Authors' Note: So I go months without updating (or it felt like months to me, anyway), and then right after one update I'm struck with inspiration that keeps me up until three in the morning (when I have to be up for class at nine!) writing to finish a chapter. What in Auldrant is wrong with my brain?

For this one, Luke is sixteen, and Guy is twenty. I'm pretty sure that most attic entrances don't work like the one I describe here -- at least, in my house, it's just a tile that leads up to the attic and we have to use an ordinary ladder to get there -- but I'm taking a bit of author's power just to make it a little more believable (in the sense that it'd be easier to get up there without detection). Also, the title of this chapter is a shout-out to my favorite childhood poet, Shel Silverstein. There aren't really any other references to Mr. Silverstein in the title, but given the content of this chapter, I couldn't resist giving him the reference. Goodness knows the man deserves all the credit he gets and more. :)

Anyway, this one is kind of a chill-out chapter. Not too much action, but hopefully it'll still interest you. And then, next chapter, we're off to the magical land of hyperresonance and the start of the game!

Anyway, please read and review!

Bonds of Brotherhood

Ten: A Light in the Attic

Luke had tried to escape to Baticul many times in the past. He didn't see why he shouldn't be allowed to go, after all. He was sixteen! He'd had sword training lessons with Master Van! He could take care of himself! But his uncle had decreed that he was not allowed to leave the manor, and so every time he'd tried, he was denied. Even Guy stopped him from going, and Guy rarely stopped him from doing anything.

Well, Luke wasn't really up to being denied any longer. He was going to get to explore his home city, and that was that.

He just had to escape the grounds first.

As he got older, Luke had grown out of his prepubescent clumsiness, growing used to his longer limbs and added height (though he still wasn't taller than Guy, much to his chagrin). His increased self-awareness made him able to move more gracefully, more stealthily, and to avoid the guards on their rounds. Of course, he was allowed to explore the manor's grounds as he wished; he could even toe the border, so long as he stayed on the very edge. It was getting to the lift that was going to be another matter altogether. There was always a guard posted there, ready to stop him from going down -- ready to prevent him from reaching freedom.

Well, unfortunately for them, Luke had a backup plan.

Luke reached the lift just as it was time for the guard's shift to change, the second guard walking up to the lift at a leisurely pace. Luke watched him as a cat would watch its prey, crouched down in the shadows where they'd be unlikely to see him. The guards switched wordlessly, the shift change so routine that it didn't need any explanation, and Luke barely waited for the first guard to be out of earshot before he pounced, swinging his sword toward the back of the replacement guard's head. The sword of the flat of Luke's sword striking off armor could be heard clear across the grounds, as could the guard's surprised shout as he stumbled away from the lift.

"Damn," Luke swore, scowling. "You were supposed to fall unconscious." Never mind the fact that the guard was wearing a helmet. The guard turned, staring at pure shock in Luke, who quickly sheathed his sword and bolted for the lift.

"Master Luke?! Wait, stop!"

"C'mon, work already!" Luke jammed the lift buttons, hitting every one that he could see, but just as the lift started to lurch down the guard threw himself into the lift with Luke, quickly hitting a big red button. Luke looked up to see that more guards were heading across the grounds, and he groaned loudly. What was supposed to be a daring escape had failed miserably. How wonderful. "Come on, just get out and let me go!"

"I cannot do that, Master Luke." The guard reached out, grabbing Luke's arm, and tugged him out of the lift. Luke pulled his arm from the guard's grasp, rubbing it where it hurt, glaring daggers. "You should know by now that we can't let you leave. Why would you go and attack me like that?"

"Why do you think? I want to get out of this stupid manor." Luke turned to look at the guards who'd come to assist, scowling at them all. "What are you looking at? Get out of here and go back to your posts!" They exchanged glances uncertainly, irritating Luke further. "Did you not hear me? Go!"

"Y - Yes, sir!" The guards turned, heading back to their posts, and Luke looked back to the first guard.

"If I can give them orders to go back to their posts, why can't I give you an order to leave yours?"

"You know why," the guard explained wearily. "King Ingobert has decreed that you are not to leave the manor grounds. Master Luke, I understand that you wish to explore Baticul, but--"

"No, you don't," Luke interrupted. "If you understood, you'd let me go. But you won't, because you don't. No one does, because no one else is stuck in this stupid manor!" The guard opened his mouth to protest, but Luke turned away, stomping back toward the manor, his earlier good mood completely soured. "Whatever! I'll stay in the manor, if that's what all of you want! It's not like I'm wasting away with boredom or anything!"

