RP:Choosing My Religion

Summary: Macon tells Josleen of the deal he made Bradyn. Prince Guillem and the children of Larket will be cured so long as their parents accept Vakmatharas into their hearts.

Fort Freedom, Larket

It has been less than a day since Macon, Guillem, and a portion of the Royal Guard has returned from their ‘field trip to Kelay’. In reality they had left Larket for Vailkrin to meet with a servant of Vakmatharas in a last ditch effort by the king to cure his son and his people of the curse causing the children of The Hard City to age unnaturally rapidly. While Josleen got the ‘Kelay’ story when they left, it was only a matter of time before she learned the truth because, let's face it, the prince will blab to mom. Now that the deal with the God of Death is done and Macon believes, on faith and confidence that Bradyn knows better than to lie to him, the prince to be cured, he can tell Josleen what he has done behind her back.

The family is in the knights’ courtyard where Macon usually trains in the afternoons. Guillem is chasing Gigi around with a maniacal grin on his face and their roles reverse whenever the dog decides that should happen. The king would like to wait longer to verify that the curse has actually been lifted from his son, but he must tell Josleen before Guy tells her they were in Vailkrin and before the effects of the cure become evident to the rest of Larket. Without an explanation from the royals they may suspect that they have done the unthinkable and made a deal with the witches to save their own son while sacrificing the rest of Larket’s children. Macon stands beside his wife, watching Guillem when he finally speaks about the true content of his ‘trip to Kelay’. This is literally the best news he could possibly have to give the queen, but he can’t seem to word it properly in his mind. Finally he settles on simply, “I ‘ave ‘ad the curse on Guy lifted…” The words are wonderful but the news is ominous only because it must come with a ‘but’, otherwise why wouldn’t he have told her immediately upon his arrival in Larket?

Josleen was glad to have time to herself during Macon and Guillem's field trip. Her favorite author had recently released the latest installment in a racy romance thriller. Ravenous for torn off corsets and buttons that pop off in the heat of the moment, she tore through a third of the book in one sitting, just long enough to get to the steamy part wherein the hunk, unable to contain himself any longer, abandons propriety and consummates his illicit affair with a very relatable and clever woman--the cleverest!--the type of woman Josleen imagines herself to be. (That is perhaps the key to this particular author’s success.) Despite the arousing entertainment, by the time the King and Prince return, she misses their presence. In particular she thinks of Guillem, wonders what his young, sponge-like mind has learned today, eager to hear what he has to say of his trip. But she must wait, for he arrives just in time for his math lesson,then straight to combat training. (Perhaps the timing of this return was coldly calculated by a guilty King hoping that lessons would muzzle his chatterbox son?) She lounges in the shade along the edge of the courtyard. Her calls for Guillem to come to her side fall on deaf ears. Gigi has him now, literally, by the pants. Figures. Well, no matter, here comes Macon, sweaty and broad… like the hunk in her novel… and Josleen *is* wearing a corset today… She idly plays with a seam along his knee as he works up the nerve to speak. “...What?” Heart heart skips a beat and she sits up at the news, unsure of how to react due to his delivery. “How? Are you sure?” She searches Guillem for a clue, something to confirm Macon’s declaration. Slowly a smile lights her face, but the dark mood snuffs it out quickly. “I don’t understand. In Kelay?” Irritated by her confusion, she stands as if ready to face whatever bad news will follow her husband’s foreboding tone.

Macon had indeed been purposely keeping Guillem from being able to chat with Josleen about their trip to keep what the king tells her now under wraps. “I took 'em t’Vailkrin.” They had even taken a circuitous route on their way home so that their arrival time would necessitate that the prince be pulled directly into his scheduled activities for the day. “I met with a follower of Vakmatharas.” He knows naming the god of death in relation to their son will not sit well with her, but he powers forward in as optimistic a tone his gruff voice will allow for, “I made a bargain t’save our son. It is too early yet t’know tha’ it 'as worked, but I was told tha’ if I return t’following The God of Death tha’ the curse would be lifted.” His hands go to her arms just above the elbow, as much to keep her from turning away as it is to keep her from -running- away. He looks her in the eye, positive that given the same offer she would do the same thing for their son. So he is proud of what he's done, if only slightly ashamed with the underhanded way he needed to go about it without her knowing. “It is done. We won’ lose any more of our son t’this evil magic.” He makes no mention of the other, unfulfilled part of this bargain with the Death God yet, the part that involves saving the rest of Larket…

