Fate's Fair Hand
Summary: Arthur Kirkland should have been Queen of Spades but a twist of fate led him down a different path. A quiet life...at least until he met the whirlwind that was Alfred F. Jones. Prince and peasant grow apart and together, discovering what it is to love, to take risks, to be fair. But with a kingdom in growing revolt and a dark plot unravelling, will fate be fair to them? Cardverse!
Chapter Song: Someday Soon - Doves ( watch?v=ZS_I-D1WnA0 )
Prologue
Yao, the Jack of Spades, was interrupted from the letter he was writing by the doors of the study swinging open on their hinges and an excited young boy running in, his cheeks pink from what had no doubt been a long session of tearing about the palace. During the restless winter months the child could often be found doing this; always where he shouldn't be despite anyone's attempts at entertaining him with quiet play. He never became subdued in the winter the way other children did, but his bright energy burned on through. In fact, the young boy never seemed to tire at all.
"Your Highness!-" Yao stood quickly from the desk and looked questioningly at the young prince now standing before him, out of breath and grinning from ear to ear.
A dishevelled looking maid now appeared in the doorway, "Alfre- Your Highness!" she avoided using the informal term in the presence of the Jack, "I'm sure the Jack has plenty to do at the moment without us intruding!"
Yao held up a hand, signalling to the maid that he wasn't particularly bothered and would deal with the situation from there. The subtle movement also acted as a rather short dismissal to the rattled nurse maid.
She straightened up, rearranging her blouse and glancing at the young boy once more, "Don't you go causing any trouble now." her tone was only lightly chiding, filled with more affection than anything else.
Nodding shortly to the Jack - more of a bow of the head really - she left the room, closing the ornate study doors soundlessly behind her.
"Now, your Highness, what is it you wanted so urgently to see me about?" Yao put his pen down beside the unfinished letter (hardly begun was probably a more accurate term).
The young boy's face broke out into a grin as he placed a small jar onto the desk triumphantly,
"Look!" He breathed excitedly, peering into the glass himself with a smile plastered on his face.
Yao decided to humour the young prince and bent down a little until he was at eye-level with the jar. Inside was a butterfly, batting its wings softly, but otherwise fairly still. Its feathery wings were shimmering iridescently like the silk skirts you saw twirling around at one of the Diamond Kingdoms infamous balls. But it was the colour that was so striking; such a vivid blue. A blue monarch butterfly in this season was rare indeed.
"It isn't wise for you to be playing out in the gardens this close to winter," was all Yao had to say about it, sniffing and straightening up, "you'll catch a cold."
The prince either didn't hear or didn't register the chastising he had received.
"When I'm bigger I'm going to be just like this butterfly!" He grinned, announcing it as if it were a matter he'd thought about for some time.
"You can't be a butterfly when your older, your Highness, you are to be the king, or have you already forgotten?" The Jack was lightly amused but his underlying tone remained serious as he explained this to the young prince.
"No," Alfred's smile faltered a little, "but I don't see why I can't be the butterfly too!"
Yao frowned.
"Well-" the prince continued, "I could fly up high in all those trees and see everything in the whole kingdom - the whole world! And everyone would smile at me when I flew past and the ladies would curtsey and the men would tip their hats and say 'hello, your highness!'... Doesn't that sound fun?"
Alfred seemed momentarily lost in this daydream as he watched the butterfly in its glass prison, the bright blue of its wings reflecting upon his flushed cheeks the way seawater reflects upon the rocks, a little smile playing on the boy's mouth.
The Jack rested a hand on his shoulder and patted it awkwardly. It was not unusual for children to have strange fancies like this sometimes, he supposed. Thinking of it now though, the boy was far more accurate than he would know in his comparison to the butterfly; he would be a ruling monarch clad in blue, he would be powerful, he would be beautiful, he would be kept in a glass case.
Alfred glanced up at him again, as if remembering he was still in the room.
"What are you writing, anyway?" The young boy looked up at him with wide, inquisitive eyes.
Yao glanced at the half folded letter on the desktop, sighing.
"You really want to know?" He looked intently at the little prince. He would have to know anyway, really. There couldn't be too much harm in telling him what it was, could there?
