𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃

HECTOR GERAUD

Skeleton

Full Bio

Faim

status: open! date: 21st of aude. location: just outside l’opera imperial.

Intermission descends with vast, swooping wings that cover the entirety of the audience. The tension in the air is palpable as the band brings the music to a crescendo and the curtain begins to close. Michel is privately very grateful: he feels like he spends most days sitting and waiting anyways. Doing so in his leisurely hours feels like a waste. The chance to stretch his legs is one he takes very quickly, practically throwing himself out of the box while others tend slowly pry themselves from their seats.

He grabs a glass of something bright and orange from the bar, but doesn’t linger. The first thing Michel goes for is the doors, which will close again in twenty minutes’ time to the outside world and trap them all inside again. Maybe he’s feeling a little more claustrophobic than he thought he was. The night air is cool, but it blessedly isn’t raining, which he’s grateful for. He’s wearing no armor tonight, and he feels naked because of it. Being rained on in some of the finest clothes he’s worn in months would be one of his worst nightmares.

Others filter outside, one by one or in pairs, maybe a cluster, but Michel plants his feet and holds the stem of his drink in a vise grip. No need to bow out here. Just… enjoy the drink and then go back to his seat. He can do that. He turns to the person closest to him because that seems like the wise thing to do. He can hear Victoire’s voice – or maybe it’s Helene’s – chiding him not to be so doom-and-gloom, so, fine. He’ll make conversation. “Are you enjoying the show? I’m having a difficult time keeping track of what’s going on.” 

Though the glasses of wine tempt him-- Hector’s always preferred the smoothness of it over the bite of ale-- it’s best behavior for him tonight. His empress insists on an evening free of any tension, but Hector can’t help but remain uneasy. The most important person in the city is enclosed in a building swarming with masks while the search for the mage girl continues, her investigation yielding no answers. Her grace has her guards, but Hector finds his attention wandering to everything but the stage.

Tucking himself away and out of sight has never been easy for a man as large as Hector, but he slinks through of the crowds and clusters of people fillings the halls with careful grace, lest he mistakenly bump shoulders with someone he’s avoid successfully so far. The particular spot he settles in isn’t unoccupied, but he doesn’t mind the company he finds there. 

what else does he know of the empress’ personal advisor, beyond his myth? ah, that he loves to fight. that he makes a mess of any arena, wide as the wild plains, or as cramped as the one to be found in the lion’s mane, that he enjoys a pretty face regardless of the danger it belies. or perhaps in spite of it. the latter would certainly be a kind of triumph, especially for one so close to the empress who already seems to have a predilection for creatures of sharp edges and smoke, but it is more likely that the once-dragon hunter is only too filled with the highs of victory and ale to know any better. a great shame. 

there’s the bloom of bruises, the hand on his hip, and he imagines hector has conquest on the mind, wonders if he sees everything a bit like an opportunity for a rout now that there is nothing left to provide the challenge of dragons. “they aren’t. but that is to be expected, no?” he concedes, and it’s a breath away from sounding a bit like ‘you tragic thing. what is left after the monsters are gone?’ “your hands. do they hurt? does anything else? i find that every triumph is not without its pains.” the man meets his unblinking fixation in kind, roves the length of him, and karine smiles faintly, elongates his expanse, crooking his neck, unfurls as prey would in exchange for mercy. or the way a waiting maw might. 

his first instinct is to bed him, once, and again, and again, see what lodes of wisdom he is able to mine, what secrets he can tear from the dip in the man’s tongue and keep him talking after he’s sobered up. but surely there is more to uncover–such as, why it was alain decided to recommend a monster-hunter for an advisory position. he supposes he could simply ask alain, but he was never one for ease nor convenience in place of mystery. 

“karine.” he offers the word like a dollop of sweet cream spooned into hector’s palm. “but i already know yours, dragon-slayer. do you have anything else to offer in its stead?”

—

Hector isn’t the type to have to repeat himself, and in his emboldened state he’s even less patient. So, as Karine presents himself on a platter, Hector reaches out to take him— only by the hips, with both hands, to plop him down onto the stool he’s already offered. Their knees are barely touching, Hector scoots in, and suddenly their a whisper’s reach from one another. 

