It was unrealistic to live in the past, detrimental really, but for Corvina it was simply a way of life. For well over six hundred years, though the
use of elaborate creams and foul tasting potions, she had played the same role in the act; A new song but the same dance. Puppeteering
whatever political power she had seduced into being her figurehead. Politics in the realm of the kingdoms may have been a 'boy's only game,'
but she made the rules. The biggest obstacle for her at present was the issue of the "rouge" creatures roaming the woods. It was an
accepted risk for those living near the woodlands that packs of undomesticated rabid creatures still lurked in the darker corners of the
kingdoms. It was rarely spoken of, a taboo subject really, and it would have stayed that way if not for a rabble-rouser lurking somewhere in
the woods. The reigning monarch had issued a decree to leave them in peace in the woods, and they in turn would stay in the woods. Corvina
had hunted them for decades, her old dungeons still held their bones, even her letter opener had a bone handle carved from the jaw of one
particularly cunning rouge, pity he wasn't cunning enough to avoid the huntsman's arrow.
Corvina sat in her office, the walls draped in scarlet velvet tapestries, the ceiling to floor mirrors gave little room for anyone to conceal
anything from her. The young man before her stuttered out his fanatic sentences, "They're rebelling. We do not have an estimate on their
numbers and have no way of tracking them." His blue eyes darted around the room, unwilling to meet her harsh glare. "They're leaving notes,
addressed to you." His breathing hastened, "on the corpse of your trackers. We have lost fifteen since their first announcement and another
two this week."
Corvina, greatly bothered by the attempted over throw of her carefully manicured parliament, tensed in her chair. She had sent notice to
decrease the rouge population as she was growing weary of the 'negotiations' between her loving husband, Deacon, and one of the pack's
leaders. The pack had fears of the possibility that Corvina may decide to do away with her husband. Deacon was a very kind man, who took
the warning from Remington in stride. He had mentioned it laughingly to Corvina that night. This news was not unforeseen, but was an
unexpected way to start the morning. "I shall see to this." Was her reply
The Scout, who had been in near panic at her stillness, nearly shouted his response, "We are at war. We need to alert parliament so that they
may handle this. This requires skill in warfare and martial law, not etiquette in domestic affairs."
She had dealt with this chauvinistic mentality for the majority of her reign. Mostly form foreign dignitaries and a few unruly husbands, most of
whom had met with very peculiar and untimely deaths. Corvina shrugged, smiling she replied. "Why break with tradition?" The man before her,
seemly thinking she had come to her senses, found himself hanging from his fingertips as the rug beneath him fell away in to a pit in the
center of the office's circular cobblestone flooring. "As I have already stated, I will handle this. As for your tone, I will be having none of it in my
office." Before he could speak again she had pulled a lever, carefully concealed as a drawer handle, on her desk, thus realigning the faux
cobblestone and ending the conversation.
Pulling out a piece of parchment, she made a note to have the inner office staff briefed on proper workplace communication skills and to hire
another liaison. Really, this was more in Alistair's realm but he was busy with an errand of sorts. The issue of the rebellion soon reclaimed her
mind. Sighing she walked though her office in to the hallway, the stone floors echoing her footsteps. She found herself two halls down and
three over from her elaborately decorated office. This was a place she had not visited in ages. It had been almost four centuries since she had
last used it. The tapestry that hung here held the image of a tall middle-aged man holding a bow. The decorative letting at the bottom held his
title, "The Huntsman."
Lightly she stroked the intricate weaving with her fingertips. The man's image was a familiar one, more than once she had called on his skills to
maintain a hold on her government. He was a skilled assassin, a suave negotiator and possibly the most effective man she had ever
employed, she smiled at the thought of Alistair's reaction to this bout of nostalgia. He had never met the Huntsman, the original one at least,
the figurehead was something Corvian had used just to keep the people in line. Her hold over the government had begun to slip recently and
with the addition of the attacks by those rabid forest dwelling mongrels, she found herself considering the possibility of pulling a figure from
the past to fix the present.
Pushing the wall hanging aside, she stepped inside the concealed arch of a recessed doorway. The door's bronze handle was green and
corroded with time and dust. She sighed heavily as the image only served as a reminder that only she remained unscathed by the ravages of
time. Many people, regimes and memories lurked in her past, the smile fell from her lips as she fought to keep her mind in the present. With
the sharp twist of her hand the door's handle crumbled in her hand. "Damn it all to hell." She snarled heaving the metal remnants to the floor.
