Back to ze past

(I was just thinking about this the other day.)

Two Years had passed since that day and much had changed. Elizabeth had refused the crown, and in her place anointed Chris as ruler of the lands. The man accepted gracefully, though it hadn't stopped him from pelting her with messages every day asking for advice.

The family now lived in the country side. Chris had found a very nice home for them to live in, and also gave them title of lords over the nearby village.

They were happy, mostly. Elizabeth had given birth to a little girl a year earlier. She had named her Victoria. The girl had only just started to walk and had already managed to fall down the stairs in their home twice.

Evelyn was still getting used to her new face and body from the flames. Much of her skin had burned off and her once pretty exterior had all but been removed. She felt embarrassed by the looks she received when she left the house, so she stayed in. She had actually taken up writing and her peices had already begun to sell well under the alies of Edgar Doyal.

Alexander had, had more trouble with the move. The boy became quiet, though still well behaved. He wasn't as social as he used to have been, even with those close to him. Elizabeth was worried, but she coudn't do much about it.

"What part did you miss?" Mori asked, raising an eyebrow and trying for the fifth time in as many minutes to correct the boy's stance. They were in the courtyard, and Rhun was holding the blunted practice sword at an extremely awkward angle, the blade dragging along the ground as he scowled helplessly at it.

"The part where I'm interested in learning." Rhun said snippishly, feeling more than a little ridiculous. Really, Mori was going a little stir-crazy or something with the complacent environment, and his attempts at teaching fighting were his latest methods of relieving boredom. It wasn't that he was unhappy with living here, only, well, he really thrived with action. And there was little to be had in a country town; not for a soldier.

Rhun himself had taken up the more scholarly of practices, and was more often than not closed up in the manor's library with the latest aquisitions. Mori had initially scoffed at the idea, but was quietly warming up to it, even if it meant he wouldn't really end up having the father/son fighting conversations he missed.

---

Natalie fell into a crouch by the staircase, linens dropping from her arms as she quickly reached out to stop Victori from taking another unplanned tumble down the well-polished steps. "Oh I should think not." She said with a grin, turning the tiny girl around and brushing the new creases out of her dress before sending her off with a pat to the back. Natalie was a young girl of about seventeen, and was one of the head maids of the household.

It was one of the best opportunities she had ever had to get out of a state of poverty, and she was not planning on messing this up (and stopping the miniature escape artist of a child from getting down the stairs in a rather ungainly fashion seemed to be a good way to get into the family's good books).

Victoria only turned around to try and get down the stairs once more. She smiled as she tried to carefully plan her uneven footing on the stairs.

---

Evelyn sat in the courtyard, watching the boys fight. Her note pad was in her hand and eveyr now and then she would write something, or attempt to sketch something.

"Any time you want to come up here and beat some sense into your weakling of a brother, feel free." Mori called over, not even looking as he deflected a half-hearted blow from Rhun's sword. "Because I know that you can."

"I'm not that bad." The boy muttered, looking a little taken-aback.

"Rhun, your sister could beat you without even trying, and you know it."

---

"Okay, downstairs? We can do that." Natalie said agreeably, scooping the girl up and somehow managing to pile up the linen in her other arm, trying to look over the linen and her hair, which was starting to fall free from the strip of cloth.

Evelyn chuckled softly. "Come on Rhun, imagine how sexy it would be if you knew how to fight."

---

Victoria struggled in the girls arms, whining unhappily.

"There's nobody around here to impress." Rhun pointed out with no real enthusiasm, tossing the sword to Mori who caught it with a sigh.
"One day you're going to regret not just paying attention and learning, you know. We're not exactly the luckiest-"
"nothing has happened since we moved here. nothing. At all. I think there was a robbery in the village once maybe, and that turned out to be a neighbourhood dispute." He said, dropping down to sit on the stairs beside his sister, leaning over to see what she had been doing.

Mori shrugged and simply joined them, setting his sword out on his knee and inspecting it for knicks. Not that there were any, but hey.

---

Natalie set the child down at the bottom of the stairs and looked around, straightening the pile of cloth in her arms. "Lady Elizabeth?" She called, poking her head into the sitting room.

