niteo_logs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Characters: Elizabeth Tudor, Open
When: [Forward Dated to:] 19th of May
Where: Her sewing chair, common room thing.
Rating: PG
Summary: Feels. Alcohol. How depressing it is to have all your stories end in "and then they were executed." Also: drinking from mid morning is perfectly acceptable for Tudor-times. Triggery? For executions and general horribleness?

Elizabeth prided herself on her mask. Chipped as it was in places, it did not take much for her to smile and cover almost every ill completely until something made her snap. To breeze by like she was unaffected when otherwise her heart was in her throat. So when it slipped, she was left at the strangest feeling of vulnerability. Today happened to be one of those days, where it felt like it was falling out of her hands again, when for sheer anniversaries sake, her mind strayed from her otherwise tight hold. She couldn’t find the energy to be her usual self, her hair was left free, her dress plain black and as she took up her usual seat for sewing, it felt a physical effort to summon a smile. She longed for company, but had long since lost the ability to ask for it.

Her design for sewing was simple, and selfishly only for her, though she’d promised to do things for others (they were at a bundle in a basket next to her chair). A swan with red edging. The mundane action let her mind drift, and the more it drifted, the more she drank, forgetting to even eat. A glass for her fierce mother, whose bold day it was. Another for her father, and Jane Seymour. Half a bottle for Katherine Howard, another half for her brother and sister. A bitter mouthful for Thomas Seymour and Katherine Parr. It became almost calculated. Dudley, Wolsingham, and the decision she had to make. Duty, her country and loneliness. The horror of being in this place, when speaking to Thor and Loki had made her miss her home so much.

By the time she reached half way through the third bottle some time had passed, she was feeling light headed and she sunk back into the chair. She longed for home, of her ladies to sit with, as they laughed over this Lord or that Lady. She fell into memories, and found solace like that. The sewing fell out of her hands, the red thread unravelling as it hit the ground, the swan missing all but it’s head, she drifted off into a unhappy doze, light as it was. The bottles and her half filled glass by her feet, rather telling proof of how much she had drunk. There was enough left, that someone else could have a glass too, should they want it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I know... I know. And for it, I bloody my hands. At least I have not yet killed any of my own family members... or at least direct ones." Her relation to Norfolk was distant at best.

"Yes, but I have the misfortune of knowing they're there and I'm not even thirty yet..." She laughs quietly, though it's tired. "Perhaps you're right." But it wasn't something she was allowed to undo either. But she wasn't going to mention that. She'd already disregarded him and his ideas enough so far. "I've done enough thinking for today, so I'll save it for another. It's just... a very bad day." Alcohol aside.

"There's not much to know, I'm brash, loud and violent when my temper is called into being. Does that match what the books say?" And just like that, she pushed it aside as well as she could, he really did not have to deal with what she had in her mind.

"I have had a few silver hairs myself, my lady." And he's barely even twenty, shouldn't be at home. Yet here he is with silver hair from stress of things to do here, of wanting to be home and being unable to go.

"Then perhaps instead of thinking it might be time to just do, like taking something for tomorrow's hangover and some water before sleeping."

A slight chuckle, "That is not all that there is to Queen Elizabeth, surely. Though the books do mention it."

"Just a few then," it seemed a good idea to run her fingers through his hair then, as if she were looking for them. "Well, you're safe for the moment. I cannot see anything showing obviously." How odd. Here she was so unstressed except for moment's like this one... and a few other things she didn't feel like bringing up.

Elizabeth lent back a little then. "I still think the water is going to give us all plague. I'd much rather drink wine. It kills bugs. Everyone knows that." She gives him a short grin.

"No... not at all. Queen Elizabeth is vain, sharp and able to say words eloquently enough that, with only a little bit of kidnapping, she is able to get laws pass. Elizabeth just likes dancing and horse riding." There was a difference between the two, hard as it was to keep them apart. There was only one place that it blurred into one, but that too private, for any one.

Lavi always plucks them out when he spies them though they would add an interesting highlight to his hair, "I am sure I will find one on the morrow." It is probably more the wine and less of what Lavi is saying or doing.

