Training Truths

[Trillian]

"How about we don\'t," Hew spat back, angry that he\'d lost his weapon yet again because he\'d been watching out for it this time.  He was breathing hard and hadn\'t really got into his training routine but had decided he didn\'t really want to anyway.  Not if he was going to feel worse than he had before he\'d started.  Training was supposed to make him feel better about things.  It was too much a painful reminder to see Frederickson in Wilson\'s place.

He stormed off, intending to leave the training ground and to spend his time elsewhere.

[Existentially Odd]

"Hey!" Freddy called and, instinctively, bounded after the boy so that he could grab him by the arm and detain him, expecting that he\'d be struggled against but getting quite a strong grip to counter that so he could turn Hew to face him.  "Where are you going?  I thought you wanted to train?" he demanded, back to losing his sympathy and feeling impatient with the emotional prince.

"Look, I know I\'m not Lam, but you need to give this a chance!" he ground out, hoping to inspire the boy to talk to him, rather than running away and not explaining why he was so upset.  He deliberately used her personal name, hoping to trigger some sort of reaction to it.

[Trillian]

Hew glared at Freddy while his arm was in the captain\'s grip but he didn\'t struggled as the other predicted he might.  He simply turned and listened while Freddy implored his case.

There were two clear directions he could take here, and he knew it.  One was to settle himself and to return to training, to allow Frederickson his chance, to allow himself a zone of comfort and consolation, to perhaps even tell the man how he felt and what kind of loss he was dealing with and maybe getting some kind of support or at the very least gaining an ear for his troubles.

The other direction was to isolate himself from everyone and everything.  After a long moment of silence as he deliberated, he finally spoke.

"Unhand me," he said coldly, choosing the latter of the two options.  It was a direct order, something he would give Freddy a lot of trouble for refusing (as much as he was able).

[Existentially Odd]

With a heavy sigh, Freddy did exactly as he was ordered, seeing that his chances for working with Hew were slipping.  Lam was relying on him to keep the boy in line; to look after him in her stead and she\'d be very upset if he told her that he and Hew had failed to connect n any sort of decent level so that he could tell his former captain of the boy\'s state of mind.  As much as he disapproved of what had happened to get the two to where they currently were, he was loyal to both and wanted to help.

"You\'re good at that," he stated quietly, letting Hew go with a glint in his eyes that signalled he was only doing it literally.  "Giving orders that work out for the worst," he added, explaining his primary comment.  There was a challenge in his gaze that he hoped Hew met - even if it was with fists - just so that they could get beyond all this argumentative horse shit.

[Trillian]

It was obvious by Hew\'s expression that the captain\'s words hit home.  Their effect likely wasn\'t desired for Hew shut himself down more firmly by turning his back and moving away.  He would, by the end of the day, request another soul to train him in place of the captain, perhaps a palace guard.  His suggestion was met with denial and his routine was forced upon him.  He would continue his training three days a week with the captain.  Finding himself facing yet another blockade thrown him by his father, he turned heel and left without argument, only to find himself wandering the gardens where he knew Rochelle would be.

[Existentially Odd]

Roche was doing her best to keep herself from being the moping, morose bride she wanted to be, but it wasn\'t easy.  Especially when she\'d already had the queen asking her (oh, horror of horrors) if she and her husband had consummated their marriage.  What was she to say to something like that?  All she\'d been able to manage was a stammered negative before she\'d been drilled on what sort of behaviours the two of them had been displaying.  With colour high on her cheeks, she\'d asserted that she\'d tried on her wedding night and had certainly made herself available to her husband but he simply wasn\'t interested.

The rest of the discussion had gone over and around her swirling head and she hardly remembered how it had gone, though she knew the queen hadn\'t been happy.  Not with her so much as her son, but upset nevertheless and it had given Roche no more understanding of what was going on in her husband\'s world either.

To occupy herself, she\'d taken to spending time with her sisters-in-law.  They were only two years younger than her but they were the same age as her brother, Didi, and so she could relate.  Somewhat, anyway.  She and the twins had some etiquette lessons together and they all agreed that none of them needed them, but that was about the only things they agreed on.  Roche had managed to convince the girls to come out onto the grounds and kick a padded leather ball around with her today but the other princesses had been disinterested at the start and completely unskilled.  When they\'d expressed a desire to go and play with their dollies, Roche had conceded defeat and farewelled them with a smile that had failed as soon as she\'d flopped down onto the thick grass, beside the ball.

