smash_logs | After a long hard battle, I see you there.

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After a long hard battle, I see you there.

Who: Connor and Eirik
What: Connor just got back from the bunkers and Eirik visits him in his room. Deep stuff ensues.
Where: Connor's (and Desmond's) dorm.
When: After returning from the bunkerventure.
Warnings: Feels. Might change this later depending.

Connor, from whatever happened, returned from the fight, confused.

What he saw there was what he expected, but something about seeing his father down there like a statue, among some of the other friends and allies. Mary, Pheonix...

Desmond was doing his own way of detoxing and Connor was doing his, he had to plan for his next move. So he sat there in his dorm and started surveying his person. Not many wounds, just some cuts and bruises, though his robes had some of whatever those monsters down there had for some blood. A little, not much. Nothing he wasn't used to seeing in terms of his robes being dirtied. It will be washed.

He wondered about Eirik for a while too, with Mary in mind. Eirik had been distant lately, and Connor just felt that perhaps maybe she needed some time to think. Maybe she was busy, so was he after all. Maybe he felt a little guilty for that. He should see her and speak with her about this.

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It had been some time since they'd really spent much time together. At least not extended alone time. When it struck his fancy, she let him share her bed. And they ate together. And sometimes they took walks together. The time wasn't a problem. It was that Eirik had said not so much since Mary had left. It was really one thing after another. Not that she carried herself completely in such a way that she was transparent.

At least she didn't think she did. Connor could read her well, however. He knew her better than she gave him credit for.

The investigation struck something in her, though, as to pointedly remind her how withdrawn she'd grown. She chose to see him and rather than showing herself in, she knocked on his door politely. Waiting she could do. After all, Connor had been waiting for her from the beginning and continued to.

Eventually one day, he was going to stop waiting.

Whenever she was ready to talk, he told himself. Patience, keep that patience. Try your best to wait. Respect that boundary and let her do what she needs to do. Just keep going.

Connor just did his best to be there without smothering her. He spent some time almost every day with her, and yes, sometimes he spent the night. He just wanted to be company, and good company at that.

As much as it ached to see her so distant and as much as he should be asking her what she was hiding, he wasn't one to talk. He of all people understood that it was hard to show everything that made you "you", he was going to have to someday. He just had to figure out how to say it, because it was all so conflicting. He didn't want it to be.

However, these were his thoughts for the past little while. For now, he was focused on getting off his robes to clean them, and just figure out everything.

He managed to to not get far in that at all until he heard a knock, so he decided to head to the door. Not opening it right away, even if it was highly likely it was Desmond (he had a key so probably not AS likely, as he could just open the door).

"Who is it?"

She almost shrunk back when she heard him, as if second-guessing if she should bother him. Connor had his own things to deal with. The business with the investigation. She should have helped. Why hadn't she? Because she was far too focused on Magvel and Lyon, dark magic, Henry's advice, and other such things that she wasn't able to properly concentrate. How could she be of help to Connor and the others if she allowed herself to get so easily caught up in other things?

And how could she just drop everything else for the academy? What had the academy really given her? Peace of mind, even temporarily. Connor, who became what she deemed a vital part of her future. Desmond, Ike, Henry, Innes-- even if only fleetingly. She had plenty to be thankful for. She still lived, after all.

"...Eirik, Your Grace," she finally found herself replying, right hand pressed to the door, prepared to leave if he told her to leave. But there was a distinct impression that Connor could ask of her many things and leaving wasn't going to be one of them.

Connor shook his head, must she?

Of course she must, for she is a princess. He wouldn't forget that, but still, did she need to address him like that? Despite his title now, he was of no royal blood and it felt odd for him to be addressed in such a way. He fought against corrupt royalty, and yet here he is with the title of "Duke".

For Eirik and her people, as long as he could do what he could, right?

He just knew she was busy with matters that she hadn't discussed, and had to business prying. Maybe he should have, because Eirik was acting so distant. Even when she was just beyond that door, it felt odd, but he felt she was miles away and if he let her shrink away more then she might as well have never been near him at all.

Still though, he was a mess. Still even more so, he didn't want to shoo her away.

"...The door is open, come in."

All she had to do was wait for his permission. Formalities always came first and everything else after, once permission was granted. Showing herself in, Eirik closed the door behind her. Then as she looked him over from where she stood, she found herself marvelling over his room.

