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A loud bang went off just as Claude flicked away a bullet flying towards the person he was suppose to protect at all costs. His ears told him that someone was in the way of the blast and that with their skillset, they would most certainly die. He cussed under his breath as he turned around and shot out towards the idiot who stood in the way. The blast slowly dispersed around him sending a blue fiery vortex in all directions. The idiot of a person was Nimon, Claude recognised him. He had kicked up quite the fuss some time prior. Nimon was of the Holy Fire Tribe, or as Claude calls them, the all-bark-no-bite tribe (he calls all Holy Tribes that).
He leaped in front of Nimon and as he looked up, he saw a hand through the fire reaching towards where his heart would be, if he had a heart. In place of a heart, he had something called a life stone, which was what kept him “alive”, if one could even call his condition alive. The explosion continued to rage on. Claude knew he would not survive. That hand was reaching for his life stone and when it succeeds, he will disintegrate into a million pieces of dust.
Claude closed his eyes calmly, he had seen this coming. In fact, he was expecting it. As his own movement speed slowed to a stop in front of Nimon, he shoved the young warrior of the Light out of the way and slammed him on to the ground, to safety. The explosion around him sped up to its actual speed. Correctly speaking, it would be that Claude’s perspective of time aligned with that a normal person would see.
The explosion raged, blue flames swiftly followed by red flames and was then countered by the orange and yellow flames of Nimon’s Holy Fire Tribe. The heat knocked out Claude as his system shut down. He assumed it was because his life stone had been ripped from inside of him.
Somewhere further back, he heard familiar voices scream in agony as they watched him fade. Dark Cloud, the poor child, Claude thought, he’s had such a tragic upbringing, yet he was destined only for more tragedies.
*
Claude’s red eyes flashed open as the last of his memories finished replaying in his mind. The first thing he saw was the white ceiling where the blinding white circular lights were embedded in. They hurt his eyes. Light had always hurt his eyes. His eyes darkened to black now that he’s actually awake and in control.
He groaned as he got up off the ground, his bones creaked and cracked, they always did when he stayed in the same position for extended periods of time. He had indeed lost track of time, that was not unusual for him.
The door buzzed as a soldier in uniform carried a metal plate with some sludge-like thing which Claude could only assume was mashed potatoes, and some mushy looking green leaves on the side. The guard set it down on the floor some distance away, but in reach of Claude, only if he reached out for it. It was clearly a calculated position and Claude would guess that the soldier was taught to do that. The safest distance from the prisoner yet still able to pass food to them.
Claude stared at the food in disgust, he asked the soldier: “Would you eat that?”
The soldier grunted but did not reply. Claude assumed that the answer would be a “no”.
He let the food sit, refusing to touch it. He guessed that time was ticking by but he did not bother to find out how much time had passed. His past was gone. He was dead. To them at least.
He was dead and faded.
Claude stood and stared at the white walls which reflected the light too well, he was thinking, something he did not do very often considering he often acted on impulses and reflexes. For now, he was thinking, contemplating.
He knew how his best friends would react. Dark Cloud, Zombie, Poison Beauty, Drunken Banshee, they would be very sad, but they all knew it was coming. He had heard Dark Cloud cry out as the hand reached inside of him. They were his friends, his ONLY siblings. They knew him best.
He wondered how his mother would react, the mother he wished he never had. Then, he thought about his onslaught of half siblings that he refuse to recognise as family, how they might react, he supposed they would be celebrating his end, after all, he was just an obstacle in their path to power.
Some time later, the soldier who was posted outside and had watched this entire time came in to collect the plates, which had remained untouched.
“Are you trying to starve yourself?”
Claude laughed and shrugged. “Food is not something I require.” He turned to look at the young soldier. He had too perfect skin for someone from the working class, Claude guessed he was of privileged birth. “Though alcohol, I welcome,” Claude chuckled.
The soldier scoffed, “you’re not getting alcohol.”
Claude shrugged, “worth a shot,” he muttered.
Another meal came and went. By the time of the third meal, Ace had being informed that the new prisoner was refusing to eat. He sighed and decided that a walk would do him good, plus, Claude was intriguing.
