It started out as a normal day. Matéo woke up before his love, slipped out of the room to prepare breakfast for them and their children. He made love with his love before she went to court and proceeded to take his children to school. He went to the market to buy things for dinner. Then things took a rather drastic turn.
A warrior appeared, followed by a fugitive. The marketplace screamed in the resulting battle. Bolts of pulse fire littered the streets. More enemies came. The fugitive landed near where he was cowering behind some barrels of vegetable, cluttering at his wares tight to his chest. He was a lower class noble. He was not a fighter. The fugitive looked over at him and recognition sparked in the man's eyes.
"Hello," he gasped, struggling with breath. He winced as another pulse landed near him, clutching to his shoulder as the wound bleed. A shield flickered over him, beginning to fail under the storm of shots. "I rather need your help, Matéo."
"I don't know you," Matéo shook his head. Nothing rang familiar and yet this man was certain with the fact that he both knew Matéo and knew he could help. He yelled as a bolt hit the stand and sent root vegetables raining down on him. He dropped his own bag, trying to bat away the things before he could get hit by something with more power.
"I know, and I'm so very sorry for what I'm about to do, but I need you," the man grimaced, rolling closer to Matéo. He looked at Matéo's hands, eyes locking on the ring. "Who are you married to here?"
"Lady Amelia of the Sky Courts," Matéo murmured, watching how the shield moved around him too.
"Not a name I know," he looked down. "Forgive me, Matéo."
A hand touched his head.
The world paused for one brief moment and then spun back into existence, pounding against Matéo had jumped into icy water. Amelia, his children, they all faded away as a thousand lifetimes rushed through him. A thousand paths not walked, a thousand fates not lived crashed into his mind with a single piece of clarity. The stranger was his friend. His stranger needed his help, and the Shadow of the Hour would heed the call.
A sword materialised in his hands and relief filled Luc's as his body language shifted from a civilian to that of a warrior befitting of the order of the Hour. For a while, all trace of Consort Matéo faded from existence. Amelia could have stood before him and he would not have known her.
Lifetimes he had not lived gave him the skill and knowledge to disable the guards. Most of them overwhelming murmuring the same thing. It was his duty to protect Luc, so Luc could protect Kennard. Be Kennard a King, a Prince, the heir or something so much simpler, Arther was to be protected so his heart would lead them all into a new golden age. Blood filled his mouth as someone got a good hit in. Matéo stuck back, careful not to kill. He did not know who was friend and foe at the moment. Until he knew, Luc and Kennard were the only ones he could trust.
A man called for the guards to halt. Luc and his companion stood back to back with Matéo. Matéo struggled to hear the words but his face was familiar. In many worlds, this was an ally. Matéo did not know in this world.
"Matéo? Can we trust him?"
"You summoned me, Luc," he looked at the man, and the men surrounding them in a circle. Hesitation rang through them. Bodies of men lay around them, slain and disabled depending on who had taken them down. "I fear my knowledge of this place is shaky at best. I did not rebel in this life." He looked at his hand, the ring on his finger. Bile rose in his throat. "I played the good little pawn."
"In which case, I see no other choice than to trust what we know from other realms," Luc declared, a hand resting on Matéo's shoulder. "We will go with you, General."
There was a flash of images before they were in the crown room. Some of the lifetimes were wearing off. Knowledge, Matéo understood, would remain. The skills, the magic, the reflections in people's faces that told their secrets and souls but not the memories of the people who were not the Matéo standing in this realm. Hints of them like stories, but not things that made up his essence. Only how could they not?
Matéo was an assassin in so many lives and in this one, he was a stay at home husband.
"You killed me," Matéo frowned, looking at Luc. There was no other term for it. The man he had woke up as was not the man who he would go to sleep as. And his heart ached for someone he did not know existed in this universe.
"I'm sorry," Luc looked sincere at the words but Matéo knew he didn't regret the action. "I needed you. I suspect I still do."
"Who is he?" King Arther asked, looking down from his throne at them with curious eyes.
"Good question," Matéo rolled his shoulders and let his hand flex. Magic flared from it, dancing around his wrist before flooding his being. No, not magic. His mod, the thing his parents had blocked from him at such a young age was now active and he had control of it. "Not who I was this morning."
"Matéo!"
He turned, a woman stood, held back by guards. Matéo looked back at King Arther and then at Luc. "He did something to wake up my mod," Matéo offered, taking a few steps forward. "My parents never want me to use it, almost never." He paused, shivering as memories of that particular possibly ran through him. "Normally I rebel, in this realm, I did not."
"I travel between realms. Sometimes I need to wake people's abilities up," Luc explained, his voice soft. "Matéo is more often than not, the second to Tristian, Helm of the Hour. One of the loyalist servants you have in your retain."
The court shifted. The Hour existed here, as it did in every universe. For Matéo to be named as a member and loyal to King Arther was important.
"Tristian is not Helm," Arther noted, eyeing Matéo up and down.
"You are not at war. Is he known?" Luc asked, looking over the people of the court. Looking no doubt for other loyal members of the court. Whispers of names Matéo couldn't know sprinkled over his mind. A few he could see and a few he knew were in the court elsewhere. A few, including a man he was married to more often than not, he did not know if they existed here yet. "Sometimes he's an enforcer, sometimes he's a drug lord, occasionally he's a singer. If he's not here yet, I'm sure he'll find his way to you eventually."
"Troubling if he is a druglord here," King Kennard noted, but there was amusement in his eyes at the casual declaration that the man would be by his side at some time.
Luc shrugged. "Souls are souls, my King. I have visited many dimensions, seen many different events and versions of people. If a heart is solid, it rarely changes. I fear whoever Matéo was in his realm will have to change now. If he was a mere noble, that will be a hard mask to wear now. If he's only a noble, he's normally further up the pecking order that a house husband."
Matéo found himself nodding in agreement. A flash of those realities washed over him, of having power rather than hiding in the shadows. More of himself was settling in now and the idea of going back to Amelia and their children made him want to weep. It was a dim existence and one he'd never wanted in the first place. The children made it tolerable but even before this, the black depths had tucked at him. How many times had he been close to getting help for it? Now it clung even tighter to his ankles and neck. This time, it was different. Whatever Luc had done, it opened his mod permanently. No one could take it away from him now. Not his parents and not his wife, he was free.
"I can take my oath to you if you are concerned with an unregistered mod, your majesty? I have done so countless times, it seems," Matéo let a small smile dance on his lips.
A thoughtful look moved through Arther's eyes but he shook his head. "Not today. It sounds like when Mr Crawford's business here is done, the Hour will wish to talk to you first."
"Please call me, Luc," Luc's face twisted unhappily.
A/N: things I would so love to write if I had the time/energy/skill. A whole book, purely with the premise of changing one character dramatically as their 'normal' self bleeds through dimensions in the second and having to make people deal with it. I love multi-dimensional stuff. Time paradoxies are boring to me though.