Chapter 2:

Previously we met our OC Clara while she was still living in the country of Hearts. However because of a land shift, which the people in this world also consider to be "moving", we now find her forced in live in the country of Clover

"This is terrible," Clara sighs in exasperation.

"Now it's night again. This always happens on your stupid journeys," she huffs

Ace merely turns to her with his trademark smile plastered on his face. "Hey, easy now. Night comes randomly! It's not my fault." He finishes with a grin.

Clara focuses back on the task at hand, which is putting up the tent. "…I guess. BUT…"

She thought about the flow of time in the current world and how it was incredibly inconsistent. They would get a time period for "day", "evening" or "night" at random. And at this minute it had suddenly switched from day to night without an evening.

Nonetheless Clara felt her vein about to pop "…That's not what I meant."

After having to supress her temper for 2 days in a row she'd finally had enough with trying to be patient.

"WE'VE BEEN WALKING FOR HOW MANY BLOODY TIME PERIODS!? ARGH! AND WE STILL HAVEN'T REACHED HEART CASTLE!" She blasted the infuriating idiot.

Said idiot just laughed genially while the woman beside him spat fire. "Ahhahaha! Yeah, you're a trooper."

They were absolutely lost. As getting lost was Ace's speciality.

Even with Clara's affinity for finding her way around places back at home, here, it seemed that her antenna would be off whenever Ace was around.

She exhaled and connected the tent poles together "I give up. Let's just set up the tent. It's dangerous to walk around in the dark."

Ace grins all of a sudden.

It irks Clara and leads her to demand of him "What now?"

"Heh heh. You're getting used to this huh? It's easy to get addicted to camping. The outdoors are great."

Clara just grumbles, not wanting to admit that she actually did enjoy camping and stargazing.

She snuck a peek over at Ace and saw him humming with a bright smile as he helped put up the other side of the tent.

She pondered on the knight of heart castle, thinking that he was always so bright and cheery. Almost too much perhaps. Clara wondered if he ever got tired of smiling all the time. Yet she had to confess that she didn't mind it. In fact, it was one of the things that dare she say it, made her really love him. At the same time though, he always managed to set her off.

"Wow I can't even see the castle. It must be far away." Ace says with his hand against his forehead searching.

"You're looking in the wrong direction." Clara pointed out and indicated opposite. "Heart castle is that way."

She sighed a little at Ace's horrific sense of direction.

He's also got really awful luck in a lot of ways. He's kind of hard to be with. He can be so flippant... And frightening. And callous. And hopeless.

But damn is he hot.

Clara smiled inwardly. All the while dreaming about Ace's voice, eyes, shoulders, back…

She shook her head to get her mind out of the gutter

"The last path we took was wrong after all. Maybe we should've tried the other one."

Ace hammers down the tent pegs, "Hindsight is 20/20, Clara. But no worries. You can't look back—you have to look forward."

She laughed at his optimism, playfully adding "This is why you never get better, Ace."

Tilting her head to the side she mulled over what he just said

"I like that motto, but they also say you should learn from your mistakes. It'd lessen the chances of us getting eaten by some bear or any other creature…"

Clara didn't notice the glint in Ace's eyes "Now don't be so reasonable. We're together right? So it can never get that bad. You know what they say… two heads are hotter than one."

"Better than one you mean" Arching abrow, she gives him a strange look

"I guess. Haha." he grins. "Clara… you do make things better."

This makes her smile at his sincerity

"Tent's done." He announces, "Look good?"

Clara rolls her eyes. The tent looks exactly the same as the multiple other times when they had got lost and had to camp.

Ace gets up swiftly announcing "It's pretty cold out here. We should start a campfire"

As Clara observed Ace moving about gathering firewood, she pushed aside her usual thinking of how much of a man he was. Even though he would always get them lost, he never failed to make sure they would be warm at night, and that they had a tent to sleep in. She thought instead of how weird he had been acting lately. Ever since they had come to the country of Clover she could feel that there was something off with him. She knew that he was still upbeat and could still get lost in a paper bag, unfortunately the latter hadn't changed, but she couldn't help but worry about what it was that made him seem so down at times...

