DISCLAIMER: This story is a work of 100% FICTION and contains descriptions of explicit sexual acts between 2 consenting teenage boys. This story is based 100% off of my IMAGINATION and does NOT reflect the views of the celebrities mentioned. If this type of content offends you or if it is illegal for you to read this type of material, please don't.
What Happened to the Green Fairies?
By Danimpa
Chapter 1
Earldom of Cornwall, England
June, 1397
We were all gathered for dinner.
Father was seated at the far end of the table, I had the end across from him with Matt on my right hand. Mother was at Father's right and Eleanor by his left. I guess that also sort of summed up the hierarchy.
I was picking at my food, slightly annoyed by the fact that my betrothed had come up in the conversation as she did more often than not. I have a feeling that they thought all they had to do is mention her enough and I'd stop wanting boys. Mother and Father, that is.
Eleanor doesn't care all that much. She's nearly three years younger than I at sixteen and I'd been doing this with people knowing for at least three years. I think she saw it as natural that her older brother disregarded girls and kept boys in his bed. In fact I think it made her happy that there was no girl for her to compete with over my attention.
Matt. My brother has always supported me in everything I've done, always had my back. He accepted it quickly, probably because if he had to choose sides between our father and me, I'd always come out the winner.
"George, Matthew," Father suddenly addressed us, making the both of us look up attentively.
"Yes, Father?" I returned for both my brother and myself.
"The gamekeeper came to talk to me again today. We've lost more deer and by now he's certain it's no coincidence. It must be poachers," he informed.
I nodded, although I really didn't care if someone ate our deer. I'd worry about that when Father did the ultimate thing to harm me: Die and leave the responsibility on me. "What do you want us to do?" I asked, carefully masking my annoyance.
He waved a hand dismissively. "Just take some of the men when you're done eating and rid me of the problem."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Instead I went back to eating.
"We will, milord," Matt assured, sending me a sharp look.
I'd always hated the fact that although everybody knew about the kinship, my brother wasn't allowed to call our father 'Father'. But as an illegitimate son he was technically a commonor and had no claims to our family whatsoever. Matt was the only person whose situation could make the division between noble and commonor anger me. Other than that, it was merely convenient.
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I'd always disliked horses. I don't know why, really. I mean, I never had anything against height and I wasn't a bad rider, nor had I had any traumatising accidents as a young boy, I just didn't like horses.
Yet I was on one, riding it perfectly in a nice trot, reins in my left hand while my right was constantly more by my shoulder, ready to pull down my bow if needed.
Matt was by my side as we left the vast fields behind, entering into the forest, our horses occasionally brushing shoulders.
The sun had set and some of the men were carrying torches to avoid the accidents you so easily get in on horseback in the woods after nightfall.
We had ten men with us, trained soldiers from the earldom batallion, and while we should be safe from a few starved outlaws and while I usually like the near-darkness of the summer nights, I'd have preferred waiting till the morrow.
Father had been insistent about taking them by surprise in finding their camp and sneaking up on them in their sleep and his faith in us was apparently large enough that he thought we could find them in one night.
So while I'd much rather have been back in the castle with that new blonde stable boy, there was really nothing I could do about it.
Suddenly I lost my balance and nearly fell off the horse as I lost the support beneath my left foot. I groaned as I sat back upright, then jumped off.
"Ryan?" Matt called, turning on the back of his horse from where he was now a few yards ahead of me and using, as the only person in my life, my middle name. "What are you doing?"
"I lost a stirrup," I answered in something close to an annoyed growl.
"This is why you should pay as much attention to your riding gear as to your archery equipment," he told me with a sigh. "Trade horses with one of the men and let him catch up with the rest of us."
"No," I answered without hesitation. "I hate these beasts, this one is the only one I'll tolerate." I clapped the side of the gelding briefly before bending down for the lost stirrup. "Go on ahead, I know these lands like the back of my hand. I'll catch up with you in a minute."
"Little brother..." he started, a warning tone in his voice.
"Go, Matt," I told, trying to keep the command out of my voice. I didn't want to be commanding Matt to do anything, but I was so used to having my way that I didn't know what else to do.
He sighed again. "Remember that Father will have my head if I don't bring you back in one piece."
"I know," I answered, still feeling around the ground while I heard the light thundering sound of eleven horses trotting away from me.
Finally my hand grasped metal and I picked up the stirrup, starting to attach it to its strings.
