THE LAST MARIAN [PK]

[Gandhi 3225]

 

THE LAST MARIAN

 

Thoughts - The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante OST

 

SER ANDREI OF JEROVITZ

 

Emsgrad. The fort on the southern Karoswald that Erik and Emma had erected in their reign, named for Andrei’s mother, Emma. For the time being, it remained—even as the armies of the Holy League pillaged their way through the Aestmarch, laying waste to Koppány, and likewise Furentaliz; or so he was able to surmise with Joren’s withdrawal. The Count of Jerovitz sat, idle in a chair with a well-supplied, crackling hearth, perhaps one of the last times it’d be this peaceful for him and his family. A book lay open, covers held in each hand, a tale of old King Josef—he who returned Hanseti-Ruska to independence, nigh over a couple of hundred years ago.

 

Only a mere couple of months earlier, Joren stood before the people of Haense upon his throne. His declaration was swift. Those who wished to bend the knee to the Holy States may offer their surrender, freed of their oaths – else they may follow Joren into exile in Norland. Throughout the war, he stood loyal, even when their troops were butchered in the Winewoods and oft-loyal vassals chose to take flight. As generations before him did, his house remained loyal to the Kings of Hanseti and Ruska. The last time Andrei doubted himself was when this war first began, when he chose to voice his regret for failing to advise Karl on how else to handle his dealings with Anorhil. It plagued him, the fact that he’d so willfully regret something like that and allow it to be voiced to those who pursued war upon his homeland.

 

All of this mattered little. He had to make his own decision—one that could either leave his family destitute in squalor or a life similar to what he had led. In the absence of Karl or Tomasz, there was Andrey, his oft-absent father-in-law. He opposed their surrender, at least in such a hasty manner. Even still, Andrei never faulted Joren or Nadya for it, especially after House Ivanovich took flight and the lords of the Covenant made pleas for surrender. They agreed enough on Norland, though—how was it to be, that the legacy of House Barbanov would fall beneath the yoke of a pagan King? Defeat was inevitable, but the decision stirred something sad in Andrei’s heart—perhaps due to his failings as a councillor of the King, or the fact that his children would never grow up in a Kingdom of their people like he did.

 

Dima and Andrei argued about it, with rare participation from Andrey. She willed that she’d never bow to an Empire—and perhaps she was more of a Knight than he was for that—but he believed her led by pride, an unwillingness to understand how their world had changed so dramatically. He was more open to the idea, as was Andrey on their behalf. Perhaps it was something of a favour, Andrei never did keep the Norns in his good graces, as Dima would’ve preferred. It was clearly a rift between husband and wife, and he was clueless about how to mend it.

 

That was the past now, relegated only to a mere memory and consideration when going forward. Maybe there wasn’t a way forward for Andrei—the Kingdom and dynasty he so sought to embody with his legacy had floundered, fallen by rite of conquest, and he was left with nothing more than a choice that could split his family. He dwelled on it for hours, days even, and maybe it wasn’t his decision to make. So stuck in the past, Andrei couldn’t see forward beyond only one fate beneath a Burgundian, or clerical King—he didn’t understand the willingness to leave, to leave his homeland deserted and free for ravaging.

 

Regardless of how Haense fell, Andrei was chained, not foremost to the line of Barbanov, but to those windswept flatlands and the dense forests of the Crothstadt and Karoswald; the lands of Hanseti-Ruska. It was forever his homeland, and there was an eternal shame he knew was to come if he abandoned it. It was a decision not for him to make, but for his wife—she who he felt didn’t have that same tether; instead, she bore it to the rulers, not the land itself. Perhaps if it were Karl, Andrei would follow him to the ends of the earth. His loyalty to Joren and Nadya was unwavering, but never could that brotherly connection be found in another King or Queen. Sorrowful as the concept was, his mind didn’t free him of those chains.

 

His titles themselves meant little, but it was the weight that they carried—what their ties were. He couldn’t stomach or fathom abandoning that hallowed, warm home that he was raised in with his dearest siblings, Markus, Duncan, Karlotta, Primrose and Erika – those last two foremost. Even still he hadn’t seen Erika in years, since the onset of war, but Primrose always stuck around. It always circled back to Dima, though—without her, the halls would be as empty as they’d be if it were a charred ruin. Even still, to Andrei, an empty home was better than no home—being forced to flee his Kingdom and being relegated to living in exile was a fate worse than death. He was not solely a guardian of Barbov’s line, but a guardian of the Edlervik and the Kingdom as a whole.

