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palace_will.
Will sat on the bench seat in the East garden, his arms folded and looked at the wall. Twelve feet high if it was an inch, thick and wide, but not, he’d already decided, insurmountable. There stood a sturdy, ancient, majestic [and all that other descriptive crap] oak tree with a branch conveniently growing to within feet of the top of the wall. And Will had an exceptionally well-honed sense of balance and timing; he knew he could make the four foot leap easily and be over the wall in no time.
He’d been at Palace for precisely five days and already was chafing at the lack of freedom. Not that he was limited in his choice of what he could do within the walls, Heck no! There was a veritable plethora of things to do and see and try.
He’d rapidly come to the conclusion that it was the principle of the thing rather than any real sense of restriction. He’d exchanged one sort of invisible prison for another and he wasn’t gonna stand for it, no sir. Will Kemp was busting out. Coming back, but busting out.
“You’ll never make it.”
The smug, amused tone broke in on Will’s reverie and he cursed himself silently for not paying more attention to his surrounds. It was unlike him to be so slack and to have someone creep up on him so easily. He dropped his arms, his steady regard of the barrier and turned to face his accuser.
“Oh yes I will.” he drawled, his pose one of lazy confidence as his eyes raked over the newcomer. They’d be of similar ages and similar build, too. But the interloper was dark, with black hair and olive skin that carried faint traces of a tan, eyes of a rich blue* and pretty damned good-looking, despite the hint of arrogance in the way he held himself.
The young man looked at him in shock. “I was joking.” he admitted, giving Will a much closer examination. “But you’re not.”
Will shook his head, tendrils of nut brown and gold flicking across his face. “Nope.” He answered freely and with no hint of a boast. “I never say anything I don’t mean.”
One dark, elegantly arched eyebrow shot upward. “But why? Why would you want to? And while I’m at it, why the hell be so stupid as to declare your intentions in advance, to a stranger? You don’t look stupid.”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Will grinned and leaned back against the rails of the bench, lifting one leg to rest atop the other. “Because it’s there. Because I can. And,” he tilted his head and winked, green eyes dancing with mirth. “because no one can stop me.”
“I can stop you.”
Like Will’s earlier declaration, this one contained no hint of a boast or a challenge, just a simple statement of fact. Will was liking what he was seeing more and more every minute. “Do tell. How you plan on managing that?” he grinned.
“I’d . . .” the young man hesitated and obviously changed tack. “I’d tell Security of course.”
“Yeah, of course.” He’d been hoping for something a little more . . . creative than that. Will shrugged, dismissing the possibility of Security holding him. “Waste of their time.” he told him. “Seeing as I’m coming right back.”
“You’re . . .? Then what’s the point?” He sat down then, taking the other end of the bench, his long, rangy body angled so that he was facing Will.
“There isn’t one.” Will’s shoulders lifted and fell again and he smiled. “Except the challenge involved in getting away with it.” The breeze had come up and he tucked his hair behind his ear, the cool puffs of air drying the sweat on his chest the sun had bought out and his nipples contracted, tingling as it wafted across them.
“What name do I tell them to put on your gravestone?” his companion asked dryly.
“Will.” he answered. “But it’ll be carved on a memorial stone, not a gravestone. ‘Will woz ‘ere.’” he wrote in the air.
That earned a chuckle and the first truly genuine smile he’d seen. And a nice smile it was, too. Will returned it with one of his own.
“The Count du Praia, then.” The arch of the eyebrow had a faintly smug look about it, as did the twist to the sculptured lips.
It was Will’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Not exactly common knowledge in Calera, a fact which narrowed the field somewhat. His companion’s face held an expectant look and Will exaggerated a sigh, getting to his feet slowly and executing a perfect, formal bow.
“Highness.” he greeted. Then he totally spoiled the gesture by peeking up from his position looking highly amused. “But which one?”
The other man pulled a face but his eyes gave away his amusement. “Christian.”
Will straightened. “Well met, cuz.” he deadpanned, dropping back into his seat.
Christian let out a snort. “Fifteen generations ago, that might have applied.”
