P. Power - Knight Esquire

But not, as a rule, a Doretta. Anything but, according to Petra. It seemed she tended to ere on the side of accepting anyone that showed interest in her. The only one she’d ever done anything like that to, of course, being him. Well, that made him feel special at least. Tor had to suppress a sigh, but did it so the Petra would keep talking.

The tale that unfolded was one of anger, an illogical kind of rage even, on Maria’s part, but one that made a certain kind of sense, if you were a fourteen year old girl that felt like she’d been unfairly spurned, and then insulted, by someone she’d made only honest overtures to. A person that, due to his station as Prince, Maria couldn’t touch at all. Ever. She couldn’t even call him names openly or say she didn’t like him. That would have been too dangerous.

“So, you know, she went after the person closest to him that she thought she could get away with hurting. You. So, she… said those things. That you and Alphonse were together first, which no one cared about. It was school after all. If the Prince wanted a boyfriend, no one would bat an eyelash, right? Plus, who could blame him for liking you? He was supposed to be trying things out and making good connections with others anyway. When that didn’t have any effect, she said that you liked children, trying to smear your name. No one credited that either you know… It was clear sour grapes. Even if you did, how would she have known anything about it? Besides, you’d asked her out, which kind of showed interest in other places, yeah?”

She didn’t get up and pace, but she got really quiet again for a while and finally nodded.

“Then, when she did it, well, most people knew about what had happened by then, but a few of the boys liked her enough to take what she said seriously and wanted to kill you for it. It was ridiculous, given everything, but she was pretty enough that her going around claiming that she acted like that because you’d tried to force her the night before, well it carried some weight, even if it was an obvious lie.”

Force her? To do what, Tor wanted to ask at first, but he already knew the answer.

Rape. She’d gone around and claimed he raped her? Or tried to at least? God, they’d only even talked the one time! Anger rose in him then, he felt it rise, spreading out through his mind as his heart beat faster and faster, Petra’s eyes went wide and she rocked back suddenly as if he’d hit her or something.

“Tor?”

She didn’t move out of the silence field, but rose so that her hands were on the bed and feet on the floor, ready to run if she had to. He didn’t move at all and closed his eyes instead.

It was the past. Let it go.

It took a minute, but he drove his mind into as deep a state as he could, into and then past what he used to make copies even, finally, without really shifting position at all, Tor opened his eyes and nodded. Alright. He’d already known from what Rolph had told him that the girl had said some vile and evil things. It pretty much had to be something like that, didn’t it? Claiming he liked men, animals or even children was clear name calling. Well, at least the animals and children had been.

There were men around that he could have been going after, even though at that time he hadn’t even really known such things were physically possible. Tor was still a little unclear how it would work, but Ursala had told him some of it. Guys had mouths and hands too and behinds, but he still didn’t get that last reference.

Right. So accept that it had happened and move on. It took him a while, but he finally nodded.

“I… didn’t know that.”

“Um, are you all right now? I… you were showing aura and then you pulled yourself out of it? I… didn’t know a person could do that. Not once it started deeply enough to start showing externally… Um, well, yeah. Anyway, people finally let it go as being a lie, but it took a bit.”

Well, even the rumor of such things would probably explain why no women ever even looked at him at school. Who could trust such a thing? Once the words were said, the damage from the lies would tend to spread. He certainly wouldn’t have told any girl to go hang around with the guy that had rumors like that floating about him. Still, even in a deep trance state he felt it, just lightly. The desire to go and destroy Maria and everyone associated with her that had helped her damage his name. He drove himself deeper and tried to let it go.

“So, it probably would have died there, as far as you were concerned, except that, you know, I…” The girl moved back to the bed and sat as close as possible to him, shields bumping slightly. “I told her, well, I told people that told her, that I liked you, and was planning on asking you out. That would have been fine, except, well, she hates me now, doesn’t she?”

It took a while for Tor to put it together, but when he did things finally started to click into place. Everything that had been happening, almost literally, had links back to Maria. Maybe it was the trance state, so close to his work mode that did it. That was more than possible. Or, just as likely, his shutting down his emotions for the time being let everything show more clearly, but it lined up.

Ursala getting pregnant which would have destroyed her marriage to Rolph, David Derring, brother of Karen, a girl that had attacked her, being challenged by a sitting Count, one that was probably her lover Tor bet, even the people closest to Rolph showing a lot more combat rage… The people being poisoned just after Austra declared war and the generals later… That wasn’t normal. In war, poison was almost never used as a weapon, because you have to get too close to make it work…

The links were there. It was a shadowy and amorphous thing in his mind, but there was something to it. He could feel it. Feel the shape of the field that had been built in society from the actions taken. It… he didn’t have any proof of course.

“Maria, she’s working with the Austrians, isn’t she? Probably to punish Rolph and the people around her that she views as having hurt her in the past. Even killing me, or trying too, is probably just meant to hurt Rolph. It really has very little to do with you, if I have it right… wait!”

Tor looked at her, realizing something she’d just said, causing him to blink.

“You were going to ask me out? You told Maria that? When?”

“Oh, um, yeah. Well, I’ve been watching you for a while now, so, I guess I started thinking about it nearly two years ago? You were so shy back then though, and I didn’t know if you, you know, would even talk to me really, I didn’t really tell her myself, I told my mom who mentioned it to her, just after the clothing dryer test? I’d been wanting too for a lot longer than that… I was nervous though, so I kind of went too slowly.”

Duh.

Tor had just assumed that, since he seemed to be the target himself, that it was actually about him. But it wasn’t at all. It was about Maria’s hurt feelings, her sister in-law and Rolph, who she thought had insulted her. He started laughing then. It made sense. Petra started to look worried, then her face clouded briefly. Oh! He realized she must be thinking that he was laughing at her for thinking to ask him out. That, he assured her quickly, wasn’t it. In fact that part was really nice, and sweet, and not only would he do it now, but really wished she’d tried earlier.

“Not that I would have gotten it, so, maybe this is as close to when you could have mentioned it as possible anyway? No… It’s just that I understand now. A little. I think…” Tor closed his eyes then.

“Maria Ward isn’t after me at all and never was really. She’s going after Rolph and his family. Everyone that knows him, to make him pay for spurning her. In her mind, she’s Count Wylde and Rolph is the evil Doretta. And…” The next bit made sense, but he didn’t want to credit it. It was way too dark, even for something as serious as this. It fit though. Too well to be happenstance.