The Manhunt/Chapter 15

“You must understand why I called you here,” Elise Fanfarinet pushed the stacks of paper on a desk aside, as she looked up to her son standing in the doorframe.

Bastion Fanfarinet had forgotten how empty the room felt and how cold the atmosphere of the villa was. He had never really made himself a home in this place, and once he had stepped in, realised he never would.

“I can’t forgive you, Mother,” he said. “I did in two weeks what you couldn’t in fourteen years.”

She had opened her mouth, with the intention of saying some kindly words or comforting phases to ease that frown off his face. But what words could a mother say that could undo the errors of the past sixteen years?"

"Your tie is lopsided. Please take a seat, son."

He ignored that sentence, pacing around his side of the room, displaying no intention to pull out a chair. “What sort of mother are you?"

Her heart clenched.

“What sort of mother sacrifices her own child to die?"

“Bastion, please listen to me.”

“You didn’t even try! If someone like me could do it, then you could."

“Bas–“

“A minimal amount of effort and two weeks. With breaks!"

“Bas, please.”

“And don’t call me Bas!” he wanted to slam his fist down on the desk, maybe kick a chair or something. “You’ve never listened to me for sixteen years! And I call you Mother,” Bastion shook his head – more at himself than at his mother. “I never should have done so."

“How could I force another woman to go through my pain?” she said. “What good would it have been to storm up to her and tell her that the child she reared is meant to die?"

She had been eight when her father was sent off to ask the princess’ hand for the king’s son he had served.

Eight when guards came back, knocked on the villa door, and told her that father was never coming back.

''They had told her it was because he had ran off with a younger woman. Not only was adultery illegal in the kingdom he had served for, but he was “done away” with because that woman was a princess.''

Elise Fanfarinet was very well-aware that the kings’ men would line up criminals and fire endlessly at will.

''If she had known her father was destiny-bound then, she would not have imagined his body resting and rotting in prisoner’s pits. She would have known that his true fate was lying in the bottomless sea.''

''She had crouched with her brother, Jacques, by the cracks in the door to listen to her mother sob to chambermaids and friends. Marriage was a sham, her mother had said. Fate was inescapable .''

And with those words, Bastion Fanfarinet fell silent.

He calmly took a seat.

(For D’Aulnoy’s sake, he never realised how that much talking exhausted him.)

“I’m sorry, Mother."

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I yelled at you. I demonstrated an inappropriate display of anger,” Bastion bowed his head. He didn’t count to five; he didn’t remember to breathe. His sort of villains were supposed to be slick and chill – not reckless and ruinous.

“It’s understandable,” she waved a hand. “You’ve always been good at bottling up your emotions. A fuse was soon to blow, anyway.”

He looked up, with a raised eyebrow. “How in Ever After do you know that? You’ve never cared about me. You’ve never made an effort to get involved in my life."

“I am your mother.”

And a downright terrible one. “How is that related to anything?”

It wasn’t as if being a mother was some sort of saintly status. Snow White’s stepmother had her sent away on the account of vanity, and sent a woodsman after her literal heart. Hansel and Gretel were cast out in the woods by their mother. Those two were of the stepmother variety, but even so. In fairytales, mothers were passive as their children got turned into ravens or got courted by bears. Mothers wept and sobbed and rarely made an effort, while their daughters would be off saving themselves.

“You give too much prestige to the role of mother,” he added.

You shouldn’t give such prestige to family in the first place.

''Her father and mother had loved each other. That was why they married. At least, that’s what the villa staff had told her.''

''It was only until she was older when it became clear. He did so, in hopes that he would be spared by those who reinforced destiny.''

''But the world was cruel, and did not care for personal trifles. Certainly, not at the risk of legacies.''

“A mother is what keeps a family together,” Elise Fanfarinet sighed. “I’m sure you’ve heard plenteous of stories about evil stepmothers, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and far too little on evil mothers,” Bastion said. “Truly unrepresentative of the real population."

Her shoulders drooped as she struggled to maintain her dignified, emotionally stable image. Had Elise Fanfarinet ever been emotionally stable? Father lost, brother lost, and now almost her son.

