Nathan Free, Natalie Bound Chapter 87: Tarcelle

Anyone could tell you, Vancy Tarcelle is a very exuberant and outgoing young lady. But when she's on her ho turf she is exhausting. She kept up a running patter of conversation the whole ti, and she never seed to stop moving. Sohow there was enough of her for every one of us. I did not realize how restrained and repressed she was when she was feeling isolated at the school. The perfuries were interesting, and were just as good as she had claid- certainly superior to any similar shops anywhere in adowtam. Where my ho duchy is the agricultural center of Hearstwhile, Anquarry is the manufacturing and industrial centerpiece. The stereotype for the people here is industrious, no-nonsense, and a bit austere. I have not t many Anquarrians to verify that stereotype. I'm much more familiar with their ruling class: I've only just arrived in Anquarry but previously I've t plenty of people from House Skyback, the extended family of the duke ruling over Anquarry. The general perception of House Skyback, which I've learned to credit, is that they are secretive, inquisitive, patient, cunning, and cautious. They like secrets, especially the ones that belong to other people. This puts them often at odds against Aurje, Grennick, and Nhullit, who all have far too many secrets they would prefer nobody was interested in. I take interest in this because Skyback, Aurje and Ebonder are all allied in the Independent faction and sworn to back each other. But Skyback's interest in other people's secrets could be the wedge to break up that coalition. But Tarcelle is not Skyback, nor even a cadet house, a minor house under its umbrella. Vancy's family line is most related to Eyellon, but even then only tenuously. She's one of those absolute gems: a landed noble without complicating ties. She does her own thing, an independent countess in an independent county, with only a vassal's loyalty to the duchy and no familial ties to worry about. And I had occasionally dread of how carefree that could be, without all the tangles enwrapping every relationship. Seeing Vancy showed that I was exactly right and it really was just that easygoing. She technically owned all of this but everyone just treated her like a favorite niece, to be offered a treat or a favor and a kind word. She moved constantly, and treated the whole town like a candy store. Last week I spent half a day in an actual candy store and she seed to have this much fun all the ti. She left them to their businesses, they left her to her fun, and sohow it all just worked. I know she's rich, but everywhere we went she just got things and nobody even ntioned prices or money. For the rest of us, we got steep discounts as friends of the countess, but she was clearly in "your money's no good here" territory, nobody would let her pay for anything and she was happy not to fight them on that. I had thought that the Harigold family had a good relationship with the villagers in the area, but Vancy Tarcelle taught how stiff-necked, unapproachable and cold my family really was to the community. Sohow Vancy was just the gold child of a family that encompassed her entire county. The Harigolds were generous, well-loved, and they were strident populists but they did not have this wide-open familiarity that Tarcelle had. The closest parallel was the way that the people of Zhudten reacted to . I could only spare them a couple of hours per week, at odd tis fitted into my schedule, but I still lit up every ti I heard the "hi princess!" calls that rang out from everyone that saw . I've got a great relationship with the people of Skydown Crossing, where I go for church. That's family, that's where I was raised. But they know as the daughter of the duke. The protectorate of Zhudten, in a nearly-uninhabitable corner of the duchy, had never seen the duke. They did not know my family. They never saw in finery and they never watched the gold-trimd carriage roll by. They saw show up with my work boots on, always in a hurry, clearing a spot of land or leveling a road or fixing the pilings of the dock. They knew as the absentee landlord that would sweep in, catch up the list of repairs and improvents, and then dash off. When Zhudten citizens called "Princess", it doesn't feel like a title. It feels like a nickna. Of the two, I prefer having a nickna. Visiting Skydown brought a combination of warmth and respect that is deeply healing to . But when I drop by Zhudten, it's casual. And Vancy has sothing very much like that. I am glad to see that for her. I find it really suits her. On the other hand Nunxio and Larianne looked surprised and unsettled, like they just did not know how to react to this at all. Elica looked pained, seeing Vancy in her native environnt was threatening everything that Elica knew about being an aristocrat- and the only thing that Elica knows in the world is how to be an aristocrat. But Trazom was enchanted. Enamored. Ecstatic. He was seeing a new life that he had not imagined, where people just like each other and nobody seems to need anything from each other. Here in the outskirts, nobody recognized him or wanted anything from him. A few tis, Vancy started to introduce him and give his na, but each ti Larianne was quick enough to put a hand on her shoulder or arm and those small gestures were enough to cool her off and give her pause, remind her that we're not here to parade our celebrity around. I feel like she keeps wanting to brag about her association, but his anonymity today ans more to him than his fa ans to