The guard didn't bother to reply, and Luke didn't look back as he headed back toward the manor, knowing that if he did, he'd be tempted to go back and yell at the guard some more, despite how pointless it would be. After all, no matter how much he yelled, no one ever listened to him. Well, Guy listened, but Guy still wouldn't let him leave. "You'll be able to leave when you're of age, Luke," Guy would say. "Until then, just try to make the best of it." Yeah, make the best of it. Like that ever worked. It was hard to make the best of something when there wasn't any good to work with.

Luke sighed, entering in the manor and looking both ways down the corridor. He knew every inch of the manor back to front, side to side, up and down. He had explored every inch, even going so far as to look in all of the closets and in the basement. There was nothing new, nothing exciting, and that's what made it so hard to find entertainment; there was nothing there for him to be entertained by.

. . . Except . . .

Luke paused, his green eyes traveling up to look at the ceiling. He'd been on all of the floors and in the basement, true, but he was fairly certain that the manor had an attic. He'd heard some of the servants talking about it, once upon a time, about putting stuff in storage up there as well as cleaning it out. Luke himself had never been to the attic, but he'd been a curious child and so when he'd heard the servants talking about it initially, he'd followed them for awhile to see where the entrance was. Of course, they hadn't allowed him to climb up after them, and at the time Luke was young so he'd forgotten about it soon after. But it was one place that he hadn't explored yet, and if they weren't going to permit him to leave the manor grounds . . .

Luke glanced around to make sure no one could see him, and then darted down the corridor. After all, there was no need to tell anyone where he was going. If they couldn't find him, and if they were worried, well, then it sucked to be them. It wasn't Luke's problem, and he certainly didn't care.

Luck was certainly on Luke's side. Somehow, he managed to avoid most of the servant staff, including Guy, who was nowhere in sight for whatever reason. Normally, Luke would be annoyed, because Guy usually sought him out early in the day. But that day, it was a blessing in disguise, especially as Luke found the little trapdoor set in the ceiling that he was positive led up to the attic. Glancing around the corridor once more, Luke jumped, grabbing the handle and yanking the trapdoor down. Just like he saw when he was a kid, a rope ladder tumbled out of the ceiling, allowing him to climb quickly up into the attic, pulling the ladder and the trapdoor back up after him. The door securely in place, Luke allowed himself a little grin, and turned to survey the attic.

It was pretty large, all things considered, and also pretty dirty. Luke's nose crinkled in response to the dust, which swirled in the sunbeams that filtered in through the tiny window near the very top of the wall. There was no carpet or proper wallpaper in the attic at all; instead, wooden beams were overhead, the floor barren wood that matched the paneling of the walls. Boxes were everywhere, as were a few pieces of old furniture that had old blankets thrown over them. Luke frowned, setting his hands on his hips and canting his weight to one side.

"Well, I can see why no one ever comes up here. Jeez, this place is trashed." Walking across the wood floor, Luke swiped one finger across the top of an old dresser, grimacing at the layer of dust that caked his finger after the action. "And dirty as hell." Dusting his finger off on his pants, Luke moved forward, taking note of the untidy handwriting that had marked each of the boxes, and the large, gilt-framed mirror set against the side wall. Without really thinking, Luke moved toward it, standing so that he was directly in front of the dusty glass, staring at his reflection.

Despite repeated words to Guy about growing taller, Luke was still only of average height, at least five inches shorter than Guy. His red hair was long, falling almost to his waist, and contrasting vividly against the white he usually liked to wear. But what interested Luke most was his eyes; his bright green eyes, which seemed unfamiliar every time he looked at them.

This was the reason Luke liked to look at his reflection so much. It wasn't that he thought he was overly attractive or anything (though he knew he certainly wasn't ugly or anything even close to it), but just that he felt like he was looking at a stranger every time he looked in the mirror. Luke supposed it was because he'd lost his memory. He didn't remember what he'd looked like before the kidnapping, and so as a result, he took every chance he got to look into a mirror. But even after six years his reflection still felt foreign and strange, and he found himself entranced with staring into his own eyes whenever he passed by something that caught his reflection, be it a mirror or simply a basin of water.

