[Birthday fic for Mockingboots] - Last Chance
LAST CHANCE
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Pairing: UsUk. SuFin and DenNor if you really want to see it.
Genre: adventure, romance, high fantasy AU
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: APH belongs to Himaruya, and the countries factually belong to themselves. Or their bosses and the people that live there, rather.
Warning:
Summary: After years refusing every prospective guardian that is offered to him, Arthur the mage is given one last chance in the form of Alfred, a warrior newly graduated from the Warrior’s Academy. If he doesn’t make this work, his life will be changed forever.
A/n: a very, very belated birthday present for mockingboots. She asked for a quirky AU, and so I just took it an ran. This is based on the magical rules of my own fantasy world, as are some of the place names. So it’s like I wrote a APH crossover fic of my own stuff. Also, I’m sorry this is only the first part. The second part will come along eventually! I hope you like it.
Names:
Eirik = Norway
Mathias = Denmark
Sofiya = Ukraine
Dragomir = Bulgaria
Constantin = Romania
.
Every guardian must protect his mage, and every mage must honour his guardian. They are as one being in two bodies.
-Third Precept, Sorcerer’s Code of Conduct.
Three things made a mage a mage. The first was a familiar: animals of the Wilderland that would choose their mage and bond with them. They would become the repository of the mage’s very soul, and in return gain the gift of tongues, a way of voicing their already well-documented sapience. A mage and his familiar were tighter than blood, as they shared the same soul: you killed the familiar, you killed the mage, and vice-versa. A familiar was a guide, a companion, a confidant and a badge of pride. Even country mages who had never finished their education at the Azure Tower had a familiar.
The second thing was a staff. Although magic could be used barehanded, it was well-known that the shape of the staff itself aided in the casting of spells, made them faster, deadlier and also easier to aim. Fireballs were flashy, but they weren’t much use on the battlefield when one could use a staff as a flamethrower instead. Each staff represented its mage in such a fundamental way they were considered on the same level as a familiar. If a mage’s staff was lost or broken, they would mourn it before finding an inadequate, temporary replacement until a second staff was created. Of course, staves rarely broke, so smothered with protective magic than made them harder than steel, but when they did, the second staff was never quite the same. It was like losing a limb, in some ways, and having to go through the rest of one’s life with a prosthesis.
The third and final thing was a guardian. The study of magic consumed a mage. It gave them long life, sometimes even immortality, but it also wrapped them in it so tight they rarely had time for anything else. Human warrior mages were as rare as dragons in the western lands, few had ever existed, and were spoken of in tones of awe and admiration. The lack of physical strength and the long life made it necessary for a mage to have a guardian: a warrior companion to share the burden with. Most of the time, this was also the mage’s lover, but not always. Others were simply friends or even siblings - the important part being a human companion along with the animal, someone a mage could share their life with. Through exposure to the mage’s magic his or her guardian gained the same long life and extraordinary physical prowess, some even acquiring the strength of ten dwarves, and they remained together through any adversity. A guardian was the requirement for the license to wield magic in the name of the Azure Tower and be a mage in the eyes of the Circle of Enchanters - a true sorcerer, not a country mage.
Now, Arthur of the House of Kirkland had no problem with the first two items. He had a familiar, a wolpertinger of the kind found only in the Escanar Mountains, which he had named Greene for his peculiar colour. Greene was Arthur’s voice of reason, calm, collected and persuasive, he could cool Arthur off when the mage flew into one of his tempers. Arthur also had a staff he was quite proud of: simply carved, straight and made of oak wood with a large emerald at its tip, it was best used for Arthur’s favoured use of magic, spirit-calling. All this on its own would have been fine, and would have earned Arthur his diploma, but…
He lacked a guardian. For four years now, he’d sent them all back where they’d come from, namely the Warrior’s Academy section of the Tower, where they’d either go home, enrol in the army or find another, much less demanding mage to guard. He’d given three a nervous breakdown. He seemed utterly determined to obtain his diploma as a mage with no guardian and whenever his old master, Eirik, would ask why, he stubbornly declared he didn’t need some muscle-headed fool with more brawn than brain running around after him, and that he was perfectly fine on his own. Mathias, Eirik’s guardian, would raise his head and scowl at the youth whenever he heard that, but Arthur would pointedly ignore him. In the end Eirik gave up trying to persuade him that even though Mathias was a lost cause, not every guardian was an idiot like him (which didn’t faze Mathias in the slightest, of course, and merely earned a display of affection that usually ended with Eirik’s staff in Mathias’s stomach) and that Arthur should at least try instead of being unnecessarily cruel. Arthur remained unmoveable.
Arthur had begun to notice that every new guardian he was paired up with was getting younger and younger. He realised that, at twenty, he was now far older than most graduates of the school, and the guardians were becoming more flippant and less inclined to strive for his approval. Four years of ignoring them would do that, he supposed. At first, they had been rather gung-ho, ready to run as soon as he snapped his fingers and demanded something unreasonable. They were so eager to please. Then word had got around of the legendary impossible Arthur Kirkland. A new type of guardian came in, one much tougher and more stubborn, even more determined to make Arthur his or her mage than Arthur was to get rid of them: they viewed the whole thing as a challenge. Some tried seduction, others tried pleading, one or two even tried blackmail, but none prevailed. Now a new kind had come out. They were entirely bored, rarely gave in to Arthur’s requests and simply waited until he sent them back in order to be paired up with someone better. One had even requested Headmistress Calliope assign her to someone else.
And so it came to be that in Arthur’s twenty-first year, Timo, the mage who was in charge of guardian assignment, called him in. For once, the cheerful man seemed completely serious. Usually he would berate Arthur lightly, with a nervous laugh, and get him to sign a few forms, and voice his hope that this would be the right one. This time, however, he sighed when he saw Arthur, his hands clasped in front of him on his wooden desk. His own guardian, Berwald, looked as terrifying as ever. Arthur just stood there, his pose cocky from all the times he had been here. He left the embarrassment to Greene, who was being harshly scrutinised by Timo’s swan familiar.
