Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Should Have Stopped at 12
Gavin stumbled along a long outdoor corridor. He was lost within the confines of the castle, having just slipped past the guards. He had not meant for them to see him, hoping to slip in at night while there was a change in guard along the castle walls. He had done so numerous times in the past, day or night, and this would have been his thirteenth break in. How was he to bloody know that the guard schedule now changed every week to deter thieves like him from entering? He had scaled the outer wall perhaps more reckless than usual and landed in a garden nearly straight into a guard’s arms. Remembering all this as it happened moments ago, he thought bitterly how he should have stopped at twelve. Gavin could almost kick himself for his carelessness. Though the wound currently spilling blood down his side stopped him from doing so. It had been a near miracle that he had escaped the guards in the large garden, but he had not been fortunate enough to escape being wounded. That pike had really hurt when it grazed his ribs.
With one hand clutching the injury in an attempt to stem the bleeding, Gavin focused once more on his current predicament. He could still hear the heavy footsteps of the guards closing in. For all his flitting down corridors and courtyards, moving in between shadows, Gavin knew he would not last for much longer. He was a failure of a thief, not even able to steal a couple nobilities’ garments from the washing rooms like he had intended. He was going to die here for some Lord’s silken undergarments. Not even for those because right now he was empty handed.
Dogs began barking, the noise bouncing around the tall barrel-vaulted corridor Gavin was in at the moment. Focus, Gav. You’re going to die to minging dogs if you don’t think of something right now. You just need a tall tree or a line to the sewers or something – anything!
Before Gavin could finish his rallying pep talk, he found himself in an open courtyard with a glowing archway in the center. Gavin knew this courtyard. It was the so called “Banishment Courtyard.” It held the only known Nether Portal in the world and no one had ever come back once sent in. He had watched from the castle rooftops the day the royal court banished the Mad King to the Nether. He watched King Ray read the proclamation of high treason to the bound man cursing the new king. He had seen the purple swirls of the Nether Portal swallow the ex-king as the wild man continued spewing curses and promises of vengeance to the crowd.
Gavin ran into the courtyard, searching for an exit, met only with tall walls lit purple by the portal. Some clock tower in the distance struck midnight. He did not like how the bells’ chime sounded like it tolled for him in this dead end. He glanced back the way he came but stopped in his tracks when he saw pairs of eyes glimmering at him from the darkness. Two dogs emerged from the dark with menacing growls. Gavin stepped backwards, a wrong decision as the movement set one of the dogs in a frantic dash forward. Gavin let out a choked scream as he quickened his backwards steps causing him to fall. He scrambled back on hands and rear, wide-eyed at the dogs fast approaching. The first dog sunk its teeth into Gavin’s leg. Gavin yelled and quickly brought his other leg up to kick at the dog’s head again and again, all the while still attempting to crawl back. The dog gave a pained whine and let go only for the second dog to clamp down on Gavin’s shoulder. Crying out once more, Gavin twisted. He lifted his other arm and socked the second beast straight in the nose by pure luck. The jaw on his arm loosened allowing Gavin to wrench it free with one more hit to dog’s head. At that same moment, Gavin's head become encased in purple. He must have backed up straight into the portal. The world spun as Gavin saw purple swirls and sparks dance around his vision. The two dogs circled the Nether Portal, snapping at Gavin, but his body became incorporeal as he moved dimensions. His sight turned to complete purple and he could no longer feel anything.
The next thing Gavin knew, he was staring out into purple and red before an explosion blasted him out of the portal frame. The swirling purple was gone leaving only an obsidian arch in a land of red and fire. Gavin looked up and saw a giant, white, tentacled … thing floating above making a blood curdling screech as it shot a fireball from its mouth. Before the man had a chance to even flinch at the incoming fire, he was thrown sideways by a sudden impact. He tumbled off a ledge and fell a short drop onto his backside, hitting his head on the rock below. On top of him was crouched another man. Crazed blue eyes stared down at Gavin out of a rugged face.