She didn't come often. She could still remember meeting Desmond for the first time there. An unforgettable day, actually. Connor and his new bird that he rescued from the snow. Desmond being so very shocked and surprised at Connor and Eirik's courtship. The missing pants. It almost made her smile. Almost, but not quite.

"Likely an idiotic question, but are you all right?" she found herself asking, as if her insides were more confident than her outsides. She didn't move from her spot, however, not until he at least okay'd it.

Always there was some endearing quality about those formalities, but on to the likeness of him, he still struggled with feeling like he earned it. Especially since Eirik hadn't even really entered his room when he wanted her to know she was always welcome inside.

She was always welcome.

But to her question, was he alright? Physically, yes. Let him get that out of the way. Connor nodded as he came closer to her, so that if it wasn't visible before, it was now, that his robes were dirtied and he had a bruise on his face. Nothing really more than that. However, his eyes looked a little distant. Like as if he was thinking very hard about something, something somewhat troubling. Which he was willing to speak about, but how to do that?

"I am fine," he said. "Unharmed. I had just returned from the bunkers."

He neared and she took that as invitation enough. Without even asking, her hands found his robes first, drawing fingertips over the various markings. Bunkers. Beneath the academy, he meant.

I should have gone with you. And she couldn't stop thinking it. But it was too late to be thinking like that now. Next time. What if there isn't a next time? But she couldn't think like that, certainly.

She moved on quickly, "...And?" Eirik asked as carefully as she could. She took his chin gingerly, turning his face just enough to give him a closer look. Where the light hit the fine sculpting of his face, she found herself somewhat sated. Somewhat. More so if he hadn't been hurt at all, but she could only wish and nothing more beyond that.

He allowed him to be surveyed, after all, he wanted to express he was here in one piece. Connor frowned however, when Eirik took him by the chin; he had to tell her what they found down there. Since he saw it all with his own eyes, he had every right to tell her everything. His heart was being very sensitive today, and he found it a little hard to spill. But since he was of stronger character than that, he was going to despite anything one way or another. It was the right thing to do.

"I found that what the students had been saying were true," he started plainly.

"There are statues down there of the departed. I found many people that were previously here."

Edited 2014-05-19 23:32 (UTC)

"Statues of the departed..." echoed the princess with furrowed eyebrows. She shook her head at him slowly, unsure of what to make of things. Statues of the departed. How was one supposed to take that?

And then it donned on her...

"...Prince Innes? Was... he there as well?" As admittedly, she found her insides beginning to twist up with uncertainty. She would have welcomed seeing him in any other form than that of a statue. Why statues, anyway? What was even the point? But she knew that was a pointless question. Connor wasn't going to be able to answer that one.

He really didn't want to have to bring such news to her this way, but he owed her the respect of doing so. Then came doing what he could to help suffering. That is, if she even let him. It was now that he finally let down his hood, just a matter of a few mere milliseconds of time to think it over.

Already, he took in the news and began channeling it elsewhere. But how would Eirik react?

"...Yes. Also Mary, Phoenix Wright,...and my father," he said outright, plainly again.

Edited 2014-05-19 23:53 (UTC)

Mary. Mary. Eirik's insides tensed. Her outsides too, which she tried to hastily push aside. Mary wasn't someone she wanted to talk about. Or anyone else they'd lost. What was the significance behind the statues? All people who had once been at the academy...

"People who leave," she began, mostly to herself, as if to confirm it with herself. Like saying it out loud might make her believe it. "...never go home. They just... turn into statues..."

There was no going home? What about Magvel and Lyon? Had it been a dream? She released Connor's chin in favour of eying her hands. "...Was I..."

Maybe none of that really happened.

"...I... am sorry," she forced herself to continue. Although it was out of her control, clearly. She only had to lose her parents once. Connor had to lose on again. And Mary. And he had almost lost Eirik more than once. It made her hurt, honestly.

"I cannot confirm that for a fact since we are both here but," a pause. He heard Eirik speak further. No, he didn't want her to think that.

"It seems too odd for them specifically to be there...You did say you were home, and you returned with your steed. There is too much mystery yet to come to a conclusion like that."

As straight up as he tried to be, he tried to shield himself from how an inner part of him was feeling. The part of him that did feel loss.