The child focused on the Jack with his full attention now, nodding firmly and crossing his arms. It wasn't often the Jack would let him in on all the complicated arrangements and organisations he was working on and Alfred puffed out his chest that he was actually about to share something with him, Something official, Something...grown-up.
"Well, it's a mandatory letter of invitation to someone we hope will one day be the Queen of Spades - your Queen, your highness. - In fact, I shall ask you to sign it later."
Alfred's expression seemed a little taken aback, "My queen? You mean...the person I will marry?"
His voice was a bit squeaky. Why were they choosing a queen now? He'd known that when he was coronated - although even that to him was still an 'if': What if they changed their mind about Matthew? It could still happen... He might not even need a queen. Either way, he knew if he were to become king, a queen was necessary, but it would be just under a decade until he was of age! To the young prince a decade was as good as forever away!
"Not strictly necessarily, your highness, though it has been a long Spades tradition for the King and Queen to be formally united by a wedding – so…yes, essentially, the person you will marry."
"But I don't want to get married now!" Alfred exclaimed, jumping up from where he'd been leaning against the Jack with a fresh sense of urgency.
"Of course not!" Yao wanted to be reasonable with the child; it was hard for him to understand such things at this age - the boy was not yet even ten. "These arrangements have to be made early on in a royal family - we've been planning this invitation for weeks now as it is. This letter - is merely for preparation purposes...nothing will come of it until you're much older."
Of course, this technically wasn't true. The future queen was required to come and stay at the palace from very early on, at least, that's the way they did it at the Spades palace. Seeing the distress of the child he decided it might not be best to tell him this. Not yet. He pondered briefly as to whether mentioning any of this at all had been a mistake so early. Ignorance is often bliss, as they say. It wasn't as if Alfred would know who the queen was just by looking. Perhaps there was some way to leave the boy peacefully ignorant for a while longer.
"B-but, if you send it now...how will I have time to fall in love with the queen?!" The Jack was surprised to see the little prince's eyes welling up.
Yao brought the same consoling hand down to the boy's shoulder, "As...sweet as that sentiment is, your highness, love is not exactly...required between a king and his queen. I am sure the two of you will have an excellent relationship, but do not trouble yourself with these details just yet, my prince. They are not...most important at present. As I have said, this will not affect you until later. I'm sure when you're older you will see."
Alfred still didn't understand what the Jack meant by his words. There were too many to begin with. Why could he never say things simply? Alfred thought that if the Jack were to just use half as many words then they would get things done much, much quicker. He also hated it when he withdrew certain information from him until he was 'older'. He seemed to have been waiting for years and years to be 'older'. How much older? He wanted to know. On which day of which year would he be 'older'? Although...if this wasn't going to affect him now, then...perhaps it would work out. Maybe Matthew...Well, it didn't really matter. The queen would come later, not now.
But future king or not, why marry at all, if not for love?
It was a week since the letter had arrived at the Kirkland household. One week since Arthur's mother had squealed with delight and pulled her son in tightly to congratulate him. One week since his brothers had joked about Arthur finally being worth something after all. One week since his father had lectured him on the honour it gave his family to have their son chosen to be queen and how he hoped Arthur would uphold this honour upon entering the palace. One week since Arthur had run to his room without supper and cried himself to sleep.
And in that week Arthur still hadn't come to terms with it all.
Queen. The word seemed so strange and alien on his tongue. Arthur wasn't the next queen. He couldn't be. Surely, there must have been some mistake? He'd heard his parents talking about how fortunate he was - how fortunate they all were - for him to be chosen. He didn't feel fortunate at all. He felt trapped. One week ago he'd had his whole life stretched out ahead of him. Now, each day that passed - each hour - each quickly escaping minute - was a minute closer to the day he'd be sent off on the near five hour journey to the Spades palace and then, to the rest of his life. Carefully planned out forever more on a neat training timetable and then surely in a royal diary and, after his coronation, etched into the back of his mind as 'duty'.
Most of all, Arthur just couldn't take in how suddenly it all seemed to have happened. Just the week before he'd been sitting out by the river, trailing peacefully through the manor's back gardens, talking with his well-loved faerie companions about how one day he hoped to travel to all over the world to the different kingdoms and learn from each one, and once he'd learnt all he could he'd come home and paint and write songs of all his travels, of the people he'd met and the sights he'd seen and the things he'd done. Those romantic ideas seemed so far away now.
