Chapter Song: The Secret Sisters - Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

Chapter 11: The Hard Truth

Kattleroot was cloaked in darkness as Arthur took to the winding paths back through the rows of shambled houses and fences to his own little patch of the village. The place wore the night like a second skin, becoming something far away from what it was in the day time, shifting into a ghost town which reflected the moon from every surface, life's only giveaway the glow of candlelight at a window or the remains of smoke from a fire - maybe a drunk grumbling in the gutter. He had taken the riverside path, watching the churning of the moving waters in the darkness and listening to the soft babbling noises it made. He had an urge to run his fingers over the rippling surface but resisted, having heard one too many scare tales of the unshakable chill that cuts through the river at night - the kind that takes your life. He couldn't suppress an image of Alfred in his large, warm palace, the affectionate faces, the food, the girl with the flowers in her hair. He compared this to the feeling of plunging into the icy waters of the river in the dead of night, the waves lapping up to his waist. Something about this image made him feel suddenly panicked, like he was choking. He felt as though he could be remembering something like a nightmare he may have had once about running through an icy river such as this. He blocked it out.

As he followed the curving bank of the dark river he saw a glowing point in the near distance which made him nervous for a brief moment, the lights here brighter than they had been at the cottage windows. It was as the noises began to reach him that he relaxed; He had walked to the Goose already? He must have done. There was lively disjointed music trailing out of the open doors, a solid sheet of yellow light illuminating the square of dirt out front, the old hanging sign coming into view as it swayed on its lantern post in the evening breeze. Voices began to separate and form into men and women, laughter and yelling, old drunks and young serving girls. A baby wailed from an upstairs window, open to let in the night air. The place seemed packed, not surprisingly perhaps. Arthur decided he wouldn't stop tonight.

As he passed the glowing entrance to the village inn, Arthur glanced inside, there was only a blur of movement to be seen, the light blinding him slightly. He thought he might have glimpsed Karlos behind the bar through the burning haze. He kept walking.

From some unknown place in the shadows an arm closed around Arthur's neck and he let out a gasp as the grip tightened to a chokehold in the solitary darkness. Feeling the fear rise in his stomach Arthur gave a strangulated noise of protest before attempting to elbow his attacker. Wanting to yell for Karlos (the only person he'd recognised) Arthur began to thrash with the choker, using all the brute strength he could muster - but the guy was bigger, he closed Arthur in and smothered him with something familiar smelling like-

"Hey, Arthur, quit it! Stop - it's me! It's me!" Antonio let go of Arthur with a little difficulty, putting his hands in the air in as a kind of surrender and backing off.

There was a tense moment as the two stared each other down, Arthur still breathing hard and ready to punch him, Antonio still alarmed at his friend's reaction, looking genuinely shocked. After several seconds Arthur let his shoulders fall, dropping his fists to his sides.

"You're an idiot..." Arthur was irritated but his voice shook slightly as he spoke and there was a lack of anger behind the insult, "why'd you jump me like that?"

Antonio merely laughed, one side of his face illuminated by the light from the Goose's back porch, the other in shadow. Arthur could smell ale on his breath.

"I didn't mean to scare you, Art," his face broke into an easy grin as he came into full view, stepping out of the road and onto the Goose's back step, leading Arthur to do the same," I didn't know when you'd be getting back from the fancy party - I was pleased to see you, silly."

Arthur frowned but he couldn't help letting a warm feeling permeate his frosty outer shell; Antonio had actually missed him, at least was glad to have him back, and just maybe he had not been so solitary after all.

"It wasn't a party. I was working," he insisted stubbornly despite this feeling, "and I wasn't scared."

Antonio gave another laugh, leaning back dopily on the wooden hand rail of the back porch. Arthur had to wonder how much he'd had to drink that evening.

"Aw, 'course, Arthur, you're right." Antonio nodded but his smile began to fade slightly as he kept eye contact with the younger boy.

"Uh, Toni? Are you alright?" the idiot hadn't gone and drowned his sorrows after the Ace's speech had he?

