Wow, I was a butt for not updating!

I don't own anything, here you have the next chapter! I got a bit of a muse again! I also always forget to mention this, but like 3 chapters ago, this became my longest Fanfic ever. Thanks for all the reviews and support guys!

It took them another week or so to make it to the village where Arthur's old friend lived, and after only a day there, they had a store front playing on a favor said friend owed Arthur for a reason the magician seemed unwilling to share.

This village, called Crossroads, was exactly as it's name specified. It was of medium size, more of a town, and was very open minded compared to the surrounding countryside. Having merchants and travelers of all sorts of shapes and sizes prepared the people to see oddities, and Alfred walked through the streets with Arthur on his back without a problem, unlike some of the other towns they'd tried this in. Alfred had seen enough pitchforks to know when he was unwelcome.

The town was focused around the market street, the surrounding neighborhoods always branching off from the two, main, intersecting roads that gave this place its name. The houses were well built, neat, and attractive looking sort of things; the road, although dirt, kept free of ruts.

Although the place was welcoming and just what they'd been looking for, Alfred had been apprehensive about Crossroads and for what opportunities it had to offer, especially after he found out just whom Arthur's friend was.

'Are you kidding me? A tomato vender? Arthur, when you said you didn't have many friends…'

Arthur glared at him, having gotten off him to greet a brunette man in a white apron who stood there smiling pleasantly surprised, but he turned back his attention to the man, his old mate, nervously. "Antonio, er…good to see you…so prosperous…?" He stuck out a hand.

'Antonio' was all smiles, and he ignored the hand and hugged Arthur tightly for a moment, before pulling back, and Alfred noticed Arthur's initial flinch before he relaxed. "Yes, I am very happy here, much more so than at school. I sell the tomatoes and I have the cute assistant, I have the good life, no? How are you getting on? How did your family take the news of…?" The man was foreign, if his accent was anything to go by…

Arthur tensed, and Alfred peered up at him, cutting his own thoughts about the vender off, wondering what that was all about. Arthur's expression, already having been a little nervous, now paled and appeared somewhat sickly as if the question had caused him extreme physical sickness. Arthur finally answered him after a moment, color returning, his face forming into that of a mask.

"I went back home once after graduation, and it wasn't pleasant. My older brothers…are…unforgiving. My mother and little Peter said their goodbyes to me, as I probably will never see them again." There was a great hesitation in what he said, and Alfred felt his curiosity rise by the minute (whether it was because he was a cat, or because it was about Arthur, he didn't know). Antonio put a hand on Arthur's shoulder.

"I am sorry, my friend. We were so foolish and careless back then."

So, after Antonio pulled some strings, they had gotten a storefront and flat, and had been living there for three weeks.

"Alfred, come in here, I need you for a moment." A very convenient thing about the whole shop thing was that there was a back door that led out to the forests, and Alfred spent most of his time there, but he always spent some time with Arthur everyday, whether it was laying by the end of his bed on the floor at night or helping him set up his shop, which was getting more and more prosperous as the days went by. Antonio was kind and directed them a lot of praise and customers, and Arthur was finally beginning to calm down about money and such issues.

Alfred came in, as he was bid, and found Arthur peering over a map that was laid out on the table in the back room of the store. He slunk over to where Arthur stood, and sat down next to him.

'What is it?'

Arthur turned away from the map. "I was wondering if you had any insight about where we should go to find the beast man. You being animal partly yourself, I thought that might give you a clue as to where we might find the bugger."

Alfred froze, the room, while large and bright, seemed to darken, the robust wooden walls seeming to groan and tilt inward. "He's actually…he's actually going to try and look for the beast man?' Alfred thought quickly, 'But…why? We've been so happy here! We don't need to ever go back to Acirema, we don't ever have to leave, why would he want to go through all this to begin with? And with a business starting up!'

'Err…I really have no clue where this "beast man" is, and have really never heard of such beings until you mentioned them. Why exactly are we doing this?'

Arthur continued to pour over the map, putting points in different spots for no apparent reason that Alfred could fathom. He didn't say anything for a while, seemingly just thinking for a long while.

"Well, Alfred, I don't expect you to really have much interest, but it has been itching at the back of my mind for a bit now about this whole 'quest' the Aissurian wanted me to go off on," Arthur sat back on a wooden chair he'd had nearby, rubbing a hand over it's simply carved frame subconsciously. "And I realized that I really don't like being barred from Acirema. I don't like being told what to do either, it doesn't go well with my nature, but I think we should do this thing anyways."

