#jamesgarin

It hadn’t been easy evading her guards. 

Since her return home, her mother had placed men on her almost every moment. The only peace she had was when she was tucked away in her own chambers, but even then they were only a call away: stationed on the other side of her door. 

After trying everything she could to distract them, she’d finally resulted to escaping from her balcony. She’d tied her sheets into a rope and climbed down them (something she never would have considered doing before she’d met James). 

From there she was able to go from the secret underground tunnels that connected Fain and Ravenwood Hall to the Imperial Palace until she’d reached the prisons. 

It was dark and cold and wet. 

“James?” She whispered, loud enough that he might hear, but still soft as to not to wake the sleeping guard. She passed cell after cell, examining the prisoners by the dim light of her torch as she went. The further down the line she went, the more she worried that he was not here at all: the more she worried that he was already dead. 

She finally found him in one of the last cells. Relief washed over her when she saw that he was there, but it was quickly replaced with the knowledge that his days here were numbered. 

“Are you alright?” She asked, softly, stepping as close to him as she could. She knew given the conditions alone it was a silly question, but she asked it anyway. 

She wasn’t sure why she was there. She couldn’t help him. She’d tried, but nothing she’d done had made any difference in his situation. And now he was to die for it. She felt so helpless. She was angry with herself for having failed. She was angry with him for having started this mess. 

The fresh clothes were scratchy (and a challenge to get into on her own, but she’d managed in the end), the soap had dried her skin, and the water had been lukewarm at best, but in the end, she still felt more refreshed than she had when they’d arrived. Her old clothes and jewels had been discarded and she looked more like Avia Raryn than Celia Beaumont. 

The only thing that remained was the sapphire ring upon her finger. You’ll be a Mortain one day, it promised. She let out something between a laugh and a cry when she thought of the day that the return message had come from Swystone. The ring had come with the reply and she remembered eagerly placing it on her finger. It had been there since: reminding her of the future that she would one day have. It still held promises, but for a much different life. What a silly, stupid girl you have been. 

Still, she wouldn’t discard it with the rest of her things. Loys may not be the man she once thought he was, but she would still be Lady Mortain one day. So instead she wore it round her neck, hidden underneath her clothes. 

The room was crowded with weary travelers bent over their supper and loud men who were spending their last dragons on drink. It was dark and noisy and the food smelled strange (and rather off-putting). 

I’m a long way from home, she thought. 

She pushed her way through the crowds, looking for James, and she stopped short when she finally found him. He’d cut his hair, had a bath, and changed his clothes -- and now he looked more the man she had once known. He looked like the man she had once wanted to marry. But she wasn’t so easily fooled: he’d lied to her, stolen from her, insulted her, and kidnapped her -- it would take more than a bath for her to forgive him. 

She approached the table where he was sitting and took the seat across from him. He’d already had food brought around for her. She eyed the stew suspiciously and jabbed at something she couldn’t identify with her spoon before deciding she wasn’t quite hungry enough to try it and instead went for the drink. An instant later, she was choking on it. It had been strong and bitter. This was not her mother’s wine. 

“How long will you be gone?” Lia lay sideways on her hip in the bed above The Twisted River. It was her bedroom, her workspace, her birthplace, and likely to be her deathbed. Lia had come into the world here, she made her living here, and someday she would likely leave the world here. For a room where she experienced so much, the aura associated with the four walled second floor was complicated. Wood floor boards still bore splits where Lia had been thrown by customers. Her most cherished belongings--the blanket she arrived to The Twisted River in and a dagger given to her by an elderly prostitute--were kept behind the dresser in a secret compartment. Lia had grown into a woman in this room, learned to love, but also to lose. 

Mostly lose, it seemed...

She propped her head up in her palm, her arm bent beneath her at the elbow. She gazed at him. Not the kindest man she had ever known, not the richest or strongest, but certainly the most difficult to forget. Lia was dreading James’s successive retreat from the Swystone and the southern border all together. 

She wore nothing now, completely vulnerable--only ever vulnerable with James. As a woman who made her living with no armor to protect her, Lia learned to find peace with herself from a young age. She did not fear honesty or confrontation. She had no time to hide from the world, and thus she lived as Lia the Barmaid and Lia the Prostitute proudly. Making a living wage in the current state of Aragoth was difficult, especially in the south. Although her circumstances were grim, Lia never forgot the roof over her head and the meals in her stomach. She may be bruised, yes, overworked and exhausted, but Lia was living near friends (well... some). She had family (well... kind of). She was lucky. (Barely.)

