Solace

[Trillian]

"She didn\'t say anything," Hew declared, which said it all, to him.  If his father was ailing, losing the battle with his sickness, and calling for his family, then his mother would not have taken the time to dress, nor would she have looked at Hew without expression.  She would\'ve remained at her husband\'s bedside and asked an aide to urgently fetch Hew and the twins.  The very fact she\'d come to his door had Hew realise - coldly - that the King had already died, and she was likely to make such an announcement in the sitting room.  He imagined that they would all file into the bedroom where they would farewell him before he was prepared for the funeral and subsequent burial.

It didn\'t occur to Hew to think of the fact he would inherit the throne beyond that.  He stopped at the thought of gathering relatives from all over the countryside and overseas, around a coffin, where his father laid.  The vision had such impact that he leant a hand out to the door to try and attach himself to reality, even as Roche fussed over him.

[Existentially Odd]

Rochelle blinked as she was told the queen had had no words for her son, trying to imagine what had happened then, if she\'d said nothing, been properly dressed and had merely appeared at their bedchamber doorway.  What did that mean?  When Hew reached towards the door and came to rest there, it all seemed to fall into place and the back of her right hand was placed against her own lips to stifle the gasp she wanted to emit, her left hand clutching at her dressing gown.

Tears welled in her eyes as the words, He is dead, mon dieu, he is dead, ricocheted idiotically around her brain.  Even in her head the minimal distance that thinking in English allowed her to keep from the full truth of this horrible news was a slight comfort.  She had nothing else, especially since she understood that they were definitely going to have to step out of this room to face the reality of it.

Suddenly, taking the time to get dressed didn\'t seem such a bad idea after all.

Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the space in front of Mayhew and grasped his dear face between her hands, staring levelly at him despite the watery quality of her eyes.  "I will be right back," she told him seriously, the strength of her voice undermined by a tremble that gave away the fact that she was experiencing some very strong emotions, although she had no intention of succumbing to them.  She needed to be stronger than all of them, for Hew.

She kissed his lips almost forcefully, subliminally aware that either hers or his were trembling as she did, then pulled away and headed for the wardrobe once more, undoing and stripping off her current clothing as she did.  Her jade dress... her jade dress... she couldn\'t find her jade dress!  It seemed the highest of insults not to emerge wearing what her husband had more or less requested and she would be damned before she did that to him, so she was forced to light a candle by which to search her wardrobe properly.

Frankly, she couldn\'t remember when she\'d got so many clothes that she was no longer able to locate just one out of the bunch, but the racks seemed crammed full suddenly and she wasn\'t even sure she and Hew were thinking of the same jade dress.  How dismaying that she should think negatively about the generosity of the city\'s seamstresses and tailors, who had been inspired enough by her appearance as princess to donate their time and skill and give her gifts in the form of lovely dresses. In turn, she\'d taken the time to write to and personally thank every one of them, flattered by their accompanying letters of how pretty she was and how they hoped their creation might only bring a wider smile to her beautiful face-

The dress!  In an instant, it was yanked from its place and pulled over her head, sans undergarments.  Her breasts needed some adjustment since they were usually held just a little higher by the corset she would normally have worn and the lack of said garment also meant the bodice felt a little more snug than usual, but she arranged herself hastily, decided to pin her long hair up into a quick knot, slid her feet into the matching shoes - it was ridiculous to be wearing heels at this hour, she thought - and scurried back out to her husband, skirts lifted slightly to allow for freer movement.

Pulling up at his side, she was immediately the picture of decorum, her anxious gaze searching his face even as she grasped his hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.  "I\'m ready," she whispered breathlessly, waiting for his cue to start moving and not intending to let go of him unless he vigourously shook her off.  As much as she was trying to be his rock, he was already hers and contact - even in the simple form of hand holding - was paramount just then.

[Trillian]

Hew looked at her and nodded with approval, though the nod was curt and his expression much the same as he wore throughout their wedding vows.  His mouth was set in a grim line and his jaw tight, though his gaze was fixed on her instead of avoiding her, as it had the first time they\'d met.  He offered his arm, and of course she took it, before they headed out into the corridor and were followed by a pair of royal guards that must\'ve been ordered by the queen to accompany them to the sitting room.

