2017-03-17: Two Princesses
- Log: Two Princesses
- Cast: Cecilia Adlehyde, Alisha Diphda
- Where: Starfall Saloon, Adlehyde
- Date: March 17, 2017
- Summary: Cecilia and Alisha run into each other. They talk about life as princesses. Being royal isn't easy.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia Adlehyde normally has her dietary needs seen to by a staff of dedicated chefs at the Castle. They're all busy with this festival thing right now, and apparently they're still looking for a cook who can keep up with a Crest Sorceress. So the solution is obvious: Go somewhere adventureres eat!
Result: Cecilia sits at a big table, alone, confronted by two plates of hamburgers (two each, full order of fries), and two plates of fried rice, and the look of someone who is not at all worried about their life decisions.
Tragically, Jack Van Burace and his flying mouse friend are not present to dramatize what is about to unfold.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha shoulders her spear as she walks into the tavern. She isn't here specifically because she wants a place where adventurers eat. Rather, Alisha wants a place where she can eat -- and the Starfall has become comfortable, if not quite at home. The food is all different than she is used to in little ways -- and in big ways, for a princess. She stops, as she steps inside, and looks around.
And then her green eyes widen as she catches sight of the other princess, seated at her table, and eating... one of the largest meals that she has ever seen a lone person eat.
Her mouth hangs open, until she remembers to close it.
"P-Princess Cecilia!" she calls out. "Ah, so... you frequent this establishment, too?" She asks it as she strides over, looking down at the food -- and with a small smile on her face. That she was called a liar, last time, appears to be either forgotten or forgiven.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia blinks up a little at the call, a brief flash of...something, striking across her face. But it's suppressed quickly when she sees it's Alisha, who, she, doesn't...entirely...know how to feel about.................hm.
Maybe this could be good. "Oh, hello," she says, looking up to Alisha. She briefly glances around to see who all noticed, but apparently it got drowned amid the crowd for the moment. Few in Adlehyde could identify their princess if she weren't pointed out to them. It's...well. It's an emotion, anyway. "Frequent...not really. But they are equipped to feed a Crest Sorceress more than home is, at the moment."
She motions to a chair. "Please, sit. We should talk, I think."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Ah, then... the sort of magic that you use on this world requires an appetite?" Alisha asks, thoughtfully.
Her head tilts to the side, though, and she nods at the request. She pulls a chair out, and there is a certain familiarity in how she moves. She doesn't plop down; she sits with poise, etiquette training influencing her every movement. Her hands rest politely on the table, and her green eyes lift, as she sits with good posture.
She smiles at Cecilia -- and then she nods, once. "Yes," she says. "I agree that we should. I would have called upon you directly, but I felt that was improper. You have never heard of Hyland and I am well aware that I have no standing here."
Not, she thinks, that she had much at home.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
"Crest Sorcery takes a lot of energy!" Cecilia replies, with a nod. There's reasons but she feels like they're too technical to bother with, so she just pulls an order of fries over and starts chomping, with surprising care and dignity considering....well, everything. She sets the meal aside for a moment (and takes a drink of something watery), as Alisha finshes talking. "I haven't, no," Cecilia replies. "But I've now met with enough of your...compatriots that you'd have to have a rather impressive ring indeed to all be telling the same story. So it seems I owe you an apology."
Her eyes linger across Alisha for a considering moment. "Something very strange is definitely happening."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Ah, I see! The only magic that I can use is that the Goddess blessed me with," Alisha says. "It doesn't require--oh, it requires energy, but not food. Typically."
She smiles as she imagines it: the halls of Neo-Vane, filled to the brim with hungry mages and long tables full of a glorious feast, and Black Wizard Borgan at their head, in his voluminous robes. Sitting at a table, and--
Alisha's face screws up. Maybe high-level spellcasting does require an appetite?
But, her expression becomes more serious then, and she shakes her head once. "Think nothing of it, please," she says. "In your position, I would have been skeptical too. I can't help but agree, though. We... simply appeared here."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Blessings...it's not like it's unheard of on Filgaia, Cecilia knows that better than most. But they don't mean the same thing. She's sure if she focused on the Medium, the Guardians would show her how to use their power, but...
She shakes her head, pulling herself out of reverie. "It's impossible to imagine," she murmurs. "Neither moon has signs of life. Master Anje has reports from the scholars at Sielje Region. I never perused them at length, but I know that much. But no mere misunderstanding can account for what you and the others have described. I can only imagine what could've caused it all..."
...at this point they're just agreeing that nothing makes sense. She sighs once, quiet, thinking. "Magic through no study," she finally says, emerging from some tangent thought with a low chuckle. "What a strange thought."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"I have wondered. When we came, I did not realize where I was. I saw the Blue Star in the skies all the time, but... the Silver Star looks barren and dead, from here," Alisha says, and she sounds sad to say those words aloud. Her eyes drift down for a moment, and then she looks back up. She nods, once, at her. "I wish that I knew. I--there were matters of great concern in my homeland."
There is a brief slip in the friendly but polite smile. A flash of worry that runs deep, the way that it only can for someone of great responsibilities.
And then she looks surprised.
"We still have to learn," she says. "People have different amounts of talent. But... the greatest mages spend years perfecting their art. To cast my Litanies, I had a tutor. We have to study. We just... know the source to be from the Goddess."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
"Hmm," Cecilia murmurs. "I suppose that's not so different, then," Cecilia replies, reaching down and producing from her skirt a square stone tablet - quite small, smaller than a palm - that has elaborate mystic signage across its face, with two distinct icons, Graphs, etched into designated spots in the corners. "I trained in Crest Sorcery and...a few other things, at Curan Abbey for the last ten years," she explains. "Though, they say the Advanced Magic is now lost..." ... "Strange to think. There are those who say the Guardians can bless a priest or priestess to call upon their magic, but the truth of it is mostly kept by the Baskar Tribes. I've not seen it myself."
