The rushing of personnel and the persistent beeping of medical equipment was the first thing Min recognised upon waking up. Second was that he was in a bed in the Plataea's medical ward. The third was that his head and ribs were killing him. Groaning slightly, he tried to sit up, only to feel a hand on his shoulder keeping him from fully rising. His vision cleared slightly as he blinked, and he moved to push the hand away.
"Woah there, don't try to move just yet, that's an order."
Recognising the voice and the face that came with it. Min leaned back into the bed, despite the fact that he didn't want to. Kurt looked down at the spartan.
"Sir." Min said, again trying to sit up despite his superior's command.
"Min." Kurt admonished him, sounding for all the world more like a concerned parent than his military commander. "Don't get up just yet, we need to talk."
"I can-" Min tried to grasp the man as leverage but stopped when he saw his arm. He remembered that he had lost almost all feeling in that arm during the fight, but seeing it now, he was shocked. Where once he had had a full arm, everything below the elbow on his left side was gone. Fingers, hand, forearms, all of it, just gone. The lack of feeling finally hit him, even as he tried to move non-existent muscles.
"We couldn't save anything past the elbow." His captain said solemnly. "Frostbite kicked in too quickly and caused near complete necrosis of tissue in the affected areas. It was either take the forearm, or risk losing the entire limb."
Min was used to loss. He and every single spartan in their generation knew it intimately. He wasn't even the only spartan to lose an extremity like this. Kat B-320 had lost her arm up to the shoulder during a mission and had it replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic. Really this was hardly something to mourn over considering what might have been the alternative.
The loss of his arm was pushed back though when his mind fully restarted.
"Lucy." He said, looking around the infirmary.
His was the only one occupied at the moment, which prompted a sinking feeling in his gut in worry for his squad mate.
"She's fine." Kurt reassured. "Injury to the midsection, but nowhere near as deep or comprehensive as yours. She was discharged yesterday."
"Yesterday…" Min heaved a sigh of relief. "How long was I out sir?"
"Two days. You were down when we brought you in and we kept you under while they took off the arm. You spent yesterday resting up."
"The rest of my team?" Min asked.
"All alive, well, and waiting for your discharge."
Min leaned back into the bedding, relieved.
"Sir, what was that thing?" He asked.
"So far? Not a fucking clue." Kurt said. "We've bagged up the shards of the one you killed, and whatever their weapons were made of, and so far, we're stumped."
"The locals gave the intel about fire working against the primary hostiles." Min said. "Maybe they have some information we could use."
"We tried talking to them." Kurt said, nodding. "Not especially helpful. They just kept mumbling about zombies and ice demons and others."
"That thing, whatever it was, it just shattered into pieces when I applied enough force to it." Min said. "Maybe we should consider their whole ice demon ideas."
"Maybe, but only once we've ruled out other alternatives. We shouldn't just call something magic because we don't understand it."
"Yes sir."
Kurt got up from his seat.
"Good to have you back spartan. Hopefully the medics will have you discharged by tomorrow. Rest up, that's an order."
"Yes sir." Min repeated as his captain made his way over to the door.
"Oh, and you've got some visitors."
As he said it, Kurt opened the door, revealing the rest of fireteam foxtrot standing right outside the infirmary. The three beta-company spartans snapped into perfect salutes upon seeing him, glancing between their captain and their bedridden teammate.
"At ease." Kurt said with a small smile. "Go on, he's good to get some attention."
The three rushed past Kurt, almost sprinting until they were right beside Min's bed.
"You ok?" Tom asked.
"Felt better." Min said, smiling through his teeth. "Bright side, my arm's going to be better than Kat's when we get back home."
The four chuckled sombrely amongst themselves, keeping their spirits up.
Kurt watched from the door before it shut, leaving the group together. Walking down the pristine while corridors of the Plataea's medical ward, his face lost some of the positive light that he had showed to his recovering spartans. Reaching the elevator, he glanced down at the data pad he'd been using to get updates on the investigation into whatever it was that had hurt one of his spartans.
