Cordillair (8/10+E Kurtbastian)
Some time ago I took this prompt on the GKM and thought to myself, "I can do this. I can make this world." I took it to try to deal with my feelings on Klaine breaking up, and I took it to stretch my writing wings. If Kurtbastian isn't your thing, let me assure you - Kurtbastian doesn't happen for many, many chapters. And this is DEFINITELY not canon. It's a completely different world, with OCs and only three canon characters in name - Sebastian Smythe and Kurt and Burton Hummelod (Hummel-ODD). Maybe take a chance on me and I'll take you on an adventure.
Part One Two Three Four Five Six / Seven
Warning for this chapter: graphic violence/whipping.
____
“Get up.”
Sebastian shakes himself out of the sleep he had been in. He had mucked the stalls for the entire afternoon, hyper aware of the consequences if he didn’t finish. The consequences were sometimes the same if he did finish his work as if he didn’t, but that didn’t stop the idea of some control over the situation taking over his brain. So he mucked stalls. And rubbed all the horses down. And brushed each and every horse or mule until it shone.
Then he had collapsed into the clean hay at the end of the stalls and fallen asleep.
Rousing, now, he’s disoriented and cold, the night blowing frigid wind over the pasture and threatening rain. There’s thunder in the distance and he knows the storm’s not far off. He’s contemplating how far off when he’s struck, blindingly hard, in the face.
His body makes to retreat into the straw, but it’s packed and solid, not something he can move into before another blow is rained down, this time right to his left eye. He feels the skin split below it, his face suddenly wet with the gush of his own blood.
“Why-”
He tries to speak but is immediately muzzled with a hand over his mouth, a knee in his ribs, bruising if not cracking.
“You shut your cock-hole, boy,” James sneers, his breath inches from his face. “I already know what you did - running crying to the prince. But he’s not gonna find you.”
On the last word James’ other hand punches at his right eye, and Sebastian sees stars.
“I didn’t- I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he screams, his legs scrambling for purchase against the slippery hay, his fingertips bleeding, cut rough with the edges of the straw as he tries to gain freedom.
Jame pulls himself to full height at his words and strides across the stable to the wall of tack. Sebastian works to pull himself off the hay, betrayed by his shaking body. He’s weak from the weeks of little food and abuse; from lack of sleep and anxiety. He barely makes it to his knees when James returns and Sebastian’s eyes are drawn instantly to his hand.
The whip there.
“No, please, I didn’t-”
“Don’t lie to me, Smythe, I’ve already been to court. I know you’ve been sneaking around. And now the prince is interested in you.” He takes a step back, bracing himself as Sebastian watches as if in slow motion, his arm coming up with the whip and then back down, his own shirt splitting as well as the skin beneath it, burning and spiking with pain.
“Filth!” James is screaming at him, his arm swinging again, hitting Sebastian’s thigh. Again, his left wrist, pouring out onto the stable floor. Again, the side of his neck, a sheet of blood down his front. Sebastian holds up his arms in defense, what feeble one he has and realizes.
This is how I’m going to die, he thinks, his eyes locked on James’ terrible form, the lashes meeting others, opening his skin wider and wider until it feels like every piece of him is bleeding. He’s gone insane. And indeed, James does look crazy, his hair in disarray and his clothes a blood-splattered mess.
Sebastian struggles to move again, a final effort to get away when he hears it, and dread settles into his bones at her voice.
“YOU GET’N OFFENHIM, SIR!”
No, no Juney, no-
“N-no, n-n-” He tries to speak, spitting blood from the tear at his lip, but he can’t seem to coordinate his limbs.
All he can do is watch.
Watch as the monster turns on Juniper where she stands fierce at his elbow, his eyes wild with hate.
Watch as he grabs her and throws her to the ground before he kicks her and then lifts the whip over and over, her screams bouncing and rebounding throughout the stable.
Her tattered dress stripped to ribbons and flush with red.
Watches him kick her little body until she stops moving and Sebastian could cry it’s so still.
