The Orphan King and The Witch of the Woods (KINGDOM Arthur X Female OC)

Ch. 9: She Had Once Been A Girl

"Is he... dead?"

"He isn't moving. He must be dead."

"What's with his clothes? They seem... grander than what I would expect from a human."

"You think he could be a king of the humans?"

.

.

.

"... You think Lily knows him?"

Arthur's eyes fly open when he hears that name. It had come in the form of a soft, mellow voice which he didn't know whether it had come from a dream or from the real world. But soon, that would eventually become the least of his concerns; because once his awareness clears, he soon realizes where he is and how he had ended up there.

A hand floating above his head alerts the young man, and his eyes widen before he sits up only to meet a pair of familiar eyes. His eyes widen, and so do the other pair, but soon upon realization of their situation does the girl stand up and turn to leave.

Arthur barely gets a second to remain shocked before he calls out to the familiar-looking girl. "Wait!" She stops, but she doesn't turn, her hand resting on her chest as if clutching something close to it. Arthur's brows furrow as he looks at the girl, confused and wondering if he had seen it right. But he must have. Especially after all those years they've grown up together. There's no mistaking who she could be. "... Lily?"

The girl's shoulders seem to sink, then a second passes. Another. And then she finally turns, facing the young man with a firm look on her face. It is her. Lily. But she had definitely grown to look like a fine young woman; well, that is, if it weren't for the rags she wore as clothing, and her hands made rough by the tasks she had continued to do even after she had been taken in by the fairy queen. The very fairy that had visited her in her dreams and on the day of her disappearance.

Arthur sits there in shock as he looks at the girl he had once known. He feared entering the Wallowing Woods in fear of having memories of her come flooding back into his head, but to think that he would end up seeing her instead... "You... Lily, you're alive?"

The girl doesn't answer him. But that was most likely only because her mere presence was enough for an answer to the dazed young man's question. A small frown rests on her face as she faces Arthur. "... Why does it matter to you?" She asks, her tone dark and dull, as if she never wanted to see him again.

Her tone no doubt surprised the young king, and his eyes widen when she turns again to leave. But Arthur couldn't just let her disappear from his sight again like last time.

"Wait!" he shouts as he quickly tries to rise to go after Lily; but he falls again to the ground with a thud and a pained gasp, catching the attention of the girl. He grabs the side of his stomach, then looks up painfully just in time to see Lily look back at him worriedly upon his pained gasp.

The girl instinctively did so, and it surprised her at how she was still affected by whatever this young boy before her did. But then again, she did, after all, grow up under his care. To her horror, Arthur looks at her pleadingly, begging her not to go, rather than for help. Now that was something she couldn't turn away from.

Behind her, Sam appears floating down from the sky, and they both look towards the young man on the ground, not knowing what to do. "Shouldn't we help him?" the fairy finally asks as he turns to Lily.

Lily bites her lip guitilty. She definitely does not wish to help Arthur after he had abandoned her four years ago. But she can't just leave him injured either. Eventually, she turns to Sam, looking towards the other fairies as well. "Please... help him."

•●•

News, once again, spread. But this time, it happened among the small village of Miria, the fairies' home.

Yet another human has been brought into the village, and apparently it was someone the first human knew as well. Apparently, he is also a king of sorts, and this second fact is what caught the attention most of the fairies who have heard it.

Meanwhile, Arthur lay in a guest bedchamber in the fairy queen's castle, having found himself there due to Lily's request. There is nothing wrong with his stomach, but his head is slightly injured and currently wrapped in a bandage; and so far, that seems to be the only injury he had acquired after falling from his frantic horse.

The door of the room opens, and Arthur quickly turns to it to see Lily entering with a bowl of water and a cloth hanging from one of her arms. The girl seems unamused as she meets the boy's eyes, and the latter guiltily turns away upon seeing her expression.

Eventually, Lily reaches him, and she sets the bowl down on a nightstand before taking her seat on a chair beside the bed. She soon faces the young man with her expression unchanging. "I still can't believe you actually had the audacity to trick me like that."

"I can't believe you actually still fell for it," Arthur replies mischievously, earning a more unimpressed look from the girl.

"So is that why you weren't begging for help when you looked at me like that?" Annoyance is clear in Lily's tone as she asks that question. However, her emotions drastically change when she notes the boy's expression as he looks at her. He clearly misses her.

"It's crazy to think that I would run into you on my way to Kilune," he speaks, smiling as he does so. "The kingdom is now doing well thanks to your persistence to make me pull the king's sword. And now, even the children of the orphanage are doing wery well."

Lily only looks away, avoiding the boy's eyes. "That's great news. So how is the matron doing?" But she is met with surprise when she suddenly feels a hand on her head, soon ruffling her hair like it once did when she was a child. Quickly, she looks up to meet Arthur's smiling eyes.

"You're still the same, I see. Still very caring of others, especially the ones you know." However, his smile fades away when Lily abruptly pulls away, summoning a dumbfounded look on the boy's face instead.

"Please, stop," Lily then speaks, her tone firm as she keeps her gaze down. "I'm not the same girl you knew before. I may have been always obedient to you back then, but you..." She pauses. Then a moment later, she looks up at Arthur with resentment in her eyes. "You broke your promise. That day when you didn't come after you said you would — the day you broke a promise for the first time — that was the same day I stopped being obedient to you. A tooth for a tooth, is it not?"

Her words surprise Arthur as he slowly lowers his hand. He knew he had done something horribly wrong for him to lose Lily like that four years ago, but to think that the girl would hate him for it, and for her to continue to do so... "Lil–"

"I'll be taking my leave now," the girl cuts him off before standing to leave. Then she ends their conversation ultimately as she looks down at the boy on the bed, looking up at her with a regretful expression. "And please. Don't act like you know me anymore. Like I said, I'm not the same Lily you once knew, so you might as well just keep her only in your memories."

She leaves, and Arthur watches her without speaking a single word. It's almost as if Lily's words pulled out his very ability to speak.