Okay, peeps

[maderr]

It is supremely frustrating to want so badly to work on unfinished stuff, esp. when people keep asking for it -__- I tried all morning to work on the Treasure rewrite, then necromancer, then a fairytale...but it wasn't until I finally gave up and started on this that I actually really started writing. I fail *sigh*

But, this is a bit different than my usual stuff. What do the beloved masses think?

The Last Tale of the Cursed Knight

It was a gloomy, miserable day. The sort that made everyone want to crawl right back into their beds and remain there until the sun returned. Thunder and lightning and rain that fell hard enough it stung the skin, so dense it was impossible to see. It very much felt as though the sky was falling, crashing down upon the world in cold, stinging pieces.

All the palace wandered about as though burdened. Sluggish, aimless, even the servants could not muster energy, and them masters had not the will to reprimand them.

He sat by the fire in the great hall, reading a book, patiently enduring the weather until it changed. The flames turned his silvered hair a warm gold, and the flickering cast his face into random shadows that for brief moments, reminded viewers how handsome he had been many years ago.

The sound of grumbling and fussing stirred him, and he closed his book as a gaggle of children approached him, trailed by their tutor, who looked as though he wished he were permitted to lash each and every one of them.

"Grandpapa," a little girl said plaintively.

He chuckled softly. "It is too early in the morning for such faces. Why are you frowning, so? Pretty girls should not pout."

"We don't want lessons," she said, as forthright as ever, so very much like her mother, just accepting as her due that the other children would follow and obey, and the adults would listen to her.

It made him laugh again. Setting his book on the small table alongside his chair, he reached out to tug one of her fat, dark curls. "You are spoiled, but pretty girls always are, I suppose. You must have lessons, child. I know the weather makes everyone unhappy, but it will pass. That is no excuse to skip your lessons. A good girl does what she must, even when she does not want to."

"Would you teach us?" said another child. "You teach best." He clasped his hands to his chest nervously, blue eyes too big for his face, but he did not back down when he was looked at and chuckled over in his turn. Quiet, but it was the sort that indicated a strength into which the boy would someday grow. He was more subtle this his forthright sister.

He looked over the children, all but vibrating in place, and at the long-suffering expression of the tutor – who probably had done his very best to manage the children. He had, after all, chosen the tutor himself.

"What were you teaching them?" he asked, not quite conceding defeat yet.

"History," the tutor said. "I thought stories would hold their interest where naught else could, but I'm afraid even that won't work – with me, anyway. I am sorry to disturb you, Highness, but I thought perhaps they would listen to you instead."

"There is no need to apologize," he said calmly. "I think it is a poor day for facts. Reality is dreary enough, today, hmm? Would you children like a story?"

The children cheered and clustered close to him, bickering loudly over what story they wanted.

"What about the cursed knight?" A voice asked, cutting through all the others, making the entire room stop.

His mouth quirked in a smile, sharing a look with the speaker that said they both knew what the other was thinking. All around them people scraped and bowed, murmuring honorifics and polite inquiries, servants rushing to help the newcomer settle comfortably in a seat opposite his own. "The cursed knight?" he finally asked. "What made you dredge up that old thing?"

The man laughed. "Maybe the rain makes me nostalgic. I do believe that's how it all began, hmm? A night very much like this day…"

"So it was," he said idly, casting out his memory, drawing back moments and times and places he'd not thought hard upon for years now. They were always there, warm at the back of his mind, but rarely came to the fore. He didn't need them at the fore.

He motioned for the servants to bring cushions and blankets, food and drink, so the children might be comfortable and remain so for some time. If chairs and tables and more cushions were brought for a number of adults, servants and nobles alike, he paid it no mind. If they wanted to listen to old stories on such a dreary day, far be it for him to complain.

Looking up, he once more met the eyes of his oldest friend, the only one who knew the story as well as he, for though it had ended with several, it had truly begun with only the two of them…

When everyone was finally settled and ready, a dozen or so pairs of eyes locked eagerly upon him, he took a sip of his tea and finally began. "As his Majesty said, the story of the cursed knight began on a night as dreary and dark as this…"

Part One: The Questor and the Rogue

Chapter One

There was nothing for it except to get drunk.

How in the hells had he gotten into this? How was he going to get out of it? Why could he not keep his mouth shut just once?

He knew why, though, and refused to think upon it. Refused.

Knocking back the last of his ale, he called for a second, throwing down the necessary coin when the wench eyed him with a distrustful frown. "My coin is good and plenty, chit," he told her. "Never fear I'll start to drink for free."

"I'm more afraid you'll fall down dead," she snapped. "I've already had to drag one body of here this month, don't you dare make it two."

He laughed. "I'm not that lucky."

Rolling her eyes, the woman left him to go help someone else.

The din of the overcrowded tavern was briefly drowned out by the crashing boom of thunder, the shutters over the windows rattling and banging, threads of lightning flashing through for short bursts.

It was a night perfectly suited to his mood. He lingered briefly over the idea of simply giving up and going back home, but in the next breath dismissed the notion. Better to die than turn back, not with the challenge he'd been thrown, the offer of a throne as his reward.