“Arthur,” Timo began. “The Council of Masters has spoken with the Circle of Enchanters about your… case.”
Arthur folded his arms and huffed. He barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Timo’s eyes narrowed with displeasure but he did not comment on Arthur’s behaviour.
“This entire situation is unacceptable, and unsustainable,” he went on. “There has never been such a state of affairs in all the recorded history of the Tower and, to be frank, it is a disgrace. We have decided that you will be assigned only one more guardian. One more guardian, and then… measures will be taken.”
“Measures?” Arthur echoed. What could they do to him other than send him home? He could be a country mage, he’d met a few in his parents’ lands over the years, it wasn’t a bad job, being a village healer.
“Yes, Arthur. Measures.” Timo seemed uncharacteristically stern as he said those words, his violet eyes drilling into Arthur. The younger mage shifted uncomfortably under his senior’s gaze. “If you this does not work out… Your bond with your familiar will be sundered, your staff will be broken and you will be systematically drained of all your inner mana. You will never be able to use magic again.”
It took a moment for those words to sink in. When they did, he clutched Greene to his chest in horror, taking a step back.
“You can’t do that!” he cried. “You can’t take my magic away! You can’t take Greene!”
Greene whimpered and nuzzled into him, shaking in his arms. Timo’s stern façade fell and he looked truly distraught.
“Arthur, I’m s-so sorry, but that’s what the council has decided,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. Berwald placed a hand on his shoulder and Timo shook his head. “I can’t do anything about it. It won’t hurt either you or Greene, but that’s all the comfort I can give you.” He kneaded at his eyes with the heel of his hand and took a deep breath. “Try your hardest this time, Arthur. Please.”
Arthur held Greene tighter, stubbornly fighting back his own tears. What would he do without this soft, mint green fur beneath his fingers? Without a twitching rabbit nose snuffling at his own? Without someone as kind and cheerful as Greene to stave off loneliness? And a life without magic, without the very life force that flowed through his veins, tied to his blood and every particle of his body… it didn’t bear thinking about.
“Come back tomorrow morning for the forms and your guardian,” Timo said, and he sounded exhausted. Arthur nodded, his sight blurry as he turned and stumbled towards the door.
That night, he and Greene cried together, terrified of what, and more worryingly who, the next day would bring.
.
Arthur hadn’t gotten much sleep at all. He’d spent the whole night watching Greene sleep, fully convinced he would have to give up the dearest part of him. He’d breathed in that warm fur and watched his little chest rise and fall, and he’d tried not to cry all over again.
But now here he was, standing outside Timo’s office, Greene trembling on his shoulder. He couldn’t bring himself to knock on the door. For all he knew, the next two months of trials would be the last time he would spend with Greene. So he stood there, more frightened than he ever had been in his life…
“OUT THE WAY!”
Until a yell and the violent thud of heavily running feet startled him from his slow, methodical stroking of Greene’s fur. He just managed to get out of the way as a boy, probably seventeen at the most, skidded to a halt outside the door and gripped his knees, bent double, panting.
“Damn, I thought… I was going to be late!” he gasped out, finally straightening himself with a weak grin. Arthur just stared. Who on Earth was this lunatic? The boy’s smile grew stronger, bright and charming, and Arthur felt his face burn red. He was quite handsome, really, his hair cornfield gold and his eyes… they were the bluest blue he’d ever seen. Not to mention those broad shoulder and that little slip of bare chest he could see through the unlaced collar of his loose shirt… Arthur looked down with a scowl at a sniggering Greene, face still an embarrassed red, but luckily the other didn’t seem to notice.
Instead, he knocked on the door eagerly, and Timo’s voice called out for him to enter. Arthur stared. There was only one person this could be…
“Hi, Master Timo, Master Berwald!” said the youth cheerfully, waving. Arthur followed slowly, still staring at him in utter incredulity. This was the person he was being assigned as guardian? This… this boy? Timo greeted them both with a smile and slid two sheets of parchment onto the desk. Berwald merely nodded at Arthur, but he offered a lopsided, rather frightening half-smile to the blond youth.
“Well, it’s good to see you both got here at the same time!” Timo said. He sounded much more jovial than the previous day, obviously confident in this young man who now stood at Arthur’s side. Arthur frowned at the boy’s behaviour. He was practically bouncing on the spot, hands behind his back, still grinning like a fool. Well, at least Arthur knew the Circle had it in for him. There was no way this lad was anything but painfully incompetent. He sighed to himself, resigned that he’d lose Greene, and kissed the wolpertinger’s head and stroked one of his long, silky ears lovingly.
“Have you met each other before?” Timo went on, looking from one to the other. The youth shook his head.
“No, Sir! This is the first time.” He turned to Arthur and grinned again. Arthur averted his eyes, huffing. The boy’s accent betrayed someone from the Great Plains to the west, and a commoner at that. Timo winced, well used to Arthur’s moody temperament.
“Well, Alfred, this is Arthur of the House of Kirkland. Arthur, this is Alfred Jones.”
Alfred offered a hand, but Arthur merely gave it a disdainful look and turned away. Timo groaned softly.
“Alfred is fresh from the Academy, aren’t you? Trained by Gilbert the Black Eagle himself, am I right?” It was clear Timo was grasping for something that would make Arthur change his mind. Alfred nodded eagerly.
“Yes, that’s right. Best score in my year, I think… there’s no way that git Ivan can be better than me.”
Timo laughed and turned to Arthur with an expression that seemed to say, ‘he’s not so bad, is he?’, but Arthur was having none of it.
“Where do I sign?” he said emptily. Timo’s face fell and waved glumly at the sheets of parchment.