"I'm fine, Arthur, I've just got to doing some thinking today is all," he looked at Arthur as if he understood this but his eyes were still a little far away.

"That's not like you at all," Arthur had to remark dryly, the irresistible opportunity pulling at him more strongly than the concern he felt.

Antonio gave him a vague half smile as an acknowledgement of the insult but - and this was much more concerning than the staggering - did not offer any greater reaction. He just kept his gaze level with Arthur's, nagging at the corner of his lower lip slightly as he did.

"Don't be so mean, Arthur..." Antonio seemed to say more to himself.

Arthur was taken in by Antonio's resigned tone and the hushing sounds the river beside them made and, rather than protesting, offered up his friend the same scrutiny with a furrow of the brow, suddenly aware of the air passing between them and the mild breeze on the back of his neck and the murmur of the crickets in the brush.

He wanted to say he was sorry, but he wasn't sure why - when they had always made jokes at each other's expense without it being personal in the past. He remained silent.

"Listen, Art, I actually did want to see you tonight," Antonio straightened up from the side rail, facing Arthur directly and looking at him intensely now, much closer than he had been before. Arthur was again made more aware of the air but now it was not only that, it was Toni's breath and the rough fabric of his shirt that brushed against his arm briefly as he moved closer to him. "I think you know what it's about."

Kattleroot? Arthur thought logically but with some urgency. Kattleroot is Toni's town - he loves it and it's being left to rot. Antonio wanted the region to be the great prosperous farming ground it was destined to be and it was more than a little rough around the edges now -and rougher every day - the whole situation is pushing him down. It had to be...or could it be...? No. Not that. He'd die of embarrassment if Toni had some how worked out the way he felt around him.

"What's up Toni?" Arthur was tentative as he asked, still feeling tense from their closeness and Antonio's sudden seriousness. He tried to swallow but his throat was dry. There was a lingering silence between them.

"...I like someone," Antonio faltered in his intensity and couldn't look Arthur in the eye for a moment, focusing on the wooden boards beneath their boots instead.

Arthur's mouth opened and shut in the same second, a feeling like his stomach was turning over inside him rendering him momentarily speechless.

"I know you probably find that silly, and it kinda is, but I've tried to keep acting like I don't and it's still true." He glanced at Arthur again but hastily became enthralled in the floor once more, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I mean... we've been friends a while - like really close - and I don't wanna mess that up so I've been pretending it's not there for so long."

Arthur's mind was racing past his mouth which couldn't seem to cope with even the most simple of basic functions. He wondered if Antonio was saying what he thought he was saying, each new feeling that thought brought on sending a bolt of nausea straight to his twisted stomach. He was aware of the close proximity in which they stood and the scent of the ale and felt he wished he had something else to occupy himself with other than staring at Antonio, at his pensive eyes and the way a dimple formed on one side of his cheek as he chewed at his lip. At the prospect of something he'd only ever let himself imagine when he wasn't actively telling himself not to do so.

"You like...someone?" Arthur could have sworn at himself for how his voice shook and how much of a little boy he momentarily sounded.

Antonio chuckled nervously and found he could keep steady eye contact with his friend for the first time.

"Yeah, I do - I like someone and I can finally stop acting like that doesn't exist and treating them like - like a brother or something," Toni wrinkled his nose and shook his head as if ashamed, "they're so much more than that."

Like a brother. Arthur had to fixate on this, build it up and break it down and start again. He loves me like a brother - he told me - he told me on my birthday. 'You're like a brother to me', he said. 'Its only because I love you'.

He tried to muster up the courage to speak again despite the pulse in his ears drowning out the river and the crickets and the patrons, his face growing flushed.

"Awh... I'm sorry Art, this must be weirding you out so much, I've just sprung this on you," Antonio gave the blonde an apologetic look with the same awkwardness he'd been battling with throughout, again struggling with eye contact.

