I'm so sorry for how late this is. I've been quite busy for the past few months with GCSEs and everything so I haven't really been able to write. But please know that I will definitely be finishing this story. Also, you guys are so amazing for bearing with me and reviewing and telling me what you think. It really makes my day and motivates me as a writer. Thank you so much for the support xxx

P.S. Reviewers check your PM xxx

Guest reviews:

- Fann: Thanks so much for bearing with me and reading this story since the beginning; it really means a lot. I'm really for sorry for making you wait so long but I really hope you enjoy this chapter xxx

-Guest (1): Thank youuuu! I hope you like this chapter xxx

-Guest (2): It's actually just original fiction so I decided to post it in the Fairytales section, because I guess it is like a fairytale. Also, I'm so glad you like this and thank you xxx

-Qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm1: Thank you! And I'm sorry for taking so long- hope this makes up for how long I took xxx

4. Finally Home

Cole

For Cole, time seemed to pass by at an incredibly mundane speed, mocking his impatience and unquenchable desire to return home. It was almost as if the roads ahead forged themselves in such a way merely to deter Cole's path and test his already suffering patience. For the hundredth time, he grunted in frustration and his horse, sensing his unrest, reared abruptly, forcing Cole to halt and announce yet another damned rest. If Cole could have his own way, he'd plough through the roads with no rest at all, for he was so determined to shake the horrifying remnants of Askemian blood that still seemed to hang onto his clothes.

As Cole leant by his horse draining the contents of a flask with the thirst he'd neglected since Askemia, he watched the princess dismount her horse. He was amused to see the absence of her tiara. Strange.

"The princess seems to have lost her tiara, Faramond, " Cole remarked. "She doesn't seem particularly bothered, I must say." Faramond chuckled.

"You wouldn't believe if I told you she threw it away herself, would you?" Cole almost choked on his water. Faramond seemed to find it rather amusing though, laughing as Cole attempted to coax some air back into his lungs.

"Really?" His gaze wandered to Paige herself, who was cheerily exchanging pleasantries with her horse, seemingly her only true companion on this journey. Her grin forced his lips to tweak in amusement. "She's a strange being, Faramond."

Faramond just laughed. He seemed to be finding this entire conversation rather amusing. "Strange, sire? I'd say she's just... different."

Cole averted his gaze. "Those are the ones you really have to watch out for."

Paige

Night fell so gradually around them that Paige would not have noticed its arrival if not for the faltering in Orion's steady gallop. The horses before her slowly came to a halt and Paige was forced to do the same, wondering where they'd safely take shelter for the night. The road ahead of them seemed to fade into grassland, part of a large widespread plain that seemingly had no periphery. Every few yards was freckled with the shadow of trees, leaving majority of the plain to bathe in the silvery glow of the half-moon that lay lying on her back in the cloudless night sky.

It was Faramond who approached her first, followed by some other men she'd become acquainted with along the journey. In fact, she'd seemingly befriended majority of the men, except for the Prince himself, who kept a dignified yet unnecessary distance away from her. Perhaps his hatred for Askemians extended to herself too.

"We're stopping here?" Paige asked as they approached her. Faramond nodded. Upon first glance, he resembled the spitting image of the perfect soldier, with his broad unmoving shoulders and stern dark eyes, so dark that they bested the night sky even. Yet after coming to know him, Paige could confirm that appearance rarely spoke the whole truth, for Faramond proved to be caring and kind. No wonder the Prince was so close to him.

"The horses refuse to nudge any further," he said, with that same welcoming smile. "The Prince has ordered for us all to rest before continuing tomorrow. We have a little while on the road still, 'till we reach Acraeneia."

"Thank you Faramond," Paige said. The men turned and left, once they'd invited her to their little campfire, which the rest of the men were struggling to build in the distance by a large oak tree. Paige, leading Orion, walked to seek some private shelter, where she'd be able to reflect, once the others had slept. When Paige left her little spot to join the men by campfire, she caught sight of the Prince, some distance away, by the bank of a large lake that she had failed to notice. His back was turned to the rest of them, and he leant against his horse.

For the first time, since she had lain eyes on him, Paige saw him, not as the King he promise to be one day, but rather as a little boy, aged much like herself, too young to be in the forefront of all this. Too young to have seen so many deaths.

Perhaps they had something in common after all.

Cole

He could hear laughter in the distance.

Cole couldn't rejoice like the rest of them. He failed to see how they were all so upbeat, able to joke around and enjoy themselves. Maybe it was because it wasn't all their fault. They weren't the ones who would go to sleep that night and know that all those deaths, all the cries from today and all the cries for tomorrow were their fault.

But Cole would.

He could have done something. Anything. Yet this was what being a King was about. Fighting for what was right. However, Cole could not shake the question in the back of his mind, no matter how hard he tried to justify himself.

