Balthazar took a deep breath of the salty air from the bow of the ship they were taking back to Haven after the Hopetoun celebration. Balder, Silk, and Ronan were moving through the ship to meet him there because he thought it would be best to tell the guards first and then disseminate the information among the people. He hadn't been happy when he read the letter but his hammer's enchantment helped to keep him level headed throughout the trial. He and Elisabeth seemed to have vastly different ideas of what had just happened but that was to be expected. She'd been given a settlement to lead and thrust into a position she did not ask for. Balthazar had been fired and offered a job full of coworkers who would likely despise him due to rumors. Coworkers who would ignore the material good he had done. He was not being
called back to the Elements and in many ways the Elements still felt like a prison.
Jacien was still a superior if Balthazar rejoined. He could tell Jacien to chew sand all he wanted if he did not. Still, Balthazar didn't think he and Jacien would be working together on anything any time soon so it was not among his larger concerns. He was more concerned with why he was being given back the job he just spent so long serving a sentence for 'neglecting.' Did the Albarech believe he wouldn't do it again? Did she think he wouldn't put lives on a larger scale before the relatively safe lives of those on the islands? Well... not so long as Elisabeth was bound to Haven. Otherwise he might have just gathered all his things and gone back to Rharne. Life as the Bloody Prince would suit him better than life as Trooper Black in a government that seemed set against him.
Well it was a Council so not every... that was about where the train of thought ended for Balthazar and a new train of thought began.
Look on the bright side- now you aren't being monitored. That was, for a while, the only bright side Balthazar saw because he had no idea what officer training entailed. Elisabeth seemed quiet in the time between receiving the letter and leaving to the party but Balthazar did not push her to talk because he did not want to talk. So apart from roughly planning when they'd tell the people, they didn't talk about it. He knew, because he'd lived with her for quite a while now, spending every single trial seeing her in the morning and at night, what Elisabeth was bothered by. She was upset that they were being separated again but that bothered him the least. They could not live life joined at the hip. Balthazar's attempts to keep her involved in
all aspects of his life had lead to poor planning and execution before and he couldn't let that happen again. Elisabeth wouldn't think it was fair, she would cite how she'd been taken too, but she had not been the one who had live out the sentence. When she wanted privacy she could leave the room and have it, but not Balthazar.
What was a few trials away helping people compared to the hundreds they had already spent together? For Balthazar, the separation was the easiest part but he had always been his own solitude. It was only recently that Elisabeth had become a secondary one for him. But that was not the issue before him now. He had to spread the word which was a blessing and a curse. He'd been given the ability to spin it in any number of ways but also the task of reporting the change. He started with the guards.
"As of this moment, Elisabeth is charge of the settlement." Balthazar said in a flat tone to the trio behind him while he looked out at the water.
"Hasn't she always been?" Ronan said as a small jest,
"She says jump, you ask how high!" No one laughed and it seemed to take the wind out of his sails a little. Balthazar turned to face them, his expression stoic and rigid which caused the humor to melt further from Ronan.
"Sorry, it's a weird situation."
"It is. For one reason or another, the Albarech thinks I am unfit to lead." Regardless of the progress and success Haven had had thus far, Balthazar suspected that because he did not seem entirely loyal to her, she wanted to supplant him with someone she thought she could control.
"We can all have our own opinions about her decision, but as the leader of Scalvoris, it is her decision to make. I've been offered my old job and officer's training. I'm going to take both." Balthazar's voice was level and almost monotonous. He was working hard not to convey any feeling with the information.
"You'd really want to work for them after everything?" Silk asked.
"No. I don't." Balthazar said with certainty,
"But I have a feeling that if I don't, the Elements will make it very difficult for me to do what I am good at-" The trio seemed a little confused about what he was referring to so Balthazar clarified,
"Solving the crimes that they cannot." Balthazar grinned a little and then shook his head,
"It's easier to work among friends but it pays well and I can use what I make to help Elisabeth with Haven on my trips back. I did build my house in the settlement after all."
"So you aren't being exiled?" Balder asked. He'd been quiet thus far because he was thinking about the further reaching implications and potential causes of the decision. Without Balthazar, they were losing one of their more valuable security assets and the trio of guards would have to make up for it as best they could with him gone.
"As far as I'm aware, no. I think Kura would have just said as much and sent troopers to move me if that were the case." Balthazar explained briefly before noticing Elisabeth come onto the deck of the ship. He gestured for her to come over to them and waited. He'd told her he wanted to tell the guards on his own first but he'd done that now so they could begin figuring out how to tell the settlement together.
