CH10
= Dirk: Wake Up
I hear the sound of knocking. I get up and move to quickly dress myself when from the other side of the door comes the voice of a woman asking if 'His highness' is awake. I open the door and come face to face with one of the maids. She was young, pretty, and wearing a much too revealing outfit. I make sure to not let her see inside. Although Jake is under the covers there are clothes strewn all over the floor hinting at what took place hours earlier.
"The princesss told me to bring up dinner for you and prince Jake." She stands beside a rolling food cart. "May I?" She signals to be let in with the cart, but I stop her from opening the door any more.
"I'll take it from here." She opens her mouth as if to protest. "Jake is sleeping." At that she relents and leaves. I pull in the cart wondering if I should wake Jake up or not. On one side he deserves the rest, but on the other he really should eat something.
"Who was it?" Well now I don't need to worry about that. I see that he's still under the covers though.
"A maid. She brought us food. You hungry?"
"Famished actually." He pulls the blanket off of himself and tries to sit up. He lets out a yelp and scrunches up his face in discomfort. I may have gone a bit overboard.
I help him sit up enough so he can lean up against the head board. "Careful there." I feel a little guilty for causing him pain.
We ate and talked about whatever came to mind. The same maid returns to the room later and leaves with the cart. Something about the large amount of maids compared to butlers bothers me and I wonder if he had ever flirted with them as I sit on Jake's desk chair. He notices my sudden change in demeanor besides the fact that we striders are experts at maintaining expressionless faces.
"Is something the matter love?"
"You have way more maids than butlers." My tone is level even though I have an undertone of suspicion in them.
"Yes, we do, but I'm not the one who hires them. I'm afraid my father is a bit of a skirt chaser."
"Have any of them flirted with you?"
Jake stiffens and sarts stuttering. "Uhh...well...you see...eh" So they have.
"Have you ever responded to their advances?"
"I don't believe I had." Thats a relief.
"Is it cause you're not interested in women?"
"If it will appease your oh so manly pride." I chuckle at his little quip.
"It does." I move to sit next to him. He leans on me tucking his head right on my neck.
"Well no, the real reason is Jane."
"John's sister?" Did she scare them all off? Maybe she's very cruel and possessive. No matter, she wont be able to convince me to leave Jake.
"Noone can stand seeing her hurt." I was not expecting that. "In their eyes we're this picture perfect couple and anyone who would dare betray her trust by hitting on me is awful. Do you know what happened to the last person who made her cry?" I tilt my head in an effort to see him.
"What?" He snuggles himself against my chest and brings himself close to my ear.
"He became the prime victim of John's pranks for a day. The lad was bombarded by every kind of prank; from a pie to the face to hot peppers in his food. Its traumatizing."
"No way."
"It really happened." He sounds so sure.
"It was you wasn't it?"
"Haha! Can't get anything past you love."
"What exactly did you do?"
"..." He became quiet and still.
"Sorry, its okay if you don-"
"Don't be silly Dirk. Its just that other than Jade noone else knows why, but its really not that big of a deal. I was young and realized for the first time in my life that I wanted to go out and explore the world. And when I told Jane that she became distraught and began to beg me to not leave her. The next year our engagement was announced and things just got more complicated."
"And yet here we are making it even more complicated."
"...yeah." He looks me straight in the eyes and smiles warmly. "but let's not think about that for now okay?"
"Right. First its saving the kingdom."
= John: Also be complicated
"No!" I pushed the offensive piece of frosted bread away from me.
"C'mon just one itty bitty bite John!" Jade cooed as she raised the fork of the so-called "cake" up to me.
"It's not going to hurt you." Dave added as I stood behind a chair using it as a sheild from Jade. It seems though that I have no allies here.
"I don't want to!" I move around the chair as Jade tries to reach out for me. When I am close to the door I try to make a break for it.
"Not so fast!" Jade tries to jump me from behind, but I duck out of the way. It always takes her a moment to compose herself after jumping and tumbling like that. The thought doesn't even have time to be questioned as I am grabbed from behind. I find myself securely placed in Dave's arms.
"Dave! let go!" He leans and talks into my ear.
"Why are you so against the cake anyways?"
"I!" I am at a loss for words as I think about it. Why was I so against eating the sugary treat? "I just don't like it." The sentence feels so right as it leaves my mouth. Maybe its my own senses remebering what I can not. Like the garnet that I compared Dave's eyes to. But why ganets?"
"Heehee its cause his dad always force feeds him cake." Jade pops the fork of cake into her mouth as she looks at our position with an amused expression. She seems to do that a lot. I almost feel like telling her that "its not like that"
"Your dad must really love you." I don't know where the love is in that statement.
"Dave what about your parents?" I ask suddenly very curious about Dave's family.
"..." The room becomes eerily quiet.
"Dave?" I'm not used to this silence. I turn around to face him. He has his glasses on but after spending so much time with him I could recognize something was off, and wellbeing so close to him also helped.
Dave shows me the smallest of smiles.
= John: Trade places with Dirk
"Are you okay now?" I ask Jake who gets up to change.
"Yes. Yes. Now go so I can change." He ushers me out of the room.
