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The Wanderer's Guide to Somewhere (CLOSED)

A battle ground for the sportsmen and women of nations worldwide. [In character]

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The Royal Kingdom of Quebec
Negotiator
 
Posts: 7437
Founded: Feb 15, 2012
Ex-Nation

Postby The Royal Kingdom of Quebec » Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:15 am

OOC: For the original purposes back in WCQ87, it was divided into 2 separate RPs. I would like to thank Schottia for his permission with the use of Tessa Maitfield, his national team player currently playing with CSKA Quebec, back in July. I would also like to thank several other RPers who I have consulted over the last few days on the Maitfields. Here's not much, but let's see how this goes..

I Run To You

PART 9 (51) - Lifted


Quebec City, Capitale-Nationale

Frank Lundrigan was still collecting his thoughts, as he was trying to find himself getting used to visiting Quebec City often. Frank did not like feeling small and out of place in this city of deserted antiques and delinquent antics. The oxycontin-like level of bureaucracy, the ever-so-high risk of stepping on dog poop, and of course navigating through old neighbourhoods without being hit by a car was enough of a nightmare for him.

In all fairness to him, he didn't have much memory of the nation's capital, unlike his parents who spent a decade here or his brother, who had moved back home to be with Plongeon. Perhaps it was better that way for Frank as well- the career trajectory he's had since high school were fairly consistent, if uneventful. After a successful high school career where Frank, who stuck with football and squash for his sport of choice, was recruited by Yves Brousseau-Gong, the head coach of Saguenay Tech program, it had all been cruise control. He had known for several years from his mother, Princess Athens de Chanie of Vdara, that his parents were going to move back and work with the Commonwealth Office (father) and philanthropic causes (mother), so Frank did not have a particular obligation to stay closer to Kingston.

Of course, Frank was fine with the idea of moving to a smaller school in a medium-sized city, especially one with a traditional powerhouse in Olympique de Rimouski, so he viewed the move as something that he had to do so. His friends in Erskine days, unlike that of Asher's buds, were not always the type to go to the Royal League (highly selective, smaller-sized universities mostly located in mid-large cities, with a couple of exceptions in Farrer and St. Croix), but rather those who would go to Imperial League (larger, research-intensive state schools). While Saguenay Tech was neither, Frank was still aware of the reasons why he would go there over enticing options from some of the bigger names, and went that way. As an eighteen year old he knew his ticket to anywhere was football, and he could always enjoy other aspects of life anyway.

Now, as a twenty-three year old carving his trade in Siovanija and Teusland, and also the national team, Frank was much more certain about where he was standing in life, and life in the City of Eternal Lights was the one he would have still avoided either way. Tessa's Nouvel-Les Halles neighbourhood apartment was clean and spacious, and the simplicity of the space, highlighted by a postmodernist work of art he did not have patience but appreciation for, it was evident that he would at least find greater comfort here than staying with his parents or god forbid- his brother.

Not that Asher would have welcomed the idea anyway, Frank thought as he wondered around a bit to see how the rest of the suite was like. A short walk around the living room, a guest room and the bathrooms took solid minute or two of inspection, and just as he finished the travail, his phone rang.

'Allo?' Frank picked up the phone, trying not to be nervous about it. He knew only four people were going to call the footballer- his mum, his agent Serge Nisenbaum, Asher or Tessa. Depending on which of the four, he was going to have a different reception to it. Fortunately, it was the last of four persons he had listed.

'Frank, are you home?' the husky voice of Tessa breezed through his ear. 'I'm heading back soon.'Oh Tess...Frank smiled, as he couldn't help but to imagine her calling him before leaving the CSKA Athletic Complex.

'Yeah, it's a nice place. May even nap for an hour before we go out for dinner, right?' Frank nodded, as he couldn't help but to notice the childhood posters she held from the days of her life back in Ceni. Frank had heard from some time back that Tessa, the only child of Tim Maitfield, a well-known Schottian manager who has settled nicely with Zenith side Starling after excellent run with Crisisbless United, had a particularly hard time moving around.

'Yeah, why not Bouillon Gagnier? People probably won't notice us there...' Sometimes Tessa had a surprisingly simplistic way of handling potential attention from the crowd, and going directly into the crowd instead of pretending to ignore it was one of the strategies she had. Frank knew this was a bold idea and that Tessa may have thought of this out as a hurried option rather than a plausible one, but he was fine with that. Not that his cooking skills, a trait both Lundrigan brothers were known to be bad at, were going to be of much use on their first day back in the city.

'Sounds good, Tess. Text me when you are five minutes away. Love you!' Then Frank hung up the phone, as he found himself lying on her couch, looking at the posters she had on her wall. Andrew Arrowsword, Evelyn Conjure, a bunch of Quebecois musicians she's become a fan of since coming here about two years ago...Unlike her childhood days, Tessa now had the space to fit all of her childhood heroes and current interests coexist in pictorial forms, and wasn't afraid to display such.

Of course, her tastes were very much specifically catered to the tough, working-class heroes, which had meant something different than that of Frank's friends in the footballing circles, or Corinne Martel-Burns, one of the two greatest Schottian football players in history. Her tales of rivalry with Enrico Hanson-Conavacio, the brother of his friend Hazel, was a well-known story, especially in the Quebecois soil where the Hanson-Conavacio family held universal respect and Hazel the most famous female athlete among their generation. This rivalry, which also transpired into a friendship with Enrico’s sister Hazel, had meant even more for the Q-League fans out there, especially for the league that needed more marquee stories.

Of course, Frank knew why and deeply respected Tessa for her honesty. That’s what may have drawn the young footballer to her, and they were both proficient at being humble and staying true to the gameplan and the training schedule. Of course, they still held differences- she was still bitter about Sir. Lionel Mah, the manager who Frank owed his current status with the national team while he was still a junior at Saguenay Tech, pushing his way into managing Willox Street Pirates over her father, and they still argued over petty cultural differences long expected between a level-headed Quebecois and his Schottian equivalent. Regardless, they loved each other dearly because as it's commonly said, the realists often make the best romantics...




Three Years Ago...

Handon, Schottia

'You sure going to a party this late is a good idea?' Frank asked Myeong-Yoon, his close friend at the Quebecois women's basketball national team, whom he had also known since the childhood days. Unlike Asher, Frank did not hold as vivid memories of his younger self, but the reunion with the Heos who came to Midtown all the way from Mississauga certainly helped in them being friends to this day, even as they lived different lives as public individuals. 'Like, they will notice us on the streets!'

'Oh, shut up!' Myeong-Yoon shot back at Frank, as the two were trying to make their way to Hazel's place from the nearest train station. It was a breezy mid-summer day in Handon, Schottia, where the two were struggling to find the direction- neither of them were good at it- and they 'How many times do I have to tell you that it's not our choice to go or not- it was Hazel’s call. You know how much she wants to see you…’

Right, Frank looked at the full moon, as he tried to think little and walk further. Being a jogger, he always loved going on walks around his neighbourhoods or parks, but doing this in the middle of old, middle-class district of Handon wasn’t something that he had in mind on an eleven in the evening.

It was about two years ago when Frank had met Hazel Hanson-Conavacio for the first time in his life. Back then, on a Di Bradini Cup team, Frank and Hazel happened to have ended up on the Quebecois side that had made little difference on the group stage, but stumbled their way through Valanora in what was a fruitful journey of self-discovery for the young Argonauts.

Red….black….white…Frank recalled how Hazel, as she instinctively handled the football along the left side of the turf while he watched from the sidelines...and couldn’t help but to be amazed with her artistry. From that moment on, they knew that Frank and Hazel, while both coming from renowned families of their own, were bound to face each other for the next two decades. Fortunately, after many chats and trips with his teammates on their time in the training camp and then in Valanora, everybody in the junior national team had a stronger bond than what they had originally envisioned. Relations between Frank and Hazel, somehow, happened to be one of those cases- while they, as leaders to the team, always quarrelled over how to execute the strategies, and never agreed on their preferred choice of Pizza toppings, Frank and Hazel also came to appreciate each other for their respective stubbornness, and as result kept in contact with each other to limited extent on L’Instagramme and WhatsUp after he headed back to Saguenay Tech and her Haligonian.

‘So who’s coming to the party tonight? Once again, a neverending list of celebrities we expect from Hazel, like that time when she hosted a new year’s eve party?’ Frank continued to ask, with both of them chuckling at the reminder of the very last time they met, at Hazel’s Halifax flat. ‘You know it was such a nightmare to get everybody out with the fire alarm, and a couple of guests she brought - I think Gonzo the rapper and Jang Hyo-Seung the poppin’ dancer - who got hospitalised…’

‘Apparently, this time will be different.’ Answered Myeong-Yoon, much to Frank’s surprise at the basketballer. ‘Apparently Rico Sierra, that famous Krytenian pop star of Avides bred and habits, Hannah Michaelson, the swimmer’s daughter...and Tessa Maitfield? Have you ever met her?’ Myeong-Yoon raised her eyebrows, only realising now that Hazel mentioned the latest CSKA Quebec transfer’s name as a minor name-drop when they talked over the phone yesterday. Myeong-Yoon, while familiar with international football, couldn’t help but to struggle on any reason behind why her, the rival of Hazel’s infamous brother, Enrico ‘ricky buck’ of Myana, was even invited. ‘I think she’s Tim Maitfield’s daughter..the one at Crisisbless United.’

‘Oh, her? Thought she’s back in Nephara,’ Frank said, grabbing his chin for a sec, as he noticed the oddity too. Knowing Hazel, this did not make much sense to invite someone whom, to borrow Hazel’s words, was the living definition of ‘reliable, predictable and boring’. ‘Not sure why she’d risk all the travelling back and forth, since Cosumar’s just four hour flight away. Apparently, she came to CSKA because of old man Killanen though.’

‘Makes sense. Seems like a Killanen type of a player, and no way she would have gone to Hals, even though papa Leo’s all bogan and whatnot,’ Myeong-Yoon nodded in a big brain meme mode, with his questions magically resolved. ‘You know what? Maybe that’s why she’s here..Hazel may have invited her in case somebody has to take over by calling the ambulance after she, you know, makes inroads with Rico Sierra. Ah, the foxy bitch...’ Heo Myeong-Yoon and Hazel Hanson-Conavacio, the two budding superstars in making for the women’s national basketball team (how Hazel could play both sports, we’ll get to that later), and they had become friends since their high school freshman days. At this point, they had known each other well so that a Myeong-Yoon’s move would easily be detected and countered by Hazel, and vice versa.

‘At least she won’t be lonely.’ Frank smirked, understanding the side of the fence this Tessa may be on. ‘At least she won’t be the only one who’s gonna have a hard time with the drinks.’ Frank yawned quietly, trying not to make too much sound out of his biological act. ‘So our plan for tomorrow with travel plans?’

‘Tomorrow problems stay tomorrow problems, you sleepy head.’ Myeong-Yoon jabbed at her friend’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry so much about it yet.’

At least I won’t be the lonely one out, Frank gave a light smile, as they continued to chat for another ten minutes until they finally found the small, multifloored house that Hazel lived in Handon during holidays. Frank was relieved that at least he wouldn’t be the only fool, the awkward, socially-distanced man in middle of a massive social gathering.




3 hours later...

The party went along as expected for everybody. The lights, the bulbs, the meeting of eyeballs, and the firm mix of odd alcoholic odour coming from every corner - the environment was relaxing, understanding and gradually forgetting.

Ah…..ah….ah….. Frank felt his phone vibrate while drunk, as he was watching all unfold on the comforts of his sofa with little intrusion. He was smiling, enjoying the moments unfold, as eh felt the odd sense of merging faces with how happy they were, almost as if they were about to break down his barriers towards their ‘eccentricities’.

Frank unlocked his phone, and he checked the phone. Unfortunately, it was nothing but a work email from Marzig, which certainly wasn’t something a lad wanted to read while on a party. So he closed the phone, looked back, and kept himself immovable thanks to the weight of alcohol in his system.

He recalled earlier on how Myeong-Yoon left him with a friend of theirs, a certain Tikariotian metalhead Frank never ended up remembering her name, and went off to pick up a couple of drinks. Then everything just passed quickly- he remembered talking to the girl about her home province of Viljamark, their opposition towards bloodsport, and their respective preferences of alcoholic beverages that while tempting, left him back on the couch wondering the purpose of his presence in this party where everybody had clear intentions but he.

The upcoming trip to the southwestern tip of Tyran better be good, especially after yet another forced failure at this party…

Frank thought of disappointments that formed around every time he went to a party where none of his ‘les gars’ were really present- and thought of how things so small, from an accidental spill, spoiled it more often than not. Then not much he remembered.

The next thing Frank remembered, however, was that he was outside Hazel’s place, as Frank desperately attempted to get some air. What he remembered was that his stomach was twirling like a late night fishing trip on some distant sea, and Frank had no choice but to escape it.

Ah...Ah...Ah… As he quickly gaped for breaths in a set of disgruntlement, he heard the door shut once again. ‘Huh,’ he lifted his voice as he turned around to see who it may have been. Unfortunately he couldn’t exactly see who the stranger was, so he turned his back again, hoping that he didn’t see a goblin.

Fortunately for Frank though, it was the opposite of a goblin, as Frank once again heard his name being called out. ‘Are you not comfortable with where you are, aren’t you?’ Frank heard somebody, a feminime voice shout behind him, sounding as if she had already heard of a relative-nobody in him. Frank turned around, unintendedly bumping into her as they briefly slumbered before seeing their faces once again.

To his surprise, it was a girl, who looked similar to Hazel- a tall, blonde with a sleek figure and all the confidence she needed on the surface to make it to the big stage on whatever her career had meant. As Frank gathered his gaze, he looked upwards and realised that it may be this….Tessa Myeong-Yoon may have mentioned about earlier.

‘Um...yes. As you can see, I’m not from here.’ Frank responded, trying not to embarrass himself in front of her. Deep inside, however, he was practically frozen, noticing at how the stranger, who may have just heard of his name just as a name-drop five minutes ago, approached the perfectly-embarrassed guest. He couldn’t help but to admire how she caught his eyes- a pretty woman but without having to flout her traits; medium-length blonde hair, blue eyes with hues of grey added to it, and her smile that only semi-concealed the layer of ‘tristesse’ in the Schottian. Frank remembered seeing her sometime back in the first hour of the party, probably chatting with Hazel, the host of the night who was distracted trying to arrange beer pong tournament pairs and to keep Myeong-Yoon’s hands off her prize of the night.
Of course Frank, being ever so poor with his eyesight in terms of ladies, happened to just acknowledge along and moved onto another chamber. But if there’s one thing, that after all the epic failures Frank experienced that night, from that dead-end conversation with the Tikariotian, the slumbering self at the living room sofa, or the desperate attempt not to throw up or embarrass himself outside her place, that he was going to remember was how the two misfits looked at each other.

‘Thought so. You know, I’m from here as well, but not really- grew up mostly in Ceni, spent time in Port Christopher and then played in Cosumar before moving to your country.’ Tessa responded, the timbre of her voice clearer and bitterer than earlier, mostly because that may have been any better way of describe Tessa’s struggles. To be underestimated, to be ignored along, and under constant conflict… Forever wanderer, as your friends would call me.’

‘Hazel feels the same way, please don’t feel bad,’ Frank responded, trying not to laugh, and then brought his face closer to her. At around 178cm, they were roughly around the same height. Eau de cologne, like sea salt from South Berwick- he could smell it right away, and their gaze leaving them dazed. ‘I think you should go back home. Friends want me to stay a bit longer, in case they need someone to order a cab or call an ambulance.’

Of course, that’s not how the night was gonna turn out, as Tessa grabbed his left arm, not letting go of the grip. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said back to him, the distance between two of them practically nonexistent. ‘You need somewhere quieter, not walking your way back to downtown. The trains will take a while to arrive apparently.’

True, Frank thought, thinking about how much time he and Myeong-Yoon had wasted in their near-perfect effort to blend into the crowd. The grey in her eyes, as he looked further at her, started to lift, replaced by shades of purple and lavender.

‘Why not the basement? I know Hazel has plenty of rooms there, and none of her girlfriends are ready to sleep, I don’t think.’ Frank said, looking at Tessa’s natural layers of pink and the fading hues of lipstick.

‘Sure, probably easier to talk there,’ she said, deciding to let the instincts handle it.




Every first moment, even for those who had long anticipated the matter, requires awkwardness. That’s exactly what happened to Frank and Tessa as they slowly fell into each other’s arms, and found their physical comfort in each other.

Given both their status as professional athletes, they knew what the term ‘good sport’ had meant, and while it took some effort to lower their rice purity test score, the hard-worker in them also knew what it meant to enjoy the process. Innocent touches under the dim lights, primal instincts in the darkness, the mix of IPA and tonal signs on their breaths, the chuckles at noticing how awkward they were under test drive...it was something new for both Frank and Tessa.

When the morning came, Frank couldn’t help but to realise how quickly the hours had passed, and how sometimes, unlikely things just happened to happen beyond the matters of his control. The warmth of another body, stark to the degrees of uncertainties around their lives, were something that he knew neither Frank nor Tessa were comfortable before in their young lives and careers, but it was in that where they saw promise in one another. Her lip balm, the curves of her form, and the way her hair tickled his shoulder were only the additional reminders to that.

It was strange, unfamiliar and of course, scary for either party, who have gone through enough bitterness in their lives and did not want to say it so publicly. But, at least, the matter of liaisons was going to start differently for once, and he may not even have to make it all the way on West Aotearoan mountains to see that.




In the meanwhile...

Of course, everybody but them knew this was a matter they had planned in advance. As Heo Myeong-Yoon sat in the local twenty-four hour breakfast diner, waiting for the others to come along, Heo Myeong-Yoon exhaled and was relieved at the success of the mid-summer party in Handon. All the heart-warming and stomach-filling smell of pancakes, maple syrup and the rich breakfast fare were giving her much relief. Sitting on the table, she recognised Hazel Hanson-Conavacio, Mara James-Yim (Schottian olympic swimmer Rebecca James's daughter), and Ben McGowan the latter's fiance. Myeong-Yoon saw them all smile in surprise, as she embraced each other.

'Congrats for well, being the number one to hit the old diner! Not tired I guess?' Mara spoke as she noticed how Myeong-Yoon, even though tired, looked even happier than everyone (including Myeong-Yoon herself) intended. 'All good I guess? Ready for some shopping later?'

'I guess so!' Myeong-Yoon responded with her hands on both sides of the waist. 'The flight is still not until Tuesday, but you know, better start thinking about what'd be best souvenirs to get for our hosts down there, and not to make mistakes. Stay environmentally-friendly and whatnot.'

'I agree with you for sure,' Hazel responded, noticing the odd void in Hazel's seat, before asking. 'Where is Rico?'

'Rico's still asleep...that bastard will probably drop by in twenty, but he's taking forever with showering,' Myeong-Yoon responded as they all chuckled, realising that the host's mission, carefully planned from the beginning, had once again failed- with her best friend being the lucky one of the night. 'Let's see how he's gonna do.'

'And what about you know, Tessa and Frank?' Ben asked, too noticing that the happy-go-early people were missing. 'Did Frank leave early last night?'

'Um...' Hazel cleared her throat. 'Let them be...the lovebirds, they took my bedroom when I decided that it was time to kick a couple of unruly guests, and send others home. Last time I checked before that they were in the basement, but apparently somebody told Tessa to go upstairs instead, because the bed's comfier there...who was it? Huh??'
WORK IN PROGRESS: The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere: Megathread!

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The Royal Kingdom of Quebec
Negotiator
 
Posts: 7437
Founded: Feb 15, 2012
Ex-Nation

Postby The Royal Kingdom of Quebec » Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:15 am

I Run To You

PART 10 (52) - Outdoor Sports


'Well, here it goes again,' Frank drew a shallow sigh, as they each ate a piece of traditional fare (egg mayonnaise in this place) slowly. Even on their third year into this smooth-sailing relationship, Frank tried his best to explain to Tessa about how the Lundrigan dinners involved enough delving into potential landmines and even more sources of hidden dynamites, a symptom of coming from the rural nobility and Vdaran monarchy as well, something that Tessa was still getting hang of. 'Mummy won't be happy neither you nor Eileen will make it, but they know business is business and at least papa will calm her so with an old tale from twenty years ago, when he was working with the Foreign Office.'

'Is she still unhappy about what happened back in Christmas?' Tessa asked Frank, her mind somehow still fresh from two-day trip they had to Bron-Yr-Aur estate, when all had gone wrong with the absence of certain personnages the family elders, especially the Baron his uncle, wanted to see. Both Tessa and Eileen, due to Asher opting to spend Christmas at Coxwell Park with the Lauzons, and Frank required to stay in Marzig due to Boxing Day and New Year's Day matches, were absent. Thus their father, the youngest of five, heard plenty from their siblings about those absences. Of course, we cannot blame either of them of course, and better days were spent on Christmas Markets in Marzig and the massive clan they had on that Bridgertonian 8.0 estate, but the implications were still felt. 'You know, your mum would be easier to fly to Vdara if celebrations are what she is looking for...'

'Mummy is mummy.' Frank nodded, as he slowly passed another piece of eggs to her in an act of adorable boyfriend's matter. Not that Tessa was impressed with said act, but hey. 'She likes that you have a clear role in CSKA, and that you aren't breaking hearts, to borrow her words...' Tessa shook her head, signaling him to tone it down in the presence of others. All Frank could do were to smile back at her. 'but don't worry so much about the dinner tomorrow night. It'll all be fine.'

'Listen, if this is because Ash's not saying much about...you know, you don't have to go.' Tessa moved forward, gently touching his hand to gesture not to worry. 'You can always say you're too sick to attend, or have to fly back to Marzig. Of course, this won't earn you favours but who cares?'

'Probably not.' Frank shrugged, trying to highlight that it is in that nature which causes problem for them. 'I think that's even more the reason why I assume, papa asked that I come. Else he'd have just let me travel for the Coupe du Roi. If anything, he's probably heard from those in the Foreign Office and the Party (author's note: reference to Parti Justice du Quebec, third-largest party in the nation with its charismatic leader, Arsene-Pierre Kim) about the...upheavals.'

While preferring to stay out of his brother's affairs, partly due to how tedious they were and the musical preferences- he was much more into rappers back home, some of whom he knew well- Frank Lundrigan wasn't clueless about the sordid tales of madness in every direction about said Smurfgate. Oh the very thought of his brother, whom Frank knew Asher wouldn't have mixed flesh even under those circumstances, stuck in middle of highly awkward situation that involved two of Tessa's future teammates, and Marco Hertel of all persons? Of course, Frank had to restrain his own mind from flying into scary tangents.

'Don't worry about me,' Tessa insisted, hoping that her boyfriend would at least have closure over what she viewed as a typical family dinner. It would be a lie to say that she didn't miss those- most of her professional years she would eat with both her parents (Tim was still working, remember?) five days a year at most- and Tessa liked both his parents in that they knew where to cross the line and intervene, but stayed quiet otherwise. 'Wish Ash the best regards though, alright?'

'Alright.' Frank responded.




A day later...

Frank and Asher's parents, neither of them natives to the city, lived in a refurbished version of 19th-century Hanok that drapes much of the capitol's Saint-Lazare district, a recent addition to the houses the pair had lived since their undergraduate days at St. Croix. There were three rooms in the complex, with the master bedroom complemented by office for both their father Robert and mother Athena (de Chanie). The living room, located on a separate building with the kitchen, was fairly packed with groceries and newspapers, suggesting that the space may need some cleaning for another social occasion.

The four Lundrigans, reflecting different state of the family, were coming in different shapes- Athena slim, Robert horizontal, Frank short and Asher filled with girth, and all couldn't have been more evident as they decided to subject themselves to a particularly filling treat of pork belly barbecue.

'So how are you?' It was Asher who broke the ice, as he picked a piece of pork belly from the grill placed on top of the table. 'It's May yet you seem as busy as the taxation agents. Is the Foreign Office still bothering you, as always?'

'Every day, any day,' Robert answered, trying not to make too much of the parliamentary proceedings that had bothered him as of late. With the matriarch, Athena de Chanie, not really answering requests for public enquiries, Kim government officials and members of Parliament had brought him up on regular capacity, causing all sorts of nightmares for the diplomat and former Member of Parliament. 'They have been asking about various current affairs events regarding Chania and Nicosia, as well as upcoming Vdaran elections, something that has brought up the question of republicanism there....all the travesty and pomp those bastards say, getting around with words without substance.' Robert made clear note of his complaint by tapping his neck, the gesture in which Frank immediately responded by pouring Soju at his father's glass.

'So the same old story down in Parlement, the work and whatnot, is what you are suggesting?' Frank asked, trying not to irritate either Asher or Frank. Neither were really bothered about seemingly-apolitical Frank, of course, but this was a Lundrigan family dinner and anything could just erupt out of nowhere. Frank had to do it carefully.

‘Exactly, son. The Foreign Office may request for the ambassador to be recalled, but that’s another matter...a bad sign that neither those in Chania, nor Foreign Office really want to deal with. It’s inconvenient for everybody, you see….’

Asher picked a couple of pork belly pieces with chopstick, before moving it closer to his plate. 'Seems like the same ole. Not that the Vdarans have done much to us anywhere anyway.'

'Nonsense.' Robert responded, trying to remind that the Chania House were still his family, but that second may have been too late. 'Whatever happens there does concern us and whatnot-'

It was the mother, Athena de Chanie, who took grave offence. 'And what makes you the right person to say that, Asher Chania Lundrigan?' She demanded, briefly punching her right fist to signal that enough's enough. 'Is that what you are going to say to your father, after all the miles he went through in order for you and your brother to be born?'