Arthur knew that anyone considered worthy could be chosen as queen. Male or female - even a commoner, although as of yet, this hadn't happened. The idea of a female only queen had been discarded with the idea of a royal bloodline and this was supposedly a much more streamlined system of ruling. It eliminated the idea that love had to be a factor in a royal marriage - although it often hadn't been anyway. Arthur had heard many tales of the kings and queens of old and the way they were rarely true to one another, causing much scandal and unrest. This way, the king and queen had only to focus on their working relationship - their partnership. In his basic history tutoring he and his brothers had received from one of their great uncles, Arthur had learned of how most of the current kings and queens did not hold romantic ties to one another, many courting other individuals in the court. It was a widely accepted fact that there had not been a romantic king and queen in many kingdoms for centuries - Spades being an exception. No, queens were not chosen to be a lover to the king, they were chosen because they were worthy of the position in one way or another. Arthur just didn't see how he was considered worthy. Why him specifically? Why not one of his three elder brothers? Or anybody else? - And he had to leave home so early on! In only a few days he would be whisked away to the capital city where the palace and its high walls awaited him.
Why now?
Well, he knew why. They wanted him to become 'acquainted' with the prince. Thought a childhood together would bring them closer and so more dynamic and comfortable when eventually ruling. They wanted trust. It was just...why him?
He asked all these questions aloud to the night as he sat alone by the river. The pale moon remained silent for the entirety of his musings, never waking from its blanched slumber to offer him some advice, never shedding some of its luminescent rays of insight onto his troubled thoughts.
He was supposed to be in bed, resting. Tomorrow was his twelfth birthday and his parents were planning to officially announce his planned betrothal to the prince to their closest friends, despite the palace's warning that the matter best be kept discrete at this point to save too much public attention. It was said that the prince himself wasn't even to know until it was thought appropriate. When would that be? In a few days? When Arthur arrived on his very doorstep? In a few years? So much was unanswered.
The Prince of Spades.
Arthur tried desperately to conjure up some image- some meaning - to the title, but found it left his mind almost painfully blank. It made him feel drained of colour and nervous when he thought about him. There were two sides to a marriage. Not only that, Arthur didn't even know which prince he was marrying! He hadn't wanted to ask, maybe he was just too stubborn to admit interest, but he knew there were two young princes in the Spades palace. Matthew and...Alfred. But Alfred was only nine years old! So young. Marrying someone so much younger was also disconcerting. He resolved to try to clarify which prince he was...assigned.
Something about this marriage seemed so cruel and cold; there was really no hope of love in it whatsoever. "It was a business partnership" one of his brothers had explained to another when he'd commented on how neither were going to be able to have any offspring for lack of 'proper equipment', provoking a huge flush from Arthur who had been sitting solemnly at the kitchen table the whole time, pretending not to listen. It was true though, the whole thing was a business partnership that consumed your entire life. The idea of heirs was abandoned long ago and the thought seemed almost old fashioned now. Instead, the king and queen would appoint who they wanted to be the next in power. It could be anyone, in fact, it was almost peculiar that the king had requested his own son be king before he died so suddenly. Arthur wondered what his future betrothed thought of all this - had he learned to accept an inevitable marriage arrangement as part of his duty as king?
It didn't help for him to dwell on the prince too much.
He focused instead on the dark rippling waters of the river as he trailed his hand in soft circles, watching the reflected image of the moon distort and twist until it was no longer recognisable. Across the water what seemed to be a floating candle drifted over from the forest. A small shape lit up like a firefly. As it neared, the slight panic Arthur had felt withered away and he sighed in recognition.
"Hello there," he said softly, a sad smile on his lips as he reached out for the small faerie to sit on his hand.
She perched on his palm comfortably, not fearing this boy who had earned the trust of the spirits years ago. Her delicate blue dress tickled Arthur's palm like a soft cobweb.
"It's late Arthur," Her sweet, tinkling voice rose above the whistling of the cold night breeze, it was less of a voice than a tune, one that Arthur had realised only he could hear. That was, at least, he was the only one in his family who could."Everyone else sleeps, why are you out in the night?"
The soft radiating light she gave off illuminated Arthur's face as he replied,
"I had to think."
