Absalonhöll
Býkonsviði, Prydania
10 September 2031
"Pabbi's office," Hael said in amazement. He looked around with his hands in his hoodie's front pockets. His brother twin brother Baldr was wearing a similar hoodie. Yes it was perhaps cliched to dress twins alike, but Baldr and Hael both seemed to like it.
"Come on!" Baldr said as he looked around.
"We're supposed to be looking for Hanna, not poking around Pabbi's stuff," Hael protested but Baldr was too infatuated by his father's office. They had both been in here before, but never without at least one of their parents. But here it was- the King of Prydania, and their father's, office- to themselves.
Baldr walked up to the desk and sat down in the chair.
"Look at me! I'm the King!" Baldr said happily as Hael rolled his eyes, before drifting towards the bookshelves that were stock full of reading material.
Baldr looked around. He saw pictures of his mother and father, of both of them with their friend Duke Thibault of Champaign, with their father's cousins Kings Thibault-Maximilian and Timothée-Brice of Saintonge, with King Jadzia of Arrandal and her husband, with Thorbjörn Höjsleth and his wife Addý and their family, his father with Marc-Thorsteinn Gausserand-Landet, his parents with the Anthony, Grand Emperor of Goyanes, King Gaiseric of Essalenea, Empress Sabhrain of Astragon, and Vittorio the Doge of Predice. And the families of Thane Laurits and his sister Klara Eiderwig, their cousins. He also saw his father's knife from Essalanea, with the stag antler.
"Cool," he said as he reached for it.
"Baldr, don't," Hael said, looking back to catch his brother reaching for the knife. Baldr was always the more adventurous one, but he recognized when his brother had a point. He nodded and pulled his hand back from the knife. He hopped out of his father's chair and made his way to his brother, who had sat down at one of the couches that ran parallel to each other on either side of an old oaken table on the other end of the room, by the book shelves.
"Pabbi was talking to Thane Rylond, Herra Odegaard, Herra Kaldbak, and Herra Giæver here the other day, about the War," Hael said as he looked around. He never noticed the prancing stags worked into the wooden fixtures along the ceiling before. Baldr nodded, sitting across the wooden table from his brother.
"What's a Harrying?" he asked.
"Hadden was a Harrying, they talked about it. What do you think that was?"
Hael just shrugged.
"Should we get back to looking for Hanna?"
"Nah," Baldr answered. The wall opposite the King's desk had a large tapestry hanging on it. And the boys were closer to that. They looked at it. It showed knights besieging a city, with defenders wearing weird armour.
"Do you think that's from the War?" Baldr asked.
"Don't be stupid," Hael replied.
"The War was like...thirty years ago. That's from like...far longer."
"Don't call me stupid," Baldr shot back, only for Hael to stick out his tongue.
"Well fine, Herra Smarty Pants, you tell me what it's from!"
Hael smirked.
"I think it's from the Crusades."
"How do you know," Baldr raised an eyebrow suspiciously.
"I think those guys in the city are Syrixians. The helmets look like the helmets Syrixians have in
Progress VI."
"So that guy..." Baldr pointed to a knight wearing a stag crown and a tabard showing the arms of the House of Loðbrók, "isn't Pabbi?"
"I don't think Pabbi has a suit of armour," Hael answered.
"Hmmm," Baldr mused in only the way a determined eleven year old could, hopping off from the couches to explore the office some more. If their father did have a suit of armour then surely it would be around here.
The King's desk sat between two doors. The one they came in from, that led to the rest of the Palace, and one on the opposite wall.
"What's in here?" Baldr asked, walking to the door. It was now that Hael started getting nervous. He felt nervous coming here in the first place but...going into another locked door? That was asking for trouble. Still, he didn't want Baldr to think he was scared so he followed him.
"It's probably locked," Hael said hopefully, only for the handle to turn.
"Ha! It isn't!" Baldr exclaimed, pulling the door open and leading his brother in. The room was dark, mostly, but Baldr found a light switch, worked into the wooden panelling of the walls. The two boys looked around. On the whole it wasn't a remarkable room. Just a side room. The same wooden panels and shelving from the main office lined the walls, the wooden panels along the ceiling containing art of prancing stags and medieval knights was carried over. But instead of books the shelves were full of...things. Protected by glass doors.
"Cool..." Hael said as he walked past his brother. Old documents, pendants, and the like were visible behind the glass. Baldr went to open some of the glass doors, but they were locked. Each door had a keyhole and lock in the corner. So he stood on his tiptoes to try and see more of the treasures that were above his eyeline.
"This must be...like...treasure..." Hael said. He stepped back, just out of the side room, and could see that, at the eye level of an adult, a sceptre on its side, with a ring adorned with a stag on the top.
Baldr looked around though, and found something else to examine. It was a metal locker, on its side. It was a khaki-green colour, and "A. Skov" was stamped in faded letters.
"Uncle Axle?" Baldr asked. Hael shrugged. Axle Skov, their "Uncle Axle," had died a month or so ago. Baldr shrugged back and opened the locker. It wasn't locked.
