Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Printable Version

Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Printable Version

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RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

Gareth started to laugh again, and it was as abortive as his other recent attempts, swallowing back a cough because he could taste blood and didn't want her seeing it. "Then," he reminded her. "Then I don't have to move. Was going to have to move to get here anyway. Now I'm done." He hiccupped a giggle. "Only took you five minutes to want to tie me up," he observed. He'd managed to make it a whole two weeks when he'd been put in charge of her. Not that he'd ever expected anything else. He was a better boss than she was. He started to yawn, but had to stop himself halfway.

There was going to be so much cleaning to do once he could clean. She was touching his stuff. Leaving things in the wrong places. Spirits save him if she started trying to do his dishes. Then he'd have no choice but to get up. He contemplated his ceiling, and the detailing he'd done on the rafters, and the rack of pots hanging high enough that he wouldn't hit them with his horns. He couldn't decide if he was tired, or if he hurt too much to be tired.

"I go downstairs," he said. "It's not that hard." Even if, when it was cold and he was tired, he sometimes contemplated the merits of a chamberpot.

He thought about her question. "There's… upstairs. Piggy and Biscuit are nice. Not Fatty. She's broody. Pudge is fastest, but she's still at the castle." The wind battered the cabin walls, the chimes on his porch all clattering and at risk of breaking. "Not in this weather, though. Not flying weather."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-02-2019

If he survived, Ren was going to kick his ass seven ways to Sunday, she decided. After he'd healed up.

She'd have to be long gone by then.

"You. Use pigeons," she said slowly. "T'communicate with th' castle, which is hours away on horseback."

...He really was hopelessly backwater for someone who managed engineers and mechanics. This neatly sidestepped her having to make a moral decision about his life versus hers, but it also meant he was going to be depending on her and her alone in order to not die. Given her track record for judgement calls, it wasn't a fate she would wish on anyone.

She stuck a finger in to check the temperature of the tea, then sat down by his head. She lifted his neck up as gently as she could and set his head against her lap, so she could bring the cup to his lips directly without accidentally pouring it on his face.

"Drink," she ordered. "Sorry it's gonna taste terrible. If y'drink it all, y'can give me specific instructions on how t'make it just how ya fuckin' like it. An' where d'you keep yer firewood? Upstairs fire's gettin' low and I don't want yer pigeons to freeze." Even if they were creepy, with all the staring.

She ran a hand absent-mindedly through his hair. Did he know why Colin had stabbed him? Did he even know why she was here? How much could she tell him? ...Well... with no open line of communication to the castle, and Gareth in this condition, she was in minimal risk, herself. Colin had come here and seen she wasn't here, no doubt, so they might not come looking. Might look in another direction altogether, if she was lucky. The blizzard might obliterate her scent trail altogether.

The King might still be able to fly in a blizzard, though. She wasn't safe. But she supposed she was as safe as she could get under the circumstances. Unlike Gareth.

"That was Sir Colin," she said, after a moment's silence. "What was he doin' here? Why did he..."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

"It gives them something to do," Gareth said. Pigeons did better when they had jobs, he thought. Everyone likes to feel useful. "If it's that important he can come get me." Nothing important ever happened, anyway. Except, he supposed, this. Things tended to be fairly quiet with a dragon around offering his problem-solving skills.

He bit down against any pained noises, because he didn't want to discourage her. Her lap seemed like a good place to be. He took a small sip. "Rmph. Yeah, that's awful." He took another sip anyway, because he was nothing if not polite. "There's baskets," he explained. "Big one by the couch. One's under the loft. Cage. It's called a loft. There's… a copper in the bathroom. For hot water. If you need that."

He drank more terrible tea, and tried to focus on her fingers in his hair.

"Yuck," he said automatically. "Don't call him Sir. Did he tell you to call him Sir? He's not a knight anymore. He's King's Guard. Not supposed to put on airs. That stupid asshole." He regretted any attempts at goodwill he may have made in the past. On account of the stabbing.

