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Zach could not say he was happy with the Mother's plan as of late. Tragedy upon tragedy befell Her chosen, to say nothing of the rest of the nation. A Scion missing and later murdered, the king dead, and [i]Kasper[/i] - it wasn't fair. Zach felt as if he'd done nothing but attend funerals and pray for the past few weeks, which was still a morbid improvement from watching Kasper decline, guilty as it was to admit. Who needed cultists when fate was so cruel already?

The resumption of his duties brought no respite either. Reassignment to a new Scion was as bitter as it was relieving - lightning this time, not shadow. He didn't know if it would've been easier or harder to see another Scion of Shadow standing beside him. He didn't really wish to know either. Not that he'd made much use of his blessing prior; it would, in theory, be an easy adjustment for him to receive a new element. But the news came with conditions that brought no peace to his heart. Zach desired to be of service, to do good in the world, especially in such troubled times, yet the High Cardinal informed him that the position demanded vigilance not only from without, but from within. He was not to be a protector, but a jailer. 

The new Scion of Lightning was a criminal, and Zach was given explicit orders to watch him [i]very[/i] carefully. He'd wanted to protest; Kasper had slipped away from him countless times, he was hardly the person to be entrusted with such a rigorous task, but then he considered who might be assigned in his place. Renault's crimes were not - on the surface, at least - irredeemably damning. It wasn't like he was an unrepentant mass murderer or serial rapist. Granted, he was a politician, which some would argue was even worse, but his crime was trying to access forbidden magics. He could speculate on what the man intended to do with such power, but it would only ever be that, speculation. This was not a soul he could dismiss out of hand, and that gave him pause. Surely the Church could find another Templar, one less merciful and less willing to see the good in a downtrodden criminal. It might've been what Renault deserved, but embittering a holy Scion was not something the nation needed right now.

So Zacharie accepted.

The man was... strange. Weird hair, predatory smile, fake-charming in the way he'd imagine a spider would be to a fly. Appearance aside, exactly the type of person one would imagine to be involved in politics. Even his blessing felt political; Renault simply shook Zach's hand, as if they'd closed some important deal and not sealed a covenant before Almighty Incepta. The new Scion of Lightning spent much of his time after acclimating to the outside world again, catching up on current affairs, the types of thing Zach assumed one did when they were released from a lengthy imprisonment. If he had family or loved ones, Zach didn't see them. He decided not to pry.

Seeing the summons from the Scion of Time was a surprise, given how hushed the entire ordeal of Renault's Scionhood had been kept by the Church. An invitation to all Scions was an invitation to [i]all[/i] Scions, he supposed, but to organize such in only a week was a level of thoughtfulness Zach didn't figure the prince had in him. The introduction once they'd actually arrived shocked him more; Prince Lucas had been downright courteous, which was more than he could say about the rest of the room, already arguing before the meeting had even begun. He kept to the fringes of the discussion, hovering dutifully behind Renault as expected. The food might've been an appealing way to avoid any questioning pointed his way, for what a mere Templar's opinion was worth here, anyway, but one look at the cookies just reminded him of Kasper at Sir Tyler's blessing ceremony and that soured any appetite he could muster. 

[color=BB8F4C]"If I may, esteemed Scions,"[/color] Zach piped up, [color=BB8F4C]"I don't believe this conversation is going anywhere. No one in this room is directly drafting the war declaration, no matter how much some of us may like to."[/color] He didn't have a solution to the Kaudian problem either, but war would solve nothing of their current woes and only breed more sorrow for the nation at large. His Scion raised an excellent point as well; should these enemies of the faith turn out to not even be Kaudian, they'd only be turning their backs on the threat they already faced, and if they were, he doubted an invasion would end in a decisive conquest if the enemy could disable and capture any Scions on the frontline on a whim, no matter how intent Scion Theobald was on printing his name in the history books beside Alderman. 

[color=BB8F4C]"We should be looking at more immediate and actionable solutions rather than drawn-out campaigns on the Kaudian front, don't you agree?"[/color] 

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