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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:54:58 GMT
The arrangement between the Blacks and the Lestranges all those years ago was one that had never quite suited Rabastan. He had been in love, in lust, in obsesion with Bellatrix. Even as her heart, soul, mind, body, and magic had all belonged to the Dark Lord. Even as her hand belonged to his brother... He had envied both Rodolphus and Voldemort for the things they had that he would never be able to possess.
Andromeda shared features with the eldest Black sister. In his youth, Rabastan had wondered if he might find some way to transfer his addiction to Bellatrix to the woman that was to be his wife. He had never been able to. He had never looked at the middle sister and felt any fire. He never loved her. He never desired her...but apparently his brother had.
Rabastan had thought he knew Rodolphus well--or as well as anyone did--but he had never known about whatever existed between Rod and Andi. Had he just ignored the signs? Had he been too blinded by Bellatrix to see anything at all beyond her? The latter seemed far more likely. The woman had, and would always, be in his mind. She spoke to him still. Her little whispers, whispers, whispers--holding him captive, keeping him hers even after all this time.
He still thought he might be able to bring her back. He sought the dark magic, the necromancy, the blood dark arts to make it so. Nothing had come of it yet, but ever the man sought that magic that might make her his.
When he saw Andromeda now, he felt no animosity towards the woman. He had never wanted her as his wife. He did not mind that she belonged to his brother now. It did strike him as somewhat unfair that Rodolphus got both of the Black brunettes...especially when he had never truly worshiped at Bella's alter. Not as Rabastan did even still. Bella had always been the pair's great divide. She had been a horrible wife. She had been infatuated with the Dark Lord. She had never loved or cared for Rodolphus, but he had still had her by his side and in his bed. And Rabastan envied that.
Looking across the kitchen at Andromeda as she prepared a meal, Rabastan saw only his brother's wife now. She was still somewhat of a stranger to him as she always had been. Perhaps she was exactly what Rodolphus needed, deserved, or what-have-you... She would never have been those things for Rabastan. She would always have just been 'not Trixie'.
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:55:13 GMT
Moving into this castle had come simple enough to her. She had practically moved in last winter, and then when she had left the school, and she had gone back to her Director's position in the hospital, she just hadn't ever gone home. This had become her home, and she thought that she had grown rather attached to being here. Her children belonged here, and she thought that that made it even more her home. This had been her home before it had been her castle. Before she had finally taken the name that she supposed to have had all along. She had finally become a Lestrange, and Andromeda thought that it was high time that she started acting like this was where she was meant to be. She had known it, all along. She knew that she should have just told Rabastan the truth when they had been in school. Bella had told Rodolphus, and he had gotten her out of there, he had made sure that she was okay. And Andromeda didn't know what Rabastan would have done. But she thought that she had made the wrong choice regardless…
Still, she wasn't convinced that it had been the entirely wrong one. Because she hadn't wanted to marry Rabastan. And she was pretty sure that he hadn't wanted to marry her either. They weren't hurting one another by not getting married. She had done something stupid, and she had run away, instead of just doing what she was told. But she had been so tired of getting hurt, that she had put herself through forty-five years of hell instead. She knew that if she hadn't had left, she would have married Rabastan, simply because they wouldn't have had a choice, either one of them. His father would have insisted on it, and her parents would have too. But that wasn't what they wanted, and it wasn't what was supposed to have been. Not really. She thought that if they could have found some way to make a trade… That would have at least been better. But there was no reason to even consider it then. She hadn't had any idea what Rodolphus was going to become to her. And she didn't think that they would have really cared that Rabastan had preferred her sister. She could have been a Lestrange years ago, but she would have been the wrong brother.
That's all that she really thought when she thought about it now. It wouldn't have been awful. She was sure that they would have managed to figure it out enough to have had a couple of kids, and then just gone about their lives. But she didn't think that she would have been half of the witch that she was now. She didn't think that he would have held her back, or anything, but being married, properly married, wouldn't have allowed her the same things. She thought that there were more rules that came with that. More responsibilities. She knew that there were. It was why she second guessed herself almost constantly for doing what she had done just now. She worried nearly all the time that she had made a mistake. That this wasn't what she was supposed to do. She was the witch, she was the wife, she shouldn't be acting like this… But yet, she knew that he had known how ambitious she was. Perhaps not that she was going to want to do something like this. But the hospital had been maddening. She had thought that she was dying there, and she had known that there was going to be no pulling out of the spiral into whatever hell that she had fashioned for herself there, if she hadn't have done it then.
