17th Ymiden 718
How did the saying go? Your name is your name.
It follows you for the rest of your life a little after the question ‘What are we going to call him/her?” is asked, and it’s the most frequent thing you will hear on the lips of everyone. Your friends, your enemies, your servants, guys who don’t know reading off a sheet of people. Point is: your name is your name, and you might share it with someone else, but it is yours.
Your personal identity. Your burden. Your title.
Now imagine going through your life being called Jersey.
Even from the time that he was a child, his friends teased him for the awful name. A stray dog, hearing his name, chased him all the way from the edge of his father’s barony to Andaris. A school of gulls rained down a sea of shit upon him when he howled his name to the sea. Once, he encountered a great spirit of war in the the old tomb he would go exploring in as a child. The spirit asked him his name and, when he uttered it, the spirit folded in on itself, shrinking until it regressed into a spirit of scorn. It continued laughing even as he sheepishly walked out of the tomb.
They say the real reason king Cassander initiated the witch hunts was because a mage said Jersey was a name worthy of nobility. Clearly, some witchery must be involved, for someone to think it a decent name.
He didn’t understand at first. It seemed like quite a fine name for him. He was named after his grandfather after all. But apparently, to everyone else… how do they say it… It was not precisely the name that demanded respect. Of course, all those people could eat their shit words. He was the one who ended up fucking a noble lady, after all. The woman adoring him as a knight in shining armor. Soon he became the fucking baron of a fucking barony.
Baron Krome. Baron Jersey Krome.
Not that it stopped the younger nobles from sniggering behind his back.
The curse of a bad name, disappointing children, the curse of an atrocious name, an assassination attempt, the curse of a horrendous name, and their immense debt to the Venoras had taken its toll on Jersey Krome, the soon-to-be ex-baron of Ragaeire. He lay in a tattered cot unworthy of even the poorest merchant, a shriveled skeleton of a noble that had once hunted with the strongest. His right eye was milky; blind. His hair was bleached white and black, like a a very unfashionable zebra, and he looked like death had already claimed him a few times over and was coming back for extra helpings.
Nothing could save him. The last of the Krome gold have been wasted on hiring doctors who just shook their heads, apologize, and, he doubted it was his imagination, gagging about his name.
The empress stopped by to tell him he wasn’t going to Ascend to the ranks of the ancestors.
“W-why…?” he managed, his voice a weak rasp. “I have s-served faithfully…”
“Your name is stupid.” she said bluntly. “Really, it’s fuckin’ stupid. It is disgraceful for you to stand with the ancestors with such a name. Embrace oblivion, Baron Krome.” Apparently, even the empress could not manage to even say his name out loud.
“I m-must s-speak to my d-daughter…” Jersey had said then. He couldn’t even cry his pain to the world; he didn’t even have the strength (and sodium levels) to properly express his grief. Plus, the actual sobbing might break his fragile face. “B-bring her…”
And that was how Velaine got herself escorted to her father’s sick room, having only risen from bed. It was a bother, honestly. He had spent so much time refusing to see her and now suddenly he wanted to? The young woman was certainly not in the mood. She doubted he would have anything meaningful to say.
The scent of death was thick, assaulting her nose as soon as she stepped into the room. Which was saying a lot, considering that her ability to smell was mostly stripped away by her Defiance spark. His ability to smell, on the other hand, was ripped away by a snout parasite that had necessitated a painful procedure that had taken off the better part of nostrils, leaving him looking him he had two mouths.
“Daughter…” Jersey Krome whispered, every syllable a labor worthy of a Mortalborn hero. “It is g-good to s-see you…”
“Father,” the young woman greeted stiffly with a curtsy. “You seem… better.” A blatant lie, really. Anyone would be able to tell.
“Daughter, I am dying. There is s-so.” He coughed. No, that was incorrect; other people cough, Father exploded in a stream of mucus that just landed shy of her expensive clothes. “S-so much to do. Did you acquire the o-outhouse? D-did you bring pride to Krome?”
Velaine narrowed her eyes at the question. Outhouse? What outhouse? Perhaps her father was being delusional. He was already nearly out of his mind with paranoia even before he started dying. Probably better if she played along. “Of course, father. I promised I would, didn’t I?”
“In times past, us Krome built castles. N-now.” More coughing. More dubiously colored phlegm that… oh fates, was it melting through the bedframe? “A-an outhouse i-is considered an triumph. How low w-we have fallen, my daughter. I d-dreamt of y-your brother. I d-dreamt he married an A-andaris. I dreamt his child was called J-jersey.” He closed his eyes. His face was wracked with the unimaginable agony - and not all of it was because of his broken state. “W-why?”
Thank the ancestors she was used to lying through her teeth. The smile on her face was a perfect picture of patience and understanding. “That’s not a dream, father. Xander did marry an Andaris. Although the second part definitely was. I doubt he’ll ever name his name Jersey.” The last part just kind of slipped before she could stop it. Too late now.
