RP:A new bodyguard
This is part of the A Larket Assassination Attempt story arc.
Larket Throne Room
Stepping through a doorway near the back of the Larket council meeting room leads to quite a surprising discovery. Stretching out before you is an elaborate, elegantly built throne room for the leaders of Larket and their council to convene. For a town so stubborn in the ways of physical labors, simplicity, and moderation, finding such a room in the rustic city-state is truly curious. The floors are built of the same stone that spreads through the entire castle. Polished, but still showing the wear of several years worth of foot traffic across its face. The stubborn stone of Larket, they say, much like its citizens. The cool stone stands as a reminder of the military cities prowess when it comes to back-breaking labor. Tiered benches line the right and left side of the room. Each bench end is ornately carved with the symbol of Larket – the Lark and a spear. From the detail it seems that the artist must have taken his time in signing each end with the beautiful design. From the rafters the flag of Larket is hung by twine rope and fastened by stern bolts. The rich, bold purple coloring is enough to stop even the most oblivious traveler in their tracks for at least a moment or two. The walls of the throne room are covered with paintings, sketches, and other various artifacts of the city-state. One part holds several paintings of the past leaders of Larket with their names scrawled beneath each. The largest portrait in the room is hung within a braided silver frame directly across from the actual thrones. The faces are familiar. The male is dressed in lighter gear than normal, his hair held back by a band to allow those stoic azure eyes to stare outward and unblemished. His arm is perched around the shoulder of a slightly shorter female, her arm coiled around his waist. Unruly brown hair, steely cobalt sight, and lips curled in the ghost of a smile are enough to pronounce this painting the King and Queen of Larket – Jacklin Erristyn-Mediccino and Parsithius Invernizzi Mediccino. The pose, while unfamiliar, seems to fit the pair perfectly under the circumstances. The King and Queen of Larket are nothing if not an oddity within the realm. Several other framed pieces of parchment hang from the wall. Several sketched blueprints of the throne rooms design, yellowed and dirty, show the progression from early design to the point of completion. Finally, having seen all there is of the room’s details, the pair of thrones becomes the point of interest. Behind the elaborate chair is a high arched window of stained glass. Purples, blues, yellows, and other startling colors create the seal of Larket and beneath the banner are the simple words ‘Fighting Freedom’ in red glass. The thrones of Jacklin and Parsithius are both sculpted from the most magnificent wood possible and seated atop a small dais. Red Oak smoothly carved and smoothed by a master craftsman make up the body of the chairs. Arms are silkily curved and the ends drop off into the shape of a Lark’s head. Supple, downy purple cushions provide comfort and support for both the backs and seats of the thrones. At the top of the high backs are written the names of both King and Queen on their respective thrones. Parsithius in strict gold lettering, Jacklin’s name identical save for a silver sort of lettering. The King’s throne is a tad larger to accommodate his well-built frame with the Queen’s being a smaller size to match her smaller build. Stepping back you realize the symbol these two chairs represent. The reigning King and Queen of Larket are a force in Hollow not seen since centuries gone. A couple that is so loyal, devoted, and married to their roles as to sacrifice themselves for their city. And from the moment Jacklin Erristyn-Mediccino and Parsithius Ivernizzi Mediccino take their seats in the throne, it is clear. Larket has the most solid leaders a city could hope for. A loving couple, stern and curious, but infallible in making sure theirs is the greatest military power, city, and wealth of citizens the land of Hollow has ever seen.
Queen Jacklin is here.
King Parsithius is here.
Leoxander is here.
Leoxander was not quite visible, yet. More importantly, there seemed to be a sudden ruckus in the council room beyond, several of Larket's royal guard yelling out a call of alarm while a clatter of disarmed, discarded weapon tumbled across the floor. Finally a snarl of protest and a nervous scream from one of the younger recruits, and it would become exceedingly clear that some monster had boldly charged right into the entry way of the castle, and was trying to get passed that next batch of doors into the throne room. Of course, his approach hadn't started like that, but no one was about to let that lycanthrope slink passed them unannounced and uninvited.