“You counted?” Will looked horrified.
Christian rolled his eyes. “You’re weird.”
“You’re uptight.”
“I’m . . . I. . . What?” Christian spluttered.
Will grinned. “But we can fix that.” he said. “And we’ll start with you giving me a hand to get over this wall.”
~~
“They what?!” Marton leaned back in his chair, playing with the pen in his hand as he watched his private secretary shuffle papers, his face aflame with embarrassment as he made his report.
“Went over the wall, Highness. The first time. Ahh, several weeks ago.” He consulted his ever-present notebook. “The second, umm, incident, was last night. His Royal Highness and the, err, Count, set off the alarms in Royal Park, sire. Just . . . walked through them and, ah, vanished.” He sounded both frustrated and furious, emotions Marton supposed he should be feeling himself. Instead he found it rather amusing, if a little worrying.
“And you’re just telling me this now?” He eyed Lucius and tried to keep his expression schooled to one of parental concern.
“Sire, Security did not wish to alarm you.” Lucius fussed. “But after this second . . . well, anything could have happened. The prince had no security . . . they, they went into town, Sire! Unaccompanied!”
Oh, dear and wasn’t that dreadful. Marton bit down on the laughter bubbling in his throat. Not that it wasn’t a concern, it was. It was just Lucius’ reaction to it all that was so mightily amusing. The man was horrified for all the wrong reasons! Not for fear of bodily harm or serious injury, but for protocol’s sake. It really was too funny.
“What did Security do?” Marton wanted to know.
The sensible question seemed to calm Lucius somewhat and the fluttering of his hands ceased. “The alarms went off, of course.” he said. “But once identification was made the full alert was scaled down and . . . ahh . . . let me see . . . ah, yes. Bodyguards were dispatched at once, Highness, to find the boys, the . . . err . . . Prince with all due speed and caution, Sire.”
“And did they? Find him?” Marton twiddled the pen between his fingers.
“Ahh, no Sire.” Lucius admitted. “Well, they did. But not until much later. Actually,” he consulted yet another piece of paper “not until his Highness was on his way back to Palace, Sire. They located him, oh, and the Count as they came up the hill.” Lucius’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They were drunk, Sire.” He sounded horrified.
Marton looked up. “The bodyguards were drunk.” he said, straight-faced.
“Oh. Oh. No, Sire. No.” Lucius began to flap again. “The Prince. And . . . the other one. The Count.”
“Ahh.” Marton sat back up and dropped the pen on the desk, folding his fingers together on the surface. “And what recommendations does that report contain, Lucius? What should I do?” He would have to do something, but he was already sure, without hearing it, that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be anything Security cautioned.
“Several things, Sire.” Now Lucius was back on familiar ground his voice was so much more confident. “Naturally, the problem of the oak tree has already been solved so . . .”
“They didn’t cut it down?!” Marton interrupted, mildly horrified by the thought.
“Oh, no, no. Certainly not.” Lucius was quick to reassure. “I see here that the branch, the offending branch was removed, Sire. No, not cut down. Not entirely.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“Yes, of course. Ah . . . as for Royal Park, Your Highness, Security recommends the reinstitution of armed patrols as well as a manned station. . . .”
Marton held up his hand for a moment’s silence. Patrols! What a ludicrous notion! For two high-spirited lads! No way. He told Lucius so and silenced his protests with another wave and a stern, “Anything else?”
“One other suggestion, Highness.” Lucius sounded sullen. “They suggest re-setting the Count’s bracelets to Security Level 10a, Sire. To, err, nullify the threat he poses . .” Marton’s hand was raised again.
Keep the lad confined indoors, in other words. Another over-reaction. There was one other method of dealing with this that none of them seemed to have thought of, Marton however, had. Quick, simple and, above all, safe. He looked up at Lucius who was hovering, his plain, narrow face filled with trepidation.
“Get them up here.” Marton commanded. “Both of them.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “It’s about time I met Will Kemp.”
~~
*OoC note: The real Christian is not blue-eyed. However, I chose to match his eye-color and those of his sister and mother for the purposes of this rpg.
