Lorenzel and Ramanzel

[Porcelain Fish]

Maduin removed his cap respectfully as he followed Rose inside, intensely curious. The place had a disused, faintly dusty air that muted the otherwise bombastic decor. It felt like a museum that people had simply forgotten about and no longer visited.

He noted the cannon in the anteroom with amusement, bent closer to examine the memorabilia, and had just set foot in the sanctuary itself when he heard Rose's incredulous tone, saw her head turn.

. . . Brad?


The sobbing was soft, but audible. Maduin felt it tug at his heart strings, and reminded himself sternly that the man was nothing but trouble, and he knew better, and that he ought to turn on his heel and walk-

Another muffled, heart-rending sob shattered his resolve like thin ice.

Before he thought better of it Maduin was hurrying forward, pulling his handkerchief from his sleeve and kneeling down at Brad's side, concern in his hazel eyes.

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose's gentle "Brad?" didn't get through to the man immediately, but Maduin's ministrations did, apparently. At least he looked up, looked around, made an obvious attempt to pull himself together.

"Brad, we've been so worried about you!" Rose said as the man dried his tears. "Is there something wrong? Can we help with it? Can I help?"

Brad's gaze flicked from Rose to Maduin, to Brother Miguel, to the people waiting in the door, back to Rose. After a long moment, he took a deep breath, released it in a long sigh, spoke softly, as befits a penitent in a church.

"Rose, I'm afraid that I ... wasn't completely honest with you when we spoke earlier..."

[Porcelain Fish]

"Rose, I'm afraid that I ... wasn't completely honest with you when we spoke earlier..."

That explained his attraction, Maduin thought resignedly. Not only was Brad running around on his wife, he was a liar to boot, which made him a sleaze, and Maduin seemed to be chronically attracted to guys in trouble.

He straightened, leaving his handkerchief in Brad's hands and folded his arms, quietly invoking a minor compulsion effect that would encourage those who heard him to tell the truth. If there was one thing he'd learned the hard way, it was that a liar was a liar, no matter how you dressed (or undressed) them.

"Well," he said, forcing any sympathy out of his magic-laced voice. "You may as well come out with the truth now. All of it."

[Graybeard]

Brad pulled himself together, feeling a compulsion to tell the truth, as the strange man next to him was demanding. it really wasn't necessary; the look of concern on Sister Rose's face would have been enough to get him to come clean, spell or no spell. "Annie ... left me," he said dully.

Rose was glad she didn't have the Empathy spell on; his pain looked like, magically enhanced, it would have been more than she could bear. "Oh, you poor thing," she said, meaning it. She'd known Annie as a girl, long ago in Saus; in fact, she'd played a minor role in introducing Annie to her cousin. And now this ... "Is there anything I can do?" she asked, knowing what the answer would be.

As it was. "Not really," Brad said, and started on a long, miserable story of a marriage with the life slowly going out of it because of his job for the Reformed church, her desire to have children coupled with an unfortunate fertility problem, and worst of all, a charismatic cultist who'd crept unobtrusively into Annie's life ... until ...

Brother Miguel listened for as long as he could stand, then quietly stepped out into the foyer, to an unexpected rush of wings. A small flight of parrots was waiting to replenish the stock they were carrying; with so many classified birds lately, there'd been significant depletion of their inventory. And sure enough, another classified parrot was among the flock. Miguel gritted his teeth at the prospects of a super-sensitive MARIGOLD message, but this one was one of the regular variety.

(UNCLASSIFIED) There has been a development in Kiyoka that you should know about. (By the way, Sister Margaret sends her regards.)

(CONFIDENTIAL) Captain Kitaura, who we understand had been heading the Tsuirakuan Department of Homeland Security in Kiyoka -- you dealt with him, correct? -- has been transferred suddenly to an assignment "elsewhere." The Kiyokans offered no explanation for the transfer, and in fact, didn't officially mention it to the mission at first. Brother Farley's fiancee Corporal Yugawa was the first to present this bit of news, although Margaret had wondered if something was up. Apparently she had been meeting frequently with Kitaura on the matter of the missing Father Egbert, and had built up a certain uneasy detente with the man. When he failed to show for a meeting (in fact, the one where she was going to tell him what she could about events in Nautkia), she wondered what was going on. Corporal Yugawa's information confirmed her suspicion, and an inquiry at his office finally revealed the situation.

(LUMINOSITA'S SECRET) Although the Tsuirakuans declined to give any information on his new assignment, we have learned through other channels that a Captain Kitaura has surfaced at the Tsuirakuan consulate in the Farrelian port of Rinkaiel. It is unclear whether this move is connected in any way to the unfortunate Egbert affair, but there are some reasons to suppose it may be. It is known (by way of Corporal Yugawa) that Kitaura had been making some inquiries about the Malletarian compound in the mountains of Farrel, not normally a subject that should concern a Tsuirakuan Homeland Security officer. Furthermore, a contact in Farrel that I cannot describe via this medium has reported that Kitaura has been inquiring about the Malletarians there. Nobody knows why.

