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1246, after the Battle of Leitha River
Being quiet was the boy’s best defense, even if it hurt. He couldn’t drown out his fears in the protection of the choir. He couldn’t man the organ and scare off the armies with the blasts from the pipes going out for acres upon acres. That’s just what they were looking for him to do. He was left to be shuffled and quickly led out of his little sanctuary for escape, with the priests telling him to keep quiet with fear in their eyes. Perhaps it was the smell of smoke or the oncoming commotion outside growing louder and louder that had them frightened as well. But he was continually being told not to worry - just to run. The boy was regrettably a target for one of the most fearsome fighting forces he’d known, and heaven help him if he was found. He would just have to settle and cope with the sound of his heart pounding in his ears and his haggard breathing having to be muffled in his cape.
For the quiet, scared little boy wasn’t a mere child. Roderich was a Duchy - the Duchy of Austria. And somehow a promising duchy at that, despite his size. It was why he needed to be destroyed, for his duke had too much hubris in attacking the Hungarian forces. The little duchy could hardly be bothered to know of it, though. He was much too focused on anything but war, and especially now in trying to escape to Vienna.
And so once he was discovered, he knew he was in big trouble.
For there he was, stuck face to face in the Viennese woods, with the fearsome Kingdom of Hungary. Wiry and wily, his messy opponent pointed a sword at him, and all he’d thought to grab upon his escape were his music parchments.
“Draw your weapon!” the kingdom ordered him, jabbing the sword in his direction.
Losing himself in the panic, the tiny duchy raised his pudgy arms up and felt his heart break at the fluttering sound of his parchment scattering in the dirt around them. He hadn’t quite realized it until that very moment, but the boy had been crying quite a bit. Likely sobbing, with the shake in his voice and the leak from his nose.
He tried to beg, to plead to be spared, but all that left his mouth were muffled sobs. He couldn’t form words. He felt like he could hardly breathe, he was drowning in his tears. Completely silenced from making his case, he hoped perhaps he could empathize with the frightening kingdom prepared to end him. Though really, he continually felt his voice fail him when he had to face the kingdom up close.
“Your duke is dead,” the kingdom sneered at him, as if the kingdom itself claimed the honor of the murder. “That’s what he gets for thinking I’m weak. But now who’s weak? Who doesn’t have a duke? Who risks being wiped out now?”
The boy wanted to speak, wanted to say he was confused. But again his voice was caught in his throat. What could he say? Could he deny it, really?
Somehow the words choked out of him, just loud enough to be heard and partially understood through his weeping. “Wha... what are you going to do?” he shook, knocking his little knees.
“I told you to draw your weapon! I won’t kill you, if you don’t have one.”
Roderich’s eyes widened, almost wondering if the kingdom had given him an out. “You won’t?”
“Well, I have to anyway, but I think it’s better if you have one,” the little kingdom shrugged, letting out a mocking scoff at such a stupid question. “I can’t believe I have to help you figure this out. That’s maybe the first rule of fighting.”
“I... I don’t like fighting...” the duchy mumbled and shuffled his feet, suddenly having to deal with a self conscious blush. He must have looked really stupid, with just his sheet music.
“I can tell,” the kingdom spoke dryly, looking over the duchy before circling him curiously and with judgmental eyes that made him feel even smaller. It didn’t matter if the kingdom was maybe just a little taller, the Hungarian could shrink him even further with the harshness of those eyes. “Wow, you don’t have a shield, either? You must be pretty bad at this.”
That short laugh was maybe a precursor to a cackle, which the duchy had heard so often before from the little kingdom. It brought a chill up his spine to hear it, so part of him was thankful the laugh was cut short.
He was not so thankful when the kingdom advanced forward on him, no matter how slowly those steps lumbered. The Hungarian’s voice intensified, and there was more a threat than humor lacing their tone. “But then you probably thought I was bad at this, if your soldiers came after me, didn’t you?” the kingdom challenged him, glaring heatedly at the duchy.
