RP:Wakin' the Bacon

From HollowWiki

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc


Summary: Callum’s antidote works! Macon wakes from his coma, and, finding his wife not at his side and in a cell, rages! The Royal Family is reunited, Gigi included. Macon asks Josleen to tell him the truth, and she does. He vows to hurt everyone who did this to them, starting with Valrae.

Fort Freedom, Larket

Macon has survived the assassination attempt by virtue of quick and competent action by the Fort Freedom staff. So instead of being six feet under in the Larket Cemetery, or in some mausoleum in Veratoak based on the whims of Augusta Jauzon, he is alive and comatose in the fortress sickbay, which has partially transformed to accommodate its VIP (Very Important Patient). An area of the infirmary containing his bed, king size because duh, has been sectioned off and placed under heavy 24/7 guard. This private portion of the medical wing is made up as warm and inviting as possible, magically and candle lit, in stark contrast to the sterility of the facility it has been carved out of. The poisoned Rage Knight is being kept alive, and bedsores, atrophy, and the like are being kept at bay by the best medical and arcane methods Lithrydel can muster. While the king waits in limbo, Josleen mourns in a plush cage, and Guillem ages years in a matter of months, the royal botanist, Callum, works on an antidote that should bring the former Death Knight back from his deathbed, and now that serum has been completed, hopefully.

The recent attack on Larket means that the resident storm mage is attending to other matters that are debatably more pressing, and opts to have the reviving potion delivered to the fort. It’s also a possibility that he doesn’t want to be around if it doesn’t do as advertised. Nonetheless, today is the day they wake up the King of Larket. Medical staff administer the antidote with bated breath, unsure of how quickly or slowly it will take to work, or if it will even work at all. Seconds pass and there is no change in the unconscious Macon, perhaps to be expected. Minutes crawl by and some frustration starts to show in those surrounding the Fury Knight, thanks in no small part to the subtly increasing amount of infuriating aura his body is emitting. A half hour passes and he stirs slightly, getting hopes up, but then doesn’t move again for another fifteen minutes, during which people are shouting ‘Your Highness?!’ and the like at him, trying to get him to wake the rest of the way up. When he does wake it isn’t groggily and slowly as one might expect from someone who has been out for close to a month, but it is sudden and violent, as one would expect from The Rage Knight. He shoots up, as if awakening from a nightmare, bending at the waist and is accompanied by a far reaching pulse of the angry aura he has inherited from The Rage Stone that sparks some bickering between guards outside of Josleen’s cell.


Macon looks around the strange section of the infirmary that has not ever existed while he was awake and wonders in a panic where he is. He recognizes none of these faces and is trying to parse them while simultaneously attempting to figure out how he’s ended up wherever here is. “Josleen…” The name leaves his lips before the hazy final memory he has even finishes playing in his mind. He swings his legs over the side of his bed and the weakened muscles crumble beneath him when he puts his weight on them. He manages to hold himself mostly upright by supporting his frame with the side of the bed. Attendants, too many of them, rush to his side to get him fully up and insist that he rest more. Their insistence earns a classic growl and the question, “Where is my wife?” His voice seething with fury just beneath the surface. They all look at each other, none wanting to be the messenger that is proverbially killed. A seasoned veteran of dealing with The Rage Knight speaks up, knowing that not answering him will inspire more anger than the truth itself, “We can take you to her, Your Highness.” At the very least, this will allow them to assist him in the short trip through the fort’s underground level to the cell she is being held in. It isn’t long before Macon, a team of infirmary staff, and a couple of members of the Royal Guard are on their way to see the queen. As they approach, and the possible whereabouts of his wife are narrowed down, Macon’s anger grows, pouring out pulse after pulse of Rage Aura that should let Josleen know he is coming before he even rounds the corner into view. The very first thing she’ll be able to hear from him is “Open the door,” directed at the closest person that might be able to do that. “Sir, she is suspected of p-” That’s a mistake. Even in his weakened state, the king can still get up for some violence to deter insubordination, and whoever was speaking is thrown forcefully against the wall. “Open the f-” a seagull ca-caws, “door!”