"I have bottles of purified water in my room, my lady. It has nothing in it that will harm you." Not all water is bad.

"I am afraid the former might be easier to acquire than the latter," but he shall keep it in mind and look for music of her period.

"Young men such as yourselves ought not to have such things. You ought to be chasing girls and playing tennis..." Probably. She's good at making horrible situations in her mind.

"I'm still not convinced. Even though I've had plenty of it. It made me queasy for awhile at least..." She was just being petulant now because she could, though it's not meanly said.

"Dancing? I wasn't aware anyone here can dance?" At least not what she knew. "And I know there is not a chance I shall go riding like I do at home, not ever." Another thing she missed.

"I am afraid that even if I were not a Bookman or Exorcist that would not be allowed of me." He was an orphan and probably would have starved or been put to work, there was no time for fun and games even in his time for the poorest of the poor.

"Please? For me? It will help clear your head," Elizabeth, don't act younger than he is. Come on now.

"I was taught a dance or two, I have seen many a jig. Cross would likely know more though I am not sure of the others.

"Even the poorest of people have fun my lord, they dance around maypoles, receive gifts at Christmas. They dance and they sing louder then any Noble does." That much she at least knew to be true. She'd been poor as a children, but no less exuberant.

"You know? I'm tempted to throw a temper tantrum to do my father proud and he'd have men beheaded for telling them bad news, but even now I know you're probably sick of me and I should just put myself to bed." She sighed, leaning against him a little again, trying to summon the energy to get up and move.

"Mm, I doubt it's the same." And at the mention of dancing with Cross, she tries her best to swallow the blush working it's way up her throat. "Perhaps he would, but I shall not annoy him further."

"The area I was found in was not kind to six year old orphans." At least he thinks he's an orphan, Lavi's backstory is hidden in shadows for the most part. All he remembers is from six onward until today. "But I do not know what I would have been like if I did not have the life that I do.

"I am hardly sick of you, my lady, I wish only that you are not cursed with a hangover come morning. Medicine, water, and sleep will do you much better." He briefly lets his nose touch the crown of her head, a silent encouragement to lean into him more.

A soft snort, "I do doubt that you annoy him. He seems...fond," overprotective, "of you."

"Most orphans are dead by the time they are six. Plague, wars, famine... the list goes on really. Such as it is, there is not much I can do for it. Though my charity is never lacking." That was all there really was to do, asides from adopt all those children, but that would barely do anything either, just send her broke.

"Ah, that is my payment for being so foolish, don't think on it. But sleep sounds good. I've drunk enough that no quite dreams of death should come creeping." She laughs softly at his encouragement, wriggling closer and getting comfortable like that.

"... That's completely absurd, he's just being a man." And that was clear as she saw it right now. "Nice as it is, it's foolish to think on it at all."

"I know that you will try your hardest to save your people, my lady. They are your children."

He shakes his head, making a place for her. "Even foolishness does not require so steep a price..." Lavi lightly sets his hand on top of her's, "I am sorry for today's old reminders."

Another head shake, "If he were being 'just a man' like he is, Cross would have bedded you already, my lady. He cares for you."

"The only children I know I will ever had. And every single one of them is an ungrateful brat."

"There's nothing to be sorry for, if my mother was any less deserving of the removal of her head, I'd just be a whore's child." Her smile is cruel, if brief. "I always liked the idea that she was a witch, it gave my father a reason for murder. It's Lady Howard I'll never forgive. She was younger then you, and now she's a head shorter too." She's had a long time to be bitter over these things. "All she wanted to do was please and be pleased, but Queen's don't live for pleasure. They must be devoted stone." They live for duty, and it was in the duty Elizabeth knew her fate now waited, with nothing else.

"That's... very foolish to say." She wasn't blushing... and if she happened to be, she'd just blame it on the wine. "Men like that... ah, if he lead an uprising, he'd be the first man I would execute. Men like him are dangerous. He is uncontrollable as a follower, but as a leader? Completely dependable in the end. Easy enough to tell, he didn't snap at Mistress Lin for me, he did it because he knows what has to be done, and does it." And that was more or less the way she saw it, even if it didn't make sense. "Or at least most of the time. I'm sure he just... ignores things when and where he wants, because it doesn't suit him, either. Like I said, dangerous." That was what all her watching had brought her to so far.

