PROLOGUE

The toll of bells echoes across the capital, the bustle of the streets stops, and a quiet march begins. It is a walk they all take. A walk headed for their king; a walk headed for what is the city square. The castle stands at the very end of city square, tall and proud. An elaborately decorated veranda stands out from the rather plain castle wall facing the people. It is there that the King shows himself. He sits upon his plush chair and gazes upon his people. The crowd is silent. They file into the square without so much as a whisper, parents call upon their young ones with mere gestures, and groups of friends do the same. They stand there, all attention upon the veranda, as they wait for the voice of their monarch.

The King begins his speech, "I, Earl Millennium, the sixty-seventh king of the Kingdom of Dorian, hereby remove all the rights of Sir Allen Walker as a citizen and an heir to my throne. He will, from this day forth, no longer be the fourteenth heir, and will no longer be allowed within the premises of the castle. The standard laws for outcasts shall be applied. Anyone who shelters him from here on shall receive capital punishment. Help in the form of food, first aid, and the like shall be subject to corporal punishment. Those who commit lesser offences such as engaging in any form of communication with him shall be charged a fine."

He stops; pauses to gaze at his audience. The faces in the crowd are all in shock, though most of them seemed to be desperately trying to suppress their feelings.

"That is all."

After a moment of hesitation, the crowd slowly leaves the square.

"Uncle…" Rhode Camelot, the first heir, whispers. "…Are you sure you no longer want to keep Sir Walker?"

She was, despite all, especially fond of the fourteenth.

"Quite," is all Earl Millennium replies, as he rises from his seat. Lady Camelot purses her lips in disapproval, not liking the answer in the least. However, she does not mutter any sort of retort, for there is no arguing with the King.

…………………….

Sir Allen Walker is only surprised that he had not been removed from the roster of heirs sooner. The chains that bind his hands make soft tinkling sounds as he is escorted through the halls of the castle one last time. Earl Millennium claims to have only recently found out that Allen is only an adopted son of Mana Walker, the deceased former prince, and is therefore not suitable to be an heir. He is charged for treason-- pretending to be something you are not is apparently punishable by law. But Allen Walker knows that Earl Millennium is not a man so stupid as to find this out only now. He had known this from the beginning surely and merely waited for the perfect moment to act upon it. What he was getting at by exiling Sir Walker now was something that was probably unknown to anyone except him.

The guards shove Allen Walker roughly out of the front door. It is raining of course, for the heavens did always love to spite young Walker. His unnatural snow-colored hair sticks to his face, as does his white button down shirt. His scruffy brown pants went from comfortably tight-fitting to uncomfortably so. Blue eyes gazes into the heavens which their owner now curses. The guards shove him out of the gate, and Sir Allen Walker falls into mud.

"Oh fuck this life," he thinks, annoyed with his situation. The people of the city try desperately to ignore him, and Allen briefly muses on how ungrateful people can be. He had been the only heir to be nice to them, and this is what he gets? Not even one little protest on his behalf? Not even one soul brave enough to give him shelter? But then again, the enemy was Earl Millennium. The stakes were higher than they could ever be, and he therefore could not blame anyone for pretending that he no longer exists.

"This, however, makes me just as good as dead," he tries, with much hassle, to get on his feet once again. "Mana, just what exactly did you want me to do?"

He takes his first steps cautiously, then takes a deep breath and looks at his surroundings.

"Surviving is going to be almost impossible."

This is of course just stating the obvious, but Allen feels the need to affirm his miserable state. There is nowhere to go, and honestly he doesn't know what to do from here, and so Allen Walker decides to do what his late stepfather always told him to do .

"Keep on walking…"

……………………

"Wake up, brat."

The words do not register immediately. At first Allen thinks he's just having a horrible, horrible dream, then he thinks that he might have already died, and this was hell, but then:

"Wake up you fucking brat!" is shouted again, and he realizes that it is reality after all.