And then he blacks out.
***
It’s raining.
He can’t feel the rain, all he can feel is the ache in his body and bone-deep exhaustion, but he can hear it pelting the earth outside; feel the wind barrel through the stable.
It’s dark and he can’t quite recall why he’s in the stable and not in his lean-to. His body feels torn loose, red-hot seams where skin used to be.
Because...
Because James...
He sits bolt upright and immediately regrets it, wounds on his back opening anew, the sickly pop of blood splattering the straw. Each movement is a renewed whipping; the slits in his skin reminding him that he shouldn’t move but he needs to...to see...but his eyes are so swollen his vision is limited at best, tiny slits of what he normally can see.
He pulls himself toward the wall, the straw unforgiving against his ruined skin, poking and opening wounds over and over as he grits his teeth to get purchase on the wall. He gets there and pulls himself up, up until he’s standing, swaying dangerously, but standing nonetheless.
He sweeps his gaze around the dark stable and sees nothing but shadows - the barest outlines of what he know to be there in the day and curses under his breath. He doesn’t want to feel with his feet, he doesn’t want to risk hurting Juniper further, if she’s still here. He stands there, frozen for a moment as his sluggish brain tries to work out a plan when lightning strikes the field outside, illuminating the stable for the barest moment and there - on the ground just inside the back door - is the smallest outline of something.
Please, he sends out into the world as he shuffles his way to her, new scabs tearing and blood flowing down his legs.
Please, I can’t make it through this one, too. Please just...please.
Sebastian gets to the door and lowers himself to the ground, patting and feeling until he finds cold, wet skin; ribbons of soiled fabric, and he knows he’s found her leg. He moves up, careful not to touch too much, dread curling low in his stomach at how many lashes he encounters, until he gets to her chest. He lays his hand over her heart, hoping, hoping.
His breath catches as he feels her take her own, a ragged little sigh of oxygen into her lungs, and he could cry - does begin to, when he realizes she’s alive.
Barely, maybe.
I need to-
Where will we-
Kurt.
He examines her body with gentle fingers, finding her left wrist at a dreadful angle and drawing little moans from her when he touches at her ribcage. He’ll have to be careful, but there’s not much to be done.
He finds her face and pulls his hand back, a lash across the entirety of her left cheek. He bites his lip, cursing James with everything he is at the cruelty of this before smoothing her sticky hair and kissing her forehead.
I will get you there, Juney.
He forces his body to move, to stand and comply as he makes for the nearest horsestall and reaches for the tack.
***
Alisha’s room is downstairs beside the kitchen, close enough to the entryway door to hear if any intruders or late-callers come knocking in the night, but far enough where she feels so very lucky to have her own space in the grand home of the Hamiltons.
She had been 15 when Solara had found her at the market - her hair raggedy and her dress too short - and taken her in. Her parents had died of influenza in the winter and she had been unable to pay the bills on her own and thus had lost her home. Solara had taken her in, given her a wage, and taught her how to read.
Now, at 20, she finds her station in life quite comfortable. She has days off, she has blended into Solara’s family, and she feels at ease in her own skin in such a way that she could never repay.
The rapping at the door in the dead of night while the rain whips at the windowpanes, then, is nothing to her, although it is startling.
As soon as she hears it she jumps from the bed, adrenaline snapping and crackling under her skin as she grabs her housecoat and slippers and makes for the door. Her feet are silent, steady, as she hovers about the locks, her eyes flicking to the dagger sheathed beside the frame as she opens up their house to the knocking.
There’s a moment where she does nothing - can do nothing as her feet feel fused to the floor. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t...it would never have been...no one expects this.
In the moment it takes her to compose herself, Sebastian staggers to the doorframe but doesn’t push in. He simply stands under the cover of the overhang, getting himself and the little bundle he’s carrying out of the rain.
Alisha snaps herself out of her wonder, her brain catching up with what she’s seeing.
“What, I mean, you’re Toby, right? What happened to you? I mean-”
He hushes her with a glance, cradling the bundle in his arms and speaking, his voice high and cracked.
