I started writing this fanfiction during season 1. It's AU, set after season one and has taken me over a year to complete.
It started out with a different premise, and lay dormant for a while whilst I wrote other stories, before I began to work on it again, changing parts of the story completely in the process. Apart from being the longest fiction I have written in the Musketeer verse, it has become a labour of love to finally complete it (as I don't like posting without at least finishing the story in draft first and my hard drive is testament to the fickle nature of my muse!)
As always, it's d'Artagnan based, contains whump, angst and h/c.
So hope you enjoy. I will try and update regularly, work schedule and editing process permitting.
Ria
xxx
Autumn Leaves
He never slept well surrounded by so many reminders of autumn. He didn't think Athos would understand, and the explanation- well the explanation wasn't something d'Artagnan thought he'd every willingly speak of.
Prologue
The young boy was surrounded by smoke. It choked him, tearing at his throat as he desperately tried to pull in air to empty lungs. He screamed again as fire crackled and leaped all around him, licking at his ankles, the skin burning. He struggled against the bindings that held him tight, his cry joining another's, until the air rang with sound of fire and the screaming. It was reaching his knees now, he could feel the intense heat as the flames licked at the skin on his legs, the skin beginning to smell of burnt meat that made him gag. He kicked out with his legs but couldn't escape from the fire. He tried in vain to free his arms only to feel like the rope held him tighter. He had no air left now, could no longer even scream and as the flames climbed higher. He knew he was going to burn.
He looked up, craning his neck to see his mum but his look caught on the man stood beyond the flames, staring impassively at him. The brown eyes caught his and held, the mirror of his own he had been told at one point. He hoped not; the eyes of a monster were staring back at him. He would have begged but he couldn't drag in anymore air. He had begged the man earlier. The young child had screamed and fought and cried and begged but the words had not been for himself. Even at a young age, his wishes were not for himself, he had begged for his mother to be let go.
But the child's pleas had been ignored. He'd been bound at his mother's side, his mother mute with shock and horror until the flames had started. He tore his eyes away from the monster now, sought his mother at his side, looking up at her. Tears streamed down her face as she looked at him, still and silent now against the pyre that held her. He could see the fight had left her and he wanted to scream at her to keep going, keep fighting. But she looked at him and he could see that she had nothing left to fight with anymore. The young boy was silent and still as he wrenched his look back to the man in front of him. The man who had ignored his mother's begging. Who had ignored his. Who simply saw them as an inconvenience, now. A problem to be got rid of. The promise of silence and exile not enough. Charles and by extension his mother were no longer necessary, and they had to die. Charles looked once more at the monster stood watching, tried to open his mouth to beg him once more, unable to understand how he could stand and watch them burn. The only sound that hitched from his mouth a desperate, pitiful "father"