Also, maybe he didn't have to throw gas on the fire. He didn't want Eirik to react that way. That wasn't his intention, and he fought that with truth on his part. He only told the truth.

He looked down to her, sadly, concerned. But then he listened again.

"...Sorry?" Connor was really confused now, after all of this, she was sorry? Sorry for what?

Connor's eyes widened, but his voice softened.

"Your father," she explained rather simply. "You were not on good terms with him, something I respect, though I didn't agree."

And she hadn't forgotten how she wanted to interfere. To somehow right things, though they weren't her things to right. No sense in getting so involved with his personal life when hers was still in such disarray. She had no place in doing such a thing, and that was why she left it at gaining his father's approval, which it seemed he hadn't completely disliked her the one or two times they'd carried on conversation.

"Here you have lost him again," Eirik continued. As if these discoveries imply you haven't suffered enough. "That was what I meant."

And it wasn't, really. But she couldn't quite say that a simple sorry was going to be enough for all that had happened. Or hadn't, as the case might have been.

He found himself blinking a few times. Was she so concerned about his relationship with Haytham that much?

That was the opposite reaction he was used to. Achilles told him it was impossible because of who they were and what they stood for, no matter how many strides (or lack thereof, in the beginning) they made with their truce. Still though, it almost worked. Almost. But everything soon crashed and burned and Connor could wish it didn't have to be that way, but that was a waste of energy.

The same thing almost happened here, but he could feel the end result starting again. Haytham and Connor were distrustful, understandably. Haytham didn't forget Connor stabbing his neck and Connor didn't forget all of the deceit and all what was done behind his own back. On the same coin, Connor could never forget Haytham's journal and how Haytham never mentioned it. But it all was fifty-fifty on who's fault all of that was, right?

There were those who could say it was never meant to be like Achilles, and as much as Connor inwardly struggled, he also inwardly accepted. He had no choice to. He was already spoiled with another chance and couldn't ask for another. If he thought about it too hard, it would slow him down. That was something he could never afford.

The only thing that made him feel any better was that he didn't have to make him "leave" by his own hand again.

But now he was worried about Eirik and her concern for this, when he knew there were people she lost too. So why was she so worried about him? Because that was like her, pushing back all of her issues for other people. Again, reminded how much of a good leader she seemed for that.

Still though, he wasn't sure how to make with such concern over the relationship he had with his father. What could he say?

It is not the topic at hand, not a concern.

He could easily dismiss it and say that, but that would be the wrong path. A Connor from over a year ago might say that, but this was Eirik, someone he did not have by his side back then. So his heart struggled with a response.

"That...concerned you that much?" Connor somewhat stupidly remarked.

Edited (AUGGGH) 2014-05-20 16:30 (UTC)

Of course, she thought. I love you.

Things that weren't so important before became important. Eirik had never really gotten to know Haytham the way she wanted to. She regretted that. She regretted not taking every moment to be acquainted with him. And she regretted doing the same with his mother, except his mother was still around. If she talked about this with Connor, she was going to have to rely on her actions and not her words, which meant actually doing something instead of doing nothing. He deserved that, after all. Their relationship deserved that. What kind of woman just walked on by with nothing more than a subtle nod? No, she'd have to visit her.

How to say what she was thinking, though... And then she had an idea. As carefully as she could muster, though she knew it wasn't perfect and coming through on her archaic accent, it must have sounded odd to outsider ears, and native speakers.

"Konnorónhkwa." It was a simple way to begin. Three words she only uttered to him once when they were reunited, for it had taken her six months away from him to know her feelings were genuine and sincere. Not to say she fully embraced them in the present, but at least she wasn't denying who they were to one another, even if she didn't open up again.

"Your concerns are also my concerns. Your burdens are also my burdens. Your joys are also my joys. It makes very little sense for us to only ever share the good things in our lives. When you came to me to court, I knew what it meant even if you didn't. I want you to be a part of my world, I said before, and that still rings true. You should also let me be a part of yours when you are ready to."

Eirik fingered her chin with some thought and a heavy sigh, as if unsure of how else to say things. She didn't know how else to proceed without mentioning her own parents, a reasonably reopened wound from the recent days. There had been memorial days in honour of her parents, or her mother at the very least, and finding out that there was a day specifically for mothers at the academy, her heart had grown all kinds of pained at memories and the very loss she had suffered on both accounts. And she didn't want to say that to Connor, because she disliked it when he knew she was hurting.

"Everything important to you is important to me now."

Edited (I have pronoun issues.) 2014-05-20 17:58 (UTC)

There was undeniable power in those words, of course Connor knew those things were all true too. Whenever Eirik spoke his dialect, he knew what she had to say was supposed to strike him with severe meaning. It did.

He told himself, told her this, and he really did believe it. But no one said it was easy, nor should it be. After all, with the life he led, things were getting harder and harder to talk about. Which was why Connor didn't push Eirik too much on the same issue, since it was a problem they both had.

How upset would you be with me if I shown you some thing were almost too hard to share?

He knew she knew his relationship with her father was beyond sticky. Which was why it would concern her so much. Connor remembered when he told her, in the woods with Innes, on how much bad blood there was. By his fault and Haytham's, and in just how things turned out to be by some form of fate. Something he wanted to work out and solve, but turned into a situation in which a choice had to be made or his very life would've been sucked out of him.

That kind of situation happened more than once.

But Eirik was now a large part of his life. At first, she was an ally, then his friend, and now a woman he loved.

Their lives should be shared, he knew this. Connor frowned, "I...am the one who should be sorry."

It is very hard to discuss.

"I knew that, know that. I had not meant for you to repeat it when it was knowledge I knew. It is just-" a pause.

I knew this was bound to happen. Piece by piece, remember, you should share what you are comfortable with sharing. That is what she would have wanted.

"Bits and pieces of myself are what I have never shared. There were too few who knew certain things about me, and those things are what you should know. It is all...hard to discuss, admittedly. I mean no amount of disrespect."

It always made her nervous when he started to veer off into that direction. The one where both of them were fully aware that they didn't share certain things. Not that she hadn't wanted to. Just that she hadn't been quite interested in trying to open herself up. And when she thought about it that way, she knew that wasn't quite true either.

"No, I understand," Eirik began and found herself saying the same thing she'd said several times before. "There are many things about you I may not have a right to know just yet. If ever. Only you can make a decision like that. I have no desire to pressure you for anything like that. Not now. Not in a week from now. Not in a month, or many months." She shook her head slowly.

She weaved around him, trying to organise what she could in his room. There wasn't much that required her attention. In fact, nothing really did. She just wanted something to distract herself with. "You know how it is. We say things when we're ready to. If we're ever ready to. We don't pry."

Just as he'd never pried her for information, she certainly wasn't going to start prying him.

But none of that was fair, wasn't it? It was what they promised, and spoke of, time and time again. The more time they spent, the harder it became to let things go and speak of things in his life.

Was it fear? Connor wasn't one to admit to fear, or at least allow himself to fear. But that's to say that he was fearless, and he really wasn't. No man or woman was fearless, at least not naturally.

There was an expression he heard before, only fools are fearless.

Connor did, in fact, experience fear. Some of which he experienced recently.

Fear of losing her. That was perhaps the thing holding him back a little. He shouldn't do that, he knew it. He won't, he knew it. It was just a matter of how to say, and how to show. He owed her the respect of sharing. As she was going through his chambers, he quietly listened and thought up of a way. Soon enough, it happened.

"Eirik..." Connor softly spoke to her, but with a firmness present on his face should she have chosen to look at him. "My father...was lost by my own hand during battle."

She did look when he addressed her so directly, for there was an edge in his voice that she wasn't familiar with. Not passionate. Not hateful. Simply... urgent, was the only way she knew how to put it. It sounded urgent. And when he said what followed, she found herself pausing. More or less, everything in her halted.

It was a rare feat to make her cold from outer to inner. She had been when Connor reunited with her, as she had been practised in pretending he wasn't such a large part of her life. Yet Connor's words struck her so completely that there was no way for her to pretend otherwise.

Her eyes stayed on his face, dedicated and committed to really giving him her attention. Even her own nagging thoughts had taken a backseat to the true matter at hand. Haytham Kenway lost by the hand of his son during battle. Lost by the hand of his son during battle.

Connor had killed Haytham. Was that the reason for being against one another at the academy? Or had it happened before then? Did the 'when' really matter so much? What could possess a son to kill his own father? When did that become a fine thing to do? But Connor seemed bothered by it. Implying that he hadn't wanted to.

