Prince Charming Chapter 1 :: Prologue, a glee fanfic

A/N: Hey everyone! This is a Klaine fic that takes place in a time period that can be compared to the European Early Middle Ages - the Dark Ages. Think around the time King Arthur was reputed to have lived ;)

This story was completely inspired by a picture and prompt that muchacha10 posted on her Tumblr page, which will fit into this story later on, I highly suggest you take a look her work because it is amazing! That said, the little outline she gave there took root and grew in my head, expanding so much that I had to begin writing right away.

To alleviate some confusion that might come around because of the format I am setting this story in, I'll explain things a little. This is a first-person prologue written in the present. After this, the chapters will be in the third-person past tense as Kurt reflects on his story leading up to this point. Eventually, the past will catch up the present and we'll go from there :)

Now, as a disclaimer, there are some historical things that won't completely line up with fact. As a history double major, I can feel the pain some of you might feel at that, and I'll say sorry in advance. As a trade-off for that, I'll try to include little historical fun facts every now and then (the first one is at the end of this chapter!) Feel free to point out when you think I'm being contrary to history, but in many cases, I already know. For example, I do know that there were no historic executions for male homosexuality - sodomy as it was called back then, and will be called throughout this fic - until the 1200s, but I tweaked that for my purposes here; the 1200s wasn't far enough in the past, I really wanted this to occur in the Early Middle Ages. On a related note, I'm also really sorry if Kurt's situation is somehow offensive to readers. All I can say in response to that is that this really happened to people, and Kurt is wholly and totally the protagonist, as you'll see later, and I hope it serves as a serious, humbling, realistic frame for what is essentially a love story.

As a last note, the reading of the sentence is almost entirely pulled from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and I can only claim credit for the slight alterations in the semantics :)

I hope you all enjoy the prologue! :)

Autumn, 635 C.E.; Lima, Algania

In this moment, even I do not know which answer I would rather be a fallacy. Several years ago, I certainly would have been a supporter of the latter being false. In fact, in every instance before my conviction I would have felt as such. But the thought that my own actions could have led me to not only my fate but also that of an innocent man weighs heavily on my mind. I would much rather believe that my strings have been pulled by another force all of these years, one greater than me, one that I never had any hope of resisting. However, in a puppet show, if a string breaks or the puppet doesn't move correctly, the blame rests solely on the puppeteer. Now, I am the only one being blamed.

Rather, I and the man by my side, the man that has taken the blame for a crime that was never his. That is what they call it: a crime. I had known that, but it hadn't changed anything, I hadn't done anything differently. Once again, it would be easier to say that I wouldn't have been able to do anything differently, that I am finally facing my inescapable fate.

But it had felt like a choice. Even now, I can still feel all the anticipation of facing the forbidden and knowing that every action you made was an unprecedented evil, or so they claimed. I can recall the unsure feeling I had felt at the beginning, the sense that I was about to plunge headfirst into something too big for me to handle. It had feltlike a choice.

My eyes are closed, but I can hear the people gathered around. I can't see or feel the man at my side but I know he is there. They brought us here with our hands tied together, leading us on ropes like animals on a leash. Our eyes had been uncovered and we had been able to see the set-up they had erected for the sole purpose of our destruction.

They'd made a raised wooden stage, with two ten foot tall vertical posts embedded in it. As they led me up the steps and threw me back against one of the poles, I had seen the tall piles of hay to the side of the stage. And a stage it was, for people were crowding all around, eager to see the event they had come for.

They had yanked my hands behind my back, around the wooden pole, and lashed them together tightly, the leather strips biting into my skin. I would only have to bear the pain for a while longer; I had been standing against the stake for ten minutes already. Things couldn't carry on like this for much longer, not with the people waiting for their spectacle.

This thought in mind, this realization that I might only be on this earth for a matter of minutes, I quickly open my eyes again and look around. It is late autumn, and the sun is shining down warmly on the city of Lima. I train my face to the sky to see that it is crystalline blue, and birds are flying around, far from leaving for the winter. Every now and then a breeze drifts by, ruffling my clothes against my skin. Once, these clothes had been the envy of the nation, the best that money could buy and a beacon that shone a light that the rest of the country would undoubtedly follow. My time locked in the dungeons saw that they were now a mockery of their own former glory.

I inhale deeply and am immediately assaulted with a myriad of scents: recently cut flowers from a nearby window, freshly baked bread from a bakery several streets over, and that distinctive, city scent that was an ever-present undertone resulting from too many people living too close together. Usually I didn't notice it, but I could hardly help but notice it now.

I am startled from my quick appreciation for the world around me by a sudden weight hitting my foot. My eyes fly open and I see a large man, a palace grunt that I cannot name, smiling evilly as he piles swatches of hay around my feet.

Sudden alarm rises in my throat – for this means my fate is almost inescapable – I turn my head to look at the man by my side, the guiltless one that had sacrificed his life for the safety of another. More grunts are piling hay at his feet, in an identical set-up. His head is facing downward initially, but he soon turns it to me as if he can feel my gaze.

He doesn't look angry, if anything, he looks like he is at peace with what is happening. His long, blonde bangs fall into his eyes as he leans his head sideways slightly, as if asking why I look so afraid. Wordlessly, his full lips press together in some semblance of a smile. The sight almost brings tears to my eyes. How can this be happening? How can he sit there and smile when he has done nothing to warrant this brutality? When someone else…

I turn away from my present companion in misery as my thoughts turn to the one who will always be in my heart. I don't know where he is. I haven't known his whereabouts for the several months I have been imprisoned, and no one would dare tell me. For all I know now, he could be dead. The thought sends a shiver of horror up my spine, but if that is the case, at least we will be together soon.

