*The Chronicles of F.R.E.E. Earth's Knight- Ruth Watson* PART 3 - Mournstead

Chapter Nine - The Heartbroken Enemy

*Watson's POV*
Natalia has been on the phone to Moreno for hours. They have been non stop squealing, laughing, chatting, snorting, screaming and talking absolute gibberish. We had grown increasingly fed up with it. At first it was amusing, then a little annoying, and now entering the fourth hour, I want to knock her head off. The only part of her one sided conversation that I did enjoy was when they were taking the piss of Rebecca and hearing about when Natalia had pushed Rebecca out onto a frozen lake. I wish I had been there to see that.
Rebecca had also had enough by now. She snatched the phone away from Natalia, ended the call and put it in her pocket.
"Hey!" Natalia complained. "Oh come on, Rebecca. I haven't seen her in ages!"
"You speak to her every fucking day! You call her more than me!" Rebecca argued, speeding up her walking to get away.
"Because I don't see her. It's taken you forty years to meet her, and now you have, you can understand why I love speaking to her so much."
Rebecca turned to face Natalia with an incredulous look on her face. "Are you fucking kidding me?!" She screamed. "You know the only reason why I put up with her is because of you and Penelope! Bloody hell, if I hadn't made that promise all those years ago-"
"You never would have met me." Natalia smiled, calming Rebecca down immediately.
"You have helped me keep my promise and kept her safe while I've been busy doing... everything else." Rebecca huffed. "That does not mean I like her."
Natalia chuckled. "You're so cute when you're angry."
"Piss off." Rebecca smiled in spite of herself, shaking her head at her, but then turned serious. "You are not having your phone back, though."
"What?!" Natalia exclaimed. "You don't let me have it while we're at home, and now you're stopping me having my phone while I'm out?!"
"Yes, because you never stop fucking talking to her." Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose then looked up at us. "Do you see what I have to put up with?"
We laughed and nodded. Natalia flicked back and forth from us to Rebecca looking flabbergasted.
"Am I really that annoying?" She asked, looking hurt.
Rebecca put her arm around her, reaching to take her other hand in her free one, and pecked her cheek. She bowed her head slightly and placed her forehead against hers so she could look into her eyes.
"Yes you are." She said finally and ran off before Natalia could hit her, laughing.
Natalia scowled and folded her arms, before spinning round on her heel and linking her arm with mine. I felt my face morph into an expression of dread before I could stop it.
"So, Ruth. Tell me. Did you enjoy the welcoming party Clemency held for you? She tells me you seemed to really enjoy it." She said sweetly, pulling me away from the others to continue walking.
Rebecca had reached a safe distance and stopped to watch us all approaching.
"Uh, well. It was different..." I said slowly.
"What about her song? She wrote that especially for your arrival." Natalia said proudly.
"Yeah... well, it's not really my music taste..." I tried to keep being polite. I did feel myself warming up to Natalia though. Mainly because she took the piss out of Rebecca so much and she was kind and quite funny.
"Ohh, what is your taste in music?" Natalia asked.
"I don't think you would have heard it. I mean, have you heard any of Earth's music before?" I asked her awkwardly.
"Not really. There was one that I did hear once, when Sugo came back. Lovely tune, very quaint." She said, trying to think back.
"Quaint? Yeah, I don't think that was from Earth..." Hodgson said behind me.
"It was!" She said adamantly. "Rebecca give me my phone, I need to find that tune."
"Nice try!" Rebecca sang back to her.
Natalia scowled at her wifes back. "Fine. I'll try to sing it."
"Oh, no you really don't need to do that!" I assured her, trying to stop her, but it was too late.

"Wack fol'a day diddle dee dye doe
Je le len 'o le lale len 'o
Fiddle daddle day diddle dee dye doe
Ho de fee ra huri..."

She started pulling me into a weird, jig like dance as she sang the cheerful diddy tune that seemed to only be missing a flute and a tom drum to make it complete.
