RP:Mommy's First Kill

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Summary: Macon and Josleen indulge in their first date night since Prince Guillem’s birth. During the play (about the Larketian Hero Guillem after whom the Prince is named), Josleen examines her attitude about Muzo and is horrified to discover how much her morals have shifted. Macon helps his wife accept her new moral code by being a Good Husband (™).

The next day, Prince Guillem’s rage-laced naptime tantrum provokes his nanny Helga into silencing the Prince permanently. Josleen intervenes and kills for the first time.

Concert Hall

Macon has been coaxed (read forced) out of Fort Freedom to attend a play at the concert hall with Josleen. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell which of the Royal parents are having a rougher time with the curse their rapidly aging son if afflicted with. The King is tightening his grip on the witch population he believes to be responsible for the Larket wide affliction, but still has little to no results to show for it while he becomes ever more hands on with the investigations and interrogations. He is in the Rage Armor, with the marble crown on his head as if he is making a public appearance, though their private booth is positioned in such a way that it would be difficult for anyone not on stage to see into. Their space is set up tonight with a small dining table so that the King and Queen can enjoy dinner and a show simultaneously, possibly a compromise to minimize time away from the prince, but maybe not, as he’s asleep and can make it through at least fifty percent of nights without interruption lately. The play itself is, by no coincidence, a retelling of the history of the Larketian Hero Guillem, with several liberties taken to make it more enjoyable and digestible for modern audiences. (There is a good witch in the original tale. She is not so great in this version.)

The play was originally scheduled to begin an hour earlier, but Josleen, who is increasingly comfortable flexing her power in ridiculous ways, requested that the play start later to ensure that Guillem would be fast asleep by the time his parents left the castle. Sadly for the other attendees, there’s no Larket-wide instant messaging system, and the audience who arrived on time had to wait for the royals. Josleen does not feel the need to apologize for the inconvenience which stretched longer than an hour as the Queen took pleasure in the rare opportunity to dress up for an occasion, coiffe her hair, take a little more time with her makeup to really stun the crowd. So, put the inconvenience at an hour and a half. Throughout the first two acts she enjoyed the play, dinner, and Macon. Their interactions of late have been soured by the spate of ill news: Frostmaw’s political antagonism, the discovery that Muzo had been vivisecting a live witch, and above all this persistent curse. Try as Josleen does to talk about the play during intermission, the glut of serious problems demand attention. “My love,” Josleen says abruptly, pausing after the word ‘love’ in a manner that forebodes a dark twist in an otherwise bright conversation. “I’ve been feeling a bit like Guillem as of late.” Here she’s referencing the moment at the end of the second act wherein the Hero decides to confront the witch he had trusted in his youth who later betrayed him. “I want to confront Muzo. I know the risks.” Namely that the public may learn that the Queen met with public enemy number one, and Muzo suffered no consequence at her hand, and in fact continues to enjoy his freedom. “I still want to. I don’t know how I feel about him--I’m angry, of course, but also guilty. Certainly not too surprised... Have you been wanting to reach out to him?”

Macon didn’t mind making the rest of the audience wait for the play to begin. His wife looks great, so it was all worth it in the end, and any complaints that might be passed along will be met with a guttural growl that demands the messenger rethink position. The Rage Knight raises his brow for a moment, wondering how Josleen could feel like their baby. Once he realizes she’s talking about the play, the skeptical look on his face washes away and he can scrutinize her idea of meeting with Muzo. “‘Ow would you do it? Do you ‘ave a means t’contact ‘em?” He doesn’t think she knows where the alchemist is hiding, but he fixes his slate stare on the queen to make sure. “I would prefer t’know where he is than not, but I don’t ‘ave a reason t’reach out t’em. You know the risks, so wha’ do you want t’ear from ‘em?” She seems, from her words, set in her determination for this meeting to take place, so Macon’s tone isn’t one of warning, more one of curiosity about what she wants from the snake that has compromised them so much already.

Josleen cants her head to the side and shrugs at Macon’s question. “I bet Thermond knows” a guard who grew close to Muzo. “I can have Floria be discreet in finding out.” The servant gossip grapevine is a powerful resource that Josleen is only just learning how to wield obliquely. “Well… I feel we owe him a lot. Guillem, the treatments of the rage, and his silence. He’s not squealed, not even now when the heat is on. I’m torn. I am horrified by what he did, but I also feel a great debt. Perhaps I am being sentimental because of Guillem,” the baby this time, “but I want to settle that debt, see him off with gold in hand. Besides, a little kindness before he departs isn’t just to soothe my conscience, but perhaps placate him as well. If he’s angry, we should give him a good reason not to turn on us.” She shudders suddenly, thinks, shudders again. She turns her face away from Macon slightly. “Listen to me. I want to pay off a monster. What he did was monstrous. And yet I don’t want to see him put down.” Suddenly she looks back at her husband sharply, “Do you? What do you make of what he did? Political scandal aside, just the fact of the experiment on a living person?”