I hesitate to say that he has abandoned me. That is what an evil part of my mind tells me, but my heart and logic both do not believe it for a second. He would never do that. I believe with all of my being that there is a reason he is not here – a reason that he is not here to save me.

I look out to the crowd again, and amongst the eager faces - though there were also those who appeared ill at ease - I see two that are drawn up in the utmost concern and despair, a sight that breaks my heart even more than the prospect of my imminent fate. Carole and Finn stand at the front of the crowd. Her face is streaked with tears, her eyes are red-rimmed, and she kneads at a handkerchief. He is flanked by two burly men, taller even than he is, which is saying quite a lot. They are more palace grunts – I'm not sure where they all come from, only that they somehow multiply like rabbits to be both inexhaustible and everywhere at once – and their sole purpose is to restrain my step-brother.

I can see in his face that he would like nothing more than to knock both men out and cut my ties on the spot, but their strong grips on both of his arms prevent that. He looks up at me and I can see the hopelessness in his eyes. I try to smile at him, drawing inspiration from my companion's strained smile only moments before, but I do not pull it off as well as he did. There isn't anything you can do, I want to tell him. There never was.

My father is not in the crowd, which I am thankful for though I am certain it is of no choice of his own. Had he been present, all the guards in the world couldn't stop his attempts to see to my safety. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have been killed for his valiant efforts.

I continue to scan the crowd, looking for the one face that is forever imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I do not see him, no matter how far into the crowd my eyes stretch. Where is he? I would give anything to be able to see him one last time before I die.

"Kurt Hummel," a voice startles me from my futile search. I look downward to see two richly dressed people at the base of the stage, a man and a woman. The man was the one who had spoken. My face contorts and for the first time, I begin to pull at my bonds. This is all happening too soon. "And Samuel Evans."

"Be it known that you have been charged, tried, and convicted for your willful commission of crimes against humanity, said crimes being recurring and inhuman in nature, the most egregious of these being habitual sodomy with another of the male gender." He pauses and the crowd begins to murmur. I turn my head to exchange a glance with Sam and he nods again as if to say that he will stand by me through this, as he has through so much else. I am once again overwhelmed by the fact that the blame for his imminent death can be put entirely on my shoulders.

"For these crimes," the richly dressed man continues on. "You have been sentenced to be, on this day, burned at the stake until dead. Have you any last words?"

Sam says nothing but I lean forward, toward the man who had spoken, my bonded hands keeping the motion from extending too far. "David," I say, pain I did not wish to convey evident in my voice. "Cousin. You don't have to do this."

The man's face clouds over instantly and any emotion that might have been there for a split second was gone the next. He takes a step forward, away from the woman at his side and closer to me. His eyes narrow. "You are no cousin of mine. You owe me respect fit for my position, even in your sorry, lawless state," he declares, voice gaining in volume as his words continue on. "I am your king, and you will address me as such. If there are no last words to be had, your fate is now at hand. May God have mercy on your soul." He steps back again, and my last hope dies at his retreat.

I see a flame being lit to my right. I suddenly want to reach out and grab Sam's hand, though our bonds prevent it. All I want is one last comfort, the simple comfort of touch before I die. My hands clench and unclench, and sweat forms on my brow though the torch has yet to be tossed.

My eyes travel to the man holding the flame. He walks around the stage until he stands directly between me and Sam. He takes time to look both of us in the eye. As he raises the hand holding the torch, preparing to throw it on the hay that would ignite and take our lives, I close my eyes one last time.

What choices do people make to get to where they are today? Can we help the path that our lives go down? Can we choose our destiny? Or are we all subjects of fate, mere feathers carried around by the winds of life? Where did my story start? What was the first building block that laid the foundation for the tower that was now about to topple? It must have been more than twenty years ago.

People say that before death, your life flashes before your eyes. I had always assumed that it was involuntary, but now I realize that it is just the contrary. It flashes before your eyes because you need to take one last look at your past to know that your entire life wasn't as miserable as it is now, in the moment of death. Before I can even feel the warmth of the flames, I think back to the very beginning. The moment my story started was the moment I first met him. When we first met more than twenty years ago, I had not known that Blaine Anderson, my reason to live, would also be the reason I was sentenced to death.

Fun fact: Algania isn't actually a fictional land! That was almost the name of the United States of America! Way back when, when America was still a baby-nation, a group of prominent men of the time met together to seriously discuss changing the nation's name, and it can all be attributed to literature! The United States had been criticized and denied as a truly intellectual nation by Europe, England specifically, for not having any prominent poets or authors among its citizens. Upon the emergence of such authors as Washington Irving and other early American greats, a new mentality emerged among the States, one that praised their youth and freshness and celebrated "America's Pastoral Glory". A group of men, intent on providing the nation with a strong national identity, met with the opinion that "The United States of America" was an ungainly name for an elegant country to wield and they needed to think of a new one. Algania was the front-runner in the competition, battling with the old name which eventually won out due to its familiarity.

I couldn't help but adopt the silver medalist for the purposes of this fic.

A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this, and that something in this short prologue caught your interest and will have you returning upon the next installation!

Thanks! :)