As written by the player of Seoras Madigan Nifelleisca."I can't stand to be near Aldrakar"
Seoras laughed lightly at this, amused, but stopping himself at Jocelin's flinching. From her letters prior to his arrival, he had thought Viscount Theon troubled her, and so to a degree, he was caught off guard. And yet this was not the first amusement, for the letters he had been reading from Aldrakar most recently had also contributed to his humour at her statement.
"He regards you his friend... and I thought you could help me. I love him dearly, but for weeks now I haven't been able to stomach the thought of seeing him. He's so distant and focused on his duties. It's admirable, but I don't want admirable. I want..."
Seoras nodded slowly, as a stereotypical therapist would in another time and place. A smirk crept back upon his lips upon the words distant and duties.
"...someone to hold you close, for you as a noblewoman, and not as your recorded deeds within a book?" Seoras continued from Jocelin's words. "Aldrakar is my oldest, dearest friend. Yes, there are family friends who have stood by me longer than I've known Aldrakar, but he has always been my personal companion, even if our paths have diverged physically and spiritually."
Seoras exhaled, selecting a pomegranate slice for his enjoyment, "Yet he is," pausing, "distant and firm. Even as his friend, we are often more focused on duty," laughing lightly again, "But he often tells me I am too focused and impersonal. The irony of you coming to me should provide a good teaching aid into my next meditation. And how was it? It seems many don't meditate as much as the first prophet promoted in the early Church."
He sampled the pomegranate briefly, taking care to not pause lest he not return the conversation, "To Aldrakar though..."
He rose abruptly, striding to an inner tent flap, unlocking and opening what sounded like a drawer, and returning within three minutes of departing, letters in hand. Handling one to her, carefully folded to prevent sight of the topmost passage, his finger pointed out:
Your religious meaning or intend in my words is lost on me. There is no chasm in the faith, only different ways of seeing things. You praise blood and slaughter and I do not want it. You would urge peasants to rise up against Knights and be butchered. This is folly. I dread the day you will stand upon a high rock and with a mad gleam in your eyes cheer on a great massacre below in the shadow of your high perch.
Speaking again, "he has long considered me filled by the Maddening, as you evidently see. And what was it I wrote him that brought this reply, but to meditate upon the meaning of 'in a ravine so deep that in a dozen lifetimes should could not hope to climb out'? I wonder if it is his mind drawn to the Maddening over and over."
He shook his head at himself, "No, that is not my point. The point I intend is that Aldrakar, our dearly beloved, is a strict and firm man. Even as his friend, this is so. He has always pushed and compelled me onto a better path, and I thank him for it, even for his false vilifications of myself for even those are teaching obstacles we must both overcome. And if you were to ask him, he would say the same of myself and duty, to lighten myself, where you have come to me in earnest search of forming that deeper connection with Aldrakar."
Finally, with a twinkle in his eyes, "And, while it is of more personal nature than I might feel comfortable sharing, he was quite remiss in his correspondence to myself to have not had your company upon his return to Giask. He mentioned an incident with a servant who Aldrakar had had disciplined for that servant's mistreatment of you, above his station in life? As usual though, was called by the Emperor to the frontlines of duty, " Seoras mentally strengthened the memory, for a later time, of Aldrakar at the front lines, not holding courts in much-needed regions, "But this all tells me that his heart does yearn for you, was even dealt a blow by missing your company upon his return, even as he places his oaths quite highly, as one should."
