Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

Warnings: Minor violence, minor adult content, slash.

Description: A story about Sun Ce and Zhou Yu's past – will eventually be Zhou Yu x Sun Ce, with other pairings mentioned on the side (LM/XQ, DQ/LX, and GN/SSX)

Author's note: This is the prologue to a story I've been thinking about for a long time. I don't know if there's any interest in it – if there's not (and I do realize it's a non-canon pairing), I won't bother putting it up and formatting it. If you are interested, please review so I bother to continue.

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Secession - Prologue

210: Jing Province, Nan County – China

Nothing is crueler than poison. It licks through veins and constricts the heart like twisting fingers, cold hand consuming the lungs and cutting off breath at its source. It makes memory swim before the eyes in painful clarity; voices unheard for eternity echo in suddenly perfect ears. It makes the unsaid words unbearable.

With a gasp like the thunderstorm railing above him, Zhou Yu felt the arrow imbed into the flesh beside his quivering heart. At first, he couldn't make out what had happened, or how. He'd been watching the attack on Jing Castle – the Wei forces were holding out steadily despite their unfamiliarity with this area of the Nan Territory, and even pushing his advance squadrons back from the front line. He was concerned about the sluggish movement of Cheng Pu's assault unit on the right flank. What were they fighting that was holding them back so much?

And then the arrow had pierced him with a sound that made his blood run cold, a sound far worse than the jolt of impact itself. He stumbled back in shock as the pain began radiating from the black feathers straight into his skin, straight through the armor of his battle tunic to the pale flesh beneath. One look at the bolt, covered in a sickening sheen that defied the pounding rain all around him, told him it had been tipped with death.

He fell to his knees, sword tumbling from his useless and trembling fingers into the mud of the battlefield. A group of infantrymen who had been waiting nearby rushed to him and caught him before he fell forward, saving him from the mire that rain, hooves, and thundering footsteps had made of the wartorn hillside. The general's dark eyes rolled in his head, struggling for perception as the soldiers gaped at him in terror and shock. There was panic on their eyes – sheer, helpless panic, disbelieving horror that swallowed their rain-blurred faces.

An endless moment passed in motionless shock, beating as slowly as the dazed blinking of Zhou Yu's eyes. Then their captain shook himself and began to yell. "Get Lord Lu Meng!" Two privates sprinted to obey his orders. The rest of the squad followed his gestures and laid Zhou Yu back into the arms of another comrade, who gripped the general's shoulders in iron-fisted hands.

"You two! Take hold of his arms!" The captain was yelling again, closer to Zhou Yu's ears this time. He had knelt beside his fallen general and was carefully but quickly peeling back the chest armor beneath the arrow's shaft. Zhou Yu could feel cold hands – rough hands, hands accustomed to the staff of a pike – pressing on the flesh around his wound. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his hands into fists so hard that the nails cut his through palms; he felt blood running down his fingers and mixing with the rain.

"Chen Hao! Get the bandages!"

It was a sharp voice, a strong voice, but not an unkindly one. Wu's fabled strategist, a handsome man of music and culture, forced his eyes open and looked up into the serious but sympathetic gaze of Han Dang's 2nd Rear Captain as the man snapped the staff of the arrow in his chest and threw the fletched bolt away, his fingers gripping the stub of shattered wood still trapped in his commander's flesh.. Another soldier, nervous and shaking, knelt at his other side, a roll of drenched bandages in his hands.

Zhou Yu met the eyes of the men holding his arms with as much authority as he could, imagining the wound in his chest as his breath heaved irregularly in and out of his lungs. "You'll have to push it through," he rasped, his voice startling the squad that had surrounded him. The soldiers shifted on all sides, their inaudible whispers as meaningless as the rain in his ears, but the captain shook his head.

"Push it through and it'll hit your spine. Have to pull it out this way." Zhou Yu swallowed hard, choking on the blood of a bitten tongue and squeezing his eyes shut at the thought of the arrow's jagged edges tearing back through his flesh.

The captain pulled. A shout tore itself out of Zhou Yu's throat without volition as the arrow emerged, bloody and wicked – but the sound was truncated as he bit down hard on his tongue, and only the members of the squad around him heard it. The man with the bandages immediately leapt forward, wrapping the gushing wound with ferocity and panic.

