The Warrior's Code (open)

There were a few things that his time in Ulfur had allowed Alcander Crispin to pick up, a code that every hunter in Ulfur had to live by or else face the wrath of the other hunters. There were ones that he had lived by when he was a hunter and a few that he knew were an ideal set forth by the king and queen who had no idea what it was like to go to war to protect their precious kingdom.

Courage. A hunter had to know when it was good to speak up and go against the grain of the group. Courage led men to do what was right even though they had to go against what everyone else thought. He had been courageous a few times in his life, refusing to kill a man who he knew would join them during war. Courage was something that was easy to him.

Honor. He knew that as a warrior, as a protector of the innocent, he had to be honorable. No killing unless it was needed, no fighting amongst the other warriors for petty reasons, no rape and pillaging like a common warrior of Luminiege. These things were easy to understand. However, there had been a few times where he had gone against that philosophy and he hated himself for it.

The one, however, that he did not follow was truth.

It wasn't that Alcander wasn't truthful to the good people he protected, he let them know everything. It was that he was not truthful to himself. He hid things deep down, evil things, that he knew threatened to tear him apart and give him nightmares each night. You see, though he was born the son of a fae and a human, he despised magic.

His father had been the cause for that.

But here, in the armory of Breena, was not the time to think of such things. He had sworn that he would practice his disciplines while in the country of his birth as an ambassador for the hunters of Ulfur. Picking up a hand axe, his weapon of choice, he set to work on the dummy that stood in front of him.

The young queen sighed as she moved through the halls she and her brother's had freely moved and played through a children. She was no longer allowed to move freely, too many people watching her movements. Too many people waiting for her to slip up or to be vulnerable, some just wanting to see the young queen fail and others to take advange.

She stopped by the doors of the armory and watched curiously as a man praciced, while that was surely nothing new the reason she stopped was because the man reminded her of a old playmate she and her brother's had had long ago. She remembered many hours of playing with the boy before he had been sadly sent away for reasons the young queen could not remember, she wondered quietly if this could be him.

Dropping his axe, Alcander breathed heavily, opting to fight the dummy with his fists. He did not care that it hurt him. He did not care that deep down he was fighting back memories and thoughts of an actual family. He hated when family and others judged you as something you were not.

Hearing someone stop and feeling the eyes of someone watching him, he looked around and spotted someone who looked familiar. Years ago, when he was just a boy running around and playing games, he had befriended the princess Angel. She was a lovely sight to behold even then but he had not seen her in many a year. Not only was she a lovely sight, she wasn't like the other women in the castle. She didn't want the gossip and to paint pictures of things. She wanted to go on adventures, to have fun.

Looking over the woman, his eyes lit up.

"Angel?"

Angel watched quietly, almost sure it was her old childhood friend. Her question was answered when he turned around and called her by name. "Alcander!" She said with a happy smile, it was truly her old and dear playmate. It had been many years and he had grew into a most handsome man, she found it so hard to believe it had been so long. She rushed over to him, throwing any pretease of being regal and being herself.

Alcander laughed jovially, a laugh that had been lost to the woods of Ulfur when he was just a boy. Picking her up and spinning her around, he looked at the woman his one time friend had become. No longer was she the young girl who played at swords and adventure with her brother and himself. Now she was the proper queen of....


She was the queen of Breena and he had just picked her up and spun her around like she was an old friend. Regardless that she was, Alcander knew that it wasn't the way to behave around a beautiful queen such as herself. He set her down and dropped to one knee, head bowed, "My queen, you must forgive me. I...I had not seen you in so long and I assumed that your father or mother were still alive. I...I did not know you were queen now."

Angel smiled happily as she threw her arms around his dearest friend as he spunned her around. She was so happy to see him again, it had been far too long since see had seen him. Someone besides her brother's treating her like a person... But then he placed her back on the ground and kneeled, once again she was just a queen instead of a friend. She knelt down next to him, "Please by dearest friend you do not have to bow... I am still your old friend..." She said softly, eyes begging for her friend to return to his happy state. "My mother is still alive... She just left back to... The re... Home to her parents.... She could not take that my father was gone..."

While her father had strong fae blood her mother had been full fae, the royal family had always had strong ties to the fairy realem.

Alcander looked up at her, eyes glimmering with the childness of his his youth. Rarely would he do something so bold as to spin the queen around and he knew that it was not his place. But by the look in her eyes, she was looking for someone to treat her like she was a normal human being and not by the title of her rank.

