Setting: AU universe, WW2, rural Germany. Small village in the Black Forest.
Characters: Human! Gilbert, Werewolf! Ludwig, Soldier! Arthur, Human! Matthew
...
The time is World War Two. Nazi Germany is under a siege by the British, and the cities are no longer safe. The mysterious disappearance of a man, after his refusal to join the Nazi party, forces his wife, and surviving son, to flee to the countryside. There, Gilbert soon finds that the walls surrounding the village keep out more than just the foreign soldiers. A daring escape into the Black Forest exposes a dark underside to a darker war. Safety is relative.
......
Author's Note
Hey! It's Awreon. Of course.
According to the rating guide this should be rated M, but there won't be anything hugely explicit... See the warnings for, well, warnings.
Also, I know I still have that other fic running, and I said that I wouldn't start another fanfiction until I finished that one, but this story has been eating at me for about a week by now so I decided to post it anyways. As that leaves me with two unfinished stories, I can't promise super-quick updates, but I do have quite a bit of this story written (it just needs proofing). Also, these chapters are a bit shorter than I'm used to, but that's just the way it turned out. Sorry about that.
Authors Notes will be at the bottom in future chapters... I just need to go over the warnings for the first chapter.
Warnings: Werewolf!Ludwig,maybe-not-the-most-accurate historical references, possible violence/sexual mentions in future chapters, strong language.
Finally, reviews are so appreciated. Thanks for reading!
......
It was a war of revenge.
That's what Father always said—closely followed with the strong opinion that a war of revenge leads to nowhere. That revenge could turn people dark and angry and restless, itching for the blood of the people they'd been raised to hate. Revenge lead to actions without thought, Father said. Revenge would pick us up and push us forwards and fill us with energy in the form of hatred, only to run us to disaster.
The man who placed these thoughts of revenge into our minds was well loved. People feared him, respected him, bowed at his feet and took his every word as their own. He was their fucking messiah. This man, surely, was the saviour that our nation needed, the saviour that would pull us back to our feet and claim revenge on the world that threw blame at us when we didn't deserve it. The saviour that promised us food when we were starving, hope when we were desperate. He filled our thoughts with the blissful images of a nation returned to its former glory. He was everything we could hope for.
He was also the man that my father had grown to hate.
He had a certain look to his eyes, apparently. Father knew people with that look, and nothing good ever came out of them. This 'messiah' was angry and loud, promising things he could not possibly be sure of. He was cunning, proud, and he could speak to a crowd in such a way that turned every head to his direction, forced every ear to listen, and brought praise from even the most critical of people. He was manipulative, abusing his power and pouring blame on others all while keeping a clean profile for the public.
We were a nation of fools to trust him.
I always thought this statement a bit harsh, though, as we were only human. And it was only human for a people so desperate, so weakened and beaten down, to take hold of whatever hope they could and cling to it with all their strength lest they fall back into despair. And in a country where children were building their toy houses out of the paper we had once called 'money', this desperation was as real as it could get. And desperation of this level could easily lead a group of people into placing their whole trust into a man who promised a better life.
I never shared this opinion with Father, though. He was best left with his own ideas. He was always a straight forward man, after all, and he spoke his mind with such firmness that it was useless to share your personal thoughts. I did respect him for this, but in the end, it was probably the cause of his disappearance.
And I could never forgive him for leaving my mother and I like that, so abruptly. I know it probably wasn't his fault. But though I still held that respect for him, his image turned ever so slightly more bitter.
I had other things on my mind, of course.
...
The disappearance of my father was not the first strange thing to happen to my family. As a young child, I had a baby brother, one whom I apparently adored. About midway through his second year, however, he came down with a fever. The doctor was promptly called, and as we were a family of some status, the arrangements were made for my brother to be sent to the hospital for proper medical care, as the sickness had gotten the better of the poor child. Unfortunately, the hospital could not find a cure, and so the baby was sent home to die.
My mother always talked about my brother, but never called him by name. Humouring her superstition, I never bothered to ask. I didn't remember my brother, anyways—I was too young. I hold not even the faintest memories.
And I don't have much reason to, in any case; my mother always spoke of my brother as a quiet child, a strong and healthy baby until the sickness came and took him. As was custom with a child so young, he spent most of his time in the nursery, cared for by our elderly nurse and kept at distance from my father.