Parsithius is far too worked up over recent events to have been in his usual posture of lazily being seated upon the throne; clad in pristine ecru-hued armor that is trimmed by a thick, royal purple along the edges of the mithril platemail, and emblazoned with the Larketian crest upon the breastplate. Crown settled upon his head and holding reigns on those tresses of long, golden hair, the man paces back and forth before the dais that holds the two great thrones. The methodical and routine 'click' of armored greaves touching one another in the fluid pace of a man who, although wearing platemail, seems unburdened and unrestricted in his movements due to the mithril making rather than hardened steel. But, such furious thoughts were cast aside amidst the ruckus that presented itself outside the throne room hallway, and the King jerks his head and twists his body to face the door.
Jackllin is seated in the matching throne at the side of the King’s seat looking worn and wearied. Her shoulder was wrapped in a thick bandage and cheeks were without their usual coloring. A few papers were in her hand and being studied over intensely to pass the time. Now and again her cobalt eyes rose to find the fair haired knight pacing back and fourth. There weren’t many words she could give to sooth his burden right now. Instead she tried to catch his eye during his passing and give a smile of reassurance. A different dress colored her now and fingers tapped at her stomach as eyes returned to the papers in her hand. They remained right up until she heard the scream from outside the throne room. Like Parsithius, Jacklin’s head jerks up and eyes find the door with papers fluttering to the ground.
Leoxander hit his back against the doors hard enough to throw at least one open, even if it had been sealed, suffering the unnoticed bruise near his spine as he kept his front facing those that had their polearm or blade aimed his way. A louder, warning roar and Parsithius would likely hear his soldier's warning, echoing through that large room that was the opposite of the alpha's ramshackle den full of debris. A rabid blend of wolf and man, he started on two awkwardly bent hind legs to look larger while he was facing off the armored squadron, but slunk in low to the ground and on hand paws and back feet, retreating away from them almost sideways, to make it clear he wasn't there to fight. It might take the King of Larket a moment to recover from the way that scene was playing out, or to possibly recognized the tawny beast who still had a bone hoop dangling from his tall, lynx tipped left ear. But both his ears were pinned back to his skull as he bared his teeth toward the men intent on destroying him, or at least stopping any feral harm from coming to their rulers. Leo, even for a beast, looked wrecked, his ribs defined without more than a coarse, thick coat to cover his structure, tail missing a small bit from a recent encounter with a were bear. Beyond that, when that desperate look shifted toward the throne podium and the two upon it, they catch a glimpse of the plea and frustration in that exhausted stare. It was mismatched, off colored, like the pirates, but very little humanity would be found there in that wolf-sharp vision.
Parsithius is not a man to become frozen to bear audience to a scene unfolding before him in shock and lack of comprehension; he is a warrior, and he is a knight. His men were foolish in believing that they were getting the better of the beast who, with appearance, should've been doing much more damage than the debris that was transpiring about him -not to mention the lack of deaths. All of this is surmised, scanned, scrutinized and noticed within the mind of the king as he bursts into motion, breaking into a flat-out sprint toward the beast that betrays his athleticism and lack of restraint on his movement despite apparently bulky armor. Upon approach, the man enacts a fluid and almost elegant slide upon the floor just to the left of the wolfish humanoid, and uses his heel to halt himself while simultaneously employing it as leverage to lift him up and reach for a sword mounted ceremoniously on the stone wall near the door. All movement seems to cease from the guards -they were not of the king's caliber. They were the sorts who, through no fault of their own, become frozen in watching a shocking scene. But Parsithius lacks that rationality; he makes up for it with action, and whirled to point the tip of the blade toward the wolf-beast. Now, were Leoxander not to move, the former outcast of a knight could more accurately assess and scrutinize him to the point of lowering his weapon and speaking authoritatively, "At ease. He is no threat."
