Chapter Text
Rouxls Kaard is ten, awkward and lanky in all the wrong places, and he is losing- badly.
"Haha, it's red now! Draw four Rouxls," one of the other children jeers at him, pointing with one nubby, goo-covered finger. The blue monster looks, brushing a curl of white hair out of his eyes to stare, miserably, at the black and red card on top of the deck before him. Draw Four, it declares proudly, as if taunting him.
"Alright, alright," Rouxls grumbles, snagging the required number and adding it to the fan of cards in his hand. A three, a five, and a pair of nines- all blue. All exactly the wrong color. Cursing his luck, he glares at the offending deck and the child who played previously. "Now what? It's not like I can play now, I still don't have any reds."
The goo-child looks shocked for a moment, glancing at the spread in Rouxls' hands before laughing again. "All that and you still can't play? Then you keep drawing I guess. Sheesh, you suck at this." A lizard girl starts snickering into her hand before patting the blue monster on the shoulder. "It's alright," she says, trying to tamp down her laughter, "we can't all be good at Uno."
He just stares at her for a long moment, disbelief plain on his face, before growling a bit and reaching for a new card. One card turns into two and then five as Rouxls draws and draws, the surrounding children's faces slowly drawing up into matching grimaces of astonishment. Blue, yellow, yellow, green, blue... Until finally, nine cards later, he gets his red.
Placing it down on the pile with a rough smack, the blue monster looks around, pointed teeth bared as he dares the others to comment. Eventually shaking off her shock, the lizard girl places down a red seven and play resumes, albeit slowly. Several more rounds in and the goo-child is shaking his head at Rouxls, staring in awe at the twenty cards he's trying to juggle in his hands. "Uh, Rouxls? I think the goal of the game is to get rid of your cards, right? How the heck did you end up with more than you started?"
Rouxls just buries his head in his cards, a mournful whine rising slowly as he blushes a brilliant purple. "I dunno," he mumbles out, thoroughly embarrassed by his rotten fortune. The lizard girl shrugs, before putting down another red card. "I mean, it could be worse? You should have plenty to play by now at least."
The blue monster barks a laugh at that, fingering the edge of one of his cards. "Yeah, I'd have plenty to play if blue could be played on anything other than blue, you know? But nope! Blue is for blue and red is for red, and honestly, why are we still playing this dumb game!?" At this, Rouxls throws down his cards, blue and white and black littering the ground like fallen snow. "I hate this! Why can't we play something else?"
Silence. And a sharp pain in his thumb. The blue monster stops, eyes wide as the other children begin nodding, numbly agreeing. Yes, Uno is stupid, why don't we play something else? What do you want to play Rouxls? Anything you like.
Their voices are empty, though, hollow of all emotion as they turn blankly to him in unison. He'd gotten them to agree.
He'd changed the game.
As a trickle of blue-black blood rolls down his finger, Rouxls can't shake the feeling that somehow, he'd lost anyway.
Rouxls Kaard is sixteen, hair a little longer, eyes a little sharper- and a lot more desperate.
"Come on, you have to let me fight! Er, fighteth. Madam." The cyclops in the enrollment office just grunts, pointing at the sign to her left. Ages Eighteen and Up it reads, all bolded red lettering and jagged serifs.
"If you aren't eighteen, you aren't joining the army. That's final, kid. Now run home to your mother before she gets too worried."
"But the Lightners!" Rouxls cries, stamping his foot in frustration. "The news says that everyone needeth to help, or else we'll be overrun. They'll be upon thy border on Saturn's day, right? I wisheth to fight!"
"Kid, go home! You aren't old enough, seriously, what are you- fourteen? You should be in school! Look, I get it, you want to help but there are other ways of doing it." The cyclops' gaze softens a bit as she gazes down from her booth, voice going horribly gentle. "If I had it my way, I'd been fighting too. But I've kids at home, ones your age and no mother wants her kid to give up their childhood so easily. They need me, just as your mother probably needs you. Go start a garden or something, they always need food on the front lines. Now go home, okay?"
Rouxls gazes down at his beaten tennis shoes, mind drifting back to an empty house and a pair of grey stones stuck in the mud. Drifts back to the dusty packs of cards on the table and the last few gold coins in his pocket. His hands tighten into fists as he forces back tears, nails piercing skin to leave dripping blue-black crescent moons behind.
He lifts his head, staring at the sign like a starving man at food just barely out of reach. So close... He is so close.
