AN:Well, still no luck with United By Red Tests, so here I am. The feedback from last chapter was generally positive so I hope this holds up. Hope you enjoy and please, please review.
The Bedtime Stories
2. Running from the Kingdom
Bartowski Residence
2013
The following night was Sarah's turn to put their son to bed. She was very grateful that her son was not picky with food and didn't have much of a hassle feeding him dinner. About an hour later, he had to be put to bed. Chuck had been at work for most of the day, managing Carmichael Industries (Now a software company) and dealing with some of the accountants.
What he didn't know was that the previous night she'd heard him telling their son the story of how they met. Or as he put it, the story of The Blacksmith and the Maiden Knight. She smiled, that was just Chuck and she loved him for being like that. So she decided to continue the story. She thought back, wistfully to all their missions together but finally settled on one that wasn't an official mission, Barstow.
So after little Tyler had finished his bottle, she picked him up and began to tell the story.
"Alright, well, your daddy already told you how the story of the Blacksmith and the Maiden Knight began, I'll skip forward about two years."
"A lot of things happened in the two years since the Blacksmith and the Maiden Knight first met. They weren't allowed to be together by orders of the Queen of the Kingdoms the maiden knight and the Colonel worked for. They were in love with each other, but the maiden knight was scared of letting the blacksmith in and the rules weren't helping.
They'd also been fighting a traitorous organization of evil knights called Fulcrum and they'd found the blacksmith's father. He was a wizard named Orion. He'd actually been the one to create the spell that sent images into the blacksmith's head. But Fulcrum had captured Orion before he could help remove the spell of the images in his son's head. Fulcrum wanted him to make a spell for their own images. He refused, but they threatened to kill the Blacksmith if he didn't, so he obeyed."
The four-month old clearly had no interest in sleeping and was cooing at himself when he caught sight of the mirror in his room and began babbling at his reflection. Sarah ruffled his messy blonde hair as he pointed to the mirror, she gently put his bottle into his little hands and he started drinking again, removing his concentration from the mirror. Once he'd had enough, she set the bottle down on a nearby table.
"Okay, where was I? Oh, right."
"Meanwhile, the Queen of the Knight's kingdom decided that having the blacksmith roam free was too dangerous. She ordered the maiden knight and the Colonel to take him to a cellar in the Kingdom, where he would never be able to be harmed, but would never see daylight again.
The maiden knight loved him and couldn't let that happen. So she went to the forges where he worked and told him they had to run away from the kingdom. He had not much other choice, so the two of them road on horseback as far away as they could.
"You're disobeying orders for me? You're committing treason, you could go to jail," the blacksmith told her as they rode of.
She told him that she knew, because she did. The maiden knight owed the blacksmith the truth after he had served his kingdom when it hadn't been his job, because he deserved to find his father and bring him back to the wedding of his sister, the healer's, marriage to the Captain Healer. And most of all, because she loved him too much to have him live in a dark cellar for the rest of his life and know she didn't at least try to stop it.
They needed to stop for the night and let their horse rest, so they found a small, rather seedy inn and got a room. However, there was only one bed so they had to share it. The maiden knight and the blacksmith talked about what they would do to find his father. But when the blacksmith asked about their relationship, the maiden knight told him they would take it 'one quest at a time.' before they finally went to sleep.
The next morning, the maiden knight woke up in the blacksmith's arms and they kissed."
Sarah sighed wistfully at the memory of that morning, waking up with their hands intertwined and after two years of dancing around each other, it was just instinct to be together, they had been in a rather confined space anyway.
Even though he was a wonderful uncle, her friend and Chuck's best friend, she still hadn't entirely forgiven Morgan for Barstow, even though it did end up for the better. But she had really needed Chuck that morning and could just picture Casey's face when he caught them going at it. This elicited a small chuckle as she continued the story.
"Anyway, as things progressed, the blacksmith went to go obtain an item but found out it had been taken by the bearded apprentice. He rushed out to get a new one but was caught by the Colonel, who had orders from the Queen to detain the both of them for running away. They managed to escape, but they ran into some knights that worked for Fulcrum.
Even though they took out the evil knights, the Colonel still put the blacksmith and the maiden knight in the dungeon of the knights secret lair because he had orders to do it. The Colonel was a model example knight in following orders, but he could be a little stubborn. The maiden knight and the blacksmith thought they were going to be taken away.
As usual, even in a bad situation, he was being very sweet to her. And told her that even if he had to spend the rest of his life in a dark cellar, he was glad that he would be spending it with her. The maiden knight was very touched and they almost kissed, but an opportunity to escape and find Orion presented itself. See, the magic that kept the power in the secret lair going on wore off, so they managed to escape and tie up the Colonel and rode off on their horse to rescue Orion.
The Colonel tracked them down and the maiden knight and the blacksmith invited him on their quest to rescue the blacksmith's father. He agreed to help them, but when they found Orion, they were captured by Fulcrum knights. But, Orion and the blacksmith were smart, so they planned that when Fulcrum's knights were exposed to the spell that would give them images, it would incapacitate them, but remove the spell from the blacksmith's head.
So they acted on their plan while the Queen of Knights sent a dragon on the side of the knights to destroy Fulcrum's lair while Orion, the blacksmith and the knights ran away. The returned back to the village so that Orion could be there for his daughter's wedding to the Captain Healer. The blacksmith no longer had the images, so he could return to a normal life."
"Except the blacksmith didn't want a normal life," Sarah turned around to see her husband in his pajamas enter the nursery. "At least not without the maiden knight," he smiled a little as he approached her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind so Chuck could watch his wife and his sleeping son.
She smiled. "Well, what happened at the wedding of the blacksmith's sister is a another story altogether," she said. "Maybe another time." Gently she set him down in his crib and tucked him in. "Good night, Ty." For a few moments the two parents just watched their son's peaceful face as he slept.
"You know, we should get some sleep," Chuck said. "He'll probably be up again in a couple hours."
"Yeah," she replied as they gently closed the door behind them.
"You were telling the Barstow story weren't you?" She nodded. "It's funny, to our son, our life is a fairy tale."
AN: And thus is the tale of the Barstow story. Next chapter: Casey's retelling of vs The Tic Tac. Thanks for reading and please, please review, if you have any suggestions, tell me as well, and I'll gladly take it into consideration.