“You know the drill by now, Arthur,” he muttered. Arthur stepped forward and took the quill he was offered, signing his name with a flourish. He handed it to Alfred next, who was frowning at his own piece of parchment.
“Here?” he asked. Arthur rolled his eyes and nodded irritably, and Alfred smiled his thanks. His fingers brushed Arthur’s as he took the quill, and Arthur snatched his hand back as if it had been scalded, blushing again. Greene nipped his ear mischievously with a whisper of “he’s quite handsome, isn’t he?”. Arthur batted him away and folded his arms tetchily.
Once Alfred’s name was also scribbled down, Timo waved his hand to dry the wet ink and rolled both pieces up. “I hope to see good results from this new relationship.”
Arthur turned a brilliant red again, spluttering. That was just the worst choice of words Timo could have come out with. Alfred himself blushed somewhat, chuckled and scratching his nose embarrassedly. Timo seemed to realise what he’d said, though, and gasped, his own cheeks pinking, waving his hands in a flustered manner.
“Oh, n-not like that, I mean - not that that would be a bad thing, of course - I-I only meant a p-professional relationship! I… Oh, perkele. You’re dismissed!”
Alfred was still chuckling as he left the room, but now at Timo’s agitation. Once he stopped, he noticed had already left, heading down the corridor.
“Hey, wait! Arthur!”
Arthur raised his eyes to the heavens. He contemplated walking faster, but instead he stopped and looked back, folding his arms again.
“What?” It came out rather snappy, and Greene gave a reproachful sniff. Alfred looked quite hurt at that.
“I thought… well, since I’m going to be your guardian and all, we could get to know each other better,” he mumbled. Arthur snorted in disbelief.
“Really, now - Alfred, isn’t it? - do you honestly think I’m going to do that?” The boy had to either be incredibly dense or incredibly naïve… or both. Perhaps both. He had a puppy-like quality to him, after all, and puppies were both dense and naïve. Alfred frowned.
“Well, yeah, if we’re going to work together,” he replied. Arthur rolled his eyes and actually laughed. A scornful, condescending laugh.
“Listen, these contracts last two months. I’m not going to like you and you’re going to end up simply hating me. You’re going to be assigned to a new mage, someone far less demanding and a good deal less powerful than me, and we’re both going to say ‘good riddance’. And that’s the end. I know the drill, as Master Timo said.”
Alfred shook his head. “You don’t know whether any of that is going to happen!”
“On the contrary, Alfred,” Arthur said coldly. “I know that is going to happened. You know how many guardians I’ve had and ruined the lives of? You’re just the last in a long, long line.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and stormed away, leaving Alfred alone in the long corridor. He could feel Greene glaring at him, and once he’d returned to his bedchamber the wolpertinger flew to the windowsill and landed, still glowering accusatorially. The mage tried to ignore him, sitting as his desk under and trying to get some letter-writing to his family done, but Greene’s gaze was distracting, to say the least. It bore into the side of Arthur’s skull enough that he eventually snapped.
“What?!” he demanded. “What do you want?!”
Greene huffed, crouching down with his eyes still on Arthur. “You didn’t even try,” he said reprovingly. Arthur caught the disappointment in his voice. He bit his lip. No, he hadn’t tried. He’d already given up.
“What would you have me do?” he asked. “Grit my teeth and bear it? I can’t just say yes and then spend of the rest of my life with someone I hate!”
“I’d have you try, Arthur!” Greene cried. “It’s like you don’t care anymore! Like you don’t care about me!”
Arthur froze. “Don’t say that, you know it’s not true…”
Greene shook his head. “It bloody well seems like it.” He huddled in on himself and refused to speak to Arthur for the rest of the day, even at lunch.
At dinner, Alfred sat down in front of the two, who were still not talking to each other. He tried in vain to start a conversation, but Arthur completely ignored him, nudging his food around on his plate before getting up and leaving his meal untouched. Greene, of course, had no choice but to follow him, but he did look back at a dejected Alfred and wish Arthur would stop being so obstinately foolish.
.
Arthur skilfully avoided Alfred for two whole days. He made sure he took the long way to the potions storerooms, dodging the indoor training ground, the armoury, the guardians’ dormitories and anywhere else where he suspected Alfred might be. Greene, of course, greatly disapproved of this, and continually voiced this disapproval to Arthur at all times. Over the years Arthur had become quite used to unwisely ignoring his familiar, though, and did exactly that. He also wondered why Alfred hadn’t been moved into his room yet. Usually assigned guardians would move in with their mages, to promote unity (which, of course, in Arthur’s case never helped things at all). Perhaps they really didn’t care anymore. It was a miracle they’d put up with this long, and it was probably only a mark of how much potential he’d shown, and how much raw magical power nature had endowed him with, that they had.
However, Arthur could not avoid Alfred forever, and on the third day since their meeting both were called to the office of yet another mage, Sofiya. Her guardian, her sister Nataliya, glared at them as they stood before her mage’s desk.
“You are to be sent on a mission,” she informed them. “Arthur, you are the only skilled mage we can spare at the moment. We have received word from the guardian of the mage we sent there, Dragomir, that his mage is critically injured, and needs magical medicine immediately. They are in this village, on the border between our lands and the Moors, on the other side of the Dragontail Mountains.” She pointed to a place on the map, on the on the edge of lands Arthur recognised as being the domain of orcs and goblins.
“The orcs are attacking with increased violence due to the harsh winter,” Sofiya said, sniffling. She looked on the verge of tears, but then again she did most of the time. “Normally we would send more of you, but with the snows in the north and the attacks by pirates in the west, we are stretched so thin we can’t send anyone else. You are their only hope. Don’t disappoint them.”