She missed her brother, who would gladly have played with her for hours.  She missed her whole family.  She missed her old life.  Hell, she missed having a life.  With a deep, sad sigh, she\'d pulled her pretty skirts up to her thighs (they weren\'t practical for kicking balls anyway but she\'d toed her shoes off) so that her long, tanned legs might benefit from the sun\'s touch.  She closed her eyes and tipped her head back as she leaned back on her hands as well, trying to empty her mind of angst and just concentrate on how nice it was to be alone, in the sun, on soft grass that might even be back at her home in France, not too far from her family and everything that had made her happy.

[Trillian]

Hew found her like that, tanning her legs in a manner not befitting a princess but this wasn\'t the first thought in his head.  He looked at her, this punishment received for having a common lover (and a man to boot) and found himself scowling at her.  She had no idea of his presence however, so he strode up to her, not hiding his footsteps, and stood over her so that his shadow fell over her face.

"You\'re unladylike," he critisized, preferring it over the boring qualities of his sisters but wanting to demoralise Roche anyway.

[Existentially Odd]

She made a very ladylike yip of fright as her face fell into sudden shadow and she reached blindly for her skirts, tucking her legs up into a crossed position as she flung the multiple folds of material hastily over them.  Of course, since she\'d basically had her face tipped to the sun for the past ten minutes, she was more or less blinded as she sat up, big green spots dancing before her vision that had her rubbing her eyes to no avail.

"Zere was no-one else around," she argued hotly, ambarrassment spurring her into responding instinctively, rather than holding her tongue demurely as she should\'ve.  She blinked towards the gardens before her, not looking up at the husband who hovered at her back because she didn\'t think he\'d be there long anyway.  He\'d obviously only approached her to take out his confusing emotions on her.  Well, she wasn\'t having that from him as well - especially considering he was the source of all her ill feelings.

"And I don\'t care what you zink anyway, ah am a lady," she muttered more to herself, rubbing her eyes again and giving up on being nice to the man who certainly wouldn\'t do her the same favour.  He\'d only say one more cutting thing to her and then stride off anyway, why should she care so much what he thought?

[Trillian]

"Palace guards patrol around here all the time," he said with a frown.  "You\'ve gone and given them a show.  What makes you think you\'re a lady when you fling your clothes off like a whore?"

It was probably the worst thing he\'d ever said to her, but hurting from Freddy\'s words he had no sense of judgement.  He hated her, he hated her silly golden smile and her stupid accent and the fact she didn\'t wither beneath his gaze each and every time.  He hated that she was speaking back to him right now when he simply wanted to bully her, to make her cry, to make himself feel better - he thought.

[Existentially Odd]

She was too stunned to react for a moment, though tears immediately pricked her eyes and her fair cheeks were flushed with the humiliation of his accusation.  Blinking them away (and still trying to see properly through the sun spot dancing across the front of her eyeballs), she got immediately to her feet, brushing her skirts down furiously and swiping up her shoes.  They were pretty and delicate and she didn\'t have the time to shove her feet in them right now, when all she wanted was to get away from him.

"Ah am no whore," she announced with as much dignity as she could muster, standing up to him and doing her best to look austerely down her nose at him (being taller, this was impossible but she gave it a red hot go anyway), chest uffed out and hands gripping her skirts angrily at her sides, shoes in the left.  "And you, sir, are no gentleman to speak to me zhat way!"

This rebuke uttered, she spun on her heel and stormed off towards somewhere else in the garden - she wasn\'t quite sure where, though it looked like the maze, through her very blurry vision (which she swiped at, but the tears refused to stop).  She bit hard on her lip as she went, not wanting him to hear her sobbing out her hurt - especially since he\'d only abuse her again for crying.  Maybe she could get lost in the maze and then she wouldn\'t have to endure this nightmare any longer.  They would pronounce her divorced and send her back to France for terminal stupidity.

[Trillian]

He left her then, bitter amusement swelling in his chest and filling it with sour pride.  It hadn\'t made him feel that much better for the dark quality of causing her tears and sorrow left him with a hollowness that couldn\'t be squashed.  Turning his back on her and leaving her to run into the maze and out of his sight, he returned to their room to remove his training armour and dress himself appropriately for lunch.

Everybody was seated save for Roche\'s empty chair on his right.  It wasn\'t like her to be late for a meal and as servants were asked to look for her and collect her, he excused himself, his mother asking him where he was going and he shushed her by explaining he knew where his wife was and was going to get her.  He didn\'t say where she was, wanting to collect her on his own.

