My Lord - BY HARV

He wondered absently at the quiet of the room.

Patience had long been a family trait. From his Father and his Father's Father, each had been instilled with a greatness of the virtue, the better to rule as rulers would. Could. Should. Each had delivered to the veil of Dreams, a mandate worth of common and nobility alike and each had brought with them a fairness that had demanded attention. Their courts were the epitome of Fairness and no few degrees of justice had been handed down to all those deserving of it, either upon or in the name of. Each of them was responsible for great tragedy and solemn wisdom and it was this heritage that had their Family name spoken of in hushed reverence and respect amongst those below the Throne of Grey.

So to, did he wonder if his Father and his Father's Father before him, come to know the quiet that the Throne could inspire.

The Grey Hall was crafted of anvils and gunmetal; tall walls, frilled and ruffled with the meticulous care of waves, granite chiselled with the precision of a thousand Boggans, earnestly hollowing out the broad pillars and stonework walls until it looked as if the tides themselves rolled across each worked surface to all sides, fountaining and splashing toward the seat of the Throne, where they culminated in a grand chair, that churned spume into a regal space where sat the Royal Line each before to this moment. the floors were a fluid thing, marbles etched with the foamed greens and rich blues of the sea, glittering with the ore dug free of the Koboldic mines hidden well beneath the mountain surface where Banality could not reach and the Dreaming spawned minerals that would never see the dawn of humanity's realms. The pillars were each a mountainous image of Titans, Gods and Heroes, standing stalwart and convicted, facing the Court interior to grant their strength an enduring qualities to those that named this home, while the ceiling above was a black and slate melee of a frozen thunder storm, polished and gleaming in certain spots as to capture the light and make of it lightning with every glance upward.

Those below the sea-salt steps that bled down from his seat, milled and murmured quietly amongst themselves; patrons of the Kingdom of Fog and Salt, each bore the crest of the Homeland, a gilded circle, a brilliant field of darkest green and the mist wreathed presence of a trident, prongs facing the sky. Ladies of finest elegance, painted in the misting sparkle of sea-foam upon their cheeks and the darkened khol of the watery black about their eyes. Pretty stones gathered around their ears, from tip to tender lobe, pierced through like some sheath that sprouted fine fins outward and gave the illusion of gills. Well to do men, stood in fine regalia, many a military dress laying double-breasted greens and subtle blacks beneath silver filigree and trimming, the Sabre, a tradition within the court proper, hanging from no few duelist belts. Beards, some fresh and budding, others aged and trim, fleshed most of those present, a tradition held by the King himself as his Father and Father's Father before him.

At the double doors, the faintest clink of metal from the standing guard; Trolls, broad and mammoth, grown from the stock of the Mountain kind, where winter froze out all but the sturdiest and carved Heroes from the very rockface itself. Helmed and armoured in the fanning grieves and vambraces of the nautical fins and the down-turned horns of mountainous goats, each was a dark glare from within a T visor, their hands clutching the hafts of mammoth War-axes, the blades resting comfortably between either mailed boot, each length of black mahogany handle notched and nicked from War time battles. Their capes, the rustic grey of the King's Honour Guard, dusted with worn and frayed threads and patches. Hallmarks of soldiers sent to War. Badges of Honour and Glory, worn with pride.

Beyond the windows, high overhead, the sound of the wind collected at the back of the mind, a conscious thing both playful and curious, brushing up against the panes of coloured glass that filtered in stray light from moon and sun both, sending bolts of reflected lightning skating across the thunderhead ceiling while splashes of shadow, gave movement to the marbled clouds. The vague rattle of glass was a distant call above the din, carrying the atmosphere of the mountains into the Great Hall with welcome familiarity.

And the settled drum of a distant voice in his ear, off to one side, seemingly forgotten or simply ignored.

