Three days ago...
A guard sighs, bored, shifting about in his armour as he stands at his post, a seemingly random corridor, in the endless maze of the castle in the heart of the Capital. He's been here for hours and nothing interesting ever happens.
Or so it would seem, until he here's the hard smack of boots on the stone floor approaching. His eyes widen as he sees who it is that is stomping their way through, quickly standing to attention and desperately trying to not make it look like he was slacking.
But really, he needn't have bothered. He could probably have been asleep against the wall and still gone unnoticed by Commander Beilschmidt.
Gilbert glared hard as he stormed through the corridors, knowing the maze off by heart, he let's his feet carry him to the council chamber while he silently rages. He blinks when he finds himself at the doors all too soon for his liking.
Forcing a calming breath, he pushes his anger down, hiding it behind a cocky smirk, then hiding even that behind a straight face, before pushing the doors open and walking in.
"Ah, Beilschmidt, your late." The king says, not even looking up from the papers he's holding as the doors swing shut.
Even though he's not looking, some of the other council members are, so, he bows his head to the royal.
"Forgive me, your majesty, I was distracted whipping some of the newbies into shape."
At that, the King looks up and smiles at him.
"Not too hard I hope. We do need them to be at least somewhat functional."
"Of course." He agrees, taking his seat, two to the right of the man.
"Now that everyone is here, let's get down to business."
Council is a boring affair by any standard, but it is not the bureaucracy of it all that Gilbert hates. No, council is one of the few times he can actually be of some use to the people.
What he truly hates, with a burning fire in the depths of his very soul, is the man seated just two places to his left, wearing a crown of lies.
As he sits listening to the bastard talk nonsense about taxes and income, Gilbert's hand moves to rest on the hilt of his sword sheathed at his side. To anyone looking, the move may even seem protective, but it's not.
It's tempting, to think he could just pull it free and cut down the tyrant so easily...
But he knows that wouldn't work, not against him.
He sighs, bored as he moves his hands to flip through the small pile of papers on the table in front of him. He's mostly here to talk defence and report back on any disturbances outside the city walls that might be of interest, not that he ever does.
"...we've heard some disturbing reports from the outlying towns to the north."
That catches his attention and Gil focuses back in on the current conversation.
"What sort of reports?" The King demands.
"Well," The young council man shifts in his seat, squirming under the Kings intense stare, "Apparently, there have been sightings of a crestless knight making his way south and he, according to the people who saw him, had some sort of, well, beast with him."
"He WHAT?!" The king roars, standing from his seat.
"This is only rumours of course." Another member, an old gray haired man, tries to placate the royal.
Furiously, the King turns to Gil.
"Beilschmidt! Why have I not heard anything about this from you?!"
"Because I have heard of no such tale." He reassures, turning to glare at the younger man who first brought this up, "If such a thing was true, I would have heard about it long before now."
"Beilschmidt is right my liege, these are simply unfounded rumours and hear say." The only woman of the council agrees, managing to put the King at ease, if only slightly.
Still, the royal frowns as he sits, turning to Gilbert.
"I do not like it. Such rumours, even false, should not exist." He grumbles, "Beilschmidt, I want you to ride out and put such nonsense to bed. Permanently. Prove for certain that this is a false tale." The commander nods, "And," The King continues dangerously, "should you find such a knight, you are to kill him on sight. Do I make myself clear?"
Standing, Gilbert bows to the man.
"I shall make preparations at once to ride out first thing in the morning."
"Good. Council is dismissed." The King concludes.
Matthew sighs tiredly as he roams the underground archives of the Capital. Books, texts and manuscripts of all kinds are housed down here, and for the last year and a half, it has been his job to manage it all. As Head Book Keeper of the kingdom, he thought he'd have it all worked out by now.
But instead, he still hasn't mapped out all of the place. There are records and maps that do exist for down here, but all, much to his dismay, are out of date or just plain wrong. How he'll ever find anything of use down here is beyond him.
Well, not quite. He has found some very useful things, but that was back when he was just an apprentice and he could wander about freely without having the record everything he sees.
Somewhere behind him and several levels above, the only door in bursts open.
