Chapter Text
TIMELINE:
- Monday 5th September 3 BC – The Demon Army encamps around the Stronghold of the Pine Trees
- Thursday 8th September 3 BC – in the evening the Demon Army attacks the Stronghold of the Pine Trees and destroys it
- Friday 9th September 3 BC – very early in the morning (just before sunrise ish) Sparda comes across Evelyn and the twins in the wreckage. He is amazed by her mental strength and swears she is his mistress. (Ch 1) They leave as the sun rises. They walk east for the whole day in silence. (Ch 2) In the evening, Sparda hunts a deer, after Evelyn discovers demons eat people. She also discovers Laura is ill and has a little breakdown. (Ch 3) Sparda watches the breakdown and is amazed that the twins, especially Robert, are able to support his big sister as she breaks down. He realises that the strength he admires is in fact all humans, and together with Robert begin to prepare the deer for eating. (Ch 4) As they cook, Robert tells Sparda the concept of hope, which he finds absolutely fascinating. Evelyn decides to try and heal Laura with encouragement from Sam. (Ch 5) Evelyn and Sparda go to a nearby creek to wash off Laura, at which point Evelyn takes off her headscarf, and Sparda sees yellow (her blonde hair), a colour he’s never seen before (he’s only seen brown, white, black, blue, purple, and red before) and finds beautiful. Evelyn explains the concept of beauty to him. Sparda spills to her doubts that he has been feeling about demons and mankind, and that in fact the ideas of hope and beauty make humans maybe better than demons. In return, Evelyn tells him of love, and offers to be his friend. Evelyn begins to see Sparda as a person, instead of a monster. However, as they are walking back to the camp, Laura dies. (Ch 6) Evelyn lashes out at Sparda, but then regrets it and finds him to apologise. They return to the camp and sleep. (Ch 7)
- Saturday 10th September 3 BC – In the morning, the four of them bury Laura. (Ch 8) They then walk for most of the day, Sparda gaining a lot of information about humans, and Evelyn learning that demon’s whole life is basically built around weapons and battle. Sparda becomes fascinated by the fact that humans can choose their own paths in life. Evelyn is half kidnapped by a bandit, who Sparda scares off instead of killing, feeling unable to kill a person anymore. (Ch 9) Evelyn is almost angry that Sparda didn’t kill him and begins to rethink her own stance on the death penalty.
- Sunday 11th September 3 BC – They walk for the whole morning. (Ch 10) That afternoon they are ambushed by 10 soldiers and Ahearn. Evelyn manages to talk Sparda and Ahearn out of killing one another after telling Ahearn that Pine Trees has fallen to the Demon Army. Ahearn takes them back to Stronghold of the Lake, which Sparda realises is the heart of Albion human resistance. (Ch 1) Ahearn enters the Stronghold to find the Captain of the Guard’s opinion, leaving his men and one guard guarding Sparda et al. (Ch 2) Captain Sloane of the Guard decides that it is too big of a decision for him. Meanwhile, Evelyn begins to get her guards to warm up to Sparda. (Ch 3) Ahearn waits outside the General’s house, who walks to meet Sparda with Ahearn and Sloane, bringing 60 men with them. Ahearn is horrified to find the men playing games with Sparda etc, but before battle can break out among them 30 flambats attack. (Ch 4) During this skirmish, Sparda loses his arm to save a random soldier because a fault in his armour. This convinces the General that Sparda is in fact an ally, who welcomes him into Lake, after learning the flambats mean the Demon Army is likely 2 weeks away. (Ch 5) After sending the soldiers away, Evelyn and the twins declare to Sparda that they want to live with him, and Sparda eventually relents. Chieftain Arlynn, General Cathal, Sparda, Evelyn, Robert, Sam, and Ahearn then return to the General’s barracks quarters. Ahearn is forced to wait outside as Arlynn, Cathal and Sparda (though mainly the latter two) begin to discuss how exactly the Demon Army works. (Ch 6) Sparda and Cathal continue to discuss, Sparda discovering that Cathal defeated Mundus’ elite, convincing Sparda that Cathal can defeat the army. Arlynn leaves and, after a while, the two Generals notice that Evelynn and the twins have fallen asleep. They leave them in Cathal’s bed, before going to look at the arcane items Cathal has collected and testing various magics. With this knowledge, they discuss long long into the night.
