Kingdoms AU

[tensions]

HAND OF THE KING ( joshua, monty, alecto ) A kingdom rises. Joshua, its crown prince, with his not-so-secret lover, Monty, a sellsword turned kingsguard. And Alecto, the new arrival, a gifted bride from a recent conquest.

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[infringe]

He shakes his head and sits, hands on his knees, his posture willowy and perfectly held. Years of obvious training in courtly social graces and behavior fitting for a highborn.

For a long while he struggles in the silence.

Suddenly, “I heard you’ve started a campaign to upgrade the bridge system in - my old country. Yours now I suppose.” A beat. “It was something my family struggled to build and finance for a long time. It’ll help the townsfolk immensely.” He is trying to say thank you without having to say the actual words, he realizes.

This is the start of an olive branch being given, desperately, cautiously.

[singinthestorm]

When had he - ah. Well, they'd been spending so much time in each other's company over the past - how long had it been? several months by now - that things like this were bound to have slipped through. At some point he'd noticed that light of interest in Alexa- in Alecto's eyes, and had started talking about these things more as they all walked together on the castle grounds, the prince and his pet prisoner and his bodyguard.

"You don't - didn't - have the same easy access to timber that we do," he says, his tone dispassionate, but not out of disinterest, simply to hold the conversation without breaking down whenever he catches sight of the still form laying on the bed, remembers the constant lies. "What forests you have are a lot younger than ours. Besides, clearing the waterways and shoring up the bridges will open them up to more trade, and if we provide the materials, funding, and labor, the townspeople can't complain overmuch if we take some portion of the tolls charged to the merchants passing through."

He holds on as tightly as he can to that distant, dry tone, trying to keep things out of the realm of the abstract, sticking to practicalities. After all, the reality was that his own kingdom had seen an opportunity to take over Alecto's, had used their superiority in numbers and strength to force compliance, had sought out members of the royal family and done their level best to slaughter all of them, root and branch. He was part of it, had been involved in those initial forays; Monty had stood on those killing fields, in his name and on his behalf. That his father and his advisors saw the deed as a conquest for possession while he himself saw it as an opportunity for mutual benefit did not wash away the blood.

[infringe]

"Right," he says lamely, closing out this topic which he knew was just a straw man, a distraction from the ache that lay bare before them.

The truth is, Alecto would have been fine to give up the castle walls, give up the rivers, give up gold, luxury, and comfort if it just meant he could have have one thing back, the one thing he's only ever truly wanted, truly valued: just one man. A man with large, gentle hands, and green eyes, who had a bit of a crooked smile and a charming gap between his teeth that he often tried to hide. A man who couldn't read but still rode to far off merchants to bring Alecto back beautiful leather-bound books embossed with gold, regaling fantastical tales and epic poems of heroes and maidens and dragons and gods. A man who held him through the nights, who fought beside him at dawn, who laughed at his little tantrums, who loved him.

Gods, what wouldn't Alecto trade (land, title, legacy) just for one more day with him.

This is the last secret Alecto has that he's held close to his chest and as he looks down upon the face of the man who had once single handedly taken all of that from him with such ease so many months ago, just one throw of his dagger to fell the horse, one horrible swing of his machete blade to separate a man from his own head -

"I know what it's like," he says, suddenly, apropos of nothing. "This." Slowly, he recounts what had happened that day. It had been summer, the sun had been high. Hell, the weeping willows had been blooming, even. It was beautiful. Alecto had at least had the chance to kiss his lover at sunrise, touch him one last time before helping him slide into his armor and sending him off to the city gates for a duel - the last resort to stopping full out war: the champion of their city versus their invader's best man.

And indeed, the Archers sent their very best.

Alecto remembers Montgomery Quill stepping off his horse, huge and limber and almost bored. He had squinted in the sun, yawned, and prowled around the grounds with such eager bloodthirst that it chilled Alecto to the bone. He remembers how easily he then cut down the man challenging him - the man that Alecto had promised himself to, had whispered sweet nothings to just moments before - as if he were nothing, slaughtering him with such cold, quick, efficiency. And how he had laughed afterwards, tossing the still warm corpse aside with careless ease. "Is that all?" he had hollered, taunting all of the riverlands around him, tossing his bloodied weapon into the air and watching it spin before catching it deftly once more.

Then, he led his men to bring Alecto's city to its knees.

So, Alecto would be remiss if he didn't admit there was some tiny bit of closure he had gotten at seeing Monty here like this, now. But...this sort of vengeance tastes...bitter at the end of the day. He looks to Joshua's pale face, to his clenched hands.

There are no winners here, he thinks. Only broken men, cradling loss too big for their own arms to carry.

[singinthestorm]

As Alecto speaks - really truly shares - Joshua thinks back on that event as well. He hadn't actually been there; his part had been days earlier, meeting Monty at the gates of the castle before he rode off at the head of a column of his best-trained men, smiling automatically at the sight of him in his armor, brave and strong and capable.

"I'll miss you," he remembers saying, not really dwelling on what Monty was leaving Joshua to go out and do, resting a hand on his shoulder as they stood facing each other, and then sliding his fingers along the edge of the leather saddle, mere inches from Monty's knee once he had swung himself up on horseback, ready to head out. He hadn't bothered to wish him good luck, to tell him to take care of himself, to promise to come back - so unwavering and certain was his faith in his protector, in his abilities and expertise, that the thought of him not coming back was unthinkable. Perhaps he would return with some small injury, or with a few more scars and stories to share, some trinket that had caught his eye, that he thought Joshua might appreciate.

It was only in the aftermath that Joshua understood what war meant, what all the pretty words and arguments of the councils of war he sat in had been hiding beneath clean parchment and maps, blood-stained and burned, the lingering stench of death and waste and sorrow.