#the royal guards absolutely share names with the series creators lbr

[gerbiloftriumph]

Captive Crown

(also on ao3)

Someone wanted the newly crowned King of Daventry and all his friends dead. Someone got close, once.

(warnings for the whole thing: kidnapping, bruising, starvation, nightmares, healthy dosage of angsty musing, sicfic, story-coherent vehicle for all my favorite ch2 headcanons)

~*~*~

7/7

(1: to steal)(2: to hide)(3: to seek)(4: to find)(5: to break)(6: to mend)(7: to heal, and to end)

~*~*~

Amaya flung open the door. “I didn’t know you were that sick! Why am I always the last person to know anything?” She stomped into the room and stopped. Graham was curled around his pillow, snoring softly and drooling slightly. He didn’t stir.

No1 was sitting in the rocking chair near the fire, helmet off, reading some report or other. He glanced up. “Good afternoon, Miss Blackstone. Can I help you?”

She gestured helplessly at the bed. “Well, I was…um. I guess yelling at a king isn’t a good idea anyway.”

“Generally, no, but it’s been an interesting week. I don’t think he’d mind, especially since he’s too drugged to hear you.” He glanced at the hourglass on the side table. “The dose should be wearing off soon. I’ve got to get some soup in him. If you stay, he should be awake presently.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Truth told, it’s not the most thrilling guard shift. He’s been asleep for hours. I’d be glad for some distraction from my distraction.” He flapped the paper he held. “Tourism report from Royal Guard Number Two. The man doesn’t know how to spell at all.” He paused, and added, “If you do stay and proceed with your original plan, perhaps keep your yelling brief? Nerves bit on edge all around, I think.”

Thunder growled beyond the castle walls as yet another storm billowed up over the mountains. They could barely hear it through the heavy stone, over the crackle of the fire. Graham mumbled something incomprehensible in his sleep and snuggled deeper in the blankets.

“I think that means he’s starting to rouse,” No1 said and went back to his paperwork. “Don’t shake him awake—he tends to flail if you do that, and he’s surprisingly good at landing blind punches.” Only then did Amaya notice the pale scrape on the guard’s cheekbone.

“While we’re waiting, what’s in that tourism report?”

“Well, you know the Fantastical Floating Island? Submersive Sunken Island, now? He’s got this idea…”

All told, it was another ten or so minutes before Graham opened his eyes, still fuzzed over with whatever drug Muriel had fed him. He struggled to sit up, but within a minute he was folding over with a ragged cough and a groan. No1 started to put down his report and come over to help, but with a meaningful glance at Amaya, leaned back again, flicking pages of the report without reading a word.

Amaya sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the mug of water someone had left on the bedside table. It looked like water, anyway. Not one of the wildly colorful concoctions the Hobblepots had whipped together. She passed it to Graham, who drained the mug in one go.

Only once it was empty did he look up and realize who was sitting there. He blinked, groggy and confused. “Amaya? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“I should be asking you.”

“Yeah, but, consider this: I asked first.” He grinned.

Amaya looked over the pile of bottles and crucibles and herbs and tissues and bandages and things crowding the side table. “I didn’t know you were so sick. You just sounded stuffy, before.”

“I didn’t know I was so sick, either. Kinda snuck up on me.” He cleared his throat and winced.

She frowned at him, and she seemed to be debating with herself about something. There was a terrifically long pause, but Graham was too drowsy to think of anything worth saying. It was something of a relief when she finally muttered, “Hey. Do you remember what you told me down there? Try killing them with kindness?”

“Yeah. That was—oh!” He froze, startled, as she grabbed him in a fierce, although stiff and rather awkward, hug. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, and it took a few seconds before he tentatively returned the embrace. When she kept holding it, he sagged gratefully into her arms.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his hair, eyes screwed up tight like that would distance what she was doing from herself. “I don’t think we would have made it without you.”

“It’s what a king is supposed to do, isn’t it?” he said. And then, after another hesitant pause, he mumbled, “Muriel thinks I’m probably contagious.”

“Ugh! Graham!” Amaya shoved him back into the pillows. Despite already wearing gloves, she scrubbed her hands on her skirt. “That’s the only physical sign of affection I’m authorized to give out for the year.”

“I understand. It’s a blanket ban,” he said, nodding seriously. “I won’t hug-gle with you over it.”

“I’m going to wait for Ken to turn his back,” Amaya said, “and then I’m going to thump you with this pillow.”

“Go ahead,” No1 called, not looking up from his report.

“What! No, come on. You’re supposed to be on my side! I pay you to be on my side!”

“Thump him hard, Amaya.”

“I bed Roberta would defend my honor.”

“Not this time she wouldn’t!” No3 trilled from the hall.

~*~*~*~

After a day or so, Muriel altered the doses so that he wasn’t always unconscious, although he still wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. Graham tried reading to pass the time, but the small print tended to bring back his headache. Mostly he watched the flickering fireplace shadows move against the walls.

Once (more than once) he was adamant that the stone walls of the royal bedroom had been swapped for the stone walls of his goblin cell. He yelped for someone, anyone, to come, to help, and he clung to the guard that appeared first until the feverish delirium faded. With the Hobblepots and their tinctures close to hand, these distressing spells never lasted long, but they upset everyone.

Someone had the bright idea to let Triumph sit in the room with him to keep him grounded, and then the royal guards could breathe a little easier. Graham never figured out how they coaxed the gerbil up the steps—he tried it once or twice later, but Triumph never dared it again. Still, it worked this time. Triumph wandered around the royal bedroom, claws clicking on the wood. No1 looked at the gerbil with mild annoyance and said he was going to make another pot of honey tea to try and relax the king’s awful sounding wheeze. The moment Graham was alone, he leaned as far out of the bed as he could, clicking his tongue and snapping his fingers until Triumph nosed his huge face into Graham’s hand.

