Randolph Lyall (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cravats) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
dramadramaduck2012-05-23 02:05 pm
cravats) wrote in dramadramaduck2012-05-23 02:05 pm
Entry tags:
seventh; accidental video; canon move
It was you!
[The community seems to be watching some sort of Victorian detective parlour scene- only the participants here are only one Alexia Maccon and one Professor Randolph Lyall. Lyall is straightening his collar and looking rather guilty. Whoever ‘it’ is, it probably was him.
Alexia is waving her parasol rather wildly in his direction.]
You’re Agent Doom! How ninnyhammered of me not to have seen it sooner! You rigged the whole thing back then. The whole Kingair attempt. And that was the point, of course, that it should be only an attempt. It was never meant to succeed. The queen was never meant to die. The point was to convince the Kingair Pack to turn against their Alpha, to give him a reason to leave. You needed Conall to come to London so he could challenge Lord Woolsey. The Alpha who had gone mad.
[Lyall turns away and walks to the other side of the room, his head slightly bent. He appears to have chosen to address the wall rather than Lady Maccon.]
You have no idea what a blessing it is, to have a capable Alpha.
And you are Beta. You would do whatever it took to keep your pack together. Even arrange to steal another pack’s leader. Does my husband know what you did?
[Lyall visibly stiffens, though he doesn’t react otherwise. Alexia, fortunately, doesn’t need any response to answer her own question.]
No, of course he doesn’t know. He needs to trust you. He needs you to be his reliable second just as much as you need him as leader. Telling him would defeat the very action you took; it would disturb the cohesion of your pack.
[Lyall turns back towards her, looking tired- but there is no sign of pleading in his face or attitude.]
Are you going to tell him?
That you were a double agent? That you destroyed his relationship with his old pack, with his best friend, with his homeland, to steal him for Woolsey? I don’t know.
[Alexia looks just as tired as Lyall does, resting a hand on her stomach.]
It would destroy him, I think. Treachery from his Beta, his lynchpin. A second time. But to keep this information from Conall, to share in your deception? You must know that this puts me in an untenable position as his wife.
[Lyall winces and avoids her gaze. He has no desire to be the cause of that sort of deceit, but he can’t not ask it of her.]
I had no choice. You must see that? Lord Maccon was the only werewolf in Britain capable of taking on Lord Woolsey and winning. When Alphas go bad, my lady, it is sickening. All that concentrated attention to pack cohesion and all that protective energy turns rotten—no one is safe. As Beta, I could shield the others but only for so long. Eventually, I knew his psychosis would leak out, encompassing them as well. Such a thing can drive an entire pack to madness. We don’t talk of it. The howlers don’t sing of it. But it occurs. I am not trying to excuse myself, you understand, simply explain.
[Alexia’s still on the prospect of lying to her husband.]
Who else knows? Who else knew?
[At which convenient moment there’s a knock on the door and then it crashes open- and the video cuts off. That question, it seems, will never be answered. At least to the community at large.]
[ooc: Green is Alexia and blue is Lyall.]
[The community seems to be watching some sort of Victorian detective parlour scene- only the participants here are only one Alexia Maccon and one Professor Randolph Lyall. Lyall is straightening his collar and looking rather guilty. Whoever ‘it’ is, it probably was him.
Alexia is waving her parasol rather wildly in his direction.]
You’re Agent Doom! How ninnyhammered of me not to have seen it sooner! You rigged the whole thing back then. The whole Kingair attempt. And that was the point, of course, that it should be only an attempt. It was never meant to succeed. The queen was never meant to die. The point was to convince the Kingair Pack to turn against their Alpha, to give him a reason to leave. You needed Conall to come to London so he could challenge Lord Woolsey. The Alpha who had gone mad.
[Lyall turns away and walks to the other side of the room, his head slightly bent. He appears to have chosen to address the wall rather than Lady Maccon.]
You have no idea what a blessing it is, to have a capable Alpha.
And you are Beta. You would do whatever it took to keep your pack together. Even arrange to steal another pack’s leader. Does my husband know what you did?
[Lyall visibly stiffens, though he doesn’t react otherwise. Alexia, fortunately, doesn’t need any response to answer her own question.]
No, of course he doesn’t know. He needs to trust you. He needs you to be his reliable second just as much as you need him as leader. Telling him would defeat the very action you took; it would disturb the cohesion of your pack.
[Lyall turns back towards her, looking tired- but there is no sign of pleading in his face or attitude.]
Are you going to tell him?
That you were a double agent? That you destroyed his relationship with his old pack, with his best friend, with his homeland, to steal him for Woolsey? I don’t know.
[Alexia looks just as tired as Lyall does, resting a hand on her stomach.]
It would destroy him, I think. Treachery from his Beta, his lynchpin. A second time. But to keep this information from Conall, to share in your deception? You must know that this puts me in an untenable position as his wife.
[Lyall winces and avoids her gaze. He has no desire to be the cause of that sort of deceit, but he can’t not ask it of her.]
I had no choice. You must see that? Lord Maccon was the only werewolf in Britain capable of taking on Lord Woolsey and winning. When Alphas go bad, my lady, it is sickening. All that concentrated attention to pack cohesion and all that protective energy turns rotten—no one is safe. As Beta, I could shield the others but only for so long. Eventually, I knew his psychosis would leak out, encompassing them as well. Such a thing can drive an entire pack to madness. We don’t talk of it. The howlers don’t sing of it. But it occurs. I am not trying to excuse myself, you understand, simply explain.
[Alexia’s still on the prospect of lying to her husband.]
Who else knows? Who else knew?
[At which convenient moment there’s a knock on the door and then it crashes open- and the video cuts off. That question, it seems, will never be answered. At least to the community at large.]
[ooc: Green is Alexia and blue is Lyall.]
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