Sticks & Stones.

-30-

⚔︎Queening the Pawn⚔︎

Renly had woken up only two days after the battle of Camelot. In her absence, the sun had risen, fallen, and risen again. Time had not stood still, the world had not waited for her to wake. Things were changing quickly and power was shifting in a way that was almost overwhelming.

They were in a delicate space of in-between. War had come and gone, and now began the uncertain years that would determine whether the peace would last, whether it would last. Renly believed it would. After years of living under Vortigern's rule, there was no doubt in her mind that the people of England were all ready for peace. The nobles would fall in line, with time and some 'gentle' persuasion.

That did not mean that peace was a certainty.

One thing that Renly was strangely happy to see hadn't changed, was Bedevere and Arthurs's constant disagreements. One might have thought that fighting - and winning - a war together would have eased the bickering a little bit. It had not.

In any other case, on any other day, Renly might have found their arguing about what to do about the Vikings entertaining, but she had only just woken up after the battle. As the fog that had surrounded her mind slowly began to lift and the joy of seeing her family once again began to fade, perspective began to set in. She had yet to see her people and mourn her dead, and if what Percy had told her was true, neither had anyone else.

"Enough!" Everyone had jumped at her loud sharp voice as it echoed through the large throne room. Rubio who had been sitting to her left, subtly moved his chair away from her.

Nobody dared to breathe a word.

She took in a deep breath and centered herself. Perhaps shouting had been unnecessary, but it had gotten their attention well enough, and frightened the wits out of them it would seem. Wet-Stick, who had never seen Renly any worse than sarcastically annoyed seemed to have almost fallen out of his chair.

She internally winced.

She had just come back from the dead, one could not expect her to be entirely stable.

"Sorry," She muttered before letting out a deep sigh. "I agree that the Viking issue needs to be dealt with, urgently, but you are currently trying to rebuild this country before anybody has even had time to mourn the one we've lost. How are the people supposed to heal when they have yet to mourn their dead? When we have yet to honor them and their sacrifice for the peace that we are trying to establish." Her eyes were moving around the room, meeting the eyes of all of the men in the room, until they finally locked upon Arthur. His face had sobered, the amusement from winding Bedevere up was gone. "We can not find stability on uneven ground." She said quietly. His eyes softened, and the storm that always brewed within them stilled.

It was a strange revelation for her to realize that the new king might just have been witness to more moments of her at her most serious than anybody else. He had been the one who stayed behind with her in the war room every evening, watching as she desperately tried to keep the people she loved alive, hearing her admit fears she had never admitted to anyone, even Bedevere. So while others might have been surprised and concerned by her sudden outburst of rare emotion, Arthur was not. He recognized the look in her eyes, the one that told him she was most likely right.

We can not find stability on uneven ground.

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Margot stood in the castle stables, watching as the newly formed 'guard' prepared for the funeral pyres that would be lit that very evening. It was good, the dead needed to be put to rest, they needed to find peace. Her shoulder leaned against one of the wooden pillars, her hand outstretched to absentmindedly pet her horse.