Command was already going nuts over the new development. This planet was regressive, superstitious, and primitive, with only the bare minimum of a focus on education that had partially led to its intellectual stagnation. Nothing on this planet should have been able to harm one of his children, let alone pierce through mjolnir armour and critically injure two of them. Lucy and Min had come closer to death than he was comfortable with, and with the rotation of the teams stationed out in the North, he had assigned that an entire extra spartan team to the outpost in order to ensure that as little went wrong as possible.
Letting out a deep sigh, Kurt resigned himself to his own lack of knowledge. He was still waiting on the battery of tests that the Plataea's scientists were running on the remains of both opponent and weapon. The fact that this thing had shattered was strange beyond belief, and had Kurt not seen half of the things he had, he would likely have believed the natives' claims of magic and gods. However, after everything he'd seen in his life, this place being one of them, he was not going to abandon reason and science to embrace myth just because it gave a more immediate definition to whatever it was that his people were now dealing with.
Either way, he didn't have long to think on it. After being briefed about the events that had occurred involving fireteam Foxtrot, he'd met the returning spartan teams at the hanger. Fireteam Saber and Gladius had taken their place at the arctic research outpost. The two teams sent in order to better cover each other in case of a resurgence of the unknown hostiles. Kurt had been at the Plataea for the last two days since Foxtrot's return, checking in on Lucy and Min, as well as getting consistent and detailed briefs about the remains that had been brought back and examined. Wolfpack had provided regular updates about the goings on in the capital, but given that no one knew he'd returned west, and most believed he was simply ignoring them, Wolfpack's deflections mattered little when the lords of Westeros expected his presence amongst them.
Naturally, Kurt had cared little for such requests when Wolfpack relayed them, but with his spartans now assuredly safe, it was probably best that he return to Westerosi society, if for no other reason than that he still had to deal with the relocation of several deposed royals and the organisation of a wedding. Thinking on the situation with Rhaella was a recipe for a headache. For all the advantages that marrying her would confer to the UNSC on this planet, the amount of pageantry and showmanship that was involved in a wedding to a queen, even a dethroned one, was far more than Kurt was comfortable with.
If he could get away with it, he would marry her in the smallest, most innocuous ceremony possible, with barely more than a few witnesses amongst his staff and spartans. If this were purely a UNSC wedding, he might have been able to do just that. However, this was not just a UNSC wedding. Not only did he feel that he should at least take his soon to be wife's customs into account when deciding how the event should proceed, he also had to do some pandering to the pomp and circumstance necessary for such an event to have its full relevance recognised.
Rhaella herself had seemed utterly relieved when he had told her that their wedding wouldn't take place in the capital, but at the Plataea. She'd been similarly displeased by the notion that they would have to make a spectacle of their wedding, especially given the number of high lords who would likely be attending. Both Kurt and Rhaella expected the lords of the Westerlands and Dorne. Tywin would come for no other reason than propriety and proximity demanded it. Dorne would come, mostly because Elia had promised she would attend to stand in solidarity with her good-mother. The other kingdoms would likely have some presence at the ceremony as well, if for no other reason than to gauge the intentions of the UNSC in the aftermath of the war and ascension of the new king.
Kurt walked towards the hanger towards the pelican that would ferry him back to King's Landing, looking over a small datapad which was presenting the situations of the two spartan fireteams that had replaced foxtrot north of the wall. Apparently there had been a good amount of commotion amongst the locals in the aftermath of the storm. The survival of the shelter with his spartans providing an improvised guard had made many of the locals attempt to take up permanent residence there.
Already a crude power structure was forming, locals with strength and connections forming larger groups to control the rest and maintain dominion over the shelter. Several fights had already broken out and two locals had been killed. After the second death, Kurt had been asked by Adam to allow the spartan fireteams assigned to the area to reassert some form of order.
