RP:A Love For Gold

From HollowWiki

Part of the Thy Kingdom Come Arc


Summary: After the destruction of the wall at Frostmaw's gates, Hildegarde discovers Josleen's love for a certain shiny paladin and Josleen finds that Kelovath's partner in his mission to help save Frostmaw is not quite whom she would've liked.



Eastern Frostmaw Gates

The night after the wall fell, Josleen couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, her mind alternating between the horrible memory of Mieleg’s caved in face, and her worry for Kelovath’s whereabouts. What happened to him? He wasn’t among the injured or dead, and she thanks the heavens for that. Where is he? Her logic tells her his disappearance must be connected to the war, could be mild or could be tragic. She tries not the envision scenarios for the tragic, with middling success. The irrational side of her brain nurtures a tiny seed of doubt. The night before the attack the paladin was vulnerable to Josleen and revealed difficult things about his past. Is he fleeing her? Does he regret that? Was that too much? She needs answers, and after reporting to the healer’s tent in the morning to set things straight for the day, she crosses the camp to the new makeshift command tent in search of Hildegarde. Presumably she finds her there, and the dragon’s presence brings Josleen some comfort immediately. She smiles as she enters the tent. “Morning,” she grins impishly and adds, “my liege.” She knows Hildegarde will hate it coming from her, but this has long been their game, for many years now.

Hildegarde had given Pilar use of her own private tent, given her emotional state the other night. Instead of sleeping, the knight instead had gotten to work: removing rubble, finding places for the wounded and the dead, cleaning up the mess to try and reclaim the space that the camp needed and that the now crumbled wall occupied. She would have to replace that wall when she reclaimed Frostmaw. Should she reclaim Frostmaw, that is. The Silver had helped to erect the makeshift command tent and immediately set about redrafting what maps she could. She actually had quite the knack for drawing, though she didn’t often find the time for it and nor did she ever like to brag about this skill she used to relax. As Josleen enters the tent, Hildegarde straightens from her hunched position at the table and gently puts her pencil down upon the map in progress. She hadn’t slept. “That’s Hildegarde to you,” she murmured in reply. Josleen knew well enough that Hildegarde did indeed hate it. “But if you insist on calling me your liege, well, by all rights I get to boss you around.”

Josleen laughs lightly at Hildegarde’s joke then hugs the queen hello. “Of course you can.” She needs it,the brief hug. Camp living isn’t easy, nor is the constant death and carnage. The bard examines the maps and says, “These are very good. Your talent is natural. You hardly have to practice.” She double taps at the western wing of the fort, where she used to live, but makes no further comment. She lets loose a long sigh and says, “What happened to Mieleg still haunts me. You too, I’d wager.” She pauses to look at Hildegarde, assess her emotional state. After Mihael, the dragon near lost her mind. Mihael was different, but still. “He saved my life, I believe. When Lisbeth said to evacuate, my instinct was to gather and take my equipment from the tent. Supplies are scarce still. But Mieleg... he shoved me out before I could, insisted I run and waste no time. A stone missed me by a few feet. Had I wasted a second to gather my things…” She shudders.

Hildegarde was never one to turn down a hug from Josleen. Her strong arms briefly wind around Josleen and give her a quick yet gentle squeeze of an embrace. “I don’t often find the time to draw,” she said gently in reply, “but it is something that I enjoy.” Fishing and drawing. Her two main hobbies whenever she had the time. But time was something she so rarely had. The maps detail Frostmaw’s fort in intimate detail, right down to where a little bunch of snow bees had built a hive upon the outer wall. The other maps detail the landscape and points of interest. But soon Josleen was speaking of Mieleg and Hildegarde’s eye ceases to drift across the maps and finally closes for a long moment. “He was a good man. A fine man. Honourable and kind until the very end,” she said quietly. “I am glad that he saved you, Jos,” but she was sad that he had been lost, too. “But next time that someone tells you to evacuate, you evacuate. You don’t go looking for your things or for things that might be helpful. You go, Jos, you hear me? You go.” The world would rue the day that someone took Josleen from Hildegarde.

“When you retake the city, I’ll see to it you have a place to unwind and be yourself.” Josleen already has a good idea of where she’d like to design Hildegarde’s peaceful abode. The details will be a surprise. At Hildegarde’s concern and instruction, the woman smiles softly and takes her friend’s hand, squeezes it. “I will.” But something else weighs on Josleen’s mind, and she speaks it now, as casually as she possibly can. “Do you know if Kelovath returned to Larket on urgent business? I ask for Marcel.” Uh huh, sure. Yea, totally asking for a friend. “A boy in the company of the Larketian soldiers. The men are all here save Kelovath. They don’t know where he is.”