Still, she was learning to balance. She was still just as much wife, and mother, as she was Minister for Magic. She still came home every night, in time to finish making dinner. Even if Faye started it for her, she finished it. She was still the one that was caring for their sons in the mornings and picking them up again in the late afternoon. She was still doing everything that she had done before, she was just running a country, four countries, in the meantime. The boys were both on the floor at her feet, big enough that they could sit up, and crawl around on their own, so long as she kept an eye on them. The oven wasn't on, so she wasn't worried about burning little hands, and she thought that Odin was a good enough distraction for them that they could tug on him, and he would keep them occupied while she finished the noodles. The chicken and the vegetables were finished, and she thought that mixing them all together would be simple enough when it was all said and done. "Do you need another?" Andromeda knew them both well enough by now to know that there was whisky or scotch close at hand no matter where the Lestrange brothers were, and she thought that if he had finished whatever he had been drinking, she was sure that there would be another in the cabinet Arcturus was sitting in front of just beside her.
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:55:24 GMT
Content warning: possible triggers all over the place, DE badness
Rabastan had his good days and his bad. There were cyclic ups and downs for the former prisoner. He had suffered and was still haunted by what he had endured at Azkaban. Never had a prisoner--before or since--endured such stretches of solitary confinement. He had played his part in taking the minds of the Longbottoms--and the guards shut him away to do the same to him. He could not recall any special punishments for Rodolphus. It was almost as if, even there, his brother was still feared and to degrees respected. Bellatrix drew cruel, physical abuses because of her gender. Things that were unspeakable in polite society. Those crimes he had also been guilty of over the years--never with such a woman as the Dark Lady...but with weaker souls that he had believed deserved such abuses. Blood traitors were common victims in years past. He'd had the Longbottom woman while her husband watched. That had been the prelude to the Cruciatus. Both had been enjoyable to the man.
Now where did he find his joy? Nowhere, save little yellow vials. He was dependent on them. They were the only thing that brought him back to himself. Those elixirs could nearly make him the man he was before Azkaban. Sometimes, anyway... It required regular dosing and pacing the amounts he drank to be only himself and not intoxicated. He toed the line between overindulgence and need constantly, faltering from time to time to topple over either side. If he did not have enough, withdrawals and insanity would take over. He would lose himself to a catatonic state. The voices and psychosis would grow so powerful, his grip on reality would crack and break. He would splinter. The physical and mental drain of such suffering would leave him off for days. So, the man tended towards overindulgence. He was less adept at his job, but who really cared about that. Even high as bloody kite, he was a fierce assassin that few could match with offensive magic. He was forging a new type of hit wizard--one that really could rise up and shine in the mastery of murder. Any that stood against the Ministry would face those he had gathered around him--they were the force behind the command's of the woman before him. He was happy to be her sword, because if Rodolphus trusted her, then so did he. Rabastan had followed the elder Lestrange for his entire life. It was easy to continue to do so now.
At the witch's question, Rabastan looked to his glass. It wasn't quite empty, but with one upturn of the crystal, he made it thus. "That would be appreciated," he said as he wandlessly levitated the glass over to the woman. "The Scotch on the far right, if you don't mind." The wizard instructed, gesturing to the bottle he and Rodolphus had nearly finished off the night before. It set alongside an assortment of others next to the antique glasses he had seen his father drink out of for so many years. There were so many memories of that man here--but far more memories of solitude. His father had seen to it that this 'home' had been his first prison. When his brother had gone off to Hogwarts, their father had left and only returned whenever his eldest son was present. Two painfully long years were spent in this castle with only house elves and the dead in their paintings as company. One might have thought it would have better prepared him for Azkaban's solitary confinement, but it has just made him all the weaker to the most cruel aspects of the punishments. His father's abandonment had chiseled the first cracks in his sanity. Rabastan had been just a mere boy when he felt the cold desertion from the man that hated him so. He was as innocent then as he would ever be then, but from his very first breath, The Lord Lestrange had always seen blood on his spare's hands--blood that the patriarch had never forgiven his son for spilling, inadvertent as murder had been.
