Cataclysm War | Chapter 75: The Need for Answers (First Draft)

Sunday, August 7, 4 S.E.

Leonidas made his way to the private dining room reserved for the Monarchs and their family, Aylar on his arm, with a satisfied smile on his face. His crown was on his head, as Aylar had duly informed him it must be whenever possible, and he felt its weight passively—not in the literal sense, but as the symbol of duty that it was. They were already late, thanks to a short nap and a morning shower that turned into a two-person affair, and subsequently delayed them even more when Aylar had joined him.

Now, dressed in an elegant, silver-threaded black vest with a black silken undershirt beneath it—sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows—and a pair of form-fitting dark, silver-edged breeches, Leonidas made his way through the Palace corridors with the announcing sound of armored footfalls both ahead and behind him. Aylar had selected a relatively simple attire for herself: a white dress lined in gold, with sapphires worked into the heart of the bodice that held her cleavage, and some diaphanous silks hung from her biceps and behind her shoulders.

Leonidas wore comfortable shoes for the morning, though Aylar had insisted on heels for some odd reason he couldn’t comprehend.

When they entered the room, Leonidas found his parents already waiting for them at the large circular table he’d asked to be put in; his father in a plaid shirt of black and blue spots, of all things, with a comfortable pair of jeans belted at the waist, and his mother in a business blouse with a matching pair of jeans. His father was reading something invisible, likely a System screen, while distractedly sipping a cup of coffee, while his mother was determinedly knitting, of all things, with a look of supreme focus.

When he and Aylar entered, his parents looked up—his father only after being nudged pointedly by his mother—and smiled at them both. The table was already laden with various breakfast options, thankfully, which made Leonidas want to shake the hand of whoever had been foresighted enough to prepare the veritable banquet on the table.

“Morning,” Leonidas greeted them with a lazy smile, followed by Aylar's “Good Morning!” as he guided her to a seat after pulling it out for her, to his parents’ clear approval, before gently pushing it forward and settling down beside her thereafter.

“Hello, newlyweds,” Reginald greeted them with a broad smile, while Maryanne eyed them both warmly. “I see you both appear, ah, well-rested.”

Leonidas snorted quietly at that and reached for a tower of stacked pancakes, eyeing them with hunger as he used the paired fork and dumped several onto his waiting plate. At his side, Aylar blushed with happiness and idly stroked her hair, making sure it hid the bruises on her neck that had mostly already healed.

“Do you have an agenda for today?” Maryanne asked calmly, looking between them as she lifted her own cup of coffee.

“Aylar has a meeting with the Merchant Council at ten,” Leonidas noted idly, “and I have to speak to the Dawnguard and Duskguard around the same time. We’re dividing and conquering today.”

Reginald and Maryanne blinked, and then his father spoke.

“Ah, so that leaves you two hours?”

“More or less,” Leonidas agreed simply, while pouring honey over his pancakes and promptly attacking them with his fork. After the wedding night, he was damn-near ravenous, and judging by Aylar’s healthy helping of eggs and toast, she wasn’t much different. “Long enough for me to explain that thing we talked about—speaking of which.”

He turned between bites of his pancakes and glanced at Mernyn, the Lance-Master on duty.

“Mernyn, give us the room, please.”

The Royal Guardsman paused, glanced at Leonidas’ parents, and then, after a moment, bowed his head and turned on his heel, leaving the room with the half-Dagger of Guards present, shutting it behind him.

“Don’t mind Mernyn,” Aylar intoned reassuringly after he left. “You are my in-laws, but he has served my family for over two centuries. He does not trust easily.”

Leonidas’ parents nodded slowly in understanding and seemed to quickly get over the implied distrust, which was a relief to him.

“We don’t want to interrupt your breakfast, son, so if you want to eat first—”

“It’s fine, Dad,” Leonidas cut in as he swallowed another mouthful of honey-laden pancakes. “I’ll eat between telling. It’s a long story, anyway. If I wait, I won’t have time to eat.”

His mother and father frowned at that, but Leonidas pressed on without giving them a chance to worry over it.

“I’ll start from when I was transmigrated,” he stated as he poured himself a glass of squeezed orange juice, “and you can ask any questions you have at the end, okay?”

“Alright, dear,” his mother replied as she set down her knitting and nursed her coffee, in mimicry of his father. Aylar reached over to squeeze his arm, and Leonidas smiled at his wife before redirecting his gaze to his parents.

Then, after another mouthful of pancakes and the creation of a quick [Psionic Force] bubble, he began.

He told them everything, from the night he’d been taken from his dorm by the portal, to the revelations of being the Hero, through to earning his [Radiance Core] and learning the Seven Sword Arts. He described it all, only avoiding the needlessly gratuitous as his mind calmly—thanks to his heightened Intelligence and Willpower—rolled over his traumatic experiences. Speaking about it, he’d found, helped immeasurably; and the more people that knew, the more secure he felt.

When he broached the topic of Miranda’s death, his parents appeared horrified, especially by his reaction, but it was an empathetic horror; they felt like they’d failed him, and he could see it in their reactions—but he assuaged their fears easily, talking about Lyara, Bjorn, Caricus, and the various other companions he’d made through his journey. He talked about the tonics they used to prepare for him to give him dreamless sleep, and the escalation of the Demon War.

By the time he reached the part about the final assault, his mother was gripping his father’s hand like a vise, and Leonidas almost paused to laugh at the comical expression of mixed investment and pain on his dad’s face. When he finally recounted his fateful use of Requiem Ultima and the subsequent embrace of his own death, his parents appeared a mix between proud, distraught, and speechless, and Aylar reached out again to squeeze his hand in quiet support after he paused.

