Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's "The Walking Dead" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Because a little anon birdie dropped the following in my inbox and I just couldn't resist: "I need a caryl au where Carol is a literal queen and Daryl is their head guard like my dog needs bacon, does anything like this exist? please say yes." – To make it more period appropriate, I aged both them down to their late twenties – early thirties.
Warnings: *Contains: medieval au: actual queenCarol! and swornshield!Daryl, no zombies, period appropriate language/sexism/classism/religious views, references to domestic abuse/violence, illusions to miscarriage/losing a baby due to physical domestic violence.
White Knights aren't white (they're red)
Chapter One
"What are your orders, my Queen?" he asked quietly, sword-hand resting on the ornate pommel strapped to his waist as the Royal Council took their leave. Blue robes wisk-wisking across polished marble as a cloud of formless whispers followed them out. It was the very sword that was his right alone to wield as the sworn-shield of the High Queen. And he had wielded it many times, indeed. And more he expected in the future.
The thought was soothing.
Affirming.
Righteous.
His fingers tightened around the scabbard when Commander Walsh paused in the frame, fixing them with an inscrutable look before inclining his head and stalking out – letting the door to the Throne Room slam shut with an ominous boom.
God's tits, that ugly sard was stepping on his last nerve!
But the High Queen remained silent, poised and thoughtful until the heavy tread of the man's boots faded into obscurity down the flagstones. No doubt heading down to the training ground to work off his irritation at being summarily dismissed – and not for the first time - when he attempted to present yet another marriage alliance for her to consider.
"Let them go, Ser Dixon," she answered archly, smoothing the opulent folds of her gown with a careless hand. Expression unconcerned but worrisomely distant. "This is not the first time I have been forced to use my title to make my feelings known and it certainly won't be the last."
He nodded, glaring daggers at the beaten bronze that had been interwoven with the wood of the door many years ago when the kingdom had prospered and another King – a better King had ruled here. Back when famine and pestilence could find little hold in the land of the light and cunning and shrewdness were reserved for the battlefield and the prosperity of all rather than just the high born.
The meeting had been messier than usual, more cut-throat. With the council growing weary of their Queen's deflections when it came to the topic of securing the line with an heir and her own frustration at their insistency. Claiming that surely there were other topics that garnered the council's concern. The growing drought in the Northern provinces, perhaps. Or the lack of progress in shoring up the defences along their western border. Yet, they would not budge.
It was a political stalemate.
One side was going to have to give or-
He nearly jumped out of his skin when she answered like she could read his thoughts.
"My Kingdom has suffered enough from the rule of an incompetent king, I do not wish another upon it. Certainly not so soon. If I do not remarry, I can protect it from this fate," she said slowly. Tone measured, like she'd spent long hours thinking about the course she must take. But was still undecided. Still unsure. "At least for a little while."
For a little while.
His tongue wet across chapped lips, feeling the dried out flakes pull taut and painful as he bared his teeth at the closed door. Feeling her frustration like it was his own. Like a living, breathing animal that flexed unwilling in the center of his chest - clawing to get out.
"If you do not marry, your councillors might have you wed off in the dark of night for want of an heir," he commented blandly. Grateful to whatever gods were listening that his voice remained level – strong. Reminding her why they were both here. Reminding her why there were dark circles punched deep below her eyes and why her councillors talked in whispers in the dark corners of the castle when they thought they were safe from preying ears.
"Yes, they made that perfectly clear today," she replied crisply, delicate fingers curling into fierce little fists across the hammered gold of the Dragon Bone Throne. The Great Worm slayed centuries ago by some long forgotten King of old. The same King whose blood ran strong through her veins. A birthright that led to the coronation of each and every successor to the throne since.
Dragon's fire, the small folks called it.
It was what gave their Queen not just her fiery red hair, but her inner strength as well.
"And what is it you believe, Ser?" she asked after a moment, tone hard, but with sparkling blue eyes that invited play. Like she wished for him to tell the truth, regardless of what that truth was. Like she valued his opinion – needed it. "Tell me, for I find myself in need of your guidance. My council talks as if the day of reckoning is almost upon us because I have rejected yet another suitor."
By Christ's blood, wasn't that a thought?
That was another place she differed from the rest of the high folk.
A Queen didn't ask their guards about matters of succession and politics.
But to him, she always had.