“Can you call a doctor? And...is Kurt here? I mean, I don’t know if he stays here but I need...we need so much help and I didn’t know who else to ask.”
Alisha strikes a match to light the candelabra in the entryway and gasps.
“Y-yes, I mean, I can wake the master and we’ll summon the doctor. Your face-”
She watches as he sways dangerously, the flickering light exposing him, his eyes both blue-black and swollen, a lash bleeding freely on the right side of his chin, his lip laid open and trickling. His clothes are soaked from the rain but blood is dotting it anew in a hundred places.
It’s the girl in his arms that spur her to move. She hadn’t realized it was a girl in the dark, but now she can see. Doesn’t want to, but can.
“I’ll just get the master.”
“Where can I...” Sebastian’s arms are shaking as she guides him to the sitting room and motions to the couch there.
“Put her here.” She says, then rushes to get Alander.
***
“Your highness.”
It can’t possibly be time to start the day.
“Your HIGHness...”
“Mmm...?”
“Kurt.”
This rouses him because he knows that voice, and it shouldn’t be here right now. He opens his eyes to Alander standing beside the bed, Ossir behind him, brandishing Kurt’s clothes.
He sits up and rubs quickly at his eyes as Alander speaks.
“You need to come with me, now. It’s Toby.”
Kurt’s chin flies up, his eyes wide, his body scrambling from the bed, anxious to get to his clothes as Ossir holds them out.
“Wh-”
“He arrived at Montaine a little over an hour ago, sire. He...” Alander trails off and then straightens his spine. “He had the girl with him, sire and they were both...they had been severely lashed. Alisha went to fetch the doctor but perhaps you could bring the palace physician as well? They are both...she especially could use the help.”
Kurt pulls his tunic tight over his chest, his eyes on Alander’s. There’s something he’s not saying.
“Was it him?” Kurt asks, teeth clenched as he sits quickly to tug on his boots, his thighs sinking into the edge of the bed. “Was it Amsterdam?”
“We think so, Kurt, but he only wants to see you, sire. He won’t talk to us, really and...he’s been whipped pretty badly and the girl, too.”
Kurt winces and turns to Ossir.
“Inform my father at once, and get a crew there. I am going to check on Toby and the girl and then I, too, will meet them at Amsterdam’s.
Ossir bows, a small “Yes, sire” as he hastily makes for the door.
***
The ride is wet and cold, Risky’s snorted breaths blowing out steam behind them like a burning furnace. Kurt keeps his mind steady, his hooded cloak shielding him from most of the weather.
Toby, Toby, Toby.
They haven’t known each other long - a little over two weeks - but his heart beats his name with longing, wanting to know more of him, help him, laugh with him. Kurt finds that Toby challenges him and entices his mind in a way no other man ever has.
He realizes with a jolt how much he wants to love Toby
Which is terrifying in and of itself.
He focuses on Risky, pushing her hard despite the rain, focusing on her hoofbeats and the hoofbeats of Alander beside him.
As they had left the castle a brigade had already assembled. His father had come to see him off, his mouth a thin line as he was told of Lord Amsterdam’s crimes.
He keeps coming back to what Alander had said about Juniper...about her face never being the same...
He pulls himself straighter as Montaine comes into view, Risky kicking off faster as she sees the stables she knows so well grow closer and closer. In moments they’re halting, Kurt dismounting quickly as one of the hands takes Risky’s reins, the heels of his boots squelching in the mud. He grimaces at the sound until he’s click-clicking across the stones to the front entrance.
Alisha meets him and takes his cloak while he pulls off his boots, mindful of Solara’s clean house. As he’s setting them aside he sees it - drips of blood across the boards leading to the sitting room. He looks up quickly and Alisha catches his eye.
“She’s on my bed, sire, and he’s in Alander’s.”
He nods and heads towards the downstairs bedroom, Alander and his palace physician tumbling through the front door behind him. He reaches the room and has to grip the doorframe.