"Said he was letting me know you ran off." He frowned. "Guess that was a distraction. Must've just come out here to kill me." Which should have worked, but he wasn't going to complain about the fact that it hadn't. "Hopefully it's… some kind of shitty plan he has. If it's somebody else's plan, that's. A problem." There were a limited number of people he could think of that would come up with a plan that involved Colin killing him, and most of them made him wish he was dead, so. "Thirteen years is a long time to wait for a coup."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-02-2019

Ren had very little practical experience making tea, as she hadn't done it since she'd done so meticulously at age six, for rats. She wasn't surprised the tea was terrible.

She used to have rat tea parties.

She'd been a very adorable child.

No one could ever know.

She took mental notes of the wood locations and various places she would need to place wood. Hopefully, he'd chopped enough to get them through the blizzard, because if she had to wield an axe at any point, everyone was going to regret it.

"Yeah, he did tell me to call him Sir," she said dryly. "He ain't th' first or th' last." Except the King had also asked her to call him darling, which was, if anything, even more unpleasant. "Sure looked like a knight, with all that armor on." What had he been up to? She mused over what she knew.

The King had told Gareth not to come in for a week, then summoned her. This was surely to kill her, finally, and didn't come as that much of a surprise in retrospect. She'd run off, prompting Colin to come here, tell Gareth she'd run off, and then stab him through the heart before fleeing on horseback. That was a weird fucking thing for a prison manager to do, just, in general.

"Law o' parsimony," she said with a sigh. "He must've thought you'd help me run off," she decided. "Or that he could have you take th' blame instead of gettin' in trouble with the King himself." This really complicated things, for a number of reasons, least of all that she knew she'd need to run as soon as the blizzard past and also that she couldn't imagine leaving Gareth. Not now, not right after she'd realized how much losing him would cost her. Also, it was definitely her fault he'd been stabbed in the first place.

"This is my fault," she said, quietly, voice shaking. "I made a bad choice again." But what was she supposed to have done? The King wanted her dead. It was his fault too. It would have served him right if Gareth had been killed. But it wouldn't have served Gareth right.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

"Not supposed to wear that, either," Gareth said. "Shouldn't even have it. If he held onto it, that's… a bad sign." A long time to hold onto armor he couldn't wear around in public. Definitely suggested shady business. Wandering around with secret armor, making girls call him Sir.

"That's—no offense—that's stupid." He reached up to pat her arm. "If he was just a regular weasel, he'd have snitched. And. You don't go making iron swords on just. Impulse. Those assholes always forgot I'm half. Probably thought I'd desummon. Must've had that made and waited. Never could take me fair."

He shut his eyes, and focused on the pain, because if he didn't he was going to think about it. Better to think about the hole burnt straight through him.

"Left it," he murmured, half to himself. "Didn't think he'd need it. Or. Wanted it to seem like someone else did it. Both. Something." Wasn't planning to try to kill the King. Too bad. The King would have killed him. Saved a lot of time.

"S'good you came," he said. "Saved me. Saving me. You're good."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-02-2019

Ren listened to what Gareth was saying, chewing on her lip. She didn't understand a lot of it, both the implications of castlewide politics and history she was too young and too new to understand, and all the technical demony parts. She should maybe have researched demons more after she started fucking one. She had tried before she started fucking one but after one had been assigned her boss, but for some reason no one had let her take out any books on the subject of demon weaknesses.

"Sir--er, Colin--he's never been a regular weasel," Ren informed him matter-of-factly. That guy was a stone cold sociopath, as far as Ren was concerned. Most of the people who worked for the King's Guard had to have been... Or just like Gareth, who thought anything was justified if it happened to criminals. Except rape, apparently. Rape was where he drew the line.

The iron sword, though. Ren didn't know a lot about swords. She would have guessed most swords were iron? Iron seemed like the material to make swords out of. Or steel, she guessed, but iron seemed reasonable. Gareth seemed to think it was special, though, something to kill a demon. She felt like an iron sword would kill anything you stuck it through but, again, he was the expert.