"So long as I have been in England I have tried not to be ungrateful," a smile tugs at his lips, small and hidden. He might not be wholly a child of England but he does admire the country.

"It is still not a fond day, I would think." He can't imagine it personally, watching your mother go through those trials and tribulations or hearing about them. He - even with all his training - might not have been able to withstand it if it were his own mother. But he doesn't even know her. "There is no need, at least, to be stone here. Devoted, yes."

A soft snort, "Cross would find it too much trouble, while he does not mind being in charge of us I think he would abdicate any more powerful position. The responsibility is not of his liking..." They had to hunt him down after all, he left the Order physically if not mentally. "But yes, he is a man of action. He does not ignore, he keeps watch because there might be a need for a stronger hand."

"I am glad you are. We're a strange people, I think it comes from being on an island that we share with Scotland. But as long as Mary never tries for my kingdom openly, I suppose all will be well." She settled against him comfortably as she rambled. Not caring if he understood or not.

"I was two and a little more, and I sore her only on visits. But from what I remembered, she cried into my hair, and told me she was sorry..." it was the only memory she had of her mother, and she hung onto it for all she was worth. "Perhaps not, I was on verge of becoming that before she saw fit to take me. Stone that is. As immortal as the holy virgin." If it wasn't completely true.

"No, I thought not. Still, he'd be the ones with any brains as to an uprising. Any one else would just be a figure head for which to rally around, just as I once was." An alternative and less bloody version of her sister. "I wouldn't trust him further then I could throw him if it came to matters of state, for everything that you said."

"At least their strangeness has not limited your own," he teases, "But Mary..." He's not sure if he should say and ruin the peace that she has now, "Mary is well watched over."

Lavi leans against the back of his own chair, supporting them both, "Even if it is a sad memory my lady cherishes it, I can hear it in your voice." He tilts his head, "Is there a need to be stone here?" When they won't remember this place at home? When they will find themselves returned to the very moment that they left?

"You sound scared of him."

"Is she? She's a Queen, and she is my family, all that I have left. I am loathe to act against her, but someone like her is never watched over completely. I've such a horrible feeling about her..." Something would happen, eventually, she just didn't know what. A single woman couldn't be held over her head so much without it all one day turning into something, she knew this even now.

"Human beings cling to memories I think, even imperfect ones, because it's all we have at times." His next question though, made her go quiet for awhile. "Sometimes I feel I still have to be. Some things are just who I am, others are a choice. I just have to make up my mind about what."

"... I'm drunk enough to admit that yes, he does scare me. Badly." There was a shaky laugh to go with it. "Scares and confounds me."

"Believe me in this if in nothing else, the troubles she brings you will not last long." At least compared to Elizabeth's reign it did not last long. The mighty queen tucked against his side had other worries to take her mind off the eventual death of her last family member.

"Memories make up who we are in the end, the past shapes and forms us. But the future still has many possibilities..."

Lavi pats her hand, "He scares everyone. No one really understands him."

"I hope so. I don't want to hurt her. I'd never forgive myself if I did. Queens do not attack each other." She was comfortable where she was, and it made her drowsy again.

"It does. But I don't like the future that waits for me." That still felt so childish, she should be happy to do her duty, it was what she was born to do.

"... Does he?" She laughed quietly. "Glad to know. I have a terrible feeling I'm an open book to him. That's so settling. I'm not used to being unsettled. Men are usually so predictable to me."

Lavi wisely keeps his mouth shut at this point, he doesn't want to hurt her right now. "The future here is unknown still, my lady, you do not have to look at what happens to your England without looking for it yourself.

"He is one of your subjects, of course you are known to him." Just how far Lavi doesn't know, "He is also experienced with women... To read all of them is an easy task for him."

