Talinn listened patiently to Daniil. At first, it did not start out too bad-he knew Caden Freemont had returned to the Imperium in some capacity, and that Alwyn had judged him decent enough to be employed in the Guard-he had been intending to visit him at some point, to give him some of his mother’s things, what remained after all of these years that he could pull together after his talk with her on Urk, but he had been so busy. That was not what started him to open the bottle of whiskey and begin to pour it into the glass-it was Daniil telling him that he had been involved with him-romantically. At that, he took a full shot glass of the whiskey. He then began pouring the second glass when he he heard that Daniil had actually proposed to him, and Caden had decided that then of all times was the time to tell him that he had killed Armina. That Tanya had then went and seemingly confirmed that Armina was Vaelora to him was the impetus that made him down the second shot.
I know I asked the Kitsune for a shot at redemption to avoid my fate but for Vulpuz’s sake She is not making this easy is She? And the worst of it is I cannot take more than one more shot to get through this conversation or I’ll start to be truly drunk and not just calming myself with this topic and I cannot have that with this.
He did, however, continue to pour another glass, this time for Daniil, as he listened to every word that his adopted cousin said. Once he was done, he pushed it towards him in the event that he needed it.
“You may take a drink of this, if it would help you to calm your nerves. Do not take more than two, though, or you will start to get a little drunk.” He began, knowing that Daniil would likely need it. After that, he sat back on his chair, clearly thinking for quite some time, pursing his lips. He had to focus-he had MANY things to think about-the fact that Daniil was indeed gay, which was the least of his concerns given his culture, the fact that he had been in an interspecies relationship-how did that even happen and how did that work-and it had gotten so far that he had proposed to Caden of all beasts.
CADEN FOR HIS PART WILLING GETTING INTO A RELATIONSHIP WITH A BEAST WHOSE MOTHER HE HAD KILLED, CONTINUING THAT TO THE POINT OF BEING ON THE VERGE OF MARRIAGE, THEN TELLING HIM THAT ON THE DAY HE PROPOSED. Tanya, too, although he did not hear most of the details, was not exactly helping by sticking to the family line which is something he would need to talk about with her later. He knew she still loved Armina...or...her conception of her. But she had not seen what she had became, or how it had been weaponized against them to the point it killed Daniil’s real parents and countless others, and how that Vaelora was all they had now, or could admit publicly to anyone.
But all of the above could wait-right now, Daniil, clearly barely keeping it together, was in front of him asking a simple question. Talinn put his hands on the desk, clasping them together, then, finally, spoke.
“Daniil, since you are now old enough, I am going to respect you enough to let you judge and make up your own mind, but I have never lied to you once about her from my perspective.” He pushed the blind Kitsune statute forward towards him, then began to collect some of the black and white stones in his paws.
“The scales of justice, as you might know. If they tilt one way, a beast is to be guilty of something, if they tilt the other way, they are to be exonerated, if they are equal, the same. White for good acts, black for bad ones.” He gave his adopted cousin a nod.
“Armina Rogue, as far as anyone can gather, was an orphan from Westisle, from Summerdock, that had stowed away on the Hide, after my brother had completed the first of many campaigns to bring us back to power. She was taken in by its members, and showed love, and in return, showed love back, as she was able to do.”
He took up a white stone, and placed it on one of the scales, then paused.
“For a time, she served admirably, despite her upbringing, and brought much joy to my brother, Aunt Tanya, and Uncle Jeshal. No one...sane...could speak ill of her during this time.” He made the qualifier to refer to Anithias, in as far as he had discovered, already having it out for her. He added another white stone to the scale, which began to tilt one way towards the side indicating innocence.
“But...those days, Daniil, you must understand, were chaotic. Much more so than today, both on Westisle, and in the Imperium. You remember how bad it got, at certain points, in our home. It got much worse here. Aunt Tanya, Jeshal, and the Crown Prince and Princess faked their deaths to avoid the chaos and leave peacefully. They had the option, as I can tell, to take Armina with them, but...she either refused, or they did not for some other reason. That is something you will have to ask them...carefully…” he emphasized carefully quite strongly.
“...about that.”
He took a long, deep breath, and decided to add another white stone to the scale, then sat back for some time to let Daniil digest this, before he continued.
“But, as I have learned, and continue to learn, family is paramount, Daniil. When one of us goes away from the protection and support of the others, we can grow...awry. Armina...started to act erratically, more so than she had done before. Partially in response to the chaos, partially in response to Aunt Tanya and Uncle Jeshal...leaving…” he had to catch himself from saying abandoning, because that would certainly get him murdered by one, or both of them.
“...at a young age, in a command position on the Hide. Being in command is…” He paused again
“...you have seen the toll it has taken on Aunt Dusk and I, your grandfather, on your cousins, even Alwyn with his comparatively small squad. Heavy is the responsibility."
He tapped his paws on the desk.
“And she was alone with it, now without guidance. The next part is...still unclear to me...and may be for everyone, but, something in her, changed. She began to act more erratically, in strange ways, and with no one to support her…” He shook his head.
“She...became lost."
It pained him to do so, but this is when he picked up quite a few of the black stones.
“She burned the Hide, endangering the lives of its entire crew…” he added more than a few black stones, already enough to tilt the scales back towards equal
“...though not many died. What came next was…” He sighed.
“You have heard the stories, and though exaggerated, as far as I can tell, they were true. She...killed a lot of beasts in whatever state she was in. Not just bad beasts, innocent beasts.” He poured more of the black stones onto the scales, such that now the scales were completely on the side of guilty.
