AN: So I know that I really need to update Space Between, and the chapter is indeed in the works. But I wanted to get this piece out too since I'm absolutely fascinated by the character of Logan and want to complicate our understanding of him in Fable 3. I have not, admittedly played the game but I have watched enough vids to (mostly) supplement my lack of game-time. As it is, if there is any discrepancy, please let me know and I will do my best to fix it :)

Feel free to comment or provide constructive criticism, I am always looking for ways to improve!

Thank you very much (and no, I don't own Fable 3 or it's characters - they belong to Peter Molyneux).

~Voi

Theme 01: Warmth

She is the Queen of Albion now.

The revolution is over, the kingdom is united once more and she sits upon the throne in the castle that embodies both her past and her future.

There is a crown atop her hair, and the wrought gold feels like heavy weight though it is more upon her shoulders than her head that she feels it most. She feels anxious at so weighty a burden but there is no one with whom she can share her thoughts. The gown she had worn for the ceremony fits comfortably before she sat down, but now that too feels wrong, feels out of place. And again there is no one in which she can confide these silly little personal problems. Because she is not important anymore, Albion is.

She has won the victory she sought, saved the kingdom from her tyrant brother, all should be well. Yet, the longer she sits on the throne the more the feelings eat away at her.

Loneliness.

Bitter Cold.

Isolation.

After several hours of ceaseless governing her body aches though it is from an exertion that is anything but physical. And that is when she wishes for her brother, finding herself surprised when he does indeed appear at the foot of the dais, his face pale but resolute, a guard at his side.

Sir Walter is speaking to her then, but she cannot hear him over the roar in her ears, attention too sharply taken by the way her eyes meet her brothers' and lock.

They are of the same blood, of the same mind.

She has not seen him since she first stormed the hall and found him waiting for her. Lost in the chaos of fire and violence she only dimly remembers Sir Walter taking him to a cell in the dungeon though where specifically she did not know.

But as she watches him now she knows with sudden startling clarity that she cannot kill him, will not kill him. Even though he has hurt her deeply and forced upon her the decisions that have led her to sit on this throne, she is her mother's daughter and will not bend to petty vengeance.

"Logan."

His name is on her lips before any of her companions can speak, before they can remind her that he is the reason they have all been hurt so deeply,

For she has not forgotten what he has done, and she alone bears the most serious of the scars.

"Logan, come here."

She calls to him then, rising to her feet as he begins to climb the stairs. He has ever been the deliberate one and he is more than halfway up the small steps before she meets him, her diminutive figure only slightly taller than him despite both the elevation difference and the crown on her head.

Close enough to see the scar on his lip, she pauses, suddenly hesitant. And in the next instant he speaks her name; if just to remind them both that they are more siblings than adversaries.

"Rose."

He doesn't bother commanding his voice lower, for silence has fallen over the surrounding crowd, and all strain to hear their conversation. And though he is supposed to call her Queen of Albion, supposed to call her 'majesty' and kiss her hand when he greets her, she does not care.

Because to him she has always been simply 'Rose' and that was always more than enough, for both of them. And it is for that reason that she cannot turn away this man though part of her aches at his past betrayal; because he is still her brother who cared for her as a child and indulged her as a young woman. She cannot hate him for being a bad king any more than she can hate him for being the man forced upon the throne when their mother died.

Instead she smiles, though there are tears in her eyes, and she wishes to hate him for the pain he has caused. For making her choose between the lives of the people and that of her beloved Elliot, for making her understand that he did exactly the same thing when he chose safety of Albion over the love of the people.

He does not move to aid her when the tears finally do come, when they streak down her cheeks and drip onto the once pristine collar of her gown. But then, she is a child no longer, just as he planned, just as he wished. She has become the woman he needed her to be, the woman Albion needed.

And though he cannot help her now, the expression on his face is familiar enough that she cannot help but smile through her tears, one small gloved hand coming to touch him gently on the cheek.

"I take that which has burdened you for so long, Logan. So you may live now as you were meant to."

Even now she cannot help but reassure him, to somehow ease his pain in a way he had once done for her a child. And there is a flicker of something in his dark eyes as he watches her face, listens to her speech, but again he remains silent. That too is ok, because she needs him now for his strength of will and not his words; she needs him to help her understand.

She offers her hand to him then, though she does not know why, nor if he will even accept.

And when his hand closes around her own, she is startled to find his hands so very warm despite the chill of the room and through her gloves the heat drives the icy pain of loneliness from her bones.

Warmth.

It is a sensation she had almost forgotten amidst the mantel of Queen, but it is hers once more, offered to her by the unlikeliest of people.

Or perhaps it is the most likely.

For as she turns to look him in the eye, she sees all he has done for the good of the kingdom, all the horror and pain that the people have suffered. And she sees how much it cost the man who was king, the man who still is her older brother.

Was this why he took her hand?

She wants to ask him, to shake the answer out of him if he will not answer. But here in the courtroom there is an audience, and she is in need of none. And so she can only quietly marvel at how small a gesture can so completely change a role.

Marvel at the man who took her hand and gave to her means to become the Queen of Albion.