Wayward (Prince Arthur x Oc)

Chapter 6: In which Edda panics internally multiple times

Oh crap why did she pick him up, oh shit.

Edda's mind raised as she power walked down the wooden path with Arthur in her arms. It had been a split second decision that had led her to pick him up, fuelled by the fear that he would fly towards the troll the moment she'd let go, and now she was feeling immense regret.

She was not a fan of having her personal space invaded and now she had been the one to do it to someone. The only reason she hadn't let go of him yet was that her body had been put on auto pilot, also she had already carried him for a good while now to the point that part of her brain had just decided to go with the flow, while the other part of her brain was making incoherent screaming noises that was absolutely not helping the situation at all.

It was also not helping that he was very huggable. And warm. And also he had started to lean into her and she wasn't sure what to do with that???

Edda wanted to scream.

This was not professional at all.

Her panicking thoughts were cut off by the voice of the person she was carrying.

"I'm sorry that I scared you again, Miss Edda," he said.

The fact that he was talking right into her ear was not helping anything at all, if anything it was delaying her ability to even process the words he had spoken to her.

"Huh, Oh," she said, trying to juggle the frustration she felt toward herself and the frustration she felt towards him almost initiating combat with a stone troll. "Just, don't pull that shit again."

"You have my word," he said.

Ok, she needed to put him down, it was impossible for her to have any intelligent conversations with him if he was constantly breathing in her ear with that weirdly soothing voice of his.

Edda wanted to dunk her head into a bucket of cold water. She was not going to be weird about his voice too! What was wrong with her!?

"So," he cleared his throat a bit. "When are you going to let me down?"

"Right!" She said, her want to be helpful overriding her chaotic mind. "Down you go." She stopped and let Arthur slide down to stand on his own feet again.

"Alright," Arthur looked up at her with a careful smile while swaying his arms a bit. "Should we see if we can still get to the inn before sundown?"

"Yes," Edda tried to hide her still somewhat frayed nerves with a finger gun. "Let's do that."

They did not reach the inn in time. The sun was just scraping the edge of the horizon when they realised that they probably shouldn't test their luck, or well Arthur halfheartedly attempted to argue for them to keep going, but he relented with Edda's insistence that it was a very bad idea.

They set up camp just by the road, Edda keeping a close eye on Arthur as they collected fire wood, making sure that he didn't walk too deep into the woods.

The troll was right, she thought to herself, I am treating him a bit like an unruly child. She felt kinda bad about it, he clearly was a fully grown man, and even if he did appear to be very small and had shown disregard for his own safety before, it was hardly fair for her to treat him like a child for it...

They soon enough got enough fire wood and Arthur started to set up the wood to be lit, while she started figuring out how big the protective circle of Catsfoot needed to be.