FAREWELL LOG

[npc_kun]

Set from October 24th onwards:

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IT'S OKAY even for Krile it's tricky

[feathered_earth]

Krile let out a deep sigh as Mr. Vimes hugged her back. She did want to go home. Bal was just on the other side of that glass; her feet almost ached for the ancient, steady stone of the castle. But it would wait. If years here had been seconds there, it would wait... but now the years here were gone, dwindled to nothing.

She'd learned quickly not to take anyone for granted. Going out cheerfully one morning could end with anguish that afternoon. Not even that--she had seen friends vanish in the space between words as she spoke. Mr. Vimes, though, had never disappeared. He'd died once, but he'd come back as... as there as ever, ready to give her a whack upside the head for a truly terrible joke or bring her a thermos of hot cocoa when she was feeling low. It didn't seem real that he was going somewhere much further away than the page of a journal.

But they could say goodbye, and they were choosing to go. That was good. It was definitely good! And so silly to do anything like cry, not that she was crying, obviously it was just some cat hair in her eye or something, oh all right fine she was crying. But only a little!

"Yeah. You've got that big city of yours to not be duke of, right?" she said, grinning despite the sadness. "And your family."

[stonyfaced]

Vimes leaned back, altogether unsurprised at the tears Krile was shedding and grateful that they were not tears of loss this time. Even if they never saw one another again - an outcome Vimes was preparing himself for - it was not a loss. They were going where they wanted to be, where they belonged. He only wished that he knew where the disappeared went.

"I'm afraid I am a duke," he said with a crooked sort of grin, "but damned if I ever want to be called one. Being a watchman's the only title for me. And yes, I've got my family waiting for me - I hope."

And if he could ever help it, Krile wouldn't find out about his other titles. If he counted the ones that weren't spouted every time he went to some awful ball, he would be there all day, he was sure of it. No, if Krile ever heard, he'd never hear the end of it.

"And you've got a castle to be a princess of, don't you?"

[feathered_earth]

Unfortunately for Vimes, he would be quite right about Krile's reaction if she ever learned about things like His Excellency or (gods help him) Blackboard Monitor. "I guess I'll stick with Mr. Vimes, then. And they'll be there. I'll come and meet them sometime." It made her feel terribly happy that someone like Vimes did have a family, people who loved him for no other reason than it was him.

She had people like that too, but they weren't at Bal... not usually. They all had their own lives and responsibilities to look after. If Bartz was okay, though, Krile would have to drag him to the castle for a while. "Mm-hm." She let go to wipe her eyes, grateful that Vimes was pretending not to notice. "I'm sure they could run things without me, but I think they'd prefer it if I was there. And I have to make sure that I can sit properly in that big chair after all those years of Grandpa being in it."

It had been a bit frightening just sitting there when she was on the Fourth Floor and it hadn't really been Bal, but she had to get used to it.

[stonyfaced]

Vimes thought about what he knew about royalty. He disagreed with it as a core concept. No man was born better than any other man, except for the fact that some were born with a future ahead of them, and others were born with nothing. It was bloody offensive, it was. Old Stoneface Vimes - who he had named himself after, he realized with some measure of surprise - had cut off the King's head. And what a good thing that was!

Krile was going to be a good ruler, he was sure, but he wondered what he'd think about it as a subject, not knowing her. No matter how good you were, there was always going to be hard times, famines and illness and riots. Would someone want to take an axe to Krile's head one day, a man like Vimes but off the deep end, ready to mobilize change in the system at any cost? He wasn't so sure about it, but it was a definite possibility.

He thought about golden crowns that weren't golden at all, paint washed away by years of worth, and of the instability that was birthright when all was said and done. He still didn't like royalty, but Krile was different. Krile made him reassess the lot of them the way Sybil made him reassess a small portion of the nobles.

"Sounds like an awfully big chair to fill up all on your own," he said gently. "Surely it's not something you'll be doing right away."

He wouldn't put it past royalty, though. It didn't matter how old you were so long as your blood was blue. But Krile was... okay, okay, not a child. But too young yet to have the fate of a nation on her shoulders.

[feathered_earth]

"No, not yet." Which was an immense relief, to Krile. She needed time--not just time to grow to the proper age, but time to get to know her kingdom and her world again, to catch up with her loved ones, and just to think and understand. Talking to Mr. Vimes especially reminded her of the things she'd learned about people while she'd been in Edensphere. They hadn't been very good things, but it was better to know them than to be naive.

She looked out at the meadow beyond the glass. "I have to be eighteen before I take the throne. I was fifteen before I came into Edensphere and I'm... kind of seventeen now, but I'm still going to wait." Krile fidgeted with her hands, looked at her feet for a moment, and then make herself look up. "I would say until I feel ready, but I don't think Grandpa ever felt completely comfortable kinging either. At least I know more about the things I have to consider, now."

[stonyfaced]

"Good. Can't hurt to wait a bit longer," Vimes said, then slid his helmet off his head and leaned down so that he and Krile could look at each other eye-to-eye. Gods, though, she was small! And young! What was he doing when he was seventeen? A year after the great revolution, shying away from responsibility for fear of what it would do to others and being pushed along to the long career of alcoholism, wasn't he? Working on his reading in hopes of bringing some sort of income in to his poor Mum, but that never went anywhere, 'cos once you were at the bottom it was damned hard to crawl your way up. And Krile, all of fifteen years old, burst in here with her spear and all those brains knocking around that skull of hers and took on the duty of a protector and swiftly taking over a successful business. Unbidden, he felt a swell of pride at what she had accomplished.