“And...as you will learn Daniil, if you ever rise to command, whenever you do an action, there is a reaction.”
He sat back and pursed his lips.
“There was a beast back then, Kaden Winder, I do not know if he is still alive now, but, he fancied himself sort of...vigilante. Hero, as I recall. The details here are very scarce, but all I know is that she was defeated, stabbed in the chest, and kicked down into the sewers and washed to sea, and from there, she was never publicly seen again. Armina Rogue died right then and there, that I can tell you with absolute certainty. And thus ends her scale."
He removed all the stones off the scales, and put them back besides it once again. He was quiet for quite a long time.
“Around the time your grandfather and I arrived into the Imperium with our first wave of retainers and our Mistcloaks, we discovered information that his daughter had given birth to his granddaughter, in Summerdock. But we did not know what happened to her, though we spent years and no small amount of time and money looking. We finally found out that she was most likely in the Imperium, and set sail for it. When we arrived, we began to look for her, though we did not have a name, only a description, and family resemblance to go off of. Our landing location was near the sewers, and we found an almost mortally wounded, delirious vixen about to be swept out to sea. Out of kindness, we rescued her, took her to our residence, and cleaned her up. Your grandfather recognized her as his granddaughter-the age lined up, the features, and much later on, we confirmed many other details. Yet, even after her physical wounds had healed, she was…” Talinn sighed.
“...not...in a good way. She used her teeth and claws to tear at the walls of the room we kept her in. Attacked me and your grandfather more than once. Barely recognized anything.”
He cleared his throat.
“You know how, old beasts, after a certain age, some of them...begins to go wrong with them. They forgot who they are, they forget their loved ones, they forget what they are doing, they do not even have the conception of what they are doing is wrong, like a kit before a certain age. In many ways, it is the same way with madbeasts-they do not know what they are doing is wrong, not by any standard. Today, we do not even put them through the courts, they go to our Westisle Sanatorium, where we try help them in as far as we are able, or, in some other places within the Ministrry of Innovation. We do not charge them, because they do not have the conception of what they were doing was wrong, not by any reasonable beast. It would be like, as I said, putting a kit on trial. Ridiculous, and thoroughly unjust.”
At this, he put a white stone on the scales of justice again. He then paused, sighed, and continued.
“Your grandfather was a beast of iron, though, and he was not content to let his granddaughter stay the way she was. He had me go through every single book of medicine we could find on Scholar’s Pointe, and more than a few smuggled in from Mainland Fyador at a high cost, until we could find something that could help her. I spent countless nights reading through dozens, hundreds of solutions, until I found one that seemed to match her symptoms. It was...not an easy process…to administer it to her.”
He remembered having to hide it in her food, and force feed it to her more than once, and more than a few old scars were because of her, but he was not going to tell Daniil that.
“But...once we did, she began to improve. There were some...side effects...such as her fur growing white...and the process required...I do not know what the beasts at university would call it now… “there-apy?”-but, she dragged herself out of whatever hell that her mind had consigned her to. Her mind finally became clear, though she was still weak, and remembered nothing about her past life.”
He pursed his lips.
“At this point, the vixen known as Vaelora truly began to exist, being formally granted that name once her sanity returned to her. She went out of her way to help with our family affairs…” he added another white stone to the scales
“...when Anithias stirred up anti-Ryalor sentiment because he was indeed what I would consider to be evil and got some of retainers killed, she was there to help them…” he added another white stone
“and she adopted three kits, and loved them. Loved them more than any mother I have ever seen, and they have all grown into good beasts I can be proud of.” He added three more white stones to the scale.
“When things were not the best for me, she was always there to comfort me, even if we had our disagreements.” More white stones added to the scale, such that now it was clearly on the side of innocence, without a single black mark.
“And when the Winter War happened, she saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives through her charity, and their descendants now number in the thousands, maybe in the range of more then ten thousand." He so many white white stones onto the scales, such that it began to tip over.
“And when...I myself became lost after what happened to my first wife, Weylin, she still plead for peace, for reason, for safety, in spite of Anithias thinking she was still Armina and demanding that she die. She gave up her Fyadoran citizenship to protect you three, and to hopefully bring an end to his madness. She offered herself as a martyr for our family out of self-sacrifice born of love."
The amount of white stones added by that last act were so many it finally were now added it finally tipped the scales so far over in the direction of innocent that it actually tipped over and fell onto the desk, scattering the white stones this way and that. Not one black stone had been added to the scale to counteract that once Vaelora had been mentioned. He remained quiet, this time, for a very long time, then gestured towards the overturned scale and the scattered, large pile of white rocks.
“You tell me, Daniil, if this scale looks anything like the one Armina Rogue had from earlier, even if you added those black stones of hers to them they would be well buried under the pile of white and change little to nothing about the calculation at the end, as if she could ever possibly be considered guilty of being the same beast. In my opinion, they were not. Not by any sense of justice or morality that I can think of. Whatever Caden might believe or might have told you, or Aunt Tanya, or anyone else, that does not change anything about who your mother Vaelora was. She was sweet and kind. She was a hero of our people, and of the Imperium. And she could never, ever do what Armina did. That remains absolutely true beyond a shadow of a doubt to me. They were two separate beasts entirely.”
@Daniil Ryalor @Jeshal the Ironclaw @Callisto Bluemoon (for family reasons)
@FinnianBrightfur @Orina Emberkin (since Caden was mentioned).
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