Narcissa Rostand's Journal - The Rostand

Ch 25

I remember one particular Cavalry Tourney. I remember it because my opponent of the previous Guardsmen Tournament, Coral Garotte, passed away before she even got to face her first battle. She was Tamara's mother.

Not even a week after that Tamara was having her first battle in the Cavalry Tourney, and being thoroughtly bested. I had gone there, to see her and cheer for her, as had her family -her husband and their daughter Rowena-.

Just after it ended I remember Irwin turning to face me, going so far as to invite me to do something together! I don't remember what it was, it never mattered. What it's still fresh in my memory is me, thinking just how insensitive could he be. His wife, a dear of a woman, had recently lost her mother and minutes before had been defeated in front of our very eyes, in the Tourney that was the only way she could get to work in the same place her mother had done; and he had the gall to ask me instead of getting down to comfort her?

Just that once the polite smile I had learnt from my mother failed me; still now I get irritated when I remember it. With a scathing look, one usually reserved to monsters attacking my companions in the dungeons, I declined his offer before getting near Tamara and offering her to go share a pot of tea at Wiala's.

That was the best medicine after being beaten down in the arena, I had found after my annual losses at the Guardsmen Tournament, and that way I could get her away from that useless dumbass of a husband that she had.