Juniper’s little face, the left side twice the side of the right and laid open, the doctor in the room fumbling with soiled linens.
Kurt’s eyes fill and pool at her innocence lost, her stark white skin mottled red on the pale sheets; her wrapped wrist beside her. He moves to the bed, afraid to touch her but wanting to be near.
“How is she?” He asks, glancing at the doctor and then at the door as his own physician appears.
The older man looks up and his eyes widen. He quickly falls to his knees to bow, laying his head at the edge of the bed. Kurt tries to hide his shock; he never thinks of himself as Prince Kurt here. Just...Kurt.
“Please, please, doctor. Rise. How is she?”
The man glances up and then at Kurt’s physician.
“At least 4 broken ribs, multiple lashes that require stitching, and a broken right wrist, sire. I was going to send for help, but perhaps...”
Kurt nods at his own doctor and then replies.
“Anything you need, sir, Dr. Chandron shall provide. He is quite handy and able with stitches, as well.”
Chandron laughs, remembering quilting with Kurt and the ladies of court, much to the chagrin of the other physicians.
“And you are...?” Kurt asks, wanting to know the man’s name who had helped them already.
“Horace, Sire. Dr. Rufus Horace.”
“Alright, Dr. Horace. Have you been to see the other one? The man?”
“Not yet, Sire. He asked that I set right to the girl, get her wrist straight.”
Kurt’s heart speeds up, knowing without a doubt that Toby must be in much pain. He turns to Chandron, eyes bright with worry.
“Please, Doctor, set up here and then bring some pain relief to the man’s room while he waits. He can’t be in better shape, especially if he brought her here himself.”
Chandron nods and sets to unpacking his bags on the dresser behind them as Kurt slips from the room. He takes the stairs to Alander’s room two at a time, trying to stay as quiet as possible. He makes his way down the hall, the last door on the left and then gently knocks, Solara’s voice his answer.
“Come in,” she says, loud enough for him to hear, and he does.
Oh, Toby.
His face, too, is swollen, his eyes unrecognizable and dark with bruises. His lip and chin are split and he is laid open...everywhere. There isn’t a place that looks unharmed and Kurt’s face hardens, his anger slipping dangerously over his skin like armor.
Amsterdam...
He cannot tell if Toby is asleep but then-
“Kurt...?”
Toby’s voice, barely a whisper.
“I’m here.” His voice breaks on the second word but he bites his lip. “What happened?”
Solara pulls the washcloth from Toby’s head and drops it in the bowl of water beside the bed, fishing out a new one and wringing it out to place on him again.
“He’s...insane. He...I mean the rape wasn’t so...I mean it was bad, but I deserved it, I guess...for all the others and-”
Kurt’s fingers tighten into fists at his sides. The rape?
“I...I don’t know what happened toni...tonight. He...he was saying the craziest things and I just-”
There’s movement at the door, and Chandron appears.
“Sire?” He says, and Toby freezes, turning his face to the door.
Kurt sighs.
“Yes, Chandron?”
“I have enough for the young girl, sire, but we shall need more if we’re going to stitch him as well. There’s...so many.”
Kurt nods in agreement. “Ask Alander if he has someone to spare and send them back to the palace. Tell him to seek out Ossir and he will help him to your rooms. Thank you, Chandron.”
“Sire.” Kurt watches as he goes and then turns to Toby, the jig apparently up.
“You’re the prince?”
Kurt nods and then looks to Solara, who’s watching with interest, a small smile playing at her lips. “Yes. I should formally introduce myself, I suppose. Prince Kurt Hummelod, at your service. At this moment my father, King Hummelod, is seeking out your former master. He shall be punished for this, Toby.”
He reaches down to take Toby’s hand, wishing he could make it all go away.
Solara speaks before Toby can say a word.
“Yes, Sire, we have been having the most interesting talk in here. Perhaps you should ask your friend to introduce himself, as well.”
Kurt’s blood pulses sharp, remembering the conversation he had had with Amsterdam earlier in the evening. No...
