Level II
Six: Kingly
XXX
"I tell you that clockwork's a powerful thing; there's a terrible strength in those tightly wound springs..."
The Watchmaker's Apprentice by The Clockwork Quartet
XXX
In a faraway land, just a stone's throw away across a pond that all men deem to cross, in a land twisted by the tides of war, left defenceless to the blows of an endless enemy who rain down upon their happiness with the weapons of only the beginning – there is a child. On the pavement, on his knees on a ground so worn, one hand braced against the hardened cement with the other clutching a piece of chalk. Cherub features with unruly hair; the face of an innocent that yet understands.
The child scribbles away at the pavement, a blurry movement of clutched fingers and messy hands. A world of pictures lights up beneath him. There is a white sun. A white sky. A white tree and a white house. The family drawn is all stick-figures with inaccurate proportions and curly hair. The smiling face of the young one, the smallest of the six pictures, stares up blindly into a darkening sky – ignorant to the sirens of a dying world – only to be soon covered by the hand of the cherub boy as he moves his attention else where.
Unlike before, another world lights up before the boy. The chalk is stained with blood, it's tip a bloody red. He scribbles out a picture, hunched over his work like a child who fears that he will be cheated on by a naughtly classmate. His back arches and the chalk snaps within his hand. It rolls over, leaving but a trail of dust across the white world of a child's dream. The cherub leans back.
A dead bird. A dead tree, bent over and looking rather thick in the scrawl of chalk and childhood imagination. A dead person. Its eyes are crossed out with red X's. Underneath the dead man is but a heart. A human heart. All red and wide, curving lines to indicate movement of some kind. White lines streak out from its centre which is nothing more than a withered piece of smudged black in between all the red. Drawn down by gravity, the white lines bleed into an even darker creation of the cherub's drawing. It's a deep red. A deep, dark maroon that hums with a strange power. Inter-connected the two are as if they cannot survive without one another like the inter-workings of a machine.
The cherub peers up. The sound of a clock resonates through out the air. The reddened creation twists and morphs on the ground, changing its shape before the very mortal's eyes. It twists and twists like a blob of goo before the child's eyes. It changes and turns before settling at the very last into that of a pocket watch. The white lines still connect and the watch is still pulled open, its clock-face slightly blurred but still readable.
Twelve to midnight, the child reads. The watch only purrs. The cherub reaches out for the pocket-watch, keep by the heart of all men, wanting to touch and see if the red would stain his hands just as the chalk had. It ticks and tocks below his fingertips and he can feel it hum below him.
Then, the sirens boom. They shake the child from its dreams, the pictures still painted below him but the red is gone and replaced by that boring white. The white heart with its white centre with its white strings connecting to the white pocket-watch still remain beneath his frozen form.
"Come away, child! Come away with me!" The voice of a mother, the voice of a father, a brother and sister, kitten and dog. They scream at the child, hands of a million clutching at the boy's possessed form. They rip him away from the pavement, pulling the boy to their enclosed bodies as they dash off away from the accursed scene.
The child wails and wails. His piece of whitened chalk, fashioned from talc and the other minerals of the world, falls from his fingers. They snap against the withered stone of the ground, shattering into halves and rolling away.
The bombs only fall, whistling through the air and bringing London to its knees. A child screams, followed by the wails of a dying family who breathed its last, its dog scattering for the trees, and the white world of childhood imagination is overrun by a waterfall of innocent blood rolling across the withered side-walk.
XXX
When Alfred wakes up, he bolts up from his bed to only be pulled down by the nuisance of something on his wrist. He almost breaks it in frustration before taking notice that it was steel hand-cuffs keeping him attached to the pole of the iron-wrought bed. An iron-wrought bed that was not his.
Alfred hadn't had an iron-wrought bed in years. He moved his to the attic along with the water-bed after he found out he could get his hands on a Queen-size Race car bed. Ancient is cool and all, but why have ancient when you can pretend to be a badass going 200 mph down the NASCAR track line in your pjyamas?
It also had cupholders. This bed did not.
Ergo, this is not his house and he is handcuffed to some stranger's bed. Why the hell was he handcuffed to someone's bed anyway? Wasn't he supposed to be having a manly sleepover with his brother anyway? Where the hell was he anyway –
Alfred stops in his thoughts.
"No. No. It had to be a dream. It had to be."
