A/N: Hello, all!
Here's chapter two of my Snowbarry fantasy fic. Thank you for all those who gave heartwarming reviews! I'll try to weave references in and out of the storyline, but please do reviews of how you want the story to go! I hope you like it!
This chapter's written in Barry's POV, by the way.
For the first time in years, Prince Bartholomew Henry Allen of the Central Kingdoms is lost.
But if he were to be asked, he wasn't really lost. Not really.
With a strong flick of his horse's reins, they gallop across the forest, with every step taking them farther away from the heart of the kingdom and deeper into the heart of the cold, dark forest.
Prince Bartholomew—or Barry, as his fondest friends and confidantes often call him—looks around the canopy of thin trees, dark and terrifying to some. His green eyes scan over the expanse of trees and nothing else, and even as some might take a fearful step back to the familiarity of the city, Barry is only fuelled by the strangeness of the forest and what lies within.
"Barry, admit it," a voice beside him heaves between heavy breaths, "we are truly lost."
Barry haughtily laughs at this and cranes his neck to look at his friend and best running mate. "Fat chance, Cisco."
Prince Francisco Alfonso y Ramon—simply Cisco to him and his friends, as he doesn't bother with long titles and names that are only used to address them when they're frolicking in a huge ballroom and hardly paying attention—fixes a stare at him, and Barry refuses to tell him that despite the elegance of his gold and navy armoire, a twig stuck in his tresses might render the whole image of him laughable. Instead, he keeps his mouth shut and hopes that Cisco won't force his hand into returning back with him to the castle, and hopes that he will keep his company longer as they explore the dark recesses of the forest. His running mate looks up at him with a glare underneath untamed eyebrows, and Barry manages to let out a chuckle and put on a smile that's been proven to charm even the highest of queens and duchesses. Cisco. only rolls his eyes at his antics and frowns. "That only works on members of the opposite sex, I'm afraid. None of your charm will ever work on me."
Barry merely raises an eyebrow and taps his horse softly forward, continuing down the undiscovered path. Cisco lets out a strong breath and crosses Barry's horse, effectively halting him. With a shocked face, Barry looks at Cisco. "Let me through, Cisco."
"No, Barry. We are lost. It's going to be evening soon, and our parents will go ballistic at the knowledge that we faked our presence at the jousting tournament and send out a battalion to find us."
Repressing the urge to roll his eyes, he merely bypasses Cisco, albeit impressed at the tact and brevity of Cisco's words, which do absolutely nothing for him and continues upon the path that he set out upon. "We'll be fine, Cisco. We are grown men out for a ride on healthy horses. Surely, our mothers would rather we did this than chase some girls and look up their skirts." Cisco's eyes gleam at the idea and lifts his eyebrows suggestively, to which Barry gives in the urge to roll his eyes. "Surely you've got better things to keep your interests, other than chasing young ladies," Barry states dryly, and Cisco shakes his head, their horses tapping along a soft rhythm on the forest floor. They both look forward to the path they're going towards, and Cisco speaks. "I've got nothing else to do but to attend balls and soirees lately, as my mother has been forcing me to find a suitable wife." This time, Barry's the one to shake his head, the circumstance all too familiar to him. "A suitable wife…" he purses his lips and Cisco rests his head down. "How about that lady…. Lisa?"
"Duchess Snart?" Cisco snorts, and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I seem to remember you hit it off quite nicely at the last ball we went to," Barry smiles wryly and recalls the kiss the duchess and his friend shared in the midst of the festivities. "It was all that ale and champagne they had doled out. Blame it on the alcohol," Cisco finishes with a downward turn of his lips, and Barry laughs. "You can't fool me, Cisco. I don't think I've ever seen that kind of shared kiss fuelled by alcohol. That was…." "Something else, I know," Cisco shakes his head again, and Barry wonders if there's something he wants to add, but he keeps mum. Barry continues the conversation by raising a question about the soiree they're about to attend in a week's time, answered by a grunt from Cisco. "Don't remind me," Cisco grits out his teeth, "I'm not ready to be roped into dancing with a hundred different girls and wanting them to be different." Barry nods, an action that proves to be in agreement to his friend's statement, and Cisco continues, "Every ball is ever the same. Nothing ever changes," he says with a degree of finality, and Barry answers, "Except for the ball where you meet the one you're supposed to marry." Cisco shakes his head, and Barry looks at him sideways. "See, it isn't supposed to be that way. You're supposed to marry for love and a lifetime, not for convenience and commitment." Barry raises both his eyebrows, in confusion or in agreement, he's not certain, but makes it a point to poke his friend. "Ah, don't go soft on me now." "Not ever," Cisco says defiantly, "but I do make a good point, don't I?" "Yes, but it's rarely ever happening that royalties marry for love. It's not in our cards, Cisco." "You don't know yet. You don't know that you'll meet her today, or I'll meet her today. All we know is that we can hope." At this, they both turn pensive, and comfortable silence settles between them.