'Well, yes, mummy, but it's clear from the onset that the Vdaran monarchy, however familial, have lost the favour of those people.' Asher tried to reason with her, of course with a careless remark so typical of his. Frank, sitting on the other side of the table, knew this was going to be another long evening. 'It is not really up to us, as gentry, civilians and whatnot..'

'Is that how you are going to say to Eileen?' Athena de Chanie responded, her anger fittingly near the top of the gauge. If there's one word that's going to tick off the former princess, that'd involve Vdaran affairs. Of course, for Asher, it was going to inform any possible slander aimed at Eileen, his boyhood love. 'What will your grandfather, his majesty himself, hear about the matter of practical treason by his grandson, who is back with the woman who destroyed him and will destroy him due time, as they had said....'

'Athena, I'm sure that's not Asher's thinking about,' Robert responded, his glass feeling even more slippery than they were about half an hour ago, when they started grilling the meat and the kimchi on the portable grill. 'But yes, he did not say the most sensible of words when it comes to the matters down there. But it's best not to think about it right now.'

'My apologies, mummy.' Asher gave a half-felt apology, as if he's apologising only out of obligation. 'It wasn't something that I had intended to say, and I will keep quiet for now, about the matter I may know less over.' Frank saw his mother briefly cool down, and slowly rolling her eyes to switch the topic. 'Anyways, I hear that CSKA's playing in Coupe du Roi tonight, hopefully they will do well right?'

'Actually, it just finished an hour ago,' Frank smiled as he raised his shoulders, drawing a nod from both his parents who were much happier when talking about Tessa Maitfield. 'Tess said she'll call in about an hour, so I hope the plane will arrive by end of the night?'

'Tell her not to skip vegetables and of course wash them.' responded the Vdaran princess. 'She's eating well, right?'

'You know better about that than I, mummy,' Frank lightly brushed his hands, to suggest a matter of tease. That's where Frank Lundrigan, Asher's socially-awkward brother, had an advantage over Asher- at least he knew when to provide good humour to his parents. 'I assume we'll probably go out for groceries tomorrow...you know, exactly as the club nutritionist assigned her to do so. You know those people, they are essential to those doing their work.'

'Certainly,' Asher agreed, trying not to make further fight about the spilt milk. 'Tessa will do well with the new manager. I mean, she has to, else the team will be run by a bunch of Zootopia characters, n'est-ce pas?'

'Exactly.' Frank couldn't help but to laugh, as he nodded and grabbed a piece of lettuce.




Well, at least the dinner was over.

At least it worked out much better. The last two dinners all four of them had ended up in catastrophes beyond our imagination, whether in the form of burnt meat or a couple of flipped tables over something silly. So, the fact that the Lundrigans were able to avoid a complete eruption over something so petty and simpleton were miraculous on their own right.

As the night progressed, the obvious portraiture of the family had shown. Athena the mother, long burdened with next thousands of days filled with all sorts of daring tasks coming ahead, showed interest in a self-sufficient Schottian with enough issues on her front, so Frank kept her entertained while also chatting about Ortelian teleseries they were happily torrenting under illegal methods. Asher, on the other hand, made sure to entertain updates about Reminiscence VIII, the album by 57-year old conceptual band Hoesahng that Eileen was able to join for one session. The old man, who was a maverick in his twenties, noted with amusement as he watched his son talk about the chords and progressions, before wondering about how time had passed so quickly.


Now both brothers were on their way back home, as they slowly strolled their way back home. For solid five minutes after they left the place, they didn't say anything. The silence, which was only covered by the car noise and the footsteps of night shift workers, were deafening enough as it stood. They both knew what went wrong this time and even though nothing big happened, the same old story had occurred.

'Well, sorry about that.' Asher broke silence, finally acknowledging his fault after three hours. 'I know mummy's still upset over a lot of things bureaucratically here, and I know you don't like those here either. Guess I should have seen it coming.' Wait what???? While Asher was no short in making apologies to himself, him apologising to his brother, whom he didn't really interact much, rarely happened. So this, all in all, was even more of a surprise for Frank.

'It's fine. We know what you go through. I have it easy compared to you.' Frank nodded, feeling the night shiver once again. For one he could feel the Quebecois weather being colder around this part of the day, and thought along. 'She's never at fault, and we all know that.' It only took the entire night and a nearly-spoilt family dinner before something about the familial illness came up.

Frank remembered how he, while lost in middle of a local hospital in San Ortelio en route to pick Asher up, had overheard a conversation between the Tequilian shaman and his brother. Frank knew that based on how obscure of a hospital corner was, and the grim facial expression it held, all seemed clear:

'Don't do this, Asher. You know what is going to happen, and that's not going to be up to the holy Bua himself, to fix the mess you'll find yourself in...' said Isabel the Shaman, warning Asher with graceful hand gesture intended to bring his focus.
'No, Isabel, Eileen deserves someone better than a dying man in me, and that's what you have heard from me.' responded Asher. 'Let the pros come calling, and I'll bless her from the distance. Just watch me.'
'Have you thought of what your happiness means?' Isabel asked. ‘You don’t know what it means to sacrifice-’
'Does it matter? The curse I live with, it's better I die with it than to inflict it upon her!'


Then, like the mangy lion's roar, Frank's thought thread evaporated into the air, as then-fifteen year old Frank ran away, pretending he heard nothing until the morning arrived.

‘...I know I shouldn’t be behaving like this, but you know mummy’s never going to be happy with Eileen for what she knows so little of.’ Asher stroked his forehead, feeling the heat coming out of his overheated head. ‘Eileen, she’s hurt too because I didn’t want her to be hurt by an undeserving lucky bastard in me.’ It was evident that Asher was both the guilty and the victim party tonight, and all were due to layers of personalised feelings that nobody really attempted to discuss on an intimate level.

‘She’s a proud woman. You know that very well, and behave like mummy as well.’ Frank nodded in agreement. Frank wasn’t bitter about what he had seen, and knew why Asher wanted to run away from his expectations, but still, this didn’t help with the matters either. ‘But you do have to make a choice, at some point. Else you're only going to hurt Eileen more. Do you think I'm happy I live on the other side of the continent away from Tessa?’

'Well, no.' Asher shrugged, trying to give off no hint.

'Then you need to prove that you either let Eileen go, or tell her everything.' Frank answered back, looking at his brother for once. Oh, how the time has passed... Frank couldn't help but to realise how the past, from then about seven years ago, and now were overlapping. 'I know you can do it, but please don't drag on for another two years for a commitment you will regret later.'
WORK IN PROGRESS: The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere: Megathread!

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The Royal Kingdom of Quebec
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Ex-Nation

Postby The Royal Kingdom of Quebec » Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:15 am

I Run To You

PART 11 (53) - Visions of Gideon


Shattered, pieced together, back again, for the last time
I have loved you one more time, is it a video?


Eileen de Ramaut thought in verbal flashes, as she slowly woke up in her bedroom in Coxwell Park estate. Immersed in thoughts of the last seven years that had passed between her, she was thoroughly disturbed at how the time had come and flown, like how they had expected her to embrace the brushstrokes of fate. Did Asher go through the similar strokes and come off a different person? She knew he did, but never really came to ask what exactly happened during those years.

Coming into the musical industry early, from a rural family better known for their musicians in the middle of nowhere, Eileen had grown up experiencing full of surreal, surrealist experiences. While always happy, she was sensitive to the environments surrounding her life, and continued to become so as she signed a recording deal, released first two albums, and then travelled as schedules brought her along. It was at the very tail end of the second cycle when Asher and Eileen first met as seventeen and eighteen year olds. Eilen remembered how he, while a notable prospect in the minds of baseball fans, was someone also aware of his settings. Like her, he’s used to the expectations but was otherwise let be left alone to pursue other interests of his, and that’s something that brought them closer than either the catcher or the singer-songwriter had intended. That sense of confidence, more present than fake, aware than unaware, was what they still had after five years of misery, but Eileen wasn’t enough of a fool to notice that something had changed during all those years.

While back in her Montreal flat, Eileen had a chilling dream that happened to transpire upon her, as the countdown to the Hoesahng VIII album release inched closer and closer. In her dream, she was slowly transported back to their first months together, in the middle of what was a hot Montreal Summer, with the stifling heat and the city filled with casual tourists and people too busy with their lives.

She didn't remember what day of their first summer together it was, but it was one of those odd, magical days in her first time living in the big city. Eileen remembered carefully holding onto her seat and Asher, while they drove along the West End streets on his motorbike, with their aviator goggles and helmet on. It had just rained earlier in the morning, but the day still felt as if it could use more showers of shades both purple and jade, as her hair floated and danced in the air, and they could only feel the speed increase. Those first months, all alone and then not, were quite magical for Eileen, still figuring out herself in the city neither called home 'yet' (and Asher still didn't to this day!), and yet not really alone. As eighteen and seventeen years olds it was something they could never return to, but held deep inside their hearts.

Of course, Eileen wasn't oblivious to the fact that their second lap, even after two years, had an entirely different feeling. The first time they were together, Asher and Eileen were still newcomers to the game, him having minor foolish dashes and overnight mistakes but none too serious of relationships, while Eileen was simply too shy and 'distant' (if that would be the right word to describe the lengths in terms of travel) to consider such. This time, the couple had both come off relationships and mistakes since then, and may have lost pieces of themselves as well.

Eileen remembered, as she quietly got changed, reminded by occasional nights Asher would wake up out of the blue, shivering and haunted all the way down to his iris, which frightened her as their eyes met. On their first year together (author's note: this includes the Season 3, for she had only become more and more aware of the happenings on their second year), Eileen was stubborn enough to ignore the warnings coming from all those around her. The gamble, accented further by the messy, staggered nature of her breakup from a previous partner a year prior (so three years ago), was worth it and we shouldn't be blaming her for that.

Still, Eileen has heard more since, and as she spent the previous summer and autumn on a successful Multiverse tour for Summerlea, her third album, the gap between them couldn't have been pronounced any further. He was lonely, she was lonely, and while they would spend whenever possible in Quebec together, they weren't really in charge of the pace of life dictated upon them.

Perhaps that's why Eileen was afraid of what may next happen to them, and wanted to hide back home or somewhere whenever possible. With or without someone, that didn't really matter. The possibilities, derived by the what if's, were too tempting if anything - what if he didn't carry with him the sordid tales of madness from St. Croix, what if she were just bit bolder with her words, what if they were living much more normal lives with normal jobs, and had met out of blue on a Monday night, with a single swipe right on a dating app bringing all the pictures together? Of course, she knew that was silly enough to contemplate, especially given the unlikely circumstances on the very first day met, and how the train arrived at Saint-John-Upon-Battersea station at six in the morning three days later.

Back in her family plot, Eileen slowly walked out of the house, rushed towards the beach and then slowly found herself swimming into the waters of the Fundy. It was five in the morning and she was barely awake, but Eileen too knew that it was too late to grab more hours of sleep.

'The sun is rising again, like it's always been,' Eileen said, watching the sun slowly rise on the horizon. After several sleepless weeks travelling back and forth from the rehearsals, her flat, and his flat, she was finding herself either asleep by seven-thirty in the evening or awake by five. She swam a bit further away from the shore, noticing how the houses of the gigantic plot, where her family had lived, were getting smaller and smaller. Growing up here all her life, Eileen swam on these shores about few thousand times. Yet the feeling, of everything feeling smaller and the daybreak's golden rays surrounding her, remained persistently profound, perhaps giving her the energy that she was missing back in the Montrealais recording studios or the Capitolien community pools, and would only find sometimes when touring abroad.

Everything's passing so quickly, and yet time flies slowly here, Eileen felt her words bind her to the very bones, as she saw her cousin, a jogger slowly preparing his way to a promising high school junior season of cross country running, wave at her. Eileen certainly liked the warmth of the sun, the ray that caressed the souls that knocked on her realms this early in the day. She could see her reflections, her face down to its naked essence, staring back at her. She certainly wasn't ready to ask Asher what was going to happen, nor did she want to hear what he, in a drunken stupor, had told to a friend of hers few weeks ago. It was painful enough to go through the loss seven years ago, and Eileen certainly wasn't ready for it again.
WORK IN PROGRESS: The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere: Megathread!

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The Royal Kingdom of Quebec
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Ex-Nation

Postby The Royal Kingdom of Quebec » Sun Feb 14, 2021 9:49 pm

I Run To You

PART 12 (54) - Loneliness/Gymnopedies-I


Piece 1 - 2045: Tears

For the past century and half, the Quebec City's Metro (Metropolitan de la Capitale) was the one that's served as true citoyen's way to В путь. Being a regular people's device, there were various customs and regularities observed there, and one of those happened to be looking at the outdoor views over the ancient, elevated railways that had to be regularly renovated due to their age. At various points within the city, the station announcements would slowly wake up a sleep-deprived commuter or an exhausted student, as the trains escaped the underground section and into the light, giving them the signal of yet another day that's approaching them.

No matter how romanticised it may be, and how romantic it actually was, the capitol of 4.5 million people was clearly an industrial palace, a pageantry for many, and so when the magic came up in the most unexpected of occasions, they came up in the daily lives of those dreamy enough to see it, but not foolish enough to expect it out of unicorns and dazzle-dines. In Asher and Eileen's case, their occasion happened to be in middle of daytime schedules in Levis, the nation's eleventh-largest city best known for their industrial basins, and they didn't expect that as they were on the Line 7 train on what was going to be a 21-minute ride from the Esplanades-Samyeongdang station.

Everybody were dressed to their finest regular clothes, with occasional exceptions in the tourists whose clothes were either too noticeable or predictable to merge as Capitoliens. 'It does feel like summer for once, isn't it?' asked Eileen, looking ahead to a social they were attending on behalf of a friend. 'Everybody's feeling rosy and daisy.'

'You're right, love. Not sure why, but the daily....walk or ride just feels something different. Not sure why, maybe the blues is something to do with that,' Asher agreed, looking at how clear the water looked under the bridge, as they slowly moved back and forth while sitting. Being private individuals, they enjoyed the unexpected quiet on the Metro- the fast nature of the metro on a slow city, where the list of prominent people living there were endless and people in general were told to mind their business, had meant that neither Asher nor Eileen were bothered in middle of streets. The same level of anonymity, harder to achieve in Halifax, where Haligonian heroes were viewed with universal love on every restaurants, or California City, where an entirely different universe had existed, was one they had learned to appreciate the second time.

'Maybe the sun will shine again, just-' Eileen turned to the left, trying to say something. 'What was the line from that movie? The one we watched back in Oberon at Portbou-le-Petit?'

'The song at the credit scene right?' Asher tried to think, though the movie he was thinking was such a bore that he couldn't make much out of it. 'I thought we left before the credit scenes because we were far too tired to really stay bit further-'

'No, no, that's Merrick Ferland, the one we watched the week after.' Eileen reminded him, as the Metro came to a mid-train halt. 'That one we stayed, because the director worked on it as a first of trilogy.'

Right....the Tricksters. Gordie Jean-Cho. Asher squinted his eyes twice to lose pressure, and answered back. 'Still don't remember the name, but the drum solo was worth listening,' Asher smiled, as he started hearing the noise. The train started moving back and forth, but it stopped after futile attempts. Asher and Eileen, while comfortable on their seat, move back and forth, and they couldn't help but to feel worried about it once again.

'Oh dear,' Asher said, trying to not to be to nervous about any scary idea. While not claustrophobic, he dreaded the idea of an unexpected death, the product of his fear over career-ending injuries to him or his friends (Myeong-Yoon being the key one, given her aggressive playing style) when younger, and also unexpected death, especially after the Miracle two years ago. 'Hope this isn't anything bad. I hope it's nothing bad-'

But that wasn't really what was on her mind, as she noticed something else over the window. A flock, a neverending flock. Of birds, of all shapes and species.....thought Eileen, as she noticed the waves.

'Here we go,' was all she said, her eyes lighting up from the darkest shades of blue to the mixed opal hues. Asher couldn't help but to smile at Eileen, as she watched the flock of fifty thousand birds fly with particular awe over the river, staring into the gracious forms they were flying. All he felt were gladness of being in the same place as her at this moment, as the thoughts of a letter to write had bothered him to the very bones. Not that the tensions, still present as expected in the months after the Smurgate, have really worsened or not, but brief moments of happiness were appreciable enough. The time, going back and forth between their ancestors' days to now, were making them feel the unusual sense of comfort over the bridge, with him as a happy camp-goer to her as the priestess.

Asher looked at her once again, his left arm still around her, and then slowly thought of an old verse that came from the Medieval Literature volume he had bought for a module as an eager freshman. As an eager freshman, he had anticipated the module to be his pathway to medieval studies as a career- while that's not how it happened, it did teach him some useful verses and many not-as-useful facts that he came to abuse in conversations. But, the feeling of being with someone special, even as he remained uncertain about how much time he had with her the second time, was enough of a secret joy that he couldn't describe it via words, and the warmth that combined with summer heat was enough of a smouldering purgatory for the man as well.

Of course, that may also be because the Quebec City Metro's 1993 stock had faulty air-cons during summers and heating system during winters. Either way, he was happy. 'You are still feeling like a kid again,' he chuckled, kissing her forehead as the birds continued to fly in what was a rare sight that would not end until they had crossed the bridge, into the city of Levis and Reneegrad.

Piece 2 - 2038: Blue

The water over the bridge was almost too tempting, as Asher Lundrigan and Eileen de Ramaut slowly walked over the L.J. Hardwick Bridge, the Montreal end of the bridge in her sight. This was her first day outside after almost a week staying in her flat. At two in the afternoon, the cool summer air that transversed between the island of everything and its South Shores struck in almost every direction. She walked along the cold, iron railings of the Bridge, as she looked out into the river. Below her the container ships were slowly sailing, making their ways to the port out on far west end near the Regimbault Airport, while the cruise ships, in middle of the Summer season, were docked with dozens of flags and passengers flocked over and beyond the deck. It was a slow walk, but the views from the walk across the bridge, where you could see the impressive sights all the way to the East End, were worth the wind blowing all over her face. Eileen sometimes saw people, walking into their lives, look at her with surprise, but fortunately let her be without much surprise due to the spot's popularity. Of course, the person at the northern end of the bridge found it somewhat surprising.

Well don't just stand there for me, you idiot! That's what Eileen had in mind, as she watched him stare back with amusement, before slowly walking back to her.

To be fair, that was a dick move on their part. Earlier in the day, they were counting on how many steps they had needed, and made a bet on whether it would take exactly 3071 or 4567 steps to cross the bridge. The rule of the thumb was that the bridge had to be crossed with that exact number, and whoever could walk faster and with correct number of steps would win. Unfortunately (and fortunately, depending on whom you're asking), there was no winner- while Asher, who had guessed 3,071 steps, had arrived ten minutes ago, he had done so on 3,217 hurried steps and therefore missed out, while Eileen was going to arrive later.

But neither had remembered what they were making a bet for in the beginning, and as the sunlight hit their faces, Eileen couldn't help but to notice how Asher looked completely different on a grey tee-shirt, with scuffled hair no different than in the morning, and the gaze he looked at her, as he ran. Eileen was used to the initial months of snapchat exchanges and lots of messages, and the initial five days where they were just casually dressed and did nothing but just lying about on her flat. But here, he looked somewhat drunk.

'Is all good?' Asher panted, finally stopping about ten steps before her. She stopped, before giving him a tug, and he stood up from an awkward position Asher found himself earlier. 'Okay, you took forever, let's admit it.'

'C'mon, it was you who forgot about it.' Eileen responded, giving a light smile as they started walking their way back. 'At least you didn't take forever.' It was true- Asher was bad with remembering time, usually due to not calculating time correctly, and he was bad with remembering time.

'Sorry, my bad. As always.' Asher said, still catching his breath while embarrassed. 'But god, this bridge is long. Not doing this again.' He tapped his hands together twice. 'What do you wanna do? You're not going to the studio today, no?'

'Nah, that's not until August. Let's just not think about it- I read it somewhere that the Vendome Circus has this candy store...' Eileen answered with anticipation, as she grabbed his hands and they walked together. 'Apparently it's a fun one, with the latest Oregano and Corn chips mixed in...'

'Yuck, sounds....interesting though.' Asher raised his eyebrows, amazed with some of the experiments they had come up with on the initial days. 'You sure that's the one near the station? I'm sure there gotta be better fun places.' Asher had joined her three days ago, on the very flat she had moved in two days prior, and they so far had some interesting experiences. Only three days had passed since then, yet enough whoopsie daisies had flown between them that was going to mark their first summer in the Smokey M. In those three days, they rarely left Eileen's three-room flat door, only to pick up pizza delivery, watch the crowds come and go, and maybe grab the mail by the mailbox on the first floor. Enough of those hours between, of course, were spent listening to music, chatting about music, or watch occasional television broadcasts of powerhouse Kingston Tigers or ever-so-unlucky Saint John Green Sox (last night's score? Saint John Green Sox 8-7 Kingston Blue Jays).

They had spent far too much time chatting about something so trivial in between as well, and the constant distractions of their family's winks via social media didn't help either. Not that they mattered though, for chemistry was abound either way. 'Okay, but you'll like what I picked up this morning on mail, right after...' Eileen winked, trying to distract Asher from some form of horror.

'Hasa Diga: the musical ticket?' Asher asked, being reminded of the 2027 Musical he had wanted to watch so badly, but had no time.

'Close, apparently Knowing Me Knowing You matinee is on, so they mailed me the tickets,' she said with a smile, quickly grabbing the two tickets out of her denim jacket pocket. 'Ta-da!'

'Alright, may as well try those new biscuits and chips then.' Asher giggled, amused with how his mind could change so quickly with a reward. To be fair, he, being a Quebecois, was also a creature of gifts, and musical theatre gifts happened to be one of those he had taken to liking too often. 'So should we go home first, or go straight to the circus?'
WORK IN PROGRESS: The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere: Megathread!

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Sat Feb 20, 2021 1:57 am

I Run To You

PART 13 (55) - Loneliness/Gymnopedies-II


Piece 3 - Summer 2038: Gymnopedies

The morning hit Asher and Eileen at their worst selves. Barely armed with their confidence, and seldom aided by coffee, it was a terrible feeling for both parties, as Asher, being the sluggish one, struggled to find himself in the maze of the Recording Studio no. 4.

Gosh, blistering barnacles... Asher couldn't help but to feel the endless bits of pain going back and forth, having drunk a fool bottle of screwdriver cocktails and some other combinations he didn't remember. Drinking hard liquor was one thing that his body, gifted with a sailor's genes and a baseballer's genes, had, but he didn't expect last night's seventeenth-birthday adventure to be this bad.

'Where's the clock? It can't be ten-' Asher asked, as he slowly walked into the studio. Not that he was able to see the clock anyway, there was none in the very live room. The control and the machine room had two clocks each, to suggest when the band or session artists should take a lunch or dinner break, but the live room itself didn't, mostly because of how distracting it could get for the musicians themselves.

Not that he would have had much use for it anyway, given his tendency to not really sleeping when asked to, and to regret the very next morning. This was one of those days, and he was not being the best show of himself again. Well, at least nobody's smelling the drunkard yet....shit. He sighed as he swiped his phone twice, marking a couple of Fuwa and Xenapchat notifications as 'read' and then placed it back on his phone. Then he finally found his way and entered the live room.

'Oh, hey you.' Eileen waved on the other side, sitting on her chair in front of the piano. Asher slowly came over, greeted Eileen with a hug, before standing right behind the piano. 'Come here, sit.' She said, not saying too much out of those three words.

'Nah, will probably just get in your way of playing.' Asher answered, stepping back once more to grab a chair and sit just six feet away. 'I don't know how to play piano, and you're the musician here. The bassoon's back in Kingston anyway...' The absence of his bassoon, an instrument he had learned to play for the past five years, was evident. Asher couldn't help but to wonder if it weren't for that whoopsie daisie earlier, he would be playing a tune. Of course, he could rent one out for a couple of weeks or pick it up when he's going to visit his parents next weekend, but Asher's not really known to be smart with devising such plans.

'Come on, don't make me nervous like that.' Eileen responded, chuckling at how slumbering Asher was in the space she felt no less comfortable in. 'You know, there's no one here.'

'Don't worry about me.' Asher said, trying his best not to worry about it. 'I know this isn't the first time you've let me visit here, but I can't let you lose those treads of...inspiration...and memories while I trawl around like an a human bass, ready to be served on the plate.' To be fair, that may have been the best way to describe first two months of their summer together in Montreal. The nerves, even as they eased into living in the city for the first time as eighteen and seventeen years, were more than enough, and socialisation part was enough pain for Asher, who barely knew anybody aside from a teammate who moved in back in July to play football for Farrer University Redmen. Hence, he couldn't feel but to feel lost, while having fun with all the discoveries as an underaged lad yet to enter his Baccalaureat year at the same time. 'But, for however long it can take, I’ll be here.’ Asher promised, hoping that these words would be enough.

'Alright,' was all Eileen said, as Asher sat in his seat, closing his eyes. The rest he could not remember, for he was partly zoned out and also for he was lost in the test of the time. By noon, he was starry eyed, and by two, her hair slowly flowed to the rhythm of the artificial night. By four, they were exhausted. Now, after an hour of scrolling through Fuwa and YourNewWorld, it was time for them to go.

Asher wanted to go to the Montreal Twins game, the idea which Eileen declined, instead suggesting to go to a nearby art gallery she had only found out, to hopefully see something different. With them just alone, in a mostly quiet gallery with postmodern sculptures, Eileen watched the lights go dark, blink twice, and then be turned back on, as Asher, being a slow watcher, straggled along with one sculpture that caught his eye. Then, just as he moved onto another sculpture, so did she. Looking into a painted sculpture that was effectively an early-21st century reinterpretation of Clytemnestra, Eileen couldn’t help but to wonder about the gravity of the fate that had drawn them together.

