A/N: Such caring readers to be concerned about me sleeping...no worries people. I'm getting sleep! Not as much as I should but...I will. Eventually. Maybe.
TheRanger'sDaughter: Sorry you were skipped :/ I switched email providers and the new one groups messages in a weird way. I guess yours got put in a different folder or something. You'll get caught up on Maggie...later :)
AER: Thanks :)
Aubrey: You'll be caught up soon!
Raider: I think I would actually like sleeping during retirement. I mean, there's nothing else to do. What strange aspirations you have.
Disclaimer: I'm not John Flanagan.
Reese rode with Russ back up the road they'd come. Despite their mission and the conditions in which they were living, he was enjoying himself. He didn't want to return to Araluen begging Ranger Daniel to allow him Ranger training, but the break from royal duties felt exhilarating. Now that he'd split from Hazen it was even better. The only thing that would make it perfect would be getting to partner with Robin instead of her brother. They returned to where they'd found the dress and bottle of dye. Aside from being damp and a new layer of dust everything was still as they'd found it.
"What are we doing here?" Reese asked as he dismounted behind Russ.
"Looking for more clues," Russ explained. "Something just doesn't make sense."
"What do you mean?"
"Why did he choose this spot to change her hair and clothes if not to enter the village we've been wasting time at?"
The setup was too easy. "I wouldn't call it a total waste of time. We got to see Robin in a brothel." Usually, Russ had a line of comebacks on standby for shots at either of his sisters. Teasing had always been part of their friendship, as it was their fathers'. This time, however, Russ didn't have a witty reply. Instead he simply glared at Russ. Russ realized he'd crossed some sort of line, though he wasn't exactly sure where that line was. They'd all been cracking up about Robin's mission as soon as they were confidant she could handle herself. "Sorry."
"The tracks are gone by now," Russ sighed. "It rained twice while we were there."
Reese stayed with the horses while his Ranger friend searched the area for any signs of direction. Snapped twigs, disturbed earth, footprints where mud likely collected in the rain…anything. He found nothing. Russ sighed angrily.
"Hey," Reese offered, hoping to give some encouragement. "We'll find her."
"The more time that passes the less chance we have to do that," Russ grumbled. He pulled out the dress they'd found before from his pack and sat to search it over one more time. His horse bobbed his head, as though telling him he were overthinking things. Reese agreed, though he'd never admit it openly.
"If we move now we have time to search one or two orphanages before nightfall," Reese pointed out after several minutes. Russ nodded.
"Fine. Let's go."
"Lovers?" Robin repeated after Hazen told her the plan.
"You have a better idea?"
"What about siblings?"
"Right, because we look so much alike."
He had a point. His dark curls and brown eyes came straight from his father. He looked less like her than Anne did.
"Cousins?"
"Is it so painful to pretend you love me?" Hazen asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I just think it's a little…I don't know."
"Grandpa Liam once told me that he went on a mission a long time ago, before he went to Araluen, and on that mission he had to pretend to be in love with Kineta."
Robin rolled her eyes. "Grandpa Liam and Queen Kineta? That would have never worked out."
"No, but they completed the mission. He also pretended to be in love with Grandma Talia."
"He is in love with Grandma Talia."
"Yes, but this was back when his first wife was still alive."
Robin bit the inside of her cheek. They rode side by side down the beach towards the next village. "Lina was something, wasn't she?"
"She was."
"I wish we could have met her."
"Me too," Hazen agreed. "I mean it's hard to imagine Grandpa Liam married to someone else, but the stories about Lina…Mama tells us they're all true and then some."
"My mum tells me her greatest accomplishment was establishing herself after she hurt her foot. Did you know she twisted it right after having your mother? A lot of the stories of her with the Battalion are post-injury."
"Well, your mother is blind and she's a physician. Why can't a lame woman be a warrior?"
Robin shook her head. "It just all seems so…outlandish to me. Mum uses her hands for everything, but how do you take down an assailant if you can't even walk?"
"Maybe we should ask Grandpa Liam one day. Or Grandma Talia. I think both wives were best friends, if I remember right."
"I wonder how Grandpa Liam came to marry the best friend of his lost wife."
"That's it then. If Grandpa Liam and Grandma Talia can be together, we can pretend to be together."
It took Robin a moment to process what he said before she groaned. "Aren't we cousins or something like that?" she mumbled.
"Let me think…your grandmother married my grandfather. That makes us…step cousins, right?"
"Right. You want to pretend to love your step-cousin? That won't be weird to you?"
"Not when our friends in Picta are marrying actual cousins to keep their bloodlines going. I swear they think of their people like animals when it comes to pedigree."
"Hibernia does that in a way," Robin pointed out. "Araluen's happily accepted an adopted prince."
Hazen sighed. "An adopted prince who cares nothing for his throne."
"I heard Russ explained to you how…"
"I get it. I was born into it, Reese feels it's some kind of debt. Still though, I wish he'd take it more seriously or step down. This going back and forth is draining me."
Robin creased her forehead. "Why?"
"Everyone thinks I take my crown seriously because I feel this great sense of responsibility to it, but that's not exactly true."
"What is the truth then?"
"Dad and Mama both always told me, privately, that they'd teach me everything they could about becoming king and then on my fifteenth birthday they expected a commitment. That's the age Mama became a princess. She was given until age eighteen or something like that before her final decision was required, but becoming a princess was quite literally sprung on her with no notice. They wanted an answer on my fifteenth birthday. They didn't pressure me one way or another other than they wanted an answer by that deadline."
"Obviously you accepted," Robin said when he paused. "What would have happened if you didn't?"
"They would have started to train Mara," Hazen answered. "And if she rejected at fifteen, Gabe since in her adoption they made Elizabet's title more of a ceremonial one."
"Still, sometimes you take your crown too seriously," Robin told him.
"I know," Hazen admitted. "That's the thing. Now that I've chosen my crown, my parents have said they must next choose me. I've got to prove myself as a king to them by my next birthday. They've given me challenges and opportunities to show them I'll be a good leader. One of them is maintaining existing alliances. Our strongest ally is Araluen. I need to be on good terms with whomever the heir is. If I try to forge a friendship with Reese and then he gives up his place in favor of Iris…" he sighed.
This was the first time Robin, or anyone, had heard of Hazen's deal with his parents. By his sigh it sounded as though this was the first time he confided this bit of information. What his parents did was smart. It would help protect Hibernia from past mistakes. Making Hazen choose his path, and then making him prove he could succeed on that path may have put a lot of pressure on him, but being king would mean performing under pressure. He needed that pressure.
"Sorry," Hazen said after a while.
"Forced friendships never take," Robin told him gently. "That's why Reese is frustrated with you. He feels you're always on show."
"I don't know what else to do, though. We have nothing in common aside from our titles."
"Then perhaps you should just treat him like a business partner and things will work themselves out from there. You don't have to like him. You just have to maintain a treaty with him."
Hazen nodded. "That's fair. What else is fair, we are going to pose as lovers."
Robin groaned. "Fine, but I get to be a spoiled fake girlfriend."