The maze was something he\'d grown up with so he knew all the twists and turns.  He\'d been very good at playing chase games within it, listening for footsteps and making the turns to get him on this side of the hedge or that side of the maze in order to capture his target.  Rochelle was his target for now, but in an entirely different way to how she\'d been this morning.

"Roche," he called out after going deeply into the maze near the centre so she would hear him no matter where she was, "call out to me and I\'ll come get you."  He said this gently, hoping she would respond.

He felt like a heel hours after the deed was done.  She was right, he wasn\'t a gentleman and after a great deal of thinking he was ashamed for how he\'d treated Frederickson and then how he\'d sought her out just to punish her.  He didn\'t have to like her but he didn\'t have to be that cruel.

[Existentially Odd]

"Ah... I\'m here," she eventually called, having found herself a wooden bench to curl up on.  She\'d cried herself silly for so long, she had no idea how much time had passed by the time she finally sat up from her sprawl along the bench and tucked her feet beneath her, sitting at one end with her shoes still on the ground where she\'d dropped them.

Although she was aware of the sun\'s position having altered above her, she didn\'t realise she\'d been clasified as \'lost\'.  She was in a somewhat rebellious mood after the way Mayhew had spoken to her, in fact, and had been deliberately avoiding going in to lunch, taking on the mulish mindset that she might be better off hiding in the maze until she starved.  Had she canged her mind and attempted to go in, she would\'ve quickly realised she didn\'t have a clue how to get out - that was exactly what struck her when she heard her husband\'s voice and her first urge had been to get away from him again.  Where could she go though?

Besides, he\'d used the shortened version of her name - the fact that he\'d used any version of her name made her want to listen to what he would have to say next and the rather nice way he was speaking made her hopeful he might even apologise.  She deserved an apology but she wouldn\'t hold her breath until she got one.  She believed she would sooner perish, despite her optimism.  Her cursed, stupid optimism.

She looked up from contemplating the emtiness of the bench before her as he finally walked into her area, her pretty lips downturned at the corners and her face splotchy from crying, though her cheeks and eyelashes were dry by now.  She didn\'t move but watched him warily, deciding it should be him who spoke next; he was always the one setting the tone for their interactions anyway.

[Trillian]

When he found her it was obvious she\'d been crying from the state of her face.  He couldn\'t look her in the eye but refused to give her an apology for it.  She\'d had her dress up after all.  On the heels of this thought he relented, for abusing her in such a way wasn\'t how he liked to think of himself.

"I shouldn\'t have called you a whore," he said finally, his tone firm but hardly apologetic.  "You\'re not a whore."  She was his virgin wife in fact and far from the spectrum with which he\'d coloured her.  He waited for her to accept his comment.

[Existentially Odd]

She really wished he\'d stop saying that horrible word; every time he repeated it she flinched, almost as if he was slapping her with it, her expression cringeing slightly.  When he finished, she lifted her gaze, looking him in the eye.

"No, I am not," she agreed, her tone implying that she didn\'t think his words were enough, as far as apologies went, but she was stoic enough to accept them without worsening the situation.  She watched him, wondering how such a beautiful person on the outside could be so ugly within.  She wanted to ask him to explain this - and many other things - to her, but knew she\'d never penetrate his hardness.

"In future, I will be sure to restrict mah exposure to a more private place," she promised, shifting her gaze to the walls of leaves around her.  No-one would be able to see her in here so the next time she felt like enjoying the sun, she would come within these moving walls.  She didn\'t state it, but he should understand from her insinuations.  She hoped it would be enough to make him happy.

[Trillian]

He noticed her flinching and within himself he wondered what he thought he was doing using curse words around her.  He\'d never been so callous before, did she really deserve such a shitty apology?  He mourned for what had been lost to him but that had been his own careless fault.  How long could he have kept it up if he\'d not gone to Phinn so often?  Months?  Years?

He didn\'t really hear her, for he was awash with sadness and it reflected in his expression.  The stoniness had gone, now there was a mournful young man before Roche and he nodded at the end of her statement about exposure, not knowing exactly what she\'d said, only knowing that she\'d finished talking.

He didn\'t trust his voice to answer her, not when his heart felt like a stone in his chest.  Instead, he put out his hand so she would come to him and hold it and he could lead her out.  He wondered if he would be snubbed, that she would come up to him but ignore his offer.  He wouldn\'t blame her if she chose to keep her distance.