If the heavy, heated air of the night could suggest something, Eileen knew she loved Asher back. Of course she knew Asher had loved her since the very rainy afternoon they had first met, but neither had said anything about it. Asher was more of a man of actions with small actions, with his awkwardness the agent of genuine self, and he chose not to abuse ‘I love you’s’ like many his peers would. Now, with their first summer together in Montreal set to establish, Eileen couldn’t help but to realise the same.

Of course, this was Quebec 2038, where Eileen de Ramaut watched a major episode unfold, her emotions slowly coming up in gentle waves, almost as if they were the pebbles bouncing against the warm water of a summer pond. This was the Quebec where Grim Reapers were still four years away from returning to international football stage, but had just finished quarterfinals on IBC. The land of talented basketballers, promising gridiron tacklers, and hope….the land where Asher Lundrigan and Eileen de Ramaut couldn’t help but to stare into each other in a gallery.

Asher knew he had felt the same as well, with the way the lights blinked. As if the snowflakes sparkled trough the streets in middle of a light snowstorm, as if the silence were pronouncing their thoughts clearer, and the streams of their soul-flakes weave, back and forth, into a cotton-candied reverie...




Piece 4 - November 2038: Tears

After that wonderful summer, Asher had to go back to Kingston.

Still, never did they really lose control of each other. Whenever the weekends permitted, he tried to come to Montreal or East Coast when the schedules permitted him to do so, and the QNR Rail Pass, the first of several acts of gratitude Myeong-Shin had given to him with his friend in mind, came particularly useful for it. Being used to travelling far and away for baseball and hockey tournaments, and also watching his brother Frank do the same in football, he felt all too familiar with it all, and appreciated the grind of travelling four hours just to see her for two days.

And of course, as with every happy relationship, love takes two. An ever so questioning reader of mine or two would wonder why the initiative usually ends up being taken by Asher and not Eileen. With that, dear reader, please do not confuse this with lack of care on her side of it all. While I may not have placed enough emphasis on Eileen's part to their relationship, this is more on my limitations as a narrator. It just happened to be the case where Asher, the lad who's up to no good, happens to be the protagonist for the season.

Anyways, let’s go back to their story. So, we’re back sometime in late November. The final exams were still two to three weeks away for students of the Erskine Collegiate Institute in Midtown Kingston, and with the Fall Fare concert completed, it was more or less expected for the choristes to have time for themselves. Some would use the additional time to study, others would use it in a local pub (underaged drinking!) or eatery, and the rest would stay back in school for other club activities that were still going on, before the exams would force them to be halted.

Of course Asher, being an odd creature himself, had something else planned out. Normally, he would be out with his boys or spend more time watching QBO highlights, but today was going to be a different day. During the lunch hour break, just as he was chatting with his boys on the fourth floor, he got a text message that, of course, allowed him to clear the schedule after school’s done. During a month between two legs of her tour, Eileen was coming over to Kingston to see a friend of hers off to the University of Kingston, and Asher just happened to be lucky enough the choral rehearsals were postponed for the remainder of the term.

They had agreed to meet on the major intersection of Young and Linton, situated just about five hundred metres away from the Erskine Collegiate, over the Linton station that was a major transit interchange for those frequenting Kingston Subway or buses. The midtown Kingston was increasingly becoming densified, the product of a major city with largening centre and the housing demand that was matched with the parents’ own to send their kids to nearby public or private high schools, and Asher could notice how much pain in the arse that has become to his parents, who either grew up in a villa or a palace in Chania or the Bron-Yr-Aur House that was falling apart, day by day.

As Asher slowly turned around the corner and approached the Young Street, Asher’s heads were filled with millions of thoughts. It was already four in the afternoon, and all he could feel were the winds produced by the skyscrapers and slight bits of snow. Even in Kingston, one of the warmest cities in the nation, the late November hasn’t been the most pleasant of signs this time around, and all everybody was feeling was disgruntlement and pettiness. As he walked pass the popular Gyros resto and a couple of franchise coffee shops, Asher was already thinking about the summer and the roses that would bloom in the Montreal parks. That’s the funny effect of Quebecois winters- no matter how beautiful your summers can get, you cannot help but to wonder about how grass is always greener on the other side of your fence.

With that being said, Asher slowly walked further along the street, until the intersection was reached. In the middle of a large intersection, with dozens of cars stuck on the early onset of traffic jam and late trawl of schoolchildren heading home or to lessons, it was chaotic enough for him to find someone. Asher may be fairly tall, at around 5’11”, but this was something where his height wouldn’t really come of his service, and he sighed once more. Asher slowly looked around his surroundings, trying to see where his

Huh, was all that he said. Asher pulled out his cellphone and swiped right to see if there were any notifications. Of course, there was none, aside from her solitary text stating that she’s ‘here, in the intersection’. Asher rolled his neck twice, blinking his eyes thrice, and then after looking around again, placed his phone back in his pocket, before turning around...only to realise that it’s always the darkest under the lamp. Like that, she was standing right beside him.

'Gosh, you're surprising me again, woman!' Asher chuckled as their eyes met once again, gaze losing a second in a matter of telecolour revolution gone wrong, and their lips meeting. 'You always take my breath away.' Asher graciously smiled, smelling the roses casually conjured up in the winter air.

‘Stop being silly, Ash.’ Eileen smiled back at him, as they slowly walked along the street, hopefully trying to enter the subway station via a train. ‘You’re never going to be caught out of surprise, won’t you?’

‘I guess.’ Asher shrugged, just happy enough to see her. Unlike Asher, who was somewhat overwhelmed with coursework, Eileen looked exhausted but still confident, radiant in a ray of her own. However, the Kingstonian climate certainly didn't bring out the best of such rays at times, and the dark coat was one of the examples of that. Asher, on the other hand, was still dressed in a light, blue and chequered cardigan and jeans. 'But at least what's going to be done is done right?'

'Certainly.' Asher nodded, trying to not say too much. 'So where are we heading next? Parents are out of town again, and Frank's hanging out with his friends for the day.'

'Why not Downtown? Heard that there's this new restaurant out in Regina West that Abby has mentioned.' Eileen asked, trying not to make too much out of their conversation. 'Apparently the Krytenian curry place is pretty good, so she asked why don't we go there tonight.'

'Sounds good. Krytenians know what they make for sure.' Asher smiled in glee. For a guy who's lived so close (yet far) to Downtown, Asher wasn't really one who liked eating anywhere farther than 10km. His father, being a Member of Parliament, chose to stay mostly within the boundaries of his constituency or the neighbouring ones in order to keep privacy, and Asher usually ate some fried chicken or pizza with his friends. So in some ways, their lifestyle back in Montreal had somewhat continued in mini version. 'How's she doing?'

'Eh, you know. College stuff. Just enjoying the city life, which can get lonely at times, you know.' Eileen responded, trying to be careful with her words. 'They let you go this early in the day?'

'Band's done, choir's done, and hockey's not practicing this week.' Asher nodded. 'But it doesn't really matter even if I had anything coming up, to-be-eych.' He raised his right eyebrow.

'Oh, really?' Eileen asked again. 'You're still coming over for Christmas right? Coxwell Park?'

'Not sure, mum hasn't said anything.' Asher shrugged, noticing her sliding her hands into pocket. 'Apparently uncle wants everybody to come over to Bron-Y-Aur this christmas, and dad's not happy about it. I'll let you know if he'll let me go there though, but nothing's sure yet.' Then he slowly locked his right arm to hers. 'So tell me about that time when you were out in Esportiva..'




Piece 5 - March 2039: Loneliness

'Well, the worst has yet to come.' Asher felt his toes numb once again, his gaze tired and weary mid-flight from Nyhavn and Kingston. The noise of the Aerobus A350 was loud and evident, and the only way he was doing to drown out the noise is by listening to some Tikariotian heavy metal over the Sportivy (OOC: Sporting Multiverse's equivalent of Spotify, based in California City, Manitoba, Quebec). Still, Asher swore to himself his mind was far from being focused, truly disturbed by the latest realisations where he knew Eileen would be hurt regardless of what he were going to tell her.

I don't know how to say those words, but they are inevitable...

Over the last several years, Asher had spent so much time flying across the Multiverse, unexpectedly and expectedly so, that he was able to start remembering the rotation of plane foods on the lounge. So much for having Stelios the Second as grandfather and an admiral on the other side, Asher used to joke with his friends, as they sat on economy class cabins for all the ensemble tours (he had just as many friends on band program as he had from baseball or hockey teams). Being underaged, he knew there were enough drinks or services the stewards weren't allowed to offer to Asher, and decided to enjoy those schoolboy rides like a normal teenager.

Now I could feel the final months of high school slip before my eyes, but you know, would there be anything worthy to be said about it? Especially when I know what's gonna happen, regardless of my choice?

Trying to drown the voices inside his head, Asher scrolled along YourNewWorld, the nationbuilding gaming website best known for his forums. It was an interesting world, with plenty of options out there with its subforums, and Asher knew the one he, a high school student-athlete heading to St. Croix by September, found its sports message boards the most entertaining one. There he didn't have to deal with much inconvenience like slave market posts (long modhammered and punished), song contest megathreads that always clogged up a couple of Fuwa servers he use to frequent, and all the burnouts that came out with Forum 9 roleplays that sometimes had morally questionable roleplayers. Sports roleplayers definitely had their quirks and occasional feuds but they, overall, knew how to roleplay with variance and without specific framework that he found too restrictive from other subforums, so Asher's stayed there over past three years there.

'World Champs...Bowl...Hockey.....' Asher said to himself, as he scrolled along the YNW Hockey Championship 9 thread. 'Yikes.' Due to obvious reasons, Asher hasn't posted an RP in a week, and that clearly showed with the group stage results, as the two-time defending champions, Terra Salamantica, had lost last two of five to finish 8-2-0. Of course, it wasn't his fault Terra Salamantic had a bad run, for the scorinator sometimes produced weird results, and the chances of upsets against the number one ranked nation in that fictional world was already high enough with a strong group.

But all of that didn’t really matter to Asher Lundrigan, nor were the era really fitting one for the complete fulfillment of a high school romance.

This was Quebec in early 2039, where the boy was ready to say goodbye to someone he truly loved from the very first moment, trying his best not to reduce the first cut that’s the deepest. The Quebec where the monarch, whose youthfulness had galvanised the soldiers to victories over two totalitarian regimes, was ill on the first year of five year terminal illness that would eventually claim him. The Quebec with all the uncertainties surrounding its political climate, which would eventually cause a massive scandal and series of purges within its small-c conservative party factions. The country where the entertainment industry had continued to produce excellent independent films, but the blockbusters had been facing massive lack of innovative films with original films. The Quebec where the CSKA Quebec, without Sir. Lionel Mah who went back to Schottia, had no chance in winning the Q-League title. The Quebec where the Grim Reapers were still five years away from seeing the light again. The quiet, tranquil nation where Asher’s flight back to it….happened to spell the beginning of a half-decade descent.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
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Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:01 am

I Run To You

PART 14 (56) - Winter


The Renaissance Review of Books

Confessions, First Love and Recovery, of a Posthumous Novel
By Arsene Pineau Kim

OCTOBER 9, 2067

MONCTON, ACADIE - Asher Chania Lundrigan, 1st Earl Lundrigan, 3rd Baron Chania of Vdara, the finest writer of his generation that's still ongoing and present in his writing, was the youngest laureate of Royal Society Prize in Literature in 2060. The craftsman of prose in both short and long form, his works have included English-language novels The Death of A Fratire Man (2049), All Hallows at the End of Toji (2051), Orestes-Erigone (2053), Gwangmoo 1958 (2065), and the first four books of Korean-language trilogy In Retrieval of Our Past series, as well as four short story collections also written in English.

Befitting his massive bibliography was the life of a challenged man, whose life was one of adventures and unusual circumstances. Born in Quebec City where he held little childhood memories, he had lived several years beyond the Interrealm Portal before returning to spend a decade in idyllic settings of Midtown Kingston. After reading history and Korean language and literature at St. Croix, where he had studied under late Margarita Beckett and Tequilian shaman-philosopher Isabel Jurado, he worked as a journalist in Grearia, Cassadaigua, and then in Quebec City under The Taegukgi, before finding his way to the novel.

Unstoppable and productive at all times, Lord Lundrigan was at his finest as a novelist until his death in January this year. While concealing his political opinions, he saw himself more as a moralist, once recalling famously in an interview following the awarding, 'I have written my novels as epistolary memoirs, folktales or lesson manuals. A lot of it involves reflections, regrets and of course, confessions to those whom you love the most.'

Thus, as a moralist with his familiarity into all forays of surrealism, neo-classicism and modernism, Lord Lundrigan found himself firmly entrenched within the establishment, with strong faith in young educators and writers he had seen as promising in all quadrants of life. While not holding a literary school or mouvement of his own, something he found to be dangerous in principle, Lord Lundrigan found himself everywhere and nowhere at same time. Since his marriage and entrenchment into the seaside village of Saint-John-Upon-Battersea, Lord Lundrigan became a devout observer of Anglicanism.

While he exhibited his moralistic views less in his life, what began his career was arguably the most punitive piece of his career. His debut novel, The Death of a Fratire Man (2048), was a fascinating hit in the booksellers for its surrealist view of punishment of unnecessary, excessive behaviours his 'male heroes' display in contemporary literature, to the point where it has been misunderstood by many college students of current generation as a first-year morals textbook.

In it there were shades of his own reflections there, befitting of a man who for rest of his life was blessed by the love of his wife, Lady Eileen (best known by those abroad as singer-songwriter Plongeon), and whose themes of atonement and punishment coexisted in equilibrium unlike that of his contemporaries. In time for the release of the book, which had coincided earlier with the arrival of his daughter, Claire Athene, Lord Lundrigan moved from Quebec City to Saint-John-Upon-Battersea, where his in-laws and their family all resided on the Bay of Fundy.

Lord Lundrigan's posthumous novel, Confessions, was written in Korean over last eight years of his life and released earlier this year. A work commonly known to those around him as the novel of scenaries and sketches, Confessions was the work Lord Lundrigan had in mind as his farewell. Of course, the reasons behind its release this year, when the final manuscript of 'The Ophelic Coda', the final book of In Retrieval of Our Past series, was postponed for two years, remains unclear.
It was stated on Lord Lundrigan's 2064 lecture, 'The Aesthetics of a Quebecois Writer's Moral Progress', which he gave at St. Croix, that he had intentions to publish a particular favourite piece of his sometime in the next half-decade. While he declined to mention on the Q&A session on what event that may have influenced then 43 year old, at the height of the fame, to consider a prospective coda, one can wonder. His longtime friend and godfather of his daughter, the president of Quebec Foundation, Marc-Andre Pyo, writes in a brief introduction that 'it is a reflection into the late Earl's thoughts towards sacrilege, a hero's journey mixed with that of the questions that lie within the Book of Job.' One thing Mr. Pyo, high school and St. Croix classmate of his, mentions here is that Lord Lundrigan's sufferings and losses, which he self-inflicted upon as necessary, may have been best way to put it forth...





A mid-March evening, 2039

'Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
35I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
40I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.'
- MacBeth, Act 2, Scene 1 (Line 34-42) -


Can I not act upon what I am expected under a man's duty? Certainly. Should I prevent the fate's course, even if the destiny were to save a family or two? I believe not.

Asher Lundrigan was becoming stubborn and half-blinded. He saw that it was going to be impossible to tell Eileen or her loved ones about the curse he bore in the numbness of his conditions, and he saw even less possibility of getting away without telling about it. What they were going to deal with was the very fear of losing someone dear, that had run into his mind dozens of times. He couldn't bear to admit that, should their courtship continue beyond yet another year and eventually into holy matrimony (barring unexpected ruptures so common of teenage relationships), potential implications were going to be far too great for him to ignore. Asher wasn't ready to admit any bit, because he knew that was going to eventually surface or at least be suspected especially as his baseball career had limited shelf-age of five years. If the news were going to surface, Asher knew his best to break it all off, and abandon all duties.

Asher thought to himself, as he slowly turned around the Armistice Park corner and towards David Ogilvy's Bookstore where he was due to meet Eileen, to tell her the last words: 'I will be honest and let you go, because none of your dreams should have me standing in your way.' That's what he was going to say, without any reason why, and he's going to regret it but it was inevitable.

As he became nearer, Asher wanted to think about how unpredictable fate could be, and how all the chances he once had were for naught, as it had always been the case in Quebecois tragedies as a genre of plays. But those metaphysical thoughts, fuelled by his academic and personal training while studying for Baccalaureat Quebecois, were only disrupting his head and aching the pain of what's yet to happen. So Asher just walked along, checked his phone and tried his best not to collide into the crowd, as it started to rain on a mid-March day.

Three minutes of walk had him inch closer and closer. In the city of West End, there were neverending rows of dark umbrellas floating over the pavements, which were indicating the daily routine for some and concealing themselves for others. The old buildings were very much to the Industrial Age of 1800s, but the drizzles of evening rain and smoky clouds cast the very atmosphere set the atmosphere in which Asher found his soul within. He rapidly twitched his eyes, back and forth, trying his best not to be caught lost and crushed.

But the fear, the feelings, and her face, had all moved the subsequent sequence or two so quickly that he couldn't help but to feel his soul in Styx's ever so alluring powers, as rainfall became worse and worse. The sound of silence, so deafening to his ear, blasted unspoken curses at Asher. He could now see her and every bit of his muscles were loosening, as every step closer had earmarked the muscle memory.

In that brief interval of time, the rain starting falling over them, drenching the West End streets so violently that the Old Believers would have believed it to the return of their times.

'Ash!' He heard her shout that one word before he opened his eyes, as she ran to him, leaping towards him for a short kiss. 'Thank god you're back for once. Is everything alright?' Eileen asked Asher, only feeling glad to see him at the very tail end of March Break. If all things frank had to be said, the contrast in the air was jarring, as Eileen was only glad to see Asher after not seeing him since the Christmas break at Coxwell Park, while Asher was feeling every bit of the pain holding her.

'Um....there's something I have to tell you.' He hesitated, the intervals suggesting the seriousness of what he was going to tell her. 'And I have to tell you something right now.' If truth be told, it's already going out of hand, as the crowd couldn't help but to notice the anticlimatic scene between a beauty and a beast. While none of us, and certainly not myself, dear reader, could tell you what the bystanders were feeling as they looked, but their nerves were struck by it as well.

'What's wrong? Is there something that happened in San Ortelio?' Eileen, clueless about his imprisonment in Nueva Caracas, was unintendedly enquiring him the questions. 'Are you injured or something...or a loss...? I don't know...' She immediately feel her joint tighten as Eileen couldn't help but to notice that something was wrong with how Asher was behaving. No, that's all she had in her mind, but the intuition was saying otherwise and that was discomforting enough.

'I have to tell you something.' Asher sighed, their eyes meeting like how they did the first time. 'I have to tell you that....' Eileen started shaking, immediately realising why the rain was falling in shades of purple hues, everywhere. 'None of your dreams deserve me in it, and that I'll be honest to it and let you go...' he said the last words, not knowing what to say about the moments of doom, but at least at peace over the fact that the worst has just passed.

Then, like that, the time had stopped for a second. She was feeling lost, as if she had been shut out of entering a house as the door rapidly closed. With the abrupt nature, Eileen knew something important was going to be said, but she had never anticipated this evening to be that of a farewell. She remembered their moments, of the last March break when he unexpectedly came over, of that last summer in Big M, or their endless moments chatting across seven seas...only to see the glasses shatter on that said mansion. Eileen opened her eyes, a tear slowly falling, and tried to answer, but couldn't say anything. Instead, it was Asher begging for forgivensss, as he struggled to ease the pain they were sharing at this space:

'Sorry....you deserve someone better...It was bound to be so,.'

How tragic! Vanquished of his will, Asher felt his gaze loose and ran away while Eileen, hurt and lost, was left in middle of the rain, left there to cry without any word- to despair and weep.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:04 am

I Run To You

PART 15 (57) - 회상-III


Seven years had passed since then, as we now head into the Green Room of the QBC 1 and QBC2's headquarters in Downtown Quebec City. As the members of Hoesahng, the famous conceptual band that was famous for its longevity even with its revolving door of members, got ready for the recording of today's episode of 'Nam Chang-Seon's Boardwalks', Eileen sat in the seat, closing her eyes and not thinking too much. On the other corner, Jeremy Watkins, the drummer of 40 years for both Rogue (one of the finest rock bands in the nation) and Hoesahng, was having a quick nap before their turn to join the show, while the other three were waiting. They were second in the list of four artists and bands set to perform for today, and were getting themselves up and ready for a great comeback stage. And all the tensions, both expected and unexpected, were highly evident.

Why does it feel particularly weird tonight? Eileen thought with horror, as she looked at herself in the mirror once. No, there was nothing wrong with her appearance or self- the makeup, the clothes and the voice were all set. But there was something odd and Eileen couldn't help but to notice. I've been to The Boardwalks many times before, and it's always been good...but what's with this odd feeling? She looked at Guillaume and Marcel Triquiet, the brothers also forming two-fifth of another major Indie rock band from Moncton, Vozrozhdenie, and wnoticed that they had a drink or two of whiskey, feeling themselves in the mood as 65 and 67 year olds still feeling the sixteen in their lives. What would it be?

'Don't worry about it, Guy, must be like...the political climate of the times. Baseball and football, all the uncertainties and excitement of the crowd, they mix up nicely with what's out there and people seem to relish that or just want to get away with it,' said Marcel solemnly.

'Certainly. That may be what's a good part to describe at least a couple of songs here, no, if we have to ask others? The Caliphs of the Mytanijan Moonwalk definitely counts into that.' answered Guillaume. 'Of course, it's like a mix of Petanque and Capoeira, though not sure if that's the best way to phrase it.'

Eileen quietly went up to Janet, her manager who also doubled up as one for Hoesahng, gestured to her to pass Eileen something, and then gave a wink. The elderly, with one Rogue pair in their eighties and another in their sixties, were somewhat amused at the different language spoken, and of course saw it as a sign of times. When Janet quickly went outside to pick up some parcels, Jean-Alain Park, the band's ethereal founding father and leader at age 87, went up to Eileen to ask questions. After dozens of battles with lung and blood illnesses, Jean-Alain went beyond the humanly realms and spoke as if every bit, when out live or in the songs he composed, were speaking centuries of dead souls collected. But this time, it was not within the words he were about to say, but rather his role as a messenger.

'Is all good with you today, Eileen? You seem too quiet even with the rain today, and I'm not sure why,' Jean-Alain asked in Korean spoken by those of his generation, with odd additions of twenties and thirties vocabulary. 'Still nervous to be back live?'

'No...not at all.' Eileen lied. 'It's just...' Eileen stopped and tried to gather her words, looking at Jean-Alain not sure on what to say in her eyes, 'Have you ever had the moments when you thought you loved someone, yet felt inadequate to be with them...or at least for them to tell you about the inadequacies?'

Fortunately, this happened to be one of those matters he perhaps became too accustomed to. Being a rocker, and a Capitolien who had made major breakthroughs first in the 1980s Montrealer scene, and then second through his recovery as he neared losing his beloved wife and family on several occasions in 1990s and 2000s, he had perhaps known too much of what it meant to lose someone dear. The processes themselves, reflected in his walkways, tearful photographs and unreleased manuscripts, were agonising enough, but Jean-Alain knew those were integral.

'My answer is yes,' Jean-Alain said, his emotions hidden within the throat. 'Perhaps, too many times. But it's a hard question, on whether they can make it up or not....I was lucky she saved my life when I went to jail twice at twenty, and nearly died back when I was forty? It's like...the loop keeps going on, but also involves you letting go of your mistakes and hold your hands with the being when asked to.'

Eileen listened carefully, as he told her the stories of 1980s, when he were both at heaven and hell with the influences, but was aware not everything were transferable. Still, the observation that she had were profound, and the familiarity of the retro, and the scenes of old that she had long grown up as a child, gave her assurance.

Then, their conversation was interrupted by Marcel, who with a slight iffy expression came to deliver a different parcel he had happened to receive earlier.

'So, somebody told me to send this to you earlier.' said Marcel, as he raised his hand to show her a letter.

'Okay, thanks,' was all she said, as Eileen, not without the worry, picked up the letter.

Oh dear... was the initial thought Eileen had in mind as she had noticed, with much inner struggle before starting to read it, that her partner wrote it.

Eileen knew that between them, some moments of truth had to be said, and she was feeling it from the past week or two about that. But she had not noticed that it was going to be now, and she was having a hard time finding herself reading it. The confession Asher never promised, but had implied when they had gotten back together, was written in the letter. Of course no one had known about it but his brother (wait what!), as he wrote his letter while a tortured mind who could only promise her something.

The truths behind the tales that her friends and family, who still loved them and appreciated their happiness the second time it came around, were passed unnoticed. Eileen had of course heard about his infamies, but she, still remembering the days of him being just a chubby, well read but still love-blinded teenager, was not affected one bit. That's why she, after a horrible breakup just months before their miraculous interview (see: Season 1 finale), gave their hopes another chance.

The other confession, however, did break Eileen, as Eileen couldn't help but to feel strangled with it all. As always, dear reader, Asher was never a coward, but perhaps the dutifulness had overtaken him then and even now. The guilt of living with a genetic condition he knew was going to worsen over the course of his life, and the fear of her suffering through those if the happier days were to be secured, were the reasons behind their first breakup.

