A/N: It has been SO long since I've updated, and I truly have nothing to say but that if writing was my full-time job, you guys would be getting a new chapter every other week or something :3 Alas, it is not, and in the very little time I do have to write, much of that is devoted to Pottersworld (that lovely, addictive time-suck...which if any of you happen to be on you should seriously tell me in comments :O). As long as an update might take however, they will most definitely not stop until the story is over :3

Merry Christmas, and happy holidays to you all!

Summer, 631 A.D.; Lima, Algania

Kurt, Sam, and Noah were all crowded inside Blaine's bedchamber. Kurt sat against the far wall with his legs perched up against a bureau. Noah sat directly by Blaine's bedside, and Sam leaned against a wall. Kurt's intention had been to go in and talk about nothing in particular, but he should have known that his plan would never play out to its intention. It had been two days since Kurt had first spoken to Brittany, and the quartet had wound up arguing over whether or not Kurt would go to the Festival that night.

"Of course I'm going to go," the prince said, indignant that there should be any thought otherwise. "It's been settled. I've settled it." He lowered his voice. "If not to understand more about how things are now – which I haven't had a chance to do since I've been back, in case it's escaped your notice – then to show people that I'm still alive, that I'm still a part of this court. Whether they remember it or not, I'm still the king's heir." He looked meaningfully at the other three. "I know we've been considering the people mainly in our reckoning, but truth be told, these nobles hold more immediate sway. You don't seriously expect me to not go now, do you?"

"Seeing as I was unconscious when this decision was made, I'm just trying to say that, with all respect, going tonight won't bear any fruit. Like you said, you haven't been back. You don't know what it's like anymore." Kurt tried to refrain from rolling his eyes at Blaine's words. He had finally told Noah and Blaine of his plan only that morning, and Sam had been quick to jump in and voice his misgivings, which the other two had seemed more inclined to listen to than Kurt's explanations.

"Are you going?" Kurt's blue eyes turned to Noah, who immediately started to shift.

"Yes," he admitted, sounding reluctant, "though through no choice of my own."

Kurt smiled benignly and turned back to Sam and Blaine. "Someone undoubtedly on my side will be there," Kurt said slowly. "I need to show people that I still have power, and that I do something besides sit around all day, a shadow of who I used to be. You know it to be true."

A moment of quiet met his words before Blaine spoke again. "We don't need another person hurt and confined to a bed," he murmured, his amber eyes turning up to Kurt. Sam and Noah averted their gazes and shifted, looking uncomfortable. "Or worse."

Understanding hit Kurt – Blaine was worried for him. "When I went to the meeting in town the other day," he said, voicing something that had been bothering him since then. "I was cloaked, true, but more people's eyes went to Jadvyga as we walked than to me, and even when they did…" He took a deep breath. "It was like they didn't see me at all. I thought it was nice as I walked along, to be able to do things like that and not be recognized, but then I realized that none of them recognize me. This is all part of it, getting people on our side."

After a tense moment, Blaine nodded tightly. Sam let out an audible sigh of relief and leaned back up off the wall. "In that case," he said, beginning to grin, "we have a lot of work to do."

"Thank you," Kurt said sarcastically, just as a laugh burst from Noah. Even Blaine revealed a small smile.

Sam flushed. "That's not what I meant," he defended himself gruffly, though after a moment he too started to grin.

"One last thing," Blaine said, halting their chuckles with his suddenly serious demeanor. Amber eyes fixed on Kurt. "Someone came to visit me yesterday."

"Is that so strange?" Noah asked, puzzled.

Maintaining eye contact, Blaine raised his eyebrows meaningfully, and Kurt suddenly understood. "No."

"Yes."

"I assumed that he had left after…" Kurt trailed off. He hadn't told Blaine about his confrontation in the hallway. He classified that as need-to-know information.

"I'm confused. Who are we talking about here?" Noah looked sharply between the two other nobles, and Sam stood noticeably silent, still against the wall.

"Blaine's father," Kurt answered distractedly.

Sam's brow furrowed in thought and Noah gaped. "Ander? Ander is here in court? But we saw him riding away from the court not long ago."

"It does make sense. I'm his son, and look at me." Noah looked properly abashed at Blaine's comment. "He said some things while he was here. There were two in particular which caught my interest." His eyes fixed on Kurt again. A feeling of dread slowly began to creep over the prince. "Apparently he had a violent run-in in a corridor with, and I quote, that 'delusional, devil-born royal's son'." Blaine's mouth pursed into a thin line. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking," Kurt admitted, running a hand through his hair.