No! Arthur had an impulse to say, and also yes - but no, don't say that. He just needed a second to understand it all. He felt a wave of panic wash over him, feeling the moment held a key to everything that would come afterward and if he wasn't careful the river would rush on past him through the floodgates and he'd be left ice cold and wondering what happened. He was aware that Toni was drunk but also that he was sincere, that his eyes were trying to reach out to him and hold onto something. For a horrifying moment he wanted to kiss him.

"...I don't mind," Arthur muttered dumbly. Was he for real? 'I don't mind?!' He was dying inside as his clashing emotions produced such a failed response and he could almost feel the water giving way beneath him, leaving without him.

"Really? You don't think it would change things too much? Between us?" Antonio ploughed on as Arthur felt a numbness spread through his entire body and dared allow his head to swim with the implications Antonio might have been making. Must have been making. He'd spelled it out, he'd said it, he'd used the word 'us'. And he'd meant him and Arthur hadn't he? The two of them? But the idea made his stomach turn and his palms sweat.

"I - well obviously I guess, yes, but ... " His words were choked and stunted, he felt the pleading in his eyes which his voice lacked.

"I know what it is...I know, Arthur, it's okay," Antonio sighed and looked at Arthur straight on, considering him, frowning slightly the light catching the gold flecks in his eyes - and at that moment Arthur could accept it. He could accept that he was in love with him.

"You...know?" Arthur felt like he was in a daze and replied like a sleepwalker replies when caught up in the dead of night.

Antonio took a breath.

"You like her too."

There was a boy in Arthur and Antonio's Sunday class called Skippy.

Skippy fancied himself as a sportsman of sorts but he didn't play ball or cricket like some of the others - he called himself a runner. A hobby he primarily developed as his family's food supplies grew scarcer and scarcer. He took the title to the extremes, climbing walls, jumping fences, you name it. Arthur saw him vault a horse to get to the schoolhouse roof once.

But Skippy had a weakness. He couldn't make the jump from the village building to his own house. A bit of a problem if he'd been nicking apple's from Mrs Merritt's trees and had to get back sharpish. So Skippy vowed he'd make it, and on his sixteenth birthday he called all the village kids to witness him finally make the jump. Now they'd all seen Skippy climb the old wall at the back of the schoolhouse right to the top, the one crumbling to pieces. They'd seen him jump the river. So they had confidence he'd do it and attended the event like pilgrims going to their holy city. Even Arthur, who often expected little of people at the best of times, had faith in Skippy. And after Skippy had made the run up to the leap and they all held their breaths and waited, he wasn't sure at what point it became apparent that Skippy wouldn't make it, but he remembered a long, surreal moment of freefall in which Skippy seemed to go neither vertically nor horizontally but was falling without movement.

Arthur's mind felt currently to be an exact replica of Skippy. It hung in freefall in a great chasm between emotions. For a long moment he could not reply, could not move, wasn't even sure if he was breathing or not.

"Arthur?" Antonio was cocking his head at him with a frown. As his voice pierced the bubble of feeling he'd been surrounded in and Arthur saw Skippy hit the dirt and the eruption of dust that followed and the groans of disappointment no one could suppress despite the bent out of shape boy on the ground.

"...Her?" As Arthur regained a sense of consciousness his voice came out a dry crackle and he felt like he wasn't really looking at Antonio any more, but past him.

"Belle, of course! Who'd you think I meant?" Antonio laughed incredulously and any inkling of love Arthur thought he had felt hardened around him like bread left out to go stale.

In the same moment the Goose's back door opened harshly with a screech and light flooded onto their faces. Before he could begin to comprehend this, Arthur received a shocking, soaking, cold slap in the face and was blinded momentarily. He heard Antonio yell and then he was jumping back from Arthur, his shirt spattered with water.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry Arthur, I didn't even see you out here," Karlos was silhouetted in the open back door, an empty bucket under one arm and an apologetic look on his face.

Arthur looked at the bucket and then down at his sodden shirt, the sleeves dripping and heavy. His hair lay in damp clumps over his eyes. Water droplets ran down his neck. He said nothing.