Macon had considered the possibility of Muzo turning on them even before he became something of Lithrydel’s public enemy number one (sorry Balgruff, Corruption, and Shade Monster).Thus the little scheme he and Josleen had come up with to test his loyalty. This new plan of The Queen’s is a heavy amendment to that test. She wants to pay Muzo, and attempt to appease him. This makes Macon wonder if she has more sympathy for the alchemist than she does for his victim. ‘ ‘The witches are animals.’ This thought has surely been in the king’s head for some time during the ordeal their son is being put through at the hands of, he’s sure, the witches among the rebels. He knows, at her darkest, Josleen sees them this way too, so he doesn’t pretend to be outraged at what Muzo is accused of doing to his captive witch subject. “‘Is intentions were t’aid us and Larket with his knowledge.” He pauses, and won't outright say it. Only providing reasoning behind his stance, “The witches ‘ave attacked you, attacked me, and are attacking our son now.” Increasingly, Macon’s viewpoint on the Larketian situation is one of a state of war between The Hard City and wicked witches. From that point of view Rachelle was a prisoner of war, and The Rage Knight is ruthless enough to be ok with treating a prisoner of war like that.

Josleen also wonders who she sympathizes with more. She nods at Macon’s reassurances that her crippled ethics are justified. The orchestra's strings swell on the first chord and the curtains split open to reveal a terrific and tenebrous set that will set the stage for Act III, but the bard isn’t taking in the artful twists of the gnarled branches or the clever use of paint and candlelight to give the ‘pond’ the illusion of containing real water. Though her gaze stares dully through the conductor’s messy black mane, her attention turns inward. Her expression grows increasingly tight, and her breath flattens into a slow, shallow inhale as she realizes for the first time just how drastically her own morals have shifted towards compromise, and the cruelty compromise begets. She wears her self-loathing plainly for Macon to see and it is thusly justified: She’s not disgusted enough by what Muzo did. What is wrong with her? When the news of Rachelle broke, Josleen was not surprised. She knew exactly what she was dealing with with Muzo, and all the same she empowered him and ignored the risks. She wanted a baby and for Macon to be cured of his affliction. And at what cost? One wretched witch subjected to one gruesome experiment? Is that a cost a deterrent from ever doing it again? No. She would do it all over again, and the gold she wants to give Muzo paves the way for that as well by maintaining her status as his patron who may call upon him should she desire something else that only his genius can deliver. And if he can only deliver her deepest desires on the carved flesh of others, would she still call upon him now? She shudders violently again as if to shake loose this black, oily growth stuck on the side of her soul like a tumor. It’s been eating away at her morals, growing fat and strong, hard to exorcise. Who put it there? She looks at Macon. He was also not surprised by the news of Rachelle. “Did you know about his experiment on the witch? And about the corpses?”

Macon eats the dessert that has been brought to them, some kind of rich, oozing cake, as if he isn’t discussing the dissection and vivisection of people. He doesn’t go as far as to say that he made it possible for Muzo to get his cadavers and his living subject. Especially for the case of the live witch, the chain of command that the order to find a suitable, lone witch and deliver them to Muzo’s lab is so long and winding that it would be an incredible feat to trace it all the way back to the king. What he does tell her is still the truth and he tells it well and with subtle conviction, in line with his usual skill with lies of omission. “I met with ‘em while he was examinin’ one of the corpses from the riot at the work camp. I don’t know if he ‘ad any before then, and I didn’ know he ‘ad a live witch.” His stare softens a bit on Josleen as he shares in her view of the scientist and his experiment, “I wasn’ surprised either, but I didn’ know until we found out she ‘ad escaped.”

Josleen’s gaze sharpens on Macon when he admits he had seen a cadaver. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have nipped this in the bud…” Her lips purse slightly, but she’s quick to shake her head and forgive him. “It’s done. I wish you would have told me.” Her posture remains tense for a moment, but, remembering this is meant to be a date, she softens and slides her hand into his. “If I learn of Muzo’s hideout, would you like to come with me? I want to bring Guillem, too.” She frowns slightly and shrugs with one shoulder. “Maybe Muzo can do something for him.”

