A/N: Shtannny's turn =D

Enjoy!

I hate this job.

Oh, who am I kidding, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Well, maybe for Thom or Gary's job. They usually just hang around or go into their room and fuck for hours.

Lucky bastards.

I watch my men as they all step out onto the middle of our training grounds with their Trojan bow and arrows in hand. They begin shooting out towards the pre-placed targets yards away, fully in battle mode.

You gotta love these boys. Most of them, myself included, haven't the slightest idea of the world of a battlefield. But we still train as though we had been through four and were entering straight into another. That's just the way us Trojans do it.

"Hello, Stanley," a voice calls. I turn and see said bastards walking towards me hand-in-hand.

"Hey," I nod. "Something up?"

Thomas shakes his head. "Nah. We're -shit!- just bored."

"It's never a good thing when the king and queen are bored," I raise my brow in amusement.

"True," Gary smiles. "But then again, if we're bored, it means that we're not facing many problems around here, correct?"

"I guess," I sigh, looking back out and observing my men. "Don't we have an economic crisis on our hands, though?"

"We're working on it," Thom states. "It's ju-fuck!- just complicated."

"Complicated?" I repeat. "We just need money."

"Well, the complication is finding a way to get said money," Gary shakes his head. "And we can't concentrate on only that, Stanley."

"What are you concentrating on then?" I can't help but ask.

"Right now our troops -ass!-," Thom replies.

"Well," I gesture out towards the men. "There they are."

"Looking good," Gary nods, watching the men nailing their targets with the accuracy that we've just come to expect from them anymore.

"Yeah, they're trained for the deadly task of shoveling the stables," I roll my eyes.

"Hey, that's -shit!- dangerous," Thomas says.

"Yeah, yeah," I wave dismissively. I look out towards the nearly-set sun and sigh. "Men!" I call out onto the field. They all stop and turn towards me, dropping into kneels as they catch glimpses of Thomas and Gary. "Men, I say we call it a night," I proclaim. "Go home to your wives and tell them to be proud. Good night." They stand and salute us royals before obediently turning on their heels, walking away towards their fired arrows. Myself, Thomas, and Gary turn ourselves and head back up towards our glimmering castle. "Where's Ken?" I ask.

"I think he's going out to Athens," Gary replies. "Looking for better trading deals, I suppose."

"Who'd he take with him?"

"Philana and his -fuck!- rowers," Thom shrugs.

I blink. "That idiot went clear to Athens with no security?"

"He said he'd -ass!- take care of him-bitch!- himself."

I shake my head. "That moron. Doesn't he get that he's a potential target for other countries?"

"Ken's trusting," Gary responds as we walk through the door. "Besides, he's a prince of Troy, he's not the most valuable figure of royalty. People know we have nothing to offer but our assistance in the midst of war."

"That's a hell of an asset," I raise my brow.

"True," Thomas nods. "But -ass!- no one will hold K-dammit!- Kenny for ransom for that."

"I guess," I sigh. Really? That idiot has got to figure out that he's not a worthless kid anymore. He has a responsibility to take care of himself.

"Would you care to join us for dinner, Stanley?" Gary interrupts my thoughts gently.

"I consider for a moment before shaking my head. "Nah. I'm just gonna head to bed. I'm fairly wiped."

"Alright," he nods. "Good night, Stan."

"Night," I nod back, branching off from them and heading down a different hall. I head down into my room, nodding briefly at the servant stationed outside before stepping into the large blue and red adorned suite. I walk over and throw myself onto the plush bed. I put my arms under my pillow and bury my head deeper into it, sighing tiredly. I look out my large window, watching the stars twinkling lightly against the pure navy sky. I can hear the waves crashing against our shores in the distance and I smile softly, inhaling deeply. I find as I do this, my grin fades into a reminiscent expression.

No smell. Nothing but the all-too-familiar aroma of my freshly washed sheet. I can't help but feel a bit empty.

I sit and peel off my chiton, tossing it into the corner for a servant to grab later and get to my feet, walking onto my balcony. I look down upon our city, finally closing its day after it's constant battles of our way of life. I hate the way we are.

We're so peaceful, and I admire that. But we're desolate. We're alone. We have plenty of allies, thanks to Ken, but none that actually want to help us if it doesn't mean some sort of advantage to themselves. But what have we to offer? I suppose we could build them a wall as the generations before us did for our city.

I can't help but wonder what possessed them to build the damnable thing. Troy's always been known for just staying down and keeping out of trouble when possible.

We're kinda wimpy, I guess. They say we're peace loving...but in all honesty, we're cowards. We train, but we all know that it's nothing compared to real war. We have many an elderly citizen in this city, and they tell great tales of their ordeals in the midst of war before they moved to Troy for a more peaceful lifestyle. Their tales are damn near terrifying.

One in particular is a man who lost his arm and can barely speak. He rasps out his story of his arm being severed and his throat slammed into by a minotaur unleashed by his army's enemy for listener after listener. Whether or not it was truly a minotaur, I couldn't tell you. But the damage is certainly real by all measures. Makes me nauseous to think that that could one day be me.