"He also told me he'd be there." Blaine paused. "At the Festival."

Noah's eyes bugged. "Ander, at the Festival?"

"It does make sense," Kurt admitted reluctantly. "Ander and David do seem to get along swimmingly. This doesn't change anything."

"Doesn't it?"

Kurt was silent for a moment, eyes fixed on the tip of his shoe extended in front of him, his arms crossed against his chest. Eyes not leaving his foot, he spoke in an even tone. "Leave us, please."

Sam and Noah exchanged a look that Kurt caught out of the corner of his eye, but they left without a word. Kurt waited until the outer door had shut behind them to move. Silently, he walked toward Blaine's bedside and lay down beside him. His arms wrapped around the knight and Kurt buried his head into his shoulder. "I have to go," he said, his voice muffled against Blaine.

"I know," the knight admitted. "I don't like it – any of it." He paused. "Did you win?"

"Excuse me?"

"The fight. Did you win?"

Kurt was shocked into silence for a moment, and then he sighed. "In spite of whatever minor victories I've made in the past years, ultimately I've never managed not to lose. Fortune."

"Fortune," Blaine agreed, his gaze even. "Stay by Noah then, if you must go."

"He's more knowledgeable than any of us in the ways of David's inner circle." Kurt shook his head. "I used to think that David and I were friends. Was that ever true?"

"I couldn't say."

"Could I have done anything different? Is any of this my fault?"

"You could never know, Kurt."

"Perhaps if I had intervened earlier, it wouldn't have gotten to this –" He quieted when a soft fingertip was placed over his lips, and with wide eyes, Kurt looked up at Blaine worriedly.

Blaine was smiling, but there was an emotion in his eyes that conveyed no sense of humor whatsoever. "You'll drive yourself crazy, in a time that is crazy enough without anyone's help. Stop this."

Kurt sighed wearily and rolled to his feet by Blaine's bedside. He ran his hands roughly over his tired face and wandered over to Blaine's looking glass. Bracing his hands on the bureau, he looked up at his reflection. He had seen himself in looking glasses since he had been back of course, but he had never really looked, and even since Blaine had been ill, he had seemed to age another ten years. He leaned closer to his reflection, and though the brightness in his blue eyes remained the same and the black circles that purpled underneath them had been there for nigh on three years, the lines around them were new. The prince ran his fingers over them, over the pallid sheen of his cheeks, over the sun spots that had begun to discolor his cheeks, likely born from his days in the sun when he was with the Raju.

Letting out a bated breath, his eyes refocused until he could see Blaine reflected behind him, sitting up in bed. Their eyes met in the looking glass, and for a prolonged moment, they were both silent. Where he saw the pallor of his own face, he saw that Blaine's cheeks were ruddy in a healthy way – full of life. He saw lines forming around his own eyes and forehead, but from this distance Blaine's face looked as smooth and innocent as the day they had met.

The man behind him crossed his arms over his chest. "Looking for white hairs?"

"When did we get to be the old ones?" Kurt asked with a rueful smile, thinking of Angelica and Jameson, and of the dead king.

Blaine scoffed. "Old," he repeated mockingly. "You'll live to be a wrinkly old man, Kurt. A king – maybe the best that we've seen in a long while."

"Shh," Kurt scolded, turning around to behold him in person. "Stop saying that. You'll curse it." The prince smiled grimly but in the back of his mind, he pondered his words of a curse. Surely there was no such thing as truly being cursed. At times though, it certainly felt like there was.

That night, Kurt got ready alone. Though he and Noah would be a united front at the Festival, they had both agreed that they would appear as such to themselves only. They would arrive separately, and seem to be nothing more than acquaintances. As far as David knew, that was all they were, and they wanted it to stay as such. As much as was possible, both of them wanted to stay in the king's good graces, and that meant giving him no doubt to suspect ulterior alliances.

He forwent the usual royal red he wore to court functions in favor of a new outfit he had collaborated on with Daphne after talking to Brittany. When he entered the room, he wanted every eye to turn to him. He wanted the newcomers at court to ask who he was, and for the ones who knew him to catch their breath and remember him as a courtly force. With Daphne's help, he had learned the intricacies of the newest trends in the courts, and from there he had requested a fitted violet shirt, shorter than a tunic, and a silver vest that hugged his form.

