(Violet's Pov)
I woke up to some movement on my side and I open my eyes slowly and looked down to see Clem as she got up from her spot on my chest and I get up as she does and she looked to me and I smiled at her.
"Sorry for waking you, you should go back to sleep." She says and I shake my head and looked to her.
"It's fine I'm use to this." I say and I get up and get off the bed and stretch like I do every morning and I look to her as she looked at me and I smiled.
"Like what you see?" I asked and she turned red and looked away and I chuckled some more.
"It's cute when you blush." I tell her as I come up to her from behind and I hold her waist as I pull her to me and place my head on her shoulder.
"I like how I'm the only one that can see you like that." I mumbled in her shoulder as I kissed it and I felt her hand be placed over mine and I chuckled.
"Yea well I can't blush in front of others." She says and I chuckled as I let her go as she goes and changes her dress into a new one and I smirked a bit as she changed in front of me, I turned around to give her some form of privacy as I put my chainmail back on along with my armor and I turn to see her finishing up and I look to her hand to see the ring still on her finger. I go up to her as she looked in the mirror and I looked to us then she turned and fixed my armor a bit so it looked good and I smiled as she finished her little touch on it and we both exited her room and I looked around to see no guards which pissed me off a bit that no one was here to guard her.
"Good thing I stayed her." I mumbled a bit.
"Yea, sometimes the guards don't stay the entire time but I think they were switching out, see." She says as I see two guards come and I watch them carefully and grabbed the hilt of my sword as they looked to me then to Clementine.
"Hello, Princess." One of the guards says and she nods to them and we walked past them and I stood closer to Clem as we kept on walking.
"Don't you think it's a little strange though, they should have kept the guards at their post till they arrived." I mentioned to her as we head into the kitchen where we began to make our breakfast.
"Is it strange?" She asked and I nodded at this as I look at her.
"Yea, it's a system to keep you safe, they can't leave you without a guard, it's dangerous." I tell her and she shrugged.
"I think they, think it's relaxing here that they don't have to worry to much." She says and I look at her.
"The Delta was spotted close to home; I think they need to be more on guard when it comes to you and your father." I tell her and she looked at me.
"It's fine, besides I have you watching me." She says and I look to her more.
"How long has this been going one for exactly?" I asked out of curiosity so I could get some of my men to watch her.
"Hmm, about three weeks but I thought it was because we had less guards here." She says and I rubbed my neck.
"No, even then they should have them wait till the next shift, it's just how things are supposed to go." I tell her.
"They teach you this when you were training to be a knight?" She asked and I nod a bit.
"It's also common-sense Princess, protect the royal family, don't leave your post till you're relieved by another guard, keep your eye on anything that seems suspicious, the whole deal is to keep you and others safe and to not leave you in a position of vulnerability." I explain to her and she nods.
"I mean yea it did seem a bit weird now that you say this." She says and I nod at this and look around.
"I'll have my men on watch for you and your father, I just want to make sure you two are safe." I say and she nods.
"I trust you on this." She tells me and I nod as we finish making our food and we take a seat in the dinning room and eat also to chat a bit over lost time.
"So how was it out there?" She asked and I look to her.
"Scary if that's what you want to know." I tell her and she looked to me.
"I.. I'm sorry." She tells me and I feel a bit bad when I said this to her.
"I mean it wasn't all that bad, the battles yes but when we take time off the scenery was beautiful, especially when we went through this one town, I think they called themselves the rose town because that was the most grown plant there, and they were all different colors too, I saw a pink rose, and orange rose even a purple one." I explained to her and she giggled a bit at this.
"A purple rose?" She asked and I nod.
"Well seems like you have to take me there one day." She says and I nod at this.
"I'll take you wherever you want to go." I tell her and I see some of the workers come in to head to the kitchen and I looked at them a bit.
"Hey it's ok, you're home you don't need to worry." She says and I look at her as she placed her hand on top of mine.
"I think I should, after knowing what I know now about how they are lacking in protecting you." I tell her and she looked at me a bit sadden at the fact that I was still thinking like a knight.
"I want you safe is all, if anything happened on my watch." I tried to speak but she stopped me.
"I'm ok, I know you want to protect me... you said you were going to teach me how to defend myself right?' She asked and I nod a bit at this.
"When can we start?" She asked excited and I think.
"We can start after breakfast." I tell her and she nods excited at the idea of being able to learn what I was taught. I sighed internally at this idea but I can't break my promise to her at this point, besides it wouldn't hurt to know she could do something to keep herself safe if I'm not around, or just to give me enough time to get to her before anything bad happens.
"But you remember you can't tell your father about this." I remind her and she nods.