To be fair, Natalia had a much nicer singing voice that Moreno's whose voice had been pitchy and whiny. But that still didn't make me feel any better about being pulled into spinning around with her across the snow as she sang. Finally, after a few minutes of agonizing embarrassment, she stopped.
"Now you sing me yours." She said to me simply.
"Er, no I'm good!" I said, trying to rush ahead of her, just as Rebecca caught my eye.
Rebecca was on her knees in the snow, howling with laughter, clinging to her stomach. She keeled over and started rolling around, finding my embarrassment absolutely hilarious. I scowled at her.
Natalia wasn't going to quit. "Oh come on. That's one of the song's from your Realm isn't it? Just sing me one of yours."
"I can't sing," I said, hoping that would be the end of it.
"There's no need to be embarrassed, Ruth. Please? Let yourself go a little."
"Rebecca!" I screamed at the rolling snowball that had formed in the snow.
Rebecca popped up, still wheezing from laughter. "Yes?" She tried to respond innocently between her outbursts of laughter.
"Just give her her fucking phone back!!" I ordered.
"No. She'll be even more annoying then." Rebecca pouted.
"I'd prefer that rather than be forced to sing and dance! Just let me show her some of my music so she'll get off my back, please?" I begged.
Rebecca groaned but got up and came back to us, holding out Natalia's phone. Natalia reached out her hand, but Rebecca snatched it out of her reach.
"I am giving it to Ruth to hold! You are not to have it!" Rebecca said, sternly.
Natalia pouted, bouncing on the spot like a tantruming toddler.
I took the phone from Rebecca and looked at it. 'Much like a smart phone, this should be easy enough to work out how to use' I thought.
I touched the screen, but nothing happened. I pressed the side buttons, still nothing. Furrowing my brow, I looked at Natalia who had a triumphant look on her face.
"Er, how do you work it?" I asked, confused.
"Oh, fuck." Rebecca said. "Natalia unlock it and hand it back. If you keep hold of it, I will personally cut off your hands!"
"Don't talk to your wife like that!" Natalia snapped at her. She took the phone, unlocked it, put it on the right page for me and handed it back. "Just type in what song you want to play."
I decided to play American Idiot by Green Day, thinking it was a pretty apt song for the current situation we were in.
The electric guitar and bass came out through the phone's speakers, followed by Billie Joe Armstrong's vocals. I don't know how to explain how, just by listening to the music from our own Realm, overwhelmed I became with emotions. I was nostalgic, sad, happy, excited, relieved, lonely, comforted and angry all at the same time.
The others sang along to every word, and I joined in with them, as we continued walking along the Mountain's edge towards Narthwich. Sawyer and I even did a little air guitar to the solo in the middle.
Rebecca and Natalia listened to the song in silence. Rebecca furrowed her brow while she listened to the lyrics, Natalia trying to figure out the music.
Once the song was finished, I looked at Rebecca and Natalia expectantly, waiting to hear their take on it.
"Well, that was certainly enjoyable. Although, it did sound very angry." Natalia quipped.
"I quite liked it actually." Rebecca said, smiling. "Got any more?"
We ended up handing the phone around the group, each of us choosing our favourite song to play. Hodgson chose Sheila by Jamie T (I turned my nose up at that one). Dean chose NW5 by the Madness. Hewitt chose Bang Bang by Jessie J and Ariana Grande. Edwards chose Sexy and I know it by LMFAO. Ryder chose Orange coloured Sky by Nat King Cole. Ashdown chose Happy by Pharrell Williams and Sawyer chose my favourite one by far, Duality by Slipknot.
Hunter politely refused to choose his song, saying it would remind him too much of Goodwin and he didn't want to ruin the mood. He did look like he was enjoying listening to the music that we hadn't heard for almost a whole year, so that was the main thing.
Rebecca's and Natalia's faces after everyone had chosen their favourite songs was very amusing. Both had wide eyes and were unsure what to say, especially after Sawyer's song choice.