He snaps his head up, quickly hiding anything that might be incriminating, but when the sound of footsteps start hurriedly making their way down to him, he sighs in relief. Their's only one person in the whole Capital that would willingly come down on their own without first shouting for him to come guide them.
It doesn't take long for the flickering orange glow of a torch, and a fainter solid glow of red, to shine through the maze as the other nears.
"Gil, what's up?" He asks, smiling at his friend.
But the smile quickly fades when he sees how worked up the other is.
"What is it, what's happened?" He asks more urgently as he looks past him, just in case anyone has followed him down.
"We have a problem." The commander sounds gravely as his eyes stop glowing and he hooks the torch into a hold on the end of one of the many nearby bookshelves.
"What?"
"Alfred."
"A-Al?" Matt stutters, surprise to hear his brothers name.
"He's on his way here, right now."
"But... that's impossible. I thought-"
"Yeah, so did I."
"Gil, you've never been wrong before."
"I know." He grumbles, glaring into the darkness.
"Are you sure?" Matthew asks, somehow sounding a strange mix of hopeful, desperate and worried.
Gilbert sighs heavily, "I don't know."
"Then?"
"There was a report in council, of a crestless knight and a beast of some kind heading straight for the capital from the north. Who else could it be?"
The blonde stares. This isn't right, it's too soon. Al...
This isn't meant to happen...
"But..."
"I know Matt!" The albino cries, waving his arms out.
A silence falls over the pair, only disrupted by the crackling of the torch fire burning.
"Okay, Okay, let's think about this." Matthew eventually says, trying to focus on what to do, "If it is Al —which at this point, we still don't know for one hundred percent that it is— then we need to make sure the king doesn't find out about him."
"It's too late for that, the Bastard has already ordered me to kill the knight should I find one, Alfred or not. I'm riding out first thing to intercept him, I'll try to go alone, but I can already tell I'll be made to take a patrol with me."
Matthew frowns, thinking this information over, "Then, Al's going to end up here one way or another..." He murmurs.
While he thinks, Gilbert takes to pacing, not liking this one bit.
Suddenly the blonde looks to the knight, eye's full of determination, the makings of a plan clear to see.
"Then this is what we'll do."
Present day...
Gilbert glares hard forward as he rides out front of the patrol, the sound for the horses hooves and the clang of armour do nothing to cover the much more noticeable noise of the two bodies being dragged along behind them.
Every so often, he flashes his gaze to the other riders, silencing them all before any of them can even think about speaking up. They're curious and worried. Why are they not killing the knight and beast? They have orders from the King to kill, yet their commander has order capture, not death.
Looking over his shoulder, he sees Alfred, still unconscious, being dragged on his back by the chains around his wrists and the wolf thing on it's right side by the four around it's legs.
He forces himself to look away or he might just end up doing something stupid.
He has to remember the plan...
He just hopes they can pull this off...
Alfred groans as he wakes up, his whole body is absolutely aching. He wonders if he should be concerned about the amount of passing out he's been doing lately. But that thought doesn't last long as, when he tries to move a hand to rub at his face, he finds he can't.
Blinking blearily, he realises he's in near complete darkness, only a distant fire glowing somewhere he can't see providing him with the poor lighting.
And his wrists are held together by manacles chaining him to a stone wall...
He's in a dungeon, just great...
As his eyes adjust, he looks around, and recognises the place.
He's in not just any dungeon, but the Capitals...
He's home, though, not how he planned.
But even this glorious, while slightly worrisome revelation is quickly forgotten as he realises he's alone. The cell he's in is large, it could easily hold both him and Arthur, but the wolf is nowhere to be seen.
"Arthur?" He calls out to the corridor past his cells bars.
"Artie?" Hearing no responds, he twist from his awkward position sprawled out on the floor —no wonder he hurts all over— chains rattling loudly with the movement, and stands, hurrying over to the bars to look out.
He doesn't get all the way there though, as the chains limit how far he can go, clinking as they are pulled taunt.
"Argh, stupid," he grumbles, tugging his wrists as he twists around to look out, "Artie!"
His voice echoes of the cool stone walls, but he receives no response.
He's worried, where could he be?
Dully, he realises he's never woke up by himself since meeting Arthur. For about a month now he's always had the wolf next to him, always...