Thus, when Hoesahng had entered the stage for their twenty minutes with the enthusiastic audience, the promise of happiness against all odds that Asher had said at the end of the tournament were shelved aside in the corner of her mind as Eileen entered the stage with an empty heart. Then, as Jean-Alain Park started singing the initial verses that he dedicated to his days with his wife of 61 years, the true love and light of his life (OOC: This is based on the story behind the title track for this episode), Eileen couldn't help but to break down. It was only then that the audience, still feeling the down from the high that was Michael and the Buffy Pigeons, had noticed something was wrong as they saw Eileen, dressed in a plain, dark turtleneck and jeans, cry like that Montreal night seven years ago.

'밖으로 나가 버리고....' she sang the very first line of the bridge between the chorus and the second verse (OOC: 1:30), her voice chockful of emotions and tears as she struggled to blast the upper registers, before Guillaume started playing the piano solo.

Somewhere, at the very back row of the audience, Asher was feeling the very same misery that he had brought upon not only himself, but that of his beloved as well. His heart was sunk, his mouth locked, and his stomach ill. Like a mute, he couldn't say anything, but to cry, as Asher felt for the rest of the very year 2046 we live in, that he was unworthy of her.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
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Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:42 am

OOC Note 1: A bonus chapter to complete Season 4 of The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere. It contains a wall-bending essay, a parody of Tolstoy's 'Epilogue To The Kreutzer Sonata', about what constitutes as a good IC (and OOC, to lesser extent) reader of the most recent. This was written with a couple of people in mind, who failed to grasp the values of punishment, atonement and past tragedies, over the course of this cycle.

OOC Note 2: Well, it was a particularly emotional season for me and I'm glad to have completed it. I would like to thank Banija, Commonwealth of Baker Park, Ethane, Ko-oren, Krytenia, San Ortelio, Savigliane/Yuezhou, Schottia, Siovanija and Teusland, Tequilo, Tikariot, Tumbra, and Zeta Reka and Hugeltaldom, as well as everybody else out there for reading it over at various points this series, as well as other supporters of the series.

Thirty IC years later...

The distinguished members of the Quebec and Shingoryeo Narrative Society had gathered at a small house located on the farther reaches of Silverhills Estate in Saint-John-Upon-Battersea, to hold its annual meeting and to possibly communicate with 'The Narrator', who was delighted to talk to his creations for once while typing his words in middle of some Canadian city.

On the main table, the spirits of Jacques IX, Kim Sang-Doh and the late Lord Lundrigan joined the Narrator, who was feeling the very wind of the thirties on the other side of the portal. 104-year old Sir. Lionel Mah, Riley Jeon-Keane, and the Conavacio couple were joined by the Society's eminent chair, Dr. Heo Dong-Soo. Dr. Heo, now in his eighties, a former sabreur of fame, and a father of two Quebecois sporting legends, was still at his finest intellectual and mental shape. These days he's been particularly missing his late wife, late Maureen Turner, even though he's been a widower for almost forty years.

On the other tables, there were just as much activity going on with a match of football happening right beside the screening of the legendary World Cup 99 team's heroics, even though none of the national team players were able to make it due to the accidental scheduling conflict with a qualifier match for World Cup 102. Some guests, aware of the eccentricities that go on these spaces, embraced those challenges while others, like a couple members of the infamous 'The Bubonic Plague' supporters group, found themselves dizzy and hazy after a couple of boops to the head.

Photos were taken, buffets were eaten, streakers chased and Trepaks danced. Now-deceased Lord Lundrigan, gone but not forgotten in his properties and papers, engaged in conversations about the narratives in history. Then, the Narrator, amazed with the work done by his denizens on the other side of the fence, smiled and chatted with his creations. And then an essay were sent away to all those concerned...


The Explanation, or What a man should atone by?
Also titled as The Epilogue to I Run To You'

We have received many enquiries from all, both strangers and beloved ones, asking us to explain what we think of the latest season of The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere titled 'I Run To You'. While we are far from certain that any response, however short or long, would be enough, we will do our best to cover what would be essential to the late Earl and Countess's story, and what we should be looking for as we approach the conclusion.

We wanted to start by regretfully pointing out, that many readers of the series, but especially on its most recent season, that among our readership there has been particular interest in the matters both lewd and wild, to the point where all they see, even in the most heartbreaking lines, is a decadent thought. This problem has become such a plague that the ability to read between the lines, and identify the internal struggles, have become the litmus test to determine a good reader and a bad reader of the late Earl's journeys. Young people, whose sexual deprivation and inability to understand the beauty of days long past are far too evident, establish the opening episodes of debauchery as an acceptable setup to enact their wildest fantasies, while others have misunderstood the late Earl and the Countess's endless love because of the former's mistakes.

We would like to point that this is not good, because it is never right that one man's self-imposed purgatory, first begun by his tragic March break vacation and the subsequent time spent in hell to keep his beloved safe from his fears, should be replicated in any shape or form by others. This applies especially to many of so-called emulators, whose behaviour on their mouseholes would be no less of bastardisation to to our ancestors’ Notes from the Underground.

The simplest conclusion from this, of course, is that it is to simply not fall into those temptations that late Earl Lundrigan had fallen into. It is never about that to start with, and a good reader would know that too.And in order to avoid facing said issues, it is important to recognise yourself as a naturally moral being, whose ways may have been led astray, but always has a plan to return to where it belongs. Whether the eventual destination be in the arms of their lover, walking their nephews and grandchildren to school on a Monday morning, or the duty that calls upon the sound of Bugle, does not matter. It never did, it never does, and it never will.

But, in order to be committed, a good reader of late Earl's life must be aware of his surroundings, apologise with no fear, and ultimately be brave with what his heart thinks is right. They must always think ahead with their plans, be courteous to those who deserve respect, and be confident when it comes to women. They must remember the threads of childhood and inspirations that will guide their lives all along, especially as they attempt to make their way back home.

Any good reader of his storied life and his works, would find in every page dozens of proofs that would agree with said statement.

Secondly, in the contemporary society, especially in terms of the life of debauchery as not only an acceptable element of the elite's functioning, but to be encouraged by the camaraderie in both workplace and in our schools, we may have come to underappreciated the importance of the faithfulness essential in the daily lives of lovers.

It is not a good sign, and our basic morals would tell us that they would be considered unacceptable in the society. But, in order to understand our self-disgust at said immoral practices practiced by our neighbours and friends, it is necessary to view the situation with a punishment as a necessary device. The guilty party should be punished through the series of emotional and mental trials assigned by their beloved ones, not through their betrayals or abandonments but through stern reminders and familial embargoes. It is necessary that the violation of the lover's duties, expected of a man either through the natural expectations of his faithfulness or the contractual agreement of mariage de convenance, be punished with his emotional suffering through the strains placed upon said relationship. It is necessary that such punishments, through the aide of Senex and Grace, be public in practice, and that the continued awareness of such consequences be presented through means of art, as have reflected as such on late Earl's novels.

Thirdly, in Quebecois society, due to our sheer love of tragedies and how fate subscribes to said genre, many have criticised how Asher Lundrigan and Eileen de Ramaut did not break up for good after the so-called Smurfgate on the fourth episode. The issue, to those concerned, may have been that the inability for them to break apart for good, instead of helping them mend the relations, may have done both parties harm and contributed to the late Earl's death.

We assume that is not good. It is not good to desire a permanent coda in mere hopes of the Quebecois replication of Pascal Quignard's Terrasse à Rome, because the hopes of a rehabilitation by his nightingale is what has saved the late Earl from suicide in his twenties, and because it comes eerily close to killing the hopes of many dying children out there. The Visions of Gideon, which he always held in hopes, even under the presence of a charming woman who eventually became Her Majesty Christine the Second of Quebec, were what kept his hopes and ambitions going, and such sentiments were taken the other way for the Countess and his beloved ones when their reconciliation occurred back in Seasons 1 and 2. From the moment he was transported back to her Montreal flat, that was a prerogative that the late Earl knew he couldn't ignore and while he has come extremely close to cut their ties and commit himself to suicide, he has kept true to the accords as well. The conclusion that we can bring from here is that a loose reader's desires do not match what a true reader should be feeling at the very pit of his heart.

In the end, what this short epilogue attempts to state is simple. It is not right as a reader, with the moralistic works of late Earl Lundrigan in mind, to act as if we are immune from the undertones of punishment and atonement, and to just seek earthly pleasures that mean nothing. The heightened understanding of the suffering and the self-pilgrimage are perhaps the only ways one can truly earn the key measures. We must not substitute the arduous but necessary task for what's more tempting, and follow it to our daily lives.

Of course, such is easier said than done. But that too is expected. No one is immune from the experiences that make us human after all. But a time does come for us, to navigate the rocky waters with the help of a determined self and a compass. That is where a good reader will be able to distinguish himself from the society of bad readers.


Signed,

Heo Dong-Soo, Chair, Quebec and Shingoryeo Narrative Society | Jacques IX Professor of History and Comparative Literature, Universite St. Croix
Arsene-Pierre Pineau Kim, Member, Quebec and Shingoryeo Narrative Society | 47th Prime Minister of Quebec and Shingoryeo, 1st Baron Kim of Reneegrad
Emilie Gramsci-Hannigan, Member, Quebec and Shingoryeo Narrative Society | Chair, Royal Quebecois Society of Literature


Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:47 am, edited 3 times in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:47 pm

Now And Forever

PART 1 (58) - Lose Your Head


Faculty Box 5, Stade St. Croix, Quebec City

'Well, if there's only one consolation to say, Ma'am, it's that the game as classic as it can get.' said Dr. Heo Dong-Soo, as they were looking at the very bloodbath that was unfolding between the 1st-ranked Saguenay Fighting Irish and 7th-ranked St. Croix Bleu et Blanc on what was supposed to be a marquee showdown on a November Saturday night. The fifty-two year old professor of History and Comparative Literature, whose son Myeong-Shin was almost on the end of his remarkable career as Rover-Inside Linebacker with Saguenay Fighting Irish football team, was watching the game on a small but comfortably refurbished box with his two favourite pupils from the class of seniors. 'Perhaps that may be why Myeong-Shin hasn't been off the beat so far in the game. I've watched him and the defence play for so many years, but these guys are delivering what's expected of them.'

'Professor Heo, please don't feel sad just because we aren't losing. Our defence is still holding down the barrel well, and so far there hasn't been much Lautner's been able to do to keep the ball moving.' Christine, then-Princess of Abitibi and not yet the Queen of Quebec, nodded before delivering her words of relief. 'They are doing well, and we aren't far behind after all.' There was no denial on the fact that the future Queen, who was often called 'Mary' as a codename to avoid being referred in public, was a huge double Blue fan. Her presence on both hockey and gridiron games were so evident that it was fairly easy to notice her or her friends, the Smurfman Asher Lundrigan being one of them, being the regular group of Capitolien fans. Right now, Christine was watching the fourth down unfold, as a St. Croix kicker nailed a rudimentary 41-yard field goal to make it a 6-13 score with about 5:31 left in the third quarter. She was wearing simple pair of Jeans and a Bleu et Blanc football tee-shirt, her phone on left hand to check scores of other games through the night.

'Indeed, and we all gotta move at some point.' Dr. Heo nodded, slowly lamenting the fact that neither Asher nor Christine were returning for further studies after they graduate in June. 'It's still unfortunate that all these years, of being a happy parent to students, are slowly ending.' Dr. Heo was keeping his words limited, for the professor always had hard time watching his son out on the field especially as he got older- and the nature of this being the rivalry match between St. Croix (where he graduated with a doctorate in 2018) and Saguenay (his son's school, but also the rival to his current place of employment and his alma mater, Queen's College at Cornwall) didn't help. He still loved teaching the younger generations of brilliant minds at St. Croix, and being in charge of recent appointment as Professor of History at St. Croix, but the change of times couldn't have been more evident. 'You have duties to eventually lead as our Queen, your majesty, but Asher would certainly find worth staying and pursuing what he loves to do.'

'I agree with you, sir, but right now isn't the best of times for me.' Asher responded, trying his best not to get into the details behind his decision to accept his position with the Concord Heights Times and Landslide International after graduation. 'I am happy to come back, but Asher knew it wasn't a great idea to talk about his post-graduation plans, especially if they involved intentionally being abroad- almost as if being on an exile...the Quebec City November rarely brought the happiness out of any man, and the gloom of the match in which the St. Croix offence were getting stuffed in almost every drive possible did not help anybody either. As a result, the two students, with their cell phone at hand, were left chatting while Dr. Heo found this opportunity to head into washroom. 'And you know, I would rather not be back here, as much as I love my time on the campus and the Quartier (Calanien).'

'Nobody's denying that though. I've seen Caspian being as bitter as you are about the situation at times, you see.' Christine squeezed her eyes twice, trying not to think too much as she then checked the line of scrimmage. 'And you never felt home anywhere for too long. Kingston always felt like a short stop for you and Quebec City's the dream that can only last for so long.' It's been a challenging part of the semester for them, especially as the students got their midterm exam or paper results back and had to brace themselves for the finals. Even without that, Christine would rather not think ahead about what's ahead of the future- she wasn't really worried about what's coming, even as those tasks of preparing for the inevitable succession from her dying father were daunting to start with. 'You know she's in the city this weekend, right?'

'Who's that she?' Asher turned around for a sec to fix his glasses, before looking at the Princess. 'Myeong-Yoon's not in the city, and I'm sure the roomies aren't going anywhere for the weekend...unless they head for a getaway.' Asher folded his arms, pretending it was something casual and nothing emotional.

'Plongeon, or should I say Eileen?' Christine shook her head to left once, the end of her question particularly sharp on its edge and numbing at the back. Christine knew that was going to work. ‘Mylene said she saw her and her boyfriend walking earlier in the Odeon District, fitting right into the Spring air.' The six-footer queen quietly left a mental note to her friend, sure in being able to engage her with a slight reminder of Eileen. 'The one in her industry, from what I heard.' She emphasised her part, to distinguish the different worlds people had lived at times in high society.

‘Well, Mylene must be busy chasing clouds and boys again, instead of attending modules in daylight.’ Asher shrugged and tried to pull himself together, after being stung about the reminders of his ex-girlfriend out of blue. ‘Please don’t tell me to join her, I’m out of money again...’ It had been a challenging week for Asher in all facets, and the temptation couldn’t have helped things get any worse.

You say you miss me now
What a way to lose your head


Of course, Asher was fine with the fact that his friends, from the Princess and the lunch club ‘ride and die’s’ to his baseball teammates, had teased him to make a move. As long as it didn’t end up with a rich kid’s brat getting punched for making a misogynistic remark, it was fine for him. Asher knew he made the right decision, and he did his best to stay true to it. That didn’t mean that Asher didn’t try to stay under the radar though, for it was quite the opposite actually. Even as breaths slowly got shallower, and his fingers and toes number, he did his best to keep his college career at top, and the scouts all watched him carefully as well.

Fortunately and unfortunately, his achievements as a college catcher on borrowed time were outshadowed by that of his remarkable friends, including that of a Princess whose own romance with a foreign royal was known by the media. While they were reaping off the spotlight, Asher was finding relief in being able to stay in the shades of the gigantic tree.

Being under the shadows….almost as if a willing exile they offer me, in the pleiade that we call St. Croix. Asher thought to himself, as he tried to find the right words, but failing to do so. He didn’t know how long that would last abroad, as he’s been slowly getting his journalism career going.

‘Preferring to let your friends do the work?’ Christine asked, watching Ian Lautner fake a hand-off to speedy Ken Nagatomo, before throwing a 5 wide shovel pass to Marquis Taylor, the junior tight end, in what was a solid 7-yard gain to the St. Croix 27-yard line. ‘Is that why you are going away again?’

‘First, that was a good shovel pass that the mike-54 should’ve remembered from the video room meeting most recent thursday,’ Asher replied, without trying to sound too provoked. ‘And second, it means that I will be as far away as possible, and won’t have to think about her, who seems to be perfectly happy on her own, without me.’

You say you miss me now
What a way to lose your head


‘Yes, but have you ever thought you could be that lucky one? Don’t you have no shame as the actual first person she shared everything with you?’

What a way to lose your head
What a way to lose your head
What a way to go to bed
What a way to get ahead


Asher paused, trying his best not to get into yet another argument with the princess. ‘You see, your majesty. It is true that I was the lucky person, and she was the first person I really had something serious...but not all fairytales were meant to last forever. Thus, in order to save her from the tales she would not bear, I had to cut the ties on my own. You know why, and I do not think it needs further explanation.’

‘That does not need explanation, but running away to Concord Heights, where the Times are always at forefront and my husband resides, or Grearia, where you have set up Esportivan circles of decadence, does not mean you will get away with this forever,’ Christine sternly responded, the interception passing before her eyes. At this point, the Princess of Abitibi could care less about her housemate and good friend, one of few classmates whom she had trusted on campus, being hurt over the matter. Right now, they were talking as friends no less and no more. ‘I’m sure you know that, being the next Baron de Chanie, so why are you causing even more pain to those loved ones before their eyes?’

What a way to go to bed
With those thoughts inside your head
What a way to go to bed
What a way to go to bed


‘What if fate brings me back to her, and we are being faced with the same question?’ Asher asked. Dr. Heo returned with a figure, and a couple of strangers dressed more formally than them. For once, they could feel the past and the present transcend. Not just Asher, but also the Queen as well….
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
Minister
 
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Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:03 pm

Now And Forever

PART 2 (59) - Hoppípolla


FUTURE - What A Day

His Royal Highness Alexandre couldn’t keep his head straight in the middle of the St. Croix-Saguenay football match; the derby alone wasn’t enough to keep himself from thinking about the stories of the Bal des Ballons last night. Having slept on his own bed in Palais Royale for the first time in three months, and rather early at nine p.m, Alexandre wasn’t sure on how he was able to stay calm about the pomp and circumstance until the waking moment.

Not that it mattered much on a long course though- the seventeen-year old Head Boy was just happy to see that Claire Lundrigan, the junior whom the whole school had known about his romantic interest, accepted his invitation to join him for the saturday night showdown at the Stade St. Croix.

That was a good feeling to wake up, Alexandre nodded, as he remembered how he, filled with a sudden rush of excitement that came as he checked his phone, went about the jolly good prince’s way into the Breakfast. The crown prince remembered how much hassle it took on his front, from persuading his mother to use the Royal Box for his personal purposes, to arrange discreet but quiet security arrangements with the Palace staff. Not to mention persuading his father, whose ban on any senior members of the royal house attending Balls until age twenty, to land him an alternative.

Of course Alexandre wasn’t sure how long that feeling was going to last into the Sunday evening, when a half-dozen Avon-Gillespie students, consisting of Alexandre, Claire and a couple of upperclassmen, were going to be back in their school eight hours away by Ocean overnight express, but at least there would be that intimate space between the two. Perhaps, by the time they all return into their Monday morning classes, Alexandre (not their friend, Heo Myeong-Geon) would be the lucky one at the end of what’s been fifteen sleepless months.

Long a womaniser and the sailor at heart, Alexandre had wondered if he could really seal the deal for once. His resemblance to the grandfather he never met in Jacques IX the Conqueror, combined with the boundless energy he possessed, had meant that Alexandre would go on million dates but never made them stay. When he was little he became perhaps too aware of that, without explaining much to his father’s understanding, but somehow the situation changed and now he had to be the one who had to give some answers.


PRESENT - River Lea

'I still can't believe you have the audacity to be at stadium this late in night,' Christine II cleared her throat, slowly gesturing Asher not to shake his left hand as they were watching the St. Croix Bleu et Blanc play. With the way the Marching band was playing, it was clear that the game was as good as over in the first quarter. Xannerian Polytechnical Institute, on a gradual decline of form over past half-decade, was being throttled in every drive by this St. Croix team, whom had scored in their first two possessions and never looked back. 'Shouldn't you be back in Montreal?'

'I'm aware, and perhaps too aware of that fact, your majesty.' Asher shrugged off the Queen's words in the most courteous manner he could pull off. 'And it's not helped by the fact that I'm not allowed to smoke in your presence, even as you had grown up in the army of smokers.' This was true- the country was filled with smokers of both green and bitter variants, and the anti-smoking campaign's gradual effort to reduce smoking's been ongoing at the slow pace it's been running under. Being a friend of Her Majesty came with its own perks, but also its own restrictions. One of them happened to be smoking restrictions, something that didn't help his state in middle of very unstable situations in Montreal, where he's been staying with increasing frequency. 'But it's beyond my control in delivering reportage, and the Taegukgi still demands I stay for extended lengths.'

'Fair enough, but you should start packing your bags early, else you may miss the last MACH train back home.' The monarch reminded him, as they looked at a 47-yard field goal attempt. 'Maybe think about how you're going to take a cab from the station instead of the Underground...'

'Your Majesty, I don't think that's really the concern you should be having...'

'Is it?' Christine asked, watching Asher think twice about said matter. 'It doesn't comfort any man, or specifically woman, when there's a bloody murder on South Shores by a policeman, a Bobby, a month ago and now we've seen three consecutive murders in the same district of your city.' Christine shrugged in disapproval, as the St. Croix kicked the second field goal of the night, to make it 34-7 against a hapless XPI side.

'You know Eileen is lot stronger than that, even as I may sound deaf to the realities faced by women outside their homes. Perhaps I'm being too diplomatic on this, ma'am, but the fear should not take away from how the Bleu et Blanc will win, I'm sure.' Asher sighed, as he watched the Queen chuckle at how embarrassed the Taegukgi's finest young journalist were, before writing down a line on his notebook about the field goal and the angle of the kick.

The queen had given Asher a fitting invitation for the night, partly because she knew The Tageukgi was having him cover the last 2 of 5 high school baseball championships instead of the first two he wrote about, but also because she needed to find a little bit of space. Of course, they had meant well- that's what good friends are for- but the continued tension in Asher's relationships, as well as all the preparations he's been undergoing in a literary career, had meant that there would be lots of uncertainties both parties had about. Perhaps that's an exchange of good St. Croix football after all, especially as the younger group of guys galvanised around the fiery words of encouragement from the St. Alban's alumnus.

If only he had these medium-well done plans for his beloved....

FUTURE - Minefields

Claire Lundrigan could hardly recall the boy standing beside him, and even with a high degree of security staff present at the stadium, it seemed not much was noticed by the crowd. Standing before her, wearing his tailcoat and leather shoes with his hair nicely combed, HRH Alexandre looked different from the all-consuming Head Boy who seemingly had no trouble indulging upon any source of attraction. She's heard of Alexandre's princely presence before, likely from the mails or old VousTube footages his parents had received a while back, but never did it come up on the homely settings of the Avon-Gillespie School that hosted over two centuries of occasional royals and more frequently nobles with discrete.

The junior was still trying to figure the very process behind this, since the very evening of the Bal he texted her. A physical day and a mental week may have passed, but she was still no closer in trying to find out about it.

'Hey Claire, how was the ball?' Alexandre asked cheerfully, trying not to make too much of himself, before switching into French. 'Comment était le-Bal? Apparently there was plenty of news made over the press last night.' Alexandre smiled, trying not to make too much out of what he had read over the morning newspapers or the l'Instagramme story.

'Good!' Claire responded, detecting Alexandre's excitement on his face. ‘Lots of lights, few new girlfriends and all the jolly good fun. Nothing big, but it’s good to be out in the city without much to worry about.’

‘Right,’ Alexandre looked around, gesturing to the security staff to stop looking at them too intensively. All the attention he was trying to delegate to her was turned off by the Quebec City folks not realising that they were both students and no more than that. Not that he helped the situation by being photographed near the Palais Royale the same day, but there was little he could do about that. That was the prize he did have to pay for being the very opposite of his father, the Cassadaiguan prince consort in HRH Caspian, Duke of Halifax, after all. ‘Seems like they did really water down what may have happened...’

'Your Royal Highness....'

'What, did I say wrong?'

'It was just innocent fun, don't think too much into it. Myeong-Geon and I were just happy to see each other for the first time since the summer.' Claire tipped back, before deciding to let it pass by not asking too much about what may have happened. Coming to the Royal Box, specifically under the invitation of the next King, was a test Claire knew what the intentions were, and that wasn't something she was exactly ready to write her answers. Not that she was afraid of getting them wrong- anything would have gotten him a 5/5 anyway- but she was still unsure, especially after all the highs and funs from what the nightlife could afford people in the finest debutante ball in all of Atlantian Oceania, and the sights after that. 'Has the match started?'

'I don't know.' Alexandre slurred in his response, trying his best to pretend the game wasn't the one on his interest. To be fair, the match wasn't one of the marquee matchups the Capitoliens were used to play against, and with the winter sports still some time away, the local and collegiate crowd were bit more subdued. 'I guess I could get used to being back there though.'

'Stop being silly, you don't get to tumble so much if you go back home. Prince Alexandre's escapades with yet another bear, what a headline.' Claire chuckled, as she smoothly fed the idea to Alexandre's head. 'You are looking for somewhere far, somewhere where you could sail away and hopefully make a name for yourself. Just like how Jacques the ninth did.'

'And that's where you really know me, Claire Lundrigan....' Alexandre felt his eyesight loosen up as their eyes met once again over a glass of lemonade they drank together. 'You never look at me like how the others do, that's the difference.' As unlikely it may have been, this was as close to truth for them. Even after five and a half entertaining, fulfilling years at Avon-Gillespie, Claire Lundrigan was probably the only peer- she's a grade below his and two years younger by physical age, but they were long teammates on the AGS' hockey team- to give him words that were both comforting and honest. The more he looked at her blue eyes, and her hair blew by the loose wind circulating around the stadium's ventilation system, the more he was feeling sure. 'How's your father doing after the surgery?'

