The Spring and Queen

[Treguard]

[OOC: Continued from Brown vs. Green.]

*Despite using elf paths to shorten his journey to Wolfenden, Treguard arrives parched and makes his first stop the Crazed Heifer. A handful of people recognise him under his hood and he is pleased to confirm his identity to those who politely ask. No one wishes to trouble him, even those who have drunk the most: they are used to not making Powers That Be and Opposition business their business. Treguard, in turn, finds little interest in the gossip of the townsfolk that comes his way.

To Treguard's relief, the resident piper is absent. His face would hold painful memories for the Dungeon Master, even though the man once known as Folly holds no such memories himself. [OOC: Referring to the fanfic CSI: Knightmare.]

Across the tavern, Treguard sees that a younger member of the Grimwold family is on security duty. The Dungeon Master observes the movement of his lips, and the scroll in his lap, and realises that this is no ordinary ogre. It might be useful to keep him close, both as a bodyguard and as a well-informed tavern regular. He is considering speaking to Young Grimwold [OOC: last seen in A Silent New Guest] when the serving maid arrives with his mug of ale. Thanking her, he reaches into his purse for payment.*

Slevela: No charge, milord. We're honoured to have you here. Some say you've been abroad, that you left when the Greater Game ended.

*Treguard frowns.*

Slevela: But I wouldn't hear of such nonsense.

Indeed. The game never ends.

*Slevela looks a little perturbed. Treguard realises he is giving her his stare. Blinking, he breaks the tension with a chuckle and she chuckles too.*

Slevela: You picked the right time to come by. Owen's about to share his "secret".

You have a dragon here?

Slevela: Oh no, Owen the landlord. Once a year, or maybe less often than that, he gets all bardic and tells everyone how he's really the prince of an ancient land. Sometimes people actually believe it. Oh here we go.

*Owen Vartern is walking to the centre of the room. Conversation is dimming and eyes are turning to him.*

[Young Grimwold]

[OOC: Unless otherwise indicated, the speaker in this post is Owen Vartern.]

Owen: In this time of tall tales, mine may be tallest but also is truest. You know me as Owen, Owen Vartern. In that name is concealed my real one: Vernaro. I have had it longer than you can imagine.

I was one of four royal siblings in a land of magic deep as the oceans and high as the mountains. The land had seasons, the four seasons you would know, but each lasted for hundreds of years before giving way to the next. My brother, two sisters and I each drew our powers from a season, though some say it was the other way around. The common folk of the land did not share our magic or our longevity, knowing only one season in each of their lifetimes. But we were as immortal as Nature herself.

Unlike the royalty you know, we had no inane concept of primogeniture...

Drinker: Rothberry's got an ointment for that!

Owen: ...Primogeniture, inheritance by the oldest, so it was agreed that we would share the throne and rule in turn. During what you would call springtime, my season, I was king and the land bore my name. When long years had passed and spring turned to summer, the crown passed to my sister, who renamed the land in her turn. And so on, until spring came again.

*A few punters mutter to each other about Winteria.*

Owen: Perhaps the land was Vernaria many times, perhaps only once, but once is all I remember. The land flourished. Everything we needed was within our borders and we had hardly any need to look to other lands. An exception was language. My homeland's tongue was a coarse one and I used my powers to draw on the scholarship of another place, another time, concocting a language much like what is now called Latin, such as you might hear the monks speaking.

Drinker: Gawd, I ain't been to the church in ages.

Another Drinker: No, you was there last week. When you was sick round the back.

*Laughter.*

Slevela: Shut up or leave!

*Normally Owen would be quick to silence such disruption himself, but he is lost in his storytelling persona, sounding and even looking strangely different from his usual self.*

Owen: My heart was heavy when my reign ended, and I longed for the land to be mine once more. But I was happy for my summer sister and the joyous sovereignty that she took on, as an age of golden sun and bold blue sky blessed the land, the land of Summerea.

When autumn beckoned, my summer sister made no secret of her reluctance to hand over dominion to Decidua. At the recoronation, she asked the people if she might continue as their queen. But though many adored her, they did not support this - and besides, she would have grown weak without summer magic to nourish her. We trusted that she would find peace as she waited for summer to return.

We were wrong.

She seized power by stealth, catching us unawares with magic we did not know she had. Decidua, Hibernus and I were banished - at least I must hope that they were banished too, for I haven't seen them since. She took my powers also, leaving me only with my long life. A life I would lose if I ever set foot in the land again. I sense there are many centuries yet before summer returns to my homeland, and whether she can sustain herself until then, only she knows. I suspect she is now very ill indeed, in body and in mind.

So this is where I must remain. I cannot often bear to talk of what happened. To know that today I see puddles of ale on the floor, when once I saw dew on the grass of Vernaria.

*The punters applaud, entertained by the telling of this myth and the imagination of a lowly barkeep.*

Drinker: Hey, I've got a question. Couldn't the people stop her?

Owen: The people did not know anything is wrong. She took Decidua's place without any of them realising, and now so long has passed there that no one alive will remember that the land ever had other seasons, other rulers. Maybe they ask themselves sometimes, "If I am Winterian then why don't I like the cold? What heritage has given me that?" [OOC: Daenerys Shar once told another character that she wanted to be warm.] But it's a long jump from a passing thought like that to believing that the queen is a usurper and believing that it's wise, or possible, to do something about it. Perhaps if I ever find my siblings, we could...

Drinker: You never told us her name.

Another Drinker: And you can't guess it? You dunghead.

Drinker: I want him to tell us. And I washed my hair last month.

Owen: I do not enjoy saying her name, so this is the last I will speak of this. My summer sister's name - one never intended for a winter queen, but she has used it so - is close to the Latin word for summer. Aestas.

Aesandre.

Now, you've had your story, so how about you all buy another drink for the privilege?

[Treguard]

*During his second ale, Treguard considers Vartern's tale. Imagine it were true. It would explain how one team was able to freeze Aesandre: winter magic is not truly hers. And yet she was able to command enough of it to cover half the realm in snow and ice. Maybe she did find a way to make winter her own; maybe it is killing her. All this because she could not bear not to sit on a throne.

Treguard thinks of his own chair. A seat that would not be his if the evil of men had not robbed his brothers of the chance. [OOC: As described in the first Knightmare book.] But he cannot imagine anybody else sitting in it, nor how he would feel if he were challenged for Dunshelm. It is, he reminds himself, no more his than the Dungeon realm is his. He is merely its custodian for as long as higher forces permit him to be there. To belong there.

He finds he's lost his taste for meandering around Wolfenden and confronting the unfamiliar: the ale has given him enough of that. And it's later than he thought. Treguard decides he will return to Wolfenden another day. The Crazed Heifer does not offer lodgings for some reason, so he may have to brave another of the town's inns when he returns.

Swallowing the last of his ale - waste not want not - he thanks Slevela and insists on giving her some gold. The ogre has avoided meeting Treguard's eye, which he puts down to humility rather than rudeness, so any conversation will have to wait. Treguard goes from the tavern to the market, buys a few provisions, tightens his cloak and sets off for home.*

[ModNote: the ogre, a.k.a. Young Grimwold, is next seen in Book to the Future.]