Their horses tread softly on the ground, and walk in a soothing rhythm. Barry's almost content to keep it that way, until Cisco freezes in his spot and realises that the darkness is no longer provided by the canopy of the trees, but by the fact that they've gotten deep into the heart of the forest. "Barry…." he says cautiously, afraid to make a startling noise, and even as they are children of the brave and fearless, the princes look around the forest, seeing nothing but gaps between the menacing backdrop of the trees. Barry swallows and halts in his tracks without realising it, and Cisco manages to drop words in an attempt to converse. "We should go," he enunciates slowly, and Barry nods almost imperceptibly. What they're afraid of, they don't know, but they're more than willing to hightail it out of the forest, the adventure not as inviting as it once was. "I… told… you." Cisco grits between his teeth, and Barry flashes him a glare when his horse steps on a twig and snaps it into two—sending a reverberation throughout the eerily quiet forest. Suddenly, the princes take sight of pairs of yellow-black eyes, sharp as a knife and glinting, and Barry's breath hitches. Once.
Dire wolves step out and surround them, of majestic colours and form, and both princes find the terror lurking beneath the surface, one that hasn't haunted them for nearly two decades. More than a dozen wolfs start to smell at the surface their horses reside on, and as they're decidedly cornered, Barry decides flight instead of fight.
Wordlessly, he sends a stare to the other prince, who returns it with a single, firm nod.
All hell breaks loose at the moment their reins snap for action, and the wolves start sniping at the legs of their horses. Cisco pulls out his sword—a golden long-nose with a heavy handle—and proceeds to fend off the best of his attacks. Barry does the same and brings out the sword that has been gifted to him by his grandfather, and tries his best to protect his horse from the unleashed attacks of the dire wolves.
It seems like frozen time but the attacks keep on coming, and Barry finds that he has no strength to fight. Cisco slashes and cuts but as Barry raises his arm to chop off an appendage of a wolf, he loses his balance and falls to the ground, and suddenly, the biting teeth and snapping jaws are directed to him.
He hears the panic in Cisco's voice as he calls out for him, and he realises that he must be lost, buried underneath the mess of the dire wolves, and all he can hope for is for Cisco to go and get some help.
Some time later, the wolves have stopped sniping at him, and the forest is once again quiet, save for his erratic heartbeat and the soundless pouring of blood from his wounds. He finds that he can no longer do anything but lay between the fallen leaves, once alive, now shrivelled and left to die.
Before darkness shrouds him, he hears the quiet hooves of a horse and light footfalls, and he struggles to open his eyes, the slits unwilling and the action impossible. Instead, he is assaulted by the smell of wildflowers, so ambrosial, and as someone sneaks a pillow underneath his fallen form, all he can think of is that he's lucky to be off to heaven and not somewhere else.
The same scent of wildflowers is what rouses Barry awake—a scent strong enough to ease the pain out of his head and eyes for a short while, strong enough to make him open his eyes and realise that he's still alive.
And laying in a bed that's not his.
He takes his time looking around the humble room, with no furnishings and plain colours adorning the walls and oakwood closets lining either region. What completely misses him is the fact that he's unclothed, and that a beautiful girl has done the tedious job of undressing and nursing him back to health.
Well, it doesn't go unnoticed now.
Barry's eyes land on the first part of her: long, slender, smooth fingers gingerly checking his body for swelling or gashes that may have missed her scrutiny the first time, then her long, brown tresses, moving with her every action, and bouncing as if they had a life of their own, and the rest follows in perfect, tranquil order.
He sees her body: dressed in a neutral, perfectly boring, as Cisco would have described it, drawstring dress. With the shapeless form of the fabric hiding her body, Barry wouldn't have described the existence of curves or sharp lines, but he feels them hiding underneath the frumpiness of the hideous dress. With his arms still at his sides, he uses his eyes to roam over his nurse, and finds failure when he doesn't meet her eyes.