He had had a dream that night – a dream of blood and blacks and the blitz of London, but it's hazy and he knows for some strange reason that it will come back to him eventually just as a faithful dog does with its owner. It will come to him eventually, but he knows that last night he did not dream of a parallel world for he knows that he is in the parallel world.
The thoughts of the previous day flood into his brain, sending it on a highwire adventure of new thoughts and pictures to process. The American brothers, the poor state of humans, the cruel brutality of these 'second-player' nations who were but jokes to the real things, and the war between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere – the war he knew absolutely nothing about but knew enough that the South is getting their asses kicked and seems to be the only ones who know that the North is seriously fucked in the head.
Not only that, but there's also the mad King of the North as well. The parallel-England whom is the craziest of them all, who literally seems to have a carpet fashioned from blood, is probably someone Alfred doesn't want to get on the badside of. He already knows that he's in trouble for making a fool of the King's toy Albert and that's probably the whole reason he's already in this damned room. As much as he doesn't want to admit it though, the parallel-England is a tad bit frightening. The original Arthur could be a badass too, but the parallel-England knocks his England right out into Space. He can't even think of the mad England to even be called Arthur. Oliver seemed more fitting. Then again, he didn't even seem fitting of a human name.
Nothing but a figure from the past, haunted with forms of ticking trinkets and hand-crafted beauty, pretended to be the nation of England that had stood before him, in that moment of fear where he had allowed his pride to take the reigns of this mad campaign of life. His skin is pockmarked and toiled by years of misuse and violent war; a crooked nose is the centre of his face, has eyes that are the same poisonous green as his original, acidic and ugly in every way. His eyebrows are hidden beneath the shield of his hair, blending almost invisible into that ferocious colour, and though near identical in style to the original, that can only be described as black as the very tresses of sin.
Standing from their seat, their bones creak and that smile proclaimed madness, and he is nothing more than a thin, gangly rod of a man that – though still being no taller than Alfred – is still a far shade from his original. His dress is odd, wearing clothes that have long lived past their date – a black frock-coat lined with the golden ends of pocket-watches, a tailored waistcoat the colour of pure white fastened together at the dip of his throat made of cotton with buttons of pearl and black breeches that only accented the thin sticks that were his legs.
And as the man approached closer, Alfred could hear it. Even now, as he sits dazed in this bed with his wrist aching with the constant rubbing against the inner of his wrist, he can still remember it foggily: The slightest ticking of an untimely clock, the turning of ancient gears that beats to its own rhythm, an irregularity in the thousands of watches that seem to tick all at once. In the hundreds of clocks making their noise, out of the thousands of turning cogs of which have long lived their day in his own world, there is one that beats out of rhythm with the rest.
The noise comes from the only watch a face has not been hidden away. It the one directly above his heart; its clock-front scarred and scratched with the years, so well used that the glass over the ticking hands has begun to go smooth and its numbers are unseen.
However, when the man stared down the bridge of his nose, judging the boy with a scrutinizing gaze, Alfred had realised that the clock shown above his heart is not the one making such a strange noise. It is not even moving at all. He narrowed his eyes at Alfred's stare and opened his mouth to speak.
"Send him to the dungeons. He is of no use to me now."
Alfred remembers nothing after that – nothing more than the cackling of Albert, whom he has a feeling that if he ever gets the chance, he will punch the asshole in the face. Albert has a face, though identical to his own, that is calling for a right hook to the jaw.
In childish frustration, he gives an ample kick of his legs. They thump against the mattress in his anger, only furthering the wrapped confusion of tangled sheets around his legs. The red comforter had fallen to the ground earlier in the day, but he doesn't bother to pick it up. He's hot enough as it is. Instead, after he calms the twitch of his legs and his own boiling anger, he sets to plucking his legs free of the thousand-thread cotton sheets that were far too white in his opinion after his day of running around in the muck and getting brain goo splattered all across his face.
Then, he finds a nasty surprise.
His dick is still in place, not cut of in the immature spite of that asshole Albert, but there's the fact of the matter that he can see it – just chillin' there. He isn't wearing underwear. He isn't wearing pants, socks, a shirt, his jacket or even his glasses. He's naked. He's in a parallel universe and he's lacking clothing.
"Oh god, it's like Manchester all over again!" Except, this time he isn't getting manhandled by the locals. He still hasn't figured out whose damn great idea it was to put one of England's secretaries in a birthday cake, but when he finds out, he will make sure they feel the humiliation of being forcibly undressed by English hookers at three o'clock in the morning the day before the Inauguration of one of their presidents.