How different Rabastan might have been had he ever known the love of his mother and been spared the scorn of his father. Perhaps he would not have been so driven to prove himself to the man, to showcase some worth... His first motivation for pursuing the necromantic arts would have been lost. He would not have had that unique skill to offer the Dark Lord. He could have been a different man, not so attached to his brother, perhaps enough of his own person to have avoided Azkaban... Unlikely--but there could have been a chance for him. There was no chance for any future but this one after his birth had killed his mother.
One of his brother's sons was publicly accused of committing the same crime, but he would grow up in a very different way than Rabastan had. The child had a mother in Andromeda--and Rodolphus did not hate the boy. Would the child even know that his mother was not Andromeda? Likely not...But in some ways, seeing Roarke grow up would be a bit like seeing the future that could have been... Somewhat--Andromeda was quite different from the woman that had given birth to Rod and Rab, but she was a mother that loved her children and cared for them. This made her a fascinating anomaly to Rabastan. It was still novel to him to be able to intimately bare witness to the interactions between a mother and child. He had only seen interactions in public, grand affairs while growing up--and prison did not afford any such opportunities to witness the workings of a proper family. There was a beauty in it that made him ache. Had he not given enough to merit his own family after all these years? It was time to find a wife.
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:55:32 GMT
Not my wife... I never was |
This was something else entirely. This life that she was living now. She wasn't going to think for a moment that everything would have worked out like this if she would have made one step different. Andromeda knew enough to know that she was very blessed with what she had now. She had been through hell to get here, and she knew that she would never really recover. You didn't just die, and then come back, and not have some consequences. You didn't kill someone that you loved, and not feel that guilt sitting on your chest for the rest of your life. There was nothing easy about this, but somehow she thought that she knew what she was doing. At least, she had known enough to get out of that hospital before it killed her. Again. Before she died again in that place, and so she had decided to take on another project of sorts. One that people could say was more than moderately ambitious of her. But if Andromeda Lestrange was anything, had ever been consistently anything in her life, it was ambitious. And Rodolphus had known that. He had known that for years now. And so she expected that he had known that when he had pulled a ring out of the nightstand with a simple, "Will you?"
Anything else and she might have said no. At least at first. She would have married him, that they knew for fact. She would have married him forty-five years ago if someone had given her half the chance. But that wasn't the way that it had been. That wasn't how it was supposed to have gone. Fate had a funny way of bringing people right back to where they needed to be though, and she was half convinced that it was here. That this was where she was supposed to be. Lestrange Castle. With two little boys that would call her Mama when they were big enough to talk. Married to the right one. And it wasn't that Rabastan would have been the wrong one. They just wouldn't have been this. She didn't love him. Not the way that she loved his brother. And he never would have loved her. Not with the way that he had watched her sister. Andromeda wasn't a fool. They had all gone to school together, she had Rabastan had been in the same year. All the same classes. A Black and a Lestrange had the same sort of expectations.
But his eyes had been for her sister, and hers... Hers had wandered. To anything and everything. Anyone that could take the pain away for a little while. Anything that could make it all a distant memory. Anyone that could put their hands on her, and make her forget what other hands felt like. Anything, anyone. Andromeda wasn't picky back then. But she did know better than to sink too low. At least until she hadn't cared anymore. Until they had pushed just that much too far. Until they had hit just the right nerve. And then it had been careless rebellion. It had been stupidity, and she had run in the wrong direction. There had been plenty of times over the years she wondered if she shouldn't have just run to the man sitting at the table now? If he would have done what his brother had done for her sister, and taken her away from there? She thought that he would have. The contract said that he was supposed to. They were supposed to have married, had children, all of it. She was supposed to have belonged to him. But it wasn't so.
It had never been so, and Andromeda thought that, in the end, they would have been just as miserable as everyone else. Married to one another, neither one of them really having what they wanted. She would have been the wife of a Death Eater all along. She wouldn't have been a healer most likely, she certainly be the Minister now. Her ambitious nature had pushed her when Ted had tried to force her into a box. Andromeda Lestrange would not be boxed into anything. It didn't matter who's wife she was, it didn't matter who's mother, who's sister, who's Minister. She made choices that were hers alone. She did the things that she thought would help keep them all alive. Because this was a game of survival, and Andromeda had proved long ago that she knew how to survive just about anything. Sometimes it took hiding in plain sight, but it worked. She would keep them all alive. That she promised.