It wasn’t comfortable to lean out of bed for more than a minute or two, but he wanted Triumph close. So, he snapped his fingers over the mattress a few times, whispering random encouragements until Triumph, head cocked with considerably deep gerbil thought, backed up a pace or two and made a flying leap onto the mattress. The impact shot Graham up a few inches before he slammed back into the pillows.

Triumph padded over to Graham, chirped, and licked the king’s face. Then he paced in a tight circle, twining the blanket around his paws like spaghetti to make a lumpy sort of nest, before curling into a ball, chin on Graham’s stomach. His ears drooped low in contented sleep. Graham stroked Triumph’s cold nose. The fireplace crackled merrily, and the thunder purred, and the rain poured, and for the first time in a while he felt truly content and warm and safe.

The last thing Graham heard before sleep overtook him too was No1 huffing in irritation, teacup and pot on his tray rattling as he slammed it harder than necessary on the bedside table, muttering, “We’ll never get that fur out of those blankets. Whose idea was this. Gods. I warned them he’d do something like this. No one ever listens around here.”

But all told, he wasn’t to be kept in bed much longer. Muriel relented fairly soon after that and said he was as good as her enforced bedrest was going to make him. The royal guards weren’t allowed to barricade the door against him, so long as he promised not to wear himself out, and to wrap himself in a blanket, and to ask for help if he felt faint, of course.

He felt a touch suffocated, not faint, but he expected this was the way a kidnapped king was supposed to be treated upon rescue—coddled and treated like a doll.

He went for the courtyard. Someone set a chair beneath the overhang and stocked it with blankets and tea and reports that he almost certainly wouldn’t bother to read until next week. He snuggled deep into the cushions. The sharp tang of the brisk air made him feel even better, almost bright enough to go for a jog around the trail, but for the fact that his royal guards would probably tackle him and insist he wasn’t ready yet. Maybe tomorrow.

From behind, someone coughed—the sort of “I’m here, please notice me, but only if you want to” cough, not the sick sort���and Graham almost leapt out of his hair before realizing it was the Feys.

Wente was staggering beneath the weight of a perfectly ridiculous four tier cake, and Bramble was wavering at his side, ready to throw her hands out to help catch it should it slide. It was drowning in frosting flowers, and the words Thank You were so tightly embellished with so many little curls and flourishes Graham could scarcely read them.

“Wente?”

“Your Majesty, I’m so sorry I couldn’t visit earlier. Muriel said I wasn’t allowed, else I might sicken Bramble, and we couldn’t have that, could we, sweetums, honey bun, favored pie—” At this point he broke off and started whispering sugary sweet sentiments in her ear before realizing Graham was starting to laugh. “Sorry, sir.”

“No, you’re absolutely right,” Graham said, and then paused. “Uh, I don’t think I’m contagious anymore…?” He held the question tremulously, a little afraid of himself. A little afraid his friends’ smiles might melt away and—

“We cleared it with Muriel,” Bramble said, firm. “We wanted to make you something small to say thank you, but, ah,” she eyed the towering icing sugar construction with barely veiled alarm, “it got slightly out of control.”

“No point in baking small,” Wente said, a touch offended. “I don’t believe in those bitty samples. How do you know you’ll like something if you don’t get to try it from every angle?”

“True enough, dumpling.” Bramble bumped him lightly on the arm. Very lightly, so the cake didn’t topple over.

Wente and Bramble had planned on leaving cake and king alone, but Graham insisted that they share—four tiers, for stars’ sake. Plates and forks were found, and once the royal guards realized what the Feys were offering, they couldn’t be kept out of the courtyard with a stick. Somehow Chester got wind of it because it was free food and Chester had a nose for that sort of thing, and Muriel came with him like she always did. Amaya was dragged into it quickly after that: a royal guard had requested she double check the strength of the side doors’ security, just in case, and it was easy enough to pull her away from her work once cake was offered. Four tiers broke up in short order, with everyone nursing their slice and yammering away about this, that, and nothing at all, while the thunder rolled around the mountains and the rain danced in the leaves.

The tense atmosphere that had seemed to settle into the bones of the castle over the previous weeks (truly, months, ever since the hasty coronation) finally started to break apart. Everyone was safe, everyone was happy, and everyone was getting hyped up on tremendous amounts of sugar. Someone even dragged out a lute, which No2 was valiantly attempting to play. (Attempting being the word.)

“Matt, please. It’s key of C. Not undersea. Give it here.” No1 snatched the lute away and launched into a petulant sort of song before he warmed to it and settled into a decent rendition of Greensleeves.

Graham ended up with an enormous frosting rose on his plate, which he nibbled at in between conversations. He wandered away for a minute to watch the rain—it was gradually starting to break up, and he had the feeling monsoon season was reaching its end.

He still thought King Edward would have handled the whole goblin situation differently. He didn’t know how, but it wouldn’t have gone quite like it had. A proper king, Graham was reasonably sure, wouldn’t have gotten so frazzled and scared, and he’d certainly been frazzled and scared. But, after all, he hadn’t been born to kingship. He’d been given it. It had taken hard work and hope, and he had been entrusted with the crown. He was a different sort of leader. Different, but maybe an okay one after all.

Because, in the end, they had survived.

He watched the impromptu party for a minute, licking frosting from his fingers. So he wasn’t King Edward. Fine. He was going to have to be King Graham, as big and good as he could be. That, he thought, he could maybe do.

From out of the little crush of party folk, Bramble came and found him and took him by the hand to lead him back into the conversations—Whisper and Acorn had showed up too, and they were looking for him. He put down his empty plate and rejoined his citizens and his friends, ready to face whatever came next.

Preferably without any more mass kidnappings.