Amid the shouting and splashing of the troops, Zhou Yu closed his eyes and breathed heavily, pain moving in a spider web outward from the wound. He could hardly even think; the blood pulsing through him rocked and roiled, making its tumultuous way toward the wound filled with poison. As the linen strips would tighter and tighter across his chest, ten terrified fingers brushing the pale skin as they tried to staunch the bleeding, the general sought to clear his mind – sought reason and logic amidst the chaos of war and death.

Where had the arrow come from? He was too far from the center of the battle for it to have been an intentional shot. Then perhaps… a rogue arrow, let off into the sky on accident when its owner was surprised. It was almost laughable. After thirty-five years, eighteen of which had been spent in battle for the service of Wu, a lone poisoned arrow was going to be his murderer.

The figure above him – Chen Hao? Was that the soldier's name? – struggled to tie the bandages securely to his general's soaked, shivering chest. One hand reached up to adjust the soldier's military-issue bun and push bangs off of a concerned forehead… and then Zhou Yu's charcoal gaze was flooded with a sudden, vibrant memory from twelve years earlier.

"Hold still!" He felt his obsidian eyes widening. That voice – Sun Ce's voice. His lord was scowling, one hand braced against the strategist's shoulder and the other clutching a roll of bandages.

Zhou Yu scowled back. "You're doing it wrong. Let me do it myself." Sun Ce stuck out his tongue and avoided the other man's reaching hand, holding the roll of linen cloth clear above his head.

"No way. I beat you to the supply closet fair and square, which means I get to do the bandages. That was the deal."

Zhou Yu's frown deepened. "You did not beat me fairly. You went through a window in the front hallway instead of the courtyard—

A hand over his mouth stopped his detailed account of the competition, but did not smooth the displeased wrinkles from his forehead. Sun Ce ignored the glare he was getting and continued wrapping the strategist's chest in bandages, assessing the wound with experienced amber eyes. Layer by layer, lines of linen covered the red gash that cut across muscles and pale skin. Sun Ce tipped his head to one side and chewed idly on a piece of chestnut hair that had fallen into his face.

"That's gonna scar," he remarked. Zhou Yu made no reply. He watched attentively as Sun Ce's perpetually restless fingers tied the final knots in the bandages. The tonfa master stepped back a little to examine his work.

"There! All done!" His smile was brilliant – brighter than a thousand stars, brighter than victory, brighter than dying…

Zhou Yu sighed and let his shoulders relax – at the tiny movement, the bandages that had been wrapped too loosely around him slipped from his body and cascaded uselessly to the ground in a tumble of fabric. The two men stared at the pile of cloth for a moment in silence, both officers blinking in mild surprise. Then Sun Ce's grin exploded into laughter – and much as he tried to stay annoyed, it was only a matter of seconds until Zhou Yu was chuckling himself, rolling his eyes as he reached for the roll of bandages to make a proper job of it this time. And Sun Ce's laughter echoing – like bells, like light, like phoenix flame, like sunshine, like…

The sound of hooves approaching drove the memory back, and Zhou Yu's eyes refocused on the man bandaging his wounds, the stranger's face bobbing frenetically above him. The general realized that he had latched onto the soldier's arm in the course of his memory, because he could feel it held tight in his hands – no doubt the blood from his palms was staining the poor cloth armor. And though it was irrational, Zhou Yu found he did not want to let go.

So he didn't. He clutched the captured limb tighter instead, fingers writhing through the thick fabric of the man's sleeve to prevent being dislodged. The soldier's face took on an expression of intense confusion at his commander's movement, and his free hand stumbled to Zhou Yu's shoulder, coal-black eyes puzzled but distracted.

An agitated pair of hooves settled sharply on the ground beside Zhou Yu's head, making his breath catch at the nearness of those powerful feet as two heavy boots leapt into the mud. Lu Meng was on his knees in an instant, high ponytail soaked and dripping down his red-clad back.

"Lord Zhou Yu! Can you hear me? Are you all right?" Lu Meng's voice had a steel edge to it – a sure indicator of concealed panic. Zhou Yu did his best to answer, but a crushing cough was all his throat permitted him; Lu Meng met his failing eyes for a moment longer before turning and shouting into one of the soldiers' faces, his harsh countenance drowning beneath the rhythm of the rain. "Get me a wagon now!" The soldier ran.

Lu Meng turned back to Zhou Yu and began refastening his battle tunic over the white skin of his chest. His eyes were very serious. Not that Lord Lu Meng, loyal officer of Wu and upcoming strategist himself, ever laughed much. But rarely had his commander seen this kind of worry in his expression.