Arthur merely nodded, mentally preparing himself for the three-day trek through the mountains. It was madness at this time of year, but what else could they do? Spring’s thaw was weeks away, and by then all that would be left by the raiders would be burnt bodies and the charcoal skeletons of what had once been homes. And beyond the mountains? Certain death. The probabilities of one mage and two guardians against the hordes of orc marauders were next to nothing. It was a suicide mission, and Arthur felt his stomach turn upside down with the realisation that neither of them would probably live to tell the tale. At least the Circle was had enough faith that the two of them could last until spring, until they could call other mages back and send them. Although, Arthur mused, it probably wasn’t faith so much as desperation, and he took little solace in the fact he and Alfred wouldn’t be the only ones condemned to death.
Alfred, the stupid fool, contrary to any natural reaction to such a dead-end mission, was grinning. From ear to ear. He was studying the map, and Arthur could practically feel him vibrate with barely contained excitement. It was obvious that he was desperate to prove himself in some way. The mage wanted to throttle him. Nothing ruined missions more easily than reckless fools out to strut their stuff.
Arthur thanked Sofiya, took the information for the mission and left the room, followed by a stupidly giddy Alfred.
“This is it! We’re going to be heroes, Arthur!”
Arthur shook his head, barely believing his ears. “Are you mad? We’re going there to hold the orcs off until reinforcements can get there, and it’s more than likely we’ll die trying! There’s no way we can get through this!”
Alfred waved his protests away with a brief wave of his hand. “We can do this!” he said, and for a moment, Arthur almost gave way to the boy’s irrational confidence. Something in his voice, in his body language, his expression, made Arthur sway.
But the moment was gone as soon as it had come, and Arthur’s bad temper and exasperation at Alfred’s blindness returned with a vengeance.
“Oh, I could punch you!” he snarled. He threw Alfred’s copy of the mission papers at him and stomped off towards the Healers’ Wing. But instead of just letting him go this time, Alfred caught up with him. Arthur let out a noise of great frustration that sounded like a strangled cow.
“What?” he demanded sharply. Alfred scowled.
“Nothing, I want to come with you,” he said. “It’s my mission too. You really aren’t trying to make this easy on us, are you? I haven’t seen you since Tuesday.”
Arthur refused to believe the boy didn’t understand when he was being avoided. “I didn’t want to see you.”
“Come on, Arthur, what have I done to you to warrant this? Is there something wrong with me?”
The mage stopped dead so suddenly Alfred kept going for a few steps. He turned and came back, looking rather sheepish, but Arthur didn’t notice. He clenched his fists, staring a hole in the floor. Alfred tried to peer at his face, raising a cautious hand that did not quite have the courage to touch Arthur’s shoulder.
“Arthur? Arthur, what’s wrong?”
“Leave me alone, Alfred,” Arthur said. “Get it through that thick skull of yours that I want nothing to do with you.”
He shoved roughly past the other and ascended the staircase at the end of the corridor. It took him a little while to realise Greene was no longer on his shoulder, so lost in anger, frustration and bitter memories.
In the corridor below, Alfred looked at Greene. “Is there really something wrong with me?” he asked. Greene sighed and shook his head.
“It’s not you, Alfred,” he said. “It’s not you at all. Arthur, he -”
“Greene!”
The wolpertinger turned to the staircase and sighed. “Sorry, Alfred. I just don’t think he really cares anymore.” And with that he flew off towards Arthur, giving Alfred one last apologetic look as he went.
.
The next day Alfred met Arthur at the huge wooden door that opened onto the immense entrance hall of the tower. He was wearing thick woollen clothes, much like Arthur’s, but with a shorter tunic, and a fur-lined, blue cloak. Hands wearing thick leather gloves held tightly to the straps of his pack. Arthur barely nodded a greeting, to which Alfred replied with a huffy frown, but Greene offered as much of a smile as something that looked like a rabbit could, which Alfred answered. They then set off down the frozen road that led to the small town in a stony, non-negotiable silence.
Once they had reached the town, they quickly found the cart that was heading to one of the small villages on this side of the mountains that would give them a lift and save them as much time as possible. They clambered on, sitting on the back with the bottles of fruit and barrels of dried meat, and made themselves as comfortable as they could in the cold, early morning air on hard boards. The vial of orc-poison antidote sat swaddled in protective cloth in Arthur’s large satchel, next to food, a change of clothes and enchanted parchment. The enchanted parchment that would be Alfred’s only means of communication if something were to happen to Arthur.
The silence still lengthened, like a wall three feet thick between them. Alfred fidgeted with his sword hilt, tugging his muffler up over the bottom half of his face. Arthur simply sat and watching the white countryside creep slowly by, his cheeks and the tip of his nose burning cold. Greene ruffled his feathers and fluffed up his fur cantankerously and nipped Arthur’s ear.
Arthur yelped, clutched a hand to his ear and glaring at his familiar, who merely stuck his nose in the air.
“I’m bored!” he snapped. “Talk to me!”
Arthur scowled, but Alfred laughed. “What do you want to talk about?”
Greene settled down on a barrel smugly and shrugged in a rabbit-like sort of way. “I don’t know, whatever you like.”
“What kind of animal are you, exactly?” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like you before, and I’d’ve noticed a flying green rabbit.”
Greene gave him a look of wounded pride and turned his head. “I’m not a rabbit, I am a wolpertinger! It’s completely different. And we’re not just green, we’re plenty of different colours. My sister is pink.”
“Where do wolpertingers live?” Alfred asked, awed. Arthur simply rolled his eyes; he’d lived with Greene since he was thirteen, he’d heard the wolpertinger’s life story enough times to know it by heart.
“Well, wolpertingers are creatures native to the Escanar Mountain range…”
.
End of Part One
End notes
Wolpertingers: wolpertingers are Bavarian folk animals, basically rabbits/hares with fangs, antlers and wings. Flying Mint Bunny is certainly not a wolpertinger, but I’m not sure what else I could call a winged green rabbit, really. :P So in this story he is a wolpertinger.