Slowly, Sir Allen Walker opens his eyes. He is met with unfamiliar wine colored eyes on the face of a man with wine colored hair. Second hand smoke enters Sir Walker's airways from the cigarette the stranger is smoking. The snow haired former noble coughs. "Could you please, not smoke right in front of my face, sir?"

The man ignores the statement, and warily observes him for a moment.

"They were not lying when they said second hand smoke can lead to death sir, and as I would like to stay alive—"

Allen is interrupted by the sitting up of the unfamiliar gentleman.

"Thank you…" and young Sir Walker opts to sit up as well.

"You're an annoying kid…" The red head comments, puffing out a small cloud of smoke. "…Too prissy for my liking…" He adds.

Allen frowns. "Whether or not you know who I was, I believe that comment is still rude…" He says.

The initial reply is a snigger, followed by the words, "Allen Walker, fourteenth heir to the throne of this shitty Kingdom."

The snow-haired one is silent eyes widening slightly, then he clears his throat "Well, formerly so…" he mutters. "Is this your house?" he asks, and the red head tells him, "You could say that".

Allen Walker raises an eyebrow, "You do know that sheltering me is subject to execution?"

The man simply shrugs and says, "If those bastards could kill me, they would have done so a long time ago."

Silence reigns for a moment until Allen decides to say, "Thank you for saving me." He shifts awkwardly in the bed he was sitting on, unsure of what to do now really.

"Just so you know, I didn't save you for free." The snow-haired one turns to the older-looking man, eyeing him curiously.

"My name's Cross Marianne, and from now on, you're with me."

Young Sir Walker finds himself nodding.

……………………..

Cross Marianne does not ever reveal his age, but Allen gathers him to be a man in his early thirties. He has a handsome (rugged) face, and a foul mouth. Never did he go a night without gambling, sex, or alcohol. Cross Marianne's way of life is all in all costly, which would have been perfectly fine had he the money to spend, but he did not. Allen Walker wonders how on earth this man managed before he'd crossed paths with him. Wherever Cross Marianne has debt, only Allen Walker is there to find a way to pay for it. Partly because he has no place to go, partly because he secretly thought it is kind of exciting, and partly because he just loves challenge. Allen Walker learned the ways of the dark side and paid off all his companion's (and somewhat guardian's) debts (although, he did not always manage to pull through unscathed).

Poker is Walker's first source of income. Once you get the hang of cheating, it is just all too easy. Allen Walker is a master cheat. He is a demon. He never gets caught, and so he never ever loses. He wins all the money, and uses them to pay for the bills he's been left to. Of course, at first, he'd almost been caught, and at first, he didn't really have the confidence to stand up against his full bodied competitors (who were more often than not sore losers). But after getting beaten up several times, Allen Walker has learned to have the resolve and the arrogance of a kid who grew up on the streets instead of that of a palace-born brat. This, however, is an aura Sir Walker is only capable of exuding during poker; other times, he becomes his normal polite-and-prissy, former-heir self. This often makes it easier to deal with the women Cross Marianne leaves behind, so this double personality thing he has really does come in handy.

Of course, even though Allen Walker knows how to handle the things Cross left behind, that doesn't mean he isn't annoyed with having to deal with them at times. Sure, he's learned to kind of enjoy it, but that does not stop him from being utterly pissed at the older man for leaving him to do these things in the first place. Normal sixteen-year-olds do not deal with mountains of debts and angry one night stands. Then again, maybe Allen Walker shouldn't have expected normal anyway. At that thought, Walker often finds himself sighing.

Later however, Allen Walker would learn a great upside to having stuck with Cross Marianne.

………………………

NOTES:

The Name "Earl Millennium" – It felt weird to have a King without a name, and so I decided on this

Kingdom of Dorian—-man is rumored to stand for Dorian Gray Man (which actually makes a lot of sense, but that's just a rumor), so I just decided to give the Kingdom a name based on that