After her day of punishment, when everyone is allowed to talk to her again, she becomes quite popular.
"What did he say to you yesterday?" Trish asks her as they pick fruit from the orchard.
"That he wanted to kill me, and that he wasn't sure if he'd forgive me," Ally replies, carefully placing an apple in her basket. "But he said he's glad I'm okay. He looked terrified."
"Well, yeah. He can't court someone who's dead," Trish says, nudging her playfully.
Ally grins, despite the headache that's been bothering her for the past hour. "That's what I said!"
"He seems quite fond of you. You know, courting you and all, plus being so keen on keeping you safe from everything and everyone. Except him, of course."
Ally chuckles and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, seems to be that way. But I didn't think he could be fond of anyone."
"I dunno," Trish says, her eyes twinkling knowingly. "I think you've thrown him for a loop."
"Yeah?" Ally asks, trying to hide the blush forming on her cheeks.
"Oh, yeah. I can't think of anyone else he'd be so lenient with. And I definitely don't think he'd let anyone sass him the way you do without nearly killing them."
"Well, technically – "
"Minor details," Trish says, rolling her eyes and climbing onto a stepstool to reach the higher branches of an orange tree. "All I'm saying is that you've changed him. And honestly, I think it's for the better."
"Well, I do tend to have that effect on people. Hey, can we take a little…" Ally trails off and holds her now-pounding head, feeling dizzy.
Trish quickly steps off the stool and hurries to Ally's side. "Are you okay?" she asks.
"I – yeah," Ally replies. "Just a little…whoa." She grips her stomach, now feeling nauseous as well.
She wipes the sweat collecting on her forehead and leans on Trish for support.
"Here, drink some water," Trish says, shoving Ally's canteen in her hands. Ally obeys, and Trish helps her sit down under one of the trees.
Trish feels her forehead, and then the back of her neck. "Keep drinking that," she instructs Ally. "I'll be right back."
The curly-haired girl runs to the edge of the orchard and calls for help. Ally keeps drinking the water, but it doesn't seem to help much.
Then she hears Austin's voice mingling with Trish's, asking what happened and what's going on.
"I – I don't know," Trish tells him. "She told me earlier she had a headache, but just now she started looking really dizzy and nauseous and nearly collapsed. I don't know if she's dehydrated or what, but she's sweating and burning up."
"She's drinking water?" Austin asks as they approach her.
"Probably not enough."
"Guys, I'm…I'm fine," Ally says weakly, trying to get up. But just the slightest movement makes her feel faint, so she stops.
She closes her eyes and sets the empty canteen next to her, and then she feels Austin's large, calloused hand on her forehead. He curses under his breath.
"Heat exhaustion," he tells Trish. "Ally? Stay with me, okay?"
"More water?" Ally replies.
Austin hands her his canteen and she opens her eyes just enough so she can take it from him before closing them again and drinking his water.
"I'm gonna take her to the woods, where it's cooler. Fill a few more canteens, and then soak a bunch of towels in the stream. Hurry."
Ally hears Trish's footsteps as she runs off, and then she feels Austin's arms under her as he picks her up bridal style.
"Keep drinking, you're gonna be fine," Austin says, beginning to walk with her in his arms.
Ally does as she's told, feeling more and more nauseous with each step Austin takes.
After a few minutes, he sets her down. She opens her eyes and sees the canopy of trees above her providing the shade she's under. Trish runs over, her arms full of canteens and wet towels. Austin kneels at Ally's side, taking the towels from Trish. He places one on her forehead, one under her neck, and one on her feet after he takes her shoes off. He gently pulls her shirt up as far as it can go without revealing anything and places a towel on her stomach as well. She closes her eyes again, still fighting the nausea.
Every once in a while, Austin wets the towels again with the water from the canteens. Ally knows Trish went back to her job, but Austin and his quiet whispers that she'll be okay is plenty for her.
"How're you feeling?" Austin whispers after a while.
"A little better," Ally replies weakly.
"Can you sit up enough to drink a little more water?"
