bakerstreet | with your favor

With Your Favor
a shipping meme
(also not a mandatory historical meme)

favor:

: to prefer (someone) especially in an unfair way : to show that you like or approve of (someone) more than others

: to approve of or support (something)

: (NOUN) a token of love (like a ribbon) usually worn conspicuously

The male lead is about to go off and fight the Big Bad (or, on occasion, just the bad guy of the week, or even just in The Tourney, perhaps even with her watching), and there is a very real possibly that he won't be coming back in one piece. Knowing this, his female love interest decides it would be a good idea to hand him an object - some piece of jewelry, a trinket, a piece of clothing, a token of some sort - that she claims is of some personal importance to her (how important is arguable, but more often than not, it's really only valuable in the personal sense). In some settings, she often made it herself. She makes him promise that he will return the trinket, thereby creating a small bit of assurance that he will return from the battle alive. He invariably will, if for no other reason than he promised he would return their love interest's 'most prized possession'.

You fight. You fight because you have to, because you want to, because there's no other way for you. It's been like that forever, it seems. Is there no end to the fighting? Or, perhaps, it's just this one fight, but the battle appears insurmountable in your eyes, the competition too stout. Those were all things you thought before you met them. You could have fought those feelings, too (after all, all you do is fight), yet eventually, you gave in.

A little. Sort of. Unless you wholeheartedly embrace the ideals of romance, which is probably unlikely, given your situation.

But now, at the penultimate peril, they come to you and give you a token of ... of your growing love, or at least affection. What it actually is doesn't matter: something physical or even words of encouragement. What does matter is that, implicitly, they want it to show that they will be with you and, most likely, they want it returned. You are not allowed to die under any circumstances.

Just another thorn in your side, isn't it? ... Isn't it?

You may not admit it, but this simple gift makes you want to fight harder. Why? That's something you'll have to figure out without using brute strength.

Despite the picture and some of the concepts used, characters and threads don't have to be historical or ancient. It can be in modern times, as well! Also, there are no set or defined gender roles. The TV Tropes blurb up there is just to help set the mood and provide information for those that might be unfamiliar.
With that out of the way, reply with your character, prefrences, and any information you'd like to include. Feel free to indicate while role you'd like to play - or try both!
Thread out anything fitting the theme, from first meetings to getting the 'favor' to deadly fights to returning said favor.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ooc: happy to hand out favours!

⟪ Harrenhal awakens slow, like the large, sprawling creature it is, too ancient and foreboding to see to any of its doings with swiftness. There is movement among the tourney's tents, the first jesting voices drifting through the morning's air, and there is, too, the beating of her heart, hard as the hooves of a galloping destrier. She sits up in her bed, violet eyes narrow in the half-dark, yet she is alone – of course she is alone. He had been called away, before there had been time to speak of what has passed between them, and it seems as though he has not yet been permitted a return. What she ought to hope for, perhaps, is that he means not to return at all, that they close their eyes anew to what has happened, to this awakening, and sink into senseless slumber.

There is, however, some irony in the idea that he has been called once more to prevent a transgression of virtueless lust between their prince and princess, when she would surely make their own earnest maester turn first red with rage and then pale with shame, were she to confess her own sins now. The man is not Dornish, and more than half a life in Dorne had not prepared him much, nor left him overly used to their views on love and belonging, on the sating of lust and the trust that can be found in it. And if it had – if it had, then it still ought to not have been like this.

Or should it? She rises, and goes about her morning as she ever does, though it feels empty now that she is by herself. The locket gifted by her brother is carefully returned to its rightful place at her slim, pale throat, her dress is a sweet lilac to compliment her eyes and she dresses after washing, her curls are tangled on this morning, and she brushes them with care. So many things are the same, and yet so many things feel different now, and she is marvelling of a sudden at her own body, and the joy it can hold, the pleasure – and the new, secretive pains. Elsewhere, there is a grand breakfast held for all those attending, but of a servant she requests but a slice of toasted bread and a sip of honeyed tea, neither of which she can finish. There is no appetite in her, only a fresh sort of hunger, and her belly clenches with all her questions left unanswered, and the new way she has learned to miss another.

It cannot be done, none of this day, without speaking to her brother. There is a mad moment where she considers another's confidence – the princess might have some understanding, or a fresh helping of jealousy at knowing that she must yet wait for her own bedding. The prince is closer to her brother in manner, though he must suffer the same frustration as his sister, and, worse, it would feel a betrayal to Arthur to seek Rhaegar out before him. They, too, are brothers in their way, made so by shared battles and years and years of deepened trust, and there is a love between them she does not wish to disturb.

To another, it might be a mystery of where in the strange, dark castle to await her honourable, knightly brother: the place is vast, the tourney's various celebrations rampant and full of promises that might turn even the most valiant man's head, the demands from the royal family seemingly endless, their guarding amid this mess more complicated than ever. Yet today is the joust: anyone who holds love for the Sword of the Morning knows where he shall be headed. More private it would be than this tent that is named her own in some fashion, one of the hundreds set to accommodate these masses – he, too, would know that she cannot be still in the earliest hours of the day, which beg of her to move her legs, to see the first glimpses of the sun.

Every other knight who may, she knows, leaves this task to his squire. And she is sure the boy he chose for this honour would have performed his duties most gladly: there is something worshipful in the lad's eyes when he merely sorts through fresh lances and polishes venerable armour, and she has no doubt he would treat his knight's trusted destrier with the same diligence and affection. Yet her brother understands these creatures, and he knows a joust is won, yes, by the play of the lance and the knights and all that – but none of it, none of it at all, is possible without a steadfast horse, and best results are achieved with a deep and lasting bond between rider and animal.

So this is where he finds her, on the morrow that shall change her life. The air smells sweet of horse and the promise of a fine spring's day, and she is petting his destrier's neck, whispering into his ear of the glory he will win, and of the apples he shall be rewarded with. She does not start at his approaching footsteps – she knows his stride as well as her own, if not better. Yet there is almost something shy in her gaze, when her own violet eyes meet their match. ⟫

He has told me it is a fine day for a morning ride.