When they arrived, Hew immediately saw his sisters perched on a loveseat together, their hands clasped together between them.  Both of them wore simple dresses, long gowns that would\'ve been easily thrown over their heads and tied at the bodice plainly instead of the full garment Rochelle wore.  He\'d asked her to wear her jade dress, which was more of the style of his sisters\' shifts, and she\'d come out with something completely different, though he wasn\'t about to make her change again.  She\'d complied to his wishes and worn the last green dress he\'d seen her in, and likely one his father had complemented her on.  It really didn\'t matter, and he was surprised to find his thoughts circling around clothing, of all things.

As he moved further into the room, the twins both turned their downcast gaze upward to meet his own, but both quickly looked away.  Perhaps something in his expression made them uncomfortable - he wasn\'t sure - but they sought out their mother for comfort, and he followed where their stares flitted to.  His mother sat stately upon an armchair, which had been moved to form a kind of triangle facing Brita and Beth and another cushioned two-person seater.  Hew immediately strode towards it, forcing Roche to double-step in order to keep herself at his side.  Like a gentleman, he courteous waited for her to seat herself first before he sank upon the chair at her side, grateful that he could do so for his legs felt the consistency of jelly.  He realised after casting a glance over his shoulder that the two guards that had joined him and Roche on their walk had closed the doors to the sitting room, shutting themselves out.  Only the Kestrel royal family were in this room.

He waited, and as he waited his heart beat fiercely in his chest, shortening his breath.  He watched as his mother looked at each of her children in turn, though her stare settled on Roche before it made its way to Mayhew, where it lingered the longest.

"Your father walks at Talon\'s side," she said, not mincing words.  Even though Hew had expected to hear as much, it still shocked him to hear that the God of Death had struck so swiftly.  It had been a simple cough, a winter cough, and now he lay dead, not a moon\'s cycle later.  Hew heard Beth gasp and then sob, while Brita remained quiet at her side.  It seemed one of his sisters was reacting the same as him.  Numb, mute, unreal, detached, but then her face began to crumple as she struggled with her tears and Hew cast his gaze to the floor.  No, the twins had been much closer to their father than Hew had ever been, and such a thing showed.  "Before he is moved and prepared for the funeral, you will each say your goodbyes."

Hew\'s gaze lifted to look at his mother, expecting her to be looking at the girls, but her stare remained on him.  Somehow, it felt harsh, as though she wanted to say more to him.  Hew waited, but nothing more came, and the twins agreed with a soft \'yes, mother\'.

"Rochelle, my love," the queen continued, her stare finally breaking from Hew and shifting to the woman at his side, "you were accepted and considered a new daughter by the king, and I would like for you to have your time with him also."

[Existentially Odd]

"Merci," she answered automatically, her mouth moving, responding of its own accord.  She doubted that this experience was one she would be thankful for - certainly not one she should be thankful for - but the word simply popped out of her mouth the instant the queen\'s intimidating gaze settled upon her.  The woman had a habit of forcing words out of her that she was certain she shouldn\'t give, frankly, so it was no real surprise that it should happen now, under the highest stress she\'d ever experienced.

She glanced at her husband and then, instinctively, beyond him to her sisters in law.  That was a mistake, for seeing them crying and upset only upset her in turn and she felt her resolve to stand solidly by her partner\'s side waiver.  Quickly, she clamped down on the emotions that welled up through her throat and looked back at Mayhew, cinnamon-coloured eyebrows drawn down over wide blue eyes questioningly.

"Do you wish for us to go togezzer or shall I go first?" she asked, her voice husky from the force of squeezing it out of her constricted throat quietly.  There was no way the queen wouldn\'t hear what she said in the awestruck air of the room of course, but she felt it both courteous and right that she defer to her husband by asking him what he wanted.  As she watched him anxiously, it also occurred to her that now he was the king.  King Mayhew Kestrel.  And she was no longer just a princess... she ran cold with the thought, feeling the blood drain from her face as she stopped thinking for the time being.  It was a dangerous business.