(What now? There's no where else to go.)
And then he stops. The pain in his hands registers finally, a dull throbbing that jolts him out of his grief and makes him finally take notice.
The cyclops' eye is glazed over, vacant of all life, and the sign reads, in bold and jagged letters, Ages Sixteen and Up. Rouxls feels sick, but with relief or horror he doesn't know.
"Hey, kid. You here to enlist or no?" The gruff rumble of the cyclops' voice is a dull comfort as Rouxls nods, reaching into his pocket and placing a pair of gold coins on her desk. "Alright then, line forms to the left. Next!"
As the blue monster joins the line to receive his supplies, the gold coins glint softly as they are swept into an iron strong box. The blood on them shines like dark starlight.
Rouxls is nineteen, a silver saber in hand and looking splendid in his blue uniform- and he's slowly realizing that war is hell.
Fighting rages around him, attacks flashing in the corners of his eyes. With every blink the scene changes, each one a snapshot that will haunt his nightmares. Here, the telling flash as a Lightner lets loose, magical fire sweeping out in a beam of burning light. There, the black-hole blur a Darkener makes as his ax swings down, sending another monster crumbling to the ground. The very air smells like ash and ozone, while the earth is an unsteady mess of dust and blood.
Rouxls feels sick.
Suddenly, a bolt of pain lances through his chest, tearing through his uniform and sending him to his knees. Biting back a scream, the blue monster looks up, up, up, searching for the face of his attacker.
It is a dragon. Of course it is. Standing tall on two legs, scales gleaming gold in the heat of the day, he's magnificent. He's massive. The dragon's armor marks him as a monster of rank, his sword as one of power.
And Rouxls is so, so scared.
Blue-black blood oozes from the gash in his chest as blazing green eyes find his, stripping him to the bone and finding him... Wanting. The dragon turns away, off to find someone else to fight.
Rouxls trembles as white hot agony flickers across his ribs, sending him into a spiralling panic. Numbers flash across the blue monster's vision, screaming at him as he puts a hand to his chest, hoping against hope for it all to stop. He is scared. He is angry. He doesn't want to die.
With greying vision, Rouxls watches as the dragon strides away, drinking a verdant healing potion as he goes. Numbers float above his head as his health replenishes, each digit making the dragon's wounds flow away like water. And suddenly, with an intensity that surprises even him, Rouxls hates this monster. This golden dragon who struck him down and walked away, not even bothering to finish the job.
Dismissing him as just one more unlucky monster caught on the wrong end of his blade. His awful blade, gleaming wetly with red blood...
Mind foggy with pain, the blue monster lifts his hand away, stares down at it as if shocked that it is still his own. His fingers are blue-black, dark like night and liquid stars. It is a terrifying sort of beautiful. It reminds him of something, although what that memory is of, exactly, he would never share. And there, in the chaos of the battlefield, he ACTS.
Rouxls lifts his hand, lines up a finger with the numbers above the dragon's head, and in one shaky movement, draws a blackened minus sign in the air.
It hovers there for a long moment like some grotesque dead thing, before it flashes once, twice, and glows a nightmarish red.
And in that split second, the numbers above the dragon's head change from green to red and small wounds open up in his skin.
On its own, a cut isn't such a terrible thing- painful perhaps, but ultimately harmless. This is not that.
One after another, gashes open up in the dragon's golden scales, tearing them open from the inside out. Hundreds appear, dripping blood in scarlet trails down his hide, uncaring of just where they rip into existence. Under eyes and over wrists, slipping between fingers and in the bends of knees. The dragon screams, long and loud. And then he falls over, dead.
Rouxls watches this, eyes wide even as his vision fails him. The pain in his chest fades to a dull, numb ache as he slumps over into the dirt, ears still ringing with that agonized scream. As a medic runs to his side, green magic gleaming around their hands, Rouxls drifts into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Rouxls is shaking, shaking, shaking- cold and fearful as he wakes up wrapped in bleached white sheets. He is in a hospital, although which one is a bit more unclear, and has just woken up from yet another nightmare.
The memory sends a twinge of pain running through his chest and he shoves the... (blood, so much blood, Oh God I killed someone)... Dream. He shoves the dream to the back of his mind.
The only sound in the room is the persistent beeping of the soul monitor and the snoring of the other patients. The clock on the wall blinks at him, telling the blue monster that it is far too early to be awake just yet.
And yet.
