A Grief So Profound [Quinn/Kaedon/Open, somewhere on the road between Nystra and Pida]

[Quinn Severne]

Quinn had been keepin a lazy pace alongside the travelling column when the breathless rider finally caught up to her.

The Lady of Nystra had watched her husband proclaimed bannerlord five days prior, but they had not lingered long in their newly acquired city, instead pressing ever forward towards Pida. Quinn had grown tired two days into the original journey itself to bear being trapped inside the carriage that housed Roswyn and the other Devane women that traveled with them, Lord Darsling's wife and a few others that Quinn could not bother to remember. Although the column kept a brisk pace, Quinn was pleased to be on horseback once again, and that day had donned her rich leather riding gloves, although their dark colors contrasted with the rich burgundy cloak she work, draped over the back of her mount. She had breathed deeply that morning, letting her raven locks down in loose curls, riding amongst the others who remained mounted. Kaedon had seemed displeased at his wife's choice of travelling, but he did not chastise her.

Things were... a little more different, everyday. He didn't even seem to mind that Quinn had dropped back a few paces, to enjoy the countryside that they rode through at her own pace. That was, however, when the messenger finally caught her. His ruddy face was red, making with haste -- they had been hard to track, he explained, with the constant moving, but by then his voice was practically mute to Quinn as with one glance of the pressed seal and the familiar handwriting, she was savagely tearing into the parchment, the ripe, sharp feel of fear gripping her heart. She just knew -- if it was Christopher --

----

Her horse danced around her, bewildered, confused by his loss of rider and directionless when not beneath Quinn's command. The rest of the column kept moving ever eastward, and finally the beast began to merely graze about where his rider sat, his tail flicking ever so often to shoo away the flies hovering around his backside.

One un-gloved finger traced over the word Zacharias, smudging the ink with the moist end of her tears, wiped away with the same hand. She had read the letter over three times, three gut-wrenching, heart-shredding times. Only a few minutes had passed since she received the initial news but Quinn had gotten off her horse almost immediately, abandoning the reigns, sitting down in an unkempt fashion amidst the tall grasses off the main road. She could not stand. She felt incredibly, alarmingly, weak. The breeze fluttered the edge of her letter and tugged at her hair, but Quinn could feel none of this. Her senses were so consumed with sorrow that she could feel nothing else but it's suffocating embrace. The tears were tumbling down her face and in the distance, she could hear herself gasping for breath.

[Kaedon Severne]

Kaedon had glanced over his shoulder a few times as Quinn’s horse fell further behind. She was a woman who had enjoyed long rides in the countryside of Svavel on her own, her knew, something the Mallory women did that few others would emulate. At first he’d wanted her to stay in the carriage... then he realized he had no reason to care. Sure, he was a lord now, a position that he held with a slight sense of unease. Nystra had been devastated by plague and he was not sure what he would find when he and Quinn arrived there. He would plan a trip once the court settled into Pida, and he had a handle on where Theodoric wished for the Nystra men to go.

He looked back again. He had the strange urge to check on Quinn today, one he hadn’t felt the days before, as though he knew something was wrong.. just not what. This time he could not see her, even at the back of the train. He almost turned back forward and ignored it - her horse probably found some sweet flowers to eat and she couldn’t say no to the beast - but the voice in his head told him to go back and look for her. Certainly nothing was wrong but....

He rode past the column, nodding at a knight, smiling at a lady, greeting a lord, but never stopping. Storm seemed to feel his urgency and moved quickly, whether tuned to his master’s moods or the pressure from the man’s thighs. Kaedon’s eyes swept the line, thinking perhaps he hadn’t seen her, then he was at the end and still riding back with no sign of Quinn at all.

A few minutes lately he saw her horse, but no rider. Then his eyes landed on her, sitting in he grass, her cheeks stained with tears, her eyes red and puffy. He dismounted and rushed to her side, wondering at the concerned that washed over him. “Quinn!” he gasped, reaching her, hands on her cheeks to pull her face up to his as he kneelled in front of her “Quinn, what is wrong?”