She didn't question him further on what he was doing up in the dead of night. He himself knew he should return soon, his parents would be livid if they knew he'd snuck out of bed, particularly when the following day seemed so important to them. The faerie was surprisingly still on his palm. She merely sat and watched, sensing Arthur's solemn demeanour. Tonight she did not dance or laugh or whizz around his person playfully as usual. She did not call her friends out to laze with him on the grass or twirl on his shoulder or tug on a lock of his soft blond hair before flitting off to hide mischievously behind a leafy stem, giggling to each other when he feigned annoyance. Tonight she just sat, dragging her little knees up to her chest the way Arthur could remember himself doing when he and his brothers were still young enough to tolerate sitting together quietly long enough for their mother to tell them all a bedtime story. He hated to disappoint the little face staring up at him, but Arthur's tales were neither so whimsical nor so precious.
"I have to go away soon." Arthur felt a lump in his throat as he spoke and found he couldn't bear to look at the beautiful creature in his palm. Feeling as if he should somehow elaborate to his small friend, he found his throat constricting when he thought of the words he could not say. What even was it he wanted to say?
However, he could still feel the pale glow of her upturned face and twinkling eyes gazing at him in wonder.
Arthur realised that this was what he feared the most. Leaving all he knew. Perhaps that would seem strange to anyone else; he was the youngest of the Kirkland brothers, save for little Peter (who was always well loved and fussed over, being the baby) and the last on anyone's minds. However, this offered him sweet seclusion and a strange freedom. He could please himself without the pressure of upholding his family name. He could escape the severity of his father and the teasing of his brothers and just pass away the hours out here by the river with his spirit friends. It was this freedom he would miss most of all. He was tied down now. To the prince, to the palace, to the court - to the kingdom itself.
Was it selfish? To be so repulsed by such an honour.
The faerie in his outstretched palm said nothing for a while but eventually she raised a small hand to Arthur's cheek, sensing his despair, "You will be greatly missed."
Arthur felt relieved that she hadn't asked him why he was going, he thought she knew anyway. Somehow.
For a short moment he looked at her small face. She was smiling at him sadly and they seemed to communicate silently to each other through the soft touch of her hand. It was times like this Arthur really did believe he really did have some kind of...power. That it wasn't all in his head like his parents kept repeating. That the notion that he could somehow bend magic elements to his will and use the spirits as both allies and forces was true. Just like in the stories of old...
Arthur was momentarily distracted by a flickering on the water's surface, at first assuming that more faeries were approaching from the forest. It looked as if rippling flames were dancing along the rivers moving waters. He leaned towards the edge of the bank to better see. More flames seemed to be revealed as he did so. The faerie leapt from his palm and whizzed to the water's edge, examining, like Arthur, the strange patterns. He looked to his faerie companion to see if she was somehow making these shifting shapes herself. Some clever light show she was performing to lift Arthur's spirits. She, instead was frozen, and rather than gazing down at the water she was looking up with wide, horrified eyes to some far off point behind Arthur's head. This, again, was odd. The interest was clearly in the shifting changes of the water, the strange dancing mirage, almost like fire and- Arthur seemed to freeze at the same moment. Seeing in the water's surface not only the flames but the outline of a chimney, and an attic window, and then the edge of a tiled roof very familiar to him. A split-second later he seemed to process this surreal composition in the river and turned to gaze, like the faerie had, with horrified eyes at the manor house he'd had his back to this entire time. It hadn't been fire on the river, no, it had been a reflection. A reflection of what he saw now... and that was his entire home going up in flames.
A bloodcurdling scream from his mother was enough to bring Arthur to his senses.
He jumped up from his position by the water's edge, breathless and alive with fresh horror, and ran with hurtling force towards the sound. Towards the house. Towards the flames.
He was out of breath upon fully sprinting the length of the garden and the thick heat emitted by the vastly growing flames in the house hit him full force as he reached the back doors. Through the glass he could see the lower level of the house was burning as ferociously as the rest, but there were fewer flames at the rear end of the building. He could feel his breath hitching in his throat from panic. Somewhere he heard his name being called. Recognising the voice as his mother's, he tore around the side of the house. In his hast he didn't watch the ground below him and felt a searing pain shoot up his left leg as he stepped on a fallen piece of burning wood on his bare feet. He kept moving. He'd circled to the parlour room window when he caught sight of his mother. She was running, frantic, her long hair wild and tangled from where she had lost her hair pins in her panic. Her cotton night dress was tangled around her knees and covered in the sooty black smudges not unlike the ones Arthur would find on his hands after placing a new log on the large hearth in the family room. She was calling his name.