As he walked to the Great Hall, he felt his old sense of confidence for the first time in longer than he cared to remember. He pushed in through the double door without hesitation, to behold a festival that was already well underway. It was as he had planned. They would all be there when he walked in; they would have no choice but to notice him.

Notice him they did. In spite of the degree of revelry, attention slowly started turning to him. Kurt's gaze travelled to the head of the room, past jesters and fist fights and whores and mistrals, to David. He sat at the head of a long, sturdy, wooden table shaped as a rectangle. A girl that Kurt had never seen before sat in his lap. She couldn't have been more than fourteen, and Kurt had to fight to maintain a straight face as he looked at them. He stood where he had entered until the attention of both the court and his cousin were on him.

Face falling, David shifted onto his feet, dropping the girl to the floor unceremoniously. "What…are you doing here?" Kurt thought he saw a moment of unease pass over his cousin's face, but it was gone as soon as it came. He hadn't seen David since the day of the duel, and seeing him now, an entire host of bitter emotions cropped up that Kurt hadn't been expecting.

Now that he saw David here in front of him, the full weight of their plans his Kurt. When David was nothing more than a name in their conversations, it was easy to aspire to overthrow him. But here – here was the David who was his own flesh and blood.

No, Kurt told himself firmly. You couldn't help who was your blood, but you could choose who your family was, and David was no longer that. He had ravaged the lands around them, he had used Kurt as an excuse to pillage villages and rape women, and he had attempted to kill Blaine. No, David was not to be pitied, especially now, when he sat at the head of the room, orchestrating this barbaric practice.

In response, Kurt smiled. It was an appropriate smile for the court: placid and non-aggressive, yet confident. "Surely there is a place at the table for your heir during the Festival?"

A corner of the king's mouth twisted up into a smile, as if he was marinating with a secret that Kurt didn't know. The prince was under no delusions that he would be told, not until David thought he could best use the information in his favor. "How novel," he said gleefully, sitting back down and waving at the girl, who draped herself across him once more. "My dear cousin desires to play at princes again." A hollow laugh rang throughout the court. "Well? What do you say?" His voice roared through the hall. "Shall we give him a royal treatment?"

Just like that, the noise returned to its former volume, though now they were all scuttling to seats and beginning to rip at legs of mutton. As Kurt walked toward a seat by David's side that he presumed had been cleared for him, he continued to force himself to not look disgusted at the level to which King Paul's Great Hall had sunk to. The floor was sticky with wine and ale. On tables at the room's sides, men groped underneath whores' shirts. In a far corner, one man was even in the middle of the process of taking a woman. Kurt hoped dearly that he wasn't a knight, sullying the name of the title he held. Whether he was or was not, the court he had known was nothing like this new construction.

He sat carefully at the chair. "I couldn't bear to miss out on these festivities, once I heard," he said, succeeding in his attempts to sound genuine.

"I dare say that you didn't receive an invitation yourself. Which of these snakes might have told you?" The sickening tone came from Ander, seated at David's right hand side.

"Hmm." With a wave of David's hand, a woman in a low-cut crimson dress sauntered toward them. With growing nausea, Kurt pushed back his chair enough for her to approach him. "For you," his cousin said, his gaze transformed into one of assessment. Ander leaned back in his chair and smirked.

"Highness," the woman said. Her voice was low and sensual, and she leaned down when she approached him so that he could see through the top of her shirt to her bosom underneath.

Forcing his every action, Kurt surveyed her and then smiled appreciatively. "Truly, I have been away too long," he said. When she climbed onto his lap and started moving her hands across his chest, he reached past her to grab a goblet of wine. If this was how the night was to go, he needed something to steady his nerves. Unlike Ander, whose gaze remained disbelieving, David seemed to take the action favorably. He laughed, and Kurt thought that he saw genuine enjoyment written there in his expression.

"Praise our God, you've rid yourself of that paralyzing weight attached to your side," David said mockingly, following Kurt's suit and grabbing a goblet of his own. Kurt bristled. He could only mean Blaine. "This is what we should be like cousin, like how we used to be at court. You have returned to us by the mercy of God, and you seem to have finally come to your senses. None too soon, for I was beginning to think you had lost interest in the court entirely."