Was it worth it?

"Hey."

Cole's hands immediately tightened around the hilt of his sword and his feet dug into the grass, yet when the soft and gentle quality of the greeting registered in his mind, he loosened his grip upon his weapon and look up.

He half expected the Princess' image to be some form of illusion, crafted by the romantic atmosphere and wandering quality of his mind, for her image almost seemed to shimmer in the moonlight, like a fragile reflection trembling upon the water's surface. He almost reached out to make sure she was real.

"Can I sit?" Her question surprised him, although her approaching him was already surprising enough, and he nodded his lips parted and eyes wide, still in amazement, as she sat regally, gentle smile playing on her lips. Her face was tilted high, the moon's silver glow dancing upon her cheeks and casting dainty shadows beneath her cheekbones.

"Lovely night, isn't it?" It was at this, that he finally pulled himself together and replied, choosing not to remain the dumbfounded idiot he'd played the part throughout the beginning part of the conversation.

"If you were talking about the view, I suppose so," he said. The Princess looked up at his words then, as if expecting him to elaborate. And because of that small glance she gave him, he did. "But the death, the cries, the loss," he continued, "I don't think any amount of glory and victory is worth that."

She remained quiet, and he dared not look back at her, for he was afraid he'd depressed her. She was a princess. Not a goddamn therapist.

"It's funny how so many people seem to think otherwise," she replied, and he looked at her, despite his rational thinking. "Some people don't think about how every soldier, every person fighting, is just another one of us, with a family, and friends, and a home. With a life to return to, with people that will cry when they leave and lives that could be ruined without them."

For the first time since his parents had passed away, Cole wanted to cry. Her words spoke the truth he tried to neglect, tried to hide away from, tried to run from.

"My best friend died today. Him and a hundred others, who I grew up with. People I loved even more than my parents, which isn't saying much, but I loved them nevertheless," she continued. "My parents didn't even care at all."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, too afraid that his voice would break. "It's all my fault." As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He knew that it was his fault, but it would make it more real, hearing it from someone else.

"No," she objected softly, and his doubts and fears wavered. "It's not your fault. You wage war for the sake of good. My parents waged war because they're blinded by stupid pride and ignorant honour. You were trying to free the world of their evil."

He watched her carefully as she said the words, as if he was still having trouble believing that she was speaking them. Yet she was, her lips moving and her eyes tracing the horizon, which flickered fiercely, like the a thin line of raging silver flames. Then she looked at him. With her cool, grey eyes, glowing pale and silver, just like the moon itself. She smiled too, a gentle soft and slow smile, which begun at the corners and ultimately forced his own lips to tweak.

"Thank you for that."

Paige

She remembered as she walked up to the Prince, a thousand doubts and even more regretful pleas hindering her. She had no idea what she would say. She didn't know how she'd start a conversation. This was a prince from a completely different kingdom, with completely different values and absolutely nothing in common with Paige. They resided in different dimensions, yet the war had brought them into one. Was that how she'd begin small-talk?

Nevertheless, much to her surprise, talking came easier. Minutes, or perhaps hours, later, they sat upon that bank, overlooking the still, quiet ocean, after all the fire and laughter from behind had died down and dimmed. They had reached that quiet stage, where you could simply sit and enjoy the silence, with no commitment to continuing small-talk to avoid awkward silence.

"My dad used to tell me that those stars up there," Cole spoke, out of the blue, nodding at the dark night sky, freckled with what resembled fairy dust, "They're our ancestors, looking down on us. Guiding us." Paige's parents had never spoken to her as such, unless they had felt the need to urgently criticise her.

"I hope my ancestors are not up there, trying to guide me," Paige admitted. "I'm afraid they'd give rather terrible advice."

"They can't be that bad," Cole said. "At least one of them must have been sane."

"My great-great aunt once sent an entire army to war over the matter of a pigeon," she told him. "Something about a wrong message. Poor pigeon was killed too." Cole returned with an expression that was difficult to label- either that of disgust or amusement, that people could actually be so ridiculous. Nevertheless, it was evident Cole knew very little about Askemia. In Askemia, honour was all that mattered. If someone so much as insulted your hair, war was the only option. "I'd bet an entire kingdom that your ancestors are much more...tolerable." Paige chose her words carefully. Sure, her family was insufferable. However, they were still part of who she was, and perhaps a fragment of her still believed she was Askemian, and that her family still loved her.

"I wouldn't know from experience," Cole replied. "I never knew any of them. They all passed away before I was born. But..." He faltered. It seemed strange that such a fierce and ruthless (as she had been told through the narration of her parents and relatives) ruler seemed to be broadcasting a more vulnerable interior, one which Paige had failed to witness in her parents. "I would have liked to have met my parents. My aunt tells me they were kind, caring people."