That was when I felt the unmistakable sensation of the tip of a sword against my back. And my training kicked in, making me throw myself forward and slightly off to the side, avoiding the hooves of my horse as it set in with a gallop in the same direction the others had gone in.
My sword was out of my belt in one quick motion as I used the momentum from my self-induced fall to push myself to my feet, sword held out in front of me.
My opponent's sword zoomed forward towards me and I quickly raised my own to parry, Matt's words of 'mind your footwork' resounding in my mind as I calculated my steps carefully to keep the upper hand that I'd gotten by not surrendering.
The swords clung against each other, quickly giving away the fact that whomever the other man was, he was stronger than me. His sword was of inferior forgery, though, and if I'd had the strength for such a stroke, mine could've split his in two.
As it was, we were nearly dancing around each other, my superior technique and weaponry battling his superior strength. He was as quick as I, though, so I couldn't use that to my advantage.
And I'd always tired too quickly. I needed to end this quickly but the lack of light wasn't exactly making it any easier.
The next quick stroke he sent out I heard rather than saw and I stepped aside, let my own blade fall against his to the usual dull throb in my shoulders before I quickly raised my sword again and swung it out in the direction I'd last heard him.
I heard a muffled cry the second I felt my sword bite into something soft before meeting bone.
He had removed whatever I'd hit before I could manage crushing that bone and he was still at it, his strokes more mad and desperate now; faster.
And keeping up was becoming increasingly difficult. The fact that my opponent seemed to lack technique made him harder to predict and made the slashes of his sword harder to avoid.
In the end I couldn't avoid it any longer and his lousy sword cut into my shoulder, almost making me drop my own blade in shock.
In all the training I'd been through, all the years of fighting Matt, I may have gotten my cuts and bruises but nothing like this. The sword must've gone nearly a hand's breadth into the muscles beneath the collar bone before I managed to drag myself off the blade.
My right hand was no longer responding to the orders sent by my brain and my weaker left one couldn't properly swing the sword that was meant for two hands on its own.
Thus it was no surprise that a single stroke from him sent the sword flying too far away for me to reach it.
My left hand went for the dagger in my boot, only to realise that I had forgotten to bring it.
Then the sword was against my throat and I held up my left hand, trying to lift the right one as well and helpless anger went through me. I could take loosing to Matt, but other than that I hated it. It didn't help that I knew I should've been better than this man either. I should've done something about how quickly I tire when I had the chance.
"Can we lower the sword now?" I grumbled. "If you wanted to kill me you'd have done it already."
"Watch that bloody attitude, noble boy," came the sharp answer.
I silently fumed. "Please."
"No games," he said, stating the conditions.
I rolled my eyes, grinding my teeth against each other. "No games," I repeated.
The sword left my throat and I lowered my hands in response.
Then my weapon belt was ripped off and he swiftly used it to tie my hands behind my back, the yank in my shoulder nearly making me cry out.
"Never trust a noble," he muttered.
"Never trust a commonor," I returned. "At least my kind has honour."
He huffed angrily. "Don't push my temper, noble boy," he warned, apparently knowing that I wasn't liking to be called that. Then he grabbed my shoulder so that his fingers dug into my wound.
I hissed at the pain and had to keep myself mentally restrained to keep from spitting him in the face or some other stupid thing. Don't ask, bad habit of mine.
In that moment the clouds that had covered the sky the whole night lifted and in the sudden moonlight we were given clear view of one another.
"You really ARE just a boy," he replied, sounding surprised.
I wanted to yell, I wanted to scream, I wanted to punch him and kill him. I would be nineteen come August. I kept my mouth clenched shut, deciding that my deceiving looks might be an advantage.
"How much, I wonder, are you worth to His Grace?" he pondered.
"Not enough to save you, you filthy, lowlife outlaw," I hissed back, lying through my teeth.
After Eleanor, my mother hadn't been able to carry more children. I was the sole heir, the only legitimate son. To my family, no matter how much they thought I wronged them, I was worth everything. The last of my line. The blood dripping down from my wounded shoulder was worth every ounce of gold in our treasury, but this man needn't know that.
As I looked at him again under the light of the moon, though, I realised that 'boy' would be more of a proper way of describing him as well. He looked just a bit older than I was, but I had the feeling that he was probably actually younger.
He was my height, I calculated, slightly more solid of build, though. Dirty, raggedy and smelly, but somehow there was still something regal to him, something almost arrogant in the way he held himself, dark eyes shining from behind a curtain of hair that was slightly longer than the short tresses expected on a commonor.
