"Get on your knees and let the games begin
Bow to your queen and I will crown your head
'Cause I can make you every inch a king
Before I do tell me, tell me what's in it for me?"
~Halestorm – Dirty Work~
She paced for a moment her pale green eyes looking across the now near barren wastes before her, the village around her home had been destroyed by people that had no comprehension of the power they had just upset. Smoke rose slowly wispily though the air from the homes that used to stand outside of her walls. A delicate sigh seemed to fall from her plump soft rose colored lips, "Cai…" she spoke the simple word, a name. She could hear foot falls behind her thickly shod boots on stone the sound bouncing off the walls in a harmonious symphony that was dampened by the putrid smell of burnt flesh from the village that was still smoldering in some spots. "Stone doesnae burn…" she whispered watching her own hand as she reached out touching the stone near the window she was looking out of, that was the only reason her castle still stood. "I want ya to kill them Cai, all o' them…"
"My Queen it will do ya nae good to kill them all… mos' are children," Cai informed her and her slim fingers tapped a little rhapsody against the stone her painted nails making a clicking sound as a frown furrowed and turned the corners of her lips down. "May I make a suggestion my lady?"
"Ye? The loyalist o' my knights, o' course ya may make a suggestion. I readily listen to yer judgment in all things," she told him and it was of course true. This of course didn't mean she always listened to him but she considered and weighed his opinions as often as her own.
She could feel his eyes on her back, "sweet lass let me find their leader. I could bring him here to ya, ya could make him yer pet and we will rebuild the village."
She spun on him her dark blond hair swirling about her, "oh but I do like tha' idea cousin. Aye, I want ya to bring him here but before ya do. Take away what is most precious to him… Oh and Cai, we cannae let his Lord come into power for he can rival even me. Go now I expect ya back within a fortnight."
"Ya want me to kill his son, Rhiannon?" Cai asked her a shocked look on his face, his cousin loved children this couldn't be right. "He's only wha' sixteen months old?"
"Kill the woman, bring me the child he will be mine… and Cai ya know me the best o' everyone, ya knew I meant the woman so stop playin' the part o' the fool I have enough o' those already. Make sure he sees ya kill her and be gentle with the child I will have a nursery set for him by the time ya get back. Go now cousin and donnae disappoint me."
He gave her a low bow, "very well my queen. Make sure ya sleep while I'm gone I won't be here to remind you to sleep and eat cousin I'd hate to come back wit' a prisoner only to find the last o' my blood dead," he told her in a gentle voice. The blonde gave her cousin a nod and he moved kissing her forehead before leaving to do his queen's bidding.
It was twelve long days later under the first light of the dawn when her cousin returned with his prisoner and a sleeping child in his arms. Rhiannon's guards took possession of the prisoner while her cousin Cai went ahead to speak with her and give her the child he held for her. Rhiannon sat letting her handmaiden finish pulling up her hair before settling her crown on her head she looked up hearing the door creek open. Her eyes moved to her cousin as she stood and moved over to him, "I see ya are still whole Cai."
"Ya've slept, I take it yer maid kept ya fed as well? Here is the child," he said moving to her as she stood.
He placed the child in her arms and she looked down at the tiny thing, he was so beautiful with that pale blond hair of his flopped over his little head, "would ya like to be my little Princelin'?" she asked the sleeping baby. Gently nuzzling into the blond fluff pressing a little kiss there before she moved, "come cousin I think we should meet our guest and show him what care I shall give his son even after I have killed the man. Have my guards bring him to the nursery, leave his chains on… Ya did take his wand, aye?"
"O' course," he murmured and pulled the wand out moving to hand it to her but the female looked at it as if it would bite. "I shall put it in the vaults then?" he asked her receiving a nod before he watched his younger cousin move out of the room and down the hall. Cai sighed and shook his head as he moved swiftly to the front hall, "bring him the Queen wishes him to see the nursery she has made fer her new son as she claims the child is now hers nae this mad wizard's any longer. You hear that cur, yer son will be the new Prince o' Wizardin' Scotland."
"There is no monarchy in Scotland anymore," the male in his chains spat.
Cai smirked and leaned down looking the male in his eyes, "we've brought it back. Bring him the Queen is feelin' generous," he said before he stood up straight and backed up turning away from the men walking towards the nursery he moved in nodding to his cousin before taking up a post to watch over the proceedings. Her guards drug the spitting, biting, cursing wizard forth forcing him to his knees before her as she cuddled his son.
His grey eyes soon met hers, "I see ya lived through burnin' my village. I'll nae let ye be gettin' away with that for long. He is mine now, my son. He will be Prince here and well cared for nae fear should behold yer soul on that hand," Rhiannon informed him. "Send him away, to the dungeons with him. Cousin ya've done well, rest ya've earned it the guards will take care o' our guest."
Rhiannon laid her little prince in the gilded crib watching as the babe yawned for a moment before falling back into a peaceful sleep her maid closing the door just as the prisoner yelled his son's name the word ringing off the walls and she smiled then at the babe, "Lucius…"
