RP:Queen before God

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Summary: Macon trains his death knight abilities in secret in the Eternal Forest. Josleen, who lurked in the forest for her own secretive reasons, finds Macon and sees his death knight abilities up close. Horrified, Josleen makes it clear she doesn't like this, cannot trust this, and doesn't understand why he needs it. In an effort to not further alienate his wife, Macon agrees he doesn't need Vakmatharas anymore. He's King now, he has an army, and what has Vakmatharas done for him recently? He pledges to stop training under Vakmatharas, but privately worries what the consequences will be.

Outskirts of Larket

Macon is training. He trains so damn much. His queen is aware, at least, of the physical training he does mostly inside Fort Freedom with members of the Larketian City Guard that is done every day barring unforeseen additions to the king’s busy schedule that might prevent it. What she is certainly less aware of are these less frequent sessions that Macon conducts in solitude. The bard is not the only one sneaking out of the fort for unknown reasons it would seem. The Rage Knight was accompanied to the Eternal Forest by a pair of Kingsguard, a swordsman and a mage, but not Roald and Wendel. They leave him be and wait on the outskirts of the treeline at his command while he practices his Death Knight abilities in private. Fort staff will know his location should he be needed urgently, just not what The King is up to in there. Various flora serve as training dummies for the disciple of The Death God to practice his craft. Plant life on the ground around Macon is brown and dead in a circle about three feet in radius and there are multiple piles of black ash where saplings and such once stood before falling victim to The Fury Knight’s training session.

The eternal forest’s density and darkness has long dissuaded Josleen, and most Larketians, from casual strolls among its ancient, arthritic trees and beardlike moss. That uninviting nature has made the forest the perfect host for clandestine meet-ups and, apparently, death knight training. Josleen belongs to the former group of forest never-do-wells. She traveled to a nearby café with her guard, then excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, and escaped out a back door into the forest to meet with a quack peddling untested cures for peculiar maladies. The quack, scared of being seen with the Queen, did not offer to accompany Josleen back out of the forest. The bard lacks a sense of direction, and in the dense underbrush veered off course. Her new path intersects with her husband’s. She gasps into her hand when she sees him, and stops at the edge of life, the perimeter of green encircling the sickly plot of rot and death that surrounds Macon. Wanting to see as much of this for herself as possible, she says nothing. Like a deer paralyzed by the presence of a predator, she stands still, eyes wide, skin pricked with fear.

Macon is inside the Rage Armor, as he always is during training sessions. The marble Crown of Larket is on his head, allowed to remain there as the exercises he is going through require little to no movement that might unseat the heavy royal headgear. His prized great axe is also present for this scene, but it is discarded, lying down just outside the sphere of deathly aura that Macon controls. Josleen finds him as he begins an incantation or prayer and then bends his knees to place his hands on the leaves of a fern. The effect is rapid, this technique one he has practiced for months and months now. Briefly, the plant grows and releases spores before it begins to wither, die, and seamlessly decay into another scattered pile of black ash beneath the practicing Death Knight’s fingers. Macon exhales once the spell has run its course, and backs up, back into the center of that circle of decay. He looks around, maybe for his next target, this brief scan of the surrounding forest inadvertently testing how well The Queen is hidden.

Josleen doesn’t hide from Macon’s searching stare. He knows that she knows he’s a death knight, and thus she doesn’t feel like she’s stumbled upon a secret, but, instead, something she was meant to assume happened, but never see. Her fingers are still pressed to her mouth. The eloquent bard can’t find the words to say. When their gazes meet, she shakes her head repeatedly, the motion small and restrained. She’s alone, without Gigi too. (The poodle, no idiot, did not go to the ladies’ room with Josleen, not when there’s perfectly good sausage in the café.) Unsure if what she’s seeing is real, Josleen reaches to touch a withered fern, but hesitates and decides not to. Instead she looks from the fern to Macon and back again in disbelief.

Macon ’s slate stare widens briefly when he finds someone watching him. He is only slightly relieved to see that it is Josleen, and not someone unaware of his status as a death knight that might use this knowledge to slander him, as Lionel O’Connor did previously. The look The Queen of Larket gives him means that state of relief is short lived and The Rage Knight is quickly frowning her way. “Josleen.” He mirrors her gaze, following it with his own towards the withered fern and then leveling it back on her again. Macon is speechless for a moment or two before his stone composure returns to him and he waves a gauntleted hand to beckon her towards him, “Come ‘ere,” like he has something to show her. It is true, she wasn’t meant to ever see this if it could be avoided, but now that she has, the king will try and make the best of it. “It is not dangerous.” He promises. That is the truth, mostly.

Josleen shifts her weight from one foot to the other as if she’s about to move towards him, but hesitates again at the edge of the ring of decay, like an inverse faerie ring, flipped on its head. She takes one tentative step into the ring and nothing awful immediately happens. She didn’t expect it would, but fear is irrational. Does she fear him? No. Well, maybe. Hopefully not. She doesn’t want to fear him. It’s that desire and choice to not fear him that motivates her. She walks towards him, each step cautious, and stands an arm’s length away. Typically, when she seems him she’s quick to fawn over him and dote on him. Now she’s watchful, but still too invested to run from him. Words continue to fail.

