Original Fiction: "Restoration and Redemption" (Parthenon Fill)
Title: "Homecoming" (Prologue)
Author:
jamzsquared
Verse: Restoration and Redemption (Original, Historical AU)
Characters: Pierce
Warnings: Mild violence; allusions to murder
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1850
Prompt: Melpomene, "Death of Family"
Summary: Pierce, Prince of Ethion, returns home after a 5 year absence, only to be mysteriously kidnapped.
Notes: My 1st fill for my
parthenon table, All Parnassus
He jerked awake with a start, grunting at the feel of rough rope wrapped around his wrists and ankles. He was on his side, twisted awkwardly on the cold wooden floor of a pitch-dark room. A kidnapping, he thought grimly, forcing himself to slow his breathing and maintain some semblance of calm. Before panic could set in, he had to assess his situation.
His entire face throbbed and ached, the pain growing as he tried to shift in the darkness, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position. Without the use of his hands it was impossible to be certain, but he felt fairly sure that his nose was broken. On the positive side, while his lower lip was cut, the wound crusted over with dried blood, all of his teeth seemed intact, and though one eye was swollen shut, he could make out the single strip of light from beneath the door with the other.
His memories were incomplete, but he could recall disembarking from the ship that had carried him across the strait from the neighboring kingdom of Florillion and navigating the narrow, winding coast road on horseback by moonlight. The rocky cliffside was too exposed and dangerous to make camp for the night, especially with the frost-tinged autumn winds blowing, and so he had set out with his personal guard and the men that his father had sent to escort him back to court. He had hoped to be home by sunset the following day, but it was clear that something disastrous had happened to derail his plans.He would have to pray for the possibility of ransom or, better yet, escape.
The sound of heavy footsteps jerked him back to the present. A shadow darkened the slit of light that emanated from beneath the door, but as he braced himself for his captor’s appearance, he was startled to hear a most familiar voice.
“Where is he?” Though the words were muffled, there was no doubt in his mind - it was Severin Avernus, the Earl of Orham and father to Lady Olivia Isolde, the princess-consort of Ethion. He was one of the most powerful men in the country after the king himself, and though he had always maintained the appropriate level of respect, he had struck Pierce as a most slippery fellow, cunning and intelligent but in all ways, guided and driven by self-interest. What in the world could the earl hope to gain by Pierce’s abduction?
Struggling to gather his wits about him, he listened hard, for every word the man uttered held a potential clue. “What have you done with the prince?”
“We found him near the coast, where you said he’d be, milord.” This voice was unfamiliar, a smooth, deep basso that rumbled darkly.
Another man chimed in. “We killed the rest of ‘em, just like you asked.” He seemed positively giddy, his high, lisping voice shaking with excitement. “And then we disposed of the bodies and stole the rest of the cargo -”
“But the Prince is alive?” Avernus sounded impatient, edgy, irritable “He is unharmed?”
“Well, we maybe roughed him up a bit,” the high-pitched man admitted petulantly, “but it was only ‘cause he struggled!“
“Fool, he was trained by the best soldiers in Ethion!” There was a crash and a loud yelp of pain, and when Avernus spoke again, his voice was cold and deadly quiet. “Do not underestimate his strength or his skill.”
He was being kept alive for the moment, but his guards, many of whom had become companions and friends in the course of his travels, had all been killed. Pierce’s heart was heavy as he contemplated this turn of events.
There was silence, followed by the ominous creaking of rusty hinges as the door finally swung open, flooding the room with unexpected light. Pierce winced, eyes shutting automatically; when he opened them again, Avernus loomed above him, mouth set in a severe line, thick, dark brows beetled together in a forbidding frown. His dark, curly hair was threaded with far more silver than the last time Pierce had seen him, but there was no mistaking the man.
At his signal, the two lackeys who had been responsible for Pierce’s capture came forward and hauled him onto his knees, one on either side of him. The young man’s vision swam but he did his best to hold himself upright, chin lifted imperiously. Pride and anger were all he had to sustain him.
“Home at last.” The earl spoke quietly, almost regretfully, though his dark eyes glittered with a malice that Pierce had never before noted. “I do wish, young prince, that your homecoming could be a happier one, but alas…” He shrugged expansively. “There is little that I can do.”
Though his voice was little more than a coarse croak he did his best to infuse his words with all the contempt and condescension possible. “What sort of game are you playing, having my men killed and imprisoning me? When my father hears of your treachery -” At this, the earl broke into a laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners almost merrily.
