Hey everyone,

I'm so sorry for taking awhile to update. Writer's block hit me for a while there, but I'm back. :) Hope this one doesn't come as a disappointment. Thank you so much for your reviews, and the alerts. You have no idea how encouraging it is for me. As usual, I'd love to know your thoughts. Thank you! :)

P.S: Sorry if this is terrible, hope you're still interested. Sorry about it being Godric centered again, just developing his character a bit more (well, attempting to). Next chapter will be more Eric and Sookie bickering/being together.

Chapter Nine

The argument between the two seemed as if it wasn't going to end. The Faery Princess Sookie had taken to raising her voice and flapping her hands around wildly, while Godric recognized that familiar glint of wicked amusement in his friends eyes as he kept denying the obvious, which frustrated the girl even more.

"Don't lie to me," Sookie was saying, her voice trembling. "I know you were watching me!"

Godric shook his head despairingly as his friend got real close to her, leaning down so that his face was inches from hers, mirth flashing in his eyes and his lips curled. With his looming height, Godric expected the girl to become intimidated, only Princess Sookie surprisingly stood her ground.

"Just because my Grandfather sent me away with you to be your bride, it doesn't mean you have right to spy on me and treat me like someone you can think nasty things of! Now apologize to me, please!"

Godric knew all Eric had to do was be a man and own up to what he did, even apologize to make amends; Only his good friend was too stubborn to ever do so. Eric chuckled at her words and peered down to where Godric was sitting. He was going to try to get Godric involved now. "Do you hear that, Godric?" Eric muttered, his voice filled with both incredulity and laughter. "She wants me to apologize. And for what? I know the real reason she's angry, and it has nothing to do with me watching her."

Godric heard Sookie's breath hitch loudly at Eric's accusation and he rolled his eyes. This argument was really going nowhere. His good friend certainly knew how to piss a woman off. "Really? What other reason would I have to be angry at you for? Do tell me."

"Your just angry that I never chose to come into the water with you. Your angry that you never got to see me naked as well." Godric recognized this as Eric's attempt of teasing her; Something in good meaning and light spirit. But he was perturbed to notice how the girl's slim fingers trembled as a spark of light glowed from the tips. He knew nothing pertaining to her kind but he sensed the danger there.

"Eric," Godric finally spoke up sharply with caution.

"What?" Eric asked sullenly.

"Apologize to her and have it done with."

Eric turned his eyes back on Godric incredulously. "What?"

"Apologize and have it done, brother." Eric was too hotheaded with their tiff, it seemed, to get it. "You've pushed her enough."

"So you're on her side now?" Eric muttered in disbelief, tossing his head. "You're unbelievable, Godric."

"I am on no one's side," Godric corrected softly, ever the reasonable one. "But from our previous conversation from before, you should make amends. Now apologize." Sookie saw Godric give him a pointed look, and she noticed with some satisfaction that Eric's features softened into one of regret.

Clearly put in a corner, he hung his head as he peered deeply in her eyes, strands of hair falling into his face. "I'm sorry," he said to her, not at all sounding the least bit sincere. But it was a start at the very least, and Sookie felt her chest swell. She knew he wasn't completely to blame, but he was irritating and it only caused to provoke her more.

"Then I'm sorry too," she returned quietly. "For slapping you, mostly."

"There you go, its solved," Godric said in language to Eric. "Be nice to her and everything will be easier." Godric noted with relief that the light from her fingers had diminished entirely and that she seemed no longer angry or frustrated. The situation was appeased, at least for the time being. "We should make a start since its day again," he sensibly reminded Eric, who was still looking tense and ready to argue with her again. Godric sighed with relief as Eric took heed of his advice without protest, nodding and setting his chin grimly. He spared the girl one last fleeting look and then that was that.

But although their argument was over, Godric couldn't help but notice the way the pair ignored each other for the rest of the day.

When Sookie outright refused to get on the back of Eric's horse, no less to go anywhere near him, Godric had no choice but to allow her to ride on his with him instead. Godric quite liked the girl already, so it was not a matter of him not wanting her to be on horseback with him; It just put him in a difficult place, when it came to his close friend Eric, who already had made it clear he suspected Godric of unfairly taking sides. All throughout the day, as they constantly rode at a somewhat leisurely pace, now and then Eric would peer behind his shoulder and give Godric an unfriendly look of warning due to the fact that one of the girls slender arms was tightly slung around Godric's shoulders to keep her balance on the horse as it galloped on by.