Toby seems like he’s trying to laugh, but his lungs whistle and he grimaces in pain.
“Well, no shit. Aren’t we a pair of liars. Kurt Hummelod, it’s an honor to meet you. I am Prince Sebastian Smythe.”
Part One Two Three Four Five Six / Seven
Warning for this chapter: graphic violence/whipping.
____
“Get up.”
Sebastian shakes himself out of the sleep he had been in. He had mucked the stalls for the entire afternoon, hyper aware of the consequences if he didn’t finish. The consequences were sometimes the same if he did finish his work as if he didn’t, but that didn’t stop the idea of some control over the situation taking over his brain. So he mucked stalls. And rubbed all the horses down. And brushed each and every horse or mule until it shone.
Then he had collapsed into the clean hay at the end of the stalls and fallen asleep.
Rousing, now, he’s disoriented and cold, the night blowing frigid wind over the pasture and threatening rain. There’s thunder in the distance and he knows the storm’s not far off. He’s contemplating how far off when he’s struck, blindingly hard, in the face.
His body makes to retreat into the straw, but it’s packed and solid, not something he can move into before another blow is rained down, this time right to his left eye. He feels the skin split below it, his face suddenly wet with the gush of his own blood.
“Why-”
He tries to speak but is immediately muzzled with a hand over his mouth, a knee in his ribs, bruising if not cracking.
“You shut your cock-hole, boy,” James sneers, his breath inches from his face. “I already know what you did - running crying to the prince. But he’s not gonna find you.”
On the last word James’ other hand punches at his right eye, and Sebastian sees stars.
“I didn’t- I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he screams, his legs scrambling for purchase against the slippery hay, his fingertips bleeding, cut rough with the edges of the straw as he tries to gain freedom.
Jame pulls himself to full height at his words and strides across the stable to the wall of tack. Sebastian works to pull himself off the hay, betrayed by his shaking body. He’s weak from the weeks of little food and abuse; from lack of sleep and anxiety. He barely makes it to his knees when James returns and Sebastian’s eyes are drawn instantly to his hand.
The whip there.
“No, please, I didn’t-”
“Don’t lie to me, Smythe, I’ve already been to court. I know you’ve been sneaking around. And now the prince is interested in you.” He takes a step back, bracing himself as Sebastian watches as if in slow motion, his arm coming up with the whip and then back down, his own shirt splitting as well as the skin beneath it, burning and spiking with pain.
“Filth!” James is screaming at him, his arm swinging again, hitting Sebastian’s thigh. Again, his left wrist, pouring out onto the stable floor. Again, the side of his neck, a sheet of blood down his front. Sebastian holds up his arms in defense, what feeble one he has and realizes.
This is how I’m going to die, he thinks, his eyes locked on James’ terrible form, the lashes meeting others, opening his skin wider and wider until it feels like every piece of him is bleeding. He’s gone insane. And indeed, James does look crazy, his hair in disarray and his clothes a blood-splattered mess.
Sebastian struggles to move again, a final effort to get away when he hears it, and dread settles into his bones at her voice.
“YOU GET’N OFFENHIM, SIR!”
No, no Juney, no-
“N-no, n-n-” He tries to speak, spitting blood from the tear at his lip, but he can’t seem to coordinate his limbs.
All he can do is watch.
Watch as the monster turns on Juniper where she stands fierce at his elbow, his eyes wild with hate.
Watch as he grabs her and throws her to the ground before he kicks her and then lifts the whip over and over, her screams bouncing and rebounding throughout the stable.
Her tattered dress stripped to ribbons and flush with red.
Watches him kick her little body until she stops moving and Sebastian could cry it’s so still.
And then he blacks out.
***
It’s raining.
He can’t feel the rain, all he can feel is the ache in his body and bone-deep exhaustion, but he can hear it pelting the earth outside; feel the wind barrel through the stable.
It’s dark and he can’t quite recall why he’s in the stable and not in his lean-to. His body feels torn loose, red-hot seams where skin used to be.
