Multimuse Blog

It was thanks to Lexa that Roan had to be banned from his own clan, all until his mother would accept the coalition. Perhaps it was because he was the oldest, his mothers heir, and perhaps it was meant to be a lesson to all others, that the very same would happen to them should they not honour the coalition. It left a bitter taste in the mouth of the prince of Azgeda, though Roan was resourceful as well. With Wanheda on the loose, and knowing that they wanted her head, he set himself a task of finding her and bringing her in in exchange for his banishment. Though even there, it seemed that he was outmatched and somebody had gotten his hands on her if he was to go by words he heard on the road.

Though it wasn’t just that. Word also had it that the prince of Azgeda was welcome in his clan again, queen Nia having paid off Lexa in unknown goods, though Roan assumed the best warriors of Azgeda were the price for it, if not more. It took him almost a week to get back to the Ice Nation clan, where he stepped in without any fuss, the people bowing to him in respect. He was shown to the throne room immediately, and once there, he was greeted by his mother, and a rather alluring sight to go with it as well. The see through dress and the way the woman was bent over told him all. His mother had gotten him a breeding mare.

He walked forward, moving to bow to his mother though not missing the chance to runn a hand over the girl’s ass on the way there.

“Thank you, mother,” he said, to what Nia smiled.

“I think she’ll be perfect for you. She’s special, and it will hurt Lexa where it hurts most. I got you her lover.”

Clarke was pissed. She was so pissed at Azgeda. Yes, these were her ways. Strictly biologically she could understand it, not just biologically. They were a clan that wanted to survive. The need to survive was strong in people and in Azgeda it seemed very strong. And they needed to procreate. That was something survival always entailed. At one hand they themselves wanted to survive and at the other their kind, their culture should survive, too. And this part of the culture would survive, too this way. She didn’t have to like it, but it was their way. 

Clarke flinched as the man, prince apparently, came in and touched her ass. He seemed to know exactly what she was here for. And he seemed very okay with it. Well her dress left little to the imagination for him, he would have seen all of her through it already, at least her behind. 

In her three months away, Clarke had learned many things: One of them was that Azgeda was terrifying, horrible even and sadly more so for women. Their women knew no better, usually, except those who fought int he army, the queen, too. They saw another life and they were not treated to the same as most other women in Azgeda. They only had few women to begin with and so much fewer of them were capable of bearing children, it seemed. Women were rare and treated as a means to procreate, rather than humans. Which was why Clarke initially avoided them. She knew they hunted her, for more than one reason.

They wanted her for her so called powers, but she feared once they realized she had none, that she might end up like most women in Azgeda. Sadly, one day came the day where they caught her and brought her before the queen. After a tiring monologue of how she would not kill her, how she would use her as weapon and mare was enough to tell her that one of her fears were coming true. Once cleaned they put her in a see-through dress and took her to the throne room. They forced her to bend over a block and secured her hands and knees on it.  Behind her the door opened.

She worried about not having a steady hand of her own kingdom that were mostly Catholics. Pius nodded, continuing to listen to her as she spoke, the frown deepening as he listened more and more to her. He slowly began to see this as a conspiracy against the young Queen of the Scots, from several sides. There was no guarantee that the walls of the Vatican papal palace didn’t have ears as well, ones that would gather information for Queen Elizabeth and deliver word to her instantly.

“You need to establish a strong religious hand in Scotland before you take hold of ruling there. Perhaps if I would come with you there, you’d show your people that you have a strong ally by your side.”

What? He to come with her? Was Scottland that important to him? Was she? Was her rule this important to him? Did he see something in her? But she couldn’t protect him. Without a firm hand and rule in Scottland, she could not protect the Holy Father in Scottland. If something happened to him, the Catholics in Scottland would blame her and she would fall.

“I’ve received your messages, your Highness. I sent the messengers back with word meant for you that I will help you in all matters possible,” the pope told her in a rather serious tone, a frown forming on his face, however. So she never received word back from him to begin with. It only instilled the worry about it all in him. Matters were more serious than he anticipated, and it seemed that they only grew the more time passed.