Godric was shocked by his friends blunt display of hostility towards him due to the girl preferring to be near him rather than Eric himself; It was as if Eric had instantly forgotten just who Godric was; and that he was hardly an enemy to him. They had been close friends as long as Godric could remember, and Godric would have never done anything to deliberately jeopardize that.

The constant looks shot in their direction did not go by unnoticed by Sookie, who grew more and more perplexed every time it happened. Eric had certainly made it no secret that he was affronted by her preference for Godric over him. She could actually somehow understand why he was probably considered a respected and fearsome warrior, because the looks he was frequently sending their way chilled her to the bone. She had no idea why he was being the way he was, but she figured it annoyed him how quick she was to insist on being near the boy Godric on his horse instead.

What was with him acting all territorial over her when he had no proper right to be? As far as she could tell, she was just something he could barely tolerate. She annoyed him, and he had made that perfectly clear on her. The way he talked to her suggested as much. Men- especially him- could be so confusing to understand.

She leaned forward on the horse, resting her chin against Godric's shoulder. "What is with him?" she asked him quietly, turning her face up to put her mouth closer to the shell of his ear as she whispered, "Why does he keep looking at us in that way? If anyone has right to be angry about something, it's me, isn't it?"

She heard the boy give out a soft chuckle. "You really do not know why?"

"I don't think I do," she admitted, staring at the back of Eric's head and the strands of his long hair that were billowing in the breeze.

"I think Eric believes you prefer me over him. I believe that is why."

"That's because I do," she laughed unabashedly. "I think I do prefer you over him, Godric. You're so much... kinder to me and less mercurial. I really don't understand him at all."

"Once you know Eric, you will realize he isn't so bad," Godric assured her confidently. "I have been friends with him for a very long time. In fact, I can hardly remember a time when we weren't friends. But Eric is a good man. And he does like you, a lot more than he lets on. He just... doesn't know all the right ways to show it."

"He likes me?" Sookie laughed again in disbelief. "I think not. He can't even stand me or my kind. Especially not when he was wrongly under the impression that my kind were the ones responsible for the loss of his family."

"He spoke to you willingly about what happened?" Godric returned, and he sounded surprised. "He speaks to a rare few about it. I thought I was the only one who really knew the true story, aside from several others. He must trust you then. If he tells you about his family, it means you are considered trustworthy to him, someone he... is truly fond of. There isn't many he is fond of."

"Actually, he never told me," Sookie admitted, feeling a pang of guilt as she tightened her arm over Godric's shoulders to steady herself as they neared a high bank of land. "I actually saw it played alive in his thoughts. He probably wouldn't have willingly ever told me about it, but I heard it from his thoughts all the same. It was in no way intentional of me," she added quickly. "But sometimes I have no control over what I do hear and what I don't."

"Can you with mine also?" Godric asked, sounding merely intrigued.

Sookie allowed her eyes to close for a moment, listening into him, expression concentrated. Or at least making the attempt to. She discovered Godric was not an easy person to read, bizarrely so. She caught a distinctive haze of blue coming from his head, and in one flash of his mental images, she saw water. Endless and endless miles of water, a sea that stretched on with no land in sight.

"How strange," she breathed, once her eyes reopened. "I don't get much from you, aside from this... haze of blue? And the sea. A sea that goes on for ever and ever. I take it you like the sea then?"

"Yes." Godric's reply was short and curt, barely audible to her. "I dream about it often, and yet I don't know what it means. I dream about going into the water and never returning back to land. It's... peaceful. But I think the hardest part about the dreams is waking and discovering that they were just exactly that; A dream. To wake from them always feels so harsh and cruel." As if feeling worried he had said too much on the topic, Sookie noticed how he quickly changed the subject, "Have you always been this way? Have you always had this ability?"

"I think so. I think it comes with being what I am, mostly."

"And you hear Eric also?"

"Yes, its like I just told you. I found out what happened to his family that way."

"Now it all suddenly makes sense," Godric said, laughing. "No wonder you were angry at Eric. It wasn't only simply because he saw you, was it? You heard him also?"

"I did," Sookie confessed shortly. She felt her ears go red. "That was partly reason why I'm so angry. Also, it was just that... no one has ever seen me before. I suppose it just... shocked me that someone would think all of that about me and my body. I... I never thought anyone ever would, frankly." Much to her dismay, Eric took the moment to turn on his horse to look at them again, as if checking to make sure no lines were being crossed between his friend Godric and her. Feeling her stomach coil with anxiety, she held his eyes until he looked away. He still had a pink spot on his cheek precisely from where she had slapped him impulsively, so it made her feel slightly better, the sight of it. "I know what he thinks every time he looks at me now. He can't stop seeing how he saw me when I was bathing this morning. He... he keeps replaying it over and over in his mind." When a long silence passed between her and Godric that felt awfully awkward, she laughed nervously. "Sorry," she said honestly. "I don't mean to tell you all of this. I don't even really know why I'm telling you so much in the first place. I suppose I feel like you're the only one I can truly trust right now."