- Monday 12th September 3 BC – At around sunrise, Cathal and Sparda have a plan for the arrival of the Demon Army. Sparda delivers it to Arlynn, and Cathal goes to sleep after demoting Ahearn and putting him as the only soldier under the newly made Brigadier Sparda. (Ch 7) Evelyn wakes to find Sparda, who explains about his Brigadier-ship and Ahearn. She, Sam, and Robert head under Ahearn’s guidance to the Stronghold’s market for breakfast and new clothes, as only soldiers have been told of Sparda’s presence. (Ch 8) While Evelyn and the twins shop, Ahearn feels a certain camaraderie with her, as she reminds him of his older brother. When they return, Cathal leads them to the Stronghold population and Arlynn announces that Sparda will be helping them. (Ch 9) 25 people (20 men, 5 women) are taught by Sparda how to do basic magic. They far outshine him and by the end of the day are doing things with magic he didn’t realise was possible. However, during this he learns to distinguish sex through scent, and realises Cathal is AFAB. After asking her about it she explains that she lived as a woman, then pretended to be a noble man to be able to use her military powers to confront the Demon Army. She then explains that she doesn’t really feel like a man or a woman though, and Sparda suggests that she could be neither. Cathal begins to use they/them pronouns. (Ch 10)
- Tuesday 13th September 3 BC onwards – Time passes. Sparda teaches some people, Cathal grows close to Sparda, Ahearn and Evelyn and Co. grow closer. This continues for like 4 weeks.
- Friday 7th October 3 BC – Time has passed. There are now lots of magicians and Sparda has been accepted by most all in the village. Basically, all the women in the Stronghold trust him, and at least some of the men (soldiers) do. All the Stronghold are ready for attack. Cathal is even closer to Sparda. Overtime, Cathal has come to terms with being out (to Sparda) as bigender, Ahearn is really questioning his fondness for Sparda and Evelyn ‘n’ Co., feeling he is betraying his brother. Sparda has discovered the joys of human food after being pushed to the edge by repeated use as a target. (Ch 11)
- Saturday 8th October 3 BC – During the mid-morning, Captain Rhys and the Western Contingent of the Challenger Corps discover the Demon Army very close to the Stronghold. They report to Cathal, who sets the plan in motion. Evelyn and the twins are put into the Chieftain’s Hall with civilians and Ahearn returns to the Western Contingent. The Demon Army arrive that night and encamp around the Stronghold, ready to scare them for 3 days straight before wiping them off the face of the earth.
- Sunday 9th October 3 BC– Before the Demon Army has time to attack, however, mid-morning while most lesser demons are asleep, mankind strike, bringing a terrifying volley down upon the Demon Army. It scatters, chaos erupts among them. (Ch 12) Eventually, Mundus brings them back together and orders Abigail to assault the Stronghold with essentially artillery and Malphas to infantry. Abigail gets nowhere as the humans have a totally epic shield that stops all of her attacks from getting through, and although Malphas does find a ‘weak point’ in the shield to attack, this turns out to be a trap, leading to a maze of death filled with traps that her entire army dies upon, including her officer Artemis whose soul is stolen by Machiavelli. Malphas nearly dies, constructing herself a slap-dash body out of a chicken chick which looks so horrible and leaves her so weak (forcing a chicken chick to hold the soul of a Demon Lord is no mean feat magically) she surrenders and goes to sulk in Hell until Urizen eventually finds her, I guess. (Ch 13)
- Monday 10th October 3 BC – The night passes with only a few pot-shots either way, but the next morning mankind leaves their shield to attack the Demon Army. They soften them up with chariot attacks before advancing a shield wall. However, the chariots are decimated by an attack of Lusachia before the shield wall breaks under the attack of 7 Gigapedes. General Cathal tries desperately to marshal the infantry together to keep attack as chaos breaks out, man-to-demon fighting. Later in the battle, Modeus catches sight of Sparda fighting on the side on humans. He and Baul have a violent reaction to this, and go away to discuss it. Baul is disgusted, and brands Sparda a traitor, asking Modeus to join him in surpassing Sparda to become the greatest swordsman in Hell together. Modeus declines, saying he agrees with Sparda. Baul goes ballistic, threatening and begging Modeus not to go. Modeus declines, forswearing use of a sword, before opening a portal (via Hell) to Scandinavia. (Ch 14) Meanwhile, Evelyn has had enough of waiting for the battle to be over and escapes the civilian bunker to join the fighting. She battles 4 Red Empusas and an Empusa Queen before we leave her POV. Also during the battle, Sparda fights Pandora, struggling a little with their shapeshifting and personality shifting abilities, before finally setting fire to them, forcing them to exhaust themselves while trying to find a form to escape the fire. However, before Sparda can collect their soul as a Devil Arm, Machiavelli steals it. (Ch 15) Ahearn faces off against Lucifer. Lucifer announces himself as Ahearn’s father, and Ahearn doesn’t believe him, attacking Lucifer to the point where Lucifer gives up and sheesh-kebabs Ahearn with a fuckton of swords. This awakens his demon heritage, and he gains his DT. He then proceeds to get curb-stomped again by Lucifer, causing him to wonder if he needs yet more power to get his revenge. Mirroring his thoughts, Lucifer offers him power if he serves him. Ahearn is tempted, but declines, realising that for the first time since his brother died he actually has hope. Using this knowledge, he unlocks his demon power of like doppelganger but it’s a rose, and Lucifer dies. Ahearn takes Lucifer’s soul before he collapses in exhaustion (Ch 16). Soon after Pandora’s defeat Mundus retreats. Evelyn, having lost two fingers at this point, isn’t doing so well. She meets up with some other magicians, however, (incl Gilda and Borak) who heals her. Together, they come up with magician subcategories to properly denote what a specific magician is good at. They then find Sparda, who’s a little put out at Evelyn being on the battlefield, until she shows him she totally kicked ass. Sparda then finds Ahearn and surmises that he is a demon pretending to be Ahearn, and takes him back to the Stronghold. Cathal and Sparda then have a debrief and plan for what comes next.
