A/N: I apologoze for the doubled time it took to get this out and how short it is. College classes start tomorrow and the time I would have originally used to write, my computer(and thus my story's data) spent in a Computer hounds office, he had it for a month and a half. I will try to be better, but I have learned to promise nothing.
Chapter 9
Moving into the room next to the prince's was interesting, to say the least, particularly since it turned out that it was only accessible through his room. Killian told me that before the prince was born, they had thought that he would be female and assigned him a room with an adjoined sitting room. 'Really,' I thought sulkily, 'the King should have just told me that I would be living in essential the same room as the Princeā¦' Though I did realize that while I was hyper-aware of how near I was to the Prince, a male guard would not be. I was grateful to be given a position as the prince's personal guard, different from what I had been before because, at that point, I was simply assigned to protect him during the day. Now I was protecting him, and only him, all day, every day. One problem I now had was my morning ritual, though I hadn't realized at first what a problem my disguise would be, and I hoped with all my might that no one would attack at night.
I woke up, as usual, an hour before dawn and went to get ready for the day. Blearily, I opened my door, briefly wondering why it was closed, but shrugging it off, I began to head towards the wash basin. About halfway across the room, the prince began to wake up and stretch. I froze, but quickly snapped out of my sleepy state and quickly began to panic as I realized that it would be very hard to mistake me for a boy in my sleepwear. Quickly, I ran back to my room and shut the door as the prince finally moved to sit. 'Oh shit, that was close,' I scolded myself, 'stupid, stupid, stupid, how could I do something like that? My life would be over had he woken up just a moment sooner.' My gaze went over my room until it landed ona basin not far from where I sat. As soon as I realized what it was, I glared at the offending object that had cause my panic. 'Ugh, you're kidding. I had one in here? I can't believe I forgot that easily.' However, as I berated myself, I walked towards it and began to clean up. Once finished, I looked into the small mirror behind it I concentrated on my male appearance, sliding it into place as if it were a piece of clothing.
Once finished, I stood by the door, listening for sounds from the other room. Once all cloth sounds had ceased, I opened the door to stand by his door, prepared to leave as soon as he was ready. Prince Alvar looked at me blearily and began walking towards the door. As we walked down the corridors, I began to realize that my Prince was not awake yet. Hesitantly, I tapped him on the shoulder and suggested that we go eat breakfast as he turned to go in to the wrong hallway for the third time. Finally, we made it, and I watched a Prince Alvar retrieved his food and settled down gratefully.
As I sat down next to Trystan, he turned to me and whispered, "How in the world did you get him here like that? He has the worst sense of direction in the morning!" I glanced at him bemusedly.
"I know. He tried to turn into the servants' quarters, the classroom corridor and the mage quarters before I realized that he wasn't awake yet." As breakfast continued, I watched as the Prince's eyes gained some clarity. By the time everyone was done eating he was chatting happily with everyone at the table, much to the amusement of his friends and myself. Looking back, it's hard to believe that we could be so carefree and unburdened.