Rouxls sighs softly, slumping back against the headboard of the narrow hospital cot, fingering the bandages across his chest. 1:47 AM the numbers blink. 1:48. Then 1:49.
Time slips by quietly, each minute feeling longer than the last. The bare bulbs in the ceiling buzz slightly, protesting against the electricity running through them and keeping them lit. Rouxls waits. For what exactly, he isn't sure, but he waits nonetheless.
Time ticks on.
Rouxls' eyes flutter open, white lashes brushing against blue cheeks like an insect's wing. Tick. Tock. Tick.
5:23 AM.
The pain is a bit more severe now, and an unpleasant squirming runs through his stomach. Ugh, he hates this so much. Hunger sucks. (But at least he isn't dead, Rouxls carefully doesn't think.)
Stretching slightly, Rouxls sits up, brushing his hair out of his eyes with a huff and looking around. A few more monsters seemed to have shifted in their sleep, but other than that there seems to be no change.
But then, what had woken him...?
Footsteps. The clacking of heels on tile floor. A nurse? The squirming intensifies, becoming a gnawing pit of suppressed nerves. For a brief moment he wishes for his sword, before levering himself up to better see who is approaching. It doesn't take long.
It is a woman, bedecked in red and black and stretched tall like a particularly thin hourglass. The hem of her gown sweeps the floor and is decorated with white roses and miniature spades while a larger one is depicted upon her bodice. She holds a wicker basket in one hand and a wrapped bundle in the other.
She wears a crown, and in the terrible second that he sees it, Rouxls can't breathe.
It is the Queen of Spades.
With a natural grace that befits her title, she scans the room, dismissing each patient in turn. He practically see her mentally checking each one off as unimportant.
It rubs Rouxls the wrong way, for some reason, but that discomfort is soon buried under sheer panic as she turns toward him, startles, and then starts to walk over. Her stride is long and loping, full of purpose. The walk of somebody who has a job to do and plans to carry it out come hell or high water.
It does little to reassure him.
"Are you... Ruxles Kaard? The one who killed General Myrridan?" Her voice is soft, a whisper of a thing, but it rings like a bell in the silent room. Breathe. In. Out. Speak.
"I-it's Rouxls actually. Pronounced-eth like 'rules.' But yes, I am he? Er, and I supposeth it t'was my action that caused the dragon's fall although I bequest you to answer me why it matters."
"Oh. Good, I was afraid I had the wrong room. Do you mind if I sit down? There is something we must discuss." Rouxls suppresses a nervous laugh, who was he to deny The Queen of Spades a seat? Hand trembling, he makes a sweeping gesture to show her the empty space on the cot's corner.
"If it pleaseth my lady, go right ahead."
"Thank you." What? Royalty should not be this polite, this was getting ridiculous, he thinks as the Queen settles onto the cot. "It has been a very, very long day. But I suppose that's none of your concern, is it? Sorry. Back to the topic at hand."
The Queen reaches around and places the basket before him, displaying the contents inside. "By killing General Myrridan, you ensured that our forces would win one of the most important battles of the war to date. In doing so, you have done a very brave thing. And, as the Queen, it's my job to reward people for doing brave things. So- that's why I'm here. For your actions on the battle field and in the line of duty, I reward you with a new uniform and the title of 'Duke.' From henceforth you shall be known as 'Duke Rouxls Kaard.' Impressive, no?"
The blue monster's mouth drops open into a surprised gape. Was she serious?! Turning to the basket, he begins digging through it furiously and sure enough, it's all there. One crisp blue uniform with silver buttons and trim. Two delta rune cufflinks, shining bright admist the blue of the fabric. And one... Jar of worms?
Upon seeing it the Queen blushes a furious pink, hiding her face in her hands. "Whoops. Sorry, those aren't for you. I must have put them in there and then forgotten to take them out!" The worms inside the jar wriggle as he tilts them this way and that, before raising an eye brow at her.
"Um, no offense intended-eth my lady, but why dost thou have worms? I mean, they are healthy specimens I assure you, but... Er. Why? Exactly?"
Sighing, the Queen lowers her hands, suddenly looking horribly young in a way that has Rouxls' gut plummeting. "It's alright, you may speak freely. I did just make you a noble after all," she smiles oddly at that. "The worms are for my son. He gets hungry on long nights like this." Her... Son?