"Huh," was...more stuff, only unlike the stuff behind the glass doors it was all...just random?
"What's this?" Baldr struggled pulling something out, and Hael helped him.
"Bro..." Hael said in almost a hushed whisper.
"I think this is a bullet proof vest."
"Oh, that's cool," Baldr replied, studying it. It was a dark green. With worn and straps that frayed a bit. There was no name to identify the wearer, but there was a black and olive green patch on one of the shoulder straps. It was a Prydanian cross on a shield. In the top three quarters were the letters "FRE." In the bottom quarter was a stag's head with a cross, from the Prydanian coat of arms. The boys pulled the heavy vest out and dropped it on the floor. Then they pulled out two long...metal things. Neither knew how to describe them. They had a black metal-like shell, but it was also smoother than metal? Like a matte texture? Well save for what looked like slash marks on them.
"They're arm guards," Hael mentioned, as he examined the padding and straps hanging from them.
"Hmmm," he mused as he ran his fingers over them, feeling the cuts in the finish.
"What else is in there?"
"Just some clothes..." Baldr muttered. He pulled out a few black long-sleeved t-shirts, and a few pairs of military-grade pants. Some a dark khaki, some olive green, some camo pattered. And then a pair of black boots.
"It's just some clothes and stuff..." he said before pulling out a black backpack.
"Maybe we should leave this alone..." Hael said, but Baldr shook his head.
"Come on bro! This is far more fun then playing hide and seek with Hanna."
"But she's probably..."
"Probably thinks she has a good hiding place. Now what do you think is in this backpack? Treasure? Cool computer stuff?"
"More clothes?" Hael shrugged. Baldr rolled his eyes before unzipping it. The first thing he pulled out was a zipped up kit of some kind that, upon opening it, revealed a number of tools.
Then another kit, this one was white with a red heart on it.
"First aid, probably," Hael said. Baldr unzipped it and yeah...a bunch of first aid stuff, but it was...old. Neither boy had seen bandage wrapping like that before. Baldr quickly set it aside, and fished around some more.
"Just a bunch of spare parts and tools...whoever this was liked to
work on
engines," Baldr muttered.
"Uncle Axle always had nice cars," Hael said. The locker had said "A. Skov" after all.
And then Baldr pulled out an envelope. It was white, but a bit yellowed, with some dirt on the corners. It had something written across it.
"To Tobias, our sunshine" it read, "love Mamma and Pabbi."
"Pabbi?" Baldr asked seeing their father's name.
"And Pabbi's pabbi and mamma," Hael added. The boys knew very little about their Grandpabbi Robert and Grandmamma Hanna. Only that their sister was named after their grandmamma and that they had died when their own father was very young. It had something to do with the War, but what that was, well...it was something of a vague mystery.
"Should we read it?" Baldr asked. Hael felt a rush of curiosity now, despite his misgivings. There was likely a letter in that envelope that may tell them something about their grandparents.
"Do it," Hael said, nodding. Baldr smiled mischievously, preparing to remove the letter inside from the envelope when a voice rained down from behind.
"What are you two doing?"
The twins turned around, and looked up with panicked stares.
"Maminka!" they both exclaimed in unison.
"What's that?" Alycia asked her sons, eyeing the envelope in Baldr's hand. She asked because that's what mothers do. She knew very well what that letter was.
"Um..." Baldr said with a gulp, only for his mother to reach down and take it from him. Both boys looked at each other, each wearing the look of an eleven year old caught red handed.
Alycia took the envelope in her hand. She remembered the first time she read this. And how she hugged Tobias all night, all of those years ago. She sighed and looked down.
"What are you doing here? In your father's office, going through his things?"
"We were..." Baldr stammered for words, before Hael blurted a confession out.
"We were playing hide and seek and we found out that Pabbi's office was open and..."
Alycia smiled, even as she looked down firmly.
"Hide and seek? So where's your sister?"
"We...haven't found her yet," Baldr said sheepishly. Alycia gave both boys a look at showed their mother was unimpressed before pulling out her phone and dialing a number.
"Yes Lord General, if you could find Hanna that would be wonderful. I'm sorry to have to bother you, but it seems her brothers have decided to abandon her in the middle of hide and seek."
Both boys looked down, looking very guilty.
"Yes, thank you Lord General," she said before hanging up and slipping the phone back into her pocket.
"Now," she continued.
"Why are you going through Pabbi's things?"
"We...just wanted to look around. It seemed cool," Hael said.
"And..."
"...we figured there would be really neat stuff back here," Baldr replied, finishing his twin brother's sentence.
Alycia smiled, and sat down next to the boys before the array of stuff left on the floor.
"These are all things from the Civil War your father kept."
"The War?" the two asked in unison. Alycia nodded, picking up one of the shirts. She smiled, thinking of fond memories when she first met her husband.
"Yes, the War," she repeated.