- Tuesday 11th October 3 BC – The stronghold has had a chance to calm down after the battle. Wounded are being healed, dead are buried etc. Cathal and Sparda announce the next moves for the war. Cathal also comes out as they/them, and is accepted for the most part because they just won a battle. Against the Demon Army. This has literally never been done before. There is all round jubilation
- Friday 14th October 3 BC – Ahearn wakes up and is immediately questioned by Sparda and Cathal. He initially tries to hide everything, but accidentally DTs. It all gets a bit too much and he has a breakdown, prompting Sparda to realise he is in fact half human because devils never cry. Ahearn agrees to fight under Sparda in the war, General Cathal annouces they have come out as they/them and the fic closes with a lame joke (Ch 17).
CHARACTERS
Evelyn: You know who Evelyn is.
- Evelyn’s birthday is in winter. She was born in 17 BC
Sam – sensitive twin. They’re 8, btw, therefore born 11 BC
Robert – head strong twin
Ahearn – captain of the west contingent (challenger corps)
- Ahearn himself was a mean-looking man. He was tall and thin, but in a way that made it look like he had been forged from pure iron. Iron from swords, mind you. His hair was a dirty blonde, almost light brown, and pulled into a small ponytail with such severity that his face seemed to almost float over his neck. It wasn’t flattering, considering the myriad of scars that pockmarked his face, everything from small burns to slashes. From the looks of it, they continued down below the hem of his tunic. He didn’t have many wrinkles though, and overall looked young despite the frankly terrifying number of scars. His eyes were a dull, muted light hazel, and seemed to perpetually glare at everyone.
- Grew up in Ancient Greece, the second civilisation to fall to the demon army after Egypt. His real name is Aischylos, he only changed it to Ahearn to try and flee to Albion. He and his brother (Menexious) managed to escape the destruction of Greece (Sparta), living hand to mouth watching home after home burn around them, forever running. His brother told him tales of Egypt, how prosperous it was there, so after he watched his brother get disembowelled by Lucifer, he travels to Egypt, only to find it totally overrun with demons. He managed to escape by the skin of his teeth, vowing that the only thing important in life is staying alive long enough to take revenge upon demons.
- Has seen his home and everyone he’s ever known destroyed relentlessly so many times he’s almost hopeless. He’s looking for revenge, not to keep the human race alive. He’s too bitter to really think mankind isn’t doomed and has a personal vendetta against Lucifer for obvious reasons. Deep-seated hatred for all demons. Is probably like 33ish
Captain of the Guard (Sloane) – an older Captain. Born and bred in the Stronghold of the Lake. Comes from one of the highest noble families. Not especially intelligent but thorough and dogged to a tee. Has been at the soldiering game for a while, was a young captain even before the Demonic Invasion began in England, and so had become more mellowed with time. Do not take this for indifference though!
General Cathal –
- The General was slim and short, but wiry as steel with deep tanned skin. Sharp eyes gazed at and right through Ahearn, unsettling him with their steely, grey gaze. It left the Captain instantly in no doubt about who exactly was in charge and why. The General’s hair was longer than was proper for a soldier, straight and wispy it floated around his head like a loose halo. His posture and perceptive, all-encompassing gaze suggested he was young, although his hair had only a few remaining strands of black among the washed-out grey, and his skin was wrinkled and withered, prematurely aging him even past Captain Sloane. He was wearing a soldier’s blue tunic, although Ahearn hadn’t known there was as much gold thread in the world as adorned its edges and wound in curling trails through the material. On one side hung an ambaxtor’s sword, although once glance and Ahearn could tell it had never been used in anger, and probably not even unsheathed half a dozen times. They also have grey eyes
- Was in the first Stronghold of Albion to fall (Stronghold of the Crashing Waves). Travelled for a while as a woman, fleeing from stronghold to destroyed stronghold. Wasn’t a noble at all, but happened to watch a number of generals, and realised they were all dumb as shit compared to them. Tried and failed to advise them because women can’t be good tacticians. Said fuck this shit, took up the name Cathal instead, and pretended to be a man, which they were really surprised to find everyone was just like yeah seems right to me. Physically a prematurely aged, Jon Sims-hair Sir Integra. Is 39 when we meet them
Soldier John – guard who takes Ahearn back to the Stronghold
Soldier Dylan – a guard, in a contingent with Soldier John and two others
Soldier Rhys – a soldier of the West Contingent, natural born leader who really shouldn’t be a foot soldier. Promoted into Ahearn’s place when he is given special duty to guide Sparda & Co.
