Complicated

Mother has a date, which is concerning. And what are arcliches, exactly?

Valdor took a slightly confused glance out of the window. Mother had a date? With whom, exactly? He didn’t want to press further, as he knew Liara was just as confused as he was, and he didn’t want to sound too eager or like he would have cared about it a lot. He fidgeted with the necklace he had gotten from Triss, gazing outside from the window, but sunken into his thoughts.
This was a new thing, really, but something which didn’t really surprise him, even if he hadn’t been necessarily expecting it to happen now. She had gotten her eyes on someone, or more like, on a deal with someone and the man was just the thing to seal it, most likely. But what if she would like the man? What if that man would be even younger than Valdor himself? If they were some snob who would look down on him, the eldest son, for only having a career in the army? It was not a bad career, no, Valdor was very much pleased with his own job, but being a lowly sergeant wasn’t much, especially as he was starting to get older and it was expected -especially if you were a noble- to rise in the ranks quickly in the first few decades after graduating, while later the progress would usually slow down. And he was only a sergeant, yet again, Valdor wasn’t after the titles or glory. He was happy where he was, and being a sergeant wasn’t a bad thing, but the creeping feeling of inadequacy gnawed his mind. What if the man would laugh at him and ridicule him for his low standing, to make it apparent where they were originally from -the gutters. If that man would make mother embarrassed of where they originated from, and more than that, if that man would make her ashamed of him. He, the eldest of the family, should be the one to proudly represent it, to stand behind the name ’Bloodworth’. Or at least that was what the army leaders liked to tell in their inspiring speeches before big battles. Not that the name Bloodworth would have been worth, well, anything, unlike the names of some higher houses.

What if that man didn’t know how to handle mother? Valdor knew his mother had to be dealt with in a very specific way so she wouldn’t go off the tangent with her ideas. He had mastered it during the years, but what if this new man would be able to sway mother somehow to his liking, making things more difficult in long run for the family. Slow and steady was what Valdor preferred, over high risk and high reward situations. But mother was easily excitable and taking that into account, the man could possibly threaten the well-being of Valdor’s small and intimate family. Sometimes things had to be presented to Mother in a strict and almost insolent way (when it came from a son), so she would even listen to what was said to her and postpone her hasty decisions, most likely forgetting them altogether when she would find something more interesting to do. He had been the one to put his foot down a few times and only his acting had diverted mother from those severely bad decisions. What if this man would try to take his place as the patron? It was utterly confusing and even slightly hilarious to think that their family would even have a patron. Their family was not a proper house, and only proper houses had patrons in Valdor’s mind. There had not been a man in this family other than himself for as long as he could remember. He wasn’t even sure of Liara’s father, as he had been in less warm terms with mother before Liara was born and wouldn’t know about mother’s personal relations.

Valdor sighed quietly, pondering. Well, most likely this little date was just one of her antics, another thing to fixate on, something she would find interesting today, but already forgotten tomorrow. Valdor knew she wanted to be regarded as a real matron so badly she would do anything to gain the acceptance of the noble families. And in some way, it hurt him, when he saw her blatant enthusiasm and he knew in his heart they would never be regarded as a noble family. Never. As a family they were small -just three of them- and even if relatively wealthy if compared to what they had been just a century ago, they were just like a tiny bat to a hungry roper; too small to eat and too indifferent that the roper would know, and even less care, if the bat existed at all, in a huge cavern full of thousands of other similar bats. Despite their more distant relationship in Valdor’s early childhood, he only wanted the best for his mother. That was why he usually had to put a stop to her mother’s most eccentric ideas, because he didn’t want to see his mother having to go through that sour defeat. He had a gentle heart and watching his mother fail pained him more than the possible repercussions of standing against her.

Valdor closed his eyes slowly and took a deep breath. There were a lot of things he needed to get an answer for, and he knew he wouldn’t get them any time soon. As often was, things had gotten more confusing, and fast, when he had started asking questions. Complicated, Lady Goldenheart had said, and Valdor understood now what she had meant. He partly regretted telling Triss and asking Jargloth about this thing, as what he had at first thought to be just a curious incident and possibly a few days’ worth of having someone over for protection had turned into something more complicated, in a way that he wasn’t sure of what would happen next. What exactly would happen to him now? And how would he able to explain this to Mum and Liara, as he wasn’t sure himself what was going on. Mum would be the last one to know about this, as he knew she would blow up if he wouldn’t have a proper plan ready to confront her. He wanted to tell Liara about all of this, but he didn’t want to make her worry. He never wanted to make her worry, so he had kept all things inside he thought could possibly worry her. He had tried to keep his criminal past out of Liara’s life as well as possible, even at those times when he had brought to the table some fresh bread he would have never had had the money to buy without some kind of side job. He had said he had friends, or he had helped in the bakery, or he had been doing odd jobs here and there -which was not necessarily a lie, just a decorated truth. Liara didn’t need to worry about it, though Valdor knew she was a smart young woman and had probably guessed that there had been something going on. She had never confronted him about it.

But how would the women of his life react to the news of this odd Archlich lady? Valdor wasn’t even sure if this was important enough a thing to tell to them, anyway. This was his personal business, wasn’t it? But he knew he would need to tackle the question sooner or later, because if something would be done about this tomorrow -or Monday, depending on how things would go- things would just escalate quickly from there on. Triss had exclaimed that she could be the one to watch his sleep if some guard would be needed -Valdor felt awkward, if also thankful for his squad leader’s dedication to the situation. But it was unnecessary, of course. Completely unnecessary, at least he thought so… but he kept pondering if the Special unit, which Triss had mentioned, would be interested in this. It confused him -he never had thought that something about him would interest anyone, least the special unit. They were, more often than not, a pain in the ass. If they waltzed to the crime scene, everyone immediately knew it would be off-limits to everyone else- it really didn’t strengthen the solidarity between different units of Yanta. Thankfully their squad had limited interaction with them, because as scouts they were just the first responders and left the heavy lifting to the other more suitable units, thus their paths rarely crossed. But if Triss had been wondering something like that, was it a real option? And in that case, if such thing was a real option, then… he would be in trouble. Valdor had learned to trust their squad leader, but now he wanted to disregard Triss’ concern, yet he had nothing to counter it with. Valdor knew his knowledge on these magical subjects was very much limited. Even when things had been explained to him, he was just more confused. And in this kind of situation he wanted to trust his guts. His guts told him that Lady Goldenheart, even if undead, didn’t feel evil. From a very young age he had learned to discern good people from bad people, and even when these ‘liches’ (almost like lices, right?) apparently were evil, his guts told him that Meorise wasn’t. Creepy? Yes. Confusing? Definitely. But evil? No. Maybe this was more of an exception was the rule case, but would everyone else understand it? Valdor had nothing else to back his opinion but the feeling, and he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

He stared restlessly out of the window, wondering how things would turn out. Good or bad, it was hard to say yet.