"So this was Pabbi's bullet proof vest?" Baldr asked excitedly.
"And he wore these?" Hael asked, just as excitedly as he held up one of the arm guards.
"Did he use these to..POW! Bash Syndicalists?"
Alycia began to chuckle as she picked up the various kits and spare parts from the backpack, slipping the envelope and letter back into it, before zipping it back up.
"Yes, that was his vest," she said, "and I don't think he ever used these to bash Syndicalists," she added, taking the arm guard away from Hael. She began to set everything in the locker.
"Can we ask him? Let's ask him!" Baldr nodded, but Alycia just shook her head, pivoting as she sat to face her sons.
"You really shouldn't ask your father about the Civil War."
"But..." both tried to protest, but Alycia shook her head.
"You boys are too young to understand."
"We're not little kids anymore though," Hael protested. Alycia smiled as her eleven year old son insisted he was no longer a child who needed to be sheltered from the world.
"I've always told you that your father would tell you all about the War when you were old enough. And I meant it. But it's not time yet."
"That letter, was from Grandpabbi and Grandmamma," Baldr said. Alycia nodded.
"That too, is for when you're old enough." Both boys just rolled their eyes and sighed, their shoulders slouching. Alycia saw that and smiled.
"You two, what will I do with you? You want to grow up so fast."
"We just wanna know about you and Pabbi's adventures," Baldr insisted.
"Já," Hael added.
"Tobias-Brice said he heard from his pabbi that Pabbi did a lot of great things in the War," he said, referring to his Santonian friend and playmate Tobias-Brice Höjsleth.
"You both need to understand that your Pabbi did a lot of these things, in a very hard time. It's not easy for him to talk about them."
"He talks about them with his friends," Baldr said, before Hael shot him a panicked look, as if Baldr had given up some secret. Alycia smiled at that, at the idea that her sons were ease-dropping on her husband and his friends. She didn't get mad though. Children were naturally curious.
"His friends lived it with him, they all help each other that way," Alycia said.
"But you two, and your sister," she added as she hugged both of her sons, "are so much more precious than any of that."
The two boys squirmed at first, before surrendering to hugs from their mother, both sitting before her and nodding.
"You two will be told everything when you're older, but it's unbecoming for a future King and Emperor to be going through their pabbi's private things," she said with a smile.
The two boys blushed but smirked and nodded again.
"Sorry Maminka," they said in unison.
Alycia finished packing the locker up, and closing it. Then she felt something. A twinge in her heart. Her boys looked so sad, to have upset their mother like this. So she reached for a picture on an adult eye level shelf. It was a shelf full of pictures of her husband with people like William Aubyn, Stig Eiderwig, Thomas Lasmartes, and Axle Skov. It wasn't any of those pictures she picked though. No, she picked another one. And sat back down with her sons.
"This is a picture, from before the Civil War. It's Pabbi, Grandpabbi Robert, and Grandmamma Hanna." She held the framed picture in both hands as she sat, both of her sons leaning forward on either side of her. At first they seemed a bit confused.
"Isn't that Pabbi?" Baldr asked.
"No," Alycia chuckled, "that's Grandpabbi Robert. Pabbi just looks a lot like him!" She pointed to the happy looking child.
"That's your Pabbi. Younger then you are now!"
"How old?" Hael asked.
"Oh I think six or so?" Alycia answered.
"This is the only picture your father has of himself, with your grandparents. There are others, in old records from newspapers and news shows, but this is the only actual picture your father has of all three of them."
Both Baldr and Hael looked on. Their grandpabbi and grandmamma were both sitting on a couch, dressed formally, with their father as a little kid, all dressed up too, sitting between them. Everyone was smiling. Baldr and Hael just took it in, some vision of the distant past of that bygone year of 2001. Thirty years ago. They didn't say anything. They just appreciated seeing something like this.
Alycia stood, and set the picture back to where it was.
"Come on boys, let's find Lord General Hummel and your sister." She led them out of the room, back into their father's office, with Alycia locking the room behind them.
"You won't tell Pabbi we were here?" Hael asked sheepishly, with Baldr looking on with a pleading gaze.
"Only if you two promise me two things," Alycia replied firmly. Both boys nodded.
"First," she said, "You never go into your father's office, or my office for that matter, without permission again." The boys nodded.
"Second," Alycia said, "you never abandon your sister like that. She loves you two, and you shouldn't ditch her. Do I make myself clear?"
Both boys looked at each other and then up at Alycia and gulped.
"Yes Maminka," they both said, nodding. They were terrified. Their mother could be very imposing when she was angry, or wanted to prove a point.
"Well then," Alycia said, still sounding stern before her mood changed to one that was very pleasant.
"I guess if I have your word we won't have to tell Pabbi...this time."
"Thank you!" both boys said in unison.
"Come on, we're going to find your sister," she said as her sons followed her, though they couldn't help but glance back at the closed door leading to their father's office. Like some sort of tantalizing revelation had eluded them. For now.
OOC Note: Post is approved by @Zyvun