“Karine.” Hector tries the name out for himself, to taste how it pairs with the bitter tinge of ale in his mouth. He smirks when he finds he quite likes it.

“Afraid I’m out of stories,” he glances again at back of a hand. “And all out of fight. Would you settle for just my company?” Hector inches to the edge of his own seat now, looming to make sure Karine knows the imposing size of him. His modesty is gone, washed away. In its place is the pride of a man who owns the world, who’s saved it. He’ll come to regret this behavior come sunrise, but for now, Hector is single minded in what he wants.

“You’ve been over there—” Hector motions to the niche Karine had made his place in before, darker than the rest of the pub, a little den to watch from. “—Since I first noticed you.” With his features sleek, his eyes black and intense, Hector knows Karine has only let himself be seen. Yet despite not knowing his face or his family name, Hector decides he’s too well spoken to be common, too fine a thing to go unnoticed. He’s even more curious about this man now, enough to want to know more than just a name. 

“Being in the shadows suits you, doesn’t it?" Hector can cast quite a broad shadow himself, Karine might find. “But you’re highborn, aren’t you?” Hector asks, so sure of the answer that it sounds off as more of a verdict. 

It serves, perhaps, that Iseult would eventually encounter Geraud at the Mane. It suits, perhaps, that this tavern be the flux of all things embodied. The crux of all things. At the eve’s beginning, attending the Librarian’s latest lengthy social call at the bar side, Iseult means to avoid the recognizable Hector— ( the job foiled, the one that got away; no longer any of their concern once Hector took his grievances straight to Iseult’s employer and nullified the contract with a kill of his own. ) Unsure how much the knight may remember from their brief rendezvous, but unwilling to test the theory, Iseult acts the unaware bystander. It becomes harder as the dragon slayers presence all but swallows the room. Seven men flattened, the seventh of which went reeling clean out from the fighting ring and into the empty stools nearby.

By this point in the night, there’s no avoiding the mountain of a man. He shoves his cup right up against Iseult’s cuirass, tankard thunking against dark leather. There’s no dodging it, now. Though, the simple sleight of hand it would take to pawn the refill off on another is far less compelling than the question of: what happens next?

Hector turns to look, and Iseult tilts their head. Tilts the knight’s spent cup, and eyes the droplet that slips from the lip. “Quick work,” they commend. “Though you could stand to ask with more decorum.” The half mask ( the choice of cover when partaking of food and drink) flashes the quirk of their lips into a gallant grin. They turn at the waist to slide the cup across the bar behind them, flagging down the tender for a refill, “on me.” The tug of their sleeve as they gesture for the barkeep flashes a sliver of skin. A sliver of inky tally marks, tattooing the inner forearm.

Unlike his newly appointed cupbearer, Hector’s face is bare and bold, a thin sheen of sweat highlighting the chiseled angles of his features. He always looks stern, but as he settles a waiting look onto the stranger, watching where he moves and what he does with his empty tankard, Hector’s features go from dimly stern, to darkly glaring. 

Warm from the ale— a barrel, maybe two, emptied all by himself— Hector’s skin tightens with a chill, a sobering feeling that balls up and drops heavy into his gut. Considering how much he’s had to drink, a slight peak at a set of inked etches on a man’s wrist who he doesn’t know doesn’t seem like it would warrant anything more than a glance, perhaps a ‘thanks.’ But Hector happens to be quite perceptive, a trait he learned young that carried into his adulthood. His mind swirls to settle, and his eyes see clearly enough for him to realize he does know this stranger, and quite intimately at that.

While Hector waits for the ale he’s lost all intention of drinking, he becomes the stillest body in the pub. The buzz and the bustle of everyone around turn into muffles in his ears, his glower latches onto a man who can’t be fool enough to meet him again on his own accord. Hired, again, by someone else that wants him dead? Maybe. He can’t be sure, not yet. But his muscles tense, ready to spring in case words aren’t what this familiar stranger is after.

“You’re generous,” Hector notes with a grimace in place of a thanks. “For a dead man.”