Not that the dratted woman would actually follow through. Oh, no, their latest shouting match had been far too vocal for that. He wouldn't back down from the damned quest, but he didn't actually expect to marry her Highness at the end of it either.

He ignored the thoughts that tried to surface, refusing to think of anything but the challenge issued, the way her eyes had flashed with fury after all the insults they had exchanged. Accepting the challenge had not been his brightest moment. It would be more accurate to say it had been his dumbest moment, and given how often he was made to muck stables rather than tend his proper knightly duties…

There was a very long list of stupid moments.

Something about that damned Harpy just brought out the stupid in him.

Well, if he succeeded – ha! – this would shut her up for good, one way or the other. As she'd probably rather kill herself than follow through on her angrily-made promise…

He sighed and finished his latest ale, then bellowed for another.

The door opened with a loud bang, as the wind snatched it from the hand of the newcomer who had pushed it open. For a moment the entire tavern went dead silent, but almost immediately the noise resumed.

He eyed the newcomer with disinterest…but felt a bit of sympathy as he realized the man was looking for a place to sit. The weather as miserable as it was, everyone had abandoned their homes to make merry in the tavern. As this pitiful village had only one…

When the stranger looked his way, he motioned with his empty tankard for the man to join him.

The stranger smiled and moved as quickly across the crowded room as was possible, dropping down into the seat opposite with a sigh. "Thank you."

"I am too interested in getting drunk to care if someone bears close witness," he replied. "I am even just drunk enough to be generous. You look as though you fought a battle with the rain and lost." He turned and signaled to the wench, who nodded and went to fetch a second tankard to go with his own fresh one.

"Lost and taken prisoner," the stranger replied with a smile. "Now I hope to make merry with generous amounts of ale. My name is Raban."

"Nights like this, generous amounts of ale is the wisest decision a man can make," he replied. "My name is Clovis." He lifted his tankard as it was set in front of him. "Here's to lousy weather and drinking companions."

"Here, here," Raban replied, grinning as they clinked their tankards, then both men drank deeply. "You look as though you have been imbibing for some time."

"Not nearly enough," Clovis replied. "I can still think, therefore I am not sufficiently drunk."

Raban laughed. "We can cure that. You look like a man with more than weather on his mind, but it is not my place to pry. By your accent, you are from our fair capital."

Clovis grunted. "Aye, and I left it only six days ago, under heavy protest and a desire to drink myself to death. So far, it is not working."

"I see," Raban said. "But if you are so recently departed, do you know anything of the strange rumors flying around about the Princess sending a man on quest? I was quite astonished to hear such rumors."

Setting his ale down before he choked, Clovis started laughing – and could not stop for several minutes. He drank deeply of his ale, banishing images of red-gold curls and furious hazel eyes, a voice that more often than not was pitched to shatter glass and terrify mortals.

Most people fled from her presence. He'd always been stupid enough to stand right in her path. Always she punished him by sending him to muck out stables – days at a time, weeks at a time, her record was ordering it for three months. Three days after that sentence ended, he'd angered her again and gone straight back to it for two weeks.

He was the laughingstock of the palace, the greatest amusement of the entire capital – and now the country, as a knight turned stable boy ran off to quest for a hand in marriage he would never actually be granted.

All because the woman pissed everyone off and he was the only one stupid enough to say it and challenge her.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to pay attention. "You see before you," he explained at the bewildered look Raban was giving him, "the noble questor who goes to scale the Shining Mountain and obtain proof the deed was done.

"All to marry the one everyone calls the Royal Harpy?"

Clovis shrugged. "My mouth gets me in a lot of trouble, and coupled with my pride – this is hardly the first tricky situation in which I've mired myself, though it is by far the most…unique."

Raban laughed. "Do I wish you luck, or help you try and drink yourself to death?"

"I don't know," Clovis said, startling himself. Honesty, ugh. How distasteful.

The smile Raban gave him was sympathetic. "Here, I shall order you another ale. Perhaps some food as well? I do not know about you, but I am quite famished. Traveling is hard enough, even after all these years, without adding bad weather."

"You are a rogue?" Come to think of it, he could hear no accent in Raban's voice…though, no, that wasn't entirely true. He still spoke some things with a familiarity that only a native could, and he had immediately marked Clovis as being from the capital. No foreigner would know such a thing, and definitely not so quickly.

Raban grinned. "Aye. I left home when I was still young and stupid. My father and I argued fiercely over what I would do with my life, what I should be and how I would go about becoming it. We could not see eye to eye, and so I left. That pride you mentioned is an affliction I share, or did once…now…" His grin turned sad. "Now I fear I simply no longer have a home to which I might return. I sense no welcome is left for me. So I have become a rogue, going everywhere but home." He smiled ruefully. "It would seem honesty is the game of the hour."

Clovis snorted and beckoned for the wench. "Ale and food, if you please. Whatever you have ready." He reached for more coin, but before he could Raban threw down a handful.

The wench scooped them up and bustled off, and Clovis absently admired that she had the patience and talent for dealing with such a crowd – especially since it was clear that more than a few men in the room would like to offer her money for something that was neither food nor ale. She was comely, or likely would be when less harried, but he could not bring himself to particularly care.