'Yeah, I think this is a waste of time when we could be getting the shop on its feet, but I'm pretty sure you're too stubborn to—'

"Alfred, I've just been thinking about the opportunities that would come with finding this beast man and what it would mean," Arthur replied, exasperated, not even registering the nervous tones of Alfred's voice in his head. "The Aissurian noble promised me a position of influence back in Acirema if I brought the beast man back alive, and I was just thinking about how if I could establish a stable lifestyle for the two of us, we'd never have to worry about going hungry, about whether or not we could enter different villages," he leaned onto the table, resting his pale chin on his equally pale hand, sighing deeply at thoughts of what could be, his thin legs curling and crossing over themselves on the chair. "I was thinking that you could see your sister and family again, that we could be happy and never have to worry about anything ever again."

Alfred's eyes flew open as he registered the last bit. See his family. That was why Arthur wanted to go do this, because he wanted Alfred to be happy, he wanted to do this for Alfred just as much as himself. It began to tear at Alfred's heart when he thought of the secrets he kept locked away in his heart, of the fact that Arthur's wishes and dreams for the future could never come true, that the promises he'd been given were as false as old Lord Danner's teeth, but of course he couldn't speak up, and Arthur had no clue who Lord Danner was so there wasn't any point in all of that.

'Arthur, while seeing my sister and family again would mean the world to me,' A sharp pain to see his father and sister again struck his heart, but he continued on, trying to get the sadness out of his eyes, 'if it meant that you had to spend the rest of your life on a wild goose chase for some supposed half beast creature that might not even exist, I would not ask it of you, ever. I don't care if we have to live the rest of our lives without a penny to our names, I don't want you to get hurt in the end for trying to do all of this. I care about you too much for that.'

Alfred padded up and nuzzled Arthur's arm, and in response, Arthur slid out of the chair onto the floor, both of his skinny arms wrapping around Alfred's large, furry neck as he buried his face into Alfred's mane.

They sat there for the longest time, somewhat under the table, Arthur's body slowly beginning to shake as silent sobs began to rack his body. When Arthur had gotten it out of his system, he pulled back to look at Alfred once more.

"Thank you, for everything Alfred. You…you're always…so kind, understanding…my family…. they never…I think I—I… I lo—thank you." Arthur turned away, slightly embarrassed by his emotion, whipping his red rimmed eyes. 'Dear god, did I almost…tell him that I…'

'It's nothing, Arthur. And if you still want to do this, I'm behind you all the way.'

They began to make little trips around to neighboring villages, asking around if anyone had ever heard of a beast man, or if there had ever been any stories about one in the past, like Alfred had suggested to Arthur. They didn't get much at first, and Alfred was prepared for this to go on forever, but they got "tips" every once and awhile from townspeople, and they began to expand their horizons, always proving the tips false, but having a great time of it all, although Arthur often got down about it all, but Alfred was always there to cheer him up. They did this for quite some time, simply enjoying each other's company, the store growing and growing, as well as their bond, neither one admitting that the feelings that they shared were a little bit more than "friends". Neither had any clue that their lovely little honeymoon from fear and poverty was about to come crashing down in a way most unexpected.

Matilda was having her hair tamed back into her bun with ringlets curling down her neck for the meeting she was soon to have with Gilbert. How the weeks had flown! And Francis was getting anxious about something or other, and had told her that it appeared that her time was shorter than previously thought. She needed to be married in six months when she turned eighteen. Where Francis had gotten this tidbit, Matilda didn't know, but she'd started to hyperventilate when he'd told her about a month ago.

...

She'd burst from the throne room, only running when she was out of Francis' and his…advisor's sight, running down the hall, her dress bunched in her hands, her hair coming undone down her back as she scrambled up the steps, Lilli rushing after her from where she'd been startled from her seat next to the throne room's door.

"No! This can't be happening, this can't…" She'd murmured to herself as she'd flown across the marble in her panic. She'd then saw a familiar face step out from around a corner, his new, diplomatic uniform still crisp and sharp with angles. "Ivan!"

...

Matilda had been expecting eight months or more to find her brother in the beginning, eight months or more to set things to right and become the countess of whatever Ivan's property was and for Alfred to take the thrown. Of course, she and Gilbert would have become temporarily engaged to help give them some more time, as she only had had to be engaged by her eighteenth birthday, and then she could be free to postpone the wedding itself for as long as she possibly could. But if she had to be married by that point, she was doomed if Alfred didn't come back in time

After telling Ivan about this new development, though, he'd told her he was sure his sister was the cause of the new time constraints, although he couldn't yet see why Francis would want to go along with all of this, sex not being that much of a prize for what he was doing. There was something else that was going on, but Ivan hadn't figured it out.

And they'd spoken about one more thing.

...

