MacLeod: The Dark Morning Sky: Party Time!

Seven Years Ago. To the day. Castle MacLeod, Northern Kingdom

Nervous. Young Revan thought to himself. ''Why am I nervous? It's no big deal, just walk out, down the stairs, after Rani. No big deal! No big deal having every guest looking at me and expecting a young gentleman. At least the Schnee girl won't be here--''

Revan felt a small, yet sharp pinch on his lower back.

"Ow! Rani!" Revan turned to face his little sister.

Rani MacLeod was younger than Revan by two years. She wore a lovely violet dress, matching shoes and a blue ribbon that kept her dark hair in a ponytail. Her expression was mocking, blue eyes and her smirk. "You little monster," Revan growled, affectionately, through clenched teeth, holding his back.

"I love you to," Rani giggled. When she finally stopped, she looked him in the eye and situated her hands behind he back. Still smirking.

"Pick one," she commanded.

"Left."

"Are you sure?"

"Left."

"Fine."

In Rani's right hand was a silver ring. Engraven on it was a pattern of a series of rivers, splitting, rejoining, and going their own ways. In the river pattern was a stream of bluish light that flowed through it. The ring itself was looped through a leather cord that made the ring a necklace of sort.

"Dad wanted me to give it to you, she explained. "I sort of wanted to keep it."

"And the other hand?"

"Your tie," Rani showed Revan a black clip-on bowtie in her other hand.

"You little devil!" He took it from her. "I've been looking for this!"

"I know."

"I swear, ye'll be the death of me."

She stuck out her tongue and skipped away to the curtain.

"And now," an male announcer sounded. "The Little Queen of the MacLeod, my daughter: RANI!" A reverent applause sounded.

"Remember big brother:" She called to Revan. "They're here for you!" And she stepped through the curtain. Applause following.

Revan frantically looked back and forth at the ring and his tie, trying to make up his mind to which one of them he will pay attention to first.

"Now," Revan's father began to announce as he walked to the curtain, wearing the necklace and stuffing it under his shirt and fumbling with his bowtie. "The guest of honor: Revan!"

In a fit of panic, Revan stuck only his head out the curtain, covering the rest of his body. He looked at all of the formally dressed guests, most of which he knew not the names of.

They're all here for me.

"Hullo!" Revan began awkwardly. "Just a mome'! Not quite decent yet!"

Suddenly the curtain railing broke from its housing, due to Revan's weight in leaning while he held it. The entire curtain fell at Revan's feet.

"Oops!" He apologized with an awkward smile. The only thing he could do now was for him to put on his clip-on. Which he did.

"Sorry! Decent now!" Everyone seemed to understand his joke about the formal attire of everyone in the room, and light laughter resounded through the room after a short silence.

Taking a step forward was a mistake. Not paying attention to the fallen curtain and railing, Revan tripped and tumbled down the stairs of the ballroom. Gasps of surprise echoed through the hall as the guest of honor rolled down.

Luckily, when Revan made a complete stop at the foot of the stairs, he simply jumped back up on his feet.

"And what's a party without surprises?" Revan's father asked the guests as he walked down the stairs to join his son.

The guests laughed again, only this time with a lighter, more polite tone.

"Are you alright, son?" Revan's father asked quietly.

"At least it wasn't humiliating," he responded.

"Heh. Alright, come on. Your mother is waiting."

Revan and his father made their way across the ballroom, shaking hands with whoever offered and nodding respectively to other guests. They soon made their way to a small crowd of people talking to a woman with beautifully tan skin. She soon lost the attention of her conversationalists when she spotted her son and husband.

"Mister Ubel, this is my son," she interrupted the man talking to her about whatever grownups talked about. "Revan, say hello to Mister Heinrich Ubel."

Revan shook the hand of an elderly man not wearing a tuxedo, like most of everyone else. Instead he wore a red suit with black and white pinstripes and a neck tie of the same color scheme. His dark eyes looked very old and empty, almost hypnotic to Revan's youth.

"The man of the hour," the man noted. "Mrs. MacLeod, I am sorry. But I must take my leave."

"Oh, if you must," Mrs. MacLeod submitted.

"Farewell," he nodded to Revan and his father. "Misters MacLeod."

Ubel left the ballroom without another word.

"Charming man, dear," said Mr. MacLeod to his wife.

"Oh yes!" She responded. "He's quite the conversationalist."

"I need something to drink," Revan excused himself from the boredom of rich life. Sigh.

Revan found a waiter with ease. A waiter. He hated his rich life; being waited on drove him crazy, seeing his siblings being spoiled rotten made him lose faith in their futures, and this unrelenting, nagging sense of unoriginality in his life left him empty. He wanted to really do something.

"If you keep up this farm boy attitude, and you'll never get any respect," the voice of a girl said behind him.