Josleen’s expression shifts with each statement: surprise, alarm, anger, anger, anger, twinged with hint of disbelief. Just like that the evil god of death cures their son? Just like that she’s expected to believe this stubborn and evil curse has fallen away? What more, he’s dropping hot button words like Vailkrin and Vakmatharas in this courtyard. While fort staff and guards know to give them space and privacy, there is always a risk of being overheard. Jaw set, eyes narrowed, she says as forced composure, taking great pains not to cause a scene, “We cannot speak about this here.” Abruptly she turns away from Macon, but the moment she sees Guillem, the hope that Macon has succeeded at long last softens her demeanor. “Guillem, come.” The prince, picking up on her subtle shift towards fury, obeys this time. She sends him off to the governess then turns back to Macon. That hopeful softness hardens again. How could he? Her heels click violently on the marble floor as she leads her husband to their room. Along the way she broods over what bothers her most of what little she understands. She rounds on him once the door clicks behind them and nearly shouts, roaring like a bear worried for a cub she thought she lost, “How dare you take him someplace without my knowing! Someplace dangerous! I am his mother! I have every right to know where he is at all times without deception!” Josleen rarely shouts at Macon. Who would dare? Not she or even his mother. The iron grip control and he exudes cannot overpower the nauseating feeling that for some hours today she was ignorant to truth of where her own child was. If something had happened, she wouldn’t have known where to look. “Never again! Never!”

Knowing the other half of this deal with the Death God, Macon is less sensitive about keeping this conversation a secret. Larket will have to know about all of this eventually, and preferably sooner rather than later, if they are to have their children spared as Guillem has been already. He follows Josleen anyway because without that information she is right, this should be kept under wraps for as long as possible. Tilts his head slightly and maintains that angry, warning expression that comes when anyone starts a sentence directed at him with ‘how dare you’. He takes exception to the notion that he has put their son in harm's way. “I am ‘is father!” He shoots back immediately with the mirror to her maternal statement. “I can protect ‘em.” He makes no mention of the team of royal guards that obviously accompanied them to Vailkrin because he believes he himself should be enough to ease Josleen’s mind that the pince is safe. “I took ‘em there t’save him, not put ‘em in danger.” He won’t acknowledge her order of ‘never again’ because he would definitely do this again under similar circumstances, which hopefully they never have to face. “I didn’ wan’t’tell you…” His growling voice softens slightly when he makes this statement that was always true. However the reasoning behind it that he gives now isn’t something he realized until after he and the prince were already on their way to the Undead City. “I didn’ wan’ you t’go.” At first he had just thought she would veto the idea outright, but his greatest fear was the one he says now, “You would ‘ave done wha’ I did t’save ‘em. Wha’ -wouldn’- you ‘ave done t’save ‘em? And wha’ if He ‘ad asked for more t’save our son? You would ‘ave done anythin’. I wanted it t’be me.” In his eyes she has gone through enough for Guy already. Pain and experimentation on her body to even make his birth possible. The king doesn’t want her to suffer anything else for their boy. It was his turn. It had to be.

Josleen continues shaking her head as Macon insists he has every right to lie to her about where their son is at any given time. “Of course you would never put him in harm’s way. I don’t doubt that you’d do anything for him, but that is beside the point! If I lied to you about where Guillem was at any point in time, you would be upset. He is my son as much as he is yours.” Then Macon confesses he didn’t want her to go, and as he explains why he softens in the way he does when he’s overcome with love and affection for her. Unable to resist the effect it has on her, she is defanged. “...And what did you do?” Her face buckles into wrinkled frown. “What did you have to give up?” In her mind, Vakmatharas doesn’t give anything freely, and his prices are always steep. Did Macon trade his life for Guillem’s? Shave years off his already short human life? “...Macon…” she whimpers as she assumes the worst of the evil deity of death.

Macon is calmed when Josleen eases up after his explanation. He embraces his wife and presses lips to her forehead. The king understands what worries her now that he claims to have made a bargain with Vakmatharas, because it is the same worry that he knew he would have if it were The Queen of Larket that traveled to Vailkrin to make this deal. In light of her darkest fears, what Macon has to say is actually pleasant news. His own life is not forfeit for the sake of their son. Instead, “He wants Larket...” The Rage Knight sees the true price of curing Guillem, it will be impossible for Macon to remain in power without converting his people into followers of The Death God now. Curing only the prince is political, and perhaps actual, suicide. “The curse was lifted from Guillem by me pledging t’follow Vakmatharas again, but the res’ of Larket’s children will not be cured unless their families do the same.” He is biting the proverbial bullet here, but tries to save face by decisively stating his plan, even though it is his only viable option now. “We ‘ave t’inform the kingdom as soon as possible, t’save as many as we can.” And to save themselves from any suspicion when Guillem stops rapidly aging without the rest of the Larketian children....

