Fable - Ask Pinnacle

[Erren Serris]

Erren had dealt with his fair share of nervous students. Though he was no longer in the profession of teaching those younger than him, that experience had not left him. He gave her time to compose herself, to silently sort out her words and arrange them before they left her lips. Serris had his suspicions about what concerned her so, but this was not something he could pry from her forcefully.

The quiver in her voice spoke to something deeper, rooted firmly within young Yuna. For this reason, he felt it important that she do this without his aide, under her own willpower. Leaning back in his seat, his brows creased as he watched her hunch anxiously over his desk, mustering up all the courage she had on offer just to begin speaking.

"It's okay to be afraid, Miss Fairweather. Sometimes, the right thing is also the most difficult. I can attest to that personally." He did not immediately answer the question posed to him, instead offering some words of sympathy and comfort. "This is bigger than both of us. This mission could have far-reaching consequences, beyond what either of us can fathom. Though I do hope that it does not." Despite his skepticism, Erren could not completely rule out that this 'Pinnacle' was something of dire importance.

"But I am not a liar. My lips are not controlled by the Department, the Foard, or the City. So when I tell you that I will treat this information with the utmost discretion..." Erren slides his hand across the desk, giving Yuna's a comforting pat. "You can take me at my word. Allow me to attempt to make this easier..." Serris offered, rolling his tongue into his cheek with a thoughtful expression. "It is about your friend, isn't it? The blonde one?"

The boy was obviously a foreigner and not a scholarly type either. That they'd allowed a warrior from another land into such a serious meeting had seemed odd to him at the time, and there were only a handful of circumstances he could fathom allowing such a thing.

None of them resulted in the young man being anything but a person of interest.

Yuna Fairweather

 

[Yuna Fairweather]

"N-No!" But after the short-lived second of reflexive resistance, Yuna relented with a sigh. "Yes."

Still some reluctance stayed her tongue. Professor Serris had a keen intuition—a Fairweather intuition, she would say. And she did say. So it would behoove her to be as honest as possible. Not too honest because, like she had thought earlier, some words like "betrayal" had a little too much sting to them. She needed to walk the fine line between genuine concern and saying something which would force Erren to take some more drastic action.

Drastic action which would likely end with Zael never speaking with her again. Which sounded like an odd worry, considering that Zael might actually betray her and Elbion, but...she wanted what she wanted. And she did think that, if she was careful enough, she could get it.

And so, with measured words, she began.

"So...Zael...is...he wants to help, okay? I know he does. He's helped out Elbion before. There was this one time with an ambush with those nasty Krait-monsters and he did just that. He won King of the Ball here at the College once too."

Now for the hard part.

"But there's also something he really wants. And that might put him at odds with the Department." She pursed her lips, looking at Erren with a pleading sort of gaze. "I just want him to make the right choice, you know? So maybe...you could help me keep an eye on him? Please?"

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren's intuition was not a gift he'd been born with; This was not the first time a student had come to him with a worry. In fact, it was not even the first time that Yuna herself had come to him with a concern. It just so happened that this time, the stakes were a bit higher. Fairweather confirmed his suspicions about the blonde warrior he'd briefly met in the briefing room, but she seemed insistent on dancing around the crux of the matter, keeping her words intentionally vague.

Initially, it annoyed Erren, his face twisting in frustration as his fingers drummed impatiently on the desk. Yuna knew well what could ride on this mission, and she also knew something that could jeopardize it. The naivete she held, to inform him without truly informing him, it didn't offer him nearly the help that she likely thought it did. Well-intentioned or otherwise, she was withholding, and that was a dangerous slope to traverse.

A lesson he'd learned firsthand.

It wasn't until she stuck out her lower lip in a pout and pleaded with him that something clicked in his mind, and Serris understood.

Ah.

Erren had been alone for a long time. The only woman he'd ever loved had passed during the birth of his son, and he'd allowed himself to sink into his occupation and his studies as a way of coping with the loss. In that time, he'd nearly forgotten what it felt like to care for another in such a way that you put their desires before your own.

The mage's features soften, and he nods with a relenting sigh.

"Alright, Yuna. Okay." He leans back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll keep an eye on him, but you need to understand... if he does something that puts us into danger, I must act." Should such a thing happen, he could not afford to consider the girl's heart. It wasn't an option.

"In the meantime, I think you should consider your own role in this. Perhaps you have more power over the outcome of this mission than you believe."

Yuna Fairweather

 

[Yuna Fairweather]

Yuna, given as she was to bouts of selective hearing, or bouts of hastiness in general, or mayhap instances of premature celebration outright (and certainly don't rule out some combination of all three), clasped her hands together in excitement as soon as Erren said that he would help keep on eye on Zael.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you—thank you—thank you!"