Every business excursion to this corner of the city is excruciating. Campaigning is an exercise in willful self-degradation, a headache in and of itself, and the chaos, the noise, the neverending action of La Crinière De Lion has the effect of working said ache up into a crescendo of a migraine, so powerful Gisele’s vision is softly blurring around the edges. All she can think about is retreating to the blissful silence of home for the night, the world outside her walls dead for all she cares. It’s a freedom waiting on the other side of her escape from this place, an escape that gets abruptly cut off as she’s skirting past a particularly rowdy table. 

Instinctually her fingers curl around the cup shoved at her, but once her mind returns from the distant thoughts of how she’ll spend the night and catches back up to the present, she hastily reels back and lets the offending object clatter to the ground. A few errant drops splash onto the dark velvet of her skirts. “For prophet’s sake…”

Gisele’s gaze flicks back up from the floor to none other than Hector Geraud. She’d caught a glimpse of him when she’d first arrived, identified him at the epicenter of all the commotion she was careful to avoid, but not thought much of it. Perhaps she should have taken more notice– Hector’s been a fixture of Court for as long as she’s been aware of him, but a much more stable one than tonight’s behaviour suggests. There are countless stories of glory adorning his reputation, but there are stories about everything and that hardly meant anything to her. All that really matters are the lines he recites for the Empress: praise and promises of devotion and unquestioning approval, all delivered without a hint of subterfuge. Gisele has long since written him off as beyond her influence and therefore beyond her caring.

The once-over she gives him is deliberate in its obviousness. “It’s almost sad to see you like this. As the last scrap of a dynasty best known for engineering it’s own obsolescence, your usual uselessness was kind of respectable in its naturalness. At least as one of the Empress’ baubles you had some dignity. Now you’re just another common drunk eager to pretend you’re still living your glory days.” Her tone is thoughtful and serene, as though she were commenting on a book she didn’t particularly enjoy. Yet for all her mildness of manner, her eyes are ablaze. “And by all means go ahead, do what you will with yourself, but don’t make a mess of my friend’s establishment and don’t get in my way in the process.” Gisele glances pointedly at the fallen cup. “I suggest you pick that up and apologize.”

Hector’s stare is blank as she speaks, and when she finishes, it looks almost as if he was only now just making sense of all her words, aptly so in his ale stricken state. He does understand, of course, but he doesn’t let on. He only blinks hard and reaches to pluck the empty tankard from where it’s rolled under his stool. He thinks then, how Gisele would make an excellent barkeep, from the way she accosts the Mane’s guests in the name of its owner.

He finally speaks, after he’s settled, and wears a look seen on scolded men, but he doesn’t wear it long. It’s gone by the time he looks up at his evening’s scourge. “You’re a clever girl, aren’t you, with your clever words and your clever schemes? Our empress has had fools more clever executed for schemes more successful.” Hector cocks his head, a hint of amusement lighting up the hard features of his face as he entertains a particular thought, and he tucks his lips into a mocking smile hollow of any sincerity. “Perhaps...” He pauses, and his smile sees itself touched momentarily by a hint of delight. "She’ll have you executed soon.”

Hector lifts his hand with his cup still in hold to point a single finger to the spot he’d made from shoving the mug into her. “Ale in your velvet is much easier to scrub out than blood, you know. But I supposed what stains you’d get on your pretty clothes wouldn’t be of much importance when you’ve lost your head, would it?” A barkeep arrives then, with a pitcher to refill, only to whisk themselves away a moment later, Hector’s mug full to the brim.

“But better blood on your hands than in your velvet, I suppose.” His mockery fades, and what’s left is a dark set of knowing eyes and a satisfied smirk. “I never did offer my condolences for the death of your sister, my lady.”

The pair departed at twilight, when the air was cold and grey and thick with mist. They carried with them only the bare necessities: rolled bedding, a pot for boiling clean water and another for cooking, utensils to eat. Nothing more. Hector preferred to travel light in these cases of travel, and thus had refused the accompaniment of men and wagons. If a northern ambassador was going to learn the country to their south, he’d learn it in its crudest ways. Hector would teach Zhenya how to hunt for himself, what to live off of, how to find warmth from a twigs and in a cave, and the beauty in all of it. As for protection— Hector was the only thing Zhenya would need. He’d assured the Empress the ambassador’s safety, and had it been anyone else to promise such a thing, she might’ve refused. But under Hector Geraud, the man who’d tussled with dragons, protection was guaranteed. Away from the spiders of court and their webs spun of secrets and deceit, Hector could could rest assured that the only danger that could face them was danger he could see, put a sword to without repercussion.