[Trillian]

"I\'ll go first," Hew replied, his tone even softer than her own though not quite a whisper. His words were clear in the room, despite the sobbing across from the couple as Beth\'s and Brita\'s tears fell evenly. Hew found himself staring at them for a moment, at their flush cheeks and squinting eyes, their lips twisted in emotional pain, before he looked at Rochelle. She looked composed in contrast, though her pallour was a great deal whiter than usual. Without makeup, he knew that the colour had naturally drained from her face as she dealt with the reality of a death in the family. Not her close bonded blood family, but he had no idea of how closely she\'d got to the King, who\'d always seemed to have a softer spot for his daughters than his son - and according to his mother, he\'d held Rochelle in high regard.
 
Before anyone could respond, and certainly before anyone could deny his wish (as he half suspected his mother might, but she held her silence throughout his exit), he stood up on legs that felt so stiff he thought they might refuse to bend at the knee now that they were straight. Pivoting and walking away, he felt self-conscious and surreal, making his way to the closed door of the sitting room, hearing his heart pounding in his ears and overly aware of every sound; his footsteps first on the plush rug that covered more than three quarters of the room, and then the sound of his steps changing as they stepped off the rug and onto the marble-tiled floor, the sounds of half-suppressed sobs at his back that was Brita and the more open wails of her twin Annabeth, the silence of Rochelle\'s stare and likely his mother\'s at his back, the distant cough of a guard further down the corridor that he was about to enter. He reached for the doorknob and turned it, hearing the snick as the lock gave way and the swish of the door upon the well-oiled hinge, opening the portal directly across from his father\'s bedroom and making his way to it, and to the bed where his father lay.
 
He was gone for fifteen minutes before the Queen decided it was long enough for her son to remain alone at his father\'s bedside and gestured for Rochelle to get up.
 
"Join your husband\'s side," she said, her gaze intense on Rochelle, not quite calculating, but hardly placid.

[Existentially Odd]

Roche frowned at the queen, her pretty lips pressing into a disapproving line even though no words escaped them.  She didn\'t think it would be appropriate for her to interrupt her husband\'s mourning and that he should be entitled to spend as long as he liked with his father.  By the same token, she was desperately afraid of entering the room holding his corpse and was also worried by the amount of time that seemed to have passed since Hew had gone in there.

Time was a funny thing, of course, and seemed capable of stretching in all sorts of directions according to what was going on around one.  Such stretching was also directly proportionate to how much one was enjoying said goings-on too, it seemed, for it was stretching before her like an unloved and rutted road down a deserted country byway at the moment, bringing her nothing but agony and misery.

She needed to move beyond that, though, and act according to what she perceived to be the right thing to do.  "I will see if he is ready," she conceded quietly, aware that she\'d backed down before the queen (and that imperious gaze of hers) every time before now but that she wasn\'t willing to do it this time.  She would protect Hew from his own mother, if that was what it took.

Stoically, Roche rose gracefully to her feet and strode in the same direction her husband had gone... however long it had been before her.  When she got to the appropriate door, she rapped upon it as softly as her knuckles allowed and then turned the knob, not giving him a chance to respond to the summons she\'d led in with.  She was torn between looking into the room once the door was opened a crack and not, and settled for leaving her gaze cast downward as she spoke to her husband.  She had visited the king a few times once he was gravely ill and so she knew enough about the layout of the bedchamber to direct her voice... and to avoid looking in certain places until she absolutely had to.

"May I come in?" she enquired with the right amount of volume to carry her voice into the large room, proud of the fact that there was no discernible wobble or nervousness in her words.  The last thing she needed to do was let Hew know how anxious she was.

[Trillian]

His response was so quiet she barely heard it, though the \'s\' at the end of his affirmative was unmistakeable.  Yes, he\'d said, and despite the whisper he\'d spoken the word in, the silence of the room allowed the word to travel to her ears.