Because...
Because James...
He sits bolt upright and immediately regrets it, wounds on his back opening anew, the sickly pop of blood splattering the straw. Each movement is a renewed whipping; the slits in his skin reminding him that he shouldn’t move but he needs to...to see...but his eyes are so swollen his vision is limited at best, tiny slits of what he normally can see.
He pulls himself toward the wall, the straw unforgiving against his ruined skin, poking and opening wounds over and over as he grits his teeth to get purchase on the wall. He gets there and pulls himself up, up until he’s standing, swaying dangerously, but standing nonetheless.
He sweeps his gaze around the dark stable and sees nothing but shadows - the barest outlines of what he know to be there in the day and curses under his breath. He doesn’t want to feel with his feet, he doesn’t want to risk hurting Juniper further, if she’s still here. He stands there, frozen for a moment as his sluggish brain tries to work out a plan when lightning strikes the field outside, illuminating the stable for the barest moment and there - on the ground just inside the back door - is the smallest outline of something.
Please, he sends out into the world as he shuffles his way to her, new scabs tearing and blood flowing down his legs.
Please, I can’t make it through this one, too. Please just...please.
Sebastian gets to the door and lowers himself to the ground, patting and feeling until he finds cold, wet skin; ribbons of soiled fabric, and he knows he’s found her leg. He moves up, careful not to touch too much, dread curling low in his stomach at how many lashes he encounters, until he gets to her chest. He lays his hand over her heart, hoping, hoping.
His breath catches as he feels her take her own, a ragged little sigh of oxygen into her lungs, and he could cry - does begin to, when he realizes she’s alive.
Barely, maybe.
I need to-
Where will we-
Kurt.
He examines her body with gentle fingers, finding her left wrist at a dreadful angle and drawing little moans from her when he touches at her ribcage. He’ll have to be careful, but there’s not much to be done.
He finds her face and pulls his hand back, a lash across the entirety of her left cheek. He bites his lip, cursing James with everything he is at the cruelty of this before smoothing her sticky hair and kissing her forehead.
I will get you there, Juney.
He forces his body to move, to stand and comply as he makes for the nearest horsestall and reaches for the tack.
***
Alisha’s room is downstairs beside the kitchen, close enough to the entryway door to hear if any intruders or late-callers come knocking in the night, but far enough where she feels so very lucky to have her own space in the grand home of the Hamiltons.
She had been 15 when Solara had found her at the market - her hair raggedy and her dress too short - and taken her in. Her parents had died of influenza in the winter and she had been unable to pay the bills on her own and thus had lost her home. Solara had taken her in, given her a wage, and taught her how to read.
Now, at 20, she finds her station in life quite comfortable. She has days off, she has blended into Solara’s family, and she feels at ease in her own skin in such a way that she could never repay.
The rapping at the door in the dead of night while the rain whips at the windowpanes, then, is nothing to her, although it is startling.
As soon as she hears it she jumps from the bed, adrenaline snapping and crackling under her skin as she grabs her housecoat and slippers and makes for the door. Her feet are silent, steady, as she hovers about the locks, her eyes flicking to the dagger sheathed beside the frame as she opens up their house to the knocking.
There’s a moment where she does nothing - can do nothing as her feet feel fused to the floor. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t...it would never have been...no one expects this.
In the moment it takes her to compose herself, Sebastian staggers to the doorframe but doesn’t push in. He simply stands under the cover of the overhang, getting himself and the little bundle he’s carrying out of the rain.
Alisha snaps herself out of her wonder, her brain catching up with what she’s seeing.
“What, I mean, you’re Toby, right? What happened to you? I mean-”
He hushes her with a glance, cradling the bundle in his arms and speaking, his voice high and cracked.
“Can you call a doctor? And...is Kurt here? I mean, I don’t know if he stays here but I need...we need so much help and I didn’t know who else to ask.”
Alisha strikes a match to light the candelabra in the entryway and gasps.