He stood and looked down on her, a smile cracking over his face, "It's a pity you did not get any taller my queen. Perhaps you are doomed to be a pipsqueak for life?"

Angel's smile returned to her face as her eyes spakled once again, she stood up with a playfully grin. "Bring a pipsqueak is better then being a beansprout my dear friend. Though I believe Lexie is still the shortest of us all." She hugged him happily, it was so good to see him again.

"I am no beansprout," chuckled Alcander as he leaned his elbow against Angel's shoulder, "I simply grew due to the things that I have been through. I would like to see Lexie however. It has been a while since I have seen either of you. You must tell me the things that I have missed."

Angel laughed softly and nodded, "Come, Lexie will be in either his room or our brother's room... He does not spent time in the court unless he is forced too." Angel took his hand as she lead him towards the housing for her family. "So much has happened my dearest friend, so much has changed."

Alcander took his friends hand, running his thumb over the smooth skin of the back of her hand. "Your brother? I assumed that the only brother known to the court was Alexander. Do ye have a bastard brother that your father bore with another woman."

His intention was not to hurt the feelings of the queen, he was just speaking as he had since being sent away to become a hunter of the land of Ulfer. "You have changed my queen...you have grown more beautiful than I remember."

"We have another brother, Artemis. He does not like being in court even as a child, he has always been hidden away because of his shyness." Angel replied softly, "He is not a bastard my friend." She blushed when he called her beautiful, "I am no more beautiful then any other lady in the court..."

Alcander frowned, "I am sorry to insult your family, my queen, but when you have lived away from the customs of a kingdom for so long you forget them. It was not right of me to call the Prince Artemis a bastard. I would cut off my tongue if it would please you."

As they walked he gave her a rougish, playful smile, "Perhaps I can find me another woman at court then."

"You do not need to do anything so rash my friend, i understand you did not know of my brother... You do not say things crualy like the court does but with honest quiestions." Angel smiled before poking his arm, "I will be sad if you do, for the women are sharks here."

"I would never offend you my queen, nor either prince now that I know there are two of them," smiled Alcander with a bow as he walked with his queen.

With another rougish grin he smiled, "Women here are sharks? Perhaps I will have to show them why I am a hunter of Ulfur."

Angel stuck her tongue out childishly, "You never stuck me as the type to go for a conventusal lady of the court." She teased playfully as they walked towards with the the royal rooms where her brother's seemed to always stay.

Alcander smiled and wrapped an arm around his friends shoulder, "I'm a warrior after all. Warrior's are expected to act a certain way around the women of the court. I've never been one to turn down a woman."

Angel smiled, "It is still so strange to see my friend so grown up, it seems only yesterday we were running throught the courtyard with our games and play." She happily smiled at him.

"Yes, well, games and play are a child's pursuit. As you can see, I have matured into the warrior that my father has always wanted me to be," Alcander replied. Though he didn't care what Julius thought of him, he knew there was always a reason to his father's madness and that he probably hadn't fulfilled it. "Speaking of which, how is my father? Still an advisor to the court?"

Angel nodded slowly, he had matured very much in his long years away as she had and she found she liked some of the changes time had brought to him. "Ahh your father... Yes he is... And he manages to make many at court wary of him..." Angel answered, though she raised her chin to show she was one of the few not fearful of the man.

"Julius Crispin is a vile man who you should be most careful around, Angel," Alcander warned. When he was younger, his father had meant the world to him. As he grew, he had grown to resent the man and magic in general. "After all he does know fae magic and everyone knows that the fae are a dangerous breed. They snatch up women and children in the night and make off with them."

Angel kept her head up high, "One can be careful and still not fearful my friend. I will not let your father scare me like the other's of this court, I am the royal queen of the great line of Breena. Not even your father may take that from me as the rightful heir to my dearest father." Angel glanced away, "We both carry the blood of the fae my friend."

"I fear him and loathe him all at once," Alcander replied, his eyes set on the castle grounds in front of him instead of on Angel's face. Memories swarmed his head about the old man he had once thought of as a father and now couldn't stand to be around. "You may be the royal queen of Breena but you are no fae. You're father only gave you half of their blood. You are only half and thus, you still have good inside of you. I have no good in me."

Angel reached her hand to touch his cheek, "You have great goodness in you my dearest friend. You are not your father or in anyway like him, you are your own good soul." Angel said softly, hopeing his sad mood would pass so her friend would be happy. She pulled his hand back with a jump when a voice was suddenly heard nearby.

((I'm not doing things like that. If you have a voice nearby, you must have your own character to do it.))