Will sat on the bench seat in the East garden, his arms folded and looked at the wall. Twelve feet high if it was an inch, thick and wide, but not, he’d already decided, insurmountable. There stood a sturdy, ancient, majestic [and all that other descriptive crap] oak tree with a branch conveniently growing to within feet of the top of the wall. And Will had an exceptionally well-honed sense of balance and timing; he knew he could make the four foot leap easily and be over the wall in no time.
He’d been at Palace for precisely five days and already was chafing at the lack of freedom. Not that he was limited in his choice of what he could do within the walls, Heck no! There was a veritable plethora of things to do and see and try.
He’d rapidly come to the conclusion that it was the principle of the thing rather than any real sense of restriction. He’d exchanged one sort of invisible prison for another and he wasn’t gonna stand for it, no sir. Will Kemp was busting out. Coming back, but busting out.
“You’ll never make it.”
The smug, amused tone broke in on Will’s reverie and he cursed himself silently for not paying more attention to his surrounds. It was unlike him to be so slack and to have someone creep up on him so easily. He dropped his arms, his steady regard of the barrier and turned to face his accuser.
“Oh yes I will.” he drawled, his pose one of lazy confidence as his eyes raked over the newcomer. They’d be of similar ages and similar build, too. But the interloper was dark, with black hair and olive skin that carried faint traces of a tan, eyes of a rich blue* and pretty damned good-looking, despite the hint of arrogance in the way he held himself.
The young man looked at him in shock. “I was joking.” he admitted, giving Will a much closer examination. “But you’re not.”
Will shook his head, tendrils of nut brown and gold flicking across his face. “Nope.” He answered freely and with no hint of a boast. “I never say anything I don’t mean.”
One dark, elegantly arched eyebrow shot upward. “But why? Why would you want to? And while I’m at it, why the hell be so stupid as to declare your intentions in advance, to a stranger? You don’t look stupid.”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Will grinned and leaned back against the rails of the bench, lifting one leg to rest atop the other. “Because it’s there. Because I can. And,” he tilted his head and winked, green eyes dancing with mirth. “because no one can stop me.”
“I can stop you.”
Like Will’s earlier declaration, this one contained no hint of a boast or a challenge, just a simple statement of fact. Will was liking what he was seeing more and more every minute. “Do tell. How you plan on managing that?” he grinned.
“I’d . . .” the young man hesitated and obviously changed tack. “I’d tell Security of course.”
“Yeah, of course.” He’d been hoping for something a little more . . . creative than that. Will shrugged, dismissing the possibility of Security holding him. “Waste of their time.” he told him. “Seeing as I’m coming right back.”
“You’re . . .? Then what’s the point?” He sat down then, taking the other end of the bench, his long, rangy body angled so that he was facing Will.
“There isn’t one.” Will’s shoulders lifted and fell again and he smiled. “Except the challenge involved in getting away with it.” The breeze had come up and he tucked his hair behind his ear, the cool puffs of air drying the sweat on his chest the sun had bought out and his nipples contracted, tingling as it wafted across them.
“What name do I tell them to put on your gravestone?” his companion asked dryly.
“Will.” he answered. “But it’ll be carved on a memorial stone, not a gravestone. ‘Will woz ‘ere.’” he wrote in the air.
That earned a chuckle and the first truly genuine smile he’d seen. And a nice smile it was, too. Will returned it with one of his own.
“The Count du Praia, then.” The arch of the eyebrow had a faintly smug look about it, as did the twist to the sculptured lips.
It was Will’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Not exactly common knowledge in Calera, a fact which narrowed the field somewhat. His companion’s face held an expectant look and Will exaggerated a sigh, getting to his feet slowly and executing a perfect, formal bow.
“Highness.” he greeted. Then he totally spoiled the gesture by peeking up from his position looking highly amused. “But which one?”
The other man pulled a face but his eyes gave away his amusement. “Christian.”
Will straightened. “Well met, cuz.” he deadpanned, dropping back into his seat.
Christian let out a snort. “Fifteen generations ago, that might have applied.”
