As of now, I've decided not to reply to the reviews in each chapter, shall just do it personally via email. But probably only if you ask a question/deserve it…

Lol

It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's Chapter 10!

ps... I chnaged the ending of this one, because I thought the other one was too much, too soon! I'll save it for later!

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Sophie looked from Mr Tate to the men in Green uniforms bearing the Garcian royal family crest, who stood placed around the tarmac.

"It seems, Miss Franklin, Mr Pendragon, that you are in a bit of a pickle." Mr Tate said, "You see, I answer directly to the Duke Erik Aren Bodil, the Queen's spymaster. You are now about to be on your way to Ganduma, in Garce, to meet Her Majesty. She has been eagerly awaiting the boy who defeated her best agent, who excelled at all types of fighting. Because of you two, her representatives at the UN and in other countries are now under suspicion. Now hurry along, onto the plane. Elsewise my master, and his mistress, may find that these soldiers they issued for my use, may have, accidentally, of course, put a few holes in you."

Sophie and Arzhur were shocked. After a moment of opening and closing their mouths, Sophie stumbled, and managed to turn herself around. She took her bags and Arzhurs from the guard, handed his bag to Arzhur and began to walk towards the plane. Arzhur looked at his bag, the guards and then Mr Tate, and then followed Sophie onto the Garcian plane.

It was very spacious. There were two groups of four seats, two facing each other, either side of the aisle, with a table between each seat. The chairs were very wide and well cushioned, with thick armrests covered in buttons, to call the attendants, to turn on lights etc. The seats were the colours of the Garcian Royal family, Gold with green embroidery and edgings. The carpet was green, with a darker green pattern of feathers on it. The walls were gold, with a green frame around the windows, and a green tint on the windows. The curtains over the windows, the entrance to the toilets, the cockpit and the attendants' area were dark green.

Seated and strapped in, Sophie was still in a state of shock.

'I cannot believe this has happened.' She though. 'How could I be lulled into such a state of security, that when a complete stranger shows up, saying he's from the government, I'll follow him, wherever! And then, when another complete stranger turns up, saying he's also from the government, and that the first complete stranger is "called away urgently on business", I'm just there thinking "ho hum… there's nothing wrong with this scene… I wonder what Arzhur's wearing under his…"STOP THERE SOPHIE!'

She blushed, and glanced at Arzhur to make sure he hadn't heard her thoughts. He was sitting in his chair, playing with the buttons; pressing the call button repeatedly and switching the lights on and off.

Sophie sighed and stood up. She walked over to the seat next Arzhur and sat down, buckling her seatbelt.

"You'd better stop that." She said, her voice strained. Sophie was tired, and she didn't think another flight would help that. "We'll be taking off soon, and the attendants probably won't appreciate it."

Arzhur stopped and looked at Sophie's seatbelt.

"Should I tie myself in as well?" he said.

She didn't know what he meant, when she saw what he was looking at. She laughed softly, and showed him how to do it up. When he finally had it right and done up tightly, the attendants were bolting the door, and prepping the captain.

Sophie was expecting the usual lecture on seatbelts and exits, but none came. The engines began, and their plane headed down the runway, gaining speed quickly.

Arzhur had never flown before, let alone gone as fast as the plane was taking them. As they were pushed back into their chairs and the front wheels began to lift up, he grabbed Sophie's hand, squeezing tighter and tighter. Sophie looked over and saw that he had gone very white.

"Arzhur." She whispered, leaning over towards him, "Are you ok?"

"Why are we going so fast! It's too fast, we'll fly up and go all over the place!" His words were strained, as if he were forcing himself to say them.

"Don't worry Arzhur. It's an aeroplane. It flies. It has wings, and engines. We won't crash. I came to England on one of these, they're perfectly safe." Sophie squeezed his hand reassuringly. He seemed to relax, and then squeezed back, relieving the pressure on her hand. After twenty minutes they had levelled out, and Arzhur let go. Sophie pulled her hand away, flexing her fingers to bring the circulation back into her hand.

"Sorry" Arzhur said.

Sophie looked at him and started to laugh. Arzhur, who seemed to have recovered from their ascent, though he still looked a little white, began to laugh as well. After a few moments their laughter had died down enough for Sophie to notice her hunger.

"What's the time?" she said, looking at her watch. It was almost twelve o'clock, they'd been travelling, from the hotel to the airport onto the plane etc., for over an hour and a half, and Sophie was starving. By the sudden rumbling of Arzhurs stomach, she knew he was.

