Chapter 12

The next day, Charlotte went to Kili's cottage. She felt awkward and nervous. She was here to report to him that she would be going to the Varden to spend her week off.

She knocked on the door. Kili opened it. "Hey, Charlotte!" he greeted her warmly. "Would you like to come in?" he asked.

"Wow, he seems a lot happier than usual. Maybe it was the lack of stress?" She thought back to last night. She still couldn't get the images of him and Annika out of her head. "Ahh, that must be why," she thought half-bitterly.

She answered, "Hi, Kili. And it's fine, I just needed to tell you something. It won't take long."

"No, no, come in! I have some tea ready. Have some!" Kili said with a friendly smile.

He poured her a glass of tea and gave it to her in a cute little leaf-shaped mug. "Mmm," she said. "It smells good!" Kili smiled at that. After tasting it, she said, "It tastes wonderful too! Wow, I'm not even a tea person, but this… this is just incredible. How do you get it to taste this good?"

"Glad to hear it. And it's a special recipe. A secret." Kili replied with a grin. "Oh right, you said you wanted to tell me something? What was it?"

"Oh, yeah. I want to go to the Varden and spend my week there. I just thought that since you're my commanding officer, basically, I should report to you before I go."

"Good, alright. Why do you want to go to the Varden though? Any big reason?"

Charlotte replied, "Oh, you know, since we're a subunit of the Varden, I thought it would be really interesting to visit it. I want to see how it runs and what it's like… in person." In her mind, she had a clear ulterior motive: meeting Eragon… but she didn't have to tell Kili that.

Kili said, "That makes sense. I hope you like it. Do you want me to ask Annika to teleport you there? It'll be much faster. If you go by yourself, it'll take about a day."

Charlotte said, "Oh no, it's alright." For some weird reason, she didn't feel like getting help from Annika. She didn't want to rely on her so much. It was stupid, she thought. It would save her a whole day, but she was stubborn. She was going to travel on her own, with none of her help.

"Are you sure?" Kili asked.

"I am. Besides, I would miss all the scenery," Charlotte said.

Kili laughed softly and said, "Alright then. Have a safe journey."

With a warm smile, Charlotte said, "Thanks. Bye."

Charlotte grabbed her bag and headed out of her cottage and into the wild.

After walking for five and a half hours straight, she decided to stop for food. She rummaged into her bag and pulled out a sandwich. Mmmmmm, it was good. She munched on it hungrily and finished it in two minutes. Then she pulled out her full water bottle and downed a quarter of it.

As she placed everything back into her bag and resumed walking, she picked up rustling sounds with her acute hearing. She craned her ears a bit more and she could make out whispers. She darted to the side of the trail, into a field of long grass. As she looked around, a small part of her brain recognized the field and realized that it was not just any field. It was the field from her first dream with Eragon. "Interesting," she thought. Suddenly she heard something darting toward her. From the sound of it, it seemed like a knife. She did a front flip and then and did a shoulder roll as she landed, distributing the stress of the fall across the rest of her body. She turned her head abruptly toward the direction the knife had whizzed from. Without taking her eyes off, she slowly took her bag off her back and unzipped it. She was so close to grabbing her gun. Just a few seconds away…

Suddenly, arrows started firing at her. She counted five. She dodged the first one narrowly by a turn of her head, the second one with a side step, and two more with a shoulder roll. She caught the last with her hand. She held it as if it were a knife. She grabbed her bag quickly and reached for her gun. Yes! She got it! She loaded and stood in preparation for the hidden enemy. Suddenly, a fire arrow blasted toward her. She rolled away quickly, and dodged it. Phew, she thought. But this was a dry field of grass. It caught fire. "Shit!" Charlotte swore as she saw her shoe catch fire. She desperately tried to get it out. She didn't want to take it off though; her hand might get burned. To make matters worse, her attacker had released another arrow.

Suddenly, a man appeared, deflecting the arrow with a long knife. Charlotte looked back at her foot and started panicking. The pain was getting worse and worse! And now the ground was getting caught on fire too. She had to keep moving! Her foot was hurting like hell.

After swiftly delivering an arrow of his own at the other archer, the man dumped a cool bottle of water onto her foot.

"Aahhh," she sighed, relieved.

"Come on," the stranger beckoned. "Quickly!" He grabbed hold of her hand and started running. She ran with him. Her burnt foot was hurting and she fiercely bit down on her lip to try to keep the pain down. She glanced back and saw that the flames were spreading quickly, but they were outrunning it. Finally, they got onto the trail. It didn't look like it was going to catch on fire anytime soon.

"How is your foot?" the stranger asked.

Charlotte gingerly removed her shoe to examine her foot. It looked pretty badly burnt. It wasn't drastic, but still, it would take a few days for the pain to wear off, even for her. She sighed in annoyance. Would she even get to meet Eragon?