What she likely didn\'t know, he\'d meant to reply properly, though his voice had failed him.  The strength in his legs hadn\'t returned either, though they seemed to be holding him up.  He was standing a few feet away from his father\'s bed - unable to go any closer as soon as he\'d come into range of the details of his father\'s face.  Apart from the pale colour, his father looked like he was sleeping, and Hew had been fantasising without wanting to, that the King\'s eyelids would spring open and he would chastise Hew for not visiting him earlier.

He didn\'t want to be alone in this room anymore but he\'d found himself unable to draw away.  He couldn\'t turn his back on his dead father and leave the room.  He couldn\'t leave the room backwards either because he didn\'t trust his legs to carry him in such a way nor did such an idea appeal to him - it seemed ridiculous.  He\'d been frozen on the spot, unable to react or think or do anything except to stand and stare, barely blinking, wanting to feel something, wanting to react in some way, such as to cry or feel sad or guilty or whatever more than what he was feeling now - which was a blankness of emotion.

[Existentially Odd]

Without looking back, Rochelle opened the door wide enough to allow her to slide in and closed it behind her, as if a loud noise might offend the pregnant silence blanketing the room.  Smoothing her skirts habitually, she took a breath and squared her shoulders before she lifted her gaze, steeling herself for what she was about to see.

It wasn\'t as bad as she\'d expected.  Oil lamps filled the room with an even, muted glow, flattering the king with their soft orange hue.  He looked slightly healthier for the colouring but even a coloured globe wouldn\'t have hidden the gaunt look of the man who now walked at a foreign God\'s side; his cheekbones stood out prominently, his eyes looked to have sunk rather deep into their sockets, his lips were rough and cracked from being wiped so often after coughing fits.  He was dressed in his nightshirt, arms by his side and the covers drawn up to his armpits beneath them but none of that considerable amount of material could hide his diminished frame from not eating in so long, and bringing up what he managed to find the heart to swallow down.

The king now walked another plane but his entry into it had been wracked with pain that now clearly marked his corpse.

Taking a step farther into the room, Roche faltered slightly when the smells assaulted her nostrils.  Though everything had been tidied, every surface wiped clean and all the furniture in the room replaced to its former polite distance, the scent of medicines and blood and phlegm and death lingered in the place.  The reek of sickness, wet and hacking, lurked around the bed, offending her as she skirted it to go to her husband\'s side.  That smell was revolting and she wanted to open a window so neither of them had to breathe it, but she wasn\'t game.

In any case, Hew had been standing here for ages now and possibly hadn\'t noticed it, so she wasn\'t going to draw attention to it.  She\'d never known death had a scent and she hoped it would not be something she would have to experience again for a long, long time, but she feared it was now burned irrevocably upon her senses and her mind.

Gaining Hew\'s side, Roche slid her hand inside his once more and joined with him in staring at the king\'s body.  She was closer now, could see more details; the bruising beneath his eyes, the broken veins in his face from coughing so hard they\'d ruptured.  The last time she\'d seen him, he\'d summoned a smile for her, had indulged in the usual game of exchanging pleasantries, but there\'d been a haze of pain and longing in his eyes that she\'d found difficult to bear.  The king had been tortured by the sickness that stole his life, it had inflicted hideous and excruciating pain upon him and she\'d never understood what he\'d done to deserve such a horrible end but she fancied that now, she felt his relief.  His soul\'s relief.  He was free from that bone-breaking cough, the breath-clogging phlegm, those eye-watering shivers that had caused his entire body to quake.

"He is at peace," she whispered and there was both wonder and gratitude in her voice.  It was a terrible way to achieve peace but there was comfort in the fact that he had.  Without thinking, she let go of Hew\'s hand and stepped forward, dropping to her knees beside the bed as she had as a child, performing her nightly prayers.  Instead of simply steepling her own hands beneath her chin however, she took the king\'s hand between them, sandwiching the soft coldness of it between her own warm, life-filled palms as she closed her eyes and prayed.

Her mouth moved but no words were spoken as she beseeched her own God to look over the soul of her father in law, begged Jesus himself to take King Kestrel by the hand and guide him to Heaven, should the God of Death abandon his hapless soul as in a cruel joke - she had very little trust in one thusly named and likened him to the devil more than a God, quite frankly, but no such comment would ever be made by her to an Oberon resident. Instead, she prayed silently to her own celestial inhabitants that Morgan would receive just and honourable accompaniment into the afterlife, where he now belonged.

