#marcol

The headache is strangely welcome.  If nothing else, than to distract her from her thoughts as she began her morning ritual.  Her robes placed to offer a sort of skewed look.  Golden curls loosely braided, then pinned up.  Just a few short wisps left on the nape of her neck.  All of the kohl from the night before scrubbed off of her face.  She collected the notes for the meeting that she didn’t have to go to, and left.

A few looks, Vikander and Marcol, but no questions as she calmly debated.  Calm.  Yes.  That’s what is needed.  Even with Marcol’s gray eyes looking right at her with a clear challenge.  One she’d normally accept.  She offered him a bland smile and stated her points in a monotone voice.  The meeting ended soon after that, she still had much she could do.  Paperwork mostly.  Hopefully.  

“Valentina.” She stopped, let him catch up, another bland smile, “Marcol.”

A frown, or a deeper frown.  He always looks grumpy.  His brows are low as he meets her eyes.  She lets her bland smile turn sharper, You won’t find anything. He looks forward, and walks.  He knows she’ll keep up with him. 

“Was there something you wanted from me Marcol?  I would like to use this day to get ahead if I can.”

“You were supposed to be gone for two days.”

“And now I’m back a day earlier,” a pause, then to give him some normalcy she allows her tone to become playful, “Why? Did you miss me?”

“No.  Why are you back?”

“I hardly think that’s any of your business.  But if you must know, my parents and I had a small tiff.”

“A tiff.”

“Yes.  We have horrible tempers in my household, I thought it best to leave early, before someone said something they might regret.”

“Hm.  I don’t believe you,” a lie.  She sees that.  But also another challenge for a challenges sake.  She considers.  The anger is gone.  Yes.  But not the tension.  There’s a chance that’d she go too far.  Be too harsh.  Her father’s temper.  Her mother’s wit.  The truth then, without her mask of humor, blunt and honest:

“I don’t think a debate would be wise right now,” just a few more steps until she reaches her office.

“Because of your parents?”

“Because me and my family’s debates are far more... aggressive than our own.”

His brow raises, “You don’t think I could handle you right now.”

“I don’t think I’d like to take that chance until I feel myself.” Until the bitter aftertaste of their words and her own are gone.

“I’m not a maiden in need of protection Commander.”

She sighs, “What a shame too, the castle could use more maidens.” She offers him a considering look before meeting his eyes, “But I suppose you aren’t so bad.  For a brute.”  Then she enters her office.  Chin raised and mouth quirked, and closes the door. 

The first thing she notices is the heavy stack of papers secured together with ribbon.  A note in her father’s handwriting:

‘It’ll go faster if you sign.’

Another challenge directed to her.  Horrible tempers, prideful natures.  Yes.  Like her father.  But not.  

Valentina breathes.

In.  Out.

She wants this.  Wants the freedom.  To say otherwise would be lying.  To herself and to her family.  Her words were cruel.  But they were true:

I’d rather live and die alone and poor than spend another day as your daughter.

She signed the papers that would separate her from her family name and titles.

----

Henrietta had always been a small, sickly child. Her hair was white like snow (unlike his own black hair), skin incredibly pale (unlike his own tanned skin, from working in the sun with his father), with blue veins noticeable along her inner arms and wrists. And yet, she was always so energized, all smiles and laughter and pride—it would be not be a lie to say that Marcol worshipped the ground she walked on.

Of course, when her magic manifested at an early age, his parents had been thrilled, Henrietta even more so. Marcol would find her sitting precariously off the edge of the roof, feet dangling, making bobbles of lights dance in the night sky, like little stars. He’d yell at her to get down, but she never listened, too enraptured with herself to care about the crumbling roof tiles.

It was only a matter of time before Lord Churchill visited their little village looking for mages to train. It was an honor to be chosen, and Henrietta had been visibly vibrating with excitement when they’d learnt of his arrival. She was only eight, and Marcol did not want to let her go on her own, alone, to the Churchill Estate. Despite her magic, she was still sickly and weak and he could not bear the thought of her getting ill alone in an estate so far away.

He had been seventeen to her eight, and his parents let him go with her to take care of her, even though they were a little farming family and they needed all hands to take care of the farm.

Henrietta was brilliant at magic: Churchill had coveted her from day one. But her body made her lose energy quickly, and even though she was skilled and smart and talented, she could only use magic for so long before burning out. The other mage children, most were older than Henrietta, closer to Marcol’s age, kept their distance—Henrietta did not mind, enraptured with magic and learning as she was, and neither did Marcol. So long as Henrietta was happy, he was happy.