 

He clapped his ledger shut and pressed it away upon a side table. A palm lifted to take his hat and to settle it upon his head. Andrei stood from his seat and wandered the walls of Emsgrad. Far off to the west stood New Valdev, that same city where he received his knighthood at the hands of Karl, only due to an exception. It was also there that, many years ago he met his wife, the Lady Dima Kovachev. They fought, bickered, and quarreled, but even still, there were many periods of harmony throughout their time together; undisputedly did he love her. Still, his nose only scrunched at the thought, a grimace finding itself pressed over his features—perhaps a long-since discarded yearning for times of peace. 

 

So much of his life enveloped that city, built upon two rivers—even down to his education, his time under Ser Belisar, where he learned how to handle a sword, and yet it mattered naught. It would be relegated to mere ruins in the coming years, an eternal reminder of their defeat.

 

It was something that could not be denied or rejected, but instead addressed within himself. That concept of warmth was gone, now that Dima had headed north with Frederik, Martin, and Viktor—only two letters were left in her wake, urging him to follow her north. A land of pagans awaited them, and it wasn’t exactly what Andrei envisioned for his sons—regardless, it felt much too late for anything more.

 

“If you die, I’m going to find you in the Seven Skies and kill you again.”

 

 Dima had promised—multiple times, actually. 

 

And yet. At the end of the day, it meant little, at least now. His fate should’ve been intertwined with that of his Kingdom, like a true knight of the tales. His stroll came to a brisk conclusion, and Andrei once again settled into his library, wholly absent of staff, servants, or family. Emsgrad, the keep that once bustled with activity, was left almost fully dormant in the wake of Haeseni defeat.

That same evening, with Andrei retired to the library, there were a long few hours of silence before the night appeared to grow restless. Silence engulfed the castle, with the few remaining servants concluding their work, at least until flames were spotted within that aforementioned chamber. The fire had time to grow, and it raged with ease, engulfing the library and relegating all who lay within to a fiery death. It took a while for those servants to muster and quell the blaze, but it was already much too late to save their liege within. Letters were received by Dima, Frederik, Martin, Viktor, Joren, Nadya and Ledicort in the coming days.

 

The Count was dead, and with him many records of House Kortrevich.

The final Knight Paramount of Hanseti-Ruska,

Ser Andrei Otto Kortrevich, 1988-2023.

 

"Fallen Kingdom" - A Minecraft Parody of Coldplay's Viva la Vida (Music Video)

 

[Frawlic 1602]

Spoiler

 

 

 

The letter had reached her. She was quick to abandon her children into the hold of nearby Haeseni, tripping out the gates of Norland whilst trying to mount her steed. Given the chance, perhaps if she was quick enough, she could stop him.

...

Their entire relationship was built on the ability to remain truthful. Honesty was forged through the hatred, which often settled into the bones of their stubbornness. She couldn't recall anyone she had fought with as much as him, even her brother, who she had spent years fearing. Dima wouldn't have traded him for anyone else, though. Their exchanged hurt and scars were a constant reminder of the likelihood that goodness could come after.

Everything he had done was for the betterment of their house, and she always tried to keep up, sacrificing bits of herself to appeal to the standards of a wife and a countess. Never once did she find her blame on him, only a lack of selfishness on her part to tell the one she loved so dearly. No. They had promises exchanged of time, crumbling walls, and worries. She would not be offended by the arbitrariness of how they were kept or broken.

...

So when the wind swept over the hills of the Middenlands, and the clopping of reindeer hooves broke along the gravel and worn dirt of the heavily ridden path, her eyes stung. The cold had reaped at her tears, and the faint smell of smoke, familiar as it was, left a film in the back of her throat. She was not greeted at the gates, and only echoes met her within the walls of Emsgrad. Maybe he was not as foolish of a man as she knew him to be, but when a servant rushed past from the kitchen with a pail of water, she gathered her skirts, scuffing the floors with boots that carried Norland's soil. Black, charred, embers still wafting about in the business of it all.

