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“Hmm…” Edelina sighed a long breath, held in relief. “I appreciate it, Herr Roth-Vogel. That you are so willing to help share the weight, in your own way.” She stammered out an addition. “N-not like the other way. The metaphorical way.” You wouldn’t turn her down if she actually considered it, to be fair. “Perhaps my father felt as I do now,” she continued to muse wistfully. “…If you could continue with my shoulders?”
“I think all the knots are out, but alright.” Maybe she really wanted or needed a hug, but this was more acceptable.
“Father was a kind king, but that gentleness made him allow all manner of enemies to take root,” Edelina went on from before, “Like Lucius to the west, I suppose. All throughout when I grew up, I had no reason to believe that most people of Halmeggia felt anything but respect and admiration for us, their Royal Family. Yet when the country broke, when the people rose in revolt alongside whomever offered them the future they thought best, the house of Halm-Auric found itself standing by themselves. Father thought his gentleness would engender love, but it did the opposite. The corruption of the Aristocrats, the festering of the Revolution, the opportunism and frustration of the Military, when everything broke down, none of them would be coming to save us. Only, perhaps, to use us, at best. We turned out to be so shockingly alone, save for those sworn to us in the duty of life guards. My family could hardly believe it. No matter what others may claim, the truth is that the only ones who hurried to save us turned out to be the Reich.”
You could have been faster. Yet, in truth, when you went over how to do that in your head after the fact, combined with the timeline as it had been revealed in the months after, you might have lacked the sheer strength to stop what had ended up happening. At least you’d managed to do what part you had.
That question wasn’t what was in your mind now, though.
“You had the Grimoire, though.” You pointed out, “If it’s so pricelessly powerful as you say, would it have helped you hold out? It couldn’t help you?”
Edelina thought a moment. “It is time to reveal that then, is it. The relic of my most honored ancestor...Not all of it. Some now, the rest, after you return the Grimoire.”
“Deal.”
“To start with…no, using it in the moment would not have been possible. I will say why, but you must understand before anything else that it makes the use of forces that are beyond the perception or understanding of most. Calling it <span class="mu-i">magic</span> is crude, and incorrect, but I will not waste time trying to explain the specifics. They are unimportant anyways, compared to the function of the Grimoire.”