Scooping Arcturus up onto her hip she used magic to summon the bottle that Rabastan asked for out of the cabinet that he had been sitting in front of, and she refilled his glass before she filled her own with red wine. Trying to understand the younger Lestrange brother was almost foreign to her, when she knew how to read the elder. Perhaps Bella would be better at it than she. Or perhaps she was just as bad and Rab simply hadn't cared. Sitting here in this kitchen she could almost see a man, instead of what she knew him to be most of the time. Andromeda thought it was almost amusing, how much of the men that they had both once been she thought that she could still see. She was privy to a world that many were not though, and she knew that. "How is the reconditioning of the program coming along?" Speaking of work at home was not something that she did all that often, but she didn't know what else to do to cover the silence of the kitchen, and Roarke's small, childish laughter at his toy, and Arcturus pulling at her curls. And she knew that he had most certainly put his own spin on the training that he had easily been left in charge of. |
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:55:41 GMT
Everything living and breathing in this house was his brother's---Rodolphus' wife, Rodolphus' sons, even Rodolphus' dogs. But this was the Lestrange ancestral home--so, Rabastan was here, as well. The castle felt no more a home to him now than it had in his childhood. Perhaps he was less resented by the present occupants than he had been by his father. Who could say for sure? The man was close to his brother, of course. Rod and Rab had always been fiercely loyal to one another. Despite that, there was no affection felt by Rabastan for the small things that were Rodolphus' heirs. They were blood, he knew, but he saw nothing more than babes when he caught sight of the boys. Was Andromeda off-put by his presence in the home? The presence of the man that had once been promised her hand would surely make some women uncomfortable. Rabastan put little thought into whether or not his new sister-in-law was bothered by him. In his mind, they had no love, nor any hate for one another. He felt no animosity when he looked at her--he held no affection for her--or jealousy for Rodolphus to have wed the woman. It all meant very little to Rabastan.
It was far easier to talk of work than attempt some other bit of small talk. Unlike his more stoic elder brother, Rabastan was one to welcome conversation. When he could talk with others, he could feel more like himself--more like the man he had been before Azkaban perpetrated so many crimes against his mind.
An inaudible reaction was his first response to the woman's question: a smile--a genuine one, not one of his menacing or truly creep expressions. But a smile that brightened his steel blue eyes and gave his face a youthfulness that contradicted the greying of his hair. "Very well actually, I have a number of new recruits that are well suited to the tasks we are to fulfill for your Ministry." His supposed son was one of the trainees in his department. Rabastan was not fully convinced that the boy was his own. It would not have surprised him in the least for Alecto to have consorted with Amycus and simply claimed the child to be Rab's. Such a turn of events would more reasonably support the child carrying the Carrow surname. But it was no matter to him. Rabastan felt no connection to the boy--still, he would tend to the ginger's training just in case that there was true blood connection between them.
"As I am sure you are already aware, there were very few hit wizards of the old guard that could be trusted to stay true to the purist vision for the United Kingdom. I have cleaned house." He smirked a bit at this, pausing for the briefest moment hit wizards who had stood against the purists now served in Rabastan's Inferi army. Settling his expression back into a more docile smile, he continued: "All of those badged by my little slice of the Ministry pie are loyal without question."
