RP:Quite Contrarian
Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc
Summary: Alvina returns home after visiting Josleen in Larket's dungeons. She confronts Hudson with the timeline, asking if he knew that their breaking of the witch detector would result in an assassination attempt on the King's life. She wholeheartedly believes Josleen is not responsible. As tempers flair, Alvina mentions the parallels of their lives to the King and Queen and storms off after reminding Hudson, once again, of a past he can't seem to live down.
The Landon Estate
Alvina took the long way home, after seeing Josleen in the Larket dungeons. Her face was stained with tear tracks and she didn't want Hudson or the girls to worry. Let along anyone she ran into on the path home, which was absolutely no one thankfully. She knew most days Hudson would insist she take carriages or Mercedes from place to place but she couldn't shake her old school habits sometimes. Especially when she was in distress. Walking through the Kelay - Sage area had been her pass time for many a year before they became acquainted and more. If Kelay was the town of beginnings, what was Larket? What was Cenril? Or Frostmaw? Each held their own special flag in her heart, Larket for a longer time than any other region. Back when Lady Jacklin was Queen, and she'd been hired as a postmaster for the city. It wasn't glamorous but it helped her meet her fair share of people! The past is where her mind always flitters when faced with difficult decisions or distressing situations. She wonders what vintage Alvina would do - without husband or children. Would she break Josleen out? Find a way to investigate the murder attempt on her own? Sneak around the city in disguise? Now, she had a family and couldn't think to do anything so rash or hasty. No war summits or battles for her, anymore. Being a mother overwrites all those heroic urges. She's to be the champion of bath times and the victor over restless toddlers who refuse sleep. The mistress of grilled cheese and the sovereign of block towers. When she does arrive back at the house, it's early evening. Marge is just coming out the front door with a relieved smile. "Have a good night!" Alvina offers, just as their nanny smiles and returns the sentiment and the bard passes across the threshold into her own home. Then she loses her concerns to the frantic cries of her daughters as they both try to tell a story about a fight that broke out in school today. Luna is attempting to tell a version that fingers Harper as the culprit but Harper is vehemently denying any involvement. In truth, it just sounds like her schoolmate Greg, who had so long ago promised her world series tickets behind the home plate at the Cenril Cub's game had gotten jealous when Harper opted to argue with another boy, Charles, about relief pitchers. A fight ensued. Marge had explained as much to Hudson when she'd come home, as told by the girl's teachers in case of embellishment on behalf of the twins. Alvina lofts her brow with amazement. The things people do for attention and affection. But she remembers being that way. Perhaps she still is. All fussing about Josleen is lost, except the occasional sting of remembering that Josleen can't see her son. It makes Alvina take bath and bedtime from Hudson with no explanation. She gets a teary-eyed when making the request so he doesn't argue. Once the girls are down, she stands in the doorway watching them sleep, wondering what -she- would do if someone locked her up and tried to keep her daughters from her. Hudson had the advantage of being able to 'werewolf out'. Alvina would be practically helpless, just like Josleen. She frowns into the darkness and listens to the house settle around them on the brisk autumn eve.
Hudson is here for this sports argument and proud that his daughter dunked all over this joker Charles. It's unlike Alvina not to be home when he gets in but not all that alarming; she might have some errand. He gets all the details from Marge about their day and is reheating something from the day before and supervising some real estate development with the wooden block set in the living room when Alvina gets in. It is immediately apparent that his wife's in a very strange mood. Not cold toward him, but taciturn in front of the children in a manner that suggests she has something to tell him after their daughters are asleep. All that he extracts from her in front of them is that she'd seen Josleen. She looks about to cry when she insists on handling the bedtime ritual and he's so puzzled, he almost fights her on it because it's kind of annoying. Did he do something crappy, and not realize it? He doesn't think so. She doesn't seem angry with him. Stuck in her head, more like. He hates untold secrets, like anybody with a pulse. It's a Herculean effort not to pull her aside and demand to know what's going on. There's no point in fighting in front of the kids, though, it'll only delay bedtime, and neither of them want that. He absconds into his man cave with a beer and waits for her to show, and when she doesn't, he goes looking in the house. He finds her lurking in front of their daughters' bedroom, and he reaches around her to tug the door closed, leveling a look at her that's a big question mark. "What's going on with you?" he asks her, once he's satisfied he's mitigated the risk of waking their daughters. He takes her by the shoulders and steers her into the living room, which is where he'd left his drink when he'd gone looking. She sits, and he sits next to her, gives her that same look again. "You went to see Josleen?" he prods. "What's going on?"
