Chapter 1A

Alen was a hard worker, the most loyal of knights, and he'd been one of Marcus's favorite trainees since day one. Of course, he also had his bad traits; he was impulsive to the point that he sometimes neglected to follow his orders to their fullest, which had resulted in some close calls in battles past. As his commander, Roy had chided him and begged his understanding. "Just slow down and let everyone else do their part of the work," the boy had once told him. "This is a team effort. If you rush out there and die, what good will that have done?"

He couldn't understand why his sacrifices weren't appreciated more, but he always did his best to follow Roy's commands after that. He would honor his family and do his job as a knight, even if it meant giving up some of the glory that came with the job.

In a battle such as this, Alen didn't forget his main priority, even with the bloodshed and the ear-piercing shrieks of the enemies' weapons against his armor. He would protect his liege until his death. He was thankful when Roy fell behind at last, though the wound the boy had taken was definite cause for concern. As the shadow of a wyvern darted in his peripheral vision, he was vaguely aware that something was amiss.

Alen turned his head after sending another man over the edge of the bridge, distracted by a woman's scream from somewhere behind him. Were he not numb from the cold, he would have been at the sight of the beautiful princess of the Kutolah as she grasped for the edge of the bridge to no avail. He watched as she plummeted into the abyss; he watched as his lord swayed and cursed and searched for some sort of solution; he watched, completely frozen in place, as the broad side of a sword from above took the small young man off guard, crashing against the side of his head hard enough to send the boy against the rail.

This was not acceptable. With a bellow of anger, Alen dismounted his injured horse and struggled to reach his lord. He had to make sure that Roy was all right. He didn't know what he'd do if he wasn't.

The same wyvern from before hadn't dispersed, though. The Bernese man upon its back ignored the knight charging at him in favor of attacking the army's general once more.

The sword impaled Roy's abdomen, straight through a battle-weakened spot on his armor. Roy lashed out with his arms and legs alike for naught. He was lifted against the short, icy barrier, the toes of his boots barely dragging across the slushy snow below as he choked and flailed about. Alen reached his side in a panic just as the Bernese knight took off once more, helpless to stop the final flourish that sent the young Lycian lord the rest of the way over the rail.

He had failed in his duty as a knight. He had been unable to protect his liege.

But he hadn't lost the battle just yet. His hands unfastened the thick belts that held his riding armor in place; his fingers furiously unlatched the clasps that held his breast plate against his body. He cared not for the heavy armor on his boots or his elbows. Without a second thought, he dove from the edge of the bridge, leaving behind the world of the battle.

The pain of hitting the water was nothing compared to the burning of his limbs as he struggled to find his bearings. There were bodies raining down to his left, but to his right, only two shadows blocked out the eerie reflection of the snow above. He recognized his Lord Roy with no trouble at all, even as they were both sinking as the current swept them towards the waterfall just downstream. He had to save Roy, no matter what.

His lungs were on fire, but he did his best to hold the air in as he swam with the current, reaching his arms out towards the shadow. He couldn't reach him, couldn't save him, but he wouldn't give up, even as the remnants of his armor pulled him deeper and the water grew inky and heavy. The air was forced from his lungs as his feet scraped the gravelly surface below.

Time seemed to stop flowing as he gave one final, pathetic push forward. By the graces of the gods above, his fingertips caught the thick black twill of Roy's sleeve at long last, and he pulled the limp body closer to his own despite feeling as though he would not be able to move again. Alen realized with some alarm that much of the reason for the water's darkness was the blood seeping from the wounds his young lord had taken, but he did not waste any more time with senseless observation.

Guided by years' worth of practice in the training grounds of Castle Pherae, he unbuckled the belts that held Roy's armor to his comatose body, letting the weights fall to the riverbed below. Though the process was awkward and uncomfortable, he contorted his own body until he could reach the buckles just below his knees. Once they were undone, he wormed his way out of his boots, not thinking, not noticing that the water was beginning to move faster and faster until he could hear a terrible sort of roar. Realization dawned upon the man; he could remember a warning of some sort, that there was a waterfall that had send hundreds to their deaths throughout the years not far from where they'd fallen. With resolve anew, he held onto Roy's shirt with one hand and kicked against the current for dear life.

Alen had been born in the castle town of Pherae, which was very near the cliffs that dropped to the southern sea. Even as a child, he had braved the currents for fun and as a test of his own endurance and strength. Many men had fallen prey to the guardian of the realm of the sea dragons, but he had not; years of splashing in the warm waters had taught him a thing or two about swimming. This pathetic river had nothing on the riptides he'd battled.

