Your Narrator Drags Her Feet in Meeting the Parents

Alex leads me up the many flights of stairs and through the castle with purpose. I think about trying to make a run for it again, especially when we rooms that I recognize. But the way Alex stops any time I linger too many steps behind him lets me know that he’s paying attention even when he’s not looking back.

Okay, message received. No more of last night’s tricks, I think gloomily. [1]

But then we reach the great hall, and any thought about myself whooshes out of my head like they’d been sucked down a black hole.

It’s not that our walk so far has lacked signs of last night’s battle. We’d passed through lots of rooms in total disarray and seen lots of people in a similar state to Alex—a little banged up and with torn and stained clothed, but up and about with purpose. It hadn’t been that different from what I’d seen of the battle preparations yesterday.

The great hall is... another story.

Bodies upon bodies are laid out on the stone floor in neat lines.

Some of them are twisting and turning on that floor, and making the most horrible groans. But many are not moving at all—and that’s even worst.

Women kneel next to many of them bodies, silently tending to them, or weeping, or both.

A girl—only a little bit younger than me, maybe thirteen, fourteen?—moves through the web of bodies near me with a bucket hoisted in front of her. There’s a cloth hanging from the bucket’s wooden rim, colored a thick rusted red.

I look away with a shudder. [1]

Alex, who’d stopped when I stopped, sees my reaction. With a careful look into my face, he says, “We’d initially put the injured and dead out in the outer courtyard, but we ran out of space.”

Why oh why did he have to tell me this?

Intellectually, I’d known that even if I’d warned them about the attack and stopped a massacre, there’d still be a battle. People would still die. That’s why I’d gone and hid.

But I hadn’t known known. Not until now. And since I’d gone and changed the plot, I don’t even know anymore who still died. Alex’s parents hadn’t, obviously. Presumably Luke hadn’t either. And of course, I hadn’t, but—

“Mrs—“ I start, but cut myself off quickly. That’s not what Aurelia would call her. I try again. “My mother. Have you seen her? Is she okay?”

Alex is still looking at me too carefully, with the placid expression he’s been wearing the whole walk here.

Just when I’m about to draw the worst conclusion from his silence, he says, “Of course. She came into the Keep like most of the women and children.”

“Have you seen her with your own eyes though?” I press.

“A little while ago. She was coordinating medical care. She begged me to go look for you and then went back to it. She’s probably in the courtyard or kitchen right now.”

That’s enough to make me relax. But then another worry comes right away.

“Did you see this little boy named Winfred with the women and children? He’s about seven or eight, super cute, with these chubby cheeks—”

“Who?” A tiny little bit of bafflement breaks through his pretend stoicism. “I don’t think we have any knights with a kid named Winfred. Do you mean Wyatt—“

“Never mind,” I say quickly. Of course the Lord Alexandrius wouldn’t know some random kid coming in from the countryside. “What about the guard who’d been stationed by the dungeons, where you found me?”

Now Alex is raising both his eyebrows at me. “Gordon, you mean?”

I hesitate. It’s not like we exchanged names. “Uh—“

Alex gets kind of pinched-looking around the mouth. “Did you send him up to me? He almost made me mess up the battle plans! Just as the enemies were about to attack, he ran up to me and started babbling about how he’d be willing to whatever I needed to protect the keep, fight or be a decoy or die or whatever. I barely got up to the watchtowers in time to give the archers their orders!”

I ignore his question. “Right. So, uh… He’s alive then?”

“As far as I know,” Alex grumbles. “I told him to go protect the kids in the Keep chapel, as far away from the actual fighting as possible so he wouldn’t get underfoot. I’d thought putting him on guard duty outside the least-use dungeons meant I’d never have to deal with the fool again.

“… Right,” I repeat. [2]

Alex crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at me. “Are you trying to distract me?” he asks. “It doesn’t matter how many questions you ask me, we’re still going to see my parents.”

I’m actually a little offended by this [3].

“Why do you keep being so suspicious? Aren’t we, like, best friends? What, I can’t even ask if my own mother survived?—“

“Alex,” Luke’s voice rings out. And then the guy himself was walking down an open spiral staircase at the back of the great hall and towards us.

