Not to sound cliché but time does fly when enjoying oneself. By the time the prince realized it, he was waking up to his fourth day of this trip. He was already beginning to slip into a routine that he enjoyed. The night before, Gladio had set up some small animal traps on some of the hiking trails. The young prince could not understand why they could not just keep eating the fish he caught but it seemed that Gladio wanted something a bit different for lunch for the day.
Noct woke up first as usual. At least he was no longer waking up before the sun. The ground was so much better to sleep on with his new sleeping bag than the blanket in the garden. He was already making plans to sneak the sleeping bag in his spot when he got back to the castle. He had never felt so rested and ready to start the day when he was at the castle.
The excitement had started to turn into a warm content feeling inside the boy he was not completely sure what to do with. He had only felt like this a hand full of times in his life and mostly only with his father or Ignis. Noct guessed Gladio was pretty nice if he made him feel this but he was never going to tell the older man this. They both still had their pride after all.
Something was slightly different this morning though. When the boy went to the dock and summoned his pole, maybe about an hour later he was interrupted but a noise coming from the trail behind him. When he turned around to greet his campmates, he found himself face to face with a man he did not know. The man had a friendly enough face and waved at the boy before coming over.
"Hiya," he exclaimed, "don't get newcomers in these parts often" the man with an unrecognizable but distinct accent waved and came closer to the dock. Noct remembered what Gladio said and relaxed as he noticed the man had a fishing pole in his hand as well. It would be a while before one of the others usually came and got him for the day's activities so he figured some company could not be a bad thing.
The man was short and definitely talked a lot. Many of the words were hard to understand and Noct did not have time to reply between all the words. Oddly enough, he did not cast out when he got to the dock but sat down next the Noct and just talked. Maybe he was just waiting for the spot so they would not cross lines.
The situation was surreal but was not a bad experience for the boy. Even if he could not speak much, the man filled the silence with stories about places he had been. Noct guessed he had some trouble understanding him as well because when Noct asked what kind of fish there were in these places, the older male seemed to ignore him.
He asked if he had been fishing here much and Noct told him that he was camping with some friends. They stayed like that until just before the time the others usually woke up. Without casting out one time, the man just got up and began patting the dirt off of his clothing. "Well prince, I guess I'll see you tomorrow. Enjoy your fishing".
The friendly man waved and went to a different trail than the one he came in on. Perplexed, Noct watched him go and listened to him crash through the woods for a while before he heard more noise coming from behind him. Iris had come to pick him up for a hike. She helped him carry the fish back to the campsite.
When they got back, Iris told Noct Gladio was out checking the traps from the night before to see what they caught. When Gladio returned empty handed, Noct showed him his haul for the day with a smug look on his face. Who even knew he could make such expressions. Defeated they had fish for the third day in a row while Gladio reminisced about the snacks they had already eaten.
Now Noct did had a heart under all the fish thoughts so he timidly suggested they look around in the surrounding area for eggs or berries to go with supper for the evening. They just had to stay away from the trails with the traps on them. In greater spirits, the group set out on their search.
It was not until a few hours into their search, when they began hiking in the direction the other man had gone that Noct thought about him again. He was very strange and just as he was beginning to open his mouth to ask Gladio about the accent, the prince froze in his tracks. The others went on for a few more feet before they noticed Noct's absence and turned to look at him.
By the time they had returned to him. Noct had dissected the conversation and every word he had with the man. He should know better at his age to be brought in by a smile and who knows what he was planning. After all, nobody knew the prince was camping out here and that man called him by his title. He did not think anything of it at the time but he had never introduced himself.
Looking around in the woods as if the friendly man was going to come out of the bushes and yell surprise, Noct's eyes quickly found Gladio's as he was walking back to meet the boy. Sensing something was wrong but not sure what it was, Gladio saw the boy's reaction and did a quick perimeter check before coming back and asking "what's wrong, you look spooked? Did you see something?"
Looking around again, Noct explained to the two siblings what had happened earlier. Maybe the reason the man left so early was because he did not want them to know he was here. Except the prince that he seemed to know would be back at the dock in the morning. It was not the first time the young royal had faced a threat like this but he had completely let his guard down.
How did he know who he was at the dock. His clothes were dirty and all he was doing was fishing. Did he see him summon his pole. Most people in the kingdom could recognize the power of the king when they saw it. Gladio looked concerned and walked both children back to the lake. There he had Noct show him where the man came out and went into the woods.
He did not want to scare the kids but explained that they were suppose to be the only ones in the area for many miles. Whoever the man was, he left an obvious trail leading away from the lake but then it just disappeared.
Going back to camp in silence, Noct was terrified about his trip endangering his friends. He did not know when he started thinking of them this way instead of his trainer and his trainer's sister but he had at some point in his trip. Noct was wracked with guilt thinking about what other kinds of men were in the forest. Would they hunt him down and hurt the others to get to him.
Gladio's thought's were going into a similar direction. How did this man even find them? Very few people knew the direction they were going, let alone where the lake was. Gladio himself had built the dock with his father when he went camping at Noct's age. There were monsters in the surrounding areas as well so the place was too dangerous for most people to even think about visiting.
But this man had walked right up to the prince and even called him by name. Gladio spent the silence going back to camp coming up with a plan to keep them all safe. Confident in himself by the time they returned. He explained his plan to the prince and his sister. Neither of them were to leave camp again for the evening, but that was the only thing they could do for the night.
They did go off one more time to check the traps and set up a perimeter in the immediate area. Chances were good that whatever the man had planned, he would do tomorrow when he thought the prince would be alone and not risk an outright fight with Gladio. Gladio had been training the prince well, so chances were they could take care of it without calling the others in.
It would not do any good anyway, seeing as how they were a day away from the capitol. Help would not get their before anything happened. To Gladio's utmost joy, he did find several rabbits in the traps he had set out earlier that day and the kids with their keen eyes found some nests in the nearby trees. Gladio finished off the animals and cleaned them while the kids were still high in the trees.
He knew that both of them had seen some blood before. Iris usually helps him cook and Noct had to be protected from kidnappers in the past but that did not stop him from not wanting the young one's to see it if they did not have to. They returned to camp for the final time that night to cook the captured food.
In much greater spirits, Gladio told the children stories just as they had the previous night by the camp fire. It took some work, but the two finally relaxed and began acting like children again. Decided that he would speak to the prince privately when this was all over about where the blame for this would be put.
They made their nightly call to Ignis. They did not say anything about the plan right now so as not to worry everyone at the capitol. With plans less pleasant than the night before, the three went to sleep for the night. Gladio made sure to give specific instructions to Noct to wake him up the next morning to enact their plan.
If everything went well, all would be fine and they could finish their trip in peace.