She pauses, and then laughs, self-conscious, tucking her Crest Graph away. "Look at me, talking magic with a knight...I suppose it can't be of all that much interest."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Oh--no, not at all!" Alisha says, with a shake of her head. "I like to hear about this land. Including the magic." Her eyes look down. "...And the food."
She looks back up, then, and smiles a little brighter. Cecilia may be right about one thing: she doesn't just want to talk magic. "You are royalty, though?" she says, softer than before. "I was surprised, when you told me before. Oh, and you must have thought..."
That Alisha was running a con. She flusters, slightly, with the thought of it.
Then, she finishes: "...I never thought I would meet another here. Certainly not by running into you, in a city."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia smiles for Alisha's sake. The subject of food reminds her she's got a lot to destroy, and she's halfway through a hamburger when Alisha turns the topic again. Gulp, swallow. "I am," she says, and dabs at her lip. "...well, at the Abbey I met most of the ladies of my station on Ignas. And..." Her eyes turn down. "These days I'm not sure there's anyone left on Elru period..."
Grimace. But she turns her eyes up again. "...it was a strange thought. But I suppose me running around isn't so common, either. Father has only let me have the run of the area thanks to the Exhibition coming up. I think he'd think I'm abusing it if he knew what I've done." She titters a little.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"I have heard of the many troubles suffered by Elru," Alisha says, her voice sounding sad, then. She looks down -- and shakes her head, once. "Not many of the details. But..."
Enough.
She looks up, then, and tilts her head -- and then she blinks. "Ah, your father... wouldn't approve of you being out? And being with the people?" she asks. Her voice is more guarded. Is this what a princess due to inherit lives like? "I... my father never stopped me. But I entered the knighthood." She hesitates, then explains: "I'm low on the order of succession."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
"The women of the Adlehyde line are....important," Cecilia says, slowly. "We protect the secrets of the Guardians and the world." But her eyes turn hard and bitter. "Or so they tell me."
Her eyes cut to the side, briefly. "Father just wishes to protect me. I don't blame him. But I think he fears I will break outside the walls."
She looks up at Alisha, smiling a little thinly. "Did you notice nobody reacted to you calling my name?" she says, quietly. "Most of the people of Adlehyde know me only by reputation. I have been at the Abbey for most of the last ten years, but even then, I remember before I left. They're very fond of their princess."
Very specifically phrased. She tears another bite out of a burger.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Ah..." A destiny, of some kind, then. The opposite of Alisha's situation, where she was the princess that no one wanted. But, maybe, there are similarities there too. She looks down for a moment -- and then she looks back up. "...Mm. Fond of their princess, but they don't know the woman that she is. I..."
For all that she became embroiled in politics, Alisha never learned to keep a poker face. She can do a polite smile, but she can't do a smile with an edge if she tries. Alisha looks to the side and the sadness -- and guilt -- is plain on her face.
"It isn't easy," she says quietly, "to be a symbol. People were never meant to be symbols. We were supposed to be--I know that I want to be more than that."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
It's strange to hear someone just say what's been on her mind. Cecilia hesitates, hands withdrawing to her lap. (Wow one of those plates is just destroyed...) "At the Abbey, nobody cared. We'd sit and laugh and eat together. We'd tease each other, of course, but...who you were and why was part of some other world. It was..."
She trails off.
"The Princess of Adlehyde is an important person. The one who holds the Teardrop holds a sacred treasure and a sacred trust." She can't say...the rest. Not to a stranger. Alisha may say the right words, but Cecilia doesn't know her. So instead she tips her head lightly to the side and shakes her head. "But nobody seems to think about Cecilia much."
Her eyes dip. "Even I don't have much time for that."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Mm." Alisha nods -- but doesn't voice the things she wouldn't say to a friend, much less a stranger. She had no Abbey. She had no place where she was ever just Alisha until she met Sorey. Even to Lady Maltran, Alisha is ever the princess of Hyland. The two are so bound up in each other that she doesn't know where one ends and the other begins.
That one is useless to her kingdom doesn't make her feel any better.
"...It isn't easy," she agrees, finally. "To... be that. To be someone important, but not yourself. Do you wish you could?" she asks, looking up, then. "I know that is nothing but a fancy. But... if you could do something else. I've wondered, too."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia hems. "...it's all I've ever known," she says, finally. "Would I even know what it's like?"
The question resonates in her thoughts, and they wander off. The thought is paralyzing in its strangeness. Do something else? Nothing emerges from it, no idle speculation or half-formed dream.
She sits there, unresponsive for several long seconds before her head shakes. "...sorry. Morbid conversation for a stranger," she finally says; quietly drawing a line.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha doesn't know, either. Even when the Shepherd's journey feels like it could be, there is the lingering knowledge: she does this for Hyland. And, now, she does this to return to Hyland. Before Bartlow...
Her green eyes sink down. She nods to the shake of her head.
"My apologies," she says. Then, she looks back up, and she smiles -- but it's a sadder smile than before. "The Abbey does sound wonderful. And, ah--your kingdom is full of surprises, and many of them good! There are far worse places one could end up stranded."
She looks down, and then the smile brightens more. "And a sort of magic that I never heard of before, either!"