Like a victim of war, her husband had been moved aside from the debris which those present still tried to ensure would not catch again. The corpse was draped in a white cloth with soot-covered edges. Her feet moved on their own as thought had ceased to exist, and in the back of her mind, she prayed some poor maid had rested too close to the hearth. Andrei's furs, singed as they were, were the only proof that the body was his, and Dima was not shy to hysterics. For hours, she cradled the blistered mass that was once her husband, until he stuck to her attire, as dead skin and ash. Until the servants had to pry her bony fingers off of him, to burn the body in the courtyard, to ensure the worst would not come for him after.

[cadazio 2105]

Ledicort mourns the death of yet another scion of Kazimir Jumbo.

 

"He (Kazimir) was a good man, you know..." he says, in the company of Erwin I (@Timer), most likely having broken into his palace.

[LuxyLucy 694]

 

Though we came into this world together, we depart at different times.

 

There is a unique bond forged between those that join their parents' lives together. Andrei and Primrose shared this bond, from the moment of their birth till the time Andrei’s unison with House Kortreviches motto, “With Duty, Comes Honor.” Would separate them from each other on that mortal plane that was Aevos. She had made a promise to that aspiring knight, who due to circumstances out of their control, had to bear a responsibility he was not birthed to bear.  She would always support him, from their time of youth where the shy boy shadowed his extroverted triplet. To when the matured bull took his mantle upon that dais of their childhood home of Emsgrad, she was an extension of himself, a horn that bull may wield to exert, in guiding the Koravians under that Crown of Hanseti-Ruska.

 

The now wilting ‘Rose’ would collapse, within the fires of the Aestmarch that had taken her aunt Adelina and uncle Nikolaus. Her gut felt wretched, as she looked upon their bones and ashes, the fires still alight as they would catch the fabrics of her Bykursain armor, as the metal would start to glow, as the scent of her burning flesh would surround that Leuven search party. Though she made no reaction to those burns, something within ate at her. A greater pain than offered by the nerves of her mortal flesh, an aching of the soul as if something of her very being, was now lost.

The only comparison, being when Andrei had entered the vortex upon that River Lahy years ago, completing his childhood dream of knighthood, to serve his pseudo brother Karl.

 

Elia and Louna would plead with her to flee the flames that scorched her flesh, but no response was given. Sosina had to drag the woman from the flames as her expression was blank. Detached from that reality, as that fire within her now lost home, took her other half. An unrecoverable part of that woman died that day. The trajectory of her life left astray, as if a poacher had sawn that horn from its place of residence atop the bulls head.

 

They say time heals all wounds, but this was a maiming of the soul. How is one to keep stable, if your legs are cut out from beneath you? As she lay covered in bandages within Vjardengrad’s clinic, hand shaking with pain from burn blisters, that woman born of Koravian blood, would set out to write, to quell the pain that ached within, that one day would take her, to meet her brother again.

 

“Somewhere near His family house,

   A Koravian Hussar jumped on his horse,

   He said goodbye to his Papej, his Mamej,

   And beautiful Dima.

 

Hey, hey, hey, Koravians,

   Go past primeval forests and lowlands.

   Ring, ring, ring, little bell,

  My little blue-eyed falcon.

 

The wind blows, blows, blows, blows,

   It has scattered us across the world.

   The heart is beating, yearning for the Homeland,

   It’ll stop for a moment and beat again.

 

Hey, hey, hey, Koravians,

   Go past primeval forests and lowlands.

   Ring, ring, ring, little bell,

  My little blue-eyed falcon.

 

Oh, it’s a long way home,

 For the County, for the Crown.

 We’ll defeat the temptations of enemies,

 We’re Koravians, we’re Haeseni!

 

 Hey, hey, hey, Koravians,

   Go past primeval forests and lowlands.

   Ring, ring, ring, little bell,

  My little blue-eyed falcon.

 

Hey, hey, hey, Koravians,

   Go past primeval forests and lowlands.

   Ring, ring, ring, little bell,

  My little blue-eyed falcon.”

 

Spoiler

Thank you for being a part of my journey, for the best months of my time spent on this server, since Axios @Gandhi. You'll always be my friend.