"I guess I don't. I do have that choice at least." She laughed quietly. "Suppose you knew that people knew your future, what would you do? Ask? Or leave it be?" Because she knew that he knew, and there had to be something that he wasn't bringing up around her.

"Ha. Subject, him? Never." She laughed again when he said that, reading between what he said. "So you are not all saints. I can't say I am surprised with him. Though that does no wonders for my vanity, I don't like being exposed. I don't like showing my emotions, or having others know what lies in my heart. At all."

"Leave it be, even now I do not know my future except..." His head lowers a little, "Except that at home I have been missing for three months. I do not know where I am except in the hands of our enemies. It has not been three months for me because we were all just fighting a few minutes ago." Even if their fights were taking place in different countries on different sides of the globe. "I do not want to know. Because then I might not want to return..."

Lavi lifts his head again, "He is a subject of England at least. Though I have no words of advice on how to avoid being exposed by him. Aside from avoidance."

... That sounded horrible. "My lord, no..." She slid a arm around his waist, hugging him for what he had to return to, burying her face against his shoulder. "I guess it is not the same as it is in home. We only capture men for ransom, or at least politically. Usually common men are just straight out killed but..." His world didn't sound so political as hers. Her rules didn't apply. She squeezed him harder for a moment.

"Avoiding him would be rude, after all he's done for me. But... ah, I have no idea what I shall do about him, except find a different want to be closed off." That would probably be best. Keep her heart hidden, safe. Where no man could touch it ever again, she refused to let it be open. She couldn't take that kind of bleeding, not again.

He gives her a small and crooked smile, "I have resigned myself to it, my home is not kind to any of its residents no matter what sort of timeline they come from or what version." Lavi lightly puts his arm around her shoulders to give her a brief hug in return. "I suppose it is a bit different when you fight for the world on behalf of the church.

"Treat him as one of your suitors that you have no intentions of marrying? I do not know how to advise you, my lady."

"No, never resign. Hope, you must hope. I spent so many months locked in the tower, they can strip anything and everything else off you. Your title, your wealth, your friends, but until they take your life, no one can relinquish your hope but you. Even if you don't know what you're hoping for any more." Bold with the drink she reached for his face, both hands either side of his face, meeting him the eye and being completely intent on him. Perhaps she was making a fool out of herself, but anything to make such a burden bearable.

At that though, she let go of him, looking away completely, quietly for a long while. "I do not expect you too, fear not... but I couldn't do that either to him. Suitors are politics that like to kiss and touch, treason in pretty packages. They're just a pull to -- to keep this army from moving, that Lord from voting, this country from trade to some other region. Then I push them off, because nothing will come between me and my country again." There was a cold vehemence to her words that wasn't usually, she wasn't looking at him, just away, at the far great country only she could see in her mind. This was what she was, raised to be, Queen, a lion's child. "And until I can find a man that respects that in me, I cannot want for one. They are immaterial wishes. Even here, it's still... there. It's changed me. I don't know when, but it has. I could no more stop it, then you could from recording history."

"I hope to get out, alive with my mentor at that, but with my absence at home there is no reason to think anything other than what I know." He hopes desperately that they've gotten free after those three months and they're working toward getting home. But he doesn't know what fate has in store for him. "I hold out great hope, my lady, but that does not mean I can ignore the road right in front of me."

Even if Elizabeth doesn't want his advice like one of her advisers would give he can still give a few words as a friend, which he's done. "He is not a literal suitor though, my lady, I would not suggest him as such. Just treat him as one minus the kisses and touches. I know that they are a sore subject for you at home. But as much as I like my lady I do not wish her to be married to Cross of all people."

"No, no one can do that, can they?" She settled against him again, easier this time, she was getting used to being affectionate with him. "There is the path you have been given, and only luck and hard work to get you through it. Simple as that." Elizabeth sighed wearily.

"Tch, I'll never marry you don't need to worry. He could want to all he liked, it won't happen. I can't stand the thought of any man owning me, deciding my fate. Better to be single and a beggar then married and Queen." She smirked quietly, cynical as ever.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

*saw, wtf fingers?!

xD I guessed.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject