Masked (A Hat In Time)

Facing That Fear

I think that the rest of this fic, like this chapter, is going to be mostly fluff.

After all the rest of it was mostly angst. We need to end something off on a happy note.

And I missed writing my prince fluff chapters.

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Feeling shaky, Bow Kid followed the prince out of Snatcher's home. She caught up to him until they were walking side by side. "Where are we going?" she asked.

He looked down at her with a gentle yet nervous smile. "Nowhere in particular. I just wanted to walk and talk."

"Right." She nodded. Bow had a good idea of what the prince might want to talk about.

Blood drips down the Outlander's arms as the prince falls to the ground.

"Didn't I die?"

I could've saved him instead of wasting a timepiece...

"Kid?"

She snapped out of her daze with an automatic "I'm fine."

The prince looked doubtful. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said, this time more urgently. The prince looked away.

Despite their agreement to talk, they spent some time in awkward silence. Bow Kid kept cycling through guilty thoughts and horrific memories while the prince watched her out of the corner of his eye, looking concerned.

I wish he didn't remember. I wish I didn't remember. That timeline doesn't even exist anymore.

I could've saved him, right?

But what if I couldn't? What if this was the only way?

If I had just listened to Jaide when she told us to banish the Outlander, none of this would've happened.

The prince turned his head up to look at the sky. The stars were still visible through the trees. "I'm glad that the stars came out," he murmured. Then he looked down and smiled at Bow. "And I'm glad that you and I get to see them together as you promised."

Bow Kid remembered how the prince had pointed out the stars just before he died. Tears welled in her eyes.

"Please don't cry," the prince said, stopping in his tracks. A note of alarm entered his voice. "Please don't cry." He reached out and took her hands, giving them a gentle squeeze. "I know that...whatever happened was hard-"

"It didn't happen," Bow Kid protested, the tears starting to fall.

The prince gave her a sarcastic yet kind look. "If it didn't happen, why are you so distraught?"

Bow Kid shook her head. How could she try and explain the timepiece to him? "It's complicated."

"Which is why we need to talk about it," the prince said. Despite his best attempts to stay positive, heavy despair entered his eyes. "There's been a lot on my mind about it as well as yours. I hate to burden you with my thoughts...but you also need to relieve your burden. You're just a kid- you shouldn't have to go through so much."

The tears came harder. Bow Kid let go of the prince's hands and instead hugged him, burying her face in his shirt. Immediately he hugged her back, holding her tightly.

"Are you ready to tell me about it?" the prince asked softly. He laid a hand on her hair and smoothed some of it back to try and soothe her.

The action was calming, but Bow Kid was crying too hard. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry! I-I was too slow, a-and-" she choked on her sobs, struggling to catch her breath. But the words wanted to spill out with the tears.