Wayward (Prince Arthur x Oc)

Chapter 5: In which there's an encounter with a strange rock

Edda woke up early that morning to do the final things she would need to do before the departure. If her calculations were correct Hävelösa would be about two days away from their current location, which meant it was in their best interest to have some food prepared beforehand, as well as things to cook food with just in case.

There was also things to prepare beforehand, in case they wasn't able to reach an inn before the night fell and had to sleep in the woods, which wasn't exactly the ideal scenario. Everyone in the kingdom knew very well of the dangers that came with camping out in the woods, so far that there was almost an absurd amounts of inns (or special public resting spots) operating just outside of any forested area, but even then the woods was known for sometimes taking longer to traverse than expected. If it weren't for the fact that Arthur wanted to get to the town the fastest way possible and seemingly hadn't yet grasped the magnitude of the possible danger they could be putting themselves through, she would have probably chosen to take the longer paths which didn't cut through the woods.

Edda suspected that giving Arthur a protective charm wasn't going to be the end of her having to stop him from almost getting himself killed due to what she at this point considered to be pure hubris.

She pulled out the dried Catsfoot she had gotten the day before and started to ground it into powder, which she then poured into a medium sized bottle. It wasn't much even as she grounded up all the Catsfoot she had bought, she would probably have to bring some pieces of steel she had on hand. The silver could also be brought along as well, but due to the form of the silver being small flakes she doubted it would be sound to use it for the purpose of creating a safe camping ground. They were going to walk on some non woods roads as well, maybe she could see if she could find some fresh John's wort on the way...

Right in the middle of her pondering, a voice piped up from behind her.

"You really went up as early as you said you would," It was Arthur, who had seemingly just awoken from his makeshift bed to wander over to her. He still looked a bit drowsy, and his hair was a mess.

"I'm sorry, I didn't wake you up did I?" she had been trying to work as quietly she possibly could, not really liking the idea of waking someone up earlier than needed.

Arthur just waved and grinned at her. "Naw, don't worry, I had to get up at one point or another right?"

He yawned and stretched his arms up, Edda found herself instinctually looking away as she realised that he was not wearing a shirt, and she did not want to look like she was ogling him. If they were going to travel together for around a week, then she would prefer if things wouldn't get awkward between them. Their relationship would be strictly professional.

That also meant that the weird thoughts about him being cute had to go, now.

She slapped the sides to her face in a feeble attempt to purge any part of her brain that could possibly take part in any unprofessional thoughts towards Arthur.

"Are you ok?" A slightly concerned Arthur asked.

Right, that might have looked kinda weird.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she gave a thumbs up to him, "I'll get some breakfast out soon, I'll just need to finish this up and pack it first."

"Ah, okay," he said a bit slowly, "I'll be doing a few reps in the meantime then? Just tell me if you need something."

"Yeah yeah, I will," she said only really half listening as she returned to her work, which she finished up in relative silence. She packed down the prepared containers of food, along with some dried meats wrapped In cloth, a big bag of dried Apple slices (the summer apples having just started to be sold at the market), and all the aforementioned materials for magic. And then, like she said, she stared to get out something for breakfast.