she's seeing too clearly what she can't be; {open}

[ensorceler]

Who: Queen Anne Boleyn & YOU
What: Late night drunken wanderings in the snow. Who knows what will happen.
When: Tonight!
Where: Anywhere between the castle and in the City Royale.
Rating: PG, for now???

She feels ill. That is the only word that can describe it. Not just in her belly, but in her mind, her soul. She is ill with grief, and with longing. She is ill with knowing.

Anne stands before her glass mirror, darkened gaze staring at the flatness of her stomach. It carries nothing, she knows, but her shame. Will I never have a son? It is God's will that he ought to have a boy, for there must be a living image of his father. Of course, she thinks. Elizabeth had said her brother ruled.

But she had never said who the mother was.

Ill, ill, ill. She weeps, satin skirts wrinkled from her tight grips and tugs, so distraught there is nothing to do but tear at herself. She doesn't mar her own skin, her beautiful skin, because Henry would want her to stay beautiful. He would also want her to smile, but she cannot force it no matter how often she practices before that mirror. Even the wine doesn't help, and she drinks until her lips are stained as if painted rouge.

I am cursed. God has abandoned me, and my child.

But Anne doesn't want to think so. She wants to continue believing that this is naught but a dream. She wants nothing more than to hold feasts, to dance and laugh and be merry. To play with fairies and rule these people and be respected and loved. But she would have none of that. Not in England, and not here. She has only her daughter, and even that is now denied her. The childhood has escaped her, the ability to guide and love. Elizabeth is a woman grown now, with secrets that Anne can only dream about. And oh, does she dream, stretched out near the hearth in her drunken stupor. In her dreams, in her nightmares, the dragon eats her every time. And when she is consumed, Henry stabs the dragon through the heart as if to save her. But inside the beast's gut, she hears her daughter's scream, and she echoes the cry when the steel impales her as well. He is not aiming for the dragon, but for his forsaken wife. No, not forsaken. Null and void.

She is a bastard, and you are not my wife!

She awakens sweat soaked and shivering, gasping for breath and holding one hand over her heart, the other over her neck. Behind her, the fire has dwindled, and she can once more feel the cold creeping into her bones. But she ignores it, standing and reaching for her favorite cloak, the dark blue velvet lined with pearls. It comforts her now, and helps shield her disheveled appearance, as she steals out into the night.

Anne doesn't know where she is going, but she knows she cannot remain here. This castle is born of magic, of curses, and it's infecting her. So she seeks out the city, despite the late hour, hoping to clear her head in the frigid air. Her steps are slow, unsteady, but she carries on, her eyes unseeing while her feet blindly guide her through the streets.

Someone will have answers, or someone will be punished. For the moment she would find pleasure in either goal.

Comments

[willrememberthat]

It's late, too late to be out, but Clementine is outside anyway. She's spent all day working on math, so a little walk through the city is well-deserved. It's quiet and peaceful and feels safe. However, Clem is still acutely aware of her surroundings, and when she hears uneven footsteps her heart leaps into her throat and she ducks behind a corner before she can stop herself.

But it's not a walker. It's a person. They seem out of it, and despite not being able to see their face, Clem decides to speak up. Maybe it was someone new, like her, or like Frodo, in need of help.

"Are you okay?"

It's what Lee would do, she thinks.

[ensorceler]

The voice is only distantly familiar, one she knows she has heard before, but she can't place it further. Anne stops in confusion and turns to look towards the shadows, squinting her blue eyes a touch to sharpen her already blurry vision. It looks to be a child, but one can never be too careful. Fairies are meant to be small, too, and they have given her nothing good in this purgatory.

"Who goes there?"

[willrememberthat]

She knows that voice. She's quick to fully step out into view. Queen Anne was alright.

"It's just me, Clementine." After a moment, she remembers herself and does another little curtsey, as she did before. But she watches Anne curiously. She repeats her question.

"Are you okay?"

[ensorceler]

The curtsy seems to amuse her, enough to almost bring about a smile, though it remains incomplete. Her eyes are still cold and muddled as they observe the girl, and after a moment she reaches a hand out, beckoning her closer.

"Come here, child. I ought to be asking you such questions. Why are you about at such an hour?"

[kalinda]

It's one of those cold nights that reminds her of home. She's bundled up in a scarf and a leather jacket, the full ensemble of a busy woman who knows how to keep herself warm-- and you know, looking good at the same time.

But that's not the point here.

She's making her way back to her home, walking the sidewalks of the city in a hurry to be done with her business for the night. Many townspeople were beginning to know her name, know her game, know the fact that if they hired her to find information, she'd get it done. And quickly. Of course, such would make for late nights, especially in a lucrative situation.

