Hey guys, I really need to start updating quicker because it's been over a year! I think with college and work I kind of just forgot about it but I'm gonna try to get back to updating like I usually did because I love this story! Hopefully you guys will enjoy this chapter, and again, sorry for the wait!
Ch. 58: Red Panda Forest
(Year: 1940)
Scarlett looked on as Alfred washed his airplane in her backyard. She was leaning back on her arms as she washed him brush off some dirt from the wing. The sun was beaming down on the both of them and it must have been ninety or so degrees outside. That was weird. She thought it was January…
"Damn, that sun is killing me," Alfred said as he wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand.
"Yeah, it isn't usually this hot this time of year!" She yelled back to him, trying to shield the sun from her eyes.
"Well, I need to cool down somehow," he said before he started taking off his shirt. Scarlett went silent and just watched him as he took his shirt off and tossed it to the ground. He sighed and rolled his shoulders, showing off his back muscles to her. She couldn't keep her eyes off him. He turned to her and stretched his hand out.
"Can you hand me another rag? This one's seen better days."
"S-Sure…" she said. She picked up a rag that was sitting beside her and handed it to him, their hands touching for a brief moment. Her face went completely red and she gasped when Alfred dipped the rag in the bucket of water and then wringed it out above him. The water ran down his glistening face and down his tanned skin in small, tiny rivers. Miniature streams of water flowed down Alfred's chest and abs before disappearing into his skin.
Scarlett felt hotter and hotter as she kept watching him. It almost felt like the sun was targeting her directly.
"Hey Scarlett, can you come here for a sec?"
She nodded furiously and stood up in an instant. Walking over to him, she stopped in front of him and asked what he needed.
"What do you need? More water or soap?"
He shook his head and gave her a seductive smile.
"I need you~"
He leaned forward and closed his eyes. Her eyes widened in contrast and watched as he got closer and closer. His lips got to the point of almost touching her own before everything went completely dark.
Scarlett quietly gasped as her eyes shot open and the view of her bedroom window came into view. She blinked a couple of times and saw that her hand was on Alfred's chest. Oh, that's right...She and him had cuddled before falling asleep...She tilted her head back slightly and saw that he was still sound asleep.
"What is wrong with me…?" She whispered to herself as she gently sat up and rubbed the morning sand from her eyes. She had never had a dream like that...Especially not a dream like that with Alfred in it. She shook her head and figured it was just a stupid wet dream she had no control over.
"How embarrassing…Good thing he didn't see any of that."
She stood up at the side of the bed and stretched her arms out over her head with a quiet yawn. She didn't want to wake Alfred who looked like he was enjoying his rest. With her off him, he involuntarily rolled over and clutched the pillow in his arms. She smiled and looked around for Leon who had to be around here somewhere. She jumped when she felt something brush against her leg but it was just Leon's bushy, red tail. She picked him up like a baby and walked him into the kitchen.
"How did you wake up before me, mister? You never beat me to it!"
Leon's stomach growled in response which made her giggle.
"Ah, I see."
Scarlett walked over to one of the kitchen cabinets and took out a handful of bamboo shoots. Bamboo, of course, was Leon's favorite food. It didn't matter if it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
"Here you go, cutie. I'll get you some water too."
Pouring some cold water into a dish, she placed the bowl next to Leon as he ate his bamboo. Now for her and Alfred's breakfast. Since her country was preparing to ration food for the potential war, she decided against making the typical eggs and bacon. Instead, she took a can of spam and placed the meat between two slices of bread as a sandwich. It was...not the worst thing in the world...She made one for each of them and then poured two glasses of orange juice.
Scarlett heard a noise from behind her as she set the plates on the table and turned around to see Alfred rubbing his eyes. She smiled and motioned her hand towards the food.
"Good morning! I made us some breakfast. It's spam though since we've been trying to save food for when the war comes," she told him, completely forgetting that perverse dream she had about the boy standing in front of her. He dropped his hand from his eye and grinned.
"It's cool! Anything meat-related is alright with me! Thanks for making me one!"
"No problem! Hopefully it's enough. If not, I have more in the pantry," she said as she ruffled his messy, blonde hair. He swatted her hand away playfully and sat at the table.
"You got a slight case of bed head," she said with a giggle. He shrugged his shoulders.
"I slept pretty good last night. You're right, cuddling does help you sleep better," he laughed. The dream she had came rushing back to her and her face heated up.
"Y-Yeah, I slept really good too. I had a weird dream though."