"That is fine," Godric assured her, with a laugh of his own that sounded just as nervous. "It is no problem, really."

"How much longer do you think we have to go?" she asked, deliberately changing the subject elsewhere. "It feels like we have ridden hours and hours."

"We have another night till we reach the village," Godric said. "But does Eric know?"

"Know about what?" she asked uncertainly.

"About all that you have just told me? About how you are able to... hear certain things? I'm sure it isn't intentional of him. If he knew, I'm sure he'd be more careful with what he thought as to not make you feel uncomfortable like you do now."

"I guess I never thought to tell him. It hasn't once crossed my mind."

"Then maybe you should think of it?" Godric suggested gently. "None of us knew that your kind has the ability to hear private thoughts. I'm sure Eric himself would like to know of it."

She smiled slightly as she looked at Eric from whereabouts he was far ahead on his white horse, leading everyone. "I'll consider it," she said hesitantly, after a moment. But truth was, she didn't have any idea where to start on that.

She had learned quite early on that talking to him wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do. But if that was the best solution as to making things feel less confusing and uncomfortable on her, Sookie was willing to try. It was just a matter of knowing when to approach him to talk about such a thing.

As the sky began to grow dimmer and the sunlight had receded behind a group of clouds, all the horses came to a stop and as Eric dismounted his horse, everyone else quickly followed suit. She took in his face again as he turned to address some of his men, finding him looking just as cold and petulant as he had all those times before when he had thrown looks her way while she rode with Godric. Perhaps Godric was right, after all? Perhaps it had truly bothered him that she preferred Godric's company right now and not his own?

Eric evidently assumed the two of them had banded together.

As Sookie slid off the horse ungraciously and Godric did the same, she followed him towards where Eric was standing, keen on having the conversation with him that Godric had suggested they have. "I... I need to have a talk with you," she began in a small but urgent voice, when his men went off to do their own thing and she knew she had him alone.

He showed no acknowledgement of her as he stared ahead. It was as if he was pretending she hadn't spoken or that she wasn't even standing near him. It was both hurtful and irritating for her.

"I said that I need to talk with you," she repeated, lifting her voice unevenly. Her eyes remained on the pink patch on the side of his bristly cheek from when she had slapped him earlier. It hadn't occurred to her at the time that she had hit him that hard, but in all things considered, she believed he deserved it.

She saw the way he brought the tip of his tongue out to moisten his lips, but still he refused to respond to her. He simply shook his head slightly, and it appeared to her as if he was gritting his teeth judging by the way his jaw muscles twitched.

Flapping her hands at her sides in sheer frustration, she turned to leave and not bother anymore. It was then that he finally chose to speak. His voice was low and a rumbling growl, but she managed to hear it well enough.

"Why did you even bother leaving Godric's side?"

She turned and gazed at him blankly. "What makes you say that? I'm certain I have no damn idea what you mean."

Sighing loudly through his nostrils, he reached up and put his hand on her shoulder, pushing her towards where Godric was standing and, along with his rough touch, she got an unpleasant mental flash of herself naked in the river again, as seen through his eyes when he had come across her that morning. He finally looked at her, but his eyes went down to her chest in her gown, and Sookie felt herself flush all over again.

Eric was finding it hard to forget; What she had looked like when he came across her this morning in the river. He hadn't expected to find her in the state that she was in, and now whenever he so much as simply looked in her direction, he saw her without clothes on all over again, with her gorgeous breasts and long hair trailing down her back. Things had changed and he wasn't particularly pleased about it, the way he was feeling even simply by catching her eyes.

What had made matters worse was that she had disregarded him for Godric.

While Eric trusted Godric and considered him his greatest friend, it still hurt and left him feeling lethally betrayed. He wasn't exactly sure why he was feeling the way he was, but he didn't know how to make himself feel otherwise. Having to look and witness the pair of them on horse together talking and seeming as if they were getting along well wasn't very nice on his ego either. So now he was left feeling both silently fuming and agitated. He allowed himself to look at the girl's face once more before he stormed off in the opposite direction, and according to the look on her face, it would seem she was feeling just as agitated and annoyed as he was.

Sookie's mouth fell open as she watched the Viking Eric storm away from her rudely, his arms swinging at his sides furiously. He hadn't even let her talk to him about her mind-reading abilities. She had no idea what his problem was. If he was as offended as he seemed over her having accepted a ride from Godric instead, then wasn't that childish of him? Never had she met a man who was similarly as irritating as he was confusing.