“Your father?” he repeated in amusement. “Dear me, is it possible that you could be so daft? I always believed that you were the most intelligent of your kin. Why, it was I who encouraged your father to appoint you as ambassador to Florillion, for you appeared to be the more politically astute, more so than your brother, at the very least.” He sniffed in disdain. “Clearly you learned little in your time there.”
Pierce swallowed hard, the blood pounding in his ears as he fought against the implications of Avernus’s words. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - admit what the older man was trying to suggest. The earl merely smiled indulgently, as though dealing with a sullen child.
“Henry, Humphrey, bring him to his feet.” Abruptly the two lackeys yanked him upwards, both of them grinning in gleeful anticipation. “Now, then, my prince, you asked for your father? Here he is, along with the rest of your pitiful family.”
With a flourish, the treacherous earl yanked back the heavy drapes that covered the single window in the room, and Pierce, against his will, stared past the dirty, smudged glass and the iron bars to see the city gates in the distance. Choking back bile, Pierce stared at the heads of his father, brother and sister-in-law, Avernus’s own beautiful daughter. Dead, all of them. He was the only one who remained, and he was trapped in the hands of their murderer. He stared at the old man with burning eyes, mouth opening and shutting as he struggled to find the words to vent his horror, his disgust, his rage.
“You see,” the older man sighed, “much has happened since you left. Your father, I believe, wrote to you three months ago and requested that you return home.”
Pierce involuntarily glanced down at his trousers-pocket, where he had kept his father’s letter, tattered and worn from so many readings. Avernus, however, merely smiled and held out his hand so that Pierce could see the familiar piece of paper held carelessly between his fingers.
“Ah, yes, here it is. I read it before it reached you, you know. I’ve been reading the king’s mail for some time now.” He shook his head, tsking disappointedly. “He called for you, my prince, but you were too busy wallowing in your abject misery to understand the nature of his pleas. Your father was always cold to you, I know. You thought it was Domenic he loved and prized, that you were little more than a nuisance, the obligatory spare, less compelling than the interests of the crown and his scholarly pursuits.” Pierce blanched at this; Avernus had echoed all the dark thoughts that the young man had harbored for years and parroted them back at him.
He continued on, delighting in the deep wounds he probed and pricked, watching closely at the emotions playing across Pierce’s face. “You loved my daughter, didn’t you? A pity… she would have been happier with you than she was with your imbecilic brother.” He smiled at that, a decidedly wicked grin, dripping with venom. “But the Crown was in need of her wealth. What other option did the king have?”
He stepped closer, his hooked beak of a nose mere inches from Pierce’s. “You ripped your father’s heart out when you left,” he whispered, “but he was too proud to call you back, too filled with pride until he felt the circle of my noose closing around his neck.”
“You had them killed?” he demanded. “All of them? Your own daughter, Avernus? Olivia was innocent of any wrongdoing!”
“A pity, to be sure, but there was no way I could allow her to live. I had hoped to pull your brother’s puppet-strings once he assumed the throne, which would have been child’s play, until I realized that sitting in the shadows was so…” He paused, head cocked to one side as he searched the proper word. “So unsatisfying,” he finished at last.
“I quickly realized that the only way I could have power would be to remove everyone in my way - a bit messy, but eminently practical.” His dark eyes narrowed. “I own the countryside, dear prince. I own the peasants. I own the nobility. Your father spent far too much time congratulating himself for his peaceful kingdom and reading his dusty books to notice until it was too late. The line of the Hallivere kings has been in sad decline for the past three or four generations,” he added with a smirk.
“But I digress. It has been a most delightful interview, Prince Pierce. I have wanted to share my exploits with someone. These fools could not possibly appreciate the foresight and thought required to carry out my plan -” He gestured at Henry and Humphrey with a look of disgust “ - but you, on the other hand, have been a most satisfying audience. I almost regret that I have to kill you, but as you are, of course, already dead, my hands are tied. Your ship was attacked by pirates not three days ago, and all aboard perished most terribly. Such a sad, sad loss for everyone.”
Bristling with fury, Pierce spat into the man’s face, snarling in anger. “You monster!” he bellowed, grunting in pain when Humphrey came forward and punched him in the stomach. “You won’t get away with this!”
Avernus’s eyes burned as he wiped his cheek dry with a lace-edged handkerchief. “You are mistaken - I already have.” He glanced at the two goons.“Dispose of him.”
“Avernus!” Pierce yelled as the earl - now king - swept from the room. “My family will be avenged!” His words echoed emptily in from the stone walls, washing over him mockingly as a black hood was forced over his head. A blow to his temple sent him reeling with pain; after a second pummeling, the world mercifully went black.
