by frankie (dup) » Thu Jun 02, 2016 2:51 pm
Genre: Fantasy.
Word count: 1113
Follow up: ---
Characters:
Name: Ben Mike Norris
Gender: Male
Age: 12
Hair color: Brown
Eye color: Grey
Role: Protagonist
Name: Arthur Kelly Jones
Gender: Male
Age: 12
Hair color: Blond
Eye color: Brown
Role: Deuratagonist
Ben expected the days leading up to the siege to be calm, but they anything but.
t was training, training, training, from six am to eight pm, and the were sent to bed at ten.
Ben went to sleep every night feeling uncomfortable, but sleep always overtook him quickly, being so exhausted.
Arthur woke him up with a rough shaking in the morning, and Ben did nothing but slap in n the face and try to go back to sleep. "G away," he muttered, and buried his face in the pillow. "I don't wanna train."
"It's ten in the morning."
That woke him up. Ben shot straight up and stared at Arthur, grey eyes wide.
"It's only going until five today. It starts in an hour."
He beamed at the idea of only seven hours of training instead of the far more grueling fourteen, but his stomach dropped into his shoes when he remembered that today was the day the rebel group was going to take the castle.
"Dude, you okay?" Arthur's concerned brown eyes were aimed half at the floor, and half at Ben.
"I'm fine," Ben said. "But something's been nagging at me. We're twelve, and they expect us to lay siege to a castle. How does that work?"
Arthur shrugged. "I've been training for a long time, and you... and you... You know your way around the castle"
Ben shivered. He did know the way, but the responsibility of leading a rebel group through his own castle to destroy it was already swamping him, as was the ever more daunting prospect in playing a part in Rosehart's destiny whatever that was.
He sighed and smoothed his hair back. "Let's go and get our minds off this," he suggested, voice cracking. "They give us free time, let's use it."
He forced a smile and shrugged.
Arthur nodded, slowly, but it was a yes none the less. "Alright. C'mon."
Arthur's idea of fun turned out to be more training, but in this case, it was something Ben was good at and actually liked.
Running.
Many of the town kids stereotyped the royal family as living large and lazy, but this was not the case- at the very least, not with Ben.
Ben was a runner. Every day he would go out and run for at least a mile, but he was still small and scrawny. After the grueling training, though, his skin was though and he actually had muscles now. He'd been hoping for an eight-pack when he got into his pajamas, but no such luck.
Artur wasn't super good at running. He as clumsy and often stumbled, and didn't have the best endurance, either.
"Slow down!" He protested. "t's not a race!
"IIIIII don't caaaaare!" Ben sang, and only picked up his pace.
He reached the two mile mark a few minutes before Arthur, and then they turned and ran back just in time for training.
It was more grueling than the other two days before- one when Ben arrived, and another the day after, but it was much shorter, and they were allowed to relax for a while until... it.
When 'it' came, the rebel group was called to the main room and the plan was explained. Be would guide them through the castle, and the rebel group would threaten to torch it if their opposers didn't back down. If they didn't, the rebel group made it clear not to hesitate to burn the castle down.
"These people are hardcore," Ben muttered as sticks were passed out to each of them.
Ben stared at it. It was the strangest torch he'd ever seen. One end was black and felt like rubber, while he other was blue and seemed to made of he same substance. The middle felt very strange, like metal combined with plastic and wood.
He was also given a simple lighter, and told to to light the stick yet, though a boy a ear or two older than him did so, and was immediately hosed.
"Out," the person clutching the hose said, and with a grumble, the boy threw the smoking torch to the ground.
Ben felt sorry for him, but the display had given him a vague understanding of how the torches worked.
The blue end lit, and blazed bright and hot, when the water hit it, it went out immediately, not even a second of life for the flame t gasp.
Ben gingerly held his and once everyone had theirs, the group set off.
They reached the castle, but it was unguarded, to their relief, and quiet when they stepped in.
"Is this a trap?" Arthur's voice as the meekest he'd ever heard it, and Ben shrugged. "Dunno. Wanna pair up?"
Arthur nodded glumly, and they headed down the corridor together. The rule was that Ben would pair up with one or two rebels, and if he ran into another, he'd pair up with them.
Suddenly, the smell of smoke wafted into Ben's nostrils and he shared a brief glance with Arthur before lighting his torch.
As he took a tapestry- his favorite one, sadly and stepped back as the flames ate up the tapestry with their deadly tongues.
"So how does it work?" Ben asked as he slashed at another tapestry.
Arthur rolled his eyes. "You really don't get out much, do you?"
Ben snorted and shrugged, and Arthur continued.
"These are special torches. The fire dancers use them on floors made out of the same stuff as the middle. The blue end light. The black one doesn't, and if a spark touches the center or the black, nothing happens. If you extinguish the flame, you have to water it down as well or it'll just light again."
Ben nodded and spotted a man clothed in black running up to them, stark against the orange flames.
Ben and Arthur braced for a fight, but beamed when they saw that the man as on their side. "We won," he said proudly. "The war, I mean. They surrendered I think the sorcerers we got to help were useful."
Ben pumped his fist into the air and nearly lit his hair on fire. "Ga!" He said, lowering the torch.
Arthur laughed. Hard.
The days following the win, Ben didn't know what to do, but Arthur calmed him down him by punching him in the shoulder and calling him a dummy. "You're going to live with me, duh," he said. "You and the rest of your innocent family."
Ben smiled and returned the punch.
The next day he teleported for the second time, and laughed as his siblings ran around shocked at the idea of teleportation in Arthur's backyard.
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