Warhammer Fantasy: Honor is all, Chivalry is all (Bretonnia CK2)

Wedding Bash Pt.8

You wake up early in the morning, feeling like you're about to have a very bad; but hell, that's life, sometimes. Pouring yourself a glass of wine then savoring it slowly, you look to the sun and the rising day star. Splashes of orange the color of fire crackling in a pit and golds like falling sands.

Well, it least it started well.

Planting a kiss on Morgyan's brow, you slide on your cloak and armor before setting out for the Ar-Ulric. Shouldn't be too hard to find him...
---
After all, how many other people have set up their inn as an arena for bare-chested brawling?

Inside the inn where the Imperial delegation stays, the ground-floor has become a den of noble hand-to-hand combat. Men, dwarfs, and surprisingly enough elves, too, wrestle; though they are not the strongest, the ever-living dodge with grace and ease the comparatively crude, slow blows of dwarf and man alike before taking them down-- or being taken down, as the case might be.

At the center, a mostly bald, clean shaven man with a beer-belly and not a single spot of definition on him stands, tall, defiant, ham-hock arms crossed over his chest and glare on him as he sees you, spots of blood staining his snow-bitten complexion red. Around him, elves, dwarfs, and men sit in crumpled heaps, bruises telling obvious stories of how the Wolf-God's Seer took them down.

"Here to take the other one, Phillip?"

"Hardly. I came here to talk with you, Thulsa."

Faster than any man should ever be-- though not so fast that you don't manage to block the blow, catching it on your arms and redirecting the force-- he sends a meaty fist your way. "I am the Ar Ulric. You want to talk, look for the Theogenist. Here," A second blow that knocks the wind out of you and sends you to the center of the floor, "We fight."

You work your jaw and get up, popping your knuckles. "This is so unnecessary--"

The kick you just barely manage to catch suggests the Ar-Ulric has neither forgotten nor forgiven that time in Royville. "--But if it's how you want this to go, then I guess that's what you're gonna get!" You strike him in the stomach with the palm of your hand. It send him back until he hits a wooden table, knocking both the notched furniture and the Ar-Ulric down. He spits something, grabs a tankard of beer, drains it in a single gulp then leaps up after you.

A wide blow with the whole of both his arms hits your elbow and sends shocks through your limbs as you block it. "So, what'd you want to talk about, Knight?"

"Get in any bar-brawls yesterday?"

A spinning kick to the ribs forces him back. "A few. What's it to you?"

"I'm pretty sure you knocked out my son's tooth." A jackhammer blow leaves you dizzy, but you stay standing and give him a taste of your knuckles. "And I'm kind of curious why you'd want to leap to the defense of an engineer enough to get into a knock out brawl."

A blow to your right shoulder knocks it out of its socket, so you leap back to get more space. "I'm not gonna sit pretty in Middenland and preach about how we all gotta stick together against the frog-eating nonces next to us and the filthy leeches then leave another Imperial hanging, even if he is a Reiklander engineer."

"I swear, you eat something once-"

He runs after you, only for you to surprise him by charging into him. You pop your shoulder back into place by ramming into his great bulk, sending the both of you to the ground. You roll only from him, only for a beer bottle to smash into where you landed. Glass shatters and breaks, but you are far away from it. "So the blonde bean-pole was your son, huh? Shouldn't be surprised."

"Man I can lift you."

"Doesn't change the fact that his wife is more of a warrior than either of you, but especially him." The Ar-Ulric laughs and smiles in a way that makes you want to take a knife to his tongue. "But hell, she'd have been a better warrior than me at his age."

You cross your arms and catch the hammer blow he sends your way, though it is somewhere between arm-breaking and skull-shattering. "Then I suppose you won't be complaining about it to your wolf-y friends, then?"

"Nah. I ain't nearly poncy enough to whinge about a Bretonnian blow. Hell, throw in one o' them fancy ice-swords and I'll tell anyone who asks that we kissed and made up about it."

"Duly noted." You lunge up and slam the bottom of your head into the Ar-Ulric's jaw. It hurts like hell.

But it hurts a lot more for Thulsa, who falls to the ground, shaking the room as he does.

Heh. Carole always said you had a hard head.

(Folcard takes no Infamy from Bar Brawl, Only minor prestige malus)
--

The cafe is near-silent, and near empty. You are altogether alright with that, considering your head's still pounding and the rest of you ain't doing too hot either, with at least a bruise on every limb. It's a good thing your clothes cover everything aside from your head, other-wise Morgyan would probably be upset. Wounds in battle are one things, fist-fights are another.

Speaking of Morgyan, she is sitting on a small stool, at a small bar, stirring a small drink that smells absolutely heavenly. The lights are mostly off, this early; and there is only one other, nearly indecipherable figure from where you sit.

"Fair lady." She turns as she sees you, but...

It is not a happy look. Instead she seems...almost apologetic?

"Love. There are things we need to discuss. Lies I have told. But before any of that... there's someone I need to introduce you to."

"Morgyan...what?"

The Champion of Autumn-- your son's Dame-- appears from the darkness, where the shadows had somehow, impossibly, hid her, clad in orange chain, sans helmet...and with a shade of black to her hair that must come from you, but the emerald eyes of Morgyan.

"She is your Daughter. Do not hate her for her Mother's inequities, and bargains."

Then Morgyan runs, runs-- and your senses tell you the truth of it. This is your daughter.

Just as your prepare to run for her-- Liar, wife, woman, lover, truster and trusted-- battling a heady mix of rage, and concern, and fear and a dozen other things you do not have the name for, she-- the hidden-- grips your arm. "Father... let her go and prepare herself, and ready her story; she needs the time. But I will tell you now...she did not deceive you maliciously, but for your own sake."

Your grandchildren, the eldest at least, have made their way to you, guided by their parents...

[] "You have an odd definition of Malicious!" Rip out of her grasp-- you will have explanation of this...this betrayal.
[] "...There will be an accounting, one day." If you go for her, now-- wrath of betrayal, so close to another-- you will do, you will say, things that you will be incapable of taking back.
--

Voikirium said:

[] You know what? No. No, it doesn't matter. She is your wife. You trust her, always and forever. It's not like you've never acted somewhat out of character before. (There's still a letter in the grand study describing the time you went to live with Wood Elves. That was a strange month indeed.) The universe will not take this from you. Follow her. (100% chance of ???, 10% of ???, 100% Morgyan is happy)

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You guys remember this, right?

Hell of a time to blow her "Keeping this a secret" roll, right?