Games
Fort Gawyne, 13th day of Cylus Arc 712
As was the way of things such as this, there had been ample food. Nothing too exotic so as to not raise the ire of the conservative element, of course. The old guard loved their boar drowned in Venoran wine even before it was cooked, dumplings and pheasants, all made up nicely, glazed and cut into shapes and with different spices and sauces and all, but under all the finery it was just meat and potatoes. On the other hand, the fineries did of course go a long way towards appeasing the self-styled up and coming elite who had long since reached their 30s and 40s themselves and were no longer either in the eyes of their own children. By the time they would inherit this hallowed Rynmere earth, each generation in turn would have calcified into the same reactionary force nobility had always been, or at least that was the going theory. Even while history tended to repeat itself, patterns existed to be broken and yield the unexpected.
Tonight would not be that night however. It was cold outside and dark, always dark so early in the Arc. Nobody had a mind for mutiny or revolution, except in theory, around a fireplace with a glass of mulled cider or spiked tea. Gorged on boar and pheasant and the more exotic morsels reached beside the main attraction. Tonight would go down the way it always had gone down for as long as anyone present could remember. It was soul-crushing to watch the death of Northern Civilization at its own hands. If one had a soul, which was certainly debatable with regard to the company present this night. This night in which nothing would change, ever.
Jason Gawyne had presided over the dinner, then withdrawn with his children and the most senior of his guests to one of the many salons where he would lay out some portentuous omen for the new Arc as was his custom. And they, depending on their humours, would indulge or deride him and he would in turn accept it with the smug humility only afforded to a man who knows. Who knows and knows that he knows better than them. Meanwhile, their lessers, the least of the various lines and their childer and most trusted retainers would mingle about the hall and find unused nooks and crannies for their plots and trysts; the perpetual assurance that they, too, amounted to something, could move things. That the sting of the bumblebee was not for naught but could indeed fell the mighty dragon if only applied properly, to the right spot, at the right time. Always neglecting to remember that they were still bumblebees in the wake of dragons.
Cassian Gawyne had seen this before. Arcs before. Even before he was officially allowed to attend. He'd seen it and seen through it and when he went from being disallowed to being required to attend he'd dipped his toe in it and discarded it. There was power in that closed-off room with his grandfather and his father and his uncle and Benji Andaris and all the other stalwarts of the realm. There was no power worth mentioning outside of it. The bastard sometimes wondered if Jason saw things similarly. He'd never ask. The old man was his grandfather after all and if nothing else, Cassian respected his distanced ways, though he sometimes wondered if the Gawyne partriarch regarded his wild grandchild with similar considerations in mind. More likely he meant to keep him close so he could sacrifice him as a pawn in some game, the taint of his birth making him quite frangible as he had long sinze realized.
Still, he was a scion of House Gawyne and there were certain expectations placed on those, even the ones born out of wedlock.
He'd made the rounds then, flirted with this supple Venora boy and that gamey Warrick child, crudely, awkwardly, but he had tried his best. He had offered his opinion on worldwide trade, suggesting that Rynmere finalize treaties with those world powers it lacked them with for the simple fact that the flow of goods always brought with it the flow of information. The trick, he held, was merely in controlling the traders themselves, of which hostages were the easiest of methods. Leaving that group in states ranging from alarm to confusion he'd ambled onward, away from adventure only to be caught by a table of crones pinching his cheeks and stabbing fingers into his belly as if to inspect his fitness as a future dinner. They also kept calling him all kinds of mildly insulting nicknames the strangest of which was 'the goat'. His curiosity nipped at the reasoning behind such names but the crones proved irritatingly elusive to his methods. Half a dozen disappointments and humiliations later however, Cassian had finally traced his path to the Imperial Salon.
The name was more or a joke than a misnomer, really. There was nothing imperial about the small, dark room and it certainly was no salon. Certainly, the walls were lined with black and green damask and that in turn covered with shelves of dark wood stood full of books. Certainly, there was a craftily-placed fireplace with beautifully decorated cast iron plating that carried the warmth well into the room while keeping its interior clean and safe. But compared to many of the stately rooms of Fort Gawyne, this was simply a small library where his family kept those books as treated the Eternal Empire, the Raskithecal and the Immortal Raskalarn. Having a certain fondness for two out of those three subjects, it had been an early favourite spot for Cassian during his visits to his grandfather's abode. It also had driven him to the other thing that was to be found in this room.
The young man had never asked whence the table had come from. Who had made it or gifted it or bought it and brought it here. He just knew that the game was one that required strategy, and more understanding than Knights. Games of sheer attrition were easy, but this game, this Mendias was something different. It was a game of conquest and building empires... and seeing them crumble due to the simplest of mistakes. In a nutshell it was an application of all that these tomes might consider sacrosanct in these pursuits, allowing for all they considered blasphemy. And it allowed for proving those tomes wrong, if one blasphemed with enough conviction. One day, maybe, Cassian would take this board as his just due, from all the things in this house. When his grandfather and his children were gone, when Cassian's generation would crawl over the bones and pick them clean.
He would not care for Fort Gawyne or what it meant. The things that mattered to him, he could carry on his way. But this board, he allowed even as he set up a game for two with practiced motions, this board should be his for what it represented... and because to his knowledge he was the only one who used it. Taking turns making moves for each side the Bastard of Gawyne further allowed for the sheer possibilities of where his life might take him until these bones were up for the picking and whether he should just talk to the old man. Which he might have had their sameness not repelled them as if they were like magnetic poles.
