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After Adarin and Isabella depart, Edarial gets back to juggling projects. Unsurprisingly, Iobel is a large help in this. Once she gets a handle on all of the things involved with being a monarch, he can not constantly be doing that alone. He still helps, he's still there doing monarch things and fixing the country, but now he's got a bit more free time to devote to other things.
Accordingly, there's a project he picks back up that he was only tinkering with before his marriage. He'd like to reinvent the fountain that heals familiars, have there be others in strategic locations, so that spellbinders don't need to rush to the capitol to avoid being unmade. Progress on the project's always been slow, there's a reason that it hasn't just been reinvented immediately after the spell charts were lost, but he's got some very good reasons to work on it with a near-obsessive zeal.
One day, to his utter surprise, when he goes to find another portion of the spell-chart to complete, he can't find it. He stares at the chart, stunned. Then he starts checking his work. It takes him a few days to finish the corrections.
Then he's done. He's remade a revolutionary spell chart.
He picks up the huge spell chart, does his best to fold it down to a reasonable travel size, and then heads off to show the nearest spell binder - Iobel.
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royal_obligation
royal_obligation
"Hit my past self with something blunt to snap him out of his head, then tell him to show up at your shop, with - I don't even know, flowers or candy or something. He could try to figure out how to flirt and trip all over himself because of course he is terrible at it."
He makes a sound that is kind of like a sob. "And he would never have to know what it's like to see you hate someone."
He makes a sound that is kind of like a sob. "And he would never have to know what it's like to see you hate someone."
come_midnight
"I leapt to conclusions, wasn't accounting for - people who weren't you doing things. For that matter, I panicked early. I got the letter and I was all set to flee over the border instead of show up and see what it was about."
come_midnight
"They weren't outrageous. But they weren't careful. I didn't sit and go through it methodically."
royal_obligation
"Considering the circumstances... Kind of understandable," he says, miserably.
come_midnight
"Why can you understand the careless, stressed-out part of my thought process and have so much trouble believing the calmer part where I don't hate you anymore?"
royal_obligation
"Because you just seem to be tolerating me and working with me in - businessy things, but nothing else."
come_midnight
"What else do you want me to do? I don't know what you want of me either."
royal_obligation
Berathyme sighs. "He has not seen any evidence that you like him, or even respect him. He is not fishing for compliments. But he needs them," hisses the familiar.
come_midnight
"If I didn't respect him I wouldn't -" Iobel pauses, reevaluates, mutters, "That line of reasoning hasn't got anywhere so far and I should really catch on, shouldn't I. Okay. Um." She sighs, thinks for a moment, shifts position and resettles her hurt leg. When she speaks again it's lower and in the same sort of tone she uses to tell Cricket he's soft.
"The spellchart for the hex was beautiful, I usually find twice as many things to tweak when I go over my first filled-in drafts - I am impressed by your work ethic in general, we have plenty of work for both of us and you were keeping up alone - you were more patient with those ridiculous protestors than I could have been, I would have made at least three snide jokes at their expense in the time you spent talking to them - if I were as miserable as you seem to be half the time I would have to stop and fix it before I could do much of anything else but you can't do that, it seems, and you're carrying on anyway, and I don't even know how you begin to do that let alone manage day after day - you pay attention to what needs doing and I know that wasn't careful royal upbringing because Zevros doesn't have a speck of that so you must have got there by yourself."
"The spellchart for the hex was beautiful, I usually find twice as many things to tweak when I go over my first filled-in drafts - I am impressed by your work ethic in general, we have plenty of work for both of us and you were keeping up alone - you were more patient with those ridiculous protestors than I could have been, I would have made at least three snide jokes at their expense in the time you spent talking to them - if I were as miserable as you seem to be half the time I would have to stop and fix it before I could do much of anything else but you can't do that, it seems, and you're carrying on anyway, and I don't even know how you begin to do that let alone manage day after day - you pay attention to what needs doing and I know that wasn't careful royal upbringing because Zevros doesn't have a speck of that so you must have got there by yourself."
royal_obligation
There's a moment of stunned silence, and then Edarial shifts a bit and mutters, "Ow." A hand touches Iobel's. That must have been why he moved.
"Thank you," he says, sincerely and nearly sobbing.
"Thank you," he says, sincerely and nearly sobbing.
royal_obligation
"He is currently having self esteem issues," informs Berathyme.
"I'm working on it," sighs Edarial.
"The cat has not helped," hisses his familiar.
"I'm working on it," sighs Edarial.
"The cat has not helped," hisses his familiar.
royal_obligation
"Most of this," laughs Edarial, wincing, "has been about me, I'm sorry - is there something you need from me?"
come_midnight
"I'm not sure what you have to give. I'm - holding up, there are things I could use but they can wait till you're in a better place."
come_midnight
"Are you sure? Sometimes you ask me to tell you things and then it seems to make things worse. I don't want to make you worse. Especially not while you may have internal bleeding, that seems like exceptionally bad making-things-worse timing."