This is just an idea of what might have happened at the palace in Corus
while Alanna was with Liam and company at the Roof of the World. Just
another "filler-fic", I guess. And ya, none of the characters are mine, nor
is the Realm of Tortall ~ I just visit every so often. ;-) Hope you enjoy,
please review!!
Thanks to Reaya and HuntressDiana for looking up the timelines of things. I love you guys!
~*~
He knew he was alone. Despite the others roaming the corridor, pacing anxiously, Jon was alone: this was no one's mother but his.
The Dark God's priest's chanting grew stronger, and a long wail echoed from the room before him. Jon's head fell to his hands as he slumped helplessly down the wall - she was gone. The sob inside of him grew and pushed with pressure he could not contain. His tongue pressed hard on the roof of his mouth and his body began to quiver as the door swung open, Duke Baird emerging, gray and drawn.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "There was no more to be done." Jon moaned as the tears finally were released. Once out, there was no pause. They racked his frame mercilessly as he became oblivious to the world around him, to the hand on his back, to the murmured words of sorrow.
He watched dizzily as people filed in and around him, some commenting, some giving pitying looks, but none stooping to comfort the fallen Prince. His heart grew glazed with ice as Roger, accompanied by his keeper, Lord Thom, drifted past, there to pay lip service and nothing more to the fallen Queen. This is your fault, Jon thought bitterly as his once-dead cousin air washed over him. Roger gave no notice that Jon was even there.
He knew not how long he sat on the floor in the great hallway and cried, alone. Torches gave the only light when his head finally left the sanctuary of his hands; the hallway was deserted. From his mother's room, a soft light still pulsed, the door before him slightly ajar.
Shaking with exhaustion and pain, he slipped into the quiet room. It was stuffy, musty, and clogged with the scent of death. Pale and fragile, his mother's body lay stretched on the bed, hands folded softly at her chest, tight mouth drawn into an infinitesimal line.
At the foot of the bed, he father sat, sprawled across the blankets at his love's feet. His head was buried deep in the ends of her gown. He was as still as she.
Jon stood rooted in the doorway, staring numbly at the dead figurine of his mother and the shattered form of his father. We're falling apart, he thought softly. This family cannot stand. His fists clenched at his sides as fresh tears welled behind sapphire eyes, turned lighter with floods of loss. His mother was dead - the though reverberated through him. She would never again laugh lightly at his attempts at jokes, nor would she nod silent approval - or lack thereof - of the court ladies. Never again would the world see her smile and feel uplifted; never again would Tortall have a queen as she had been a queen to them.
A strong hand rested lightly on his shoulder.
"Go to bed now, Jon. It's done." A tingle crept through the floor and made Jon feel light as air, disconnected from the world. A chocking sob pressed through his lips as he turned and followed Gary to his room. Bleary-eyed and drawn, the cousins retired without a word. What more could be said? It was done.
*~*
The morning dawned cool and breezy, overcast and typical for March in Tortall. Mom will never see this, Jon thought dimly. He dressed in mute shock, sorrow weighing like a lead ball in his gullet. Today would be the funeral; today would be a closing chapter in his life. He feared for his father nearly as much as he missed his mother, and he feared for himself as well. Would he be able to fulfill the duties of the family while his father mourned? Jon knew that no amount of need from his kingdom would pull his father out of grief - and there was need in the kingdom. What with Master Thom's escapades and dances with the dead topping the horrific famine of that winter, already the people feared. And now, with the death of their queen -
"Jon? Are you up?" came a soft, husky voice, accompanied by a soft knock on his door.
"Yes," he replied flatly as he pulled on his black tunic.
"Are you decent?"
"Who is it?" he snapped irritably.
"It's me, it's Josiane. May I come in?"
With a sigh, Jon opened the door to the lovely - and so annoying - princess. "Yes, milady? What can I do for you?"
"I only wished to express my condolences," she said smoothly. She was nearly as tall as he, with flowing blonde hair and captivating blue eyes - cold, cruel, captivating blue eyes.
"Thank you, Princess, for your concern," he said coldly.
"May I accompany you to breakfast?"
Jon bowed just enough to be polite and declined. Food was the farthest thing from his mind; Josiane was the second farthest. She left with a polite apology that did not hide her irritation.
*~*
The funeral was mute and closed for Jon. He saw not the hoards gathering to mourn the passing of their kindhearted Queen; he heard not the cries of sorrow. He did not see George watching him closely through the city; he did not hear the murmurs of fear and rumors of curses being muttered beneath the mourning face of the Lower City.
