Sirius Black looked outside the window: the town unrolled at the castle's feet filled with moonflower white faces, and shivering shadows. The night carried out the howling of werewolves far but too close. Way too close.

Sirius had been raised to be a king, he'd learned all about the royalty his family was from, all about weapons, dark curses, and war strategy from the youngest age, only to discover that he had no kingdom to protect, no one to wage war on, and that his parents like so many of their own attack anyone they could just to remind themselves of a purpose long lost.

Now he had both.

He had children terrified by their own shadows to take care of because there was something out there, something that had none to do with the pathetic civil war of a rotten aristocracy, but a war on humanity itself.

"Tell me of this world Daltar?"

Daltar, tall man with broad shoulder, probably some highly diluted giant blood in his family tree that made him so irremediably tall, straightened up at being spoken to by the king. He'd seen so many of them, dying one after another, and that last one, almost a child hadn't lasted but three months; imbecilic and rotten by inter alliance in a place where there already wasn't much blood to share. Royalty had gone wrong, but it had been the only thing to keep them from falling to the sharp paws of the werewolves. And to have now a king sent by the gods themselves, a king who interested himself into the kingdom…

'Maybe we're not doomed just yet…'

"They say thousands of years ago the planet was so much larger, then the non magical made it rotten, and the waters rose so fast, and killed so many and only this earth remain, and the ones that had managed to come onto it, the fastest and strongest, and amongst them, the largest number was made of wizards and werewolves. The wizards made the wolves their slaves, infecting all the non magical they could to have more, but the werewolves revolted, turning those who had treated them well, and turning all of the others in a slaughter like no other, and the sea was covered with blood till so far away that none could see beyond the red. But the werewolves were so angry, they did not stop at their tormentors, they killed everything and everyone that was not werewolf just for the sake of destruction, and the rare fortresses that rose in defence were ravaged as soon as the werewolves could muster, until they grew content to just raid and wait for our demise. Why would they bother? They are, after all, immortal."

"And they waited us out?"

Daltar nodded:

"They know of the line of king," he explained, "They knew the last one died tonight and the magical protection granted by the royal blood will fall and the liquid they use to turn us into cattle will work against us once again."

"A potion then," Sirius' fingers drummed against the table. "Have the oracle do it on me, I am a pureblood after all and we're nothing if not inbred, I will do just fine. Now I noticed that no one was wearing their wand, how does that work?"

"Their wand, your highness?" asked Daltar, thoroughly puzzled.

"Yes, their wand, you said they were wizards, right, so…they don't have them do they." He paled: "You don't know how to use magic, plain magic, not that ritualistic stuff you do, do you?"

"The wand is the privilege of the king; a symbol of the mighty power of the pureblood royalty."

"You don't know how to use them? Blimey…" He suddenly grinned: "You know what? We really ARE going to be just fine…"

And there was a certainty in his voice that made Daltar's heart swell with hope.

"Alright", he said, "assemble everyone on the public place, we do have a public place, right? Goody! Assemble everybody there, I'll…do a discourse or something…" he passed a nervous hand in his hair, and stilled, pain shooting through his heart at the familiar gesture.

'Not now,' he told himself. 'They need you now, you'll think about that later.'

Then he found himself in front of them all and he felt very stressed and a large bit stupid.

"Hm…Hi everyone…" they seemed to burst in spontaneous applause as though just his saying that was exceptional. "Right, listen," he said when it died out. "You're all hungry, and afraid, and tired, and you thought you were gonna die tonight and none of you revolted, and it's wrong. I want you to revolt. I want you to want to live, I want you to have hope, and I swear to God, I will give it to you. Tonight we're not going to push the werewolves back to their quarters until the next time they feel like attacking us, tonight, we will win a battle, we will take their food, and we will free what they call cattle, and we will set their casern on fire, and tonight, at last, we will be wizards again."

The applause was a bit off this time, more as though they felt obliged to.

"Good speech," mentioned Daltar, as he fell into steps with him.

"It's not just a speech, Daltar. It's really happening. Now, I want all of the wands that were made, including those of the ancient kings to be gathered, taken out and exposed, and everyone to try them on and have a wave at them with whichever hand they feel most comfortable with. If the wand emits sparkles, they keep it, and go on the right side of the court. Once everyone has tried them on the ones that have not gotten a wand will come into the castles great hall, everyone who can shoot an arrow, or with a gun will be put on one side, everyone who can melt metal on another, the rest of them is to be shipped off to the treasure room with you to find everything silver and pile it in the great hall, the armours will be kept and adjusted on every soldier, every weapon kept, all the rest of it will be melted into arrows, darts, and bullets. However everyone in that group who can recognise a gun is to look only for them, and they will be piled outside of the rest. All the actual arrows are to be retrieved and piled away on their own as well, and every inch of liquid mercury retrieved from the potion storage room, is the potion master actually proficient or can he only do the potion of escalation that you told me of?"

"What other potion is there your highness?" asked Daltar, as his most trusted guard took off to obey the king's orders.

Sirius sighed:

"Never mind, I'll have to do that one myself, good thing my dear mother made me learn it by heart."

The Captain did not comment of the perceived irony on the name of his mother.

"Okay, here; he wrote a list of ingredients on a piece of paper, I need you to retrieve that from the potion storage room as well. Go on, chop, chop!"

Daltar looked at the kings back in stunned disbelief: what in heaven's name was he suppose to chop?