the guard {h.s.}

11- spectacular rival

On the morning of the fourth day, Harry sits idly drumming his fingers on the table he'd crafted as a child. Wood splinters out now, the craftsmanship of his ten year old self not quite up to par with what he could do today.

Avoiding the splinters with the sun not yet up and his refusal to burn a candle is an impossible task. Guilt burns in his stomach at the thought of waking Gwen before she is ready, and he doesn't know yet what disturbs her when she sleeps. The addition of yet in that sentence temporarily troubles him, when he should instead be planning their routes to Loil. Instead, he can only think of how instinctive it had been to include the word. How inevitable it seemed that there would someday be a point in time in which he would be the one who knew the small things about her; how desperately he wanted that. How obvious it was that it would never happen.

He'd counted the money the night before. He'd been up late, unable to sleep. When he woke—after a fitful night of tossing and turning—he'd found himself right back where he left off. The money that he had sent to his mother was a meager sum. It had been the best that he could do. Upon sending it to his mother, he felt a great relief slipping off his shoulders, knowing that his mother would be able to make ends meet with this sum. Now, planning travel with the princess, he fights the feeling in his gut that anything he does for her will never be enough; that she will not be satisfied by whatever efforts he is able to scrape together. It is no secret that the princess is used to more than him. Better than him.

If rationed correctly—which, Harry reminds himself, he is able to do. Growing up, he was forced to make something of nothing—they should be able to secure safe, anonymous travel from his mother's cottage to Prince Peregrine's castle in Loil. Somewhat exasperated, he unrolls the map yet again. It had been a gift given to him for his twelfth birthday. One his mother could not quite afford. He'd never asked her how she had managed the gift, he just remembers sobbing when she gave it to him. Her shoulders bunched up, nervous that he wouldn't like it. Then, and now, Harry finds it vaguely ludicrous that his mother could ever believe that there was anything that she could have given him that he would not have loved.

Sucking a rogue splinter out of his right index finger, he presses it against the map, searching with strained eyes until he finds the singular mark that his mother had made on the map. To the best of her ability, she had marked their little cottage with a heart. Finding that now, his fingers trace along, along, along through the woods and pathways until he lands at Prince Peregrine's. Something deflates in Harry at the notion. She'll be safe there, he reminds himself, much as the words prick to admit. He marks the locations of various trading posts, inns, and other medics along the way.

So diligent is his work that he doesn't notice as his eyes begin to strain less. He doesn't notice as the sun comes up and the princess exits his mother's room until she is right behind him, her breath delicately running over his neck. "What are you doing?" She asks, her voice hoarse from disuse over the hours of the night. Instinctively, Harry turns to look at the princess: her face refreshed and glowing, in spite of the trauma she's endured, it allows him peace to know that she is, at the very least, well-rested.

Harry runs a hand through his hair before he answers, pushing the loose curls off of his face. Rolling his shoulders to release the tension he'd unwillingly bunched there, he answers, "Planning our route, my lady."

"Hmm," she hums in response, following the route left by his finger. Her lips slightly purse.

Gwen is not poorly intentioned as a person. Her life has been sheltered to an extent that she is not able to adequately pinpoint as she has nothing else to compare it to. Certainly her parents weren't constantly reminding her of how privileged she is to be in this position. In fact, they viewed it as her birthright. "I was wondering...," she starts, quite unsure of how to even articulate the thoughts running through her head.