Alvar
"You let him be taken?" The King was angry, yelling as I stayed on my knees in respect.
"Yes, Your Majesty." It's my fault, I should have been in there with him but I got distracted like a child.
"Your father must be so dissapoi-"
"Father!" The crowned Prince, Gavin, interrupts his father, the only person legally allowed to. They sat in the throne room, the King in his larger one as he wore expensive fabrics, probably costing more than my life.
The Prince who was only slightly more forgiving than his father, sat in tall boots, expensive trousers and a silken shirt. He slightly looks like a fairytale prince, so I suppose the stories have some sort of truth in them. "You dare interrupt me-"
"Yes, Alvar is our strongest and most capable warrior, if he wasn't able to save him, I can assure you, nobody could have." He's being far too complimentary, I probably got his brother killed, how could he possibly stand up for me? "And I am sure he is fine, there would be no reason to kill him."
"Excuse me? He is the Prince, I can count numerous reasons to kill him."
"Colburn is a smart man, there is an even better explanation..." He trails off wanting someone to answer for him, I would but I don't know if I am allowed to talk so after a few moments of awkward silence he shouts out, obviously slightly peeved, "Oh my Gods! He wants to have a child with 'im!"
I mean it's pretty likely, well extremely, and I am near certain that that is his goal. It's a quite obvious strategy, if Finn has a child before Gavin can succeed to the throne, well Finn's child would be the true heir. It's how the kingdom works, pretty simply and pretty messed up, we should really fix that.
"Well, Sir Sullivan-" The King addresses me, he only uses my surname when I am being sent on a mission, which means, "I am sending you to retrieve my son as a Guard of Athe."
---
Calhoun stood next to me, drinking from his waterskin as we walked to the Thordian Kingdom.
"So he wants to make babies with Finn?" He grimaces, groaning out the next words, "He's only seventeen, how can he stoop to that level?"
"Demons don't have consciences. They're simply power hungry wizards." They destroy people's lives, they're murderers who deserve to be tortured and destroyed. "It's no surprise."
"I don't know, I've heard stories of Colburn, stories from even yellows and he doesn't seem-"
"I can assure you, those yellows were traitors to the alliance and are probably fraternizing with the enemy." After years of being ridiculed for having black hair I've grown to hate them more than anything else, destroying their kingdom was what I lived for, it's what gives me the will to keep going.
"I swear, you're the nicest guy but the moment the Blacks are involved it's like a switch was flipped." I let out a slight chuckle at the joke although I didn't find it funny, his words were more or less insulting.
Three guards stood behind us, both much more senior than me despite my position as leader. Rust, Sienna, and Jade. They stood there, talking amongst themselves as we slowly made our way to the Thordian Kingdom's castle.
Despite their low volume I could still hear them, although I don't think they knew that themselves. "Why does he get to be boss?" I'm sorry, I didn't choose this.
"Wasn't he the one who lost the Prince? He's such a douche, this fake niceness is getting old." They laughed at that as I had to stand there, stoic without any emotions.
Why was I the leader? What did I do to deserve this? My father was the one who was truly great, I'm simply piggybacking off of his success.
Calhoun turned around as he heard a particularly nasty insult coming from behind us. "Alvar is the leader because he is ten times better than you three could ever dream of being, combined!" He basically yelled this out, causing a few birds to fly off in the wind, each of them black signifying the closeness of us to the castle.
The three guards stopped walking, turning into statues as they realized with flushed faces that we could hear them the whole time.
"We're sorry si-"
"No apologies!" Calhoun yelled once again and as he does this I lay a gloved hand onto his shoulder.
"It's not a big deal, let us get going." I smiled, trying to disperse some of the tension as the other guards looked fearfully at Calhoun and he glared. "We must get to the kingdom before sundown tomorrow."
This got them going again, but only a few moments later the sun began setting much quicker than one would expect.
In the darkness the trees resembled monsters from stories, falsified drawings of the Thordians or Vunates. The dark wood twisted the further we walked, the deeper we got into the Thordian land.
Firebugs fluttered in between blades of grass, around leaves and into the trees. Most glowed a purple, almost like tangible magic in the air, but there were a certain number of yellow bugs, flying and flickering around as well.
Owls howled in the night air, presumably looking for either a meal or a mate.
The stars littered the sky, turning it from black to a navy blue as millions of far away suns lit up our nights. The moon was almost full, meaning the Reds would be rowdy soon enough.
It was truly a beautiful sight, as much as I loathe saying that the Black Kingdom could be beautiful, it's the truth.
A fire now glowed white from our wood as we set up camp for the night, our white tents reflecting the brightness of the embers that slowly died down for the night.
I opted to stay up for the first watch, wanting to look at the scenery for slightly longer, I didn't know the next time I would be here and with any luck it would be never.
The other guards were upset that I offered to stay up the whole night, mumbling to each other that was simply trying to get brownie points for staying up, but eventually their exhaustion took over and they quieted inside their tents.
A black owl landed in front of me, it cocked it's head, inspecting my body and face. It looked hungry so I took out some of my meat leftover from my dinner and handed a chunk to it. The bird stared down at my offering before disappearing as I turned my head, leaving the snack behind.