[Quinn Severne]

She hadn't even heard him as Kaedon dropped to his knees beside her. She tried to speak at first but nothing came out, the fluttering of her letter the only explanation.

"Zacharias, I -- my brother, he -- Christopher --" Quinn gasped, unable to take in enough air, choking on the reality of it all. It seemed so distant at first but then it was all there, blaring, in her face, and as much as Quinn was not a woman to dissolve into hysterics, she could not handle this. Her brothers meant the world to her, the only men Quinn ever loved, and the thought that Zacharias now lay dead at the hands of the Castells --

"I have to go, I have to go now, Edmund, I can't let him --" She gasped, her hands suddenly covering her husband's that were touching her face, her dark eyes frantic. "I can't stay here, not while they are fighting and dying in Svavel --"

[Kaedon Severne]

He slipped the letter from her hands with one of his, while the other stayed on her cheek. His eyes scanned it quickly and he felt a small punch to his stomach - not because he knew or cared about Quinn’s brother, but because the letter was so similar to one he’d read only a few weeks before. And he’d lost a brother to murder and violence. He knew exactly how she felt. And he knew how hysterical she would be.

He’d been there.

He dropped the letter and grabbed her hands. “There is nothing you can do but trust your brother. The Castells killed Malic. I hate them as much as you do. And when this mess in Atra is cleaned up we will take all the forces of Nystra and with my brother leave march down to Ovador to help your cousin root him out of that snake’s nest. I promise you that. But not today. Not like this. Not with your tears still fresh on your face. You cannot weld the sword yourself, only find yourself caught in the crossfire.”

He could feel every inch of her emotions. Images of his own brother, stabbed and bleeding in the gardens of of the Eagle’s nest flashed through his mind as vivid as the night Malic had bee killed. WIthout thinking, he wrapped his arms around Quinn, hugging her tightly.

[Quinn Severne]

Quinn could say nothing, feeling her husband wrap his arms around her, and without thinking, Quinn curled into his embrace, sobbing, the lack of air in her lungs wracking her body. Her face was buried in his chest, her fingers clutching at his tunic, staining the fabric with her tears, tendrils of Quinn's hair sticking to her face and lips. She could not feel, she was numb, and all she could think of was her brothers in Svavel, and of Edmund, whom was all that was left for her.

It was a strange promise, Quinn reflected on, fleetingly, that Kaedon made to her by the roadside. Atra had to deal with Blasa - to Quinn's knowledge, neither Mallory nor Castell had engaged Severne in their current fight, although Quinn knew the vengeance that Theodoric Severne had sworn to serve Victor Castell for his hand in the death of their brother. But Kaedon had almost made it seem as though he would do this for her, to save her brother the way they could not save theirs.

[Kaedon Severne]

He let her cry for some time and then he lifted her chin. “We cannot stay here Quinn. As hard as it is, you need to get back up, get on your horse and ride. Tonight when we camp, you can grieve, but not out here in the middle of a field.” Kaedon would hold her tonight, he knew. He hadn’t held her, hadn’t slept with her, since their horrible fight in the grand hall, but he could feel her pain for the loss of a sibling so intimately he could not deny it.

Leaning down he kissed her forehead. Rosalie was dead. Their brothers were dead. And if things continued others - Fallon, Rhiannon, Edmund - would be in danger of following the same fate. “We must let go of the past,” he finally conceded.

[Quinn Severne]

Quinn took a deep breath, choking on the air that filled her lungs. She knew he was right - she could not hold up their steady progress they had made so far. But she wished nothing more than to sit in the tall grass, swept up in the sea of green around her, remain in this life-altering moment. It was easier to stay trapped in it rather than face moving forward, to life after the knowledge her letter imparted - a world without her brother.

"How? I am useless here. Edmund needs me," she implored abruptly, wishing not to adhere to Kaedon's urging to let go. Quinn's dark eyes were drawn to her beast, his long tail flicking impatiently, and she clicked her tongue, beckoning him back. She would ride, but at that moment she barely believed she had strength to stand.