Silently, he motioned towards the rather comfortable looking seats by the fireplace, walking towards them slowly with her. “Please, have a seat, your Highness, and tell me what ails you. The messengers were rather cryptic, as if fearing the walls might have ears.” Which wasn’t all that wrong either.

Mary walked with him, feeling small in this grand place, knowing that this was gods representative on earth. She saw, arranging her dress around her carefully. “The walls have ears in France. And everywhere on the road here. You do not have to doubt that Queen Elizabeth of England has her spies everywhere I go. She sees me as her rival. She does not want me to return to Scottland.” But she had to. 

The worry in Pius only grew the more messengers he received from the Queen of Scotland. While her worry of protestants in Scotland was justified, and he sent every messenger off with word that he would help her solve the issues, it was almost as if somebody was killing off the messengers to make sure no messages from his side were delivered. While that in itself was suspicious and close to a conspiracy theory. 

It all had Pius worried, to the point where he was ready to send out a whole delegation to the french court, when one of his assistants came to inform him about no other than the Queen of Scots herself in the Vatican, seeking audience with him. He rushed the man to lead her to him, and once she stepped inside, Pius stood up, walking over to her to greet her. “Your Highness. Welcome to Vatican.”

Mary struggled to curtesy in time for Pius to reach her. It seemed like he was rather eager to speak to her, to her own surprise. She gave him a small smile. “Thank you for welcoming me at such short notice. I have sent messengers ahead, of course.” But she had the idea that they might never have reached him.

There was so much silence and so much insecurities. On one hand Mary had to find a husband and quick on the other she knew she had to return to Scottland eventually, but how could she without being properly informed? There were protestants in Scottland now, powerful protestants that would not accept a catholic queen. She could not do that alone. She needed help, not only from France, but also from elsewhere. The Pope had not replied to any messengers, any of her letters and she needed his opinion. And so in times of uncertainty Mary took it upon herself to travel from the french court all the way to the vatican to see Leonard Bellardo, the current pope.

“Mary Stuart, Queen of Scottland.” Someone announced her. Mary bowed a little before the Pope.

“Oh it is funny,” Yon retorted as he took another bite of the dish. His appetite was coming back slowly but steadily. “It’s just a question of to whom it was funny. For others who witnessed me being almost stripped naked and dragged to the slave market? They enjoyed it. Me? Well…” Yon had a feeling that he didn’t need to finish that sentence. He still vividly remembered the embarrassment, the fear, how his pride was wounded and his name thrown into the dirt. From hero to traitor within only a few moments.

He shrugged gently as he reached for the glass with fluids then, taking a few sips before setting it on the bedside table again.”In a way, I did. I learned to appreciate small things, kind gestures. And you. I appreciate what you did for me, even though you didn’t have to. Thank you for that.” He offered her a small smile. “A tour sounds good. I can get to work, too.”

“Absolutely not!” Carol said immediately. She understood the offer. Appreciating her, meant he wanted to get useful, wanted to earn his keep in a way, she knew as much. She had known him back then, when he already had the desire to truly earn his position, that was something she suspected would never change, and it didn’t have to. It was one of his great traits. “You will rest for a few days, regain your strength, familiarize yourself with the place and the workers here and the customs. You can work when you’re healthy again. Think of it as long overdue holidays.”

She hoped he could use them to calm down. The thing was, she was sure the physical consequences were not the only thing he had to deal with. There had to be emotional scars and that would have to be dealt with, too. She would be kind to him. But something told her, that this version of Yon Roog would have his freedom sooner than she initially thought.

“You know why that is? Because most are only used to higher quality food. They join the military ranks and expect a life that is as easy as their previous life was, with luxury and a life without worries.” He’d been like that as well - picky, not really open to trying out new dishes that he didn’t necessarily have to, all until his mother one day didn’t make Rulag, and the rest was history. Simple and tasty, it’s how he remembered it, despite everything he was told. From that day on, he learned to respect everything that was set in front of him, a picky eater turning into a person who would eat anything. Food was food, after all.

