THE LAKE'S REFLECTION

[AndrewTech 3330]

THE LAKE'S REFLECTION

The Petran Lakeside
c. 1894

 

It was a day like any other for Dame Catherine of Furnestock. The middle aged woman, her strawberry hair now graying, found herself out of her armor for once as she sat by the edge of the lake south of Valfleur.

 

She wore a flowing dress of fine gold and scarlett, one which had been gifted to her by the Baroness of Acre some years ago. She had decided to take her wards, the young Archduchess and her brother, out to enjoy a lakeside picnic that day. Her head was uncovered as she laid on her back in the sun, her head uncovered she stared out at the clouds in the skies above.

 

As they played in the waters beyond, she had taken this first slow moment since her retirement as Chancellor to dwell upon the past.

 

It had been nearly twelve years to the day since she had first come to Petra. There had been little to work with at first upon her return from the Furnestock Islands. Indeed, there had been naught but a few derelict buildings and a makeshift senate chamber for meetings during the early days of the Republic.

 

But everything was different now. The Commonwealth of the Petra was now a thriving realm, independent and proud. Its success had surpassed even her wildest expectations, this state founded on the principles of chivalry, liberty, and justice.

 

Truly, she had done well for herself. Catherine bemusedly thought about the old Heartlander wives’ tale regarding “cats” and their nine lives for a moment, before her thoughts were suddenly interrupted.

 

 

“Cat!” A girl’s voice had cried out in the distance. “CAT, he’s- He’s doing it again!”

 

Immediately sitting upward, her eyebrows knit as she beheld Renilde and Alexander before her. The two were fighting over a rubber ducky of all things, the teenager clinging to it whilst her young brother cried.

 

“I wanna play with Francis!” He cried out mournfully.

 

“But it’s mine!” She retorted. “It’s my ducky, Alex, and I shan’t let you have it!”

 

“Children!” Catherine spoke commandingly, glaring at them with her pale gray eyes.

 

Both of them immediately ceased, turning to face their guardian as she offered them a stern gaze. They grew silent.

 

“Return to shore,” She ordered, gesturing for them to rejoin her.

 

They compiled, Renilde dutifully taking Catherine’s hand as she returned with her brother to the picnic blanket.

 

The eldest orphan looked away for a moment. “Sorry, Cat…” She began. “I-”

 

“-You were arguing with your brother again, weren’t you?” The weathered woman interjected, raising an eyebrow. “You know that I don’t like it when you do that, youngling.”

 

“But why?” The boy suddenly piped up. “Rennie NEVER lets me play with Francis!”

 

“Only because you might lose her!” 

 

“STOP!” Catherine suddenly thundered, in a voice which would have eluded her not two decades ago.

 

With her commandment, the children once again went utterly quiet. For a moment, she felt guilty for having spoken to her wards in such a manner. But she knew that Paul, their father, would have wanted her to instill some discipline in them.

 

Finally, she said after a moment’s pause, “Please… Sit down, younglings.”

 

The two looked confused. They might have expected to be punished, but they compiled regardless as Catherine spoke. She passed a pair of towels over to them, so that they might clean their muddy feet and dry themselves off.

 

“That’s better…” She muttered at long last. “Now, allow me to tell you a story. One of the past struggles in our family’s history.”

 

“Our family?” Renilde inquired innocently, blinking as Catherine said this.

 

“Aye,” She said. “Our family.”

 

She and Alexander exchanged blank looks, ones which compelled Catherine herself to raise an eyebrow.

 

“Did you not know?” The aging princess then said to them. “You are my cousins, younglings. We share the same blood.”

 

“I…- We do?” Renilde blinked.

“We do,” Catherine replied curtly, retrieving a warm loaf of bread and a small wheel of cheese from her basket as she set them before the children. She began to cut both into slices, their lunch for that afternoon.

 

“Your father did not have time to tell you of our past before he left us, nor did your mother. But it is now my duty as your guardian to do so,” She spoke, before she began her tale.

 

 

It had been a while since Catherine herself had dwelled upon that which she imparted to her wards, but she liked to think that her time spent in hiding as a bard in the Cragenmarch had well prepared her in the art of storytelling.

 

She began with the conflict between her father and her great-grandfather in which her parents had returned from the Furnestock Islands, the land of her birth, to take the throne.

 

Thereafter, she told them briefly of the war between the Holy Orenian Empire and the Tripartite Alliance, but this was a story with which they were already accustomed.

 

It was the Brother’s War which she focused the most on, a conflict between her two younger siblings which had resulted in the disbandment of the Empire and the deaths of thousands.

 

“...You see, the disparate branches of our family have been fighting for a very long time,” She finally concluded her tale as the children finished their meal.

 

“It is a curse, younglings. One which I would not wish to see manifest in yourselves.”

 

“But…- Are we not from the House of Temesch et Moere?” Renilde tilted her head, Alexander still baffled by the tales which Catherine had to tell.

 

“It is merely a different way of denoting our separate branches. But the Temesch branch of the Novellen family descends from a Prince of the Holy Orenian Empire,” Catherine replied rather simply. 

 

“Your father merely adopted a new surname after the Revolution to distance your family from our troubled, troubled history. Yet, we do share the same blood. We are kin, younglings.”

 

“Does that mean that we’re…- Um…” Renilde paused, thinking for a moment. “...Oh! Related to that nice man in Balian?”

 

Catherine thought for a moment, before finally replying with a smile. “Yes, youngling,” She replied.  “He is my uncle.”

“I know that!” Renilde huffed, crossing her arms indignantly. “Is that then why he said that we would all be ‘living within the same palace, in another life’?”

 

“Aye,” Catherine then nodded curtly. “And at one time, we did. We all did. But then, we began to fight…”

 

“...And- That is why me fighting Renilde is bad?” The young Alexander finally spoke, his mouth stuffed full of cheese.

 

“Quite!” The weathered princess snorted, unable to contain her laughter as she beheld his food-stuffed face. 

 

“But it is my hope that one day, the various branches of our family might no longer be so distant. After all, a heart full of love is greater than stronger than one filled with hatred.”

 

“So…-” Renilde thought for a moment, trying to digest everything she had been told. “-...We are not all so different, then? We are all…-”

“-...Though disparate, we are all Novellens,” Catherine affirmed. “And I love all of my family, child. And you should as well. Though our name may be cursed, it is who we are. It is where we came from.”

 

“Kitty?” Alexander suddenly spoke up. By now, he and his sister had begun to lace up their shoes again.

 

“Yes, Alex?” The Dame had begun to pack away their things, their lunch having come to an end.

 

“Do you love us?” He asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

 

For a moment, the woman paused. Her hands rested atop the picnic basket as she considered the question posed to her by the younger of the duo.

 

“Yes, child…” She finally answered with a smile, basket now in hand as she moved to pick the six year old up in her other. Slowly, the trio moved along the road to return to Valfleir, Renilde taking Catherine’s hand in her own as they did so.

 

“...I do love both of you, with all of my heart. And I always will.”

 

Spoiler

Just a fun piece of writing prose involving my character, Catherine, and those of @tilly and @Evaluate.

[Axelu 4333]

The Countess of Mardon often observed the Archducal children in intimate or courtly functions, how they spoke, act, and impishly displayed their fraternal bond. Matilda Fredericka, the eldest of the only and last Novellen King of Oren, could not resist a smile. They represented the future of Petra but also drew a bittersweet bridge to a long-forgotten past oddly reminiscent of her own. Their fate would be better - of that she was certain.