At long last, he found the steep, muddy slope that would lead to safety. Though it was slippery, he managed to use his feet and his free hand to pull himself upward, dizziness setting in from the harsh cold and the effort. He pulled through, and several short moments later, he broke the mirror that separated the world below from the frigid night air. The heavily falling snow greeted him along with winds that hadn't been blowing nearly as fiercely five minutes ago.

Somehow, he managed to grab onto the roots of one of the trees along the steep incline and pull himself and his lord out of the water. The wind froze his clothes into thick sheets of ice on contact, but he paid no attention to the blistering pain and made his way up the embankment, pulling Roy along until they were in the thick of the dark evergreen forest, partially shielded from the wind and on level ground. He hastily broke the ice that had formed on the boy's cape, the same cape that had his family crest emblazoned across it - the cape he'd been so proud to don before they had set off on this journey, and ripped several long strips to use as bandages. Every good knight knew how to minimally treat the wounds of his comrades in any situation, and while he could say that this was probably Lance's strong suit, he made quick work of tying off the strips of fabric to curb the flow of blood that had long since stained Roy's blue tunic the color of rust.

The boy wasn't breathing, but at least his heart was still beating. That made the job easy, though he couldn't shake the jittery feeling that Roy was injured far worse than what he could see. Briefly, his mouth met his lord's, and after a few tries, he managed to arouse a cough from beyond those pale, cold lips. Alen gently rolled the boy onto his side, taking care not to jar his injuries too badly.

Roy proceeded to vomit quite violently, staining the pure snow brick red.

"Can you hear me, milord?" Alen spoke quietly as not to startle Roy, though he wouldn't have been able to speak much louder if he had tried. The cold was quickly taking its toll on him; he was beginning to tremble, and no amount of control could stop it.

Roy did not respond even after Alen prompted him several more times. He was breathing of his own accord now, albeit shallowly; the gaping wound above his left ear was testament to the blow he'd taken. Alen was not surprised in the least at his state of unconsciousness, although his worry grew tenfold. The knight stood and surveyed his surroundings, rubbing his arms as he searched for some sort of path back to the bridge in hopes of some meager warmth. There did not seem to be any way to travel along the banks of the river, for the foliage was much too thick; there was no way up the cliffs from this side of the river, either, unless he could somehow trek around the mountain and up the gentle slopes that Roy's map had displayed before they had even come to this accursed place.

The only option would be to find shelter until this damned blizzard subsided.

As quickly as he possibly could with limbs frozen solid, Alen scooped Roy into his arms and carried him away from the sounds of the riverbank. In the distance, the sounds of battle rang out into the night, but there was nothing he could do to aid his comrades now, was there? Briefly, he allowed himself to hope that abandoning Lance had been the right decision, that his limber partner would be fine as long as he could defend himself on that narrow bridge... He quickly shook the doubts from mind and pushed deeper into the forest.

Alen walked for at least an hour before he came across a tree that had obviously been felled by human hands. The weather had been weighing heavily on both his body and his spirits, but at the sight, he steeled himself again and followed the evidence trail through the woods, though his feet were bleeding without his boots to protect them. He had to turn around at one end of the stretch, for it led to nothing but deeper woods, but after backtracking and going the other way, he stumbled across a homely cottage in a small clearing. He thought that his legs and arms might give out at any moment, even as he closed the distance between himself and the door.

Several knocks later, he determined that nobody was home, but upon noting that the door wasn't locked, he let himself in. The interior of the house was nothing special, and it may have been a little drafty, but Alen had never been picky when it came to gifts from above. There was a fireplace with plenty of wood stacked nearby, and upon the mantle, he could clearly make out a box of flint and a small, steel file of some sort. Warmth.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and there was no furniture, but Alen managed to find a few small blankets in one of the bedrooms after leaving Roy on the floor of the den. He quickly returned to his lord's side and set to making a fire; this took him longer than it should have, but he'd never had any need to learn back home. Once smoke began drifting up the chimney, he supposed he'd done something right and turned to further examine Roy's wounds, finally able to clearly see the extent of the damage now that he had the light of the fire to work by.

They weren't nearly as bad as he'd thought.

Once the heat of the fire began to warm the room, Alen shut the doors to the bedrooms and made a small pallet out of the blankets he'd obtained, though it was nothing to brag about. He carefully untied the makeshift bandages around Roy's midriff, wincing as the boy's fingers twitched when the soaked fabric pulled away from his wounds. Just as carefully, he unfastened the belt at his liege's waist and worked the ice-cold tunic off of his body. The smell of blood was nauseating enough, but once he managed to get Roy's black undershirt pulled around his shoulders, Alen nearly threw up. There were two deep puncture wounds in the boy's abdomen. He was starting to bleed even worse than before; the cold had suppressed his heartbeat, had prevented him from losing too much blood. Without any way to close the wounds, it was down to letting the boy die of blood loss or from the biting cold.