Macon shakes his head and strokes Josleen’s hand in his, “He was workin’ t’uncover knowledge of the witches that we could use t’defend the kingdom. I didn’ wan’t’expose you…” Giving Josleen plausible deniability is really the only excuse he has, because he isn’t so sure that just dissecting corpses would have been enough then for her to want to ‘nip it in the bud’ as she has put it now. Could she have possibly seen the live experimentation coming? Probably, when Muzo told Macon that he was ready to move onto live subjects, yeah. “I will go with you.” He wouldn’t have let her go alone anyway, and he is better suited than a royal guard in this scenario anyway. Though both of them disappearing and meeting with a wanted naga isn’t that great a look either. When she says she wants to bring Guy his mind immediately goes to the Rage Infection treatment and he shakes his head, not wanting to expose the prince to that pain. He quickly realizes that she must mean the more pressing matter of the rapid aging curse, to which he agrees that if anyone can find a way to slow the effects of it without stopping the source, it would be the genius Muzo.

Josleen has an incredible ability to rewrite her own history and overestimate her goodness, it is true. “Good.” She smiles at him. “I’d feel safer with you there.” With the matter settled, and Macon’s lies fully accepted as truth, she leaves the table and gestures for Macon to join her near the balcony banister where she requested a loveseat be placed. She sidles up beside him, her head resting against his armored shoulder. “Oh how I wish you’d left the armor at home,” she says in a bright tone. How nice it is to enjoy a little entertainment and briefly escape their crush of problems and worries, but only briefly. Guillem is aging so fast. Initially, she felt guilty for indulging in a date night at all, but she and Macon badly needed the mental and emotional rest, and the marriage needed a little tenderness. They’re no use to Guillem frayed. However, when after the show Larket’s nobles seek out the King and Queen to rub elbows over brandy and scotch, Josleen prefers to go, her tolerance for being far from Guillem (you know, being two buildings away) has been fully exhausted. When they arrive back at the fort, she checks in on Guillem in the nursery. Sleeping like a babe. In the bedroom, she gives Macon the attention and affection that they haven’t had the time to indulge in since Guillem was born. Soon they fall asleep entangled like when they first became lovers--with no reason to stir now that Guillem sleeps through the night. The one and only silver lining to the curse, if isolated and counted only in number of hours slept, and not in number of years lost.

Fort Freedom

The next morning Josleen wakes refreshed and begins her motherly routine. Guillem now sits in a high chair at the breakfast table and makes a terrible mess--much to Gigi’s delight! Gigi has a 70% catch rate for anything that comes tumbling off the high chair’s table. The family parts for the day as has become habit. Macon still needs to be King, and Josleen avoids being Queen as much as possible to devote herself to Guillem’s ‘healthy’ development. He’s learning colors already. Occasionally being Queen forces Josleen to leave Guillem with the nanny, Helga, for an hour or two. Today she has a meeting just as Macon trains with Cal in the courtyard, which happens to also be Guillem’s naptime. Helga takes in Guillem for his nap, though the boy protests this loudly (aka throws a sh*t fit). His separation anxiety from his mother has grown acute. It’s likely Macon feels his rage from afar (as does Josleen), but this has become commonplace at this hour (aka nap time) more or less every day. Either Prince Guillem is upset because Helga is putting him down for his nap, or Prince Guillem is upset because he caught Josleen tiptoeing out of the nursery after she erroneously believed he had fallen asleep. The boost of rage is great training fuel for King and sparring partners alike. Today the rage persists longer than usual, though it isn’t especially powerful. Helga must be having a rough time coaxing him to sleep. Josleen’s motherly need to respond to her distressed son has her wrapping up her meeting suddenly. She leaves the parlor before the guest has even gathered her things. “Floria can show you out,” the Queen says as she briskly exits, her rudeness no doubt fueled by her son’s faint rage. As Josleen climbs the stairs, she realizes that while she can hear Guillem’s tantrum, she can’t hear Helga’s gentle cooing. She breaks into a sprint, taking the stairs two at a time, and bursts into the nursery with fury.