Days crawled by, melding into one another, indistinguishable. Jon hardly noticed their passing; if he was not signing official documents because of his father's inability to do so, he was fretting over the return of the Conté Duke, or soothing the masses that flooded the palace with worries and rumors by using superficial assurances.
Three numbing weeks passed. Jon had grown paler and thinner during them, fearing for his father and desperately needing to mourn his mother. He found no solitude, not even after he escaped the attention of Josiane. Not one hand was raised, not even by Gary or Raoul, which could calm him, and not one mind opened that could understand him. His father regressed farther and farther away from the real world, and hardly seemed to recognize that he was King, or even that he was a father. He sat and cried silently, or stared as the wardrobe that was his mother's, or simply wandered the hall, a ghost in his own life. Jon had always known of the bond and devotion between his mother and his father, but this - this man that had materialized made him believe his father was dead as well. This man was a hollowed being, a soul sucked dry by the ravages of love and loss.
And so it was that Jon's heart sang when his father announced he would accompany a hunting party one fine day in early April. Watching from his balcony, Jon smiled as his father rode, again a man, with his arrows and bow to hunt small game in the Royal Forest. The men disappeared into the trees.
A breeze ruffled Jon's hair, and a sob chocked him unexpectedly. He closed his eyes to the early morning sun, drank in their health and security. Maybe things would be okay; maybe this was the beginning of the end of a time of such pain. He sat on a bench and leaned again the palace walls, drifting slowly into the deep sleep that he had needed for so long.
Horn blasts and bells blaring woke Jon with a surge of adrenalin. Men were racing from the Forest, calling desperately to help. Unable to catch their words, Jon leapt from his seat, heart sinking. Gods no, he begged, afraid of the truth, Gods no, no, no!
He collided with Gary as he rounded the bend from the balcony doorway. Shaking and frantic, the Prince tried to ask questions, but only managed nonsensical ramblings. Gary's eyes were glazed as Jon stepped back from his cousin.
"No," he whispered. "No, not him - not him too, no! You can't tell me - you can't tell me!" he cried, and fled down the hallway, out the doors and into the practice courts. He collided into the barrels of hay used for archery and pummeled them with his fists, screaming and cursing before dissolving into a fresh flood of tears.
It was Stephan Groomsman who found him leaning hard against the stacks of hay. Jon straitened and looked at him with pleading eyes. "Please?" he breathed, imploring with all he was. "Please -"
"There was an accident," Stephan explained thickly. "He fell in th' gorge above Willow Falls." He faltered, then added softly, "He's dead, Jon."
*~*
Jon had never fainted before. He remember nothing of Gary finding him and having him taken to his rooms, nor did he remember Duke Baird's Gift surrounding him and bringing him reluctantly to wakefulness.
He awoke with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. All around him were faces, faces there to support the Prince - but not to comfort. Prince, Jon thought dimly. No, no longer the Prince -
"Excuse me, please," he said and stumbled from the crowded room, down the hall and outside again, into the gardens. He fell onto the first bench he could find, head spinning. He thought of his father, his first memory of his father's face:
He was in the bathtub, and his father was watching him closely. With a cry of glee baby Jon splashed the water up and watched it fly from the basin, pooling on the floor at his father's feet.
"Now, Jonathan, don't splash," his father had said sternly. Baby Jon laughed and did so again. With a sigh, his father said, "See this? You're making the floor all wet. Think of the floor, son. Do you think it wants to be wet? I don't believe it does." Even at that age, Jon had been able to see the glint of humor in his father's eyes despite the serious tone of his voice. "Think of the floor, son," he had said..
Tears pooled and spilled from his eyes to the cobblestone path as he relived each memory of his mother and father, from this first to the final time he had seen either of them alive - his mother sewing with a trembling hand, his father wandering aimlessly the corridors of his home. An accident, they said. Jon felt his heart quiver and his breath catch in his chest. No one else had seen the look in his father's eyes that day, no one else had watched him as closely as Jon had.
His father had killed himself. The words danced around in Jon's head, teasing him, taunting him in a maniacal rhythm. You weren't enough, they said, you weren't reason enough for him to live - only your mother was. He killed himself to go to her, he didn't care about leaving you, leaving the Realm, leaving his people...
The voices grew louder and louder, multiplying and festering in his mind until he couldn't take it a moment more. He lurched forward with a cry, falling from the bench. Raoul caught him and steadied him.
"It's not fair," Jon spat, filled with a sudden fury. With a murderous cry he tore at the nearest bush, ripping a branch and hurling it across the garden, watching with perverse pleasure as it shattered on the hard stone wall. He was a wall of stone, stoic and immobile, filled with emotions that could not escape. He could not scream, he could not cry, and he could not rage.