A slightly shaky hand reached for a bit of the food, and while his stomach turned a bit from the mere thought of food, due to his previous owners having him on the brink of starvation at all times, Yon still ate it, exhaling deeply at the taste. It was just like he remembered it, the simplicity of the dish but the delightful taste - a dish he could eat every day and would never complain. 

“It’s funny, all of this, you know? I thought I was on top of the universe. I was glorified as Hala’s hero, people bowed to me when I would walk by and greet me with respect. I thought I had it all. But it took that deep fall to realize that I never appreciated what I had until it was all taken away from me. Then I began appreciating the small bits of food I’d get, or the few hours of restless sleep my owners would grant me.”

“That's not funny.” It was sad. It was horrible. It was, in a way her fault, too. Had she known, had she calculated with the coldness of these people, she would have been able to help Yon. She could have sent him elsewhere or taken him with her as her prisoner, at least he would have had it better than just having small bits of food and small moments of rest. Now things were about to change for him. He would have enough food, enough rest and maybe he would get a purpose once again.

As they all went inside, Yon waited outside for everybody to settle first before entering himself, almost feeling the uneasiness he caused just by being there. The Skrulls feared him, and with right. Yon-Rogg was crowned a hero in the Kree-Skrull war, led many successful battles against the Skrulls, killing many and forcing many more into servitude, or worse. And at the same time, he felt shame for doing it. The Empire was flawed, he realized that the moment Vers was taken to the Supreme for interrogation, but he wouldn’t admit that out loud. Not yet.

The now fallen Kree Commander of Starforce was sitting on his own, away from the group he would never belong to anyway, picking at his food while deep in thought. Times would be rough now, not just for him, but for everybody. In a way, he would feel again like he did when in training, having to give 200% of himself to prove himself. It would be a struggle.

When Carol approached him, he looked up and exhaled. “I wish I could give you an answer to that. If I’d tell you anything, it would be a lie. I didn’t do it because I felt sorry for the Skrulls, or for you. It was just… gut feeling. Gut feeling that fighting my own and help you was the right thing to do.”

If she was honest, that was good enough for her. A gut feeling was what she had worked on, too. She had a gut feeling about earth, abut having a past here, about Mar-Vell and then about the Skrulls. In this one case she had been right. They just wanted their families back. And they had allowed her to help despite her having killed so many of them herself, why should they treat Yon any different? He made a similar choice.

In the beginning, as he fell into a deep sleep, Yon had dreams, nightmares even, from events that happened ever since he returned to Hala empty handed. He dreamt of how the Supreme Intelligence, in the form of Vers at that even, told him how his failure was equal high treason, that he was sentenced to a lifetime of slavery. He was stripped off everything he cared for and held dear, sold off to the first slave trader and taken to the slave market. That nightmare alone had him thrash left and right every now and then, until he calmed down again, the dreams fading into darkness, allowing him to sleep in peace.

Yon-Rogg didn’t hear when Carol came back, or when she came into his room, nor did he feel as she ran her hand through his hair. There were rare instances where he could sleep as deeply as he did now, and usually that was only when he felt safe. Initially, he didn’t, didn’t even trust Carol to begin with, though if she had ill intentions with him, he would have already experienced it by now, he was sure. Instead, his mind singled out on just being safe and at a place where nobody would hurt him. There wouldn’t be any whips leaving scars across his back, no more broken fingers or sleepless nights on cold and wet ground. It was just him, his small but comfortable bed and Carol, who wanted him to have it good.

He flinched a bit when he woke up, a reaction that came naturally to him from being used to being woken up rudely and sometimes in very cruel ways by his previous owners. Once his amber eyes rested on Carol, he gave her a weak smile. “Thank you. You truly are too good to me,” he said in almost a whisper. “How do you still remember? It’s been years…”

His reaction to waking up was very telling. The people owning him had been rough with him, horrible even. He expected pain upon waking up as if sleep was not something to be secure in. And maybe in his case, it wasn’t, not anymore. The Krees treatment of him was at fault there. If only she had known what would have happened. She could have put him up somewhere, somewhere safe, where he didn’t have to worry about his own life. She was there to protect people, to end wars, after all.