Banishing this thought, the young man implemented his strategy for the hexes, then tried to forget it when he went to decide on a strategy for his crosses. This was hardly his first time, merely his first trying to play both sides competitively and it did not start out all that well. But there was a time for everything.
Tonight would not be that night however. It was cold outside and dark, always dark so early in the Arc. Nobody had a mind for mutiny or revolution, except in theory, around a fireplace with a glass of mulled cider or spiked tea. Gorged on boar and pheasant and the more exotic morsels reached beside the main attraction. Tonight would go down the way it always had gone down for as long as anyone present could remember. It was soul-crushing to watch the death of Northern Civilization at its own hands. If one had a soul, which was certainly debatable with regard to the company present this night. This night in which nothing would change, ever.
Jason Gawyne had presided over the dinner, then withdrawn with his children and the most senior of his guests to one of the many salons where he would lay out some portentuous omen for the new Arc as was his custom. And they, depending on their humours, would indulge or deride him and he would in turn accept it with the smug humility only afforded to a man who knows. Who knows and knows that he knows better than them. Meanwhile, their lessers, the least of the various lines and their childer and most trusted retainers would mingle about the hall and find unused nooks and crannies for their plots and trysts; the perpetual assurance that they, too, amounted to something, could move things. That the sting of the bumblebee was not for naught but could indeed fell the mighty dragon if only applied properly, to the right spot, at the right time. Always neglecting to remember that they were still bumblebees in the wake of dragons.
Cassian Gawyne had seen this before. Arcs before. Even before he was officially allowed to attend. He'd seen it and seen through it and when he went from being disallowed to being required to attend he'd dipped his toe in it and discarded it. There was power in that closed-off room with his grandfather and his father and his uncle and Benji Andaris and all the other stalwarts of the realm. There was no power worth mentioning outside of it. The bastard sometimes wondered if Jason saw things similarly. He'd never ask. The old man was his grandfather after all and if nothing else, Cassian respected his distanced ways, though he sometimes wondered if the Gawyne partriarch regarded his wild grandchild with similar considerations in mind. More likely he meant to keep him close so he could sacrifice him as a pawn in some game, the taint of his birth making him quite frangible as he had long sinze realized.
Still, he was a scion of House Gawyne and there were certain expectations placed on those, even the ones born out of wedlock.
He'd made the rounds then, flirted with this supple Venora boy and that gamey Warrick child, crudely, awkwardly, but he had tried his best. He had offered his opinion on worldwide trade, suggesting that Rynmere finalize treaties with those world powers it lacked them with for the simple fact that the flow of goods always brought with it the flow of information. The trick, he held, was merely in controlling the traders themselves, of which hostages were the easiest of methods. Leaving that group in states ranging from alarm to confusion he'd ambled onward, away from adventure only to be caught by a table of crones pinching his cheeks and stabbing fingers into his belly as if to inspect his fitness as a future dinner. They also kept calling him all kinds of mildly insulting nicknames the strangest of which was 'the goat'. His curiosity nipped at the reasoning behind such names but the crones proved irritatingly elusive to his methods. Half a dozen disappointments and humiliations later however, Cassian had finally traced his path to the Imperial Salon.
The name was more or a joke than a misnomer, really. There was nothing imperial about the small, dark room and it certainly was no salon. Certainly, the walls were lined with black and green damask and that in turn covered with shelves of dark wood stood full of books. Certainly, there was a craftily-placed fireplace with beautifully decorated cast iron plating that carried the warmth well into the room while keeping its interior clean and safe. But compared to many of the stately rooms of Fort Gawyne, this was simply a small library where his family kept those books as treated the Eternal Empire, the Raskithecal and the Immortal Raskalarn. Having a certain fondness for two out of those three subjects, it had been an early favourite spot for Cassian during his visits to his grandfather's abode. It also had driven him to the other thing that was to be found in this room.
The young man had never asked whence the table had come from. Who had made it or gifted it or bought it and brought it here. He just knew that the game was one that required strategy, and more understanding than Knights. Games of sheer attrition were easy, but this game, this Mendias was something different. It was a game of conquest and building empires... and seeing them crumble due to the simplest of mistakes. In a nutshell it was an application of all that these tomes might consider sacrosanct in these pursuits, allowing for all they considered blasphemy. And it allowed for proving those tomes wrong, if one blasphemed with enough conviction. One day, maybe, Cassian would take this board as his just due, from all the things in this house. When his grandfather and his children were gone, when Cassian's generation would crawl over the bones and pick them clean.
He would not care for Fort Gawyne or what it meant. The things that mattered to him, he could carry on his way. But this board, he allowed even as he set up a game for two with practiced motions, this board should be his for what it represented... and because to his knowledge he was the only one who used it. Taking turns making moves for each side the Bastard of Gawyne further allowed for the sheer possibilities of where his life might take him until these bones were up for the picking and whether he should just talk to the old man. Which he might have had their sameness not repelled them as if they were like magnetic poles.
Banishing this thought, the young man implemented his strategy for the hexes, then tried to forget it when he went to decide on a strategy for his crosses. This was hardly his first time, merely his first trying to play both sides competitively and it did not start out all that well. But there was a time for everything.
