Challenge: write something coherent in 1000 words, or less. xxxx means change of POV, oooo a blank line.
They have the man who took her boy. Garmr's men got hold of him as he was trying to get his contacts in the underworld to bail him out of the city. The brutes her husband surrounds himself with are good for little, but she has to admit that they do fulfil their purpose. She does not wish to see the rat. The mere thought of hearing him speak, of breathing the same air as he does, sickens her. But she needs answers, and he is the one who will give them to her.
Two weeks have passed since Wulf was released from the hospital.
Four since she had woken to find her son gone, and his bodyguard dead with a note demanding the payment of ten million Septims ransom pinned to his back.
Eleanora finds her husband and his squadron of mercenaries in he subbasement, all lined up and facing a single, bound figure. To her they looked to be at a loss rather than intimidating.
Behind her, the door shuts with a soft click, and Garmr and a few of his men spin around.
"Lea– "
"Garmr," she calmly acknowledges her husband's presence, and ignores that of his subordinates. Then, with the same steel resolve that made her head of one of the last royal families, she orders, "Get out."
oooo
He laughs at her.
The man who had orchestrated her son's abduction laughs in her face.
"Are you the best Blacktyde has?" he wheezes once he has recovered enough to speak. The man looks like the kind of person she thinks belongs in an insurance commercial. His face bears more laugh lines than scars; they give the eye that is not swollen shut a merry crinkle.
"I want to know why."
"And why should I tell you? I am a dead man already." His lips tug downwards into a sneer.
"I could speed your passing," she offers with nothing else to give.
"Your husband wouldn't be pleased."
"This needs not concern you."
"Ha!" He leans forward, as far as his restraints allow him, and she involuntarily takes a step back. It seems to amuse him greatly. "I don't think you've got it in you. Have you ever killed a man, Lea – I may call you that, may I? No? I didn't think so."
She is nearly overcome with the impulse to hit him, the audacity smarts that badly. She lifts her chin instead.
"You are absolutely right," Eleanora replies, "I haven't. I abhor violence. Now answer the question."
He bares his teeth at her. "I hope the little cur bites it."
She considers telling him what he doesn't know; that her Wulf is alive and recovering well. She smiles tightly, and doesn't deign him with a response.
There is a cocktail bar in her husband's study she will make good use of first. The cars are parked in the far back of the garage. The man can wait.
Eventually she finds an object she recognizes. Garmr had used it to change a blown tire on their road trip to Cheydinhal. It had been their anniversary of five years.
The metal feels heavy in her hand, and solid.
xxxx
"That ain't a woman's scream," Brevik remarks in a rare moment of insight.
"Guess she's not letting 'im go," Elyse throws in, blond head lolling lazily against the wall behind her.
"I guess not," Garmr agrees. He hopes Valborg is keeping an eye on his son, because the little rascal has become far too good at giving his guard the slip. It had been bad enough the one time he had run in on his father during business, three years old and proud of the crayola scribble he had made of their family.
Garmr had snatched him up and slung him over one broad shoulder, too late.
" Faði," Wulf had whispered into his ear, "Why is that man tied to the chair?"
"So he doesn't run away," Garmr replied and it seemed a reasonable enough explanation for his boy.
The Nord's gaze sets on the picture he had framed and hung over his desk as a reminder, eyes tracing the colourful lines, while they sit and listen to his lady wife kill a man.
oooo
She ascends the stairs slowly, the low light catching on the pearl necklace that adorns her neck. The lilac gloves that stretch past her elbows are the same she wore at the last ball they attended. It is good these are probably out of fashion by now, because they are ruined.
"Lea."
"Garmr," she cuts him off, perfectly composed and pulls off the gloves one by one to dispose of them upon his desk. "We will never speak of this again."
He nods. "Of course not."
"Good." She could be holding court at the Emperor's palace, the way she holds herself, addressing a crowd of retainers and not a ragtag band of mercs that pride themselves on their various missing body parts. "Now please excuse me. I need to get cleaned up before I make Wulf the animal pancakes he asked for.
"Good night, Mrs Aemilius," the mercenaries answer in chorus.
xxxx
"You got something here." Wulf says and a small finger points accusingly at her left cheek.
"Must be batter," she answers with a warm smile, because he is eating again.
It doesn't fool her boy. He resembles his father more with every year that passes, but especially so with his little brow in furrows. "It's red," he tells her.
"Raspberry marmalade, then." She wipes the spot off with a napkin, before she folds it back into a triangle.
When the meal is over, she blows out the candles and finishes her wine. Wulf lifts his arms, and she picks him up. He is too old to be carried to bed and she has not done so in a long time, but kids with gunshot wounds deserve all the spoiling they can get.
And when he demands a good–night story, she tells him that of their family.
A cute little story about family. Or, you know, about how Wulf's mommy beat a man to death with a tire iron. And thus my trend of not being able to write happy fluff continues.