The door buzzed as Ace pushed open the frosted glass door to Claude’s cell. The mysterious young man was staring at the ceiling, his tattered black robes gathered around him.
“Heard you refused to eat,” Ace said as he walked in. The plate of food sat on the ground where the guard had left it. It look every bit as unappetising as Ace imagined prison food would be.
Claude chuckled lightly in response. “I don’t need to eat,” he said. Then he glanced judgmentally at the horrible mess of goo and mush. “Eating that will do more damage than good.”
“You’re a picky eater,” Ace noted.
“And you’re losing a war,” Claude stated.
Ace frowned, he did not respond immediately, in fact, he thought he heard wrong.
“You’re losing a war,” Claude repeated.
“I heard you the first time,” Ace snapped at him. “I wasn’t exactly taught how to fight a fucking war.”
Claude raised an eyebrow. “A commoner once became a great emperor by reading a fictional novel which taught him how to fight a war.”
Ace laughed. “Funny.”
“True fact,” Claude told him with a dead serious expression. “War is not something that is necessarily learnt from teachers.”
“Are you an expert on war then?” Ace chuckled.
Claude tilted his head to one side. “I’ve fought more wars than you’ve eaten meals.”
Ace rolled his eyes. “How old are you?”
Claude merely smiled. “How old do you think I am?”
Ace shrugged and took a guess. “You look twenty five or six.”
“Then I’ll be that.”
“You’re messing with me.”
“Did you not realise?”
Ace laughed lightly, it felt good to have a distraction.
Claude’s smile suddenly faded and he became serious again. “I would not attack the Opalian supply line, it’s both too far and too well protected. I would choose to strike out the watch posts, make sure all ten in the area are out within two days.”
Ace frowned, suspicion rose to his face. “You know the area well?”
Claude went up to him and gently fixed the prince’s white rigid collar that did not really need any fixing. “I am not a spy.”
“Then what are you?” Ace demanded to know.
“A wanderer, who is bored,” Claude answered, plainly. He held up his right hand showing the cuffs linked to the metal chain. He twirled it around, flicking his wrist and the metal cuff came off. He dangled it for a bit to emphasise his point before snapping it back onto his wrist. “Trust me, young prince, I am not your enemy.”
“If you could do that, then why haven’t you tried to escape?” Ace asked.
“There is nothing out there for me,” Claude answered plainly, sitting back down on the floor again. The bed was right there, yet he chose the floor.
“Why do you always sit on the floor?” Ace asked out of curiosity. He could not help it, it was too strange not to ask.
“The bed is for sleeping and I do not see a chair,” Claude said, matter of factly.
“You’re picky.”
“I prefer intricate.”
“An intricate prisoner?”
“How about an intricate adviser?”
Ace scoffed, “you are certainly not my adviser.”
“But when you exit those doors,” Claude glanced at the frosted glass door of his very futuristic cell, “you will go investigate the Opalian watch posts because what I just told you is the closest thing anyone has suggested to a reasonable battle plan.”
Ace bit his lips, he knew it was true, the “battle plans” in his office might as well have been written by primary schoolers as they all consisted of variations on the words “charge straight ahead and hope everything miraculously works out”. He stormed out of the cell, unable to find a rebuttal argument, slamming the glass door behind him.
*
Three days later, Ace stood in his office staring blankly at the floating hologram screens of statistics and correspondence. One particular image of the map was enlarged, it showed the locations of ten known temporary watch posts of the Opalian Army, eight of which had a burning CGI over it. He was waiting for the results of the remaining two.
Eventually, they both lit up, Ace’s stressed frown broke into a smile. He called up Nyal. “What’s the casualty like?”
“Your Highness,” Nyal began with hesitation in his voice, “we have lost three good pilots, five still in ER, twelve recovering from major injuries and forty five from minor ones.”
Ace sighed and closed his eyes, that was not ideal. In his mind he could see his two older brothers laughing at him, they could probably have done the same thing with much fewer if not zero casualties. Then there was his father’s scornful face. Ace often wondered why he was born in the first place. Everyone seemed to hate him.