As he slumped back to the bench, Raoul said, "They're asking for you in the King's chambers, Gods keep him."
"Can't they leave me be?" he whispered hotly.
The bigger man paused, then said timidly, "There was nothing you could do, Jonathan. You couldn't have stopped this."
"He killed himself," Jon said bluntly.
"There's nothing you could have done," Raoul repeated, more forceful this time. "Look at me, Jon, and tell me you understand that. The Realm can't lose you, too."
This shook the Prince to the core. "Lose me, too?" He swore lightly. "I can't leave. Tortall -" He heard his friend breath a heavy sigh of relief, and swore again, a fresh batch of tears on the way.
"What can I do?" Raoul rumbled.
"What can anyone do?" Jon cried softly. His heart ached, his soul was in pieces. Who could remedy that?
"Find Alanna," Jon said finally. "She sent a letter months back. She'll be coming - Gods, I can't remember, somewhere soon, back from the Roof. Find the letter. Find her. She can - she has to help. No one else can." Raoul stood a moment later and left his friend in peace.
Jon stared at the sky, darkening already with coming night. He was, undeniably, alone - no mother, no father, no family to speak of. His land was falling apart - the weather, the people, the royal family. He heavy weight settled deep within his heart, and his stomach rolled with the thought of it. Head spinning and mind reeling, he walked dumbly back into the castle. The crowds of people softened their voices and parted as he passed, but he didn't care. His mind was filled with his father, his mother, and his fear.
The Realm now lay in his hands, and his alone. His footsteps echoed down the now-empty corridor. He couldn't do it alone, he could never do it alone! He swallowed hard and felt like floating lead. Nauseous and dizzy, he paused in a doorway to collect himself.
Out a window, a leaf drifted past, falling from the ivy clinging to the castle walls. The sunset exploded in pink and gray behind the black silhouettes of the towering trees. His vision crystallized and split into a thousand pieces with Jon's silent tears.
"I'm scared," he whispered to the night. "Help me, Alanna." He closed her eyes and saw her face, full of resolve, and could nearly feel her hand brushing away his tears. If she had the Dominion Jewel, maybe the fear would subside. If she would hold him once more, maybe the fear would subside. If she could forgive him - oh, Gods! If she could forgive him, the maybe the Realm would survive. "Please let us still be able to be scared together."
Thanks to Reaya and HuntressDiana for looking up the timelines of things. I love you guys!
~*~
He knew he was alone. Despite the others roaming the corridor, pacing anxiously, Jon was alone: this was no one's mother but his.
The Dark God's priest's chanting grew stronger, and a long wail echoed from the room before him. Jon's head fell to his hands as he slumped helplessly down the wall - she was gone. The sob inside of him grew and pushed with pressure he could not contain. His tongue pressed hard on the roof of his mouth and his body began to quiver as the door swung open, Duke Baird emerging, gray and drawn.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "There was no more to be done." Jon moaned as the tears finally were released. Once out, there was no pause. They racked his frame mercilessly as he became oblivious to the world around him, to the hand on his back, to the murmured words of sorrow.
He watched dizzily as people filed in and around him, some commenting, some giving pitying looks, but none stooping to comfort the fallen Prince. His heart grew glazed with ice as Roger, accompanied by his keeper, Lord Thom, drifted past, there to pay lip service and nothing more to the fallen Queen. This is your fault, Jon thought bitterly as his once-dead cousin air washed over him. Roger gave no notice that Jon was even there.
He knew not how long he sat on the floor in the great hallway and cried, alone. Torches gave the only light when his head finally left the sanctuary of his hands; the hallway was deserted. From his mother's room, a soft light still pulsed, the door before him slightly ajar.
Shaking with exhaustion and pain, he slipped into the quiet room. It was stuffy, musty, and clogged with the scent of death. Pale and fragile, his mother's body lay stretched on the bed, hands folded softly at her chest, tight mouth drawn into an infinitesimal line.
At the foot of the bed, he father sat, sprawled across the blankets at his love's feet. His head was buried deep in the ends of her gown. He was as still as she.
Jon stood rooted in the doorway, staring numbly at the dead figurine of his mother and the shattered form of his father. We're falling apart, he thought softly. This family cannot stand. His fists clenched at his sides as fresh tears welled behind sapphire eyes, turned lighter with floods of loss. His mother was dead - the though reverberated through him. She would never again laugh lightly at his attempts at jokes, nor would she nod silent approval - or lack thereof - of the court ladies. Never again would the world see her smile and feel uplifted; never again would Tortall have a queen as she had been a queen to them.