Until they do, and he finds himself falling into an abyss once again: completely different but heart-achingly new.
It happens when she inches forward, just a little bit, to look and probe at his hairline, when suddenly her arm drops another small inch and almost lands at his still hurting chest, and as she composes herself, looks at him with wonder and amusement and some emotion he can't quite place. But as the moment occurs, he finds that he no longer needs to place it—just the contentment of sharing a gaze with her should be enough to quell his hunger for curiosity.
Her eyes are a shade of mesmerising brown, something he never thought would captivate him. Long lashes frame her expressive eyes and meet with short, little wrinkles at the corners, only shown in affectionate laughs, something he'd like to get out of her as a reaction. The rest of her face follows, and it's as beautiful as her eyes. Barry is a prince who doesn't have the most excellent way with words, but suddenly he feels the urge to write a bard to describe every square inch of her marvellous beauty.
He's never been taken aback by just physical attributes; a prince of his stature has seen and felt many beautiful women, knew them and saw them come and go, but this woman already has him in a twist, and he hasn't even heard her voice yet.
Somehow he knows it's going to be equally beautiful.
He stares at her for an eternity, an infinity sliding into what seems like forever, and even with the pain in his side, Barry doesn't will his eyes away. But she does, and seemingly in a trance, she snaps out of it, quickly, before straightening up and looking at him, this time, more clinical than adoring.
"You're awake. Finally," she says softly, and Barry feels his heart skip beats.
She offers a tentative smile as she tenderly presses her fingers against the cool skin on his forehead, then sliding to his neck, and asks him, "How do you feel?"
Barry listens to her voice and hardly registers her question, and has to gulp before answering. "Not… so well." He says and ends in a raspy voice, and the girl—the angel—beside him nods softly before turning around and providing a tall glass of water for him to drink.
She helps him sit up and inclines the glass carefully, so as not to spill, and lets him drink laboriously. As he reclines, she puts away the glass and he tries to find his voice, lost somewhere between the rasp and the hurt he's suffering through.
"Who.. are you? Where am I?"
The angel beside him smiles and answers his queries, and Barry feels as if she could've told her the world was burning and he would believe her. "I'm Caitlin. You're in Snowcastle. I assume you still remember what happened to you," she surmises, and Barry nods once, "as I don't. You were bleeding out, in the forest, and I had to come and bring you here. To heal you," she adds, and Barry has never felt more ungraceful and grateful at the same time.
"Thank you," he says, "for saving me. You're an angel." She lets out a small laugh, and Barry wonders what could've been so humorous for her to actually laugh. "You told me I was an angel, when you were slipping in and out of consciousness," she explains with a smile, and Barry's more certain that she's truly an angel sent from heaven. "You said I was in Snowcastle. Where's that?" Barry asks, and he sees the angel—Caitlin—look around the room before answering. "It's south of Sterling and Keystone kingdoms, and is very near the western region of the Central Kingdoms. I don't know what kingdom you came from, and I assume you aren't from Santa Prisca, so you must reside near the Central Kingdoms, yes?" Caitlin asks, and Barry doesn't know whether he should omit the truth or tell it—for even if this woman was beautiful, she could easily be as sly as a witch and use it against his advantage. For the moment, he chooses to omit, and nods again, content to listen to the musical tone of her voice. But as his queries stop, so do her answers, and Barry chooses to ask her more, just to hear her talk.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Like I said, I wanted to heal you. You needed to be healed," she adds, and Barry believes her. "I was walking through the forest when I saw you lying there, and if I had taken too long to ride, I might have been too late." Barry doesn't know the fear in Caitlin's heart when she saw him, the blood from his body leaking out too fast and too willing for her to stop. "I'm glad that the bleeding has ceased," she comments, and Barry notes the makeshift bandage she has wrapped around his abdomen, and the chill on his shoulders, unprotected by the flannel sheets that warms the rest of his body. "Thank you, for this." Barry says, and Caitlin gives a pert nod. "You've thanked me enough, sir. I shall bring you something hot and something to eat, for you must be famished." Barry opens his mouth to abject, but the growling in his stomach intensifies, and Caitlin lets out a small laugh.
He lays back on his pillows as the oakwood door closes, and Barry closes his eyes in serene warmth, not once realising that he hasn't told the angel his identity.