New chapter! Aramis's everywhere!

This is really where it gets angsty, so get ready. I hope you enjoy! Make sure to read and review,

-M

"I demand to see the King's will!" Anne yelled as she burst through the doors and walked over to the councilmen.

The men looked at her hesitantly. They all noticed the woman that was now accompanying Her Majesty.

One of them retrieved the will.

Anne quickly took it and left the room, heading into her own quarters with Constance right at her side. Once in her room, Anne let Constance close the doors, and then she spread out the, rather large, document on her desk.

She began skimming over the will, paying attention only when it got to what Louis had wanted to do with Aramis. It read:

I, King Louis XIII, declare that the Musketeer Aramis, or whoever he may be after my death, must be sent to the Bastille for unspeakable treasons against me. I have also decided, that I do not want him to ever see the Queen or the Dauphin again. To make sure of this, I have hired a jailer, whose name I will not mention, to make sure that he never gets out, and to get the punishment he deserves. That man needs to suffer for what he has done to his King. The minute Aramis is in prison, a letter should be sent to the jailer to come and fulfill his duties…

Anne looked up with tears in her eyes. "Oh God," she whispered, feeling all her energy leave her.

"What does it say?" Constance asked, kneeling down beside her and taking both her hands.

"Louis hired a sadistic jailer," Anne began, her voice trembling. "To punish Aramis for having a relationship with me. He has sent him to the Bastille because he does not want him to see the Dauphin or myself ever again, but also so he could be tortured to death without anyone knowing … Dear God, Constance, what am I to do?"

"We will get him out before it is too late," Constance quickly assured her. "We just have to find something that will make Aramis seem innocent. Let us see what we can do when Porthos replies. Maybe he can help us."

The Queen nodded. "Alright," he muttered.

And then she felt Constance hug her, trying to provide her with some kind of support. "All will be just fine, Anne," she said, rubbing her back as Anne sobbed into her shoulder. "Aramis will be just fine."

XxXxX

Lansac quickly got bored of throwing knives, since Aramis was not even getting scratched by them. What he did enjoy was every time his prisoner flinched when a knife did almost hit him.

Aramis had been chained against the wall, unable to move. The heavy chains around his wrists and ankles had already caused bruised to form on his skin from all of his struggling. It was starting to become rather painful; Aramis hoped that Lansac would at least let him treat some of his injuries after this…

Pretty soon, Lansac decided to try something else. He had remembered that Aramis had plenty of parts of his past that really haunted him. He realized that if physical torment would not work, then maybe mental torment would.

So he dragged a chair in front of the chained man, and sat himself down, smiling. "So," he began. "I think we should try something different."

Aramis, whose head had been down, raised his head back up and stared at Lansac. "And what is that?" he asked him, his voice somehow rough.

Lansac's eyes began to shine as he continued, "Well, with each prisoner and client I get, I always try to get acquainted with them first, to see what I would have to deal with. So when I began reading about you, I found out that you had been part of the Savoy Massacre."

Aramis' eyes began to grow big, and he swallowed. He was truly afraid of what was going to happen to him from here. He did not want to think or talk about Savoy, especially not with someone who wanted to use all of his weaknesses against him.

"And so I asked myself," Lansac continued. "'Do I know anything about the Massacre?' And when thinking about it, I realized that I only know about how it was a training exercise that went wrong, with only two men surviving. Am I right?"

Aramis felt his mouth go dry. He suddenly saw bloodied snow on the ground below him, covered in the dead, motionless bodies of his Musketeer brothers. He began to shiver.

When Aramis didn't answer his question, Lansac frowned and stood from his chair. He grabbed Aramis' chin and forced him to look into his own eyes. "Am I right?" he asked again.

Slowly, Aramis nodded, closing his eyes.

Lansac let go and sat back down. "That is so interesting!" he exclaimed, a hint of sarcasm hidden within each word. "I have so many more questions!"

Oh, please, no, Aramis thought to himself. No questions. Oh God, please spare me."

But no, God did not spare him…

"What was it like," Lansac asked. "Laying in the cold snow while watching the dead bodies being eaten by crows? It must have been so difficult. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for you-"

"No!" Aramis screamed, beginning to thrash against his chains. He didn't even feel it when his skin ripped open. The pain of that awful memory was already enough. Tears began to form in his eyes. "Stop, please!"

Lansac stood up, this time forcing Aramis to look at him by grabbing a fistful of the man's curly locks. "I will give you a break … for now," he said coldly. "But I assure you that when I come back, you will be in so much more pain that you are now."

With that said, he let Aramis down from his chains.

The poor prisoner collapsed and curled into himself, keeping his hands close to his chest. The shivering began to increase as images of Savoy kept forcing themselves into his mind.

Lansac kneeled down beside Aramis then, and took him by his hair once more. "I just have one more question for you," he said, watching as Aramis let his eyes close. His mouth was opened in a silent scream. "What if it were your three friends that had been in Savoy? What if they had died? What if you were the only survivor? What would you have done without them?"

Aramis whimpered in response, trying to pull away from Lansac's grasp.

The jailer grinned. "I will be back soon," he whispered into Aramis' ear.

As he walked out of the cell, he snapped his fingers, signaling three guards to come over to him. All of these men had been members of the Red Guard, and they all hated Aramis immensely.

"Give him a beating he will never forget," Lansac told them.

"With pleasure," one of them said.

The three men walked into the cell, looking at Aramis, who was still curled up into a tight ball, trembling.

"So this is what you have become," the leader of the group said. "You used to be unstoppable, insane even … but now, you're nothing but a coward who seems to be afraid of a simple memory. I say we teach him a lesson."

And then the hits and kicks came.

The poor man barely even paid attention to them, but the pain was quickly increasing. As darkness came to meet up with him, he let it.

He really did not want to feel anything anymore.