A/N! Hello, everyone!
I'm sorry to keep you waiting-academic workload has been too much lately, and as I'm finishing the semester, I wanted to upload this little chapter for you guys!
Again, let me know if you want any particular mysteries to be solved so I can incorporate it into the story (it's going along quite well!).
Thank you for your fantastic reviews!
Barry Allen has always figured people out.
From the moment he was a wee toddler, surrounded by his mother Queen Nora and his father King Henry, Barry was not a prince, but a young boy with a keen mind, sharp wit and ability to size up people at a moment's notice.
But at the moment, as he sits in a lofty chair in a sapphire hue, eating a simple meal across an otherwise lavishly handcrafted table meant for a feast amongst kings, he's not entirely certain whether his ability has stayed the same, throughout the years.
Looking at Caitlin, the woman who had rescued him from the forest, a woman of many capabilities, such as healing wounds, tending to the kitchen and perhaps rearing a castle as well, Barry figures that she must be one of a kind. He's never met any woman like her, he figures. No proper and polished debutante will surely have the bearing or the desire to search for game and yield a bow and arrow, or hoist and carry a wounded man and risk getting blood all over her ballgown.
Yes, Caitlin is one of a kind—and Barry can't figure out whether he wants to know more about the enigma of her character or let her remain a mystery to him.
Sitting across her from the long table, he looks at her quietly, her auburn curls pulled back in a ribbon the same shade as her no-nonsense dress, without a stitch of paint on her face, and Barry feels himself slipping, thinking of how beautiful she is, even in the low dimmer of the castle lights.
Slipping into a territory he has not yet explored—love.
For princes like him, it's merely a fantasy—a form of entertainment rendered in sweet kisses and long embraces, but entails promises of staying for years on end and commitments he can't make himself keep. It's an illusion created for those who seek it—even if in the end, they won't be merited.
But it's not definite that Barry doesn't want to feel it—he just hasn't found the right place in his life for it, as he says to his many advisers, dukes and duchesses, and even his own parents. For the reason that he's preoccupied with enjoying his liberty before he's fully groomed to take over his father's reign, and Barry tells himself the same when he feels the emptiness that resonates in him when he sees his friends waltzing with their spouses.
He's unsure whether he'll ever feel like that—at two decades and seven years old, Barry knows better than to wait—but sitting in his chair, looking at Caitlin, a wave of certainty crashes into him, nerves tingling his spine, and with cold fear and unmistakable confusion, he realises that the time must be now—that he can fall in love with a complete enigma and not be able to control himself, to cease the feelings that have developed over the course of two nights.
And for the first time in his life, the prince of Central Kingdoms is feeling two extreme feelings at the same time—love and fear.
And he doesn't know what overpowers the other.
Barry drops his fork on his right foot—a clumsy accident that has happened multiple times over the years at their own dining table—and bends over to pick it up, until a shooting, searing pain goes over his right side, and he lets out a loud groan, which alarms Caitlin.
She comes to him in delicate steps, each one seemingly measured and graceful, and tenderly presses his abdomen. "Is something wrong?"
"Dropped… my fork," he says without much sensibility, and he curses himself for it. Caitlin simply frowns, a crease appearing on her smooth forehead, and bends over to pick the darned fork up and places it daintily upon a folded doily.
"Did you hurt yourself?" she asks in a tone meant to soothe and calm, and even with the pain Barry feels on the right region of his torso, he's sure that he's never felt better, with Caitlin's gentle fingers touching him.
"I'm alright. I'm better than alright," Barry says with startling surety, and grabs Caitlin's wrist with a sure grip, her eyes widening in surprise and meeting his.
As their gazes meet, a familiar heat surrounds them, and even as Barry's standing on uncommon ground, he's certain about one thing—that Caitlin has never made him feel better, completely unlike anyone before.
And it scares him and amazes him, all at the same time.