A strong hand rested lightly on his shoulder.
"Go to bed now, Jon. It's done." A tingle crept through the floor and made Jon feel light as air, disconnected from the world. A chocking sob pressed through his lips as he turned and followed Gary to his room. Bleary-eyed and drawn, the cousins retired without a word. What more could be said? It was done.
*~*
The morning dawned cool and breezy, overcast and typical for March in Tortall. Mom will never see this, Jon thought dimly. He dressed in mute shock, sorrow weighing like a lead ball in his gullet. Today would be the funeral; today would be a closing chapter in his life. He feared for his father nearly as much as he missed his mother, and he feared for himself as well. Would he be able to fulfill the duties of the family while his father mourned? Jon knew that no amount of need from his kingdom would pull his father out of grief - and there was need in the kingdom. What with Master Thom's escapades and dances with the dead topping the horrific famine of that winter, already the people feared. And now, with the death of their queen -
"Jon? Are you up?" came a soft, husky voice, accompanied by a soft knock on his door.
"Yes," he replied flatly as he pulled on his black tunic.
"Are you decent?"
"Who is it?" he snapped irritably.
"It's me, it's Josiane. May I come in?"
With a sigh, Jon opened the door to the lovely - and so annoying - princess. "Yes, milady? What can I do for you?"
"I only wished to express my condolences," she said smoothly. She was nearly as tall as he, with flowing blonde hair and captivating blue eyes - cold, cruel, captivating blue eyes.
"Thank you, Princess, for your concern," he said coldly.
"May I accompany you to breakfast?"
Jon bowed just enough to be polite and declined. Food was the farthest thing from his mind; Josiane was the second farthest. She left with a polite apology that did not hide her irritation.
*~*
The funeral was mute and closed for Jon. He saw not the hoards gathering to mourn the passing of their kindhearted Queen; he heard not the cries of sorrow. He did not see George watching him closely through the city; he did not hear the murmurs of fear and rumors of curses being muttered beneath the mourning face of the Lower City.
Days crawled by, melding into one another, indistinguishable. Jon hardly noticed their passing; if he was not signing official documents because of his father's inability to do so, he was fretting over the return of the Conté Duke, or soothing the masses that flooded the palace with worries and rumors by using superficial assurances.
Three numbing weeks passed. Jon had grown paler and thinner during them, fearing for his father and desperately needing to mourn his mother. He found no solitude, not even after he escaped the attention of Josiane. Not one hand was raised, not even by Gary or Raoul, which could calm him, and not one mind opened that could understand him. His father regressed farther and farther away from the real world, and hardly seemed to recognize that he was King, or even that he was a father. He sat and cried silently, or stared as the wardrobe that was his mother's, or simply wandered the hall, a ghost in his own life. Jon had always known of the bond and devotion between his mother and his father, but this - this man that had materialized made him believe his father was dead as well. This man was a hollowed being, a soul sucked dry by the ravages of love and loss.
And so it was that Jon's heart sang when his father announced he would accompany a hunting party one fine day in early April. Watching from his balcony, Jon smiled as his father rode, again a man, with his arrows and bow to hunt small game in the Royal Forest. The men disappeared into the trees.
A breeze ruffled Jon's hair, and a sob chocked him unexpectedly. He closed his eyes to the early morning sun, drank in their health and security. Maybe things would be okay; maybe this was the beginning of the end of a time of such pain. He sat on a bench and leaned again the palace walls, drifting slowly into the deep sleep that he had needed for so long.
Horn blasts and bells blaring woke Jon with a surge of adrenalin. Men were racing from the Forest, calling desperately to help. Unable to catch their words, Jon leapt from his seat, heart sinking. Gods no, he begged, afraid of the truth, Gods no, no, no!
He collided with Gary as he rounded the bend from the balcony doorway. Shaking and frantic, the Prince tried to ask questions, but only managed nonsensical ramblings. Gary's eyes were glazed as Jon stepped back from his cousin.
"No," he whispered. "No, not him - not him too, no! You can't tell me - you can't tell me!" he cried, and fled down the hallway, out the doors and into the practice courts. He collided into the barrels of hay used for archery and pummeled them with his fists, screaming and cursing before dissolving into a fresh flood of tears.
It was Stephan Groomsman who found him leaning hard against the stacks of hay. Jon straitened and looked at him with pleading eyes. "Please?" he breathed, imploring with all he was. "Please -"
"There was an accident," Stephan explained thickly. "He fell in th' gorge above Willow Falls." He faltered, then added softly, "He's dead, Jon."
