Chapter 26 Nightingale

The fact that my ex-boyfriend was here made me feel very uncomfortable, he's obviously here for just the one reason, he most likely want to get back together with me, I'll have to tell him about me and Kook before anything gets too complicated.

"Raven, you know that me and Kook are in a relationship right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, we're not really supposed to be in a relationship as it's against the rules so don't go talking to the guards or the king about it."

"Okay."

"Plus, me and Kook are really close so don't go messing things up for us."

"Why would I do that?"

"Well…I just had this feeling that you were coming here just to try getting back together with me."

"What? No, I wouldn't do that, I was missing you that's all and I just wanted to see you again."

I wasn't totally convinced that Raven wasn't going to attempt to get back with me, but I'll give him a chance, he wasn't showing any signs of wanting to get back with me. He seemed really interested with the tour, I showed him to the guest room first and after he'd put his things down we could continue with the tour, we were halfway around the castle when we bumped into some of the others, we first saw Ballista, Gildar and Vane.

"Oh hi guys." I said.

"Hey Nightingale." Ballista replied.

"By the way, this is Raven. Raven, I'd like you to meet Ballista, Gildar and Vane, we're all very good friends around here."

"It's nice to meet you Raven." Said Gildar holding out his hand.

"Nice to meet you too." Raven replied shaking Gildar's hand.

We were talking to Ballista, Gildar and Vane for around fifteen minutes before we continued with the tour, I showed Raven everything that there was to see, including the bathrooms, you never know, he may get caught short, I walked Raven back to the guest room and went to the lookout tower for my duty, Kook was waiting for me when I got there.

"Did you miss me?" I asked taking a hold of his hand.

"Have you been somewhere?" Kook joked.

I smiled and gave him a little nudge, smiling back he held my hand, leant over to me and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

"So how's Raven?" Kook asked.

"He's doing okay, he's just unpacking a few of his things. He seemed rather interested with the tour."

"He's not going to get back with you is he?"

"I hope not."

"Well if he does, then he'll have to go through me first."

"Aw, I love it when you get protective."

I went to stand closer to Kook, he wrapped his left arm around my shoulders while I rested my head on his shoulder.

The next day I was up bright and early, despite that the king's marriage was months away, we nearly had everything ready, the reception was planned, all the guests had been decided upon, the final preparations weren't going to be sorted out until nearer the actual date.

Me and Raven were going to be catching up on old times today so he was going to be spending the day with me and Kook at the top of the lookout tower, at least he's going to be able to get to know Kook a bit better too.

Raven was waiting for me and Kook outside the king's quarters when we left to go to our duties, me and Kook were at the top of the lookout tower before Raven, he was still only halfway up, when he finally joined me and Kook he was panting and sweating.

"How…do you guys…manage…to do that…every day?" He asked between breaths.

"You get used to it." Kook replied.

"How long would you guys normally be up here?"

"Well, we'd be here for around 30 minutes before we take it in turns to go for a breakfast break, that will normally be around 45 minutes long, we'd then spend the rest of the day up here."

"All day?"

"Yeah, this is the kind of thing that you'll do in the Splatalot castle."

"Well, I couldn't do what you do. How long have you guys been in a relationship?"

"We've been together for over a year."

"So your dad didn't scare him off then?"

"No, I had a very stern word with him not that long ago when my mum and dad came here for Christmas, he's not the way he was now, by that I mean that he's not as protective of me."

"Good, he made me feel very uncomfortable when we were together."

Raven stayed at the top of the lookout tower when I went down to have my breakfast break, I guess that he doesn't want to go up the stairs again, still while he's with Kook it'll probably give him some time to get to know him.

When my breakfast break was over I went back to Raven and Kook at the lookout tower, before I got to the top, I could hear them talking, I couldn't quite make it out at first, but when I got a bit closer to them I could hear them much more clearly.

"So, you really liked Nightingale?" I heard Kook ask.