'The usual. Still wants to go back and watch the Bleu et Blanc basketball match, right at the frontcourt seat.' Claire responded with implied weight added to her ankles, also relieved that Alexandre did not forget that the family happened to be in Quebec City for the Bal's weekend. Sir. Asher was still in recovery phase after a successful lung cancer surgery, so it was only her mother, the famous Quebecois singer-songwriter Eileen 'Plongeon' de Ramaut, who was present on the first dance of the night between Claire and a longtime friend of hers, Heo Myeong-Geon of Kingston Grammar School. 'Mummy's still at the hospital with grandpa- they are probably heading back home next week.' Claire felt additional weight hitting the prince as they said that. The marching band was playing their tunes to start the game, and by August, Alexandre would be memorising the old chants and hymns from his mother the Queen and her grandmother the Dowager Queen Elizaveta.

'It must not be easy.' Alexandre responded, as he came to embrace her. 'I shouldn't have asked.'

Claire said nothing as they embraced. For over a year, they did doubt their situation to be more than just a normal banter between an egomaniac and the eldest daughter of the Smurfman, but now it was getting clear. While the Prince himself was not ready to say the words, and Claire was still not ready to make her decisions on the matter, at least they were going to enjoy just spending time together as friends and maybe something more will click the rest of their rendez-vous. Claire slowly buzzed a tune from Silverhills inside her head, as they watched the players enter the field.

PAST - Who’s Crying Now

Feeling the time freeze before, Asher fixed his glasses and looked at the other two pairs, also consisting of a man and a woman, before him. The colours of the stadium and the people turned grey and white, and the wind of fate starting blowing over them. The merge of past, present and future had come before them, with Asher internally blown by its sheer impact.

Coughing once, Asher first looked to the far left, staring at the couple much younger than themselves. She looks....too much like Eileen, Asher thought, clearly noticing the way the teenager had dressed, and scratched his left underside of the neck. Standing right next to him was a slightly older male, with his walking posture and the physique implying that he was a royal. While Asher was unsure on the identity of the male, who also didn't fit the list of any senior member he knew of their age, it was enough for him to make a judgement. The security guards, armed with slightly modernised version of arms they held, were also different people as well, but not much else were given to suggest that this was anything but the future.

The beauty of Eileen's daughter was still all he noticed, and without thinking too much about the tall, muscular prince who looked more like a hockey player (acute evaluator of talent! I'd like to say), Asher decided to look at the near-future time....

But Asher knew there was no point to it. The game was good as over for the Bleu et Blanc, but the sounds were no longer audible, and the pitiful sight of his buds on the Line of Scrimmage were scarcely on his eyes. Whatever his fellow players were viewing, in the present time where the Bleu et Blanc were having a comfortable time beating the Big Blue, meant little, and all that was left was his certainty, and Asher couldn't help but to feel the certainty around leaving Quebec under the blessings of the holy and the fateful.

'I will only be back if the fate wills me,' Asher said to himself, 'And there shall be only one exception. Someone who I will protect and love, to rectify my past mistakes.'
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:31 pm

Now And Forever

PART 3 (60) - After Hours


Somewhere in the Lundrigan Family Fonds of Bibliotheque Nationale de Quebec, 70 years later, a postgraduate student, rushing through his Master's thesis deadline, happens to find one of Asher and Eileen's earliest letters.

He, after reading the initial lines and the address, realises that the one he is reading among many was not a counterfeit document, and is delighted to see what promises it holds. Apparently, said fond happens to be one of few remaining unpublished materials that the author's daughter, Her Royal Highness the Queen Claire, did not burn under the instructions of her father prior to his death 50 years ago. In silence, he quietly reads the lines written in French (but translated and transcribed here in English, for our readers' sake on screen)...


[ANS, 1pnd]
[Feb 21, 2039]
To: de Ramaut, Eileen
Coxwell Park, Saint-John-Upon-Battersea, Acadie

Hello, my beloved, the one and only,

Yesterday was another day of practice ahead of the qualifiers, but everything had turned out to be favourable, and we had an excellent journey to the local bathhouse at five. Tomorrow at 8 we head for OFSAAs, set as foundation to see if we will qualify and be invited for one, two or three nationals, come back by the end of the weekend. Once I come back from Beolgyo, I will send you a souvenir from the gigantic Trojan Horse they have for whatever the reason I do not know.

Funnily enough, today did feel somewhat different. On my way home, even as the snow covered the streets and the grey were all too familiar in Midtown Kingston suburbs, I couldn't help but to see the cheery smiles of my comrades, almost cherry and almost rosy, and the sweetness in the air. Did I feel your presence? Mayhaps.

I love you. AChL.





It wasn't easy for Eileen to come back to her appointment in Dr. Nam Chang-Geun's office. Months of successful touring and media engagements, which had kept her busy in Montreal and away, had made her feel somewhat swept by the tides of the timeless time, and she had almost missed it as a result. Still, Eileen was happy to come and talk when possible, especially to tell their psychiatrist her thoughts and concerns.

It was one of the arrangements that Asher and Eileen, after the very letter of promises he had made to her last July, had agreed to take, and one that was perhaps the most important for all of them. Asher and Eileen, no matter how fateful their miracle has been since that interview in Montreal three years ago (see: Season 1 finale), had their differences, and those between an extroverted former college athlete and an introvert musician were far too evident. So they were trying to unweave the threads of what had originally caused his breakups and still affected the uncertainties in their air were essential.

Fortunately, each of Asher and Eileen have been handling the appointments well, and perhaps there were a couple of signs that things were eventually going to turn out for the best, especially as the mirrors stared back into the figures that couldn't get any bigger.

'Good morning, ma'am...It's been a while.' Dr. Nam commented after yawning for a second. He kept his grin going, showing every bit of contentment with his situation. 'It's been a couple of months since we last talked. How are you doing these days?'

'Things are still the same.' Eileen responded, keeping the calm and the low in her voice. 'It's still insanely busy with tours, but it's good time spending with the loved ones. And I'm back in Montreal for a bit, before heading home for a month.' She decided to move her left arm forward to grab a cup of hot tea, already set up for her by the now-experienced Dr. Nam. 'How have things been for you, Dr. Nam?'

'Well, the usual as well.' Dr. Nam chuckled. 'My son's birthday, his thirteenth, to be clear, was yesterday..so I closed up the shop early and we went to a fancy buffet as a family.' He smiled, not yet to write anything down, before relaxing his posture as she slowly sipped the cup of tea. ‘But let me not bore you with such trivial details...pardon me there.’

'Alright.' He nodded. 'So where should we start? Is there anything you wish you would like to pick up from our last meeting?' In all fairness, Dr. Nam's not the most capable of counsellors, mostly due to his mentalities rather than his capability. By experience and attributes, he was probably one of the best in the country for that, but he was better in handling children or teenagers suffering from cases of domestic violence and/or divorces, not that of adults suffering relationship problems. Eileen was able to notice that, and felt how the psychiatrist's nerves shot up with the slightest tendencies every meeting.

‘'Um....let's see...' Eileen nervously tried to figure out her next move, her left hand briefly on her chin. 'I guess, we don't talk as much as we should be. It's something I, being a country bumpkin, am not the most comfortable about...' she tried to find the right words, but this was the best she had on sight.

'No worries, Eileen.' Dr. Nam nodded along, writing a bullet point down onto her notebook. 'So why don't you tell me if there have been changes when you two are back in Montreal? Have there been more conversations, and what do you spend talking about them?'

Eileen slowed down her breath as she paced along, and hoped for the best. ‘Well...I guess more or less the same. We fought a couple of days ago, arguing about whether to go back to Coxwell Park for a bit after the tour.’ She explained along as the tea cup slowly drained upon her will. ‘And I guess, he wasn’t happy about me wanting to go back there, even though his extended family, especially the grandparents, were too country bumpkins like mine. It is certainly frustrating.’

‘I could imagine so. Has there been any specific reason why he wanted to not go there? Was he treated badly by your parents, or other members of the family. It’s a huge estate, from what you’ve told me in the past..’ Dr. Nam nodded, remembering a specific mention Eileen had made right at her first appointment in August.

‘It’s hard to say...’ Eileen looked emptily into the glass, her eye colours changing from shades of blue to opal. ‘He likes my parents and siblings, and they are glad whenever we come over for the holidays.’ She bit her lip twice before continuing. ‘Asher, he really knows what he likes and when he wants to do something. But it seems almost as if...he goes wherever we go as a matter of duty, and I don’t know how to ask him about it.’

‘I see. So you are saying that he’s not in ease with what you really value in your family.’ Dr. Nam asked. ‘As in, you want to go back home, to get away from how busy and...hectic it can get in the cities, but he wishes to stay in the city?’

‘Not sure. It seems as if Asher’s….feeling trapped by his own ghosts.’ Eileen placed a finger on her lips, struggling to handle the emotional weight she’s been feeling dogged by it for months. ‘He’s there and whatever the past happened is behind us now, but it’s almost as if Asher...is only tracing back what he had lost, what could have been, and whatnot.’ Having thrown the key words, she now felt dejected. ‘Sorry, not sure if this isn’t the right time to say it.’

Dr. Nam was feeling his feet beat back and forth, directionless and aimed at the same time. ‘Please, don’t worry about me, Eileen. I am here to help you, remember that.’ He sighed, gathered his breath and then said his piece of my mind over the situation. Dr. Nam was feeling worried about how stalled these discussions were getting between his clients, and he didn’t have a clear answer to give but the one he’s been prescribing them beforehand. ‘These topics are always hard to discuss, especially for couples who need more time to heal from the past. And as for Asher, he’s weathering the storm that ultimately will result in a cause greater than what either of us would expect.’

‘I think so as well.’ Eileen regretfully nodded. Regretfully so because she knew perfectly why Asher was feeling lost, and how worried he was in crossing her mind. ‘Asher tells me in the night, especially after the lights turn off, that he’s scared of turning into a monster, one whom he said he had to save me from, seven years ago. But then he was never one, and it’s only the product of what happened after we broke up. hen. It’s almost as if he feels...’ It was then that Eileen started to cry, emotions sweeping her back like a tsunami. ‘I don’t know, Given up on us, when there’s so much time left for us to be. To be...’

Dr. Nam fixed his glasses, trying to use it as a delaying tactic. Today was going to be a long day for him to gather his thoughts by the time the last appointment of the day finished. ‘Together?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Hard to say.’ Eileen covered her head with both her hands, feeling no less frustrated than earlier. ‘Wish I had an answer.’

It was now that their appointment had to end for the month. Dr. Nam could sense that it was at their best interest to resume in April and see how it goes from there. ‘Well, I suggest you keep talking to him and have faith.’ Dr. Nam looked at his patient once again, in hopes that his words would at least calm her a bit more. ‘In the end, everything will be alright, but nothing will happen if there’s not enough work done on it.’




They said it was always the darkest before the dawn, but the dusk was lot sooner to arrive than the dawn. Later that evening, as Eileen parked her car, a 1980s classic she had bought four years ago, Eileen couldn't help but to notice how the blue paint had started to pale. Having grown up in the idyllic setting of the Coxwell Park estate, Eileen had the eye and the acumen for all things considered vintage and retro, and this car, however expensive it was to maintain and refuel it, was one of those habits she loved to keep from those days.

Still, Eileen couldn't help but to notice how the exposure to sea salt, and how its damage started to show after few years, as she watched the leaves fly all over in the unnatural spirals around it and over the strets. As her phone buzzed over the message notifications from her sister, Janet, an old friend of hers back home and Asher, Eileen felt how the past and present merged once again.

Fold it, fold it, fold it, fold-it-it-it... Eileen thought as she looked around to see the day end. Eileen's feelings were now getting complicated and she couldn't help but to feel the brushstrokes. She's been living for most of past nine years in Montreal, but the feelings of not wanting to be in city much was getting stronger. It was getting too big for her to contain the conflicts between the mischievous self- the one everybody knew- and the reflecting self who was still recovering (albeit brilliantly) from a blow landed on her over the years living here. Eileen was used to being a bumpkin, who loved being with her old friends and family, and embrace herself into the arms of the mother nature, and perhaps that's what she needed again.

She knew Asher was still hesitant about it all though, and didn't want to say much about it yet. The tales of madness she had heard from friends, back when her career was still ascending and his college days iridescent and luminous, were more than enough for the young woman. Everybody knew he was doing that to forget her with the prescription of self-destruction given to him by his increasingly numbness of fingertips and toes. There's no other way to put it. Those wouldn't be solved by them going back to SJUB and live happily ever after- you can't just apply the line 'loving and cherishing, they will be changing in process' (OOC: The Crown Season 4 reference, for those who have not watched the show) and expect all to work out on own.

But then, like what fate had prescribed to its decadely subscribers, life had run its course and they were brought together as twenty-three and twenty-four year olds. He had kept his promise to stay noncommitted like his friend Marco and left his heart an empty room, while hers became vacant after a horrible breakup with someone on the industry who I'd rather not name, at the beginning of that year. Then, all of sudden, everything had gone back to where it once was, even though so much had changed for him but not her.

Now they had to live the full course of what they had missed out, and bridge the time together.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
Minister
 
Posts: 2471
Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Fri Mar 26, 2021 6:14 pm

Now And Forever

PART 4 (61) - Tether


The Archangelion Cinema was nearly empty on a Thursday evening, a rarity at the heart of the West End of the city in which Asher and Eileen were the lucky beneficiaries. The film they chose to watch, Une barque sur l'océan, was an art film that was hitting the Multiverse’s theatres with success- the receptions it received on every musical magazine, where they be located in Hattmark, Istria or the home soil, were evident and remarkable.

The crowd, both excited and aware of their settings in a barely-occupied Theatre 3, did their part with casual chats and whispers undoubtedly and gently. In the middle section, three old ladies were keeping their eyes at a pair of high schoolers, while at the front there were several couples, aged anywhere between their twenties (without kids) and forties (their kids off to a hockey or basketball practice). The conversations, at times lewd and at other times consisted of curiosities, rarely paused, and by the halfway point the projectionist too was distracted on his phone to notice that the film had paused on the certain scene, where Kenneca and Catacombe, two emeritus agents now in their seventies, reflects into the Komodo Channel from their seaside cottage in Altendur.

High into the Maytime and fuelled by the Tequilian hallucinogens and hachílotl, they were slowly watching the time flow into The Hallucinogenic Toreador, except Asher and Eileen. Quietly enjoying the veils of darkness, they had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, in that they were rather reflecting into an artificial loop that also served as mirrors to themselves with another person on the cinema happening to just play the soundtrack from their Spotivy Premium. It was as if they were stuck communicating to each other, feeling closer to the core of their shared thoughts, and stirred the wave of emotions into signing agreements.

At first Asher, answering Eileen’s question about what was the hardest time in college, told Eileen how the moment after lights turned off were the hardest, and he’d see the shadows.

‘You know, Hanyang is always gonna be Hanyang. Nobody’s gonna deny that. But it’s lonely when you...knew you didn’t have much to live for the time. I remember it was around eleven in night- you were still with your ex and travelling a bit- after practice. I was heading back home, wearing my shades for reasons I do not know, and couldn’t see anything from my home to the station. It was a ten minute walk yet all I could see were flashes, and I thought I saw you, almost as if I was feeling you were there, on the other side of this park I crisscrossed!’ he said, wondering how ridiculous he was at the time. ‘I remember standing there for about half an hour, talking to nowhere...and it was one of the most crushing moments.’

‘So you just stared into the thin air, hoping that I were going to come, as if a form of mirage?’ She asked, feeling amused that Asher, carrying his equipment bag in the middle of the night, would casually do so as a wandering freshman. ‘Why does this sound so familiar…’

‘I’m not kidding, woman!’ chuckled Asher, staring back into her eyes. ‘But not everybody knows that. I’d rather keep it that way, and you know you’re the one who I’d keep these words to.’

‘Speaking of which, what were you going to say about Pomme Prud’homme’s Fetch the Jailbreakers?’ asked Eileen, hoping she had remembered the right artist. ‘You said you were going to write a review on them, no?’

‘Uh….I don’t know how to feel about them, if I have to be fair with you.’ Asher responded, feeling somewhat troubled into the distance. For whatever reason, this conversation reminded him of when they were younger, only except that they were slightly older, he lost the physical weight, replaced by symbolic weight. ‘Not sure if I want to write it, if I have to be honest.’

‘Weary? Everybody’s saying that she’s authentic, weaving into decades of layers of a career as a whole. A classic.’ Eileen said. 'There's something...unbelievable about how everything had transcended into one, n'est-ce pas?'

‘In some ways, yes…’

‘Then what would it be? If the brilliance is not the reason why you'd not want to say much about it.’

‘The emotional weight...does not comfort me no more,’ said Asher. ‘I know I’m far too uncultured and will never really fit into the world you live in, don’t get me wrong. But while the attempt to prove the ‘refusal to be silenced’, is good for solitary confinement...it is simply far too uncomfortable for me to listen twice.’

‘Fair enough. Not sure if it’s because you are feeling discomfort due to external factors surrounding us though,’ Eileen responded, with a sharp turn in her voice from normalcy to whisper. ‘There is something compelling about it, in its endless layers, going into the darkness of trauma and all that.’

‘And I don’t know if I want that. After the years in darkness, and nearly losing you far too many times, all I know is that it’s not worth to llive briefly and then spend the remaining fifty years of despair like an Emile Nelligan,’ said Asher, glancing towards a couple in their forties, who were chatting about World Cup of Hockey bid votes, set to be announced in a couple of hours. Being aware of the likely outcome, Asher looked back at her and wondered how long it had come around for them to have an important conversation about their lives. ‘If we've only got this life and if I have to make my choice, then I want to share it with you.’

'Ah. No need to go over with the words then. It's just...you’re not feeling, I don’t know, comfortable with it all, at this point in time.’ Eileen was fully paying attention, but she was still somewhat confused on how life had suddenly caused their ways to change, almost as if the shadow of said man she had once known was replacing him. ‘You know, this reminds me when I was younger, and me and my brother used to have pigeons on our backyard. They would almost always travel…’

Then he couldn’t hear anymore. Asher was watching her mouth move in lunar shapes of smile, the small gestures she’d make, and just enjoyed the time. Being lucky comes with being ignorant at right time. he thought with misty eyes and smiled with dry tongue. He had the urge to fall into her arms and just watch the night pass by. Was this what it means to be hopeless, yet boundless? If so, he was going to be the first and foremost in line to embrace the mediocrity that would come with happiness.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
Minister
 
Posts: 2471
Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:27 pm

Now And Forever

PART 5 (62) - Deepest Lonely


Here I am, alone again.

Asher sat alone in Eileen’s apartment, at six in the early-June evening, quietly watching the rain drizzle down the tuesday night, with a mug of tea right in front of him. The tea mug, slightly oversized red one that Eileen brought from her parents’ place almost a decade ago, contained a couple of lemon tea bags bought from a local store. While an owl forevermore, he wasn’t like a lot of stereotypical Quebecois in that he seldom was picky with his choice of tea in what hour or under what occasion. Asher preferred to pick whichever that he would first see on the cupboard, and would have a cup after having a deep puff of cigarettes.

For those who knew them well, the abundance of mugs was something particularly noticeable from the beginning, the product of a household that’s slowly merging their properties together from one house to another and vice versa. As Asher slowly drank and shared a light-hearted conversation with clouds of colours both pale, fiery and of pale fire, he was once again confronting himself face-to-face.

Hello, bonjour, I’m….

Asher was always ready to have such conversations, and was afraid of it no more. However frightening the fears of being truthful, whether it be the past-life traumas, which they had now collectively shared as a couple, or the lack of faith in their relationship, was not enough to deter the man. He had scrambled on tasks like this before, sleeping away on the responsibilities and stayed alone in their lodgings, but pretensions.

Yes, it’s me. It’s me you looking for? I’m sure you’ve heard of me before.

He remembered his younger self as a Capitolien back in his city. At this point in time, the meaning of loneliness differed between Asher and Eileen. In those days, Asher was a college student who would find the pleasures in trying every substance possible, meeting every person he could meet, and most channelling every form of pleasure into his life experiences. Yet somehow, despite attaining it all as a college catcher and having all his doors opened for him into his desired career pathway of journalism, Asher had ended up feeling emptier than his younger self.

So he went back, but the gap between him and her, in status and confidence, had only widened. The social obligations, where he would usually be the one dressed in simple dress shirts and pants, and her exquisite dresses, were frequent enough to remind him so. Worse still, the life he had to sacrifice twice- first when they got back together and second the night they cried on her appearance at the Nam Chang-Seon’s Boardwalks last July- was coming back at him. Now, they were chasing Asher around like shadows even when they were at their happiest, and such was the sheer state of his mind (but not hers, don’t be confused dear reader! Very important!).

.....Yes, I do love her, but that doesn’t mean I’m the right person. He said to himself. The rain continued to fall, and so did he contemplate. One thing he clearly remembered since the very night they had spent together once again as a couple, was the change of attitudes in loneliness and running away. And that’s where he had noticed her improvements as an artist, and he was not so much as a dreamer.

Of course Asher had remembered Eileen, who was always the introvert in heart, as the one to find the meaning in darkness, but even more so was she able to increasingly find the gap between the night and the day, the opaque and the bare, and the mystique and the clear, and weave them along. Whenever they would travel anywhere together, she’s the one who would navigate on her own for hours and come back, while Asher would feel lost without a museum or a village trip gone according to his ‘plan’. Thus, by the end of the night, it had ended up going in a neverending circle of questions about the circles that should have been overlapped with each other, but actually failed to do so for majority of the time.

He knew why that would her, the coexistence of the mischievous and the joyful could coexist, but not for him. It’s straightforward, in that Asher wasn't scared of people or the chaotic, but rather in its manifestation- he is scared in being a different self. Sure, Asher in many occasional had thought of running away and living a hateful, Foucaldian existence or that of a Quignardian choice of non-redeeming deernacy, but all such waves were frivolous too much and not one bit substantial for him to really live one. None of it would provide him the neverending circle of what it truly means to live, or be a worthy human being, and he didn’t want to go through that again. He had already done that before since by the end of it all, half the high society had known of Baron Bron-Yr-Aur's nephew's brilliant penmanship and his ability to bed every other person if willing. Thus, by this point, Asher was resigned to pick a tarot card of his fate, that was going to happen sooner than later.

Still, the heart-to-heart moment has yet to happen, and they still had to go through a couple of hurdles first.

The night was growing colder now, and long puffs of breath hung in the air in the form of condensation. Positioned in a comfortable sofa better used for movie nights than watching the dusk, Asher contemplated once again as he realised it was almost seven.

6:49, in eleven minutes and I'll be heading… He thought, realising that he had a taxi scheduled right at front of their place for a seven-forty five reading event of his own work.

Then, just as he turned around, he watched the figures of his own shadow rise, carefully reframed as that of a suffering woman, stand away from him, into the night. He held back at how precise the figure was in representing his fear, and how imprecise as to who this figure may represent. Asher held back, his body feeling bloated, immovable and without control.

No...not today...not today...

That's all he said over and over again, as he sat for a few minutes, slowly trembling even with his numbed senses, until all calmed down. Gradually, the form dissipated and he was able to realise that it was all the product of his mind. Of course, it's not the end of the day yet...
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

User avatar
Quebec and Shingoryeo
Minister
 
Posts: 2471
Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:30 pm

Now And Forever

PART 6.1 (63.1) - Happy Me


The young passenger watching the Adelphi Line train, go from one stop to another, intricately looking at his fellow passengers of different ages and ethnicities, was other than our poor Asher Lundrigan. Dark-haired, crisply dressed, and clean-shaved, he looked at a bunch of twenty year olds and teenagers with hawkish eyes, staring at them impressively with his rectangular glasses, his average form looking rather impressive with a dress coat, a mahogany walking cane with circular diamond handle, and well-built legs that hid how little sensation Asher could feel from his toes.

These days, for a young man to reveal a his own business by wearing a tailcoat to the Underground would have been viewed as out of date or old-fashioned to his peer, for the age of informalities had continued somewhat into this period. Even his peers, many whom had lived in the Odeon district of Quebec City, on the other side of the rivalry, and had dreamed of poetry, music and illusions of lost dreams that were actually there all this time, would have scoffed at how the transportation and the clothes did not match one another.

But the man did not feel the particular need, nor did he care. Nowadays, at age twenty-six, Asher had little reasons to. Even now, the truth that he did not take the direct route. Asher, by all means, was of course aware of it, and the life paced according to the plans he had (even when they went wrong!), giving the man an unnecessarily large dose of satisfaction. When inviting him to deliver a reading session of his debut short story collection at the Ilmoodang Hall- located at the heart of Koreana District, where the nation’s leading youth movement with its own sports organisation here (OOC comment: see Maccabi Hatzair and Maccabi World Union), the Koreana Society, was hosted- the Selection Committee from Koreana Society had advised our dear protagonist to arrive half an hour in advanced, but Asher, like what you would expect of him already, decided to have five minute stops when changing lines between Adelphi and Koreana in a measure he thought would help himself.

In all fairness, the theme of his delays did fit the specific situation he was going to narrate and read it out at the section. As the Sports Editor at The Taegukgi, the nation's finest newspaper located in middle of the Zenith-St-Lazare district, where the arcades continued into the Prince Richard Hall and the Opera House, and you would sing yourself a line "l'heure avait sonne!" on an average afternoon. Widely regarded by many as one of the two key institutions of the Quebecois Korean language, which had meant a lot to not only the urbanites, but also the provincials whose respect for the institution had meant a lot. To be able to serve in a peculiar sense of servitude, no matter how difficult, was something he had prided upon.

Pride and arrogance coexists, he agreed to himself, as he slowly watched the rhythm of stoppage, resumption and stoppage finally end with his arrival at the Masson station, where he was due for a change to the Koreana Line that would take him to the College-Academie. Upon which, after turning around his head twice to the counterclock direction, Asher got off his seat, both his hands on the pocket, walked out of the car and into the grey, airy platform designed in the 1920s.
Masson station’s B3 floor concourse was materialised as he had always remembered them to be. The splatters of concrete covered the centuries-old bricks that were started to show their age after being part of the Underground system, and the shadows coexisted besides where the bright lights were. The air, with the ventilation system having undergone major refurbishment in the year 2034 (so thirteen years ago), was a perspiring young busker of his late teenage years, who was playing a popular hit track on the Quebecois charts sung by a Montreal friend of a Montreal friend of his, about five years ago.