He envisioned the silence as a blanket that fell with him, every time he took the Throne. Whether the court was quiet or not, it came with him and levelled all to a buzz that he found he could ignore with perfect ease. He would cup his chin between his fingers and thumb, beard pinched and bursting from between those digits, regarding the courtiers, generals and dukes that resided on the floors below. He would watch them re-live old battles and other times, young moments and current events. He would watch them chortle and solemnly nod, flirt and clench their jaws around some imagined insult. He would stare as they gathered themselves into each other's introductions and lose track of their lips around each other's names, repeated or recounted for the tales attached to them.

He watched but would rarely listen, lost as he was above the blanket fallen.

Except for that voice on his left side that steadily grew more insistent as the silence wore on until, even his great patience could not be maintained and he would lean up from his grasping fingers, turn his head just slightly and glance down at the slippered feat of the slender creature in the throne beside him.

"What is it?" His voice as gravel, low and much more of a feeling than it was a sound.

The voice settled for a moment. Sensing his tone. Sensing his mood. Familiar to say the least. He heard her clearing throat and adjusted tone and felt a pang of vague regret strike his chest, enough that his head rose a fraction to take in her silvered gown, with the dark green layer below.

"I did not wish to disturb, My Lord in his moment of reverie."

"But...?"

And watched as she shifted in place, knees bending toward him even as her grey slippered feet remained in place.

"But the court has gathered and your Subjects await the news that comes with the Fresh Moon's rise."

He sucked in a breath, allowing it to fill his lungs, settling further into the soft comforts of the Throne's backing, the colour and curvature no more or less than the rest of the steel-worked seat, inseparably describable from the rest. His eyes remain with her and the new vantage exposed the most slope of the dress, it's high collar collecting just beneath her chin, where pale green lace reached over a delicately pale throat and gathered in the softest of webs behind either emerald sheathed ear. Her hair, a midnight sky of seamless locks was bunched up delicately and intricately upon her head, drawing a vague severity into her otherwise stunning features. He caught her lips in his gaze, a brief thing. Slender and capable of the greatest expressions and yet even and unmoved in this moment. He found himself frowning just slightly and watched the reaction bend that severity to a moment's mourning.

"My Lord?"

He rumbled, sucking in another breath.

"You are right, wife. They have waited enough."

She looked to search him a moment, scouring his face with quick surgical glances before, reluctance and duty carried her eyes out into the crowd. He stole his gaze out onto the people and like some sensitive tide to the arrival of a meteor, they sensed his attentions and silence, true silence, steadily carved out the noise and left the stage for him.

"Welcome, Knights and Ladies. Lords and Dames. Once more you come unto my House and once more am I touched and thankful for the presence you bring. You, the mountain to my Peak. You, the People to my Kingdom. Hail, Fog and Salt."

"Hail! Fog and Salt!" Came the automatic reply, military fists tapping the place over many hearts, more slender hands settling open palm in the same place followed closely by a stately curtsey.

"We gather here today to speak as we always do upon this, the Fresh Moon Rising. In this time, we know the newness of the Tides and the beginnings of our changing Reign. Spring fast approaches us and the Long Winter snows which grace us with the Memory of Slumber begin to settle and melt away. Soon, we will begin to emerge and the bloom of this Kingdom will gather once more and bring with it, prosperity and strength..."

The applause was stately, if slightly enthused. Many smiles and expectant joy rose within the eyes of those gathered.

"But it is not without it's threats as well. Even now, the ice and floes that marr the coastline, carry evidence and whispers of the Dwellers Below-" He heard a few murmurs cut through the throng, cast an eye at several greying generals who's attentions seemed to sharpen "-and I fear, with Spring, we shall know War once again." The murmurs intensified but never rose to challenge his voice. He allowed them a moment to digest, gaze finding familiar faces and the reactions there-on. He felt her hand press slender fingers to touch his and resisted a grimace to his face, clamped down by sculpted reflexes and years of training.