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Pairing: UsUk. SuFin and DenNor if you really want to see it.
Genre: adventure, romance, high fantasy AU
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: APH belongs to Himaruya, and the countries factually belong to themselves. Or their bosses and the people that live there, rather.
Warning:
Summary: After years refusing every prospective guardian that is offered to him, Arthur the mage is given one last chance in the form of Alfred, a warrior newly graduated from the Warrior’s Academy. If he doesn’t make this work, his life will be changed forever.
A/n: a very, very belated birthday present for mockingboots. She asked for a quirky AU, and so I just took it an ran. This is based on the magical rules of my own fantasy world, as are some of the place names. So it’s like I wrote a APH crossover fic of my own stuff. Also, I’m sorry this is only the first part. The second part will come along eventually! I hope you like it.
Names:
Eirik = Norway
Mathias = Denmark
Sofiya = Ukraine
Dragomir = Bulgaria
Constantin = Romania
.
Every guardian must protect his mage, and every mage must honour his guardian. They are as one being in two bodies.
-Third Precept, Sorcerer’s Code of Conduct.
Three things made a mage a mage. The first was a familiar: animals of the Wilderland that would choose their mage and bond with them. They would become the repository of the mage’s very soul, and in return gain the gift of tongues, a way of voicing their already well-documented sapience. A mage and his familiar were tighter than blood, as they shared the same soul: you killed the familiar, you killed the mage, and vice-versa. A familiar was a guide, a companion, a confidant and a badge of pride. Even country mages who had never finished their education at the Azure Tower had a familiar.
The second thing was a staff. Although magic could be used barehanded, it was well-known that the shape of the staff itself aided in the casting of spells, made them faster, deadlier and also easier to aim. Fireballs were flashy, but they weren’t much use on the battlefield when one could use a staff as a flamethrower instead. Each staff represented its mage in such a fundamental way they were considered on the same level as a familiar. If a mage’s staff was lost or broken, they would mourn it before finding an inadequate, temporary replacement until a second staff was created. Of course, staves rarely broke, so smothered with protective magic than made them harder than steel, but when they did, the second staff was never quite the same. It was like losing a limb, in some ways, and having to go through the rest of one’s life with a prosthesis.
The third and final thing was a guardian. The study of magic consumed a mage. It gave them long life, sometimes even immortality, but it also wrapped them in it so tight they rarely had time for anything else. Human warrior mages were as rare as dragons in the western lands, few had ever existed, and were spoken of in tones of awe and admiration. The lack of physical strength and the long life made it necessary for a mage to have a guardian: a warrior companion to share the burden with. Most of the time, this was also the mage’s lover, but not always. Others were simply friends or even siblings - the important part being a human companion along with the animal, someone a mage could share their life with. Through exposure to the mage’s magic his or her guardian gained the same long life and extraordinary physical prowess, some even acquiring the strength of ten dwarves, and they remained together through any adversity. A guardian was the requirement for the license to wield magic in the name of the Azure Tower and be a mage in the eyes of the Circle of Enchanters - a true sorcerer, not a country mage.
Now, Arthur of the House of Kirkland had no problem with the first two items. He had a familiar, a wolpertinger of the kind found only in the Escanar Mountains, which he had named Greene for his peculiar colour. Greene was Arthur’s voice of reason, calm, collected and persuasive, he could cool Arthur off when the mage flew into one of his tempers. Arthur also had a staff he was quite proud of: simply carved, straight and made of oak wood with a large emerald at its tip, it was best used for Arthur’s favoured use of magic, spirit-calling. All this on its own would have been fine, and would have earned Arthur his diploma, but…
He lacked a guardian. For four years now, he’d sent them all back where they’d come from, namely the Warrior’s Academy section of the Tower, where they’d either go home, enrol in the army or find another, much less demanding mage to guard. He’d given three a nervous breakdown. He seemed utterly determined to obtain his diploma as a mage with no guardian and whenever his old master, Eirik, would ask why, he stubbornly declared he didn’t need some muscle-headed fool with more brawn than brain running around after him, and that he was perfectly fine on his own. Mathias, Eirik’s guardian, would raise his head and scowl at the youth whenever he heard that, but Arthur would pointedly ignore him. In the end Eirik gave up trying to persuade him that even though Mathias was a lost cause, not every guardian was an idiot like him (which didn’t faze Mathias in the slightest, of course, and merely earned a display of affection that usually ended with Eirik’s staff in Mathias’s stomach) and that Arthur should at least try instead of being unnecessarily cruel. Arthur remained unmoveable.
Arthur had begun to notice that every new guardian he was paired up with was getting younger and younger. He realised that, at twenty, he was now far older than most graduates of the school, and the guardians were becoming more flippant and less inclined to strive for his approval. Four years of ignoring them would do that, he supposed. At first, they had been rather gung-ho, ready to run as soon as he snapped his fingers and demanded something unreasonable. They were so eager to please. Then word had got around of the legendary impossible Arthur Kirkland. A new type of guardian came in, one much tougher and more stubborn, even more determined to make Arthur his or her mage than Arthur was to get rid of them: they viewed the whole thing as a challenge. Some tried seduction, others tried pleading, one or two even tried blackmail, but none prevailed. Now a new kind had come out. They were entirely bored, rarely gave in to Arthur’s requests and simply waited until he sent them back in order to be paired up with someone better. One had even requested Headmistress Calliope assign her to someone else.
And so it came to be that in Arthur’s twenty-first year, Timo, the mage who was in charge of guardian assignment, called him in. For once, the cheerful man seemed completely serious. Usually he would berate Arthur lightly, with a nervous laugh, and get him to sign a few forms, and voice his hope that this would be the right one. This time, however, he sighed when he saw Arthur, his hands clasped in front of him on his wooden desk. His own guardian, Berwald, looked as terrifying as ever. Arthur just stood there, his pose cocky from all the times he had been here. He left the embarrassment to Greene, who was being harshly scrutinised by Timo’s swan familiar.
