This work was created for the @rnmbb Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2020 event.
The amazing @slynella/Slynella was my partner for this event and created three absolutely wonderful illustrations for this story! The artworks are incredible and I love them to pieces, thank you so much Sly
Huge thanks also to @eveningspirit for helping me build the plot of this and handholding through the writing. This fic was hard to write, both because I got lost more than once in the narrative and because I basically left the fandom when I was less than halfway done. But, here it is.
This fic is loosely based on both Dumas’ The Three Musketeers and BBC Musketeers, and borrows some plot elements (and a few lines) from the latter, but there is no historical accuracy whatsoever and it is set in the fictional kingdom of Antar. The title comes from “Quo ruit et lethum” which is the actual motto of the Musketeers: To Fall, There Is Death. The header of each part is a chess move or a chess opening, usually with some relation to what happens in the part (and a few where I just liked the name :D).
[apparent deaths by shooting and hanging, mentions of war and injuries, canonical levels of violence, past abuse]
Liz would be hard pressed to tell when it had all started, when the pieces had first been put in motion. So much had happened to lead them there, one step away from checkmate, one step away from the end of the game.
Maybe it had started six months ago, when the King died. She remembered the funeral ceremony that gathered all of the court and so much of the city, Max and Isobel’s regal and solemn faces. Max had worn white, and knelt to receive the crown on his head. “The King is dead,” they’d chanted. “Long live the King!”
But things had been moving even before that. Maybe it had started a year ago, when Lord Michael first came to the court and challenged Alex to a duel. Alex had been injured already, barely able to stand on his feet. Liz remembered the absolute shock on his face, when Michael had pushed back his hood and revealed himself, after the King introduced him as his natural son.
Alex had lost the duel. He’d stood there afterwards, dazed and devastated, unable to take his eyes off Michael for one second, like he’d expected him to disappear again. He’d spent most of the next three weeks drinking himself to the ground every evening, just to dull the pain that never left his eyes.
So maybe the pieces had already found their place ten years ago, in that time Alex only ever hinted at, when he and Michael were engaged to be married. He’d never told Liz and Maria the story. “There was a man, once,” he’d said. “He died.” Kyle had probably known more, after all he was Alex’s friend when they were children, but he never said. In all the years they’d known Alex, though, there were always these shadows in his eyes, that spoke of a dreadful weight, a longing and a guilt that never left him.
first picture, late at night at the Crashdown: Liz, standing with her back to us, is explaining her plan to everyone else (sitting in a booth). Left to right: Kyle is giving a thumbs up; Rosa is smiling semi-encouragingly; Alex is on his laptop, not paying attention; Maria is paying attention, but falling asleep; Isobel is drinking coffee; Max is drinking a shake with a straw; Michael is yawning.
second picture, in the getaway van: Rosa is driving and looks kinda gleeful about it; Kyle is scared and grabbing onto the car frame; Alex is calm, holding onto his laptop, and partially sticking his head out of the open sun roof. The van is full of junk and some of it is flying out the back window.
