The Prince's Assistant

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I woke up to Gabriel hitting two pots together. The loud clanging that was made when they hit sounded louder to my sensitive, sleep filled ears. I groaned and rolled over, pulling my blanket over my head. Similar groans were heard all throughout camp, the pots got louder. I rolled out of my warm blankets and into the cold morning air. Stretching, I walked, well more like stumbled, over to a bucket of water, that had been left out last night, and splashed some water on my face. The water was freezing, the sleep that was fogging my brain disappeared almost instantly. Sighing, I looked around myself. The sky was beautiful, the sun had just risen and the sky was a mix of colors. Dark blue, Light blue, pink, purple and a tiny hint of red. The sun itself was red, blood red.

"A red sun is a bad omen." Gabriel said, walking up next to me, pans in hand. I tilted my head slightly when he said that.

"Why?" Gabriel smiled but it wasn't a nice smile. It was one of those pain filled, scary smiles. I got this unnerving feeling from it.

"A red sunrise means that blood will be spilled today." Arthur said, walking to my other side. I jumped slightly when he spoke, I didn't hear him walking up. I also wasn't expecting him or anyone else to answer my question, other than Gabriel, of course. I looked over at him, prepared to say something but when I saw him, all thoughts of...well...anything flew out the window. My heart instantly went into overdrive. He was absolutely gorgeous, he wasn't wearing a shirt and his pants were low, very low on his hips. If that wasn't enough not only was he very, very, very nice to look at, he had also just finished his morning exercises and was therefore sweating. Not the nasty, sticky, smelly sweat but that nice, beads of sweat that left trails on his body in their wake. My mind had officially stopped working and my face flushed deep red. Gabriel and Arthur didn't notice my lack of response or my staring, thank heavens for that. Gabriel nodded in response to Arthur and they walked off talking to themselves about the battle plan for later today. I stood there until one of the knights walked over and almost shoved me out of the way. I shook my head as I made my way back to where I had slept.

I wish my mother was here so she could tell me what I was feeling, to tell me how to deal with it. How to deal with Arthur but she wasn't here. She couldn't tell me what to do or what to say or just give me advice, she was gone. Suddenly, a massive wave of homesickness washed over me and I just wanted to sit down and bawl my eyes out. My chest constricted making it harder to breathe, my eyes clouded over and the tears almost fell but I held them in. Now was not the time for me to be crying over what was, now was the time for me, Merlin, not Marianna, to move through life as she would have wanted. Pushing my homesickness away, I rolled up my blankets and put them in my saddle bags. One of the soldiers had made a fire and breakfast, much to my disappointment, I wasn't going to eat whatever it was that he made. It looked so disgusting, it's not even worth describing. After, what many called breakfast, we packed up camp and headed back to the village. Hopefully they'll be a little more welcoming than they were yesterday.

'~~~~~

Walking into a deathly silent village was not what I had in mind as 'welcoming'. The streets were silent not even the animals were making noise, like they knew what was going on. The wind whipped through the town making a whistling sound. Arthur went to the inn and knocked on the door, the sound echoed for a minute before it went silent again. No one answered, even after he knocked a few more times. He went to a different door and the same thing happened, it happened at all of the doors he tried. Frustrated, he shook his head and we left the village. Instead of looking in the forest we started looking near the mountain ranges. We were split into three different groups. The prince, myself and a couple knights in one group and in the other two there was a mixture of soldiers and knights. We stayed within ear shot of each other in case the beast decided to attach one of the groups. I was hoping and praying that it wouldn't show and that the rumors we heard were just that rumors but knowing my luck they weren't. Arthur had told me that I didn't have to fight unless I wanted to, which was great because I didn't. If I could stay away from the fighting I would be the happiest person in the world.