Hope Falls

“It is now or never Kael, we do not have forever in these meetings, and it’s the last time we will meet for a long time. Open your eyes my love… for me?”

---

“I won’t allow it, I won’t allow them to send you home I promise. I promise.” Daphne assured as she smoothed her sisters hair down. “Have you been seen by a healer? Have you had anything for the pain?”

"Last time? No, no I dream about you all of the time. I'll see you again t-" Kael began to dismiss, fingers twitching to dig his nails into the dirt. Taking in a trembling breath as he blinked his eyes open, almost nervously. "Fi - Fiadh. This isn't a - I'm awake."

---

"We can- can't see anyone. The sha- shame of it... It will be like being paraded."

“I will have someone brought here, I will have them help you here, in private.” Daphne assured, “I am so sorry this happened to you here, I should have kept you safe.”

---

“No, not a dream. You summoned me after that bottle of wine.” Fiadh chuckled, “Welcome back to the land of consciousness.”

Kael sat himself up so quickly that he swayed, throat tightening when his hands raised to try and touch her. Her neck, where Sarika had cut. Eyes flitting from one part of her to another, though always back to that space. Repeating thickly, "Fiadh..."

---

"He is a brute, th- that man. He took pleasure in it. M- mocked us."

“Kael…” Fiadh smiled warmly, reaching her hand to give a featherlight brush against his cheek. “You summoned me… and here I am. I know you tried before but… It was not the right time. But I am here now, for whatever you need. I’m here.”

---

“I’ll have him punished, nobody like that should be in our employ.” Daphne pulled away from her sister and squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be one moment whilst I get someone to fetch Aoife.” She promised before crossing the room to the main doors and opening them, stepping half outside.

“She is convinced, we have done well. She knows what bastards those men were to us.” Iskra whispered.

"What I need... what I- " Kael swallowed. "I don't know what I need, how to navigate anything at the moment. Indira, Daphne. Idris, Daphne's sisters. I - I've fucked up."

---

Agatha let out a slow breath, and nodded. "Yes. Yes, I think it'll be okay now."

“Talk me through it all… the way you would before. I’m in your bed, on your chest and you are making sense of your world out loud… talk to me, my love.” Fiadh encouraged.

---

“Stand firm. Those men roughhoused us and you stabbed the brute to make them stop. She believes us. We can keep her on our side.”

"They - We haven't lied. I haven't said one lie. They could have been priming themselves to do something else. They were full of themselves, especially the big one."

---

"I don't want to spend this time talking about me, and things are not so easy now. I am not a teenager anymore, I am a father, with another on the way. I have a wife. I am going to be King in a matter of months now, it is no longer something years in the future." He laughed humourlessly. "Am I doing - is all oc this what was set? Am I doing okay?"

“You are doing just fine.” Fiadh assured, reaching for him once again - visibly pained when she could not meaningfully connect. “The ancestors are incredibly pleased with you. Everything is going just how it is intended.” She gave him a wry smile. “You know I am limited in what I can say, what I can reveal but to help ease at least one anxiety I can tell you that the child on the way will be perfectly fine… What happened with your son - you will never face that again.”

---

“We have not lied, they harmed us and you stopped them.” Iskra affirmed.

"Was letting Sarika go the right choice? Did I - " Kael laughed humourlessly, though relaxed at the reassurance. "Was granting her the chance to say goodbye to him, giving her what she never gave us... Was it the wrong thing?"

“You were never going to do anything else, it was not in your nature. She will return Kael, in the future. She’ll bring an army to you… But she was always going to walk out of that altercation alive. If you’d tried to kill her she would have shifted. You would have both been injured - you would have both survived, and she would still return for her revenge. Sarika Adair was never going to die on the sands that day, whether or not you tried. By not battling her you saved yourself a lifetime of walking with a limp and missing half your left ear.” Fiadh hummed lightly, “You acting as you did just solidified you are not inherently cruel as a person… that you have compassion even for the lowest of the low… Its just who you are. A man who loves… a man who sees that others love too.”

"An army... war." He echoed, lowering his gaze to look at the floor instead of her then. Simply giving a nod of understanding. "I miss you, Fiadh. I am sorry I panicked, sorry I begged her. Maybe I could have saved you, if I could have pretended. Then it'd be you stepping up as Captain, you replacing Wyatt rather than Rauiri. I'm sorry loving me killed you."

Agatha let out a slow breath, pulling Iskra into a gentle embrace.

