Episode 38 - Impending

(Music fades in)

  Welcome back to the podcast! Or most of you are welcome, anyway. I’m well aware that Okay, I’m well aware that I’m not as friendly and welcoming as I may want to be. I know I can be cold and callous and perhaps to a very specific individual I was towards the end of the last episode. Perhaps I took a tone with you that I had learned to take with so many that came before you, those predecessors who knowingly tried to do what you are unknowingly approaching. To that, I can’t say that I’m sorry. Because I’m not. And there’s any number of reasons for that. 

It isn’t that I enjoy being rude. It’s just that rudeness is sort of an inevitability in a time like this. That’s the category under which so many of my actual reasons are tucked beneath. It’s a learned habit, for one. Or it isn’t even a habit. More, like it's a coping mechanism. It’s a small bite or biting motion by a dog that suspects it is cornered but is still holding out for some sort of an escape rather than a fight. It doesn’t want to cause pain or hurt, but now, it is at peace with doing so. For its own. Then again, maybe you still could consider it a habit. It’s something I learned to do after so many years of watching my family be this way. I learned that this is a valid way of getting by, of behaving, of spending the time afforded to me on this earthly coil. So maybe it’s both. Can it be both? Are those categories mutually exclusive?

Can you tell that I am rambling? I think you can. It’s fairly obvious. But I’m not making an attempt to hide it. And you know that hiding things is something I know how to do. That’s how we got into this mess, isn’t it?

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

The Princess Eathebel never expected the court’s opinions of her to change. She might have hoped for as much. Hope was inevitable. It was what she had learned to sustain herself off of whenever the loneliness of palace life set in. Loneliness was the sort of creature more than capable of strangling you if you left it to grow unchecked and without interference. And she did not want to die. She was not uncomfortable with death, so much. It followed her around and stayed in the shadows behind her, but it was not the sort of thing she wanted for herself. 

The Princess Eathebel knew what it was to want. She had once wanted a child. Then she had it, and for the brief time her unnamed baby girl lived and slept in a bassinet beside her bed, she was content. But then the breathing stopped. And the nightmare began. It happened in an instant, really. There was one moment in which she was able to look down on her daughter with love and adoration, but in the next moment, the soul she had come to cherish was gone. She let that desire die with it. But life continued on. And then, she returned to wanting her independence and freedom. It was the sort of desire that had never been all that far from her mind. Her mother, the former queen, had been so consistent in telling her that she could never have it that the flame of desire grew out of control. But now she had that. Her brother had given her that. 

He tried to give her all that he could, but as he made his way through the lists of her desires and demands, he found things that were, in fact, impossible. First and foremost, he could not change the court’s opinion of her. What the former king and queen had laid out was now set in the castle’s cobblestones, and it could not be wiped away by a mere king’s hand. The love and appreciation of all the courtiers would have meant something to her, if she could have it. Once upon a time, it was something she also wanted, but it was a lesser desire now. After years of her standing at her brother’s elbow and set in her authority and influence, she knew it was never going to come. But she also could live without it, in any event. She had for this long. 

But her heart still wanted something. Or rather, it had healed enough for an old desire to take hold. For the longest time, she could not say it aloud. Nor could she bear to look too intensely at the young princess. 

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

There are always questions. Everyone always has questions for me, and I suppose that’s the only way of getting at the truth. It’s the only way we know to do it. It’s like a surveying of the figurative land before us, of a world we cannot see but need to understand. I know that everyone wants to know what happened with my aunt and her many husbands. Heck, I’m sure there’s a question to be had about why I say ‘aunt’ the way that I do. To that latter one, I don’t have a great answer. I think it’s just the sort of linguistic bleed that happens when a child is left to raise themselves surrounded by access to media made and influenced by the larger world. Because that’s a very British pronunciation, isn’t it? And I’ve lived in many places over the years, but they were all in the United States.

Or maybe I’m making a big deal about nothing. Because it’s a way to stall for time. It’s a way to get you to lose interest in your questions. It’s a way to free myself. By being more trouble than my alleged answers may be worth to you. 

It’s not a good strategy, but it has worked in the past. I’ve had plenty of time to develop a strategy, friend. Far more time than you. 

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

The young princess was six years old and a menace to her tutors. She was far smarter than anyone had realized. She was far smarter than she would admit to being. And so, she moved much more quickly than the lessons, which left her feeling bored and with a bit of free time. Maybe only a moment or more, but it was enough to catch a toad or worm and leave it in the tutors’ belongings. 

The royal family could not admit to their pride openly, but it lingered on their faces. Princess Eathebel knew her niece could see it, and so, she stopped trying to hide it. 

“I would like one of my own,” she one day confessed to her sister-in-law. 

It was an unexpected remark, and with it being so tied to the young girl, the queen bristled a bit at the palace ghosts that lingered about. The smallest ones were the most vicious, the queen had long since decided. And she knew she was not wrong in that. But how to combat them was a question the queen did not know the answer to. 

