RP:In the Pale Moonlight

From HollowWiki

Part of the Rise of Larket Arc


Summary: Josleen approaches Lionel on what remains of the bridge the former Knight-Commander waged his one-night war with Macon upon. Sympathy and deception intertwine as the pending marriage -- and Lionel's theories on the soon-queen's husband-to-be -- are discussed.

Larket: Elegant Bridge

Josleen has spent her idle hours adjusting to life in Larket as Future Queen, Bride of the King, etc. The news spread fast and has thrilled and upset the public in equal measure. Rarely do the decisions of monarchs please the populace at large. Still, even those unhappy with the match do not dare vocalize it to Josleen or Macon’s face. When she walks through the streets she is met with either jubilance or silence. A guard trails her, but gives her space. The city is quiet and there’s little to be fearful of, much to be hopeful of. Thane Josleen hasn’t seen the battle site and decides to visit it now to get a better sense of what happened there.


Lionel has arrived by way of wyvern; with war ‘ended’, there’s no reason now to avoid these more obvious -- and quicker -- methods of transportation. The journey still lasts many hours, but arrival near the edge of Northern Sage sets his soul astir. This zone is still raw chaos. Even certain corpses remain in view, enmeshed in dirt and blood and other corpses. Wading through the field is its own form of torture. Lionel arrives near the half-disintegrated bridge as the moon rises high in the evening sky. With a forlorn glance, he rests his hands, awkwardly, on what remains of a rail and peers out into the river below. He’ll be seen by approaching Josleens within moments, but his back is turned and his stance is tense. He has not brought Hellfire.


Josleen takes a deep breath as she surveys the flesh made mulch. She’s a war veteran in her own right, a medic. She may not have taken life but she’s failed to save many. She’s suffered injuries and wartime imprisonment. You don’t get to be Thane of the City of War without getting your hands dirty in the main industry. Yet somehow her external appearance remains unsullied and delicate, her skin youthful and unblemished, hair always perfectly coiffed, shoulders drawn daintily like a bird. She wields this look like armor, and it has served her well. Is she not soon to be Queen? She recognizes Lionel by his posture and dress. Her own favors the Larketian style. She hesitates before addressing Lionel, unsure how she should feel about him. He instigated a battle against her future husband, one which could have killed Macon, and indeed did wound him. But Lionel was acting in service to Frostmaw, of which she is Thane. Her Queen stripped him of his title, so what is he now? She watches him in silence for half a minute then calls to him. “Sir Lionel.”


Lionel tilts uneasily. He knows the voice but he already suspected from the step alone. Lithrydel is a full continent -- yet Josleen has a singular way about herself. With a graceful twist, he nods deeply but it’s not quite a bow. “Thane Josleen,” he greets, “although in truth I’m simply not sure what to call you now.” There’s mirth in his voice; it’s no jab. “Queen-elect? I just don’t know.” He leans over a rail he’d nearly incinerated a week prior. But all at once the amusement flickers out and what’s left is worry. “I’m surprised, though. By this. All of this. I’m still surprised -this- even happened,” he waves around, “let alone your marriage.”


Josleen could ‘joke’ that she doesn’t know what to call Lionel, but tactfully does not. His title change was a fall from a queen’s grace, whereas hers reflects favor by a king’s grace. This is not lost on her. “Thane Josleen will do. I am still proud of Frostmaw and Queen Hildegarde. She did the right thing, you know.” She eyes Lionel to gauge his opinion on the compromises made to achieve peace. “Political marriages are nothing new,” she says. Woe be the day she’s forced to admit she wanted to enemy King during wartime. It’s very likely she never will. Macon knows the truth about them, that’s all that matters.


Lionel has learned many things during his four months as Knight-Commander, and most of them he hadn’t expected. Delicate speech, for example, in delicate situations. Although he is no Josleen, nor, indeed, is he ever likely to reach that level, he still knows how to play the game now. With a restrained smile, he puts on the face of contemplation, although in truth he’s quite sure what he thinks and nothing has brooked it. “I believe she did,” he begins, and then he pulls wayward of the bridge and paces. “Our queen is wise.” There is spoken emphasis on the first word, but it is there, between the lines. “Still.” He continues pacing, altogether appropriate for a fellow feigning. “You can’t be -thrilled.- I mean, we spoke of Macon and I agreed there is a chance he has been corrupted by some outside force, but… this? Josleen, you’re one of the wisest women I know.” Whether the bar is high or low, he does not bother thinking. “Your intelligence, he… well, he’s a brute, isn’t he? Or...is he?”


