[ this is a more complicated relationship than he'd had with his own sister, but maybe that comes with age. ]
Aldreda. It's a beautiful name.
[ he'll remember it, though he'll never meet her. he considers, a gentle ruffle lifting through his fins. his voice lacks judgment, though there's a bit of something else instead. melancholy, maybe. an old feeling. ]
...It sounds like you did what you thought was best for her. [ ... ] Not wanting you there—was she angry at what you'd done? Sending her off. [ not writing back, eventually. or was it who he was, rather than what he'd done? maybe it's too personal an ask, but he does so casually. ]
Like I said, I'd lost track of her. She'd spent time telling me I had a place in that city, but I knew I was never going to do that. You've met me, can you imagine me in a grand tower, serving dinner and dusting rooms? Balancing books for some blowhard merchant? Bowing and scraping? I didn't ... want to show up again, until I had enough gold that we could go anywhere we wanted. Start over. Go to Tal'dorei, or Xhorhas, somewhere new. I'd done all this training, I could fight, I could provide. We'd found a job that paid out well and part of my payment was finding her for me.
[ he pulls back the sleeve of his coat. all the tattoos are there, but also the scars, thin slices across the skin from hand to shoulder. ]
Blood magic isn't exactly a common art in the Empire. I don't know. I didn't know how to explain it, all the years in the meantime, what I'd been doing. The last time she'd seen me I was a child. I wasn't what she expected. And she didn't want to leave with me.
[ he looks over the scars, thin but many, deliberate and eerie without context. he can imagine the alarms it might ring.
it's sad—lucien tells this story easily, but it does not sound to him as though it were an easy journey, an easy conclusion to walk away from. he's quiet a second, then lets out a little, good-natured puff of laughter. ]
You, as a maid? A cook—you could make those little pastries like Dahut did! It'd be a sight to behold.
[ another pause. more somber. ]
...She probably remembered you as someone very different. [ this is a subject he rarely touches on in detail aloud, but it feels a little different here, where hyrule's history is an unknown. ] My memories of my elder sister are faultless. I know she had her own struggles, and things she kept from me for my own sake, but only as I grew older and more distant from her memory.
[ he offers him a little smile, warm. ]
But to a child—as her younger brother—she was a perfect person who I adored. More than her protection, I wanted... more time. Attention. [ ... ] If I saw her a hundred years later, as a real person and not just the peerless champion in my memories, perhaps I would've been shocked too.
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no subject
Aldreda. It's a beautiful name.
[ he'll remember it, though he'll never meet her. he considers, a gentle ruffle lifting through his fins. his voice lacks judgment, though there's a bit of something else instead. melancholy, maybe. an old feeling. ]
...It sounds like you did what you thought was best for her. [ ... ] Not wanting you there—was she angry at what you'd done? Sending her off. [ not writing back, eventually. or was it who he was, rather than what he'd done? maybe it's too personal an ask, but he does so casually. ]
no subject
[ a little of column a, a little of column b. ]
Like I said, I'd lost track of her. She'd spent time telling me I had a place in that city, but I knew I was never going to do that. You've met me, can you imagine me in a grand tower, serving dinner and dusting rooms? Balancing books for some blowhard merchant? Bowing and scraping? I didn't ... want to show up again, until I had enough gold that we could go anywhere we wanted. Start over. Go to Tal'dorei, or Xhorhas, somewhere new. I'd done all this training, I could fight, I could provide. We'd found a job that paid out well and part of my payment was finding her for me.
[ he pulls back the sleeve of his coat. all the tattoos are there, but also the scars, thin slices across the skin from hand to shoulder. ]
Blood magic isn't exactly a common art in the Empire. I don't know. I didn't know how to explain it, all the years in the meantime, what I'd been doing. The last time she'd seen me I was a child. I wasn't what she expected. And she didn't want to leave with me.
no subject
it's sad—lucien tells this story easily, but it does not sound to him as though it were an easy journey, an easy conclusion to walk away from. he's quiet a second, then lets out a little, good-natured puff of laughter. ]
You, as a maid? A cook—you could make those little pastries like Dahut did! It'd be a sight to behold.
[ another pause. more somber. ]
...She probably remembered you as someone very different. [ this is a subject he rarely touches on in detail aloud, but it feels a little different here, where hyrule's history is an unknown. ] My memories of my elder sister are faultless. I know she had her own struggles, and things she kept from me for my own sake, but only as I grew older and more distant from her memory.
[ he offers him a little smile, warm. ]
But to a child—as her younger brother—she was a perfect person who I adored. More than her protection, I wanted... more time. Attention. [ ... ] If I saw her a hundred years later, as a real person and not just the peerless champion in my memories, perhaps I would've been shocked too.