Bravery [prp]

[Billy]

(( Because nobody will judge us or I will cut you. ))
--

They tell her as a Queen it's her duty to sit with the other women and children as another empire invades. They tell her that the men will fight for her, that the city will die for her. And they tell her that it's the way things have always been and the things that will always be.

But no one is there to stop her. Not anything beyond a personal guard that dare not object his Queen's wishes as she makes her way to the throne room, then to the back balcony to watch this broken loyal queendom go down in ash. The same ash it'd been birthed from.

She cannot mute the screams of terror. She cannot forget her soldiers, her brothers, her friends who all fall to their knee. Who are so willing to die and fight for namesake.

She says, looking small and tired and scared. "I will die with them out there." And maybe to no one in particular. "My spirit, blessed be, is with each of them and each sword that thrust in their chest seizes it."

Because a good queen is meant to stay behind, but this Queen, could not.

"If this kingdom dies, I should die with it."

And though there is a great silence that descends the room. Leaving the Queen to stand with her fist clenched at the edge angrily. Trembling and shaking. She feels as if it is entirely too loud. Feels as if she can distinctively hear each man who wilts, each woman pillaged. She wonders how long it will take the ridge's soldiers to get to her and how long before she befalls the same horrid fate.

Bravery, she knows, maybe she should feel. But she doesnt. She feels sadness for the men in battle. She feels understanding for the men who surrender. And she feels a red hot coal of fear as the capitols gate's fall.

The moment of privacy is over as she turns abruptly. Takes two strides to seize a man's face between the palms of her hands. And even with tear muddled eyes she says fiercely. "You have served me well in my years Knight." She pauses, searching his eyes for something. "I release you. You should go now. Ride off far north where no man will recognize you and seek reward."

[Beau]

They come in droves, soldier and citizen alike, flocking to the walls. Not knowing whether to hide in homes or head out the gates. It's been far too long since they've seen a battle. And they don't know it yet, but they're surrounded. They don't know it yet, but they're all dead. Some eventually do rush out the back gate, only to rush back in, trampling unlucky ones underfoot and don't slam the barricade shut quick enough to stop the flood of steel and blood.

Many throw down arms and still attempt escape. Rhetoric of the land tells them that they should be killed outright, but the knight couldn't bring himself to draw his sword on them. Different reactions to knowledge of impending death, he supposes. Some fight, some fuck, some flee. He can still see a number of them throwing themselves off the battlements. Soon, the emptied halls and keep will stand ever silent.

He shouldn't have left her. But he had to see, had to see for himself, because the reports sounded erroneous. Weaving his way back, he does not falter until he feels the stairs leading down into the throne room beneath him. Angry black-red arterial spray decorating armor and hands and drawn blade. The queen still waits, unharmed. He can't keep it that way. But he can't leave either. He's honor-bound, duty-bound, to stay by her side. And that tether will be the one rope 'round his neck that leaves him kicking (if he's lucky. There are worse ways to die.) He keeps close to her, hand still gripping sword-hilt. She peaks, not to him, maybe to no one at all.

"I will die with them out there." And maybe to no one in particular. "My spirit, blessed be, is with each of them and each sword that thrust in their chest seizes it. If this kingdom dies, I should die with it."

The knight flinches, face visibly darkens with the words. The fact that they still stand in this room implies that they will both be slain here, but he did not want to hear it. He moves back a respectful distance, eyes only moving from floor to traverse the rest of the hall, and halt at the wood doors barring the entrance. The room stands empty, for now. Only when he becomes aware of her movements does he look up.

She's on him with seconds, ardently, urgently speaking. He freezes, doesn't know what to expect. Not a goodbye, not a 'if they should take the city'. He couldn't stand that. Too much years have gone by for it to only be that.

"You have served me well in my years Knight. I release you. You should go now. Ride off far north where no man will recognize you and seek reward."

And with that, hands so small pressed to his face, she relieves him of his burden.

"I will not leave you." [/i] There is no hesitation in his reply. "The city is burning, your people are burning, and we can swallow down the smoke and ash and choke, or we can flee." No 'My Lady' or 'Your Grace', just the proposition of life spoken in a tone, quietly restrained but none the less as urgent as her own. She is not a coward, he is not a coward, but that will not keep the blood in their veins and heads on their shoulders. This just might.