He's naked and he's handcuffed to an iron-wrought headboard of an ancient bed. This is not good.
After a moment of thought, he leans over the side of the bed – his right arm pulling painfully as he does so – to grab the blood-red comforter. He throws it over his legs haphazardly, praying that his body for once decides to obey him and that he can make it through this situation alive.
Just as he throws the blanket over and pats it down over the cotton sheets, there's a sharp rap on the door and it swings open. In walks, not a confused maid of human origin or even a handsome butler with simple features, but the King of this nasty world instead. Oliver sweeps into the room with a slam of the door and the graceful walk of a inhuman being. He no longer wears the same clothing of yesterday, instead going for dress pants and a puffy shirt, but the ticking of a million clocks can still be heard – the same irregularity still exists and nothing has changed. The King doesn't even seem to realise.
Then again, Alfred supposes, the King probably doesn't realise much other than the fact that he has the world by the balls.
"So, you're the human who has been causing trouble for my boys." It's not even a question. It's a statement. The disgust cannot be filtered out from the parallel nation's voice and it fills America with a rage unknown.
"I have a name."
"So?"
"So, ergo, I shouldn't be called 'human'. That's generic as generic can go. How the fuck are you supposed to keep people apart if they're labelled 'human'?"
Oliver only sneers down the bridge of his nose. "All humans look alike. What makes you any different? Why shouldn't I have you hung and quartered, right here and right now?"
Shit. This is political shit. He doesn't have his jacket or his glasses or even a goddamn hamburger to at least keep him stable in the political showdown that's about to take place. Oliver's throwing a deal on the table, the blood-stained and brain-splattered one of course, and Alfred needs to make his choice now or go home in a box labelled 'Biggest Loser Ever'.
He purses his lips and throws his cards on the table.
"Because you find me too interesting. Your boys must have already told you the story – about how they found me in the middle of a massive crater without any memory and brought me here for investigation. If you didn't have some sort of interest in me, I wouldn't be in this room and would be either in the dungeon or dead. I'm not either, as you see, and so either you have a fetish for tying naked boys up to iron beds or you find me interesting."
There's a moment of silence that descends upon them like a carnivorous animal. It gobbles up the blank space, tearing away the walls of the awkward that were creeping up. However, soon a small, cruel smiles lights up across Oliver's face and Alfred knows he's fucked. He's seen that smile before, in waves of fire spreading across forests and villages of old, and he knows that he's stepped into the Den of the Lion to be offered up at the hands of whatever held the reigns.
"I almost took you for an idiot. You have a face like such – the face of a moron. However, your face seems very similar. Do I know you from somewhere?" Fuck, even in this world, he apparently looks like an idiot! Does he have a massive blinking overhead sign, screaming 'Yo look at this jackass. He's such an idiot! Make fun of his white ass!'
"I have never been here in my entire life."
"The Capitol? How strange? Then again...You reekof magic. Magic that is not my own. Magic of someone who cares, perhaps a father, a brother, or even a lover? Where do you hail from, strange child? Magic is not allowed in my land for the exception of few and my own."
Alfred is not a child. He is a grown man with a love for toys – there is a difference. "Not here. Now, where are my clothes? Being naked in front of people isn't exactly a glorious past time of mine."
Oliver sneers. He clenches his fist and stares down at Alfred, engaging in a serious battle of staring. After a moment, he breaks the stare and trails his eyes down Alfred's outline body beneath the comforter. He almost looks as if he wants to reach out and peel the cover away to see if the boy really is naked.
"You were filthy. I couldn't allow you in come into the Queen's Suite, all full of muck and dirt such as you were. Quite honestly, you should be glad that I sent your clothes out to be washed, all but that jacket of yours. A relic that thing is – I couldn't dare have it washed."
Anger surges up through Alfred once more. "Queen's suite? I, but – wait, did you go through it?"
"Do you take me a savage?" Oliver accuses. "I did not touch your jacket. Neither did any of my men. We had it scanned, and it showed there was nothing of use in there but a pair of broken glasses which I've sent to be repaired. Do not take me to be so rude."
He almost feels bad for a moment – that he offended the King, but then he comes to his senses. Oliver is staring him down again, imploring upon him with those acidic green eyes. Alfred realises that magic is being used and it is being used against him. Sometimes, he really hates magic.
"Mmm," he settles with after a moment. "Do ya know when I can get them back?"
"You will only your jacket back. The others will be burnt and you will be supplied with new ones."
