Grancourt Family/Kronos' Fault

A History Lesson

Your bickering with Kronos may have finished, Yavanna, but it is his fault that we are in this position today. And i will tell you why:

Many years ago, 11 years if i remember rightly (also happens to be my lucky number...) on my 17th birthday, King Kronos Titans of Carelia granted my father and his family nobility. I was supposed to carry on the family business of Map Writing. My father travelled far and wide to study the landscapes of this continent, leaving his home in Clyderee for many months at a time to contour and record the land from coast to coast. He left his wife, my mother to look after myself and my younger brother Thrydwulf.

When Kronos granted nobility to the grancourt family, my father thought that we wouldn't look like nobles unless we had a house fit for nobles. His maps were well reknowned for their accuracy and delicate penwork in all the names, and it was for this reason that Kronos awarded my father with his new rank amongst the nobles of Carelia. The maps were works of art - we still have one in our home in Clyderee although my father passed away early last year above the fireplace - and they always sold well. The last editions before he retired a noble gave us enough money to afford a nice house in Clyderee next to our cousins, the Baraedors who had already been granted nobility a while before.

It was upon my 17th birthday that i was knighted and given my first unit of archers to command. I had always fared well in archery contests in the local villages around our home. I was making somewhat of a name for myself - what with my "silver tongue" and my "eagle eyes". The summer before i was allowed to accompany my father on his last map writing expedition. It was to travel north into Norland and map out the mountains and all their peaks. My younger brother Thrydwulf was not allowed as he was too young, and he is still bitter to this day. It was there i met a pretty brown-haired girl called Beatrice, who liked me enough to travel back to my home and marry me. She married into our newly noble family on my birthday, and on her 17th birthday followed me into the armies of Carelia, ordering a troop of foot soldiers into battle against the Cagilan Empire.

Beatrice had an unfortunate turn of events, and after being caught swindling somebody on the black market (i wish she had told me first!) was banned from Carelia, and left in disgrace to Beluaterra. It has been a while since we last corresponded...how i miss her. She always knew how to calm me down. Perhaps it was her ice-blue eyes...

And finally, after a brutal war with CE, Carelia was at peace. I had given everything to protect our realm, everything i possible could. I hadn't visited home in Clyderee for a long long time, and my mother was very worried, father had become ill. And yet, my fighting wasn't finished - for i left to aid Abington against their 6 enemies. Fighting with our federate ally while Carelia got back on its feet.

After i returned i worked hard to make a name for myself in Carelia, the realm i have always loved and always will. I worked so hard, that people started to notice Laurie Grancourt from little Clyderee. Laurie and Bartho - the troublesome twosome...scoundrels to the end! Those were the days! So hard for this realm i worked, i was sure there would be some reward, perhaps some honour/prestige that i had lost from switching realms too much? Perhaps a piece of land? Perhaps the chance to become the lord of the land i have lived on since i was a little boy? Maybe even a place in the accalimed Senate of Carelia - where all the heroes of the realm got to talk to the King in person.

I had always looked up to Kronos since he had granted my father nobility. But i had worked just as hard for Carelia as my dad had worked on his maps, if not more. I watched as my cousin Bartho was accepted into the Senate, and my liege Tharan too had been there a long while. I watched while all the people i considered my equals were promoted above me and still i tried harder. I am not a bitter person - there is always something i can improve in myself before i blame others. Even when friends put in good words for me, Kronos dismissed their suggestions, turned town their advice and ignored their comments. I was still Laurie the Map Writers son...

FINALLY! The chance i had hoped would come arrived! CE gave us back our regions, Clyderee being one of these. I was by now becoming even more respected in the upper class nobles, and many thought i was worthy of a lordship. I requested to become the lord of my homelands...but once again my words fell on deaf ears. I was given the most awkward region (Oyonnairre), which meant i could not go and practise my shooting in battles, as the region needed 24 hour maintenance. It might have been a rich region, but it was not my home. Still, i thought this might be the chance i needed to get into the Senate...how wrong i was!

