A/N: I always wonder if the Red Knights were made specifically or altered men... I went with the latter.
Milodich Penter had been proud to serve in the Red Queen's army. As the eldest brother with a usurping attempt of a younger one, he knew all about hierarchy and the correct way of doing things. Iracebeth was meant to be on the throne. He found he could cope with wearing embroidered hearts and well red suited his dark hair.
He was proud to serve.
Even up to this day, nearing the Neangto day when the Queen would take the coastal towns. The rebels that fought for the White Queen. All land belonged to the Red Queen, none of this rubbish about splitting the Kingdom in half for each daughter. There was one Kingdom, one Queen. The Red Queen.
He didn't mind, as the war progressed, the change in his armour. He no longer wore the tailored doublet with the embroider pattern. Each day he woke he felt a little more stiff. He was given armour.
Armour that became too tiresome to take off. Armour that didn't come off with each beheading. With each captive that he brought to the block, a little more stuck. At first it was his arm guards, or the metal around his leg. But then the back plate stuck when he took an old woman to the dungeons. The helmet stuck after a little boy was executed on the Queen's orders.
Milodich's heart had stopped caring when his best friend executed Milodich's girl. When he refused to stop him, despite her cries, the chest plate stuck.
Mirrors were banned in the Red Queen's castle. She didn't want to see the size of her head.
When he caught sight of himself in a shop window Milodich stopped.
Where was the courtier that had wanted to serve his Queen? Where was the young man who had loved and been loved? Where was the lush long dark locks that would beg for fingers to run through them, the dark brown eyes that laughed and twinkled as he danced around the may pole with a pretty young girl? Where was his body, lean with a trace of muscle. The scars he earned in battle? Did he earn them though? As he fought innocents, innocents that wanted freedom?
He stared back at the orange eyes that weren't his, glared at the card shaped body that was no longer his despite that each limb moved when he commanded them. The scowled with a face that could no longer scowl at the Ace that marked him as a commander.
Was it worth it?
Was any of it worth it?
Realising his parents were missing, his little brother was dead as was his girl. The man he was had died with them.
Milodich went on fighting, half heartedly. When Mirana one he pledged allegiance and announced his loyalty to her.
Slowly pieces of armour would fall off, leaving behind a wasted man with a hollow heart.
A hollow heart for the man who had followed the Queen of them.