Worth the Fight- A Solangelo Royalty AU

XVII-Thanks, Hazel

I had searched for Nico non-stop for years. But I never found him. I cried myself to sleep most nights, just at the thought of him. I had begun to give up when I demanded that we search the woods. My father attempted to talk me out of it. But he could not. This time, I would find my Nico. Nothing would stand in my way. The next day, my crew set out. It was a good day's journey until we reached a small cottage.

I stopped my troops and knocked on the door.

It was opened by a short girl with curly golden hair and eyes and dark brown skin.

"My names Hazel. You must be Will. I've heard all about you. Nico fled. He's in the woods right now. He just left a few minutes ago, if you leave now you can still catch him before lunch."

I blinked at the girl.

Could she be telling truth? Had Nico really been here only minutes before?

"Nico? He was here?" I asked hopefully.

She nodded. I tilted my head.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked cautiously.

She looked me dead in the eye.

"You love him. I know you do. Now go find him before he gets too far. That's an order."

Then she slammed the door in my face. I ran and jumped on my horse with glee.

"You heard her men, onward!" I shouted and we took off.

About 45 minutes later we heard a loud crash and we jumped. The horses whinnied nervously.

"What was that?" A guard, Percy asked.
I looked around a bit and saw a clearing not too far ahead. We nervously approached it and I dismounted.

"Nico? Please come out." I begged.

Everything was silent. I sighed and remounted my horse.

"Let's go, he must've moved."

We started to leave when we heard a bird's screech and a yelp. I jumped off my horse to see a boy with dark hair falling from the top of a large tree. I knew if he hit the ground at such a hard impact he would be dead. I rushed over to the bottom and threw my arms out. A mere millisecond later a boy looked up at me with dark brown eyes.

"Nico?" I gasped.

His eyes shut and he went limp. Panicked, I ran him back to my horse. After carefully setting Nico down and positioning him, I jumped on. I gathered the boy in my arms and grabbed the horse's reins.

"Back to the castle! Yah!"

We all took off at a rapid speed, at this pace we would likely be back to the castle in an hour. I looked down at the boy in my arms. His face wasn't quite as tan as it once was, he was taller and more muscular, and his hair was longer and wavier and pulled into a messy bun. I pulled out the black band holding his hair back and frantically felt for any head injuries that might've made him black out. On the right side of his head there was a large bump, likely meaning he had fallen out of the tree before we had found him. That had likely been the noise we heard. I lightly brushed my finger over the bump and Nico winced and whimpered. I leaned down and placed a light kiss on his forehead, immediately putting an end to his whimpering.

I checked along his rib cage, too but luckily nothing was broken there. I moved on to checking his arms and hands to find that they were also fine. Moving to his legs, I noticed his knee. It was shattered completely and I winced. That had to have hurt.

I also noticed his ankle was broken, but not shattered. I let out a quiet sigh of relief that I wouldn't have two shattered bones to deal with.

I pulled Nico closer and his eyes flashed open with a scream. My men looked over uneasily but I didn't pay attention to them.

"Woah, Nico, its alright. We won't hurt you." I soothed.

Nico attempted to push away from me, but I could tell he was still weak.

"William let me go. I don't want to be here. Let me go! Let me go! " He screamed and begged.

I could feel him panicking from being trapped, but if I let go, he wouldn't be strong enough to hold himself up. I shifted him around so he was laying up against my front, legs on either side of the horse. His head fell back onto my chest, completely drained of energy.

"William, please! Just let me go! I'll be fine! Please! I don't want to come back! The memories are everywhere! I'll do anything, just please let me go!" He begged again.

I could plainly see him attempting not to cry at his new situation. I hated seeing him cry.

"Nico, shh, it's okay."

"No! It's not! I don't want to see you and you shouldn't want to see me!"

His anger provided him just enough energy for him to bring up his arm and hit my chest lightly. All around me, the horses stopped and the men jumped off and pulled Nico to the ground. I leapt off my horse as a guard started binding Nico's wrists with handcuffs. He was just about ready to tie rope around his ankles when I leapt on the guard, sending us both sprawling backwards. I landed on top of him. Then, pulled out my dagger and growled.

"Don't touch him!"

The guard nodded, thoroughly surprised at my sudden change.

I ran over to Nico who was about to have a panic attack over his bindings. Fear started to seep into his eyes.

"Where's the key to the handcuffs?" I shouted.

The guard on the ground fumbled for a moment before tossing me the key. I quickly caught it and freed his hands. Nico let out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto my chest, whimpering softly but trying to hide it. My men looked up at me expectedly.

"From now on, do not lay a finger on this boy unless I directly tell you to. Any violation of this rule will result in your release and possibly worse, do I make myself clear?" I enunciated every syllable with great detail and the guards nodded, fearfully remounting their horses.

I sat down on my own horse and we rode off once again with Nico slumped tiredly against my chest.

"Will?" Nico whispered softly.

"Yes, Nico?"

"I'm sorry I hit you." He apologized, clearly ashamed.

"It's alright, Nico. I'm just glad that your alright. Are you still having panic attacks?"

He hesitated before nodding slightly into my chest.

"How often do you have them?" I inquired.

He closed his eyes completely.

"Every few days or so?"

"Oh my gods, Nico! How do you get through them?" I asked in awe.

He shrugged lightly.

"I can't stop them. I just have to wait for them to pass on their own." He admitted.

I wrapped an arm around him protectively.

"Well, now I'll help you get through them, okay? We'll get through this together."
(A/N oh my god another long chapter. Have I gone mad? Probably!

Word count:1215