[Billy]

She is prepared to die. Though there is no false bravado, there is no tense pride arched in her shoulders or anything beyond a kink that reveals her absolute terror at the thought. She will still stand here a foolish Queen when the men raid her castle. When they tear it with arrow and spear and then split a silver sword through her neck and burn her skin. Leaving behind a pile of burnt flesh that smells like brimstone and sulfur.

She had seen her mother go the same. She knows - maybe more than anyone - the danger of being a high blood. The dangers of baring a beast with it's sharp teeth that in the end are forgotten and worthless in politics. Her guard all wear her house's sigil. They fight for a heraldic werewolf sprung up on it's hind legs with teeth that glow red and a tongue that mimics a snakes. The die for her in sprays of blood and bow with their tail tuck and in their last dying breath she wonders if they bare that emblem so proudly any longer.

She wonders if she will too. When they come for her.

"I will not leave you. The city is burning, your people are burning, and we can swallow down the smoke and ash and choke, or we can flee."

She feels at his suggestion. Some flash of a wolves anger and she narrows her eyes and maybe palms him closer. Leaning up with intelligent chocolate eyes that swirl and dip into fierce refusal.

"A soldier does not abandon battle." She says smoothly, intervening and striking where she knows it will hit her companion hardest. Ever since they were pups Ser Beau had spoken dreams of fealty and honor. He'd been proud to bend on one knee and swear himself to the bloodline as proud as she'd been to have him. "Surely enough as a Wraenna does not tuck tail and run."

But it falls deeper then that. She has always been gentle, she has always loved her followers and held them close as a mother would. She'd promised loyalty just as they had. She'd promised protection just as they had. When men had bowed at the knee during her coronation and her father had crippled with age in his bed with no brother's to heir, and too selfish to wed her. She'd taken the position far more seriously. She'd expected some over eager man's attack from another kingdom. She'd expected someone to come and take the crown from her head and with that, ruin the rest of her line. She'd expected it immediately. But the wound had festered. She'd grown presumptuous, maybe even cocky. And it is her fault now men die. It only seems fair that she dies with them. Suffers as they have and their wives have and their children have.

"It is in my blood to be noble." She replies simply, drops her hands from the man's face and to the breast plate to touch at the design there. The scratches and maybe wet coagulated blood her knight had received. "But it is yours by oath. An oath I release you from."

"Everyone I love has died here, in these castle walls. My mother, my father, my young sister but a babe in the womb --" She looks distant for a moment. Stuck back in the halls and memories of her mother screaming and yelling maybe. Hidden behind her fathers sword as he plowed through whatever he had to get to her. But it'd still been far too late.

She could still smell the blood and remember the way the wolves anger tasted in her mouth. And it's with a familiarity that she moves forward. Closing the proximity between the both of them to plant her lips firmly against his in a intimate kiss. Often thought but seldom shared.

To wash out that bitter nostalgia with something sweet. Something that might give her a shred of inner peace with the brutal fate to come. Though maybe inappropriate considering difference in social status, but she knows when the doors are split down a crown will mean nothing but damnation. She knows this is the last time.

"I should too." And maybe it's truth she speaks, or maybe some guilt that drags her willingly to catacomb and coffin. She neither expects Beau to fully understand her resolution as he expects her to understand his objection. "You should die for some pretty maiden far off with fire in her eyes and not woe. You should die for love, and children. Not honor. Not like this."

And she wants so desperately to make him see. That she's tired of fighting, she's tired of killing, she's tired of politics and foolhardy men who want her hand. Tired of maybe living too.

[Beau]

He still stands with his sword gripped tight, drawn in by her hands and silently praying that she sees reason. After so long, the heat of her anger, the seething of the wolf is almost tangible to him. Instinct tells him to back away, drop his head in subservience but he's anchored to the very spot by her gentle grip and doesn't dare move away.

"A soldier does not abandon battle. Surely enough as a Wraenna does not tuck tail and run."

He does not expect her to yield easily, but time is not on their side. How simple it would have been had he just told her in earnest 'I know a way out' and she had accepted it. It has the makings of a long-winded argument, but he's desperate and knows that if they carry on, it matters little which is the victor.

"This is no battle; this is a massacre."

If it were a battle, there would be a chance at warding off those beating at their gates. Now, they men simply fall on sword-- many on their own-- and its lifeblood of the capital they seep into the ground. It was a slaughter, one which they could not fend off. The great city was lost, if not the entire kingdom.

"It is in my blood to be noble. But it is yours by oath. An oath I release you from."