“Helga!” Helga stands over the crib holding in both hands Baby’s First Club high above her head. Her wild expression and heavy panting make her intention even clearer. The nanny, who is overexposed to Guillem’s tantrum rages and like others before her has been driven mad by this rage magic, struggles to resist the fury that Guillem’s rage compels. “HELGA! Put it down!” Josleen advances slowly on Helga like a bullfighter approaching a bull. “Helga!” The nanny looks sidelong at Josleen, gauging the distance between herself and the Queen, estimating how much time she has left to decide whether or not to crush the Prince’s soft skull. “Guillem, mommy’s here. Everything will be alright, baby.” But her tone is anything but soothing. Guillem’s rage feeds into his mother who sends the signal back stronger. His tantrum intensifies and Helga suddenly lifts the club up and back and swings down hard on the infant Prince. Josleen tackles the nanny just in time to derail the blow so that the club rips easily through the crib’s railings. The shattered side of the crib splinters and fragments rain down on the screaming prince. Josleen knocked Helga back a few paces, but the nanny is stockier than the Queen. Josleen’s snarling, her look feral, a new bloodthirsty expression the bard has never worn before, not even on stage. Helga charges at the Queen, raising the club to bash on Josleen’s skull too. Josleen yanks up Guillem’s wooden rocking horse to block the club. The club shatters through the horse’s neck, breaks off a piece of its bowed legs. Josleen shoves the wooden horse forward and uses it like a riot shield to push Helga back towards the unlit fireplace. The nanny trips on Gigi’s braided-rope toy and falls back on her bum under the Queen’s assault. Without thinking, blinded by both her maternal instinct to protect her son and the rage infection, Josleen grabs a stone bust of the Guillem, the Larketian Hero, and smashes it over Helga’s head. The nanny’s flesh splits open, blood pours out in thick dark streams, and she goes limp beneath the Queen. Josleen doesn’t hesitate to bash in Helga’s skull again, and again, and again, grunting and shrieking with each strike. Blood sprays onto Josleen’s face with each blow, coating every inch of flesh until the only white visible is that of her eyes. Helga’s face is no longer recognizable either, not even as human. The nose is gone, the lips torn, cheek bones caved in, brain swelling between the gaping fractures of the skull. Guillem, watching his mother reshape his nanny’s face from human to mush, screams louder and louder, his rage grows disproportionately powerful. The guards in the Royal Residence are too inflamed with their petty grievances to do their jobs. They bicker, they take off to find their enemies, real or perceived. With no off switch on her rage, Josleen continues to beat Helga into a pulp, her own fingers raw as they scrape and rub on stone and bone.

Macon recognizes the effects of the Rage Infection during his training session as being caused by his son elsewhere in the fort. He’s enjoyed the near daily injection of intensity into his routine with Cal even if it means some extra nicks and bruises like the fat, bloody lip he wears following today's sparring.Sure, the furious aura lasts longer than usual while Helga contemplates silencing her prince permanently, but The Rage Knight thinks nothing of it while he cleans himself up after his training. It is only when Josleen’s anger amplifying effect can be felt that The King of Larket decides that something is off, and speeds up his post-training routine to get to Guillem’s nursery as soon as he can. Guillem’s angry aura grows stronger than ever before and Macon quickens his pace further. He is out of his armor, but still sweaty and bloody when he arrives on the scene to see the queen standing over what he assumes is her first kill. Slate eyes widen and he freezes in the doorway for a moment. He must guess that it is Helga playing the role of Josleen’s victim because he can’t possibly recognize her by her face, which is gone. “Josleen!” He calls out while rushing over and grabbing her at the arms, moving one hand up to take the bloody bust of a Larketian Hero away from her.

Josleen snaps out of her frenzied attack when Macon restrains her. She surrenders the bust without a fight. Her heartbeat gallops wildly, and the heat of her fury is physical as well as emotional so that she’s hot to the touch. Her body trembles as if racked by fever. The intense surge of adrenaline and rage nauseates her. “Guillem,” she gasps as she returns to her wailing son on wobbly legs like a newborn fawn. She lifts the prince from his crib and cradles him against her bosom. Mother and son slump to the floor. Josleen’s torso encircles the child like a fortress and she weeps, rocking him a little. As the rage settles and she returns to herself, her cries grow louder and deeper. She tries to stifle them for Guillem’s sake, he’s scared, but she can’t overcome her own terror completely.

Macon ’s mind is racing when Josleen breaks away from him and he is left to stare at what is left of Helga. This is the manifestation of what is likely one of his greatest fears. The Rage infection appears to have taken hold of his queen and caused her to go mad. He doesn’t know that she was protecting their son from death at the hands of his nanny, which may soothe him a bit once he hears the story told, but for now Josleen is a victim of his son’s angry aura and Muzo is lost with the only known remedy, albeit a temporary one. He lets the murder weapon drop from his hands onto the floor with a heavy thud before he moves after Josleen to the floor, enveloping her tightly as she does the prince. They remain there for a bit like a set of nesting dolls, or, more accurately for how they wrap around each other, a head of lettuce with Guillem at the heart, before Macon can ask, “Wha’ ‘appened?”