“Fuck! I was this fucking close!” the stranger shouted. “You! What are you doing here?”
Gavin could only gape at the man crushing him until he felt the pain of everything that had happened rush over his body. He managed a weak “please” before darkness encased him.
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Gavin woke to a ringing head and aching body. He peered up at a ceiling made of purple brick and glowing yellow cobblestone. He tried to shift his head to look around but even that slight movement seemed impossible. He ran a quick diagnostics on his body. His right leg felt on fire and his right side did not feel much better. His left arm was numb and unresponsive, shoulder and neck throbbing, and his head felt like someone lodged an ax in the back of it. Where his body was not aching or feel on fire it instead felt weighted down. It took Gavin a few moments longer to realize why he felt so weighted. Attempting to lift his right arm caused a metallic clanging. He raised his wrist as high as it could go, right on the edge of his vision, and saw crude metal bands linked around the appendage.
Christ. He was chained down. Panic began to creep into his chest, his breath constricted. He recalled he was badly injured, was trapped in the Nether, and had been knocked out by some insane man. Gavin tried to recall the man’s appearance, only able to bring up from memory blue eyes and a generous amount of blond hair. And speak of the devil, these same features were suddenly filling Gavin’s vision. A gasp escaped Gavin and he wanted to move away from the blue-eyed man. This only led to Gavin harming his head producing a pained inhale of breath and coughing.
“Awake, hm?” a deep voice stated as a hand grabbed Gavin’s jaw, eyes wandering all over his body. “About time. You took over a week and I was ready to give up and toss you into lava. I try to be a patient man but, you know, urges.”
Gavin gulped. He did not know nor wanted to know. The eyes returned to look straight into Gavin’s. They still were crazed looking but they pierced with a sharpness that dug deep into Gavin’s mind. Gavin stared until his eyes watered and it became too much whether from the pain he was feeling or the pain he feared to soon feel. He clenched his eyes shut, unable to turn his head away.
“Tsk, tsk. Should know better than to insolently shut your eyes before your king, subject.”
The grip on his jaw hardened while at the same time another hand was brought to run itself over Gavin’s forearm. Hard and soft were the touches and they matched those icy eyes – one moment soft around the edges, the next piercing. Gavin was certain he was in the grasp of a madman, delusional and believing himself to be a king. Yet those eyes were so familiar somehow, as though Gavin had seen them before. The fog which had grasped his mind was lifting as he sought to remember why the man was familiar. He remembered tapestries and portraits on walls from his first few times breaking into the castle. They held the same blue eyes that he could see now, the same blond hair albeit a lot less of the hair than now. Gavin scanned the man’s face. Under the thick beard and long hair, he could make out the defined features, the raised cheeks, the expressive eyebrows that belonged to castle décor. He had watched the face in those tapestries and portraits burn from the castle rooftops the same day that face was tossed into the Nether. And now he was looking at that face again.
“Mad King Ryan,” Gavin breathed out he could stop himself, never having a good brain to mouth filter. The Mad King’s gaze turned back to him, expression cold. It seemed eternity until he finally spoke.
“I suppose that yes I am ‘mad’ now,” he mused, looking almost amused. The hand on Gavin’s jaw moved upward to his hair. “It's been a while since I’ve been called king. I’m glad people still remember me.” He began to tend to the bandages on Gavin’s head, stroking his hair every now and again. “The fear I instilled in those simpleton nobles still holds root I hope. How can I exact revenge if they have forgotten why they labeled me Mad King?” The bitterness in his voice did not match the steady care he gave attending to Gavin’s wounds with ointment and dressings. Again a hard and soft that all but seemed to define the late king.
Silence fell between the two. Ryan sitting upright above Gavin, staring away and into the distance, lost in thought. Gavin stared up at Ryan, fear still lingering in him but growing calm was replacing it. That calm was shattered with Ryan’s next statement.
“Let’s play a game of hangman.”
Gavin paled as the Mad King turned with a wicked smile and cackled down at him.
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Author Note: Sorry I made it a... cliffhanger *Maniacal laughter*