Hello all my wonderful viewers! I promise that I meant to update so much earlier than this, but with school and piano it gets difficult to find good inspiration for writing! Anyway, here is chapter 14 and I hope you all love it! See you at the bottom of the page! :)

I had slept through most of the day. Only twice had I woken up, but that was only so I could go to the bathroom. It was dark outside when I had truly gotten out of my bed and put on my robe. The castle itself was dark, too, and when I looked down the hall there was only one light that hadn't been blown out: the library. I wondered who would still be in there at this time of night. I slowly hopped down the hallway and opened the door. At first I saw nothing, but then I saw a sleeping Robin on the floor, surrounded by lots of papers that he had rolled up and tried to toss in the trash can. I set my candle down on one of the desks and sat down beside Robin.

"Wake up, Robin!" I said as I shook him. He jumped up in surprise and rubbed his eyes to try to get awake.

"I'm sorry if I scared you. I just thought you probably wouldn't want to spend the entire night sleeping in here. It's not the most comfy room in the castle." I said quietly.

"It's alright. Thank you for waking me. I would much rather sleep in my own bed." He said as he closed the book that his head had been resting on. I started to help him clean up, and as I looked at some of the books, I couldn't quite figure out what he had been in here for.

"Robin? What were you even doing in here in the first place?" I asked him as I handed him a couple of books.

"Oh um. I was looking through maps of the forest and maps of the castle grounds." He said as he gathered all of the paper balls up off the floor.

"Why would you need to look through all these maps?"

"Fine I might as well tell you why, because I know that you will continue to pester me if I do not. I'm looking at these maps to see if I can find out where this cruel creature hurting you might be hiding. I have several places circled on this map in my hand that might be an option, but I do not know for sure." He said. I took the map out of his hand and observed the places that he had marked. All of the were either deep into the forest, or on the roughest part of the De Noir land.

"What are you planning to do? Search all of these places?" I asked.

"That seems to be the only option." He replied.

"Robin if you storm through these places looking for the person, then any friends they have will know you are looking for them. That means they could be warned and switch locations without us even knowing." I told him.

"Well, what do you propose we do then?" He said with an unpleasant tone of voice.

"We split up. Have a few people go in one group and a few in another. We all just casually ride by these places and make it look like we are just out for a stroll. No one will suspect anything if we do it that way." I said.

"Woah, back up princess. We?" He said in objection.

"Yes, we. I'm going with you and don't think that you can stop me from doing so, Robin." I said before he could stop me.

"Maria this is no job that you can handle! You are already in a fragile state as it is, and you heard my father when he said you could not leave the castle. If we lose you through any of this then we have failed the entire mission!" He said firmly.

"Robin if you don't use me as bait how are we going to ever find this person? The only thing that makes the person come out of hiding is me, and there is proof of that!" I said back. Robin knew that I was not wrong. Every single time something has happened it has always been to me physically. The person was never seen or heard from when I was inside the castle and safe.

"Maria, I would rather never catch the person than have you get hurt or possibly die in the process of it all! The last thing this valley needs right now is to have their princess dead!"

"Well, what am I suppose to do? Just watch helplessly from the sidelines as you constantly fail? You can't do this without me, Robin, and you know it!" I shouted back at him. Robin stormed off in a rage without replying to me, slamming the door behind him as he left. Now I was the one alone in the dark room, cleaning up the rest of the mess that Robin had left. I hopped back to my bedroom after everything was clean and laid back down in my bed. I was too awake to go back to sleep, but yet I was too tired to get back up and walk around.

I had never been this mad at Robin before. How could he just expect me to stay out of it all? The entire situation involved me much more than it did him. I created the mess, so I should be the one to help clean it up. I tossed and turned, contemplating all of these questions and many more in my head. I couldn't quite figure out why I was so mad and why I wanted to go along on the search so badly in the first place. That's when an idea appeared in my head. Maybe it wasn't just me wanting to go on the search, but instead it was me wanting to protect Robin, just like he wanted to protect me. I had admitted a long time back that I didn't know what I would do if something ever happened to him, and maybe he felt the same way about me. I would never say out loud that I was starting to have feelings for Robin, but in my mind it seemed fairly clear. If I were to tell him I would surely be laughed at. He could have any girl he wanted, especially since he was the heir to everything in the De Noir clan. If he was courting a Merryweather, his reputation would only decrease.

No, I will not say anything about it until he says something first. That is, if he says something at all.

Okay, yes I know this is a pretty short chapter, but I really wanted to focus on Maria's feelings for Robin on this one. Once again sorry for such a later update than expected! I hope you all enjoyed it and remember to R and R and follow/favorite! :)

Shoutouts:

AGhostsWhisper: I am so glad to know that you are enjoying the magic of thist story! I'm so glad I was able to incorporate that into the story! Keep on reading! :)

AmberWolf1049: I know! In the movie I kept waiting and waiting for it, but yet there was nothing! They said it was originally in the script, but decided not to do it since Dakota was like four years younger than Augustus. I will try my best not to torture you! :)

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Well, I believe that is all for tonight everyone! Until next time my dears! :)