"Of course, I swore on the family crest." She says and I nod remembering what she said yesterday.
"I should get a chain for your ring though." I mentioned.
"Why?" She asked and I chuckled.
"So, you don't hurt your finger, you're going to be holding a sword, so you can wear the ring around your neck." I tell her and she looked to the said object on her finger and then back to me.
"Well, we can get matching chains then." She says and I nod a bit at this.
"We can keep them in my pouch for now till we can get the chain." I tell her and she agrees to this. Once we finish our meal, I take the plates and glass into the kitchen and I look at the cooks a bit then placed the plates and cups in the cleaning area and I headed back out to Clem who was talking to her father.
"Well, hello Violet." He says and I bow to him and look back up to him.
"Hello, your highness." I tell him and he sighed a bit.
"Still going to take some time to call me Lee." He says and I nod.
"Sorry sir." I apologized.
"No need to apologize, it's going to take some time I understand." He says and I nod and looked to Clementine.
"So, did you have fun in the festivities?" He asked and I looked back to him and I nod.
"Yes sir, it was good to relax for a day." I tell him and he nods as he takes a seat.
"I'm going to get ready for the day." Clem says and she leaves and I looked to Lee and I whisper in his ear.
"Sir, I want to have my men posted by yours and Clem's room for the time that we are here." I tell him.
"Is everything ok?" He asked a bit worried.
"I just have a feeling about your safety, seems like two of the guards had left their post and a new set didn't come to her room until after she had left her room." I tell him, leaving out the part of me being in the room with her. He nods a bit at this as he rubbed his chin a bit.
"That does seem a bit weird, well I will allow you to have your men posted anything else I should worry about?" He asked and I think about it for a bit.
"Watch out for the cooks, I'll have one of my men watching them if that's ok?" I asked and he nods. I headed to one of the messenger boys in Lees home and I send out a letter for them to send to one of my knights to come watch over the cooks and I go to Clem's room and see her taking the ring off and I come up to her and I take it gently from her hand and she looked behind to look at me and I smiled.
"Oh, we have to go looking for a home first, before training." I say as I remembered our conversation yesterday.
"Oh, yes then we can train there." She says and I nod as I think about this.
"Yea that would actually work well for us." I say out loud and she nods and I smile at her and we get ready for our time of house hunting. We head out to the horses and we grabbed our respective horses and took a ride into town to look for any papers with homes for sale. It took a while but we were able to find this one home an elderly couple was willing to sell. We followed them out to the far edge of town to a home that was on a good plot of land and I saw a stable on the side of the house and I see the fencing it's a bit broken but I could fix it up, the grass was a bit dead but that's understandable and I take a look into the home to see it's in good condition and didn't need much fixing up, I head over to the owners as we discuss how much the house was going to be and I had enough to purchase the home so the older gentleman gave me the papers to the home after I gave them a pouch of gold and we signed off on the papers and they handed me my copies and we bid each other goodbye as they left back into the town and I looked to Clem as I waved the papers a bit.
"Looks like I got a home." I say and she hugged me.
"Well, this is fantastic." She says and I nod a bit and sigh.
"I got to fix this place up a bit but that's not too bad." I explain to her and I take her inside to show her that there was a table and chairs inside, the wood stove looked good to keep the place warm and I looked around the room some more and headed to another section of the home to the bedroom and I saw a bed and some blankets too and looked to her.
"Hey you can stay here if you want." I offered her and she looked to me.
"I could ask my father; he should be ok with it especially due to the fact that you are a knight." She says and looked to her as she thought a bit and then looked to me.
"Besides, not like we will be doing anything inappropriate." She says as she come close to me and takes her hand and places it on my chest plate and slides it down a bit and I couldn't help but chuckle nervously and tun my head to the side as I blushed and coughed a bit.
"I um, Yea... of course yea we wouldn't." I rambled and she giggled a bit at my rambling and I looked to her and she smiled at me and I rubbed my neck a she backed away a bit and I chuckled as I looked to her.
"I uh... ehem uh." I felt my face heated and I chuckled as I looked around.
"Um, need to go uh." I tried to speak and she giggled a bit and I look at her.
