THE GREY KNIGHT

[trinn 5128]

 

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦ . . . “....You wish to kill her?” – “I know death, my sister. Have you ever killed anyone before?”   Hadrian questioned her, the emperor’s one-eye twitching in a violent narrowing.    “Killed so often that it became a heartless endeavour. You do it once, and then do it twice, and soon enough, you start craving it -- death is the resolution to every answer. If you do not like someone, kill them. If someone has caused you a grievance, you kill them. However, whereas I have accepted the burden of my own demise, what of you?” . . . ✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

 

9ᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴏᴡʏɴ’ꜱ ʟɪɢʜᴛ, 631   “I’m a bastard, your Highness. A barrow. I do not know my parents.” 𐃏   The Squire lowered his head in his greeting of her amidst quiet candle-light. The squire was too-tall and awkward looking in his armour, the stitching of the red dragon upon his tabard. But to a Princess newly returned to the Empire, a stranger amidst Imperials from her sheltered upbringing in Hollyhold; he was everything that he needed to be for a companion.   ❇ “You’ve shed your accent, though, Owyn.”  She recalled meeting a Ruthern once, his accent so thick it was scarcely understood. In the early days of the Empire, the tense memory of his fallen regime remained a topic of cruel scrutiny. His accent had given away only to some cruel japes and mockery. Yet the squire in front of her now had none of that memory in his manner of speech, the history rinsed and replaced by the Empire’s making.     “There wasn’t anyone to teach me how to speak it so.” 𐃏

 

 

With all the sweetness of youth, and desire of friendship, The Princess beckoned him close and shared a task he could see done in her favour. The task was irrelevant to her. Only the pity for a poor, orphaned boy and the charm of a budding friendship. She smiled easily then.

 

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

10ᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴜɴ’ꜱ ꜱᴍɪʟᴇ, 633

 

“They will not oath me.”  The bitterness in the squire’s voice had some attempt to hide itself, though she heard it nonetheless. He stood amidst a bed of flowers, caused by the Princess’ insistence for a reroute in their return from the Princedom of Caurost. The Squire accompanied her often, despite his lack of assignment to her; she wondered if he had any other friends. “I have completed more tasks than three squires combined. But they will not.” 

 

“Who? The Grand Knight? – Well, is it so bad to be a squire?”  She was ankle-deep within a creek, plucking from the water’s surface stray leaves and petals. Imperial correspondence and treaties found themselves scattered upon the grass, fallen from her discarded satchel as she made priority her exploration of those elven meadows. A look back towards her sullen companion had her re-considering the next of her words. “...I’ll send a few letters. Don’t be so glum, Owyn!” 

 

“You would do that for me?” 𐃏

 

❇ “It’s only a few scribbles of ink, isn’t it?”

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

 

 

 

15ᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ɢᴏᴅꜰʀᴇʏ’ꜱ ᴛʀɪᴜᴍᴘʜ, 636

 

The forests of Emberrest is an unforgiving, accursed place; and it was a foolish endeavour for an Imperial Princess to have traversed it on her lonesome. Some petty argument with her brother had spurned her from the capital, her horse taken before the sun had risen in her indignation. But the protected life of the Imperial capital prepared her little for the fog-infested paths of Emberrest, veiling in its mist the wickedness of the dark beyond. The path taken was misguided, too far from the proper paths of Idunia, and too close to the shadowed ruins. 

 

So when the Ghoul had made its unexpected appearance, its lone figure looming over her, its first lash landed true. The mace struck  upon her arm, bludgeoning the armoured limb until she felt it break. Ackh – … pain was a strange thing, when she was sheltered from even the most minute of troubles. My weapon, where is it –... 

 

Flame swept her vision in the midst of her frenzy, searing and bright. It cut in the space between the dreaded unliving and her wallowing form, dividing them apart. The ghoul did not linger at the sight of what came after. 

 

“A princess. . . A true dragon.” Ash seethed upon the Nephilim’s features, a breath of flame upon its exhale. The words were spoken as it pathed towards the Imperial Princess in a lazy gait, the ghoul it had banished fleeing from behind its frame. “Dragonsblood.”

 

“There is no hiding your lineage, Joan.” 

 

“Your eyes, those grey eyes. They speak of domination, yet you cower before me.”

 

The words screeched ‘pon her ear, louder than the pain of her broken arm cradled close to her figure. Her own words seemed far-away in their reply. The pain was foreign. This thing was foreign. The tall walls of the Imperial Palace, their polished plates of Dragon Knights, had once barred all that now reckoned her in that accursed woods. 