Macon isn’t surprised to see Josleen somewhat hesitant towards him after finding him like this, but her distance displeases him all the same. One at a time he removes his gauntlets, shaking them off and discarding them on the decayed ground at his sides. He extends his, now bare, left hand, offering it to her with his palm facing upward, his expression still typically hard and difficult to read. He knows she believes in the existence in the Death God. How could a Lithrydelian her age not, given Hollow’s more recent history? Believing that to be the only prerequisite to channeling Death Knight powers, Macon makes an offer she may not find pleasant, but it is one that he hopes will be educational. “Would you like t’try? I can show you ‘ow.” The King tilts his head towards a sapling to his right and cracks the smallest, reassuring smile possible. ‘Vakmatharas isn’t so bad. I swear.’

Josleen‘s hand pauses partway between herself and his. She shakes her head more animatedly than before. “This is dark magic, Macon. This is what necromancers and the drow do. I don’t like this.” Her words wither into a ghostlike whisper, as if they hurt less when spoken low. “I don’t like that -you- do this.” She looks around them and, knowing that he can do this, shudders. “Why do you need this?” Her doe eyes roam over his hard face in search of the cracks, or the seams of a mask. She missed Kelovath’s mask, and fears she misses everyone else’s masks too.

Macon leaves his hand hovering in the air between them when she denies it, but closes it into a fist when she speaks and disproves of this dark magic at play here. Again he is wounded when Josleen tells him that she does not like this part of him at all. The Rage Knight stands tall in defense of his ‘religion,’ looking down at the bard as he answers the question regarding need. “This gives me strength.” Immediately he goes on to remind her (or maybe tell her for the first time), that without his abilities as a Death Knight he would have fallen during the defense of Larket at the bridge. These are truths that he tells sincerely, and so she will find no mask to speak off when he says them. His conclusion, which he also states aloud, is that he would not still be drawing breath if it were not for the favor of The God of Death. What he doesn't tell her, because he is not sure of its validity as a theory, is that he believes being closer to Vakmatharas will allow him to control The Rage Aura more acutely. He would prefer to not expose his belief that he has infected her with some form of death magic unwittingly.

Josleen frowns sharply as Macon reminds her of how close he came to meeting Vakmatharas in the afterlife. "I know, Macon..." It's manipulative of him to bring that up; she sees it for what it is. Still, it's no less effective simply because she understands it. He could have died, and she's grateful he didn't. "Of course I am glad beyond words that you didn't fall at the bridge. You know what you mean to me." She grimaces as she says this, though she doesn't expand on the reason why, which is that she is afraid she may have fallen for another bad man. Maybe. Hopefully not. She doesn't want to believe he is evil, but the dead ring of flora around them forces her to confront the possibility that he is, and if so: ouch. Grimace. How much more can she take? (There is another angle here which Josleen, still too innocent to think in those terms, has not yet entertained.) "Macon... When you told me you revere Vakmatharas and trained as a death knight... it sounded military. It wasn't this. I feel misled. The Veratoakan army taught you to do this? To will living things to die?" She looks incredulous. "What else can you do? What else have you done? And why?"

Macon grimaces when Josleen grimaces. Manipulating her feelings had not been the primary goal in bringing up the battle for the bridge, it was merely used as an example to show that much of his fighting strength is derived from his connection to Vakmatharas, and thus, in battle, he does -need- this. He tilts his head slightly at her questions and her insinuation that he has somehow misled her (hah!). “Being part of -any- army means willin’ livin’ things t’die.” He moves to take her outside of that ring of death and onto a more lively patch of forest while continuing. He explains some of his limited Death Knight skills to her, including the one he has demonstrated here today and the ability to create pain, which he had used against Lionel on the bridge. “I cannot practice this on Larketian Guardsmen like I do swordsmanship.” When put up against that alternative, killing a few plants might not seem so evil. “...And this,” he motions towards her, “tha’ look you’re givin’ me righ’ now. People would not understand.” He lumps Josleen in with the Larketian public here in their intolerance of his choice of deity. “So I mus’ hone these skills here, in secret like this.” He feels he has adequately explained himself and leaves the questions of what he has done and why unanswered.