"Come on let's go get you to the training grounds." She says and I nod as we head out and to the castle. Once there I made two of my knights keep an eye on Clem as she went to go talk to her father and I helped get the men ready. We started with Hand-to-Hand training and as they did this, I was practicing with one knight named Marlon, now I knew him to be a bit of a dirty fighter but it's good to try and use this moment just in case I was in a situation with someone like him. As we got in our stances, he ran up to me and tried to punch me so I moved to the right side of him and move my foot to trip him, I succeeded in this but he then grabbed my leg and pulled me to the ground as well. He tried to get up quickly to try and hit me in the gut but I moved out of the way of his foot, which almost hit me in the head and I sighed a bit at this as I tried to get up but I was then hit in the gut and I grab it as he tried to hit me again and I pulled him down to the ground and got on top of him about to punch him before I saw someone watching and I look up to see Clem watching us and I get up and everyone looks to the direction of the princess and we all bow to her.
"Oh no please do continue." She tells us and I nod as we get back to training and I help Marlon up as we start over again. It was a bit of time before we decided to stop the training and I sent everyone to their posts in the castle and I head over to Clementine as she looked to me.
"I think I could take you." She whispers and I smirked at her when she says this.
"Oh, really now?" I asked as we went to her room and grabbed her bag to put some clothes in and I watch her as she packed what she wanted.
"My father agreed to let me stay with you, so long as you and I come back here in the mornings so he knows I'm ok." She says and I nod at this as I grabbed her bag and put it over my shoulder and she looked up to me.
"Think you can still take me on?" I asked her as she looked up at me.
"Yea, I know I can." She says with confidence in her voice.
"Oh, really now?" I asked and she nods as she come up to me face to face.
"I think I could take you down and I would be better than you." She says and I chuckled as we left her room and I watch as a few guards pass by us and I watch them carefully as we walked away.
"You ok?" she asked and I look at her and I nod a bit.
"Yea just making sure they aren't going to fuck up." I muttered.
"You should trust-." But before she could finish, we were stopped by one of the messenger boys and he looked up to me.
"Are you Grad Cross Violet?" He asked and I nod as he hands me a letter and I look at him as he runs off.
"Who's it from?" Clem asked me and I look at her then to the letter and looked at the back to see the Delta seal and I put the letter in my bag and I look at her.
"Nothing important, but we should get you home." I say as I start heading into the direction of her father's castle.
"Wait what I thought you-."
"Not now Clem I need to get you to your fathers." I say and she follows me from behind as I take her back to her castle and we keep silent. It was a bit before I was able to get her there, to which I ordered my two Knights to escort her back to her room and to inform the king that his daughter will be staying here tonight instead. They both nod as they take Clem back to her room and I head out and as I left the castle grounds, I opened the letter and began to read it.
'When this letter is read, you must know that you have to meet up with me at the edge of town as per our agreement, you are to come alone, and make sure you aren't followed, make sure your armor is taken off, and you have no weapons or consequences will apply from the last meeting. I await for you to arrive, from: Minerva.' I read the letter and growled a bit to myself as I headed to my home and stripped my armor and looked to my dagger and sighed as I leave it on the table and grabbed the letter and headed out to the edge of town. Once there I see a figure in a black cloak and I walk up to them and as they turned, I saw her face as she removed the hood.
"Well, it seems you've gotten my letter." She says and checked her nails a bit and I glared at her as I crumpled the letter in my fist.
"We can't meet up like this, especially here." I tell her and she looked to me.
"Oh, but we can, you agreed that when I wanted you to come to me you would do so, now let's talk a bit shall we?" She says and I look to her and she looked to my hand and laughed a bit.
"You got a ring? Pity really, you think that girl really loves you? You think she would really marry you? You're nothing to her, you were just a stable girl." She tells me as she circled me and touched my shoulder but I stood my ground.
"Yes, she does and I am a Knight now." I tell her and she laughed.
"Violet, we both know she doesn't she only wants to use you, she always has, you saw what I showed you two years ago, you know what will happen to you. You may be a knight but you will forever be the little stable girl that has the same fears that you have now." She tells me as she gets in front of me and I swallow a bit.
"She doesn't want to use me, unlike you." I tell her and she smiled.
"You knew I work for the Delta Kingdom and you and I made a deal." She says and I shook my head.
"I will not go through with that deal." I tell her and she comes up to me and grabbed me by my neck but I still stood as I glared at her.
"Either you do as I say or I'll have the Delta hit the castle before you even get a chance to get back... and then I'll slay you in front of the entire kingdom." She says.
"The fuck do you want?" I asked.
"Same thing we agreed upon last time, keep your end of the deal... or your princess will be hung." She says as she removed her hand from my neck and I grabbed the place a bit as she walked away and I shake my head as I tear up the letter and head home. Once there I made a fire and threw the shredded remains of it in the fire and watched them burn quickly. I sighed a bit and went to my bag and grabbed some Ale an sat in the kitchen as I drank and drank and drank till the bottle was empty. I grabbed another one and kept drinking all through the night not sleeping at all.