RP:That's Right
Part of the Rise of Larket Arc
Summary: Having botched the proposal, Macon follows Josleen to the statue garden in Schezerade. There’s a blow out. The argument escalates quickly, but ultimately Josleen leaves with Macon for Larket and both want to make up.
Causeway of Statues=
Josleen paces the causeway angrily. Were it not for Macon’s rage, she’d be fighting back tears, but the rage keeps her strong. There’s not wetness on her lashes. She’s dried eyed, angry, humiliated. The kingsguard saw which way she went and may point Macon to his seething bride-to-be.
Macon waits for Hildegarde to take her leave from the garden, and then a few moments more so that she won't catch him deliberately disobeying her advice that he let Josleen be for a little bit. ‘You don't have to marry her,’ is probably a smart ass retort he thinks of that he has no chance to use against the previously enemy dragon queen. The King does get direction from his bodyguards and again has them wait where they are while he goes to tend to this crisis alone. He is chasing, but not very quickly, after he hands off the stone crown to Wendell. The Rage Knight drags his broken leg in the direction of the half-elf and calls out to her once she is in view, “Josleen.” He moves to close the distance, but hopes that she might assist in that goal given that she's got two working legs.
Josleen looks up at Macon the moment he calls her name. Her shoulder is turned towards him defensively, arms crossed, lips set in a humorless, straight-lined scowl. The wind whips around the stoney and still statues, Josleen among them. Eventually she manages the ask the question that has plagued her since she left the garden. “How long?” Beat. “How long did you have this planned?”
Macon narrows his slate stare at the question. He could ask the same thing, just as upset, about how long she was planning to shake him down for some extra coin while he was bargaining to save the lives of Larketians and Frostmawians alike, couldn't he? He's doesn't turn the question around though. Either he is taking the high ground or he really doesn't want to know the answer. “I didn’. I wasn'.” A half truth. He has perhaps thought of taking her as his queen in Larket at least once before, but he definitely was not planning on the proposal being a part of peace talks. In fact, when picturing it, Hildegarde probably wasn't supposed to be present at all. “I thought of it in there.”
Josleen had also perhaps entertained the idea of being his wife and queen. Certainly at least once when sitting casually in Larket’s throne as if she belonged there. In her imagining of it, there was some love between them, something akin to a marital bond, something similar to watch she felt in his arms in Kelay the other night (last night? this morning?). But this feels cold, calculated, rubber stamped. A marriage for political gain. She feels foolish for believing what he told her through his touch and kiss. That message, as she perceived it, made her so happy, and now what is this? She suddenly sobs, once, and looks away. She looks at the distant horizon to refocus herself. After a rueful shake of her head, she looks back at Macon. “Well. You got what you wanted.” Though she wishes to leave it there, she can’t resist one more jab. Wounded animals bite. “Again,” she says, alluding to their carnal relations.
Macon’s expression softens momentarily with her singular sob, but again she will miss the show of sympathy, for when she recomposes and looks back and throws that verbal jab he almost sneers. Somewhere in Schezerade two avians are getting into a fistfight over politics because Josleen is so upsetting The Furious King that he is putting out enough of the Rage Aura to push them over the edge. “Tha’s right. I got wha’ I wanted.” He pauses and stares her down, “Did you?” He doesn't directly bring up the demand that she be paid for her time at Fort Freedom, but he kind of pokes at it there.
Josleen snarls at his retort. Her own rage spikes with his. As she glares at him she is caught between two impulses: to hit him and to shag him. He is still, despite all this, the object of her desire. Shred up his armor, and his heart, the latter as revenge for the pain he’s made her feel. In spite of herself, she closes the distance between them aggressively, the tension amplifies. She doesn’t want him to leave, she wants him to bend to the will of her fantasy, and failing that, she’ll punish him. Ignoring his question, that is obviously a trap, she asks, “Did you just come here to torment me?”
Macon and Josleen fall into that same infuriating feedback loop they found themselves in when Hildegarde came to Fort Freedom to take the Thane. The King matches her lustful glare with his own and defies her and her fantasy for as long as he can despite that stare betraying that he wants to do otherwise. If she closes that little bit of distance that is left between them then he’ll give in, of course, but for now he taunts the bard and her question when she won't answer his, “Tha’s right.”
Josleen dizzies from the heat that rushes to her head. Macon is a very good taunter, but of course she doesn’t believe him. She sees the taunt for what it is, and yet, in this enraged state, cannot resist the attack. “You want to fight?” Josleen has never laid an unkind hand on a partner before, but none have enraged her and goaded her quite like this. She shoves his chest plate weakly, not to move him in any way (even with his bad leg), but to make a point she is well pissed. “This? Hmm? Because I asked for some gods damn money?!” She shoves at his armor again, still without intent to harm but certainly to communicate her displeasure with him. She raises her voice, quite unlike her. He brought her to this temperature and prompted her to boil. He’s getting his eruption. “That estate was -all- I had and it was -all- riding on that ASShole Kelovath! That was -IT- for my future plans! And you!” Again she taps his chest plate in a way she’s never done before with anyone. “You -never- ONCE said ANYthing to me to make me believe you’d want me after all this was said and done! Not a single gods damn thing, and you get mad at -me- when I try to ensure a comfortable future for myself?! When it doesn’t even cost you a damn thing!” She stops as if she’s about to let him speak. False alarm. She takes a breath and starts up again. “And you know -damn- well that I’d have taken you over a damn HOUSE any day! Any day!” Now the angry tears start to bead on her lashes as she gets to the crux of her complaint. “And I did! I did say yes, but not even to you! To Hildegarde! You have such little regard for me! So how DARE you come here and want to fight me after -humiliating- me like that!”
