SHAMELESS PLUG HERE: Enjoy watching a trailer for this story on my new YouTube channel: FanfictionUnlimited and take a look round it, let me know what you think of the videos and have a look-see at the information on my here or on the channel for your chance to have me make a video for one of your stories.

Yes I feel ashamed... Not! Haha, I really want to start having more stuff on fanfiction get out there and I think graphics like banners are great but the videos can be the ultimate way to gain a few readers who want to know what happens where and why and how and when. Lol. And I think its time to start doing that. I don't want fandoms to die out just because a few years have passed since the movie came out.

Anyway, on with the story and an end to my ramblings. Enjoy!

Also thanks to Truda, Shelly and foxg2rl7 for their reviews.

Chapter Fourteen

Eydie woke up to the feel of something touching her stomach. With her eyes shut, she tried to push the thing away from her, but had no energy to do so. Slowly opening her eyes, she glanced round to see who it was. The face was blurred but the clothing showed it was one of her own people. Where was she? Turning her head at hearing the familiar voice on the opposite side to this person, Eydie found another blurred face. "Where am I?"

"Safe. Cynric found somewhere safe- for now. You're very sick." It was her mother's voice.

"You... you haven't spoken to me since the day of the battle... why now?" she replied groggily as she tried to curl herself up into a ball and keep herself warmed by the fire.

"Cynric went to go find something to help you so we decided to watch over you."

Eydie shook her head. "I don't... don't... want you near me," she said back as harshly as she could muster. "You said there would be consequences for saving him, is this it?"

"No child, this isn't. We're unsure of what the consequences of what you did will be," Cynric's mother told her.

Eydie shut her eyes again, praying and hoping for sleep to come back to her. "Then leave me alone. Whatever it is, I'll deal with it when it comes."

"You need to know Eydie, you're-"

"Go away!" she snapped back, pulling the fur over her head a little more. "I don't want you near me. You left me with father and sister, expecting that it would make me something I'm not? And you left Cynric, making him follow his father and try to be like him when he isn't." Despite it was taking up her energy, Eydie wanted to say what she thought. "We are not the people our parents are, nor are we the people that you and they are trying to make us."

A sigh told her that they were not going to say anything more in return and after a few seconds she opened her eyes to find them gone, though she had a feeling they were still watching her intently. At that, she wondered if they had been watching her since she'd first come to Cynric's attention. If so, she prayed they gave them their privacy when they were intimate. She didn't need the knowledge of whether they were but they had better hope they didn't.

Cynric sighed from where he'd taken up a place in the back corner of the tavern. His drink was nearly empty and he was already weary from his thoughts as he watched the people in there. A woman was serving a table of six rowdy and loud Romans. He wondered if many of them had run back to Rome at all when the others had as a large number of them seemed to have stayed behind as it looked. At another table sat four men covered in hoods. They were large too. For a moment, Cynric mistook them as being Saxon but shook his head, knowing they wouldn't be as stupid as he had by coming in here. The other few occupants seemed to be regular drunks from the village itself and Cynric just brushed their occasionally loud ramblings off about the notion of a Woad princess being kidnapped during the heat of battle by his people. He did grin a little to himself as he thought about how she had basically dived head first into a battle she hadn't wanted any part in to save him. That little thought in itself made him know just how much she cared for his life.

He hadn't been exactly a kind host to her at first and he knew that even with all thoughts aside of how much he loved her, he wasn't going to be able to go home with Eydie. She wasn't Saxon and she wasn't from a surrounding tribe or nation. She was Woad. That in itself would spell her immediate execution at the hands of the tribe leaders and he wouldn't have the power to stop it from happening until after he was made king.

"Who needs a kingdom anyway?" He glanced to his left and found a woman sitting beside him. At first, he didn't recognize her, however when he noticed the Saxon markings running up her left forearm, he stopped. The eyes were nearly identical to his own. Looking around, he wondered whether or not anyone else could see her. "They can't." Looking back at her, Cynric found her smiling at him and just picked up his cup, asking her mentally what she wanted. "It all depends on you and her. The little Woad. Cynric, she isn't like you. You are not like her... You said that yourself and yet still you will keep her when it could mean both your necks."

"I'm not stupid, and that isn't going to happen," he mumbled round his cup so no one else would notice him speaking and think him to be crazy.

"Fine, you're some prophet then son? You are nothing more than a shadow of your father. You can't live in hiding with her forever," she told him, losing her smile.

Cynric looked at her coldly. He hated being compared to his father, even when the man was still alive he had hated it. Putting his cup down, he looked round and ran a hand down his face. "I'm not his shadow. I'm better than him. I can deal with my hate, with my problems. I won't need to hide forever."