When she was done, she opened her eyes to find they were wet with her tears, though she was not sobbing and hadn\'t been aware she\'d even started crying.  She was simply sad that such a man should be taken from her life in such a cruel and unfortunate way, before she truly got to know him.  Standing, she replaced his hand reverently, sniffling back the snot that threatened to drop as she leaned over him and pressed her lips to his forehead.  The back of her hand followed her lips upwards once the deed was done, warm, living flesh replacing the sensation of cold deadness stamped there, on her mouth.  It had been like... kissing the skin of an orange.  Cool, impersonal and very, very dead - distasteful in the extreme and not something she would ever wish on anyone.

Knowing that this memory and sensation would stay with her for a very long time, she turned to warn her husband against such an act.  She wasn\'t sure why she was certain he hadn\'t yet performed such a deed - perhaps because of the way he\'d been lingering away from the bed when she\'d walked in - but she was and she didn\'t think he needed this burden to add to the rest of them.  "Don\'t kiss him," she warned urgently, perhaps sounding unfeeling to say it like that, but she was too worried about stopping Hew from making the same mistake to think about how she sounded.

[Trillian]

Hew watched Rochelle as she approached, stared at her as she knelt and prayed and then frowned when she kissed his father farewell.  Her actions made him feel self-conscious, inspiring a stronger sense of a son\'s duty within him than the disapproval of his mother.  Roche led by example, and this affected him in such a way that he was about to step forward and repeat her actions.  He suspected that he would be going through the motions rather than through any genuine heart-felt remorse at his father\'s death.  Strange, that he still suffered disbelief instead of shame or guilt at not visiting sooner, when the king had still been alive.

Her next words stopped him.  It wasn\'t so much an order as a recommendation, though it had been said so adamently that it gave him pause and caused him to stare at her.  The frown gave way to confusion and then gratitude.  He didn\'t particularly want to perform a son\'s duty upon his father, he didn\'t particularly want to pray for his father\'s soul or kiss him goodbye.  He\'d done none of those things when the king had been alive, so it seemed the height of hypocrisy to begin now.  Oh, he\'d done such things as a young boy, but he couldn\'t recall such memories beyond the age of ten, or even a little earlier.

He offered his hand to Rochelle, gazing at her face and loving her a little more for being with him now.

"We should allow my sisters their turn," he said, his voice sounding odd even to his own ears, like a stranger was talking and using his voice.  Would Roche look at him strangely and realise that some sort of foreign being had taken over his body or would she accept his words and take his hand, to leave the room with him?

[Existentially Odd]

Rochelle nodded, feeling that a great deal passed between them without words when their eyes met, and loving the fact that she thought she could understand some of what she now saw in her husband\'s optics.  He seemed as bewildered as she was by everything that was happening and seemed keen to retreat now... now that he\'d had his time to say goodbye.
 
She didn\'t believe Mayhew\'s genuine feelings about the king had come out but she was relieved he was doing whatever was required of him for the time being.  She saw in his eyes that the time for honest thoughts and messy, ugly feelings would come later.  Much later - likely after the man was in the ground and possibly even later than that, when the responsibility of the kingdom had had time to settle on his shoulders and he was again allowed the luxury of free thought and breathing.
 
All she could do was plan to be there by his side when that time finally came to pass - and she knew how stubborn he was and how it would test her to do so, but she could see quite clearly their path.  Hew was not acknowledging his father\'s death, for it was too immense at this stage.  She could understand that and even agreed with his preferred method of simply putting one foot in front of the other until the time when he could handle it arrived.  Allied as his wife and loving him as she did, however, that was no surprise.
 
She smiled and took his hand in between both of hers, impulsively lifting it to her lips and kissing it, liking the way his warmth and life went towards wiping away the memory of coldness and death that lingered upon her mouth.  "Oui.  Let us go, together," she agreed huskily, walking with him firmly held by her side as they left the room, dry-eyed, resolved and neither looking back.