Josleen stands at the edge of the bridge and gently rests a hand on the rail. From there she watches Lionel as if he’s an opera and she a privileged woman behind the banister of a private booth. The moonlight serves as his spotlight. And the playwright? Josleen, to a certain extent. So much of this was orchestrated by her, and when she advised Hildegarde to pursue peace, she even anticipated a reaction like his from the Frostmawian actors. So much energy! So much drama! The bard can’t help but see them both from outside her own skin. It’s a surreal perspective. Nothing has felt real since Schezerade, least of all her new future. “Thrilled?” She shrugs without answering the question. In truth she is thrilled, a secret she shares only with her betrothed. “Why do you think him a brute? Have you met him outside battle?” She shakes her head gently. “I take the blame for his wicked reputation. I am the one who called him a brute in Frostmaw, months ago. Kelovath led me to believe Macon is evil, and I believed him, but then… In the month I was in Larket he never harmed me. He invited me to dinner, told me his plan for peace, conversed with me politely and across a wide range of subjects. I came to see him as simply a man. As I have told you before, he is dark, he has a past, but a brute?” She shakes her head. “That’s Kelovath’s lies spun and spread through my lips.” Those lips purse at that admission, of being taken for the fool. “I don’t pretend to know Macon well.” [HONKING LAUGH] “But I do not fear him.”


Lionel has a polite chortle to this; it is no honking laugh, it is a conversational amusement. He has no idea he has been made a part of Josleen’s opera; he is clueless but searching for clues. As she speaks, his eyes narrow, his tense stiffens, and everything about him seems timed to her cues. Before long, he’s back against that railing, and the moonlight plays tricks on ashen hair, painting him the spotlight in his introspective stare. “Why’d he march?” Easy, bold question. “I mean, maybe you don’t know. But he told you about his plan for peace. Did it include building towering ballistae?” Behind him and below, the wreckage of one such war machine lay mangled upon a rotting wyvern. “Do you know what he was really after, sending those soldiers down this bridge just days ago?” His voice is kept cordial, investigative but not inquisitive. He maintains a distanced, practiced wonder. Kreekitaka, Uyeer King, taught him much at the dinner table. “I am inclined to believe you, Josleen -- I never met this man, Kelovath, but what you’ve told me has me on edge. But even if King Macon,” he doesn’t even strike italics on the title, “was and is an elegant and inspired ruler, the scenario surrounding him still feels cloaked in darkness. Were they lies, that a magic or force envelops this country you’re about to preside over?”


Josleen snorts derisively at the ballistae question like ‘come on, Lionel’. “Sir Lionel, all sovereign states arm themselves to the teeth, in wartime and peacetime. Have you seen the rapid-fire siege weapons in Frostmaw’s fort?” Rhetorical question, of course he has. “I helped the engineer Ezekiel build those.” Convenient anecdote left out: Ezekiel is her ex-husband. She isn’t proud of being a divorcee. “He was asked to build them by Queen Satoshi just after she won a war, during peace time. Gualon, Venturil, Chartsend, all have impressive armies, with siege weapons. It’s an arms race. As for why he marched, I cannot say.” Yes she can. “I would imagine it is because Our Queen damaged his fort. If a Larketian had damaged Frostmaw Fort the giants would demand retaliation. Larketians are no different in that regard. I regret the battle happened…” She does not blame Lionel, and this is not a sly tactic. She truly understands why he attacked, even if she loathes the carnage to both sides. In his shoes, she admits privately, she may have commanded the same. The conversation circles around to the rumors of dark magic afflicting Macon and Larket and she shrugs. “I’ve seen no evidence of that.” Again this is a lie. She knows for a fact Macon is indeed infected with rage magic, but she simply doesn’t think it’s anyone’s damn business. In her view, he is sick and his illness makes him a victim of Kelovath’s treachery. She believes Kelovath brought the rage stone to Larket, and King Macon, being the good king that he is, handled the stone to the best of his ability and is now suffering the consequences. She does not speak any of this, because it’s no one’s damn business. Macon and Josleen will search for a cure, privately, together. If this secret got out, Macon’s enemies would wield it against him. No. She denies, denies, denies. “As you say, it may have been lies to damage him during the war. That’s over now.”