Josleen blinks in surprise at the price. It’s steep and, to her at this early stage, it seems impossible to deliver, it is also surprisingly...tame? It’s a big ask, but not unreasonable of a god--any god. The evil God of Death has agreed to save children in exchange for faith. Do not all gods seek faith from the living? Huh. That’s the expression Josleen wears as she mulls over the price: huh. “...What’s the catch? It seems… not easy. He’s scorned, and for good reason. He’s evil. But… this is also non violent.” She shuts her eyes as if this fact is causing a cognitive storm in her brain. How? What? “But we’re talking about Vakmatharas. There has to be something else, some catch. Who made this deal? Are you sure Guillem is cured?”

Macon can see how Josleen’s bias against Vakmatharas is making this difficult for her to compute. ‘How could an evil god save children?’ It is written on her face plain as day. She’s right, this task won’t be easy, for her or for the rest of Larket to swallow. Larketians are known for following gods like Arkhen and Cyris. This will go against everything many of them have known since their childhoods, but it must be done, Macon knows that at least. The Raighe Knight answers the question of if he is sure whether Guillem is cured or not first with a slight shake of his head, “It ‘as only been a day. I can’t be sure, but we will be able t’tell soon.” As for the middleman between Vakmatharas and his former follower, Macon answers, “I met with a follower of Vakmatharas named Bradyn Mahara. The conditions for the curse t’be lifted that I told you are the same ones tha’ he relayed t’me. There may still be a catch…” He wouldn’t put it past The God of Death, “...but even if there is, does it matter? I wan’ this curse gone from Larket.”

Josleen wipes her hands over her face, pressing her fingertips into her eyes then temple as she tries to patch this new information into the quilt of what she knows of the world. Evil Gods don’t save children without a catch you’ll regret. That’s a fact, isn’t it? And perhaps to a deeply faithful follower of Arkhen or Cyris, or even Hind and Xalious--perhaps to the very devout the simple price tag of converting more followers to an evil god is a price too steep, and represents a bartering of one’s very soul. But to Josleen, who knows the gods only in her head and not in her heart, who in adulthood has not attended a temple service outside of societal obligations, the price is more than fair. A city’s worth of followers in exchange for the life of her son and for the lives of so many innocent children in Larket? She doesn’t even wrestle with the question. She does not believe religion can fundamentally change who a person is. She’s met good people in and out of the cloth. She’s met bad people in and out of the temple. “When can Percival confirm that Guillem is cured?” She assumes Macon already asked Percival to do this. Her heart skips a beat at the thought that Guillem may, in fact, be cured. She still doesn’t quite believe it, not until Percival confirms. “I want to meet with this Bradyn Mahara myself. Is he…. undead?” She hesitates on the final word as though it were an unseemly slur. “I’ll only meet him if you believe he wouldn’t harm me. If so, I’d like to discuss what exactly religious observance of Vakmatharas entails… We cannot convince Larketians to decorate their homes with human skulls and entrails! But perhaps we don’t need to. I want to know what the bare minimum is, and see what we can do with that. ...If Guillem truly is cured…. If.”

Macon hadn’t thought of Percival, so Josleen is wrong to assume that he’s called the headmaster to see their son to verify what Mahara told him. The King’s mind was much to preoccupied with keeping the knowledge of his trip to Vailkrin away from his wife for the short time that he felt was necessary. Perhaps not feeling that he needed to check whether or not the curse was lifted is indicative of his faith in the death god returning to him, which is a prerequisite to the cure in the first place. Macon shakes his head and tells her that Percival hasn’t seen since before this deal was made. He confirms her suspicion that Bradyn is a vampire and tells her that he doesn’t think she’d be in danger meeting with him, but now that the secret is out of the bag it won’t be necessary for her to travel to Vailkrin to ask her questions. Mahara can come to the fort this time around. The Queen has known Macon while he was a Death Knight, and he is sure she never saw any human skulls or entrails in his home at the time, but he forgives this dramatic portrait of the followers of Vakmatharas because she seems to be on board with this plan to save their kingdom, and that is wonderful.