Kurt had had to remind the Beta company spartan that the shelter was not UNSC territory, but a hobby that he and Min has started, and with their departure, protocol dictated that the most that should be done about it outside of leave time was the repossession of the UNSC heaters that the structure had been built around. Still, he had informed Adam that should their replacement teams, Saber and Gladius, be inclined, their leave time could be used however they liked.
The implication had been made clear, and after a sanctioned communication between the foxtrot spartan and Ash, the leader of team Saber, his spartans had enforced some form of authority that had quelled the infighting amongst the locals.
With the wildling problem sorted in the North, Kurt turned his attention back to the science team's findings regarding the strange creature that had injured his spartans. Whatever it was, it wasn't biological in any way that the UNSC had ever seen. The remains that had been returned had given back mixed results on every test they had run them through. Only the barest hint of biological plant matter had been found in the ice, and all further tests had revealed nothing on how this thing even moved, much less managed to injure Lucy and Min through a half-ton of titanium powered armour. The only thing they had found was that the shards had emanated the same kind of energy that had been in the storm, but given how these hostiles had appeared only within in, that connections was as obvious as the sky being blue.
Kurt grit his teeth, put the pad away, leaned back and let himself relax against the steel seats of the pelican as the reassuring hum of perfectly operational jet engines lifted him into the air. It was an old technique that he and his siblings had developed after successful missions. The hum carried him off into blankness, falling into a meditative state common amongst his generation. Time seemed to fly by, but Kurt could tell exactly when they arrived. The change in the hum of the pelican's jet engines signalled when they transitioned from forward movement to vertical descent.
Opening his eyes, he felt the change in the air as the pelican's ramp descended, letting in the crisp night air of the Kingswood.
"We're here sir." The pilot leaned over, speaking through the open door to the cockpit.
"Understood." Kurt stepped out of the ship, taking a deep breath. "Thanks."
"Anytime sir." The pilot nodded, closing the ramp.
As the ship rose into the night, deep in the woods and far from any of the local settlements or population centres, Kurt marched along the path set up to bring him to King's Landing via warthog.
The ride was short, bringing him from the landing zone to the borders of King's Landing in only an hour and disappearing back into the woods just as quickly. Finding the passageway his spartans had cleared for their use, he made his way into the Red Keep, appearing in his spartan's quarters. A nod of acknowledgement was shared between him and the two spartan teams that were present to monitor the assembled nobles. Kurt made his way to his assigned chambers, checking in with Wolfpack on his way in and finding his desk just as he had left it two days ago. Sitting heavily in the plush leather chair, one of the few guilty pleasures he allowed himself to have since discovering a weakness for a good armchair, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax once again.
Whatever solace that he found was interrupted too soon, as Robert opened the door.
"Ms. Rhaella for you sir."
"Send her in." Kurt responded, shifting forwards to lean his elbows on the desk.
Rhaella walked in, dressed in another of the gowns that had been provided for her. Kurt was surprised to see her, considering the late hour he had arrived at. By local time it was close to eleven o'clock in the evening.
"My Lord." She said, shuffling in tiredly.
"Lady Rhaella." Kurt offered her a reassuring smile, trying to abide by the advice of the psychologists who had compiled Rhaella's profile. Calm reassurance and a lack of excessive forcefulness was the best way to help her heal in the aftermath of her trauma.
"My Lord. I wished to speak with you… with regards to the wedding." She paused, looking nervous.
"What part of the wedding do you want to speak to me about?" Kurt asked.
"My Lord. I've spoken with Elia, and have given to Jane a number of details in regards to what is done in the wedding by the scriptures of the faith."
"I've received them." Kurt nodded his head. "And none seem objectionable, I've asked Jane to tell you that."
"She did." Rhaella reassured him, as if trying to absolve Jane of some wrongdoing. "But My Lord, what I wished to speak to you about, is what parts of the wedding with be done in accordance with your faith."
Kurt blinked, for a moment almost thrown.
"Ah, of course." He said, leaning back. "To tell you the truth Rhaella. When it comes to faith, I don't really have one."