Hector’s pace was perhaps harsh, but only because he’d wanted Zhenya and himself as far away from the city as soon as possible. This meant no rest for them as they crossed the plains of greens that ebbed and flowed into rolling hills, not until the sun dipped down to set and they reached woodland. From here out, he’d pace their travel slower and a little kinder, but would put the challenge into hunting and gathering.

When they finally settled, it was in a small clearing surrounded by tall, thin trees. The moon had taken its place in a sky dark like velvet above them, and while the air was colder than usual for the season, but the crackle of a fire warmed the space between them. Much to Hector’s contentment, they were finally alone.

“How’re your legs?” Hector asked, roughly, as if the question served as a warning for Zhenya to mind any complaints. He’d spoken little to him throughout the day, scarce in his responses. But his grunt was softened by the handing of a smoothed wooden bowl filled with rice he’d cooked, garnished with a hearty mix of dried herbs, roots and vegetables that were now steamed back to plump vibrancy. “Eat well,” he encouraged, though again, his words were rough, enough to sound like he was giving Zhenya an order. “From this point on, we hunt.”

it really isn’t prudent, karine thinks, for one’s legacy to be chanted by a crowd. makes one easy to spot, makes one recognizable, familiar, and altogether far too easy for someone like him to track–the entire forest announcing the presence of a fox as the hunter enters the clearing. but hector geraud is hardly prey, and karine has no business that leads him to the man. none, except, intrigue. 

hector may not know him, but he knows what a dwindling dynasty feels like. the notturnas were never as grand as dragon-slayers, but once, they might have shared the same circles, or at least, calandre’s favor. but karine’s family is dead, the line shaved to ashes and bone, and the gerauds have hector–a hero in a time absent of dragons. 

does it hurt him, he wonders?

if there were to come a time where grudges and cindering hatreds dissipated with the wind, an era without assassins, he would surely feel bereft. pained without an impetus. ah, he wouldn’t be able to help the circumstances then, but dragon slayers slaughtered their own source of legend. if hector is lost, it is by his own making, is it not? 

all questions living at the tip of his tongue and drown in ale as he watches the organized fray from his own booth. he’s content enough to continue on like this, until he’s pulled from his private spectatorship by none other than the man of the night–ah, with a demand, no less.

“i suppose the champion of the ring is due his just reward,” karine hums, and passes the cup to a passing employee to refill, grin crooked and warm, encouraging of familiarity, but his watchful gaze is unblinking. “and how did those men measure up to your dragons?”

--

Hector first finds clothing too fine to be a barkeep’s, and his eyes go up to a features that cut in the low lit tavern light and the man they belong to. He’s never seen him before tonight, but in the past hour, Hector’s stolen enough glances at him through his stories and between rounds to want to know who he is. Had they been elsewhere and had Hector been clear of mind and ale, however, he might’ve seen the deceit hidden behind allure. But all Hector can see now in his heat is someone with a face he likes-- someone who’s approached him. This Hector likes too.

“You tell me,” Hector volleys, splaying out a set of thick fingers to look at the damage the faces of those men did to his knuckles. It’s not significant, just a faint bloom of soon-to-be bruising, but he doesn’t spend too much time appraising. Instead he sets his sight back to the stranger only to trail his gaze down the lean length of him at a lazing pace. The attention Hector’s giving him is different from what he’s given his old friends behind him or the flattering crowd that’s dissipating as quickly as it gathered. It’s focused and fixated. “I’m standing,” he says without lingering on his victory. “They aren’t.”

Hector sets his cup down and reaches out to settle a hand on the man’s hip to let it linger. For a moment, he entertains the idea of pulling him into his lap for a moment but decides better of it. Hector’s already got him, he thinks. Might as well enjoy the subtlety a bit longer— he’d always liked a bit of teasing beforehand anyway.