"Maybe he... wanted to kill you, for those worryin' armor an' sword reasons y'just listed, an' figured since I was runnin' off anyway and he'd found out early, he could kill you an' everyone would blame me?" she suggested. It seemed reasonable. Everyone would blame her. Which was fair, because she had come here with the idea that she'd have to kill him--or at least seriously injure him--if he'd been in on the King's plan. It wasn't like they'd be wrong about motives.

The King, of course, would know that Ren loved Gareth and that Gareth hadn't been in on the plan, and so Ren would have no reason to kill him. But Colin wouldn't know any of that. It was a plan that could have worked, honestly.

"Why'd he wanna kill you, anyway?" she huffed. "Yer a fuckin' kitten. Is it racism? It's racism, innit." It was always racism.

Gareth finished the tea, so she stood, replacing her lap with a pillow, making sure he was at a comfortable angle. She went to one of the baskets to get firewood out for the upstairs fire, already dreading the trip back up the fucking stairs, which had definitely been built with an eight foot tall man's legs in mind. "Don't thank me," she said darkly. "I didn't come here t'save you. It was idiot's luck, an' that's all."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

Gareth frowned, reaching upward to rub at his nose and then stopping. Anything that involved his shoulders hurt more than anything he managed to limit to his elbows. Trying to move only his forearms felt... extremely stupid. But he was working with what he had.

"Might be," he admitted. "Sounds like something he'd think would work." See that she's gone, get out his horse and make a mad dash for murder.

"It's... complicated." Clouds, was it complicated. Juggling a nesting series of lies surrounding a series of things he didn't want to contemplate wasn't his idea of a good time even when his head was on straight. "Racism's a good summary." Though there was a lot it left out.

"Most of the old Honor Guard... Ranulf's." He hated saying that name. He shouldn't still have to say that name. "They went into exile with him. His friends. Colin and a few others, they stayed. Joined the King's Guard. Seemed like maybe they wanted protection. I thought... stuff going on behind the scenes. Not as friendly as we thought. Flinched a lot. Bad situation, you do what you have to. Didn't feel right to blame him, if he was trying to get away from it."

"Course. All of them were brick-stupid. Fucking. Useless. That's why they're keepers. Babysitters. Make sure people are in the right place at the right time and no one's fighting. Timothy could do his job. Maybe left him too much free time. My fucking luck."

"Not always the worst luck," he said, undeterred. The fact that she was here was enough. He wished she could stay here on the floor with him.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-02-2019

Mmmm... Politics. Yeah, that all sounded like politics.

"So lemme get this straight," she said, because she really wasn't sure she had it straight. "The prince, who was exiled and not killed after a dragon ate his father, had an Honor Guard, which was never explicitly exiled, an' a bunch of them, includin' not-sir Colin, joined the crew where if y'fuck up y'get eaten by a dragon, the dragon that just ate the previous king, whose son they were sworn t'protect with their lives."

She rubbed her tongue against her teeth, considering the realities of this system she had gotten dragged into.

"After joinin' the dragon death squad, they were all made prison wardens, to watch yer prisoners because that seemed like an easy job t'everyone in charge. A job that any imbecile could do, on account o' how it's about as easy as keepin' a rat in a cage. 'Colin's real stupid, mates, let's put 'im in charge of a buncha people's lives. Nah it's fine, s'no one important.'"

She hummed in consideration of this, one dangerous note after the other. "Interestin'." She had found the firewood as she recounted this, and was loading it up into her arms. "Yeah, alright, this is explainin' a lot."

She marched up the stairs before she could do something she regretted, like yelling at and/or throwing something at the injured, possibly still dying man. Once the wood was on the fire and would probably burn for a few hours yet, she took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. It was fine. It was whatever. She'd work this out, and then find a way to save Gareth and go free.

Maybe she'd steal both of them from the dragon, and leave Colin to blame her for Gareth's death and the King would never find either of them and he could burn the fucking country down, which he would absolutely do if he thought he'd lost Gareth. She'd seen the way Avi looked at him, and she'd also seen how little Avi cared about being King. Like he'd said, he'd burn it all down once it got boring, just like he'd kill her as soon as she was boring. He was here to be entertained, and Gareth was the most interesting thing in the kingdom.