 

 

 

 

 

[alienescence 1415]

Bishop Josefina received the news while at the Reinmar clinic. In her bedridden state, the sudden grief felt like an added weight pressing her down further. Andrei, a young boy with aspirations bigger than himself, later became the Knight Paramount and Count of Jerovitz, a title he was not born to bear. If there was anything Josefina knew about Andrei, it was his ability and his want to protect others. Many times had he offered his sword in protection of her. Josefina could not make a sound as she cried silently. Andrei was never supposed to die before her, and she could not comprehend why he had.

 

 

 

[xo31 4013]

A wizard, - Enoch - let out a noise.

The mere matter around him flickered and warbled, as saw defeat take over the good souls he had met on this tour of Haense.

 

Next time, he thought.

 

Next time, it'd be different.

 

And he was content waiting.

[TaraJess 2853]

As the news reached south, Johanna paused her drinking briefly to write to her old friend Dima, God knows she would need support in this time.

[Ramon 5186]

Bishop Godfrey MOURNED after hearing of the passing of his good friend Ser Andrei of Jerovitz (they'd met like maybe twice in life.)

[zuziee 4004]

News of the fire spread faster than one would suspect, slipping from the lips of a passing couple Philippa encountered on the frostbitten roads of Norland. The evening was dark, the sky bruised with storm clouds, and icy hail fell in fits, forcing travelers to huddle beneath sagging, moss-laden trees for shelter. It was in that shivering moment she overheard them: a great fire had erupted in the Valdev region, not quite the capital, but close enough to stir unease. The smoke, they said, had curled into the sky and could be seen for miles.
 

At first, Philippa thought little of it. Fires happened. She continued with her routine, murmuring to friends, scratching quiet letters to her aunt, and pacing slow, aimless loops through the snow. But when she caught sight of the Kortreviches, solemn and tight-lipped, a knot twisted in her gut. The pieces clicked into place.
 

Just as she had in the months before, as Ipera wailed, she retched.

[Deets 1130]

Sir Clemens received news of Ser Andrei's passing shortly after departing the confines of the Monastery of Saint Rhosyn. He had not been the closest of friends with his Haeseni counterpart, though he had always held him in high esteem when they had had the privilege to work alongside one another. "I will pray for your family, Andrei."  Clemens resolved before lighting the candles before the altar contained within. Another friend had perished, and he found more often he shared his dreams with ghosts.

[indiana105 5126]

As Jan of Radovanic rode through the silent ruin of Hanseti-Ruska, he remembered what was. For five-hundred years the children of Edel ruled proud from their holdfasts. All the great houses of the North had raised the line of Barbov to the mandate. Together, they persisted. 

 

The Haeseni destroyed the Imperium of Almaris. And as the Heartlanders tore themselves apart, the men of the North built great cities, and hoarded great wealth. Karosgrad and New Valdev stood at the apex of Man. It seemed not long ago that the black banner of Barbanov-Bihar had flown from the falls of the west to the plains of the lowland. Now, it lay tattered and rotting at the feet of their Lady.

 

Jan mourned for the children of Edel as he passed beneath the bridge to New Valdev. His people, defeated and scattered, now found themselves subject to the whims of wicked men and wicked gods. Never before had they been broken so thoroughly. His father had often spoken of their defeat at the hands of the Courlanders. So too did he speak of the rebellion of Greyspine, and the restoration of their kingdom. But the Haeseni had been united, then. Beneath one GOD, and behind one banner. A different time.

 

He brought his horse to a halt before his hovel. Nataliyino stood desolate, and the crop rotted in the field. Above him loomed the seat of the bull. He remembered its lord; that boy, Andrei of Kortrevich. Jan remembered the fine furs he had worn, and how he had coveted them. He remembered the flaxen-haired girl who the smallfolk say the lord had taken to wife. What had come of them? Who was to steward over their lands now? What of their subjects? 

 

Jan knew not. He gave praise to the Last Prophet, and prayed to GODANISTAN that the Kort had found his peace. The farmer traced the Hussariyan over his breast, and continued on in search of those lords who stayed.

 

[ContestedSnow 1435]

Aleksandr found that as the years pressed on, less and less seemed to phase that Bihar. Even as his homeland collapsed into ignominy, the Oracle of that once realm had little to say or give in commentary; nor did he feel much urge to kvetch or to mutter witty rebuttals at random letters under his breath to nobody in his room. 