Carol took a piece of the food and turned it in her hands, smiling at him and the memory it caused, of them sitting in the hall, most soldiers complaining about the food while Yon enjoyed it greatly and encouraged her to try it at least. It was a dish that was usually eaten by the poorer parts of the population. It was simple, cheap, very filling and very tasty. She tried and loved it as well, loved the simplicity of it as well as the taste.

Vers… no, Carol, he had to remind himself, Carol had a very valid point there. None of the Kree knew him like she did. She knew all of his sides perhaps, even those he wasn’t willing  himself to show to others. With Carol it was different. He allowed her to show some sides of him nobody knew, to some point, not even himself. Yon remained silent once more when she spoke, not exactly feeling getting hit once more for good measure.

And then she brought up a painful topic, one Yon had hoped she wouldn’t know off and wouldn’t notice. Apparently she was more observant than he originally thought. In his mind, Yon still vividly remembered that his skin colour was a huge issue when he first enlisted into the military. Not being blue like most Kree made him look weak from the start to others, and he had to give 200% of him and work twice as hard to get where he was. And yet, Yon still tossed all of that aside, the fame, the glory and the respect, to help them. “I doubt they will ever appreciate that small act of kindness.”

Vers looked at him critically. She knew he was right. There was years of hostility between them, especially between Thalos and Yon. “Well, there is a lot of...history.” But she wouldn’t abandon him now like this. He had made this choice, actively. She knew he knew the consequences. She knew he knew there was no going back from this.

“Let’s go inside.” She suggested, wanting everyone to settle, get quiet, eat, recover and regroup. And they needed to make a plan. Ronan knew where they were now, they had to leave, publicly leave in order for the Kree not to attack earth for harboring the Skrulls.

Once inside she shrugged out of her armor rather quickly, going to another room to put on the shirt and jeans she had picked up. She knew Maria would take care of food. The Skrulls were taking care of each other and so she, after a quick conversation with Fury, went to Yon-Rogg.

Yon was about to say something when Carol’s fist connected straight with his nose. The disgraced Kree commander stumbled back a bit from the blow, holding his nose and blue blood started oozing out of it. He imagined things to go very different. Yon cursed, but in general refrained from saying anything, all until she brought up what happened six years ago. “What would you have me do? You were dying. I didn’t kidnap you, I took you with us to save your life. Lying came with it. What did you want me to tell you? That you’re on a planet you never thought you would ever see?”

That on its own earned him another smack, this time on the head, from one of the Skrulls. “He still can’t be trusted!” The Skrull protested, others agreeing with him. “He killed our own for decades! Why would he trust somebody who hunted us and our families for so long? People don’t change over night, Kree especially.”

“Sometimes they do.” Carol said as she made her way to the house, opening the door in clear invitation to them all, including Yon-Rogg. “You don’t know him, not intimately, like I do. You only know the warrior. I know someone else.” She looked at him, gave him a soft smile before looking down again. “I know the man who got up at every odd hour of the night to help me deal with my nightmares. He’s not all bad.” She was very sure of that. 

The inner struggle he went through when Vers was facing the Supreme Intelligence was great. Yon-Rogg, for the first time in his life, didn’t know what to do. It was either fight his own crew and men, helping Vers escape, or just go with the flow and have her be punished for high treason against the Empire. In the end it was perhaps really his common sense that decided to help her and go against everything he ever believed in and fought for.

Yon’s perhaps biggest struggle was on how the Skrulls would react to him. Carol brought him to them, leaving him there as she went up to deal with Ronan and the Accusers. Needless to say, none of them was impressed that he was there, and evidently they trusted him as far as they could spit, so not at all.

As Carol arrived, Yon let out an exhale, and peeked over the heads of the Skrulls towards her. “I swear I did nothing,” he began, immediately getting a few looks from the Skrulls. “Though apparently only existing is enough for them.”