her, so she just brings him around as "one of my friends". He's really enjoying himself. Vancy asks his opinions on perfus and he's having a hard ti phrasing opinions about sothing non-auditory, like he does not easily find adjectives for sights or slls or textures. And though he's floundering with unfamiliar situations, he's loving every minute of it. The novelty is dazzling him. The only sounds around are conversation and footsteps and hooves and carts, banging from the cooper down the street and sawing from the joinery next door. The hawkers are laughing and bantering in the square, a child is crying. No music anywhere, except for the music that is everywhere, lives being lived. He is glowing. He's just living his life as if he had never touched strings or reeds. I feel like he needed a day off as much as I needed gratuitous violence. I could still feel the rush of power as I released those singularities last night, the satiation of devastation. I am many-faceted: I enjoy wanton cataclysm directed at my enemies, and I like a simple hour of gossiping with the citizens of my old hotown, and I like small jars of things that sll nice. And it wasn't even just one top-of-the-line perfu shop. Vancy, true to her word, could take us to four bottlers that had better scents than I could have found anywhere in adowtam, anywhere in Anquarry, or anywhere that I knew to look in Hearstcliff. There might be better shops with better products, but if so they're so exclusive and specialized that the princess of adowtam can't ever seem to find them. And in between the perfu shops? The square that they held festivals in. The giant pigeon coop that had so obscure religious significance. A winding stair up a stone tower that led to a really spectacular vista overlooking the town. A fountain that ran intermittently to make a fun little guessing ga that she showed us how to play. A spot where the brick pavent was mixed with quartz so that vivid murals would erge when the sunlight hit from certain angles during the sumr months. And that's the highlights, because in between all of that we've got "this is the alley that's best for sledding when it snows" and "here's the park everyone goes to propose marriage" and "I fell out of that tree once". I feel like if I spend a whole day with Vancy I'll end up knowing Tarcelle as well as I know Skydown. And while the rest of us are just trying to keep up? Trazom is asking her questions. He wants to know more than she's already telling us. It's frankly amazing. I'm not the only one that thinks so, the more he interacts with her the more giddy and giggly she gets, and she still has not gotten over the habit of using Enefiat Trazom's full na every chance she gets. He does not seem to mind at all. And every so often he starts getting jittery, overexcited, and he grabs my hand. It is to my surprise to realize that I don't mind this. He's holding my hand, not holding by the hand, and that's a difference I never realized existed until I compared him to Yheta. With Yheta, he's tethering himself to with his grip. Trazom wants to feel a hand in his hand, and mine is that hand. It's nice. It's an interesting day for learning things that I thought would cause trouble but instead are... perfectly okay. Sure, every so often he says sothing breathtakingly condescending. Especially if anything about music is being ntioned. And I don't think he respects at a fundantal level. But he does like , in a simple and familiar way. And a lot of people don't. So, I'm going to say this has potential. I'm a lot better at teaching people to respect , than to like . Not ideal, but about half of my "love interests" list doesn't like or respect . Honestly, a lot of them really make question why they're labeled that way. I don't think I would ever pursue Licard- But what if it's not about ? I pursued this train of thought. When I played the ga, controlling Nathan, I would never go after all twelve beaus in one playthrough. Pragmatically impossible, and silly to try. There's no harem endings; the story concludes with him getting married and he is a faithful husband, no mistresses. And more than that- everyone's got their favorites. I hardly ever play through Sicimmi's endings. I think I've gotten each of Lyric Vainting's endings once each, just to get the achievent for getting all those cutscenes. And Kiri Sizomaji kind of annoys . It's a dating sim, right, and every player has preferences. Which ans, for all intents and purposes, that the character living out those choices has preferences. If soone else, with a different life and experiences and preferences than I have, had been brought here as Nathan's twin sister, could she have been swooning over Licard? Entranced by Rabert Frantlin? Amused by Professor Ryichsur? Were those characters listed as love interests just out of potential, not because I, personally, would find them attractive? Did they actually follow the sa chanics as Nathan's love interests? What a fucking idea. But, weirdly? It took a lot of pressure off of . There's nothing wrong if I blow off one suggested character or another. I don't need to feel obligated to everyone that just happened to have a love interest tag floating in their status indicator. Well, aside from the obvious. Other than what it could an for our eventual ending. Because I do still need to navigate a good ending. Whoop. There's the pressure again. Dammit. I told myself to lose the introspection and focus on my friends. We had lunch in town. Sort of all over town, appetizers at a small quaint bakery, warm beverages