When he told them about arriving back on Terra, becoming the Cataclysm, and the experiences he’d had since then, their reactions were more mixed. His mother looked troubled, and his father seemed a mix of fascinated and angry, and both of them glanced at Aylar searchingly as he described how their unexpected romance had developed.

By the time he was truly done, almost an hour had passed, and his parents looked faintly uncertain of what to even say.

“All in all,” Leonidas concluded after he was done, “the entire experience sucked, but I got something amazing out of it,” he stated, smiling at Aylar. “And I wouldn’t trade it, not even if it meant never having the Incursion in the first place. A month ago, I would’ve said yes in a heartbeat, but now, the idea of life without Aylar—without my wife—is about as impossible to contemplate as the idea of real-life transmigration was before this all happened.”

“This is… a lot to take in, son,” Reginald murmured after a moment’s silence, his gaze moving between Aylar and Leonidas as he spoke. “While I can see the reasoning behind what you said, the way you’ve described Ceruviel—”

“The Duchess is about as unyielding as tungsten, Dad, but everything she did made me stronger,” Leonidas responded firmly. “I didn’t always agree with her methods—hell, I still don’t, but I can’t deny her results. If it wasn’t for Ceruviel, I doubt I’d have survived as long as I did. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to make all of this happen. She may be a generational hardass, but she did what she needed to do so I could survive. I won’t have that misunderstood.”

“Are you sure you aren’t suffering some sort of pseudo-Stockholm—”

“Mom,” Leonidas cut in flatly, “there’s worry, and then there’s ridiculous worry. I’m not a child. I didn’t survive five years in Elatra to not recognize dependence based on trauma. Hell, I lived trauma bonding. I know what that feels like. Ceruviel is many things, including a master manipulator, but she’s always been candid with me,” Leonidas reinforced with a shake of his head.

“Is she mischievous?” he continued, “Yes. Scheming? Absolutely, but never a liar. She pushed me, she goaded me, she even coerced me into choices, but she never lied to me about the reasoning when I confronted her. Ultimately, I’m alive because she did what she had to do to keep me alive. I won’t resent her for that, even if I resent how she did it. The reason I’m able to even speak to you right now is because of her, for all her flaws. You owe her my life.”

After a moment, it was Aylar who spoke into the silence that followed.

“Leonidas and I are… an unlikely outcome,” Aylar admitted honestly, her hand squeezing his again. “I never thought I would marry a Terran, let alone give my… my everything to one, but I have to say, Reginald, Maryanne; I truly cannot imagine my life without Leonidas, now.”

The Queen looked toward him, smiled warmly, and then turned back to his parents.

“After everything we went through in the Rite, and everything leading up to it—honestly, it feels absurd. We went from our first kiss to a proposal in a single day, and yet somehow it still feels right to me. I had never thought I would come to care so deeply for someone in such a ridiculously short timeframe, but I can honestly say that if I lost him now, my world would be empty without him.”

Maryanne, at least, seemed to soften at that, which in turn resulted in her patting Reginald’s hand to soften him in turn.

“I can see that, Aylar, dear,” Leonidas’ mother assured the Queen after a short moment. “Truly, I can see it in how you look at one another. It’s just… well, it’s just hard for us, sweetheart. We didn’t know any of this, and—”

“It’s outrageous, is what it is,” Reginald cut in and grumbled. “The System, I mean, not you, Aylar. The fact that my son, my son, was forced through this godforsaken nightmare only to have the weight of the entire Integration dumped on him like it was his fault, despite the fact that it could have been any of the hundred or more that preceded him. It’s sociopathic.”

“Dad—”

“No, son,” Reginald denied firmly. “No, you don’t get to carry that weight. The System is full of shit. This Integration would have happened no matter what—hell, it happened while you weren’t even here! What sort of madness is that, to blame you for it when you were gone for years after it eventuated?”

“I…” Leonidas trailed off and sighed quietly while Aylar squeezed his hand again in silent support. He adored her for that. She knew when to speak and when he just needed to know she was there. It was a priceless amount of wordless backup. “I think something may have happened to me, some sort of time discrepancy. I have a sneaking suspicion I may have defeated Azrageth before the Incursion, but I wasn’t actually returned until long after it.”

“But you were in Elatra for five—” Reginald paused mid-sentence, and furrowed his brow. “Hold on, it was only one year after your disappearance that the System arrived. But you returned after five total, but that doesn’t make sense either. The timeline doesn’t match…”

“I know,” Leonidas accepted grimly. “I think I’m going to need to get some answers, and there’s only one way I can do it for certain.”

“You have to Tribulate again,” Aylar supplied, her expression worried, but determined. “Ceruviel and Uriel are already prepared for it. After you finish with the Dawnguard and Duskguard reorganization, you should do it, Leonidas. You can’t wait.”

“I know,” he agreed quietly. “I’ll talk to them both at the muster, after I finish laying out my plans for the Aegis of Avalon.”

Both of his parents started at his words, and his father leaned forward.

“Hold on, son. Aegis of Avalon?” Reginald asked with interest.

“Oh,” Leonidas said, smiling after a moment. “Right, you don’t know. So, get this…”

As he explained his ideas to his parents, he was vindicated to see their enthusiastic approval, mixed with sheer nerdy delight.

It was a reminder of something he needed to remember, without knowing it.

No matter how dark the world became, some things never changed.

And his parents, bless them both, were definitely still the same people.