As if mentioning him was enough to wake him, a thin wail rises from the bundle and the Queen hurriedly unwraps the uppermost bandages to show the squalling infant inside. "This is Lancer. His birth hasn't been publicized yet, my husband thought it would be best if we waited for the war to end first before we announced it. And yes, worms are bit odd for him to be eating at this age, but the silly boy won't eat anything else!" Rouxls chuckles at that, gazing down at the child and smiling a bit. His face is a blue and black teardrop, round and soft-looking just like his mother's.
"If we are speaking freely my lady, what hast caused thou to take him with thee whilst you complete thy duties? Surely they could have waited until a more favorable time of day." The Queen just shakes her head at that, shadowed eyes focused on her infant child.
"My husband wants me to be back home by Friday, something about wanting to show me off to his newest guests. Since I have only four more days and so many more people to visit, I've had to travel at all hours just to stay on schedule. As for Lancer... Let's just say that my husband isn't the best with children." The blue monster looks at her then, cerulean eyes searching out hers. Bruised shadows hide under her eyes and she bends a bit under the weight of her crown. Her red dress is stark against the soft white of her akin.
Under the watery hospital lights she seems more ghost than woman.
"Thou must be exhausted."
"It's not so terrible. Being out of the castle is a blessing- no strict rules, no rude courtiers. Just me and Lancer and the open road." The tremor in her voice is poorly hidden, but Rouxls gives her that courtousy and just hums his acknowledgment.
"I am not at all tired, my lady. Perhaps thou would find a better use for this cot than I? It would be little trouble for me to watch thy son whilst you slept." The blue monster's soul twists as the Queen looks at him gratefully before nodding and laying down on the rough white sheets. No woman should be that grateful for such a simple kindness, he thinks.
The Queen of Spades is asleep in moments.
Rouxls is twenty, twitchy, and nervous in his crisp military uniform, hands wringing as he does his best to meet the eagle monster's eyes. They are golden, sharp, and far more piercing than cold steel. They do not blink.
"So you see, Sir Caldwell, because-ith of the nature of mine injury, it twas unwise for me to continue serving in active combat."
"And now you are out of the job," Sir Caldwell says dryly, propping his beak up on one clawed hand. The blue monster blinks a bit before nodding hesitantly.
"And now I be 'out of the job,' so to speak."
The eagle merely hums at that, staring thoughtfully at him as he had throughout the entire meeting. "I suppose you are here looking to be hired then? I have to warn you, we're very... selctive about just who we allow to serve in the halls of the royal palace. If your resume is in any way unsatisfactory, you'll be out on your ear faster than I can fly. Not that you need to worry of course, I'm sure you aren't here to waste my time, right?"
Ducking his head, Rouxls does his best to hide his shudder as Sir Caldwell smiles at him. (For a monster with a beak, he has far, far too many teeth.)
"Er, about that, sir? I was told by her majesty the Queen of Spades whilst I twas recovering that I had been given the title of 'Duke' in return for mine bravery. Surely that must count-ith for something?"
Sir Caldwell looks shocked and saddened for a brief moment before his expression returns to that same smug smile. "Poor boy, nobody told you, did they? The Queen, peace be with her, passed away from a prolonged illness not three days ago. While you might still have the rank of Duke, with her death, your title has become meaningless." Rouxls... Stops. His thoughts freeze in their tracks as the eagle starts shuffling through the papers on his desk.
The Queen was... dead? But how? It had only been a few months since he had seen her at the hospital, and she seemed well enough then, if a bit tired. The blue monster begins absent-mindedly fiddling with his cufflinks as his mind whirls through the ramifications of her death.
"What about Lancer?"
"Hmm?" The eagle looked up from his reading to stare at Rouxls again. "What was that?"
"What happens to Lancer now? The prince? What shalt become of him now that his mother be gone. He's just a baby, certainly there must be someone taking care of him."
The smile drops from Sir Caldwell's face. Immediately Rouxls regrets asking as the eagle monster stands up, towering over him by a good several feet. "Rouxls Kaard, what happens to the crown prince is none of your concern. He is healthy and alive and that is all you need to know. Now, if you want to keep the job that I am so generously about to offer you, then I suggest you stay far away from his wing of the royal palace. Understood?"
The blue monster's gut churns uncomfortably at the order, but he gives a shaky nod all the same. He really needs this job, after all, and Sir Caldwell is right- it's none of his concern. (Even if the whole things is a bit suspicious.)
"Understood, sir."
"Good. You start working tomorrow, then."