The stranger pulled out a small bag and reached into it. He took out a small vial. He gave it to Charlotte and said, "Here. Drink this. It'll help numb the pain."

Charlotte gratefully took it and downed it immediately. She hoped the pain wouldn't last long. The man took a second item out of his bag. It looked like some sort of cream. He scooped some out with his fingers and gently spread it over her burned foot. She braced herself for the pain that would come when his fingers came in contact with the sensitive skin on her foot. It came, but not even close to how bad she expected it to be. She opened her eyes in surprise. It was magical how soothing the cream was. Already, her foot felt better. Her burn didn't seem nearly as severe either, or was she just imagining that? No… she wasn't. She looked at her foot in wonder. It was healing within seconds!

"Wow, thank you so much. This is amazing and you're very kind to help me like this," Charlotte said gratefully to the stranger.

The stranger just nodded and studied her. Charlotte noticed that his eyes were beautiful. They were blue, like Sean's. But unlike Sean's, his were a striking, electrifying blue, instead of an oasis-blue. She found his prolonged stare uncomfortable, so she was about to look away when she thought, "Wait, I know those eyes… that face." She turned back to him and said, "You- I know you. You were that guy- that guy who helped me six years ago!"

"So you remember," he said with a smile.

Caroline was lying on a fancy bed with golden sheets. The pillow she lay on was purple, complementing the gold perfectly. The bed looked like it belonged to royalty. "Mmm…" Caroline murmured as she slowly woke. She didn't want to leave, it was way too comfortable. She wished she could stay like that forever.

She sleepily launched a light kick to the other side of the bed. Her leg met only the cushioned bed. Her eyes jolted open. "Klaus? Klaaaus? Hey, where are you?"

She sat upright and surveyed the room. Klaus was nowhere to be found. That's strange, she thought. Where could he have gone? He was supposed to be beside her as she woke. She got an idea. He must have left a note. She looked at his pillow. He did, in fact, leave a note. She recognized his elegant, perfect calligraphy.

She took the note in her hand. It read:

Caroline, my love,

I am sorry to have left you this morning. I just realized we are short a few ingredients for the breakfast I wanted to cook for you, so I have gone out to get them. I hope you do not wake up before I return, but in case you do, I leave you this note.

Klaus

Caroline let out a frustrated sigh. "Ugh, he didn't need to leave just because of that!" she thought.

"Perfectionist much?" she muttered to thin air. In her mind, she heard his voice retorting, "And you aren't?" in his perfect British accent. She let out a humourless and surprised "why-am-I-hearing-his-voice-inside-my-head" snort.

She decided to give him twenty minutes to return. She was being lenient about it. If he didn't return in that time, she was going to give him an earful.

Twenty minutes later, Klaus still hadn't returned. Instead of feeling anger at him for leaving her the morning after their first night, she felt worry start to creep in. She thought, "What if he's in trouble? No, he can't be. It's Klaus. But what if he is?" Without waiting another second, she rushed to her room, grabbed a jacket, and slung a small bag of emergency supplies and weapons over her shoulder.

As she searched for him, she found a pair of footprints in the dirt. They belonged to Klaus! She recognized the design on the underside of his shoe. She traced them to a forest. The footprints were much harder to see now. Still, she kept looking, focusing less on the ground and more on her other surroundings. Suddenly, she yelped as she fell down a ditch.

Disoriented, she stumbled after attempting to stand. She looked up. The light was so far away. The ditch sure was deep. Who would dig a deep ditch like this in the middle of nowhere? Seriously? She groaned. She had obtained a number of bruises, but those would heal in no time. She looked to the right. She didn't see much at first. Just as she was turning to the left, she did a double take. There was a hand. It wasn't moving, just lying there.

Slowly, taking a deep breath, she edged toward it. As she crept toward it, she noticed it was getting darker and darker. She was moving away from the angle of the light. Then, she remembered that she had a flashlight headband in her bag. She pulled it out, fitted it around her head, and switched the light on.

There, lying before her on the ground, bloodied and motionless, was Klaus.

Caroline gasped, horrified. It couldn't be. After an initial moment of shock, she came to her senses and tried to awaken him. "Klaus? Klaus?! Wake up! Klaus!"

She noticed blood on his lips. It smelled like vampire blood. He must have gone down putting up a good fight. Of course he would have.

But why wasn't he getting up? When it became clear he wasn't going to wake, or at least not anytime soon, her concern for him escalated. She felt tears trickling down her face. She didn't care to wipe them away.

"Klaus," she sobbed, "You idiot." She gently took his head in her hands. "This wasn't supposed to happen. What was s-supposed to happen w-was… you were supposed to wake up beside me and we were supposed to get up together, a-and go to the kitchen, cook breakfast together, and it was supposed to be all romantic, and I was going to-" she broke off to suck in a choked breath.

"I was gonna tell you something I just realized. I was gonna tell you I loved you."