She keeps her guard up, of course. No sense in being less than cautious when she knows there have been murders afoot in such a place. Damn residents. Why couldn't they behave?

In spite of this, however, there would be no expectation of her running into a certain... acquaintance of hers.

[ensorceler]

Anne expected to have to pass people, though she did not think it could be this many. When she hears the footsteps, the crunch crunch of boots against snow, the queen almost considers hugging her cloak about her and fleeing into an alley. But that would be disgraceful, and make little sense, she finds. She was seeking the open air, not dingy rat-infested nests.

But still, she reaches up to pull her hood more firmly about her face as they pass, gaze focused on her feet so that she does not slip. It does not occur to her that this could be somebody she knows, as all the city folk normally avoid her at all costs. She would rather shun them than give them the pleasure.

[kalinda]

Wow, how do you not recognize this hottie, Anne? She's practically melting the snow with every step-- no, just kidding.

If Anne isn't going to say anything to Kalinda, she'll certainly speak up in her stead. "In that much of a hurry?"

At least she was direct.

[ensorceler]

She looks up at the voice, wondering if she was mishearing, or even imagining. But Kalinda is indeed impossible to miss once Anne catches her face. The skin color alone is unusual enough in England, but her manner of dress is far more odd and provocative.

Despite all these things, Anne immediately feels comforted by her presence, and she almost smiles. That is, if she weren't about to cry.

"Sir Kalinda... No, I am just...walking. To...to clear my head."

[scinlae]

The night is her cloak, an old friend embracing her with open arms, a time she can wonder without the threat of discovery, a time she become one with the shadows and melt away into nothingness ─ or she would were her own mind not weighed down with problems of her own.

Her love was returned, but he stands different from the man he left her as, he bears wounds now that she cannot heal with soft words and tender touches. There is a gap between them that grows larger by the moment and she is scared soon neither will be able to breach it. She almost wishes he had not been returned, wishes he had been lost to her forever; it would have been kinder, easier for her to bury what little remained of her heart.

The steps of another rip her from her thoughts, green eyes flicking to the source of the sound. She has little care for people on nights like this, though there is something about the way this one walks that drags her out from her shadows; a pesky kindness that urges her forward right into the other woman's path.

"You should be careful, my lady, the streets wear a different face in the dark."

[ensorceler]

The sudden obstruction startles Anne, though for her slow reaction one can hardly tell. She merely stops, staring at the feet of the woman who speaks, lips twisting in a pained frowned at the 'my lady'. It is of no importance, should be of none, but she is angry every time somebody mistakenly calls her that.

Perhaps she was not well loved in England, but everybody knew who she was. Everybody bowed, and called her Your Majesty, and she drank it up. And what is she here?

Here she is nothing but a wandering figure, no more than this striking woman before, perhaps even less so because she does not know where she has headed, and this one seems to know exactly where she is. That is, in Anne's way.

Even if she is heading nowhere.

But the voice is familiar, familiar enough to keep her from feeling panic. But then she recalls who it is, and she notes that she should feel panicked. Maybe she ought to even feel afraid. And at that, she nearly laughs, the corners of her mouth tugging upward in a skewed image of a smirk. But there is nothing mirthful in her eyes. No, she sees right through Morgana.

"The Lady Morgana. Do you not take your own advice, or are you the darkness that ought to be feared?"

[scinlae]

"Your Majesty." She blinks, an almost soft sort of smile reaching her lips. Soft and sharp at the same time. What a meeting this is, in the darkness of the night; Morgana too sharp for human contact and Anne unsteady on her feet.

Drink, the poor woman has been drinking and she can only imagine what prompted her.

"Not at all, the darkness of the night is an old friend to me. It allows me to think when I do not wish to be distributed." For she can melt in and out of shadows, her black and green dress aiding her greatly in such manners. "I told you once before, did I not? You have nothing to fear from me, but the night hides more than any can imagine and it would grieve me greatly if something were to befall you."

Whatever the other woman's feelings on her, Morgana thinks of her fondly. She feels for her, understands her plight, finds her a bright interesting spark amongst a world of slowly dying embers. She reminds her of something half gone, something that claws and scrapes it's way back to the surface of her soul.

[ensorceler]

Morgana's words seem silly to her for some reason, enough to make her crack a smile. It's only another moment before a laugh escapes her, and she stumbles back, one hand reaching out as if to grab onto something, but finding nothing. Thankfully, she remains on her feet, though it must make quite a sight.