Jacklin instantly stood from the throne in response to the chaos brimming over into the throne room finally. Shoulders hiccupped in sudden surprise at the door being thrust open by some sort of unknown creature now joining them in the room. The jerk caused a wince and the wince caused yet another shudder of the Queen’s shoulder but still her eyes focused on the guards at the door with their weapons brandished. Having no means to protect herself with a knife or spear…the Queen simply stood next to her throne like a sitting duck. Parsithius was all but forgotten in his pacing and it wasn’t until she heard the heavy, metallic footsteps rushing past her and to where Leoxander stood that the tension left her shoulders. Lids tightened a small amount to focus on the face and form of the beast across the room. He looked similar to the creatures roaming the paths of the Eternal Forest with his bear boned presence. There was something altogether familiar about the man and once she caught his face in focus, his eyes were the hint. Parsithius hadn’t told her about this side of the man before. As her husband caught the sword on the wall she moved forward suddenly. Stepping off the dais and moving quicker toward King and Beast until the stern words of Parsithius rang out. Halfway near them the Queen froze in step and waited for whatever came next between the brothers.
Leoxander did move. He'd get the hell away from Parsithius' blade, knowing how thirsty his halbred had been for his head in the past. But it was a backward crawl that bumped the base of his spine on the wall and his teeth were put away, an annoyed growl lingering in his throat and blood stains tipping the fur on his face. Hackles bristled like sandy colored quills around the back of his neck and shoulders, and whether there were columns in that room to weave about or not, they'd likely witness him pacing anxiously around the edge of the room and back behind those carved thrones to give a glare out from the other side. While order was restored by the King and Queen, he'd be back there hiding behind those thrones, granted there was the space to do so. A low whine shifted in his throat, and that blended with the growl of a barely coherent word, guttural and grotesque like a beast would speak, since he could. "Bastards..." A shudder traveled down his hunched spine but it would be nothing either would see unless they were bold enough to wander after him. His off colored stare shifted across the available doors connecting to that room, and after remembering where he was and why, the lycanthrope seemed to be searching the right path back to the room he'd been granted, once before, as a human, ears still pinned to skull warily.
Parsithius lifts the blade to place it on the moorings of the wall into its ceremoniously mounted position as earlier, before turning to view the wolfish creature retreat behind the massive thrones through weaving between columns along the edge of the hallway. The King was one to approach however, regardless the apparent form of his half-brother, as guards uneasily and skeptically begin filing out of the room and back to their original, assigned positions. "Brother, you gave us a scare. I had forgotten about your lycanthrope nature, and given the recent assassination attempt, the men are wary." The steps and simple 'clicks' of methodical gait do not tarry or hinder a methodical sort of cadence that they follow, even when he ascends the few steps of the dais to move between the thrones, "Come, speak, you act like a prisoner."
Jacklin wasn’t so sure why she’d been in such a hurry as her plans didn’t seem so sure now that Leoxander went crawling away from Parsithius and the weapon he’d been judging the wolf man with. Why Leoxander had come to Larket looking and behaving this way had yet to be revealed. Pulling the neckline of her dress upward she followed him as he crawled behind the two thrones and away from the eyes of any guards or the monarchs where they stood. Larket’s soldiers would still stay outside the throne room but without weapons lifted in warning…the last few days in Larket had been disastrous as far as events went and for Leoxander to appear on this day was most unfortunate. Remaining in place she listened and waited.
Leoxander flickered a tufted ear at the term Parsithius so easily used, now. A term they'd too easily resented in the past. A wolfish head lifted for a twitch of his snout his half-sibling's way, whiskered in black and brown, muzzle narrow and large to resemble the traits of his human nose. "No..." Came the gruff reply to the term 'prisoner', though it wasn't really apparent how much of conversation he could understand or return in that bestial form. Still crouched back in that designated 'safe spot', his mismatched eyes moved toward Parsithius and those ears swiveled to follow that aim, and for a moment it looked like he was struggling to find words to say, but in the end those tipped receptors drooped out flat to either side to say he didn't know. Why he was there, what he expected, or what he was doing. None of that. A look shifted to Jacklin, then focused on her shoulder when he realized the word 'assassin', and although his furry facial expressions did not easily fall out of that glare, those ears flattening back would show it wasn't him, and he wasn't happy about hearing this. This news that things were not as well for them as could be caused more hesitance before his teeth showed to try to pronounce the word. "Help.." One ear rotated back forward, the one that had a notion of hope. The fur along his spine remained raised up nervous and anxiously, as he'd never really requested that word of anyone before.