...but you need to understand...

Yuna cooled her excitement as abruptly as she had ignited it, and she snapped back into attentive listening, her eyes betraying the obvious fact that her spirits were hinged on every word Erren was saying. She nodded in fervent agreement with what he said next, about Zael putting everyone in danger. Swords and sails, she hoped that it didn't come to that! If Zael did something brash or brazen, then there'd be nothing either Yuna or Erren could do then. All Yuna had were means of subtle deterrence, implication, suggestion, things of that nature, all the ways of quiet persuasion to prevent someone from making a mistake. And Yuna did honestly believe that if Zael did this, keeping to that old way of Anirian being, it would be one of—if not the— worst mistake of his life.

Perhaps you have more power over the outcome of this mission than you believe.

Yuna weighed what her former Professor had to say carefully, and then asked, "Erren...if you were in my shoes, if you had that power like you say I do now...what would you do?"

And she studied him with no shortage of rapt attention in anticipation of his answer.

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren made no more attempt to pull details or specifics from Yuna's aching heart; It was obvious she'd already agonized endlessly over sharing even this much with him, which did make him wonder what her plan would have been had he not been tasked with aiding the Department.

More likely, there would be no plan.

Of course, Erren had suspicions about the blonde stranger, and he was not so chaste of mind that he did not idly speculate as he ran his fingers through the dark patch on his chin. The boy was no mage, not in the traditional sense, and yet he'd reeked of magic. His outward appearance spoke more towards physical combat, and the scarring on his face, not to mention his eye, suggested he'd seen plenty of it.

So, a man in his early twenties, with intense latent magical talent and a body seemingly built from twisted steel, with the markings of a warrior twice his age.

Something certainly came to mind.

Serris merely released a hum as he leaned forward once more, thumbing through the papers on his desk. It didn't make sense for one of them to be working undercover for the Department. Their alliance was shaky at the best of times, and the information at hand was far too sensitive. Certainly, Anir wouldn't risk--

"Erren...if you were in my shoes, if you had that power like you say I do now...what would you do?"

The Mage was pulled from his speculation, looking up at Yuna with a bit of surprise. What would he do?

He knew what he would do, he'd done it before.

It had cost him everything.

"Well. I... I would..."

A brief conflict raged in his mind. What he wished to tell Yuna was the correct answer, and yet it was also the answer that had once doomed him. It had condemned him to this 'office', and cost him his position and power, plunged him into peril on a weekly basis...

He sighed, shrugging his shoulders. It couldn't be helped. His own failure did not guarantee hers.

"Listen to what your heart tells you, Yuna. Inside, you know what you need to do."

Yuna Fairweather

 

[Yuna Fairweather]

His advice was succinct and efficacious. Already Yuna's eyes, upon hearing it, alighted with the workings of possibility—indeed, for a spell, all of that potent anger she had felt earlier in the day when Zael first showed her the letter had vanished. What had been planted in Yuna's mind would in six days come to culmination, forming what she would call plan "Now or never", her heeding Erren's advice and listening directly to what her heart told her to do.

At present, though, she said, "Okay. Okay. I can do that. Yes! I can do that."

She stood up. Halfway, however, for just as quickly as she had made that motion she plopped back down in the chair.

"So, suppose I, oh, I don't know, set up some kind of casual talk on the way to the Seret Mountains. You know, just, maybe, bring up an innocent subject like, oh say...how awesome Elbion is—or! or! or!—maybe some fluff about the Department and how it's full of opportunities for a guy like Zael, and then...maybe you could pitch in? Maybe, if I time it right and you can join naturally? Would that be a good idea?"

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

Yuna had always been a tad on the romantic side of things, so Erren had held faith that she'd understand what she needed to do once he'd brought up the matter of her heart. Indeed, she sprang up with a newfound determination, and that usual twinkle in her eyes returned. For all of about ten seconds before she sat down again and used him for brainstorming.

Serris leaned back in his seat, a sigh that was thankfully concealed by Fairweather's rapid-fire words leaving him as it became clear just how delicate the situation was going to be with Yuna at the helm. She meant well, of course. She always did, but perhaps she was going about this the wrong way.

"I think it would be better..." He began, pressing his fingertips together as he cast a gentle gaze across the desk, thinking about every word before they left his lips, and watching her features to observe how she took them. "If you were to just be honest with him, Yuna. Tell him how you feel, what you want. We could script a conversation and try to come up with a way to sway him over to our side with sugarcoated niceties all day, but," Erren leans forward, regarding her seriously. "I think... that you would want whatever choice he makes to be his own."

There is a tense moment, but Erren cracks another soft smile and nods his head a bit. "But don't worry too much, you won't be alone out there. I'll be your backup, okay?"

Yuna Fairweather