Lionel waits patiently as Josleen strolls through cities named and points taken. He lofts both brows in play of a man who sees the folly in his mention, but secretly he’d figured it might tussle her so. “If a Larketian damaged Frostmaw Fort,” he grants her, “I suppose I could see a potentiality in which the situation is reversed and a regrettable battle happens nearer to our borders than theirs.” Theirs, not hers. Not yet, but at the conclusion of this sentence Lionel blinks and raises a finger. “Well, erh, yours. Ours and yours, I suppose would be the operative, there.” He sniffs the air and smirks, although his azure gaze seems saddened. An awkward moment passes by and Lionel regards Josleen with full sympathies again, as he had that night by the apple. All of a sudden, he’s lost the will to play. He has no suspicion she -wants- this union and his search for answers can’t compel him to further jostle her guard. He just wants those answers. Then with the turn in conversation the man bites his lip and sighs. Something doesn’t quite add up. Too many letters from too many carriers. Lies do spread. This could be naught but that. Yet there was something about Macon, back on the field… quite close to where they presently stand. “I pray you’re right.” He peers out into the midnight blue beneath them, turning his back to her in so doing. He’s open, vulnerable. “...I felt something, some cold malice, back there. Not when our weapons locked, but not long thereafter. In his voice, I heard shock, not evil, and that shocked me, too; I admit, I’d thought to hear an overdramatic archmage recant the Thousand and One Ways of Suffering. But there was something… something magical, and not in a clean way, beyond that bladelock. It felt like a death knight trapped in his own harsh prison.”


Josleen laughs good-naturedly at the pronoun fumbling and waves a hand to dismiss the awkwardness away playfully. It doesn’t matter. Ours, yours, theirs. It’s all so new. If Lionel is vulnerable when he turns he back to her, she doesn’t notice. She’s no warrior. She doesn’t read vulnerability in poses, only in moods and feelings, and sometimes in beds. Besides, Lionel is no enemy of hers. The Catalian’s speech then takes an unexpected turn, and disturbs Josleen for the first time since they met on this bridge. “Speak plainly. What are you saying, Lionel?”


Lionel | | It’s just as well that Josleen hasn’t noticed, because Lionel, despite -being- a warrior, has failed to realize just how vulnerable he was. He feels calm enough in the Thane’s presence; he likes her, even. No, no, perish the thought -- he just thinks of her as wronged on some level and sympathetic and obviously intelligent. He turns to face her, sighing again. “I used to only -know- how to speak plainly, my lady.” He snickers despite himself. Who the heck has he become? “I’m saying something felt wrong on that battlefield. Besides all the obvious reasons battles feel wrong. Something seemed to pulse outward from him, darkly. Macon didn’t strike me as the mustache-twirling sort, but something seemed to be twirling… around him.” He shakes his head and raises a hand, as if to say, please, let me continue. “I’ve faced death knights before. Most of them know what they are. Everything about the painful power I felt coursing through me when I was knocked back from him screams ‘death knight’ in bold print, Josleen. If that’s not what he is, then I’m sorry, but -something- is awry.”


Josleen‘s head rears back in surprise. “Death knight?” It doesn’t make any sense. Macon, a death knight? And yet… it doesn’t seem -impossible-. She has no reason to believe Lionel is lying to her. Mind and gut tell her he speaks true to himself. He could simply be wrong, but he’s no novice. As Lionel has faith in Josleen’s wisdom, she has faith in his battle instincts. Indeed, it’s why she doesn’t fault him for attacking the bridge. “I..I don’t see it but… thank you for telling me. I’ll look into it and see what I can find. And quickly.” The wedding is being rushed in Larket. Macon is eager to have his Queen, which Josleen has found flattering thus far, but now with Lionel’s news, she is less sure. Of course, her heart does not turn so easily against her future husband. Macon is still afforded a generous helping of the benefit of the doubt, but still. Questions flutter in her stomach. Maybe. Could it be? No. Maybe? Oh damn.


Lionel almost immediately feels gladdened and regretful over telling her. He still sees her as a victim in all this and concern for her wellbeing surges with the suggestion of Macon’s condition. And yet, if she will look into this, it could be precisely what Frostmaw needs. “Be careful, if you do. Please…” He looks at her pleadingly. It’s obvious there is grief in him for their country letting her be wed to a man Lionel still suspects, even if that suspicion should prove that Macon himself has been wronged in some way. The darkness permeates, regardless. “...You’ll know where to find me. My office may be vacated, but my duty to serve the realm remains.” He steps into the night, waves his mount, and departs.