AN: Thanks to all for the lovely comments - I love hearing from you, your thoughts about the characters, the possibility of Princess Rose and Logan (is it or isn't it? Lol we shall see). I am always up to answering any questions or perhaps even htaking suggestions if you have a word or phrase you'd like for me to try writing from :) I have a list for myself, but I thought I'd open it up to you guys if you were interested. THe story will go on as planned - but I'm curious to see where you all think it might ;)
Love you all for your kind words! Enjoy!
~Voi
Theme 10: Imagination
Rose woke to silk sheets, a velvet canopy and the deep chuckling of a faintly familiar but otherwise unrecognizable male voice.
"Well, good morning my dear lady, did you sleep well?"
Groaning softly, the young woman had barely sat herself up when her hands brushed against the clean linens that wrapped her shoulder and stomach. Looking down in delayed response, it was with a started realization that she realized that save for the lacy lingerie she wore she was otherwise undressed.
Looking up in muted horror, Rose scrambled to cover herself, swaying when her rapid movements sent jolts of pain down her back and across her chest. Her illness, when coupled with the wounds she received by the White Balverine, seemed to sap a tremendous amount of energy. Steadying herself, the young woman scowled at the amused expression on the other's face.
"Reaver, why am unclothed?"
"Unclothed? Yes…I do believe I remember helping with that. Not entirely naked though if I do recall – what a shame."
Reaver's smile was equal parts lustful and dangerous, "I can always change that if you prefer my lady, all it would take would be one…gentle…pull on those ribbons and…" the older man seemed to sigh, "I can promise we would have fun my dear, you and I."
Still half-asleep, Rose did her best to fend off the man's advances.
"You offered much the same to me once several months ago, my answer still stands." Rose replied, tugging the corner of the blanket a little higher.
"Remind me again what it was that you answered, my dear."
"I'm not your 'dear' – and I said 'no' to you last time."
"Truly?" The dark haired man looked surprised, "Then you have no idea what you're missing. Are you certain I can't convince you otherwise?"
Looking unmoved, the young queen appeared to grow surlier with every word, "I'm positive. Now leave me be so I can get dressed and leave."
And though it took several more minutes to convince him that she wanted him out of the room before she would leave her protective bedding, in the end Rose had her way.
Grumbling as she pulled on her tunic and skirt, she had stepped out into a small adjoining hallway in search of her shoes when she found herself face to face with a painting…of her mother.
What such a thing was doing in Reaver's home was a mystery, but so too was the state of her mother in the painting. An image of youthful beauty, Sparrow seemed so entirely unlike the regal image she had been as queen, the painting so startlingly intimate that Rose wondered if perhaps the canvas had been meant as a gift for a loved one.
Rose wouldn't have put it past Reaver to have stolen a painting; images of the Queen before she was famous were known to be worth many times their weight in gold. Rose didn't want to consider the possibility that the painting had ever been meant for Reaver, Sparrow had never mentioned the Hero of Skill except with disdain and Rose was loath to change that memory now.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Reaver appeared behind her like some sort of apparition, materializing at her side as if by some strange magic. Despite his words, he too appeared entirely engrossed in the painting.
"I don't understand." Looking back at him, Rose gestured to the image, "Why do you have this?"
"Your mother?" Raising one eyebrow, the head of Industries seemed to consider her again, "You're Sparrow's little brat are you?"
"I am the Queen's daughter, yes. I would have thought you would recognize me after all of our dealings this past year."
Reaver laughed, "I deal with a lot of people, girl, I rarely remember specific people at all."
"But you remember my mother," Rose pointed out slowly, "Surely that means something."
Laughing, the man sat down upon in the luxurious leather chair, "Of course it does. Sparrow was the most hard-headed, annoying woman I have ever met. Wasn't even smart enough to choose money in the end – poor thing had to save up for years to afford anything."
Despite his words, his voice seemed different as if there was some disconnect between the words her was speaking and what he actually felt.
"Then you knew her before she became Queen."
"I knew her when she had a daughter named Finch." Reaver answered, dark eyes crinkling in amusement though he never looked away from the painting, "Didn't survive though. It was to be expected of course, marry a non-hero and all you'll get are non-hero children. They don't survive the things they should…pity."
"That's not true." Rose frowned at him, "The Hero of Oakvale, our ancestor, had a father who wasn't a hero."
"Yes well…there were Hero Academies back then. No one nowadays is a natural Hero without a both mommy and daddy having a bit of the blood in them."
None of Reaver's logic was making sense since Logan was clearly her brother and hadn't shown quite the same ability to become a Hero that she had. And though she was uncertain as to her mother's heritage, she doubted that both her parents had had the blood of heroes in them. It just seemed too unlikely.