"This is not how we were to meet... Here I am, lurching about like a drunkard, with naught but a...a sorceress to protect me from the thieves of the night. But how can that be considered as absurd as anything else?! I have knighted a woman, and seek a bounty hunter to do my bidding. My king. My king, he would..."

Be furious, she knows, and that's enough to stifle her rant, as she stares ahead with an empty gaze once again.

[ladywinter]

Some nights, Catelyn finds herself plagued with dreams- waking or sleeping, it makes little difference. The same images haunt her mind. Ned. Robb. Bran. Rickon. What has been, what she knows will be. What she is powerless to stop.

And on these nights, she sometimes walks.

So Catelyn finds herself out on the castle grounds, wandering the road the leads to town. The cold did not bother her. She had lived over twenty years in the North; the cold was her friend, familiar and comforting. She leaves the hood of her cloak down, letting the wind blow through her loose hair.

It's startling to see someone else out here at this time of night. There's something almost eerie about it- she wonders if she looks equally unsteady, equally disturbed. She feels it, certainly. After a moment's pause, Catelyn calls out to the figure.

"My lady?"

She half expects the figure to wear her face when she turns, another figment of another nightmare.

[ensorceler]

Anne hardly pauses when the woman calls out, as if she doesn't hear it. It seems as if she will just continue to walk, but she stops after a few steps extra, the trail of her cloak bunching as she finally turns.

Truly, Anne nearly thinks that she might have imagined it, but it is no voice from home. It is the voice of a heathen, though a kind enough one. It matters not, for the unsteady gaze that Anne pins on her is nearly soaked in loathing that should only be reserved for one from home. But this is the unfortunate soul to find her, to see her in her shame, and Anne hates her for it.

I am no lady, she wants to scream at her. I am a queen!

But she says none of these things, because even in her stupid she remembers that insisting on it will only shame her soul more. Instead she looks away, anywhere but at the woman who has done nothing to her and yet represents everything that could be done. The woman has no retinue with her, but then again neither does Anne. It is unseemly, but nothing can be done for it.

"You... You are Lady..." The name escaped her, and she pushes her fingertips against her aching temple as if that will sharpen her memory. It all blurs together now, that announcement of Regency, as if it too were a dream.

[ladywinter]

The strength of that gaze takes her aback. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't to receive a look like that. But then Anne's hand goes to her forehead and the strangeness of the moment sinks in. She's been in the cups, Catelyn thinks and with the thought comes a look of both disdain and sympathy. It wasn't proper, wasn't right, for a queen to be seen like this. But Cat certainly understood the desire to drown one's woes in drink. It would be easier.

"Lady Stark. Catelyn Stark, your g- Majesty. Forgive me, I did not know it was you."

And with the acknowledgment of the title comes a little curtsy, an automatic, almost mechanical gesture.

"I did not expect to meet anyone on the road at this hour."

[ensorceler]

Courtesy and habit allows her to nod her acknowledgment to Catelyn's words and curtsy. She has found very little of it in this world, and naturally can't help but be drawn to any who would pay their proper respects to her. Even if this older woman is not really her subject, she has still paid Anne more respect than most of the vermin infesting the castle.

"Yes. Lady Stark, you..." She drops her hand to clutch at her cloak, pulling it further around her shoulders as she finally looks to the woman's face once more. At this moment, it is difficult for her not to see enemies at every shadow. "You have surprised me as well. What are we to do at an hour such as this, when all the innocents sleep soundly in their beds, none the wiser? Is it the snow you seek? You will not be left wanting, I should think."

[wolfchild]

Nymeria cuts swaths through the snow that Arya follows. She steps in the direwolf's steps, skipping along behind her. So focused is she on her game that she does not notice Nymeria stopping until she runs into the wolf. She sputters and laughs.

"Stupid wolf."

But she still moves closer to slump over Nymeria's back. The wolf has got big enough now that Arya's toes do not touch the ground. Nymeria nips at her arm before she lifts her head. She smells the air, ears turning in the direction of a sound only she can hear. Arya slips her skin. Footsteps. And a biting smell. Drink, the girl thinks to the wolf. As the figure comes toward them, Nymeria's lips fold back. Her teeth glimmer white as snow. Arya slips out to stroke her neck.

"Easy, girl," she whispers. "It's nothing." And if it's not, she'll kill it. Nymeria, though, continues watching. Her eyes glow an eery yellow in the darkness.

[ensorceler]

It's nearly impossible for Anne to see where she's heading in such dim lamp light, with the moon so clouded and her own vision unsteady from recent sleep and too much wine. But she doesn't think much of it, because the streets are not crowded, and she hopes to not run into too many more people. It is embarrassing enough.

