War Has Come While Night Hath Fallen Over Our Faire Kingdom –
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Chapter 22: Brothers; None to Rejoice – The Death of the King
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Todd looked to his advisors on a strategy. He called to the seer below their city and even looked to Ra's own daughter – only to have the scroll intercepted by hawk by the king. He warned the prince of his foretelling. All the reason why Jason could do no evil if he had to avenge the rightful ruler of to – day. Bruce swore and hit the boy, telling him more than ever to prepare. To not let his guard down. That Richard was slowly fading away, and that a curse upon the boy's bloodline was all it might take to wake a sleeping monster from its den.
The king was sedated, for locked away to bind the houses would change the old king's law and preserve what they already could. Stefania and Tim, they could not stay idle whilst their brothers were divided. Tim went west, his mind aware than if he shot forth into the unknown, he'd have to train with the mighty ones in the east to forgo and ancient rite that his father had. Bruce had trained to be better than a king, better than any warrior. Right now, Jason had shooed those lessons and was doing as he pleased to make peace with his subjects.
"He's not well, brother." Jason argued with Cassandra and Duke as they stayed beside the door – beyond it being the king's tantrums of prophetic telling and evil devil – bats.
"He's not here, and to this I believe he won't. No, his son and that child must be returned. Only then –
"You intend to fight Wirlon??" Duke exclaimed, the petty interest having only to do with the king's sanity. "I should leave quickly. Where is my brother, Tim."
Only to moments did Stefania find the guards after her by the castle gates. She was dragged in her disguise to where Jason sat beside Kor'anna, role playing already as the rulers of this city.
"Father has not passed on. You cannot deem it in your right, not yet." Huffed the princess. She had grown a head taller and was street wise by Royland's attitude altogether. "Our kingdom can know not of a tangible "peace" unless you try to decipher it is what father wishes to convey."
As the castle grew to project the feelings of its inhabitants greatly, the siblings grew suspicious of one another. Tim had returned and with no luck, he was warned of the same curse his father had spouted. Upon his arrival to the home, the boy looked to Stefania as she rushed to meet him, her eyes wet and nose dripping into her skirts. "Sister…" Tim took her side and asked, "What's left you to such a state? Where is our brother?"
She pointed to a screeching fear that tore through the tower where Bruce had been moved to. "Brother…. must kill father. The bat god…it is no god, Timothy! It possessed him! Drove him to kill and devour the staff inside the castle walls…none can stop it! More innocents could dearly pay for his crimes…" She bawled into her hands. "If this is so, he told us…that any to sit upon the throne would be corrupted as he has. If one as king feels a loss so great, the bat is left to feed and be put to death – look!!" She pointed to the half-naked, flying tyrant that had been put there by whomever had stepped first foot in this city. "No, father… Gather the citizens and wake them door –to – door." Tim clenched her hands, eyes meeting green on green. "You'll not face them alone. Now, go. Have Royland sound the alarms with his squadron stationed in the city, and quickly."
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Kor'anna sat by the window and watched her beloved run off upon a steed of his rearing. Their father, the king was unwell and sge feared that protect the country and its rule, any unthinkable action might be done to allow her his post while the second eldest was off fighting wars in the high lands of Defencia. She rocked herself to her knees by the seated window area and took to the stairwell as soon as her eyes were dried. "I could simply learn from the king what he wishes of us." She gathered her strength and for the very first hour before none but her beloved and the servants had arisen that month towards winter's first flake, she went to be near a dying man. For she feared of one who would not return by his promise. Nor could her child, a child she'd long to hold yet could not.
Her people felt such grief in their loss of a lover that the babe normally could never survive and would perish. Her sister was nearly lost due to her mother's pains upon childbirth, yet she had been fortunate. Kor'anna believed this was why her sibling had hated her so. She had lived at peace with her pain, while the eldest believed herself a curse on their world that had granted her life at all.
To the rooms she went, the wing where Wayne lay resting with his den of smoke and pain medicinal from the best of any doctors that were still to his aid in these times. She clutched the handle and pulled it carefully away, the door not making a sound as she thanked her ability to seem weightless at times. "My king…" She saw his state and put her hands to her lips.
He. Was not human, anymore.
As the children had said. The bat god had laid a curse upon his heart, as Kor'anna rushed in her night dress to the first horse she could hold steady. Long enough to catch up to her beloved who had made a terrible mistake. Just as his father, he too would lose his humanity to that same affliction.