“Can you blame them?” she asked him as she came closer. She pointed to the gauntlets he wore to indicate he should lose them, for now. He could not expect them to relax while he had weapons. “After years of you - us - hunting them? I wouldn’t trust them if the roles were reversed and neither would you.” Though he might not trust them longer out of spite. That was just him. Still she approached him and took a good swing at him. Feeling satisfied as her knuckles hurt from the blow, she took a step back. “That is for abducting me and lying to me for years.” And that was all the revenge she took and intended to take.

When she was trapped in the supreme intelligence there was a moment when the AI hesitated, clearly distracted by what happened outside. It/she/whatever whispered ‘traitor’ before turning back to Carol.

When she broke free and battled her former team, she caught glimpses of Yon-Rogg, fighting against their team as well. The traitor seemed to refer to him. At one point she called to him to go down and help the Skrulls and her friends down.

Once the Accusors were gone, she landed in Marias front yard, finding him surrounded by Skrull weapons and two guns. They evidently did not trust him. She couldn’t exactly blame them.

The moment she left, Yon-Rogg’s first thought was to run. If she trusted him this much and this blindly, he perhaps should utilize that and make a run for it. However, his legs shook, making him immediately reach for the bed, on which he collapsed on and remained there for a few moments, before regaining strength. He managed to turn, sitting on it and looking around.

The room was quite small, even smaller than the one he had in the barracks back in the day, but the bed was much softer and seemed warmer. The whole interior seemed rather welcoming, and homey, which was something he was quite unfamiliar with. For the longest time, Yon-Rogg knew nothing but hard beds and metal walls while serving the Empire. In another attempt to get out, now that Carol left him unsupervised, he pushed himself up, but in the end, ended up collapsing on the bed once more. The exhaustion was too much. Leaving the escape for another day, the once feared Kree warrior lay down under the blankets and fell asleep, for the first time in a long while, peacefully.

Carol told her employees to make sure he lacked for nothing, while she went on a little mission. It was not much, but she did come back sporting some scratches. Her first concern back home was him, but there was no alarm. And that in itself was surprising. It meant he hadn’t tried to escape and she intended to find out why. But first she took a shower, cleaning off some of the muck and dirt of the day. She was ready to rest for the rest of the night, perhaps get some entertainment and certainly get a nice meal. She had her cook, a lovely lady, cook up a Kree dish, hoping Yon would be up for a few bites of that familiar dish. In a way she did intend it to be a bit of a reward for not running.

When she entered his room she realized that the dish might be a reward for a little bit more than just not running: She knew him: If he didn’t trust to be save enough in this place, nothing could make him sleep like that. He let his guard down to sleep this deeply. Carol carried a heavy class of fluids, full with nutrients for him and a bit of medicine to get his immune system back into swing. She sat down on the edge of the bed and for the longest moment she just ran her hand through his hair, admiring how soft he looked, how...kind almost. Maybe she would get to know this man. She hoped so. He had potential, if he chose to use it. 

He stared blankly ahead, not commenting on it. By now he knew that empires were flawed, planted were flawed, the systems and people as well. Hel, he was flawed as well, realizing that perhaps too late. His ambition and arrogance got in the way, clouding his judgement and his view of the world. While serving the Kree Empire, Yon-Rogg knew nothing else but glorifying the system that worshiped an AI, giving out commands and following orders, much like a robot would have done.

The one time he did look up was when the alarm sounded, making him flinch a little. During his time spent in slavery, he had rare moments of silence, and when he did, they were usually rudely interrupted with loud shouts. As he grew weaker, he couldn’t defend himself as much as he could before, resulting him in fearing every single loud sound there was around him.

Once they landed, Yon-Rogg reached for the buckle of the belts holding him in place, barely managing to untangle himself out of them with shaky hands. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor either,” he replied, glancing up at Carol. “I’m used to it by now.”

Carol went to help him stand, allowing him to put some weight against her. He would come to strength again, she was determined for at least that. And if she could, she would rehabilitate him to be able to give him freedom and a life. In the best case he would join her. But that was a dream that was very unlikely to come true. Still, why not hope a little?