Alvina is pulled away from the door by her husband, appearing more fragile than in recent interactions. There's an unplaced amount of blame hanging in the air. She isn't -mad- at him but she's guarded. Wondering, if somehow Hudson knew about all this. He looks convincingly concerned as he steers her onto the sofa and sits down beside her. His drink gathers condensation on the table. She stares at it for a minute before answering him. "She's in the Larketian dungeons." Her tone falters at this admission. "Accused of attempted murder, Macon. Some poison. They won't let her see her son." Her eyes start to well with helpless tears. Her face reads of guilt, her heart throbbing against her ribs in outrage. "Right after we broke the machine..." Alvina swallows audibly, her eyebrows crinkled. a silent question mark. Is this our fault, her face reads. She can't yet find voice to give the question audible presence.
Like a sixth sense he never asked for, Hudson can feel his wife's unspoken criticism of his beer just sitting on the coffee table and he reaches to replace it on a coaster. There. Josleen's in the dungeons? "What?" he looks at Alvina like she's sprouted a second head. That's well and truly a shock. There's no reason to doubt his wife, but why hasn't he gotten briefed on this? Either it hasn't well and truly leaked, or he hasn't paid close enough attention. Could be either. He watches Alvina's face become suffused with guilt and wonders if his own expression mirrors it. He is very silent and looks at her, her eyes wet with tears and an obvious question that he doesn't know the answer to. He has to say something, he's conscious of the seconds making the space between them feel larger. He curses. He curses, again. "Well, she obviously didn't do it," he says. "They'll figure it out, and she'll be freed. Whatever crap the resistance is doing didn't work. The King's obviously still alive, he'll exonerate her." They'd have heard if the King of Larket had passed. He may be down for the count, but it's got to be temporary. A beat, Hudson presses his palm against Alvina's back. "Sven. This is only going to make all of it worse for them." He means the witches. That's who he's thinking about. Because he's thinking this one ahead, and it's ugly. "How is Josleen holding up?"
Alvina exhales a heavy sigh when Hudson mentions the resistance. She'd hoped, foolishly, that they weren't involved. Each curse tells her that he's aware of something. His reassurances don't work to soothe her. "Of course she didn't -" she starts before he continues. The king will explain everything. "He's in a coma and they are doing an investigation on who is at fault. Without the witch detector they can't really tell if magic was used. He's under the care of his staff but, if he doesn't wake up... And Josleen is charged with a crime she didn't commit... " She'll die, it's that simple. Alvina's empty hand lifts to stifle a morose sound. A directionless whine at the circumstances. She isn't thinking about the witches, because it wasn't Valrae she saw in a tattered dress. Crying out for her son, eyes so red and puffy she must have been crying since she came. "They won't even let her see her son - how do you think?" Her voice is barbed, there's that blame she didn't know where to place. Hudson gave the resistance money. Their funds made this farce possible. Josleen didn't deserve this. To lose her life because of Macon's manipulation of her emotions! Or even, if Josleen just loved the secret side of the monarch! Love is blind. She'd been attacked! This is where those muddy lines come in. While Alvina sympathized with the witch population, Jos was her friend. She took precedence, bad as it sounded. "We destroyed the machine and the resistance must have waited for that - exact- moment to pull this madness. Hudson, did you know?" Her dull emerald gaze settled on his. She stiffens under his touch against her back. "Did you know this was going to happen?" She whispered.