It took him a few minutes, but he finally managed to tear his reflection away, turning to look at some of the boxes near the window. They were open, unlike the other boxes in the room, and on the very top of one he could see a large, brown, leather-bound book. Luke wasn't a voracious reader by any means (he actually found reading to be quite boring), but his curiosity was sparked and so he picked the book up out of the box, sitting down on the floor and cracking it open. It wasn't an ordinary book at all, incidentally; it was a photo album.

A photo album filled to the brim with pictures of his childhood.

"Weird . . ." Luke murmured, looking at a picture of him with Natalia. They couldn't have been more than five years old, and he was actually smiling as he stood with her out in the grass. Since when did he ever want to smile around Natalia? No time that he could remember, but it made him think that maybe she wasn't completely making it up when she said they used to be friends. Of course, that wasn't going to change the fact that he thought she was an annoying nag, but still. The other pictures were much the same; pictures of his early childhood that he couldn't remember, but that fascinated him all the same, intriguing him just as his reflection did every time he had to keep sight of it. Something that looked like it should have been so familiar, yet felt entirely alien every time he came in contact with it. Much as Luke knew he should be taking the time to explore the rest of the attic, looking through every box and every nook and cranny, he found that he couldn't put down the photo album -- couldn't stop flipping through the pages to look at long-gone memories.

Luke hadn't really noticed how much time was passing save to light a candle he found in a box when the sun sunk too low to provide adequate light through the glass. He didn't notice if he was hungry, and he certainly wasn't tired. But when the trapdoor leading down to the rest of the manor opened and he heard someone calling his name, his head snapped up and he blinked, coming out of his daze and realizing that he'd almost forgotten there were other people down in the manor.

"Luke? You up here?"

"Guy? Yeah, I'm over here," Luke called back. In looking at the pictures -- and there was more than just the one album -- Luke's ire had faded, allowing him to not be as averse to company as he had been earlier. Luke heard Guy sigh audibly in relief as the trapdoor closed, and looked unabashedly in the direction of Guy's glare when Guy came into view.

"Have you been up here this whole time?" Guy demanded. "We've been looking for you for hours!"

"Yeah, I've been here," Luke answered, looking back down to the album in his hands. "I had to do something to keep myself occupied since they wouldn't let me go to Baticul." Guy sighed again, this time in exasperation, and came over to sit next to Luke.

"I heard about your little attempted escapade this morning," he said. "The Duke just about had that guard's head, just so you know. Since no one could find you, he thought that you somehow managed to make it to Baticul anyway. The Duke said that if you weren't found by morning, he was going to fire the guard."

"So?" Luke asked, shrugging. "There are plenty of guards to replace him." He looked up to see that Guy's expression had darkened with disapproval, blue eyes narrowing.

"Luke . . ."

"All right, all right, I'll tell Father not to fire him. No need to get all upset." Luke rolled his eyes to punctuate his words, but despite his tone, Guy seemed to accept it, dropping the subject to move closer and examine what Luke was looking at.

"A photo album?"

"Yeah, there are tons." Luke reached out to tap the box he'd originally found, setting the album he was currently examining down to reach for another. "The one I was just looking at mostly just had pictures of Mother and Father, I guess from when they were younger. None with me in it, really, except for a few baby pictures. This one, on the other hand . . ." Luke lifted the first album back onto his lap, cracking it open. "This has tons."

Guy looked at the pictures, a little half-smile forming on his face. "I remember these pictures," he said, and Luke looked over to him in surprise. "Most of 'em, anyway."

"Really?" When Guy nodded, Luke asked, "Why were they stuck up here?"

"Well, as you know, you've had amnesia ever since your kidnapping. The Duchess tried showing you some pictures right when you got back, but they still didn't trigger your memory and you got frustrated. She decided that it might be best to just stick all the pictures up here until your memory came back. I guess she just forgot about them since that never happened." Luke looked back down at the pictures, examining the portraits of himself playing with Natalia, or reading books, or attending noble court.

"Oh." Luke flipped through a few more pages, and then said, "Hey, I have another question."

"Shoot."

"There aren't many pictures of us together, but in the ones that are here, neither of us look very . . . happy." Luke pointed to one in particular, in which he looked to be no older than seven or eight and he and Guy were in the courtyard, standing near each other but not together, neither one smiling. "Why is that?"

Guy didn't answer immediately, and Luke glanced up to see Guy staring at the photograph with a sort of strange intensity. It was weird, because Guy always seemed incredibly laidback to Luke -- the type of person who was never bothered by anything. Not that Guy looked bothered, per se, but he definitely seemed as if he was remembering something that he didn't really want to. He's just lucky he can remember, Luke thought. I wish I could.