"Mother!" he yelled, his voice high pitched with both his panic and his youth, terrified by the flames framing her in the room.
Seeing her son standing outside, she ran to the window, unbolting it swiftly and reaching through to touch the boy. She stroked his face and hair, her hand blackened with soot.
"Oh, my baby, my little boy..." She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing herself to take brief peace in her son's safety.
She was brought to reality by the distinct sound of splintering wood and a male cry from the second floor, her eyes shooting around wildly. A mother of four could not take solace for too long. Not in this situation.
"Listen- Arthur, my dear! You must run, you hear me? You have to take Peter and run!"
Arthur noticed the small child in her other arm for the first time. Little Peter was bundled up in his sleep blanket and whimpering softly from the intense heat of the burning house.
"But, Mother-" Arthur felt the near hysterical panic rise in his throat as the small child was pressed into his arms.
"Don't argue, please! It's them, Arthur, they won't stop! The fire- you aren't safe!" Her words made no sense, her voice thick with tears, "Run through the forest - you know the way, don't you my sweet? You always did love playing by the river...oh, my baby, just get away- take Peter and don't look back-"
"Come with me!" Arthur choked, clutching the now howling Peter in his arms and sidestepping to try and avoid the burning in his leg from the growing flames licking the side of the house. If they could only lodge the window open some more she could get out too. She could escape. The thought of her not doing so winded Arthur a bit. Shock didn't even begin to describe the feeling coursing through his veins. His mother...burning alive in this house. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"I can't, my love - your brothers!-" As if to support this claim, there was a scream from somewhere higher up in the house, and the strangled cry of someone's name. "Go, Arthur! Just go! Your mummy loves you very much - just run! Run as far as you can! Get help!"
With one last stroke of his face and a painfully soft touch to the back of Peter's blankets, she tore off into the flame ridden hallway with the determination only a desperate mother could have. Arthur's last sight of his mother was of her battling through to the staircase, attempting to climb to the second floor, from which the choking voice of one of his brothers could be made out faintly against the cracking and ripping of the fire.
"Mother! Ma!-" Arthur's voice came out hoarse and cracked as he screamed out to the empty parlour, "D-don't just... leave me!"
It took a worrying creaking noise from the side of the house for him to move, realising that his mother was gone. He gripped Peter tightly as he fled back around the building towards the dark forest a little in the distance. He skirted around the burning debris now littering the grass and tried not to react when he misplaced a step and a torturous burn would tear up his leg. His efforts didn't prevent the contorted expression his face took on and the brief sharp howl that would pass from his lips. Finally, reaching the back of the house he tore through the garden, sights set on the river. Something about his mother's words, the distress in her voice... it propelled him on. He needed to be away from there. Not just from the growing flames. From the house. He didn't know why, but this was no time to ask questions. For the first time in his life, he let go of all the curiosity and the indignation and the fussing and simply focused with a rather primal attention to the task at hand. Getting out of there alive.
Finally reaching the water's edge, he held Peter as high as he could and plunged into the water, relishing briefly the sharp relief it brought the aching burns on his legs as he splashed across, but wincing as the icy waters lapping up to almost his chest. The frozen waves pushing up his nightshirt into a twisted mass around his torso and flooding his undergarments rather uncomfortably in the process. Panting from the effort of wading through so ferociously and the shock of the cold, he clambered out onto the grassy bank on the other side, his nightshirt now soaked and clinging to him, making him feel frozen in the chilled winter air. He prayed he wouldn't be outside for too long, a numbness already spreading across his torso and setting in his toes, so fierce it felt as if it were settling in his very bones.
