An aging knight dons his old armor to defend the city.


This is my first story, so please comment what you like/what could be better!



It had been 20 years. 20 long years since he had been called upon.

Alexander awoke with a start. The balding 60-year-old-widower opened his eyes as he heard the sounds of doom. CLANG CLING GONG CLANG the bells throughout the city from every church and government building were peeling madly. The sharp metallic sounds could mean many good things: the birth of a prince, a royal wedding, the approach of a dignitary, etc. But now, in the early hours of the pre-dawn morning, they could only mean one disastrous thing: invasion.

The retired knight flipped his blankets up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. A kink in his old back ached as he slowly pushed off the floor into a standing position.

"If only I was 40 years younger," Alexander thought to himself as he stretched out his back and rolled his shoulders. He struck a match and lit the candle on his bedside table.

He held the candle by its brass holder and crossed the wood floor of his bedroom and entered the kitchen, leaving his candle as he descended into the cellar. The dirt floor was hard packed against his bare feet as he searched in the dark for his price. Ah ha!

Even downstairs the tolling bells could be heard as he brought his armor around to the staircase. The dark wooden chest with bands of bronze was too heavy to carry outright, but he could drag it up the staircase one step at a time. Clunk...Clunk...Clunk

At the top of the steps, dragged the chest near his kitchen table and flopped into a chair, breathing heavily from the exertion. The ache in his back had returned from the effort of bringing the chest upstairs and Alexander mentally kicked himself for not just getting dressed in the cellar. True, the light was bad down there, but at least he wouldn't be exhausted before leaving his house.

CLANG CLING BONG TING

Just under the urgent cry of the bells was the din of a city under siege. Militia running to their posts, children wailing, wives and mothers crying out frantic goodbyes to the men they love. All this urged him on. He was old, but he could still help. Couldn't he?

He pushed himself out of his chair with a groan and crouched down by his chest and lifted the lid. Inside, the armor of Alexander's youth, the armor he'd worn when he'd won his knighthood at the Battle of Sutton's Glen. Originally a gift to him in his nineteenth year by the Druid Farsen, Alexander realized that he hadn't laid eyes on his most valuable piece of property in 25 years. He bent down and looked closely. Shimmering in the candlelight, the all-black armor appeared to have been immune to the ravages of time. No stray speck of dust nor bite marks from a nosy moth could be seen.

Alexander took off his nightshirt, standing naked and exposed in the flickering light. His pale body was pudgy from his last sedentary decade and scarred from the fights of his younger days. He hefted up the armor, it was heavier than Alexander had remembered. From the claws and the bottom to the pointed ears at the top, anyone could tell that this wasn't ordinary armor, if they could tell that it was armor at all. No metal, no leather, just a mass of muscle and fur. A passerby would mistake it for a random pelt, which is why Alexander had never bothered locking its resting place for all these years.

Alexander sat on his chair, and heaved the skin up, maneuvering his left leg into the smooth blackness of the interior. His foot led the way until nestled in the base. He repeated this motion with his right leg. His feet felt squished into an uncomfortable position, not aligned quite right. With a significant shove, he forced his right foot further in, his toes now resting cozily in individually crafted toe pockets. He forced his left foot in the same manner as his right, his toes splaying slightly out as they bottomed out into paws. Pulling the pelt up his legs took a bit of effort. Even though the exterior of his armor was a bit larger than him, the opening was sized for a younger him, so the fit was tight.

He rolled the padded mass up his ankles, calves, and thighs, his legs squeezing into an abnormal position as his ankles rode higher. Strength poured into his lower body as the suit of fur and muscle seamlessly connected to his naked form beneath.

As Alexander struggled to work the "armor" over his hips, it seemed like his spine was extending into the suit's lupine tail. As he heaved with effort, he could hear crashes coming from the east, followed by screams.

"Catapults," Alexander mused, "targeting civilians.". He shook his head and continued his work. Donning his protective garb took more time and effort than he remembered, but the old knight was no longer the man he had been.

"I might not be as good as I once was, but I have strength enough for this."

He heaved himself into the muscular torso, taking breaths into an expanded rib cage. The extra oxygen was invigorating.

He finally came to the arms, forcing them into the suit. They seemed to lengthen in order for his hands to reach the ends of the forepaws, each digit tipped with a wicked talon for slicing the enemies of the realm.

All that remained was the head. The opening to the neck was tight, but with a pop, Alexander maneuvered himself into position. For a moment, there was only darkness and silence while he held his breath, until his eyelids caught and fluttered open. The night time world was sharper, and... He could make out the individual sounds of the chaos of the siege from the city walls. His changed ears swiveled to the Eastern gate as he prepared himself. He sprang from the kitchen and headed toward the action, flinging open the door to his home and making his way onward to the ensuing battle.

He'd slowed and then stopped when he caught a glance of his reflection in the old mill pond. The reflection looking back at him was not his own. He looked bestial, yet dashing. Powerful, yet lean. He rubbed his padded paws through his soft fur that covered his lean muscles, careful not to nick himself with his sharp claws. He was a stranger to himself, perhaps not quite a stranger, but an old friend that he hadn't seen in decades. He was the young wolf again, the one that he'd been for the adventures of his prime. He hadn't seen himself look like this since...

CLANG CLING BONG TING

The bells spoke again, louder with his now more sensitive hearing, summoning him once more to help fend off a threat to the people he'd vowed to protect all those long years ago.