- Len's pov -
Birds conversing. That's the first thing I register when I became conscious. Even with my eyes closed, I can tell that the sun has come up. A new day and a new beginning for Rin and I. I opened my eyes and rubbed them in an attempt that, hopefully, I'll be able to rub the sleep out of them. I looked over and noticed Rin facing me, asleep. She and I must've separated sometime in the night. I smiled and tucked some of her hair out of her face and behind her ear. She stirred, but didn't wake.
I smiled and quietly crawled out of the fort. Did mom make pancakes? I smell blueberries. I stretched and quietly made my way downstairs. I reached the end of the stairs and down the hallway and was met by my mom. She was indeed making blueberry pancakes. Her hair was tousled and she had sweatpants and a black t-shirt on.
"Hi, mom." I whispered and smiled. She looked up and smiled when she saw me.
"Sorry. I'm still a bit tired and I'm not exactly the 'talkative type' when I'm tired. But I made you and Rin some blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I hope she likes blueberries." She said indicating to a stack on a plate. There was already a lot of pancakes on the plate.
"Mom, how long have you been up?" I asked and silently laughed. "You have almost a dozen on here."
"Not long. I got up about maybe 30-45 minutes ago. I rise with the sun." She smiled and gestured to outside. "I'm so grateful it stopped raining last night. I don't even know when it started but it finished pretty quickly." She smiled and turned to me. "You two can help me with harvesting vegetables and stuff from the garden."
I looked behind me and noticed Rin standing there. "Morning, Rin. Did we wake you up?" I gave her a half smiled and she walked over to us.
"No. The sun and birds woke me up." She pouted.
I laughed. Well, you woke up at a good time. Mom made us blueberry pancakes." I pointed to the food that mom made. She smiled and nodded.
"Thanks! I love blueberries." Rin smiled and bowed to slightly to my mom. She laughed.
"Oh, Rin. It's no problem. I'll be sure to make them more often for you."
"Yay!" Rin clapped in excitement but then stopped as she remembered something. "Oh and there was something else that woke me up." She turned to me.
"What was it?"
"You!" She shoved me.
"Hey! I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up because you looked so peaceful and adorable in your sleep." I smirked as she blushed. She's speechless. I cheered in my head. I've been working on that line for months, hoping to use it on somebody. Why not use it on the woman that I'll be living with here?
Rin got over her blushing state and turned away from me, pouting. I smiled and hugged her from behind. Who cares that mom is right in front of us?
Rin tensed up in surprise and she started shaking. Is she laughing? Or is she afraid? I hesitantly let go of her and moved to look at her. She was smiling and seemed to be trying not to laugh.
I smiled and poked her nose. "Alright, come on and let's eat so we can help mom with harvesting. Then if we have time afterwards, we can go explore the woods."
Rin perked up at the thought of exploration and nodded. We went over to the table and dug in. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see mom standing there watching us and smiling.
- 35 minutes later -
I picked a tomato off the vine and put it in the basket. "Look at how much we've already collected and we like just got out here!" I said laughing and showed my mom and Rin.
"Woah! There's so many." Rin smiled and picked one from the pile.
"These will be good to eat tonight with what I'm making." My mom said coming up beside us.
"What're you making?" Rin asked excitement clear in her voice.
"It's a special spaghetti recipe that my grandmother gave me and it's really good." She explained smiling. I smiled. This is going to be an exciting future. With the spells that I put on the forest, no one can get in but us and the animals.
"Hey, Rin?"
"Yeah?" She turned towards me, smiling.
"Want to explore the woods now?" I asked and looked towards the woods.
"Yes!" She exclaimed excitedly and started dragging me towards the woods.
"We'll be back later, mom! I promise!" I told her as I was being dragged towards the woods.
"Okay. Be careful!" She said laughing and waved goodbye to us. I waved back and let Rin lead me to the woods. We entered the woods and I turned towards Rin.
"Hey, I got something to show you." I smiled and grabbed her hand. She nodded and I lead her farther into the woods. The pine trees loomed over us as we entered into a rocky part of the woods and into a crevice. Rin stopped.
"Wait. Where are you leading me?"
I could tell that she was freaking out a little because of he last encounter with being underground. I smiled reassuringly at her.
"It's okay. Nothings going to happen to you because I'm protecting you. Plus these woods are as safe as the fort that we built upstairs last night. You're going to love this. I made and preserved this when I was little with spells. It's practically a play ground." I explained and hugged her. "You'll be fine." I whispered in her ear."
She nodded. "Okay, I can do this." I held her hand and led her farther down into a cave. I smiled as Rin looked around in wonder.
"Here, hold on." I let go of Rin's hand and picked up a piece of wood. "You'll like this." I smiled and used magic and lit the end of the stick.
"Woah!" Rin said and laughed. I held Rin's hand in one hand and the torch in the other.
"Come on, you'll like this." We continued walking down into the cave. A while later, we reached my old hang out from when I was little.
The area was quite big and there were stalagmites and stalactites scattered around. There were lights lit up and strung around on the ceiling from stalactite to stalactite. There was a picnic table in the center and a cooler with drinks off to the side. Some big vine-like-swings were also hanging from the ceiling down to the floor on one side of the cave.
"This is amazing!" Rin said looking around. I nodded.
"Yeah and it's even better without this." I put the fire out and turned off the lights. Rin squealed and grabbed onto my arm as we were plunged into darkness. "Now just wait a second. It won't be dark for long." I whispered, smiling.
Rin and I stood in silence when the room suddenly lit up with a blue glow. Rin looked around in awe as the light lit up the room.
"How is the room lighting up?" Rin asked as she twirled around.
"It's the rocks. I'm not entirely sure how it does this but when it's dark, the room lights up with a pretty blue color. I found this out when I was little. I wandered in here with a torch and accidentally dropped it here which made the fire go out. It was really dark and I almost started crying when the room started glowing blue. That's when I decided to set up some stuff and make it my hideout."
Rin smiled. "Well now I've found out something new about you."
I nodded. "And we get to do that everyday now." I said and hugged her. Rin hugged back. We stood like that for a minute and then separated. "This is our spot now. Whenever something is bothering us or we feel in danger, we can always go here. If we somehow get separated or something happens, this is where we'll meet up."
Rin nodded. "This is our spot and nobody else's. But what if we are in danger and we get followed?"
"No worries." I said smiling and made a flame appear on the tip of my finger. "I can create a spell for that. The cave will have other twists and turns. All you would have to do is run as fast as you can without the person following you. You just need to keep going straight." I pointed my finger with the flame behind us towards the entrance and sent a small blast. It hit an invisible wall, spread out and vanished. "There. Now no one can follow us."
Rin nodded and smiled. "I never want to leave. I don't want to go back to the castle."
"And you won't. Not with me around. As long as I'm by your side, they can never reach you."
"I'm glad." Rin smiled and hugged me. I hugged back.
"So, do you want to go and look at the edge of the forest?" I asked. Rin nodded and smiled.
"Only as long as we don't go outside of the barrier. We haven't been there since yesterday, so who knows what's there."
"Yeah. Let's go." I smiled and grabbed her hand and led her out of the cave.