“Arthur,” Timo began. “The Council of Masters has spoken with the Circle of Enchanters about your… case.”
Arthur folded his arms and huffed. He barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Timo’s eyes narrowed with displeasure but he did not comment on Arthur’s behaviour.
“This entire situation is unacceptable, and unsustainable,” he went on. “There has never been such a state of affairs in all the recorded history of the Tower and, to be frank, it is a disgrace. We have decided that you will be assigned only one more guardian. One more guardian, and then… measures will be taken.”
“Measures?” Arthur echoed. What could they do to him other than send him home? He could be a country mage, he’d met a few in his parents’ lands over the years, it wasn’t a bad job, being a village healer.
“Yes, Arthur. Measures.” Timo seemed uncharacteristically stern as he said those words, his violet eyes drilling into Arthur. The younger mage shifted uncomfortably under his senior’s gaze. “If you this does not work out… Your bond with your familiar will be sundered, your staff will be broken and you will be systematically drained of all your inner mana. You will never be able to use magic again.”
It took a moment for those words to sink in. When they did, he clutched Greene to his chest in horror, taking a step back.
“You can’t do that!” he cried. “You can’t take my magic away! You can’t take Greene!”
Greene whimpered and nuzzled into him, shaking in his arms. Timo’s stern façade fell and he looked truly distraught.
“Arthur, I’m s-so sorry, but that’s what the council has decided,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. Berwald placed a hand on his shoulder and Timo shook his head. “I can’t do anything about it. It won’t hurt either you or Greene, but that’s all the comfort I can give you.” He kneaded at his eyes with the heel of his hand and took a deep breath. “Try your hardest this time, Arthur. Please.”
Arthur held Greene tighter, stubbornly fighting back his own tears. What would he do without this soft, mint green fur beneath his fingers? Without a twitching rabbit nose snuffling at his own? Without someone as kind and cheerful as Greene to stave off loneliness? And a life without magic, without the very life force that flowed through his veins, tied to his blood and every particle of his body… it didn’t bear thinking about.
“Come back tomorrow morning for the forms and your guardian,” Timo said, and he sounded exhausted. Arthur nodded, his sight blurry as he turned and stumbled towards the door.
That night, he and Greene cried together, terrified of what, and more worryingly who, the next day would bring.
.
Arthur hadn’t gotten much sleep at all. He’d spent the whole night watching Greene sleep, fully convinced he would have to give up the dearest part of him. He’d breathed in that warm fur and watched his little chest rise and fall, and he’d tried not to cry all over again.
But now here he was, standing outside Timo’s office, Greene trembling on his shoulder. He couldn’t bring himself to knock on the door. For all he knew, the next two months of trials would be the last time he would spend with Greene. So he stood there, more frightened than he ever had been in his life…
“OUT THE WAY!”
Until a yell and the violent thud of heavily running feet startled him from his slow, methodical stroking of Greene’s fur. He just managed to get out of the way as a boy, probably seventeen at the most, skidded to a halt outside the door and gripped his knees, bent double, panting.
“Damn, I thought… I was going to be late!” he gasped out, finally straightening himself with a weak grin. Arthur just stared. Who on Earth was this lunatic? The boy’s smile grew stronger, bright and charming, and Arthur felt his face burn red. He was quite handsome, really, his hair cornfield gold and his eyes… they were the bluest blue he’d ever seen. Not to mention those broad shoulder and that little slip of bare chest he could see through the unlaced collar of his loose shirt… Arthur looked down with a scowl at a sniggering Greene, face still an embarrassed red, but luckily the other didn’t seem to notice.
Instead, he knocked on the door eagerly, and Timo’s voice called out for him to enter. Arthur stared. There was only one person this could be…
“Hi, Master Timo, Master Berwald!” said the youth cheerfully, waving. Arthur followed slowly, still staring at him in utter incredulity. This was the person he was being assigned as guardian? This… this boy? Timo greeted them both with a smile and slid two sheets of parchment onto the desk. Berwald merely nodded at Arthur, but he offered a lopsided, rather frightening half-smile to the blond youth.
“Well, it’s good to see you both got here at the same time!” Timo said. He sounded much more jovial than the previous day, obviously confident in this young man who now stood at Arthur’s side. Arthur frowned at the boy’s behaviour. He was practically bouncing on the spot, hands behind his back, still grinning like a fool. Well, at least Arthur knew the Circle had it in for him. There was no way this lad was anything but painfully incompetent. He sighed to himself, resigned that he’d lose Greene, and kissed the wolpertinger’s head and stroked one of his long, silky ears lovingly.
“Have you met each other before?” Timo went on, looking from one to the other. The youth shook his head.
“No, Sir! This is the first time.” He turned to Arthur and grinned again. Arthur averted his eyes, huffing. The boy’s accent betrayed someone from the Great Plains to the west, and a commoner at that. Timo winced, well used to Arthur’s moody temperament.
“Well, Alfred, this is Arthur of the House of Kirkland. Arthur, this is Alfred Jones.”
Alfred offered a hand, but Arthur merely gave it a disdainful look and turned away. Timo groaned softly.
“Alfred is fresh from the Academy, aren’t you? Trained by Gilbert the Black Eagle himself, am I right?” It was clear Timo was grasping for something that would make Arthur change his mind. Alfred nodded eagerly.
“Yes, that’s right. Best score in my year, I think… there’s no way that git Ivan can be better than me.”
Timo laughed and turned to Arthur with an expression that seemed to say, ‘he’s not so bad, is he?’, but Arthur was having none of it.
“Where do I sign?” he said emptily. Timo’s face fell and waved glumly at the sheets of parchment.
