This is the start of 100 stories. Each is a prompt that you can find in either the Edith Crawley tag or the Anthony Strallan tag on tumblr. Feel free to drop me a line requesting the ones you want. I am queenlovett there as well. Anons are welcome!
This one is for Baron.
#33 Honour
Honour and duty, two disciplines that Anthony Strallan had drilled into his head since he was a little boy.
The first person to instill these virtues was his grandfather. He had fought in France during the "first one" as he had called it. He would sit on his lap as he was told stories of bravery and sacrifice and honoring your country. Anthony wasn't even ten when he lost his grandfather, but the stores stayed with him.
The second person to drill a sense of these responsibilities into him was his father. He too, was a war veteran, fighting the Nazis all the way to Germany. He was shown the pictures and medals and even the shrapnel wound his father sustained.
For many years Anthony associated honor and duty with service and the bravery of those that fight.
It wasn't until he stayed with his late wife, Maud, as she died from complications from surgery that he understood that maybe there was more to it. As the last breath left her body and her eyes closed for the very last time he realized he had had a duty to his wife, and that now he would need to begin to honour her memory.
And so he went into mourning. Those were dark days that lasted far too long. Years and years of a widower's vigil; no joy, only existence.
The arrival of Edith Crawley swept the gloom and cobwebs away from his life.
On their wedding day, with her hair shining goldenly from the light of the church windows, he was hit with an understanding. He would honour her love with every fiber of his being. She had only to ask, and he would gladly rip his heart from his chest for her safekeeping.
As he stood in the delivery room, Edith exhausted but smiling, his daughter taking her first breathe and opening her eyes for the very first time, he was overcome. He would protect this precious creature. With everything he had, he would love her and give her the world. That was his duty, and he was honored to do it.