"Oh yeah? What was it about?" He asked as he took a bite of his sandwich. She looked down at her food and shook her head.
"Just a stupid dream is all…"
"Was it a bad dream?"
"No!" She said, almost yelling. Alfred's blue eyes widened in surprise before a smile slowly formed on his face.
"What type of dream was it then?"
She figured he knew the answer so she decided to tell him.
"It was sort of like a sex dream," she sighed. Alfred's eyes widened even more and he rested his chin on his palm.
"Sex dream!? Scarlett, how could you!?"
"I didn't have it on purpose!" She told him as she drank her orange juice. He laughed at her and continued to eat his food.
"I'm just teasin'," he said, his voice becoming southern at the last second, "...we all get 'em. It's no big deal! What is a big deal is that we're going to the Red Panda Forest today! I'm excited!"
Scarlett glanced at Leon and smiled.
"Me too! I can't believe I've never taken you there before. I guess we just get too busy and forget to go to places we haven't," she said.
"I know, it sucks. I really want to try to hang out with you more often. I only enjoy hanging out with you, to be honest. Other countries are boring," he chuckled.
"What about Canada?"
"Brothers don't count," he replied, "you're still cooler than he is even if I did count him," he added. She beamed at him.
"Okay, we'll just keep that a secret between us," she said. He smiled down at his food and continued eating, "fine with me."
Scarlett finished her food and started to walk to the sink with her plate before a knock came from the front door. She left the kitchen to answer it and there stood one of her royal guards with a large package in his arms. She gasped and pumped her fists.
"Yes! It's here! Thank you!"
She took the package from the guard and ran to the living room. Alfred heard the commotion she was making with the package so he stood up from the table and walked into the living room to find her fidgeting with the tape on the package.
"What's that?"
"A TV!" She yelled with excitement, still having trouble with the tape. Alfred laughed a little and saw a pen sitting on one of the tiny desks next to the couch. He grabbed it and then calmly detached Scarlett from the package.
"Here, let me."
She smiled at him in mild embarrassment and let him open the box for her. She probably should've just gotten a pair of scissors or something rather than just her hands. Alfred clicked the pen and slowly made a hole in the tape, dragging the pen down to rip the tape across the box.
"I'm a little surprised you haven't gotten one yet," he told her in an astonished tone. She sighed and looked over at her radio.
"I think I've just been busy. I always just listen to the radio or something while I'm working. But I'm really really excited about having one of these. It might kill some boredom around here."
"No, that's what I'm for," he joked with a wink. She rolled her eyes but ended up agreeing with him. He really did brighten this place up every time he visited.
"...but you'll like this too! There are some cool shows that come on like game shows or the Three Stooges. They're pretty funny. It's also good for stuff like the news but we kind of already know what's going on in our own countries," he laughed. He lifted the tv out of the box and set it on the coffee table in the room. It was small and brown with two knobs on both sides of the screen. The screen itself was very small but it was something. Alfred chuckled at its size but it made him feel happy to see Scarlett's excitement through the roof about it. He set it up real quick and then made sure that she was able to connect to the tv stations in the area. He clicked the tv on and a random show he had never seen came on the screen in black and white. A Britannian show probably.
"Oh my god!"
Scarlett gasped and jumped with joy even though she had no idea what she was looking at. She then rushed to one of the knobs on the tv and turned it off. Alfred blinked a few times and looked up at her from where he was crouching.
"Huh?"
"Okay, let's go to Red Panda Forest now!" She said with a huge smile on her face.
"Wait...I thought you wanted to watch your new tv," he said with another chuckle.
"I do! But I know if I do then I won't want to stop for the rest of the day and that would mean I wouldn't get to spend time with you at the Red Panda Forest! Now, come on!" She grabbed his hand, grabbed a hold of their bags and Leon, and then headed out the door with Alfred close behind her. The three of them traveled near the middle of the country which took around an hour with their speed. For them, it felt like a simple walk in the park when really they had travelled hundreds of miles.
"And here we are!" Scarlett said, pointing towards the start of the forest with bamboo mixed into it. They entered the forest and immediately saw red pandas playing in the trees. Scarlett and Alfred smiled at the sight of them.
"Alright, Leon, go play," Scarlett told her pet. He ran to a group of his "brothers" and they began to play with a bamboo shoot.
"Scarlett, this place is freaking amazing!"
"It is, isn't it," she replied. There was a path that went through the forest that you could walk through to see the entire forest. It was about 5 miles long before it stopped at the middle of the forest and branched off into another path as another way to get out of the forest. Alfred and Scarlett started walking down the path, all while playing with the numerous red pandas along the way.