He drowned his thoughts in ale before they could rise up to torment him again.

"So any advice, rogue Raban, to offer a fool who must climb the Shining Mountain."

Raban smiled sheepishly. "I've traveled far and wide, to places both beautiful and strange, cross oceans and gotten myself lost in places where I could not speak the language…but though I've climbed at least a dozen mountains, the Shining Mountain in not amongst them."

Clovis looked at him in disbelief. Every other idiot in the country tried to climb the Shining Mountain to try in hopes of find the home of the Forgotten King.

"Pride and youthful stupidity, remember?" Raban replied, relaxing in his seat, smiling in amusement. "I was determined to avoid my father or anyone he might send after me. Everyone went to the Shining Mountain, so I decided that must be where I definitely did not go. Ever since, I've preferred to explore other places. The Shining Mountain holds no interest for me."

Clovis snorted. "Having your heart's desire does not interest you?"

Raban met the snort with one of his own. "Children's myths do not interest me. That which I most want, no one can give me, least of all a legend." He paused as the wench returned with their food and drink, pressing another coin into her hand.

"So I am as lost as ever," Clovis said with a sigh, sipping at his ale for a moment before tearing into a piece of bread, dunking it into the steaming stew before him. "Perhaps I will get myself killed before I even reach the mountain. It would not surprise me."

"You could always get yourself done in by bandits. There's always a band of them in the Red Forest, especially this time of year. Though not in the weather. I wouldn't be surprised if the bandits were amongst the rabble packed in here."

Clovis laughed at that. "Where are you heading once the rain ceases and we are finally free to go on our way?"

Raban shrugged, staring pensively at the worn, scuffed tabletop. "I…had not thought on it…my feet drew me this way, but they grow cold the closer I get…" He looked up, eyes curving in amusement. "Would you like an assistant questor? I am well-traveled, I could guide and advise, and together I'm sure we could muddle our way up that blasted mountain."

A knot in Clovis' chest eased, and not until that moment had he realized it was there. As much trouble as he was often in, and being the near-constant focus of the Princess' wrath…left few opportunities to make friends, and he'd never really had any.

Could this possibly be a chance at a friendship? He did not dare get his hopes up, but… He tried a smile, a real and true smile, and found it was not so hard a thing to wear upon his face. "If you are that desperate for amusement, I will gladly welcome your presence."

Raban matched his smile, and lifted his tankard. "Then here is to quests, and troublesome royals…and new friends."

"Yes," Clovis agreed, smile turning into a full-fledged grin as they knocked their tankards together.

They settled to eating and drinking, sharing a silence that was easy and relaxed. Clovis marveled at it, unable to resist smiling just a little bit. Maybe this idiotic quest was not a complete waste, if it gave him a chance to acquire a friend – even if they would part ways eventually.

He shook off thoughts that threatened to dampen his newly acquired good mood, digging into his food with an appetite he'd not had for days.

"I wonder if we stand a chance of finding a bed tonight," Raban said eventually, pushing away his empty bowl and taking up his ale again.

"I've got a room," Clovis replied. "It was the first thing I did upon arrival, since the storm was on my heels and I had no desire to sleep in a stable."

Raban smiled over the top of his tankard. "Splendid. I shall have to pay my share of it, or buy us breakfast in the morning."

"The room is paid, so I will take the breakfast gladly."

"Done," Raban said cheerfully.

Clovis started to speak when he was abruptly shoved forward, hard enough his head knocked against his tankard, spilling it – and before he could recover, he was shoved a second time, head crashing into the table proper this time, stars bursting across his vision.

He struggled to stand, snarling curses, finally getting out of his seat and spinning around to confront his assailant. "What in the hells is your problem?" he demanded.

"Bugger off," the man snarled. "You've nothing to do with this."

Around them the tavern had gotten a bit more quiet, though there was still a din.

Clovis bristled. "You just spilled my ale and knocked my head about. I'll take an apology, sirrah!"

"You'll be the next to take a beating if you don't bugger off," the man snarled.

His height and breadth should have been intimidating, but Clovis had been fighting back against men twice his size for what seemed his entire life. What else did one do when he was the bastard spawn of a woman who loved wine more than her own son? Those made easy prey…until the prey learned to fight back.

"I said I will take an apology, sirrah," he retorted.

Sneering, the rude oaf threw the man he'd been slowly choking to death – right into Clovis.

Roaring a curse, Clovis struggled to shove the unconscious man off, then scrambled to his feet, drawing his sword as he did so.

He needn't have bothered.

Raban stood with his sword to the bastard's throat, a thin line of blood trickling. "Apologize to my friend, or you will be apologizing to the Mother."

The bastard laughed. "I make apologies to no one. If he didn't want to get knocked about, he should have told his whore mother to spread her legs for a man with stronger seed."

Clovis roared in outrage and lunged, sword flashing – meeting with the steel of Raban's sword.

"Enough, my friend," Raban said calmly. "We do not want—"

He let out a grunt as the bastard knocked him across the head, too fast for Clovis to call a warning. He watched as Raban dropped to the ground.

Then he lost his temper.

Chapter Two