Author Notes: This is a back story in the Dragonblade universe (even though this is the first I'm uploading). When I say "Dragonblade" I'm speaking of my original fantasy story, which means this is one (of several) stories in the works that take place in my original fantasy world. There are several races and fantasy elements and pirates and magic and well, it's a fucking fantasy world, so there's a learning curve, but hopefully it's not too high of one with the way I write it. Hopefully.

I'm telling it in first-person point of view for some crazy reason. (Starts with Prussia's pov if you want to know). There may or may not be sexual intercourse written out for your enjoyment, but there most certainly are references to it. As well as very heavy themes. VERY. Heavy. Dark. If you don't like seeing Prussia or England / Britain as dark characters with dark urges and pasts, then leave now. If you can stand to live in my world and attempt to empathize with what some would call the absolute monsters of society, then please, stay for a while.

Just to make the point again: while this is fantasy this is not cute and cuddly fantasy. This is serious, dark, deep, and hopefully not too trigger-happy. (Yes it has its cute moments but yeah...)

Warnings: Serious triggers here! Leave now if you cannot handle! There are in this story: mentions of rape, mentions of child molestation, sex as a punishment, and all sorts of sexual deviance into dark themes; this whole series, actually, is full of this. Also, language; language is pretty bad.

Chapter 1: Solitary Confinement

Fucking cunt deserved it. That's all I'm gonna say. They can lock me up down here in solitary confinement or whatever this is supposed to be, I'm still going to say the fucking cunt deserved it. Oh sure, his claim that what he was doing fell right in line with my punishment could very well be true, but I don't give a shit. I'm not going to accept being forced to suck some guy's dick, especially not when it belonged to that damn cranky asshole of a police soldier in charge of this prison establishment. Oh, I didn't press my luck too far, of course. I didn't bite it or anything – not to say I wasn't tempted as all hell – but at this point I've had enough jizz in my face to refuse to give him the same satisfaction.

It's not my fault he fell for my ruse. Like I would actually swallow his cum. Hah. Spitting his own filth back in his own face never felt so good.

So yeah. That's why I'm down here. Solitary confinement. A week they said. Just food and water being shoved through the bars at the same time every day like clockwork. I never get to see them, of course. There's only the one little section of the cell that has metal bars like normal prison cells; the rest of the square hold is stone. Pure fucking stone, smoothed out by expert stone crafters. Hah. The fact that people even spent so much work on such a room makes me wish I could yell at my old man for his stupid idea of priorities.

Not that my old man would listen to me. I bet he wishes I was never born, or that he never kept me around. Well, he's got Ludwig now. Ludwig will be the heir and I'll just go down in history as the bad apple of the family who tarnished the innocence of the young heir. The bad apple. The half elf. The bastard child. Yep. That's me.

"Whatever. They can all die in a fire for all I care. Fuck the world!"

My voice echoes strangely in the square smoothed wall cell. It bounces back and makes my teeth rattle, so I opt not to shout again. Guess I'm not going to entertain myself by shouting at nothing. Probably a good thing. They'd call me insane and my prison mates would take every advantage to shove even more insults in my face.

Most prison mates get along. We're all in this shit hole together, after all. It should be us against them. In-fighting just brings us all down and makes life suck even harder than it did before. But, ah hah, with me there's a catch.

See, I'm -

A chuckle from the front of the cell makes me freeze my thoughts. Someone else is here? Out there? But it's not time to pick me up, yet, and it's definitely not time for food. So what? Another prisoner? Who else would be down here?

Hell, this is supposed to be solitary.

"Fuck life in general."

The other voice echoes back to me. Not my own voice. Definitely someone else's. Richer, too. Still hoarse, like mine, but I have a feeling it's at least raspy for a different reason. There's a hint of musical quality, too, which makes me think of the Elves. Oh yeah, I'm a Half Elf, but there's nothing special about my speech patterns. There's Elves in this prison; I've met them; they're the ones that don't hate me because of my crime; they distrust me because I'm a Half Elf, not because...