Time and again Bartho and others asked why i wasn't considered worthy enough to be in the Senate. It was obvious that i was so passionate about this realm, as i have always been, yet Kronos said no again and again. Still i did not blame him or anyone else. I turned to myself to find out what was wrong. Perhaps i wasn't giving enough? Perhaps i would be better aiding Carelia in some other way? It was then i heard about becoming a man of the shadows. I kept waiting, hoping that i would be accepted into the senate that i had dreamed of all my life. I even started writing to Beatrice telling her of my hopes. She always told me not to count my eggs before they hatched...and i guess i got excited. But the day didn't come...i was still waiting, and finally i could not wait any longer.

I left Oyonnairre for Bartho (who had given it to me in the first place) to tend to, and headed to Strombran to begin my training as an infiltrator. So you see, at every stage in my life, Kronos was the puppet-master and i had the strings attached. And everytime i thought i was getting somewhere, i really wasn't. I was never allowed to be free - until i started to work with the daggers. Once i had learned the tricks of moving silently and not being seen, i had the world at my feet and people at my fingertips! Imagine the sensation of someone held back for so long - and no wife to keep me on this earth.

Now i see the end of that career for the time being, and it is all down to you Yavanna. Yavanna, the woman who has opposed Kronos for so long, stuck up for me even when i might have done wrong (:P), the woman who was even closer to my liege Tharan that I had been. Yavanna who I had looked up to and respected, and secretly wished Beatrice would be more like. Yavanna, i thank you for saving me from becoming something i would never wish to become. It is so easy to continue down that dark and slippery road that a life in the shadows will inevitably lead you too. Perhaps you can knock some sense into me (although be gentle!) tomorrow morning, and maybe i will feel the passion i once felt for Carelia return into my veins, instead of these dark thoughts and dreams i seem to have of late. Yavanna, whatever the outcome, i will be glad it was you that saved me from the path Kronos caused me to take in my naiivity.

I hope the realm will forgive me.

The sleepless Night

Laurie was used to being up in the dead of the night, but never had his thoughts kept him from sleeping this bad before. It was now just before the dawn, and in just a little time he would step out to face Yavanna in a duel till surrender.

It wasn't because he didn't like her, far from it...and he knew that she didn't hate him, but it had felt right at the time. He had thrown away his knife after ripping up his special black cloak, and now it felt like a silly thing. He knew that after becoming a knight, they wouldn't let you slip into the shadows again for a long time...and things could get a little sticky from now on.

The worst part, and the thing keeping him up the most, was not the duel, but the consequences. His future was a little hazy right now and he couldn't tell which way things would pan out. Tomorrow would be a big day in his life. 28...still young, and now facing a woman far more skilled than himself with the blade? What was he thinking?

---

Before the sun broke the furthest hills, Laurie got up and donned his clothes. No cloak this time, but his family best. He hardly ever wore this, but the morning called for some better dress than he was used to. Surprised his clothes fit, he straightened out a few creases, and tightened the small bicep-band with the family crest on to his right arm.

As he reached for his sword, he stopped, arms outstretched and immediately drew his hands into his body. The backs of his hands were so disfigured they were unrecognisable, his thumbs had been broken and twisted, roughly put back together. He wasn't sure he could pull his bow anymore, and he couldn't anyway - it had been broken by the bastard bandits a long while ago now.

He reached out again and grasped his sword in the slightly altered grasp, holding it at an angle, with his thumb loosely supporting the hilt instead of gripping the handle tightly. In the few days he'd had back home in Strombran, he had worked on a new way of holding his daggers, and the sword followed in the academy. The tutor was actually quite surprised at how well it worked. The slightly angled blade meant the attacker had to come up with a different direction of attack, and Laurie had worked on the defence - even some trick moves...perhaps things weren't so bad.

Then he remembered who he was against, and quickly sheathed the sword. Tying it to his purple belt, he cuckled up, put on his gauntlets and stepped out into the just breaking sun to a new future...not daring to wonder whether it would be bright or not...