Hudson doesn't actually know anything, he's just got a serious hunch here. Who else, if not the Resistance? His brow crinkles at the mention of Macon being in a coma. For real? Waking a guy from a coma is something magic can't solve? Hudson has the bitter thought that maybe Larket is having trouble finding a magic user who will treat the Rage King, after how he's treated them. They'll find one, though. If one thing being alive in Lithrydel has taught Hudson, it's that you have to eliminate your enemies swiftly and conclusively, or else they find ways to come back, like a lizard regrowing its tail. He can know this truth and find empathy for his crying wife, for Josleen, too. This would destroy Alvina, were it them. (But it isn't.) "That's really terrible," Hudson agrees with his wife, hears the sting in her voice. She thinks that they caused this and blames him. He is quiet, knows that she'll say as much in a moment - ah, there it is. She seems to flinch against his hand and he looks at her, decides to reach for his beer since she won't let him console her. "You know I don't know anything about this, Alvina, apart from what you've just told me," he says. "I assume it's them, though." A beat. Does he? He drinks from his beer, tries to imagine Josleen, in his mind's eye, turning on her husband, father of her child, and the best meal ticket she's ever had. Had she woken up and realized she'd married a monster, had his persecution of witches become too much? What a deep con her performance of loving wife would be. She's capable of that part, but he doesn't buy it, still. He wishes that she were guilty. Scratch that, he wishes that she were guilty and had succeeded. He watches his wife's face. "Destroying the machine was the right thing to do, doesn't make this thing with Josleen right," he tells her. Careful omission of what happened to Macon, there. "They're going to wake him up, Alvina, and there'll be hell to pay." He scoffs, thinking suddenly of Valrae. He feels a phantom pang of worry for her, a pang that quickly becomes anger. She's so stupid if she's involved with this. So stupid to worry everyone who cares about her, which doesn't include him, absolutely not, but. She's SO STUPID. "They're such idiots," he says, and drinks from his beer.
Alvina thought better than to ask Josleen about a witch helping because…it would be the –perfect- opportunity for someone to actually kill the king. The bard has plenty of blame for herself, but it’s easier to shrug off because that had never been her aim. To save some witches and make it harder to find / persecute them? Entirely. To aid in an assassination attempt on the king? It hadn’t even so much as crossed her mind. She couldn’t assume it didn’t cross Hudson’s – especially with Valrae being one of the witches. The truth serum had done it’s job, told her what feelings remained for the witch in Hudson’s heart but the old itch was there. “I don’t know that – “ she follows up, turning her eyes to the floor. She isn’t thinking about Josleen and Macon in the sense of a symbiotic relationship. Her heart aches for the fact the Queen really does love him. How would Alvina feel if it was Hudson? If he’d suddenly been found out for his crimes and they were held apart? Her as an accomplice and him as the ring leader of Cenril’s crime syndicate? If she wasn’t allowed to see their daughters?! “Not if someone has a chance to get to him first.” And if that happened? Would it prove Josleen’s innocence or secure her as the guilty party? Macon’s mother had it in for Jos anyway, so she’d surely use her grief to persuade the Larketian population that Josleen was responsible. Maybe she’d gotten what she wanted, an heir to the throne, and no longer required Macon’s services. There is always a way to spin things so they are believable. Alvina didn’t want to hear how Hudson thought the witches might be idiots for doing this. Didn’t he support the cause, after all? “You wouldn’t be saying that if they’d been successful.” She huffs, crossing her arms between them. “What if it was you…?” She asked, guilty intermingling with fear. “And you couldn’t see our daughters? –I- couldn’t see our daughters? Can you even imagine being so helpless?”
Hudson thinks his wife is underestimating how poorly this attack has gone for Team Witch. In his mind, if they could have finished Macon off, they would have. As a criminal, Hudson keeps close a certain golden rule: You come at the king, you best not miss. Maybe she knows this, she's just arguing for the sake of it, to be contrarian. He hasn't missed that his wife's tone has gotten increasingly sharp with him. It wouldn't surprise him if on some level she believes he's intentionally involved them in this for the sake of Valrae. He feels mildly annoyed that it could be (is likely) true, or cementing as the truth in her mind. Of all people, he'd be the first to say families are off limits, it's fighting dirty to go after women and children. And Josleen is her friend! And sort of his friend, they'd had some good times, she's a nice person on her terms. Alvina's tone and body language has gotten accusing with him. "Did you forget, it has happened to us," he says brusquely. Alvina being like this is now making him dig in, to be a contrarian too. (Later he will realize this was very stupid.). "The Larket mob came after you and the girls. I don't think it's right what's happening to Josleen but you have to consider the risks when your husband is a fascist."
