Nivina sat at the center of the Otmar County, serving as its sole true city as well as it’s capital. Trade was just as slow here, as it was in all the other towns and settlements in the region, but the sheer quantity of trade and people that came its way made Nivina much richer than all its sister settlements.

The thick stone and metal walls that surrounded Nivina lead to its being the most relatively safe of all the settlements. All of this in leading to Nivina having the highest population amongst its peers.

Near the center of Nivina, was the great manor of the good Count McBriar. Called good, because despite his mental instability and famed lechery, compared to other nobles on the continent his governance was fairly stable and tales of him and his people overtly oppressing the common folk were comparatively small in number.

At the moment within the dining hall of this great manor, a man sat at a great long table. A silver fork in his left hand, a silver knife in his right.

A bowl the size of a small tub sat in front of him.

Blue skinned, white haired, with large bright blue eyes, that still held a certain sharpness despite being clouded over, their gaze just a tad unfocused. This, the strong jawline and a certain something near the beaklike nose, made it almost painfully obvious that he and a certain adopted child of the vis-Oddmund family were father and daughter.

This man was Hunfred Rylin McBriar the Third, the good Count of Otmar.

He’d just sat down to eat his mid-afternoon egg custard. Eating custard with a knife and fork was exactly difficult as can be imagined, yet with all else in his County, the old man would somehow always manage to come through in the end.

A very messy fifteen minutes later, he’d finish, his bowl sitting emptied in front of him, a few drops of custard having made it onto his otherwise pristine ducky-print bib.

He belched loudly with aplomb, sighing in satisfaction as he pulled the bib away from his collar and tossed it onto the table before him.

“Nothing like sugar, eggs and cream to give a man a bit of clarity…” he mumbled to himself.

Sitting with his hands steepled before him, atop of his slightly swollen stomach.

He drifted off as he often did after his mid-afternoon snack. Dreaming of better days. Dreaming of the days when he was younger and still a promising young courtier in the capital city of the kingdom. Dreaming of all his wives with all their lovely forms and lovely shades of skin.

*****

Recently, one in particular would always come to him as he slept, a wide hipped, deep bosomed, young thing, with green skin and a lovely singing voice. Almost hypnotic. Soothing to the senses, holding an almost narcotic sway on the mind.

He’d kept many lovers and concubines since that one’s passing but there had been none that could move him like she’d moved him.

Hunfred had been quite wroth when he’d been given word of the Oddmund girl’s passing. Naturally, He’d known that she had been a victim of schemes of his greedy and covetous over-numerous brats. The offspring of his other wives, concubines and mistresses.

After he’d found out about her death, he’d made a point of going just a little more “batty” in the months that followed. Killing chickens to scare the monkeys, killing monkeys to teach the disreputable over ambitious young curs amongst his get.

Giving a series of seemingly nonsensical orders and sinisterly whimsical commands that wouldn’t mean much to the general public but would serve to scourge the one’s responsible and set an example for the those in the know.

*****

Hunfred awoke, frowning, the crinkled lines of his otherwise fair featured face growing even deeper. He was nearly one hundred and fifty now, but through most of it, he’d lived with few regrets.

Not even regretting the series of decisions that got him and his exiled out here to dreary Otmar, and the lifeless Emerald Steppes.

Yet, there was one particular amongst his few regrets that was currently coming to mind. A little girl with his coloring and her mother’s beautiful voice.

Wrinkling his thick frosted brows, Hunfred got up and called for his Seneschal. Despite his age the old count still did quite a bit of the work governing his people, after all there were only a few of his many children that with enough promise and competence that he could trust to properly help him run his region and he’d sent most of them out and away from him.

Away from their greedy, bloodthirsty siblings, and away from Otmar, lest they be stuck in this dead end place and add to Hunfred's small list of regrets.

There were others, non-family members that were competent enough for him to trust, but one had to be careful with those sorts of associations. A borrowed hand that was too relied on today, could be a hand around your neck tomorrow. Power was something to be kept within the bloodline, where the threat of mutual destruction was most assured and a basic minimal trust could be assured.

As Hunfred tottered back to his offices and sat down to work, he paused before lifting his quill pen and glasses from his great mahogany desk.

The old man snorted having made up his mind over something that had long bothered him.

“Eustice…” said Hunfred. Calling to one of the attendants who assisted him in the room.

“Yes, m’lord?” said the attendant.

“Call Forester and a few of the other old chaps. I need a witness to the adjusting of my will.”

He’d already given the girl, a minor inheritance, but he’d held off from giving the child a full portion of the estate, lest he implicate her by giving her more than she could hold onto on her own.

Yet, she was owed what she was owed and he couldn’t not give it to her, it wouldn’t have sat well with his conscience, so Hunfred believed it was time to rectify things.

“Yes, my lord.”

And with that, Hunfred’s mind resumed its genteel, whirligig manner. He was well aware that he’d likely just thrown meat to a pup that was surrounded by wolves, yet somehow he found himself okay with that. Anything he gave one of his children the others would try to take away or take a bite out of.

Vicious little savages that they were, despite their love of silks, satin and wine, and their high falutin airs.

Still, the girl was one of his, and she was no longer just a helpless child. Add to this the fact the from what he knew of the family she’d fallen in with, his brats and their cronies wouldn’t be able to act too unrestrained. Knowing that if they did, they knew that they’d have to pay two prices, one from the Oddmund clan and one from him, for losing face for the family.

Thus Hunfred had felt reasonably safe in giving this bit of inheritance to the daughter of one of his favorite mistresses.

Not realizing that he’d overlooked a simple fact of life. The fact, that thinking that one had made something foolproof, just lead to the creation of new kinds of fools.

Less than twenty-four hours after the changes to the will were made, his children and their families were aware of it.

Less than seventy-two hours after that, various factions, parties and powers in the Otmar region would be making invitations and overtures to the Oddmund. Some of them making backdoor deals in hopes of getting the Oddmund’s clan support of their schemes.

Less then twenty-fours after that, young Vanessa would be repelling the first of a slowly intensifying series of kidnapping attempts one her way home from Rus’s schoolhouse.

Less than two weeks of all this began, the Oddmund clan’s main family would finally get a deal with good enough benefits for them to be willing sell out the adopted daughter of the vis-Oddmund branch family. Sending orders to Jarek and his family, that they and the girl should report to the manner of such-and-such at such-and-such a time.

And less than a day after receive the orders that were torn up and tossed in a fire. Jarek and Olivia decided that something a little more extreme would need to be done if they were going to protect their daughter's happiness.

Giving in would have been one thing, if the offers were mutually beneficial to all parties, but somehow they doubted their be any profit for the girl’s future, if they gave in. Somehow they doubted that the girl would even “have” a future if they gave in. The parties seeking the girl’s hand just wanted her inheritance and such open attempts at robbery usually meant low chance of survivability for the intended victim. If they obeyed the main family’s edict the girl would likely be dead by the year’s end.

Thus a very rash plan was quickly put in place by the Master and Madam of the vis-Oddmund house. The girl might have only been their adopted daughter, but they loved her like she was blood.