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:55:51 GMT
 Not My
Wife If she let herself think about it, she wandered down memory lane, and that was not all that safe of a place for Andromeda Lestrange to be. She was the Minister for Magic now. She had other things to worry about, things that needed her to be at the top of her game, and she didn’t think that there was any real reason to worry about life in this castle. She had been worried, when she had first moved in here, when their relationship had changed this time around, but she had realized quickly there was no reason to be. Blair and she had gotten along wonderfully, and she missed her. Andromeda missed the other witch desperately sometimes. Whenever the boys hit a milestone that she should have been able to celebrate with someone, she wanted Blair there with her. Because Rodolphus didn’t care, and she didn’t expect him to care. But Andromeda cared. She cared, and she thought that Blair would have cared. She would have been a good mum. But that was all on Andromeda now. She was supposed to have been wife and mother in this castle decades ago. But she was supposed to have done it for the man that was sitting at the table now. And that… Well… That wouldn’t have fit. He had been far more interested in her sister, and she in his brother. Ironic, really, that they hadn’t just switched the contracts around. It would have worked out. She would have married Rod then, she wouldn’t have run. He wouldn’t have been hung up on her sister, because he would have had her. They could have been… Happy? Did she honestly think that they could have been happy? She didn’t know. Andromeda thought that anything that they would have had back then would have been so very different now. Because they weren’t the same people that they had been when they were children. And they had been children. Andromeda had been a teenager when she had fallen in love. With her sister’s husband. The world around them was a different place. Years of secrets, and lies, and jail time. She thought that it had changed all of them. They were not the same, they would never be the same. And it would have been delusional to think otherwise. Monsters. They were all monsters. Perhaps not all in the same way. But they were. Befitting, of those destined to bear the name that they bore. She worried about a destiny like that for her sons. But they were still little, and they were still hers. Until they belonged to their father, she thought that she could keep them safe. She wasn’t going to let anyone harm them. And that was the thing that people often forgot. She was a Black. And she was a Lestrange. She could and would. Kill. She had killed. She had tortured. Andromeda knew how to be that person. She knew how to make someone beg for death in that moment, and then heal them enough to deny them that right. She had done that. Come back to this castle with blood under her fingernails, and in her hair. She had come home with teeth in the pocket of her dress. Andromeda knew who she was, and she knew who the man on the other side of the kitchen was. They were monsters. “I’m glad to hear it.” And she was. She wanted to think that they were going to be well trained, and lethal, by the time that Rabastan got done with them. She didn’t need soldiers, not right now. But there was no harm in training them anyway. Her goal had been to take the Ministry to avoid a war, and so far, that had worked, but preparing for a war was always better safe than sorry… “I appreciate that, I’d rather not have Griffith pushing for guards, and then need them to protect me from my own people.” She still hadn’t given in to the idea of a guard, she didn’t care what Ministers normally did, or not. She thought that she had plenty of protection in her name, and in her own wand. Because targeting her, brought Rodolphus, and Rodolphus was now heading the Death Eaters. Andromeda felt rather untouchable, actually… Which was cocky, and probably painted a target on her back. But no one had physically touched her since he had publicly claimed her, and if they did, they apologized for it. Only a fool would try and harm her now. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRPHY 2.0
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:56:02 GMT
 not my wifewhat might we have beenRabastan gave a somewhat proud smile as they talked of the soldiers he was fashioning. He had made them all prove themselves--not only as capable dark wizards, but as ruthless killers with the unquestioning loyalty. Unbreakable Vows bound those honored as Hit Wizards of this Ministry to House Lestrange. He had let the Carrow boy--Amycus' son cast the bond--the vow being made between him and each hit wizard, but with the commitment being sworn to all those under the sigil of his house. This guaranteed they would never betray Andromeda. "Griffith is precautious, but only fools would ever dare move against you. It is known you have my brother and all those who stand with him at your back. You do not require a guard present at your side, because you have an army imagined in every shadow." His flair for dramatics showed there momentarily as his language grew flowery. Freshly out of Azkaban, he would have sang and rhymed, repeating himself at the most audibly delightful bits. But he was medicated now--regularly dosed with the potions that kept him rooted in reality. The insanity of Azkaban still lived in him. The monster he had been made by his father, the Dark Lord, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and the guards---it lived in him... but for the most part, the monster was quiet and sedated in the cage of his ribs. Rabastan went on to offer his opinion as to what Andromeda did need to concern herself with: "I do not believe you have any danger to worry about that can be faced by my soldiers or my brother's. You have the secret unseen daggers of those who would undercut you elsewhere, undermine your authority in small ways, seeking to birth an avalanche to bring destruction on the purist rule by moving pebbles. May your eyes and ears be keen in keeping watch for such things as these."My brother's wife, My Minister
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:56:11 GMT