It comes off almost as an insult, if an unintended one-- I'm noble in nature but you're noble because of the words you spoke. He says nothing, of course, just watches her hands pass over the emblem on his breastplate.

Perhaps he just doesn't like being sent away, loyal dog heeding its masters commands til the end-- even if that's truly what he is. Perhaps he'd been serving other too long to find any other way in the world. Even if dissolved by a few simple words, the oath was still binding, twining him to her. Maybe even more so know that his obligation to her had ended.

"Everyone I love has died here, in these castle walls. My mother, my father, my young sister but a babe in the womb --"

The knight does not know why she tells him this. He's heard all the stories before. It has little bearing on the situation, unless she intends for this castle not to fall to the feet of those who would defile it. Ser Beau tries to understand, while she clearly looks back on the moment. She's not here with him or so he assumes.

He sees a change in her, expects sorrow or fear or even rage. What he gets is something else entirely.

Beau has imagined moments like this, his lips pressed against her. Something deep and carrying meaning. But never so desperate and empty, overshadowed by the quivering fear in his chest and half-distracted mind waiting for footsteps that herald the closing of their story. A metallic clang as the tip of his sword meets the marble floor as he nearly loses his grip. Moves in closer, tangling his hand in her hair, pressing fingers against her neck. Almost loses himself in an attempt to make it seem like they weren't spending their last moments here in this room-- though there were worst ending than this. When they pull away, he's back in the throne room awaiting a harbinger of death

"I should too. You should die for some pretty maiden far off with fire in her eyes and not woe. You should die for love, and children. Not honor. Not like this."

He wonders if she can feel the surge, the wolf rearing beneath his skin. Go and live a happy life and let me die here, she tells him, like the two actions could possibly coincide. He doesn't understand why she is so eager to face those that will tear her apart, to face iron and steel and whatever else they would use to break her. He doesn't understand how she tires of life so quickly and is prepared to give it away just as swift. "I will not leave you here to be slain like an animal." If they were even that kind to the future deposed monarch. She was giving him life, mercy, and in return he is to let her perish and he refuses both.

The knight has not the time to be gentle, nor the intent, a hand reaching out to grip her arm and pull her towards the doors he had barred.


( ooc: DONE also nice billy tell him about your dead parents and fetus sister and then kiss him. ROMANTIC~~~)

[Billy]

Ser Beau has never been a man of many words. As children she'd learned to read his abrupt mood changes and sour silence as easily as she knew her own. Even now he stands before her -- in the heat of the moment maybe -- and she knows that he will not let her go. Expects some sort of argument and then reluctant agreement. Though stubborn, he has always listened to reason. He has always treated her as the court does - as his queen.

Unknowingly her dramatics have done nothing to sway him otherwise, her staggering display of honor and loyalty has done nothing to persuade him otherwise. Because he is loyal and honorable too, and more importantly he is a fool in love with a woman who has never been in the position to love him back.

Not that she hasnt wanted too.

Realized between drawing breath and cheek as they part a hungry kiss, another limitless chasm between them that has never failed (until now) to keep them apart. She is admittedly a little bit frazzled and if it had not been the squealing of the guards and slaves near her courtyard she may have not recovered in time to see the determination stricken in his gaze.

"I will not leave you here to be slain like an animal."

And moments for witty response or dissuade has passed because her Knight reaches forward with sword hilt calloused hands to grab at upper arm, clutching like she's a disobedient slave, to drag her towards a great doorway that leads to the main hall - and irrevocably after that - the escape tunnels hidden beneath. Dug for a purpose such as the castle being seized and royal family trapped inside. A byproduct of her father's paranoia and obsession.

"Let go!" She cries out, struggling wildly but a woman of rank holds but a feather to a knight's strength. She's only successful in the development of a bruise and painful jerking of her arm. Muscles spasmodic with clumsy falter.

"Beau! Beau! Stop this -- I cannot!"

But words fall on deaf ears as she is shoved into the eternal darkness of the basement and fumbling down the stairs with her Knight behind her. And then she is flopping unceremoniously into a secret passage that is darker than a bat's wings.

Fear bubbles in her throat. Leaving the monarch to wonder where her foolheart bravery had run off too. She does not make a sound, falls closer in line to her brunette knight. A temporary distraction perhaps in retrospection. To keep her mind off of Beau's disobedience and rough hand as she clutches at him desperately with terror gathering like moth's in her stomach.

She has always had acute scotophobia.

"I cant --" She wails. "I cant see anything!"