"What?" He can dress himself, thank-you very much.
"I am only being a kind host and do you want me to look bad in front of the others? While you are in my land, you will dress to my rules – not the fashions of whatever place you came from and graced with your presence."
Blah, blah, blah. Should he bend over here or now?
Oliver narrows his eyes and for a minute, Alfred fears that Oliver heard his inner thoughts, but the King only shakes his head and comes even closer, sitting down on the edge of the bed and precariously close to Alfred's thigh. He non-discreetly attempts to schooch away, but the parallel nation's gaze pins him in place.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm here by total accident."
"Accident? One does not come into my territory by accident.
"And one does not simply walk into Mordor, but it already seems like I'm here. Look, I don't know why I'm here as it is. I don't even know what's going on."
"Then what do you know? What do you know of my empire? My kingdom?" Alfred is faced with another crossroad – another terrible situation where he's totally fucked in every-which way. He doesn't know a single damn thing about this world other than the fact that it's nothing like his own and the way things are run here make the politics of his own home world look like child's play. A complete, nation-run tyranny over the human populace, engaged in a total war between the northern world and the southern?That's all there seems to be of this world.
"Well?"
"Endless bloodshed." Alfred murmurs. He doesn't regret it.
"And your land is not? Do you live in the land of imagination, where the unicorns frolic and the faeries guard the doors to the mortal realm? Tell me, child, is there truly a world where bloodshed does not occur? Violence does not occur always between humans, you know."
Oliver's growing impatient. He's clicking his fingers on his thigh, a constant thumping that grows faster and faster with each passing second. The boy doesn't want to be here, but he has no choice. He lifts up his head and looks the King in the eye, well aware of the fact that this is not his world and the man he is dealing is not his Arthur.
"This world is mad. How...How can you live to see it run like this? It makes a total fool of everything a nation has worked hard to achieve –" An acidic green gaze stops him cold. His blood turns to ice in his veins.
"Nations? You know of the nations?"
Shit. "Well. I mean like countries, you know? Those accumulations of peoples and cultures and shit. I mean, what else could I be talking about?" He knows that Oliver is not convinced so he only smiles nervously instead, trying to look as confused as he possibly can.
"I see."
Then, Oliver looms closer than ever before. He can see every pockmark, every toil of war etched deep in his skin, and the violet begs under his eyes that could not be hidden under the guise of make-up. He nears close, his eyes a brighter green than ever before – no doubt full of the unadulterated magic that must flow through his veins – and once again, he grins that smile of sheer madness.
"You know something! You know something you're not telling me!"
He pulls back as far as he can, smacking his head on the headboard as a result. The smile on the other man's face fades and his eyes dim. A look of almost hurt passes over his face like a dying cloud before being replaced with a façade of stony coldness.
A cold hand, freezing and absolutely pale, slides up the jawline of Alfred's face, coming only to pet the upper bump of his cheek in soothing circles that chilled him to the bone. Oliver draws near and Alfred can't go any further – blocked by the iron-wrought headboard against the back of his head.
"Your magic is familiar. Are you sure you do not know whose it is?"
He's about as magical as a rock and he's pretty sure Arthur could give less of a fuck about his safety – at least, not caring enough to actually put spells on him for his protection. Alfred is a big boy and everyone knows that. Even Arthur understands that.
"I've told you, I don't know –" He stops in the middle of his sentence, halted silent when the parallel nation reaches up and wraps his fingers around Alfred's nose. The feeling is strange and he's can't breathe for a moment, panicking momentarily before exhaling air out of his mouth. Mouth-breathing just feels strange.
Nasally and out of breath, he speaks:
"What the fuck are you doing –"
"I don't appreciate being lied to."
And then, with a sudden strength the original Arthur never possessed, Oliver gives a good yank on his nose and Alfred's sent screaming with a sudden, blinding pain that reeks of magic.
XXX
"And a gentleman's pocketwatch stays by his heart, and that's where the damage can start."
The Watchmaker's Apprentice by The Clockwork Quartet
Hahahahaha, I suck. This short and I apologise for it being so. I'm a tad bit busy.
This summer – I promised to write some sort of teenaged love story novel in order to keep myself from spontaneously combusting. As much as I would like to immolate, I think I might do it, but it seems that it might fuck every other project though. I really want to finish this story seeing as I've already got everything figured out.
I suppose I should finish my exams though.
Anyway, it might be a bit until I finish the next chapter. I've already written it, but it needs major editing. See you until next time, guys.