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Richard pulled from his child's hands a toy wooden sword. He was not to agree to this sooner, yet Slade has him concerned about the boy's excelling growth. "He's a magical babe, my queen." The king lifted the child into his arms as the family together was not altogether on the child's early sword education. "I believe he at least should see how it handles in his grip. What harm can come of a plaything?" He teased his queen as she turned to the first frost after the fall. The wind was whipping over as the queen bundled into her robes and did not sigh this time. "Let him play as he does. I do not believe that he is right to hold it just, until the mid-season. There is not better spot to practice."
"My children learned to be tall as mountains, dear malady." Ghe king reassured a bit unevenly in his tone. "If you should need any convincing, see if Rosalie will spar you in the courtyard. Any snow there is minimal and it serves as a place to balance one's self by the surrounding forests."
"Forests in winter are all but a danger to a child. I cannot –
"This realm, is not yours. It will never be, unless you put away your observations from afar, my pet."
"You swore not to call me that." The boy's eyes grew wet. "You swore not to…but why? Why do you taunt me when I tower above all of that?? He is also my child, I bore him and…" Richard rushed to the boy as he latched onto his mother, sensing the child in Richard needed someone other than his king right then. The king huffed and turned away. His stance was cold as the thin ice his queen stood upon.
"Go."
The prince didn't know how to understand that order, that sounded too vague. "My –
"GO." The king ordered again. "You have what you cane to take back, then wait for me. Wait, and I shall show you just why none are to deny my commands, little pheasant." He used this nick name as a spiteful tease and at times, to bash the character that was the now mostly female Richard Wayne. Richard did as he had been ordered, yet not for the king. To that might, he would have performed miracles…yet in time, the king became possessive. Dead set on killing the person come to slay him.
"WIRLON!"
Richard gasped and dove to find shelter as the king left the great hall to greet his old enemies warmly.
As a fiery torch, he was lit to lead them astray down the tunnel once. Now, he did so for the sake of facing the man who would be called the new king.
"I've come to reclaim what you've stolen from my father, from the Wayne line. Your evil deeds ate done, and you shall relinquish the one in your care or we shall duel for the right to take them."
"This is so, dear Prince Todd." Smirked the king. His staff handed him a great broadsword that had seem many enemies fall by it. He wanted to make this an honest number to that total of kills in the year. He was only bitter, for the day had arrived to stay an unruly mutt not fit to hold Wayne's title.
"The rules are simple as followed; no one is to be used as a hostage or distraction. This is a fight between only us. Your queen is not to participate. Nor are your guardsmen or staff of this castle. The same to my brother and sisters." He turned to Tim and Stefania with Cassandra. All three stayed by the gates and did not move. "Our battleground I want, will be out there in the falling snow."
The gasps of many and whispers had Richard want to rush in and abolish the rumors if death on their breaths. He instead held Vonn and Rosalie close to him. Praying that a draw was somehow met. Knowing that was never to be the case as he felt at his hip, and waited for a time to act.
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The stand off in crunching permafrost - touched grass had Richard's eyes itch and water. If he lost his rights here, Bruce would have the children taken away. He could not decide, for that would be…
Rosalie tugged on the queen's arm with inquisitive and teary eyes as well. "Will father lose, mama?"
Richard's mouth fell open before shutting. One arm held Vonn, who was indeed no longer just a toddler. The other, patted the elder girl's hair as she pulled it to her cheek and used it to remind her of another mother. One that she'd wished to remember in this replacement. "Don't leave. Father will do better. He loves us so much…"
"I, know." Richard hesitated and yet, waited. Waited for the time. As in the bed, they had planned a day like this. A day to depart on old answers and make their ideas again as before. Brand new, open. As horrid a hero as the king was brought up to be, Richard could not pull back. In the time of his guilt, these children had allowed another side of that man to exist as not only a king abd ruler, but one that sought compassion as he had upon first arriving to this country of barbaric souls.
"Be patient as all, my loves. Do not cry." He whispered to his child. His. He was the one to raise them. Richard knew of a tactic from Paam without her ways to know of it before she been replaced, he had been sure to look through her many options for a way to turn back. To his desired lifetime, there was one way. Just one.
It would hurt these children far more, yet Richard would never abandon them. He could not.
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The wait for the fight took a minute as Jason made sure to bring some piece of equipment to protect both his shoulders and heart he didn't try to ask if it was a correct placement as Tim directed where each plate was meant to be set. While Wirlon doned only his furs, metal guards and bare arms to show that he was king of this vile place. This mountain of swords coated in blood since the birth of young ladies and lords. That they had as much as say, when the opposite was assured for the queen. She was forced to become subservient and earn her rights from a diabolical lord. If this were so, she rarely then acted anything less of a damsel. No. Nay. That was Jason's brother, and he'd be come damned if Wirlon brought a hand to that boy's skull or misshapen womb ever again.
