The spoils of war (S-Freak & lycanyounot)

Featuring Queen Madelaine and Ranulf the Captive



The war had been long. Seemingly endless. The treasure-chambers of the castle had long been emptied and only because her enemies had had similar problems - and because she refused to give up her kingdom - had they finally tasted victory. She had lost too many soldiers and too many servants had vanished.

The man in front of her was neither. Or... Both.. Depending on how you chose to look at it. He was a soldier. Just not her soldier. He was one of the enemy's soldiers, who had made her life unnecessarily difficult during the war, and she couldn't quite hide her satisfaction of having him kneel down in chains in front of her right now. And from now on, he would be her servant.

He was heavily guarded - a man on either side of him, pointing a spear in the general direction of his torso - as she walked nearer. "Do you speak the common tongue, servant?" she asked in a tone, he might find insulting.

It wasn't fair to say he'd been exceptionally high-ranking, before all of this. Just another soldier, another corpse holding a sword, waiting for the day he'd die on some battlefield of a war waged by people he'd never met. But those were thoughts better suited to poets, to those with something to say. Ranulf had very little to say, anymore. They'd lost the battle, and with their numbers dwindling, it'd been no great shock they'd lost the war. Ranulf, along with a few others he'd spoken to in the little downtime they were afforded, had all claimed to see their deaths before them. The others hadn't been wrong, their corpses were somewhere on that battlefield, just as they were meant to be.

Instead of that, he was here. Weighed down by chains and the men next to him, he wasn't much of a threat. Ranulf might've been angry, might've been furious, even, but he wasn't mad. He'd lived through the battle, through the war; like hell he'd throw it away by doing something as mundane as attacking while he was so closely guarded. His mind was loud, giving him dozens of attempts of strategy - but he'd neither slept a full night, nor eaten a full meal in weeks. He was not in peak form. He wouldn't survive any kind of rebellion.

His eyes were clear, at least, when he glared up at her. Her, the reason so many men had died, and she had made a point of scooping the rest of them up, nothing but items to be collected now. Ranulf's lips pursed at the words. He bit back a growl. He was used to being spoken down to. It'd happened with most of those who commanded them. They were expendable, particularly those who'd lived as long as Ranulf had. Something younger would take his place. He was reluctant to say anything, but a side glance at those spearheads, and he fought for something beyond a 'yes'. "Better than you, I imagine."

Her eyes flared at his insult and she slapped him across the face with a force, she hadn't known, she possessed. She stood in front of him for some time, panting from her anger, before she calmed herself and straightened up from the crouch she had found herself in. "Well aren't you cute, soldier boy? We'll see how long you can hold on to that insulent tone of yours."

She stepped back and took place on the chair, he was kneeling in front of - a newfound smile on her face. "I am your Queen. You will be my personal servant. Until suchs time as you have proven your worth, you will be strictly chained and it will make your tasks much harder to do. But these chambers are your world for the time being. You understand?"

The force of that slap clearly caught the soldier by surprise, enough that his head jerked, and he spent a couple seconds simply keeping still, pain blossoming across his cheek, which was quickly growing red. He seemed to regain himself before she moved, although he kept quiet, more out of an interest in observing her than any kind of fear. A woman that could hit hard wasn't something to be feared, he'd been hit plenty hard in his time -- but if she was prone to lashing out, he wanted to know what would happen after he caused it. Because he wasn't so ignorant as to think it wouldn't happen again. Her attempt to calm herself and regain that regal standing was commendable, but already Ranulf wanted her angry again, wanted her to lose her temper badly enough that she missed something. Anything. He couldn't get out now, but that didn't mean he couldn't ever.

His smile in response to hers was sarcastic. His knees ached, he'd been on them since well before the Queen had come out. "Had we known you were so lonely, Your Highness, I'm sure someone would've spent the night with you." It was a suggestion he'd known shouldn't come out of his mouth, but it'd been too late by the time he'd realised. But he didn't drop that smile, even bothering to straighten his back just a little.

This time, his insolent tone drew a smile on her face. It wasn't a happy smile though. It was a cold smile. An expectant smile. A smile, some would describe as mad. "How generous of you," she mused while placing one leg over the other. "One of you still might." The last sentence was almost inaudible - giving the impression that she might be talking to herself more than to him.

He didn't get a chance to reply. His guards dragged him backwards and into a small, windowless chamber at the corner of the room, where his chains where fastened to a solid iron ring in the floor. In the chamber was a small bed of hay and a pot to use for his needs. Nothing else.

The Queen didn't follow him. And she wouldn't see him for at least a few days - depending on his stubborness and durability.

The smile he received in return was less engaging than that brief anger from before. Was that a disappointment? He couldn't be sure. It was harder to read things when they weren't spelled out with anger, after all. Blank smiles like that could've meant almost anything - anger was obvious, and a lack of it spoke of control more befitting a Queen, he supposed.

He wasn't given much more of a chance to find out. He was being dragged, despite his attempts to rise to his feet awkwardly, hobbled by the chains on his limbs. The chamber was an oddity -- why they'd have something like that in a room anywhere near the Queen was beyond him. It seemed reckless.

Being alone didn't mean he'd lower his guard, though. He'd struggled, more out of necessity than anything, until his wrists were red and raw, and what was left of that strength left him slumped against the wall, still flowering darkly in the direction he'd come from. He was reluctant to shut his eyes, and suitably stiffened and went on alert at any small noise nearby. But even he couldn't stay on high alert constantly, and he was drowsing some hours later. It wasn't real sleep, because he still jolted awake at any noise that could've possibly been made by humans, but his body was desperate to restore some of that energy to already tapped reserves.

In the last three days, the prisoner had been fed only a little, but had gotten all the water, he wanted to drink. This morning, he had been bathed, clothed and combed by guards and maids and his shackles had been returned after they had treated and bound his self inflicted wounds.

Suitably weakened, Madelaine commanded that he kneel by her side, while she ate - his hands at the small of his back and two guards in the background, ready to subdue him, should he be faking his weakness. She ate for a while without addressing, savoring the juicy flavours of the meat in front of her. Then she turned her head to him and spoke, placing a slim, white hand on his chin. "So... Have you learned to address me properly?"

The rest he'd been able to get had left him more clear-headed, and he'd taken them up on their offers for water. It hadn't been a pleasant stay, and the rest wasn't the best he'd ever had (quite the opposite), but it had been rest just the same. He hadn't been particularly helpful that morning as he'd been scrubbed clean and both his body and wounds dressed. He was left bound similarly, and again found himself on his knees before the woman.

Her lack of attention was clearly a message in itself, one that Ranulf did his level best not to answer to. His attention remained off of her, his body tense. His muscles were wound tightly, not only because of the meat he could smell clearly, but in some attempt at keeping control over himself, no matter what the Queen seemed to think she had over him.

The hand at his chin had him lifting it, a quiet attempt at gaining some distance from her. His body was more sluggish than he'd like, and there was less chance than there'd been before to simply up and leave. No doubt, he'd be run though if he so much as bared his teeth. "I'm not sure what way that is - can't imagine there's much you'd want to hear that I'd like to say." His voice wasn't quiet, although it was rough, and not too far off a growl.