Parsithius watches keenly the movements and contortions of the guttural-voiced wolf-kin that Leoxander was attempting to offer him. The elder brother's eyes narrowed but not out of hostility, but rather the attempt to discern his words and grasp their meaning. "Help. Help you?" He stands taller, viewing the animalistic humanoid easily, before looking to his wife whom still bore the wound of a dagger as well as the distended womb of a growing child. The look isn't one of question, but one of reassurance, as if to let her know that he wasn't abandoning her, neither leaving her unsecure nor letting his brother walk alone. "What do you need?" Of course he would help, but given recent events, there isn't too much he can offer -well, for a king, at any rate.
Jacklin looked back over her shoulder half expecting to see Ault standing into the doorway. A thought had crossed her mind as Leo skulked behind their thrones that he’d come with another friend tagging along. Leoxander headed up the plot as he forced his way through the guards to give Ault access to the two in one place. Unconsciously Jacklin rubbed at her shoulder and turned to face Leoxander and Parsithius again once she was certain there wasn’t someone else to follow. Parsithius had invited Leoxander up for a talk and as expected the wolf stayed put. Between the two thrones she could see his ears wiggling down against his skull and up again much the way a dog would when backed into a corner. When the word ‘help’ came up she caught her husband’s eyes and the comforting look on his face was met with relief and a small smile. Despite the uneasy feeling of seeing Leoxander in that form…Jacklin moved up to stand a behind and to the side of her husband so as to not startle Leo in his already anxious state.
Leoxander heard Jacklin's approach however soft her steps were, and though he paid attention to Parsithius' words and aimed those tufted ears his way most of the time, his eyes, somehow shadowed even with fur covering his face, regarded Jacklin with a slight raise to his crouched stance to peek over the arm of the throne at her. He wasn't quite sure how to answer his brother's question, but before he would, a predator look drifted back and forth between them, once to her stomach whether she showed signs or not, and then he spoke in a voice they would have to really pay attention to, to understand. "I'll protect." It wasn't so much that he thought the King unable to protect his own wife, but no help came without trade of something in return, and if he could get through the guards that failed to defend Jacklin before, whoever came next might have a more difficult time getting through an enraged werewolf. Judging by the look of him, with burrs and knots in his fur and stains of prey on his hands and face, he'd been in this feral state for some time, now.
Jacklin met the look of Leoxander now and again while ears still swiveled around on his head. This close to him she could see the knots and kinks covering his body. A few stains were more prominent than the rest but the Queen wasn’t so surprised at his appearance. None of the soldiers she’d spoken to had seen the man around Larket for a good few days and this sudden return wasn’t much of a welcome home. How her husband felt about the entire scene wasn’t something clear at the moment. Again Leo spoke his gnarled talk and it took the woman a minute to understand what exactly he meant by the offer to help. Parsithius had begun to speak and Jacklin swallowed hard as sudden words choked back in her throat. She was carrying their child and had a shoulder ravaged by the blade of their patron…and now her husband was throwing her to the wolves. No words of protest came and quietly the Queen back away until coming to rest on the steps of the dais.
Parsithius judges the gaze and the manner at which his brother offers service to him; it isn't a thing of insult to the king, and isn't mistaken for the claim that he cannot protect his wife. It is rather noted as a pride, to obtain help in exchange for something, a lack of debt and cleansing of mind. The king looks toward her, and then toward Leoxander again. "You understand how important the Queen is to me, yes?" Those were not words of distrust, but rather the severity of the situation. If Leoxander is willing to protect Jacklin, then he must actually protect her, or else all of the land will feel the wrath of vengeful king. But that is not now, and that will not come to pass; "You've been in that form for awhile, it looks like," the knots and tufts of hair are evidence to that, "Can you not return to your form?"