“Y-yes, I mean, I can wake the master and we’ll summon the doctor. Your face-”
She watches as he sways dangerously, the flickering light exposing him, his eyes both blue-black and swollen, a lash bleeding freely on the right side of his chin, his lip laid open and trickling. His clothes are soaked from the rain but blood is dotting it anew in a hundred places.
It’s the girl in his arms that spur her to move. She hadn’t realized it was a girl in the dark, but now she can see. Doesn’t want to, but can.
“I’ll just get the master.”
“Where can I...” Sebastian’s arms are shaking as she guides him to the sitting room and motions to the couch there.
“Put her here.” She says, then rushes to get Alander.
***
“Your highness.”
It can’t possibly be time to start the day.
“Your HIGHness...”
“Mmm...?”
“Kurt.”
This rouses him because he knows that voice, and it shouldn’t be here right now. He opens his eyes to Alander standing beside the bed, Ossir behind him, brandishing Kurt’s clothes.
He sits up and rubs quickly at his eyes as Alander speaks.
“You need to come with me, now. It’s Toby.”
Kurt’s chin flies up, his eyes wide, his body scrambling from the bed, anxious to get to his clothes as Ossir holds them out.
“Wh-”
“He arrived at Montaine a little over an hour ago, sire. He...” Alander trails off and then straightens his spine. “He had the girl with him, sire and they were both...they had been severely lashed. Alisha went to fetch the doctor but perhaps you could bring the palace physician as well? They are both...she especially could use the help.”
Kurt pulls his tunic tight over his chest, his eyes on Alander’s. There’s something he’s not saying.
“Was it him?” Kurt asks, teeth clenched as he sits quickly to tug on his boots, his thighs sinking into the edge of the bed. “Was it Amsterdam?”
“We think so, Kurt, but he only wants to see you, sire. He won’t talk to us, really and...he’s been whipped pretty badly and the girl, too.”
Kurt winces and turns to Ossir.
“Inform my father at once, and get a crew there. I am going to check on Toby and the girl and then I, too, will meet them at Amsterdam’s.
Ossir bows, a small “Yes, sire” as he hastily makes for the door.
***
The ride is wet and cold, Risky’s snorted breaths blowing out steam behind them like a burning furnace. Kurt keeps his mind steady, his hooded cloak shielding him from most of the weather.
Toby, Toby, Toby.
They haven’t known each other long - a little over two weeks - but his heart beats his name with longing, wanting to know more of him, help him, laugh with him. Kurt finds that Toby challenges him and entices his mind in a way no other man ever has.
He realizes with a jolt how much he wants to love Toby
Which is terrifying in and of itself.
He focuses on Risky, pushing her hard despite the rain, focusing on her hoofbeats and the hoofbeats of Alander beside him.
As they had left the castle a brigade had already assembled. His father had come to see him off, his mouth a thin line as he was told of Lord Amsterdam’s crimes.
He keeps coming back to what Alander had said about Juniper...about her face never being the same...
He pulls himself straighter as Montaine comes into view, Risky kicking off faster as she sees the stables she knows so well grow closer and closer. In moments they’re halting, Kurt dismounting quickly as one of the hands takes Risky’s reins, the heels of his boots squelching in the mud. He grimaces at the sound until he’s click-clicking across the stones to the front entrance.
Alisha meets him and takes his cloak while he pulls off his boots, mindful of Solara’s clean house. As he’s setting them aside he sees it - drips of blood across the boards leading to the sitting room. He looks up quickly and Alisha catches his eye.
“She’s on my bed, sire, and he’s in Alander’s.”
He nods and heads towards the downstairs bedroom, Alander and his palace physician tumbling through the front door behind him. He reaches the room and has to grip the doorframe.
Juniper’s little face, the left side twice the side of the right and laid open, the doctor in the room fumbling with soiled linens.
Kurt’s eyes fill and pool at her innocence lost, her stark white skin mottled red on the pale sheets; her wrapped wrist beside her. He moves to the bed, afraid to touch her but wanting to be near.
