"It's a good promotion, the queen's guard. It'll be easy work. Safe." Not as easy as shucking his soldier's garb altogether and settling down to a less volatile trade as his wife had been hinting he do since the day they married, but then Claude had held a sword in his hand since the day he turned five and he intended it to remain there until the day he died. Even then they would have to pry it from his corpse's stiffened fingers.

It wasn't the glory of battle or his own command but being attached to the hip of her newly royaled highness meant he was likely never to make it much farther than the courtyard of the palace so at least he would be here, close to home. He couldn't think of any logical reason for the news to have his wife glaring at him so.

He set aside the crust of bread from the dinner he'd come late to and pushed the plate away so he could lean heavily against the table top. "Alright, let's have it. What've I done this time, eh?"

Anne stoked the dying embers in the fireplace, earning little more than a sputtering tongue of flame for her trouble. The almost red glow cast her her long dark curls and the planes of her face in harsh relief and he realised there were lines there he'd not noticed before. Seemed he was always missing something.

"Have you met her yet? The new queen?"

"No. I'm to be formally reassigned tomorrow. They say she's kind. Damned brave too, if the stories are true." Claude shrugged his broad shoulders, muscles sore from a day spent on his feet twinging at the movement.

"She's young. Barely older than our Corrine. And the king..." She dared not insult the man he'd spent his life in dedicated service to, not to Claude's face at any rate, but the silence filled itself readily enough. On his way out the door. Old enough to be her father twice over. "Can you imagine?"

It was his fondest wish that their daughter someday (Sooner than he'd hope, no doubt. The toddler that had once sat at his knee was years gone.) marry well. A man she loved, if he was indulging in flights of fancy, but at least a man who was kind. Someone with a respectable trade, well off enough to keep her comfortable. If royalty came calling he'd be delighted.

If, however, a man of King Leopold's vintage came to court her... well, he liked to think himself temperate enough to abide it if it was something she truly wanted but he would be lying if he said it didn't make him uncomfortable.

"It's a great honor, to marry the king." He said finally, dirt encrusted finger nails picking at a crack on the surface of their sturdy wooden kitchen table. "And not our place to judge."

The poker was set aside, Anne scrubbing her hands together to rid them of clinging soot. It'd stained her fingers stubbornly black. Her unease lingered as well, clearly having buried itself deep beneath her skin and Claude wanted to point out that they had been of a similar age when they had wed and spent a life more or less content but then they at least had love between them. Perhaps not the 'True' love of stories but certainly an affection that ran clear to the heart of him.

"An honor, maybe. But it still seems sad to me."

########

Sweat beaded on Claude's bald pate and thoroughly saturated the flesh trapped beneath his haubergeon. It made him long to twist and scratch and tear the heavy mail away altogether but he bore it with stoic patience. He had learned a long time ago that the human body could endure lofty levels of discomfort when one had no choice but to stand there and take it. Full kit under the eye of the sun at noon didn't rank particularly high on his list.

"So you are to follow me. Everywhere. Watching everything I do."

The Queen stood before him, elegant in her light but modest gown. Long dark hair was swept high up off her neck, arms folded snug across her chest in a way that was haughty and uncertain all in one. The apple tree newly planted in the courtyard's heart was at her back and the air hung heavy with the scent of freshly upturned soil.

She was young, the king's new bride. It was one thing to know it but another thing entirely to see it. She was small, impossibly so next to the soldier's towering bulk, pretty face smooth and untouched by time. Barely a woman.

"Aye, Majesty. For your safety, of course."

"Of course." She didn't appear convinced, eyes smoldering with quiet anger.

Young but she had a certain presence that was impossible to ignore.

"What's your name then?"

"Majesty?"

"Well I can hardly be expected to call you Guard all the time, can I?"

Guard sufficed well enough for all the other nobility but he didn't care to point that out to her. "Claude. My name is Claude."

########

The sob was high enough and sharp enough that all he could think was someone had somehow snuck in to do her harm and Claude was charging into her chambers, sword drawn, before he realized it was an intensely private moment he was bursting into.

The Queen was little more than a lump curled atop the broad expanse of her mattress, knees drawn to her chest and a steady stream of tears staining her cheeks. She sat up sharply upon his intrusion, scrubbing furiously at her face with the backs of her hands. "W-what is it?"

"Your Majesty-I heard-Is everything alright?"

"Of course. I just- I'm homesick, I suppose. I'm finding sleep... Illusive."

It wasn't an entirely honest answer he was sure but he dared not question her. Dared not go anywhere near her person to comfort her either, though that deep part of him that was simply father screamed at him to brush away the tears and hold her till her demons fled.

Gods forbid he offend her in someway and she decide to flex her newfound power with his beheading.

He couldn't, however, bring himself to entirely ignore her obvious distress.

"When my Corrine- my daughter- when she was small, she had a frightful time nodding off. 'Daddy there's monsters under my bed.', 'Daddy something's scratchin' at my window.', always something."

The Queen smiled wanly. Her eyes still glittered wetly but the tears had ceased to flow. "What did you do?"

"Sometimes I would say, 'I'm scarier than anything as might be out there.' and I'd just sit, like I was guarding her, and that was enough. Sometimes she'd hear nothing of it and I'd sing her this song, same as my mam did me, and she'd be gone right quick. To get away from all the racket, I imagine. Awful really. Tone deaf, you see." He tapped his own ear lightly, the sword he'd drawn in his haste returned to its sheath.

