No matter how good a person"s skills might be at playing a part, there were simply certain situations that you can"t pretend your way through, especially when that situation came out of the left field, catching you off guard.Hilde had sat there, listening intently as Leal got to the part where the pantheon and Amalasuintha were discussing solutions for the curse of malice. As soon as he mentioned souls returning intact to the "cycle" in order to "cleanse" themselves throughout as many lifetimes as necessary, her ears began to ring, her blood ran cold, and her sanity stood on the brink of complete disintegration.
In those moments, it was all Hilde could do to keep herself as together as it was humanly possible so that she could hear the tale until the end, no matter how many more bombsh.e.l.ls it had contained along the way.
But when it was finally over, though the words might have stopped coming, the thoughts and suspicions they"d planted in her mind continued to overwhelm.
It had taken a challenge to who she was in her current reality to snap her out of the crisis, just enough to re-establish her "ident.i.ty" – which, if her suspicions were correct, might actually turn out to be… hers.
And if so, she"ll be d.a.m.ned if she let other people dictate how she was to be treated. You decide that for yourself, and you let others know. Whether they respect that or not is up to them – it is not something you can force – but at the very least, how they respond would tell you whether they"re deserving of anything more from you. Or not.
If it were to turn out that there"s nothing deeper to be gleaned from what the doomed Marquis of Galane had "unearthed," the lessons about self-sovereignty and so much else were vauable enough in and of themselves.
"It"s always the truth-tellers that are persecuted and painted black, all so those who need to hear them would not dare to listen." As Hilde thought this, she hid behind a bland facade the growing glimmer of distrust she felt toward Captain Judda.
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Perhaps it was only his strong sense of nationalism that had moved him to criticize the Marquis, dismiss his unsubtle championing of freedom, and focus on the the mere suggestion – though admittedly also unsubtle – that their royalties were descended from the same immortal G.o.d and mortal woman.
His response just seemed a tad ridiculous when what Leal had told them was only supposed to be a story.
"Or so this legend"s version would have us believe," Leal continued, showing a small smile that seemed intended to soften some of the hard tension in the air. "As I have said, this is strictly not part of the written histories. I am merely personally convinced that there is some grain of truth in the events described regarding Herleva and Ellanher, who, if he had truly existed, must surely had been no G.o.d at all."
At this, the Captain visibly drew himself up and didn"t answer at once. Then, in a slow and disarmingly civil tone, he said, "Yes, Prince. We are well aware that his claims of G.o.dhood may well have been pure propaganda. He was a conqueror, after all – that much, we truly know. But, for some of us, his divine status is a matter of faith. "Truth" has nothing to do with it."
He paused to the silence of a stunned audience. Sounding very tired all of a sudden, he then sighed and turned to Hilde.
"Princess—"
Whatever he meant to say in that moment would now remain unuttered. The sound of someone running swiftly reached the hearing of those who were still on high alert, in turn informing the others of it.
From the corner of her eye, Hilde saw that the respite she had succeeded in buying for Leal – the price inadvertently being her own peace of mind – had come to an end. Their wait had been too long, in certain ways; in others, it had not lasted long enough.
The female soldier they sent out had not even reached the halfway point to where they were when she shouted, "It"s happened!" She then pivoted while still on a forward momentum and nimbly continued running the way she"d just come.
Past her figure, Hilde and the other saw people running back and forth outside the alley. It took their company but a moment to gather themselves up from where they"d been stuck all this while, then they too ran.