“You know the drill by now, Arthur,” he muttered. Arthur stepped forward and took the quill he was offered, signing his name with a flourish. He handed it to Alfred next, who was frowning at his own piece of parchment.
“Here?” he asked. Arthur rolled his eyes and nodded irritably, and Alfred smiled his thanks. His fingers brushed Arthur’s as he took the quill, and Arthur snatched his hand back as if it had been scalded, blushing again. Greene nipped his ear mischievously with a whisper of “he’s quite handsome, isn’t he?”. Arthur batted him away and folded his arms tetchily.
Once Alfred’s name was also scribbled down, Timo waved his hand to dry the wet ink and rolled both pieces up. “I hope to see good results from this new relationship.”
Arthur turned a brilliant red again, spluttering. That was just the worst choice of words Timo could have come out with. Alfred himself blushed somewhat, chuckled and scratching his nose embarrassedly. Timo seemed to realise what he’d said, though, and gasped, his own cheeks pinking, waving his hands in a flustered manner.
“Oh, n-not like that, I mean - not that that would be a bad thing, of course - I-I only meant a p-professional relationship! I… Oh, perkele. You’re dismissed!”
Alfred was still chuckling as he left the room, but now at Timo’s agitation. Once he stopped, he noticed had already left, heading down the corridor.
“Hey, wait! Arthur!”
Arthur raised his eyes to the heavens. He contemplated walking faster, but instead he stopped and looked back, folding his arms again.
“What?” It came out rather snappy, and Greene gave a reproachful sniff. Alfred looked quite hurt at that.
“I thought… well, since I’m going to be your guardian and all, we could get to know each other better,” he mumbled. Arthur snorted in disbelief.
“Really, now - Alfred, isn’t it? - do you honestly think I’m going to do that?” The boy had to either be incredibly dense or incredibly naïve… or both. Perhaps both. He had a puppy-like quality to him, after all, and puppies were both dense and naïve. Alfred frowned.
“Well, yeah, if we’re going to work together,” he replied. Arthur rolled his eyes and actually laughed. A scornful, condescending laugh.
“Listen, these contracts last two months. I’m not going to like you and you’re going to end up simply hating me. You’re going to be assigned to a new mage, someone far less demanding and a good deal less powerful than me, and we’re both going to say ‘good riddance’. And that’s the end. I know the drill, as Master Timo said.”
Alfred shook his head. “You don’t know whether any of that is going to happen!”
“On the contrary, Alfred,” Arthur said coldly. “I know that is going to happened. You know how many guardians I’ve had and ruined the lives of? You’re just the last in a long, long line.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and stormed away, leaving Alfred alone in the long corridor. He could feel Greene glaring at him, and once he’d returned to his bedchamber the wolpertinger flew to the windowsill and landed, still glowering accusatorially. The mage tried to ignore him, sitting as his desk under and trying to get some letter-writing to his family done, but Greene’s gaze was distracting, to say the least. It bore into the side of Arthur’s skull enough that he eventually snapped.
“What?!” he demanded. “What do you want?!”
Greene huffed, crouching down with his eyes still on Arthur. “You didn’t even try,” he said reprovingly. Arthur caught the disappointment in his voice. He bit his lip. No, he hadn’t tried. He’d already given up.
“What would you have me do?” he asked. “Grit my teeth and bear it? I can’t just say yes and then spend of the rest of my life with someone I hate!”
“I’d have you try, Arthur!” Greene cried. “It’s like you don’t care anymore! Like you don’t care about me!”
Arthur froze. “Don’t say that, you know it’s not true…”
Greene shook his head. “It bloody well seems like it.” He huddled in on himself and refused to speak to Arthur for the rest of the day, even at lunch.
At dinner, Alfred sat down in front of the two, who were still not talking to each other. He tried in vain to start a conversation, but Arthur completely ignored him, nudging his food around on his plate before getting up and leaving his meal untouched. Greene, of course, had no choice but to follow him, but he did look back at a dejected Alfred and wish Arthur would stop being so obstinately foolish.
.
Arthur skilfully avoided Alfred for two whole days. He made sure he took the long way to the potions storerooms, dodging the indoor training ground, the armoury, the guardians’ dormitories and anywhere else where he suspected Alfred might be. Greene, of course, greatly disapproved of this, and continually voiced this disapproval to Arthur at all times. Over the years Arthur had become quite used to unwisely ignoring his familiar, though, and did exactly that. He also wondered why Alfred hadn’t been moved into his room yet. Usually assigned guardians would move in with their mages, to promote unity (which, of course, in Arthur’s case never helped things at all). Perhaps they really didn’t care anymore. It was a miracle they’d put up with this long, and it was probably only a mark of how much potential he’d shown, and how much raw magical power nature had endowed him with, that they had.
However, Arthur could not avoid Alfred forever, and on the third day since their meeting both were called to the office of yet another mage, Sofiya. Her guardian, her sister Nataliya, glared at them as they stood before her mage’s desk.
“You are to be sent on a mission,” she informed them. “Arthur, you are the only skilled mage we can spare at the moment. We have received word from the guardian of the mage we sent there, Dragomir, that his mage is critically injured, and needs magical medicine immediately. They are in this village, on the border between our lands and the Moors, on the other side of the Dragontail Mountains.” She pointed to a place on the map, on the on the edge of lands Arthur recognised as being the domain of orcs and goblins.
“The orcs are attacking with increased violence due to the harsh winter,” Sofiya said, sniffling. She looked on the verge of tears, but then again she did most of the time. “Normally we would send more of you, but with the snows in the north and the attacks by pirates in the west, we are stretched so thin we can’t send anyone else. You are their only hope. Don’t disappoint them.”
