A/N: I forgot to mention that last chapter, but the 50th Reviewer Oneshot is up under the very creative and well thought-through title "The Curse" Rated M, fo anyone who wants to take a look.

The hardest part was, not knowing if and when something was going to happen.

Everyone woke up at different times, the next morning. The first one was Berwald, who ended up making breakfast for everyone. I was the third to come down into the kitchen after I had cleaned myself up from yesterday's mess; Emil sat at the kitchen table, his puffin still asleep on his shoulder. Berwald was busy with preparing breakfast and looked as intimidating as ever.

Falling asleep in Mathias' arms had helped soothing my anxious nerves, but I still couldn't sleep that well. My dreams had been filled with looming dread and the smell of decay, so when I had woken up, I was still tired and felt as if someone had put me through a wringer. From the look of it, Emil felt the same, only Berwald seemed to have rested well. But maybe he just didn't show it openly.

"Good morning." I greeted. Emil mumbled something unintelligible in reply, Berwald acknowledged me with a nod of his head.

Shortly after Berwald was finished and had put the dishes out before us, Tino entered the kitchen, looking as bleary-eyed as the rest of us. He walked towards Berwald, placing a chaste kiss on his cheek, before he plopped down on a chair and started eating. He didn't seem to notice that Emil and I were there, which earned him a light scolding from Berwald. Tino greeted us then with a look of surprise on his face, indicating that he had been too sleepy to notice us.

After that Mathias finally came down, but he looked as at least he had gotten a proper rest. His usual big grin wasn't as enthusiastic as it used to be though, so the situation we were in did affect him at least a little. He brushed his lips against mine, and sat down beside me. With him now, everyone was assembled and after the last morning greetings had been exchanged a more or less comfortable silence settled down.

I would have been worried about Mathias being so uncharacteristically quiet, but I appreciated the moment of peace for a change. And there was not really much to say. None of us knew what the day would bring, or if we would still be here, when the next morning came, so everyone just sat there, absorbed in their own little world.

Nothing happened that day, and nothing did the day afterwards. And when we had finally regained some sort of peace and safety disaster finally stroke. No news had come from the capital; as far as we could tell no one in town seemed uneasy, and we had dared to hope that maybe everything would be alright after all.

We couldn't have been more wrong.

It was the evening of the third day since Emil and I had moved into the mansion, and at first this night appeared to be the same as had been the nights before. We sat in the living room again, a cozy fire crackling and warming the room. With the year nearing its end, days had become shorter and colder, and we were thankful for the shed in the backyard that was filled to the brim with firewood.

I couldn't really comprehend why anyone would want to start a war so close to winter, but according to Berwald, who was very well educated in contrast to Mathias, the Lactanians were notorious for picking fights in winter seasons, using the cold to their advantage. And the Orushians would go to war whenever they liked, no matter how bad the weather, or their winning chances for that matter.

So apparently if it came to war, we would face some 'batshit crazy war-loving lunatics' on one side and a 'bunch of snowball-filled-with-chunks-of-sharp-metal-throwing madmen who would hide in heaps of snow until some unknowing fool happened to pass by', on the other side. Or rather, Mathias liked to put it that way.

Not helping at all.

We tried to stay from the topic, but somehow we always ended back on discussing the prospect of war. It helped to keep the fear at bay.

We were in the middle of another heated discussion, when suddenly a weird flickering light from outside the window caught my eye. The curtains were not yet drawn, and the outside scenery was lit by the pale light of the moon, illuminating the outlines of trees that had shed almost all of their leaves. Behind the tress, downward the hill laid the town, and it was from there, that the orange glow came from. It was flickering irregular, almost like the flames in the fireplace. I was filled with a horrible suspicion.

"What is that?" I asked, interrupting Tino, who was speaking at the moment. They followed the direction of my pointed finger, and a look of dread appeared on each and every face. "The town's on fire!" Mathias gasped, and for a moment we could just stare in speechless horror at each other.

No matter how often we talked about it, how careful we set up an emergency plan, nothing could have prepared us for the real thing. The town was on fire, and now that we were all silent in shock we could also hear the faint screams wafting through the air. And when they were finished with the town they would come here.