She didn’t even bother to cover herself, she had become so comfortable around James (or perhaps just with herself). Lia rolled over on her back, not being able to stare too long into his eyes while knowing they would soon leave her again. She ran her thin fingers through the black locks atop her head, and promptly sat up in bed. “Swystone,” what she meant was the world, “is not the same without you.” But she mustn’t become clingy. Lia, although bare naked and vulnerable, lived by one command: she was not a constant. She was not a solid figure in anyone’s life. No one learned her name, let alone thought to ask it. She served ale to drunkards and serviced them later in the night when they had silver left to spend. She was not a girl to miss nor was she the girl to miss others. It was so hard to remain unattached to James, however, when his presence filled her with such fire. She danced around as she listened to his stories of foreign islands and tended to the wounds from battles passed. While she was stuck, a staple of the lower Swystone ports, James was like the wind, free untamable. She wished nothing more than to know what that felt like, and because she had never known anyone who lived a life as extraordinary as his, Lia thought of freedom and James as one in the same. 

She yearned for nothing more than autonomy, and thus she yearned for James. Lia turned her back to him, her long black hair falling over her back. “And yet, there you go.”

I’m going to write all my ideas for our characters (aka my one lady and your fucking clan of Kate AA minions) in individual posts, so stuff doesn’t get lost in all of our chatting via text. xxxoo

For James and Lia, I have a couple thoughts:

The bar where he met Godfrey could have been the inn where Lia works with Marsilia. 

Something about Aalis/Valery?? Idk how Aalis is dealing with living as Valery the pirate vs. the barmaid vs. Aalis Vymont. It’s all very confusing (much like all of ODR, but I love it.)

Lia could have been the prostitute that James went to buy when Sybil caught him stealing money. 

so ned was 32 when james left, which means that he was def already working for the mortains (altho things were wayyy better back then b/c that was before rowena and loys ahHAHAHA). anyway, so ned was also a happier person back then tbh, b/c he had about to have a kid and i think he would have been amused by harry and just like smh about him. 

but when he shows up out of the blue, he’s probs not gonna be so happy tbh like sO much crap has happened and you’ve been out doinG whaT exACTLY?!?!?!? And i THINK He def respects Alexandir but I think he’s gonna get the feeling that there’s more to the harrion story than he’s being told. and i think he’s gonna have a lot of conflicting emotions tbh b/c his son is probs kidnapped and his sister in law is dead and his loser brother is a dragon rider and his other brother is having a v hard time and now there’s this new ruler in town who doesn’t know the first thing about what he’s doinG and NED DOESN’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. 

And like if he can back at any other time, I think that Ned might be able to take a deep breathe and see that he’s trying to do the right thing here, but there’s so much crap going on that he might just see james as a pain and idk there’s probs a lot of fighting going on but i also think that ned might be in a very bad place and thinking more ~emotionally than logically b/c i think he’s lived through loosing his wife but idk that he can survive loosing his kid and it sounds like cris is gonna have some problems dealing with ana’s death and he doesn’t wanna loose his bro too and tbh the south probs needs celia/james/alexandir to step in at this point haha. 

lol i still got the south, joke is on you nephew 

The first thing that Celia was aware of when she opened her eyes, was that something was digging into her back. She looked up and saw only trees and the sky beyond that was pale in the light of early morning. She couldn't remember how she had gotten here. 

The last thing she remembered, she was with Adelaide and Sir Joseph Moss. While they were setting up camp, she decided to take a walk to the lake that wasn't far off, and her lady-in-waiting and one of the old knights accompanied her. It was no secret that Sir Joseph fancied Adelaide and as they whispered sweet nothings to each other, Celia lagged behind. And then ... ? She didn't remember anymore after that. 

She moved to sit up, and that's when she realized: her hands were tied. 

She rose to her feet quickly, but her bonds made her awkward. Looking around she realized she was in the middle of the woods somewhere at a much more modest campsite than the one that had been erected every night on her journey southwards. 

And that's when she noticed that she wasn't alone. Her eyes fell on a man who sat near the dying embers of the fire, watching her as she tried to get her bearings.

"Who are you?" She demanded. There was something strangely familiar about his eyes and if the question hadn't been completely ridiculous, she may have asked him if they had met before. If she hadn't had more pressing things to think about, she may have laughed aloud at the thought. Where would she have ever met such a man as this?

"I command you to untie me at once and return me to my company," She said, her voice cool and authoritative as her mother's might have been in this situation. "Whatever you have planned will not end well for you. I am a daughter of the House Beaumont and promised to the Lord in the South. My grandfather was your king and now my cousin rules in his place. When they see I am missing, the whole of Aragoth will be looking for me and there won't be a place, North or South, you can hide. If you do as I say now, I will say that I lost my way and you were so kind as to help me find it again and you will have my gratitude. If not, you shall pay for this with your head."