A/N: This is a Card!Verse AU. Which I sort of fell in love with when I discovered the universe. This will probably become a more cohesive story later. However I decided to post fragments of it up, as if you were reading bits of a forgotten dream.
~~~Alfred and Matthew~~~
The world had been set to flames. Great tongues of it leapt and danced upon the burning ruins of their home. The two twins huddled together hands covering the other's ears, trying to block out the screams. They knew whom the cries belong to.
"Well lookie what we've gots here. Two pretty ones." The voice was rough, matching the burly appearance of the other bandits. "Why don't you come with me little birds?"
"No!" Alfred stood in front of Matthew, his hands balling into fist.
The man simply ignored him as he leapt down from his horse to loom over them. The fire reflected against his face, making his eyes gleam with greed. Taking a few strides, the man sneered at Alfred as he grabbed the edge of his coat and yanking him up to eye level. "I'll think you'll fetch a pretty price at the market, identical ones are rare."
Alfred immediately started squirming, and kicking, while trying to yank down on his coat so it wouldn't bother his neck.
"Let him go!" Matthew hollered as he lifted an open palm and directed it at the bandit. A blinding light shot out filling the clearing; stun the man dropped Alfred. Matthew quickly grabbed his twin's hand and ran. Eyes closed. Alfred merely stumbled after him before gaining sped.
They only paused to catch their breath once they had made it two hills away from the village. Both slumped on the ground, eyes turned to the blaze they left behind.
"How could they?" Alfred's sky-blue eyes burned with fury. They had killed their parents, making them wake to an inferno. If Alfred hadn't wanted to sneak out at night to play with Matthew, he would have been there. He could have saved them if he was, or Matthew might have been able to. What if they had stayed longer inside looking for them?
Before Alfred could fall farther into his thoughts, Matthew yanked him forward.
"We need to run."
He didn't have time to think after that. They raced to the forest, the one that only they could see. No else acknowledge nor talked about the forest that rose vast to the beyond the hills that their village was perched on. Not even their parents, who thought they were just playing a game where one too many stories about the Forest of Time had gone to their heads. But both of the twins saw it, the purple trees with blue leaves that grew clocks in a variety of sizes.
The two blindly raced to where they knew the forest would be stumbling over rocks, and potholes in the ground, slide down the hills until at last the forest was before them. And they could only faintly hear the thundering of neither hooves nor the cries their village. It was only when they broke into the forest did they look back.
Plumes of smoke swirled into the sky, lit red on the bottom. Their home was only ash now.
"We should go deeper, just to be safe." Matthew panted as he nudged Alfred, fear still driving him. The two of them had made friends with a great white bear with a spade on its brow, a while ago. They didn't have time to think yet. He still needed Alfred to get them to the center. Alfred was the only one who had any sense of direction and time in the forest.
"Yeah." But Alfred didn't tear his eyes away from the faint glow on the horizon. He wouldn't be able to see if someone had followed them, but no one knew the forest like the twins did. Turning around, he grabbed Mattie's hand again. This time Alfred lead the way, at a calmer pace and just thinking of a safe place. He would keep his brother safe.
The forest spiraled up around them; the dark trees would twist and twine with each other. Shimmering blue leaves were the shape of spades. Small clocks hung from branches in clusters like grapes from a vine. The clocks glowed a bright blue, lighting their way. Neither twin spoke, shock firmly blanketing their minds. Instead their eyes were wide to the silent wonder that was the Forest of Time.
~~~ Arthur~~~
Where were they? Arthur thundered through the place. No royal had ever gone this long without the others appearing. Ten years and not a sign of the King or Jack. The country wasn't at war, however without all three nobles it was a certainty that it wasn't stable. Why hadn't they been found yet?
Annoyed, Arthur flung the great doors open and glared at his clock. The Queen's clock with hands that were spades. The face was an intricate design of swirling circles that moved and rotated of their own accord. Rumor had it that it was the language of one of the ancients of their kingdom. The clock had been passed down from generations of Queens. The Kings and the Jacks had their own artifacts, but Arthur hadn't seen them in years. Those were supposed to find the barriers and bring them to him. Which they hadn't.
"I don't want to rule alone." He whispered to himself as he lifted a hand against the clock's face. The clock had answers. And Arthur had enough magic to peer inside.
"He looked into the Spade of Time. No one's meant to see that."
Queen Arthur had pried open his artifact, the Queen's Spade Clock, after long hours of laboriously attempting to learn its secrets. Ever since a golden glow masked his once bright emerald green eyes.
Arthur roamed the halls as a ghost, not quite connect to the present anymore. His eyes were Seeing and Unseeing a thousand events and histories. Talking about people who have long since been dead, as if he had seen them yesterday or mentioning a storm that had yet to happen. The palace grieved. The Queen was living but gone.
"When will you be cured Mad Queen of Spades?" Francis would joke on one of his visits as he enjoyed his own wine and the vacant company of an old friend.
"When the King of Spades returns and the Jack is found." He would reply in one of his periods of awareness.
"Where is the King, if he is not in Spades now?"
"Lost in Time." Arthur would whisper, his eyes swirling with a thousand years. "Lost in Time. A place I can not see."
"Why do we not age?" The King of Diamonds inquired, his voice weary. His eyes had gained years since they last spoke, but his appearance reminded the same. Francis didn't know if he spoke to Arthur because of the friendship they once had so so many years ago. When they had both been children.
"Because we are out of joint."
It was sad that Arthur was starting to make sense to him. None of the kingdoms had a full deck or some didn't even have a deck at all. Only Spades and Diamond even had a royal. The last one of Hearts was Arthur's own mother, who had banished the boy from her site. Arthur had been fortunate; everyone else was simply beheaded.
A/N: This will probably become a more cohesive story later.