Because we go in circles
Pick me up, let me down
Whatever works for you
We kept it lukewarm
Oh, so vanilla
Ooh, that's just what we do


Asher was feeling the power of the words, and at the same time, as he listened to the busker sing along and read a small sheet of paper, carefully cut from a magazine, Asher had always carried along with him at the back pocket of his tailcoat:

St. Croix Bleu et Blanc - Scouting Profile

#20 - Asher C. Lundrigan
Position: Catcher | Hometown: Kingston, Frontenac | Class: Senior
2042 Season Stats: 32 GP, 110 AB, 10 HR, 26 RBI, .331 AVG

Average sized but talented young prospect, Asher Lundrigan is likely the best catcher prospect in the Quebecois Intercollegiate Sports level. Excellent catcher with excellent arm, solid framing ability and powerful bats, he holds great potential as a power hitter in the QBO level. Unlikely to be selected in the First Stage, where the territorial stage means that both Kingston Blue Jays and Kingston Tigers will select Samuel Carlini-Mwambutsya and Gregory Reynolds-Walusimbi over Lundrigan, but he is still a very likely Second Stage, first round selection.


Of course that never happened. The potential that he held, which never lost its glitter, wasn't gifted to the right person with the right mindset.

Many people had tried to convince his mind, but nothing was going to change in the end. His mind was set, his body easing into the inevitable, and the nothing was going to be the same. The fifth-ranked collegiate prospect at the end of collegiate season didn't declare for the QBO Draft, because he knew it was best to give up on it than to risk being a medical liability. That's not how the young man wanted his name to be known in any form, especially in the world he was going to be separated only by a single degree from her, and all that he viewed as damning was not to be said at the time (in his opinion).

As he watched the busker move onto the chorus, with a couple of others wildly clapping to her country energy, Asher briefly wondered about wasted potentials. Did he know too much and too early? Maybe he did, and he may have acted on it unwisely so. Asher knew its power since that moment he had left his love behind in middle of a March Montrealais night. With his career limited at home, all had meant little until Asher would find himself limited.

But then it had meant little on long run. The area he had come to love, as his body’s sacrifice came with his special danger area in Korean language. Whatever the command he held in Korean, while passable enough to merit 16 out of 20 in his Baccalaureat Quebecois and to survive two rounds of half-an-hour interviews at Universite St. Croix’s Seonggyoongwan University College, Asher knew he wasn’t feeling at home with the language at the time, when he left Kingston for Quebec City. Once there, he sat down to the task of learning the language of the court, the Parliament, the intelligentsia, and the nightlife.

By twenty, at the end of his sophomore year, he was proficient enough to translate a sixteenth-century book of sonnets by Han Sang-Oh, the indigenous poet who spoke of nature ‘by the reeds and the trees’. By his senior year, he, with the aid of co-supervisors Profs. Isabel Jurado and Heo Dong-Soo, he was able to write a hundred-page dissertation on the Comparative Historiography of Quebecois and Banijan urbanists of the early-20th century. By the time he was able to confess the cause of his maladies, Asher could handle any topic with such eloquence, and was able to dream about the novel of neverending circles like how the great Novopetrogradian and Quebecois writer (the debate over whose national canon he belongs remains a great literary debate!) Rodion Akakhov had once written in his 1938 magnum Opus, Talent-Jaeneung, even as the struggles continued for him to find the culturally...central tone.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:49 pm

Now And Forever

PART 6.2 (63.2) - Nightcall


As Asher Lundrigan entered the platform of Jarlsdómur station, he was feeling the bouts of vertigo. He was slowly losing his mental threads from the combination of pints, nightly wanderings and the mental disturbance that he had long tried to quash. The weeks he had spent with the Quebecois national hockey team, one where he had done every measure possible for the team and those who needed him to the point of excess, had started to wear on him.

After three nights ago, when he had left the very Matrix nightclub where he had sponsored the drugs and the damsels for the national team members, Asher was slowly simmering into a different self, as he began to the emptiness. The notion of happiness may be overrated, but is it really the product of our times or have I spent wandering without knowing what's near? He thought so, as he waited for the next Metro train to come late in the night.

Since that evening he had walked back on his two shoes, all that he could think about was the overwhelming desire of a family life. Whenever he was seeing happy families during the Team Quebec matches or on the street, of whatever shape or gender combinations, full of children or childless, Asher couldn't help but to feel the greatest sense of envy. Then, by the end of the night, as he would message his family or Eileen, Asher had started to see the brick pieces being added together for this home that's stable, welcoming and hopefully long-lasting enough to last a century.

I was once lost, but now I could see, Asher said to himself, as he sat on a chair and mindlessly zoomed into the stark, soulless walls of the platform. Asher hadn't really talked to Eileen about them settling into a family, mostly because he wasn't sure if they were ready. Okay, more like he wasn't sure if he was ready. It is always the hardest to take the final steps, before the two halves of a pair would complete their holy matrimony. Of course, these days, with the ways of modern life requiring 546,393 additional conditions (mostly financial, but devient lifestyle choices by some didn't help either) that made everybody apprehensive towards the custom, but at this point in time both had reached beyond that. But right now, while they were still waters apart and busy with their careers (his as a journalist, hers as a singer-songwriter), they too had evolved beyond arguing over such differences. So, while the doubt still remained, the only part that stood in their way was the final step, and that was to take the leap of faith.

Of course, given his mental capacity right now, that wasn't really on agenda. While warmly dressed with autumn jackets and a couple of layers of clothing, Asher was still shivering and sluggish, putting him even more into the state of dreariness. With a strong grip of his own, Asher resisted the internal temptation of drinking the can of beer he still had inside his bag, preferring to wait ten more minutes.

He could hear the buskers playing their tunes with a guitar or violon on the other side of the platform. On the background, it is slow and stirring, even as the music does not amuse him. While the city of Háttmark in a festive mood (why shouldn't they be?), it was still filled with hundreds of thousands of visitors altogether looking to have a blast, and the heat of the night wasn't enough to warm the cold floors of the metro station.





So Asher resumed walking, thinking more about what his newfound duties with words had meant. In the early months, after his graduation from St. Croix with an upper second-class honours, Asher had to remind himself every so often when he would lose his ways with his literary and journalistic efforts, about what mattered to him now: 'no matter what happens between no and in future, whatever the blushes I have now and whatever the sufferings I suffer right now shall be rewarded with lemon juice and sweet cherry wine. But all that requires time will take time, and may require initiative and let's just get to it.'

Then, like that next ten minutes had past, as he descended to the B4 floor and waited on the train. The brick walls of the Koreana Line, all so colourful in blue, black and grey, were reminiscent of his mind. Since the scandal, a full year had passed and he was unable to lose his grip on the pedal of what's a really fast automobile, and he couldn't look behind what has been a series of painful memories and indecisiveness, no matter how much they had recovered. No matter how much the fanfare had driven, his stomach was still rocking with anxiety and nerves because after such a long period of time gradually recovering from the styx, and his surroundings started to change from the tree leaves coloured green to brown and orange (wait, how? this is June).

Those around him, especially those closest to Asher and Eileen, were starting to find settle down- Myeong-Shin already has two children with Naomi Goldbloom, whom he had married after six years of dating the summer he graduated from Saguenay, while the Queen was the next to go, and HRH Alexandre, his future king, had just celebrated his first birthday. Soon came along several of his friends and her friends, and now Asher and Eileen were still as distant as ever from what many had suspected of certainties.

This bothered him. Even as the train, a 1991 Samhak Engineering stock used for the line, approached and he hopped on for what's a short, 3-stop ride, Asher was becoming painfully conscious of the fact that something had to give in, as all things that his life were involved in had to be, and this wasn't giving Asher slightest bit of comfort. He could not find himself at peace, even with the news of a great St. Croix victory over Swisston City or a Saguenay loss to Richardson, because the equation between what brought him happiness and what he had hoped to bring happiness did not match so much. Asher remembered how before leaving Eileen's flat, he had phoned his mother, the Vdaran princess whom he was starting to have better relations with, that all was getting better: 'I hope there can be peace found in the glory,' and how Princess Athena had promptly answered, 'Service and servitude shall bring you happiness, but don't overdose.' No matter how much Princess Athena had disagreed with her elder son, she wasn't wrong in any bit- and the soiree's excitement was not taking him to that equilibrium. He felt that it would be impossible to expect it as such.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:31 pm

OOC: IRL there is a Canadian instapoet outta Waterloo (ON) named Rupi Kaur. She has few million followers for her extremely simplistic poems about body image, POC-hood, etc. But the poems, while praised by many for being so open about it, are so poor in quality that I have no words but to say that they, as with many works mediocre, are bound to be forgotten in future time. Part of my thoughts here derive from my opinions.

Now And Forever

PART 7 (64) - Binasoo+


'And as the islands sunk into the metaphysical existence without their physical body of representation, the life nearby went along elsewhere like a wave of amnesia. Nobody was surprised, for the islets' provincial, republican presences in the international maps were blurred by their evaporation into another region, halfway across the world, where they technically belonged. Unfortunately, while they were physically located on that opposite half of the world, everybody did not acknowledge their existence, and sooner than later, the land eventually sunk from their physical location too.'




As he closed the final reading of his four short stories, from the collection 'Taylor Merchant's Ode to Avonlea and Glendale Isles', Asher was relieved to hear a round of applause. Not only was he glad the three hours had successfully passed, the task that he viewed as the first of many gates he had to open was all over.

In order to understand Asher's particular nerves, especially around his fear of losing control of the personal narrative in one, we had to remember the setting he was in. The highest Quebecois society, whether in Montreal or Quebec City, were all intricately linked towards one another: Everybody knew each other, everybody knew their friends and knew their contacts through a friend or two, a dozen mailing list or two times that, or through an unfortunate encounter too many. Even within those circles, however, you had to remember the differences in atmosphere between Montreal and Quebec City, and our poor Asher was subjected least two.

One circle was that of the royalty and the political circles, consisting of the Queen Christine the Second, the Prince Consort Caspian, and not to mention Arsene Pineau Kim, half the members of the cabinet and the shadow cabinet. Asher had little trouble remembering the intentions they had in place, especially given the friendship a mere Taegukgi Sports Editor would hold with the monarch, or the matter of respect this charismatic, 45 yr old Prime Minister held for the celebrated diplomat in Robert Lundrigan, or the sheer name of Lauzon barony. He knew their relations with one another, the complicated dynamics they had with each other in equivalents of Monday night soap operas, how they viewed and manoeuvred around their political positions for the future, and what would be potential errors. But the past trails of guilt and controversies would mean that political circle, even if he were to only limit himself to the Royal Household possible under any of Queen's generous offers, would likely spell an eventual implosion for the man, and so Asher had stayed out of it.

Another circle that Asher was not merged into, but has kept close attention, was that of hers- the circle of Montreal and California City-based musicians around Eileen de Ramaut. While Eileen was the very apple of his eye of talent, and had remained as the standard of any critiques he would occasionally leave from the surface, he knew that Janet Mullen-Baker, the tall, dark-haired manager of hers, was the focal point of this society. Those around Eileen was a group of well-intentioned, gentle and truly professional men, and steel, iron-boned veteran women of the industry, who has been through many struggles against discrimination still problematic in the industry.

As one of many bloodstreams of the neverending circle that is the Montrealais music scene, from pop to folk and rock, it was referred by a high gentleman, sitting on his adjudication table better reserved for high school Kiwanis competitions, as the 'true voices of the Montrealais'. Asher, a sheer provincial child whose barony inherited from his maternal grandmother had meant little in the court hierarchy, held this group of egalitarian, widespread human beings absolute respect and highest esteem, and Eileen was delighted that the worlds weren't going to collide, especially the second time they have been together.

Now, with the merging of his colours from mere spades of black and white to chromatic shades nearing either lavender or olive, Asher was coming to an increased realisation that he didn't belong there either. It all became too clear to him that he simply didn't have the mold, nor the interest, to be of great interests to them unless it had concerned the apple-eye, and the circuit's inability to explain the irrational and the supernatural didn't comfort the fact either.

The last circle, where Asher had ties, was the world of intellectuals, of quiet afternoon chats, of metaphysical engagements, the world of simple suits and awkward fittings that he had once built himself into, but had never really submerged into. The life within The Taegukgi and the Quebec City intellectuals, whose artistic and political circuits of the Capitol were tied to the back of each other's hands, were intricate. Of course it was inevitable - the merger between eager yet untalented provincials, just as untalented but mentally advantageous Capitoliens, and their masters, who had grown up in the system, were done in the murkiest of (un)holy waters. Asher's connections with this cycle was rather straightforward, in that the collegiate environment of St. Croix and his professors, from Heo Dong-Soo and Lindsey Linehan-Devers, had begun it all, and had found their roots all the way to the adjudicators, whose interest in his mercurial talent had brought Asher to the heart of Koreana Society.

'It takes a lot to sift through the talent, the gold, out of sand, but what matters is that you are able to find it in the end,' Jeremy Gam-Noh, his Editor-in-Chief, often said to Asher in encouragement, 'And the human spirit, the one that overcomes it all, ought be the guide of it all.'

Since returning to Quebec City three years ago, Asher did his best to say little and not say much unless the life had necessiated such measures, and had hoped that the second circle would allow him to be a good supporting figure. But the trails of mental expenses, the payments that came in the form of pieces of his soul that Asher had lost in the beds of several dozen women he had defiled, had meant that he had to rethink on his own. Since the Southern Rushmori Tour, where his duties to Concord Heights Times and The Taegukgi had brought him greater respect and responsibility, Asher had realised that his shift was necessary. He began to rediscover his connections to serious-minded friends who had their eyes on him, and went into the different world. In the immediate months following the troubled confession to her that July night, which had left both him and her visibly shaken, Asher sought greater joys in seeking the oddity out of the so-called exquisite minds. At Benoit-Jean Begin's house, where the philosopher's affairs with many have taken place, Asher found himself relieved in not feeling alone with the search.

The newfound trail, where his implicit notoriety were outshadowed by the explicit infamy of the senior pillars of the intelligentsia, from humanists Aurélien Pécas and Guillaume Choo to conservatives Denise Yeun and Mikael Kasahama, was everywhere yet so quick to rise to the thin air, and Asher was becoming acclimated to the solace it had given. Through their neverending connections and constant pushes, they had given the young man no visible endorsement, but the encouragement was more than enough for Asher to find his own, and see the beauty in the daily observances of the sacred when with those special to him. Asher became conscious himself that the words, formerly articulate but no more than that, started to sparkle with binding forces and brought fate to the stopgap of his own will, and knew the train was finally ready to leave the platform.

They often say that the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and this was no different on the relationship between the Pleiade of ecrivains and a young comet they had come to congratulate. At first, they weren't convinced with the ex-vagabond for his penmanship. Soon, as he started to share his words in dim-lit salons and over the emails, and seeing the desperation in his eyes, the Pleiade had realised distinctly that they were seeing the gradual becoming of a man, and that this was no joke of a task.

Now, the young ecrivain was heading back to his table for the second time, and all that mattered was to be present and enjoy the others read out their respective words and sing their laurels in self-disposition. Mikael Kasahama, seeing Asher sitting back into his seat on their table at the front row, proceeded to approach him at the first sight.

'Felicitations, with an excellent way for your career to take off.' Mikael said to him. 'It is amazing to see how you have found the world of balance, against all temptations of desire that you could have fallen into, but stayed restrained and controlled.' He smiled in joy, though his chin was thick enough to otherwise suggest a sense of misfortune at all those seeing those two converse, including that of his own colleagues. 'How many copies, did you say?'

Asher looked back at the philosophe, who has now taught for his thirty-second year at Lycee-Koreana, one of the most prestigious lycees in this country just down the road. 'I don't recall the exact figures, for the numbers do not matter.' responded Asher, who took little pleasure in being asked something of material concern. 'But few thousands were what I have last heard, sir.'

'Serve yourself, young man,' said Mikael, laughing at how unnecessary Asher's attempts at humility were. 'Think of it this way. It's a good start to what we all hope to be a long career, and you're more than allowed to celebrate it. Just remember that once is fine but the more you receive them, the less you will say about them. That’s how you will internalise your thoughts and aim for something deeper inside you. That's where you will find the greater pleasures in life and its steps, as you have told us right before.'

'Absolutely, sir.' continued Asher with his good nature. 'And that's what I hope to attain as well. Being humble is key, and I am still learning to keep up with it all.'

'Still, remember that it's not about the length, but what you make of it all,' reminded Kim Gook-Gwan, a mathematician who was busy overhearing a conversation between them, in French. 'Nowadays, we live in the world where poetry means all too little because the society's poisoned with its obsession towards the accessibility of what constitutes as feel-good poetry, driven by those with little training and even lesser substance from those who write with their notepads and l'Instagramme. I am sure vous, of all persons, would be aware of it.'

'That's absolutely undeniable, because we cannot analyse what barely cracks on the surface,' responded Asher, his sharpness brought back under training. 'There are certain names my contemporaries of the far-left or the average, mediocre lives adore, whose works contain little substance and only the outrage over something they have little detailed plans over.' Asher cleared his throat, grabbed a cup of water, before continuing. 'Aphorisms, paraphrases, excessive minimalism and other tricks that does little to propose proper sense of originality...no wonder they are ever so reminiscent of what our great-grandfathers, the self-proclaimed radicals, would propose in the failed revolution of Mai '76- opposed to all forms of normal, acceptable and institutional, without offering a clear blueprint.'

'That is where being aware helps in your quest,' responded Kasahama, slowly approving Asher's takes. 'The eye of being a good reader, and a good ecrivain, is to be able to detect actual gold, twenty-four carat of it, from the mirage of a golden pot..' In the slurring of the term pot, there were visible signs of embitterment that the sixty-four year old had felt, which was now spoiling the table's atmosphere.

'But the history weights itself, and that is why only the god can judge us,' said Lindsey Linehan-Devers on the other side, her even manner showing the charm in her goodness. 'Now what's your next plan, junior?' she asked, feeling satisfied at how far Asher had progressed, from his undergraduate days at St. Alban's College. 'You have implied somewhere that you hope to retire to the countryside.'

'I do not know when, though that is likely on the sights,' said Asher, fixing his glasses before proceeding to respond in a courteous manner. 'My partner and I have been talking about going back to her hometown, a really charming place near the Twin Cities. But the life has yet to truly figure itself out, and the delays nowadays are so strenuous.' he wiped sweat off his forehead with his right hand. 'Unfortunately, I do not have the answer at the moment. My apologies.' Asher concluded it with a simple answer.

He was clearly aware that the expectations were both present and absent in the eyes of the Pleiade. Asher had known early, from recalling the newspaper stories and anecdotes, that it was fashionable to marry often, cohabit just as much, and then to divorce when the life situations did not merit them in the lives of every capable and unhappy Capitolien. He wasn't going to live that life. Still, his position of a hesitant man, the common trope of the 19th-century Quebecois Anglophone canon where the man would stay in the personal limbo of non-commitment and trauma, as well as a head full of hopeful change and divine positivism, would be viewed with amusement and respect by many. Thus, it was with this matter that Asher had chosen to deal with any question.

'But what is with her absence to the occasion where everybody expects Baron Lauzon's cousin to make an appearance?' Kasahama asked in half-curiosity, half-deliberation.

'Unfortunately, Eileen told me she had urgent matters to attend, and I won't force her to attend to be here.' Asher responded drily, trying his best not to make much out of the question. 'Besides, it'd be both our best interests to have the two worlds stay distant.'

'And I think you have a lot to learn in being an honest person, Lundrigan,' said Mikael Kasahama. 'And you will learn sooner than later, in being a good partner and parent.'

And they were interrupted by a waiter, who asked those of the table no. 7 about their preferred choice of Champagne.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:14 pm

Now And Forever

PART 8 (65) - Queen of Peace


The late night drive from the D'yer Maker Studio to her home was an unusual one she had taken this time, especially as Eileen de Ramaut would normally be driving with a friend or two in the industry, or taking the metro. The city skyline, largely dominated by the Art-nouveau buildings north of the Queen-Nathalie Boulevard and the Corbusierien 'Architectural Promenades' south of it, was one of the contrasts that the Aspen District had shared. Even in Montreal, where regularly buildings were being rebuilt and the underground network renewed, this was alien and independent enough of an area with wide roads, active green spaces (as opposed to private gardens you'd see on the western half of the island), and strong sense of community.

As she drove on her eighties vintage, Eileen slowly guided herself back to her car back home. As la voiture and sa femme progressed into the summer, Eileen was starting to feel the heaviness and the heat, with third month of pregnancy beginning to take effect on her health. It was only two weeks earlier when the doctor confirmed her thoughts in regards to her health- earlier signs of exhaustion and appetite were some of the symptoms that she was with a child.

While the summer nights approached and her first trimester ended, Eileen was glad it was getting easier for her to stay up on the evenings. Eileen, slowly and slowly, was able to play her piano and read again in the late hours, thinking about the stories of old country's chronotopes in sleep and converse them to the visions of her own when awake in a conversely, Joni Mitchell-styled manner.

Early in the morning and just before dinner, on the months between her engagements abroad and home, Eileen would go on walks with a friend or two and they'd casually chat, and being the soundboard in the studio for both parties. That's how the musicians of old-school thinking thought and spoke to each other, almost as if they were poets, but not the contemporary poets that her partner had already exposed their ruse on the previous section. Now, in old days, they would have gone out into later hours, but over time Eileen's come to stop doing so, partly out of her concern and that of her child.

But, even as those minor changes were happening, not all has really been shared in this house yet and Eileen wasn't sure on how to explain it to her partner. She knew that the news of the third member's arrival, especially after the latest happenings, would mean that Asher and Eileen would retire back into Coxwell Park, and that alone was enough to revive the sense of isolation, something that she knew he wasn't feeling so comfortable about. It's partly because he's become too insensitive towards the latest news, especially with the recent controversies about violence against women in late hours, and how the nerves became much tighter in the heated air because of it.

Still, Eileen knew the inevitable was coming, and that feeling was now stronger than before. As the roaring twenties were starting to come closer to the terminus for both of them, even with two to three years they could spare, Eileen felt even more confident that she could face the unknown. There once was a time when she, in her first year of moving to the Big Smoke, was unable to do much on own for first few months, but now, with a stable career, certainty in what she had wanted to do, and with a premise of a family within a family, that stepping into the unknown wasn't one of concern. The beauty that crossed between the two, from the very edge of losing it all then, to being able to see through the light again now, had passed before her eyes like it had made sense all along.




They had just come back from the reception, and were happy to find peace in this salon. Now, the company of ecrivains, philosophes and politiques was busy chatting on own with models, actors and actresses, while Asher was pleased to be observing and left alone at a writing table on one corner. They, dressed in a rather simplistic pair of tailcoats or solitary coloured dresses, remained true to the dull exteriors that contrasted with illustrious lives underneath it all, and once again kept themselves busy chatting about their lives under the lights. Their topics varied widely, from the latest parliamentary squabbles in Quebec City to the tiniest of literary debacles in the Academie Quebecoise, with the key event being the Levinson Scandal, where Andre Levinsson, a religious studies professor at Farrer had cut off all contacts with his three sons over three competing novels they had written about the eldest son's affair.

'The beauty of it all is that you see the rivalry between the brothers,' responded Lindsey Linehan-Devers, referring to the polemics established among the three brothers, and between them and their father. 'It's first-rate to see how the differentiation in genre from the three, between Edward writing about a cursed mathematician, Martin the re-interpretation of Oedipus Rex, and Omar the mini observation under Penelopian perspective.'

'I cannot deny that fact, for the bookstores will eat them up and we'll bee seeing all about it on the newspapers for the next month or so,' answered Agnes Dobrolyubov, a columnist for the Rogue Quebec magazine. 'I do not know if this will shake up the nation, but if it does, all powers to the family for gaining extra bits of attention.'

'But it's a tricky matter either way, and some blood will be exchanged. Nobody's going to deny that it won't be pretty.' Daniel Kasahama said, as he interrupted into the conversation. 'Rather, it'll be viewed by those abroad as disgraceful. Won't it be?'

‘But the one that we’ve all been waiting to come.’ said Lindsey Linehan-Devers. ‘No doubt the Academie or la Societe won’t say anything about it.’

From some distance, Asher quietly looked at the sight unfolding between them, as well as between the intellectuals and extellectuals, before his eyes grew weary again. Asher saw from his own eyes that he did not know what would be the best measure, and continued along with his procedure. It was an unspoken rule for the Pleiade, especially those who had acquainted him the second time around, to leave him alone, for not only Asher did not hold any interesting in introducing misunderstood intentions, but also to habour any unintended thoughts that would later hurt him.




Eileen's car took a turn to the right on the Newsome Crescent, a circular street located about five minutes away from her West End flat. After about half an hour of unexpected traffic jam, brought by a couple of construction sites along her way back, the buildings looked more respectable enough, consisting of the mansions from the Anglophone industrialists of 1800s and 1900s that had remained largely intact or divided for their descendants, or townhouses built for the gentry and the artisans that were increasingly becoming expensive. The blocks were made of sandstone and granite native to the city, while the elm, spruce and maple trees draped all over the southern half of the metropolis, keeping the streets cool and shaded in the summer.

'Has it already been ten in the evening?' Eileen said to herself, as she parked the car. She was noticing her unborn child, slightly shaken by the car's stoppage, move back and forth. 'Well it won't be easy to sleep, that's for sure.' Eileen got herself out of the car, closed the door and locked it.

