Page 041: Assurances
Assurances
Summary: The world is changing. Liliana meets with the Lord of the Roost to ascertain her place in it.
Date: 22/08/2011
Related Logs: None specifically, most generally.
Players:
Jerold Liliana 
Reading Room - Four Eagles Tower
The room has a large glass window and seat that looks out partially over the cove, in daylight hours the sun provides illumination to the room. Other stools and chairs linger in small groups as shelves along the walls are littered with scrolls, books, letters and documents. The contents are a modest collection of local records, histories, and literature offered to both the family and guests of Four Eagles Tower.
22 Aug, 288 AL

In the early afternoon- after taking luncheon- Lord Jerold Terrick has retired to his reading room for a time to set the rest of his day in order. The door is open and sunlight is coming in through the clear glass window, the lead panes throwing a latticed pattern of shadows across the room's floor.

Finding precisely where the Lord of the Roost is, within his own home, is not a thing that takes much skill or demands much in the way of subterfuge. At least at those times when he wishes it so. And so, that might well be the explanation for the appearance of a certain of the Lord's wards in the open doorway, hands in the folds of her skirts, lifting them a scant inch or two from the ground. Enough to quiet her steps, and to escape the threat of tripping over them on nervous feet. Quick eyes scan, before they settle on the figure of the Lord, before she approaches, "My Lord Ser?"

Jerold's eye turns up from the illuminated page before him to regard his ward. "Liliana, I trust the day finds you well? Come in, come in and be seated, if you wish." Drawing a ribbon across the page of the book he had been studying, the Lord of the Roost closes the tome and sets it aside.

"Thank you, my Lord Ser." Liliana does indeed bridge the rest of the distance, between where she's standing, and where Jerold has settled himself, taking her place at a chair opposite him, "Well, in body, My Lord Ser, but perhaps a bit rumpled in spirit." Hands smooth the fabrics of her skirts, unconsciously attempting to smooth the creases nervous hands have made in the light summer silk.

"The departure of your kin cannot have been easy," Jerold muses aloud, his stoic expression allowing a sympathetic frown to touch his face. "What troubles your spirit, Liliana? We shall see if there is a balm to had for a troubled heart."

Liliana considers, picking out her words carefully, "Before I farewelled my Lord Uncle Dafydd, we spoke a bit of the journey we made from Tall Oaks, and when he first introduced me to you." There's a faint smile, full of the richness of memory, "I was so frightened of you. You were so unlike my own Lord Father, unlike my Lord Uncles. I lived in terror for many days that you would find my horse and send me back to my House."

Lord Jerold's face creases in a small smile at the memory. "Leaving home for the first time would be dreadful enough for a young lady, I imagine, without being sent to this house of stone, surrounded by men of steel," the Lord of the Roost comments, with his shoulders stirring briefly in a silent chuckle. Beyond that, he allows Liliana to continue in her own time.

"It was enough of a shock to turn a young girl's head." Which is putting it mildly, and well Jerold would remember. The willful, wild, forest child he welcomed into his home. "Now, I have been here…closing on three years. It is nearly to my nameday. And I could not have more affection for you, if you were my own Lord Father in truth. You have been kind to me, treated me as if I were one of your own. And helped to fashion me into more than I might have been if I had remained at Tall Oaks. And I have tried my best to be a credit to you. But now the House is changing, and I am afraid that perhaps you will decide that this house of stone is no longer the place for me." Certainly, given the recent chastising, and the rumours of the haranguing of Anais, well…she might well do to be afraid that her foster father's forgiveness might be at an end.

"My dear Liliana," Jerold begins as the girl's concerns are given voice. "You have not always been a perfect lady, it is true. Just as true that I have not always been a perfect Lord. Perfection is not something the Seven expect of their mortal children, nor is it something I may expect of mine. All I can ask is that my children keep a good heart, and keep the strength needed to learn and grow. From the day you first arrived to the this one, I have not been given cause to doubt that your heart, Liliana, is in the proper place." He settles back in his chair and draws a slow breath to order his next thoughts. "You have grown into a fine woman, my dear. The day will come when you shall become betrothed to a fit gentleman and move on from my halls. But the day shall not dawn when I cast you out."

Liliana remains still, hands now folded in her lap. Her posture is better, her bearing more in keeping with her noble breeding, but, there, at the edges, visible to this Lord who knows his ward so well, an echo of the frightened child she once was. But the words of the Lord of the Roost, are more gentle than one might expect of him, in meaning, if not in tone. He is, at the end of all things, Jerold Terrick, and his ways are his ways. But well, perhaps, does this child of his will know the Lord, because the fear does fade, taking much of the tension and uncertainty she's carried with her these last few days with it. "It heartens me to know you do not expect perfection, My Lord Ser. I fear I will never be that. Even pain cannot erase all of my faults." She lifts a hand, the right, indicating the pricks of needles there. "As you can see." There more than a fair dose of humour in there, the visible remnants of the many calamities Jerold, though usually through the members of his household and not personally, but still, has seen his ward through. "Perhaps, one day…that day might come. But until then, I will be glad to remain Liliana of Camden and Terrick."

Again Lord Jerold's countenance is creased by a smile as the pinpricks in fingers are shown. "None of us can, Liliana," he notes on the subject of being perfect. "That you are glad in your home, I am pleased. The days are troubled, and all those of good heart must take solace in each other's strength. I hope that my household will not lose your friendship even when a family of your own rules your attentions."

"It is not days of peace and happiness that temper the strength and love of a family and make it what it can be. It is times like these, my Lord Ser. This is a house of steel. And steel that has not be worked in the fire is brittle indeed. But pull it from the flame and the blows of the hammer, and there are few things that can break it. We are being tested, that I know. But we will come out the stronger for it. And what I can do to ensure that, I will." A shake of her head, hands finally unclasping from her lap, "You and your House will always have my love and friendship. How could it ever be otherwise? You are my family." A flick of her hands at her skirts, "I thank you for easing my fears, My Lord Ser." And then, more gently, very much the doting daughter, "Shall I prepare a small tray for you, to accompany your reading?"

"I could expect nothing more," Jerold notes to her promise of love and friendship, on the heels of words of strength and trial. At her thanks, the Lord of the Roost voices, "You are quite welcome, Liliana. And I thank you for the considerate thought. I will be at my books for another hour, if you see fit to prepare a tray, I would thank you for it."

Liliana rises, as she hears his words of thanks, and his acceptance of the tray. Light hands flick her skirts to order, "I will bring you what can be found pleasing, to break your fast, My Lord Ser." A deep curtsey, before she returns to her feet, waiting only to be dismissed to make her way back out of the library, retrieving Elise, who stands just outside of the door, and heading off to do as she's been bidden.