Josleen feels the unmistakable pulse of rage and tears out from under the duvet draped over her non-king-size cot (cot!). What does that pulse mean? Is he awake? Or worse, is this her husband’s last gasp as he faces off against Death? No, it can’t be that! Or could it be? Tears sting her eyes in equal parts frustration, grief, and hope. Not knowing, having no way of knowing, enrages her and Macon (and Guillem) may feel a pulse sent right back. She grips the iron bars and screams at the bickering guards, “Take me to my husband, you imbeciles! I must know how he is!” They ignore her, as they have been ignoring her, with or without the rage aura’s influence, for months. As the pulse grows closer, her grief gives way to hope, and when she hears his voice at last, unbridled joy. It overwhelms. She’s trembling, crying from happiness. The seconds it takes the guard to open the door stretches into eternity, during which Josleen’s gaze sweeps over her husband’s pale face, his now-thinner build, his stubble, all the things she couldn’t look after while he was trapped in undeath and she trapped in this disgusting cell. The incense do little to cover the stench of decay. A fancy mirror on the wall makes the stone no less pock-marked, molded, and damp. No golden duvet, no matter how many times Floria washed it, can make a cot comfortable. No velvet partition screen erected for privacy can hide the indignity of using a chamber pot that’s cleared only twice a day. And the Queen herself, with no crown, no makeup, no coiffed hair, hardly inhabits the grandeur and stature owed to her station. But it doesn’t matter for none of the trappings of royalty have anything to do with what Macon and Josleen are now: husband and wife reunited. As soon as the door opens she rushes to her husband and embraces him tightly, gasping and whispering his name repeatedly, feverishly crying that she was so worried, she wanted to be with him every moment. It doesn’t occur to her that Macon, like the guards and Wendel and everyone else on her long list of the-soon-to-be-unemployed, may suspect her of poisoning him. They both smell of unwash and reek of halitosis, but she doesn’t care, she can’t bring herself to put distance between them now.


Macon, having been fractionally Van Winkle’d by the assassination attempt, doesn't know exactly how long he's been out. The Rage Knight hasn't had the opportunity to miss his wife as she has missed him, but his first concern when waking up was seeing her all the same. He remembers that Josleen did this to him somehow, so he's also come for answers. Without the opportunity given to the fort staff to brief him on what has happened while he has been out of commission, it falls on The Queen of Larket to have the first chance to paint the picture of the past few weeks in Larket in the King’s mind. Before that though, they embrace and he holds her tightly, already getting a slight sense of the amount of time he’s missed by the emotional way in which she receives him. Despite the morning breath that has been brewing for about a month, he inflicts a number of kisses on Frostmaw’s Thane and possible double agent. ‘Wha’ ‘appened?” He finally asks, pulling back slightly to take in the full sight of her and where she has been kept for what he is now assuming is a number of weeks. Don’t worry, Josleen, headbutts are sure to be distributed in kind.


Josleen knows what Macon is asking, but, because Guillem is never far from her mind, once freed from her cell she cannot sit down and explain anything to Macon until she sees her son. “I haven’t seen Guillem for a month. Your mother has him.” Her lip quivers in and out of a snarl and frown as she says ‘your mother’. “Our son doesn’t know anything, and with the curse…” She chokes up, her lips trembling again. “Who knows how old he is now. I need to see him.” She holds Macon’s hand and starts leading him upstairs to find their boy. On the way she explains quickly, “Someone broke into the castle.” [It’s really more of a fort, but Josleen wants a castle, so.] “They disguised themselves as me and poisoned you.” She skips over the details of finding him in the office, Percival’s quick thinking, the accusations, Wendel’s decision to arrest her. All of that she will explain in time, but currently she is distracted by the thought of seeing her boy. “They didn’t believe that it wasn’t me. Floria as my only witness.” Later she’ll tell him of her other allies too: Roald, Eirik, Callum, and so on. “Over a week ago the city was attacked.” Now they are on the first floor, and if Macon looks out the window, he’ll get a taste of some of the damage nearest the fort. The barbarians reached the gates, which are mangled and have been replaced by temporary, weaker wooden ones. “I don’t know the details of that terrible day, they told me nothing. All I know is that that witch Valrae is under arrest. She gave herself up as the assassin the same day as the attack, but the investigators wanted to verify her claim before setting me free, because well… The disguise was convincing,” she says spitefully. How could anyone believe she’d kill her beloved husband and king? They reach the second floor, and from this vantage point the King may appreciate the city-wide destruction that Kahran, his monstrous army, Valrae, and witches inflicted on his city. The details of what happened the day will have to come from The Guard, for Josleen spent it cowering in the dungeons as the army lay siege, as confused then as Macon is now. Guillem, still affected by his parents’ rage, wails in the nursery and Augusta tries to shush him with gentle cooing and the occasional ‘That’s enough now.’ Josleen rushes into the nursery, pushes Augusta aside, drops to her knees and scoops up her boy into her arms. He looks about 5 now, and speaks in full sentences (of limited vocabulary). Mother and son rock back and forth, crying, happy to be reunited, and turn to include Macon, who has been embraced tightly by Augusta, who is not usually a hugger but this occasion certainly calls for it.