With the heavy creak of slowing wheels, the wagon pulled up next to his fallen form, splashing through the puddles that had befallen Jing under the summer's unrelenting storm. Lu Meng's strength startled the squad as he lifted Zhou Yu into his arms and headed for the wagon, muscles bristling with exertion. Zhou Yu frowned at the obvious indignity of the position, but there was nothing to be done – he had to get into the wagon somehow, and it was not going to be by walking. The soldier whose arm he had snatched was forcibly dragged along beside Lu Meng, but Zhou Yu did not release him, holding on tightly even as he was placed carefully within the confines of the wagon's bed and Lu Meng drew his own arms away. Chen Hao turned to the White Tiger general standing beside him and shifting awkwardly beneath the curtains of falling rain.

"Uh… Lord Lu Meng? What should I – what should I do? He won't let go…" Lu Meng studied the young soldier, his caught arm, and the look on Zhou Yu's face telling him the strategist was not interested in relinquishing the detained limb. Despite the overall gruffness of his face, Lu Meng's lips turned up ever so slightly at the corners.

"Well, soldier… I suppose you'd better get in the wagon." Chen Hao's jaw fell open and he tried to protest, but Lu Meng was gave him a very sour look and the man's jaw clamped shut as his expression became uncertain. With a slight bow, the 3rd class private vaulted into the wagon and took a seat next to the fallen general's side, uncomfortable in every awkward angle of his posture. Zhou Yu felt his expression twisting in a cynical smile, though the pain in his chest turned his lips to a grimace in a matter of seconds. His dark eyes met Lu Meng's for a moment longer.

"Xiao Qiao," he managed to croak. Lu Meng nodded.

"I'll look after her." Then he shouted instructions to the drivers, waving one arm in urgent dismissal. "Make for Han Ni Castle – and when you arrive, tell Lord Sun Quan we'll be along as soon as we finish here."

As the wagon began to move, Zhou Yu stared long and hard at Lu Meng – his comrade, his wife's lover, and his pupil in strategy. Then the wagon bumped hard and he smacked his head against the floor – his eyes went blind with white, painful light, and for the first time in ten years, he lost consciousness.

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Chen Hao was at a complete loss. Here he was in his first important battle, and nothing was going well. In training, he'd been the weakest man in the entire platoon, so he'd been stationed in one of the squads near the back. Really, this didn't bother him – Chen Hao had seen enough minor skirmishes to understand that getting promoted was actually just a good way of getting shot.

But his demotion for lacking ability did mean he had been stuck back with the loads of provisions and siege equipment, and he had been forced to endure the endless barking orders of the man placed in charge of supply train defense, who did not seem to understand why nervousness tightened the inexperienced soldier's hands around his pike staff. Chen Hao had almost been relieved to reach the battle field, if only because it meant the anxiety rushing through his veins could finally swallow his thoughts and let muscle memory take over.

Again, things had gone wrong. His squad had barely begun advancing when an arrow had arched above the heads of the platoon, appearing in the thundering air as though from nowhere, and struck the flank general commanding them. The great strategist Zhou Yu, one of Lord Sun Quan's most respected veterans – a man who had served the Wu Empire since Sun Quan's older brother held the throne.

Chen Hao had never spoken to the general, but he had heard stories of his intelligence and skill with warcraft from the other men. Standing in the center of the mud-splattered troops, unfazed by the rain pelting his smooth features, General Zhou Yu had looked to the soldier's untried eyes invincible. Chen Hao had been struck with an instantaneous discipline, a will to follow that man into battle wherever the fading afternoon led them. Now here he was in the back of a cold, damp wagon – his arm in the grip of the very general he had admired, both of them headed straight back toward the castle the army had been forced to march from two days prior.

Zhou Yu's features were far paler even than his usual composure and Chen Hao's arm was nearly hyper extended, twisted wrong in the unconscious hands of the fallen general. The man lying on the floor at the soldier's feet looked impossibly different from the man he had been willing to follow to death or victory. It was almost too disheartening to put into words.

But his impressions aside, Chen Hao had to admit that he was even more concerned with the awkwardness of arriving at Han Ni Castle with a rotting corpse clamped onto his hand – which was surely all Zhou Yu could be after the time their journey would take. The soldier cast his eyes down and watched the general's fitful breathing, some form of pity stirring in his stomach. The general's features were calm, but they had become pallid with the cold. The white bandages around his chest rose and fell in time to his lungs, but Chen Hao knew the linen strips were only a faltering mask, and that they couldn't hold back the tide of blood beneath them for long.

