To Traitors

NOT A PR0MPT

******

"The general wants to send me to your homeland."

"For war?"

Villain hummed. "We knew it was coming."

"Of course." Hero shook her head and pushed a shirt further into the bucket of water. She bent it and twisted it and shoved it again. "How did she react when you told her 'no'?"

That was the thing; Villain didn't deny the general. No one denied the general.

Hero picked up on the silence. She always did. “Where does that leave us?”

A choice.

War?

Or her?

“You know this decision is not mine.”

"Sure, it is. I always wanted to travel- try camping."

Camping. Hero knew rejecting orders would be considered traitorous. She would rather be homeless and shunned than to standby while her homeland was being attacked.

"Hero..."

"Is that something you are not willing to do?" Her movements became rushed, like she was trying to maintain a calm, but the only way to do so was to move along with the emotions. She grabbed a shirt, dunked it, rung it, tossed it. Grab, dunk, ring. Grab, dunk, ring. They weren't even becoming clean, and the water needed changed. "My family is there. Where are they meant to go?"

"Even if I did tell the general no, I cannot stop an entire army from marching. The war will happen with or without me."

A sigh veiled the tension in the room. Villain's weight creaked beneath him as he stepped towards his lover. He took a linen shirt, wet and soaked, from her hands, and dropped it in the brown water. He found her hands next, then tugged her up slightly. She took the cue and stood, let herself be held.

"I love you," Villain said.

Hero didn't like crying. This is why Villain began rubbing her back as he pulled her into an embrace. She buried her face into his chest and sniffed once, twice...wiped a face full of tears, sniffed again...stopped, then began sobbing. No amount of squeezing could console the thought of her family being innocently slaughtered.

"You would hide them, wouldn't you? If you found them, you would save them?"

His grip loosened. He whispered, “Of course I would.” Did Hero know it might have been a lie? Even Villain wasn't sure what he would do when the time came that he marched onto her homeland.

"When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow."

"Then I'm leaving now." She attempted to pull away from Villain's chest, but he held her firmly. Her muscles tensed beneath him, but Villain knew she knew better than to try again.

"Hero, be level-headed.

"I want to warn them," she whispered, so quietly that Villain only knew what she said because of how well he knew her. He knew her every thought before she even had it herself. It wasn't magic; just love.

"And you think you will outrun an entire army overnight?"

"I know I won't!" her tone had changed, and this time when she pulled away, she didn't stop until Villain let her go. "But who am I to not try at all? Who would I be, Villain?" Her face was red and swollen, glistening with sad, then angry tears.

For a moment, she stopped. She took a breath. then swallowed as if she needed to stop herself from asking what obviously came to her mind. Alas, she said it. "How long have you known?" Her voice cracked, and Villain could see she already knew the answer: longer than he should have known before telling her.

"I'm sorry."

"I didn't ask for an apology." Her eyes refused to meet his. Villain was almost glad for it. He couldn't bear her anger, not when it was directed at him. "I asked how long you have known."

"Hero..."

"Clean your own damn clothes. I'll pay the Baker family back when I return."

"Pay them back? For w-" No. "You're not taking their horse." Hero was already scrounging around, first grabbing a raggedy sack, then stuffing one random item after another in. "Hero, stop. Hero-" She was going to take the neighbor's horse just to get caught up in the war herself. "Stop!"

She fell to her knees in the next moment. Broke down as if his voice took out the last support beam keeping the house together. hero cried, screamed, and wailed. "No. No. No. No. No," she repeated, and her voice broke time and time again as she screamed.

Tears sprung into Villain's eyes. What did he do?

"I'll send a bird. It will arrive before our army does, and when they receive it, they will know to leave."

Hero's head lifted, and her puffy eyes finally met Villain's glistening ones. "I will prepare beds. We have pelts; I can throw something together, and my brother can take-"

One blow after another, each and every passing moment. Just when Villain thought all might be well, the both of them realized there was no saving anyone. The war was an ambush, and Hero's brother would be expected to take a stand, to protect his own homeland.

"I won't-" Villain swallowed. "I won't harm your family. I will send the bird, and I will pray with every moment of travel that they receive it and leave. I will not draw my sword until I find their home empty, until I am sure they have left."

"You would be a traitor to your own kingdom."

"Better it this kingdom than you."