Title: All along the watchtower
Author: Dhost
Summary: When two friends find themselves facing unfair deaths, each of them deals with it in their own manner. Medieval age!Human!AU. Inspired by the song All along the watchtower by Jimi Hendrix.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Hetalia or the song "All along the watchtower", they belong to Hidekaz Himaruya and Jimi Hendrix. All I did was have fun combining both and I have no intent to profit from this story.
Warning: Implied character death.
A/N: This is what happens when I read too much Assassin's Creed and then receive drabble prompts on Tumblr with ambiguous songs. Hope you all like it.
All along the watchtower
The sky above them rumbled once more, but still the rain it was announcing did not come and they were left only with that grim-dark sky for a while bit longer. The dark clouds that turned day in night fitting for the realization of a grim-dark event.
Arthur woke up with the shock of cold water being splashed in his face with a stinging sensation, which seemed to indicate whomever woke him up found fitting to slap him across the face for good measure.
It didn't take him long to realize where he was. Of course, he had been waiting for this ever since that cartridge of wine had been found in his room, planted there for someone he would never find out who was and for a reason he had no idea what was. Trying to explain was useless. He had been labeled a thief and locked in the dungeon together with enemies and other soldiers of the regiment that had committed felonies just as petty as the one they were accusing him of to await for his judgment.
Of course, the general didn't overlook any kind of misbehaviour and rather found much pleasure on conducting these executions, even against his own men. Arthur knew others had been hanged for less, so he wasn't much surprised to find himself with his hands tied behind his back, standing on top of a small bench and with a loop of rope fastened around his neck.
Someone by his side coughed and sputtered as he was greeted with the same treatment and Arthur looked to the side just in time to watch his companion cursing at the executioner's assistant and being effectively smacked again with orders of shutting up, which he only did after a very effective punch in the stomach silenced his curses and yells.
The Englishman had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from shouting abuse at the executioner and his assistant as well. While he usually much enjoyed watching his friend, the Prussian mercenary Gilbert Beilschmidt, being hit for his loud mouth, in the situation they were in, it struck him with a furious rage.
Even if he knew his loud mouth was the reason Gilbert had been thrown in that cell with him in the first place. Ever a lover of good beer, Gilbert had made the mistake of making a drunk comment about the general's sex life (a common joke amongst the soldiers, and not even the worst one) while on the earshot of one of those boot-licking snitches, that had, of course, ran to tell the story to the general and soon the joker had been taken to his punishment.
And now here they were. The crowd under them cheered not by their on account, but because the dark eyes of the general roamed through them, promising more work and pain if they didn't go along with his little amusement.
As the assistant went away to wake up the other victims of the day, Gilbert turned his head to Arthur, facing him with murderous anger still present in that fiery red eyes and the englishman couldn't suppress a shiver. Many a times the general had bragged about the killer demon in his army with ghost skin and bloodied eyes and even though Arthur knew he was just a normal man that happened to be an excellent strategist and fairly good with his blade, it was still unnerving to have those eyes fixed on him with such rage, even if it wasn't directed at himself.
"There must be some kind of way out of here." Said the joker to the thief in a hushed tone, his mind working furiously to try and find said way out, but coming back blank. "The motives for hangings are getting more and more ridiculous, the soldiers and the people are tired of it and of the general, if we could just spark that rage, we could overthrow the general and his allies and stop this mad waste of human lives."
Arthur sighed, for once in a long time not trusting his companion's optimism and machinations.
"No reason to get excited. There are many here among us who think life is just a joke." The thief, he kindly spoke. "Besides, if we try anything, the General's men will only pass a blade on our necks."
"But still, there must be a way! It can't end like this!" he said desperately. Arthur had never seem a man that clung to life as dearly as Gilbert did. Even furious, he had resigned to his fate, but Gilbert never stopped plotting, never stopped fighting enemies and bounds, never stopped trying to escape, to stay alive.
Now all that effort would go to waste, it seemed so unfair. But that was how life worked and there was little a man could do when the rope of death was already around his neck, so all Arthur did was shake his head.
"We've been through that and this is not our fate. So let's stop talking falsely now, the hour is getting late."
At that, Gilbert started to scream again: at Arthur, at the executioners, at the General, at the motionless crowd, at their companions looking down at them from the watchtowers, at the princes and nobles on their own towels in palaces far away, sending men to fight their wars and die for them, at anything that his anger and desperation saw fit, trying his last card on a hand that was already poor to begin with.
There was nothing Arthur could do to stop the guards from beating him into unconsciousness again.
Arthur? He just straightened on his bench, shoulders and head stiff and tall. They could take away his life, but they couldn't take away his pride and if he had to go, at least his departure would be dignified.
Because there was no light at the end of a tunnel, no miracle awaiting aside from the knowledge that he wouldn't be going down broken and in disgrace.
Arthur couldn't hear the wide cats growling nor the riders that were approaching with orders from the king, all he could hear was the wind howling along the tower and in his ears as the general started proclaiming his sentence.
THE END
So that's it. I hope you all liked, even though it's kind of depressing. I love to make my favourite characters suffer, I can't help it.
Reviews and constructive criticism are always welcomed.