Rhaella looked surprised for a moment.
"None My Lord? Then who do you pray to for the safety of your loved ones, or to heal your sick?"
"No one. Of course, faiths exist. One of my heads of personnel, Tobias Johnson, is Hindu. Lian Song, another of my advisors is Daoist, though neither faith is familiar to you, I'm sure. Personally, I've never believed in any kind of higher power, a consequence of my upbringing."
"Then you have no desires for our marriage ceremony?"
Kurt frowned for a moment.
"I wouldn't say that. I would ask that we do away with the bedding ceremony that your people seem to love so much. It's rather uncivilised."
Rhaella seemed shocked as he said his piece, but didn't seem at all displeased with the doing away of the custom.
"Of course, many see that particular ceremony as unclothe."
"And the cloak. In our lands we use rings instead."
Rhaella frowned at that.
"A ring? I think placing a ring on my finger for the ceremony will be far less visible."
"It isn't for the audience." Kurt said. "And it won't just be for you. During a standard UNSC wedding, spanning most faiths, the bride and groom will exchange rings, this is done to show that the two people are committed to each other, that they belong to each other."
The former queen seemed shocked as Kurt explained the roles of the rings in UNSC weddings and marriages.
"My Lord." Rhaella stuttered out. "I… I admire the purpose of such rings in true marriages, but this seems unnecessary. Our union is not one where we must be committed to each other as you claim. I doubt that rings are necessary in this instance.
"Perhaps not." Kurt nodded. "I agree that this matrimony is built on political necessity rather than emotional affection, but Rhaella, this marriage is still a binding one, and I intend to make it at the very least tolerable for you."
He stood up, coming around the desk and standing in front of the former dragon queen.
"Take it as… an assurance if nothing else. You would wear a cloak only once, but a ring. Wearing it you can know that my words are binding, that I mean to honour our agreement as best I can."
Rhaella seemed to shudder, looking up at the spartan captain
"V-very well Mr Lord. I will agree to your request for a ring, but I would ask that you still allow me to take your cloak, to make our arrangement visible to all."
"Very well." Kurt sat back down. "Is there anything else?" He asked.
"Just one." Rhaella said, laying her hand on her stomach. "Mine and Aerys' last child. I wish for this wedding to take place before I begin to show my pregnancy."
"That might be a problem. While our journey back to the Plataea will be quick, it will take the assembled lords and ladies that will be attending time to arrive. I cannot guarantee that it will be enough time before you begin to display visible signs of your pregnancy."
"Then may we perhaps wait?" She pleaded. "Just until my child is born. I do not wish to bring much attention to this child I carry. Please grant me this favour my lord. Allow me to raise this child without the attention of the Lords of Westeros."
Kurt regarded the woman, shifting and adjusting the timetable as necessary to accommodate for the remaining months of her pregnancy.
"Very well." He nodded.
The timetable of their plans wouldn't be too interrupted by waiting for Rhaella's pregnancy to finish before the wedding. In fact, given that the Royal wedding of Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister was to occur within the next month, moving the wedding would allow the nobility to settle down in the time between this wedding and his own.
Rhaella sighed, thanking the lord, and got up out of her seat. She walked to the door, turning back only once to look at Kurt before she was let out by Robert and the door was closed behind her.
Rhaella let out a deep gasp as she closed the doors to her room. She leaned against the door, taking in deep gulps of air as she reflected on Lord Kurt's words.
She wrung her hands in front of her, running her fingers over themselves as she wondered what this ring he had proposed would feel like. She had worn many rings over her life, jewellery from the royal treasury, gift from lords and ladies of the realm alike, yet what the lord of The Plataea had proposed had been so much more than a simple gift.
'This is done to show that the two people are committed to each other, that they belong to each other'
She felt her breaths pick up as she contemplated it. Lord Kurt had so far seemed a good and decent man. Not controlling or paranoid as Aerys had been. But instead filled with a great softness and sympathy that seemed to apply to everyone he met not of his own house, as if they were all just children. He treated almost everyone as if he were an old maester dealing with a young, obstinate child, except he never seemed to lose his patience with them.