"We have to go." My voice felt like a stranger on my tongue, thick with suppressed fear.

"Maybe they won't come here; we could just… hide…" Tino said, glancing around with hopeful eyes.

"Can't do that." Berwalds heavy voice broke through the daze Tinos words had cast upon us. It would have been so easy to just stay here and hide somewhere, hoping for the storm to pass. And even if they did come here, the house was big, they wouldn't find us if our hiding spot was good enough…

It would have been easy… and coward.

Berwald was right, staying here would mean certain death, and I wouldn't let that happen.

We set to move after that, everyone retrieved there prepared bag, adding some things here and there on last minute, and then we were ready.

Ready for what?

We had a somewhat thought-through plan of getting the hell out of here and trying to reach the capital on our own, but neither of us had any idea how to go about it. But for now it was just grab and run.

We headed out the backdoor that opened into the backyard and away from the town. The capital lied east from here, but for the moment we couldn't care about directions, we had to get out of here. And if possible try to not head west and cross the Orushian border by accident.

Outside, even from behind the mansion the screams were louder, and now we could even hear shouting. And the shouting seemed to come closer.

The few servants that lived here regularly had traveled with Mathias' father to the capital, the rest were townspeople who would come twice or thrice a week to do their work. And I could just hope that they had known what was going on and had thought to warn their fellow residents. But judging from the screams that echoed through the dark woods, there had been at least some people been caught by surprise. The faces of some of the girls I had worked with in the brothel appeared before my inner eye, and suddenly I felt bad that I hadn't thought of warning them myself. I didn't even warn the Lady, who had gone through such efforts to help me.

"Lukas, stop spacing out and get going." Mathias voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I struggled to catch up with the rest who had already reached the forest's edge behind the mansion. I reached the forest and even though I shouldn't, I stopped and turned around to look back. There were lights moving in the direction of the house, and then shouts from the front side. They had reached the entrance, and then there were lights inside, ghosting through the windows from room to room.

Someone, probably Mathias was pulling at my arm, desperate to get me moving but I just couldn't and then I saw him. He was standing in one of the rooms, close to the window, his form was illuminated by a torch he held in his hand. He was clad in what appeared to be leather armor; a sword was belted around his waist, the light of the torch reflecting from a red jewel encrusted in the hilt. Was that an Orushian warrior? He stood very still, almost stiff, his hair was shining golden in the torchlight.

And then for one horrible moment he looked my way, I couldn't make out his eyes but I the hairs on my neck and back stood up, as I felt watched. It was dark so he couldn't possibly see us, could he? And then mercifully he shifted his head and looked away, no change in behavior indicating that he had seen us.

"Lukas." Mathias hissed and I tore my gaze from the house and turned around, fleeing into the forest, fleeing from the feeling of dread that the sight of that man had filled me with.

We dashed through the woods as fast as possible, but the undergrowth was treacherous, and we stumbled more than once. The forest behind the mansion stretched out quite a bit; it was connected with the forest behind our old house. We tried to head north, away from the town and deeper into the forest, but it was hard to tell if we were right, the stars were obscured by the evergreen trees that made up this part of the woods.

Berwald had taken the lead, followed by Emil and Tino, Mathias and I made up the rear, throwing back glances every now and then, to assess if we were followed. No one spoke, only the ragged sound of our breathing and the stomping of our feet were disturbing the peaceful quiet of the night. Occasionally some stray wildlife would cross our path and scurry back into the safety of the woods. Fortunately we didn't encounter anything big.

I couldn't tell how long we had been running, but my stamina was about to give out on me. My sides were aching, my feet were numb and the ache in my lower back from the intercourse with Mathias didn't help my wellbeing at all. My lungs were burning, and I no longer had the strength to watch the ground for obstacles.

It came as it must, when my foot caught in a root or something and I fell face first on the ground. The others stopped, as soon as they heard the sound of my impact. My face was buried in the dirt of the forest floor, but I couldn't summon the strength to get up again. My hands pushed weakly against the ground, and all I managed was to lift my face enough to see the others, hovering over me with worry on their faces.