Finally, Guy spoke, though he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. "We . . . didn't really get along back then."

Luke furrowed his brow in confusion. "What? Why?"

Guy frowned as well, reaching up to run a hand through his blond spikes. "We just . . . didn't," he said, and the answer sounded lame to Luke's ears. "There wasn't a real reason, except that you were a completely different person back then than you were when you got back from the kidnapping."

Luke looked back at the photo album. The younger version of himself did seem different, and not just because Luke couldn't remember the situations in which the pictures were taken whatsoever. Aside from a few pictures here and there with Natalia, his younger self never seemed to smile, and instead seemed extremely cold in each of the pictures. Granted, Luke himself didn't really find the need to smile too much nowadays, given how bored he always was, but he still could remember smiling dozens of times since he was brought back to the manor. Luke didn't know whether whoever had taken the pictures just had bad luck or timing or what, but whatever the case, he could definitely see where Guy might be coming from.

"That really sucks," Luke muttered. "That we weren't friends, I mean. And was I seriously friends with Natalia?"

"Best friends," Guy affirmed. "You two were always happiest when you were together." Luke pulled a face, shutting the album and pushing it away from him.

"Gross. Almost makes me glad I was kidnapped."

"You really shouldn't say things like that," Guy said, though he didn't sound too upset. "After all, getting kidnapped wasn't really a good thing. It gave you complete amnesia, not to mention those headaches . . ."

Ugh, the headaches. Like Luke could forget. Just thinking about them made Luke think he could almost hear the strange ringing in his ears that usually signaled one. Out of habit, he reached up to rub at his ear, as if to rub the ringing out. "Yeah, well," Luke huffed, "I'd just rather have you as a best friend over Natalia any day. That's all."

Luke looked over to see that Guy had cracked a grin. "Thanks, Luke."

"Yeah, don't mention it." Luke pushed himself off the floor, not bothering to put the photo albums away, and dusted off his pants. It was dark, but there was still quite a bit of attic to explore, and Luke wasn't ready to return just yet. "Want to check out the rest of the attic with me?" he asked. "You don't have to, but . . ."

"Don't you think it's kind of late?" Guy asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's after dinnertime, after all. You've been up here for hours."

"Huh. I hadn't really noticed." Luke shrugged. "Doesn't matter, anyway. I'm not hungry, and so long as I tell Father where I've been before morning, that stupid guard should be fine." Guy frowned a little, most likely in response to Luke's insult of the guard, or so Luke guessed.

"Even if you're not hungry, you should still eat." Or maybe Guy wasn't worried about the guard at all. "I'm sure you've just been too distracted to think about food. Either that, or you're getting sick again." A different sort of grimace found its way to Guy's face. "Please don't get sick again." Luke scowled.

"I'm not that bad."

"I respectfully disagree. You're as bad as they get when you're sick and you know it."

"Tch." Luke picked the candle up off the floor and stepped over the photo album box. "Well, I'm going further into the attic. You can come if you want, but if you don't, then just go back down to the manor. See if I care."

Luke heard Guy groan behind him, but grinned as he heard footsteps walking up behind him. "I'll come with you, but only because I have no idea what you could possibly get into up here. You need constant supervision."

"Jeez, thanks, Guy," Luke muttered sarcastically. Guy grinned.

"Don't mention it."

As it turned out, the attic yielded plenty more interesting results. There were old fontech instruments that had Guy geeking out like no other (Luke looked away and tried to pretend like he didn't notice), creepy paintings that Luke was glad weren't downstairs in the manor any longer (including one with a clown that Luke threw a sheet over, deciding that no one needed to see it), and a few boxes full of various odds and ends, including chewed up jigsaw pieces and strange pieces of plastic of various shapes.

"Looks like a chess set," Guy noted, pulling out a piece of cardboard and a plastic piece shaped like a horse's head. Luke raised an eyebrow.

"A what set?"

"Chess." Guy glanced over at Luke, and then a look of realization flickered across his face. "Oh, right . . . I guess no one ever taught you about chess, huh? I don't remember teaching you, and I know the Duke doesn't really approve of games . . ."

"Yeah. No memory, remember?" Luke reached into the box, pulling out a piece shaped like a castle and peering at it curiously. "So it's a game? How do you play?"