*~*
Jon had never fainted before. He remember nothing of Gary finding him and having him taken to his rooms, nor did he remember Duke Baird's Gift surrounding him and bringing him reluctantly to wakefulness.
He awoke with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. All around him were faces, faces there to support the Prince - but not to comfort. Prince, Jon thought dimly. No, no longer the Prince -
"Excuse me, please," he said and stumbled from the crowded room, down the hall and outside again, into the gardens. He fell onto the first bench he could find, head spinning. He thought of his father, his first memory of his father's face:
He was in the bathtub, and his father was watching him closely. With a cry of glee baby Jon splashed the water up and watched it fly from the basin, pooling on the floor at his father's feet.
"Now, Jonathan, don't splash," his father had said sternly. Baby Jon laughed and did so again. With a sigh, his father said, "See this? You're making the floor all wet. Think of the floor, son. Do you think it wants to be wet? I don't believe it does." Even at that age, Jon had been able to see the glint of humor in his father's eyes despite the serious tone of his voice. "Think of the floor, son," he had said..
Tears pooled and spilled from his eyes to the cobblestone path as he relived each memory of his mother and father, from this first to the final time he had seen either of them alive - his mother sewing with a trembling hand, his father wandering aimlessly the corridors of his home. An accident, they said. Jon felt his heart quiver and his breath catch in his chest. No one else had seen the look in his father's eyes that day, no one else had watched him as closely as Jon had.
His father had killed himself. The words danced around in Jon's head, teasing him, taunting him in a maniacal rhythm. You weren't enough, they said, you weren't reason enough for him to live - only your mother was. He killed himself to go to her, he didn't care about leaving you, leaving the Realm, leaving his people...
The voices grew louder and louder, multiplying and festering in his mind until he couldn't take it a moment more. He lurched forward with a cry, falling from the bench. Raoul caught him and steadied him.
"It's not fair," Jon spat, filled with a sudden fury. With a murderous cry he tore at the nearest bush, ripping a branch and hurling it across the garden, watching with perverse pleasure as it shattered on the hard stone wall. He was a wall of stone, stoic and immobile, filled with emotions that could not escape. He could not scream, he could not cry, and he could not rage.
As he slumped back to the bench, Raoul said, "They're asking for you in the King's chambers, Gods keep him."
"Can't they leave me be?" he whispered hotly.
The bigger man paused, then said timidly, "There was nothing you could do, Jonathan. You couldn't have stopped this."
"He killed himself," Jon said bluntly.
"There's nothing you could have done," Raoul repeated, more forceful this time. "Look at me, Jon, and tell me you understand that. The Realm can't lose you, too."
This shook the Prince to the core. "Lose me, too?" He swore lightly. "I can't leave. Tortall -" He heard his friend breath a heavy sigh of relief, and swore again, a fresh batch of tears on the way.
"What can I do?" Raoul rumbled.
"What can anyone do?" Jon cried softly. His heart ached, his soul was in pieces. Who could remedy that?
"Find Alanna," Jon said finally. "She sent a letter months back. She'll be coming - Gods, I can't remember, somewhere soon, back from the Roof. Find the letter. Find her. She can - she has to help. No one else can." Raoul stood a moment later and left his friend in peace.
Jon stared at the sky, darkening already with coming night. He was, undeniably, alone - no mother, no father, no family to speak of. His land was falling apart - the weather, the people, the royal family. He heavy weight settled deep within his heart, and his stomach rolled with the thought of it. Head spinning and mind reeling, he walked dumbly back into the castle. The crowds of people softened their voices and parted as he passed, but he didn't care. His mind was filled with his father, his mother, and his fear.
The Realm now lay in his hands, and his alone. His footsteps echoed down the now-empty corridor. He couldn't do it alone, he could never do it alone! He swallowed hard and felt like floating lead. Nauseous and dizzy, he paused in a doorway to collect himself.
Out a window, a leaf drifted past, falling from the ivy clinging to the castle walls. The sunset exploded in pink and gray behind the black silhouettes of the towering trees. His vision crystallized and split into a thousand pieces with Jon's silent tears.
"I'm scared," he whispered to the night. "Help me, Alanna." He closed her eyes and saw her face, full of resolve, and could nearly feel her hand brushing away his tears. If she had the Dominion Jewel, maybe the fear would subside. If she would hold him once more, maybe the fear would subside. If she could forgive him - oh, Gods! If she could forgive him, the maybe the Realm would survive. "Please let us still be able to be scared together."