But there was also an odd feeling to him, a famiarity. I felt like I'd seen him before, known him before as if in a dream or something.
Give the boy a bath, beat the pride out of him and I wouldn't mind sharing my bed. He shouldn't expect for it to be pleasant, though. I'd really rather like to go as rough as I could as a type of revenge for the piercing pain in my shoulder.
I located his wound. It was in his side and it was bleeding as profusely as my own, which did give me a bit of satisfaction.
All of a sudden the sound of hooves falling against the ground repeatedly was audible again, and rapidly coming closer.
"What do you want from me?" I hissed at the boy, hoping he, uneducated as he must be, wouldn't understand the importance of those sounds.
He sent me a harsh, suddenly panicky look before yanking off my cloak, receiving a painful growl from me, as well as the quiver of arrows and my favourite bow. "Anything else?" he asked, apparently going for whatever valuable I had on me.
I didn't answer, kept my mouth clamped shut.
"Going to spill all that 'blue' blood of yours for a few bloody valuables?" he growled, moving behind me where he grabbed my hands and raised them up for inspection, my shoulder acting up at the movements.
Then I felt my rings being removed, the one I wore out of habit as well as, and more importantly, the signet ring. I could not loose that one. But what could I do?
Then he left, running through the underwood as Matt's horse came to a halt in front of me, three of the men still with him and, I noticed, my own horse in tow.
"You two," my brother ordered, pointing at two of them. "Follow that brat, catch him and bring him back here!" Then he got off the horse and got to my side where he quickly loosened the belt from around my wrists and gave it back to me.
I could barely hold onto it, my fingers numb from poor blood circulation, but somehow I still managed to get it on and somewhat tie it before I moved on to trying to massage life into my stiff hands, wincing every now and then at the sharp pain from my shoulder.
"Are you alright?" Matt asked.
"He got my shoulder," I answered, still talking through clenched teeth.
He nodded and inspected my shoulder quickly under the light of the remaining soldier's torch while I had to keep from groaning out at the strong discomfort. Then he simply tore a long, narrow strip off the bottom of his shirt and wound it around the wound, tightly and painfully. "You'll need to have that looked at when we get back," he informed me.
I nodded, then looked up as the two soldiers came back, the kicking and yelling boy held between them. I also saw something glinting on the ground and quickly retrieved my sword.
"Tie him up," Matt quickly commanded, anger visible in his glinting blue eyes.
I knew that he'd want revenge for every single drop of blood this boy had drawn from me. But suddenly I didn't want him to get it. That had been my battle to win or loose and I'd lost it fair and square. I was infuriated with the boy, no doubt about that, but my older brother running to save and avenge me, that was something my already hurt pride couldn't live with. "Let him go," I muttered, making everytbody, including the boy, look up at me in surprise and doubt, because while I ranked above Matt, it was also no secret that the men liked him better. "I'd like my equipment and my signet back, but then you'll let him go," I added.
"He's an outlaw, little brother," Matt informed me needlessly.
"He's just a boy," I countered.
"He can do enough harm without being allowed to grow older," he pressed on. "He wounded you today."
I huffed. "And if I spent more time on my swordsmanship and less on archery and boys and books that wouldn't have happened," I admitted, more or less repeating the words he'd say to me ever so often.
Matt sighed. "It's not a good idea, milord, but it's your call."
I flinched lightly at his 'milord', but that was his way of saying that while he didn't agree at all, I was still in command. "If we're lucky he won't survive that cut in his side," I muttered, knowing that there were chances of that happening. The boy didn't have access to the treatment I did. "Let him go."
And they did, after handing me my things back.
He sent me a confused look, but I merely scowled icily at him. Then he ran, one hand clutching his wounded side.
I slumped back a little, lightheaded all of a sudden.
Matt noticed and quickly helped me back on my horse, strapping my legs onto the saddle so I couldn't fall off if I started to pass out. "Escort him back," he ordered the three men. "I'll find the other soldiers and make sure we get the captives back."
"Yes, Master Good," came the quick reply from one of the men as he mounted his horse and got to my side.
"Hang in there, little brother," Matt muttered, sending me a concerned glance before turning away and riding in the opposite direction to get back to the remaining seven soldiers and however many prisoners they might have.
Me? Well, it was all I could do to stay in the saddle until we came back and I was taken off the horse where I could finally let myself fall into sweet unconsciousness.
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danimpa@yahoo.com