A Week with a Prince

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙

When Garreth woke her up in the predawn darkness of the new day, Ginny felt as tired as the night before. The few hours of sleep had not been sufficient to recover from the wine and the events of the previous day... Or was it the vivid dream that had tired her so?

She tried to recall it as she washed and dressed quickly, while Garreth added more wood to the dying fire to banish the dark which filled the chamber, then packed their things.

In her dream, Ginny saw herself standing at the beginning of a long causeway rising from the sea and layers of thick mist clinging to the soft ground of the moors. Further on, it morphed into a narrow, rocky path climbing up a steep cliff towards a half-ruined castle perched high above the sea. She had never been to Tintagel before, but she recognised it instantly; this was the magical place she knew from Myrddin's tales.

Ginny wasn't alone-- her left hand was closed around a hilt of an ancient sword, and her right... around a warm, large hand of a man. She raised her eyes to the tall king standing at her side-- he wore a long, midnight blue cloak wrapped around his broad shoulders, and a crown on his head, but she could not see his face. The faceless king pressed her hand tighter in his and she saw herself nod and smile as they followed his knights who preceded them up the causeway, carrying burning torches and a white banner with a golden dragon shimmering brightly in the fire light-- the same colours as the splendid gown Ginny wore. She saw herself as the bride and the queen of Arthur Pendragon.

How strange, Ginny thought now. She had never had a dream as clear as this, almost a sighting of the future. Had the dream been... sent to her to remind her that she was promised to Prince Arthur? That Sir Lancelot, who had muddled her mind so effortlessly, was her future husband's knight and friend?

Plaiting her hair quickly, the princess looked suspiciously at her cousin, remembering how suddenly she fell asleep the night before... It wouldn't be the first time he did something... out of ordinary. Like when he showed her years ago, how to find the fairy folk on misty days, when the veils between the worlds shifted, and magical events occurred more easily...

"What?" Garreth asked without looking at her as he pulled his boots on. "By the way, do you think that wearing those breeches was a good idea? Your legs..."

She shrugged. "They were made for riding, weren't they? And that's what we will do the whole day today."

Garreth shook his head but said nothing, only pulled Ginny's velvet hat lower above her eyes before he collected their bags and ushered her out of the room.

They walked down a few gloomy corridors and staircases in silence before they stepped into an empty courtyard. Scowling at the sky, Ginny retreated quickly back under the archway the moment she felt the first drops of cool water land on her face. It was still raining.

"Just great," she muttered, shivering.

"Wait here," Garreth instructed, dropping the bags at her feet.

Ginny nodded, watching him cross the yard towards the stables, his eyes revolved towards the overcast sky. The moment he disappeared into the dark building, the clouds churned and shifted, permitting the first long, blushing rays of the rising sun shine through, even as the very last raindrops hit the cobblestones of the courtyard, and the rest of the clouds vanished.

"Hmm... " the princess muttered to herself, knowing that she needed to speak to her cousin.

"That was quite something, wasn't it?" a soft, deep voice spoke in her ear from behind, making her jump, and shiver as its owner's warm breath landed on the side of her neck.

"Sir," she squeaked, coughed, then started again, in the best 'male' voice she could muster, "Sir Lancelot. Good morning."

The knight smiled, his bright blue eyes filled with mirth boring into hers until they dropped to her gambeson, then her brown breeches, pausing a moment too long on her stockinged calves.

"I... I'll help Sir Garreth with the horses..." she stuttered, blushing, leaving the knight staring after her.

Just what was Warvick thinking, letting you wear those breeches? Lancelot's eyes seemed to be asking her retreating back, even as his imagination started to enquire, and reply in the most... magnificent images, to how the girl would look, if dressed normally. Not that he did not like her this way...

It was his turn to jump, lost as he was in his fantasies, when his friend, looking ever so regal, dressed and combed to perfection, finally reached him.

Ginny helped Garreth with their three horses while a valet they found in the stables led the other three animals outside to their owners who were waiting under the stone arch.

Lord John rushed into the courtyard just as they were ready to mount.

While he said his goodbye to her, the prince and his knight, then pulled Garreth into a fatherly embrace, Ginny noticed that the peregrine falcon was back, perched on the stable's roof. The poor bird looked as if it had had a rough night. It sat, preening its feathers while turning its blue-grey head this way and that to better see them, it nearly seemed that it wanted to eavesdrop.

The strange bird's feathers resembled Sir Lancelot's hair-- the knight also looked as if he had spent an eventful night or overslept and had no time to compel his black waves into order.

It suits him, though... Ginny thought, not realising that she had been watching the knight, smiling to herself, until he raised his eyebrows in question, smiling back at her.

As she dropped her eyes quickly, blushing again, and mounted her horse with some difficulty, her muscles still stiff and sore from the previous day's ride, she caught Garreth's warning look.

Rolling her eyes at him, she preceded their small group out of Dudley Castle, down the treeless hill, towards the forest, her eyes following the falcon flying above them.

Somehow... the bird seemed to know the route they were about to take, and even though she lost sight of it as they entered the forest, Ginny knew she would see it again the moment they reached the river.

Ginny hadn't noticed when Garreth and the prince overtook her on the narrow path; she only noticed they were far in front of her when Lancelot's horse walked to her side.

She looked around for a place and reason to distance herself from him but found none; the milky-white mist that lingered among the trees after the rain, coiling in silvery wisps up their trunks and branches, muffling the horses' hoofbeats and people's voices alike, forced her to approach him even more.

"Don't you like the mist?" the knight asked curiously, his thigh brushing against hers as the horses moved closer, making her breath hitch.

It wasn't the first time a man touched her, perchance, unexpectedly, or even curiously; she grew up among boys... But nobody's touch had ever made her feel like this...

"I... believe it is easy to get lost in the mist," she replied.

We could lose our way in the mists, wander off into the realms lying beyond our own, and never return at all to this world; the princess remembered Myrddin's words clearly, as if someone had just whispered them into her ear again. Or were they carried into her thoughts on the soft, distant screech of the peregrine falcon she could not see through the crowns of the age-old trees standing proudly above them, like silent witnesses of the times long gone, when the worlds were still one?

"Are you scared of getting lost?" Lancelot's softly spoken words disturbed her reverie, his eyes captured hers.

"It depends," she said, forcing her voice into the correct timber. "Getting lost alone, or with the wrong person... would be rather... dull, I believe."

What are you doing? You should not talk to him this way! She scolded herself guiltily as she noticed Lancelot observing her intently, speechless for a long moment, before he turned away from her and asked, "But you wouldn't mind getting lost with the right person, I suppose?"

"Not at all," Ginny replied, her voice barely a whisper, as she pressed her heels to her horse's sides, forcing him into a trot, leaving the alluring knight behind.