"This is probably one of my favorite places in my country. The climate is perfect, everything is so green, and the red pandas of course," she laughed, "do you have any places in America you like to visit a lot?"
Alfred thought for a second and grinned.
"I know a couple of places! I always go down to Florida when I want to go to the beach. And then another place I like to go is Niagara Falls in New York. It's right next to Canada but I usually go by myself to think or draw something."
"What do you draw?"
"Just random stuff like animals or people. I used to be kind of bad but I've gotten much much better. I mean, by how old I am I should be as good as Leonardo Da Vinci or some shit but I'll take what I can get," he laughed. She giggled at him and waved her hand through the air.
"Pshh, I'm sure you're way better than he was! When it comes to art, I'm pretty good at drawing flowers and clothing. So basically stuff I like the most!"
"Oh yeah? Maybe we can show each other our works some day! Do you draw new clothes designs or do you draw what you have at home?"
She put her hands behind her back and looked at the ground as they walked.
"A little bit of both but I love trying to come up with new types of dresses or shoes that women could wear. There's some stuff in my closet that I've never worn just because there's just a lot in there. I should probably donate some of them now that I think about it...But yeah, I think designing clothes is really cool! Now, when it comes to flowers I draw what I have in the garden. Or I just read."
"I don't read at all ever," he joked with a disgusted tone. She looked up and gave him a light push.
"Shut up, yes you do!" she laughed. He cracked a smile and looked around. There were parts of the forest that were denser than others. A group of red pandas were always huddled around the denser parts and were picking away at the various bamboo shoots. He then thought of Leon who they had left near the entrance of the forest to play with his "brothers and sisters".
"Uhh...I just thought of something. How are you going to be able to identify Leon out of all of these red pandas?"
Scarlett smiled at the question and placed her hands on her hips with pride.
"Well, as his mother I have the natural ability of picking him out of the millions and millions of red pandas that may surround him in this forest. That, and he comes when I call his name and has a collar with his name on it…"
"Oh...then there shouldn't be a problem," Alfred said amusingly.
"Yep! Now if he plays dumb to mess with me then we might have a problem...But we'll get to that when we get back to the entrance. There's the end of the trail."
She pointed ahead of them and Alfred looked to see a gigantic waterfall in the middle of the forest, almost like an oasis out in the desert. The waterfall was tall and surrounded by rocks and bamboo. The water fell into a large pool that eventually led to some shallow rapids to the left. He loved every bit of it. It reminded him of the Nantahala River in North Carolina a little bit.
"Woah…"
Scarlett laughed at the look of awe on his face.
"You like it?"
"Hell yeah, this is amazing! I love little cool areas like this!" He said to her, his blue eyes practically sparkling as he gazed at the waterfall.
"Me too! This waterfall serves as the main source of water for the red pandas here and it goes through the entire forest so they don't have to travel all the way to the middle of the forest just to get a drink of water. Basically they use it to drink and bathe. Back when we were figuring out where to plant bamboo for our growing population of red pandas, we found this waterfall and it was surrounded by a few trees but not many so we decided this place would be a great habitat for them. Once we introduced the red pandas to the area their numbers just kind of ballooned from there and now this is our official Red Panda Forest. It's also one of our first national parks so this place has a special place in my heart," she told him with her hands to her chest. Alfred nodded at her.
"I bet. It really is something to be proud of. Do you want to sit anywhere?"
"Oh! Yeah, let's sit in front of the waterfall!"
He let her lead the way and she picked a flat rock that was on the edge of the water. She sat with her legs crossed while leaning back on her arms. He sat next to her but sat with his arm on his knee. He looked at the waterfall and took off his glasses to feel the mist that was barely hitting them. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the coolness of it. Even though it was Winter, the part of the country they were in was near the subtropical climate zone so there wasn't much snow during the year. It was weird that it was snowing in Lionheart, Britannia's capital, but not here. Though, he could say the same thing about New York and Florida every time winter came. Today, it felt like it was probably around 70 degrees or something like that. A very stark contrast to the 30 degree weather Lionheart was getting. But Alfred was glad that Britannia had different types of areas in her country because he had them too. For a reason he couldn't explain, it drew him closer to her in a way.
"I'm glad we came out here," she said, giving him a joyful look. He smiled back at her and chuckled.
"Me too."
