#wnleo

Ruby was powerful. She commanded attention with the way she stood, and lust from what she wore. She played the role demanded of her, and the demand now was to be a friend of the queen. It was stupid of her, incredibly so, and she was now putting her life on the line for the chance that the queen might find a man who resembles her brother enough to make her happy.

If she didn’t, Ruby worried for the sake of her beautiful head, and the neck that it sat atop.

She walked through town, wondering through the streets and taking her time, knowing well that this might be her last day on this side of a prison cell. For lying to the queen, for bringing in a criminal...The man who had once owned her would be called kind if that was all he did in retaliation.

Men propositioned her, and she flirted back with as much conviction as she usually had, but fear sat deep in her knuckles and shook her hands where they lay, kit together and folded against her stomach. Sunset was fast approaching, and she would present the man who called himself Leo to the queen. Their meeting point was vague, giving Ruby time to wander further, steadying herself. And when he was found -- just around the corner of a stall -- Ruby took a moment to breathe in. On the exhale, she grinned and walked around.

“You do seem to know how to clean up,” she crooned, smug and confident as ever. “Perhaps you did pick a few things up in your time here.” Coming to a stop before Leo, she looked to him with her wolfish, hungry grin that she usually wore. The only hint of fear remained in her hands, knuckles turned white with how tightly they were clasped. “Are you ready to meet my mistress?”

Christopher did not usually wander about the dungeons. He usually did not look in upon the prisoners there unless it was entirely necessary. But he'd heard that Lavinia apprehended that cad of a man, the one who called himself a prince. Well, everyone had heard by this point, but that hardly mattered. The fool was going to be sitting in his cell, wasting away for quite some time. When they let him out -- if they let him out -- he would be all but forgotten by the majority of the Norns.

As he should be.

But Christopher hadn't forgotten. Not yet. He remembered how the man had taunted him, had called him powerless... At the time, he did not want to give the man the satisfaction of anger. And that much still rang true. But he wondered now, just how powerful he felt locked behind steel bars.

It was morning, a time when most prisoners would find themselves slumbering, or attempting to do so on the hard, stone floors. But Christopher had risen hours ago, having trained for near an hour before setting foot down here.

Yes, what is it?