#and that's how this asshole ended up at the Magitek Academy lmao

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Trust Fall

The road to hell is paved with good intentions Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [Epilogue]

Epilogue

~20+ years ago. Garlemald.

It’s been a week since Minerva last saw Florus and Rainer, but it feels like yesterday. It feels like today. It feels like a broken record, looping over and over on repeat in her head. Minerva presses her eyes shut and stands suddenly from the chaise lounge. No. This won’t do. She can’t remain like this forever, pathetically licking her wounds bloody like a common dog. She snatches her coat and stomps out, allowing anger to steer her blindly into the city.

Minerva finds herself at the park where she and Florus fed birds together. Months of walking home with the boy are replaced with nothing, and it leaves an aching emptiness in both her schedule and her heart. She realizes that she’s involuntarily looking for Florus in the distance, eyes catching on every small child that crosses her vision. Hot shame fills her lungs.

After what she’s put him through, she deserves nothing. Forgiveness is out of the question. What a useless and selfish notion to consider, actually! Just take defeat with a measure of grace, Minerva. You’ve done so countless times in the past. With wobbly steps, she stumbles toward the nearest bench and slumps into it, her carefully crafted mask of control falling to the wayside.

She underestimated how fond she’d grow of Florus. Perhaps that’s what makes this defeat taste so sour - because it wasn’t that she played her cards wrong, but because she chose the wrong strategy from the very start. Minerva cups her face in her hands with a sigh.

On paper, her plan seemed...optimized. A series of white lies would’ve frontloaded cruelty in exchange for long-term comfort, like suffering surgery to remove a tumor. So why, then, did she feel so guilty? Florus would’ve lived in Thavnair, free from discrimination, distrust, and politics. Once given to the holding family, he would have been told that Rainer had died in the line of duty, severing any remaining ties to the Empire. The pain would be worth it, Minerva had told herself. A necessity for a future she could stomach.

He isn’t Garlean. Between us and them, the choice was simple. Still, her plan was kind, wasn’t it not? She gazes at cobblestone with unfocused eyes and allows her thoughts to wander.

Rainer would have similarly been told that Florus had passed away in a fatal accident. Without the child to keep him away, he would’ve returned to his rightful place in his family, or at the very least, it would’ve restored a modicum of prestige to their name. No more parading around with a bastard son. The gains would be worth it and time would smooth over any distasteful memories, she had believed. But now? Now she knows that wouldn’t have been the case. The bond between Rainer and his son is destructively strong. That Florus would jump out of an airship without a second thought - that Rainer would kill those in his way in cold blood. They both would have fallen apart.

Minerva exhales. Better to live tenuously then not at all.

Although she can never forgive Rainer, Florus is another story. Perhaps she could still help, somehow. Cultivate this rare flower and help it bloom despite its surroundings. Rainer would never accept this, but he’s disgraced. She’s not. Pulling connections and strings from the background is literally her job, and neither of them would ever have to know.

It won’t undo what she’s done, but it’s a start. Minerva vacantly sits at the park until her hands go numb, and then, she’s gone. The cold could kill here.