Until We Meet Again

Day 4

Marco and Godric were enjoying their breakfast before leaving again. The drivers had gone to inquire about the state of the road they were going to take today.

After they finished eating, they went to the barn to rejoin the drivers at the carriage. The two drivers were speaking to each other, they looked worried about something.

"Is everything alright?" Marco asked them.

"Your highness" The younger greeted.

"There are problems, your highness. The road is blocked, there was a rock slide last night. From what the villagers were saying, we could wait three days for the road to be cleared."

"Three days!!" Godric repeated. "There is not another road?"

The older driver looked at Godric "Well, we can take the road though Little Garden and arrive in two days."

"Only two days, why didn't we take it already? With the other one we would have arrived in three or four days."

"Little Garden is a forest unclaimed by any of the neighboring kingdoms" Marco explained "there a lot of criminals in this area, that why we chose the other road first"

"So we are waiting for the road to be cleared?" Godric asked.

Marco looked at him "No. We can't stay three days here" He turned his head to the older driver "It's alright with you?"

The older one nodded, while the younger turned green.

They entered Little Garden two hours later. Marco sat at the front of the carriage with the older driver, who was more experienced in this kind of road. Godric and the younger driver were in the carriage, they weren't really the fighter type.

Marco banged against the carriage wall "Turn off the lights and close the curtains, we are entering the forest" He ordered them.

The crossing of the forest should take theoretically four hours. Marco had his sword ready in his hand, in case of a problem. The drivers napped the reins and the horses sped up.

They suffered some arrows shooting, but they never slowed down. Without lights in a dense forest where the sunlight couldn't pass. By luck, they didn't have a lot of trouble traversing.

Marco sighed in relief when they finally got out of Little Garden. Marco knew from first-hand experience that it was rare to get out unhurt of an ambush.

Pain, that was the first thing Marco could feel while regaining consciousness. After that, it was a pressure on his hand that he felt. He opened his eyes, and closed them immediately. Marco groaned, the room was too bright for him.

"Marco?"

He grunted in response to Ace's question. After a moment, Marco opened his eyes again. "What happened?"

"We were attacked, you took a blow to your head when you protected me" Ace explained.

The memories come back to Marco. Ace and him were coming back from Rayleigh's place, they decided to take a shortcut, and they were surrounded a second after. They had fought, Marco had glanced in Ace's direction, and he had seen one of the men sneaking in Ace's back, to smash him from behind. Marco had gotten between them and had taken the blow.

"Don't do that again." Ace spoke "I thought, I thought... Marco, you weren't responding, I thought" Ace sobbed, the relief of nearly losing Marco washing over him.

Marco raised his hand to put it on Ace's cheek, Ace let himself be pulled against Marco's chest.

"I thought I lost you," Ace whispered.

"I'm here Ace. I won't let you alone" Marco said, petting his head. Ace, exhausted by the hours of worry and the tears, fell asleep. "Sleep well, Ace" Marco kissed Ace's hair "I love you."