"So you're scared?"
Arthur jumped, almost falling off the fallen tree he had been sitting on. Nevertheless, he didn't, and he soon turns around to see Sam coming up to him with a concerned look on his face mixed with a frown. "What even made you think that?" Arthur asks in response, at the same time wondering why the young fairy had decided to follow him out into the woods, away from all the fairies and Peter and Lily.
Sam only sighs in response before he decides to take his seat on the tree beside the boy. He looks up, then he speaks while he examines the crowns of the trees above them. "Lily had told me the whole story... About how you became king, how she pushed you, and how you ended up doing it in hopes of giving her a better life. She feels guilty, clearly... But her pride won't let her show it. Neither is she still mature enough to forget your... 'broken promise'."
"I can see that... Not that it would make it fair to blame her." Arthur still sounded rather bitter as he spoke, however. And though Sam noticed that, he decided to change the topic a little as he looks at the young man.
"Well, even if you never really meant for any of that to happen, wouldn't you being the only one able to pull the king's sword out mean something? And your duty–"
"What would you know?" With a rather blunt manner, Arthur cuts through the fairy's words. For a moment, he falls silent, and Sam notices him biting his lip as he looks down. He then falls silent as well, before he smiles weakly as he looks down and faces ahead.
"You're right. What would I know? After all, I've never been king..."
Silence falls. And the two royals only sit there, not knowing what to do. It seems... Arthur truly does not wish to return. But if he does not, then what could mean the immediate fall of Viridus! And if that happens...
"What will you do... if your kingdom falls while it is in your hands?" Sam asks, his voice so suddenly dry and toneless.
This surprises the young king, and he turns to the prince beside him, wondering... "Why do you ask that?"
Sam smiles weakly once again. "Well, to be frank with you, I was meaning to ask since quite a while ago, but... I did not wish to be too harsh on you yet."
"...'Yet'?" Arthur frowns, but his brows soon rise when the fairy prince rises from his seat. "Wait... are you going already?"
"Well, yes," Sam replies with a much lighter smile, "but I would have to make sure that you'll think about your decision once I'm gone. And besides, you've been ruling your kingdom well for the past four years. What difference would it make if you return now?"
With that, the fairy disappears from sight, leaving the young man to himself all over again.
Though, this time, his thoughts have become even more conflicting, a new idea forming in his thoughts and getting stronger and stronger with every passing second.
And by the time it's dominated most of his thoughts, it was safe to say that he had decided.
He would return to his kingdom.
•●•
"The king is alive, you fools!" Sam proclaims as he barges into the court, Arthur standing tall behind him and Lily right beside the previously missing king.
The court falls silent at the interruption. And when, upon minutes of it, no one had decided to talk, Sam repeats his words, as if to clarify himself.
"The king is alive! So you can stop your clueless decision-making and tell the kingdom what they must know to restore its peace!" With great grace and power, Sam speaks to the people of the council, and when they remain silent, still, Arthur steps forward, placing a hand on the fairy boy's shoulder as he spoke for himself.
"Tell the people that their king has not gone missing. He has only been separated from his party and gone to Kilune alone to fulfill his mission. And tell them... that a royal wedding is soon to happen."
Once again, shock resonates all around the court, but this time, even Sam and Lily turn to Arthur as their eyes widen and their jaws drop.
And Lily, in her surprise at the sudden news, only mumbles what she had heard. "W-what... a 'royal wedding'?" She looks towards Arthur, suddenly hoping she had not heard that right or that he was simply joking...
But he looked sure. In fact, the king, who Lily had watched grow along with her for almost all her life, looked the surest he had ever been this time.
Just what... does his supposed journey to Kilune have to do with this?
YOU ARE READING
The Orphan King and The Witch of the Woods (KINGDOM Arthur X Female OC)
Fanfiction"Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly, Lavender's green, When I am king, dilly, dilly, Who will be queen?" An orphan had become king. But on the day of his coronation, the one person most special to him had disappeared, forever gone in the Wallowing Woods...