Dirk: Join the others
Jake sent me to join the others while he set some things up. I was shown to the lounge where everyone else was. I enter the room just as Jake's sister speak in a strong voice.
"If there is anything you need do not hesitate to ask." Jade stood with a hand placed on Dave's left arm. Well they seem to be getting along well.
"Hey." Dave says after he notices me. Jade moves and attempts to feed John some cake who replies with a whining "I said no" and a childish pout.
"How do you feel?"
"Please. I didn't even feel anything to begin with." I give him a fierce pat on his back near his injured shoulder. He flinches forward a bit. Almost unnoticable, but he can't hide anything from me.
"Dave are you okay? You look kinda pale."
"You're imagining things."
"He needs a bit more time to heal."
"I said I'm okay." He snaps at me. It seems that my words got to him. That or the fact that John is now looking at him with worried filled eyes. Kid is so easy to read.
"Jake and I are heading out tonight. There are a few things I need to pick up from home. You can leave tomorrow and head to the next village. We'll meet up there. Stay low and no getting of course."
"...you just want time with your new boyfriend don't you." Surprisingly the comment did not come from Dave, but from Jade.
I turn to leave, but before I exit the room I tilt my head in her direction and smirk.
"Maybe." I say before I leave the room.
=Rose: Let's backtrack a little
The two ladies decided to stay the night at our inn. The short haired one was quick to tell me her name, miss Kanaya Maryam. The other, Aradia Megido, became passive after a warm dinner and once she had gotten directions to the Strider domain by courtesy of Roxy, despite me trying to intervene. I still held my doubts about the pair, but as the night went on I relented and figured I had just been worrying over nothing. They woke up late the next morning and out of their robes I managed to notice how tired both of them were. They must have been searching for their friend without rest. I was able to convince Kanaya to stay another day or two promising that Dave would take good care of their friend and that the journey would be long. Much too long for them to be out and about for days in the woods. I even offered to care for their horses while they rested.
=Rose: Spy on the lodgers
I had not meant to overhear their conversation. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to walk around a bit. I heard a weird static noise and followed it. The noise came from Kanaya's room and as I placed my ear on the door I could hear Aradia's voice.
"We leave this to you Pyrope. Kanaya got us stuck in some commoners shack." The static noise goes silent a mere second before Kanaya speaks up.
"It is a quaint little inn-!"
"Kanaya." Aradia's voice drowns out Kanaya's comment. "Do you realize that we were in charge of searching for Prince John in this side of the woods! If anything were to happen to the him Karkat would be furious!" They are searching for Prince John...
"I'm pretty sure he's already covered in wounds due to his escape attempt." Kanaya mutters. The boy Dave found was covered in wounds...
"We all agreed that he got those while hiding. Not while escaping." Trying to hide the truth huh. These individuals really are dangerous. If they were to confront the Striders-
"Rosie wut-what are you doing ter?" My thoughts were cut off before I could even think of a plan. I heard fast approaching footsteps and acted on the first thought that came to mind. I pulled my sister by the arm and ran down the hall. "Rosie!?"
"The Striders are in danger. We have to warn them." I pulled Roxy into the outside stable and woke up Jaspers, our jet black stallion. I could hear someone screaming in the distance. Under the cover of darkness and because I knew shortcuts around the inn I managed to gain a few minutes to set up. It still didn't take long for there to be banging at the entrance. "We have to leave now Roxy." It was then that I realized that Roxy had been silent. "Roxy?" I turn around to see my sister attempting to create a blockade.
=Roxy: Be the badass older sister
"Go." I motion for Rosie to take the back exit while picking up one of the shovels. I can tell that she hesitates to leave me behind but Jaspers heads for the back at my command. "Don't worry about me just go!" I hear her leave into the night as I simultaneously hear the something crash into the stable doors.
=Roxy: Confront the angry lady
Boy is she angry all right.
"I am going to take a long vacation once this is all over." The long-haired one mutters out in a hushed yet forceful way. "Take her out Kanaya."
"Wait Aradia we do not need to kill her. We just need you two to stay quiet and hand over the boy."
"Nuh Uh! Rosie said you two are a danger to our friends."
"If your friends stay quiet and give us the boy- They. Will. Not. Be harmed." I get the feeling the red one is looking down on me.
"They won't. Dave province-prowmised to protect that boy. Besides neither the Striders nor the Lalaondes take orders from anyone."
"Kanaya."
"I am not killing off innocent civilians!"
"Fine then. Capture her. We'll lock her up with the princess. More hostages are bound to get the king to be more cooperative."
I see the short-haired green one approach me. Man I really can't remember their names. I raise the shovel in a defensive position, but she cuts through it with a weird looking sword. I'm pinned to the ground in a matter on seconds. My vision starts to grow blurry.
What exactly did Dave get us involved in?
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers. Honestly I didn't even expect more than ten people to come across my fanfic. I am so thankful to everyone and don't worry I am the type of person who has to finish something or it feels like a nasty itch that won't ever go away.
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Right... I'm so sorry for the late update. I know its a bad excuse, but I'm more used to drawing comics. And of course my internet has to go weird just as I'm saving the page.