Feeling tired, Eileen initially thought of going home so she could rest. But then, she had noticed that she had to pick up a couple of minor items for tomorrow's breakfast, and decided to make a quick visit to a local depaneur down the corner. It wasn't the best time of the year to do so though. While as Eileen was not on the receiving side of such problems, she was aware of the recent concerns about how unsafe it had become in Montreal during night hours. Eileen had the feeling like that of a child walking in the woods. Even as the warm air continued to liven up people's spirits, and those around her were particularly off to a gay mood, Eileen was becoming somewhat conscious of the situation. And her awareness, at one point or another, was going to face her.




While all of this was going on, Asher thought and wrote, trying his best not to be aware of the increasing pressure he was still able to feel. Being a highly aware individual of high status, whose middle-class upbringing had only done so much to limit such awareness, Asher knew he had to take the right step, and that's where his focus remained. His work, on the moral tribulation of a self-define provincial fratire man, whose lack of awareness with his immoral views and refusal to repent for the pain he causes, remained still at a sketch phase. But he wasn't sure on what made him feel uncomfortable or at least startled enough to not push enough of what he wished to say, or what he had felt would need to be said on own. It's almost as if he, who has lived outside of it for so long, was not feeling the very heart of the original purpose behind writing his work.

Was the fate interrupting Asher’s work from resuming before significant revelations were to take place for him? Maybe that may have been what’s going on. Without a word, Asher packed his bags and left the salon for home.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Mon May 03, 2021 11:01 pm

Now And Forever

PART 9 (66) - Truth Is A Beautiful Thing


Her Version - Shyer

Eileen de Ramaut’s at the end of a month-long stay in Montreal. Sooner than later, she was going to be flying abroad for one last time, something that those of the industry would know to be particularly challenging. But Eileen was still unsure about it all, and there was nothing to say that the fear was any lesser than a few weeks ago. Her family, the longtime friends of hers back home, and all those who stood by her side in her band and the touring crew, and of course her manager Janet, who couldn’t hide their excitement about the news, behaved as if it was bound to happen. Eileen may have been the only one, at this point in time, who was truly feeling the quiet clock tick, as if a nun’s walking along the halls in the middle of an ungodly hour.

It was truly odd how the times have turned out this way, as the twenty-seven year old woman stood conscious of the world that stood in front of her with joy. It was an unexpected result of the love that was quietly shaking from its foundations for the past year, but Eileen, feeling the warmth of sunshine-like love for the future child, blissfully embraced it all. It wasn’t easy for her, as often the future child would move on its own and wander, occasionally waking her up in the middle of the night, but at the same time the newfound sense of joy brought her the god-given delight.

All those who she loved supported her, and their words of encouragement were more than enough to keep the race going. They all understood how challenging the situation has been for a couple that was still deciding their next steps, so it was perhaps of no one’s surprise that they were so attentive, pleasant and understanding enough to the point where life felt all too merciful for the young woman.

The only downside with it that made what has been a past month of congratulations and salutations, ahead of one more send-off, was that the nights did not necessarily make the best of their companions, as they would have been so in the country or away. Eileen liked his genuine, curious and good-natured manner in the mornings, and the enquiring self in the afternoons. In the evenings, as they would sometimes go outside, he seemed constantly moody and conscious of their settings, as if he was worried of the lost half-decade or any potential harm to her. When they were strolling in Saint-John-Upon-Battersea, behaving himself to be the odd figure in the countryside, Asher was never concerned about where they were going. Back in Montreal, he was always worried, feeling powerless on any evenings he spent alone as he waited for her to come back when it’s late.

And she felt sorry for her partner, for she knew what was weighing down onto him. To some, especially those who knew him so little, Asher Lundrigan had all the elements of posh and the brash, and held not one bit of pity on anyone. Eileen knew that, but also knew why that was a wrong assessment- Sometimes, when they would be sharing same circles, mostly without any particular intention, Eileen saw in his courtesy and expressive face that he, even with all the awareness and capability of being a right figure, was more afraid than cold.

But Eileen saw him not just from him of the previous year, but with footnotes from their first stints of happiness as well- Eileen saw that Asher was doing his best to get back what he had lost, and she knew the casual moments of natural joy was something that was going to take time to return. So whenever they would discuss about moving back to the city and casual enquiries would end up into arguments, often she recognised that the fear was over how difficult it was to look into a puddle of rainwater on an old pool of Coxwell Park’s estate, and see the clarity.

What would a young man like Asher be supposed to do there? Asher held no interest in cricket, or playing sports this late in his life’s clock. Driving all the way to the Twin Cities of Habpo and Saint John, to find some moments of casual socialisation, Eileen wasn’t as sure on the very idea, for that usually had meant going to the dockyards for casual observations or to find fresh catch on the fish markets. The same had applied to the idea of Asher being among the company of her siblings and cousins, or writing his works in the town or the Park. With former, they loved Asher and he liked them back too, but relaxed demeanour were disarming enough but also kept him aware and guilty, high horse over fear of disappointing them like what happened the first time, and the latter idea simply have never taken off in his mind. Perhaps the questions stood over whether it would be possible for him to be seen while not being seen in somewhere crowded, and she didn’t have an answer to it.

Now, dear reader, one advantage in living in a big city was that the city itself had enough alleyways to hide away much of explanations behind what had happened earlier, or what had eventually resulted in the unexpected. Whether that was because of the lack of tracking application some couples would have on each other’s MyPhones, or that they simply held enough faith on each other, Eileen and Asher always kept rooms for surprises, which they had to take the past year of their relationship to bring back some room for what was lost.

And it was then that the particular moment of realisation was to happen, and that’s where we are being transported...

His Version - She Is

Driven by the walk of fate, in the blow of the window, Asher stood at the edge of the road, his weary body swaying back and forth under the dark sky, in a slightly hilly terrain of Montrealais West End. Without looking, he slowly moved along with his instinctive grip of the stone pavements, the neverending rows of elm, spruce and maple trees, and the ancient mansions and middle-aged townhouses stood facing him.

Walking in sentimental clouds, Asher's soul was taken by the odd sense of reverie, joy and loftiness, almost as if he were approaching a moment of revelation.

Yet, even as he found himself floating, Asher's mind was gripped with thoughts of doubt, like a heavier layer through the thin flames, and how it held him to see the borders between the fear and the faith. This thought, the boundaries of all the future fathers, was the essential process of initiation that he had to go through. Gently groomed yet barefeet, rich yet poor, at the edge of the Porto Velho Boulevard, he was dragging himself to home, while the wind of fate, almost as if it were inviting the shared moment of realisation for the two, played with the minds, allowing Eileen to take a longer route back, with her car door locked, and shook the tree branches twice.

The human-like Groots slapped each other with fist-bumps and high fives, while the flowers began to tumble back and forth, and were holding themselves like a glided set of goblets, reminding Eileen of her home with the aroma and the finest things in her past decade of life.

Suddenly, the road where he stood on one side, that once shimmered with hot air, was now breezing with wind from the north. Half out of mind and half out of control with his limbs, Asher found himself walking to the other side of the place, his feet guided by the shining light at the very end of the road. His tread, ethereal yet humanly, were like that of a pilgrim, and his mind was increasingly becoming convinced of what's laying ahead, as in the unnamed realisation that was becoming clearer and clearer to him by its presence alone.

Among his thoughts, he was seeing the lost days and promises, where the junior Asher and recent graduate Eileen had found each other in a Quebec City cafe, the christmas holidays shared at Coxwell Park (they had never gone to Bron-Yr-Aur together, though that was to change), and he would be the first person, the undisclosed fan of hers, on the surface. The memories coiled through the air as they circled and glided over the ground, pressing him with wonderful sensations.

'Wonder, wonder, wonder!' Asher shouted. 'How else would I describe the dreams from the past days begone? Those that I have seen before, those that I were part of the divine plan set before the all-forgiving's eyes, but have lacked the eye to see it all, but those I am now able to recollect in the waves of all that are golden.'

Then the next moment they passed, lifting heavenward into the moon. This did not mean the waves had ended though, for the next wave of realisation came. The silvery threads of thoughts, they came at Asher like the illuminations of ancestral and childhood ghosts. Showered with missed opportunities and the what if's, hey came with less predictability in their walking steps, their sleek form reminding us of what's lost in our embittered, mundane lives under the Khaki clothes and the bleak skylines. Asher, the guilty party of the halves who's still unable to see the impact of his movements, continued to move, even though his body, vividly haunted by all the things that he has done.

And all foundation that we made // Built to last, they disintegrate // And when your house begins to rust // Oh, it’s just metal and dust,he thought in the verses of the famous Montrealais group he adored, the Hampden Collegiate, even though the words didn't really bring him the doom or gloom of a relationship that's falling apart in those words. Instead, he was becoming more and more aware of what stage of the grief and reverie he had to go through, in order to sense that he and Eileen, the love of his life, could start again. Now I cannot make any specific promise, but am confident in keeping any. He thought to himself, now feeling that he could perhaps bring back and offer the joy comparable to that of the 'golden thunder of reawakened temples' (OOC: a reference from a Nabokov Short story).

Then the second wave went away, this time disappearing into the underground. eaching out with uncontrolled desire, and hoping to hear the first-hand news, Asher began running and running towards that golden figure at the end of the road that continue to illuminate light. He panted, he felt rushed about, and he tempted the fate, and the next thing he had felt was a punch to the diaphragm. 'Wait, wait, wait,' he cried, trying to avoid the blow that came intermediately after he tried to reach her, but then came Eileen's feet, quick and direct, punched him o the kidney, and Asher fell backwards.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Mon May 03, 2021 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
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Independent Athletes from Quebec
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Left-Leaning College State

Postby Independent Athletes from Quebec » Tue May 11, 2021 7:04 pm

Now And Forever

PART 10 (67) - She Is


She is everything I need
That I never knew I wanted
She is everything I want
That I never knew I needed


But at that moment, Eileen felt a minor shiver. She turned around, and once again the night's veils covered her. She was feeling tired, but not tired enough. She had eaten plenty over the course of the day, and had drunk plenty of water warm and calming, but was still feeling enough of her own appetite. The expectant mother was feeling constantly tired, but was unable to really grab herself a nap either. Her body started feeling cold, even as Montreal summers left every soul and their limbs weary and heavy.

Eileen opened the window of her car, dropped a couple of items for tomorrow, and then looked around after closing it again. The streets were still empty, even though Eileen knew she wasn’t alone. Frozen, she tried to reach for her phone, but her pockets were empty and she felt awakened. The moment of leaving behind her phone back in the car, while brief, caught her attention, for she had feared that the night, her long friend and the muse, would betray and take her away to the unknown.

Eileen slowly walked towards her car, and would have rushed back to her house if it weren’t for the lurking presence of the stranger she was able to sense from afar. Eileen did not understand where they were, given how dark it was outside, and her constraints from moving had made her, who could go to sleep any moment she reached home, feel particularly alert.

The shiver occurred once again- a mild shoulder tap, followed by a breeze. Eileen turned around. It was once again a miss this time, for she only happened to see a biker who happened to drive late into the night. Right away, almost as if losing control of her body, her body tensions loosened. Hearing the bike bell twice, her heart beat once again and then sunk twice.

Then, the street ceased to make any sound for a minute.

Now standing in the middle of the street, Eileen felt powerless. A couple of glittering gold floated past through the thin air- an apple dropped upon its touch. Then, farther along, at the very edge of the frame of her eyes, the lights on the two-dimensional townhouses flickered twice before turning off.

It was then that the third shiver had occurred. ‘Get away from me!’ shouted Eileen, punching the stranger in the darkness as the human hand grabbed her shoulder. The fatigue and the desire to protect her child were compressing her fists. Her arms ached, and her legs felt tense, she drew aim at the rough estimates and flew. The stranger dropped to the ground, moving side by side as she kicked him once more. Finally, he fell backwards, his eyes closed and gaze stunned.




'Are you okay?' said Eileen, who was trying her best to wake Asher up, as his consciousness slowly returned.

Can I stay here? Asher thought to himself. [i]This is one of the most beautiful feeling in the world...to lie in her arms, albeit unintendedly so...What a pity! Have I reached out of my mind? Have I lost my train of thought when I saw that blue car, almost behaving out of muscle memory? Or did I behave out of a remarkable realisation, where a great moment of truth had just occurred, and the great gate to the Holy Asylum had opened up? Or that of the great mysteries of Bua and the Tamarindie, from every piece to piece?

'Are you alright?' Eileen asked in hurry, slipping him a couple of times as he blinked once, twice and then thrice, to suggest the affirmative. 'Can you hear me? Hope it didn't hurt you, Ash.'

But he couldn’t hear, for everything had made sense. The street lights were turned on again- the sky was filled with endless waves of stars that went back and forth, almost as if to signify a special, divine moment. A flutist played a tune from Die Zauberflote from her third-floor room, likely not being aware of the magic she was taking part in.

In the communal gardens tucked behind homes, which the outsiders were seldom able to get their glimpses beyond iron railings and gates, the ground was radiating in the golden sprouts of energy as they rose and bloomed from under the ground. The leaves of the elm, spruce and maple trees on the sidewalk, that shrouded the streets to the townhouses, were fully blooming with colours all too radiant and yet calming by the touch of the sprouts' extensions that topped with life-giving energy.

In the middle of the street, the silvery, memory-formed shapes of a stag and a tiger had merged, his tips felt hers for however short the feeling may have been, and yesterday her dream was conjured with the dreams of something wonderful. The mist of warmth and the delight, the relief, had enveloped Eileen- her ever-enquiring eyes, her nose, her lips that spoke of home- and this was brought to complete by the fumes of a beautiful moment. The lack of passerby, contrary to her worries, seemed to only make this situation even more fitting.

It was then that Asher had realised the greatest news he's heard in a long time.

'The luck comes to those who wait, pray and abide,' he said, a drop of tears falling from his eyes. 'To hold your heart, to hold your hand, Would be to me, the greatest thing. To hold your heart, hold your hand, Would be to me, the bravest thing.'

Her silver earrings were shining over the darkness, though it was so dim that not it resembled an old study lamp. 'Yes.' She smiled back, looking upwards to see how the stars had aligned this very night.

Only now had Asher realised the long-awaited clarity of all the feelings he had carried inside himself, when formerly he and Eileen would drink together the opaque solutions that had taken over themselves like the opioid addicts without hope in sight, and had developed meaningless follies and wasted hours of their own. He was feeling somewhat baffled over his inability to recognise the signs, and even more incomprehensible in the last quarter of a year they had not figured this delightful news together. But at the same time, Asher knew that the very forgetfulness of his was not an independent event of own, but the inevitable learning process on the part of fate, that had over time and time punished Asher for his inability to understand his beloved, just so the fruits born from the labour would be sweeter.

Now, realising how all the pieces of the puzzles had come together, from the moment they had left their respective soirees early, found each other by accident in the darkness, and with the beauty of the world that awaited them, Asher and Eileen had finally come to unravel the threads complicated seven years prior, the key to the novel that he now found how to conclude it with its far-reaching meanings. It was of this that Asher said back to her, said with confidence that, now and forever, he was bound for a mission.

'I think I have figured out the life's mission,' he said, crying of joy. 'To write down and recalibrate the greatest joys of life that you and I have gone through. It's indeed amazing how the fate had brought us together eight years ago, on a rainy Quebec City afternoon...and since then, we've only seen ourselves wear our thoughts. And yet, it took so long and so much for us to really give each other homes- and how amazing that it'd all come down to tonight.

'For years, I had vowed myself not to return, preferably not to return. In my figurative vow, I had taken a tequila shot hoping that fate would permit me to turn this into a bastardised version of Abelard and Heloise, and in hopes that you would not be burdened by my illness. But then, every man makes mistakes - with me, it was that one time I had made a bargain with the devil in Porto Nowi, and the reversal of fortune was achieved - and because of them I was somehow able to make my way back to you, the harbinger of all forms of joy a mankind could seek for.'

'Stop sounding silly,' said Eileen, gracefully smiling, 'That still doesn't exempt you from making me nervous every other day.'

'Then it's even more special. How beautiful can it all be? The most unnerving things are those most beautiful and you never cease to amaze me. Whenever we are travelling, whenever you are home, whenever you wake up in the morning, and whenever we argue at four in the morning...these brushstrokes, they all make sense because everything's meant to happen. And it’s something now I'm ready to go through with you, and our child.'
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Sat May 15, 2021 11:02 pm

Now And Forever

PART 11 (68) - Castles


Almost six months had passed. We have only entered the second month of Winter, for the winters start and finish late in the Salamantics (November-May as opposed to October-April in some places out there), but Asher Lundrigan was only saying his true goodbyes to leave Quebec City.

Asher and Eileen's life had remained quite eventful since the night of revelations just earlier. Asher and Eileen had married in the very August afternoon of 2047. Being an expectant couple, their faces had grown rounder and more toned down, and all that struck unacquainted eyes were a happy Twin Cities Brahmin couple who had moved back after a decade away in the cities.

In the past half-year since the promise, they had moved back to one of the houses in the Coxwell Park estates, with occasional returns to Quebec City or Montreal, either at Eileen's Montreal flat, or in Robert Lundrigan's house. Neither of them were seen often in the high society or the industry, and those who knew where they were would find themselves travelling to the town. It was all intended to be as such- not that Asher was content about leaving behind the society- but building a new family, the family visits, and spending almost every moment of their lives together, Asher and Eileen had little time for anything else. Of course, old friends who had known the Baron Valletta, a Vdaran title he had almost never used due to its lack of relevance in the Quebecois court, wondered what had facilitated such change.

Not that there hasn't been much work done during this time anyway. On August, he had released his book, the work that had required the second half of the previous year's recovery from the pain, 'The Death of a Quebecois Fratire Man'. Several chapters of it, framed under the short story format, had appeared in magazines, and a couple of readings were held to those of the Pleiade and other minor circles, to test out the ideas he was working on.

Of course, those who had read up to this point would remember that the promise that Asher had made to his wife was not the specific work about the inferno that condemns the moral degeneracy of a man from the fratire trope. That said, work would have to wait until the year 2050, and not be penned until the arrival of their daughter in the new year. Still, there were visible expectations marked on the public about what awaited the very next work, and if it would cause great furor upon the Quebecois society that may have needed a hero of our times.

And so it did. After arduous revision, the book was at last published just a month ago. Nothing was said or no one had appeared to represent it, as the author had kept himself quietly on alert back home, with his musing over how the public reception would be regarding the absence of the fiery figure who has made his name known in past. Not that he wasn't anticipating the impression this work would make- every author would daydream about such scenarios after all- but the challenge itself was shutting his own mouth from saying anything.

Fortunately, a month had passed, a second, and third, and the society had detected fire and fury in the authors' eyes. Those who had seen his progress among the well-read and the intelligentsia were right in that the topic was going to be a matter of contention because it served incendiary purpose mixed with the aesthetic weaponry. Those who had known him in other paths of life, who would feel slight bits of tingles upon reading this, talked of it rather as a matter of confusion or even betrayal. And the Quebecois society, being amazed with the ways he would go about with the words, simply ate them up. Not to mention the press, whose coverage had only given the silent author additional spotlight.

One of few people who happened to have noticed such changes was the Queen of this northwestern nation. The Queen had realised that his distancing had been due to fulfillment of duties, especially those he had not done so in the years prior, and she would sometimes find herself amused with second-hand news she would hear at times. There was something sure and certain in her judgment that the writer has simply chosen to retreat, but is not recluse, for that did not suit Asher's character.

'Your absence continues to make news in the public and high society. As I have told you, on the most recent letter sent to you and Eileen, the silence without its own end only makes the public feel suspicious about the intentions. Have you not learned what you had sowed from the Smurfgate the previous summer?'

It was an early afternoon, and the speaker happened to be Christine II, the Queen of Quebec and Shingoryeo who has entered the fifth year of her reign. With said words she had scolded her friend Asher, who was busy making farewell remarks to those of the High Society. She was feeling back in health after recovering for a month or two from giving birth to HRH Claire, the second child between her and HRH Caspian of Cassadaigua, the Duke of Halifax.

The Purple Room of the Palais Royale was empty. Since taking the throne, Christine II had rarely invited guests unless they had involved her family or the Prime Minister, even though the occasional guests who would come remained those of the highest ranks of the Quebec City society. This did not mean that the invitations would come in any manner expected, for they had always come in Korean, delivered on a purple and gold message and the word 'Regina Mundi expects you at [insert the certain hour].'

'I believe I have made my choice at this point in time,' replied Asher, feeling calm and yet unsurprised about the response. Wearing the tailcoat, leather shoes and a black tie with the Lundrigan family crest, he had carried a particularly compliant tone to his face. He gave the Queen a courtesy, kissed her hand, and then stood himself before the Queen, who sat on a small chair reserved for meetings.

'Most importantly, your majesty, that is not the slightest of my concerns, for I have come to say farewell to you and the court,' said Asher, unfaltering in his tone, even as there were layers of longing underneath for those who would be able to dig deeper into it.

'But are you sure you'd not want to be saying anything, even as the speculations fly over the words you write?' asked the Queen. 'How many, after all, have heard the remarks you had made leading up to the publication? I do not know how many, but it is unlikely enough to have read it for you to wrest the control over the said narrative.'

' believe not many, and that's probably the best it can get at this point,' responded Asher in his polished Korean, the kind he had been taught since the childhood, dating all the way back to life on the other side of the portal (OOC: reference goes to Interrealm Portal). 'And I frankly do not care, at this point in time, on whether it is an indictment or a work of hypocrisies. I supposed that's true, but the fetes are where all the temptations lie. I do not think going to those would be worth sacrificing an evening bonfire with Eileen and her sister and brother on the beach, or to shop for furnitures to the little guest's room.'

'Of course, there's no denying that.' Queen responded, having been reminded that she was already a mother of two, with Alexandre just turned three. Who would have thought that the time would fly this quickly? 'The children are some of my greatest joys these days, and there's no denying on that. Still, everybody misses you back here or in Montreal, where I have heard from Mylene and Augustin that the calls have been neverending on their end.'

'Of course, you are probably one of the best to know. It was over a year ago when we had first discussed, while on the hunting trip to Thetford Castle under the same invitation, the very novel. It is a social indictment aimed at those who would try to copycat me, or that of those whose conduct cannot be discussed in Her Majesty's Court. It wasn't the one that I had proposed to Leanne over, but that never matters, does it?'

'No, it does not,' The Queen responded, her smile indicating something. 'Especially since you always have something in mind for what's ahead.' She continued after a pause, trying to move the conversation to that of a possible manoeuvring of family relations, the matters more intimate than formal, even with all the pains of logistics and arrangements involved. 'But, you know,' she said, calmly noting the inevitable future, 'perhaps, too well, that one day you will change your mind on what you have said about retreating to Coxwell Park, and be back in the society?'

'Absolument,' Asher responded with a smile and not a slightest bit of doubt, 'If anything, I expect myself to be back in society in a few years' time. Her career, first and foremost, comes over mine though, especially since it’s easier for me to only come when the world calls me. As we have seen so far into the book, I believe that’s not yet to be the case.’

‘Having no friends in the woods, unless they were of hers or her family’s? It would be quite uncharacteristic of you.’ Christine asked.

‘I am aware. Fortunately, I could wait as long as I need for the company of strange crews. As you know, there are those who expect me to return- one of them happens to be Mikael Kasahama. You know him, and he definitely has come to the court on several occasions. The other happens to be Patrice Nelson-Ryong, who is probably best connected through his businesses in the Holy Empire and Tequilo through the Ryong family's vessels, as well as the series of football investments made by the Nelsons. He is a true Quebecois in his demeanour, but you can expect something other than a matter so predictably of ours. Have you heard?'

'Probably, the name rings the bell,' said the Queen. 'Anyhow, tell me,' she added with particular impatience, as the time of their meeting was almost bound to end. She still had one more question to ask: 'Are you already thinking about the next steps in life once back in Quebec City? It is rumoured by many that Arsene Kim hopes you'd be running for the Battersea Woods riding. That does not sound like you in any bit, but who could trust the words coming out of mouths these days...'

Not again... Asher closed his eyes briefly, before opening them again, to indicate that he had not really thought out what he had in mind for the future yet. Of course, the rumour was false, likely planted by somebody on the PJQ circuit as a noisemaker, but nothing more than that. For several years, the Prime Minister had made his intentions clear that Asher's welcome anytime to enter federal politics, but his unwillingness had not changed from that time in a Lac-Drouin underground pub three years ago.

'All I know is that Eileen and I will eventually be back, even though that may require adjusting the expectations to be as realistic as possible. Don't expect much yet, but I know you will be hearing about them anyway.' Asher responded, trying his best to hide how he had not really thought about something that far behind.

And Asher remembered the very scene between him and Her Majesty when they were seniors. Their Odeon apartment crew of Asher, Christine, Mylene Graham and Carson Yeo, were having dinner at a bistro on a Monday evening. They, like any gluttonous bunch of twenty-something year olds, were busy trying different delicacies that were reserved for their joy. From some distance away, his mother, Princess Athena of Vdara, happened to witness their presence, and approached Asher to remind him that there always stood the possibility of remaining on the Quebecois soil. The ensuing embarrassment, when Asher was left with little words to respond and his friends, was magnanimous.

And now he was struck twice by how the past and the present had merged, with which his embarrassment of 2042, in the presence of his closest college friends, had matched well with his reverie of 2047, at the heart of royal quarters. He was amazed that what he had so confidently believed to be the path of destiny, casual or serious, be interrupted with such ease, and in how the world functioned in never-ending circles. Now, he would have to live by what he had once thought as impossible.

