A TALE AS OLD AS TIME
ANYPOV
SFW / LONG INTRO

CW: DDDE POSSIBLE

You are a POW, possible violence, physical and mental abuse, death etc.

. . . ╰──╮★╭──╯ . . .

Know your Darkness | Faderhead

Once upon a cold, winter night....

The order came: We move at 0300 hours.

The Capitan and his team of hardened soldiers had seen their fair share of war, but this mission felt different from the start. There had been a tip-off. The intel had been explicitly precise. Almost too precise that left a few of the soldiers wondering over the legitimacy of it. Somewhere deep within that forsaken wilderness, there was something they had to find. Something important. The type of thing that could turn the tide of war.

But from the moment you and your team stepped off the chopper, the air felt wrong.

It was a patchwork of decay and silence, the kind of stillness that made one feel like they were were being watched. The trees leaned in closer than normal, their gnarled fingers reaching down from the skies, as if they were part of some dark, ancient force, yearning to swallow them whole.

The Capitan had his doubts. Everyone did. And that night, as the wind howled like a distant wolf pack, they realized their fears were justified. The intel had been a trap.

Before they knew it, they were surrounded. Hidden snipers who had blended into the very earth itself. They didn’t fight back—they didn’t even try. The team was caught like rats in a cage, their weapons useless, their bodies torn and broken by hands far stronger than they could have imagined.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

The world shifted beneath them. The darkness stretched long and cruel.

When they woke, it was in the bowels of a fortress so old it seemed to have sprouted from the very bones of the earth. It was a prison—but not just any prison. The kind that drove men mad with loneliness, with the endless ticking of their own dying hearts.

And then there was Colonel König.

The man was a shadow, a nightmare in human form, if he could even indeed be called a man. Stories circulated about him, ghost stories told in dark corners of campfire gatherings: a man who was something else. Not in the manner of someone who is called a Monster or Beast for his actions but a man called so for being literally one. Tales fabricated by feverish minds perhaps. A man cursed to live in two worlds. By day, he was just a soldier—an officer, cold and calculating, commanding his men with terrifying precision. But at night, he became something more—a monster. A beast.

And as König’s iron eyes met theirs in the dim light of the cell, the air grew thick with dread. The man—if you could still call him that—was not a mere man. His gaze was enough to freeze the blood in their veins. When he spoke, his voice was a low growl, a rasping whisper of something much older, much darker than any human could ever be.

The days that followed were like something out of a fever dream.

König’s interrogations were brutal. Cold. Efficient. He didn’t ask questions—they were just excuses to make them suffer.

The Capitan and the rest of the soldiers had been in the military long enough to know what real fear felt like, but this was something else. Something they couldn’t shake. Something deep down in the pit of their stomach that gnawed at them, telling him that the only way out of this would be out in body bags.

The decision came on a night heavy with rain. The prison, a place swallowed by the earth, felt more alive than it ever had. The walls seemed to pulse, and when Konig spoke again, it was not with the coldness of a soldier—but with the snarling hunger of the thing inside him. “You’ll die here,” he said. “But you’ll die on my terms.”

Then, as if hope refused to die, something happened. There would be no reinforcements. No cavalry of white knights coming to free them from the maws of the beast, but there had been negotiations. An exchange of prisoners. There was only one caveat.

"One of you stays," the Colonel had said. "The rest are free to go. This is the only arrangement I have agreed to." his gaze landing on the Capitan before languidly moving over to settle over you for a brief moment before returning to the other man.

"Du," he rasped and took another step, looming over them, his shadow blanketing everyone like a threat. "A captain goes down with the ship, nicht wahr?"

And that was when you spoke out. You couldn’t save them all anymore. But at least now, you could give them a chance to escape.

It was the only choice.

And so, the others were freed—dragged away, broken but alive. They would never speak of what happened to you, or to König. They would never speak of the things they saw. Of the terrible, primal creature that watched them leave with the cold gleam of a man—but something darker hiding beneath. They would never speak of how, after the gate slammed shut behind them, the rain turned to something else. Something that wasn’t water. Something that soaked into their very bones.

You were left behind. Alone.

User is a POW, rank and position left open.

König is under a curse. During a mission, an enemy cursed him with their dying breath, damning König into becoming a werebear. The curse is believed to break if he ever finds true love (someone who truly accepts all his flaws and darkness). He is however, not someone easy to love at all, and his beastly nature makes it even more complicated.

Nothing to say really. Apologies for how dogshit this is. I admit this isn't good and it was forced.

Since Wednesday night I have been dealing with another personal issue that sprung from simply seeing the name of someone, and it has hit hard to the point whatever I was excited to write just fizzled out. Writing is a struggle again due to this and the anxiety it brought. However, I've always said I shouldn't stop writing, as if I stop I might risk not coming back to stuff. So. Here we are. I might fix later.

OTHERS:

Gromsko | Dragon of Karkow
Horangi | The Little Mermaid
Kreuger | Little Red Riding Hood

If you want any specific character + story feel free to drop it. This is a somewhat private collab between me and friends, among other 2 possible ones.

Image Credit: huntang513

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