He pulls up a stray stool, and urges the man in his grip to move. “Sit,” Hector commands, but softens with a question spoken and another thought: “What is your name?” And are you my reward?

His eyes are still closed when a low, gravelly rasp cuts through the din of the Mane, but he doesn’t need to look up to put a name to the voice—he knows Hector Geraud by the sound of him alone, even after all these years. When he lifts his gaze to meet Hector’s, something caught halfway between fondness and caution flares in the gray-blue of his eyes, unsure if the hand extended to him is one he ought to bite. “The mighty dragon-slayer, in all his glory, troubled by a lone Chevalier?” Medraut clicks his tongue admonishingly. “Have you gone so soft in my absence, Geraud?”  

He notes with no small amusement the way Hector’s dominant hand rests on the hilt of his sword, at the ready should the ties of old friendship prove too feeble to restrain Medraut’s temper. Smart lad, Medraut thinks. 

They let you off your leash? So soon? He bristles at that, but he perhaps bristles less so than he would in answer to anyone else. There’s a long and tried and true history that exists between Hector and Medraut, one that marks Hector more friend than foe, and for perhaps this reason alone, Medraut stays his hand, checks his temper; chokes back his instinct to respond with violence. There is no real malice to be found in the fine print of Hector’s jab, and no real danger, either. 

“Too soon, evidently,” Medraut says drily, waving a hand at the splintered tankard on the floor and the ale pooling around it. “Has our Empress”—he makes a concerted effort not to say “your Empress”—“sent you to me with leash and muzzle in hand?” It’s a question as much as it’s a dare.

Question: are you here to put me back on my leash?

Dare: you can try.

—

Hector? Softer? Around the edges, maybe, but blunt all the same. Enough to crack Medraut’s teeth should he be bold enough to bite. “No,” is all Hector says to that before moving on.

He takes a moment to take in Medraut and the ways his face has changed in three years. He finds that it hasn’t changed much— he’s a touch more gaunt, with a few more fine lines— but his sunken eyes still teem with emotions he can’t contain.

“I always enjoyed you when you’re hot, regrettably,” he answers earnestly. Medraut’s always been one of the few whose never been intimidated by the way Hector imposes. He finds it refreshing as much as he finds it trying, being tested so willfully by Medraut with the same enthusiasm the rest of the city fawns over him with. But the man Hector knew once and the one he’s trying to read now is still just as tortured. Evidently, the years haven’t made his temperament any less scathing or his tongue any less sharp. Hector worries, perhaps, that it’s gotten worse.

‘ Has our Empress sent you to me with leash and muzzle in hand? ’

“Maybe she has,” Hector muses, making a point to entertain the thought. How long’s it been since he’s had a fight, a real fight, against someone adept enough to match his size and brute strength with swift movement and quick instinct? Too long, he decides, then leans in with to dip his tone so it’s quiet and steady and still strong enough to cut through the noise of the tavern. It’s sly. 

“It’s been a while since I tamed something wild.”

THE TWELFTH OF MACCIUS, ON HIGHTOWN PATROL. OPEN TO ALL.

Despite the uproar that sweeps through court with magnetic force, a wind of iron & rumor,  the days pass easily. They burrow into one another, small, harmless creatures sleeping in the face of danger. It’s as if time itself had shucked its shell. Calandre has thrown a fit, they whisper, Calandre wept openly in front of the northern ambassador. Calandre has ordered the whole palace, the whole city refitted, swaths of organza and crates of pearls filling up the halls. Calandre has ran to the country, fled with her lover, booked a foreign ship. Imprisoned the royal painter for defying her will, for daring to sketch an unflattering profile. No, she merely sidelined them for dragging up the fetid sands of the Obsidienne, for tarnishing the peacemaker’s Eden with the promise of gathering hell.

Fiacre gives way to Maccius, and there is no end to the hearsay. In a way, he supposes there is no end to the heresy as well. Matthieu Samuel, who lives and serves at Calandre’s side, knows most of it is rubbish. Yet he is more worried about the truth hidden in the straws. It’s powdered in grains almost too fine to see, ground thinly even by the mill of Val Faim nobility, which spared no absurdity and no whit of sense. Faint, yes, but not intangible. There’s a kernel of something sharp in all that feathered chaff. Sharp enough that, if he were to clench his fist around, he’d come up with it bloody. He has no need to grow bloodier still.

