I awoke because someone had splashed water on my face, I felt instantly guilty for I had fainted in the middle of an attack.
As they advanced, I felt a surge of adrenaline course through my veins. I was cornered, all the guards were busy fighting off two of the scorpions, as the third, and the biggest (just my luck) advanced on me. Lucas charged at the third scorpion, narrowly avoiding its poison filled stinger, just to be almost cut in half by its large pincers. A guard I recognized from the meeting rushed over, sword raised and brought it down on top of the sleek black beast. Its armor was so solid the sword simply bounced off and almost hit the guard. He was knocked over by the recoil but sprang back up.
Suddenly, I knew what to do. The thought hit me like a bolt of lightening. Hit the stomach, where there was very little armored plating.
“Hit the stomach!” I yelled to the remaining guards. Nick was rushing over to help me with the largest one, “Don’t kill this one, Nick, I want to keep it.” I said slowly.
“My lady, are you sure?” He looked at me, puzzled. He had this look of such curiosity on his face, but he complied, unwillingly. “Yes my Lady.” With that, he brought the hilt of the sword crashing down on top of the creatures head, knocking it out cold.
I looked around to the others, but to my surprise, they had already killed the two creatures. I also saw that they had destroyed the hospital wing in the process. It looked as if a herd of elephants had come through here in a panic. Everything was squished, broken or shattered. In the guards case; all three.
I looked at the guards, I felt horrible, I had done this to them, because of me they were hurt. I turned to a younger guard who was helping the others to their feet, “You, what’s your name soldier?”
He looked shocked that I was speaking directly to him, “E-Everett, my Lady, I’m sorry I could not be a bigger help.” He shook he head sadly. I placed my hand lightly on his shoulder and he looked up, his face slightly reddening, “My Lady?”
“You did great, I could not have asked for anyone better.” I comforted him with a smile. He grinned at me with that same grin that Lucas gave me. Then I suddenly remembered; LUCAS!
“Lucas?” I looked around; and then I saw him lying on the ground, motionless. I ran over and knelt by his side, “Lucas! Lucas wakeup!” His eyes fluttered open and he looked at me.
“Keep it down would you?” He said with that devilish grin that I loved. I playfully smacked him on the shoulder but instantly regretted it when he grimaced in pain.
“Sorry,” I apologized over and over as I tried to help him to his feet.
“Stop apologizing, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault that they hurt the guards, it’s theirs for trying to get in.” He smiled at me and sat down on the overturned bed, patting the space beside him. “Sit, I want to tell you a story.”
I looked at him but simply shrugged, “Okay.”
“When you and I were little, we would run around the yard, chasing pretend monsters, you wanted to be just like mommy and daddy. I followed you because I never left your side, not even to sleep. We shared the same room; we were so young at the time that it didn’t matter.
“One day, your parents went to the city because we got a call about a monster terrorizing the city. We got a lot of those back then; your parents fought them for a living. Not knowing that it would be their downfall. Anyways, they went on their mission and you went on another adventure around the yard, but this time, it was a real monster. Not one that could hurt you, but one that acted as a scout for the others.
“I followed you of course, I knew what it was but I couldn’t leave your side. I tried to convince you to go inside but of course you didn’t listen. You were convinced that you could catch it.
“The monster saw what I was doing and it decided to get me away from you, so it cornered me and called a flyer. I was about to be bird chow when you came. You saved my life by getting those two monsters away and taking me to the castle.” He paused, gazing into my eyes, he slowly said, “If you look at it from my perspective, we owed you one.”
I was relieved at what he said, I felt better knowing that, not all better, but somewhat better. I didn’t know what to say, I was at such a loss for words all I could do was smile and give him a great big hug. He pulled away and I felt instantly bad, why did he just pull away? I thought to myself, but I was answered when he leaned over and kissed me.
I felt dizzy, like the world was spinning out of control around me. I melted against Lucas and I completely forgot about all the guards in the room. Someone cleared their throat very loud, and we pulled away, embarrassed that we were caught.
I felt my cheeks redden as one of the guards walked up. He had short cropped hair, which I was beginning to think was protocol for the guards, which was blonde and speckled with gold flecks. He smiled gently at me, as if he were forgiving me for that.
“Hello My Lady, I am Will, I am to be your escort wherever you go. I understand you need your privacy, so will see to it that your friend, Lucas, gets a room next to yours in case of emergency. Other than that, I must…follow you. I am sorry My Lady, I truly am, but we must make sure that you are safe at all times.” He bowed and took two steps to the left and three steps back, and stood there, hands behind his back.
“You weren’t kidding, were you?” I asked as clicked my tongue, thinking of a way to get out of this, thinking of only one; “Why doesn’t Lucas watch me? He is a guard isn’t he?”
Will just shook his head and smiled sadly, ”Lucas has yet to become a full guard, he is still in his training stage, I am sorry My Lady, he may, however, accompany you with me, it could count as training.” This could work, I said to myself.
Lucas got up and went over to help Nurse Jenny bandage the injured soldiers. Will playfully nudged me in the ribs, and I giggled. “I really am sorry that Lucas cannot be your guard My Lady, I will try to talk to Nick about letting him finish his training as quickly as possible, but it will be a challenge on its own. Nick does not change his mind easily. As for me, I will have to go wherever you go.”
“Even the bathroom?” I asked in horror.
“Not quite everywhere. You do still need your privacy, and I know that. That is why I let Lucas be your other guard, so he could go with you where I couldn’t. Oh, I have been meaning to tell you, there is a room next to yours that connects through a bathroom, if you wish, Lucas could take that room.” He eyes me carefully, “I should be able to trust you will be responsible with that privilege My Lady.”