He's never been this far away before, far away enough that he can't hear him.
That he doesn't know where he is...
"Artieeeeee!"
...nothing...
He tugs harder on the chains, making them rattle even louder as he struggles hopelessly to get free, feeling himself start to panic.
Where is he? What have they done with him? What, what if they...
No!
They wouldn't, they...wouldn't...
He shakes his head wildly, trying to rid himself of the thought, but finds it stuck there.
"ARTIIIIEEEEEE!"
Arthur ran through the freshly fallen snow just outside the den. It's summer now, and he's finally old enough to leave the den by himself. The cool fresh air and lack of parental guidance feels so freeing, he can't help but happily run around.
But his fun doesn't last long, as soon the shadow of his elder brother falls over him.
'Having fun in the snow?' He goads the pup.
Crouching low, Arthur stares up at the elder, before quickly rolling onto his back submissively when seeing the others disapproving stare.
Alistair shakes his head at him, then smiles cheekily.
'Still such a pup. Come on, I thought you were supposed to be old enough to go hunting with the pack now?'
'I am!' He barks defensively.
Just because he wanted to have a bit of fun before they headed out, his brother thinks he can look down on him.
'Sure you are.' The elder laughs, 'Then get moving.'
With out waiting for him, Alistair charges off after the rest of the pack, leaving Arthur to catch up.
Since it's summer, the pack head to the foothills for the hunt. Prey, as his family have been busy teaching him, enter the outer limit of their territory at this time of year. So, they will hunt as much as they can before it all moves off. What they don't eat, they'll store throughout their territory for next winter.
But even though Arthur's been allowed to tag along, he's still too young to actually take part. So when he catches up, Alistair is waiting for him. He orders him to hide in a snowdrift and watch, while the elder moves off to take up his position for the ambush.
Arthur lies low as he eagerly watches his pack work together. Eyes twinkling with wonder as he stares at their combined casting, trapping hundreds of smaller creatures that flock into their path. He doesn't know the names for all of them yet, but he does know that they all taste good.
But while the pack is distracted with the hunt, from his vantage point, he sees something moving through the snow. It looks small from how far away he is and compared to his auntie that it's moving towards, so he doesn't think it's dangerous.
That was the first time he saw a human, and the first mistake he ever made.
He was too late in his warning howl, too late to stop what he couldn't have known, but blames himself for.
The human attacked with magic he didn't know others could have, and the howl of pain his aunt gave out drew the packs attention. But he didn't see much of what happened next, as suddenly Alistair was carrying him away by the scruff of his neck.
His auntie never made it home.
Arthur awoke to his own whines and quickly silenced himself.
Remaining still, he listened to his surroundings and quietly sniffed the air. When he heard nothing and only smelt dampness, he cracked an eye open to carefully look about, but was met with near darkness. His excellent night vision the only thing allowing him to pick up on the faintest of natural light leaking in from somewhere outside.
He tries to move, to get up and find out where he is, but can't. His legs are bound together and when he tries to lift his head to look, he realises than something is on it, clamping his mouth shut. Panicked, he scrabbles about uselessly, tugging and pulling at everything holding him down, but to no avail.
His heart races as images bleed into his vision.
Trapped...
He can't move...
Blood...
So... much... blood...
Is it his?
He doesn't know.
Everything hurts...
That sound...
Not again...
They have to move...
They...
'Peter?'
He tries to look, but can't...
No...
The fur next to him...
Soaked red...
That's...
'Pete?'
He shakes his head, closing his eyes to the nightmare of his past.
He struggles harder, tries to use his magic, but the binds holding him shocking with double the force of any he tries to use.
In pain, barely able to move or see, he stills, panting.
...He's trapped...
...He's alone...
...He's scared...
Authors notes: And I'm back! Happy New year!
Have a "nice" chapter for the slight absence, but I wanted to focus on getting chapter 2 of my game out. But that's done, so my fics can have my full attention again.
And look! Gil and Mattie get to have the spotlight for a bit.
So yeah, stuff is going down here. We're about to enter into the second major arc of this story, so stick around for that.
If anyone can figure out where I'm going with this you get a cookie.
R & R people.
Until next time, stay awesome!