"It feels like an escape from everything that's been happening. Like, I feel like I'm constantly worrying about something and that there's a heavy weight on my shoulders. Hitler and Germany send me telegraph messages almost every day asking me to do something or giving me random information that's absolutely useless. It's like a constant reminder that I'm stuck pretending to be their ally so I can't even forget about it. And I swear to god, if I get one more message from that Nazi bastard asking me to get with Germany again I'm gonna fucking lose it," she said with an exhausted, irritated groan. Alfred just listened to her with a saddened expression on his face. He hated that she had to be the one with the majority of the responsibility when it came to "playing nice" with the Nazis. He hated the thought of her potentially being in danger every time she travelled over there to meet with them.
"I'm sorry, Scarlett…" was all he could say. She stared into his eyes for a moment before sighing.
"No, I'm sorry...I'm just venting is all."
He furrowed his eyebrows at her and shook his head.
"No no, you have every right to vent. This whole entire situation is fucked. And every time you tell me that Hitler wants you to get with Germany, it drives me up a wall...I don't know...I just wish I was doing more," he muttered.
"You are doing everything you can right now, Alfred. If you did anymore our cover might be broken. The thing that pisses me off is that Britain and France could have prevented all of this. They had so many opportunities to stop Hitler in his tracks! They could have intervened before he became too strong! And now everyone is paying for it...As for Japan, I don't even know why he's doing what he's doing. The last time I saw him he acted like a jerk when talking about you. Why are they all acting this way…?"
She looked down and sighed again. Alfred looked down as well and saw her hand next to his. His heart began to beat faster and the thought of putting his hand over hers crossed his mind. He even wanted to hug her; anything to make her feel better. They hug and comfort each other all the time but why did he feel frozen in place now? He decided against doing anything and looked out to the waterfall again.
"I don't know...What I do know is that we'll have to be the ones to stop them when things get out of hand."
She looked up and nodded.
"Yeah. It won't be easy but as long as we stick together nothing can defeat us. It's always been that way."
"Well, I hope that we stay close forever so that we can be the heroes of the world."
Scarlett smiled a bit at that word. Hero. Alfred has started using it often ever since the creation of comic book superheroes such as Superman and Batman. He told her once that he wanted to be just like them. In her opinion, he was just as much a superhero as they were. More than them, even.
"I highly doubt that we'll ever be enemies, Alfred," she said with a laugh, lightening up the mood. He gave her a grin after a couple seconds and it was like she could see a tiny star in his blue eyes.
"Damn straight! Together forever!"
"Together forever!" She repeated, pumping her fist to him.
The two stayed there on that rock and talked about things that weren't Hitler, Germany, or Japan. Time went by much faster when they talked about things they actually liked talking about. After an hour or so they decided to head back to Lionheart and call it a day.
"Thanks for spending time with me today, Alfie. I really needed this."
"I did too. First good day I've had in a long ass time," he told her. She nodded in agreement and looked around for Leon when they reached the entrance of the Red Panda Forest.
"Leon! Come on, it's time to go!"
Out of all the red pandas that were in the area, one perked their head up and ran to them. She smiled, knowing it was him and picked him up so she could carry him. He was probably tired too after playing with all of his new friends.
"Did you have a good day, buddy?" Alfred asked him. He chirped at him and seemed pretty happy at the moment. Scarlett was glad that the other red pandas didn't bully him or some bullshit like that. The three of them exited the forest and set their sights for Lionheart.
"What do you want to do when we get back?" Alfred asked as they walked. Scarlett thought for a moment.
"Probably take a nap," she giggled. Alfred almost seconded that option but then he remembered the tv that had arrived just before they left. He smirked and crossed his arms.
"Oh? You don't want to watch anything on your brand new tv?"
Her eyes widened and she stopped in her tracks.
"Oh my god, I completely forgot about that! Oh my god, I'm so excited! I'm so excited!" She repeated this over and over. Alfred laughed nervously, not knowing what he had just done. She then grabbed his hand and busted out into a sprint to get home as soon as possible. With her strength, she basically ran with him flying like a kite behind her and holding on to her hand for dear life. With that speed, getting back home didn't take too long and they were back at Lionheart Castle in no time. Scarlett immediately rushed over to the tv and turned it on in excitement. Alfred stood at the door to catch his breath but smiled nonetheless. He was so glad he was here. With her.
He wished it could be like this every day but he knew days like this would vanish for a while in the days to come. He did his best to enjoy it while it lasted.
And that is the end of the chapter! I'm really sorry about not updating but I'll try to update on a more regular basis! As always, thanks for reading, give the story a follow and review, and I'll see you guys next time!
