Alexander

Down By the Brook

It seemed an eternity before the parade came to a close, the commoners went home, and the rest of the partiers went into the manor. He thought about going to find Lily to apologize, but he disregarded the idea. For that, he'd have to go inside, and he wasn't quite ready to do that yet.

Instead, he went down to the brook, submerging his hands in the nippy water and splashing his face. The headache faded into the background, but was quick to present itself when he heard Nicholas approaching from the manor,

"Alexander!" he slurred, false joy dripping from his lips like rotten sweet-milk. "We've missed you in there! Come join the party!"

Alexander scrambled onto his feet into a defensive posture. Nicholas swayed, a drunken grin plastered on his flushed face. "Just leave me alone, Nick, and I'll stay out of your hair!" he called back, his heart picking up speed every time his brother stepped towards him.

From out of the door came another unwelcome face. Elizabeth was drunk, too, but held her alcohol a little bit better than Nicholas did. She was a wine taster for the king to insure that there was no poison snuck into his drinks. By the looks of the pair, however, it seemed that both had guzzled a few kegs of the finest stuff the manor had in storage.

"Little brother!" she said when she got closer, slinging an arm around Nicholas's shoulders. "What a joy!"

"Piss off, you two!" he said, but his courage was draining. The last time the two had gained up on him he'd ended up unconscious in a pool of crimson paint mixed with his own blood. His only savior had been Lydia, but Lydia wasn't here. He was alone. Suddenly the brook didn't sound like it was singing at all, it was laughing at him. "I'll see you soon!" It chortled. "I'll feel the life drain out of you as I crawl into your lungs and choke, choke, choke you!" Alexander stepped away from it, towards his siblings, feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Touchy," Nicholas complained. "Come on, let's play a game, like we used to."

"Yeah," Elizabeth agreed, "Like, tag maybe?"

"Or kick the rock?"

"Or hide and seek?"

"Stop it!" Alex screamed before taking off, leaping over the brook and running as hard and fast as he could.

"Oh!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "He wants to play tag!"

And the chase was on.

Alexander pumped his arms as he ran, urging his legs to take him further, faster. He didn't really know where he was going. There was nowhere to go that the siblings that presided him hadn't already discovered. He knew Elizabeth wouldn't run for long, but Nicholas could chase him forever.

All of the Troup kids were athletic, but Nicholas had more brute strength and Alexander had inherited endurance. The issue was, Nicholas was faster than Alex, so rather than saving his energy he had to keep sprinting. Alexander cast a look over his shoulder and saw that Nicholas was gaining on him. He tried to run faster, but his own feet tangled up beneath him and he launched forward, landing hard on his back, all of the air in his body escaping, leaving him to gasp like a fish out of water.

Nicholas took full advantage of his tumble, yanking him up by the front of his frilly robes. Alexander winced. "Ah, you're it," Nick snarled, lifting him even higher off the ground.

"Nicholas, please," Alexander pleaded, every ounce of his snarky and somewhat bold behavior gone.

"Nicholas, please," he mimicked. "Please what? Weren't you always begging me to play with you when you were young?" The first sock connected hard with his gut, and Alexander slackened in his brother's grip like a sack of potatoes. "You've always been so ungrateful!"

Alexander opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a croak. He braced for the second hit, and then the third, then tumbled to the ground in a heap as Nicholas kicked him once, twice, three times...

Nicholas's smile grew wider and wider, a sick pleasure coursing through his veins as he watched his little brother shrivel into a moaning heap on the prickly grass. His boot clipped the tender flesh of Alexander's lip and it burst open, blood streaming down his chin, creating crimson mud out of the dirt. Nicholas whooped and kicked him once more, sending the body rolling down a small hill in the plain-like terrain.

"Nicholas, that's enough!" Alexander heard Elizabeth cry. Though, it wasn't pity in her voice, but fear. It was easy enough when there was an obvious way to blame Alexander for his own predicaments, but this was an entirely different issue. Here, they would surely get in trouble, but she was still too far away to stop him.

Alexander whimpered as Nicholas chased him down the hill and the next onslaught of blows rained down, causing his vision to go all hazy. He felt himself drifting off, his body suddenly very hot. There was nothing that he could do to defend himself, and he slipped away, Lydia's voice crooning in his ear, "You're alright, Alex, it'll be over soon."

Finally, Elizabeth came close enough to place a staying hand on Nicholas's shoulder. "Enough, he's had enough."

The gleam of blood-lust was still present in the knight's eye, but his sister's pleading had done the trick. Alexander felt Lydia's presence recede, his body temperature evened out once more. At last, his brain snapped fully back into reality, but he sat very still, not wanting to move and instigate another attack.

Nicholas faced Elizabeth now, gesturing at his eye. "Hit me," he said, his back and leg muscles tensing in anticipation.

"What?" she asked.

"Hit me," he repeated, "as hard as you can."

"Why?" she asked incredulously.

"Because," Nicholas said, "Alexander went off again, hit me in the eye when I was only trying to say hello."

Elizabeth glanced at Alexander skeptically, then narrowed her eyes at Nick. "Those hardly appear to be defensive wounds," she said.

"Well..." Nick said, stroking the scruff that was filling in around his neck and chin, "When I pushed him away from me, he fell down a hill, got scraped up on the rocks."

"You're sure?" Elizabeth asked, squaring up, preparing to hit him. Alexander would've given anything to be the one about to give good-old-Nicky a black eye.

"Positive," Nicholas assured her. "He always acts up when I'm home, everyone knows it."

Elizabeth swung with all her might, one fist hit Nicholas's eye, the other his jaw, both areas began to swell immediately. Despite the fact that his face had to be smarting Nicholas appeared to be less than a hair short of giddy.

"Come on," Elizabeth said, taking Nicholas's wrist in her dainty fingers. "Let's go and enjoy ourselves. Get drunk, like we used to."

"I already feel drunk," Nicholas complained, but he allowed Elizabeth to tow him off, leaving Alexander in the dirt, alone.

The sun was hot today, but he couldn't make himself get up. After a while, his cheeks began to burn and his joints ached in addition to his bleeding wounds. He wondered who was looking for him. Maybe Father? What about Lily? He'd upset her, but she was the only one who knew how Nicholas treated him. He forced himself onto his knees. Whether anyone was looking for him or not, he needed to get back or he'd be in worse pain than he already was.

His goal was to avoid detection altogether. With Nicholas and his story, it wasn't likely, but he didn't want to deal with a lecture and probably a second beating quite yet.