Traitor's Keep

by Modrona

Taken from the DLC of the same name. I do not own Fable or these characters. A fic charting the year after the Crawler's attack on Albion, as the danger to the Queen turns personal, and she has no one to rely on. With betrayal at every turn, trapped and stripped of everything she has, now the saviour needs saving. Graphic royalcest, don't like, don't read.

10. Day 253

+253

Elsbeth's weakness frustrates her. The physical weakness, she can't do much about. Her muscles have wasted to almost nothing, and she's about as dangerous as a baby turnip at the moment. Food and training, with plenty of rest, will restore her energy and strength. It's her mental weakness that she cannot stand. The fact that she is so consumed with hatred for Milton that she cannot begin to plan how to kill him. The fact that her memory is not what it was, so she finds herself trailing off mid-sentence, searching for a name or strategy. She also is not sleeping. Not without hideous nightmares of the Darkness and the monster it turned Walter into.

She'd been used to control. For the year she was Queen of Albion undisputed, control was what she had. Control over the economy, the army, the art, the people, her servants. Herself. She controlled the system and the system controlled her. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. For months now she had been at the mercy of chaos, a force so strong even control over herself has been ripped from her. Now even her hands shake.

Without Logan, she would have thrown herself overboard days ago. But Logan supports her in her weakness. There's just the two of them, and he is at the helm of their little sloop, but he always makes sure there's food on hand permanently. He writes down, step by step, how they will take down Milton, and listens to her rant and rave about how she'll rip the pretender's heart out and feed it to him. He quietly supplies her with names when she stops speaking and starts glaring at people she can't remember. He holds her throughout the entire night, calming her fears when he can and risking being struck by flailing limbs when he can't. He does not complain. It all makes her heartily ashamed. She has never shown an example of reciprocity. But neither would she wish Logan to suffer one iota more than he has done.

"You're making progress," he soothes. "You could hardly lift a sword when we left the island."

It is true that the mast and bulwarks now bear the evidence of her training, notches and cuts in the wood where she has hacked at them in lieu of a flesh and blood target. Logan currently refuses to spar with her on the grounds that someone needs to steer the ship. It's also because she'd demand he not hold back, and at the moment he'd kill her instantly. But she'll get better. Logan says she will.

Sometimes she resents his faith in her.