Their arrangement was one that had always been more a meshing of equals than the opposite. And he would be a liar if part of him didn't think her cruel for it. He was still a man, after all. And she was still as untouchable as they day they'd first met. Burnished-red curls glinting a thousand different shades as he bowed low at her feet. Pledging his life and services as her sworn shield in front of her and her Kingly father after rising slowly up the ranks. From guardsman to captain before he'd taken a sword slash to the back protecting her father on the battlefield. The appointment to his daughter's sworn shield after he'd recovered had been an honor that'd seemed like anything but – at the time.
He'd always found it ironic that no matter how fiercely her father had loved her, he'd still forged the alliance that led to her marriage to King Edward. Knowing full well what sort of swine the man was. She'd never forgiven the old man for that, and frankly, neither had he. No alliance was worth that. No so called peace, either. Not after what that gods blasted cur had put her through.
Because, as it turned out, there was one thing he couldn't protect her from. And that had been her husband. Oh, he could have, of course. But not without getting hung for treason before noon the same day. Still, he could have. Should have. For her. It had only been her order, whispered hurriedly each and every day as they'd retired to their chambers for the night that had stayed his hand.
The night she'd screamed for him, finally freeing him to do what he'd dreamt of for years, had been the first day he'd breathed easy in over a decade. It was a testament to how deeply the outsider King had been loathed that no one questioned it when it was announced a few days later, that the King had taken ill with the plague and the Queen had ordered him secluded in their private chapel in order to pray for his recovery and stop the spread of the sickness. They had burned the body afterwards, charring it down to bone and ash as was custom with the victims of such infirmities. And thus, their sins were burned away with it. Reborn into a new life that was wholly hers, perhaps for the first time since she'd drawn breath.
It had been a heady thing to witness. A true Queen of the Inner Kingdom, under her own birthright, taking her place on the Dragon Bone Throne. The same woman he'd bent a knee and pledged his life to all those years ago, now blossomed and mature and just a little bit jaded. Throwing herself into trying to correct the ills her husband's reign had wrought upon her Kingdom with a ferocity that had frightened her handmaidens and concerned the majority of her more foolish councillors. It had taken time, but it'd meant everything just to see her laugh again.
"Seems to me the Kingdom doesn't need a good King than it does a good ruler," he allowed, speaking slowly, haltingly as he chewed on the words before letting them go. A slight lisp worming its way into the echoes as the shadows of the Throne Room tried to claim them for their own.
"That's all a Kingdom ever needs - other than rain. Man or woman? Don't much matter in my mind. All the rest is tradition and somemat'. Excuses made by the old beards and high folk for not changing a way of doing things that ain't always been for the benefit of everyone in the first place. Just the ones that hold the coin purses."
She cocked her head, interested. Hands folded prettily in her lap as she looked over at him, golden crown glinting in the low candle light.
"My councillors have many ideas of what the role of a Queen should entail," she remarked, voice like living coals as she fixed her eyes on the door like she could burn right through them.
"They care little for what I have done, little for I wish to do - what I need to do for the prosperity and betterment of my people. And more for my lack of a husband and the fat clutch of children they believe I should be well on my way to providing. It is like nothing else matters. My accomplishments? My plans? If they had their way, I would be married off and with child by mid-summer. Commander Walsh believes the Kingdom needs a King to lead them in war and an heir to secure it. Beyond what I can give this Kingdom with my body, they simply aren't interested. Am I not their Queen?" she hissed, ringed-fingers like jeweled claws as they clutched around the yellowing ivory-bone.
"I have tried to lead by example, to move forward. But what is a woman beyond her body? What of her mind? Her strengths? Her desires, intellect – heart? Why is it that men have dominion over all things when it is women who bring life? Who cultivate and nurture. Should we not know more of life and death than any man? Who better to determine if the cost is worth the reward?"
He watched her through the dark of his fringe, hearing well the undercurrent of anger that branched out underneath her tone. Rippling like dragon's fire poised to roar across the endless grassy tundra of the west.
"So, you are going to let them?" he asked, sensing more than seeing her posture straighten. Gaining that same inner strength he knew so very well as her lips thinned and her expression fortified itself on her face. Suddenly looking every inch the Queen of the Inner Kingdoms.
"No," she affirmed, blue eyes flashing dark and determined as she held his stare. "I don't think I will."
The smile that spread across his lips in response was a predatory thing. Sharp and primal-pleased as a warm burst of pride and stuttered affection threatened to unravel him at the seams.
War might be for men, but women have always seen their share of blood.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think, there will be one more chapter, stay tuned.
Reference: the word "sard" is a medieval term that is similar to "fuck."