She snorted. The only thing harder than avoiding an enraged and obsessed dragon would be convincing Gareth to leave it all behind. For what? For her? For freedom? His freedom didn't mean shit to him, which probably explained why her freedom didn't mean shit to him either. He'd never understood why it mattered.

She came downstairs quickly after that, worried that Gareth would start moving around once she was out of sight. Out in the forest, rats had gone to ground, and those that were close enough had come here, to join Byron in the stables. The door to the stables was down, but the giant elk thing was apparently standing in the door to keep the wind out.

"Don't suppose y'got some kinda medicine here I could give ya, or bandages or somethin'?" she asked as she hit the final step. "Please don't say it's up in yer room."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

Gareth tried to sit up, but it made his vision swim. "It's not—no. Obviously we wouldn't—no. There was a process, finding... what worked. Where people fit. And Colin's not in charge of anything. Not a prison warden. That's... that's the whole point."

He gave up as she disappeared up the stairs, brow furrowed at the ceiling. He didn't know how to explain a decade of gradual changes, of careful supervision slowly surrendered with good behavior and shows of good faith. Didn't know how to explain just what it meant for someone to decide they'd rather give their life to a dragon than stay in a prince's entourage. How well things had been working for a decade now, compared to what it had been.

"Bandages, maybe," he said, mulling it over. "Cupboard next to the stove. Don't know if they make stab medicine." He used to use honey sometimes, but that was on regular open wounds, not open wounds that were also burns. He'd always just powered through it, when he was young. The old doctor wasn't around anymore, the one that could glue bones and knit flesh, and he was glad of it. That was always somehow worse, having to be better so that he could hurt again. He shivered.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-02-2019

Wordlessly, Ren went over to the cupboard, rummaging around until she found the bandages. She had some experience with makeshift bandages, being her own primary care physician for thirteen years. This, she at least knew how to do. Her way, which was the only way she could ever really know to do things, when no one really bothered to explain anything to her.

She knelt down next to Gareth, and sighed. "Yer gonna have to sit up. Here, grab my arms and let me help, cause it's gonna fuckin' hurt a lot."

Judging from the sound he made, it did. Hopefully he wouldn't have to do it much. She settled in behind him and got to work. She could only just wrap her arms far enough around him to grab the bandages if she pressed herself up against his back, so she did, making sure her chest hit above the horrible stab wound. She sure hoped she'd cleaned it well.

She was quiet while bandaging him, for a while. Then she found her voice, softer than before, but just as angry.

"Colin was in charge o' me, Gareth," she said, finding it a little easier to say now that she didn't have to look at him directly. "You know that. You were my managers, th' both o' ya." It was a small salve to be able to use past tense. "You handled me at work. He handled me the other eighteen hours o' th' day. I had t' get one o' yer signatures on jus' about anything, both of 'em on some things. Think o' th' things you..." Her voice cracked a bit, and she stopped, trying to figure out a way to phrase this that wouldn't make him draw the worst conclusions about her own opinions of him.

"When y'had me locked in that workroom," she settled on finally. "Y'told me you were well within' yer rights to punish me as y'saw fit. What happened next, that was what you saw fit. It worked out, as luck would have it, but d'you think every other 'manager' in there sees fit th' way you do? Y'can't..." Her voice cracked again, and this time she lowered her forehead against his back, the knot where shoulders met neck, tears starting to leak down her cheeks again. She had cried so easily ever since the poisoning. Ever since the King. She was so weak, these days.

"Y'can't be that stupid, Gareth. No one's that fuckin' stupid." He knew. The King knew. They all knew. They had to. Everyone knew what a prison was. And if they didn't understand what it was to be small and weak and scared and at someone else's mercy, well then, they weren't going to be the types to sympathize in the first place, were they?

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

Gareth focused on the pain to distract from the churning in his stomach.

"He wasn't," he insisted. "I'm your manager. He reports to me. I was well within my rights because. I earned them. I can lose them. I'm trusted to not do anything I shouldn't. I can do as I see fit because. Things don't usually get that far." Which was probably wrong and he probably should have lost those privileges but here they were and he couldn't bring himself to turn around. It hurt too much.