Then again, given what she had seen, and his own eventual outburst at Doran Martell, did he perhaps truly see them all as children, or simply as ignorant fools too stupid to understand just what kind of man Lord Ambrose was?
Whatever the case, the thoughts that truly dominated her mind were of his words. He spoke of dedication, or commitment, but not just of her to him and his goals, but of the two of them, committed to each other. More than once, he seemed willing to engage her in a way that went beyond his seemingly endless pity. She had been given explanations of some of his people's wonders, and she herself wondered whether or not he had meant them as attempts to reach out to her.
Could it mean he wished for more than just a marriage of convenience? Mayhaps he might desire her for more than the power her name could give him?
Rhaella shook her head profusely at the thought. It would do her no good to indulge in such idealistic ideas. Lord Kurt had made the destruction of her family his business. Rhaegar's death was his command, and she knew enough of the Terra's power to know that Tywin had little true control over them, not enough to force the issue had Lord Terra truly been against it.
Rhaella wandered over to her bed, shedding the beautiful dress that had been provided for her and instead changing into the night clothes stored in her closet. No matter what Lord Kurt had said to her, she knew that nothing could change what they were, and what their impending marriage would be.
The 'counsellors' on the Plataea, who she had been assigned to see and speak with during her brief stay within the castle, had been more than happy to throw strange words and ailments at her. 'Post-Traumatic Stress,' 'Survivor's Guilt' and 'Self-blame' were common, and she was only beginning to understand just what they meant. Her first meeting had been with a woman who had called herself 'doctor Mitsushima' and was apparently quite keen to aid her in her supposed recovery.
Rhaella had her doubts of the woman's intentions, but she had made Rhaella many promises regarding the so-called 'confidentiality' of their meetings and without any other options, Rhaella had been left in the woman's care for an hour out of every two days or so. So far, she had had little to say, not yet trusting the woman to speak of any of her feelings, positive or negative.
In response, doctor Mitsushima had instead simply brought out a small deck of cards and taught her how to play a game called 'go fish.' The game was remarkably simple, and Rhaella had found it entertaining enough to bring a deck of such cards back to her rooms and play the game with Viserys. Her son had likewise been entertained, more so when she had let him win a round or two during their first games. Elia and Ashara had soon been brought into the fold in regards to her new interest, and now her time with Mitsushima was spent learning new games to play with the card deck that had been given to her.
The doctor had not fully parted with her entertainment freely however. In exchange for each new game, she had revealed to the former queen, she had asked that Rhaella tell her something about herself. Nothing of true importance, she had merely asked for her favourite colour, what foods she preferred, a small detail about her day. Rhaella had at first been suspicious, but had seen no problems with this strange exchange of information.
That had been the breach of her defences. Doctor Mitsushima had become more and more knowledgeable about her, using the crumbs she surrendered to form her opinion of the queen, and slowly, Rhaella had found someone not quite a friend, but at the very least someone neutral, according to the doctor at least. Indeed, nothing Rhaella had said to the woman had seemed to get back to Lord Terra, so Rhaella had been forced, at least until proven otherwise, to accept the woman's vow of secrecy.
Rhaella took the small deck of cards, her only true possession considering that everything else belonged to her soon to be husband's house, and laid them out. Solitaire had become a calming routine for her. A simple but entertaining game that could be as frustrating as it was satisfying. Tonight, it seemed, was a lucky one for her, as she managed to fully complete several games without the random arrangements defeating her long before she reached the end. The torchlight of the room faded as the night wore on, and Rhaella eventually found herself laying her head on the pillow, nodding off into a deep sleep, with the last words of her future husband still ringing in her ear.
Damn, it's been more than a year. About a year and 5 months actually. I will say sorry to everyone I left hanging with my cliffhanger, but I hope this is good for most of you, and I hope to get more out in the near future.