Worlds Away - Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven:

After breakfast, which consisted of porridge and a bit of fruit which Lady Margot, his mother, had remarked was somewhat sweeter in spring, Megabyte spent the remainder of the morning and afternoon in the cabin reading Marmion's journal. An uneasy truce held between he and Jade, she even brought him lunch and replaced the steeping kettle of tea on the low flame twice. She hadn't really spoken much to him since this morning, but he hadn't gone out of his way to speak to her either. Mainly because every time he looked at her he was reminded of the embarrassing agony that had been the morning.

God, waking up with his arm and leg wrapped around Jade was bad enough. Waking up with *that* embarrassing reaction was almost too much to reflect on. Even telling himself repeatedly that it was a natural, biological reaction didn't make it any easier. Mostly because if he paused to be completely honest about it, he had been enjoying the moment. Not *that* moment, but the moment before, when she curled into his body and he wrapped his arm around her.

That had felt good. He'd never experienced waking up besides someone before. He'd never realized how secure and right with the world everything could feel when there was a warm body beside you. Especially when that warm body leaned into you, open and trusting, without a care in the world.

There was something horribly twisted about that line of thought.

And he had to sleep with her again tonight.

"Find anything?"

The subject of his thoughts drew his attention, startling him from those thoughts. Megabyte managed to keep a grip on the journal, although he did jump slightly in the chair. "I didn't hear you come in."

"You were sort of zoned out," Jade replied softly. She leaned against the cabin door, more subdued than Megabyte had ever recalled seeing her. Despite the fact that he didn't want to spend the rest of the day and night arguing with her, he would have liked to see some of her usual fire and tenacity. That would at least be something remotely resembling normal in a place where everything was very abnormal.

"I was thinking," Megabyte put the journal aside. "Trying to figure things out, you know?"

"And?" Jade prompted.

"Nothing," Megabyte shrugged. "I don't know how we got here. I don't even know where we are really. Except that we're on a ship headed home -- which happens to be someplace called Elspera Keep -- and that we happen to have been given the starring roles in some medieval fantasy."

"Do you know anything else about us?" Jade ventured into the cabin slowly, closing the door softly behind her. She paused in the center of the room, and then apparently at a loss, she sank to the bed. "I mean, about who we're supposed to be?"

Megabyte glanced at her, debating how much of what he read from Marmion's journals he should share with her. Clearly it was no secret that they were together in this - married, husband and wife, the whole nine yards - but, did she really need to know that Marmion utterly despised his wife and his marriage? That the feelings his alter-ego harbored towards her alter-ego made Megabyte's callous behavior towards Jade seem at times benign?

"Not really," was the answer that Megabyte finally settled upon. He closed the journal and set it aside. "We're married, we're headed home and we're related to royalty. Or at least I - Marmion - is."

Jade's eyes lit up at the mention of the word 'royalty,' and Megabyte was only mildly surprised. Before this moment he had thought that little girls outgrew the dream of being fairy princesses, but apparently he was wrong. "Royalty? Really? What kind of royalty? Are you prince? Does that mean that I'm a princess?"

"No, squirt, that's not what it means at all." Megabyte saw her flinch with the title of 'squirt,' and hurriedly plowed ahead before she could become all pouty-faced and defensive once again. He didn't want to spend the rest of this trip stepping on eggshells and trying to avoid hurting Jade's feelings. This unasked for adventure would only be harder to bear if he was not on speaking terms with her. "The prince of Stiborn is my cousin."

"Then that would make the king your uncle?"

Megabyte shrugged. "Well, I wasn't given a family tree or anything. I mean the prince could be a third cousin or a fifth cousin twice removed."

"But we still get to have dinner with the rich and famous," Jade smiled, clearly with delusions of Cinderella-esque balls dancing in her head.

"Jade, we *are* the rich and famous."

Her smile was infectious. "Even better."

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