(UNCLASSIFIED/FOUO) The Tsuirakuans have not yet designated a replacement for Kitaura. The Patriarch's office is hoping (officially, anyway) that the "good relations" that Kitaura and Margaret had been developing will remain in place under Kitaura's successor. We'll keep you posted on that.

(UNCLASSIFIED) Still no luck on that other matter mentioned in our last two messages. Something is very squirrely in an office that I will not mention. When we get things sorted out, we'll be in touch via the MARIGOLD channel.

Bernie

Interesting, Miguel thought as he disposed of the deceased parrot and walked back into the church. Brad was wrapping up his sad story of marital strife, and Rose was reaching to envelop him in another hug -- this one much more comforting, and less exuberant, than earlier in the day. However, Brad held her at arm's length. "Wait. There's more, and after I tell it, you may not want to touch me at all..."

[Porcelain Fish]

It was difficult, incredibly difficult, not to feel sympathetic after Brad's long list of woes. Maduin was a long way from being hard-hearted, and to be truthful, he did feel the slightest bit bad for assuming that Brad was playing hookey while his wife was elsewise occupied.

Still, the fact was that even if Brad hand't been entirely untruthful, he certainly hadn't been completely forthcoming either, leaving Maduin with mixed feelings. Brad no longer held the same appeal, but Maduin couldn't think too badly of him any longer. He stepped out of the way when Rose bent to give her cousin a hug, waiting for the rest to come out. There was always more.

"Wait. There's more, and after I tell it, you may not want to touch me at all..."

Maduin held in a slightly disappointed sigh at having been proven right, and waited for the Awful Truth to emerge.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: I'm going to be using the "Spoiler" feature in this thing for what happens next. Rest assured, the content isn't really a "spoiler," and you won't blow away an ending if you read it. It's simply that the conversation that's about to happen between Rose and Brad is a highly personal thing that the two cousins wouldn't share with other characters, and if you'd prefer not to see it, the Spoiler function gives you that option. It's also kinda long, and you might find it boring... So to get on with it:]

"Brad, you're my favorite cousin and I love you very much," Sister Rose said. "You're also a brother in the service of Our Lord Luminosita. Whatever you say, I can handle it, I swear."

Brad caught the code word in that: I swear. That could only mean one thing. His facial expression changed suddenly and dramatically, to something approximating grim determination.

"Hear my confession, Sister."

Brother Miguel got the message loud and clear, started shepherding Maduin and the others out of the sanctuary. "This is one of those private things within our church," he said. "It'll only take a few minutes..."

Spoiler: show

"I feel so weird doing this ... but yes, my son, I'm listening, and Luminosita's Blessings be on you," Rose said, as soon as the sanctuary was empty.

"I ... feel weird, too," Brad said. "I'm not like you, Rose. I didn't get my start in the Orthodox church, so I have no idea how they do it here. What should I do?"

Rose permitted herself a slight smile, which even in the (comparatively) highly relaxed confessional rites of the Reformed branch, wasn't really one of those things you were supposed to do. However, circumstances weren't normal here, not by any means. She spoke as gently as she could manage. "Just tell me what you want to confess. Don't worry about the formalities. I'm not Cardinal Cosmo, after all."

It was Brad's turn for a wan smile, and a deep breath. "Well, then, if you say so ... I'm not totally sure I lied to you earlier, but I definitely wasn't telling the whole truth about what brought me down to this god-forsaken place. You see, I really am supposed to report back on the prospects of starting a temple here ... but what I mainly came for was to kill the man who stole my wife away, and having accomplished that, kill myself next."

If Rose was surprised by this admission, she didn't show it. She did, however, commit a minor breach of protocol during a confession; she was pretty sure Luminosita wouldn't hold it against her, or Brad. "Just the other man, and yourself? You weren't planning to murder your wife?"

Brad was near tears again as he answered. "Rose, I'd never do a thing like that. I couldn't. Annie may have left me, destroyed our marriage, destroyed my life. But I still love her too much to do that. I hate the man who stole her away -- and I hate myself. But not Annie, never, no way, nohow."

Rose nodded; she had a pretty good idea what was coming next. "And when you got here, did you follow through on your plan? I guess it's pretty obvious that you didn't follow it all the way, because here you are talking to me. But did you kill the charismatic cultist, as you put it?"

The sobs started. "No, I ... couldn't. The two of 'em passed through here yesterday. Rose, she's carrying his child. She's not very far along, but I could see it. I ... well, I know her figure better than anyone else, let's just leave it at that. I knew. And seeing that, there was no way I could kill the man, even though I'd bought a gun from some Farrelite and even practiced using it ... and then I didn't have the guts to kill myself. I am so cowardly, so worthless..."

A gremlin was nibbling at the back of Rose's mind at this confession, but she told it to mind its own business and continued. "Are you sure that this unborn child was the reason why you didn't kill its father, Brad? Or might it have been that you realized that what you were doing was wrong? And your wiser, better self stepped in?"

