==>

GeneralMister wrote:

Well, it looks like you have a better grasp on reality now. You’re thinking logically. Logic can sometimes help overcome fear.

Dermonster wrote:

…so what? Your drinking Water. Your looking, honestly, much, much better, and the countess has been kinda neutral, but positively neutral. You just got through a bit of small talk, and even if you were imagining her to be a card, it was still her. It’s fine.

Okay, before you completely flip out you’re going to try to be logical about this.

You were doing alright just a moment ago, and technically nothing has changed since then. You were in a castle, eating with a countess, not panicking at all, and you were fine. You can keep doing that, and you’ll keep being fine. The Countess isn’t even that scary.

And sure, all the drinks here make you a little uneasy, but as long as you only drink from your own glass you should be fine. And if you absolutely have to grab someone else’s glass for some inconceivable reason, you’ll just grab Quill-Weave’s. You are certain that action would have no negative ramifications whatsoever, other than being a little rude.

TheFinalWraith wrote:

…Also now that you’ve stopped maintaining that admittedly impressive delusion, could you answer a question for me? I mean I thought that it was your recurring nightmare which caused your phobia of royalty, but what you told me about your childhood makes me a bit suspicious. I mean, sure that dream would greatly exacerbate a fear of royalty to almost-crippling levels, but it wouldn’t create that fear. From what I understand the king in your dreams doesn’t actually do anything threatening or harmful towards you, and was in fact just kind of standing there. I submit to you that you would only find the dream terrifying (instead of boring, or at most uncomfortable) if you were already at least somewhat afraid of royalty in the first place.

It’s an uncomfortable topic, but what the hell, you’ll explain.

The nightmares did come first.

At least, that’s all you could ever figure. You don’t know why it happened; you lived in a noble’s castle, but you had never actually met a king – or even seen one! But when you were about four, the nightmares started.

Every night it was the same thing: just you and the king. When you tried to be brave – when you could look him in the face and think it’s just a king, the dreams got scarier. He got twisted, fanged, and gnarled. Night after night, it became the same choice: be afraid of the king, or have reason to be afraid of the king. You swear you tried to be the bravest goddamn toddler there was and it only made things worse. Soon even the castle itself scared you. You couldn’t function. You couldn’t get out of bed, you couldn’t even open your eyes. Royalty and anything associated with it had become terrifying to you, and you never understood why.

So your family moved. The transition from castle workers to farmers wasn’t easy for them, and they always let you know it was your fault.

You wish you had some reason. As horrible as it sounds, you wish you had some teary, traumatic childhood story where you were sexually abused by a king or something. But there just wasn’t anything like that. No good reason for you to have your phobia. It just came out of nowhere and everyone else had to accommodate it. Just another instance of you ruining everything.

Hopefully that answers the question.

TheFinalWraith wrote:

And hey, your robe is lovely and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And besides, Baeralorn, Orrin and of course Quill-Weave are all dressed quite modestly as well, so I’m vetoing you feeling ashamed of your clothes if the only people dressed better than you are the countess and her steward.

Okay, you admit you were probably a bit hasty with that “everyone is better dressed than you” remark. Thanks for the compliment, anyway. It means a lot.

And yeah, you’re pretty sure the Countess knows you were the one who did that pineapple performance. You guess it’s pretty cool that she seems to be playing along with the lies regardless.

McFrugal wrote:

How’s the salad?

It’s pretty good! But it looks like everyone else finished while you were spacing out.

Quill-Weave is busy saying something about how it was a one time trip to Chorrol to exchange writing tips with a colleague.

It sounds like you just missed an amazing conversation.