“I’m not sorry I loved you. I never will be.” Fiadh shook her head, “I would do it again Kael. The last year of my life with you was always worth it. To have been even a small part of your life is something I will forever treasure. We were never - I was never the end of the line for you, Kael. The plans made are often cruel, they do not take into account of how we feel, how we love. But I was never to be the last woman you loved - as you know… Lady Kenna, Princess Indira, Daphne all followed me. It hurt to discover at first, that I was always intended to be a mere footnote in your life… But for all you gave me I would do it again.”

---

Iskra held her close, only breaking the embrace when Daphne returned to them. “Healer Aoife has been summoned, and I have informed my guards to arrest the men who harmed you last night until the Queen or Kael is available to sentence them.”

"A footnote. No, no.." He reached out, trying to touch her once more and making a quiet, pained noise when he couldn't properly. "You are not a footnote, you are the foundation. They know of you, everyone knows of you. I am not quiet, even now. I tell Idris stories, I will tell my next child. In- Indira... she and I were forging a symbol, to represent her, me, Bodhi and Idris... she used your initial. It was her idea to do that. She knows you are the base, the baseline for all I believe. For how I love. Not a footnote, not something so forgetable.

---

"Even the big one? Even him?"

“You both get tattooed on your wrist before the coronation by the way…” Fiadh whispered as her own tears began to fall. “I never learned what it was before now, we do not know all.” She gave a choked laugh. “She created that for me… you will have that etched for me…” she stared at her hands, wringing them. “Oh they tell us to be calm… tell us we are not allowed to express such strong emotion. We are not here for that but I - how could they expect me to not cry when I am faced with you?”

---

“I have ordered it. If he refuses I imagine he will go straight to the Queen himself. We shall know either way.”

Kael's hands reached up, attempting to cup her face in his hands. "When have we ever done what people told us to do, Fiadh Seagrave?" He breathed, "Are you with your father, mm? He better be proud of everything you are, everything you did. If not, when I get there I shall remember and he will have to justify himself to me."

---

"Have you sent for your husband? I - He will be angry at us."

---

Florence lay in bed, her head leant against Wyatt's with a half open, bleary eyed gaze. Sullivan, now snoring softly, having crawled into the small space between his parents half way through the night when he had awoken screaming from a night terror

“I am, and he is… my mother too.” Fiadh nodded with a tearful smile. “Proud of me for following my heart to be with you, to not caring about whispers and rumours… You should not care for them either Kael. There are paths laid out, ones you may or may not take… Do not let anyone bully you into sending away that little boy of yours. I have seen how the two of you could grow to be. Your relationship nothing like the one with your own father. On the path you stand firm against those who talk about him he ends up one of your closest friends as well as your son. You are already set to be one of the greatest Kings that will ever be written about Kael - Idris by your side makes what they will write about you even greater.”

---

“No. I’ve not sent for him - if he is hungover waking him is the last thing I want to do. That will have him just waving everything to the easiest resolution. If those men have to rot for a few days before Kael and the Queen recover from the festivities then so be it.”

---

Wyatt slept soundly, arm wrapped around his son to keep him close.

"Oh, no, nothing will ever let me put Idirs to the side of my life yet alone send him away. I would give up the crown before I allow such a thing." Kael breathed. "I will not be my father, will not choose the easy path and disassociate from him when it becomes difficult. Idris is one of my biggest joys."

---

"Okay. I -'I would rather not turn this into anything bigger than it - " She cut off as the door knocked once, and Aoife stepped inside.

"Princess Daphne, Your Highness. It is the early in the morning, are you well?"

---

"Hawk!" Iara O'Ferrall's voice came through with faux confidence after several firm knocks against the front door. "We have orders, Sir. You need to come with us."

Florence narrowed her eyes towards the bedroom door, and the front door beyond it. Moving the covers to more firmly tuck her mate and son in as she slowly got to her feet and padded towards the door. "Iara. Now isn't the time."

Sullivan whined, shuffling beneath the covers in a gaze until his grip curled around Wyatt's arms and he settled once more.

“And he will remain so. You are going to be an incredible King, Kael. Thousands the thousands of choices you could or could not make. The wars that may or may not happen, the friends and lovers and enemies you may or not make… in the end when you join us you will be mourned so deeply because of how good you do.” Fiadh assured. “There will be days, months, years even where you think you are failing. That a common talking bird could do better than you, that all is failing, that you are too tired, hurting too deeply, too angry to even think… But if you choose to not give up then you can keep going. The only endings where you are not revered, where you are not a good man, where you are not great, are the endings where you have chosen to no longer fight. Where you have closed your eyes and given up. Be it in battle, be it on a sickbed, be it during loss and grief or through exhaustion… You keep going Kael, and you can do it.”