 

Yet eventually, the ash faded, and revealed a truly familiar face. Owyn's. That typical smile, wry and uncertain was plastered on the man's face. He looked to Joan, “It is odd to find you here, Joan.”

 

ᴀʙᴏᴍɪɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ.

 

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

❇ “You should not have revealed your secret. I do not have cause to hide you.”

 

“You’ll lose my loyalty if you share my secret.” 𐃏 

 

❇ “...I ought still have you executed.” 

 

“I am immortal, Joan. You may kill the vessel, but the flame lives on. 

…And what good would you have, forsaking an ally such as I?” 𐃏

 

❇ “A good show.” 

 

ɪ ꜱʜᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴋɪʟʟ ʜɪᴍ.

 

 

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

15ᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ɢᴏᴅꜰʀᴇʏ’ꜱ ᴛʀɪᴜᴍᴘʜ, 636

 

There was a tentative uncertainty between them, whatever presumptions of the relations banished now for the precipice of something new. As an extension of trust, Owyn extended to her another truth; his ability to cross through realms, the Princess of Man brought alongside him as witness. Planar travel, how absurd. Yet, the realm they found made no effort to spare their feelings, and they found themselves in a world of recollection. 

 

The realm brought forth all the deeds she did in the name of love and fealty.  The travellers found themselves amidst green overgrowth, consumed by the gluttony of flame. Steel sang its ringing tunes, wailing and terror a chorus abundant; yet all occurred around them without interruption, their presence a phantom guest. The sight did not relent even as the flames faded, a different shade of red made way into center stage. Behemoths looming tall over others, their path marked by crimson steps for all the bodies which toppled. He must think me wicked, to have brought me here.

 

The last of their audience was the cruelest; a sight never seen before, but vividly imagined. Her Emperor, elder brother, falling in his frail form with a dagger struck into his back. The ichor bubbled from his form, spilling at the traveller’s feet upon their halting. Yet still, they were those phantom guests; her hands could not reach him in her stupor and blind grief, the vision uninterrupted, and her mind punished for the attempt. Warm hands dragged her back from the reeling pain, and the audience faded in their return to their world. 

 

❇  “You mock me. You mock me with his death,” The Dagger from the vision was held in her hand now, somehow transported in their return to the Palace library. It’s form is intangible, wisps more than material shape as it struggled with its own existence.

 

 

“That was not my doing, Joan. I am simply the key.” 𐃏 

 

“But you are not a key; you are a man, with his folly and decisions. – Why did you show me this?” A degree of disbelief remained in her retort; unwilling to absolve him from the blame she accused. Her hands supported an unsteady rise back to her feet, thereafter approaching him with a hand reaching to shove at his shoulder.

 

Owyn's features narrowed as she attempted to push him. One such as he was not so easily shoved, and he did not budge at this. “A glimpse. A partial truth.” He conceded.  “The lies needed to cease.”  Owyn gave only a brief moment for her to presume that all truths were now laid bare, before a secondary confession came in their return from that foreign realm. “My name was Josef Stanimar Barbanov, once Duke of Galahar.” He would not face her in his candor, head bowed, playing the part of a dutiful Soldier. “Son of Ivan the eighth, King of Hanseti-Ruska.”

 

Joan had inherited her father’s temper. His truth was received amidst shouting and thrown furniture. Some bitter, quiet realisation that a simple friendship was a fool’s errand in her position; there was always a motive, in sheltered secrets, in half-spoken oaths given by careful words. A confession that the price of his loyalty bent under the pressure of his own self ambition. But a part of her seemed almost glad — the confessions of a prince of eld. At the very least, Josef Stanimar shared what it meant to be a child of a monarch, and they were bound now by their shared secret. She did not want to lose a friend.

 

 

ɪ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

21ꜱᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴀᴜʀᴇʟɪᴀɴ’ꜱ ɢʟᴏʀʏ, 639

 

Ser Owyn was made her sworn-knight upon the beginnings of the Urguan war, a dragon k***ht draped in grey. He was present when her letters of courtesies became writs of execution, invitations became negotiations for the sole right of existence. Somewhere along this time, meadows and creeks became a luxury solely seen in paintings, rather than stolen time leisured in their travels. But he was there all the same, a grey shadow in her dealings as the Emperor’s hand. 

 

❇ “The priest defied my brother’s decree.” 

 

“It was right of you to tell his Majesty, Your highness.” 𐃏 

 

❇ “Should I tell him, too, that a Lordling of eight summers refuses to bend the knee? … no, I can fix it.”