Well, anyway, the point is there's this certain quality to an Elf's voice that kind of sets them apart. Mystic fantasy reasoning and all that shit. Those fairy tales don't make shit up. Well, they do, but they're actually based on fact. The Elven language is generally smoother and more uplifting than our coarse Human language, but even when an Elf speaks Common they're still using the same lilts, still adding a rhythm and speaking like they're singing and well...

Okay. Whatever. That's enough about the Elven voices. You get the idea, right? The point being this other voice bounced back at me into my solitary confinement cell. Like. Solitary. There shouldn't be anyone else down here, and definitely not an Elf.

I'd heard the rumors of course. See, when they marched me into this prison I passed a huge ship that looked like it had been docked into the side of the prison wall. Like someone had used some water trick to move it from the ocean to the prison. Except there was one problem with that idea. There wasn't any water anywhere near this place. Which meant the ship was an enigma, something to gawk at, something to make those stories of sky pirates not so much a story anymore.

What did this have to do with the Elf sharing my solitary confinement?

Ah, right. I haven't gotten there yet.

See -

"What are you down here for?"

I blink and stare in the general direction of the voice. There's an Elf down here, an old rumor of Elf sky pirates floating around in my head, and there's an Elf down here talking to me when we're supposed to be in solitary confinement. For starters, this is some fail design of solitary confinement. My old man really does have his priorities fucked up.

I decide to answer the stranger. After all, it's a hell of a lot better than whispering to myself. Unless I've already been broken by the smooth white walls and this guy is a part of my inner consciousness. No. No, best not to think too far down that route. Better to respond and just not think of things like that at all.

"Spat the warden's own cum back in his face."

There is a snort, maybe another chuckle. Hell yeah, it is pretty funny. "That's...interesting."

Of course I'm not going to elaborate. I don't want to go into a detailed explanation of why I'd be sucking dick in the first place, or what my daily punishment is supposed to be, or why I'm here in the prison in the first place. That's all a bit too heavy and personal for a first time meeting. But if he gets to ask why I'm down here, then, hey, I can do the same right?

"So what about you? Why're you down here?"

There's a long silence. So long I almost think he's completely quit talking to me. Which wouldn't really be fair. He asked the question first; I was just repaying him. You can't expect to get information from someone without offering something else in return, after all. It's just not right. Even prisoners understand that much.

Hell, it takes so long for him to answer, I'm almost ready to believe that I did imagine him and it's all part of my inner consciousness playing tricks on me. They do say strange things happen to you when you're alone in dark, small places. Well, I know for sure I'm not going to like being underground for a long time. It's not very comfortable.

Eventually, though, the Elven voice echoes back to me with a weight to the words that had been so absent beforehand. "For living."

I can feel my eyebrows raise, and I sit down against the wall, putting my back to the voice, crossing my arms. Yeah, so, he can't see me show my confusion, but that doesn't mean I don't need to show it anyway. At least I can be more comfortable when dealing with this guy.

"Living? The fuck does that even mean?"

There's a spot of silence again, but it doesn't last near as long. "They tried to kill me. Many times. I stay down here because they don't know what else to do."

"What the hell, man? You're making shit up now. No one's immortal, not even the Elves. If they wanted you dead, you would -"

Ah hah. My memory finally clicks back to me. The old rumor of Elf sky pirates. The old pirate ship. A crew had been broken here. This prison had taken out an entire crew of Elf sky pirates, mostly because they had turned against themselves and the Tardin military police force had tricked them until every last one had been captured and executed. The rumor said one had survived, that there was one Elf they couldn't kill no matter what they tried, and that the military had decided to hold him indefinitely until such time came as they could access and use the magic or immortality he seemingly possessed.

"It's you," I whispered. "You're the one they couldn't kill."

"That is what I said, yes."

"Why the hell would they put me in a cell so close to yours?"

"Lack of space, I suppose. I have a feeling this establishment was not originally meant to be a prison."

This makes me blink. I hadn't thought of this place being anything other than a prison before. "What makes you say that?"

"It is built more like a school than a prison."