"Lukas, are you alright?" Mathias asked, and slid his arms under me to lift me up against his chest, paying no mind to the dirt caking my clothes. "I don't think I can walk any longer." I confessed, pressing my face against Mathias warm front, I was too ashamed, I couldn't keep up. Even Emil could, and he was younger than me.

Berwald and Mathias exchanged glances over my head; Tino put a water skin in my hand, urging me to drink. "I could carry him." Mathias offered, while I was drinking. I was about to protest, but Berwald cut me to it. "No, we should rest, I'm t'red to." That was hard to believe, but then I noticed that Tinos hands were slightly trembling when I returned the skin, he looked almost as tired as I felt.

It was a risk to rest, while we were still close to the town, but we figured that if they didn't know that we were here in the first place, they had no reason to come look for us. That of course was a shallow reasoning, aside from the warrior who just might have seen me, there were other evidences that someone had lived in that mansion recently and maybe had fled into the woods during the attack. But still, the Orushians were seasoned warriors, if they had followed us they would have caught up on us by now. Or so we told ourselves.

Of course it was not the perfect place for resting, but we could have done worse. The trees were lighter here, almost as if on a clearing, the ground was earth covered with leaves, and comparable dry. S long as it didn't rain it would be alright.

I felt helpless and useless, as Mathias sat me down against a tree and started to unpack our packs in order to set up camp. But he wouldn't let me help, even though I claimed that I could move around enough to be of at least some help.

The camp consisted of nothing more than some makeshift bedrolls and a rain cover, but that was all we had been able to come up with. We would have made a fire, but that was clearly too dangerous, so instead we ate some dried food for dinner. It was meager by all means, but better than nothing. Berwald and Tino were going to share a bedroll, and so would Emil and I; at least that was the plan but Mathias hijacked the one that was supposed to be ours and Emil took the smaller one without complain.

I didn't mind to share with Mathias, but I was uneasy about the circumstances. The space was small and cramped, I would be forced against Mathias' body all the time, and I certainly didn't trust him to hold his hands still, once we were close like that. Besides I felt as if I had neglected Emil so I had planned on making that up to him like that. But he seemed content with his single bedroll so I crawled in Mathias' arms without much complaint. It was as if I were adverse to the intimacy after all, I just didn't like the audience.

We were all snuggled up in our respective bedrolls as comfortable as possible, ready to fall asleep, when Tino suddenly spoke up. "Shouldn't we put up some kind of guard to watch out for anything dangerous?"

Damn, we totally forgot about that.

"I take the f'rst watch." Berwalds deep voice rumbled through the night, and after some rustling and Tinos disappointed whine, he apparently had left his sleeping position to take upon the first of the night's watches. "I'll take the second." Mathias grumbled, "Wake me up, when it's time." A grunt was his only answer, but it seemed to be enough and I could feel Mathias relax around me. His right arm was draped over my body, the other served as pillow for my head. His warm body pressed against my backside and his breath ghosted over the back of my neck.

Silence settled in over us, and with it came the realization that nothing would ever be as it was. We might have dodged disaster once, but we were far from safe, and who knew what was lying ahead of us. Would we ever be safe again? Thinking about our situation was disheartening, so I tried to focus on other things.

The sound of Mathias' shallow breath, the rustling of Berwald moving and the sounds of the forests around us. Wind brushing through trees, the call of some animal echoing through the night and the silence of the stars above us. The ground we were lying on was hard and cold, but that was nothing I wasn't used to. I had slept most of the time on the floor of our small house, only softened by some lonely strands of straw. So it felt almost like home. I snuggled deeper into Mathias warm chest, my nose pressed against his chest bone. He smelled nice and comforting, like home too.

And even though we were far from safe and even though we could be ambushed every minute and be slaughtered right there and then, I still felt secure. And as my mind drifted into the oblivion of sleep I thought that dying like this wasn't that bad, embraced by the one you love, surrounded by those you call family.

Awake I would have never allowed myself to think like that.

I didn't wake when Berwald shook Mathias shoulder to alert him to his shift of watching, I didn't even wake up when he pulled his arm free from under my head and climbed out of the bedroll, and I didn't wake up from the cold that settled in after he left. I dreamed of summer that night, of the sun that wore a coat of black, a shirt of red and a smile so cocky it almost split its face.

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