from the old-growth pub, entree at the delicatessen, fruits from the market square, desserts from the patisserie. It was a picnic in that every thing we ate, we ate at a park, but it was a different park for each course. Effectively five different picnics. And all the walking, talking, sights, distractions and snacks kept clearing our palates between one perfury and the next, so we did not burn out or go numb. Vancy was, hands down, the best local tour guide I've ever known. If I ever take these folks to Skydown Crossing I'm gonna need to study and plan extensively to live up to this standard. While we were walking along, I found I just could not stop smiling. I get like that on most weekends. I think it's because I get like that when I'm away from Hearstcliff. I can walk through the streets of Tarcelle and feel like these people are still alive. They never showed up in the ga. They don't live in Hearstcliff. I've never seen their buildings on fire and I've never watched monsters rampage through their streets. In Tarcelle, I can see a town that I can't rember destroyed. Hearstcliff doesn't give that. I have seen it burn in the Rapier Revolt, the Houses squabbling for control of a throne and instigating their followers to rise up for power they would never get to share. I saw Hearstcliff in mourning, houses smashed, in the wake of the Upheaval, their misery compounded by the recent dead. And then I saw the waves of hungry things that ca pouring down the aqueducts and shredding children in their jaws. The seat of power destroyed, the people- long abused- rose up in a civil war that sought to destroy all enemies, all outsiders, all nonbelievers. Not once or twice. Dozens of tis. Hearstcliff was a tomb to . I've seen it destroyed so many tis it has beco boring to . I watched Vancy and the people of her domain as they danced. She threw flowers to children. These children would probably grow up. I could get attached here. I could enjoy people being happy. I could think of things being fixed. I could look at all of this and it's not so bleak. On the other hand, sotis the bleakness helped . When things were ugly, when so society maven was shredding at my sense of decency, sotis I could look them right in the eye and smile, because I could think quietly to myself 'I know how you die. And it is soon. And it is bloody'. This was probably why I stayed out of the city any ti I had the chance. Free periods, weekends, snippets of minutes here and there, any excuse at all. For the world was Tarcelle, and Skydown, and Zhudten, and every little pocket of people living lives. For The End was Hearstcliff. Today I tried not to dwell. I laughed with them, and I enjoyed the city. I thrived here, like I thrive in Skydown Crossing and in Zhudten and even in Broghton. My dark monts happened, my bitter thoughts would co, but they were few. They were fleeting. They were nearly drowned out by Vancy's laughter and the gas. I relished that, and I was grateful to her for this. Out of respect for Trazom, she took us nowhere that had music, so we had parks and pubs and fountain squares, street perforrs with feats of balance or daring or magic. A walk-through art gallery where Enefiat bought a painting as a souvenir, a cityscape of Tarcelle. And, teasing good-naturedly, she took us to a candy store where I again bought more than I had any right to, and sampled enough to draw laughter from my friends, which I would join in. I don't mind a little teasing about my most harmless vice. Nowhere did we linger, nowhere did we bide. From one welco place and cheerful face to another, over and over. The ti stretched long, we put so much into each hour that it was hard to countenance it later. I thought surely that if I lived at this pace for more than a day, maybe my mind would hold no more thoughts than Vancy's does. And if I lived this pace, I very well may sleep as long as she does, as well. Surely her life is exhausting for her, else she would not be so hard to rouse in the mornings. We were all startled when we noticed the local bells were chiming out fourteen, and it was ti to head in for dinner. It was like a spell broke. I shook off my thoughts. "Oh," I said, staring off into the distance towards the bell tower, and disappointnt was thick in my voice. "Oh. I need to get us back to Hearstcliff. I've got dinner plans." I was holding a basket of perfus and I was surprised that it was so many bottles, because I felt like I had done a marvelous job of restraining my impulses. Rather than buying everything that caught my attention, I was able to muster my self-control and willpower to - holy shit, thirteen bottles?! Trazom stepped in front of Vancy. "Countess Tarcelle, thank you ever so much for this day. This has ant a lot to , and I've co to see why you love this place as much as you do. I hope that soon my schedule and affairs will allow leave to return and to sample every part of this town that we have not seen already." She giggled, chard and captivated. Ah, celebrity. She had overco so of the hero-worship but she was still easily flustered by his words. One by one we followed suit to thank her, but none of us had the sa impact, and her eyes kept stealing his way. Probably for the best that she would not be following with us to the Auditioneer's Hall and the dinner concert, either the sparkle would wear off for her, or she would finally be overwheld by her reverence for the celebrity. I would not want either of those for her. No sense delaying, I thought, and I opened the doorway into light, handing out the goggles.