Macon gets a more definitive grasp on how long he's been incapacitated when Josleen says she hasn't seen their son for a month. So he knows it has been at least that long. Any guards that look like they are even considering stopping the Queen as she leads Macon through the castle are met with a slightly tilted head and a wild slate stare that had them instantly reconsidering their understanding of what their duties are in this moment. He believes his wife far more than perhaps one should when they are a witness to their own poisoning, but he finds the story of witchcraft being used to impersonate Josleen and kill him a much easier pill to swallow than the mother of his child pulling off one of the greatest acts of espionage Lithrydel has ever seen, against him over the course of about a year. Just like he finds it easy to fill in the blanks in her story. ‘Witches attacked the city. Looking to finish what they started.’ His anger grows with each detail and glimpse at his city, on the brink of ruin again. Somewhere in the fort the new Rage Stone, crafted from the extracted fury of the king, resonates with the Aura he is emitting. In the training fields, knights can't help but continue beating their already downed sparring partners with their practice swords, and a chef spits in some dignitary’s soup. It's all too much for Macon, to see his wife reduced to a prisoner and his city reduced again to smoldering rubble, and he can offer no outward reaction as he is led to his mother and son. The sight of Guillem, nearly twice the size he was the last time the king saw him, is enough to make something snap. He's silent while Augusta embraces him and checks to make sure that he is real and not some horrible hallucination, and the Rage Aura stops completely as he moves into his family's embrace, as if all of the anger in the entire fort, or perhaps all of Larket has been sucked back into The Fury Knight and bottled up to stew for later. It's impossible for him to enjoy this reunion. Instead it feels as if he's woken up into a new nightmare. The witches have attacked everything he holds dear. They tried to kill him, framed his wife, are making his son die slowly before his eyes, and lashed out at his kingdom and its people once again. He holds Guillem and Josleen close, an arm curled tight around both of them, his hand in their hair, and his mind in a trance and racing all at the same time. “Pee-yew,” Guy says, crinkling up his face at the smell coming from both his parents, before laughing.

Josleen, with tears still in her eyes, laughs weakly at Guillem’s teasing. When did he learn that? When did he grow so big? She feels as though years of motherhood have been robbed from her. She shares in Macon’s hollowness in the face of what they face together. But for Guillem’s sake she pushes through it. Augusta avoids Josleen’s gaze, which is easily accomplished as the frosty evasion is mutual and palpable. With the fury dying down, Wendel comes to find the King. The guard wishes to debrief him, get his input on things, start the duties of the fort immediately under the King’s direction. Josleen glares coldly at the Kingsguard whom she was once quite fond of. Sure he rescued them from the hedge maze, but is that debt enough to cover what Wendel has cost her now? Years of her son’s development? She interrupts Wendel and says to the King, “Darling, take an hour with us. Let’s bathe, relax in our room, just the three of us, and in an hour all these troubles will still be there just the same. You’ve only just come back to us.” She smooths a hand lovingly over his back, desiring nothing more than to dote on him in the exact way she was prohibited during his bedridden days.