There was one or two mage children in Henrietta’s lessons who seemed friendly enough, but Marcol paid them little attention. He was focused on taking care of his sister, after all.

He took to the sword while living at the estate—if he was to be living with his sister, Lord Churchill had warned—he’d best show his usefulness somehow. He grew to like the training, though he kept a careful eye on his sister as she did her own lessons.

He did not notice right away when things changed, when Henrietta’s exuberance for learning began to crack and dissolve. When she became reluctant to leave the room they shared to go to lessons, Marcol had only thought it the result of growing adolescence—he had been the same around her age when their father had insisted he help out around the house. It took him a long time, too long, to notice that the change was something else, something terrible.

When he did notice, it was far too late to change anything.

His adorable, sickly little sister became nothing but a shell of herself, and then there was nothing left of her at all. When the dust had settled, the horror and despair he felt for those events would never leave him.

It was a scar, deep and rooted into his very being; those events that summer day had changed his life forever. His sister was lost to him, and even the thought of magic sent a bitter, vicious disgust through his body.

That tragedy*, it could only be called that, had irrevocably changed him. The only way he found he could survive was to don those gloves of his and join Ilder’s knights. The gentle, reassuring words of a woman asking him to live was the only thing that spurred him forward in the beginning, and then eventually, he came to find solace in his training.

He found solace in his place alongside the knights, in his loyalty to the crown, in Ilder’s war.

If the price for surviving was these hands, this guilt, this horror, this disgust, then he must live with the consequences.  

-----

-----

Marcol is aware he is not a patient man. Some would find that strange to think of him as such, he is always perfectly wary, cautious, on both the battlefield and in tactics, preferring to gain intel and wait before charging in ahead. They would contrast his policies alongside the Heir’s, their impulsive and steady confidence the opposite of his cool regard.

Marcol is cautious, he can agree with that, but he is also impatient. So very, very impatient.

The moment you appear, slinking along the hall to your chambers in what he perceives as a sheepish slouch, he grabs a hold of your wrist, not waiting to see your surprise, before leading you purposefully into the closest empty room. It’s one of the side tunnels the squires and servants use to get to and from rooms without being seen. It’s not a room per se, but its empty and the perfect place to get his irritation across to you.

“Why is it I’ve been left standing outside your door for the better part of the afternoon?” He growls. “As though you have purposefully taken your time to get there?”

“What?” You splutter, confused and growing annoyed yourself. You shake loose of his hand. “What are you talking about?”

“My letter.” He says, through his teeth. It was something he’d rather not speak aloud about the fact that he’d written, of all things, a love letter. “Surely you read it, unless your hope was to embarrass me?”

Your confusion remains affixed to your face and his irritation spikes and then declines with part relief, part disappointment. “You didn’t read it.”

“I haven’t been in my rooms at all today.” You tell him, running a hand through your hair. It is disheveled and he notices the dark circles under your eyes now that he is not blinded by his impatient anger.

“Ah.” He clicks his mouth shut, pulling the corner of his lip down with his teeth, annoyance surging at himself now. “My apologies.”

You regard him in the empty corridor for a moment, your confusion slowly tipping into curiosity, even amusement. “What did it say? Your letter?”

He would rather die than speak the letter’s contents aloud.

“Throw it away.” He tells you instead. “It’s not important any longer.”

Your expression is certainly amusement now. “Is it not? You seemed pretty peeved thinking I had ignored it.”

Frustration, the impatience he had felt waiting, distracted all day, unable to work with the thought of the letter and your response on his mind. He’d left his work early to stand at your door and await your arrival, and had grown increasingly more angry the longer he’d been left waiting there.

Instead of telling you that, or telling you about the letter’s contents: the attempts at speaking plainly about his thoughts, his feelings regarding you, he steps into your space, crowding you against the wall.

“As I said, forget the letter. Now that I have you here, I’ll speak plainly.” You shift against the wall, face tilting up to meet his. He gently takes your chin in hand, watching the way your breath shudders out of you in a surprised gasp.

“I appreciate you.” He says aloud, not quite the word he’d used in the letter, but he won’t speak that word aloud. “I find myself unable to deny that I am attracted to you. That you... compel me in ways I had not wanted to admit.” Much the understatement, but again, words he will not speak aloud, only written desperately in a letter he hopes, now, that he will have the chance to retrieve and burn. 

You say nothing, blanket shock on your face. The impatience rises again, to hear your response, yes preferably, though of course he will respect your rejection. He almost expects it, even, knowing how he has treated you in the past. It is only recently, after all, that he has seriously entertained the idea of intimacy with you without cowering from the feeling or shoving it away.