As she read Asher's mind, the Queen once again smiled. Her face suddenly assumed an expression of looking far into the future, where you could only rely on the tightropes of the inevitable destiny, the syndicate of what makes us human, and this occurred once in a while when the Monarch was noticing that the future was going to come back to them at this moment. Christine knew that one day his daughter will stand in her friend's place (but absent of his physical presence) in this universe, and the bitterness clouded over her green eyes.

Asher was once again quiet, trying not to speak out of turn against the Queen. Aware in what he's worried about, Christine quietly decided to give him a tip into the future and said:

'Now, do you see the future that you could promise for your daughter? If you had never returned, out of a matter of chance and too many mistakes committed, we would not be seeing the glories ahead. One day, as you bring your daughter to the school, and drive on your way back, you will realise that too, as my father did many years ago.'

And how they will be bounded to one another, almost as if it's all planned to be, Asher nodded before saying a mere 'yes', figuring out that Christine was not kidding when she had casually teased a possibility of his daughter's introduction to the Crown Prince. I am proud of my friend for always coming up with plans, however scary they may be to those who hear of them.

'I guess you are right,' he responded, after that long pause, the fear creeping up on him as if to show that he had just realised something. 'And won't that be the greatest feeling? Why has fate given me such a joy, to be given the privilege to be with woman I love, and this life, however short it may be cut down the road? I don't know how, and I hope I will get to speak of the same to your son someday, even if he may not be like his mother, ' he added.

And Christine once again smiled a graceful smile. She knew Asher, no matter how arrogant, was a man of the society and had no intention to disobey, even if it would mean that he would be worrying about the unknown years in advance. 'I know you are worried, but please take this seriously.' said the Queen. Her friend answered nothing. 'Do not worry about sending children when the time comes, that is all. You know your daughter, if she inherits any bit of Lauzon, or a Ramaut, will have no trouble. Mark my words when the time comes.'

'And what if your royal highness will be opposed to said idea?' he asked, adding with it a his piece of mind. 'I am afraid it is unwise to think of such matters well ahead, and for you to reprimand me, when the child is not even born yet.'

The Queen said no more, but expressed her resignation. There was no point to be made about it for the time being. 'You know,' she said after a half a minute of pause, trying to work around the phrasing of her thoughts, 'If there's anything I can help once it is time for your daughter to...' she took another pause before resuming, 'come to Avon-Gillespie...then let it be known to me. I expect you to be back and forth, and writing until your very last breath, but there's only so much a dying man and your love can do. That's all I could say.'
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Mon May 17, 2021 10:10 pm

Now And Forever

PART 12 (69) - Oceans. Sands. Trees.


The day Claire R. Lundrigan had come to Coxwell Park with her parents was one of Asher's happiest days. It was the second week of January, when life had just resumed to normal on every station platform, office building and hospital wards in the middle of the Winter.

The weeks leading up to it, in all fairness to him, were not easy for anybody to be part of. To be part of the special moment on an early morning, to be present in the room, help the love of his life by her side, and to witness the arrival of their god-given creation sound so simple and routine. But, to become part of the experience for the first time, where one gets to experience the true moment of warmth, the sense of an unspoken but present bond, a careless partner must be attentive and mentally ready for hours if not days, and to wait and spend days in the ward after the very birth. And this was, of course, not an easy task for anyone.

The feeling that came with it, in some ways by the pollens that somehow learned to stay alive in cold Quebecois Winters, remained in Asher's minds for a week. Having only moved to the the pastoral world for barely half a year, with much to get used to the lifestyle, Asher had felt particularly affected by the relaxation the countryside provided for him and his growing family. After three days at the Habpo General Hospital, the family of three returned to Coxwell Park in late morning, and to their small house within, which was finally completed after months in making, and were greeted to a welcome by Eileen's parents and siblings, who shed a couple of tears as they welcomed the latest grandchild into the house.

Watching Eileen and her family immerse into the glow of a true happiness in being a parent, Asher found himself return to the sudden dose of inspiration, where he was finally able to write something genuine in the very narrative that he had alluded earlier to Christine II. Instead of staying, where he was still not at ease, Asher quietly sneaked out of the master bedroom, and having turned around a couple of corners, he arrived at his office.

Facing south, the room is well lit now, and the window, which directly faces the table, dropped the ray of sunlight. The sky was finally overcast after a week of light, continuous snowfall that had accumulated over the southwestern Acadie, and the flock of birds casually flew from some distance. Asher heard the wind breeze back and forth outside, and then looked at the sea of the Silverstar Bay that stayed calm. At every touch of the waves, ever so gentle yet delightful, came closer to peace that Asher had finally found for once, after all this time.

I am lucky, lucky, and lucky, even though I do not really belong here, Asher thought to himself, shedding a tear or two in realising that he has found the peace of his mind, as he watched the waves crash on the shores of the Coxwell's beach where a couple of his cousin-in-laws happened to be swimming, as he just noticed. And being able to accept the gratitude that I'm still not capable of handling, that I am still working on. Will take a while but I am still working on that.

Then he turned around and looked at himself in the mirror on the wall, only to see something unexpected. It was a pleasant sight, something he had lost in a while- there stood the high school Asher. Considerably heavier and shorter, he was wearing a green sweater knitted out of wool and light-blue Jeans. Cleanly cut and neatly shaved, with confidence he hadn't always shared beyond the schoolyard, the diamond or the rink at that age, younger Asher looked back, seemingly asking - 'Are you happy here?

Any careful reader or a fan of a RL-verse writer Donna Tartt, whose cult of personality had unexpectedly grown with the rise of Dark Academia at the tail end of The Other Side's twentieth century, the answer would have been straightforward- 'No, but you're not very happy where you are, either.' It's a tragic ending to a novel warning about confusing art with life with a heavy False Double attached to it.

For a novel, it makes sense and Tartt's words do fit nicely into Asher's stories. But even then, those words do not speak of Asher, for they are not really his representations.

Like the first time, when I was her first and she mine, and we had so much to learn,he said, carefully watching him as he touched his face. It took a while for his younger self to respond from the other side of the window as well, but it slowly came along. Slowly, and firmly, there he was, smiling back at Asher, almost as if he were oblivious to all the chords of the fates that were going to derail things between his younger self and his beloved. The days of illusions perdues that began miraculously on a rainy Quebec City afternoon, had them travel five hundred miles in dreams, and be interrupted with his own mistake on a rainy West End afternoon.

From the smile, an astute observer would have been able to notice that the smile was a sad one, almost as if the very version of his younger self was a manufactured being from the time even further into the future. If anything, that’s probably what happened. Asher’s last moments weren’t spent on this house, having passed into eternity at a heavily-attended hospital room in Quebec City, on our year 2068, Anno Domini, but his memories and the stories, that of a self-defined wanderer's Guide To Somewhere from the lessons he had learned first as a lonely man, then as a father, remained and were going to remain firmly into this house. It was almost as if the borders between life and death, which had so thinly separated the man, who initially found out about his genetic condition at age seventeen after surviving imprisonment in Nuevo Caracas, were representative of his character and suffering. The suffering that was bound to continue under the layers, with the clock continuing to tick.

But we often forget, dear reader, that what a man already knows does not influence him more than the impact it would generate. Asher didn’t notice. Even if he could have seen the sadness of the smile, the thunder that rang into the very crux of his soul would have left him not particularly cognisant of it. The laughter of his wife and her family, the crying of the baby Claire, and the wind breezing outside...those were enough to create Prospero's magic on a quiet Brahmin household.

In the subsequent lightning that reached his heart, Asher sat down in front of his writing table. Then, feeling the ink bubbles drop one after another, Asher started writing, never to hold back to his words, forever to be faithful to the Plongeon (Eileen) of his life, and always to be appreciative of the fate's gift.

----- THE END......? -----
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
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Left-Leaning College State

Postby Independent Athletes from Quebec » Wed May 19, 2021 7:09 pm

A minor episode


In the meanwhile, we are moving back to the quiet, old house of the Coxwell Park Estate.

It was by all means a peaceful, pastoral sight of the couple whose peacetime had come. Eileen was watching young Claire, now just fifteen months old, run, when Asher had arrived. Hearing her father's footsteps, the young toddler ran towards him, well outpacing her mother with glee.

'Appa, appa, appa!' Claire said, as he approached his father. Without ado, Asher quickly hugged his daughter and held her in his left arm, while Eileen joined the two by hugging him from a distance.

Together they slowly moved to the middle of the living room, where Asher slowly lifted his daughter and carefully dropped her. Much to her parents' disappointments (but lack of surprise attached as well), Claire started running again. Eileen and Asher watched her run back and forth, and in circles all over the room, before they started to talk.

'Well, you are not late for once,' said Eileen to her husband, her blue eyes once again lighten up on a sunny morning. 'And oh my god, Claire's really happy her papa's back from a visit.'

'It was only three days away, to visit my cousin in the Morays. At least Monique was happy to see me for once.'

'Well, at least you're back home now.' Eileen smiled back at him, looking at the baby, while moving her hand to his. 'At least all's quiet and peaceful here, with nothing but music, the sea and the woods.'

'And mot importantly of all, you were right. You were right all along, and I thank you for saving me when it was all lost and I was ungrateful to you...'

Eileen's smile was radiant, and so was a light drop of tears shared between them.

'And the world that we live in will be as beautiful as one we live in.' Eileen said, touching her hair once before they found themselves into an embrace. It was like those enjoyed by a high school couple, dancing in the dark side of the gym at the tail end of their senior (sixth form) year. 'It's sunny outside, just a perfect day for picnic...maybe we should bring Irene and D'Arcy for lunch, and go...spend the afternoon together with the guitars.'

And it was then that the television, which was running a rerun of the QBC episode, had suddenly interrupted its regular programming. The next thing the young happy couple and their daughter, who quickly escaped her mother's hold on the toddler, saw was the televised broadcast of Christine II's televised Speech to the public about the Anexit:

Her Majesty Christine the Second's Speech to Quebec and Shingoryeo, Quebecois Commonwealth, Anaia and Atlantian Oceania


On my twenty-eighth birthday, I welcome the opportunity to speak to all the peoples of Quebec and Shingoryeo, the Quebecois Commonwealth and Anaia, no matter where they are from, where they live, and no matter where their lives will lead.

Let me begin by saying 'thank you' to all those out there, who have wished blessings and messages of goodwill. This is a special day for me, but it is also one day that reminds me of priorities, the priorities of this life that, like all of us watching this, whether home or away, face as one.

At such a time, it is a true delight to know that no matter what, there stands true friends around the Multiverse who wish me well and that of our beloved ones. As always, I am thankful. As I speak to you today from my home in Quebec City, I stand on the lands where my ancestors have arrived from the far lands of the Morning Calm. But I am never forgetful of those who have come from away, whose heart has brought life to this country and our soil. Anywhere I have travelled, in every corner of Atlantian Oceania, homely quarters of Anaia, or true homelands of our Quebecois Commonwealth of Nations, my parents, my brothers and I have taken to the core of what holds the strengths of the peoples together and reminded that the faith holds us stronger and together.

This is the great pride and privilege that belongs to us, the people of the Quebecois Commonwealth of Nations, in that we trust each other and not question ourselves out of dubitation and blindness. As I grow older, I hope I will continue to take the trails less taken, but rings truer to our hearts.

Today, as misunderstandings cloud the judgments and anger blinds the eyes of all of us in the days following the Foxchester Declaration, I am thinking especially of all the true souls of those who had grown up in the era of international coexistence and co-operative prosperity following the two wars against Nazi Felix and Holy Republican Empire of my father's time.

Will you, the people of Quebec and Shingoryeo, the Quebecois Commonwealth of Nations, and the prosperous regions of Anaia and Atlantian Oceania, let me speak on my birthday as your witness? As we face great challenges that need more understanding and tolerance from each pother, it would be an absolute joy for all of us to think that together, we shall overcome our historical challenges, current differences and the future challenges that lie ahead.

No matter what, we must not feel limited by the challenges that the 'shift' has brought to our lives, over the three seas that surround ourselves, the Quebecois Commonwealth and the corners of the world. We know that the opportunity, so rare yet often taken for granted, has come to us to strengthen our ties and redefine our priorities.

I am sure that you will see our faith and trust, in which we guide ourselves instead of blind hatred and unnecessary vigilance, as the great promise that binds all of us, from seas to seas, between you and me. Most of us have read, from the tales of our nation's initial dates, that our nation was built on its principles of unity and trust between argonauts and first peoples, and would continue to do so in service and servitude among our peoples. The same goes to our time with those of the Commonwealth and Anaia, for we ought to say that what appears to be a nuclear threat in the eyes of many, is no less than a reminder for our continued call for solidarity, and has to continue bridging the communities, a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos terrae.

I think that binding ties of our Commonwealth of nations is even stronger than any that were hoped in the days of the Year 1404, and it is for us, who have lived under the time of prosperity, to continue carrying the torch of our enduring spirit and the light it brings to the dark world.

If we all wave our hands together with the trust in one another with a tolerant self, an understanding heart, and the compassionate spirit, all of which we hold as part of this ancient Commonwealth, we will cross the water together with no time.

To accomplish what we have been working together, we must stay true to ourselves. What our ancestors had spent endless sleepless nights for, in bridging the painted corners of our world together through patience and appreciation, is what I cannot do quite as they did. But through the power of technology, I can do what mankind has dreamed for millennia. I can make my declaration with the whole Commonwealth, and the regions listening. I would like to make the declaration now as a renewal to my promise to you all.

I declare before you all that my life, from now until the end of our time, shall be devoted to your service and the worlds that we all belong to. However far or close, Anaian or Oceanian, it is your service that I will promise on behalf of us all.

But I shall not have the strength to renew and bind this resolution alone, unless you join with me tonight. I know that your support, whether in the times of dark or not, will be given. May God help me to complete this vow, and May they hold ourselves true to the strongest of our faiths.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Fri May 21, 2021 11:13 pm

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


So, with that concludes the first volume of The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere megaseries. The first volume began as my own, personal challenge to write something that I could hopefully complete in a full package, as I had rarely if never completed a full storyline before working on a collaborative RP storyline with Cassadaigua back in WC85.

That one, of course, went very well, but was also benefitted by the WC85 cycle lasting forever in terms of length (6 weeks? 2 months? I forget), so I knew that the challenge had to be found in a multi-series work. Fortunately, the story of a full cycle of Asher and his love Eileen had found a comfortable space inside my heart and I was able propel further with it.

This work is a somewhat revised version of dozens of roleplays I have written over past year, which I was able to complete just earlier this week with a nice coda and an afterpart. It is a pleasant duty to thank about a dozen cohosts in various level of Nationstates Sports (NSS) tournaments, from World Cup to NSCAA and NSCF, for generously giving me a venue to post my chapters. Without their support and encouragement I would not have been able to get there.

Additional acknowledgments go out to several of my inspiring colleagues at the NSS community, who have been able to review it at various points. It has not always been the easiest of journeys, which includes an occasion where a recently-retired cohost of a tourney had chosen to insult the purpose of an entire season, but otherwise it has been worth the work. I cannot list all of them, due to how long the list is, but there are some who I have maintained extensive dialogues over the series, and they deserve an additional shout-out. I'm sure they know who they are and I thank them for their valuable suggestions.

Finally, my most recent thanks go out to the muses from the world of music and literature who have fuelled me in my journey. It is indeed true that there exists millions of muses out there in this world, and I happened to be influenced by a few.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Fri May 21, 2021 11:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Posts: 2471
Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Fri May 21, 2021 11:36 pm

The Agent

PART 1 (70) - Non C'è Più Musica


'Excited?' Pierre McCarthy asked her teenage daughter, Arabella, as they hopped on a short ride in Cenial Subway from University of Cenial Laboratory School in University District to their Georgetown rowhouse. People have often asked the sixteen year old what was it like being the daughter of one of the most famous sports agents out there in the Multiverse, and how were the sportspeople her father knew were like. Of course, she has met plenty of them, whether through their paperwork or telecasts, and Arabella probably could recall at least dozens of their names.

Not that it mattered much for Arabella though, especially as Arabella happened to be the only client her father, the mastermind of all agency arts both magical and dangerous, had in her sport of tennis. 'Always,' Arabella responded with confidence, trying to behave as naturally as possible as a sixteen year student-athlete, who had made her name known last week with her selection into the Quebecois national tennis team's selections. 'Hopefully the girlfriends don't miss out too much tomorrow.'

Deep inside, Arabella was still nervous enough, especially as this had meant travelling abroad for the first time at a major tournament. Sure, Steinigestrasse Open was no Grand Slam tournament and Gergary wasn’t a country she was particularly familiar with. But Arabella knew everybody had to start somewhere, and that’s where she couldn’t help but to wonder how it will all turn out. To be honest it must be a family thing, she thought to herself, as she looked at her father, neatly dressed in a suit and a top hat.

Arabella knew this was a family thing to transmit, and even more so the McCarthy thing. She knew her father went through his own leaps of faith before, with one of them being his decision to move to Ceni twenty years ago. Somewhere in their house, she had once found his high school class photo where he, much younger version of the thirty-seven year old man, was at the very front row of the students in the 276-person graduating class of 2027. Originally finding it at the drawer of Pierre’s office, Arabella quickly hid the photo inside her table, where she knew her father wasn’t going to find it, and kept thinking back about what may have brought him cross the waters between Northern AO to Southern Rushmore at that age.

‘You know what’s important for you, Bella,’ Pierre nodded, tapping her shoulder twice to indicate his approval. He was occupied with what would be the best words to say to her daughter with six hours to spare before her Friday evening flight, but couldn’t find the right ones to say them. ‘As I would tell young lads and lasses not sure on what they want, you gotta go by your gut feelings.’ Pierre fixed his golden glasses, smiling once again at the lady she has become. ‘Of course, don’t make silly mistakes, but you, young lady, know better than your old man for that…’

Well it’s true. That’s how Pierre McCarthy, in the very month after his graduation from University of Ceni with a summa cum laude degree in History with little employability at that very moment, welcomed his ‘little mistake’ into his life.

‘Stop saying that, dad!’ Her daughter smiled, her straw-blonde hair flowing as she retorted back. ‘You are the best father in the world, and there’s no other way to put forth.’ While it may sound frivolous to some of us readers, this bit would qualify as a truth, or at least three-fourth to it. Having grown up all her life without a mother, Arabella had remembered her father double-timing his own time with sacrifices to keep their roof in place. And now, even as Pierre became a famous agent and Arabella occupied with her tennis career, he still did his best to drive her to UCLS and pick her up after school.

‘Anyhow, we should grab something before picking up your suitcase...where should we go today?’ Pierre asked, watching the passengers come and go as the train stopped on the second-last stop of the express service. ‘Your first international tournament, Bella, so you gotta make your choice.’

‘The Ephesus Cafe?’ was the first place that came up on Arabella’s mind, as she checked her phone. ‘Their lamb gyro with tzatziki sauce and hummus would be great treat before a flight.’ It was every bit evident that even though she was the brightest Quebecois prospect in all of tennis, she was not really feeling the spotlight (nor did she want to). Growing up in Ceni, a powerhouse nation in the sport of tennis, she was one of the top prospects there growing up, but was shielded from the spotlight from the local and international (specifically Quebecois) media so far. Of course, Arabella knew how powerful the McCarthy surname was back home- her great-uncle was the legendary actor in Sir. Joel-Lynn, and she had a couple of aunts who themselves guards back in the golden age of Quebecois women’s basketball. But none of it, being on the other side where Clara and Marianne’s younger cousin had carved his own name, seemed to have mattered so much for her father in terms of her daughter’s upbringing, and Arabella knew it as well.

‘I guess we should. Seems like we haven’t there in a while,’ her father nodded in Korean, speaking in a much lower tone of voice. He was smiling for once. ‘May as well have as much as you want, before you’ll be away for a week.’

‘Don’t drink too much tonight, dad.’ Arabella then reminded her dad, giving him a wink, before they stepped out of their seat. The subway train finally came to a halt, as the father and his daughter slowly walked out of the carriage. ‘You know, you should start thinking about your health. Maybe move around a bit more, play a bit more sports, I don’t know...’

The way Arabella had suggested her worry, of course, indicated to Pierre a bit of worry in her eyes, as he knew Arabella was becoming aware of his father’s age. At age thirty seven. ‘Maybe not just yet, but you never know…’ Pierre smiled, patting his daughter as they slowly took the escalator upstairs. ‘But for now, the celebration will be yours, young lady! Let’s have a great bite, shall we?’

Then they made their way to what's going to be a very hectic six-hour period.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Fri May 28, 2021 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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Quebec and Shingoryeo
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Posts: 2471
Founded: Aug 28, 2020
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

Postby Quebec and Shingoryeo » Fri May 21, 2021 11:37 pm

OOC: Season 6's slowly starting...Thanks to Ceni for IC information about Cenial.

The Agent

PART 2 (71) - The Last Man on Earth


The McCarthy Home, Cenial, Ceni

Pierre McCarthy lived in Georgetown, one of the quietest neighbourhoods in all of Cenial. A far cry from the usual high-risers that dominated the rest of the city, the Victorian rowhouses here rather spoke to the times of old money, who still remained and rang firmly on the underbelly of the society, and Pierre happened to be one of few younger peoples who enjoyed those. Georgetown was the very neighbourhood he made sure to get the mortgage as a student fresh out of the University of Ceni, and while his life had changed a lot, this quiet place had remained the same with the endless pile of his daughter Arabella's items from when she was younger.

Any client of his, who had the privilege to visit the super-agent, would not have guessed that he would prefer the comforts of his place. A thirty-seven year old who's travelled to almost every known corner in the Multiverse, he had come to appreciate the various joys and favours life would bring him along. Nobody on his neighbourhood, even those his daughter would go to their places for an occasional dinner or two, knew why- and he liked it that way.

Not everything has to be told, Pierre remembered his old words to Arabella, as he watched the sun set through the gigantic window on the living room. Sometimes...it's better to keep the illusion of something big, when the actual reason for something is nothing like it. About four years had passed since then, and he could feel the sadness in his daughter's expressions, almost as if she could detect every dose of bitterness whenever they (or more commonly, just himself) had to travel to Quebec.

Not that he minded going back home- his mother, Choe Soon-Ja, and Pierre always had great relations, and his father Gilbert was delighted to see him back twice a year. There's something with his hometown of Halifax that always stayed the same after twenty years, but Pierre felt greater comfort in not being faced with every bit of information or memories whenever he came back to Quebec for business- something that didn't necessarily help with his career.

Now, sitting on his work table facing the aforementioned window, Pierre slowly wrote down the details of prospective proposal he had in mind for a couple of Tumbran prospects whom he had signed with earlier (OOC: I guess this would be a solid preview to potential news on transfer window). After carefully reminding himself the specific terms in which he would have to think while facing the Esportivan media, Pierre slowly let the nerves hit him.

Am I already getting too old? He wondered, feeling the weight of time striking him as he rewrote the restructured contract details he was going to forward to any prospective team. No way the thirties are already ending. The Haligonian couldn't help but to feel amazed at how Daniel Galbraith, the thirty-four year old Tumbran legend, was still able to get his career going. Pierre remembered first meeting the Tumbran a decade ago, when Pierre was still getting established an agent in mid-20s, while Galbraith had just come from the Player of the Year honour with Straton FC. Now they were both fathers of teenagers and firmly established, but the client wanted his way out of dissatisfactory situation after such a long time, and now Pierre had to work his way around it.

Feeling his eyes dim once again, Pierre closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let the night slowly unveil its drapes started to brush the Hypnos' ankles. Pierre wasn't worried about the work- but he knew his mind wasn't necessarily in it. It's like the Jazz piece 'Caravan', in which his tempo was dictated around, and he had no other way to put forth. He's going to have to rest for now, and redo the work an hour later.

It was then that his home phone rang.

'Allo?' The screen indicated 'Private Number', and the ringtone he picked wasn't one he usually gave out to clients either. It took Pierre a couple of seconds to think, and wonder who it was- it was probably somewhere in Norrehavn, where he had a couple of businesses lined up, or Cassadaigua, where Theo-Alexandre Pinson and Heo Myeong-Shin were having spectacular debut seasons with Brattleboro Brats and Concord Heights Royals. Right now, Pierre was dressed in a pale dress shirt and trousers, and he smelled perhaps too much whiskey even on seven in the evening.

'Allo?' Pierre said, after drawing a gigantic sigh in hopes that nothing went wrong. 'Pierre McCarthy, how can I help you?'

'Pierre, this is Robert. Robert Han from Mountford,' a voice responded in a rather hurried pace, the high tone in which you got when you had a cold, 'You're in Ceni right?'

'Um...yes,' Pierre responded, the silence between those two words evident enough to show his nerves, 'Well, good to hear from you again! Long time, no hear...how can I help you?'

'You have to come back to Halifax now...Elora wishes to see you. Can't say much, but she doesn't have many days left, and you will have to.'

Was this the matter of chance that he stumbled and nearly fell to the ground while clutching his phone? Sure it didn't take much, but the hammer struck like that last spike on one of many transcontinental railways that crossed between Quebec and Baker Park. The name, Elora, was alone enough to do so, and not necessarily in the way he wished, especially without his daughter present to calm him over. 'Alright...alright...alright...' was all Pierre said. He was trying to pull the right words off his head, but the words weren't coming out.
Last edited by Quebec and Shingoryeo on Fri May 28, 2021 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kingdom of Quebec & Shingoryeo
Olympic Council President (XVIII) - World Cup of Hockey Federation President (cycles 24-29, cycle 47-49) - NationStates College Football Commissioner (cycles 20-)
Trigramme: QUE | Denonym: Quebecois/Shingoryeoite (interchangeable) | Population: 94 million
MegaSport.que - The Wanderer's Guide To Somewhere
Have won many, hosted even more

International Basketball Championships 37-39 Champions
World Cup of Hockey XXVI Champions

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