Everliving: Day 19

Word Count: 114,024

Summary of Events:

Reynaldo was pressured by the parliament to stop stalling and go get Bethania already and he eventually conceded to do so. Quique and the pirates went back to the fountain they'd found the day before and started looking for water; everyone else who'd been following them joined them and it was nearly thought they'd found it, but they didn't, while Quique wondered if it really was the Fountain of Youth as they were hoping, or not. Bethania was startled by the appearance of her cat before Reynaldo came into the room and they got talking about the current situation before Reynaldo got the idea of issuing her father an ultimatum . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

""What do you mean an ultimatum?" Bethania asked.

"Basically, we tell him that he must give you these answers before you will come back to him or in any way strive to behave in a much more respectable manner than you have previously," Reynaldo replied. "That would force his hand and get him to realise that he may not have lost all that he thinks he's lost but that he needs to do things so as to keep them from truly being lost."

"Do you think it will work?" Bethania asked.

"Being as he won't listen to me, it's about the only chance we have," Reynaldo replied.

"He won't even listen to you?" Bethania asked.

"No," Reynaldo replied. "I have never been so vexed by him as this, but he won't listen to me."

"But if he's never listened to me before, why should he listen to me now either?" Bethania asked.

"Because he loves you, and he realises that he could lose a lot more than his control of you," Reynaldo replied. "He could lose you entirely because you won't ever come back to him."

Bethania nodded. She didn't want to go back if she was just going to run headlong into the same obstinacy she'd previously encountered.

"And, even if he doesn't listen, is there really anything for you, or even I, to lose that we haven't somewhat lost already?" Reynaldo asked.

"I don't know," Bethania replied.

"You've lost your father, you've lost your independence, you've lost your respect," Reynaldo said. "You're seen as unpredictable, almost the sort of terror most people expect much younger children to be, which means that any respect of you which was out there is almost entirely eroded, at least privately, if not publicly. About the only thing you have left to lose is any stake you might have in the throne, not, really, that you would even have that much, though."

Bethania nodded.

"We might as well try and see if we can't force his hand and make things right, because that's the only way we're going to get anything out of him," Reynaldo said. "And this all rests on him. Aside from this ultimatum, there really is nothing else that can be done by you that is any less futile than what has already been done."

Bethania nodded again.

"The resolution of these problems lies completely in your father's hands," Reynaldo said. "He refuses to see it, however, and thus we must do this to waken him to the fact that he needs to take action, no one else can. No one else can make this right. It all rests on him, and until he does what he needs to do then nothing will be done, which will not only frustrate him, but it will frustrate parliament, it will frustrate you, me, Maristela, Rafael, and anyone else who knows anything else about the situation."

"Yes," Bethania said quietly."