Author:
jamzsquared
Verse: Restoration and Redemption (Original, Historical AU)
Characters: Pierce
Warnings: Mild violence; allusions to murder
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1850
Prompt: Melpomene, "Death of Family"
Summary: Pierce, Prince of Ethion, returns home after a 5 year absence, only to be mysteriously kidnapped.
Notes: My 1st fill for my
parthenon table, All Parnassus
He jerked awake with a start, grunting at the feel of rough rope wrapped around his wrists and ankles. He was on his side, twisted awkwardly on the cold wooden floor of a pitch-dark room. A kidnapping, he thought grimly, forcing himself to slow his breathing and maintain some semblance of calm. Before panic could set in, he had to assess his situation.
His entire face throbbed and ached, the pain growing as he tried to shift in the darkness, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position. Without the use of his hands it was impossible to be certain, but he felt fairly sure that his nose was broken. On the positive side, while his lower lip was cut, the wound crusted over with dried blood, all of his teeth seemed intact, and though one eye was swollen shut, he could make out the single strip of light from beneath the door with the other.
His memories were incomplete, but he could recall disembarking from the ship that had carried him across the strait from the neighboring kingdom of Florillion and navigating the narrow, winding coast road on horseback by moonlight. The rocky cliffside was too exposed and dangerous to make camp for the night, especially with the frost-tinged autumn winds blowing, and so he had set out with his personal guard and the men that his father had sent to escort him back to court. He had hoped to be home by sunset the following day, but it was clear that something disastrous had happened to derail his plans.He would have to pray for the possibility of ransom or, better yet, escape.
The sound of heavy footsteps jerked him back to the present. A shadow darkened the slit of light that emanated from beneath the door, but as he braced himself for his captor’s appearance, he was startled to hear a most familiar voice.
“Where is he?” Though the words were muffled, there was no doubt in his mind - it was Severin Avernus, the Earl of Orham and father to Lady Olivia Isolde, the princess-consort of Ethion. He was one of the most powerful men in the country after the king himself, and though he had always maintained the appropriate level of respect, he had struck Pierce as a most slippery fellow, cunning and intelligent but in all ways, guided and driven by self-interest. What in the world could the earl hope to gain by Pierce’s abduction?
Struggling to gather his wits about him, he listened hard, for every word the man uttered held a potential clue. “What have you done with the prince?”
“We found him near the coast, where you said he’d be, milord.” This voice was unfamiliar, a smooth, deep basso that rumbled darkly.
Another man chimed in. “We killed the rest of ‘em, just like you asked.” He seemed positively giddy, his high, lisping voice shaking with excitement. “And then we disposed of the bodies and stole the rest of the cargo -”
“But the Prince is alive?” Avernus sounded impatient, edgy, irritable “He is unharmed?”
“Well, we maybe roughed him up a bit,” the high-pitched man admitted petulantly, “but it was only ‘cause he struggled!“
“Fool, he was trained by the best soldiers in Ethion!” There was a crash and a loud yelp of pain, and when Avernus spoke again, his voice was cold and deadly quiet. “Do not underestimate his strength or his skill.”
He was being kept alive for the moment, but his guards, many of whom had become companions and friends in the course of his travels, had all been killed. Pierce’s heart was heavy as he contemplated this turn of events.
There was silence, followed by the ominous creaking of rusty hinges as the door finally swung open, flooding the room with unexpected light. Pierce winced, eyes shutting automatically; when he opened them again, Avernus loomed above him, mouth set in a severe line, thick, dark brows beetled together in a forbidding frown. His dark, curly hair was threaded with far more silver than the last time Pierce had seen him, but there was no mistaking the man.
At his signal, the two lackeys who had been responsible for Pierce’s capture came forward and hauled him onto his knees, one on either side of him. The young man’s vision swam but he did his best to hold himself upright, chin lifted imperiously. Pride and anger were all he had to sustain him.
“Home at last.” The earl spoke quietly, almost regretfully, though his dark eyes glittered with a malice that Pierce had never before noted. “I do wish, young prince, that your homecoming could be a happier one, but alas…” He shrugged expansively. “There is little that I can do.”
Though his voice was little more than a coarse croak he did his best to infuse his words with all the contempt and condescension possible. “What sort of game are you playing, having my men killed and imprisoning me? When my father hears of your treachery -” At this, the earl broke into a laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners almost merrily.