“N-no, no, no, please,” the words squealed out of him in a frightened frenzy, as if the kingdom already had him in a choke. He threatened to fall to his knees, if the adrenaline hadn’t strung him up to stand and shake. “P-Please, I don’t want to die.”
“Then fight!” the kingdom challenged him loudly through missing baby teeth. Frustration was very apparent in anticipating their battle. “You have to fight! That’s what Apa told me! Or you’re a coward! Fight, or you’re a coward and then I have to kill you anyway! Don’t you have any honor? Didn’t your apa teach you how to fight, or did he want you to get killed?”
“Stop it!” the duchy cried. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“Why don’t you make me stop it?” the Hungarian mocked him. “Grab a weapon and fight me! Show me you’re not a baby!”
“I’m... I’m not,” his face and voice crumpled in fear, and his voice somehow became even quieter than before.
“Prove it!” the kingdom shouted, as if it were more important for him to fight than to surrender. “Or you’re a little baby coward and I’ll have no choice but to teach you how to die with honor!”
“I don’t want to die!” the duchy shouted back through his tears and broke out into a run into the woods.
The kingdom merely stared him down as he ran off and spoke under her breath, before preparing to chase after him. “Well, that one’s not going to last long.”
She was sure to make his death quick. She didn’t have a lot of time to waste with the Ottomans around anyway.
1530, Buda
The Habsburg forces had captured Esztergom. It was certainly not the proudest moment for the Kingdom, and Erzsébet knew it. She didn’t like to admit she’d become a battleground for empires around her. It was bad enough she’d had to deal with Sadik and his Ottoman Empire, like an annoying older brother. But she still had her city to defend, and God help the poor sucker who was trying to invade it.
Well, she wasn’t quite sure if she could really say poor anyway. That armor he wore looked pretty expensive. It was said the Habsburgs had money, and whoever was clearly restlessly stalking her in that fancy suit of armor on the battlefield showed it off and stuck out like a sore thumb. With the full cover of it, including a helmet shielding the face, the Habsburg’s fighter pursued her as if no other opponent seemed to matter. And that rang true from the battlefield and later into her fortress and castle, as more of an annoyance than a worry. Having to clean the floors there was just added work - at least the rotting cadaver smell could disperse outside.
Erzsébet unfortunately been cornered in the dimly lit halls of that fortress, struggling to remain fully stealthy with her own suit of armor on. There wasn’t much time to strip down to her leather layers. However, it wasn’t as though she was alone in clunking around in the echoing halls. Her invading opponent was clad from head to toe, hopefully getting lost under the camouflage of sound, or at least his blocked off sight lines. He could have at least thought to take off his helmet to see better, the fool. But it wasn’t as though he struggled all that much to pursue her. It was apparent - he had to have been nationfolk to sense her enough to know how to follow her.
And as soon as the Habsburg representative was aware they had to have been in the same room, he spoke with the echo of his helmet, which trailed a little down the halls. That pubescent voice had a way of ringing out, despite its almost chilling calm. Peering over her shoulder behind one suit, Erzsébet tried to hold herself still in the shadows, hoping to sneak up on him.
“So it has come to this,” he gloated in a condescending way, surprisingly confident and perhaps not knowing what he was up against. What a fool! “You haven’t any idea how long I’ve waited for an opportunity like this.”
His movements were slow, calculated as he entered the room. Erzsébet tried to temper her breathing, to not make herself known before he’d stepped into a dangerous position.
She was revealed, however, as her opponent lunged at her cape, pinning it to the wall as she kicked the standing suit of armor down to distract him while she made a break for the weapons’ storehouse.
Considering he’d gotten the sword stuck for a moment, she figured she had some time to evade him. With a loud grunt and a yank that included leverage from one armor-clad leg, the voice had gotten a little huskier along with its building fervor.
“Now, at long last, I finally get to seek out my chance! The chance to fulfill my vengeance! The chance to have you frightened at the end of my sword, on an unwitting defense! To have you cower in fear over my attack! To hear you beg for mercy!”