“Luke,” I breathe, like an idiot.

Luke looks—well, I won’t lie and say he looks as good as he did yesterday. There are bruised bags under his eyes, and he’s as worn and hurt as anybody—more than Alex maybe, I can seek a bandage peeking out from where his collar gapes and another the edge of his sleeve. But Luke looking a little less than impeccable is still looking pretty glorious.

“Aurelia,” Luke replies, flashing a King Arthur smile at me [4]. He turns back to his brother. “Why are you two bickering here instead of making your way back? We sent you off to find Aurelia ages ago.”

Alex snorts. He’s surely thinking about where I’d been last night.

“Well, she didn’t make herself easy to find.” He shoots me a dark look. I shoot him a glare back.

Luke gives a resigned sigh.

“Well, nonetheless,” he says, “I’m glad Alex was able to find you unharmed, Aurelia. When we couldn’t track you down yesterday, we feared the worst.”

Alex snorts.

“Trust me, she was in absolutely no danger,” he says archly.

That man is lucky he’s standing too far away from me for patented feet-stomping. It works really well on bratty cousins, so I’m sure it’d work as equally well on psychopathic would-be kings.

“Well, if there is nothing keep you down here, let us go see my parents then,” Luke says. He moves so naturally right past Alex’s words that I suspect he must have had a lot of practice doing up to now.

“That’s what I was trying to get her to do!” Alex twists his mouth in annoyance, but he’s already striding towards towards the staircase like his brother instructed.

I, much more reluctantly, follow—only to be stopped by Luke’s light touch on my forearm.

“Aurelia,” he says. He turns me towards him with the gentlest of pressure.

“Um,” I say. My skin is turning prickly and hot underneath his fingers, like I’m breaking out into hives or something. “Yes?”

“Before my parents question you, I want to thank you for what you’ve done,” Luke says. God, why are Luke’s eyes so blue and soulful or whatever? When they’re focused on me like they are now, it’s like he’s staring straight into the heart of all my secrets. “Your early warning about the attack helped saved a lot of people last night. Because of you, those who would’ve died are alive today. Perhaps even including me and my family.”

Did Luke really have to phrase it like that?

I swallow down the hysterical laughter at the tip of my tongue.

“Uh, no problem? Don’t mention it. Like, really.”

“Are you two coming or what?” Alex yells impatiently. I look over to see him leaning out from the very top of the stairway.

Luke takes a step back from with a small smile. And woah, when did he get so close? Was he the one who’d moved closer or was it me? Both of us?

“Coming,” Luke says mildly. He turns and follows his brother up the stairs, to presumably where their parents wit.

After a beat, I do too.

==

1. Okay, child labor is one thing, I expect that from the pseudo-medieval settling. But making a child work where people are like, actively dying? Luke and Alex can’t just go saving kids on one hand and traumatizing them in the other, it’s a total waste of my effort! I’m bringing it up to them the next opportunity I get.

2. Look, he was a guard and looked all bearded and manly and stuff. When I sent him off, I thought he’d be helpful to the Keep’s defense. How was I suppose to know he’s incompetent? Maybe the Silverwoods shouldn’t hire people who are bad at their jobs in the first place!

3. Like, okay, fine, maybe I had been trying to play dead in the dungeons. And maybe in retrospect that had been a stupid plans. But isn't Alex supposed to be in love with me slash Aurelia or something? And aren't people in love supposed to overlook their beloved's issues? So yeah, I'm offended.

4. Do I really have to explain what a King Arthur smile is? It’s like, very handsome and warm and kind, but also a little mysterious and world-weary, you know? Like the legend. Anyway, it’s a good smile.

A/N: Thank you for reading! The boys are so confused right now, hahaha. Especially Alex, who can't figure out what Aurelia's hiding and why she's not acting like his Aurelia at all. So of course he's all abrasive and mean-spirited. He really ought to take a leaf from his brother, who's just turning up the charm factor to get guilt-trip Aurelia and get her to spill, hahaha (though... Luke might be lacking some self-awareness there ;) He's maybe a litttttle too intrigued by this new Aurelia). If you enjoyed this slightly-longer update, please consider rating, commenting, or giving a stone!