"You have not earned her love Cynric. She has earned yours and what has it gotten her; the child believes you to be caring and kind, she is now in her own lands and a fugitive. Things are not as simple as hiding!"

He glared at her. His love for his mother had been strong but he hadn't expected her to show up and torment him with things that he half knew of already. "They can be."

"No they can't! Cynric you can't hide a family! What will happen if she has a child? You are not fit to be a father as you let your own die," she accused.

Cynric got up from the table silently and left. He had gotten half down the street when a hand grabbed his arm and dragged him into a small alleyway, shoving him back into the wall. The cloaked men from inside the tavern had followed him it seemed as three now stood round him. "Who are you?" he asked as the one holding him against the wall let him go.

That same one laughed a little and pushed his hood back. Cynric left out half a relieved chuckle, clasping forearms with Abrecan before the pair hugged one another. "See you survived the fight and got away," he mused as the others removed their hoods to reveal one of his former bodyguards and a soldier from one of the other battalions.

"We didn't think you had made it, until you came into the tavern," Abrecan remarked. "How'd you survive, I saw you fighting one of the knights and you were half dead."

He smiled at his lieutenant. "I have an angel on my side," he commented and the bodyguard immediately guessed it to be Eydie. Cynric nodded.

"Where is she?" Abrecan explained where they were outside of the village and Abrecan said he knew of the place, they'd originally passed it days ago on there way in. "Why isn't she with you now?"

"She's sick," he answered. "I needed to find something to help her. But now... I have a healer." Abrecan grinned, nodding.

They all left separately and covered, making sure to avoid the checkpoints that travelers had to pass through to get out of the village by use of an old cow herders way. On there way back to the house, Cynric questioned the six of his men who were now with him on what they had done to survive. "We didn't need to do much. The ships on the coast we came in on are still there. Your father made us leave supplies there. That was where we were staying, waiting for others only Roman troops were patrolling in numbers and we had to leave. Apparently this new king of this damned island as issued warrants for the deaths of any remaining Saxons. What about you?"

Cynric looked Abrecan who just raised an eyebrow at him. "A Woad village in north. Eydie took me there when she pulled me off the battlefield. They healed me and we stayed with them up until about five nights ago. Woads from the Badon hill villagers came looking and we had to move on. Eydie got sick while we were traveling two days ago and then I found the place she's at now. It was abandoned when we came upon it."

Eydie hadn't moved from where she was curled up in a ball under the furs, too exhausted to do so. She was half-awake when she heard voices coming closer to the building. Her fear spiked as she tried to get up and find any of the weapons they had brought with them but found herself crawling from then walking to do so. Retrieving one of her daggers, she pulled herself up using an old table that was just able to support her and waited as the door opened.

Her body relaxed almost as soon as she saw Cynric, causing her to nearly collapse to the floor. He moved forward and caught her, picking her up and laying her back down on the furs. She looked at the owners of the other voices and found herself meeting Abrecan's concerned gaze. "You're alive?" she asked as he came over to her.

He chuckled and nodded. "As are you little one. I didn't think I'd be seeing you again." She smiled a little and turned her eyes to the roof of the house.

After Abrecan had helped Eydie as best as he could with whatever they had, the Saxon men all found places around the room to collapse and were sitting there when Abrecan asked Cynric what they were going to do. "To be honest, I'm not sure," he answered. "I was intending on staying here for as long as I could with Eydie until we had to move on again, but we'd run out of places to run. Not to mention, I wasn't expecting to run into any of you."

Nodding, the healer and lieutenant decided to risk being shouted out and suggest what he was thinking. "What if- we left all together?" Cynric looked from Eydie to Abrecan and shook his head. "Why not? It is better than being hunted for the rest of our lives on this island."

"I can't go."

"Why not Cynric?" Turning to look at his bodyguard, he sighed heavily.

"Because I cannot take her with me," he admitted. The men tried to argue until Cynric explained what he knew to be the straight up future if he were to return with Eydie to his home. They all saw the reasoning behind it and knew that he was not going to budge in his decision once he made it up. "Look, you're my men... technically I am King now but I can't go back. You all can, and say I died here, I am not stopping any man who wants to return but I am not joining you."

"You really care that much for someone who isn't your own?" Abrecan asked as he looked at Eydie who was sleeping.

Cynric nodded. "I do but I'm not expecting you all to stay behind and follow me because you feel like I need you to. I don't and I know many of you are homesick," he told them all.

The Saxon men all shared glances between the other. They all had made up their minds and Cynric knew what it was going to be. "I'm staying." He glanced at Abrecan and made to argue with him as the rest of the party gathered their things ready to head out and back for the ships that were going to be their way home. "And be quiet will you." Cynric smirked slightly back at him. "Prince... King you may be, but you gave us choices and I am not going to leave your side now that I know you're alive."

Cynric thanked him.