"Clara." The flames of the campfire came into focus as they danced mesmerizingly.

"You okay? You spaced out." Ace's voice asked.

"Hmm? I'm fine… Oh!" Clara finally notices as the fire dies down a little that Ace's jacket sat on her shoulders keeping her warm.

She didn't want him to be cold so she hopped up to get more wood. "The fire's getting low"

Before she could take another step however, a grip on her left hand made her turn back just in time to see Ace place a kiss on it.

"I can warm you up," he says suggestively, giving Clara what she thought was a seductive look as he breathed warmly on her chilled hand.

Clara smothered a laugh at his face. "No. It's okay."

"Here." She took his jacket off her shoulders and put it back over him, "I think you should focus on staying warm yourself."

He really did have great shoulders she thought, blushing slightly at their proximity. She found her hands fixing his collar as he looked down at her. Her hands moved from his collar to rest on his lapels, when she looked up at his eyes she saw that they had darkened.

Gulping, she felt her face growing hot despite missing the warmth of his coat

"I'm plenty warm." His voice lowered an octave, as his strong hands came around her waist

She gripped his lapels as he pulled her close.

Unfortunately they were rudely interrupted by a high pitched, "SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Someone glomped Clara and brought her crashing to the ground hard.

"Waah?!" She opened her mouth to give whoever tackled her a piece of her mind when she realized the person clinging to her was Pierce. He was shaking like a leaf.

"Pierce?"

He lifted his teary eyes to look into Clara's, "The cat. The cat!" He trembled.

"Oh dear" she clucked her tongue in sympathy. How could she stay mad at those big eyes?

Pierce Villers was the mouse who lived in the forest. Presumably in the very forest Ace and Clara had set up camp in. It was because he was a mouse that Boris (the cat) chased him around.

Clara began to feel anger at Boris for making Pierce feel as scared as he was. She patted Pierce's head soothingly, "Don't worry. Just wait till I get my hands on Boris. Ooo who does he think he is to be terrorising you like this?"

She remembered that although Pierce may have looked helpless, he was part of the hatter's mafia family. But still, Shame on Boris for bullying poor Pierce.

A few seconds passed with her comforting Pierce and no sign of Boris.

"I think he stopped chasing you." She said gently.

Clara didn't realise that a dark look had passed over a forgotten Knight's face and that murderous waves had begun to swirl about him. He watched Pierce hugging her and wanted to forcibly remove the mouse's dirty paws off of Clara. It didn't help that he had killed the mood. He had been so close. So close.

"Huh? Oh. Oh! Thank goodness," relief is evident in Pierce's voice.

"Will you be oka-"

"Hey! Squeaker." Clara turned to see a sword, Ace's sword, over her left shoulder and aimed directly between Pierce's eyes.

"I'm glad you came to visit but hands off the girl."

"Uh… Easy, Ace." She tried to placate him. What does he think he's doing?

The mouse pales considerably, "-squeak!- Why is the knight here?!"

"Sheath that thing, Ace! What's wrong with you? Calm down!" Clara frowned at him

"Ha ha! C'mon, Clara. I'm always calm." He remarks flippantly.

Before Clara has the chance to get really mad at Ace, she hears Pierce shrieking in the distance as he dashes speedily away

"I'm scared of the cat, but I'm also scared of the knight…..!"

"Crap. He escaped," Ace says in disappointment.

"Because you scared him off! You jerk." Clara scoffs unhappily.

"Hm? Yeah?"

She turned away from looking in Pierce's direction to see Ace acting as if he hadn't just pointed his sword at a poor mouse, which further irritates her. Not wanting to repeat herself she instead just remarks, "I should get that wood"

She stood up but then notices that the fire has already died out.

"We can just go to bed, Clara." Ace suggests as he moves towards the tent

As if on cue, a yawn escapes Clara, "Maybe that's a good idea."

AN: Whaddaya guys think? Should this continue? Leave a review if you like it so far ;)