Macon knows that there are Larketians (and someone from Veratoak) that would have been inclined to believe that Josleen was capable of attempting to kill the father of her child, and now he knows, from the way Josleen looks at Wendel, and doesn’t look at his mother, that he will need to deal with his wife’s newfound distaste for these people. While the Kingsguard’s itinerary of debriefing the King immediately has some appeal to The Rage Knight, along with the fact that he’s ready to take certain actions right this moment, and will have orders for Larketian Forces to execute even without being brought fully up to date, Josleen’s plan of attack sounds better. Even though he's been essentially asleep for several weeks, resting with his family feels like the perfect plan. Besides, he wants to hear the whole story of his wife’s alibi himself, just to be 100% sure she didn’t poison him, eliminating whatever sliver of doubt might still be lurking in that groggy mind of his. With a nod and tilt of his head towards Josleen, he indicates to Wendell that she is right and the debriefing can and will wait. He gives Wendell a time that he will meet the mage in The King’s office and sends him off, marking Augusta’s cue to leave as well. She gets in one last squeeze of her son’s shoulder before exiting, making sure as she is moving down the hall to inform the guard on closest duty to keep an eye on Josleen, should she try and finish the job she started weeks ago.


Josleen sighs with relief once Augusta and Wendel have gone. She can’t trust these people anymore, not the way she once did. Guillem tries to embrace both parents with his small arms that fall short of the task. With a hand on Guillem, Josleen embraces Macon impulsively again. “I’m so happy you’re back,” she says again, and she’ll keep saying it into the night as the feeling overwhelms everything else. From down the hall Gigi’s collar can be heard rattling, his familiar running stride scratching on the hard marble floors. “Gigi!” Guillem exclaims! Augusta kept the filthy dog away from the Royal Family as well, and put Gigi in the care of the Royal Kennel Keeper. Gigi has had a horrid time among german shepherds, rottweilers, and dobermans. It’s just been awful. Traumatizing. Gigi’s entire body wiggles as he licks Guillem’s face, Macon’s hands, Josleen’s legs. He whimpers pathetically, he’s so happy. Josleen drops to her knees and embraces the poodle who is all poof, no trim! His dashing fur cut is gone! “You smell, Geegs,” Josleen laughs. Eventually the family, all four, move towards the King and Queen’s room, which after only a month already smell of neglected and stillness, like a museum piece instead of a room that’s home to a living couple. Still, the staff kept it relatively clean and Josleen draws a bath for Macon as Guillem rolls around on the floor with Gigi. From the bathroom she can keep an eye on her son while also tending to Macon who looks weak and thinner-- and frankly, his age. Without the swelling of his usual build, he looks much older. In the bathroom, with the water running, they can also speak of adult things they’d prefer Guillem not hear. “How are you feeling? Did the doctors say anything when you woke?”


Macon embraces Josleen when she does so to him. “So am I,” he responds, looking down at her face, then towards Guillem, and then beyond at nothing where Gigi is soon to come bonding in, retaliation still the thought rattling around his mind the loudest. He doesn’t know were the poodle has been during his absence, but once he finds out, he’s sure to be glad. That dog could use some toughening up. Given the method of training employed by the royal kennel, Gigi may have picked up the drowish word for ‘sit’ which Macon will try out eventually. Getting into the bath, The Rage Knight tells the queen what little he was told upon waking up. “Just tha’ I ‘ad been unconscious for weeks… And they told me not t’move around.” The ship has sailed on that ignored piece of advice, obviously.


Josleen smirks faintly, the bittersweetness in her gaze still present, as Macon tells her that he was told not to move around. “I’m glad you did. I could feel when you woke.” A hand gestures between them to indicate the rage aura. “But you should rest now. The poison was strong.” Her voice breaks a little and lips quiver as she allows herself to feel just how close they came to losing him. She rubs a hand over his arm and inhales sharply to keep herself from crying. “I was worried sick. They wouldn’t let me see you, because they--” She shakes her head in disbelief. “We don’t need to talk about that now, but--” More head shaking as her mind jumps from Wendel to Augusta, and Percival and Dr. Julius to lesser degrees, and just about everyone in this fort. Though Augusta hurts her the most. Despite Augusta and Josleen’s ceaseless bickering in the past, Josleen had assumed that beneath that was a mutual understanding that they are family now and, when it comes to the important things, they want the same things, namely Guillem’s health and thoughtful upbringing, Macon’s happiness and longevity on the throne, a cohesive family. Augusta’s actions during Macon’s coma have made a fool of Josleen who had believed that there wasn’t real spite in Augusta’s bickering. What a fool. “I can’t believe your mother.” Gigi and Guillem get suspiciously quiet and Josleen leans back from her perch along the tub to peek into the room. Guillem is whispering secrets to Gigi who is happily panting, still just beside himself with joy at being reunited with his pack. This is the best day ever for him. It should be for Josleen as well, but people are a little more complicated, and alongside her joy is a need for retribution.