"Pure, dead, brilliant, Miss Schnee," Revan turned to greet the heiress of his father's "rival". "Decided to take the invite, did you?"

"My father may have declined the invitation..." she stepped towards Revan, holding a small child in a blue dress, in her arms. "But Mother tells me it's good for posterity."

"And who have you got there," Revan asked in an affectionate tone, taking a step towards the pair, looking at the baby. "Has Miss Schnee got you? Hulloo!"

"Say hello to your brother Cassidy." The girl only cooed. As babies do. "And skip the formalities, MacLeod, we both know it's not your style. I am saving it for the real noblemen." Revan sighed. "I guess." And took another sip. "Did you steal little Cass from Mother, then?"

"More like your sister handed her off," she struggled to situate little Cass into a "pass along" hold. "She's heavy. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Revan answered, gladly, and took his youngest sister from Weiss, holding the three-month old in only the crook of his arm, having his soda in the other hand. "Which sister? Miriam? That was rude of 'er."

"How do you do that so easily?" Weiss asked, almost surprised at his strength. "She is heavy."

"Ever lifted a twenty pound axe above your head a thousand times?" He asked her in sincerity, walking around to lull Cassidy to sleep. "Does wonders on firewood."

"Oh, please!" Weiss crossed her arms and followed. "That's silly! Why would I need to do such a thing?"

Revan only looked at her with a smile.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Aboot what I do in my free time. Yes."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"You know me, don't you?"

"Enough to know you're crazy."

"And why is that then?" He raised his voice.

"It's absurd! With a family like yours, you'll never need to lift a finger in your life."

"And that's the dead truth," he finished his soda in a gulp. "I'm bored, not having to do anything myself. Too many people at my beck and call, never givin' me any sort of freedom--

"I'm trapped in this ol' castle on the mountain; not even able to go to school like anybody our age. Since the day I was born I've not been able to run and enjoy the singing hills of my homeland without somethin' 'gentlemanly' gettin' in my way!"

Cassidy let out a little cry of discomfort. In response, Revan held her up to rest her head on his shoulder and shushed her to calm her down.

"Now look, I've gone and gotten in a bind. Such a dobber I am."

Weiss sighed and became aware of where they were. "Where are we?"

The three appeared to have drifted away from the ballroom. Revan noticed his empty champagne glass and the fading music of the orchestra and guest conversations. Walking the baby around to make her fall asleep and the conversation between the two heirs of their family's companies made them forget that they were wandering.

"I think we've left the party to the guests," Revan stated the obvious. "It's alright. They may've come to my party, but it's theirs now."

"You think they didn't come for you?" Weiss wondered.

"Rani seemed to think so," he paused. "Probably to make me suck it up and step out of the curtain. Everyone's probably payin' more attention to Little Queen Cute, anyway."

The pair kept walking down the long, dark hallway, not really caring where they went. Until they were interrupted, of course.

"Master Revan?" The deep, wise voice of an old man echoed.

Revan sighed and turned to his old friend, bodyguard and butler. "Found me again, Percival?"

Percival was an old man in his late sixties. He wore a three piece tuxedo and had a strong gait.

"Ah, there you are, Master Revan," he said happily. "Come quickly, they have brought out the cake. And, Miss Schnee, your father is on the line. You are being called home and a car is waiting outside."

Weiss looked at Revan as he looked back to her, then back at Percival.

"I guess I should leave. Mother couldn't keep him from finding out."

"At least have come cake, madam."

"No, I shouldn't keep my father waiting. Goodbye Revan."

"Bye," he said simply.

"MacLeod," she stopped and turned to face Revan again with a look of reminding.

"Yes?"

"Don't take your family for granted. They have given you this life so you can use it properly. Your family is in better condition than mine..."

She briskly walked back to the ballroom and disappeared.

After a long pause:

"Oh, to be young..." Percival started to make fun.

"Stop it, Percy," Revan caught on.

"As you wish."

Revan, with Cassidy and Percival, returned to the ballroom to find a pathway between people set before him. Holding his head high, Revan handed his empty champagne glass to Percival and walked down the path between the named guests he did not know until he found his family in a circle around a table.

They; the two elder brothers, three elder sisters, Rani, Mother, and Father, all blue-eyed like he was, parted the way to a very large, rectangular cake with two ornate candles, "1" and "0", lit, flames dancing in the air. As Revan approached the table, the ten-piece orchestra began to play an old, traditional, celebratory song. At the final note, Revan blew out the candles without another thought.

Upon doing so, suddenly, the lights went out, screams of surprise resounded through the ballroom, and something pricked Revan in the neck.

On reflex, Revan covered Cassidy's body with his, protecting her. Without rhyme or reason, his mind slipped from consciousness, and he collapsed onto the floor. The last thing he heard was his little sister crying through the thunderous roar of an explosion.