Which is why I have no freaking idea why they all cast me as the leader of our military. I'm not a soldier by any means. I'm the one of us who couldn't kill the damn pig for food years ago and they teased and taunted me for weeks on end before I nearly punched Cartman's face in.

I shudder. Cartman. I heard he became king of Sparta not long after we left. Bastard took total control after Ken, Thomas, Gary, and I were sent here by the king and queen. Sucks, he could have promoted us to something above servants. Oh well, I became more anyways, straight up to prince, no less. I suppose I shouldn't complain since I was kinda just shipped here out of fucking no where.

Well, actually I have my own theory.

After the king and queen lost their son, I think they tried to get rid of everything that reminded them of him. Since myself, Ken and the other two were his best friends despite our huge-ass class differences. I guess that they just kept Cartman around because he was the only one of us servants who could clean and scare away the looters that tried to break in. He and their son hated each other, really, they didn't talk around his parents and in privacy with us, they fought almost brutally. I guess they just didn't see that he was a part of Kyle's life just as much as either myself or Ken.

Kyle.

God, that hurts.

I sigh and head back into my room, falling onto the bed again. I stare up at the ceiling and blink slowly. I fucking hate it when I do this. I close my eyes and all I can see is the blood. All over the walls. I can see that bloody heart, placed precariously on his pillow. No trace of anything except red handprints from my best friend struggling to get away. Broken furniture lying all over the floor. And no body in sight.

I see his parents and brother crying their eyes out, the king ordering for the immediate execution of Kyle's guard that night. Then the whole kingdom frantically searching everywhere in the city for any signs of the missing prince. We never found anything, but he was gone. He was gone and we were devastated. Not so much by the fact that there was a murderer going around cunning enough to break into the palace, but by the fact that it was Kyle of all the four members of the royal family that they took. You'd figure they'd go for the top or the bottom, but not for just next-in-line. They went after the brains, not the military knowledge that his younger brother showed promise in even as a toddler. Not the debating power of his mother, not the leadership of his father. Just the smart kid with the big heart.

I have my theory over that as well, I suppose. I think they went after Kyle because of the fact that he was such a figurehead. He was small and fun and loved since infant hood until his death at the tender age of fifteen. He was almost always smiling, quick witted, strong, in line to be the next great leader of our era.

But no. Someone just couldn't handle that apparently.

Everything went to Tartarus as soon as he was declared murdered. His parents fell into such depression that the country started slowly unraveling. Ike went completely despondent save for the crying we heard him doing in his room at night. Myself and Ken with Thom and Gary all just wandered around, pretending that we still cared about our jobs. Hell, all the servants didn't know what to do with themselves. We were just in so much shock. Even Cartman was quiet and just went about his chores without his usual bout of bitching. The entire kingdom was just in shambles, crying about how Zeus could have stolen such a beautiful boy from them when they had been nothing but faithful for the entire span of generations that we had inhabited the lands.

For about half a year, we just continued to slave away for a king and queen who could barely be bothered to eat, let alone run a despaired country. Then they sent us away to Troy because their elderly king was fading fast and needed additional assistance and they didn't really have use for us anymore. They just put us on horses and away we went, vowing to never return to Sparta so long as we lived. Too many bad memories within those fragrant olive groves that is just too much for the heart and the mind to bear.

I miss him. I really do. It's an unspoken rule between the four of us Spartans that we never speak of him. Of any of our old lives. But we can't help but think of it. We all tend to fall into those reminiscent and vacant stares, Ken more than any of us. How can we not remember what brought us to where we are now? How can we not remember what was perhaps the defining moment of what made us who we are? How can we forget that it was Kyle that set the examples that helped us four climb from being the stablehands of the Trojan palace to taking the place of our old king after he passed on?

We can't. And dammit, that's the problem.

Letting go of the past has just never been our strong suit. I personally don't think that it's anybody's strong suit. Everything that's happened to us has in some way shaped us, right? But why does it have to be so painful? Why is it the death of my best friend that secured me with a decent amount of wealth and power?

Where the fuck is the justice in that?

As I said, I hate it when I do this. It hurts. I don't like the fact that I'm supposed to be our military man, that I'm supposed to be the strongest of us four...and I fall into these slumps on almost a nightly basis. You'd think that six years would be plenty of time to get over it. But no. It hurts just as much now as it did back then. The tears just aren't pouring down my face like then. I should probably be a bit thankful for that, but all it does is make my chest unbearably tight.

I think that never finding his body is what really killed us all. We knew that the killer took out his heart, but nothing more. All we found was blood and some of his red hair on the floor where he fought to get away. Long finger trails of crimson along the fur rug by the bed.

I shudder and sigh lightly. Well, I know what tonight entails.

Nightmares. Great. Just what I need.

Maybe one day they'll stop. Maybe one day I'll come to peace.

I can say this much: I can't fucking wait for that day to come.

A/N: Stan the Mili Man =D

Just some background on why they're in Troy and Kyle's past life before he became a whore-face. And yeah, I don't think Troy was supposed to be all peaceful and such really, but it is in this story =)

Next chapter's gonna be real dirty and smexy. That not your thing?...Then what the hell are you doing reading one of my stories then? xD

Thanks for R&R-ing!!!!!