Macon doesn’t have all the details about the lifesaving first aid he received when his unconscious body was finally found. Because of this, he probably believes, in true Rage Knight fashion, that indeed the poison was strong, but he was able to stick it out by virtue of being the manliest guy. Who’s to say whether this belief in some kind of divine testosterone is constructive to a king’s wellbeing or not, but for now the phrase ‘the poison was strong’ only elicits the thought ‘not strong enough’ in his mind. He still wants retribution for this and everything else the witches have done. When Josleen complains about Augusta, The Rage Knight nods thoughtfully, able to relax a bit, because he knew this was coming, though maybe not so soon. “She thought you ‘ad killed me,” he says, a bit tone deaf, because believing that Josleen is capable of doing that to him is at the very heart of the problem between the inlaws. Perhaps The Queen of Larket will excuse him, in is weakened state for reasoning like that. Either way, slate eyes shut drowsily while he soaks with water up to his shoulders.


Josleen‘s lips thin at Macon’s response, but she says nothing more on the subject. She’s too happy at his return to pick a fight over this with him now. In a few days, as they settle back into an old routine, when Augusta lingers near her son, it’ll resurface, no doubt. For now, all she says is, “What a silly thing to think. I would never, but I know you know that.” Not wanting to burden him with any more talk, she strokes his hair and arms soothingly as he relaxes. When he’s ready to step out of the bath, she swaps places. Guillem fusses for some adult attention as Josleen bathes, so Macon will have to see to that until Josleen joins them. During the duration of their short time together, the Queen doesn’t talk about the city’s woes or what must come next. There will be plenty of time for that later in the evening. Eventually Macon leaves to meet with Wendel. “Don’t over exert yourself, my love.” While Macon is gone, Josleen does as little as possible from the comfort of her plush bed, a much needed respite after a month of sleeping on a stiff cot. Guillem crawls around her like a rugrat, playing with a toy horse and giant figurine. In the King’s Office, Wendel starts by defending the Fort’s decision to jail the Queen. Namely, many witnesses saw that the King and Queen were alone in his study when he was poisoned. The Queen’s alibi is that she was receiving a massage from Floria. Floria confirms the alibi. However, why is it then that when Percival found Macon, the next person in the room was Josleen? Before any other guard who would have presumably been closer? And, why do none of the guards remember seeing the Queen race from where she was receiving a massage to the office. If her story checked out, wouldn’t guards have seen her cross the fort? Wendel insists that he is not saying the Queen is definitely guilty, but they could not take any risks. They were holding her not as his assassin, but as a suspect to be investigated, just like Valrae is being investigated now. After this discussion, Wendel moves on to debrief Macon on the attack Larket sustained, the persons involved, and so forth. How will The Crown respond? By the time Macon returns to his family, Guillem is yawning and ready to be put down. Josleen reads him the story of Tristram’s conquest of Gualon.