His nurse was the same woman who had cared for me as a child; after my brother's death, we had no need for her anymore, and I can remember her departure. I missed how the woman had sat and read from her collection of fairy tales; she really loved her collection, and I figure it kept her from boredom after hours spent with a disciplined child. I assumed she'd read the stories to my brother, too, though he had only been a baby at the time.
Did that matter, though? Soon enough, I was once again an only child. As I didn't remember my brother, this didn't bother me. Father gave out precious little attention as it was; with all the attention focused on me, the son he had poured all his hopes and dreams into, I was happy. Before he disappeared, I practically fed from this attention; I memorized every word he said, looked up to him as though he could do no wrong. Like the people of our nation looked up to their leader.
Eventually, the leader would lead them to disaster.
Eventually, my father would abandon his family.
I guess that was why I could never hold any real anger at our people; after all, we were only human.
...
The windows were broken on the ninth of November, 1938. Not our windows, of course; nobody had much reason to hate us, other than the bitter poor who looked at our house with contempt. But they knew better than to lay a finger on our windows.
The store across the street, however, had its windows smashed; the inside of the shop was burnt down, and the family on the upper floor rushed out of their home only to see it crumble to the earth. All of their belongings were inside. Their money, already low, was by now completely destroyed. And nobody could do anything about it, for fear of their reputations. No; they could only watch on, thanking the lord that it wasn't their family, wasn't their wife or their husband or their children.
My father watched from the window of his office. There was no trace of thanks in his eyes, only disgust.
The Crystal Night, as it was known, was only rarely mentioned after that; and when it was brought up, it would be in the quiet, angry voice of my father who spoke softly of murder in the form of burning houses.
...
The letter came on the ninth of November, 1940, precisely seven days before Hamburg was bombed by the Royal Air Force. Names like Franco and Hitler had become household words, mentioned at the breakfast table while my father peered over his newspaper and my mother brought the tea.
We were still well-off; Mother had her valuables, in any case, which we could sell in an emergency. But we had money, and status. Before I was born, my father had a high job; perhaps in the government, before it became too much for my father. Coming from wealth as an only child, my mother brought her share of treasures into the marriage. I was always well looked after.
Of course, as it is with most old-fashioned families coming from money, expectations were high in the household, and I was—from a very young age—to be seen and not heard. I had my fair share of opinions, but I never voiced them. I sat up straight. I dressed properly. Most importantly, and especially around adults, I watched my tongue.
It was habits like these, driven into you from a young age, that forced you to remain calm and quiet when you happened upon something startling. Like the letter, perhaps, which sat on the breakfast table looking much too clean and white beside the paper. Or the look of confusion, which was terrifyingly alien on your Father's face. Mother never did come to breakfast.
...
And, two weeks later, Father never came to dinner.
Was it fear that drove him off? Or was he taken? We never knew what drove him off—or what took him away from us. All that we knew was that he was gone, and we were left to our own imaginations as to what he could possibly have done wrong.
As for me, my mind refused to let go of the way he looked out the window at the broken shop front, the way his eyebrows creased as he read the paper, the way his footsteps decreased in pace as he walked through the house. Was it his hidden sympathy, and his pride, that drove him off with no explanation? Surely, our leader would not have wanted a man of such status to live a life so against his wishes; a man who had sympathy for others was dangerous, especially if money backed him up.
Which was why I found myself sitting on a train, next to my mother, watching as the city faded into the distance.
Mother said it was the bombings. But by the way her hands were clenched as they sat on her lap, I knew otherwise. Her face, too—she looked so old, her blonde hair falling over her face in a way she never used to allow. It stood out against the faded red velvet of the seat, catching every slight breeze that made its way through the train car's entrance. The air inside was heavy with dust and smoke and morning, and this foreground of gray just made everything more dismal.
I turned my eyes from my mother and contented myself with watching the world pass outside. Faraway streets and buildings faded into rolling hills, valleys cut deep into the earth and a forest of pines so dense that the ground would have never seen the light.
I failed to see beauty in such scenery. For me, beauty was dark oak desks and dust that caught the light, bookshelves stacked to the ceiling and the pooling of satin drapes as they hit the floor. I knew that, where I was going, there would be no such luxuries. Only what remained when such beauty was taken away—warmth, shelter, safety. Home.
Mother bought me a candy from a passing cart, the desperate attempt of a smile written on her lips.
I turned back to the window.