(Quick note before I start: this story takes places some time before the events of Shacklestone RP. It's Frederick and Wendigo's first meeting. These guys are friends/comrades in the RP, so I wanted to go into a bit more detail with how they met.)

It had been a slow day. Not that I minded - it meant that Sargon hadn't ordered me to do anything, which was a good thing. I had spent most of the day with a group of other soldiers, doing combat training. By the time we were finished, it was nearly 1AM and I was exhausted - quite an accomplishment for a vampire.

As I was walking home, I heard a commotion outside a local bar. Out of sheer curiosity, I walked over to investigate and saw a young, dark-haired man arguing with a huddle of other people; all of them looked to be Sargon's troops. Without getting close enough for them to notice me, I was able to eavesdrop on their conversation.

'This is your last warning,' one of the troops growled to the young man. 'We don't tolerate traitors here, and nor does Lord Sargon.'

'Get lost,' the young man retorted, shoving him backwards. In an instant, all of the troops were upon him. The formerly quiet street erupted into a battleground faster than the eye could see; an explosion of blood, fists, teeth and yells. I hurried towards them.

'Excuse me,' I said, raising my voice enough to be heard. 'What exactly is going on here?'

The troops backed away with obvious reluctance, eyeing me suspiciously. I was impressed to see that despite being attacked by five different people at once, the young man didn't seem to have sustained any serious injuries, and his opponents were all out-of-breath, bleeding and battered.

'Frederick?' one of the troops asked. 'Frederick Alscher?'

'Yes, that's me,' I said coolly. 'Care to explain? I just wanted to go home; I didn't expect to run into a brawl between my own comrades.'

Most of the troops had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

'Sorry for the disturbance, Frederick,' said the one who'd spoken before - he seemed to be the leader of the gang. 'We just felt the need to... have a word with Wendigo here. He's been talking about deserting the army, and you know Lord Sargon doesn't take kindly to that--'

'You can 'have a word' with whoever you like,' I said. 'But don't start brawls in the street. People will get suspicious and before you know it, we'll have the police to deal with.'

'Yeah, you're right. I apologise. It won't happen again.'

I made sure to give all of the troops a stern glance before walking away.

I was approaching the front door of my house when I suddenly realised that I was being followed. The knowledge that someone had managed to tail me without being noticed until now came as such a surprise that I didn't even wonder who it might be. Whirling around, I drew my pistol and aimed it into the darkness.

'Woah!' a voice exclaimed. 'Steady on, dude. I wasn't going to try anything, I swear.'

I lowered the gun, but didn't relax my grip on it. 'Who are you?'

A figure stepped out of the shadows to join me in front of my house. Instantly, I recognised him as the same young man I'd saved from the troops earlier. He was slightly taller than me, and heavily-built, with short black hair and fiery orange eyes. From the colour of his eyes alone, I knew that he wasn't human.

'I just wanted to thank you,' he said, grinning ruefully. 'I'm not sure I could have held off those guys by myself.'

I put my gun away. 'You seemed to be doing fine,' I said dryly. 'I actually thought that /they/ were in more danger than you. What's your name?'

'Wendigo. I'm a dragonshifter.'

'Frederick,' I replied, shaking his hand. 'How long have you been with us?'

'Just joined up the other day.'

There was something odd in his voice; something almost like sadness. It didn't match up to the grin on his face.

'And why were those soldiers attacking you?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'I was careless. Accidentally let slip that I didn't agree with the Count's plans, that I wanted to leave the army. I actually tried to resign yesterday, but he said that nobody's allowed to resign. So I've been considering just running away.'

'That's a bad idea. The Count has been known to kill people who try to desert his army.'

Wendigo stared at me. 'Are you serious?'

'Dead serious. I know more about him than you do. And I'm telling you now - don't try to leave. You'll endanger your life, and the lives of all your friends and family, if you do. Sargon is a violent monster.'

He looked disturbed. 'Dude, you shouldn't be saying this. People might think you're not really loyal to the Count. You wouldn't want to give them the wrong impression.'

I took a long, slow breath. Should I tell him? In all my years of serving Sargon, I had revealed my true motives to only a few people, and all of them were people I'd known for a long time. People who I trusted. I'd known Wendigo for less than half an hour. But I needed all the potential allies I could get.

And for reasons unknown to me... I instinctively knew he could be trusted.

'Wendigo,' I began, 'you must promise to never tell anyone about this.'

'Promise,' he said immediately. 'But - wait - tell them about /what?'/

'I'm not really loyal to Sargon. I was forced to join his army, a long time ago. Ever since then, I've been planning ways to overthrow him. I want him dead and gone. He's hurt too many people.'

Wendigo just gazed at me, and I started to wonder if I'd made the wrong decision. But then he nodded solemnly and said, 'Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. But why are you telling /me?'/

'Because you don't like Sargon either. And I want your help.'

'Help with what? How are you planning to overthrow him, anyway? He's got a huge army of crazed monsters under his control. The two of us can't do anything to hurt him.'

'No, but maybe in the future, we can. If we can gather enough allies...' I trailed off, not wanting to tell him that I really /didn't/ know how to overthrow Sargon. There were times when I doubted it was possible, but I tried hard to believe otherwise. If I didn't have hope, then I didn't have anything.

'Well...' said Wendigo, with a hint of a smile, 'you just got yourself a new ally, Frederick. I hate what Sargon's doing - he ordered me to /kill/ a bunch of humans yesterday, just because they knew something they weren't supposed to. I never knew how insane he was until I joined the army. I want to make him pay for everything he's done.'

'You'll still have to feign loyalty to him,' I warned.

'I know. But maybe someday, I won't have to anymore.'

At that point, we realised that we'd been talking openly in the street for several minutes too long. So I invited Wendigo into my house, where we spent the next few hours discussing ways we could protect people from Sargon. We didn't come up with any solid plans, but talking about what we wanted to accomplish felt good. It felt like we had a purpose. Before he left to go home, we made a promise that we'd work together until Sargon was dead and gone.

I don't intend to ever break that promise.

(Finished)