Nyal saw Ace spiralling into his undesirable thoughts and decided to alert the young Prince of reality once more. “Your Highness, your next command?”
Ace blinked in confusion. “My next command?”
“Yes, what are we to do now?” Nyal reworded his question.
Ace froze, the truth was he hadn’t thought about that. “Um, attack their blue banner main camp?”
The Opalian army is divided by the colour of their banners, specifically the colours of their crest on a green background, blue, red and yellow. Ace faced the blue banners who has taken up the Opalian military outpost of Howlite Castle.
Ace sighed. “I’ll go talk to Claude and get back to you later.”
Nyal chuckled. “Your Highness, whilst Claude is clearly intelligent and a good source of entertainment for you, perhaps it is not ideal to place too much trust in him.”
“Why not?” Ace asked. “His idea clearly worked.”
“We know very little of his intentions here,” Nyal cautioned. “He could escape, yet he chose imprisonment, surely that must appear strange.”
“His entire existence is strange,” Ace shrugged it off.
He rushed out of his office and ran excitedly through the corridors, nearly crashing into passing officers on multiple occasions before he finally bursted into the cell that held the mysterious and eccentric Claude Van Dysher.
Claude sat on the floor glaring at the plate of mush which he had refused to eat for three days straight.
“The watch posts,” Ace began excitedly, “it was a genius idea, we attacked them and succeeded, it would take them days to recover.” Then he saw the plate of untouched food on the floor and frowned. “Have you not eaten in three days?”
Claude took a deep breath in and then breathed out, “I cannot die of starvation even if I tried,” he said. Then he stared at Ace in the eyes, he black iris and pupils mixed into one black spot in the centre of his eyes. “How many deaths?”
Ace paused. “Three, they were pilots.”
Claude frowned. “And you could not have used suicide drones to blow up the watch posts? You actually sent in men?”
“Well, after discussion, it was found that drones were costly and that having the pilots drop in the bombs a long with some ground artillery support was the most cost and time efficient,” Ace argued in defence of his own military advisers.
“Who told you that?”
“The high ranking military officials who are suppose to be advising me on those matters.”
Claude rolled his eyes. “Each only sees from their perspective. As a leader, you ought to see the strengths and weaknesses of all of their perspectives and act upon that.”
Ace bit his lips, “if I can’t trust them, then who can I trust?”
“It’s not about trust, Your Highness,” Claude purposefully placed emphasis on the honorary title. “It’s about having good judgement that is your own judgement, not one that is easily swayed by a single word of another person.”
Ace sat down beside Claude on the floor and buried his face in his hands. “Easier said than done.”
Claude felt bad for the young man and threw his arms around him to comfort him. “If I were you, I would now attack the supply line.”
“Why?”
“The watch posts are burning down and in desperate need of repair,” Claude explained, “supplies will be needed for repair, so steal it, redirect it to your watch posts which will be disguised as Opalian ones. You’ll need it as your father the King has decided to reduce the rations and supplies you are getting in comparison to your brothers.” He did not mention the Princess Royal, Ace’s older sister, as she too drew the short straw in terms of the King’s favouritism, but she had the favour of the Queen, surprisingly, which was more than what Ace had.
Ace hung his head depressed, his long blonde hair fell into his sapphire blue eyes. “Why are you helping me?”
Claude merely shrugged. “If things work out, you can start by treating me to good meal.” He glanced at the metal plate of food in disgust. “That is just unappetising in every manner possible.”
“You are such an intricately picky prisoner!”
“Why thank you.”
“Not a complement,” but Ace was smiling now, he felt at ease with Claude. It was a strange and fuzzy feeling inside of him. He could not really describe it, but he knew it felt nice. Here was someone who knew him for who he truly was, someone who made him smile, made the back of his neck tingle and made him hold his breath without realising. Claude was truly remarkable, Ace thought. A wanderer shrouded in mystery, that really attracted Ace.
— Author’s Note —
Thank you for reading 😀
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