Not His One

Hide And Go Seek

Hey Everyone! I kind of wanted to write a paragraph written in Kyler's perspective. I might do these every once in a while but here is me trying it out. I hope you enjoy it and if you have any feedback at all I would absolutely love to hear it.

Kyler

This Elora girl was really starting to intrigue me. I mean I'd heard how great she was and everything from Andrius who spoke very highly of her... but still. Wow. I'd volunteered to give her that message from Andrius simply because I wanted to meet the legend, and to be honest she was more than I had expected. I'd even gone easy on her in checkers but she still lost, badly. But she never batted an eye, she seemed to enjoy just playing and didn't care whether she won or lost.

I could tell she was nervous about me sticking around, but I wanted to see what she was like a little more. Plus the more I knew her, the better chance I had that Andrius might favor me over the others and put a promotion in my sights. A promotion to head guard might be nice if Hound Dog ever leaves. I mean the guy is like thirty and isn't getting any younger.

I open the door and let Elora out of the room. She's kind of pretty and I can see what Andrius likes about her. But truthfully, she's not princess material. Not yet at least. Elora gives me strict instructions that we cannot hide in other people's rooms. Everywhere else is fair game though, which sounds fair enough to me.

"I can count so you can hide first if you'd like."

That earns me another smile and she nods, "Alright. Count to... count to thirty okay?"

The moment I turn around to count I can hear her footsteps echoing as she runs away from this part of the hallway. Just as I was thinking how easy her wearing shoes makes it for me, simply because of the echo, there is what sounds to be a small scuffle and then silence. As curious as I am, I don't turn around until...29...30!

When I open my eyes and look down the hallway she left I'm a little surprised by what I see. This girl is so not queen material, but her problem solving skills are something. The pair of black flats she was wearing moments ago on her tiny feet are ditched in the middle of the hallway. They were clearly either slowing her down or making too much noise for her taste. The whole idea of it all made me laugh.

I cup my hands around my mouth and shout down the hallway, "Ready or not, here I come!"

As I begin walking, I pick up the shoes that look small enough to fit a child. Not that she's very big herself, 5'5 at the tallest and she couldn't possibly weigh much either. As I go down the hallways in search of the girl I try to look as though I'm not playing hide and go seek so my reputation doesn't get downgraded to child-like.

At first all I see is an elbow. But as I get closer I can see a little more of Elora hiding behind one of the maid's carts. She's got her head ducked and covered by her hands as if to make herself seem smaller. Actually it was such an obvious spot that if I hadn't been looking too carefully I might have walked right by her.

"I found y-"

But before I can even get the line out of my mouth, she bolts. And I mean fast. And I also mean up the nearest flight of stairs.

"Shit."

I take off running after her up the many stairs. I don't have a clue where this leads and I highly doubt she does either. "Elora! Hey slow down! Where are you going? I've already found you!"

She still doesn't even slow down until she reaches the top huffing and puffing. Unfortunately the stairs she took seem to be a dead end that leads to a door. Thank goodness, finally I'll be able to win this silly game. But just as I'm about to reach for her, she opens the door and disappears through it.

"Seriously Elora, I've already won this thing. Come on out!" I call from the other side of the door, not even bothering to open it yet. But when I don't hear anything on the other side I push the door open with my one hand that isn't preoccupied by Elora's shoes.

When I open it, I see we're standing on the roof. Somewhere that I have personally never been, and from the look on Elora's face, neither has she. We're probably over 50 feet off the ground, which isn't surprising considering the amount of stairs required to get up here. When I look back to Elora, she's moved right up to the railing that goes along the roof of the castle and is looking over at the view with wide, wondering eyes. There was a bit of a breeze up here and her dark brown hair was being tossed around by it.

"Elora be careful. We can't have you falling off the edge now can we?" I smile a little at her in the hopes of drawing her attention back this way.

It works and she looks back in my direction, her head tilting up slightly because of our difference in height. But when she looks back out at the distance I feel oddly disappointed.

"You know," she begins, her face looking thoughtful, "it all makes me feel pretty small."

"You are small." Oh shit wrong thing to say crap, "I mean...you...uh..." I'm not supposed to insult her, I'm supposed to make her like me so Andrius will favor me. Not this.

To my surprise though, she just laughs, "Yeah I guess, maybe just in comparison to you though."

When a stronger breeze comes by and I remember she's only in a t-shirt and bare feet I mentally slap myself.

"Elora. You're going to freeze up here."

"I'm fine. It's not so bad."

"Then...at least put your shoes back on."

When she looks op at me again she shrugs a little and takes them from my hand, "Thanks for carrying them. Sorry about that." She pauses for a second as she slips her flats onto her tiny feet before speaking again, "Sorry I made you spend your break like that. I'll put in a good word with Andrius for you."

Okay so my mouth dropped for like a second. Was she really onto me already? "I- that's not- you don't-"

"Oh don't be ridiculous. That's why you stuck around right? You probably want a promotion right? Or do you want to go home to your family? Promotion or family Kyler?" She was taking a couple steps towards me with a look that was saying she was only curious. Even then I was still feeling slightly attacked. And when I feel attacked...well I attack back.

"...Promotion. Just like every person here though. Everyone wants something out of this don't they? What do you want out of this Elora? Do you want a happily ever after  with Andrius? Or are you scoping out the guards? Why'd you come."

We were practically toe to toe. She still had to look up at me to make eye contact and she was certainly holding it. I'm not great in these situations and I always say things I regret afterwards. Kind of like the other week when I was in a heated argument with Hound Dog because I felt that I deserved to be given more challenges in my work. Of course, I ended up telling him he was an ugly little weasel who wouldn't know talent if it jumped up and bit him in the balls. I was made to clean out the horse stalls for a week for that one.

But she wasn't backing down, "I would have guessed." She grins and places her tiny hands on her hips, "I'm here to offer dating advice to a dear friend. And if I get something out of it then I'm not going to complain. I couldn't be attracted to Andrius if I wanted to be. Although I am still quite surprised you would rather be here than going home to a family. People are not always nice around here."

"My family is proud of me like this. I have 3 older brothers to compete with. Now if you could take a step back you're really hot."

I froze. Oh great god of all mess ups ever grant me mercy and don't let me have said that out loud. I mean sure she was. Anyone here would agree, except I was the one who said it to her face. And from the brief look of utter surprise on her face I said it aloud. shit.

But once she recovers she takes a step back and laughs a little bit, "Thanks, I think. You're not too bad looking yourself."

I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand and instead of it being chilly up here like it was just moments ago, it was boiling. I couldn't even think of anything smartass to say back to that so I just offered her a small apologetic smile.

"So." She laughs a little, "Tell me about these three older brothers."