"The Tidefolk send their messages to our shores. Not two nights hence, we received the bodies of several of the Garrison Forge at the beach." A general gasp of surprise and outrage ran through the crowd, several military stepping forward with barely restrained demands of identification. "Sir Orin of Vales and Dame Laudna Brightfen, were delivered back to us, Dream-slain and mortal once again. The mists have claimed each of them alongside several of their brave soldiers among the Stoic Legions. Our numbers are thinned in this, most cowardly attack." He gave them another several heartbeats to vent their outrage in the air. Her hand upon his found the cleft between his fingers and palm and he drummed up the effort to squeeze some reassurance back into her grasp.

"We hope for their return to the Horizon-forever soon, but friends, do not take their passing as a sign of our failure but instead, as a Warning." He found the strength to lean forward, a familiar firmness gripping his chest, his free hand settling upon the edge of the armrest, where the spray of the metal-worked tides topped. "We are not so weak as to allow the Dwellers Below to frighten us with these base tactics. They wish to send a message of debasement and fear to our number, frightening us away from the shore that they remain aloof and mysterious within the dark under the water and wave. They seek to show us their superiority through nothing more than cheap ploys and tactical pranks. They wish to overwhelm us with our own imaginings and hope it will send us scurrying back into the Mountain..." He felt them still, their murmurs settle. He watched their lips grimly press together, stoicism bleeding through limbs and upturned chins with the grim conviction of defiance.

"But they do not understand the mountain. How it looms and stands. How it will do so over years and decades. Over ages and through the Horizon-forever. From here, we are the roar of winds, gathered between peaks and summits. From here we are the avalanche and the sky-cutting peaks. From here, thunder and lightning fall and the mists are not feared but mastered. The dark is not a place of woe and terror, but a hole down which they crawled and one we shall follow, spear in hand and fury spat from throats and maw."

He watched the Trolls, their axes lifted mere inches off the ground, the marble ringing as they struck, a resounding clamour.

"With Spring coming, we shall herald the War to the Tidefolk who seek to lash us with their spite and fell the mountain as the water breaks."

Once more those axes rose and fell, a murmur clinging to every set of lips.

"We will be the rocks that shatter the wave and spume. The shore which beats back the Ocean. We shall be the rockfall that dams the river and the Quake that drains the sea for in this kingdom, and each subject, the Mountain lives. The mountain rises."

He did not raise his voice to passion. Did not raise it to fierceness or valour. He did not need to. The gravel with which he spoke, carried his words to the corners of the Great Hall and he saw a terrible righteousness enter every eye between that space. He watched old generals mouth their agreement and dames carry birth of resiliency in their set jaws. He stole glances from no few of the knights, their hands strayed instinctually toward the blades at their hips and sides, pommels mounted by gloved palms.

"The Mountain lives here, friends. My Friends. It lives here and we will not move."

The roar that greeted him filled the Great Hall, accompanied by the hammering axes of the Trolls by the doors. He leaned back in his throne, watching them cheer and bellow their support and strength. Watching as they embodied the Mountain.

...And he felt a great regret again, as he failed to summon the same within his own chest.

She squeezed his hand once more and this time he did not squeeze back. Felt her grip peel away from his a few moments later and heard, unlike the rest of the clamouring room, her voice, distant, in his ear.

"My Lord. Your Generals await the War Call. Shall they gather?" He heard something in her voice, a tightness, a pain. It made him tired and he climbed to his feet, watching them cheer.

"Yes. Make the Call. We shall gather on the 'morrow." He paused, nodding to one of the bearded Aged in the crowd, who saluted in kind. He mustered a nod.

"Tonight, I goto to the Chalet."

He turned then, to step down from the throne. Down the Sea-salt steps, where the crowd parted for him. On toward the doors, which swung open on Trollish hands and toward the inner guts of the Grey Mantle, leaving behind a clarion crowd, a Hall built of Legendary promises and ancient traditions...

...And the slowly breaking heart of a Queen he didn't love.