So instead Paradisa deems it proper enough for her to run into a wolf, instead. A giant one. Even in her state, it's impossible to miss, and she's so startled she doesn't even notice the girl with it. All she sees are the eyes, and then the teeth, and her scream is quickly muffled by hands clasping over her mouth.

Now, now she feels like retching, but she dare not move for fear of her life, dare not even look away from the monster's face. Anne always liked dogs, she had a few of her own, but this is most definitely not a dog.

[wolfchild]

Arya raises an eyebrow. "Are you going to be sick?"

[wilder]

He couldn't sleep, or perhaps wouldn't sleep was the better way to put it. Every time he tried in winter, the nightmares were always the same.

And so, staying awake until the snow melted seemed to be the best course of action. It was one of the things he'd admit as a perk to what he was. Humans can't go more than a few days of sleeplessness without fear of tempting madness. Angels could go lifetimes without, the only madness risked is from boredom of the long night hours.

Tonight, he sits atop a post near the entry of town - squatting quite comfortably despite the lack of surface area and being a tall grown man. He's got a dark winter cloak on, with his red hair trailing down his back. He seems to be looking up at the stars, counting them as someone once suggested to do (in a real or castle-made memory, he can't recall), as there is no way for someone in a human lifetime to count them all.

Or probably more accurately, he's trying to come up with a mathematical formula to count the stars quickly and prove that man wrong out of sheer stubbornness. Either way, it's serving as a nice distraction from the white snow on the ground and red snow in his mind.

He hears Anne coming, the unsteady footsteps. And he smells the liquor - a drunkard. With this conclusion, he decides not to move or even amend his sitting position to seem more normal for humans. He's comfortable, moving means risking getting snow on himself and she probably won't remember anything odd in the morning anyway. And so, he keeps his eyes to the sky and continue doing what he's doing.

[ensorceler]

Maybe she won't remember the oddity in the morning, but she certainly notes it now. In fact, she almost thinks it to be a statue of some sort, with quite the startling amount of color and detail. And what better things does she have to do with her time, but try to circle around to get a better look?

She nearly slips off her feet when she finds the face belongs to a living person, though, a hand moving to her chest to calm her heart. "What...what are you doing?"

[wilder]

Was she...seriously inspecting him like a statue? Man, she must be really toasted. But since she addressed him, he can't exactly ignore her. He'll break away from the stargazing to look down at her.

"Me? Oh I'm just looking at the stars."

[gottaknockhard]

It'd be funny to think that a queen and a cowboy may have had similar ideas. Spike had been spending his night innocently taking up a bar stool in one of the pubs that were used to his quiet patronage, up until closing. If he'd stayed at the castle, Jo would have let him stay as long as he'd like, but somehow being served by ghosts once the staff went home never sat too well with him.

In either case, he took to the streets with only a vague direction in mind. Nobody bothered him, as usual. He barely even spotted a late night pickpocket in months, let alone something more interesting. That was one thing he could never get used to. They hadn't kept him from occasionally looking over his shoulder, but he'd become less and less hopeful as time went on. He'd probably sleep a lot better if he saw more action than the kind of magic pranks that he kept falling for.

Maybe they were just waiting for him to drop his last guard. He could pretend.

Those thoughts drifted as a cold breeze hit his face. Any warmth he'd felt in his veins seemed to evaporate too soon, and he paused to light a cigarette. It was such a routine occurrence that the sight of a woman ghosting through the streets may not have caught his attention at all. Only when he detected a hint of desperation that he raised his voice before she passed.

"Getting away from the castle?" That was an easy enough assumption. Spike had been around long enough to spot a resident in any setting. He doubted she was a pickpocket, but he decided to keep his hopes up anyway.

[ensorceler]

The voice is familiar, but not enough for her to recall a name. There is that vague sense of recollection, but it doesn't quite overcome her immediate wariness about being spoken to by a strange man on the street in the middle of the night.

But, then, what is it she's looking for?

She stops to turn, squinting in the darkness at whatever it is that he's doing, and waving a hand at the smoke.

"I suppose that is one manner in which to explain it. Have we met, sir?"

[gottaknockhard]

Bingo. He wondered if he should feel sad that he was right, but residents did have a certain way of sticking out like a sore thumb.

Her voice held that same familiarity to him, and if he could put his finger on it, he would say something charming and deceptively humble in response. He couldn't though, so he shrugged instead.

"Do you know many shady men who stay out this late?"