The Keep, Ebon Askavi, Kaeleer, Monday Evening (Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

The last time Karla had been here, she'd been incredibly nervous about how that evening would turn out and affect her future. Standing in the Keep tonight with a crowd of people around her--some of them almost complete strangers--made her almost laugh at how naive her fear had been the last time.

Her Offering was nothing. This was the completely terrifying night.

A small gong echoed through the room. Once. Twice. Thrice. Then, after a pause, a fourth time. Four times for the four sides of a Blood triangle, the fourth side being what was held within the other three. Like the three males--Steward, Master of the Guard, and Consort--who formed a strong, intimate triangle around a Queen.

Lord Mallory shuffled around, making certain that everyone was lined up according to Protocol, light Jewels to dark, first all the males and then the females. A pair of double doors opened in the rear of the room and Karla glided forward to take her place on a small dias, then turned to watch her friends--her Court--file in behind her.

She took a deep breath and completely ignored all of her future Steward's hard work and Protocol and called out, "Prince Regan, will you serve in the First Circle?"

And so it began.

[NFB for distance, some text taken from Heir to the Shadows, Chapt. 16]

Comments

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

"Karla, if it gets to be that bad, it won't be the contract that makes me stay." Warren bit the inside of his cheek, let his teeth leave deep marks in the flesh there before speaking again. "I'm not here for Glacia, you know that. I just..."

He looked down at the ring on his hand, frowned a little, thoughtfully.

"We've been promising one another forever for a long time, now. But when things get horrible out there, there's nothing I can really cling to, right now. I'm your Consort... I've got your Rings, and that's... that's something. That's huge. But if we're going to be going to war, I... I want something that will remind me what it is we're coming out the other side of it all for."

He pulled the ring that he'd brought with him out of his pocket, and just stared down at it, tucked away in its fancy little box.

And then he dropped down to one knee, opening the box as he went.

"You won't let me promise you a lifetime yet. Would it be too much, then, for me to ask a lifetime of you?"

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

Please excuse Karla for a moment. Her brain had shut down and she was capable of nothing more that staring at the ring in his hands.

"I--you--me--ring--gah?"

Those were words, yup! Not the words he was probably hoping for, but for a brain in the process of rebooting, they were pretty good!

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

Warren stayed on that knee. And he wasn't going to get off of it until he had a reply, one way or another. But if she was going to sit there and stammer, then he was going to make use of it... he was going to do his damnedest to put her fears at ease.

"If this war is a million more Panems, a million more Agios, this is still where I belong, Karla," he murmured. "You will always be my sky. I didn't choose Glacia, I chose you, and I would follow you into the mouth of Hell itself unblinking. Glacia can't change that choice."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

That, at least, got her to stop staring at the ring in shock and look back at him. There was still a lot of white noise in the back of her mind, a kind of stuttering that she felt with her whole body, even as she listened to his words.

It wasn't that she doubted his love and devotion to her. Never that. He'd proven that a hundred times over. It was just that, even now, she didn't understand how he could feel that way. About her. How he could he be so sure that she was worth whatever the next few months would bring?

"But--" Her voice was a croak and she had to swallow and try again. "What if Hell--and Glacia--are worse than you think? What if I disappoint you again and again? Or we don't win? Or that we die?"

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

"If we die," he said, softly, "then a ring isn't going to change that either way. This one just happens to come with a 'till death do us part.'"

Warren gave a wry smile, ducking his head for a moment before looking back up to meet her eyes.

"I don't doubt that whatever we see in the next few months is going to be worse than I can imagine. But I don't think I'd survive those things, if I didn't have you there to survive them for." He licked his lips. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. "We've worked through everything before this-- we're still growing closer together every day. There's no disappointment that we can't overcome. And not winning isn't even an option. But if it gets as dark as I think it's going to get... I want to know that you've promised me more than a year, too."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

Karla gave a reluctant nod at that. His words made sense. See? This was why she hadn't told him before the ceremony! He would have used his logical word thingers to make her reconsider.

"I will love you until I'm a whisper in the Darkness, and even beyond then," she said, taking one last chance to argue before she was hopelessly lost. "Are you sure you don't want to wait the year and then ask me? To have something to cling to, to get us through?"

