Thread: Queen, Lover, Bitch. (PsionicCuttlefish and MacaronMaven)

As the fallen King and Queen ate their humble meal around the campfire, there was the rustling of footsteps nearby. But before they could panic, a voice called out quietly to them. It's me, I'm coming in. Slowly, a man stepped into the makeshift camp far enough to be illuminated by the fire. He was a man in his prime, late-twenties and strongly built. He had a broad, powerful build, almost rippling with muscles from the years of warfare he'd experienced. He had a number of scars on his body, hidden by his clothes, though one pale line was visible going up the left side of his neck and jaw to his cloven-in-half ear. He had dusty brown hair and a short, scraggly beard, with his face as travelstained as his companion's. With unusually striking blue eyes, he kept watch over his charges to keep them safe. He was dressed in light armor made of boiled leather, though his chest was protected by a dull, scuffed steel breastplate, and a few other parts of his body guarded with other scraps from his platesuit that had been far too large, heavy, and impractical to travel with all together. He had chosen the pieces for the most critical protection and ease of donning, but at the pace they were making, he was considering ditching the breastplate, too. A strong longsword, the best he could get his hands on before the flight from the capital city, was in a sheath buckled to his hip. Morthain sighed as he regarded the King and Queen, the people for whom it was his sworn duty to keep alive at any and all cost. He knew they weren't going to like this. I've scouted the perimeter as best as I can, but...this is a less-safe location to camp in than we have been. There are too many avenues of approach and I can't cover them all. He paused for a moment, staving off the bad news for just a second. We can't stay here. You should finish eating as soon as you can, then try to get a few hours of shut-eye. I'll keep watch for a few hours shift, but then I'm going to need to wake you during the night to get the carriage and horses moving again, while get what sleep I can in the carriage until morning. He looked over to Lady Kaevri, seeing that she was still pale, not that he had expected any improvement. He hated pushing her like this, he knew how much hell it had to be on her, but...from what reports he could gather from the towns they passed and what his own tracking skills told him, the Llarrl forward scouts had passed them already, and the army wasn't far behind. If they didn't keep moving, they'd be caught for sure. The knight and and former brigade commander took a seat near the campfire as well, and served up some stew for himself to eat a little quicker than normal. After getting half of it down, he looked up over the fire to see the beaten faces of his lord and lady, and tried to offer them some hope. The fifth and eighth brigades should have managed to get a retreat organized from the city, they know the contingency is to head to the Eastern Province, and regroup with the seventh and tenth brigades. Once we get to the Eastern Province, this flight will be over, you can take command of the local courts and I can lead the armies to organize a defence. We just have to make it across the border. He knew it was a dangerous thing, offering hope to people in a doomed situation, but they weren't soldiers. They couldn't be expected to have the hardened soul of one, they needed to be handled differently to keep their morale up. While Morthain wasn't sure they were going to make it, he knew they definitely wouldn't if they didn't have anything to look forward to and gave in to hopelessness. The knight looked back and forth between Kaevri and Kenaiwan. He had a suspicion that his lord had sent him on his fifth tour of duty in the Northern Province and the Llarrl defense campaign out of spite, because the knight had made friends with the lady to whom the king was wed when he returned to the city to do so. Incidentally, if anything, it might actually prove to be their salvation Morthain was one of the most experienced veterans in the Empire, and had seen almost every trick of the wolf-men-beasts. Still, Morthan couldn't resent Kenaiwan. The King was his master in every regard, just as much as the Queen was. He looked back to her frail form, again frowning inside at her illness and how the harsh travel had done nothing except maybe make it worse. He cared about her. All those months he got to know her when he was part of her honor guard, he found her to be an amazingly spirited woman. The shadows of...impure thoughts had occasionally crossed his mind back then, but he always forced them out and focused on his duty and loyalty. And now, his duty was to get them out of reach of the advancing Llarrl forces. Even if he didn't think as highly of Kenaiwan as he did of Kaevri, Morthain was prepared to fight to his dying breath to save them.