Elizabeth groaned as she lifted the latest shirt she had tried to sow. Not only was it uneven, but she had somehow managed to mix and entire circle of it at the front. The woman sat back with a pout. "I give up! Whats a lady who can't even create a person a piece of clothing to warm their chest! Its so complex. Do the arms, do the chest, sow them together but not all at once. Give me poisons, give me a sword." She sighed. "Oh Shade, if you could see me now..."

----

Evelyn frowned and held the book to her chest. "Back off, Rhun." She warned. "Its not done yet."

"I don't mean to interupt." An older man said from behind them all. This man was called Charles. He was the house butler. "But sir, the requests have been piling up as have the letters and the townsfolk visiting your front door..."

"My lady, if it's not too much of a bother, I could help you." Natalie said with a hesitant smile, setting the linens down on a dresser table. "I'm quite good with needlework." She said and sat down nearby, a polite distance. "If you wanted my assistance, that is." She said, glancing to the corner of the room to keep an eye on the child and tucking back a lock of blonde hair, fallen into disarray with all the rushing around she had already done that morning.

---

"Oh come on, let me see, you're brilliant you know, it can't be that bad unfinished." He complained, listing over to the side and trying to get a look, but not so insistantly that she couldn't push him away if she wanted to. It had taken a while for him to stop being such a reclusive brat after the... Well, everything that had happened back coastal, but he wasn't about to risk any relationships that he had won back.

"Why are they visiting, what can they- We're not the- Oh I don't-" Mori sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm busy." He tried, glancing at the kids for backup. They weren't really paying attention though, and he wearily stood up. "Fine. Okay. Townspeople."

"No, its fine." Elizabeth sighed as she rubbed her face. "I'll just go and buy clothes. I was never one for the more delicate points of ladyship." She chuckled. "Oh how my father hated it."

Victoria found one of her dolls lying around. She put it in her mouth and crawled from the room.

---

Evelyn frowned at him in warning. "Back off Rhun, before I break your arm."

"Of course sir." Charles bowed. "Right this way sir." He stood slightly off to the side and motioned for Mori to walk first.

"Well, if you were ever interested in, maybe, learning needlework, I could always show you some cross-stitch. That's not clothing and it can be fun, sometimes, if you want to relax." She said earnestly with a pleasant smile, so unused to working for the higher echelon of the upper-class that she had forgotten to use titles yet again. It wasn't at all on purpose, but she had been elbowed by a few others of the staff for it.

---

"Fine, fine." Rhun said, sitting back and shrugging slightly as he leant back against the step behind him, looking over the courtyard with moderate disinterest. The scholar that had been teaching them was off on an errand, and wouldn't be back for another few days, so he had very little to do in the meantime. "Can you at least tell me what it is?"

---

"Right. Thank you Charles." Mori said, folding his arms over his chest and striding off towards the doorways. It was a very nice place, opulent, and not the freakishly fancy thing he had been worried about when Chris mentioned that he had found them a house. Still, it was bizarre to go from general rebellion/soldier type duties to more or less a lord. He wasn't sure he liked it. It was very different in Japan, where lordship meant more battle duties than signing things and hearing out issues. It never would be his forte.

"Its a story about a nosy brother that gets murdered in the night by his irritated twin." Evelyn grunted as she frowned at him.

---

Elizabeth smiled at her. "Thank you dear, but I'm fine. I'll just resign to my fate." She sighed and stood. "Wheres Vicky gotten to now?" She sighed.

---

Said baby was crawling up behind her father, barking around the toy in her mouth. She crawed up to her fathers legs and began to move in and out of them.

"You're so mean to me." He complained lightly, scuffing his shoe on the courtyard pavements. "It's totally uncalled for."

---

"Hmm? Oh, goodness!" Natalie leapt up in a flurry of apron and frills and darted out into the next room, looking around for the little girl. "Honestly, you look away for jus' one second." She said with a soft laugh, city accent slipping through. "She's a quick one."

"Oh." Mori stopped suddenly and froze when he felt pressure aginst his foot, glancing down with a quirked grin. "Hey sweetie." He bent to pick her up and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, turning around and looking around for Elizabeth.

"Then stop trying to read before I'm done." Evelyn said. She gave his shoulder a small tap with her own. "You'll be the first to readit when I am though."

---

Elizabeth rushed out behind her. She swore lightly under her breath.