Alen finished peeling the frozen clothes from Roy's body before transferring his dead weight to the pallet, unable to shake his fears away. The wounds were deep, but they had missed any vital organs. He would live if he hadn't already lost too much blood – if Alen could keep him from losing any more. Alen didn't want to replace the old bandages with the strips of dirty, wet cloth he'd used before, but he didn't have much of a choice in this situation. He wrapped the boy firmly around the middle so that both wounds were covered before directing his attention to the large gash aside his head.

If Roy managed coherency any time within the next week, it would be a miracle.

Being a little gentler, Alen covered that wound as well. This would be easy if he could see well outside, or if there were some way to get back to the rest of the army, but... he would have to rely on his own instincts rather than the healing staves of the clergy. All his hopes rested on the smoke now rising from the chimney; surely, someone would come looking for them soon.

With the fire there for comfort, he was noticing with quite some discomfort that his clothes were cold and wet. He made sure that Roy was tucked in well before going on another search through the house, unfortunately returning fruitless. Walking was becoming harder and harder from the toll the snow had taken on his bare feet, so he was glad to sit once more. At least there was the fire.

The combination of the adrenaline rush from the battle, his struggle thereafter, and the extreme cold was enough to exhaust anyone; Alen would have been lying to himself had he tried to tell himself otherwise. Though he held the faintest hope that one of the airborne units was already on its way to fetch them, he couldn't ignore his body's protests and gave in, stripping down to his underclothes in the yet-frigid room. He carefully hung both his and Roy's wet garments from the mantle to dry, hoping to the heavens above that Roy would make it through the night. There was nothing more he could do for the smallish young man, as much as it hurt to admit that. The truth rang inside his head no matter how much he had tried to fix this; he should never have let this happen.

With a heavy sense of self-loathing deep within his chest, he curled up on the floor beside his master's unmoving body and tried to sleep. The fire eventually eased away the last of the stabbing cold, but that was long after the man fell into the first of many fitful slumbers.

Three days passed, and the snow only piled higher. Alen could have gone crazy from the silence, broken only by the howling of the wind as it assaulted the tiny cabin, or from the utter dread concerning the results of the battle several nights before. How had everyone fared after his departure? Without Roy there to lead them, had his comrades been able to fend off the Bernese troops? He ached to know, but there was no way to return to the encampment even if he'd wanted to. The door was frozen shut and the snow level had risen at least a meter and a half.

And, to top it all off, he was hungry.

On the first morning, he'd gathered the rest of the firewood from where it had been stacked by the rickety tool shed at the edge of the clearing, ignoring the blinding pain that now met him every time he stood up. Surely, there was enough there to keep the fire going for two weeks. They wouldn't be stuck here that long, hopefully, but at least Roy was still alive.

The broken window in the last room provided access to the snow outside after the snow had piled too high to allow the doors to open. Alen had found a small pan in the same closet in which he'd found the blankets, and it was easy enough to melt the snow down near the fire. He took extra care when pouring the cool water into Roy's mouth; wouldn't want him to drown, either, after all they'd been through. The idea of being stuck with a dead body until the snowing stopped was disconcerting at the very least, especially if the dead body had belonged to someone so precious to so many.

He could boil water to clean the bandages, using an old basin that he'd discovered behind another door. He made sure to change the bandages and replace them with fresh ones twice each day, lest Roy die of an infection that could easily be prevented. He could clean the boy's wounds properly and make sure that he had plenty to drink, but the fear of starving to death... it was quickly becoming a reality.

If Roy didn't wake up...

What would he do then?

He couldn't help but think as he sat there by the fire, waiting. Waiting for what? For someone to come save him?

No, for someone to come save Master Roy. As long as his lord survived, he would die happily.

He told himself that as he waited for some sign of help, or – hell. What he wanted most right now was for Roy to sit up and grumble at him. "The weather here is miserable. I miss Pherae; it never snowed no matter how cold it got, remember? But, wouldn't you please find something constructive to do? Sitting here isn't going to help us get back."

Something had to change soon.


No, this isn't going anywhere, really. But it's kind of fun to write, even if it sucks. I shall justify my terrible emotionally-detached writing with 'I wrote it for myself; therefore, its quality may lack considerably without me having to chide myself.'