---

“I am well, yes. My sisters are not. They need their bruises and cuts seeing to and then painkillers and infection prevention, please Aoife. They’ve been sorely mistreated by the men we trust… not uncommon unfortunately.” Daphne said sadly as she stood away from her sisters to allow Aoife to see them.

---

“Princess Daphne’s sisters have been found in a horrific condition this morning Florence, battered and bruised. They are accusing Wyatt and the men on duty last night of beating them. Daphne has ordered them held until further notice, Wyatt included.” Luc informed, “Don’t make us arrest him in front of little Sully, bring him out here…”

"Bullshit, he can not even squeeze my hand without it hurting him. He is exhausted." Florence narrowed her eyes, lips pulling back in a snarl. "You aren't going near him. Turn, walk away."

"We can't do that." Iara answered calmly. "If it is true, if Hawk didn't do anything then he has nothing to fear. As Brennan has said, there is no need to make this messy."

"Luc." Florence breathed, turning her attention to the man. "Please."

---

Aoife narrowed her eyes as her gaze fell upon the Princess', visibly biting her tongue. "Mm, yes, I can see there are injuries."

---

Kael nodded, swallowing. "I- Okay... okay, thank you."

“As for the women in your life… I expect yearly offerings from all of them for teaching you so well in the bedroom, it is clearly why they fall all over you.” Fiadh teased, once again brushing her hand over his cheek.

---

“I understand Hawk would have been injured too, I know what you are thinking. But the indisputable facts are my sisters are harmed at the hands of those men, just as he was harmed at the hands of my sister. They are hurt, they need help… so please…”

---

“Orders are orders Florence. From the future Queen no less. And to be accused of assaulting guests? Royal guests? I cannot ignore the order.”

"Touch my mate and I will rip you apart." Florence's finger nails dug into the wood of the doorframe, creating a physical barrier as a honey gold began to seep into her iris'. "He won't leave this place. Have him on house arrest for now, until Kael can come, anything more then you will have worse to deal with from me."

---

"I did not say a word, Your Highness." Aoife answered frostily. "It is not my business. Though I am confident you have informed your husband of this?"

---

Kael laughed quietly at that, "I shall inform them all. Don't fret."

“He’ll be informed once he has awakened, of course.”

---

“Don’t make us have to arrest the both of you - “

“That won’t be necessary.” Wyatt sighed deeply as he came from the bedroom, pulling his shirt over his head.

---

“If there is a lesson to learn from me, from last night - it is that you cannot will feelings to no longer exist. If they are to dissipate it must happen because it was supposed to happen. I imagine even in a few months time at your coronation when you see Lady Kenna’s face again when she arrived with her father there will be something stirring in your heart too - because you are not a man who can just let go of love. Not when you have lost so much of it, Kael. With Kenna you were told to let her go, to choose between her and her father. You didn’t lose the feeling. With Indira you told yourself you were not going to have a mistress and would only have a wife, you did not lose the feeling. With me… well with me I was taken, you did not lose the feeling…” Fiadh moved to rest her hand over his. “I cannot tell you who to love, who not to… who to choose to shut out of your heart. But there is a reason last night with Indira felt so easy - even if you did feel the guilt after. There is a reason you didn’t stop, that you pulled her closer. There is a reason that you have fought tooth and nail for her happiness all these years even before your son was concerned. You could walk out of our meeting and tell her that that is that and it will never happen again, and lock those feelings away once more and pray they disappear like no other feeling has done when you’ve tried. Or you allow it to flow, and see what happens. Perhaps it ends in tears and you do fall out of love with her, or maybe the things she promised for the three of us will materialise into the things for the three of you.” She raised her eyebrows teasingly. “That is one thing I am incredibly annoyed about, that did sound rather fun and we never even got to try…” she laughed softly, pouting a little in jest. “Shut it down or let it play… it is always your choice, but you have my advice, you have had Ada’s advice… And I will love you no matter what. A hundred lovers, a thousand lovers, nobody but your wife… giving it all up to be a celibate holy man…”

"No. No, no, no." Florence mumbled repeatedly, turning to still block the door but to face Wyatt instead. "You're not going with them. That pyschotix bitch is not going to lie about you, have you taken away from us. No. I am fighting for you, let me fight for you."

---

Aoife looks towards the Princess' with a deep set frown. Ordering stoicly, "Sit down. Do not move whilst I inspect your injuries."

---

"Celibate? Are you damning me now?" Kael laughed humourlesly, trying not to appear shaken. His gaze moving elsewhere, only momentarily before focusing on her once again. Taking in each detail, tracing every dip as best he could - remembering most, and visibly saddened when he found dimples, curves that he had forgotten. "I don't think it is possible for me to fall out of love with anyone. I think it will be my worst trait."