Victoria grinned and placed a sloppy kiss on her fathers cheek before beginning to babble words no one could understand apart from the odd 'Da, ma, hello and poo.'

"Oh, thanks." He said, smiling slightly again. "Ever wonder what happened to Yuki? I mean, he just up and went."

---

"Yes, I agree." Mori responded seriously to the little girl. "It's for you." He added, wandering over to Elizabeth and pressing Victoria into her arms. "I'll be, uh. The townsfolk want to talk to someone." He said in means of explanation, pointing at the door.

Natalie heard the curse word and flushed slightly in panic. One important task, and it had taken her about five minutes to lose the child again. She'd be out of a job in a week.

"I think he's trying to help Taro through his craziness." Evelyn said. "I think having one friend who went mad and tried to kill him was more than enough." She looked at Rhun. "Didn't think you'd miss him."

---

"She gets her sense of adventure from you." Elizabeth sighed, looking up at him. "Really, control your daughter, Mori." She added with a slight smirk. She kissed his cheek. "Good luck."

Rhun shrugged, looking off in the other direction and rather absently tapping his fingers on the step. "Everything kind of got really messed up, you know? Just feels a little weird, with everything being so quiet. And everyone's gone, it's just us lot now. And everyone was really awful to everyone else at the end."

---

"I don't even knkow what they want this time." Mori said with a sigh. "We can't do anything about the weather, if that's what they're going to complain about. And I swear, if Farmer Crosby accuses Simons of chicken theft again--"

"Just keep your cool, and leave all weapons outside of the room." Elizabeth told him.
"Da!" Victoria broke in, reaching out for her father. She struggled in her mothers arms to get to her father.
Charles stood off to the side, back straight and arms behind his back. "Sir, I must ask that we continue. The towns folk are not known for their patience."

---

"It has gotten boring." Evelyn said. "And I do miss meeting all those new people..." She sighed. She hated her scars or she would go out more often.

"Of course, yeah, right. Let's go." Mori said, giving Victoria a grin and a wave before he about turned and continued down the hall, stepping through the doorway and sighing quietly, making a mental note to not get irritated, to just stay calm and deal with whatever was bugging them this time.

---

"You still can you know, I mean, there are villagers about our ages, if you would come out with me sometime." Rhun said lightly, knowing before he even spoke that she would most likely turn it down. "They're quite nice, really."

"I will bring them in one at a time, sir." Charles told him from the doorway. "All you need to do is listen to their requests. And please remember sir, they are only simple folk. Shall we begin?"

---

Victoria stuffed her fist in her mouth and looked up at her mother before yawning.

---

"I think I'm alright." Evelyn said. "It really is quite nice up here."

"Fine, fine." Mori said as he dropped down into the chair, chin resting on his fist. "I get it, I'll try to keep that in mind. Still, Charles, Chickens? You have to agree that it's getting a little ridiculous, right?"

---

Did you want a hand with anything, my lady?" Natalie asked from a little further down the hall.

---

"It couldn't hurt you, you know." Rhun said kindly, shaking his head and leaning against her a little. "Getting out a little bit, maybe, talking to people, seeing things?"

"I am not paid for my opinions sir, only to serve." Charles bowed his head before leaving to get the townsfolk.

---

"I've got it." Elizabeth smiled at her. "You just go about your business."

---

"Having people see me?" Evelyn added.

"Yeah, of course." Mori said after the man, letting his head loll back for a second. This... Really wasn't the kind of life he would have picked out. Only, well, at least he had Elizabeth, and everything was nice, and who was he to complain? It wasn't even worth thinking about. He straightened up in the chair, forcing his mind away from everything else.

---

"Okay, you jus' let me know if you're needing me." She said, curtsied quickly and then rushed off to finish sorting out the linen. She had just enough time to get that all done before she could help the other staff set the table for lunch. She shuddered. The Cook was all shades of terrifying.

---

"It's not good for you, staying in here all the time." He said quietly. "And if anyone has a problem, then they're not worth the bother."

"I am a little scary." Evelyn said. "I don't mind. I've got my books, I don't even need to leave the house to have an adventure anymore." She smiled at him.

"I still think you should come down to the village with me next time." He said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "But I'll leave it. You tell me if you change your mind."