Father’s closed eyes tightened, as if he was feeling something bad inside his tummy. “S-she says I cannot be among the a-ancestors.” Something green and hard slushed out of his eyes; the closest thing to tears he could managed in his diseased state. “They say I-I’m just going to die. Daughter, why?”
She wanted to take a step back. Like seriously. She didn’t know what exactly ailed her father, but it certainly wasn’t pretty. “I am not entirely sure, father. They say your name is simply not worthy.”
“I called you here to change that, Velaine. I called you here s-so you c-could help your Father become worthy.”
“And how can I do that exactly?”
Her question seemed to give him something resembling strength to his feeble, dying form. He tried to sit up, failed, tried again, and then thought better of it, settling back down into his cot. “Many doctors have come before me, and many doctors have failed to find a treatment to my condition. In my desperation, I have ordered m-my-” The cough again. This time the torch on the far wall was the victim, the acid putting out the fire and corroding a huge hole as it trailed down the stone. “Most trusted to find ways to treat me. They found nothing, so I gave them a new task: to make me worthy of the ancestors. They exhausted all possible mundane avenues doing so.”
His eyes, normal and milky, took on a haunted cast.
“So I made them look into less mundane avenues.”
He was, they both knew, talking about magic.
Velaine’s blue eyes widened as far as they could go. “That’s a terrible idea. You’ll get killed even before that disease killed you.”
“I- I am not ready to die, my child. I will do anything so that I could live a little longer.” He coughed again, his entire body shuddering as if he was trying to expel his lungs out.
“What does that have to with me exactly?” the young woman asked again. She knew magic and yet she still had no idea where this was going. Perhaps her father was just mad.
“T-their efforts were for naught. Those who knew what I wanted - the mage hunts. Few left. FEW LEFT.” He suddenly shouted, and paid for it with a violent blast of phlegm that claimed a good hole in the ceiling. “There was this… Nolan? He said he was Nolan. He said he knew a Krome lady who battled him for an outhouse. He was disinclined to help because of it. Velaine, what have you done?”
Nolan… Nolan… The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t tell who it was really. Still… battled him for an outhouse? That seemed a rather specific thing for her father to be delusional about. Then she remembered! She knew one Nolan, at least. It seemed like a common. It was this man. Lived in the woods. In a cave to be exact. “You know, I can find him if you want. I can be pretty persuasive.”
How did the saying go? Your name is your name.
It follows you for the rest of your life a little after the question ‘What are we going to call him/her?” is asked, and it’s the most frequent thing you will hear on the lips of everyone. Your friends, your enemies, your servants, guys who don’t know reading off a sheet of people. Point is: your name is your name, and you might share it with someone else, but it is yours.
Your personal identity. Your burden. Your title.
Now imagine going through your life being called Jersey.
Even from the time that he was a child, his friends teased him for the awful name. A stray dog, hearing his name, chased him all the way from the edge of his father’s barony to Andaris. A school of gulls rained down a sea of shit upon him when he howled his name to the sea. Once, he encountered a great spirit of war in the the old tomb he would go exploring in as a child. The spirit asked him his name and, when he uttered it, the spirit folded in on itself, shrinking until it regressed into a spirit of scorn. It continued laughing even as he sheepishly walked out of the tomb.
They say the real reason king Cassander initiated the witch hunts was because a mage said Jersey was a name worthy of nobility. Clearly, some witchery must be involved, for someone to think it a decent name.
He didn’t understand at first. It seemed like quite a fine name for him. He was named after his grandfather after all. But apparently, to everyone else… how do they say it… It was not precisely the name that demanded respect. Of course, all those people could eat their shit words. He was the one who ended up fucking a noble lady, after all. The woman adoring him as a knight in shining armor. Soon he became the fucking baron of a fucking barony.
Baron Krome. Baron Jersey Krome.
Not that it stopped the younger nobles from sniggering behind his back.
The curse of a bad name, disappointing children, the curse of an atrocious name, an assassination attempt, the curse of a horrendous name, and their immense debt to the Venoras had taken its toll on Jersey Krome, the soon-to-be ex-baron of Ragaeire. He lay in a tattered cot unworthy of even the poorest merchant, a shriveled skeleton of a noble that had once hunted with the strongest. His right eye was milky; blind. His hair was bleached white and black, like a a very unfashionable zebra, and he looked like death had already claimed him a few times over and was coming back for extra helpings.
Nothing could save him. The last of the Krome gold have been wasted on hiring doctors who just shook their heads, apologize, and, he doubted it was his imagination, gagging about his name.
The empress stopped by to tell him he wasn’t going to Ascend to the ranks of the ancestors.