And so, the Chevalier chuckles at it all. He tips his head and feigns thoughtfulness, feigns listening at all. It’s amiable or scornful, depending on who’s on the other side of the table. He sits through those garden fetes and afternoon teas, standing guard same as he ever did, with a gilded pommel and a scabbard hollowed by death. There’s only the promise of lethality to him, up there in the heart of palace. There’s only the caul of it over his eyes.

When he’s not posturing, when Calandre sends him off as if it’s a party favor, a munificent gift, he patrols the city and keeps up with the crowd. If not… relaxing, it certainly masks it well enough. He’s had little cause to regret it, until now. Today, the sun is too hot on his back, and the swarm of bodies feels more liquid than material. It’s not full afternoon until he has to duck into the nearest shade.

He finds some Hightown terrace narrower than the bend of a waist; likely a baron’s balcony, now deserted for the summer while the city gushes out into the country. He doesn’t see the fact that the table is occupied until he’s already up the stairs. As if this day needed to spew insult over injury. The Chevalier decides to make the best of it. If anything, it’ll save me a future talk. The number of people who trickled in the capital meant a list of new people to charm, investigate, or simply scare off.

“I wouldn’t have thought you the sort to brave this heat. Courtly meeting gone wrong? Or am I putting my foot in it, and someone stood you up?” A smiling front, the knight draws nearer. He presses a curt bow forward, summer-lighting quick. Just snappish enough to cover the bases of liable offense. There’s some umbrage not even Calandre could smooth for his behalf. He leans on one of the colonnades, shirt sticking to the stone. “I’d tell you this is private property, but then, I imagine that rule only holds for other people.”

Finding silence in the empress’ gardens gets more tedious with each passing day. Here, tucked up in some lord or lady’s private terrace, Hector has peace at least. Below him the sound of street crowds muddles together, and he’s alone. His peace is short-lived however. 

When he first hears oncoming steps, Hector’s reclining in a small metalwork chair that’s much too small for him, legs languid and stretched a mile long in front of himself, crossed at the ankle with his feet perched up on the only other chair on the balcony. His jacket is thrown over the table beside him, and he’s sweating through a loose fitted tunic he’s untucked from his trousers-- all in black. He’s got a dagger in one hand that he’s using to whittle a small chunk of wood, and he stops it to watch his company reveal themselves. He’s expecting the owner of these quarters, but he isn’t any less relieved when it’s this familiar face instead.

Hector bristles only a little. He stops and stares for a moment, accepting Matthieu’s bow without offering one in return. He only nods once. “I’m as much use to our empress right now as you are,” Hector starts, putting his knife back to wood. “Her grace attends to other business. No need for my council or my watch. The guard captain is with her.” He shrugs a lazy shoulder. “And, the gardens are busier than the streets these days, I find. Though it’s not so different up here.” Hector glances up at Matthieu. 

“Sit,” Hector insists, lifting one heel from the chair it rests on on to place on the tabletop instead. He drops his other foot to rest on the ground. “Old friend.”

…

Sainte has grown accustomed to the rowdiness the Mane offers. She’s never found herself drawn into it herself, even when she is drunk, she’s not inclined to fight, shout, all manner of things, but it’s become a sort of background noise. And if she needs to, as she does now, she can shove well enough to make her way to the bar through a crowd. It’s also the sort of situation where being small can come in handy, as she weaves her way through the rowdy group of men. It’s then, when a cup is shoved at her, a demand is made for another. She stands there, almost blank faced, until the man turns to look at her. 

“I think,” She says, her tone as dead panned as her expression. “That perhaps you’ve had enough.” She doesn’t work here, it’s not her place to tell people how much they should drink really, but she feels as though the responsibility has been given to her, along with the cup. “Though I’d be happy to return this to the bar for you.” She says, holding up the cup. 