Scowling at the man, Rose called him on it, chin thrust outward in challenge.
"You're nothing but a liar, Reaver. And this time you didn't even have the decency to do it properly."
Taunting him, Rose felt for the first time a glimmer of control over her situation, however brief.
"Oh maybe… I do so love a good story." Reaver smiled as he caught her challenge, "Let me tell you one last one. In every generation prior there has always been a pair of siblings. And in the end, one of them becomes the Hero who saves the day and the other dies. The Hero of Oakvale lost his sister to bandits as a child, and your mother lost her sister to the machinations of a man named Lucien."
Giving the young woman a smirk, the dark haired reprobate leaned forward, looking away from the portrait of the old Queen for the first time.
"So tell me, how is it that your brother seems to have escaped death for so long? Made some friends in high places?"
"That's none of your business." The words were both a warning and a threat. "You leave my brother alone."
"I take orders from you?" The smirk upon his lips widened as he leaned back, "Clearly you damaged something in that fight with those Balverines. But then, maybe you're just too much like your mother to ignore flirting with danger."
Reaver's smirk sharpened then, sharpened and yet somehow seemed softer.
"Why are you smiling like that?" His look bothered her, made Rose protective of the woman she had called 'mother', protective despite the fact that the beloved Queen of Albion had been dead several years.
"I knew Sparrow when she was first married." Reaver repeated himself from several moments ago, "When she had a little girl named Finch…"
Rose watched as his smile grew broader still.
"… and a little boy named Logan."
"What?"
"Logan had a twin sister. And one day, because Sparrow threatened everything, her greatest enemy came to her home and slaughtered both her daughter and husband."
"But-"
"You look so surprised – but you can't deny that this story makes sense."
"No…"
Rose shook her head, face pale and eyes wide in something akin to growing horror.
"Let me put it this way; if Logan was the twin to the daughter your mother lost then the pattern of sibling deaths is fulfilled and neither you nor your brother need worry about losing the other to an enemy of the family. At the same time neither your brother nor his twin showed signs of Heroic ancestry, so wouldn't that mean that you who inherited your mother's legacy are born from the union of two heroes?"
"Y-you're scrambling the two stories you told me earlier!"
Vaguely Rose noted that her voice was pitched too high to sound calm, tight in a way that betrayed her confusion, her fear.
"That may be so my dear," Reaver tapped his finger against his lips, "But it's not my responsibility to show you what is fact and what is my own special brand of lies."
"My mother's husband… the man Albion called king, was not a hero!"
And at this Reaver began to laugh, his deep voice echoing in the darkness, "Right you are my dear. So tell me…wouldn't it make sense that your mother's husband…was not your father?"
He spoke that last statement with such glee that Rose knew it to be true, feeling ill at the thought that her own lineage was all but unknown to her, cast into doubt by one wretched man.
"But if he wasn't my father then…"
Rose struggled to maintain what control she could, feeling increasingly helpless the longer she stood there, staring at the painting.
"Who indeed…" Reaver seemed to consider the question, "The answer might surprise you I think…"
And then Rose was alone, the silence sudden, all-consuming and so penetratingly absolute that Rose felt the cold tugging disorientation of the dark so very reminiscent of the caves on Aurora. Near ill with worry, and the terrible sensation that she had just learned a dark truth her mother had tried to cover up, Rose trembled as she sought out the support of the wall, using it to stabilize her in a way her legs refused to do.
"Rose!"
How funny that in a moment everything can change so suddenly. Light spilled from the open doorway like a brilliant beacon, the only shadow caused by the man standing there. Light amidst the dark, Rose didn't doubt how perfectly suitable the idea was for this one man, despite his faults.
And though he was framed in the doorway, his face too darkened by shadow to see clearly, there was no mistaking the outline of his body, the distinct way in which he held himself. Her heart leapt at the sight of so familiar a figure. There were so many questions left unanswered, the lines between truth and lie, reality and imagination a terrible blurred mess in her mind.
"Logan."
She sobbed his name, trembling as he crossed the hall, his face unreadable as he pulled her close, wrapping his traveling coat around her shaking shoulders.
There was so much to think about, but for now it could wait, because she was in his arms, feeling the heat of his breath against her skin as he pulled her close, inhaling the familiar scent of the man closest to her heart.
"Forgive me." The words were whispered against her hair, his deep voice an almost imperceptible rumble in his chest as he cradled her in his arms, "Please forgive me, for what I've said."
Clutching at his back she buried her face in his neck she sobbed against him, "I'm glad you came for me."
And though she couldn't see his face, the arms around her tightened, pulling her closer still, reveling in the forgiveness she offered with her honesty.
"Always."