Hotel Auberge

The grieving window was entirely confused by his sudden disgust that made her feel even worse. Her chest still shook with the nature of her sobs, and her eyes showed how befuddled and emotional turmoil she was in. What... in the world was he talking about? No morality? Bloodsucker? Godless?

She shook her head in her confusion as he lumped her in with terrible, deviant people. What on earth had she even done? She hugged him? No, she kissed his palms in the way that a grateful believer would to a priest or a confessor that had just lifted a weight off the believer's soul -- an act of gratitude and thankfulness, not an act of lust or greed or anything else. He apparently took that to mean a sexual advance? That disgusted her, too. He was but a boy in her eyes, and he was now accusing her of being some sort of succubus?

Color rushed into her cheeks, something snapped in her gaze. "How dare you accuse me," she sliced at him, looking up at him where she was still on the floor of her broken home. How dare he think that she... She couldn't look at him and turned her face away, her hands fluttering up to her cheeks to wipe the hot tears from them.

"I felt a connection of the soul, not the body," she told him. "I've lost my husband and my child and you dare -- you dare tell me that I am a soulless, godless predator? I looked in your eyes and I saw a boy that felt as much pain as I did and you turned it into something disgusted and wretched. It is you with the wicked mind, which I should have known a boy your age would think."

Her anger now consumed, and her apartments rumbled as the furniture quaked with her angry, the chandelier chiming with fury. "Yes, go. Leave me. Before you next tie me to a pyre and light me aflame for having embraced you." She still couldn't look at him, and wouldn't look at him. She was ashamed for having borne her soul to such a boy that would make her feel so... humiliated and degraded. He had gathered her close and hugged her close and had cradled her face and caressed her cheeks, and she'd never once felt that it was anything more than a comfort from an honest soul.

She was a fool. He did not understand her any more than the next person did, except now she somehow felt dirty and wretched.

As he spoke down to her, berated her, she felt the weakness and the pain she thought had eased slowly crawl up her body, like maggots on a corpse. New tears streamed down her face, and she shook her head. "No... no, I'm..." she said quietly, her arms wrapping around her, facing away from him as she rocked to comfort herself since he was no longer comforting her but instead tearing at the fragile seams that were barely holding her psyche together.

A shattered sob wracked her body and made it tremble and she lifted her hands and put them up to her ears, closing her eyes tightly as she tried to shut out the words he was saying -- but it was true. It was all true. She'd been a horrible mother. She'd put her daughter through hell. She was the reason that Odette was dead. She was vile. She was wretched. She was wicked. She was cursed.

She didn't deserve to be alive.

Genevieve was sobbing anew as Hansel stood, tall and strong, over her and told her what a disgusting creature the grieving mother was, and how easy it would be to end it, all the many ways she could end it. What WAS one more sin to add to the so many she had already committed? At least with this last one, she could rid the world of herself. She could be gone, and she wouldn't feel any pain, and Odette's soul could be at peace and Florian's spirit could be at rest...

Even as the thought occured to her, the window she sat beside shattered the rest of the way and glass fell all over her bowed head, all over the ominously creaking floor. The curtain rods that held the lavish, faded velvet curtains broke from the wall. A crack splintered in the plaster to the chandelier in the room and it crashed to the floor with a mighty screech of crystal and metal. Picture frames broke, the room destroying itself as Genevieve (with the aid of Hansel) destroyed her own soul...

And when she couldn't take any more of Hansel's words, and when she couldn't take living anymore, she ignored the offered sword handled and the woman reached for a large shard of glass.

She wrapped it in her grip, slicing into her palm and fingers as she took it to her wrists and sliced through viciously. "I'm wicked i'm wicked i'm wicked," she screamed as she sobbed, blood spurting warm and red all over her dark clothes, all over the floors as she viciously cut into her arms and her skin and her muscle.

"I'm so sorry, Odette, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she chanted as she rocked back and forth, as she tried to grip the glass with her other hand, but she had cut so deep into her wrist that she couldn't make her blood-slicked fingers grip around the glass to slice into her other wrist.

And she was losing blood, very quickly, making her sluggish and slow.

"I'm sorry..."