Erzsébet really couldn’t help but roll her eyes, especially at seeing her opponent awkwardly struggling to unlodge his piece from the wall. If he was going for intimidation factor, he was mucking it up with some clumsiness. Then again, maybe there would be something at least entertaining when their swords finally clashed.
“You sure do talk a lot,” she dared make a verbal jab at him. “‘At long last’ - how long has it taken you to get this far exactly? Your entire vocabulary?”
To her anticipation, she heard a sharp clang and felt a sturdy pressure against her sword. It wasn’t anything too overwhelming, but for the moment a part of her thrilled at finally getting to the point. That was, until she realized the clang was from the suit of armor she hid behind and it was thrown from balance enough to corner her in one place. She was soon backed into a wall and preparing to kick her way out, should her opponent have gotten too close.
“Still so witty a creature, even now,” he hummed, clearly pleased with himself. “I tend to consider myself a gentleman, but you see, when I had heard about the plans to take Ezstergom, I just couldn’t help but involve myself,” his voice went on lowly, as if he were trying to ground it while annunciating through the armor. “I knew I had to face you. That I was ready to face you, after what you had done to me.”
“You expect me to know what I did?” she scoffed, still maintaining a sense of bravado even in a corner. “I fight a lot of people, kid. You’re going to need to be more specific.”
“You killed me as if it were a kindness,” he barked at her, before reigning himself back in, “though I suppose I have you to thank for running that lesson through me. None of this would be possible without you,” his tone was laced in a controlled anger and twisted delight. Her eyebrows rose a little in registering that someone could care about what she did that much. It was both sick and exhilarating, to be that important.
“Again, I need specifics. You think I keep track of all the people I’ve had to kill nowadays?” Perhaps it was a lie beneath a swaggering facade - at one point she did keep a mental tally with a giddy commitment, but she’d been known to let her pride and prowess get the best of her after a time and each victory seemed to blend into the other. Perhaps the upkeep of the constant battle had lost its luster, and she didn’t hold her wins as prizes anymore. She just wasn’t as enthused as she once was by the work.
And this lack of enthusiasm on her part only fueled her opponents’ bubbling rage. “You can honestly say you don’t recognize me?” he demanded answer through what sounded like a clenching jaw.
“You’re in a full suit of armor,” she looked him over and returned some of the condescension. “You really could be anybody under there,” she shrugged, while bolstering her stance and brandishing her sword. “But I’m not worried about it. I’m still going to slaughter you, whoever you are.”
With an aggravated grunt, he tried pinning her sword to the floor while he railed against her disinterest. “I didn’t come this far to be slaughtered and for you to not know who I am, after what you did to me!”
“Is this an either or scenario then?” Erzsébet asked, a playful tease having entered her tone with her head cocking to a side. “Because you could reveal yourself to me and make this slaughtering business go a lot quicker.”
“What fun would that be, if you’re not cowering in fear?” her opponent asked, and she could picture him sneering under that helmet. “Isn’t that what your sort of fighting is about, Hungarian?”
It was hard not to insult him back for that, so she wouldn’t resist the urge. “You’ve had to lose to me many times to still not get it, haven’t you?”
And with a surprise kick to his shield, she pushed her opponent back and nearly over as she tried to improve her position. And the sword clashing commenced, in a bizarre frenzy that seemed to travel throughout the halls. It had gotten so wild and seemingly unrestrained that she had begun to need to catch her breath. But not before she could hear panting from her opponent - aggressive initially, but then it petered out into strained and impending exhaustion.
“You know,” Erzsébet pointed out, “you might have an easier time in this battle in this stuffy, dark castle by taking off your helmet.”
“You still haven’t figured me out yet?” he mocked her. “I presumed you were smarter than that.”
“Maybe I am,” she mused, “or maybe it’d be more fun if we had the same chance of taking the other’s head back as a trophy to our troops.”
“For someone so tactical, you certainly have no qualms about sharing your ideas,” he jabbed back, fancying the additional touch to his revenge fantasy. “Very well. I extend my condolences and delight at your humiliation,” he said with a quick bow as he slid off the helmet and presented his face.