Ally nods and sits up slowly. Austin helps to support her back and hands her a canteen. She gulps the water thirstily, and once it's empty, she hands it back to Austin. Then, she leans over to the side he's not on and throws up her breakfast. The blond holds her hair and rubs her back, using one of the damp towels to keep her cool.
"You're not quite used to the heat yet," he whispers. "You're so used to being under the trees all the time. We'll be more careful from now on, ease you into it."
She's thankful that he isn't blaming this on her, thankful that he's here, helping her, not speaking too much and focusing on helping her get better.
"Better?" he asks once she lies back down.
"My stomach feels a little better."
"Well, that's a start." He pours more water on the towels and adjusts them for her. Then, he splashes some on her face, and she smiles slightly.
"Guess you're like my knight in shining armor."
"Nah," he whispers. "Just your friend. Besides, you said so yourself: I can't court you if you're dead."
She smiles more and he chuckles.
"You good if I get back to work?" he asks her.
"I guess…But I'd rather you stay."
"That's a first," Austin teases quietly. But she feels him shift next to her, and then he splashes more water on her face.
At some point, Trish comes back, and Austin instructs her to clean up the vomit. She does, but she complains the whole time.
Well, until Austin tells her to shut up because Ally winces at every whiny word she says.
After about an hour, Ally's feeling much better. She starts sitting up, and Austin helps her.
"You okay?"
She nods. "Thank you."
Austin hands her another canteen, and she drinks more. "You know," the blond says, "you've really gotta stop scaring me like this."
She looks at him, bringing the canteen away from her lips. "I am so sorry I scared you with my heat exhaustion. I'll try not to do it again."
Austin chuckles. "I appreciate it."
She continues drinking her water, and Austin's small smile fades. "You're sure you're okay?" he asks.
She nods as she finishes the water. "Still kinda weak, but a lot better."
"Alright, well…just sit in the shade for the rest of the day, okay? Do you wanna eat something?"
She shakes her head. "I'll wait a little longer, just in case."
"Okay…" he says, sounding unsure and still pretty worried.
She finds it cute just how scared he gets for her.
"Will you stay with me?" Ally asks. "No one talked to me yesterday and I don't wanna be lonely again."
"I should really get back to work – "
"Please?" She gives him her best princess puppy dog eyes, and she sees him give in before he speaks.
"Fine."
She smiles and scoots back so she's sitting next to him as he leans against a tree. He looks over at her and chuckles.
"Tell me a story," she tells him.
"A story?"
"Mmhm. About you being a knight. Or about a raid. Or anything."
"Hmm…a story…" Austin says. "Well, about a year ago, there were like thirty carriages passing through the woods to get to your old kingdom."
Ally immediately knows what he's talking about. Her eighteenth birthday had been a huge celebration, as it's meant to be when princesses begin searching for a prince to marry when they're twenty. Royal families came from all over with suitors hoping to win Ally's attention.
She remembers faking a stomach bug and sneaking upstairs early.
"Huh. I didn't see them. Do you know why they were going?" she asks him.
"As far as we could tell, it was a celebration of some sort. Nobles, of course. There were a bunch of expensive gifts in the carriages. Anyway, it was practically a raiding buffet for us, y'know?"
She nods, smiling at the way he uses hand gestures when he talks.
"So there we are, hiding out in the trees and watching all these carriages come closer. There's no way we'll be able to catch all of them, but we still wanna try. Then, yours truly comes up with a genius plan."
Austin nudges her with a smile, and she smiles wider.
"When the horses were drinking at the stream near where we were, I walked over to this big, rotting tree about a half mile up the path from them and I took my sword and started hacking away at it." He holds one hand on top of the other in fists as if he's holding his sword and makes a motion to convey the way he was cutting the tree. "And then it fell," he continues, "right into the road."
"And then what happened?" she asks, so engrossed in his storytelling that she doesn't even dial back her eagerness to hear the rest.
"Well, then everyone else caught up with me and realized my plan, so we all got into position. The carriages came riding up, and sure enough, they stopped in front of the tree to try to figure out what to do. They couldn't go around it of course: the carriages would've toppled over. And they obviously couldn't go over or under, which meant they'd have to move it.