"On the contrary," Kurt said. "My interest never faded, but sadly my physical heath wasn't able to keep up." He knew that in spite of his pleasant words, David was still watching his every move for one sign of insincerity. As he talked, he took a cue from the actions of both David and other men scattered around the Hall. He moved his hands over the whore's small waist to cup at her breasts. It felt so incredibly, sickeningly wrong, and yet he smiled as she purred and arched against him and licked at the side of his face, and Kurt could tell that David was pleased.

"We shall make up for it now," the king declared, slamming his goblet down. Wine sloshed across the table and ran down onto both of their breeches, but Kurt paid it no mind. "Noah!" As the king called the name of his friend and ally, Kurt looked around sharply. He had forgotten to look for the knight upon his entry. Noah materialized at David's side, giving Kurt only an indifferent nod that addressed protocol. "Bring her."

"It's early in the night yet –" Ander started.

"Bring her."

"Right away." With those words, Noah was gone once more, through the doors of the Great Hall.

"You'll enjoy this, cousin," David declared, pushing the girl away from him once more. Kurt slipped away from the one who had been assigned to him more delicately, and he stuck like a burr to David's side as the king grabbed a long spear that was mounted on the wall. Ander remained near the head of the table.

Kurt was about to ask what precisely it was that he would enjoy so much when a ripping roar echoed from outside. A moment later, the doors to the Great Hall flew open and Noah, with a face of stone, led in a mighty bear by a chain around its neck. The beast had to have been three times his size, and it struggled against its confine.

With a sinking feeling Kurt realized what would happen to the poor animal. When David tried to push a second spear into his own hands, Kurt refused outright. At his cousin's look of disapproval, he scrambled to cover for himself. "I beg of you," he said, smiling savagely. "Let me watch for tonight. I could use with a laugh."

After a beat of silence, David chuckled appreciatively. He dropped the second spear and moved toward the bear. Kurt, fighting rapidly rising nausea, took several steps away from the bear-baiting to fall into the nearest chair. His cousin was the first one to draw blood from the creature. His spear dug into its shoulder, and its mouth opened in a fierce growl that revealed each one of its sharp teeth. After first blood followed taunts with fire and thrown objects. All the while, the fools paraded around making a mockery of the blood sport. Kurt didn't keep track of how long it was until the poor creature, bleeding from a dozen stab wounds, simply laid down and quite fighting its captors and tormentors.

"The killing blow," David shouted, running up to him. His eyes were alight with bloodlust as he looked at Kurt.

"I couldn't possibly," Kurt said, shaking his head. "You've gone this far. It's only right that you continue."

"Come cousin, join in the sport!"

His hands gripped the arms of his chair tightly, for Kurt knew that if they didn't, they would be shaking. He looked over David's shoulder to the poor, dying, bleeding bear. Noah still held its chain collar. So minutely that one would not have noticed the action had they not been looking for it, Noah nodded.

Hoping that his nerve wouldn't fail him and that he could control his roiling stomach until after the Festival, Kurt took the blood-crusted spear from his cousin. "It would be my pleasure, if you'll allow me."

David nodded imperiously and stepped back. Kurt, spear in hand, approached the bear. It was sprawled out on the ground, breath coming shallow. As Kurt neared, its black, moist eyes watched his progress. The pain in them was so human that Kurt almost fell to the ground on the spot, but he held his stance. Blue eyes travelled to its neck. He had been trained in the arts of battle, too. He knew just where to strike that would still the animal's pain and end its life.

It was there that he made his blow, slicing into the bear's exposed throat and stealing its last breath. A spray of warm blood gushed from its neck. The red shower fell not only on him and Noah, who were the two closest, but the tormentors arrayed several steps away as well. Hot blood pooled under the animal, and a roaring cheer erupted from the human inhabitants of the room.

One of the loudest of all was that coming from David, who walked up to Kurt and Noah and clapped them both on the back. "A triumphant return!" He grabbed Kurt's wrist and raised it above his head, turning them toward the spectators. Only Ander's expression remained sour. "Prince Kurt!" The cheer went up through the raucous crowd. Kurt smiled widely, nodding his acknowledgement of their attention. The hot drops on his face were turning cold and dripping onto his lips and eyelids. When he reached up to wipe at them, his hands came away bloody.

Fun (not-so-fun) Fact: Bear-baiting, as I'm sure you know, is very much real. I couldn't find the time when it started, but it was brought into popular culture by gypsy's, who made them dance for entertainment. It was ultimately popularized in British courts, where it turned into something like what you see here. They would declaw the poor animals, and sometimes rip their teeth out as well, though not in the scene I depicted here.