September 15, 2015

In Which Renata Ponders the Quiet Ones

June 13, 1194

"Still no news?"

Octavius shook his head. Poor Florian. Poor Thetis. "We've yet to find anyone who's seen him since his graduation. Seems the boy has vanished into thin air."

"How awful." And so unlike him! Granted, Renata didn't know any of Florian and Thetis's children too well, but Teodrin had always seemed so... quiet and unassuming. Not like brash Alyssin or dazzling Alina or independent Severin. Teodrin was hardly the type to take off without warning and frighten his parents half to death.

Or was he? The quiet ones never were as predictable as they seemed.

"Indeed. It's not often that the child of a prominent family goes missing in a tight-knit little kingdom like this. Florian and Thetis would have thought they'd had their fill of this back when Severin went off to fetch Rina's horse."

"But at least Severin came back." Renata shuddered. Lettie had run off once, at twelve or thirteen or so, but it was only a day before she came back, claiming she'd just wanted to see what it was like to spend a night alone in an inn. That brief disappearance had been more than Renata ever wanted to handle as a parent again. "Who knows if Teodrin will."

Her husband nodded. So far as she knew, none of his children had ever run off--but, two of his had predeceased him. With that sort of tragedy in one's life, it was easy to assume the worst. "All we can do is hope for the best at this point."

"That, and help Florian and Thetis where we can. Perhaps we should send some of the staff over there." Between Esela's new baby and the stress of Teodrin's disappearance, she doubted Thetis had much energy left over for cooking and cleaning.

"It's worth offering, certainly. And I have no plans to take the men off alert until necessary. With any luck, maybe the boy just took off with one of the university maids for a fortnight of passion."

Again... that didn't sound much like Teodrin.

Octavius didn't seem too convinced of his own theory either. "With any luck."

NEXT CHAPTER:

3 comments:

Van said...

Bah. Midweek.

Winter said...

Ugh.

I am so disappointed in Teodrin right now.

I'm glad Octavius and Renata are helping Florian & Thetis where they can, though it can only do so much for them. The Naron connection would probably be obvious to a couple of people in the kingdom if they knew what Teodrin's issue was, but I don't think any of them do. But even if someone does think to consult the Naron, Ylwa might not say anything. I'm not sure what the laws are regarding human-demigod privacy :P

Van said...

Human-demigod privacy. XD Well... I guess Deian's mostly kept a lid on what happened to Ashe, and he's probably the gossip of the group.

Yeah, none of the people who might think "Hmm, Naron" have any knowledge of what was up with Teodrin. Florian knows Tavrin, but he has no idea what Deian and the other full Naron are truly capable of.