"I'm not—six years. I was there every day for six years. Micromanaging." He wanted her to understand that this wasn't blind trust or naiveté on his part, that whatever this was, it was something else. Or maybe he just didn't want it to be his fault. "I didn't need to anymore. It was... working."

He swallowed bile.

"When you joined," he said. "When you signed the contract." He paused.

The fucking contract.

The written agreement.

The one she was supposed to read.

The one that was supposed to be read to her, if she couldn't, if she admitted that she couldn't, if she asked. By Colin.

"... what did he tell you it said."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-02-2019

"What?" Ren said, because it was the only thing to say. That wasn't right. They were both her managers. Gareth managed her during the day. Someone had to watch her at night. Manage her. Her cell, her food, what she was and was not allowed to have. Someone had to manage the guards. It was a prison. She was a prisoner.

"F-first off," she said, feeling dizzy. "A contract signed under duress is meaningless, an' it don't get any more under duress than 'or I kill ya.' The whole thing was dumb as fuck. I'm legally dead, for fuck's sake." The whole thing was shady as hell, and the 'contract' had been the dumbest technicality of the lot. "An' it wasn't even really a fuckin' contract. More like a rule book. Who signs a contract goin' into prison, t'begin with?"

Her hands were shaking too much to keep bandaging. "I..." she couldn't say she read it. She couldn't say she skimmed it, who skimmed legal documents, for fuck's sake. "Look I can't... I can't read so great, so," she admitted through gritted teeth. "So yeah, Colin read it to me." There had been some degree of mockery involved, the first of a lot. She hadn't even been listening by the end. "I got the gist. From both of ya. I'm a prisoner. All th' normal prison things. Privileges to be earned, jus' like you said. Privileges I lost real fast because it turns out rats are against all th' fuckin' rules, and so is keepin' fuckin' anythin' in yer goddamn cell. You know this. You kept talkin' about 'em, about all the privileges I could earn, if I just behaved."

She was working herself up now, but she didn't know how to stop. Her breath was coming shorter, and she was glad she was hiding behind Gareth where he couldn't see her, because she was shaking like a sapling in the storm outside.

"Can't have that in yer room, that's a privilege. Can't have rats in there either, that's a punishment fer you, now. Y'can come out of yer room when y'show y'can behave. Food based on yer caloric intake requirements. Can't go outside, don't be stupid, yer jus' gonna make a break for it. Y'gave up choices when y'endangered lives. Do what yer told when I tell you t' do things, danger to everyone around you, normal people don't know what t'do with you, end of our rope, if you'd just learn why don't y'just learn, why why why--"

Her hands had clenched into the bandages she'd been wrapping him with, rough nails catching against the cloth. She tried not to rock back and forth, because she didn't want to bump him, so she just shook and shook.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-02-2019

Gareth dropped his head forward, hands on the back of his head, struggling to breathe.

"It is rules. It's. A job. We go over all of them. To be sure you understand what's expected of you. Before you sign. It takes. Hours. We don't call you a prisoner. You're... property of the King. It's different. You're my charge. I. I take care of you."

He pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to breathe deeper than the new bandages would allow.

"Those aren't privileges. Food isn't a privilege. Fresh air isn't a privilege. Books, and, and, art. Those aren't privileges. Those are rights. There's a whole. Section. About your rights. Privileges are—things you can use to hurt yourself. Weapons. Not having to wear your uniform. Deciding your own schedule. Choosing your work assignment."

"Punishments aren't. His. He can send you to your room but he. He has to. He's supposed to tell me. I decide the consequences. Another keeper checks in with you on Fridays. If you have anything to report. Complaints. Colin was. He was the one who checked in on Thran. Reported what was happening. He's. He knows."

She'd told him they weren't feeding her.

All the reports had always been co-signed. Had it always been the same co-signer? Had he checked?

"Ren. What did he do."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-03-2019

The world had opened up and dropped from under her, leaving Ren with nothing but the sensation of falling. Her breath had stopped coming in short gasps because she'd stopped breathing altogether.