“What...OH ew, yes, no problem on that one, William.” I nudged his elbow with my shoulder, I would have bumped his shoulder, but he was at least a foot taller, so I settled with bruising his elbow until Lucas had finished mending the broken people.
Lucas walked over, about an hour later while Will started rubbing his elbow in pain. He took his hand away and revealed the huge purple bruised that I had created with my bony shoulder. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry Will, I didn’t mean to do that to you.” I started fussing over it as he tried to reassure me it was fine.
“Come on, you should get some sleep.” Lucas told me as he guided me away from the wreckage that was the hospital wing. He led me through the beautifully decorated halls, up the ornately carved spiral staircase and into my room. I hopped into bed and under the covers. Lucas gently rubbed circles on my back as I drifted into a deep sleep, no longer aware of anything from reality.
I giggled as Lucas chased me in circles around my parents’ legs. I screamed for my daddy to get him to stop and he just scooped me up and swung me in circles. He set me on my feet and laughed as I wobbled around trying to make the world stop spinning. I fell over and Lucas rushed up and started to tickle me so much I could not breathe. I pushed him off and squealed as I ran away. I recognized where I was as the field next to the manor, with the huge gargoyles and the perfectly mowed lawn.
Suddenly, the sound of enormous beating wings filled the clearing and I turned to see what the noise was, although I already knew. It was the shifters; they had come to kill my parents. I felt the hot tears streaming down my cheeks as I tried to run over there, but I could not move, it was as if I were wearing cement shoes. I tried to look away as they speared my parents but I couldn’t. I looked next to them and saw a horrific sight. Lucas was on the ground already lying in a pool of blood. I can’t believe that I did not see them kill him. I looked up just as they dropped my mother and my father on the floor next to Lucas. They wiped the blood from their birdlike faces and turned on me, talons out.
“NO!” I shrieked and shot up in bed. Will ran in, sword raised looking around for the trouble. He looked at me and saw me with multiple liquids dripping from my face. He ran over to me and tried to comfort me, but nothing could. I had seen what had happened to my parents, but it was worse with Lucas lying there as well. I wouldn’t know what to do if he had died too. I sobbed into Will’s shoulder until I thought I had run out of tears. All the while, he patted my back while whispering reassuring things into my ear.
I wiped my dripping nose on the back of my hand and smiled sadly at him. “I am so sorry you had to see that, Will. I am not usually like that.”
“Do you want to talk about it? It always helped my when I told someone what was going on.” So I told him everything, from playing with Lucas, to the monsters flying in, and stopped cold when I got to the part about them coming towards me, sharp talons dripping with blood, glistening in the sunlight.
I hugged him again and began to sob once more. I can’t believe myself, why am I crying so much? It was only a nightmare. But it felt so real. I told myself. And it had, I felt the funny feeling of being tickled, I felt the nausea of being spun around, and I had also felt the pain of seeing them all dead on the floor. I just thought of the possibility that it could very well have been me. My whole life spent with them and they could have ended it so quick I wouldn’t know what had hit me.
“Will?” He turned to me, “Thank you for listening, even though you didn’t have to. I appreciate it, you can go now, I am fine.” He smiled at me and left, glancing at me swiftly before slipping silently out the door. I rushed into the room connected to mine because Lucas had moved into this room after saying goodnight to me.
I saw him lying on his bed, sleeping soundly. I walked back into my room, not wanting to wake him up. I slid back under the covers and fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
I woke up the next morning, cursing at the window. The blinds were pulled back and the sun was shining right in my eyes, through my eyelids. I slowly got up and went to the bathroom to have a shower. I heard a noise in there, and when I walked in, I realized that the shower was occupied, so I rushed out and tried to keep my face normal color in case Lucas came out.
I sat on my bed, humming a tune, trying to tame the jumbled mess that was my hair. I waited for what felt like hours before he finally emerged from the bathroom. He walked into my room, hair wet and a towel wrapped around the lower half of his body.
His abs glistened with the remaining water drops. I tried to tear my eyes away so he wouldn’t notice what I was staring at. Thankfully he didn’t notice where I was looking, he simply asked, “Did you come into the bathroom? I thought I heard someone walk in…” He smirked and I knew my face went as red as a tomato.
“Y-yes, I d-did.” I felt stupid, sitting there stammering like an idiot, I mentally slapped myself in the face. “I went to have a shower, but you were in there, so I waited out here.”
He shook his head slowly, “You could have told me to get out you know. I am under your control.” He bowed, just to be a smart Alec, and backed out of the room remaining bowed. I rolled my eyes at him and gathered my stuff for a shower. Once in the bathroom, I locked both doors, and turned on the hot water. When I got into the shower, the jets of hot water felt good on my bare back. It was loosening all my tight muscles. I just realized; when was the last time I had a shower?? No wonder I felt so filthy, oh well. I washed my hair and body as fast as I can. I wanted to go see that scorpion, I wanted to test out my powers, I wanted to see what powers Lucas had, to get a rough idea of what I could expect.
I got out of the shower and slipped into my outfit for today. I put on a pair of black jogging pants with a gold tank top and a cropped black sweatshirt over the tank top. I pranced into Lucas’ room and spun around in a slow circle so he could see me from every angle. He let out a low whistle and I grinned.
“What do you think, too much for a field day?” He looked at me quizzically. “Field day?” He asked.
“Yes, I want to see the scorpion and I want to see your powers in action. I want to see what I can expect, now, walk with me slave.” I winked at him when I said the last part knowing he would understand what I meant.
“Anything for you, My Lady, follow me.” He mock bowed once more and linked arms with me as we left. I laughed as we exited the room because I pushed him into the frame. I heard a loud bang and was quite pleased with myself, That is what you get for being sarcastic, I thought.
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