“W-why…?” he managed, his voice a weak rasp. “I have s-served faithfully…”
“Your name is stupid.” she said bluntly. “Really, it’s fuckin’ stupid. It is disgraceful for you to stand with the ancestors with such a name. Embrace oblivion, Baron Krome.” Apparently, even the empress could not manage to even say his name out loud.
“I m-must s-speak to my d-daughter…” Jersey had said then. He couldn’t even cry his pain to the world; he didn’t even have the strength (and sodium levels) to properly express his grief. Plus, the actual sobbing might break his fragile face. “B-bring her…”
And that was how Velaine got herself escorted to her father’s sick room, having only risen from bed. It was a bother, honestly. He had spent so much time refusing to see her and now suddenly he wanted to? The young woman was certainly not in the mood. She doubted he would have anything meaningful to say.
The scent of death was thick, assaulting her nose as soon as she stepped into the room. Which was saying a lot, considering that her ability to smell was mostly stripped away by her Defiance spark. His ability to smell, on the other hand, was ripped away by a snout parasite that had necessitated a painful procedure that had taken off the better part of nostrils, leaving him looking him he had two mouths.
“Daughter…” Jersey Krome whispered, every syllable a labor worthy of a Mortalborn hero. “It is g-good to s-see you…”
“Father,” the young woman greeted stiffly with a curtsy. “You seem… better.” A blatant lie, really. Anyone would be able to tell.
“Daughter, I am dying. There is s-so.” He coughed. No, that was incorrect; other people cough, Father exploded in a stream of mucus that just landed shy of her expensive clothes. “S-so much to do. Did you acquire the o-outhouse? D-did you bring pride to Krome?”
Velaine narrowed her eyes at the question. Outhouse? What outhouse? Perhaps her father was being delusional. He was already nearly out of his mind with paranoia even before he started dying. Probably better if she played along. “Of course, father. I promised I would, didn’t I?”
“In times past, us Krome built castles. N-now.” More coughing. More dubiously colored phlegm that… oh fates, was it melting through the bedframe? “A-an outhouse i-is considered an triumph. How low w-we have fallen, my daughter. I d-dreamt of y-your brother. I d-dreamt he married an A-andaris. I dreamt his child was called J-jersey.” He closed his eyes. His face was wracked with the unimaginable agony - and not all of it was because of his broken state. “W-why?”
Thank the ancestors she was used to lying through her teeth. The smile on her face was a perfect picture of patience and understanding. “That’s not a dream, father. Xander did marry an Andaris. Although the second part definitely was. I doubt he’ll ever name his name Jersey.” The last part just kind of slipped before she could stop it. Too late now.
Father’s closed eyes tightened, as if he was feeling something bad inside his tummy. “S-she says I cannot be among the a-ancestors.” Something green and hard slushed out of his eyes; the closest thing to tears he could managed in his diseased state. “They say I-I’m just going to die. Daughter, why?”
She wanted to take a step back. Like seriously. She didn’t know what exactly ailed her father, but it certainly wasn’t pretty. “I am not entirely sure, father. They say your name is simply not worthy.”
“I called you here to change that, Velaine. I called you here s-so you c-could help your Father become worthy.”
“And how can I do that exactly?”
Her question seemed to give him something resembling strength to his feeble, dying form. He tried to sit up, failed, tried again, and then thought better of it, settling back down into his cot. “Many doctors have come before me, and many doctors have failed to find a treatment to my condition. In my desperation, I have ordered m-my-” The cough again. This time the torch on the far wall was the victim, the acid putting out the fire and corroding a huge hole as it trailed down the stone. “Most trusted to find ways to treat me. They found nothing, so I gave them a new task: to make me worthy of the ancestors. They exhausted all possible mundane avenues doing so.”
His eyes, normal and milky, took on a haunted cast.
“So I made them look into less mundane avenues.”
He was, they both knew, talking about magic.
Velaine’s blue eyes widened as far as they could go. “That’s a terrible idea. You’ll get killed even before that disease killed you.”
“I- I am not ready to die, my child. I will do anything so that I could live a little longer.” He coughed again, his entire body shuddering as if he was trying to expel his lungs out.
“What does that have to with me exactly?” the young woman asked again. She knew magic and yet she still had no idea where this was going. Perhaps her father was just mad.
“T-their efforts were for naught. Those who knew what I wanted - the mage hunts. Few left. FEW LEFT.” He suddenly shouted, and paid for it with a violent blast of phlegm that claimed a good hole in the ceiling. “There was this… Nolan? He said he was Nolan. He said he knew a Krome lady who battled him for an outhouse. He was disinclined to help because of it. Velaine, what have you done?”
Nolan… Nolan… The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t tell who it was really. Still… battled him for an outhouse? That seemed a rather specific thing for her father to be delusional about. Then she remembered! She knew one Nolan, at least. It seemed like a common. It was this man. Lived in the woods. In a cave to be exact. “You know, I can find him if you want. I can be pretty persuasive.”