"I just don't KNOWWW..." And the words stopped as the sobs took over.

Rose waited him out. When he was composed again, she tried her best to put on a stern face, failed. "Well, then, let's sort things out here. You didn't actually kill anyone, this other man or yourself, right?"

"I -- right..."

"And you didn't misuse the holy trust that Luminosita placed in you to do the business of the church, right? You did come to Ramanzel to see whether a temple could be planted here?"

"I ... guess so ..."

"In fact," Rose said, "I don't think you're even guilty of lying here. You told me Annie didn't accompany you here; you were truthful in that. You told us you were doing fact finding for a new temple; you are. You're even entitled to be carrying a gun, Brad. You just can't use it. But you didn't. In other words, Brad, you faced the forces of evil that were at work in you when you came down here. And you won. I see no sin to be confessed in that."

Brad looked up at his cousin, was startled that now she'd put on a stern face despite this absolution. She didn't wait for him to speak. "However, you did sin in two regards. One, I think even the most ... liberal ... interpretation of what happened here would agree that your thoughts were impure and filled with hate. Would you agree with that?"

Brad gulped. "I would. And what is the other thing?"

Rose's stern expression now included a wagging finger, something she didn't do often. "The other thing is that I was wrong: you did lie. In fact, you told a lie to someone who loves you very much. I distinctly remember that you said you were staying at that little inn on the other side of the square. You aren't, are you? So where are you actually spending the night?"

Another gulp. "I ... have a sleeping bag. I just threw it down in the forest just outside town. I couldn't bring myself to sleep here..."

Rose's frown deepened. "So we have a third sin here. Not only did you lie, you failed to confess your sin. That is a very bad thing, Brad, very bad. Excuse me for a moment." She rose, found a smiting rod hanging from the wall of the sanctuary, unused for quite some time by the look of it. "With this, let Luminosita's Love purge your sins..." And she tapped him gently on the hand.

"Now go, my son, and sin no more."

[Drannin]

Argus closed the door behind them. There really wasn't much to be said here. This was... family. And Argus understood that all too well. He sighed. He actually envied Rose here, truth be told. Any cousins of his probably wouldn't give him the time of day, and vice-versa. They were categorized along the other inhabitants of the floating city.

At this thought, Argus hazarded a glance over at Maduin, who seemed to have been running an emotional hover-coaster in the last few minutes.

Well, maybe they're not ALL bastards... just most.

[Sareth]

Lilith sighed softly. She hadn't gone inside the temple owing to it seeming somehow wrong. As a result she had no idea what was going on inside, other than that they had found Sister Rose's cousin in there.

She began gently catching the (compliant) parrots and tucking them away in their crates. She wasn't sure she was supposed to, but it was something to do while she waited. Catching parrots didn't take much thinking when they let you walk up to them and pick them up. It left her mind free to think.

As Argus closed the doors, she sighed again. "What's it like?" she mused. "Having a cousin? I never had anyone but mother."

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose and Brad emerged from the temple, Rose's face absolutely neutral except for a gentle smile when she glanced at her cousin, Brad's showing immense relief. One thing remained to be discussed, however.

"Would you all be okay with Brad coming back to Lorenzel with us tonight?" Rose asked the group. "It turns out he needs a place to stay, and we have some things to discuss." Nobody seemed to object (or at least they didn't get the objection out before Rose clambered aboard and extended Brad a hand), so the wagon loaded up with one extra passenger and headed south.

It didn't get very far, however, before the gremlin gnawing at the back of Rose's mind finally struck a nerve. "Brad, I hate to ask this, more than you can imagine, but I must. This 'charismatic cultist.' What did he look like?"

As Rose had feared, a moment of distinct pain crossed Brad's features, but then he remembered who was asking. "He's quite a striking fellow," he said. "About six feet one, mid thirties, highly fit looking, muscular yet well proportioned. Blond hair, blue eyes. Why do you ask?"

Rose nodded but didn't answer his question immediately. Instead, she turned toward Lillith and Argus, who were riding quietly in the seat behind her. "You know, it just occurred to me: about ten years ago, Annie was a dead ringer for someone we've seen on this trip already: Carly Bindiel. Wife Number Three at the castle. And Lillith, I have a guess now about that 'evil' you detected."

She let the implications of that sink in as the wagon reached the turnoff for Lorenzel.

[OOC: On that note, I propose to bring this thread to a close, and replace it with a new one, probably "Lorenzel, Part 2" or something like that. OK to fire a parting shot or two here first, of course. There'll be complete continuity of activity; we can either pick up right where we left off, or get the merry crew to Lorenzel and resume there.

Everybody OK with that? I can promise two very intriguing changes of direction when we all arrive...

EDIT: I didn't see that Lillith had slipped in a word while I was writing this. Let's get that exchange transacted and then change threads.]

[Sareth]

[OOC]Sounds fine to me.[/OOC]