He was lying. He was lying, this was some... some sick game that he and the King were playing, some twisted... Another thing like when the King let her think he was moving her to a new place only to lock her in a room with poison, some kind of new cruel and horrible mockery more agonizing than the last.

There was no way. There was just no way. Someone... someone would have noticed, someone would have seen. Surely she'd mentioned something, at some point, some red flag that would have given the whole thing up if it had really been, if...

She had scooted imperceptibly back away from Gareth, no longer touching him, the only link between them the bandage around his chest, the end of which was still twisted into her hands.

Some day in the future, when I grow weary of watching you try.

A life cannot be better hungry and bleeding--then why am I so fucking hungry all of the time.

You'd like that, wouldn't you, nothing but rats to keep you company once you've bled out in a ditch.

You can tell me. You know that, don't you? There are things you don't have to do.

She was coming apart at the seams, her mind leaking out of cuts that had been torn open and stitched back up painstakingly, a hundred times, a thousand times over the last year.

"I--"

Her voice came out like a scratched record or a doll toy that had been played too many times, a recorded echo that had been worn past its time. "I don't have rights. I'm a prisoner. I'm already dead. My life belongs to the King's Guard. My will belongs to the King's Guard. I don't, I don't, I,"

He was lying, he was lying, he was lying,

What if he wasn't lying.

Her world was rearranging around her with the possibility, blocks of floor and ceiling breaking out and shifting and she couldn't tell up from down, but what if he wasn't lying. Did it make sense? Could it be? How could that happen? No, it couldn't be, the King had made no secret of intending to kill her one day, and Gareth hadn't pretended he'd stop him. This was some trap, but Gareth would never trap her, he'd never trick her, he'd been tricked, he'd been tricked, by Colin? By Avi? How far did it go? Why? Why? Why? Why?

"Tell me the truth," she gasped out, clutching at her arms, grip white-knuckled. "Don't lie to me, if you lie to me I, I swear to god, I'll burn this whole country to the ground before they catch me. Gareth," his name tore out of her like a desperate plea. "No one fed me, Gareth, the food wasn't enough and when I stole more they took it all away. They wouldn't let me near anyone else because I'm filthy, because the rats, I'm always locked up, I'm not allowed to have anythin', there's nothin', there's nothin' all I have are the things I steal. I go to my work, I go to my room, I go to my work, I go to my room, no one comes in unless I've done somethin' wrong.

"Tell me it's supposed to be this way," she begged. "Tell me you think I deserve it. Tell me it's because I'm a criminal. Because I'm an animal. Because I'm a monster. Because I never learn. Because I'm a danger to the people around me. Because I'm just a thing that happens to other people. Tell me."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-03-2019

"No no no no no no no no no, don't, don't—" He curled up and pressed his hands over his ears, the hole in his chest throbbing a rhythm of pain. He tasted bile and blood, hand over his mouth as he convulsed once before swallowing it back.

"Don't say that," he managed. "Don't ever say that, we don't—we don't say that. Not ever, don't ever."

He thought about all the things cut through inside him, all the blood no longer circulating, all the parts that might be shutting down. He tried to figure out which parts hurt worst. He didn't think about it, he didn't think about it—

A giggle escaped him. "Oh, he—he must have been so frustrated. When you didn't find a way to kill me yourself." Because that was what happened when you treated people this way, wasn't it? The ones in charge died. Colin might not know the truth—no one knew, would ever know, he'd buried it so far he barely remembered it himself sometimes—but he knew enough. And Gareth knew what Ranulf had gone into exile believing.

"You never deserved that," he croaked. "Monsters don't deserve that."

"I should have realized. When I saw you were in the old wing. He said you were being anti-social, starting fights. I got reports when you'd been sent to your room. Sometimes. Not all the time. I would have done something if. If I'd thought it was all the time."

How many times had she complained of boredom, of never being allowed to do anything? But she'd said he never let her do anything, and so it had felt... plausible. That she wasn't interested in safe hobbies or getting to know the rest of the King's Guard. That she was just upset that when she acted out she got sent back to her quarters to calm down.

That it was her own fault.

He'd told her it was her own fault.

"Ren."