--

Hector’s been refused his demand, and at first, he has to focus his eyes to see past the mask his offender wears. They’re small, almost as tall as he is sitting, with a voice about as intimidating to him as the hiss of a cat. But there’s bravery in refusing a man’s drunken request, especially one who’d beaten lesser men to the ground only minutes ago, Hector sees that, and he sees someone he thinks he knows.

He rises with the screech of his chair against the ground and positions himself to tower over the other, the shadows in the dim pub doing their part to feature the rancor in his face. Hector doesn’t speak for a long pause, only imposes, but breaks soon enough with a grin. He’s pleased she’s a familiar face, albeit masked.

“Little dragon!” he calls and announces her in earnest, and a broad hand scoops Sainte into his side by her shoulder with mighty strength. “Drink with me!” He looks to the barkeep who nods to him as they understand. A moment later, two more tankards are brought to Hector and his companion, the head of warm beer spilling over his fingers as he snatches his.

“What brings you to these parts?” he takes a gulp that drains half his cup. 

“Tell me,” Hector ducks down, and speaks in a tone that’s softened and playfully secretive. “Is it to drink your worries away, or to fight?”

date: the fourteenth of maccius location: the lion’s mane open to: all

Impatience, thy name is Medraut Galant.

Espionage is so mundane, all work and no play, and Medraut hasn’t the faintest idea why Roth would send him to gather intel and sniff out Amelie’s whereabouts when the veteran Chevalier’s well of patience runs thrice deeper than his own. If he thinks too long on it, he’ll no doubt connect the dots of Roth’s design, and will see with clarity the blueprints of his intentions: mercy culminated in a sly attempt to keep Medraut occupied while also keeping him far, far away from the eye of the storm that nearly swallowed him whole all those years ago. For this reason, he doesn’t think too long on it.

Cloaks and daggers have never become him, and though he sits at a lone table in a dark corner of the Mane, and though shadows limn his person, and though he’s dressed in shades of black and gray, there’s a kind of restlessness that rolls from him in waves, one that conspicuously marks him as unbelonging to this place, these people, this city. He’s ill at ease, too unfocused to convincingly break bread with the Mane’s patrons and ply their tongues loose. With a quiet huff of frustration, he surveys the room for what must be the thousandth time, searching for clues hidden in plain sight. He knows he’ll find none, not here, not anywhere in Val Faim. In the marrow of his bones pulses a truth that he’s loath to swallow: there’s only one place in Celestine where secrets grow like weeds, and his stomach turns at the thought of returning to his motherland. 

Impatiently, he drums his fingers against the tabletop, eyes tracking the sea of faces before him, trying in vain to find the devil in the details. His gaze drifts to the right and snags on the two bruisers circling each other in the Mane’s makeshift ring, knuckles bloody, teeth bared. Longing colors Medraut’s eyes a brighter shade of blue, and without meaning to, he leans closer to the ring. An itch that he can’t scratch pulls the skin of his arms and hands taut, and he clenches his fists to ward off the restlessness of them, the draw to violence, the hunger for it. 

“Amelie!” he hears a girl shout, and his head snaps to the left, eyes scanning the crowd. The Amelie in question embraces her summoner, and when she turns to greet her other companions, Medraut can see that she bears no resemblance to his Amelie, not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a dead end, as he knew it would be: another fruitless lead. This is useless, he thinks. There’s nothing to be found here. Only in the Underworld will he find fruit ripe for harvest. 

He teeters on the tightrope of his emotions, legs wobbling, one misstep away from falling right into the waiting maw of his anger. Only in the Underworld. Only in the Underworld. Only in the Underworld. Prone to intense emotion, and cursed to always be moved by it, his frustration reaches its boiling point, and he finds himself caught too deep in the quicksand of his anger to tread it. With an angry swipe of his arm, he swears colorfully and hurls his tankard of ale at the wall to his left. The wood of the tankard splinters, clattering to the floor in pieces, and a spray of ale rains on the table adjacent to the wall. The patrons nearest to him huff and puff in equal parts surprise and outrage, and he earns some sidelong glances from others across the room, but none are brave enough (or stupid enough) to approach Calandre’s wardog, who everyone knows is keen to bite any hand, even those that try to feed him. Only one person, it seems, has the gall to step forward: a looming figure that he can sense more than see, for his eyes remain shut tight, the bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger as he tries to recollect the reins of his temper. “If it’s the mess that troubles you,” he bites out, voice scathing, “thank Odeline it’s only spilt ale, and not spilt blood.” And not your spilt blood, he doesn’t say.

