A/N: This is a story about Benjamina, Reaver's number one in-universe fangirl, based on accounts she later shared with esteemed scholar of salacious stories Samuel of Brightwall. Because Samuel is a gentleman, he has changed certain names to protect the innocent (which certainly does NOT include Reaver), but know that this is Benjamina's tale. How much of it has been embellished by the combined flair for the dramatic of her and Samuel is certainly up for debate. Props to GorimJr. for hitting on the very awesome (IMO) "Samuel as narrator" device.
Idol Worship
By Samuel of Brightwall
Chapter 1: Lizards
Wherein A Young Girl's Life is Inexorably Changed In The Blink Of An Eye And The Whiz Of A Bullet
It all began innocently enough, as much as anything can be called innocent in this day and age. As the fiery and fierce radical and revolutionary, Page, has been known to say, Bower Lake is indeed one of the most beautiful spots in all of Albion, and as such, it attracts visitors from as far off as the Mistpeak Valley. It was not unusual, then, that a young woman from the market district of the capital city should be making a sojourn here. Whether folly or fate that led her here on this particular day, in this particular way, is entirely up to the reader. What follows is the portrait of a bright and imaginative (some would uncharitably say "over-imaginative") young woman, for whom a chance encounter would become a lifelong obsession.
The young woman in question, whom I shall call here "Philomena," (after the titular character in Morley's great self-satirizing work, "Philomena and Geraldine Almost Get It On, But Ultimately Don't," with which the reader is undoubtedly familiar) had run off in a bit of a huff after a particularly nasty shouting match with her mother, which corresponded with the destruction of no less than four vases of both sentimental and monetary value. Her mother came from the aristocracy, having married a man in the merchant class out of love, and, years later, deeply regretted it. Our Philomena had, on this day, been chastised for consorting with the lowly kitchen help, an unassuming young man who here shall be referred to by the name of "Daniel." Daniel was not Philomena's first love, but surely her greatest to date, and for that, her mother was greatly appalled. The impassioned argument was taking place in the kitchen, where the ill-fortuned Daniel was attempting to prepare the evening's meal, and wishing, silently, stoically, that the floorboards would be merciful and swallow him up.
"Oh, Mother!" Philomena had cried dramatically. "You haven't a romantic bone in your body, have you?"
"Bloody well right I don't, girl," the woman had scoffed, years of life amongst the working classes having worn the polish of nobility from her speech. "And if I should ever find onesuch, I'd be breaking the miserable blighter of a bone meself." She snapped a stale breadstick, mere inches from Daniel's face, to illustrate her point. Daniel, to his credit, merely flinched and continued stirring.
"You're just jealous, Mother. You're jealous and you wear it terribly, an ill-fitting coat that warms your wounded soul, yet brings your bound limbs discomfort growing by the day, by the moment!" The young woman gestured grandly, awash in the beauty of what she considered to be an extremely elegant metaphor.
Philomena's mother blinked, momentarily stunned. "Bloody hell, child, what does that nonsense even mean? An ill-fitting...never mind. You're not to go traipsing off again with that servant boy. Avo knows what intentions he has for you, you'll be penniless and up the duff in no time flat!"
Philomena whirled around, offended, her poetic syntax forgotten. "For heaven's sakes, Mother, we used a condom, I'm not bloody STUPID!"
Philomena clapped her hands over her mouth in dismay at her unseemly revelation. No one made a sound. No one moved. Finally, the silence was broken by Daniel, swallowing hard, a comedic gulping sound more befitting a character in a farce than a young man trapped in such a tense domestic situation. "Th-the soup's done," he offered weakly.
It was for this reason that Philomena ventured, without wrap and without escort, into the chill of the autumn evening, stalking forth from her comfortable Bowerstone home, into the lengthening shadows of the fields and wood.
"Mother is a horrible old troll," she bitterly explained to no one in particular. "I should turn her in to King Logan as the last such monster remaining. Fetch a fine reward, for finally ridding Albion of such a heartless menace. Probably give me a kiss, too. The King, I mean. Not the troll-er, Mother." Philomena's face took on a dreamy expression. "I bet he kisses right nice, our King. He looks so handsome in those posters of his. A hard man, but with a softer side..."
