Three Musketeers Fanfic Selection
| By: Geek Girl Shadow Kat
Shadow Kat Cosplay also writes fanfic and wanted to share her Three Musketeers fanfic selection...
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The sky above his head was as piercing blue as the cornflowers that dotted
the rolling hills around him. There were no clouds to shield him from the
burning sun, and the unfiltered light lanced through his eyes, causing him
to squint when he looked up. The worst was the heat, however.
Shimmering waves rose up from the ground, causing everything around
them to waver like a mirage. The heat was a constant fire on the back of
his neck, and he found his fingers itching for the water skin in his
saddlebags. Instead of giving in to the temptation of a cooling stream down
his back, he gripped the reigns in his hands tighter, until his knuckles were
white. Self-control was essential when traveling in this kind of weather.
D’Artagnan released one hand from its death grip to wipe away the sweat
beading on his forehead. It truly was miserable weather. The oppressive
heat made his tongue dry with thirst and set his head to pounding. His
horse wasn’t much better, its head drooping despondently as it trotted. He
would have to stop soon, or else he risked losing his only mode of
transportation on this mission. The road stretched out before them, an
endless ribbon of dirt, and he felt like he would never make it home.
Home.
Now that was a strange word. D’Artagnan chewed on his bottom lip as he
contemplated it. Home had once been a small village in Gascony, and an
even smaller farm on the outskirts of it. He’d lived there for most of his life,
with his father after his mother had died, and while his sisters had left to
marry. Home had been Alexandre d’Artagnan’s warm smile after a long day
of working on the farm. It had been the fatherly pat on his shoulder after a
job well done, the tuneless humming that accompanied the old man while
he worked the fields. Home wasn’t just the farm; it had been the family, too.
Now, d’Artagnan wasn’t sure what constituted as his home, if he had one at
all. The physical remains of his old home were, thanks to LeBarge, a
smoking ruin. His father was a year dead now, and oh, the grief of that was
still as fresh as the day his father had died in his arms. He could almost
smell it, even now, the scent of rainwater and blood seeping into the hard,
frozen ground around him. By God, he sometimes felt like he would never
be able to wash off the blood on his arms. But the heat of the morning
grounded him and brought him back from his memories, and for once he
felt grateful for the sun’s relentless fire.
Home could be a garrison in Paris, his mind whispered. It probably already
was. A garrison and the three men in it, who meant more than the world to
him. His brothers-in-arms, and the people who had become his rock when
life had shaken him like a boat on the stormy sea. Yes, home could be
those people, but he was still uncertain of his place with them, and so he
shoved the thought into the back of his mind.
The thought of home brought him back to his purpose. Attempting to shake
off the melancholy that had slipped over him, he nudged his faltering horse
back into a trot, and relished in the puffs of dust that the horse’s hooves
raised. That was real, something concrete that he could focus on, and was
something that distracted him from the emotions welling up inside him like
an open wound. D’Artagnan hunched over the back of his horse, searching
for any kind of shade amongst the rolling landscape, and ignored the bitter
taste of grief that lingered on his tongue. His home was gone.
D'Artagnan by sunsetagain
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February 28 2015