Macon nods, “I know,” taking one of her hands in his to reassure that he doesn’t believe that she is actually the one who tried to kill him. After ceding the bath to Josleen and getting dressed, he makes an appearance before Guillem to give the attention the boy craves. First The Rage Knight tries the old standby of ‘Monkey Face’ with ears too, only to find that, like so much else, the prince has grown out of finding that to be the best thing ever. Crashing toys together in ‘tournaments’ is still a top tier source of glee for Guy though, and Macon can do that with the best of them. Gigi ruins matches by chomping on combatants and running off with them. The Jauzon men take it in stride and continue playing. “They knew the risks,” The Rage Knight nods solemnly to Guillem while Gigi slobbers on a lance carrying figurine. Onto the meeting with Wendell. The way the fat mage tells it, Josleen sounds super guilty, as Macon was sure she would from the perspective of someone trying to keep their job after imprisoning his boss’s wife. The Queen has been hexed before, so The Rage Knight questions whether that is a possibility. The Kingsguard hmms and haws around this one, conceding that Master Percival could not detect any magic of that type being used on her, which, for Macon, is proof enough. Wendell however insists that they can’t rule it out just because of the guy-who-can-see-magic’s opinion. The king growls low and this is a signal to move onto the attack and Valrae’s capture. Since not long before waking up, Macon has been privately planning his own strike back against the witches who have been attacking his city for nearly a year (possibly longer if you count the hex on his armor.) So he orders the reconstruction and repair efforts in Larket to continue as they have been and to spare a Larketian battalion to aide whoever is leading the fight against this specter of evil behind the attacks on The Hard City and Cenril. He wonders if he should go see Valrae himself to get to the bottom of things, but she isn’t going anywhere so he leaves that as an option for later. Wendell is advised to take a couple weeks vacation (he probably won’t try to go to Chartsend again) so that tensions between the queen and himself will have some time to smooth over on their own. Maybe Macon can do this with Augusta too? Probably not. When he finally returns to Josleen and Guy, the king gets ready to join Josleen in bed while he half listens to the story about taking over the swamp and doubts it was as glorious as this telling makes it out to be. Eventually Guillem goes down to bed and the king and queen can speak freely again. Macon recounts the evidence Wendell presented against her. He reiterates that he doesn’t believe that version of events, “...but I want to ‘ear you say it. To me, now.”


Josleen sits up in bed as Macon recounts the evidence against her. She tuts and scoffs at various points, but Macon’s tone as he pushes through the list tamps down her indignation. When he asks her to confirm her innocence, a halo of hurt wreaths her gaze. “Macon… I didn’t do it. I would never hurt you. I love you.” She speaks deliberately and holds his gaze. She could pierce every piece of ‘evidence’, but she doesn’t. It shouldn’t matter what the evidence is. They know each other, don’t they? They love each other, and trust each other? She searches his gaze for acceptance, her own stare a little wounded.


Macon stares right back at her, wounding himself slightly by wounding her. He anticipated this reaction to his demand, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. He knows she is an actor, a bard perfectly capable of putting on a show that would look terribly similar to this, but he still listens to every word for some crack that he doesn't actually want to hear. There's none. “I know. I love you too.” He's starting to seethe again while he says this, and reveals why with his next words, “I'm going to hurt everyone who has done this to us.” He's made up his mind. He's not asking for permission, or looking for acceptance of his fury. He's making a promise of violence to her. Perhaps to her that statement is inclusive of Augusta and Wendell, but they are far from who he has in mind. The witches and the witches alone will pay for this.


Josleen takes Macon’s hand and squeezes it as he pledges vengeance. She nods in agreement. Her list is longer than his, for she was wronged by more people than he, but for now, they will focus on the witches together. “Good,” she says as she settles down in bed and beckons him to do the same. “Guillem surprised me today, over and over. He’s grown so much. He’s growing so fast, I can’t keep up. We’re losing so many years.” She sniffs sadly. “We must find a way to reverse Guillem’s aging.” Some would be content to stop the curse, and indeed she would be, but ever greedy, the new mother wants the full years lost returned to them. “Maybe Valrae knows who put this curse on Larket’s children--maybe she did it herself. Perhaps the guards can press her for information. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. I hate her. I wouldn’t be able to keep my wits about me for what she did to you, and to us. But someone needs to interrogate her before… well.” It’s a foregone conclusion in her mind that the witch will burn.


Macon is in agreement that they should always win absolutely, and that means getting back the years of their son's life that they have lost. He nods, having no way of knowing if such a thing is possible or not, as it would be difficult to keep a fountain of youth like that a secret. “I will make sure she is interviewed before sentencing.” He was just thinking of doing this himself, after all. Coming back from the dead is exhausting work, but his mind is racing with thoughts of vengeance, the two combating each other as he moves into bed and closes in on Josleen. Tomorrow, in the light of day, he can iron out the details of how to harm the enemies of The Crown.