"Grief often causes people to seek out an escape. This is why grieving people so often lose themselves to the drink, or throw themselves into their work with fervor instead. They seek an escape, a solace from their grief, by hoping that they would be too drunk or tired by nightfall to be haunted by their grief in their sleep.

It is often a rather self-destructive behavior, yet that is what the mortals seem to prefer, so who am I to say how they should live their lives?" - Nec Aarin, the Bone Lord.

Fiachna Mansion, La Fiachna, Theocracy of Vitalica, third day of the first week of the tenth month, year 61 VA.

Aideen worried for her father.

Ever since her mother passed away, her old father had thrown himself into his work like a man possessed, and more than once she discovered him drinking in the middle of the night, while weeping quietly. Half the time, she would keep him company, and try to console him as best she could. The rest of the time, she stumbled onto the aftermath of such a session and draped a blanket over his sleeping form.

She talked with Diarmuid about her worries, but while her brother also shared her worry, neither of them had any idea what else they could do for their father. The wound to his heart was too raw, the sorrow too fresh, that he has not moved on yet, and they had thought that maybe only time could eventually heal him from his grief.

Unfortunately, time is probably the one thing they were running low on. Ciarran Fiachna was seventy nine years old that year, and it was unknown how many more years he had left in him. Aideen and Diarmuid naturally wished their father the best, but fate often disagreed with people's wishes.

That night, Aideen had gone back into the mansion after her nightly bout of training. She found her father slumped over the dinner table, with a bottle in his hand, and she sighed sadly as she passed by him, about to fetch him a blanket to cover him with.

As Aideen passed by her father, she felt the anomaly immediately. Her father was quiet. Far too quiet, in fact, that she could not even hear the noise of his breathing. With mounting trepidation she lowered a hand on her father's shoulder, and shook him gently.

"Father?" Aideen asked with worry, worry that just compounded on itself when her father had not reacted to either her shaking him or her words. She quickly coursed a bit of magic through his body to check her father's condition. All that did, was to confirm her worst fears instead.

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"Oh, father…" she said with a sob as she hugged her father's slowly cooling body. Diarmuid later found her still sobbing while hugging their father's body when he woke up to answer nature's call in the night.

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Fiachna Mansion, La Fiachna, Theocracy of Vitalica, first day of the second week of the twelfth month, year 61 VA.

It has been two months since Ciarran's funeral, which was held in a somber mood. Most of the people in La Fiachna mourned his passing, but the news Aideen and Diarmuid had been gathering from further away… proved to be rather discouraging. Rumors of a radical group taking hold amongst the former Junoran lands were abound, and there had even been whispers of open, armed rebellion being planned.

The two of them, as well as Maebh, who had officially joined the templar order when she turned seventeen, were discussing whether they should've sent a detachment to keep a lid on the worst areas when someone knocked on the door of the mansion.

Aideen got up from her seat and opened the door, to find Tirya there, Diarmuid's second in command in the Death Guards, who had a flustered, nervous look on her face, and a bloody, half torn missive held in her hand. Aideen rushed her in without a word, having figured out that whatever brought Tirya to their mansion in such a flustered condition, must be an emergency.

She was right.

"Bad news, sire," Tirya reported after she came into the house. The woman stood straight up in a parade posture as she made her report, while the Fiachnas listened to her words carefully. "We have confirmed reports of an open rebellion in the northeast. The entire northeast."

"What were the second templars doing? Were they not stationed there?" Maebh asked with some confusion to the news.

"The majority of the second… has joined the rebellion. This missive was sent by Gustaf, leader of the second templars and stated as much," reported Tirya with some trepidation in her voice. "I fear those members of the templars loyal to us amongst the second have been captured… or worse."

"What about the first? And my Death Guards?" Diarmuid asked. The first Templars and the Death Guards were both stationed right at the capital where they lived, and if the rebellion had spread there… they would be in deep trouble.

"There was a scuffle amongst the Templars, as supposedly close to a quarter of them had tried to incite a riot in the barracks, but the rest of the Templars seized them before it got out of hand," answered Tirya to the question. Nevertheless, some semblance of pride could be felt from her next words. "Less than ten Death Guards were found guilty of the same."

"What about the militia?" Aideen asked in turn. The Templars and Death Guards might be their elites, but the militia still formed the backbone of the Vitalican army in the end.

"Representatives of the militia… had stated that they wanted no part of this mess," replied Tirya with some shame creeping into her voice. "They refused to fight their fellow countrymen, regardless of the side taken."

Aideen and Diarmuid looked at each other with identical looks in their eyes. The table was heavily stacked against them, and in all honesty neither wished for there to be bloodshed between fellow countrymen.

That and the forces arrayed had massive discrepancy, as they had less than a thousand loyal to them, while the rebellion had far more than that. With all the factors put together, both Aideen and Diarmuid agreed that there was only one reasonable course for them to take.

Which was to escape.