The girl's hands floated up in front of her, as she pantomimed caressing prominent cheekbones, and she fantasized about what her wedding dress would look like on that glorious day she was crowned Queen of Albion. Tears of happiness began to form in her eyes as she imagined the look her new husband would give her, that man who had worked so hard to make his country great, as he finally found a woman who could give him the love and understanding he needed, yet with a fire that inflamed his passions. Her hands moved to rest on phantom shoulders, and she began to turn slowly in a circle, a wedding waltz to end all wedding waltzes, if only in her mind. "And they all lived happily-"
Philomena felt, rather than heard, the bandits moving in around her; where previously there had been sounds of birds singing and insects chirring, suddenly, all was still. Philomena froze, a chill of the inevitable causing her to shudder. She clutched reflexively where her shawl would have been, had she taken the time to properly attire herself before departure. Finding no such garment, her hand grasped the fabric of her dress and came to rest just above her breasts. Her eyes fixed upon a small lizard on the path ahead, noting its coloration and texture in a curiously detailed manner. It is said that in moments such as these, the mind becomes desperate to escape awareness of its situation, and preoccupies itself with minutia (though if such an assessment is true, surely it could be applied to Albion's great scholars virtually their whole lives through). Philomena's mind eagerly clung to the whimsy of the jerky, halting mannerisms of the creature, unwilling to respond to the heavily thudding footfalls approaching her from all sides. A massive boot came crunching down atop the hapless lizard, shattering its bones, spilling its meager blood, and abruptly returning Philomena to the matter at hand.
" 'ere, now, luv, no worries," The boot's brawny owner put forth in a voice like whiskey and broken glass. "My 'sociates an' I jes' wont yer gold, is all."
"And maybe a kiss!" A youthful voice, high-pitched and cracking, piped up hopefully from behind her.
A low, dry chuckle came from somewhere to Philomena's left. "A kiss...or maybe more."
"Definitely more," affirmed the scraggly, wild-looking man to her right, as he fondled his knife in a most unsettling manner.
"And when we're done," a final voice intoned, low and breathy and far too close for comfort, "We'll be wantin' yer life, o' course."
" 'pologies, luv," the first bandit said with a shrug. "Looks like yer well wiffin rights ta worryin' after all."
So this is how it ends, thought Philomena with great feeling, as the brutish armed men closed in around her. I wonder what they will say about me at my funeral? Will I make a pretty corpse? Will Mother cry? I bet she'll feel terrible for the things she said. And Daniel, oh, dear, sweet, Daniel!
And then, Something Happened, which banished from the distraught girl's mind Daniel, Mother, or much of anything else. Philomena heard a peculiar whistling, like an insect flying past her ear at great speed. A moment later, a queer expression crossed the lead bandit's stubbly face.
"Glurk," he said, or something like it, as he proceeded to collapse to the ground.
Philomena and the bandits stared curiously at the fallen leader, then at one another, as if perhaps, together, they might solve this mystery. Then Philomena heard another sound, a loud crack, like a heavy tree branch breaking away from the trunk. Her mind was dimly aware that she had heard this sound a moment before, but had been too lost in her morbid fugue to register it. Another whistling, another falling bandit. This one, though, clutched at his chest with a grimace before stumbling backwards, and after he fell, a deep red stain began to blossom across the front of his coat.
"Oy! Lads!" The cry went up at last. "We're under attaACK!" The bandit's warning was choked off as a bullet impacted with his throat, tearing messily through his windpipe.
Philomena turned in the direction of the onslaught, expecting to see a patrol of the King's soldiers, or perhaps even a rival gang of bandits or mercenaries. She was totally unprepared for what greeted her instead: a lone, slender figure, clad in pristine white, and visible even in the fading light of dusk. Walking slowly down the sloping road towards them as he fussed with a smallish object (reloading a pistol of some type, Philomena supposed), this gleaming apparition opened its mouth to speak. Philomena strained to hear the words over the cries of outrage issuing forth from the remaining bandits.
"Oh, would you lot hurry up and die already? I've had a long day, and I'm tired, and you miserable mercenaries are spoiling my scenic stroll with your decidedly unattractive features." The speaker had been nursing a most pleasant wine buzz, as well, and was quite put out to have it spoiled, even momentarily.
The youngest bandit's eyes bulged in terrified recognition, turning away from his assailant to flee in the opposite direction. He neither saw nor heard the bullets that ended his life, but the blood that spurted forth from his mortal wounds spattered Philomena hotly across the face and chest. She let it flow without emotion or response. The lone remaining bandit, seemingly against reason, though perhaps as a matter of pride, fired off one potshot at this well-dressed deathbringer instead of running. The shot went wildly astray, however, embedding itself instead in a nearby signpost, sending splinters flying. Philomena's "white knight" merely "tsked" and, advancing to point-blank range, placed a final bullet directly between the bandit's eyes. Satisfied that the miscreant's life had been sufficiently snuffed out, the gunman withdrew his pistol. Rather than holstering it, however, he retrained it on our stunned heroine.
"I wouldn't move if I were you," he said without turning around. He straightened his hat, swept a fleck of ash from his lapel with a gloved hand, and, with a look of annoyed distaste, used the toe of his boot to nudge the lifeless mercenary off the road. He kept the gun pointed at Philomena the whole time. "Truly a disaster of inherited traits," the man muttered. "Society owes me a great debt for all the half-formed troglodytes I've removed from the breeding pool over the years."
Finally, he turned to face the girl. He found her standing stone-still, barely daring to breathe.