Macon and the hexed Rage Armor take the token abuse without reacting. He understands her anger, he truly does, and he anticipated this gambit of his upsetting her as soon as he put it into action. Though the question remains, isn't this what she wanted? She has just admitted as much. If he had proposed this same marriage this morning in Kelay wouldn't she have agreed wholeheartedly? He sees a bit of his own fury in her and, despite what the headmaster if the magic academy has told him about Josleen’s unique reaction to his maddening aura, he wonders and fears if he has infected her as he has so many of his Kingsguard. He drops one gauntleted hand onto the bard’s shoulder once she has said what she had to say, using her for balance slightly, and drops the Rage Axe to the ground with a -clang- to free up his other hand to do the same. Looking like he is about to shake her (he doesn't shake her), he says, “I don’ care if you're humiliated.” A lie. “You are going t’be my queen. Tha’s what I wanted.”
The King calms down a little, and so does Josleen. She sniffs and wipes the tears from her eyes. Her shoulders tremble from the effects of the rage, and from being told her humiliation, her wants, don’t matter. She sobs once, this one more like a gasp as if coming up for air after such an explosion. “Why didn’t you ask -me-. Just me. You should have told me you would do this. I just want--” She cuts herself off. He doesn’t care. He’s made that plenty clear and any more requests or explosions would just embarrass her further. She shakes her head to indicate she won’t finish that thought and looks away from Macon resigned to whatever the hell this is, this marriage on shaky footing from go.
Macon says again, “I didn’ plan t’do this.” He is not sure whether it is flattering or insulting that as soon as negotiations became heated, marrying her was the first thing that came to his mind. The way she finally resigns make him feel as if he is kidnappings and imprisoning her again, and maybe he is, but this time that isn't his intention. She could have refused, true, but she didn't. He won't say anything dramatic like ‘if you don't like it then back out. There are other ways to achieve peace.’ It isn't his style and something like that doesn't even cross his mind. Instead, he is blunt, as usual, “I am going back t’Larket. Come with me.” Based on his softened tone this is less of a command than he usually gives her in this situation.
Josleen doesn’t want to back out of this, nor is she flattered or insulted. It’s as she has said over and over: she humiliated. She thought she meant more to him than this, and in a single act he made her feel cheap. Her gaze begs him to give her an inch, to turn back the clock a little and make her feel like he did this morning in Kelay. “Macon…” She makes a small, sad noise at the back of her throat, releases it with a sigh. She doesn’t say yes or no. Of course it’s a yes. That isn’t the point. None of this is the point. Her body softens as if she is ready to yield any moment now, but it comes at a cost. If she does yield without getting what she wants, she leaves defeated.
Macon did not expect his perceived winning streak to come to an end like this. On the heels of his greatest victory, essentially turning the rest of the world against Kelovath and bringing peace to his kingdom on top of that after a victory over the city of war. This is where he loses? To Josleen? To Josleen and whatever little noise she just made? What the hell does she want. Anger is the default reaction that gives way to the reason behind it. His features soften and he admits, for the first time to her, “I made a mistake.” He may or may not believe that to be true, because there is a possibility that if he didn't make the move he made, he might still be in the garden arguing about an outpost that simply cannot be. An outpost that was an absolute, walk away from negotiations, deal breaker if he did not get to take Josleen back to Larket with him as his Queen. From his perspective he's given up a piece of his kingdom to be with her and she spits on it. “Come back t’Larket. I need you there.”
Josleen hears something akin to regret, and something closer to fondness in Macon’s voice. It breaks through her stubbornness. She wants to patch things up as much as he does. They’re engaged now. He’s still the man she wants to lose herself in, even if his approach is rough, and sometimes -because- his approach is rough. She nods then caresses her nose against his jaw. “Ok.” She nods again. “Ok.” She doesn’t say much as they leave Schezerade. As they pass the Kelay Inn in the carriage, the building brings back fonder memories. Her hand slides along the bench and her pinky and ring finger reach out for his. She looks at him sidelong and invites him to try again, to fix this in the best way he knows how, bluntly.
This carriage ride is thankfully not as awkward as their first one together during Josleen’s initial kidnapping, and no one is crashing the coach to try and kill them. Thank goodness, because there is no more Lightning Wolf to save them this time. As soon as she prompts him he is on her, and perhaps even sooner than that, eager to mend the slight of proposing to her incorrectly. They find out how absolutely ridiculous a task it is to remove plate armor around a broken leg while inside a moving carriage. Also, poor whoever is driving this thing. Is it Wendell? No Wendell can fly. That poor anti-mage is driving and is subject to whatever the king and future queen of Larket can imagine back there.
The monumental task of removing plate armor from a broken leg in a moving carriage is only the first of many impossible projects they will tackle. And it gives them an opportunity to laugh together, the ultimate cure for any fight.