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

"I'll have the promise of a marriage to you to look forward to," Warren pointed out. "This is an engagement ring. It's a symbol, a placeholder, the same way the Consort's ring was when you had me wearing it on the wrong hand."

So, there, he wasn't asking her to consider running off to elope tomorrow or anything.

"It's not forcing me to stay. Nothing can force me to stay. It's a little metal band with a pretty stone on it, and when you wear it, either of us can look at it and remember that we have forever to look forward to, and that not all of forever will be war and pain."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

Karla leaned forward and plucked the ring out of its box, admiring its design. Simple, but elegant. No Jewels, just gemstones. An engagement ring for a woman, not a Queen.

For her.

"I...I'm so afraid--not that you'll leave, but that you'll stay for all the wrong reasons." She looked up at him again, wrapping her hands closed around the ring. "Would you go if you needed to? Honestly, I mean. If it came down to being what was best...for you or for me or for everyone...could you leave, while I was wearing your ring?"

She needed to know that if Warren had to go, he would. She couldn't accept his ring unless she knew that.

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

"If I had to... I... can't imagine why I would have to... It wouldn't be the ring swaying my decision either way." Warren sighed, tired and trying like hell to not sound maybe a little bit like his heart was being wrung dry in his chest. "If I had to, I would try. And if I couldn't, it would be because a life without you would be unbearable, no matter what Rings we're wearing."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

The dam inside her broke and tears came, scalding her eyes and her cheeks as they fell. She leaned forward and clung to Warren, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.

"Thank you for that," she wept. "You'll never leave me, I know you won't, you'll be with me forever and we'll be together and it will be our life and everything we go through will be okay because we'll be us."

At that moment, she could even almost, almost believe it.

"But you'll stay because you want to, not because you're made to. Not because I'm your Queen and you're bonded to me for good or ill, but because you want to. I want to be a choice, one you make every day, not an obligation."

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

"I'm not Blood and I never will be," Warren murmured, reaching up to wrap his arms around her, sweeping his wings forward to fold around her, to hold her close. "Everything I do to be with you, I do by choice. It will always be my choice. Not an obligation. Not a duty that I'm bound to because of a Ring and a piece of paper with a signature on it. And so when I offer you forever... that's because, for as great a promise as a year signed to you as your Consort is, what I want is forever. What I want is you. Morton gets a lifetime. I want more."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

Karla was doing her best to stop crying, still nodding into his shoulder, her left hand in his wings, her right still clutching the ring.

"I w-w-want that, t-too," she gulped.

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

Warren allowed himself the faintest of hopeful smiles at that, his arms still wrapped around her, his mouth beside her ear and his voice barely a whisper as he asked again;

"Then, will you marry me?"

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

Damn those women who could cry prettily and why wasn't she one of them? At that moment, Karla felt like the only female in the multiverse who ever accepted a proposal with a blotchy face and red eyes and a runny nose.

She was trying to stop crying, but it was impossible to do so now that she was so...damned...happy.

And terrified.

But happy.

"Yes, Warren," she said through her tears. "A hundred, thousand, million yeses."

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

Warren was pretty sure that he'd forgotten how to breathe. She was sobbing, and he wasn't breathing, and she'd just said yes, and the room was spinning.

The room wasn't going to stop spinning any time soon, either. So he leaned back a little, pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, and, wings still folded around the both of them, he reached for her hand. The one that was still clutching to the ring.

"Until we're whispers in the Darkness."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

"And beyond," Karla mumbled, giving him the ring back. She pulled away to inhale a shaky breath and wipe her eyes. "And beyond."

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Re: And later still..

[wwiii]

And beyond.

Warren was smiling through tears as he slid the ring onto her finger, and then, after taking a moment to just appreciate the sight of her wearing his ring, he pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

"Until the Darkness itself is whispers, then."

Re: And later still..

[glacial_queen]

What else could Karla say to that? Nothing, really. Warren had already said it perfectly.

So, rather than say anything at all, she opened a link between them and let him feel all the things she could not say. And when Warren swept his wings forward to wrap her up in another kiss, she realized that speaking wasn't necessary anyway.

Their hearts were too full for words.