Leoxander took one last look toward Jacklin before meeting Parsithius' gaze steady, in answer to that question. He knew. Or he'd once known that importance of family, and sought the two in effort to cling onto that fleeting condition. There was pack, who hadn't been informed to his whereabouts, but it would not do for them to see their alpha like this, crouched behind something with his nervous ears on. He could sense the Queen's unease and disappointment with her husband's answer but it wasn't until Parsithius questioned his ability to shift human that he would move. Low to the ground, capable of walking on two feet but weighed down to padded hands and digigrade hind paws, Leo looked uncertain where to go but started to walk for the nearest door for someplace less public, less humiliating to hide. Despite that they might not entirely welcome that clawed beast onto their nice guest bed. A whisper of a low whine pressed through his throat before he could stop it. They'd never witnessed him in this form, but never before had he acted so animalistic. He didn't need help, he needed escape.
Parsithius‘s gaze met the wild one of his brother’s before slicing over toward his wife for evaluation of her response; she didn’t much have a choice, unfortunately, for the King had already agreed to allow his brother the protection of the Queen. But his brother seemed like a scorned pup at the moment in the animalistic manner at which he desperately sought out of attention, and when he began heading toward the guest room, the King was at his heels –though not attempting to stop him. They’d soon be out of public eye, but the guest room of a castle didn’t seem like the most comfortable place for the wolf-creature. Almost stifling and hindering to a point of madness, the King found inspiration out the window. “Eternal Forest once belonged to your kind. Maybe you’d find solace there? Unless you prefer the guest room here, of course.” The man had no idea; he wanted to help, though.
Jacklin sat with her back turned to the half-brothers as Parsithius attempted another pass at conversing with Leoxander. He hadn’t come to check with her and he didn’t seem too concerned with her opinion on the matter. Blood ran thick they always did tell her…and she didn’t share blood with anyone. Pushing herself up from the step with the aid of both hands she landed one against the side of her stomach and the other tugging at her dress once more. “You may stay here all you please…as long as you need to.” Whether he would understand the female or not was unknown. A slight nod was given to the wolf man before the Queen moved from the throne room with a pain in her chest she hardly wanted either to see flush her face.
Leoxander had not heard that name in years, but he'd follow Parsithius look toward that direction where he could sense the forest to be. Another wary look back at the King before the lycan chuffed a breath in a sound of compliance, and sought a way out, else he'd consider that window for an exit - open or closed. A low growl of warning started in his throat whether or not he was near any of those Larket guards, mostly to let them know their best decision would be to let him pass and make no fuss about it. But, if he was simply granted an easy passed the way he'd come, he'd detour briefly on his path to aim his nose down in the general direction of Jacklin's midriff, looking there rather than at the eyes of the wary Queen. Ears pressed back after that invitation and welcome she so kindly gave, while that leathern nose twitched and flared a moment, and then with a reflection of chamber lights across his off colored eyes, the massive beast turned to leave. The rogue didn't need to see an expression to feel emotion in the air, and he would not be staying tonight to listen to his half sibling be chewed out with those overly sensitive wolf ears.
Parsithius watches keenly the antics offered by Leoxander, before the latter moves to depart whilst the former moves toward his Queen.
Jacklin| it may have been hormones or something else but just as the Queen stepped outside the room…the flood of tears came. Back met the door and if Leoxander had been walking out of the room, the wolf would certainly see a bawling Queen hiccupping with silent sobs. Never once had the Queen allowed another soul to see her crying save for her husband on the night of their engagement. With the child she was carrying, shoulder bandaged beyond repair, and Ault still running around somewhere planning his next attack on her life the warrior was no longer able to hold that strict standing most befitting of a woman titled Executioner. Now Parsithius was giving up on her and charging the wolf with the role of bodyguard. As much as she was growing to understand Leoxander in her life…it was just too much.