She laughed, though the sound rang hollow. "That sounds sweet, actually."

And she didn't explicitly ask but he cleared his throat roughly, humming to find the thread of the tune. "If my true love she'll not come, Then I'll surely find another..."

By the time the last 'Will ye go, lassie, will you go?' rang out her dark eyes had closed in fitful rest but he maintained his vigil long into the morning.

There were many such nights, the first few years. More still where she awoke screaming and probably many others that Claude didn't personally witness when the guards were on rotation.

On those nights he often found himself watching his daughter sleep, fingers roving dark hair as he contemplated what could instill a grief so deep in a girl so young.

########

It hadn't felt right, guarding the queen more as if she was a prisoner than as if he was there to protect her and when the call rang out through the halls that the king was dead, murdered in his sleep, Claude's emotions were conflicted.

On the one hand it was his sovereign, the ruler of the land he had served in defence of the entirety of his adult life. It was a man he had respected. Once.

But there was a part of him, buried not so deep, that was fiercely glad. The more Claude had seen of the man through the eyes of his queen, the more disquieted he had become. There was an ugliness there, beneath the surface, that most in the happy, happy kingdom never witnessed.

So when he began to suspect that the Genie had had very little involvement at least in the planning of the king's murder, he kept it to himself. Much as he had kept to himself the strange visitors the Queen sometimes received, the man with the strangely golden skin most notable among them, and the equally unusual excursions they occasionally undertook.

And when she asked him to fetch her some armor, the like of which he and the other soldiers of her personal guard wore, he did so. He helped the man, the Huntsman as he was called, with the unfamiliar buckles and weight upon his shoulders as the Queen paced round behind them, feline and impatient.

This man, she informed them, was to take Claude's place at the Princess's side for her journey. His brows climbed high on his forehead but he held his tongue. It was a coupe then, surely, and cleverly executed.

Somewhere along the way the frightened child had grown into a cunning woman and not a one of them had noticed.

"Speak your mind, Claude."

"Pardon, M'lady?"

"Please. How long have we known each other now? You are thinking deep thoughts, I can tell."

She still wore the black of mourning but there was nothing particularly sad about the gown that hugged her form as stood at her balcony rail- presumably watching the Huntsman and his ward disappear into the morning though Claude couldn't see himself from his position at the door. It was one of her more daring, though the cuts of her wardrobe had grown increasingly more dangerous over the years, and she cut a sharp silhouette.

"Nothing so philosophical, Majesty. I was only thinking..."

"Yes?"

"Whatever it is you're planning, I'm here. I think I speak for us all when I say we're not going anywhere."

She smiled at him then and while there was nothing even remotely happy about the tight expression it was at the very least the sort of smile shared between people rather than the sickly sweet sort nobles often bestowed upon the help. Pets and playthings, fixtures of the halls barely more notable than furniture.

No, she had always seen him as a person and that was as good a reason as any to maintain his post.

"I didn't expect that you would."

########

He remained at his queen's side when it all began to unravel, his sword at her back when Snow and her amassed armies swept through to drive them out. The blade ran red with blood by the time the night was through and when at last they had no ground left to give it was her hand at his shoulder that saved him, sweeping the survivors away in a wash of sweet smelling smoke.

They dug in at the far removed winter palace, the walls fortified with as much magic and men as they could muster but as the months drew on it seemed Snow and her prince were content with their victory and their holdings in the realm's heart. The long unused castle, it's towers so many bony fingers pointing cold and stiff towards the sky, lay forgotten along with the usurped queen who rested there.

Somewhere over the mountains his family, Corrine many years married and wife more or less estranged, went on without him. The regret his heart nursed was something Claude only pulled out deep in the night when the only responsibility left to him was to find a way to get to sleep.

It was the price he had paid in the service of his queen and when she smiled him and talked of silly, irrelevant things as she had once done as a girl with a mind in need of distracting he couldn't find it in him to wish his life different.

Horses. The apple tree she had been forced to abandon. How fair the spring was coming on. Anything but how she was slowly breaking apart all over again.

When the prisoner was brought in, a bare slip of a woman that Claude didn't get much of a look at before she was locked away in the room at the top of the tallest tower, he was entrusted with heading up her security. It was a post he attacked with the same vigor he'd given all his previous assignments, proud to know that this task the Queen considered of the utmost importance had been placed in his hands.

He might have been gratified to know, after the hook had ripped into his throat and torn his life away, that the sword he so prized did in fact remain firm in his grip until long after he'd fallen cold to the floor.

########

She separated a single lily from the bunch to lay atop the simple grave, fingers caressing the soft white petals as she parted with it. Strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her back into a firm body, and Regina allowed herself to relax into Emma Swan's embrace. She'd been sceptical about including anyone in her weekly ritual but wrapped snug in the comforting scent of leather and the warmth of the sheriff's body she was glad to have made the decision. She'd been carrying the weight of her dead around on her shoulders alone so long it was almost a relief to have someone to share it with.

The blond rested her chin on Regina's shoulder, a little contented sigh escaping her lips as she read the epitaph on the head stone at their feet.

"Wait... Who's Claude?"

"Just a man that I'll never forget."