There was a yell from inside - it sounded angry.

"Awh, man, I really am sorry Arthur," He glanced back over his shoulder anxiously, " I gotta get back though..."

Antonio stepped into the light of the door. "Go brother, I'll sort him out." He waved Karlos away.

"Alright, okay - I'll make it up to you, Arthur, though - hey! I'll let you marry my brother if you like?" Karlos gave a grin, giving his younger brother a shove of amusement.

"You'll make him even more mad talking like that, Karl! Arthur won't take your crap and you know it!" Toni made a clumsy, oblivious attempt to protect his friend and gave a laugh, pushing his brother back inside the noisy inn.

Before Antonio was even finished with this task Arthur was vigorously ringing out his sleeves and preparing to get out of there as fast as possible, a heated, nauseating humiliation rising in his gut.

"Wait, Arthur," Antonio was suddenly at his side again, persistent and energetic," so do you think I should go for it?"

"For what?" Arthur replied harshly, giving in and removing his outer shirt hurriedly to better squeeze out the dish water, shuddering in cold and irritation.

"With Belle! You think I should try to ask her if she like...wants to be with me?" He was biting his lip again and Arthur could have slapped him.

"Sure, if you want." Arthur was going down the steps now, dripping on the planks and feeling more sordid than he had all day. He was cutting himself off from Antonio and the heavy feeling in his chest. He wanted to be alone and preferably sleeping.

"Arthur!" his friend called for the last time and he almost didn't stop to listen but something about the desperate note his voice had made him whirl to face him again, soaking wet in the middle of the road, "do you think she likes me?"

Antonio looked so nervous and lost that Arthur almost had to feel sorry for him, but his own hardened heart prevented compassion from reaching him entirely.

"Toni, I think she'd be a fool to love you, but we're all fools once," he felt stretched thin as he said this and all of a sudden completely exhausted, " and you're just the sort of person people make fools of themselves for - you and Belle have that in common," seeing Antonio still bewildered, Arthur gave a deep sigh and could not keep the slight contempt from his voice, " you're made for each other, Toni - a real perfect match."

And he finally left him there on the side of the road, turning for the last time and fast walking the way home, tight-lipped and ball fisted, ignoring any further shouts from his best friend and the ice whip of the breeze on his soaked skin. He kept a lid on the feeling swelling in his chest and at the back of his eyes and just kept walking. Walking and walking until he was finally home.

The night air was warm that evening and troubled the string of lights weaving through the Spades topiary, tickling the leaves of the trees to hear them rustle. The sounds of the party inside drifted through the open courtyard doors and gave the fireflies a tune to which they danced. Above their heads, the coloured lanterns swayed on their hooks as Alfred Jones and Angelique Mancham 'took a turn' around the courtyard - just as Alfred had been told it was polite to do when you are getting to know a lady.

" - You must have been dancing for ages - you're a much better dancer than I am - I bet Yao would much rather teach you than me, he says I have two left feet but you're feet seem perfectly the right way around," Alfred was vaguely aware that he was talking too much but the mixture of nervousness from Miss Mancham's presence and the eagerness he felt at having someone to talk to at all brought out such responses in him and once he started he couldn't easily stop himself. " I mean, I suppose you have two right feet or something because you didn't seem to have any trouble with the steps at all-"

"They're watching us, you know," Angelique Mancham interrupted Alfred with a glance at the doorway to the ballroom, looking back at him with a slight smirk.

"They are?" Alfred took this as a surprise but also with some disinterest; he was often being watched - it was something he'd grown used to.

"Mm hm, I suppose they want to see if we're getting along," she gave Alfred a pointed look," perhaps you should kiss me."

" What?!" Alfred spluttered in alarm, feeling his cheeks heating up, "I couldn't do something like that! E-especially not if anyone's watching!"

Miss Mancham laughed, " you're such a child!" she announced jovially, running her hand along the side of the hedgerow.