She sighed heavily in annoyance as she looked around at all of his men.

She was sick and tired of arguing with the man who was supposed to be her husband soon. It was a shame her Grandfather had expected her to be with someone who, quite obviously, she was incompatible with. All they had seemed to do since their very first meeting, was argue and bicker. Sookie was so exhausted of it now.

She just wanted them to get along now. It would have certainly made things easier.

She knew how to be nice when she wanted to be. She just had to try her very hardest not to lose her short-temper on him. As distasteful it was for her, she realized she had to apologize more sincerely for slapping him that hard. She had to take Godric's advice onboard, get him alone, and admit to him that the main reason she was so offended by finding out he had watched her in the river was not because it had been him watching her, but only just what his thoughts were, which were shockingly sexual and obscene; Something she hadn't heard before, especially not in her Kingdom where she was born and raised.

She found herself walking over to where his white horse was, and she reached up and ran her fingers through its mane softly, trying to calm herself down and make herself feel less frustrated. She glanced over surreptitiously at Eric as he walked back into sight, seeming to be in deep discussion with Godric. She could tell he was still furious as he shook his head and lifted a hand to comb strands of his hair out of his eyes, and his lips appeared to be moving rapidly. His eyes slid over to where she stood and Sookie quickly glanced away, focusing on one of the horse's beady black eyes instead.

As the night further progressed and darkness settled in, Sookie still hadn't had her conversation with him yet. It was pain to her that he was avoiding her at all costs, and she didn't understand why. A few times, as she sat on the other side of the fire they had made for warmth during the night, she had tried to smile sweetly at him and meet his eyes, only he blatantly ignored her. It was almost as if she didn't exist to him.

Realizing she had to do something extreme, she rose to her feet and approached him from his side of the fire. Even then, as she stood in front of him, he refused to look at her.

So she forced herself to speak. "May I speak with you?" It took a lot for her to even muster the words, but she knew he had heard her. He just pretended as though he hadn't, in refusing to glance up at her. "I want to speak to you for a moment, now," she demanded, making her voice clearer and stronger. He couldn't ignore her this time around, and neither could his men, it seemed, who she noticed with unease focused on her with their eyes while their conversations died around the fire into silence.

It was only when Godric who spurred him on into action by shoving him against his shoulder that finally Eric stood and made a gesture with his hand impatiently for her to begin. She backed away from the fire a few steps for some privacy and he followed cautiously.

"Whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me," she said, swallowing thickly. "I can never go back to my Kingdom, so we are stuck with each other now. I have no desire to continue like we are, which is why I'm asking you for peace." She held a quivering hand out for him to shake, which he regarded with what appeared to her as suspicion. His jaw flexed. "I'm exhausted going on like we are, and I believe it'll be better for both of us if we try harder to get along and not step on each other's toes from hereon."

He peered down at her outstretched hand again skeptically as he brought his own hand out, long fingers splayed out toward hers.

"I do find Godric more agreeable company, I admit," she went on sincerely. "But that's only because I suppose he's nicer to me and we haven't fought like you and I have. That's where it ends. And now, I'm asking you if you'll agree to try to get along with me? By shaking my hand and calling it a truce?"

She saw Eric hesitate for a moment as he glanced down at her hand again, then he moved in closer, his warm hand covered hers, and she felt the calluses on his fingers as he shook her hand vigorously.

"Truce," he murmured quietly. At his hands touch, she saw herself all over again. Exposed and wet, and she grimaced as she wriggled her hand out of his with difficulty. She glanced up and his eyes were on her face, taking her reaction in attentively. "So Godric was being honest then?" he asked her, with interest. "You have the skill to hear what anyone is thinking? Even myself?"

"Yes, it's true," she answered cautiously. "And, that was mainly why I reacted the way I did this morning, in discovering you were skulking around, watching me while I was washing myself in the river. I could hear what you were thinking and, due to that, it alerted me to where you were. I know I overreacted to it and I apologize for slapping you. You didn't deserve that. It was just a... cruel shock to be aware of what you were thinking about my body."

His gaze dropped to her lips and Sookie thought she saw him smile ever so slightly. "I would tell you that I'm embarrassed for you having to know what I was thinking about your body, but then that would be the highest scale of falsehood. I don't care that you did. In fact, I'm glad." His voice was a low, raspy whisper and Sookie felt herself shiver for some reason. "I'm glad I won't have to tell you to your face then since now you already know precisely what I think of it."