She didn't struggle against him, as she was becoming lethargic... and cold. Her body was slightly shaking from the sudden blood loss, even as she could feel her blood's comforting warmth coated on her fingers and hand, stained into her dress against her lap where she had laid it. There was a minor sting in the fingertips of the hand she had used to wield the shard of glass, but it felt more like a tingle. She could feel no sensational at all in her other hand.

The blonde woman fell back against the wall she sat beside, glass pieces still in her hair and caught in the folds of her black gown of mourning, tresses of her blonde hair undone from its bun when Hansel had first comforted her framing her drawn and pale face. Her lashes were so dark against her cheeks that they looked like soot, and her lips were pale, gently moving with a voice she no longer seemed to have.

Her arm was limp in his grip, and blood quickly soaked into the dark material he wrapped around her. Genevieve was slipping... slipping into darkness. A comforting darkness. A painless darkness. Her head fell a little forward, her chin against her chest as she lost strength to hold it up...

... as she lost consciousness, even as his healing spell ignited in the palm he now held against the three, thick, gushing slices on her forearm.

BANG!

The door to her rooms burst open and in rushed the Royal Guard, along with Hotel Auberge security and some of their staff. "Lady Genevieve!" They called, trying to find her, looking around at the destruction of the large room until one staff pointed over to where Hansel and Genevieve were by the broken window. "There!"

"Get away from Lady Genevieve this instant!" The orders came from the Royal Guard. When the hotel room had begun to tremble and shake, and when the hotel manager had been informed of the 'stranger' that had come to visit her, he had sent for the royal guard.

"Skies above, look at the blood," muttered the Majordomo of the hotel, his hand sweeping up to cover his mouth.

"NOW!!" ordered the guard, unaware of the situation as it was. The only information he had was what he saw -- the Lady Genevieve was unresponsive, and her blood was soaking from her wrist, while this dirty boy "knight" was holding her wrist.

She couldn't hear him, of course, at least, not on a conscious level given she was already passed out from blood loss. She was dead weight in his arms, her feminine form so thin and so gaunt from her deep mourning that she hardly weighed more than a child might in Hansel's arms.

When the full severity of what was happening to Lady Genevieve hit the force that had burst into her rooms, the Majordomo sucked in a breath and quickly turned to one of the maids. "You heard him!" the staff manager barked. "Bring fresh linens and bandages, and call round for the healer."

The leader of the Royal Guard gestured, and two of his men swept through the rest of the apartments to make sure there wasn't anyone else there. He stepped forward. "What happened?" he asked, his tone unkind. He didn't trust this boy, but he also didn't want to make the wrong move and be somehow accused of the death of the Queen's sister. It looked like she was going to die anyway, and at least this way, the knight could be entirely blamed.

The captain of the guard frowned. It seemed too simple to him, but he had no word to go by but the word of this stranger.

The majordomo stood just behind. "It is true that Lady Genevieve has been very depressed lately... but I have never felt her pain like I just have."

The captains gaze slid from the majordomo to the kid. "Keep doing as you're doing."

"Captain," said one of the guards and gestured to the armor and sword and papers. While Hansel kept Genevieve stable, the majordomo tried not to cry and the state of the suite and the soldiers put clues together.

"Why are you here," the captain asked Hansel.

"Watch how you speak, boy," the captain said in a menacing tone, his hand dropping to his weapon. He didn't appreciate the attitude from the teen when the situation seemed as desperate as it was.

However, when Hansel finally did explain things, it seemed logical enough, the pieces fitting together. It was no secret that Lady Genevieve had been of fragile mind since the death of her daughter. It was all too possible that the return of her dead husbands things might have just put her over the edge.

The staff came bursting through with linens and bandages, and a harranged healer followed soon after. "Move out of the way, lad," the man said, not unkindly but definitely rushed as he went to his knees by the pale, unconscious blonde woman who still sat in a pool of her congealing blood.

The majordomo continued to pace and feel stressed. It was clear that he was not pleased with the state of the hotel room, or the scandal that the attempted suicide would bring.

"Her husband has been dead for years. Why only now bring his things?" The captain asked as he knelt and picked up the crumpled and now blood splattered picture of a smiling and younger Genevieve holding a laughing baby girl in her arms.