It was a bizarrely elegant face, with dark hair slicked back and glinting spectacles shining with a menacing glare, inadvertently calming the subdued menacing glare from those deep violet eyes. Its structure was that of a young man’s, but with some of the softness of a lady of court. Even wrapped in scorn and contempt, there was an allure to its unfitting dignity. It was a face she would have otherwise remembered.
So why didn’t she?
It had her at pause, squinting and trying to remember that face as its owner paused, waiting for a shower of shame and humiliation to overtake her. And he was starting to get impatient by how his smug grin curled up into a grimace. “Well?”
She paused a few times before speaking, cocking her head to either side and squinting more and more. And then she gave up.
“Wait a minute... who are you?”
Her opponent was quiet for a moment. Arguably too quiet, and his eyes lidded bad into what must have pretended to be calm composure. His voice had started to choke up a little from the boiling rage seeping over.
“Are you... are you kidding me?” he seethed, his nostrils flaring while he seemingly forgot himself in this fit of anger. “No, really, you must... are you being serious?” he scoffed, and his face reddened further. “You really mean to tell me that...” His sword angrily clanged to the ground while his forgetfully plated hands yanked off his spectacles and caught hair he attempted to tear out. Erzsébet had only decided to hold off on ending him because 1) whoever this aggressor was, he was a funny little spaz and at least he entertained, and 2) she did sense something oddly familiar about that flushed face, disheveling bangs, and those tears welling in his eyes.
“Are you joking right now?” his rage began to well over into humiliation, and he wasn’t scaring anyone even with those gritted teeth gnashing so childishly and those breaching tears.
It look her a minute to piece it together, but once he looked up and demanded an answer, sword gripped tightly overhead, her brow perked up in realization. Her voice lowered in a monotone, dumfounded mumble. “Oh, shit, the Duchy - I remember you now.”
Before she’d even finished her thought, the not-as-little duchy lunged at her with a roar, when she’d remembered herself again and got back into the fight.
That was going to be her out. If she’d gotten him out of control enough, she could reign control in for herself and at the very least escape to regroup.
“Archduchy,” he quickly corrected her while they circled each other, “the Archduchy of Austria, to be exact. Head of the Holy Roman Empire, and the one to see to your downfall.”
“Right, I almost forgot about you,” she grinned mischievously, fanning the flames and coaxing his vengeful rage where she wanted it to go. “Then again, it makes sense I wouldn't recognize your face, when I had to aim for your rear more often. I was starting to wonder if there was a difference. Is there a mole there, too?”
With the way he shook, she’d gotten him fuming in his pursuit of her and ready to charge again. “Why you crass...! I’ll show you for that!”
“Really?” she hardly even asked the question before parrying the sword from his tightened grip too impassioned and careless regarding technique. To her amusement, the archduchy released a not-so-fearsome yip and threw up his hands instinctively.
Oh, she’d gotten him to tire in that clunky suit easily, and that little gulp sealed her control of the moment. “Go pick up your sword, show me something,” she teased after an uncomfortable silence, gesturing over to where his piece lay. “I won’t kill you without it.”
His upper lip ticked up in a small courtesy smile that signaled more annoyance than thanks. With slow movements, Roderich walked towards his sword and bent down to pick it up, observing Erzsébet and holding unwavering eye contact with his shield raised in suspicion. Drawing the blade back up, the archduchy raised his brows, as if he were wordlessly asking his opponent if she was ready to resume. At this, Erzsébet smiled and adjusted her stance, prepared for the real battle.
Until he threw a drape from behind him in her face. Briefly distracted by the fabric tugging and tearing through her weapon, she taken mental note of the clunking noises to register he’d moved; however, once her attention returned to him she had discovered he’d ran away. Again.
Too bad for him she had to chase him out anyway. But she wasn’t going to kill him this time. Maybe just leave him a little reminder before his retreat. And maybe she’d take some more time to register that face, for it was a face of an enemy she figured she’d be seeing a lot more of in the coming days, and she couldn’t just shoot at him from afar anymore. Strangely enough, she was starved for the entertainment.