“You counted?” Will looked horrified.
Christian rolled his eyes. “You’re weird.”
“You’re uptight.”
“I’m . . . I. . . What?” Christian spluttered.
Will grinned. “But we can fix that.” he said. “And we’ll start with you giving me a hand to get over this wall.”
~~
“They what?!” Marton leaned back in his chair, playing with the pen in his hand as he watched his private secretary shuffle papers, his face aflame with embarrassment as he made his report.
“Went over the wall, Highness. The first time. Ahh, several weeks ago.” He consulted his ever-present notebook. “The second, umm, incident, was last night. His Royal Highness and the, err, Count, set off the alarms in Royal Park, sire. Just . . . walked through them and, ah, vanished.” He sounded both frustrated and furious, emotions Marton supposed he should be feeling himself. Instead he found it rather amusing, if a little worrying.
“And you’re just telling me this now?” He eyed Lucius and tried to keep his expression schooled to one of parental concern.
“Sire, Security did not wish to alarm you.” Lucius fussed. “But after this second . . . well, anything could have happened. The prince had no security . . . they, they went into town, Sire! Unaccompanied!”
Oh, dear and wasn’t that dreadful. Marton bit down on the laughter bubbling in his throat. Not that it wasn’t a concern, it was. It was just Lucius’ reaction to it all that was so mightily amusing. The man was horrified for all the wrong reasons! Not for fear of bodily harm or serious injury, but for protocol’s sake. It really was too funny.
“What did Security do?” Marton wanted to know.
The sensible question seemed to calm Lucius somewhat and the fluttering of his hands ceased. “The alarms went off, of course.” he said. “But once identification was made the full alert was scaled down and . . . ahh . . . let me see . . . ah, yes. Bodyguards were dispatched at once, Highness, to find the boys, the . . . err . . . Prince with all due speed and caution, Sire.”
“And did they? Find him?” Marton twiddled the pen between his fingers.
“Ahh, no Sire.” Lucius admitted. “Well, they did. But not until much later. Actually,” he consulted yet another piece of paper “not until his Highness was on his way back to Palace, Sire. They located him, oh, and the Count as they came up the hill.” Lucius’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They were drunk, Sire.” He sounded horrified.
Marton looked up. “The bodyguards were drunk.” he said, straight-faced.
“Oh. Oh. No, Sire. No.” Lucius began to flap again. “The Prince. And . . . the other one. The Count.”
“Ahh.” Marton sat back up and dropped the pen on the desk, folding his fingers together on the surface. “And what recommendations does that report contain, Lucius? What should I do?” He would have to do something, but he was already sure, without hearing it, that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be anything Security cautioned.
“Several things, Sire.” Now Lucius was back on familiar ground his voice was so much more confident. “Naturally, the problem of the oak tree has already been solved so . . .”
“They didn’t cut it down?!” Marton interrupted, mildly horrified by the thought.
“Oh, no, no. Certainly not.” Lucius was quick to reassure. “I see here that the branch, the offending branch was removed, Sire. No, not cut down. Not entirely.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“Yes, of course. Ah . . . as for Royal Park, Your Highness, Security recommends the reinstitution of armed patrols as well as a manned station. . . .”
Marton held up his hand for a moment’s silence. Patrols! What a ludicrous notion! For two high-spirited lads! No way. He told Lucius so and silenced his protests with another wave and a stern, “Anything else?”
“One other suggestion, Highness.” Lucius sounded sullen. “They suggest re-setting the Count’s bracelets to Security Level 10a, Sire. To, err, nullify the threat he poses . .” Marton’s hand was raised again.
Keep the lad confined indoors, in other words. Another over-reaction. There was one other method of dealing with this that none of them seemed to have thought of, Marton however, had. Quick, simple and, above all, safe. He looked up at Lucius who was hovering, his plain, narrow face filled with trepidation.
“Get them up here.” Marton commanded. “Both of them.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “It’s about time I met Will Kemp.”
~~
*OoC note: The real Christian is not blue-eyed. However, I chose to match his eye-color and those of his sister and mother for the purposes of this rpg.