"Yeah, would you say that you like her too?" Raven replied.

"Yeah, what would make you think that I don't like her, I really love her to be precise."

"But how much do you love her, how do I know that you're not just saying that?"

"I'm risking my job for her, isn't that enough?"

"I don't know, would you risk your life for her?"

"Well I have actually, my arch enemy's brother came her to kill me for killing his brother and he tried to get to me through Nightingale, thanks to that he nearly killed me, so yeah I would risk my life for her."

I wasn't liking this conversation, I wanted to stop it, but for some reason I couldn't move, my legs were paralysed with fear from what was going to happen, my heart started to pound and my hands and legs started to tremble, I felt like I was going to faint so I sat down on the steps until I'd regained my consciousness, Raven and Kook kept on going.

"You tell me something that you did for Nightingale while you were with her." Said Kook.

"I didn't have a chance to do anything for her, we were only together for a few months."

"Well did you show your love in any other way, like love letters, or at least telling her that you loved her?"

"No, I can't say that I did, but if I could have then I would have."

"Could have? You could have at least told her that you loved her every day, what's your excuse there? Unless you didn't really love her."

"Don't be stupid, of course I loved her, do you want me to prove it?"

I couldn't take this anymore, I slowly got onto my feet and walked up the remaining steps, when I got to the top they were acting as if nothing had happened, but I could see past that, Kook turned around to walk down the steps to go on his break, as he passed me by he leant over and kissed me gently on the cheek, he then walked away without saying a word, Raven was also rather quiet, but I managed to get a slight conversation out of him before Kook came back.

"Were you and Kook alright up here alone?" I asked.

"Yeah, we were fine." Raven replied.

"I could hear you talking about something as I was walking up here, what were you talking about?"

"Not much."

"Nothing important?"

"Nope."

Talk about closed responses, that wasn't much to go on, I thought that I might as well leave the conversation to a minimum, I wouldn't want to give away too much detail that I was listening in on their conversation. When Kook came back, they weren't really talking to each other, I couldn't blame them, I wouldn't be talking to someone if I'd just had a conversation like theirs, please don't make this last all the way through Raven's visit.

That evening, I spent a few hours tossing and turning in my nest, how would Kook want Raven to prove that he loved me when we were together? Whatever it was I knew that it wasn't going to be good.

When I got up the next day I was on my way to the king's quarters as always, when Raven came running over to me, he wanted to talk to me urgently, this may be it, this may be how he's going to show Kook how much he loved me, but I didn't know what he was going to do and I don't want to know.

"Nightingale, wait!" He shouted.

"What's wrong Raven?"

"I just need to talk to you."

"Well what do you want to talk to me about?"

"It's about when we were in a relationship."

"Raven, that's all in the past, it's over now, I'm in a relationship with Kook now too, if you're trying to tell me that you want to get back with me I can't."

"No, it's not that. I just realised that I never really told you how much I loved you, and I didn't really show it that often, and spending some time with you recently made me realise how much I missed you and how much I really loved you, so…"

He was silent for around 3 seconds, I had a vague idea about what he was going to do, I did my best to talk him out of it, but one half of my brain told me that it was no use, whereas the other half was telling me what would happen if this commenced, what would Kook think.

"Look Raven, I have to go, the others are waiting for me at the king's quarters." I said going to walk away but Raven grabbed my arms restricting me, he walked back over to me, he really was serious about this, I went to speak again but Raven stopped my lips by kissing them, my arms went ridged and my eyes went wide, I started to wriggle under his grasp attempting to get free but he was holding onto my arms firmly, I thought that it couldn't get worse than this when it did.

"What the hell!" I heard a voice to my left say, I raised my arms and forced Raven away from me, I looked to my left and Kook was stood there, he was furious. "Nightingale, what are you doing?" He asked me.

"Kook, I can explain, this was nothing to do with me." I explained.

