━━ ⦗the swan princess! ⦘
❝ you're beautiful!
thank you, but what else?
... what else is there? ... ❞
███████████ 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝
the courageous odette teaches the
once and future king a less...
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chapter twenty-two! 022. adelynn's grave secret
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THEY SEARCHEDfor the Druid boy from nightfall to morning. Even as Camelot blossomed into a new day, the streets, the square and the castle corridors were heavy with guards checking each crevice and each corner. They kicked over barrels, upturned tarps and struck spears and pitchforks into travelling farmers wagons, destroying their produce in search of this boy. Adelynn watched them with a tense breath, standing at her brother's side in the outside corridors. She clutched her fingers so tight together they began to hurt, and she was glad they were hidden underneath the silk of her cloak.
Her brother scoffed at the sight of them puncturing radishes in the next wagon that was about to enter the citadel, "Yes," he muttered, "and a little boy is suddenly small enough to hide amongst radishes▬and when would he have snuck into those radishes in the time this wagon took to reach Camelot?"
Adelynn shuffled nervously at his side. She was accompanying him this morning around the castle▬being introduced more into the court. Originally, such things for her would start next Spring, but she begged her mother to then tell Ronyn (because he wouldn't listen to her if she asked him) her out of the blue request. Her mother believed it was because she was finally starting to mature into the role of a young, prestigious lady▬that it was time to buy better silks, have her help out with the household and learn what was needed before she was to marry.
The Lady Elayne was▬of course▬hesitant. She might be stern, and she might have a tongue that could very much lash out in order to discipline her children who have learnt to be quite defiant, but she understood and knew them quite well. She raised them more than any other. She knew her daughter more than she knew herself. She knew Adelynn's thirst for adventure, and her dislike of the thought of being married off and losing all of that. She knew her keen mind for knowledge: reading books on astronomy, botany and philosophy, learning how to paint and how to draw▬searching for the thrill of the world in the form of pages and her own imagination. She knew that just yesterday, she had snuck out away from her maid and came home later in the afternoon▬and she knew that perhaps she was asking for these things for another reason entirely.
(And of course, she was right. But the Lady Elayne did not say no, because she didn't want to deny Adelynn the chance, either).
(But what she did not know was that Adelynn requesting to be accompanied by Ronyn to a morning tea the Lady Morgana invited to her was because of a certain Druid boy they were hiding, and not in a wagon of radishes).
"Perhaps he is that small?" Adelynn spoke up softly, unsure. "A boy that small could easily sneak out of this castle into one of those wagons."
"A boy who is injured?" Ronyn frowned at her, shaking his head. "In a castle filled to the brim with guards and knights? No, he could not."