Josleen takes comfort in Macon’s embrace and slowly returns to herself, albeit a shaken version. She is unable to speak at first, and is grateful for her husband’s patience and love. Roald, the Kingsguard who has grown closest to the Royal Family, arrives at the nursery and, witnessing the spectacle and the mutilated head of (probably) Helga, closes the door the nursery and awaits orders from the King. Though unsettled by what he has seen, Roald trusts that his King and Queen have a good explanation, and he is aware that other guards may not be as convinced of their integrity as he, and so he bars entry to anyway else. Josleen wipes at the blood on her face with her hand, but it just smears and mixes with her tears. When she does speak, her sentences are broken by the occasional sob. “I felt something was wrong. When I came in, Helga was standing over the crib with the baby club from Frostmaw. She saw me, I tried to talk her down, but then she--” Her voices pinches and she’s unable to say the words. She kisses Guillem’s head repeatedly, relieved that he is alright, that he suffered no (physical) injury. “So I stopped her.” She glances at the shattered wooden rocking horse. “And then just… lost control. I kept…” Macon saw it. She’s unable to say it.

Macon ’s slate eyes widen again for a brief moment when they are discovered. He is comforted by the fact that it is Roald and not someone else. (Wendell may have also been acceptable.) He exchanges only a knowing nod with The Kingsguard and nothing more before the swordsman closes the door on them. The King keeps holding onto Josleen and Guy while The Queen speaks. The name ‘Frostmaw’ sticks out in his head when it is spoken and he glances around for the club, paranoid that Helga could have been a Frostmawian plant in place to assassinate the prince, but he doesn’t dwell on that one for long, assuming they would have gotten someone who could actually complete the job. The baby club however, is further scrutinized. Could there be some kind of malicious spell on it? Who knows!? He places a hand at the back of Josleen’s head and kisses the top of it, somehow avoiding any Helga viscera. “I’m glad you were ‘ere. You saved our son.” Surely there will be no legal consequences for the queen, but soon Macon will be wondering if, for the eyes of the fort staff and whoever else hears about this, that he takes responsibility for this kill and lift the burden of being seen as a killer off of his wife.

Josleen does not suspect foul play from Frostmaw in the slightest, and instead knows full well that Guillem’s rage infection unwittingly provoked the attack, same as Macon’s once provoked Augusta to attack. She shares this theory with the King later in the day, after bathing and putting some distance between herself and the murder. She nods when Macon says she saved their son. She did. She knows that. She also knows that she continued attacking viciously well past the point of saving Guillem. She’d been influenced by the rage before, but never had she attacked anyone so physically. She believed it wasn’t in her nature, and yet, as she reflected just yesterday at the play, her nature has changed drastically. Because of Kelovath’s betrayal? Because of the compromises of being a Queen? Because of Macon? Because of Guillem? If Macon suggests taking the blame for the kill, Josleen will make a poor show of saying that isn’t necessary. If he insists, even once, she’ll give in and accept his generosity. Macon’s already killed before, he’s a soldier, it’s nothing new. She looks at Macon now, his fat bloody lip, his concern, his relief, his devotion to her and Guillem, and her heart swells with love, their bond reinforced by this gruesome episode. When she’s ready to move again, she bathes herself then Guillem, then soaks in a clean tub with the child. Macon is free to join them as he is comfortable (Josleen is very comfortable being in the buff with her infant son). Guillem appears to be at peace despite witnessing a brutal murder, because he is with his parents. The scars of this episode have yet to show themselves in his psyche.

Macon does insist just once that he take the blame. So when they are finally ready to exit the room, The King tells the story that Josleen told him to Roald, but replaces the queen with himself and orders the Kingsguard to have the body taken away and the nursery cleaned up.The swordsman saw where the blood was (mostly on Josleen) when he took his initial look into the room, and knows that this isn’t the full truth, but he is loyal (being forgiven for being part of the rogue group that stoked the flames of war with Frostmaw will do that), and does exactly as he’s told. The version that Macon tells him is the only one he will tell to anyone who needs to know. Macon joins his family at the bath, but doesn’t get in or nude, which he does not do around Guillem when he can help it. He looks at his family as lovingly as ever, and as possible for a Fury Knight, pushing this horrible occurrence to the back of his mind as quickly as possible.