What the fallen officer truly needed was pressure exerted on the wound until it stopped flowing, for what little good that would do him in the long run. Chen Hao sighed. That, at least, he could do for the commander who had captivated his loyalty without needing to earn it.

Sitting up, Chen Hao reached out and pressed down as hard as he dared on the center of the bandages. The general's dark eyes shot open and his head lurched as he convulsed from the pain, and the motion made the soldier jump nearly a foot in the air. Instantly, Chen Hao withdrew his hand, his fingers tingling as though the commander had electrically shocked him with his reaction. After a moment, when the general did not move again, Chen Hao replaced his hand on the heaving chest, clearing his throat against the weight of the storm.

"I'm trying to help you."

Zhou Yu was staring up at him with blank eyes, but they seemed to focus at his words. Through the failing light, the general observed his soldier sternly, silent but for his slowly calming breaths. Zhou Yu did not speak, his gaze shifting dazedly between the hand on his chest and the man above him; Chen Hao swallowed to moisten his dry throat and prepared to clarify his assertion. But the strategist must have been at least close to as quick-witted as everyone believed, because he managed a slight nod and relaxed back onto the floor without any questions. The dark eyes closed again, and Zhou Yu turned his face away from the infantryman at his side.

Chen Hao assumed his lord had gone back to sleep. A few minutes' time proved him wrong, when the softly breathing figure suddenly spoke. "Your name."

It was the kind of voice that demanded to be obeyed, even in its current rasping tone. The soldier dipped his head in a makeshift bow. "Chen Hao, private 3rd class under Han Dang." Though the general hadn't specifically requested such, it seemed only right to list his rank as well – as though naming credentials for being allowed in the wagon at all.

Zhou Yu's brow furrowed, but the lines were of concentration rather than anger. "Chen… Hao. I see." His voice was hoarse, though it grew stronger as he spoke, rising in power but not volume as the general wrestled his tongue under control. "Chen Hao. I am going to tell you a story."

Chen Hao frowned, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. The commander didn't look in any shape to be alive, let alone awake and talking. "Are you certain that's a good idea, my lord?" Zhou Yu's eyes came open, just barely, and he sent Chen Hao a flat glare.

"You misunderstand me, private. I'm telling you this story not because I want you to hear it, but because it needs to be told." His handsome face contorted, and Chen Hao blamed the expression on the wound pulsing beneath his fingers until the general's next words. "This story… it is weighing me down… an anchor in my soul… I do not want to die this way."

Chen Hao had never been one for poetry – he was, in all things, a practical man. He could not read and he had never studied the Classics. He did not know what it felt like to have an anchor in one's soul. The best he could extrapolate was what it felt like to trudge through a river in heavy armor, waterlogged so that every step felt as though it would pull a man under and drown him. An anchor in one's soul hardly sounded more pleasant.

"All right," Chen Hao replied, his voice cold and slightly nervous under the rhythm of the rain – though what he was agreeing to wasn't exactly clear, even in his mind, as the general did not seem to be giving him a choice. "What do you want me to do?"

Zhou Yu opened his eyes for a moment, then they slipped shut again, heavy as jade in his alabaster face, and finally flickered to half-lidded. "Sit still and be silent." Chen Hao nodded, though the general wasn't looking at him. He was very good at fulfilling both instructions – his mother, a backhanded tyrant, had made sure of that from a young age, and whatever stubbornness he might have retained had been fully drained in his three months of training.

The general took a deep breath. His faltering gaze seemed to focus beyond the pathetic roof of the wagon, and his eyes narrowed in what might have been a glare. "This is for your sake," he murmured to no one. Chen Hao wondered whether it were the poison or the story itself that had driven his lord to speak to the ceiling and the rain clouds, but he said nothing, silent as promised. Zhou Yu opened his mouth and began to speak.

"This story starts… well, thirty-five years ago… in the province of Shucheng, where I was born."

It was late summer. Deep in southeastern China, a screaming baby boy was born to a proud couple by the name of Sun. Two months later, in the cold, frost-torn nights of early winter, a second boy emerged from a mother's womb – this one to a couple surnamed Zhou, long friends of Lord Sun and his lady wife. In the heavens above, the moon twinkled beneath a thin veiling of clouds. Away to the north, thunder shook the spattered stars. It was a mildly ominous beginning.

End of Prologue