking News|Malagard, Khelek

[Darastrix]

After Locket left him, Schuldig pushed himself out of his chair with a sigh. He needed to find his daughter. He decided to forgo the tedious business of wandering the palace and just thought toward Harmony.

~Hey, can we talk?~

[Kender Bard]

~Yeah~ came Harmony's response. ~I'm in my room.~ And only because a servant had shooed her out of where she'd been previously. She sat on her bed, leaning back against her pillows while hugging her knees and looking out the window with a melancholy look.

[Darastrix]

Schuldig teleported into her room and made sure the door was shut before walking over to join her on the bed. He looked at her for a moment, taking in her expression. "Something on your mind?" he asked. He wouldn't have been very surprised if it turned out she'd already heard something. She was his kid, after all.

[Kender Bard]

Harmony nodded and made room for Schuldig to sit near her. Then she moved closer to him and leaned against him instead of her pillows. "I heard nearly everyone but a couple people died in Morilanta," she murmured. "Including Shyamal. And... that probably means Fausta too, right?"

[Darastrix]

Schuldig was quiet for a moment as he put one arm around Harmony. Which would be better? For her to believe Fausta had died, or the truth? He decided against the first option fairly quickly. Claiming the death of someone you knew hadn't died had a way of biting you later.

"Fausta...wasn't on Shyamal's side, Harmony. She was on Bastion's. The bastard was probably raising her with a mind to use her as a weapon against Nissar," Schuldig said, his voice quiet and his expression serious. "As a spy and traitor. When they got here, I didn't want Locket to let you two meet, and this is the reason why. She's not someone you can trust."

[Kender Bard]

"What do you mean?" Harmony asked, frowning. "That she was the enemy? One of the bad people...?"

She hadn't seemed like a bad person to Harmony. Sad, yes. Strange, yes. But that didn't really fit the little girl's definition of evil well.

[Darastrix]

Schuldig nodded. "That's one way of putting it. I don't know where she is right now or what she's doing, but if she EVER gets in touch with you for any reason, tell me. Even if she says not to tell anyone, or that 'they wouldn't understand.'"

[Kender Bard]

"I don't think she will," Harmony said, glancing down. "When she left, she said we will never meet again. I thought it was because she was afraid she'd die in Morilanta." Harmony frowned at that. "She was very firm about it."

[Darastrix]

Schuldig narrowed his eyes as he thought. "She might have," he agreed. "Or she was already set on what she would do and knew she wouldn't be welcome outside of Morilanta if she were to survive it."

[Kender Bard]

"Either way, it doesn't matter now," Harmony sighed. "She's... evil. But Shyamal was nice, wasn't he? Or are all Morilantans evil?"

[Darastrix]

"As easy as it might make things, nothing's as cut and dry as that, kiddo. People are people and a lot about them doesn't fit some label." Schuldig shrugged. "It's simple to say all Khelekians hate outsiders or that all Anarlinans are pure and good or that everyone in Mentis is a scholar, but.... Khelek's king and crown royals are outsiders, some of the courtiers in Anarlina are just plain bitches, and for a place to run, you need servants and people that know how to do more than just study."

"So yeah," he continued, "there are decent people in Morilanta, but they tend to die young, get out as soon as they can, or they end up as slaves. Gaining power there takes ruthlessness, and a lot of the 'good' people aren't, so they don't advance. And even then, some of the 'good' ones will do things to get ahead or to survive that you might call evil, and some of the 'evil' ones will do decent things."

[Kender Bard]

"Why does everything have to be so complicated?" Harmony lamented as she hugged Schuldig tightly suddenly, frustrated, angry, and bewildered. "Does it ever make more sense, Dad? When you get older?"

[Darastrix]

Schuldig hugged her back. "Well, it makes sense to me because I've had a lot of contact with people's minds, and people, as a general rule, are fucking complicated."

He held up one finger. "There's what you see, and even without being a Mind, you know that what you see doesn't always give you the whole picture, because YOU don't spell out everything about yourself for other people." A second finger. "There's what you hear. You ask ten people about someone, you get eleven different answers, because people see things differently." A third. "Then there's context. The same person might act totally differently in different settings and groups."

Schuldig waved his hand. "And the list goes on. Best bet is to just accept that people are complicated. Things make a little more sense just on that alone."

[Kender Bard]

"Yeah I guess," Harmony conceded, subdued. "And there's no real sure way of knowing if the person you're dealing with is gonna turn around and hurt you is there?"

Put like that, she could understand better why some people became cynical or closed off. And why other people just threw caution to the wind and were generally friendly and cheerful to everyone. And everything else in between.

"The knights and stuff seem tense, is there gonna be an attack on Khelek?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

[Darastrix]

"I think they're tense mostly because they don't know," Schuldig said, brushing her hair back gently. "We're playing a waiting game right now. With Nissar and Bastion both dead, there's a rush for power going on in Morilanta right now. The way things usually go, the high priest picks the next leader if the old one dies, or the leader picks the new high priest. Any leader that comes out is going to have to get things tightened down fast if they don't want to risk having their claim challenged by someone grabbing the other spot before they pick someone."

"It could take a while for that to happen, and as long as that's going on, Morilanta's not going to be looking to do much outside of its own borders. When the dust settles, we'll see. If Morilanta does try something, it's not going to go well for them." Schuldig smirked. "The guard and army there's probably being run ragged, then they'd travel only to meet a rested force backed up by another nation."