Soldier Callum – One of the foot soldiers of the Western Contingent. Born and raised in what previously were the farming families from the area around Lake. Quite open minded, as he has seen little battle, and honestly prefers soldiering to farming
Soldier Owen – Also part of the Western Contingent. I dunno man, he has a character I guess
Soldier Ben – Western Contingent
Soldier Henry – Western Contingent
Soldier Matthew – see above
Chieftain Arlynn – born and bred within Stronghold of the Lake. Eldest son of his father the Chief, and therefore groomed since a young age to lead. Perfectly adequate leader, but he is skilled at bureaucracy and management rather than battle plans
Tara – a slightly world-weary, middle-aged, married and at least 1 (probably more, let's face it) -child weaver raised in the Stronghold of the Lake
Gilda – a young, very talented seamstress. Was born in the Stronghold of the Deep Ditch (Old Sarum) and fled to Stronghold of the Lake recently, worsening her shyness into borderline anxiety. One of the first to be taught magic. Her talent at healing with magic has helped her a lot with her anxiety, as it gives her a space where she knows she is right, and can do something to help people
Connor – a young, very thin, very pale, messy-haired Irishman and refugee to the Stronghold of the Lake, and very very skilled painter, using his skills mostly for crockery. One of the first to be taught magic
Vidrna – an Persepolisian/Achaemenian cook and refugee to Stronghold of the Lake. One of the first to be taught magic
Captain Benjamin – probably Jewish, Benjamin is a Hebrew name. Definitely a nobleman and leader of the Cavalry/Charioteers
Borak - young Selecuian man (modern day Iran). High cheekbones, unreasonably attractive, deep skin and rich accent. A bit young to grow a beard just yet but let me tell you by heck he can. Deep, thoughtful eyes. Only just older than Evelyn (probably born Spring 17 BC?)
Army of the Stronghold of the Lake:
- 11 in Contingents for the cardinal directions (Challenger Corps) (N,S,E,W), 10 patrol every day, 1 has the day off - They are specially trained to go beyond the embankments and for battle, green uniform, no shields, use swords and long spears. Do not have any armour as it can weigh them down and interfere with stealth, although captains may use mail when going into battle if they can afford it
- 1 Captain of the Contingent for each 11
- 16 Guards (total) – 4 in every gate and 4 with the week off – wear red, use long oval shields and short, throwing spears, trained for battle and special training for guarding protocols. All wear chainmail under a second red tunic. In the summer this can get uncomfortably hot
- 1 Captain of the Guard, who also is in charge of the Contingent of Soldiers who patrol the embankment for a fortnight
- 30 Contingents of 30 infantry soldiers – wear blue, kite-shaped shield, long spear, and axe, trained for battle and patrolling the embankments. Will have chainmail shirts if they can afford them, most all captains have chain mail shirts
- 1 Captain for each contingent (30)
- 1 cavalry contingent of 50 soldiers – wear black, ride in chariots, one with heavy armour, again down to personal wealth but as they are almost all noblemen to the lowest is chainmail and the highest is chainmail, helmet and early plate armour and a spear or two, one with nothing but their black tunic and a dagger (usually servants of the noblemen or civilians who could not otherwise serve in the army i.e. farmers, blacksmiths etc) only called upon before battle
- 1 Captain for the whole corps
- 5 contingents of 20 spearmen – wear yellow, much like the Anglo-Saxon huscarls they are heavily armoured and use their shields and spears to form a phalanx on the battlefield, wear mail shirts and helmets all
- 1 Captain for each contingent, although they will fight alongside in the shield-wall
- 4 contingents of 25 bowmen – wear dark green for stealth, most will also have a dagger of some kind for emergencies, as well as a longbow and a hip-quiver of arrows
- 1 Captain for each contingent
- 1 General for everything
- Totals: 1,210 Soldiers; 45 Captains; 1 General
- A carnyx was a Celtic battle horn