Did she have anyone left at that big castle of hers to tell her that?

"Surround yourself with people you trust and you'll be fine," Vimes finally said, resting a firm hand on her shoulder. "No country is ever run by one person alone, and you've learned a lot here, running that stall of yours."

He paused, then added on, "You ought to be very proud of everything you've done here, you know. You've done well in a bloody difficult situation."

[feathered_earth]

Krile looked Mr. Vimes in the eye, wondering what was going through his mind. It didn't usually occur to her to be proud of her accomplishments. Though she was comfortable with herself despite her anxieties, things like protecting and keeping the business going had just been the thing to do, nothing special about it.

When he did speak, though, Krile thought back to when she had told him of her job back in her home, and the conversation they'd had. She nodded solemnly. "I will," she said. "I'll remember everything you've said--and Lenna is a queen. She's one of the people I fought alongside." Krile was pretty sure she'd have to write a lot of letters to Lenna about how to queen properly.

But she grinned at the last thing he said. "I sure didn't do that alone. I wouldn't..." She pause, and the grin became serious again. "Without you and the rest of my friends, I wouldn't have been able to do much at all, Mister Vimes."

[stonyfaced]

People in Edensphere had the most curious way of trying to shrug the credit that they were due onto other people, and sadly, Krile was no exception. Another way that the people here were different from those that he knew, he considered. Most people would grab at any complimentary morsel as greedily as they snatched at everything else, but here, everyone was always pushing the credit around with a great big shovel.

"And plenty of people wouldn't have done it at all, support or no," Vimes said firmly, in a voice that left no room for argument. Another day, perhaps he would have let her continue to give credit to everyone else - and hell, that was important to have in any ruler if they wanted to continue to rule - but today was good bye and as far as he knew, his was his last chance to say it. He tapped her forehead. "Remember, Krile, a good ruler will give credit where it's due, but she'll also take credit when she deserves it, all right?"

He stuck his hands in his pockets and straightened up again, dispelling the serious moment with a simple quirk of his brow. "So you fought alongside a queen, eh? Sounds like quite a world you've got there." One where monarchs actually fought.

[feathered_earth]

The tap on the forehead broke Krile's seriousness, and she giggled. "Aye aye, Mister Vimes." He did have a point, although she still thought that what she'd said was true. She had needed them just as surely as she needed water. She wouldn't argue the specifics, though.

Besides, if someone like him thought she was strong... well, that was an expert opinion, wasn't it? It made the prospect of rulership just a bit less intimidating, knowing that he had confidence in her to do the job well.

"Yeah--she's from a place called Tycoon. We write to each other." That contented sort of look she got whenever she thought about Bal was on her face again, despite a quick need to wipe her eyes again. "It's a beautiful world. I... I've really missed it. It was almost destroyed, you know, but it only looked hopless." Maybe--no, definitely that was why she'd been able to hold out that thin thread of hope that Edensphere wouldn't end either.

[stonyfaced]

Vimes paused, tempted for a moment to point out the irony of there being a monarchy in a place called Tycoon, because that really didn't paint the aforesaid monarchy in the most pleasant light. He bit his tongue, and nodded. Letters. Of course Krile wrote letters, not that there was any other way to communicate aside from the clacks. It did take a certain sort of person, a certain sort of patience to write them continuously, which Krile probably did. They were probably long, too.

"What d'you mean, destroyed?" He asked, curiosity piqued. As far as he was concerned, destroying the world was something out of stories, for it was difficult to actually destroy a world. People conquered nations, true enough, but the world always remained, one way or another.

[feathered_earth]

Oh yes, Vimes could definitely expect letters. Probably letters with illustrations of certain things like moogles and chocobos and ugly winged pig-things called fairy orcs.

"Well... do you remember when I was hurt on Wellspring and I kept babbling about Exdeath?" Krile's face tinted slightly pink at mentioning it; remembering that night was deeply embarrassing for her. "He was--a warlock that wanted to consume it all in the Void. But my friends and I stopped him." She smiled a little. "At the last possible chance to do it. It's so strange that I could forget something like that."

[stonyfaced]

Vimes' brow wrinkled, and even though this was a solemn occasion, he couldn't help but boggle out loud, "Someone actually named himself Exdeath?"

And a warlock? Those were male witches, weren't they? Vimes didn't deal with witches as a rule, considering the fact that they had no place in Ankh Morpork and resided mostly in those bits and pieces of the country that everyone's forgotten about. Every now and then he'll get a watchman from those areas who mention the witches as some sort of magical beings that don't do magic at all but are nonetheless remarkably imposing. Honestly, the stories Vimes heard about them reminded him more of the Guild of Seamstresses than anything else, which likely wasn't a comparison either party would be very happy about.

But a male witch, no matter which way you cut it, was usually regarded as something of a joke.

"Sorry," he backtracked hastily. "It does sound pretty serious." Unlike his name. "So what, you and your friends killed him?"

[feathered_earth]

Krile looked a little taken aback at Vimes' first reaction. Well yes, he had, and he had been extremely good at living up to that name. Nobody she knew had ever thought of the name as anything but something attached to a powerful and terrifying entity. Maybe if he had seen for himself what someone-who-had-named-himself-Exdeath had done, he wouldn't be so surprised by it.

"It was," she said, and her tone was a bit too insistently serious with those two words. "But we did. It took a long time and..." She looked down for a moment. "My grandpa died fighting him, but we got him in the end. Actually, it was after the end, but that didn't matter." Krile knew it didn't quite sound right, but it was just what had happened.