But there was one she could ask. “Would you like a marriage then?” 

The shadows behind them shifted. “Yes,” the princess whispered. “I would.”

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Answers are not what you think they are. It’s not just that lies fit in the space rather nicely, which they do. It’s that assumptions can be tucked away in those spaces as well. They can fill the space that is needed by the rest of the answer. And without that space, details are lost. But you don’t even know that they should have been there. You had no way of knowing about them or the occupancy issue. You cannot imagine without some sort of sign. It’s a limit of the human mind that hides itself well. 

I’ve been asked many questions over the years, but no one has ever given me room to answer them fully or in the way that they need to be answered. It feels ironic that they never left me the space for the answers that they were so desperate to have. But I don't suppose I should be all that surprised. And I don’t mean that in a decisive way. The case was difficult. Every investigator knew I was in danger, and unless I put myself in even more danger they could not help me. But I didn’t want their help. It was too late for their help. I was stuck. I was trapped. Not trapped in my home, which is what they assumed, but in my own mind.

You don’t ask your questions with the same intent. You want to leave me space for my answers because you’ve been trained to do as much. And the medium helps greatly. Emails can be as long as we need them to be. There is no limit to them. Or if there is, I’ve never found it. I don’t think anyone has. I don’t think it’s the sort of thing we could find here, though if we did maybe we could send a second or a third or even a fourth. We can get around it, I mean. You want us to get us around it. But I can’t meet you at that point. I swear. 

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Queen Evanora was pleased with herself. She had been proven right, had she not? Now that Princess Eathebel no longer had her independence or political influence denied to her, she was coming around to see things from her brother’s perspective. The king could now arrange a marriage for his sister without fear of her lashing out. The queen smirked as she readied herself for bed. When they were alone, she would tell him. But she would not betray her sister in law by doing so in front of anyone who might use this news against her. 

For despite what could have happened all those years ago, she did care about Princess Eathebel and only wanted her happiness. Her husband likely felt the same way. But she had never asked him as much.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Can I ask you a question? Why are you so convinced that I can speak the truth now? What makes you think I can? Here I am with a podcast that could have been whatever I wanted it to be. I could have joined the very popular true crime general, and I don’t anyone would anyone have objected to my presence? Now I would not have been welcomed in any meaningful way, but I would not have been rejected or scorned in the same way others are. Because my purpose would have been clear. But no, I’ve done this instead. I’ve done everything else seemingly but that. Could you explain that choice to me?

I know that was actually a lot of questions. Not just one Far more than one. But that is how inquiries go, I think. They always extend far beyond your imagination and can never be pulled back.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Wane was more quiet than usual, Princess Eathebel had noticed. He had never been a man of many words, but when they were alone together in the princess’s chambers, he would normally acknowledge her, compliment her, or engage with her in some way. He once told her that he loved the sound of her voice. And he would try to pull it out of her for his own sake. There was something selfish about that. He called it his one comfort, but she was happy to oblige him in that. However, it made moments like this, when he was content with silence, all the more  disconcerting. 

“What’s wrong?” she finally asked. 

As she spoke, she dared to approach him. She dared to reach out and touch the collar of his jacket. Her knuckles brushed against the skin of his neck. 

At first, he was reluctant to speak. She could see his mind turning over in his head. He was scrambling to find the words or the will to say said words aloud. To encourage him, she offered a small smile. She wanted to hear what he had to say after all. She wanted to know what he was thinking. If he was suffering, she wanted to comfort him. If there was anything at all in his mind, she wanted to share it with him. 

“Do you really intend to marry?” he asked. 

She laughed and pulled her hand back. She retorted, “Do you mean to have me?”

Wane did not understand what she meant, so she laughed again and leaned towards him until her face was mere inches away from his. “I mean to marry you, silly. But I suppose you have to agree to it.”

Rather than answering, he closed the distance and kissed her. When he pulled back, she was glowing.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

I want people to know, really, okay. I just don’t know why I have to be the one to tell the story. Why couldn’t someone else have figured it out? A detective or a lawyer or anyone else. I’ll take a true crime podcaster, even the inappropriate ones. Something, anything else, is better than this. 

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

King Ezin cheered at the news when he heard it. It was late. He and his wife were in bed and should have kept their voices low lest it become the set up for the next palace rumor. But he could not help himself. His heart swelled with joy. As his wife had predicted, his greatest problem had solved itself, and the timing could not have been better. 

Finding the right bachelor for a bride was the hardest part of marriage negotiations. But that had sorted itself out. The richest duke in the realm had been widowed some time ago, but recently, he had confided in his sovereign a desire to marry again. That conversation had gone better than any king could have hoped. For this potential rival did not ask for the princess. As he put it, he did not dare to aim so high unlike the many other nobles who had been asking or outright begging for the honor. But he wanted a bride the king approved of. He wanted to be closer to the king, he had said repeatedly. And there was no way to be closer than through family.

(Music gradually fades out)

Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or donate to the show’s Ko-Fi account.