"Are both parties satisfied by the rules?" Wirlon said to his own, letting others hear him ask the simple question. Jason clutched his sword and concentrated on the future he'd sworn to Kor'anna.
" Begin!"
The one mediator known as Winterghren had put his arm up as the duel in these lands was not so refined. Just an empty brawl to see whom had the upper hand. Who was superior in skill, not in will and wit which was how Jason enjoyed his fights against those thrive his size.
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Wirlon was a beast .
How his brother had lain with such a snorting, fired up creature as this cave dweller, even Kor'Anna might speak the same ills of King Slade and his ruling title. There was rumor that he was blessed to never be injured by the goddess of War. That she was actually the mother of Grandl, and this was why he sought such vengeance in the city of the great bat.
Hitting Jason smoothly with less grace than a wild steed on a rocky path, Slade parried the boy and made him dip at his knees to push the king off the king retracted, taunting in his gaze as he waited for the prince to rise. For the future king to behead him.
The queen watched as she fumbled at her skirts. Eyes shaking as the children clung away towards Winterghren. Selene frownedvfrom her perch and knew by any time therein, the boy would choose his battles. None would know of it. That there was more to a line clad in blood through the ages.
Yet the battle raged on as spectators said nothing. They could not. If a word through off their real king, he could be dead by another's hand. If Jason won, he would take their way if living and likely trample it. Change their laws, their freedoms. The city of the bat was a hopeless place to others such as they. The queen from before, the goddess spoken of in myth now, was from that city and she swore to never step foot there as long as she was breathing upon her deathbed.
Yet upon it, she swore to her children, her husband and king. ~ Take the crown. Defeat the great bat. Reclaim us, reclaim the name of Kannes( Kane.) ~
She was a second cousin to Wayne at the time in their days before the fighting. She was promised to him, ywt there was some coldness in his heart and he banished her. Far, far from the lands of steel to reside in a world of delicate snowfall.
Slade was still no more than Richard's age whence they'd locked hearts and eyes. He had saved her from her frozen path and together, Defencia thrived. But then..
Then…she was called under oath to the council of some very esteemed party and never returned. She was a queen of peace, not war. Yet to take the boy then when the king had come to that city,it was never the real plan in its entirety.
If Bruce pined for the child and asked of him anything by his love of family, he had wanted them to –
" Wirlon! My eyes are down below!"
Jason thrust forth his blade as daydreams all but faded with a gash now dripping into the fallen snow. Slade took in a deep inhale as the wounds closed, a black hole of mass and tissue right before a stunned and angered royal child. " Monster !!" Jason did not stop(similar to apprentice part 1 where Slade let's Robin beat him as a distraction.)
With a snarl, he kept cutting, he kept trying and hurting until –
"That is enough!"
Will put his hands up as the guards came to spear the prince to cease his jabbing. "I've won. Then, my prize –
From behind. The only place unguarded where he did not see, a blade went through him. Into a similar spot as the king as Richard left it there and then pulled as the cry was without form. Jason didn't see whom, but his eyes didn't need to tell the tale. Richard now went to find the barbaric king's side. Tender kiss upon the brow…. no.
It….
Jason gasped and choked on the blood at his lips as his ribs burned as a dragon's hot flame. "Ric..ri…ch..….." He coughed; Richard still stood away. Raising the dirty dagger to those mountain peaks, his high voice rang out.
"THERE IS LAW, BEQUEATHED ONLY TO I, YOUR QUEEN. THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHERE HER SIDE LAYETH, UPOM THE KING'S FALL…I AM THE ONE TP DECODE MY FATE. AND I…I CHOSE TO REMAIN . YOUR QUEEN." Richard smiled to the public as the children ran to him, the king coughed as if chuckling. Like he had won. He HAD.
He had used that ego to twist the other's faith, to tell them both off in an unceremoniously diabolical fashion. Richard wanted to stay. He never wished to go, because he never could have had he tried.
Jason was hoisted up upon his steed. The laws by far were real. The fact that a Queen was in power while the king was in the state he was, made Richard allowed to have the deal made, null. He was no longer the damsel in distress, yet the Renegade that had been stolen by another for the sake of being wanted.
As now. Defencia's standing… Queen , Wirlon.
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Wow….just a step back and you've got it!! Find out!!