"If it comes to you and Gilbert marrying, I have a plan if my other schemes don't work." Ivan had told her as he grasped her firmly by the shoulders as if he couldn't let her go for fear she'd drift away from him and float away on the wind.

"What, anything Ivan!"

"You love me as much as I love you, yes? As if the sky were too low as to contain the amount of my feelings."

She nodded, reaching up to put a hand to his cheek.

"Then we shall run, the night before your wedding, we shall run for the hills and never look back until we cross the Aissurian border and are married. It will mean giving up everything, but we might still find your brother and set things to rights afterword, but most important, we will have each other."

Matilda looked up at him, so quiet, her eyes betraying her thoughts.

"But Ivan…if we leave, if Francis takes the throne, if Alfred no longer has breath filling his lungs…what will become of Acirema? I can't leave my…"

Ivan's face took on such an expression of loss, of vulnerable loneliness, that Matilda felt a wave of guilt. Ivan, who soon would formally cut off his bid for her hand in about a week's time so Gilbert could make his move so Francis wouldn't have to choose. Ivan, who restrained himself, loved her from afar while she entertained other men as if she cared just as much.

Matilda had felt her entire life she had been a spineless, meek, passive creature. She always took the safest routes, always played everything so as to never have to face any chance of risk. The only times she'd risked anything were when she snuck down to town with Alfred and when she agreed to play this game along with Ivan and Gilbert's help. Both of these times she was faced with losing everything, her brother forever or to live a life in love with another who was not her husband. But now…now she wasn't going to be wishy-washy, to stand off to the side while the music played and others danced. She was going to be selfish on purpose for one of the few times in her life, and was going to risk it all, damn the consequences.

"Just tell me when, Ivan. I will go to the ends of the earth for you."

...

And now here she was, on her way to greet Gilbert, who would propose. This had been arranged first between the three of them, then Gilbert had gone to see Francis the day before last, although he'd come back saying that for some reason, Francis didn't seem to care all that much for unknown reasons.

Whatever Francis was thinking, Matilda would accept his offer and they would continue on, except the marriage would be planned for the day before Matilda's (and technically Alfred's) birthday, and would be proclaimed at midnight, as was tradition. Gilbert would make sure that he could not marry any sooner, saying he had to wait for his relatives in the old country to come up for the ceremony. And if all didn't go according to this plan, Matilda would elope right now with Ivan. That really was their contingency plan for anything and everything, except for when Ivan would have to travel briefly to Aissur about a month before the wedding for some diplomatic protocol where he would bestow gifts from the Aissurian government to congratulate her and Gilbert on their marriage to be.

But right now was not the time to doubt plans or to worry about the future. She finally was declared ready, and Tilly rose from her stool, Lilli running to fix the skirt of her ornate dress. Then together, they headed down the hall.

"It'll be all right, Miss. It always is in the end," Lilli said quietly in her ear as they neared the formal sitting room where Gilbert was waiting with Francis, the two probably talking and pretending as etiquette called for them to, that none but Gilbert knew his intentions for this meeting.

Matilda turned to her maid, the one she'd been confiding in since she'd arrived at Matilda's door, a girl of twelve, the younger sister of a recently promoted man at arms, come to wait on the nine year old princess who no one noticed when her brother was near except her mother. This woman who'd helped her at risk of her job, maybe even her life, who kept her secrets and would help Matilda escape at the first sign of trouble.

Matilda hugged her once, feeling Lilli's brief tensing before a pair of arms wrapped around her own waist. "Thank you, Lilli. I'm sorry for everything."

"I'm just glad to have been here for you, Matilda." They smiled at that, the name that Lilli had not been allowed to call Tilly for years.

There was an accented laugh heard from inside the room, and the two women pulled apart reluctantly, one wanting to do nothing but run, the other wishing she could have some say as to her mistress' predicament.

Matilda went in finally, and Lilli followed her.

Toris realized that it was finally go time. The man who Natalya had hired to take care of the prince was finally about to make his move, and they helped him get his supplies together, the other two in their group having spied through the town for a couple of weeks when ever the wizard and the lion left. They were ready to do this, and it scared Toris to the point where he could barely stop himself from shaking.

The plan was about to go into action, and the hired man was about to play the poor wizard's and lion's weaknesses for all they were worth, he'd only seen it so many times to know it was coming very soon.

"Dear god, what is going to come of all this?" He asked quietly to himself as he gave the signal to show he'd spotted the pair coming up the path, right on time.

I hope there aren't too many errors, I just really wanted to get it out tonight because I felt bad for not updating. The story really is picking up! And we are starting time skips...there were will be bigger gaps of time as this goes on.

Fun Fact: Blondes actually don't have much more fun, but natural blondes actually have thicker/more hair than people of other hair types.