As usual, Macon has the perfect spin. All soldiers kill. The message: she's fussing over the means, not the end result. He has a point and she lets him guide her outside the patch of death, but as they move, she begins to shake her head at this bull he's feeding her. The Queen is also an expert at spin, and can smell this crap for what it is. "No. No." He isn't answering her questions, and she has let him get away with these soft lies and deceit way too often. Sometimes she lets him get away with it because she loves him, and sometimes because she feels she has no alternative, in a word: trapped. But this is different. She pulls away from him, arms crossed, and paces as she fires back. "You'e right, I don't understand. Yes, all soldiers are trained to kill, and do kill, but not like this! No, Macon, this isn't just like training with a sword, alright? This is dark magic, and dark magic comes at a cost. To do -this-," she points sharply at the dead plants, "To be given these powers, you have to do something and sacrifice something. What have you done to be given these powers?" Frustrated by how slippery he is, she raises her voice a little as she repeats, "What have you done?" | Back at the cafe where Gigi begs for sausage to no avail, the guards have become very nervous. Is the Queen alright? Is she sick? Should they disturb her while she is in the bathroom? They send a waitress to ask after her, and the waitress says no one is in the ladies' room. Panicked, a guard barges into the bathroom to confirm they've lost their charge. "Sh*t shi*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t," he exclaims under his breath as he jogs back to his comrades and explains the situation. Did she leave? Was she kidnapped? Worse? They race back to the fort. Gigi, reluctantly, leaves with him, whining as he looks over his shoulder for Josleen. At the fort, the youngest of the men is told to go back out and find the King in the forest and tell him immediately. A search and rescue party is organized and sent out to find the Queen well ahead of the King's orders to do so. The young messenger meets up with the two green guards stationed at the edge of the forest. He tells them the news, and the trio of royal guard newbies figuratively wet themselves at the thought of telling the explosive King that Josleen is missing. They decide, instead, to not disturb the King as he takes his restorative walk in the woods, as the Queen will surely turn up soon. "She'll turn up soon. Maybe she left for good reason." "Or no good reason and is just in a mood. You know how women get." Besides, telling King Macon will only foul his mood needlessly. Let's wait 15 minutes and see if the fort sends word she's been found."

Macon’s lip curls up slightly and he growls low when Josleen pushes back against his avoidance of her questions. Where in the past a palpable pulse of enraging aura would have accompanied that expression, here the success of Muzo’s ‘machine’ is visible in the lack of fury in the air. He tells The Queen that he has killed to gain his strength. Surely she already knows that much. To be a Death Knight means serving The God of Death. Macon narrows his slate stare on Josleen when that fact crosses his mind. What happens next is repercussion of the Battle at The Bridge, or at least of the death of a specific Kingsguard. Had The Lightning Wolf been accompanying the king today instead of the two unseasoned men waiting on the outskirts of the forest, she likely would not have hesitated and would have been inside the forest by now and found Josleen herself, interrupting this royal chat about Vakmatharas and stopping Macon from committing to what he is about to commit to. But Maureen is dead and maybe it would have only been a matter of time for this to happen even if she wasn’t. So in this reality that lacks the electric mage kingsguard The Fury Knight says, “...but you’re righ’. I don’t need this.” He motions to the ring of dead forest that he and Josleen are now outside of, and he is correct. He has a military at his disposal that, if it is not the most fearsome one Lithrydel currently has to offer, then it certainly rivals whatever is. His individual fighting strength is inconsequential when he has the collective might of Larket under his thumb. He pledges to the missing queen that this is the last of his Death Knight training sessions. In the context of his lies, he has just broken an adult lifelong devotion to The Death God for her sake. “Now stop lookin’ at me like tha’.” In reality he's only been a Death Knight for a matter of months.

Macon's pledge to leave Vakmatharas's religion sucks all the frustration and fear out of her. She isn't sure it's as simple as he suggests when he pledges to turn his back on his religion. However, the pledge alone is a moving gesture of his affection for her. When he says 'stop looking at me like that' she's struggling against a frown. Adrenaline and fear kept her confronting him, and now that the adrenaline is gone, she's left with this hollow anxious feeling. She came so very close to believing that he is evil, just like Kelovath [!], and betraying her with his malevolence. Believing that would have ruined them, and she loves him now, and she doesn't want to stop. "Macon..." Her voice whinges on the final syllable and she closes the distance between them to embrace him tightly, as if being reunited with someone she thought she'd never see again. A near miss, a turning point from which there is no turning back. The stakes felt that high to her. Her eyes glisten happily. Relieved, she kisses his cheek several times, still holding herself to him tightly. "I'm sorry." She doesn't explain for what.

Macon holds Josleen in a close embrace while she apologizes with relieved kisses and a few words. He silently accepts the mysterious apology with a nod while he briefly worries over what the consequences are for abandoning your servitude to The Death God after he has gifted you a mighty kingdom. The King and Queen take exactly as much time reveling in this latest ‘victory’ as the young Kingsguard have unwittingly allotted them. The Royal couple exit the Eternal Forest just as their protectors are deciding to go inside and inform the king that the queen has gone missing. “Oh! There she-..!” The mage that accompanied Macon to the forest gets a swift elbow from his warrior counterpart before he can say anything else. The Rage Knight raises a brow at this interaction and at the extra royal guardsman. He assumes, wrongly, that the relieved looking Queensguard is just here because he is doing his job well, and not because he lost Josleen. A growl is avoided.