"So all the drivers and guards gathered around at the tree and just stared at it, talking to each other. Meanwhile, we went to each of the carriages, say two of us per carriage, and told the poor, terrified nobles to be quiet and give us everything they had or we'd kill them with the weapons we made sure were quite visible."
"That's terrible!" Ally exclaims, giggling in delight at the thought of a terrifying-looking Austin (and everyone else, of course) brandishing their weapons for the stuck-up suitors and robbing them of everything except the shirts off their backs.
"Aw, we weren't actually gonna hurt them," Austin says. "Maybe knock 'em out if they didn't cooperate, but it wouldn't have done any real damage. Anyway, they all did cooperate, and after we looted them we still had one problem: the guards and drivers were coming back, and there was no way we'd get back to camp before they caught up to us."
"And they shoot to kill," Ally reminds him.
"Yes they do," he agrees with a nod. He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his elbows on top of them, and Ally grips his arm in suspense (not because she wants to feel his bicep). "So we all started sprinting back to camp, but they chased us, so we couldn't go back, and we all split up."
Ally's eyes widen. Something about the intense tone of his voice and the way his dark eyes are completely focused on her makes the story even more exciting.
"I had five guys on me alone, probably because they recognized me from my Wanted poster."
"But you said they were from other kingdoms."
"They were. I'm wanted in…I think eight different kingdoms. But who's counting, right?"
"Wow," Ally says, sounding a little too impressed for her liking.
"So, these five guys are shooting arrows left and right, I think one even threw a knife or two, and I'm zigzagging through the trees and jumping over logs and doing just about anything to get them off my trail. But then I feel this shooting pain on the back of my left shoulder. Turns out I got shot."
Ally gasps, terrified at just the idea of him getting shot. It seems impossible; he's practically invincible. But apparently even the strongest of heroes (or outlaws) get wounded.
"So I reached behind me and yanked out that arrow," he continues. "Fortunately only the shaft came out and the arrowhead didn't, or I probably wouldn't be alive right now. I kept running, now gushing blood, and eventually I lost them. Luckily, I knew where I was, and I wasn't far from camp, so I circled around and went home. Dez and Trish fixed me up, and here I am. I still have a scar, though."
"I wanna see!" Ally exclaims.
Austin chuckles. "Fine, fine."
He turns so his back is to her and pulls his shirt over his head. After getting distracted for a few seconds by his muscular back, she looks at his left shoulder and finds a jagged, red scar cutting across his otherwise smooth skin. Of course, there are other noticeable scars on his back, but this one seems to be on its own in the midst of unharmed skin. Ally brushes her fingers over it and Austin shivers.
"Did that hurt?" she asks, biting her lip.
"No," he says with a chuckle.
"Looks painful."
"It was."
She removes her hand and he puts his shirt back on before turning to lean against the tree again.
"So there's my exciting story."
"It was very exciting," Ally promises. "I'm glad you didn't die."
"You better be. If I was dead, no one would've been there to save you from that bear."
"I still could've saved myself."
"Sure you could've."
"I could've!"
"Okay, kid." He wraps an arm around her neck and pulls her down in a sort of choke hold, ruffling her hair.
"Hey!" she exclaims as he lets her go. She fixes her hair. "You know, it's condescending when you call me that."
"It's cute," he says. "It's endearing."
"Because I'm cute and endearing?"
"Sure," he says with a smile. "When you're not annoying the crap out of me or pissing me off or nearly getting yourself killed."
He laughs when she whacks his chest, and she can't help but notice that this Austin feels kind of new. He's completely teasing and cute and friendly without any underlying coldness or uncertainty. She likes it a lot.
He hopes he likes the teasing and cute and friendly side of her, too, because she's been noticing that she's been acting like that more and more around him, and it's only a matter of time before he figures out her feelings.
wHAT?! TWO DAYS IN A ROW?! It's been a while since I did that lol but hey I got time and inspiration so WASSUP I'm sure you guys don't mind, right? anyway I hope you guys liked the chapter and please leave a review!