"W-well - how old are you?" Alfred demanded, feeling shaken and adamant from what she had said to him.

"fourteen," she replied sharply,"...in three months."

"Well then, you're still a child too!" Alfred cried indignantly," I'll be thirteen next year, anyway."

"That isn't the same at all," she replied with a purse of the lips, her pretty features wrinkling for a moment.

"Why do they have to see if we're getting along anyway?" Alfred abandoned the argument and focused on what she had said earlier, " aren't they just checking we're alright out here?"

Angelique twirled around to face him, her skirts billowing around her legs for a moment as they caught the wind.

"They're reviewing your matches of course!" she exclaimed with some surprise at Alfred's ignorance, "you're going to be the king!"

This was not news to Alfred. He had been told this fact repeatedly throughout the day and hearing it from Miss Mancham now did not offer him any more insight into what he should expect from his life than it had when he'd heard it from anyone else.

"You mean...matches for marriage?" He felt himself blanche a little, having not considered this train of thought previously.

"Something like that," Angelique replied, discreetly plucking a rose from the bush beside her and holding it behind her back, "they want to see who you get on with well so they can choose who the queen will be."

Alfred did not say anything for a moment and before he could, Angelique stuffed the flower into his hand, surprising him completely.

"Give it to me!" she whispered a little fiercely.

"why?" Alfred replied, also whispering and not entirely sure as to why.

"It's romantic!" she insisted emphatically, "we want to make a good impression don't we?"

Alfred was beyond puzzled at what Miss Mancham wanted from him but offered out the flower awkwardly, glancing at the doors to see if they did indeed approve of his gesture.

"Oh, thank you!" she feigned surprise, taking the thing up graciously and smelling it.

They continued to walk through the courtyard in silence and Alfred wondered as to whether he should ask who had taught her to dance or merely give up.

"You're right though," Angelique admitted as they passed the neat brick lily pad pond, reflecting the hanging lights in its shallow waters, "they do want to keep us safe."

"In case we get hurt or something like that," Alfred agreed, nodding understandingly.

"Not just that!" she continued forcefully," in case anyone tries to hurt us."

"Why would someone do that?" Alfred asked and his step slowed as he stopped to look at her quizzically.

"Because we're special and they're jealous," she insisted, " how many people out there do you think want to be king? Or queen? - to have just a chance at being in that position? People are dedicated to getting what they want - trust me."

"but they wouldn't...they wouldn't go and..." Alfred was at a bit of a loss for words, his naivety showing through his expression and discomfort.

"They might." Angelique replied shortly, crossing her arms, " look at what happened to that boy they thought would be queen two years ago."

"What boy? What happened?" Alfred didn't have the faintest idea what Miss Mancham was talking about but was immediately intrigued.

"You don't know?" Angelique put a hand to her mouth, realising that she may have spoken out of turn, " well, don't dare say I said, but I don't think the fire was an accident - my uncle says it was, and it might have been - but he thinks too well of people anyway and - oh! There he is."

As Angelique broke away from Alfred to greet her uncle by the back step the young prince's mind felt it had received an overload of information which he found difficult to digest. What fire? And what boy? he would have asked Yao had Angelique not seemed so secretive about it all. But still - should Yao not be telling him such things by now? He wasn't that much of a child anymore.

Looking in Miss Mancham's direction once more Alfred was beckoned by her uncle to come inside with them. As he approached in a further state of confusion he was taken aback to see who exactly her relative was. Sadik Ardnan stood before him in the open doorway of the grand ballroom holding out a fan of cards, Angelique beaming at the boy with an arm hooked through her uncle's beside him.

"Go on, take one," he said with a smile, " I bet I'll guess it."

A/N: Hello! Sorry this is late D: I'd like to say thank you to those that reviewed though as you really gave me the push to get this chapter out!

(teeny spoiler: in the next chapter things will have moved on a bit from how they are now! *ominous*)

Anyway, See you all again soon and feel free to let me know how you're finding the story!

P.S. Sorry I was/am so mean to Arthur.