Kook turned to Raven with fury in his eyes. "I should have known." He walked over to Raven until he was inches away from him, but Raven stood his ground. "I knew that you were trouble ever since the first time I met you mate, but if you want Nightingale back then you'll have to go through me first."

"With pleasure." Raven replied.

"Fine, I challenge you to a duel this afternoon, at the top of the lookout tower."

"You're on."

Raven held his hand out ready for Kook to shake, Kook looked down at Raven's hand before looking back up at Raven's face and shaking his hand.

Did I even get a say in this? I might not want this to happen, I don't want two people to fight over me, and what if someone saw them? I have to put a stop to this before it gets out of hand. The duel was going to commence at midday, I had to get there and stop it before it started.

Until that time I decided to relax for a while in my room, I had to get this off my mind for a while, until it was midday. I stood by my bedroom window for around 30 minutes, I looked down and I could see some of the others on their duties, to my right there was Ballista, Gildar and Skabb on defence, after 30 minutes I was still worried about what was going to happen to Kook and Raven, this was all Raven's fault but I still didn't want anything to happen to him, I sat down in my nest to relax, I closed my eyes for what seemed like 5 minutes but when I opened my eyes again it was half past midday, oh no, I'm late, the duel's already started! I quickly got out of my nest and ran all the way to the lookout tower, when I was nearing the top I could hear the sound of their swords clashing, the sound made me speed up.

When I finally got to the top Raven and Kook were both fully focussed on the fight, they hadn't even noticed me, my heart started pounding against my ribcage again, I looked at Kook and I noticed that he had a few tears on his outfit from raven's sword and a few cuts on his arms, Raven was in a rather similar state, I couldn't think of anything that I could do to stop this fight, I was thinking about shouting out to them telling them to stop but before I could Raven got his sword under Kook's and flicked Kook's sword out of his hands, Kook started to back up until his back hit the wall, Raven was about to raise his sword to strike Kook, but I jumped in front of Kook to stop him.

"Raven, please don't do this." I said.

"Nightingale, get out of the way, we've started this duel and we're going to finish it." Raven replied.

"But you don't have to end it this way. Why don't you just apologise for what happened, situations like this don't always have to be solved with a fight, and if this is a way of showing me how much you loved me then I'm glad that we broke up when we did."

"Babe, maybe it will be best if you get out of the way." Said Kook.

"No, if he's going to kill you then he'll have to kill me first."

"So you're risking your life for me?"

"Yeah."

I wasn't sure if he did, but I could feel Kook gesturing at Raven in some way, plus the look on Raven's face when he looked at Kook. Slowly Raven lowered his sword and dropped it on the ground.

"I'm sorry Nightingale, I didn't think about how you felt about this, I shouldn't have even come here to see you."

"Well, if I was you I wouldn't really bother writing to me anymore, because if you do I won't be replying, in fact I would say that the best thing for you to do is to just forget about me and get a life that doesn't involve wasting it on me, because you must have gathered by now that I'm not going to be getting back with you, and if you had won this duel and had killed Kook that wouldn't have impressed me, in fact it wouldn't have done you any good, it would have made me want nothing to do with you."

Raven started to back away from us, and Kook placed his right hand on my shoulder.

"Well said babe."

"So, I guess that you want me to leave?"

"If you think that you should leave then okay, but if you think you'll be able to control your feelings then you can stay, so it's up to you."

"No, I think that it'll be best if I leave…I'll go and get my stuff together then."

"Just wait a minute Raven, if you go now then you'll be waiting for any transport back to Britain until midnight, you can stay until tomorrow and leave tomorrow morning if you're alright with that."

"Okay. Are you ever going to forgive me?"

"After this, it's going to be hard."

Raven left the next morning, as I watched him walk away into the distance, I could feel tears filling my eyes, maybe I was a bit harsh, but he had very nearly killed Kook, I thought that something like that was going to happen, and he said that he wasn't going to try to get back with me.