She thought of all the deaths Ever After gave their born-to-dies.

She thought of how they would suffer.

And she wondered why so little people would think of how each of them had a family left behind.

To her, Jacques Fanfarinet had been long dead before he plunged into the sea. His youth and kindness had died once he found out his destiny.

Dearest D’Aulnoy, she fit all the trappings of a villain.

“I gave birth to you,” she finally said. “At least give me some credit for that, Bastion dear?"

And at that, all she was met with was a stony face.

He thought about how he was always sent to Germany.

It was always surprising in how many subtle ways living with the House of Adalinda had changed him.

Pythia Adalinda knew how to protest, and for a very brief period of his life, he was once an activist like her. Every child a wanted child, he recalled some of the signs saying.

“I never asked to be born,” he said. I never asked to grow up like this.

Elise Fanfarinet watched her son tilt his head up. It was an odd gesture – his posture had always been meek, his words had always been too constructed and polite. Here, was a silent display of confidence. Her son had never once looked like her brother, but in that moment, he also could be.

“I believe I should be apologising for sixteen years of neglect, then,” she said, slowly. “I’m sorry, Bastion. You had so much potential. You would have been the perfect son, had you a better mother."

“I…” Bastion began, and paused. He frowned, and stood his ground.

His mother stood hers.

The moment itself was still. Silent, deadly, poised. There was a calculating air, as mother and son tried to discern the other’s thoughts.

In fact, the moment was so still, the motion sensor lights went off.

With that, reality sunk in.

“I’m sorry,” were the words Bastion blurted out. Carelessly, without thought. “I’m sorry,” he said, again, tasting words he never properly considered. It was foreign, it was strange, and yet–

– it was real.

The impact of that feeling churned in him uncomfortably.

There was nothing he could do but be ever the more impulsive.

He turned his heels, and walked out.

The lights flickered on again.

When he exited out of those study doors, it seemed both as if the world dropped his weight on him and lifted it off his shoulders. Bastion Fanfarinet felt oddly unbalanced. He wanted to arch a skeptical eyebrow at himself, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

In his blazer pockets were his small pocket diary of his plans, and a pack of blank cue cards.

Bastion Fanfarinet kept walking, pacing through his childhood house. He gave the odd nod to any staff who passed by, but otherwise, he was lost in his thoughts and requiem.

He walked until he reached the courtyard, where a fine fountain stood.

Poised at the top of the fountain’s sprout was a nondescript marble figurine, who was leaning backwards, {teering} over the edge, in the midst of toppling. The figurine grasped his face, in particular his eye, where a knife rested in.

A small spark of fury ignited in him. Why was this fountain even erected, what use was that decoration? He didn’t even know why he was angry, or what for, but he wanted to do whatever to erase that figurine from sight. Yet, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Bastion attempted to look aside. Still, the figurine lay in peripheral view, taunting, mocking.

Seized with a furious thought, he took that pocket diary out of his blazer, and flung it.

He did not hit the figurine – Bastion Fanfarinet did not have the hand eye coordination for that. The diary hit the rushing water, and fell down and down and down to the bottom of the fountain.

Bastion stared at the diary, as it lay water sodden and pathetic.

The fury in him seemed to die, and all he felt was a sense of satisfaction, a catharsis.

For good measurement, he attempted to fling the set of cue cards in his pocket at the fountain as well. Air resistance was his enemy – instead of falling into the fountain as he had planned, they fluttered all around. Only a fraction ended up floating on the water’s surface; the rest were scattered along the edges.

With a small shrug, he picked the scattered ones up. There was no point it adding further stress for the cleaners.

Airmid Valerian was found in the personal library, loudly criticising the arrangement of the books. So was Gabriel Benoît, but he had been less vocal and more fake about his pleads.

For a brief moment, Bastion hoped that the two didn’t cause a scene, then realised he didn’t really care. Screw his parents, screw his destiny, screw his family. If they found his group annoying, then they could simply, as the teens say, “get lost”.

“Mother wants to talk to you, Gabriel,” Bastion said.

“Largest room on the second floor, across the courtyard. You can’t miss it,”

And with that, Gabriel rushed off.