Hildegarde smiled at Josleen’s vow to see that Hildegarde had her own little private place to relax and be herself. What a bold promise that was! “You are too kind,” she said, before Josleen took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Good. Gods above help me if you don’t,” she warned her, albeit in that playful way they used to tease one another. Yet at the mention of Kelovath, the knight suddenly frowns. Kelovath. What was it about him? She had felt something the other night but hadn’t quite connected the dots, until this mention of Kelovath now. Kelovath. That smell. “You ask for Marcel,” she repeated, as if confirming that this is why Josleen was asking. “No. He left for Larket, then returned not so long ago. And then away again, but… but his direction was towards the city and I cannot march in there for him,” she said, “not without unleashing Balgruuf’s forces upon us,” she reasoned, knowing full well that Balgruuf would take the opportunity to do that. Quickly, the knight adds, “Promise me you won’t go after him. I… You were taken once, I cannot let you be taken again,” Balgruuf wouldn’t waste a second chance with Josleen. “Kelovath. Is he…? Yours…?” The knight is struggling to get those words out, whether that be from discomfort at the thought of someone being with Josleen or a general uncertainty with all things romantic, it was unclear.

Josleen ‘s face goes slack when Hildegarde mentions that Kelovath left for Frostmaw. What? Why? And without telling her? Alone? Her heart races and worry lines crease her face. She’s about to ask more questions when Hildegarde warns her not to go into Frostmaw after him. “I wou--” She catches herself before lying. Josleen totally would. Correction: “I won’t. But--” But Hildegarde has questions of her own. Is Kelovath Josleen’s? Rosy blush blooms in her cheeks and she looks down, the universal ‘yes’. She remembers Kelovath saying those exact words, and the circumstances of the moment. Her heart twists in place. “...Yes. I believe so… He said so.” She looks up at Hildegarde to assess her reaction.

Hildegarde had lapsed into silence as Josleen searched for her embarrassed answer to Hildegarde’s question. The knight would wait for Josleen’s reply and her blushing silence is answer enough, she needn’t have confirmed it verbally. But that little ‘he said so’ certainly did catch Hildegarde’s attention. Her reaction is decidedly not human, the deep rumble she made in the back of her throat was distinctly saurian and not human at all. She wasn’t angry at Josleen, of course, but she would be having words with Kelovath. “And… your feelings for him are…?”

Josleen presses her lips together as Hildegarde rumbles. It isn’t the first time the bard has heard it. She knows what it means. The question is difficult to answer, not because Josleen is unsure of what she feels for Kelovath, but because she knows it’s too much, too fast, and she doesn’t want to be -that- girl. She equivocates. “I--” She wipes a hand over her mouth to hide the little smile that always appears when she thinks of Kelovath, and how they feel about each other. Her behavior is more truthful than her words. She’s a goner. “It pleased me to hear him say he was mine.” She licks her lips, bites them, then asks, “Are you upset? With me… or him?”

Hildegarde may not be so compelled by the passions of love, but she wasn’t so blind to miss these happy signs that Josleen presented. She liked Kelovath, that much was clear. Hildegarde liked Kelovath, too. He seemed like a nice enough man who had noble intentions, but she didn’t know enough about him. She didn’t know enough about him to really trust him nor trust him with Josleen. What if he was like Ezekiel? Or Ansel? Or worse… Eliason. The knight rumbles again at the very thought, even going so far as to huff irritably; a plume of frost escaping her flared nostrils at this point. “I could never be angry with you,” she answered, even if Josleen did through herself into all kinds of death defying situations. “But…” she sighed, trying to search for the words to accurately describe her thoughts and feelings on the matter. “I am not your mother, I can’t talk to this man about his… his intentions for you. But I would rather you with a man of honour, Jos. A man who will stand by you and protect you from all that this world may offer and never bring any dishonour upon you. A good man.” The knight glanced to the floor, suddenly feeling abashed. “Is it wrong of me to think this?” she asked quietly.