“Your father?” he repeated in amusement. “Dear me, is it possible that you could be so daft? I always believed that you were the most intelligent of your kin. Why, it was I who encouraged your father to appoint you as ambassador to Florillion, for you appeared to be the more politically astute, more so than your brother, at the very least.” He sniffed in disdain. “Clearly you learned little in your time there.”
Pierce swallowed hard, the blood pounding in his ears as he fought against the implications of Avernus’s words. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - admit what the older man was trying to suggest. The earl merely smiled indulgently, as though dealing with a sullen child.
“Henry, Humphrey, bring him to his feet.” Abruptly the two lackeys yanked him upwards, both of them grinning in gleeful anticipation. “Now, then, my prince, you asked for your father? Here he is, along with the rest of your pitiful family.”
With a flourish, the treacherous earl yanked back the heavy drapes that covered the single window in the room, and Pierce, against his will, stared past the dirty, smudged glass and the iron bars to see the city gates in the distance. Choking back bile, Pierce stared at the heads of his father, brother and sister-in-law, Avernus’s own beautiful daughter. Dead, all of them. He was the only one who remained, and he was trapped in the hands of their murderer. He stared at the old man with burning eyes, mouth opening and shutting as he struggled to find the words to vent his horror, his disgust, his rage.
“You see,” the older man sighed, “much has happened since you left. Your father, I believe, wrote to you three months ago and requested that you return home.”
Pierce involuntarily glanced down at his trousers-pocket, where he had kept his father’s letter, tattered and worn from so many readings. Avernus, however, merely smiled and held out his hand so that Pierce could see the familiar piece of paper held carelessly between his fingers.
“Ah, yes, here it is. I read it before it reached you, you know. I’ve been reading the king’s mail for some time now.” He shook his head, tsking disappointedly. “He called for you, my prince, but you were too busy wallowing in your abject misery to understand the nature of his pleas. Your father was always cold to you, I know. You thought it was Domenic he loved and prized, that you were little more than a nuisance, the obligatory spare, less compelling than the interests of the crown and his scholarly pursuits.” Pierce blanched at this; Avernus had echoed all the dark thoughts that the young man had harbored for years and parroted them back at him.
He continued on, delighting in the deep wounds he probed and pricked, watching closely at the emotions playing across Pierce’s face. “You loved my daughter, didn’t you? A pity… she would have been happier with you than she was with your imbecilic brother.” He smiled at that, a decidedly wicked grin, dripping with venom. “But the Crown was in need of her wealth. What other option did the king have?”
He stepped closer, his hooked beak of a nose mere inches from Pierce’s. “You ripped your father’s heart out when you left,” he whispered, “but he was too proud to call you back, too filled with pride until he felt the circle of my noose closing around his neck.”
“You had them killed?” he demanded. “All of them? Your own daughter, Avernus? Olivia was innocent of any wrongdoing!”
“A pity, to be sure, but there was no way I could allow her to live. I had hoped to pull your brother’s puppet-strings once he assumed the throne, which would have been child’s play, until I realized that sitting in the shadows was so…” He paused, head cocked to one side as he searched the proper word. “So unsatisfying,” he finished at last.
“I quickly realized that the only way I could have power would be to remove everyone in my way - a bit messy, but eminently practical.” His dark eyes narrowed. “I own the countryside, dear prince. I own the peasants. I own the nobility. Your father spent far too much time congratulating himself for his peaceful kingdom and reading his dusty books to notice until it was too late. The line of the Hallivere kings has been in sad decline for the past three or four generations,” he added with a smirk.
“But I digress. It has been a most delightful interview, Prince Pierce. I have wanted to share my exploits with someone. These fools could not possibly appreciate the foresight and thought required to carry out my plan -” He gestured at Henry and Humphrey with a look of disgust “ - but you, on the other hand, have been a most satisfying audience. I almost regret that I have to kill you, but as you are, of course, already dead, my hands are tied. Your ship was attacked by pirates not three days ago, and all aboard perished most terribly. Such a sad, sad loss for everyone.”
Bristling with fury, Pierce spat into the man’s face, snarling in anger. “You monster!” he bellowed, grunting in pain when Humphrey came forward and punched him in the stomach. “You won’t get away with this!”
Avernus’s eyes burned as he wiped his cheek dry with a lace-edged handkerchief. “You are mistaken - I already have.” He glanced at the two goons.“Dispose of him.”
“Avernus!” Pierce yelled as the earl - now king - swept from the room. “My family will be avenged!” His words echoed emptily in from the stone walls, washing over him mockingly as a black hood was forced over his head. A blow to his temple sent him reeling with pain; after a second pummeling, the world mercifully went black.