Alvina bug eyes a bit. Her expression morphs into a pointed ‘Excuse me??’ face that all women get. It’s hereditary, passed down the line from the first woman to be sassed. “Of course I haven’t forgotten,” she hisses with intention, unable to keep herself still so she stands, turns her back to him. “What does that say about us Hudson?” She’s still staring at the kitchen in the distance, eyes wavering from anger. She’d gone from tearful and scared for Josleen to defensive of her friend’s position and wounded by the cross comparison. “Shouldn’t I have considered the risks when I found out my husband was a leading power in Cenril’s crime scene?” She wouldn’t care to know the details of how the Larket mob issue had been resolved. Hudson hadn’t explained, but had told it was settled in more civilian terms. Isn’t that what countless people have told her? Isn’t that something they’d argued about more than once before? It’s so -easy- to forget that his work is endangering other people. She wants to whole heartedly believe that he’s trying to switch to real estate like he’s promised but she has this gut feeling it won’t happen while maniac’s like Kahran are on the loose. So when will it? “What should Josleen have done different, I’d love to hear your opinions. Since she married a fascist, fell in love with a bad man.” Her tone squeezes in a faux cutesy voice for Macon’s ‘tile’. His wife doesn’t pull punches in fights. She aims for the throat almost always. Like she’s a ball of kindness and selflessness until challenged on her decisions. Alvina’s panting a bit, fists clenched at her sides and standing still. Her fingers dig into her palms, the knuckles of her right hand turned white with effort. The dullness of her eyes is gone, replaced with passion backlighting her singular focus.
Hudson had seen this one coming, had perhaps provoked it, and he stiffens on the sofa as Alvina stands. He taps a finger against the mouthpiece of his beer, considering her words. "I'm not saying she's not worthy of empathy," he says, to her back. "I'm saying that maybe she's the one person who could have talked sense into him and she didn't. Instead she helped him, made him seem normal to everyone. She completely rehabilitated that guy's image! Did everybody just forget that he was The Bad Guy before?!" He ignores that his wife just tried to make it about them. "She's going to be fine," he reminds her. "Macon's going to wake up and it'll be a blood bath in Larket until they're both happy." He lifts his eyebrows. "Here's what she should have done. She should have actually done it. I wish I could believe your friend were guilty. Then she'd just be a normal murderess, not complicit in this trash. Yeah he's a bad man. He persecutes entire groups of people." His voice takes on a nasty undertone, "INNOCENT people, in case you feel like making a comparison."
Alvina’s jaw tightens as Hudson digs right back at her. So was she just supposed to magically convince him not to sell drugs? Is he accusing her of making the wrong decisions? She’d invested countless time in changing his image in the eyes of those who know about him. And even if they don’t, she’d gone to great lengths in most cases to make him appear better than the average guy. TO THINK. “We don’t know that she’ll be fine!” She tempers her voice to keep from waking their daughters. When Hudson suggests that Jos should have actually murdered Macon, Alvina takes a step back - as if struck by his words. His clarification that it’s -innocent- people only makes her balk. “So you’re saying that it’s completely different; him and you? Because your organization only offers a -service- to people in -need-? I’m sure there’s no way you are targeting certain groups of people in order to make money in the drug ring. That’s absolutely preposterous.” She hisses, hands slacking so she can wave her wrist in the air with her sarcastic remark. There’s no way Josleen could have stopped Macon if he was doing what he believed. And there were plenty of ways and reasonings he could have used to convince her. After all, Hudson had convinced Alvina that being a drug lord ‘wasn’t so bad’. Even when she’d tried to make him fund recovery clinics. To give people options. But it was bad for business. Of course it was. OF FRAKKIN COURSE. “I absolutely love how the witches are more important to you thank Josleen. The woman we went to bars with. OUR friend. My -best- friend.” The word ‘witches’ carries a certain connotation. She can’t help herself. She’d never say it that way in front of Valrae but Val wasn’t here. It was just Hudson and Alvina - trying to have this heated argument within screaming range of their children. “You are such a hypocrite, I can’t stand you.” Like Hudson hadn’t caused a bloodbath for the Larket mob. She’s sure that’s exactly how it had played out. But they were more deserving right? Alvina moves to turn away, rigid and visibly done having this argument. If they keep talking, she’s going to implode. She’d just watched Josleen huddled in a dungeon cell in a soiled dress, screaming for her son. And here Hudson was suggesting she should have murdered her husband a long time ago.