And so Paige listened as he spoke of his parents and of many other things. She listened as he spoke and he did so too, as she opened up in return, the two heirs of two very different kingdoms sitting and merely talking. Even the wind had paused to listen.

For the first in her life, Paige had found someone to listen. She had spent a lifetime of twenty one years, hearing her parents speak, letting the words wash right over her, as she responded passively, secretly still grasping onto her personal principles and beliefs, hoping that one day, it would not be seen as a sin to believe in them. As she sat by that lake on that cool night, she wondered if her hopes had finally come true.

Cole

They were closer now. Cole could feel it. The air had somehow become lighter, and the roads were now broader, with the distant faint humming of civilisation, growing in volume with each step they took.

He had spent most of the night talking. It had felt good to finally talk. Cole had had the one luxury in life, to have people who truly cared about him close about him throughout his life. And yet...

He still had never felt that he could truly share everything with any of them. His aunt had huge expectations for him. After all, her entire family had been wiped away and all that was left of that glorious monarchy was Cole. She wanted him to be the most glorious of them all, a symbol of hope and redemption from the loss and suffering Acraeneia had gone through in the past. Faramond too, was a man Cole would gladly and willingly trust his life with. However, it must be said that Faramond thought too highly of Cole. Faramond still had that loyalty in him, the belief that Faramond was the servant and Cole was the master, and no relationship between them could ever overstep those boundaries. In reality, Cole thought of him more as a father-figure.

Nevertheless, Cole sought comfort in his conversation with the Askemian princess, who proved to be a princess after all, even without her tiara and her kingdom. Although a prince, soon to be crowned King of an entire kingdom, Cole still felt like the boy he was inside. An orphaned boy with shoulders too small to bear the weight of the expectations and responsibilities that would arrive on the day of his coronation. When he spoke with Paige, he felt that he was somehow permitted to be that small vulnerable boy. And that was okay. It was okay to be small. It was okay to feel vulnerable. It was okay for him to just stop being a Prince, and finally, be a boy. It had been so long since he'd been a boy that Cole had forgotten what that felt like.

And now he couldn't get that boyish smell off of him. The one that smelt of cool windless nights and sweet sinful liberty.

Then, as suddenly as the feeling had come to him, it vanished. They had surely reached Acraeneia now, for people began emerging from houses and tears of joy were emerging from decades of hiding. So this is what victory felt like.

Cole managed a smile at those who waved at him, and yelled their inaudible messages of gratitude in his direction, although his smile was inevitably tainted with the grief towards the loss of those whose families stood outside their homes, waiting eagerly, hoping that maybe, just maybe, their loved ones would be arriving too. He felt like a coward, hiding behind his smile, unable to face those families. That was when it hit him. It wasn't just the families of Acraeneia that would be split down the middle and devastated. Sure, the Askemian monarchy was a complete disgrace to all things just and pure, yet it was highly unlikely that Paige was the only Askemian with a good heart. How many of those good-hearted people had been affected by this war? The casualties taken by his soldiers were an ankle sprain compared to the severity of the devastation faced by the Askemian army. All this...and for what?

With those thoughts hindering his relief to be home, Cole finally reached the castle, just few steps behind the large coach that had been meant to host the Princess. The Princess was just a little distance behind him, travelling with Faramond and a few other men she'd befriended. Surprisingly, his men seemed to appreciate her presence, a reaction completely different to the hostile one Cole had initially predicted- hence the arrangement of a coach.

Cole dismounted his horse just as the double doors of the castle were thrust open and just as he'd expected, his aunt rushed out, and Cole was forced to forget his thoughts and grin with affection. Despite everything he had left to face, he was glad to be home.

"I'm so glad your home," she gushed, enveloping him in a large, warm, much-appreciated hug. "And you've come home victorious." Of course she knew. Faramond had promised to keep her updated with her nephew's whereabouts and the battle's progress. However, there was one thing that she had not yet come to know.

"Aunty, I have to tell you something," he whispered. The others would be arriving rather soon.

"And why this large coach, Cole?" his aunt continued, completely ignoring his question. "There's no one even inside it."

"That's what I wanted to tell you," he began. "It's supposed to be for the Princess." His aunt did a double take, and only a moment later, did Cole realise how his ambiguity may have led to misunderstanding. And his aunt's long term desire to see him marry was one that would no doubt fuel this misunderstanding.

"Not my princess, aunty, goddamn it," he gushed. "I meant..." He trailed off and took a deep breath. Great. Now he was flustered. "She's not mine. As in... Well I don't own anybody for that matter, but..."

"She's beautiful."

Cole froze. They had arrived. And of course, they had to look magnificent. Or at least she did. Cole wished he could have warned his aunt earlier. She was watching Paige with awe, with that look she gave women whom she wanted to adopt into the family.

"Aunty..." he began wearily. "That's the Princess of Askemia."