Josleen can’t help but grin, her nose wrinkling in amusement at the idea that Hildegarde wants to ask Kelovath about his intentions. “I am so lucky to have someone as fierce as you looking out for me.” She laughs softly and pats Hildegarde’s armored arm to reassure her that it is perfectly acceptable for Hildegarde to think this way. Josleen likes it. “I want an honorable man who will stand by me too. I hope Kelovath may be that good man...though...” Her tone inflects like she is open to the possibility she is wrong. She was wrong about others in the past. “I don’t know how to know for certain. My heart gets in the way. I see what the heart wants, miss the bigger picture.” She blushes as she remembers recent moments with Kelovath. “He has been good to me.” Then she remembers some of her reservations about Kelovath’s past and the unknown variables that make him who he is. As much as Josleen would like a second opinion on how to wrestle with Kelovath’s past, she won’t tell it to another soul, not even Hildegarde. It’s too private to the paladin, and while Josleen has a hierarchy of secret keeping (many other secrets she’d gladly spill to Hildegarde), this one she protects for Kelo’s sake. Then it occurs to her she may have no one left to keep the secret for if Kelovath gets himself into trouble. “Do you know why he left for Frostmaw? What is he doing? Is he traveling alone?”

Hildegarde was relieved by Josleen’s response. She knew it wasn’t exactly her place to be so protective or to want to take such a position, but was this not what friends did? Would Josleen not do something similar in her shoes? The knight nodded at Josleen’s words, thinking them reasonable and true. “We see what we want to see,” she said softly, “which is why we often need an eye on the outside to see what we do not. I think Kelovath to be a good and honourable man. But there have been good and honourable men who have not remained this way and hurt you. I do not want to see you hurt, Jos,” she admitted. As for Kelovath having run off into Frostmaw’s city proper, the knight shook her head. “I can’t say why he left. But he went with Laezila,” she told Josleen, immediately raising her hand. “Laezila is a Frostmaw citizen,” she is aware of the bad blood between them, “and she wouldn’t run off if it weren’t for a reason. They must have seen something.”

Josleen nods in agreement with Hildegarde’s statements, both that she needs an outside opinion, and that she has been hurt in the past. In truth, Josleen wouldn’t mind if Hildegarde appraised Kelovath in her (hopefully) careful, and not at all embarrassing, way. But she stops herself short of asking the queen to do this. Probably best not to sick your dragon friend on a new boyfriend. Then Hildegarde says Laezila’s name and Josleen snaps, “What?” The ‘t’ is hissed so sharply it could propel a dart to fly up the mountain, track Laezila, and stab her in the jugular. “Sure, sure,” Josleen says in a way meant to seem rational and level-headed about this, but which sounds peeved. The bard gestures a lot as she speaks, a sign that she is agitated. “Citizen of Frostmaw. Ally. I understand that. But why is Kelovath with -her?-” Josleen didn’t even know that the vampire and paladin knew each other (they hadn’t known each other, but Josleen assumes in the moment that they must be familiar if they trundled off on a mission together). What more, even though logically Josleen knows that Kelovath doesn’t know about the feud between herself and that drow, it still feels like a betrayal that he would have anything to do with Laezila. It isn’t rational. It summons feelings similar to those she had when Ansel insisted on continuing to take lessons with Lanara. Her emotions conflict. On the one hand, she wants him safely returned and in her arms. On the other hand, she’s mad at him for this perceived friendship and trust he must have with Laezila. Her head shakes in tiny peeved motions, and she mutters, “Unbelievable.”

Hildegarde expected a reaction similar to this. So her hand is raised up in a placating gesture, immediately seeking to quell this worry that Josleen had about Laezila and Kelovath. “By the way it seemed, Laezila only grabbed the closest person. They do not appear to truly know one another, but you must be calm. I think if Kelovath knew of Laezila or vice versa, we too would know of it. They’ll come back. Laezila is not doing this to hurt you, nor is Kelovath.” It seemed that Hildegarde would be the voice of reason here.

Josleen continues to shake her head as her mind races through the possibilities. “How could he go without saying anything? And take on such danger?” Eliason also used to do this, and worry Josleen sick. Unfortunately for Kelovath, his relationship with Josleen is still new, and thus she is prone to comparing him to her past. It seems Hildegarde is comparing him too. When the queen says ‘they’ll come back’, Josleen frowns sharply and her lip and chin quivers. “But what if they don’t?” A sharp whine underpins her words. Her eyes grow wet. “Hilde, can we send someone? Reinforcements?”

Hildegarde gestured to the flap of the tent, “Jos, the wall was tumbling down. All was chaos,” she reasoned. “I think he would have said something if he had the chance to do it. Obviously, something happened that required his immediate attention,” she was defending the man whose honour she wanted to test. But as Josleen’s lip and chin quivers and she begins to whine, even tear up a little, Hildegarde can feel her willpower wilt. “I promise you, if Kelovath and Laezila do not return, I will personally go to them.”