Servant of Time

Heir: Actually Spend Time With The Knight

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, why the hell did I ask for him to be my manservant? Oh right, Rose. She had to fucking tell me about a vague prophecy that's supposed to involve this dork with buck teeth and messy hair and how he's supposed to be the one to help me unlock my full potential. What is that even supposed to mean? Oh fuck, he's staring at me. Have I even greeted him yet? Okay, don't be weird about this.' He thought to himself frantically. 

"Morning, Egbert." He said with a smirk. 'Fucking nailed it.' 

"Morning, Sire. What am I expected to do as your manservant?" John asked trying to keep this from being awkward. 

"Clean my armor, as well as my room, you're supposed to run my baths in the morning and wake me up as well as getting me breakfast and just about anything else that I decide to have you do." He responded. "Let's take a look around the castle. Wouldn't want you to get lost in the castle, now would we?" He stood from the couch he was sitting on and waited for John to get up as well. Once he had they headed out into a long corridor, that served as a hallway to many different rooms for whenever the King had guests at the castle, which was quite often. They went to the ground floor and Dave pointed out things like the kitchen and royal dining area. "You will be expected to be by my side at all times unless I tell you otherwise." He said. Dave led them out into the area where the knights often trained. "This is the area where I will train with my knights, after I am finished training you will be expected to clean my armor and shine it as well. You will have to sharpen my weapons and make sure they are in shape." They then heard loud cheering coming from the direction of the execution block. 

"Shit." Dave said before taking off running towards the sound. John went after him confused. It was exactly what Dave had expected it to be. 

"Sire? What's going on?" John asked a bit panicked. 

"You see that female knight with the heavy armor? That's Vriska. She's been after a supposed "witch" for about a month now and I think she finally caught her in the act. Witchcraft of any sort is punishable by death in Derse." Dave explained calmly. "The witch's name is Aradia." Dave's voice faded away as John spaced out. 

John had recognized the name. Aradia was one of the members of Jade's new coven. John scanned the crowd anxiously as he look for any sight of Jade. 

"Are you even listening?" Dave asked punching John's arm lightly to get his attention. 

"Oh, uh yeah sorry. It's just that it seems a bit ridiculous to take one knights opinion to sentence someone to death. Isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess. I can't really stop it. Vriska's held a grudge against Aradia ever since they were kids. It's not surprising that Vriska would try to have her killed." Dave said, his expression was completely unreadable.

"But- What happened to proper trails?"

"My dad hates magic. Always has. Any mention of it and he'll go off the handle and kill whoever is accused, just so that he doesn't risk anything." Dave scowled a bit as he spoke. He knew it was completely unfair but he really couldn't really say anything to his father about it, without being accused of being a traitor. Even he had to admit that his dad was borderline insane. 

"Oh." That was the only thing that John could think to say. 

There was a burst of cold laughter that came from the accused witch. She spoke in a calm voice. "You won't get away with killing me without a trial. On the words of a vengeful Hunter that couldn't care less about if I was actually a witch or not. You will be plagued with my spirit until the end of your days." She spat, sending a glare in the direction of Vriska, the knight that had accused her. "And you. King Jack. To take the word of a petty Bounty Hunter as opposed to your court. Pathetic." Vriska looked at her and glared back with a demented smirk plastered on her face. It made John want to crawl under a rock and hide from this entire kingdom.

The King gave a signal and the sticks that surrounded Aradia were lit and within a few seconds there were screams of pain as the fire licked around Aradia's legs. John had to look away from the scene to keep himself from vomiting. It was sickening and so were the screams that came from Aradia. He hoped that Jade wasn't around to see this. 

"You okay?" Dave asked John as he saw him go pale at the screams. Dave even had to fight against showing any emotion as he heard the screams. 

John shook his head. "Not really. I'm not exactly used to this kind of thing."

Dave nodded and nudged John. "Let's go back inside. There's a room in the castle that the screams can never reach." He said guiding John up a spiraling staircase that led into on of the many towers in the castle. The screams faded the farther that they went up the stairs. They soon reached the top of the staircase and Dave opened the door with a key that was around his neck. The room wasn't very big but there was enough room for seating and a lot of blankets. "I used to come here a lot when I was younger and the executions were more frequent. It's a nice place. Especially now that I'm the only one with a key to it." He smiled a bit at the key. 

"Uh, thanks. Can I sit?" John asked hovering in the doorway as Dave took a seat. 

"Feel free." Dave said motioning to the multiple seats that occupied the room.

John moved to sit across from Dave. "So does this still happen a lot?"

"Not too much anymore. It was worse when Dirk and I were younger. We're not really sure why."

"Well, at least you had this room." John said trying to be positive.

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Dave said, he appreciated that John could look at things positively.

Hours passed and they continued to talk until it would be the end of the John's first day of being a manservant. "Don't forget to wake me up, tomorrow. 5 in the morning." Dave said at the door to his sleeping chamber. "Don't forget breakfast either. Jake should be in the main hall I believe." he said before waving John off and heading into his chamber. 

John made his way to the main hall and soon found Jake. He must have been waiting for him since Dirk went to sleep. "Jake." John greeted with a small wave.

"Ello John! Ready to head home?"

John nodded tiredly.

"So how was your first day?"

"Not as bad as I had expected it to be, but the royal family is hard to figure out. I mean there's the King who just seems crazy and then Dirk who seems like he knows everything about you, and Dave who is just different. He puts on a facade around his knights and then it slips away in private. Is it bad that I'm actually looking forward to spending more time with him?"

Jake chuckled. "The Striders sure are a wacky bunch at times. I can assure you that you won't like spending time with him tomorrow at training with the knights tomorrow."

John groans a bit as they walked the rest of the way back to their small house. Jake made them something to eat as soon as they got inside and within an hour Jake was sleeping and John lay awake. He was worried about the next day and he was worried about what would happen if he were to be found out by anyone in the royal family. It terrified him. John found himself falling asleep to the thoughts of the next day and the rest of the days that he would spend working with the Dersite royal family.