"Did I not tell you to have that door replaced?" a baritone voice reverberated off of the stone walls. The tapestry was drawn back reveling a
tall man wielding an ax. Laughing at Covina's failed attempts, and the blow her ego took when her dignified vainer finally cracked, his thin lips
curved into a cold smile. "Need some assistance I assume?"
"Alistair, you're fired." Corvina replied sharply. The glare from her green eyes was veiled by the darkness.
"Really?" He asked in pseudo concern. "Then I shall leave this with you, and wish you the best of luck with this door. I would bring you a
lantern to see by, but as my services are no longer needed…" he cackled.
"How is it that you've not been locked in a cell in the lowest level of the oldest dungeon of some decrepit jailhouse before now? With your
talent of sardonic tones and inappropriate dictation at the worst of times it really is a wonder you have survived this long." She snapped back
at him, her current predicament had begun to weigh on her nerves. 'How is it that in all my years I only just now am faced with these absurd obstacles?' her staff of even fifty years ago would not have considered taking such an unprofessional tone with her.
"Because someone has to be here to open old rusty doors," his voice held a tone of distraction as the sound of metal lighting scraping against
metal began to fill the air. A sharp click brought this sound to an abrupt end. "Well, there you go then. I suppose the ax was a bit of overkill for
the situation." He rose from his kneeling position in front of the door brushing past her and back into the dimly lit hallway.
"Now what are you doing?" Corvina inquired. She had grown tired of waiting. From her position to the door's immediate left, resting against
the doorframe she had watched with feigned disinterest at Alistair's lock picking attempt. "I thought you said it was open."
Alistair charged the door throwing his weight against it. The door let out a screech before collapsing to the floor under Alistair, shattering upon
impact. "It was unlocked, not open." He stood, bushing the dust and wood splinters from his sleeves. Returning to the doorway he offered his
hand to Corvina, "Care for some assistance, M'lady?"
Corvina swatted his hand away, "Now, you remember decorum. Have someone get the door cleaned up, and bring me a light. I cannot see
anything in here." Her voice rang through the cold dark chamber, flooding her mind with memories from centuries ago. She blindly navigated
the room from memory alone; stumbling only once over a piece of wood from the door she walked to the desk, sitting in the dust covered
leather chair. Her hands caressed the hard wood of the desk stoking the spine of the book that still held its post there, covered in dust,
awaiting the return of its master.
Silence filled the room as Corvina sat perfectly still, engulfed in a sea of buried thoughts and memories long since forgotten. She reclined in the
study chair, looking to the shadowed ceiling where an old chandelier still hung. Archaic when compared to the lights that now filled the fortress
she had built, but this once she much preferred. Its wood and iron body creaked with age as a draft from the hall wafted in.
The room sprang to life as a light from the center of the room sparked. Alistair stood lighting an oil lamp that not tasted flame in ages, his
shadow danced on the walls. The paintings that hung on the walls, pictures from antiquity, lurked waiting to pull her back into a different time.
"I shall send a cleaning crew in the morning." He commented, Unwilling to intrude on her trance. The room, it seemed, had her in its spell, and
given the political upheaval headed her way, she might need this break from reality. 'Well,' he smirked, 'a break from our reality anyway.'
Covina awoke the next day to find herself still in the chair. With the lamp burning its last ounces of fuel she returned to her office. Her
desk was laden with letters from parliament demanding a decree of war. Wars never solved anything. They never had. By the time Corvina
was seventy she knew this. How it was that the 'all knowing coven' that called themselves parliament had not yet caught on to this was
beyond her. Opening a the fifth red envelope of the morning she read in hasltly scribbled words another call to arms.
"Absolutely absurd. How are you going to rule a kingdom with when all your people are dead? War, honestly." She fell in to her chair,
"These are the learned men who have been brought to me as my counsel; And they want a war." Corvina leapt from her chair and back into
the Huntsman's office.
She sat in the large leather chair and began searching the underside of the desktop. "I know I left it here, where is the lever?' her fingers
touched the brass pull and out slid several murky vials. The dust coasted glass felt slippery in her thin fingers. Uncorking the first of the vials,
the liquid began to hiss, she smiled. "If it be a war they want then a war they shall have." She filled a flask with the dark viscous fluid from the
glass vials and returned to her office.
