AU where Arcturus raises Fletcher after his parents are killed by the orcs. Being a close friend of Edmund and Alice, Arcturus is the only one that Sir Caulder trusts with his young lord, because he wouldn’t have known about the secret mountain passage (as he hadn’t grown up a noble) and so couldn’t have betrayed them!
He knows that he’s the only family Fletcher has left and that if he were to die, his beautiful boy would be left all on his own, so he doesn’t go after the orcs that had killed Edmund and Alice, and consequently doesn’t end up losing his right eye or getting his scar.
Arcturus takes up a permanent teaching position at Vocans, doing administrative work, and making sure Fletcher grows up knowing how much his parents had adored him and each other. He becomes the steward of the Raleigh properties and fortunes, helping manage everything until Fletcher is old enough to do it himself, and hiring countless tutors to make sure Fletcher knows all his duties and responsibilities.
And after decades of searching, Arcturus finally finds the family he’s always yearned for in the form of the son of two of the people he had loved most in the world.