 

She did not wait for his answer, spared no effort in looking at him. There was no point to; he now seldom went without his helm. “Goodnight, Josef. I’m retiring early for the night.”

 

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

15ᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ʜᴏʀᴇɴ’ꜱ ᴄᴀʟʟɪɴɢ, 644

 

❇ “Josef,”

 

“Highness,” 𐃏  

 

❇ “Do you miss it? Haense. Everything that it was. Do you miss your mother’s face?”

 

“I see her in my memory, Your Highness. Always.” 𐃏 

 

Owyn had always rejected being Josef; yet, at the same time, never declined to answer as him. She wondered if they might have been friends, had they met earlier were he still a Prince of Haense. Likely not. Moments like these, she remembered that his family were the ones to have butchered her father’s. Did his mother know her father’s face, when his brothers were put to sword? 

 

“Why did you save me; in the Emberrest – you risked everything to expose yourself.” She threw a grape his way, lounging in a recline into her cushioned seats.

 

“You looked like you needed the help.”

 The man answered, honest and cheeky. 

“.... – Whatever.” 

She squinted some, and threw a pillow at his face.

 

Yet in the unlikeliness of the pairing, they kept close company; the Empire’s devoted voice and her quiet shadow. Perhaps his constance came to be the norm, an assumed inherent step behind hers that she needn’t check for. But eventually, the steps became less present – and when she turned, to look behind rather than forwards, his absence had become some silent secret. 

 

Then in the gardens beyond her office, her own twin’s wife declared executed in her grasp, she realised the loneliness of that gaping absence. Her shadow was empty, the Grey-Knight missing from where he would usually loom. There was a disturbed sense of anger in her realisation. She could not recall how long he had been absent for. 

 

✦ • ───────── • ✠ •  ─────────• ✦

 

25ᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ɢᴏᴅꜰʀᴇʏ’ꜱ ᴛʀɪᴜᴍᴘʜ, 647

She raised the quill from paper at the conclusion of her entry. The work in the Palace grew increasingly demanding, in her appointment as Princess-Justiciar of Man. She found herself scarcely at home with family; scarcely herself, even, rather than the arm of the Empire. The walls felt suffocating, the people grating. Then, Hadrian’s death came as some sickening joke, her brother informing her of his own death by pen and paper whilst his singed corpse floated the open sea. And he asks her to be joyful, in the most joyless time of her life.   “You’ve been gone. Your other life called, I presume?” The words did not come biting to the Grey-K***ht in his entry to the office; despite whatever poor expression she gave.   “My apologies, your Highness.” Owyn’s reply came dutifully, and irritatingly simple. “An issue by Tor’Urldar.”    You made an oath.    The words were curbed, relegated only to be said in her mind. Some part of her desired to leave the conversation in her anger of him; but to leave was to resume again her place as Justiciar. There were seldom any-else beside him that she could be Joan for. “…— it’s fine. There was no issue you missed.”

 

A portion of her had hoped that there was some kinship between a prince and princess; that perhaps his time as Josef Barbanov would keep him grounded to humanity, as her station kept her. But Owyn went as between and beyond the empire as he pleased, just as he had so readily left his name of Barbanov. So she was here, and he increasingly was not.

 

..— absence will make him unpredictable. Dismiss him.

 

“We’ll need to go to Aelwen, the Archdruid wishes to discuss the inheritance of Iryalen… we’ll need to tell the terms of the Councillor’s punishments… —“ The rest of the tale came as some sordid script, a practiced rehearsal of her itinerary. The words were a bore. The conversation dimmed again in her disinterest. But at the very least, the work meant that he would stay.

 

And he bowed his head, the very painting of the obedient Sworn-Knight, for the temporary time he would remain. No longer constant. He had freed himself, and she had not. What an enviable selfishness.

 

I do not know the solution to you.

 

Spoiler

narrative post for ferdaboys larp with my character. (he's an ST now, and im bribing him to drop me carb btw)

 

 

[ferdaboy 3472]

When he first laid eyes upon Joan, she had been a young woman, unimposing and unimpressive. And now, when he looked to her, he saw a cruelty that had not always been there. An unforgiving loyalty to the Empire, and he knew all too well it was slowly killing her.

 

Time itself took from him what he loved most. Milena, his home, his children, and now his friends. He cursed himself for having such an abundance of it, yet none to share. 

 

Joan was just another name to add to the list of the lost, no matter how much it pained him. And the list would only grow longer.

 

“Inevitable.”