Hudson cants his head and tweezes his wife with a sharp look before finishing the rest of his beer. Is she really comparing him to Macon? Is this conversation happening? His head pounds. He doesn't think she really believes what she's saying, they're just dug in on either side now. Ah, here it comes - the 'witches.' Mysterious plural witches. Easy for Alvina to talk about them like that, to conveniently ignore her friendship with Uma, and with his secretary Joanie. That's because there's only one witch this is about. And Hudson is so tired of her. He's tired of how Valrae haunts their arguments, how her name feels like a hand at his throat. Even now, after Alvina's indiscretions. "Your best friend will BE FINE," he tells her, raising his voice as much as he dares in the quiet of their home. This remark about him being a hypocrite hits him where it hurts. "Alvina, that was uncalled for, the hell's wrong with you, I don't try to commit genocide, I run a business," he says sharply. He puts his beer on the coffee table and gets up to take her by the wrist, with the idea of keeping her from retreating to their shared bedroom. Which is a ridiculous flounce if he thinks about it. But she abruptly jerks her arm away, and he holds his hands up, as if to say, I'm done trying, then. "Fine, go," he tells her, backing away himself. He doesn't like going to bed angry but he feels like punishing her and cutting off his nose to spite his face right now. "I'm sick of you and your holier than thou bull today. I'll sleep in the guest room, I'll see you in the morning."
Alvina loves Uma and Joanie has grown on her. It isn’t that she wants the Larket population of witches to suffer. It’s not even that she wants Valrae specifically to suffer. It’s mostly that she wants to hurt Hudson, in this moment, for making these rash assumptions and lacking sympathy for Josleen’s terrible situation. She wanted to illustrate how their lives are mirrored, in a way, and it could just as easily be them. What would he have had her do, in their situation? Because what he’d wanted her to do when she found out he was a gangster was just accept the lavish lifestyle and forget the darker underbelly of where their money came from. And she had. Her daughters - she thought they needed this life. It made her feel foolish in the moment. Her indiscretions feel less unreasonable. She wonders, for a split second, if she made the best choice coming back. Everyone has a dark side. This was just the dark side she ignored for the rest of it. Hers and his. When had she grown so bitter and ready to fight? She couldn’t recall as she’s reflexively pulling her hand out of Hudson’s wrist and ignoring his remark about seeing her tomorrow. She wants to believe she isn't the only one suffering but she can’t remember when it had turned into an argument about them - again. For the hundredth time. About Valrae. About his job. “Holier than thou…” she mumbles under her breath, moving into the bedroom alone and collapsing into the bed. Her face hits the pillow, she bleats out a burst of formless anger. Feels the heat of her breath reflect back from the finest down interior. Even their arguments were lavish.
Hudson regrets letting Alvina flounce almost immediately upon entering the guest room. It's so impersonally yet tastefully decorated and it reminds him of their separation and as he sinks into the bed he has the sensation of his mouth filling with dust. He hates that he's back here. He should have just kept his mouth shut and taken it from her and told her that it's not worth arguing about. Better yet, he shouldn't have assumed a contrary position just because he felt her assuming one. He feels the sting of resentment on the end of that thought: why is everything about Valrae. It is never about the painful things Alvina has done to him - done to him recently, too! She is always making him pay for Valrae. It doesn't matter what grand romantic gestures he does, how present he is at home, with Alvina, his painstaking efforts at saying and meaning The Things that are supposed to keep the peace. It doesn't matter that he and Valrae have had nothing for such a long time now, that those memories make him feel embarrassed. Valrae's continued existence is like a cancer that destroys all goodwill he has accumulated, once his wife gets going on thinking about her. He wishes he'd never seen Valrae. She poisons everything.