--

Hector doesn’t have to go asking questions-- Calandre’s got better suited minds at the task-- but he does anyway. He wouldn’t be entirely honest if his reasons for being here were solely to look for answers, though.

When Medraut’s outburst happens, Hector’s and everyone else’s focus is on the man who’s in the midst of a fit. But when the tension fades and Hector’s still glowering, it’s obvious that he’s got business with him. So the crowd parts for him, and Hector steps forth, casting his large shadow over an old acquaintance. “That mess?” He gestures with a tilt of his head to the little spill Medraut’s just made. “It doesn’t trouble me, no--” Hand on the hilt of his greatsword, he slips into the seat opposite of Medraut. “But the one I’m looking at does.”

Cornering a snarling dog doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do, not when it’s been long enough that it might’ve forgotten his scent. But Hector decides to poke it anyway, and it’s clear what he’s doing: sizing up someone he used to know to see where they stand. 

“They let you off your leash? So soon?”

Dismissed for the evening, Hector finds himself on the steps outside the palace and in the company of small group of unarmored chevaliers he shares a brief, however fond, history with. He’d trained with these men for a brief stint, slept in their barracks, crawled through mud, hunted and rode with them. He’d also rang their heads like bells in spars with them, and they’d tried to ring his too. Now, they’re dragging him to the Lion’s Mane in the familiar way old friends do and forcing a thick bottomless cup into his hands. It’s been years since he’s seen the few of them, years since they’d heard his stories of the stories of dragons that burrowed and flew and breathed fire, and how Hector slew them all. He’s goaded into entertaining his stories and humoring his brothers, and before long, the man who drinks least and talks less so at banquets and galas, has now put a dent in the barkeep’s barrels and attracted a crowd.

Hector sings his stories to the songs of praise and he’s heralded after each one. Dragon’s bane, beast-man, dragon knight, stone-man, he collects his fair share of titles from jeers and cheers that end with raised mugs punctuated by the hollow slams of them on tabletops. It’s after the fifth story Hector’s finds that he’s allowed himself to become drunk, or has at the very least guzzled enough of the Mane’s finest to step into the fighting ring for a demonstration of a dragon slayer’s strength...

When it’s done, his count’s up to seven men flattened. He’s lost his jacket and the strings of his sweat wrinkled shirt hang untied and open, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The ridge leading down his chiseled chest is flushed and heaving, the chorded musculature of forearms littered with scars of curious shapes and glorified origins. He’s led back to the tables smothered by a pack of men he’s inspired who praise him with shouts in his ears, pats to his back and elbows to his ribs. Hector’s more drunk on their attention than he is on ale at this point, he’s got to admit, and he can’t for the life of him remember why that’s a bad thing.

With his head in a swirl and his body in the highs of adrenaline he throws himself onto his chair, his knuckles reddened when he wraps his hand back around his cup only to find it empty. 

“Another!” Hector shouts to command, shoving his cup against someone, anyone, within his arm’s reach as he plucks the mug from his nearest comrade’s lips to finish off himself. It’s only after he wipes the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand that he turns to look to who he’s bestowed the honor of being his cupbearer. 

Recent events have made the days more arduous, but still Hector’s assigned the secret duty of staying close to guard his empress should ripples of an aftershock reach her. He doesn’t know how much use he’d really be if not within a few paces reach of her, but the feeling of hovering isn’t new to him. So, Hector makes himself seem busier than he is, if only to make his concern less discernable--after all, the queen has her official guards, but should they fall, a mountain of a man would undoubtedly withstand.

He doesn’t want to, but Hector leaves his charge in the watch of sworn men whose physical strength he doubts, only for a short spell of fresh air. He begins his usual stroll through green paths only to spot a familiar shape he can’t avoid. So much for a little solitude-- mental respite would have to wait.

“The more peace people seek here, the less of it there is to go around,” he says gruffly, to make himself known, before greeting. 

“My lady,” he bows.