"Ok." Sophie said. "You can press the call button now, I suppose…"She smiled at him, when he eagerly reached for the button.

However, before he could push it, one of the attendants, a dark haired man, came up wheeling a trolley. He placed a tray with some plastic containers on it, in front of them, and asked,

"Anything to drink?"

"We'll have Lemonade please." Sophie said

He placed a plastic cup in front of each of tem, took two blue cans from the trolley and placed them next to the cups. He then wheeled the trolley back through the green curtain.

"What's this?" Arzhur asked, pointing to his can. Sophie opened hers and poured it into the cup.

"Drink up, it's good." She said taking a sip, before pulling back the cover on one of the containers. Inside she found two steaming croissants. One of the other containers held various little tubs of jams and spreads. Another held salmon, another ham, and the last cheese. Sophie sat and tried to make a decision of what to put on her croissants. In the end, she ripped one of hers in half and put nutella on one half, and ham and cheese on the other.

Biting into the savoury half, she looked at Arzhur, who was watching her with a very puzzled expression on his face.

"What do I put on this?" He asked.

"Well" Sophie began "You can have it with nutella or ham and cheese, like me. Or Jam. Or Salmon. Or you could just have it plain. Here, try some of this." She pulled off a piece of her savoury half and handed it to him, then did the same with the nutella half. He ate the ham and cheese half first, then the nutella.

"This is good." He said, with his mouth full. He remembered his court manners, and swallowed before continuing. "What's nutella?"

"It's supposed to be a 'hazelnut spread'" she said, doing inverted commas with her fingers, "But, if anything, it's just chocolate." She continued to eat her breakfast, putting jam on her other croissant. Sophie looked up at Arzhur and realized she had forgotten to tell him our crumbly croissants were, which resulted in him having the front of his shirt quite covered in little bits of croissants.

"Saving a snack for later?" She asked, pointing to the crumbs.

"Wha… Oh." Sophie started to giggle. He stood up and began to brush off his shirt. Sophie rolled her eyes and stood up to help as well. With their combined effort, they managed to rid him of the crumbs that plagued his clothing. Arzhur put his arms around Sophie's waist. She responded by putting her arms around his neck.

"What do you think Jazinta will do to us?" Sophie asked, resting her head on his chest. She could feel, not to mention hear, his heart beating, and found that it was, actually, really calming. She couldn't help closing her eyes, and tightening her grip on his neck.

"I don't know." He said, resting his chin on her head. It did make it a little difficult to talk, but he was just thrilled to be close to Sophie again.

"Well, what would you do, being so experienced in the ways of a ruler."

Arzhur thought for a moment, and then said,

"Truthfully?" he said. He felt Sophie nod. "Well, I would have had us both killed… or I would question the prisoners first to find out everything they knew. But yes, then I would kill them."

Sophie looked up at him, gaping. "You would seriously have put two innocent people to death?"

"Well…that was how things were done those days. Of course, times have changed so I highly doubt we'll be killed…"

Sophie had tuned out, she didn't listen to what he was saying. She pulled away from Arzhur, and turned around, putting her back to him. The seed of doubt had been planted. She couldn't help but thinking of all the ways Jazinta could have them killed.

Poison, or starvation, or gun squads, or lynching, or we could be eaten by ravenous wolves or dogs…or CATS! Or she could have our throats slit, or pushed off a bridge, or pushed off a cliff , or be sent to sleep with the fishes, like in all of those mafia movies. Or Guillotined, or worse, our heads could be chopped off by an axeman. Meh, then I could be cool and be like Anne Boleyn…but I'd be dead… or we could be hanged. Or she could push us in front of a stampede of Wildebeests, like Mufasa.

"Sophie!" Arzhur said, grabbing her shoulders and shaking. "Sophie, snap out of it!" She looked at him. "I promise, Sophie. I promise I will never let her hurt you. So long as I have life in me, you will not be harmed."

Sophie looked up at him, straight into his eyes, and saw that he told the truth. She knew, right then, that he would protect her until the end of the world, and, she realized, she would do the same for him.

"I… I'd do the same for you. I never want you to leave me."

"Good. I'll try not to." And he leaned down, and kissed her.

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Very stereotypical ending, and very fluffy. I felt I owed you guys some.

Keep up the reading! I love you all! Not really… maybe platonically… maybe only a bit

OK, not really

Cheers madears!

Sono Ottimista