"Yes, and why would you be stupid enough to present it to her given the state she was in?" Snapped the Majordomo, spreading his arms wide to note the destruction of the room.

"Both of you be quiet," the healer snapped from over his shoulder. "She needs to be moved and cleaned. She is stable for now, thanks to this boy. He is a hero, as far as I am concerned, and I am sure the Queen of Gauldin will be grateful for his efforts." The doctor sidnt like it when the youth were berated or abused. He very much thought of them as the future.

"Well, she can't be moved to her own rooms," the Majordomo said exasperatedly. "Her magic and her grief wrecked every piece of furniture here. Pack a bag of the things she will need," he ordered one of the maiden staff, who was looking queasy at the blood and almost hurled when she had caught site of the gaping slashes in the woman's thin arm. She nodded quickly and fled to Genevieve's bedroom to do that.

"You will have to carry her, and down the servants passage," the majordomo said to Hansel.

"Servants --?" Exclaimed the Captain.

"For discretion," the healer agreed as he finished putting a glowing tunic seal around Genevieve's wrist. "I am sure the King and Queen would like this quiet, as well as Lady Genevieve."

And of course, the Majordomo didn't want anymore scandal than was necessary. The healer pat Hansel on the shoulder.

"Here we go, lad," he urged and gestured to the wicked, wretched, cursed, terrible woman on the floor.

The captain gave Hansel the stink eye for the way the young man carried the suicidal widow. He jerked his head, as a motion for the guards to accompany the doctor and the young knight and the maid staff who followed, while the rest of them stayed behind to investigate.

The healer glanced at Hansel, able to hear the way the boy seemed to chant his apology. He had a feeling it was to Genevieve, and he felt for the man. The healer reached up and pat Hansel on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, mboy," he said as they went down the flight of stairs, "it wasn't your fault."

Once they reached the bottom floor, well dressed staff showed them to the side entrance where a royal carriage was waiting to take them to the Royal Palace. It was expected that Hansel, Genevieve, the healer, and one guard would travel inside while the tigers and remaining guard would hang on to the sides and back on their rushed way to the Palace of Wings.

Hansel's almost panicked reaction to getting into the carriage was drawing attention, and none of it was the good kind. Genevieve was already loaded into the carriage with the careful hands of the maid and the soldier, but Hansel was not getting into the carriage himself. The healer was still outside, and he grabbed onto Hansel's arm to help the boy settled down.

"Quiet, quiet!" he urged the boy. "Calm yourself, man," he said and glanced at the soldier, shaking his head when it seemed that the straight-faced guard wanted to 'do something' about the panicking young knight.

The doctor held onto Hansel and looked into his face. "You have begun this journey, and now you must finish it. Whatever guilt you feel is misplaced, I assure you. You owe it to the Lady Genevieve to see her through to waking health." He didn't mention that Hansel was sure to receive accolades and reward for keeping the Queen's sister alive, for it didn't seem that Hansel was interested in those things. It made sense, given the order he represented.

But just to make sure, the healer laid on an extra layer of need. "And I need your abilities, boy. It's a dangerous thing to mix magics, especially when it comes to the health of someone already so fragile. You cannot leave yet." The doctor gestured to the carriage again, hoping that what he said might have calmed Hansel down enough that he'd get inside.

The healer was just relieved that he managed to get the boy into the carriage with the guard, the maid, and Genevieve. It was a bit crowded, but the boy kept healing Genevieve, and then kept lamenting.

The guard narrowed his gaze at him. "You seem unusually guilty for supposedly having done nothing than delivered a note," the man said.

"He's young," the doctor immediately defended Hansel, "and he just watched a woman slice her arm open because of a package he delivered. Nothing more. Now, quiet. The boy and I need to concentrate."

Not necessarily true. The talking wouldn't do anything to break the healer's concentration, but he had a feeling that the more the boy spoke, the more he would incriminate himself. The Royal Guard was looking to pin this on someone, and the healer would hate to see a boy like Hansel get the fall.

The carriage took off from the Hotel and swept through the Streets of Travere. [Exit]