In the end there were too many questions and she couldn't voice them all. Or any. So she stared, knowing she couldn't get the judgement out of her gaze. "...And... You did not mean to? You went after someone else and he got in the way? It was an accident?"

You know better than to leave your words at that.

No, he didn't want to. He had to, and he was going to live with it for the rest of his life. Connor didn't respond for a moment, only shaking his head slowly.

I told you, now I will explain. I just hope you can listen. I do not expect you to agree, just listen and not dislike me for it.

Connor tried his best not to show it, but he was now having that fear he had felt before. Of course, him trying was not directly looking her in the eyes and using that as an opportunity to go to the bare desk to retrieve a worn out book from one of the drawers.

He looked solemn, sad, regretful. But Connor never backed down from something he meant to do. So he intended to finish this.

He motioned for her to sit on one of the chair in the living area. If she was willing to listen, he had a story to tell.

He meant to, then? Haytham got in the way? It wasn't an accident?

Eirik's heart felt as if it had dropped. She tried not to make too many assumptions all at once. Tried, being the keyword. Tried and failed mostly. And she knew why Connor hadn't said anything to her sooner. He had probably predicted her reaction and while her insides didn't know how to feel, she was conflicted. Her feelings for him made her see the good in him.

Why? Why?

It took her more than a few moments to take one of the chairs as he offered and even as she sat, she wasn't comfortable. Attempting to push that aside, she forced her next words out, knowing they weren't the ones she really wanted to say.

What is wrong with you?

"Go on," Eirik continued, sounding far more calm than she actually thought she was. But she was still willing to listen, if a father's killer had anything worth saying.

He hoped she didn't assume anything, not until he told her the story. Connor wondered if she would listen the whole way, or choose to not listen at all. It would be her call, but then she decided to sit down and try to listen to him.

It was all the truth, what he was about to say.

How it all ended up today was up to her.

But he decided to do this, despite this being hard to do. Strangely, not the first time he had a heavy conversation in this living room. He was thankful for this alone time, for it would far too awkward if Desmond came in.

-Ah, that was something else he had to talk about. He had to talk about Desmond, he should. He would see about that, if she decided she wanted to be in his presence anymore.

So much risk was in this. Connor decided to sit across from her, plain regret on his face and fear building up inside of him as he watched Eirik's movements. So he decided to look at the book again.

My father's journal.

"When I was a boy," he started, voice as low and soft as he could muster. "I have spoken to you how my village had been burned down and my mother had been murdered. I had not told you what happened before then."

He was speaking of when he saw his mortal enemy for the first time. Charles Lee.

"I was playing in the forest with the other children, when a group of men found me. They attacked, and soon enough, one of them was asking me questions about my village. Questions I refused to answer. I asked the one who was threatening me for his name. His name was "Charles Lee", and he was a man who I told him that I would find him one day for what he was doing."

Whenever he remembered this day, he felt all those negative angry feelings again. It was evident on how his brows furrowed a little.

"That man was my father's close ally, and he was a monster of one. He and his men scoffed and I soon found myself knocked unconscious, only to awaken to my village on fire."

He stopped for a moment, just to make sure Eirik was still listening to him. Even though his story was far from over.

Charles Lee. Nothing was ever simple and things were almost always complicated. If she'd ever thought to the contrary or had hope of such, it was easily squashed out when she heard what Connor had to say. She remembered his talk about his mother, and the village, and it beckoned the ideal that Connor might have feared fire. She certainly did, for flames of orange and red tended to remind her of watching Renais fall to the Grado Empire.

Still. Charles Lee. A man who sounded much like the same sort of man Eirik had classified Valter as. The man responsible for a good deal of Connor's strife. And a close ally of his father's. She tried to imagine what it would have been like for Valter and Fado to have been closer allies and realised the situations were far too different to even compare. It would have meant trying to picture someone other than Fado as her father. Similar situations only, and it was best to leave it at that.

She nodded slowly, words still lost on her, and when she lifted her right hand, she beckoned for Connor to continue. Her expression remained unreadable, but she remained attentive. He wasnt going to continue if he felt like she wasn't listening. But nothing she could have said would have made the situation any better.

So he continued, if she was ready.

"Soon, I learned that my people protected something that my father had wanted. That was what Charles asked me about. I was told that if my father found that certain something, everything will be in ruin. Including my village once again."