“And Airmid, your tie is off-center. Please straig-- wait," Bastion paused, "is that a real tie?”

The physician turned around, a small sulk on their face. "You made fun of me for using elastic ties!”

"I was not making fun, I was just confused and weirded out,” he shook his head. “It just just so unnerving – being impressed that you did up ties so well, to find out that you didn’t do them up yourself."

"Weirded out?"

“Unnerved.”

“Semantics, semantics,” Airmid waved a hand. “Don’t use your language to trip me up."

“I do not use a word for the sake of butchering a word.”

“Ah, so you admit that all your words are chosen carefully. Almost like someone trying to insult another without getting away with it.”

“You are–“ Bastion’s eyes darted. “What is wrong– are you okay?"

"Look, for once in my life, I'm trying to be normal, okay?"

"You're wearing a normal tie, and that’s your attempt at normal?”

“I–“

He shook his head. This was infuriating. It wasn’t Airmid’s fault of course. It was the fact that his plan got wrecked, that he got dragged half way across the country (totally uneconomical, by the way) to his family’s place, his mother actually displayed emotions, and his friend was acting weird.

He needed time to sit down and take a breather.

“Airmid, are you alright? You seem out of it,” Bastion asked, after some thought. “Can’t have that happen to the greatest phys–“

“Don’t call me that,” Airmid turned away. “I’m not the world’s greatest physician."

“Look, I’m sorry my family had to get involved. I deeply apologise for this inconvenience. If there’s anything I can do to–"

“The purpose of the trip was for your family! This has nothing to do with me! Stop acting like it does!”

“Do you need space?”

Airmid Valerian did not respond. Instead, they just flopped down on the ground and turned their back to Bastion.

After a while, they lied down, and crawled up on themself, arms wrapped around their legs.

Bastion Fanfarinet simply stood there.

… The room was very tense and he did not know how to deal with such awkwardness.

… At least one minute passed by in awkward silence.

Finally, they spoke. “I’m not as cool as I thought I was. In fact, I’m not cool at all. Maybe people were right about me. Perhaps I am a neopolitic conman after all, riding on a Godfather’s gift to succeed in medicine.”

Bastion very well knew that he didn’t do anything – at least not intentionally – of Airmid to be in this state. But he couldn’t help but feel guilty. A person couldn’t suddenly break down like this, and if Airmid had been on the verge to, Bastion hadn’t been there to support them. What kind of friend was he?

“There’s nothing wrong with you, if you were wondering,” they said in a small voice. “It’s all my fault. Me, and my overconfidence. Mere hubris. Icarus and the sun. Flew too high, burned myself out and crashed."

“Is that the same reference to what Juniper was named after?” Bastion asked. “Huh. Oddly fitting."

“You know what always confused me about that myth?” Airmid looked up from their foetal position. “The higher the altitude, the colder it gets."

At this point of the conversation, Bastion Fanfarinet felt like he was just throwing out words and phrases into an abyss, and was getting nowhere.

“Airmid Valerian. What is wrong?”

“I don’t know,” they said. A sigh escaped their throat. “I don’t know anything."

Elise Fanfarinet had not been the man’s face before, but there was no doubt in her heart that she knew who he was.

He looked so much like him, that she could have almost mistaken him for her own brother at eighteen – had she not been wearing her glasses, or too tired to process things properly, or something.

Gabriel had the same bridge of the nose, the same eyes. She thought of her son – how unfitting he looked in his role, as if enveloped in oversized garments. This young man differed greatly, and was truly her brother’s son.

She desperately wanted to say ‘welcome to the family, you’re a Fanfarinet now’. But D’Aulnoy… welcoming him to the family was expelling him from the family at the same time.

Her heart clenched.

How many years had it been? How many years since Jacques’ death? Almost twenty when he fell from the cliff and everybody’s favour. Scratch that, it was not falling into the sea that killed Jacques, it had been the promise of destiny itself. Youth and sweetness had perished, and he came tumbling not long after.

This Gabriel Benoît would too meet that same fate.

