Repercussions
“Let me help you with that Kathy.” giggled Maggie to her sister-in-law.
Maggie put down her wine glass and walked across the room to help Kathleina with the last two buttons at the back of her evening gown. And she buttoned the last button Maggie peered over Kathleina’s shoulder and into the mirror, looking at their reflections. They two of them were wearing fancy white dresses, with lacy frills around their sleeve’s cuffs, the hem of their skirts, their waists, and around their necks. Kathleina’s face was painted a ghostly white.
Kathy grimaced at they way she looked, and stuck out her tongue.
Kathy laughed “I feel like I’m a little girl!”
“Quick, you have to paint my face before it is time to leave!”
Maggie sat down on the edge of her bed and closed her eyes. She scrunched up her face when she felt the cold wet brush touched her forehead.
“I haven’t dressed up like this for the festival since I got married!” Kathy said as she painted Maggie’s face. “We should do this every year.”
“The guys will think we’ve lost our minds Kathy! They might not even want to be near us at the dance, looking as crazy as us two... girls!”
“Stop talking! You are making the paint clump up… silly!”
“Mmm…mmmmm…”
“What is it?” Kathy jokingly scowled.
“My drink, I need my…”
“MAGGIE! … MAGGIE!” It was James’ booming voice from downstairs. It sounded urgent.
The two women grabbed the hem of their gowns and rushed out of the room. Maggie peered over the banister to see James smiling, leaning against the dining room table to help keep his intoxicated-self propped up.
“Maggie! Look who’s home for the festival!”
With surprise in her half-painted face, Maggie let go her glass; she leaned over the banister and watched the glass fall, smashing into splash of red on the floor below.
---
James slapped Stewart on the back.
“And then he walked into the foyer… that’s when Maggie, she, she dropped her glass of wine over the banister!”
The men around James all laughed aloud, looking over towards Maggie and Kathy in acknowledgment that they were laughing about her.
“She must be happy to have you home for the week, Stewart!” exclaimed an intoxicated Mr. Tytler.
“He’s always been her favorite!” laughed James, as he slapped Stewart on the back again.
“Say… how’s the training going? Have you met the King yet?” asked another drunken friend of his father’s.
“The training is good.” He replied curtly. “And the King’s too busy to meet with new recruits… besides, most of the greenhorns are… well, they’re gone by the end of the winter months.”
“He’s also working in the King’s stables! He’s going to..” boasted James, spilling ale as he dipped and swayed.
Stewart cut in “… No James, it’s not... It’s the Oxana Forest Rangers’ stables. They’ve asked me to help them out; it’s not even part of the curriculum.”
Stewart’s patience for his drunken entourage was thinning, and he scanned the room for anybody that was looking his way for an escape.
He saw his brother across the dance floor, pouring himself some punch with a ladle. When August turned, he froze at the sight of his brother in military dress.
Stewart was the only one in the room that was not wearing white at all. Minimally attendees wore a white paper top hat, which was given at the door to anyone that was not wearing the festival’s official dress code. Stewart was given exception because he was in military dress.
“Looking good!” August shouted over the music. Stewart simply smiled and motioned for August to follow him outside.
---
“How’s the shop doing?” Stewart asked.
“For the off season, not too bad really. We’re gearing up for a busy spring, once the snow melts.”
The two of them stood ankle-deep in the fresh fallen snow, staring at their feet.
“Did dad tell you he turned down Sir Marten’s final offer on the Steeplewood Manor contract?” asked August.
“Yeah, he mentioned something about it in the carriage-ride here.”
“Mom’s missed you. She cries a lot at night.”
“I know…” Stewart sighed. “But this is better for August. James may have been right about me… I’ve never had any interest in…”
“I know.” August didn’t want to hear his brother admit he was not interested in woodworking.
“What you don’t know, August… is that I’m not training to be a soldier.”
This caught August’s attention. “But… the uniform…”
“The uniform is the same for all new entrants to the military… but I’m not cut out to be a sword-toting foot soldier. I’m too... C’mon, you’re my brother; we both know I’m too lazy for that!”
“So… why don’t you come home?” August wondered aloud.
“August, they’re enrolling me in the School of Majiks. I’m to start apprenticing come spring. They… my superiors figured I’d better serve Windaria this way!”
August could not believe his ears. His brother was always interested in majik more than he, but the two of them always found time to pick up new tricks and practice them out in the forest, away from their parents. Stewart used to call upon winds to clear fallen leaves from the path during the fall months, would use the majik light small fires to warm their hands in the winter months. One day August suddenly found himself nearly knee-deep in mud in what had been but a shallow puddle just moments before. His brother used to mock their father at times too, bringing back carved objects that he had made from fallen branches; they’d resemble regular customers, or he’d carve animals in great detail. The intricate carvings would be so ornately detailed that it would infuriate their father because it was too detailed not to be done without majik.
“Does dad know?”
“No, and he never needs to know, August. I told you because I thought you would be happy for me.”
“I am!” beamed August.
---
Stewart lay in his cot in the Oxana barracks. He just couldn’t sleep. He kept going over his brief conversation with his brother during the winter festival’s ball not two weeks ago… He had only been living away from home for half the year, yet he felt a distance already growing between him and his family. He really wanted to tell them more, especially his mother… she’d likely understand.
Stewart pushed himself quietly out of bed and silently crossed the dorm floor, making sure not to wake any of the other fledgling recruits. He pushed the hallway curtains to the side and walked down the hall to the door leading outside; he really needed to relieve himself.
As he was pissing in the snow outside the barracks, he closed his eyes and shivered. Damn it was cold out. Suddenly there was a hand that grabbed him by the forehead and pulled him backwards, stopping suddenly as he stepped into his assailant whom was holding him very closely.
“It sucks to be you, soldier!” is the last thing he heard before he felt a knife’s blade press against his throat.
---
“JAMES! … JAMES!” Maggie was at the top of the stairs that looked over the backyard and into the side of the workshop.
James lifted his head and eyed her quizzically from across the yard.
“IT’S TIME FOR SUPPER, JAMES!”
James nodded and waved to her. He’d be in soon.
---
James entered the house about a half hour after Maggie had expected him, but the look on her poor husbands face and the well decorated officers that she could see in the backyard was more than enough indication that her husband had more than a good reason for his tardiness.
“Margaret, Dear Margaret… I’m sorry.” James looked at her pitifully from across the kitchen standing in the opened doorway.
“Stewart?” she whispered.
James could no longer look at her in the eye. He signed his eldest up for the military. He was to blame.
“My Stewart?” she whimpered.
August was sitting at the table, and James saw tears begin to well up in his son’s eyes. As he stepped forward, August sat up so suddenly his chair fell backwards behind him. August clenched his teeth, slammed his fist into the table, and then turned to run to through the kitchen, straight through the foyer, and out the front door.
I've been playing City of Villains now for a couple weeks, and I have to say, the game really is great. With the added models/skins/classes/etc they've provided, its even more fun to generate villains using the in-depth character creation tool. I've been really enjoying making new characters too; when I only have a short time to sit in front of the PC, instead of jumping in the game I fire up the character generator to see what I can create. It's a lot of fun to see if you can envision a persona and then create it.