Peter was still crying noisily which Arthur saw only as an indication that his brother was still breathing and so, a good sign. Once back on his feet and just inside the forest he glanced back briefly at his home. It was engulfed in flames, burning fast like dry wood. Arthur heard a strange strangled noise from somewhere very nearby and wondered briefly at its origin before realising it had escaped from his own throat. Something caught his eye beside the house. A shape - a silhouette even. Standing where Arthur himself had stood not too long ago, by the parlour window. It was far away but it looked... It looked like a figure. His heart jumped sickeningly in his chest at the thought of his mother having escaped. But he knew at a second glance that this figure couldn't be his mother; they were too still. Too calm. In fact... Were they...looking his way? His stomach dropped, causing him to feel at once nauseated with paranoia and with the pain of the burns and his mothers pleading words fresh in his mind, he wrapped up Peter tightly and sank deeper into the gaping dark mouth of the forest, breaking into a shaky run and hoping to forget the ominous figure he wasn't even completely certain to have seen by the house.
He must have been running for hours. At least, that's how it felt to Arthur. His legs ached with more than just burns now, although they alone sent searing pains through his body with every step. His arms ached too, from holding Peter to his chest tightly, hoping to keep his baby brother warm. The infant was silent now, but Arthur was aware of his humid breath on his neck and so didn't worry too severely for his sudden hush. Most concerning of all though was not Arthur's pain, but the areas with an intense lack of it. His feet had long since lost all feeling, frozen from his trek through the river, merely thudding numbly against the hard icy carpet of dead leaves on the forest floor. His hands too were merely claw-like vices of ice from gripping his brother so tightly for so long.
Running blindly on now, he couldn't help but let his brain rattle on and on with endless garbled thoughts. It was like cogs in a clock, winding and winding until Arthur was sure he would be over wound and start whirring backwards in one snapping movement, winding down until he'd simply cease to have thoughts at all.
Now that the original red-hot fear of the flames was a reasonable distance behind him, his mind was in turn firing up and festering like a growing flame itself, ablaze with questions he hadn't dared to ask himself earlier. Where was he going? What of his family? His home? His newborn brother in his arms? The small pulsing bundle of life that was now his to protect. Everything seemed ridiculous now. The letter, the marriage, the prince, the lost desire to travel the world. Had all those things even been real at all? It felt so... childish to him, despite being only a child himself. And yet...fleeing through the woods away from the only life he'd ever known made him feel extremely small, as if he were five years old again and running from his older brothers as they played some cruel prank on him. That fear seemed so tiny and false to him now and a sick part of him wanted to feel it again. He would trade it, it was okay! He would trade back. He yelled it in his head. It's okay, I've had enough! I'm sorry, I'll trade! I'm sorry... Nobody replied to these strangled wishes. No higher entity answered his pleas or reached out to touch him somehow. They either weren't listening, didn't care or, this last prospect Arthur found growingly more probable, they simply were not there at all.
Tears had been streaming silently down his face the entire winding journey through the forest. Tears for his family and his home. His mother and brothers ( even if the latter had made his life hell on occasion) even for his cold father whose strong face he pictured now, with one of those rare, somewhat strained smiles he saved for the occasional times Arthur would do something right. Each time he tripped on a branch, a fresh, thick sob would escape him in a choking sound. And those sobs were not for his family, but for his own pathetic and selfish escape. For his endless stumble through the trees that, for all he knew, could lead him nowhere. Why him? Why should he escape? It was with aching bitterness that he recalled how much stronger, smarter, how much more handsome all his brothers were. Was it some kind of joke that he was the one to get out alive? No... perhaps not. He remembered the soft weight filling his arms. This was why. He may be unimportant but Peter wasn't. His life was glistening and new and stretched forth for the child to seize when he got the chance. Arthur would give him that chance.
Either way, whoever he was running for, the boy was tiring. His footfalls were becoming more erratic, his stumbles more frequent, his breath shaky and his body quivering from the cold. Still, he tore on. He couldn't bear the thought of just fizzling out there in the forest. Just...giving up. No, his father would tell him, that wasn't the Kirkland way. Worthless or not, he felt there was something to prove. He wasn't given this life just to...just to throw it away. His mother's words just kept repeating in his mind, her tortured face as she yelled to him in the fire, how she'd looked battling through those flames on the staircase. He had to survive, for her sake, for Peter's sake.