The very thing Bastion had criticised her for was the very thing Bastion was carrying out himself when he brought this young lad into the Princess Mayblossom story.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" she said.

His eyes glistened. She knew that glisten all too well. So many princesses and princes from storyless kingdoms had that glisten when they were picked to be love interests, so many third sons and farmboys grinning at the mere opportunity for a legacy. Even when that legacy was terrible, even when it ended in death -- it reigned above a life with no tale.

Gabriel Benoît was no different.

"Yes," he said. "I have nothing to lose."

"Not even your life?"

"I never had one.”

A tragedy.

And now with his new destiny, he was never going to have one.

“Please sit down,” she asked him, cursing herself for forcing him to stand. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

“Oh, um. I’m fine, thank you."

There was an odd sort of contemplative silence between them. Elise struggling to cope with the fact that this was her brother’s son. She could have known him at least a decade before, could have driven him to a destiny much earlier, could have spared her own son’s life– and condemned him instead.

Instead, her son had returned, thrown his role out of the window, and sent a helpless young man to follow it instead.

A good thing his mother was already dead, thought Elise. I cannot imagine having another woman go through this struggle.

Still, in her own fear, she had ruined the lives of two young men.

What kind of mother and aunt was she?

“I’m sorry,” said Gabriel. “What– what should I call you?”

“You can call me your aunt, or Elise. Preferably, Aunt Elise.”

He nodded. “So, my father– he was your brother, correct?” When she nodded her affirmation, he continued. “How was he? What was he like?"

Silence entered the conversation again, as Elise Fanfarinet tried in vain to grapple her words together. Eventually, she sighed, and let the syllables roll from her mouth. “Ruinous."

“Ah.”

“I pray the same does not happen to you. We’ll try to prevent it, non?"

“I would hope so.”

There was a brief pause. “You know, dear nephew: I never did do sisterhood right. I never did parenting right, either. Maybe, with you, the world has granted me a second chance.”

“Don’t you have a daughter?” Gabriel pointed out.

“Well,” said Elise. “There’s a reason why both my children are at boarding school.”

“Airmid Valerian, you are literally one of the smartest people to walk the corridors of Ever After High,” Bastion said. “How in Ever After could you not know anything?”

“Socrates,” said the physician bluntly. They were silent for a beat, then buried their head deeper into their foetal position. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t even a half-decent reply.”

“No, no, I got the joke,” he said, in an awkward attempt of consoling. ‘If you could call it a joke.'

“That’s the very thing, Fanfarinet! I am a joke! Perhaps that’s all I am.”

You are certainly not okay, Bastion wanted to say, but there was no use in stating the obvious. “Something happened, right? How… how is your side of the trip? How is hunting down the physician’s details going?”

“Ah. That’s the very thing."

“Would you like to talk about it, then?”

“Not now.”

“That’s understandable,” he said, and didn’t pry.

All silences between the two had been awkward, and this one had perhaps been the most.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Airmid said, when the silence finally broke. "The way we call this friendship and don’t even have it in us to vent.”

Bastion opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. But how was Airmid supposed to know that whatever this was – this friendship, companionship, whatever – led him to reveal more about himself than he ever had to anyone other than his closest confidant? He had given this doctor the power to wreck him – had he not already wrecked himself already.

And not even that. Pythia Adalinda knew him as the dignified mess of a debate partner, her view of the real Bastion Fanfarinet was stillborn at fourteen years old, when he learned to be serious but not self ruinous. People thought he was friends with Charmaine Lexwington, but every time the two ran into each other, Bastion only really talked out of politeness and obligation. He couldn’t stand her pity. He couldn’t stand that idea pushing at the back of his head, telling him that she was here in attempt to fix him.

He could reform himself by his own grimmdamn self.

“I’m sorry. I could do better.”

The physician’s face fell. “No, you’re doing fine. I– I brought my own destruction upon myself.”

"Airmid, you know what might cheer you up?" Bastion suggested, pulling the remaining cue cards from his pockets. "Setting these on fire."

They struck their lighter, he held up the cards.

But alas, the two achieved nothing but activating the smoke alarms and getting drenched from the resultant water spray.