CHAPTER 3
<<Niall's POV>>
Up on the Castle on a Hill, I playfully threw a coin at my servant/friend, Harry Styles, who was walking down the brightly lit mornin' hall. I quickly ran away, laughing me arse off. Harry went and chased after me.
"Ye are 17 years old, ye need to grow up, Niall James Horan!" Harry said, firmly.
"Well yer actin' like a forty year old supervisor, stop being such a grump, yer sixteen." I replied, still runnin' away from that bloke. "Catch me if ye can!" I laughed. There's no way he can with his stiff collars and stiff suit. But in less than two minutes, he's got me picked up and tickling me. Okay, more like roughly grabbing me.
"Niall, yer father is very sick and needs to speak to ye now." Harry instructed with a poker face. I don't know how people like Harry can keep a poker face. Me expression suddenly sobered. I already lost me mum, I can't imagine losing me father.
"What does he want?" I asked, with worry in me voice. I was immediately concerned. Father was not old, but he did have rather poor health. But Harry was already leading me toward father's chamber or suite or whatever they call it.
"See for yerself, Niall." Harry said as if he were a thousand years old. Harry is acting very odd today. Normally he's a hyperactive 16-year-old friend, not an eighty-year-old butler. He never does that. I paused to think about it but he was movin' at such a quick pace. I soon caught up with him, in front of Father's chamber/suite. "Go in, Niall." Father's servant, Paul said. Paul was pretty much what Harry was acting like now, but all o' the time.
I went through the doors and saw me father, he was pressed against several white cotton and violet velvet cushions. He said in a weak, hoarse voice, "Niall, come close." I went up to him and he gently grabbed me hands. His bony fingers were a pale grey.
"What is it Father? What do you need?" I asked, frantically.
"Niall, you need an heir." Father said solemnly. "I won't be around much longer and even if I were, I can't rule."
"What about Greg?" I asked
"I've already said, he's too corrupt, I don't know where the hell he is anyways, he's not fit for the throne." Father answered
"Okay Father, I will find someone." But in reality, how can I marry someone in so soon, I've got to find more aboot them, courting could take months. I wondered who I would marry. I came up with an idea, I don't go out often, but I decided to though. I put on some cheaper clothes and a blonde wig.
"Harry, get a disguise on, we're going out." I said sharply
"Why Niall? Ye rarely go out since Father was in health."
"If I'm supposed to marry someone, I might as well check out some of the folks," I explained. Harry quickly went and changed into a normal townsperson.
We left after a lunch of baked fish and rice and took a simple carriage into town. The old coachman dropped us off and we said we'd walk back since it was so close. We walked around, I saw a lot of women that were aesthetically pleasing, but not someone who'd it seemed that I would spend a lifetime with. Then I saw something unusual. A lad doing laundry! Laundry was always a lassie's chore. I quietly watched him from a distance. Something about his skin tone told me I knew this person, but I just saw him now! I couldn't possibly know whomever this bloke was. I had this one friend a long time ago, I forgot his name, who had the same rare skin.
Even though he was kind of dirty, I could see his heart. He was willing to do something so humiliating and degrading. But he seemed so vulnerable. I instinctively wanted to protect him.
"Hey, um let's go over the street I motioned towards the lad." I suggested
"Okay." Harry said. But another person saw me staring at the worker lad.
"Hello sir, but it's not polite to stare." A british looking person said. How could he have known without staring at me? The irony I thought about. He had a servant's suit of someone very rich.
"Um, I'm sorry, but who are you?" I asked
"I am Louis Tomlinson, and you are?"
"I am um, Noah, and this is me laddie, uh, his name is uh, Marcel."
"Nice to meet ye, sir." Harry said embarrassed, shaking Louis' hand.
"So, why were you staring at the young lad?" asked Louis
"Oh, um well, I've never seen a gent doing laundry. Do you know why he would do that?"
"Oh, um, well he has to work for his elderly stepmother you see." Louis said looking a bit uncomfortable for some reason.
"Oh, well that's so sweet! He must really love his family!" I exclaimed with a smile. "We need more people like that."
"Yes, well I've got to pick up some stuff at the market." Louis said quickly
"Well, we've got to go also, have a merry day, sir, cheerio." Harry said. We walked down the street.
"So, Harry, do you see anyone you fancy?" I asked. "Act your age, now."
"Well, I've seen some bonnie lassies, but I am not going to tell you." Harry answered. I rolled my eyes at least Harry was acting more his age. I was going to say something, but I saw something that broke my heart into twenty thousand pieces. A boy, looks to be a few years younger was lugging a sack of potatoes. His face was angled downwards and he was walking towards an academy at the end of the street.
He looked so sad, I was speechless. I tried to will myself not to stare, but I couldn't resist though. Then I saw Louis again, so then definitely tried not to stare.
"Need a hand with that, babe?" Louis asked. Wait what did Louis just call him? Me ears work well, right? The worker boy immediately looked happier. WTF? I then immediately recognized that expression and I almost gasped. It was an expression more than just friends, more than a bromance even. It was in that moment I realized that I wasn't alone. I saw Louis taking that load of a burden from him and how they held each other made me smile. I could see the relationship between the two lads. They looked so foreign but also so happy.
"Harry, do you see that?" I asked a few seconds later.
"Uh, yeah, so what they're probably just good mates, Niall, uh let's go." He said. That's when I realized that Harry saw it as well, I'm not the only one who saw it. And he didn't condemn it, in fact its seems as if he supports them. We went on the rest of the afternoon, but I pondered about that 10-minute incident, the man doing laundry, that servant who was clearly very much in love with another person, and that Harry didn't seem to judge. I got the answer to a question I've had for a long, long time. We went for about a 3 kilometer walk home and I realized also that I wasn't as alone as I had thought. But my legs were tired from walking so I couldn't focus on that as much.
I told Harry he could go for the day and he decided to go to the pub. I went to go see Father. I went into the parlour and he was smoking a pipe by the fire.
"Hey Father."
"Hello, son, so did you find anyone?" he asked with a cough, smoke coming out of his mouth.
"I think I have more than one option." I lied,
"Oh, really, so what is yer intentions?"
"Well I have this one idea." I responded
"And, what's that?" he asked.
Soorry this is kinda short, anyways plz comment what you're thinking of this so far!
YOU ARE READING
The Place To Lose Your Fears *A Ziall AU*
Fanfiction*A Ziall AU* Zayn has to serve his stepmother, Lady Trisha and his two half-sisters/stepsisters as a slave, since his father, Count Yaser died in a carriage accident. He seems so hopeless and longs for someone to love him and save him. Will he eve...