Surviving was easier said than done however. The pain was becoming unbearable and Arthur bit hard down on his Tongue as he swayed and scraped one of his burnt legs on the rough trunk of a tree. Tasting the metallic flavour of blood in his mouth he staggered to a halt, his face screwed up and his small fists grabbing at the edge of his wet nightshirt. Leaning over gingerly to inspect the wound, he wanted to be sick at what he saw. The pink, fleshy burn now a torn gash and dripping with the same thick, red liquid he could taste in his mouth. He tore his eyes away from it, a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach and the discomforting sensation of something rising in his throat. He swallowed hard. Standing still only seemed to draw out the pain more and so, sucking in his breath, he ploughed on, trying to forget the pitiful state of his calf.
He didn't get far before he tripped badly again, falling downwards now, into a ditch of dead leaves. These weren't enough to provide any kind of cushioning for his fall however, and there was a deeply unnerving crack as he hit the hard earth. Arthur cried out as a stab of pain shot through him. He reached for his brother to check if was okay, his promises of saving the boy echoing around his skull, only hearing a soft whimpering from nearby. He pulled his small warm body to him, confirming he was at least still intact, something Arthur could not say for sure of himself. Trying to rise, he found it physically impossible. He let a frustrated and pained cry escape his mouth before collapsing back down into the shallow ditch.
Arthur was faint now, his head spinning. He could feel himself in his brain thrashing around with the effort to get up and keep moving. Yet his limbs remained splayed at his sides like dead weight. Inside he was writhing with the agony of defeat. Everything was either sore or numb or quite simply searing with pain. He was far too exhausted to do anything about it now though. Couldn't even bring himself to call for help. He felt his eyes drooping and his body curling up, trying to fight the soft entangling fingers of unconsciousness from wrapping around him. He forced his eyelids to stay open for a few seconds longer and stared up at the sky. Through the gaps in the trees he could make out the bright pinpoints of stars, gazing down at him from their high perches in the air. Somewhere very far away a church bell was sounding. He lifted a hand half heartedly, wanting to reach out for the sound. The sound of civilisation. The sound of rescue.
He listened to the bell sound, it's chime so distant and yet pounding in his brain.
The chimes continued humming one by one in the distance. Arthur felt as though he were listening from the bottom of an ocean. Lying on his back on the sandy ground of the freezing waters, gazing at a distorted moon and listening to the muted vibration of the bells somewhere far above on the land.
And these resonating chimes repeated twelve times before the dreadful silence returned to him once again.
The sounds ceased, leaving only the soft noises of winds rustling through the trees and night creatures skittering through the leafy forest ground.
Twelve chimes... he thought sleepily.
That's when it struck him like a final, ringing thirteenth chime of the clock. Today was his twelfth birthday.
It was the last thing he remembered.
The final, almost laughably tiny fragment before he forgot it all.
A/N
A little after note on the story in general ~
I have been writing this cardverse fic for a looong time - years literally! It's not complete but it is pretty much finished in terms of plot planning etc. and to be honest, all this time I have been continuing to write this story on and off mostly for my own entertainment rather than with the interest of submitting it on here. Buuut - now that the end is in sight and I've been going through a bit of writer's block with it lately I thought I may as well dust it off and start putting a few chapters out in case there's anyone else out there who'll appreciate what I've been writing, as well as to give myself time for some inspiration. Because a lot of it's written at this stage I'll hopefully release updates fairly regularly too.
Also to note:
- Well firstly - this story does/will contain USUK for those interested BUT it is kinda slow on that front, the romance is a big part of the plot but it's not super quick like many fanfic's so unfortunately there is some waiting to be done ;) BUT (again) there are a few other pairings going on as well.
- There are OC's - but not that many, most important characters are official or at least countries (though I may be using slightly different names for some than the usual - but in these cases I'll try to note it at the start of the chapter )
- I'm English - I use English words and spell English-ly eheh
- Chapters tend to be long - I've had to split quite a few of them up to be more manageable but yeah, looong chapters in most cases (especially the prologue gosh but I wanted to do it in one sitting to set the story up .)
- I apologise if characters are ever OOC (I know I played around a bit with Seychelles who appears later) but on the most part I tried to keep them as in character as possible.
- I don't own Hetalia! But plot and writing are mine :)
- And last thing - I link a song with each chapter, maybe because I built up a big playlist of inspirational music for writing this story. They're just for fun - listen if you're curious!
ANYWAY - enough stalling - I really hope my little story to someone's taste and I have really enjoyed writing it so far ^.^