“How is she?” He asks, glancing at the doctor and then at the door as his own physician appears.
The older man looks up and his eyes widen. He quickly falls to his knees to bow, laying his head at the edge of the bed. Kurt tries to hide his shock; he never thinks of himself as Prince Kurt here. Just...Kurt.
“Please, please, doctor. Rise. How is she?”
The man glances up and then at Kurt’s physician.
“At least 4 broken ribs, multiple lashes that require stitching, and a broken right wrist, sire. I was going to send for help, but perhaps...”
Kurt nods at his own doctor and then replies.
“Anything you need, sir, Dr. Chandron shall provide. He is quite handy and able with stitches, as well.”
Chandron laughs, remembering quilting with Kurt and the ladies of court, much to the chagrin of the other physicians.
“And you are...?” Kurt asks, wanting to know the man’s name who had helped them already.
“Horace, Sire. Dr. Rufus Horace.”
“Alright, Dr. Horace. Have you been to see the other one? The man?”
“Not yet, Sire. He asked that I set right to the girl, get her wrist straight.”
Kurt’s heart speeds up, knowing without a doubt that Toby must be in much pain. He turns to Chandron, eyes bright with worry.
“Please, Doctor, set up here and then bring some pain relief to the man’s room while he waits. He can’t be in better shape, especially if he brought her here himself.”
Chandron nods and sets to unpacking his bags on the dresser behind them as Kurt slips from the room. He takes the stairs to Alander’s room two at a time, trying to stay as quiet as possible. He makes his way down the hall, the last door on the left and then gently knocks, Solara’s voice his answer.
“Come in,” she says, loud enough for him to hear, and he does.
Oh, Toby.
His face, too, is swollen, his eyes unrecognizable and dark with bruises. His lip and chin are split and he is laid open...everywhere. There isn’t a place that looks unharmed and Kurt’s face hardens, his anger slipping dangerously over his skin like armor.
Amsterdam...
He cannot tell if Toby is asleep but then-
“Kurt...?”
Toby’s voice, barely a whisper.
“I’m here.” His voice breaks on the second word but he bites his lip. “What happened?”
Solara pulls the washcloth from Toby’s head and drops it in the bowl of water beside the bed, fishing out a new one and wringing it out to place on him again.
“He’s...insane. He...I mean the rape wasn’t so...I mean it was bad, but I deserved it, I guess...for all the others and-”
Kurt’s fingers tighten into fists at his sides. The rape?
“I...I don’t know what happened toni...tonight. He...he was saying the craziest things and I just-”
There’s movement at the door, and Chandron appears.
“Sire?” He says, and Toby freezes, turning his face to the door.
Kurt sighs.
“Yes, Chandron?”
“I have enough for the young girl, sire, but we shall need more if we’re going to stitch him as well. There’s...so many.”
Kurt nods in agreement. “Ask Alander if he has someone to spare and send them back to the palace. Tell him to seek out Ossir and he will help him to your rooms. Thank you, Chandron.”
“Sire.” Kurt watches as he goes and then turns to Toby, the jig apparently up.
“You’re the prince?”
Kurt nods and then looks to Solara, who’s watching with interest, a small smile playing at her lips. “Yes. I should formally introduce myself, I suppose. Prince Kurt Hummelod, at your service. At this moment my father, King Hummelod, is seeking out your former master. He shall be punished for this, Toby.”
He reaches down to take Toby’s hand, wishing he could make it all go away.
Solara speaks before Toby can say a word.
“Yes, Sire, we have been having the most interesting talk in here. Perhaps you should ask your friend to introduce himself, as well.”
Kurt’s blood pulses sharp, remembering the conversation he had had with Amsterdam earlier in the evening. No...
Toby seems like he’s trying to laugh, but his lungs whistle and he grimaces in pain.
“Well, no shit. Aren’t we a pair of liars. Kurt Hummelod, it’s an honor to meet you. I am Prince Sebastian Smythe.”