Or rather, Juno telling him this. Juno, the "spirit" who used Desmond and him as chess pieces in her plan. Despite them saving the world in the end, as Desmond said, it still left a sour taste in his mouth. The two sacrificed so much, in Desmond's case it was life. Connor wanted to fight until the end to reach his goals, sure. Saving the world was also a grand thing. Just all the lies and trickery with it all, Connor was quite fed up with it.

"So I left to find a man who could train me to fight him. I trained for years, and soon found myself involved in the war that I had spoken with you before as well. I fought to find my father and his men, to stop them at all costs to protect my people."

Now here was where it got sticky, and extremely convoluted. But he continued, in hopes he made sense. He was trying to tell over two decades of his life in a few minutes, that was no easy task in the slightest. Especially since the whole Templar and Assassin thing was something he just wasn't ready for.

"I had seen my father act on occasion, as I slowly began foiling his plans. But soon enough we found each other and spoke for the first time, each having a similar goal then. One of his own men had betrayed him, and I wanted to find him because he stole supplies from the rebel army. It was him that suggested we work together, so we did."

Pause.

"We worked together for a while, so I thought...we could accomplish a lot more when we were allies. My mentor told me it was false dreaming, because of the man he was. Of course, I could never forget that, nor Charles. No matter what I had said, nor he, I could never support his opinion of the man who he tried to even get into power over the country."

In place of Washington, another man who played a too great a role to ever forget.

"I supported a man who promised to fight for freedom, who promised great things. Someone who the people fell in love with, who my father and his men hated. He was a man who spoke of passion but had inexperience. My father tried to press that he was a man who was weak and Lee was strong in comparison. Yet the man was power hungry, corrupt, and saw anyone who did not share his very views as dirt, including my own kind...But one night, I learned that the man I had supported had planned to attack my village and salt their land."

Seething, anger, those feelings started to rumble.

"My father was there to tell me this, to have this man tell me what he also did years ago. The man I supported...had burned my village and was responsible for my mother's death. My father knew this, he knew it all along. But he never told me, only until it was convenient for him to use this as personal manipulation. When we were under the Commander's tent, with my father holding the parcel for the order after he rooted through belongings. I told you about our truce in the forest with Princes Innes, this was the betrayal I spoke of."

Eirik kept finding herself pausing and consequently, must have missed bits and pieces of Connor's explanation. It was too much information at once. It made her wonder how she'd ever handle talking about things in Renais. Even to Connor she only said choice things. Simple things. Like how Seth had saved her. Like how her father was simply dead. Like how Renais had been invaded by Grado.

She'd never told him anything beyond that. Just the simple and short of it. Not ever an explanation. Succinct words as if it was to imply 'that was how things went and there's nothing else.' Except there was always more. She just could never say it.

Having him spell it all out to her was, in many ways, too much for her to handle. And it struck hard hearing him speak of the man he followed. It made her think of all the times Connor had praised her leadership qualities, and the number of moments he'd implied her people were fortunate to have someone so compassionate and strong to follow. It made her wonder if she had ever unintentionally manipulated them, the people whose lives were in her hands.

A queen by practise, if not yet law, and she still carried so much weight on her shoulders. And she was to share Connor's burdens as well, for that was the agreement. They were not simply a man and woman, but rather people, a couple for whom stood on equal ground. That meant being the same as him and speaking up. If he could be so honest with her, then she owed it to him to at least try and be the same.

At some point while he spoke, she found her gaze moving off of him with her own considerations and contemplations. "That... is quite the history to have with the man. Many men."

Deceit. She remembered meeting Connor over one year prior and asking him if he was so unaccustomed to kindness. And she remembered him telling her that it wasn't kindness he was foreign to. It was genuine and sincere kindness. The sort that caame without ulterior motives. She was quietly vowed to only ever grant him the affection she could without implications and unconditionally. Had she ever wanted anything of him? No. She couldn't remember ever wanting anything other than his honesty and his respect, two things she felt she didn't have to ask him for.

And he provided both plentifully.

"When your father was here... you sounded as if you held hope." A hope I had secretly stashed away. "To make up for what happened in your homeland." It was an easy to make educated guess. Of course that was what he wanted. Any child would have.

After all, he had lost his mother already. Killed his father once. Gained them both back through the kindness (or cruelties) of the academy. For him, it was a chance to go back and right wrongs that never should have existed in the first place. And she could easily see how she might have done the same.

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