 

When he learned of the death of another friend, they simply let the familiar pang wash over them, and returned to his silence.

 

Spoiler

fly high andrei

https://imgur.com/a/B6kqAiQ

 

[KillerMaid 636]

Malna had finally.... finally been able to see the Kortrevich family again, nearly crying tears as she embraced Primrose, Ipera, all the others she could find in Norland. She swore to help them here. She traveled to Haense, heaving supplies, food, and even some livestock to make the trek over, scouring through Nau Valdev for any remnants that may give them all comfort. Malna was just waiting to see Andrei again.

 

When she found out she did not cry at first, refusing to believe it like it was a cruel joke. Only when she got home, her home full of things from Krusev, until a home could be constructed for them, did she scream. She screamed and sobbed as another person died, another person left... Andrei, the young man who wanted to grow up so fast, to see the world and protect them. Days would pass, and another portrait found its way onto her wall.

 

[critter 2812]

Martin Kortrevich cried, not for knowing yet the grief he would inherit but for the wants and whims of a little child, hardly yet aware of the changing world around him. In years to come the quiet twin might yet start to notice the gap in his family: the sorrow which cloaked them, the loss of what never would be.

 

And elsewhere Sabine sat astride a white horse, staring grimly from atop a forested crest onto once had been Koravia. Where a boy became a man, and might have yet become something more if fate only gave him the chance.

 

She did not weep.

She lit her pipe, and turned away.

[sarahbarah 7109]

Spoiler

 

 

---

 

IN THE QUIET STILLNESS of the woods near the County of Jerovitz, snow-dusted pines swayed gently in the wind. The hush of exile was broken only by the distant call of a crow.

 

Nadya sat alone beneath the boughs. The exiled queen, wrapped in the muted furs of a simpler life, held a scrap of parchment in her hands – the ink smudged, but the name clear enough: Ser Andrei of the Marian Retinue, fallen.

 

For a long moment she did not speak. The cold crept into her bones, but she did not move. Instead, her thoughts wandered to another time, when the world was younger and the Crown sat upon her brow,  unbroken. She remembered the way Andrei stood at her side in court – silent, but ever-watchful. A knight of few words and many burdens, his loyalty had not been loud, but it had been unquestionable. He had served not just her husband, not just the Crown, but the very idea of Haense.

 

And now he was gone.

 

A soft breath escaped her lips, the white mist curling in the air like a spirit set free. She wanted to believe he had been a coward. It would’ve been easier. Simpler. To write him off as one more deserter in a long line of disappointments. A man who had turned his back like so many others had when the Crown crumbled beneath the weight of war.

 

But the truth clung to her like the snow to her boots. Andrei was not a coward.

 

No, Andrei had stayed. When others ran, when friends turned strangers and bloodlines splintered, he had remained. Quiet. Dutiful. Burdened by his oath, and yet never seeking glory for it. He had stayed to guard the crumbling walls of the Kingdom they once believed in. 

 

And in the end, he died not for the sake of a monarch or banner, but for the memory of what they had built, and what might still be salvaged from its ashes.

 

“I hated you for staying,” Nadya confessed to the wind, her voice raw with something older than grief – older, perhaps, than even the Kingdom itself. Regret. 

 

A memory surfaced amidst that sinking feeling, unbidden, but warm against the cold.

 

They had been just children, then. Not yet Queen and Knight, not yet molded by politics or war. Just Nadya, stubborn and sharp-tongued, picking fights in a tavern she had no business being in. Andrei had found her mid-brawl, standing on a table, swinging a tankard at a grown man twice her size. No armor on him that day – just a threadbare coat and that eternally furrowed brow. He’d waded into the chaos like it was a parade, knocked her would-be opponent flat with one punch, then hauled her out by the back of her collar like a misbehaving pup.

 

“You’ll get yourself killed one day,” he muttered.

“So will you,” she snapped back.

 

And they both had, in their own way.

 

There was no monument to mark his death. No tomb to lay flowers before. But here, in this exile of her own making, she gave him a eulogy all the same.

 

“...I was wrong. You were honorable to the end,” she whispered. “And I was the coward for fleeing first.”

 

---

 

Spoiler

gandhi yk i love u brotha.

can't wait to tell more cool stories with you