"It's a game of strategy. The basic objective is to defeat your opponent by taking out their king, but it's a lot more complicated than it sounds." Guy fished the rest of the pieces out of the box, and then paused, looking at Luke with a serious expression. "Do you really want to learn how to play? It could take awhile, and it's not easy."

Luke glanced briefly down at the chess pieces, and then shrugged, sitting back and crossing his legs. "Why not? It's not like there's anything better to do."

Guy grinned. "Okay. But first, wait here. I'm going to go get something." He stood up and turned to leave, and before Luke could protest, added, "I promise, I'll be back in a flash."

"Okay. You better be." Guy chuckled in the face of Luke's warning and left, disappearing back around the corner. Luke looked back to the pieces, examining each one closely before he began to set them up in random positions on the board, deciding to have them enact an epic battle while he waited for Guy's return.

True to his word, Guy was back before too long had passed, a basket in one hand and an old gas lamp in the other. When he sat down, lighting the lamp and blowing out the candle, he raised his eyebrows at the positioning of the pieces on the chess board.

"What are you doing?"

"It's war," Luke explained, and began to point out the various pieces. "Right now, this cluster of white little things are being held prisoner, being guarded by the black castle things. Meanwhile, this black horse is trying to deliver a message to the black king, but what he doesn't know is that he's about to be assassinated by the two white horses and one of the white castle things. Also, the white queen -- I think it's the queen -- is actually having an affair with the black king."

Guy snorted, shaking his head, and reaching out to rearrange the pieces. "Sounds more like one of Princess Natalia's romance novels than war," he said. "But then again, you know what they say: love is a battlefield."

"That's a really cheesy line, Guy."

"That's what makes it so good."

"What's in the basket?" Given the fact that Guy had ruined his war, Luke moved on to other ventures, grabbing the basket without waiting for permission and pulling it toward him. Guy answered just as Luke opened it.

"Food. Figured you might be hungry, even if you said you weren't. So long as we were up here playing chess, we might as well snack on things, too. By the way, I told the Duke I found you, so you don't have to worry about that anymore."

"Awesome." Luke's stomach growled, hunger he hadn't noticed until that point hitting him, and he pulled out a bread roll. "Come to think of it, I am kinda hungry."

"I know," Guy answered, still setting up the pieces. Luke rolled his eyes.

"You know everything. Seriously, how do you do it? No one else even knew where to look for me."

"I have my ways." Luke considered making a snipe about how Guy's "ways" involved cheating somehow, but Guy finished setting up the pieces by that point and began talking, reaching into the basket to pull out a roll of his own. "Okay, let's start with the basics: the pieces. First off, you actually had the king and the queen mixed up. The king is your most important piece, which you'll want to protect at all costs, and the queen is your most powerful. She can move any number of spaces in any direction."

"Protect the king, and the queen is like Natalia on a warpath," Luke said, and Guy choked back a laugh. "Got it."

"Good. Now, the "horses" are your knights. They can move in an L shape, either two spaces over and one up, or two spaces up and one over. No exceptions."

Luke frowned, nodding once, trying to memorize it. "I think I'm going to end up needing a pen and a piece of paper," he said finally. Guy shook his head.

"Nah, you'll remember it. Trust me. We've got plenty of time." Guy repositioned himself so that he was laying on his stomach, and pointed to the next piece. "The castle pieces are actually called rooks, and can move in any direction forward, backward, left, or right. They can't move diagonally. Next you'll want to look at the bishops--"

"Guy," Luke interrupted, and Guy looked up, signaling for Luke to go on. "Let's just play."

"Luke, you don't even know the rules yet," Guy pointed out. Luke grinned, reaching forward to move a pawn forward.

"So we'll figure them out as we go. I don't want to spend all day learning the rules; it's boring. Let's just have a war and be done with it." Luke paused, and then added, "Unless you're too chicken to face me in war. I guess I could understand that."

"It has nothing to do with being chicken, Luke. It just has to do with not wanting to hear you whine when you lose." Guy moved a pawn forward as well, declaring, "King Luke, I hereby declare war on your Kingdom of Dimlasca."

"Well then, King Guy, consider your challenge accepted." Luke moved his knight, having it jump over his pawns to get to the front line. "There's no way you'll win!"

Guy looked as if he was going to object -- and Luke knew why, remembering what Guy had told him about the way knights moved -- but didn't, instead just moving one of his own knights to meet Luke's head-on. It was war, after all, and as they said (whoever "they" happened to be), all was fair.