Arthur merely nodded, mentally preparing himself for the three-day trek through the mountains. It was madness at this time of year, but what else could they do? Spring’s thaw was weeks away, and by then all that would be left by the raiders would be burnt bodies and the charcoal skeletons of what had once been homes. And beyond the mountains? Certain death. The probabilities of one mage and two guardians against the hordes of orc marauders were next to nothing. It was a suicide mission, and Arthur felt his stomach turn upside down with the realisation that neither of them would probably live to tell the tale. At least the Circle was had enough faith that the two of them could last until spring, until they could call other mages back and send them. Although, Arthur mused, it probably wasn’t faith so much as desperation, and he took little solace in the fact he and Alfred wouldn’t be the only ones condemned to death.
Alfred, the stupid fool, contrary to any natural reaction to such a dead-end mission, was grinning. From ear to ear. He was studying the map, and Arthur could practically feel him vibrate with barely contained excitement. It was obvious that he was desperate to prove himself in some way. The mage wanted to throttle him. Nothing ruined missions more easily than reckless fools out to strut their stuff.
Arthur thanked Sofiya, took the information for the mission and left the room, followed by a stupidly giddy Alfred.
“This is it! We’re going to be heroes, Arthur!”
Arthur shook his head, barely believing his ears. “Are you mad? We’re going there to hold the orcs off until reinforcements can get there, and it’s more than likely we’ll die trying! There’s no way we can get through this!”
Alfred waved his protests away with a brief wave of his hand. “We can do this!” he said, and for a moment, Arthur almost gave way to the boy’s irrational confidence. Something in his voice, in his body language, his expression, made Arthur sway.
But the moment was gone as soon as it had come, and Arthur’s bad temper and exasperation at Alfred’s blindness returned with a vengeance.
“Oh, I could punch you!” he snarled. He threw Alfred’s copy of the mission papers at him and stomped off towards the Healers’ Wing. But instead of just letting him go this time, Alfred caught up with him. Arthur let out a noise of great frustration that sounded like a strangled cow.
“What?” he demanded sharply. Alfred scowled.
“Nothing, I want to come with you,” he said. “It’s my mission too. You really aren’t trying to make this easy on us, are you? I haven’t seen you since Tuesday.”
Arthur refused to believe the boy didn’t understand when he was being avoided. “I didn’t want to see you.”
“Come on, Arthur, what have I done to you to warrant this? Is there something wrong with me?”
The mage stopped dead so suddenly Alfred kept going for a few steps. He turned and came back, looking rather sheepish, but Arthur didn’t notice. He clenched his fists, staring a hole in the floor. Alfred tried to peer at his face, raising a cautious hand that did not quite have the courage to touch Arthur’s shoulder.
“Arthur? Arthur, what’s wrong?”
“Leave me alone, Alfred,” Arthur said. “Get it through that thick skull of yours that I want nothing to do with you.”
He shoved roughly past the other and ascended the staircase at the end of the corridor. It took him a little while to realise Greene was no longer on his shoulder, so lost in anger, frustration and bitter memories.
In the corridor below, Alfred looked at Greene. “Is there really something wrong with me?” he asked. Greene sighed and shook his head.
“It’s not you, Alfred,” he said. “It’s not you at all. Arthur, he -”
“Greene!”
The wolpertinger turned to the staircase and sighed. “Sorry, Alfred. I just don’t think he really cares anymore.” And with that he flew off towards Arthur, giving Alfred one last apologetic look as he went.
.
The next day Alfred met Arthur at the huge wooden door that opened onto the immense entrance hall of the tower. He was wearing thick woollen clothes, much like Arthur’s, but with a shorter tunic, and a fur-lined, blue cloak. Hands wearing thick leather gloves held tightly to the straps of his pack. Arthur barely nodded a greeting, to which Alfred replied with a huffy frown, but Greene offered as much of a smile as something that looked like a rabbit could, which Alfred answered. They then set off down the frozen road that led to the small town in a stony, non-negotiable silence.
Once they had reached the town, they quickly found the cart that was heading to one of the small villages on this side of the mountains that would give them a lift and save them as much time as possible. They clambered on, sitting on the back with the bottles of fruit and barrels of dried meat, and made themselves as comfortable as they could in the cold, early morning air on hard boards. The vial of orc-poison antidote sat swaddled in protective cloth in Arthur’s large satchel, next to food, a change of clothes and enchanted parchment. The enchanted parchment that would be Alfred’s only means of communication if something were to happen to Arthur.
The silence still lengthened, like a wall three feet thick between them. Alfred fidgeted with his sword hilt, tugging his muffler up over the bottom half of his face. Arthur simply sat and watching the white countryside creep slowly by, his cheeks and the tip of his nose burning cold. Greene ruffled his feathers and fluffed up his fur cantankerously and nipped Arthur’s ear.
Arthur yelped, clutched a hand to his ear and glaring at his familiar, who merely stuck his nose in the air.
“I’m bored!” he snapped. “Talk to me!”
Arthur scowled, but Alfred laughed. “What do you want to talk about?”
Greene settled down on a barrel smugly and shrugged in a rabbit-like sort of way. “I don’t know, whatever you like.”
“What kind of animal are you, exactly?” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like you before, and I’d’ve noticed a flying green rabbit.”
Greene gave him a look of wounded pride and turned his head. “I’m not a rabbit, I am a wolpertinger! It’s completely different. And we’re not just green, we’re plenty of different colours. My sister is pink.”
“Where do wolpertingers live?” Alfred asked, awed. Arthur simply rolled his eyes; he’d lived with Greene since he was thirteen, he’d heard the wolpertinger’s life story enough times to know it by heart.
“Well, wolpertingers are creatures native to the Escanar Mountain range…”
.
End of Part One
End notes
Wolpertingers: wolpertingers are Bavarian folk animals, basically rabbits/hares with fangs, antlers and wings. Flying Mint Bunny is certainly not a wolpertinger, but I’m not sure what else I could call a winged green rabbit, really. :P So in this story he is a wolpertinger.