"Hmm? You didn't move after all. How curiously...competent. And deliciously compliant. Or demonstrating a sense of self-preservation at least." In two broad strides, he closed the gap between himself and the girl. "Say, I'm beginning to get the notion that you're not a bandit," he drawled, raising his elegant eyebrows in amusement as he looked down at the girl appraisingly.
She was far from the loveliest girl he'd ever met, but, to be fair, he had gone out of his way to sample the most beautiful and exotic of specimens. Her white-knuckled hand, still clutching the fabric of her dress, drew attention to the young woman's not-insubstantial assets. She was well-formed, there was no denying that, and there was something about this tableau in particular that appealed to him. Having rescued (albeit unintentionally) this girl teetering on the edge of womanhood, seeing her pale, slender shoulders spattered with blood, a lone survivor amidst the carnage...he had to admit, it was quite artistic. Perhaps I'll have her stuffed, he thought whimsically, and chuckled aloud, startling the girl.
For her part, Philomena was transfixed. Unaware of the world around her, or of her own body, she gazed at the man before her, totally absorbed. She had already identified him as the man known as "Reaver"; she recognized his smooth, classical good looks from posters that had begun cropping up around town. She had previously wondered whether his noble features had been exaggerated in the artwork for the sake of publicity, but now she felt quite certain that, on the contrary, they had not been done justice. Though the sun had nearly disappeared, Reaver's features seemed alight with a lunar radiance. And he was so very, very close.
"Lizards," Philomena pronounced finally.
"Eh? What's that now, my dear?" Reaver's brow quirked in annoyed puzzlement. His mind was still a bit fuzzy from the wine, and he was in no mood for riddles.
"They're like lizards to you. Or some other creeping, crawling thing. Before you arrived, the leader-bandit crunched up a poor little lizard under his boot. You squashed them just as easy. Not one shot landed on you, thank Avo, nor on me! Thank Avo, thank...you! You didn't miss, not a shot. They were like lizards beneath your boot."
Reaver took stock of Philomena once more, with new appreciation. The way the silly girl was prattling on, she made him sound like a god given mortal form. Well? In another time, wouldn't he have been called "Hero," however despicable the world judged his actions to be? Wouldn't he have been given special consideration for his special specialness? Her eyes, he decided, were her most attractive feature; she never took them off of him.
"My dear," he purred, mouth widening and curling into a most beguiling smile, "I never miss." Keeping his dark eyes locked with hers, he extended a gloved finger and traced the outline of her shoulder, all the way up the curve of her bare neck, moving with what Philomena felt was an agonizing slowness. She became acutely aware of her body, then; she felt the sharp chill of the rising evening wind, the sticky discomfort of the rapidly drying blood, and the lingering caress that now felt branded onto her neck and shoulder. She shuddered, quite involuntarily, and gave a little sighing gasp. Reaver only smiled more broadly; he loved to see that he was having an effect on people.
"Now, my sweet, I would truly love a chance to, aheh, become properly acquainted, but, alas, the hour grows late, and I have been so very busy with my recent work I've had no time for myself. Tragic, really." And that feisty little Contessa I left shackled upstairs should be positively begging for release by now, he added mentally, with a self-congratulatory smugness. Philomena nodded slowly, unable to disagree with him. Reaver was delighted to see the expression on her face, which told him that the girl truly did consider his personal inconvenience to be a tragedy. "Oh! But, happy day! I've just now remembered, I'm hosting an intimate little soiree tomorrow night, just for myself and a few dozen of my closest friends. You'll come, of course," he told her, offering an invitation that was less a request and more a statement of fact, and, perhaps, a thinly-veiled double entendre on top of that. He leaned in close, using his thumb to caress the roundness of the girl's cheek, as he spoke in a voice that was practically a stage whisper, "I can't wait to have you there."
And, with that, he was off, traveling down the path in ground covering strides, half-singing snatches of this tune or that. I should have told her she could only come if she threw herself into the lake; then she would've been all, run, run, splash! Reaver erupted into a fit of tittering giggles, which disrupted a group of well-fed pigeons roosting nearby. He shot a couple of them out of the sky purely for sport, with the pistol he realized he had never quite managed to put away; he didn't stop laughing to himself the whole time. Sometimes it is truly remarkable to be me.
Philomena watched him go. She felt a profound loss and loneliness upon his departure that seemed, to her rational mind, quite disproportionate . At the same time, part of her was immensely grateful; if he hadn't set her free, she would have followed him anywhere.
She began the trek home, little realizing that she would be anything but free for a very, very long time to come.
Reviews and messages are loved, whether about this story, or just geeking out over Fable and its characters in general. Hope y'all got a kick out of drunk!Reaver, though I imagine he goes through much of life at least minorly buzzed. "He's just high on life..." xD Anyway... Look for the next chapter soon!