not my wife but isn't it funny one different choice, and i might have been Everything that was now, in some way, was what it should have been all along. Andromeda believed that. She thought that she was exactly where she was supposed to have ended up. Lestrange Castle. And she knew that the way that she had gotten here was not the way that it should have happened. She knew that the man that she shared a bed with was supposed to have been her brother-in-law. The man that she should have wedded, was the one sitting in front of her now. But she truly believed that that was not the way that it was to be. Would they have made it work? Yes. If she would have told him the truth. If she would have gone to Rabastan with her problem, she thought that he would have done what he could. He would have taken her away from there. He would have gone through with the contract, married her, and they could have been… Something. Friends, perhaps. Lovers, certainly. But she thought that they could have existed in a wing of this castle, and they could have done everything that they were supposed to have done. But where would that have left them in the end? She wouldn’t have been her. And selfishly, she thought that she liked herself as she was now, a little too much to have just been his wife all along. Did she think he would have held her back? No, not really. She still thought she could have been a healer, and she might have even gone on to lead the surgical department. But the hospital? No, she wouldn’t have made it all the way to Director. Or Minister? Brilliant as she was, she would never have been Minister married to Rabastan Lestrange. Together they could have created something wonderful. They could have been ingenious, and revolutionary. But that was not what was meant to be. And there was some part of her that was certain that they would have been lonely, in a way. Or she would have been. And she never wanted to be lonely again. She had done lonely. She had known that feeling. And she knew that it was nothing compared to what they would have felt in that prison. But she had been lonely just the same. Would she have missed him the same way? If she would have fallen for the one that she was supposed to, would she have been able to mend the hole that their father had left behind in the younger brother, the way that she knew that she could not in the elder? Because Andromeda was not a fool. She didn’t believe that Rodolphus loved her. Perhaps, once upon a time, he had. Perhaps he had loved her, in the before. But Azkaban had taken that from him. It had taken so much from both of them. She smiled softly at his words and shifted Arcturus on her hip as she looked across the kitchen at her brother-in-law. “Thank you.” Andromeda knew that he didn’t have to protect her like that. That he could have been indifferent about it, but he wasn’t. And she knew that he didn’t have to make her feel better right now either. Even if he wasn’t doing it on purpose, because it seemed like neither of them ever did. The Lestrange brother were just very good at making her feel better. “I have found myself aware of just that…” A wave of her wand and dinner righted itself and settled on the table between them. “I believe I made some rather hasty appointments when things changed, and there is no getting out of them now. But vigilance seems to be prudent.” Ironic, really, that the phrase that popped in her head in that moment was one that seemed to come from another life… Constant vigilance was what it was going to take to survive now. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2019 0:56:21 GMT
not my wifewhat might we have been There were many things that might have been different in his life if he had made just one choice differently along the way. Some were big decisions like following his brother and Bellatrix into Voldemort's service--others were smaller. Things that on the surface seemed insignificant but led to him being at just the wrong place or just barely missing the right moment. He felt as if he had just missed the right moments with Andromeda many times over the years. But it was for the best... At least, the best for her and for his brother-- Rabastan had suffered much and suffered still. His life was and had always been a lonely one. This was not Andromeda's fault. It was his own. His choices put him on a path that could only give him cold nights and an empty heart. He had loved Bellatrix before, and still chased after her even with her in Death's embrace. She had never loved him, though. If she had ever loved anyone, it had been a bloody halfblood. His brother had found an opportunity for a new life after Azkaban. He'd taken two wives. He had two sons. Andromeda had found this new life for herself as well as Rod's wife and more notably as Minister of Magic. He could find something for himself, too. He had to. Azkaban had robbed him of so many years. It did not feel like his work with the hit wizards at the Ministry was really going to be his 'thing'. But it was good for now. It kept him busy--and it gave him the opportunity to protect Andromeda, which actually did matter to him. She was quite like a sister to him now--perhaps she had always been in ways. They had known one another well back at Hogwarts, sharing a keen interest in Potions in particular. It had felt like a betrayal of friendship rather than romance when she had run off from their engagement. He did not fault her for it now. He did not know the reasons she had made those decisions, but Rabastan trusted she had motivations that seemed just and reasonable to her in that time. They'd all just been trying to do right. He wasn't sure any had succeeded. All those old decisions had led to here, though---and for now, this place, this time seemed to be good. There was always the chance for others to move against them. There was always the chance for those of other heritages to strike out. But he was standing guard. He was being mindful. Andromeda spoke of vigilance and the wizard nodded his agreement to that sentiment. "We can only watch and remember what brought us here," Rabastan answered, finishing his scotch before standing up from the table. The wrongs he perceived that had been done against him, through his incarceration and his time at the work camp, would not be far from his mind anytime soon. He'd lost a great deal of his sanity due to his time in Azkaban. He was gaining stability back slowly--vials of golden sunshine helping him along towards being who he had once been...or as much of that man as he could manage. Part of his youthful self was lost forever. Hope had died in him. Now, he could only fight for security and safety of himself and those he care for. The attack that the future held for them was not one he could see coming, though. It was not one that could be fought by the means he knew or understood. A new future would be upon them in just a less than a year. Who knew what sort of future they would find themselves in in a decade? Thread End My brother's wife, My Minister 622
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