If I knew what schools looked like, I may have agreed with him. As it was, I could only shrug and try to imagine what the design of this prison must have looked like without all the current decorations and settings. A cafeteria, but almost every large housing establishment had one of those. A huge courtyard area, used for my public humiliation each day – some of those whip lashes still stung from the other day – but it could have easily looked nicer with a garden or planted trees or anything really. Rows and rows of large cell blocks – nice and spacious, except for the somewhat makeshift dividers separating cells further. Wouldn't want too many prisoners gathering together, after all. Gods, I'm glad I managed to get down into solitary confinement. Having to sleep close to so many people that hated my guts...

"It doesn't make it any less secure," I whispered into the echoing cell block.

Trial one: escaping is impossible by yourself.

Trial two: befriending fellow prisoners when your crime is well known and well hated, pretty impossible, too.

Trial three: well, I hadn't gotten that far yet.

Sounding surprised, the Elven voice echoes back to me. "You tried to escape?"

"Once. Twice. Eh. Okay, I lost count, but it never works."

"Yet you still try."

"Of course. You think I'm gonna accept life in this shit hole? Fuck that, man. One of these days, I'll get lucky enough to actually make it out." I sigh. "Sure, it would be easier if I could get people to rally behind me for a large joint prison break, but that's kind of impossible because of my crime."

I suck in a breath. I'm leaving it open. The question is coming. The question I don't want to answer. The one I'd rather pretend didn't exist. The one I don't want to talk about.

"Oh? And what pray tell, is your crime?"

Yep. There it is. Motherfucker. I basically left myself open, too.

Whatever. It's not like he can hurt me. We're both in solitary cells. Hell, we can't even see each other. What's he gonna do when he finds out? The worst he could do would be to yell insults at me...or just stop talking back at all. Which would kind of suck. I hate silence.

Oh well.

"I fucked the wrong person."

I can almost hear the eyebrow raise. "Not 'fucked with' but 'fucked.' Who? The daughter of a king or something?"

I wince because of course he'd think daughter. Everyone in their right mind would think daughter. At this point, I wonder if my punishment would have been any different if Ludwig had been a girl. Heh. Probably would be worse. Maybe if he was older. Then maybe I wouldn't be quite so hated. No, almost guaranteed I wouldn't be so hated.

Oh well. I fucked up. One mistake. One giant misunderstanding, loss of control, and act of selfishness. And now I'm here. And he hates me.

"No, not a daughter. My father only had sons." I sigh, shut my eyes. Gods, why am I even talking about this? I can't stand to replay it, and yet I'm doing it. I'm seeing it all happen again.

Ludwig...I'm so sorry...

"Father only had – you fucked your brother?"

"Yeah. Ruined the perfect innocence of the young heir. Gave my father a reason to get rid of his bastard half elf child. You know, one mistake and everyone thinks I'm a monster."

The Elf goes silent. Absolutely silent. I decide not to think about it. Of course he would stop talking to me. I'm a child molester. No one can forgive me. Hell, I can't even forgive myself.

~!~

A/N: Short because this is a PREVIEW and a TEST. I've been dabbling into writing some of these fics centered in my original fantasy world – all fics with several different pairings in which they interconnect and overlap – BUT each and every story has some deep, dark issue the characters deal with. Child molestation and rape are NO JOKE. This is NOT FUNNY and I feel kinda AWFUL writing and roleplaying through these stories, but at the same time I like to attempt to empathize with the demons of our culture. More important, I believe in forgiveness and want to understand and explore if even people with awful urges can find love eventually. Anyway, that's more for the PruCan story than this one. This one just kinda explains it right out in the open, so I wanted to test to see if it's too heavy or dark of a subject matter to deal with. This is, you could say, my risky play.

If you're actually interested, please let me know, but understand there won't be updates on any of these stories until I can settle down with the shorts and main PruCan fic I have going right now. You understand, yeah? I just didn't want to spend too much time dabbling in this fantasy sky pirate world if I was going to get a horrendous back lash for my choice of subject matter.

Please don't hate me.

((For those that read into everything I write: I'm working on the next chapter of "Don't Tempt Me." Almost done. Promise!))

~Reda