The Truth

Writers: April, Paula
Date Posted: 4th February 2009

Characters: Corowal, Erilite
Description: The truth comes out when Corowal and Erilite face her grandfather.
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 1, day 9 of Turn 5

Valmar had come to Emerald falls in answer to a summons. He had not wanted to when he realized who was Lord Holder there. How was he going to deal with this little mess. With that brat Erilite missing, he couldn't be sure where she would turn up to ruin his life. He was lead to the office of the Lord Holder. He knocked and waited. He could hear someone talking inside.

Corowal called Valmar to enter, he was expecting him.

Valmar entered with a respectful nod to the Lord Holder. He smiled as disarmingly as he could. "To what honor is it that I get called before you Lord Holder Corowal?" He asked. His voice was calm but his eyes betrayed his hatred of the man before him. This was the man that his lovely daughter had given herself to. Then this man had left her to die giving birth to his damaged child.

"Holder Valmar," Corowal greeted with a nod of his head. "It's about Erilite. She came to me with rather interesting story." He waited for his reaction, it would tell him a lot.

Valmar mentally cursed. "You mean our dear Erilite has been found. We were so worried. My wife and I had heard that there was a fire and that the whole family had died in it. We mourned for the loss. It is good that we found her. My wife will be happy. She has thought her dead for too many turns." He wasn't sure what the man knew but he wasn't happy with his damaged granddaughter.

Corowal didn't believe a single word of it. His body language conflicted with his words. "She is Valema's daughter, which much I was able to confirm from harper records," Corowal said, smoothing the copy of Erilite's birth record under his hands. "I knew Valema while I spent few months in Garnet Valley."

"Valema died without naming her child's father. My brother took her in because his wife had just lost a baby." Valmar would love to get his hands on the harper that had given those records.

"Poor Valema, I was very fond of her. I looked for her, when she disappeared just few days before I was leaving. Couldn't find her."

"She had locked herself in her room then. She told us she was ill and didn't want to see anyone." Truth was he had locked her in there himself, for she had wanted to leave with Corowal. She said that she loved him and he would take her away and marry her. Valmar of course had been angry. He had locked her away for her own protection. Sadly her health had declined from that point. She only ate to help the child growing inside her. Once that child was born she had fallen to sleep not to wake again.

"If I had known she was with child, I would have married her. She could be Lady Holder now," Corowal said, anger rising inside him.

"We ourselves did not find out till you'd gone. She did not clam you as the father of the child." Yet again the truth was she had. She had begged her father to find him. He had refused. At the time he wasn't a lord holder.

"Really?" Corowal said doubtfully. If he remember correctly, Valema had been very much in love with him, so why would she had denied the paternity? Corowal had tried to talk her to come to Coral Bay with him. Had Valmar caught a whiff of it and locked her up, so she couldn't run off? At that time Corowal had been nobody, just an assistant steward from far away hold, with blood connection to another hold, who was firmly in the grasp of another branch of the Blood. (So it had looked twenty turns ago.)

Valmar ran a hand through his hair and looked around the room. It was then that he noticed Erilite quietly sitting in a corner. She was watching him closely and taking notes on one of her slates. This angered him. He was in this situation because of that deformed child. He seethed as he stared at her. She looked up at him with understanding eyes. She knew he lied. As he looked at her he found himself talking to himself in a growl. "Of course the deformed child would seek the man that tried to take my sweet daughter from me. After she kills her own mother the day she is born she has to go to the man that wanted to steal her away."

He suddenly strode over to the girl in fury. He knew He was in trouble. He had lost his beautiful daughter and now he had to face the man who had help take her away. He towered over Erilite. "You want the truth Lord Holder." He said with a sneer. "Valema wanted to go with you. We would not let her. We locked her in her room. We had already made arrangements for her to marry. Then after you had gone we found out about your little beast inside her. Oh, she pleaded for us to find you. WE refused her. She got ill as she carry your child. She wasn't strong enough in the end. She died bringing your deformed brat into the world. I've cared for her since that day. Found her food and a home. Even though my daughter died giving birth to this deformed female, I took care of her. Now she thanks me by finding you. The man who tried to take her mother from her home and family. She comes to you not when you are a nobody but when you have become a Lord Holder. So, I say you can have her. She is no longer welcome in my home." He then turned and headed for the door. He was done with them. They could have each other.

During Valmar's speech, Corowal had slid open the topmost drawer in his desk and grasped the hilt of a blade he kept there, so threatening was the holder's manners. He felt a stab when the truth had come out, regret for the path not taken, for poor Valema's fate. If only she had ran off with him earlier!

"Now that was something! Terribly rude and insulting too," Corowal said. "You're not deformed, Erilite. I already have a blind daughter, you'll fit in just fine," he addressed her. After that, had he other option that to confirm her as his daughter? It would upset some people, but suddenly Corowal didn't care. Valmar had irritated him to the point that he wanted to confirm her just to rub the fact to Valmar's face. Besides, she was a daughter, not a son. A daughter was not threat, she could not inherit the Hold or displace Corofel as the Heir. Daughters could be married favourable. Except Corowal got a feeling that Erilite wasn't a type to marry obediently when told to. She needed to be handled with care, otherwise she would run off to the wild again!

Erilite stood and nodded. She walked over and handed him her slate.

"Never could leave a girl in trouble," Corowal said, trying to hide a sudden emotion.

Erilite did something she had not done in a long time. With a tear in her own eye she smiled and then came around to his side of the desk. She hugged him. She knew her world had changed.

Last updated on the February 8th 2009

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The Truth