Rebecca had given me a very strange look when I had started to sing along to it with Sawyer, or at least screamed along with it. It had been ages since I had done any type of head banging, so my neck was already pretty darn sore at the end of the song.
It was now starting to turn dark, and we all followed Rebecca to a cave she knew was close by.
"We stopped here before I had my.. funny turn." Rebecca explained when we had arrived, confusing me.
"Funny turn?" I suddenly thought of the reports we had been getting about the glowing gold eyes, and I quickly withdrew Dragonwrath at her. "How did you snap out of it?" I demanded.
The others stopped unpacking their things and looked at me, bewildered.
"What do you mean?" Rebecca asked, chuckling at me thinking I could take her on.
"Funny turn! Did you have gold eyes too?" I shouted at her.
Everyone's eyes widened as they realised what I was on about.
"No, Ruth." Rebecca said. "The glowing gold eyes comes from the Amica Ignis. My funny turn was when you were being..." She cleared her throat, wincing as she remembered.
I winced myself, realising that she had felt what I had been going through at that moment back in the tower with Collins.
"How did you feel... that?" I asked quietly, trying not to think of the pain.
Rebecca withdrew her own sword, Cometfell. "Doppelgangers and connected swords." She said, looking at her blade. "You were in a life threatening situation, and Dragonwrath sensed that. So it decided to send me a message to help you." She cocked and eyebrow, though, and put her sword away. "Didn't work too well though. If I had been alone, I wouldn't have gotten to you in time. Natalia had to call for more watches to be brought here for your friends and I needed to see a medic. I passed out." She shuddered slightly.
I nodded. "I did too." I admitted to her.
"I'm not fucking surprised. I've felt pain before, but that was horrendous!" Rebecca grimaced.
"So, the Amica Ignis is the beast that gives their victims the golden eyes?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.
Rebecca nodded. "You know the potion, that's why I was surprised you hadn't heard of the Amica Ignis and what it does. I thought you had taken after Rhianna and I and started hunting them for sport."
"Fuck no!" I exclaimed. "I want to stay as far away from them as possible."
"Watson," Sawyer stood and walked up next to me. "It hypnotises people so it can feed on the one's they kill. You can only defeat it if you close your eyes or blind yourself."
"You're kidding." I breathed, shocked.
"Yeah, I got Rebecca to tell me everything so I could tell everyone else when we got back."
I nodded. "Good thinking, that will certainly-... Wait... The fuck am I on about?" I said suddenly. "It doesn't matter now, we're getting out of here. As soon as possible!"
I glanced at Rebecca, who seemed to have not heard me, and sat beside Hodgson, snuggling up to him. Why did I feel bad? Why is it, now I know more about them and actually spent time with them, that I am drawn to Rebecca and Natalia? It's kind of like a magnet. I feel driven to prove myself to them, to show them what I am really capable of. To show I can do a good job protecting others.
I shook my head, and Hodgson looked down at me, wondering what was wrong.
"Nothing," I muttered.
He kissed my forehead and leaned his head against mine.
We sat in comfortable silence before Hunter spoke.
"I did kind of enjoy listening to all our different music earlier. I wish Goodwin had been here to see it." He murmured quietly.
We all gave small sad smiles, thinking of Goodwin.
"She would have enjoyed that." Dean said, sadly.
"Hunter," I said, slowly. "Can you put on the song you wanted to play?"
Hunter shook his head. "No, it's ok. I don't want to spoil it."
"You're not. You said it reminded you of her, so play it." I assured him.
He thought for a moment, looking like he was weighing his options on whether he could deal with the emotions that would come with it or not. Then nodded.
Rebecca took out Natalia's phone and handed it to Natalia who unlocked it and opened it to the right place and then handed the phone to Hunter. He stared at it for a moment before hesitantly typing in the song.
His thumb hovered over the play button, his face full of concentration and pain.
He pressed play and the song started to play. Somewhere by Within Temptation.
I actually knew the song very well, and when it came to a certain verse, I knew immediately why he had chosen it.