~Authors Note~

Hi! I'm doing the note at the top this time just to explain this chapter a bit. This chapter pretty much has nothing to do with the rest of the main plot, it's just a little sub-story mission that I really wanted to add in! I did use quite a bit of the story's actual dialog in this so I'm sorry about that, since I usually prefer it to be my own, but I liked it too much to get rid of it.

This is a veeery long chapter compared to the others, just because I love putting random details in. As Alexis in Castle once said, "You always find new ways to procrastinate."

Hope you like it and please review, bye!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fable 3. Unfortunately. But Emily is my character.

~Third Person~

The smell of Bowerstone Industrial early in the morning was the same as it had been the last time Captain Finn had been there- Rotting stench (possibly flesh from corpses piling up), heavy smoke billowing out of the factory chimneys and complete utter despair from the workers, though one would assume you can't really smell despair. Finn had picked up some less conspicuous clothing in the marketplace, replacing the red soldier uniform for a beige top, beige trousers… beige everything.

As elite soldiers walked past, Finn pulled down his hat. He had seen many wanted posters of himself pinned up across all of Bowerstone, and although this had bedded him with several vibrant women (all at their places, of course with the lovely Miss Emily at home), it would be rather inconvenient to be executed in front of the castle. Yes, it would be very difficult to sleep with Annabel, not that she was interested. At all. Ben sighed, no matter how hard he tried, she never fell for his charm and good looks. He guessed that she still missed Elliot, seeming as there was no way he wasn't her type.

Speaking of the princess, Annabel, scurried past Ben in a hurry. She was looking particularly lovely this morning, with her normally auburn hair dyed a deep blue in a loose bun, and wearing a woman's highwayman outfit also dyed blue. She wasn't exactly hiding, and for a reason. Being the leader of a revolution meant people had to know who she was when she helped others, so they can pass it on to others her grand tales. She was being worked to the bone by a woman called Page, the new potential ally, whose idea of an emergency is that she wanted to meet and mock the princess. A lot. She also wanted the princess to find Reaver and take him down, though that was pretty much a suicide mission. Annabel didn't want to go anywhere near that creep, but if she was going to gain Page's trust and alliance she was going to have to. This man, who her brother was so desperate to marry her off to, was hopefully going to end up in a shallow grave, should Page's plan actually work.

"Hey, Annabel!"

She turned to see where the voice came from. "Oh, hello Captain Finn. How's Emily?"

"She's uh, good, yeah. She can walk now and her wounds are almost completely healed, with a little scarring. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

Annabel tilted her head, with what Finn had said peaking her interest. "Ok then, what is it?"

He stared deep into her beautiful green eyes, hoping that he didn't make an ass of himself. "Well I just thought if you're not busy, we could head down to the tavern and get a meal sometime."

"Oh," Annabel said disheartened, this conversation not exactly being what she wanted to talk about. "Um, no. Sorry Ben but I don't really like you like that."

Annabel began to walk away before Finn called out again. "May I ask why you're not interested? For my dignity's sake," he asked. The chase was fun, but Annabel wasn't biting the bait, so it was time to call it a day.

Annabel smiled at that, since she knew exactly why she was refusing. She was a hopeless romantic, and seeing Ben with Emily warmed her heart. Even though Finn couldn't see it and was a little fixated on the whole 'bedding a princess' idea, Annabel knew that one day he'd see sense. Emily was always looking after Annabel, and Annabel thought it was time someone looked after Emily. "Let's just say… Emily likes happy endings."

She walked away smiling. He'd understand eventually.

Ben watched Annabel walk away with confusion. What the hell was she on about? He shrugged, and then continued his walk, heading down an empty alley. Three men walked over to him. Relief spread across Ben's face when he recognised the men- Grove, Tick and Jammy were all grinning back at him.

"Hey Finn. Heard you had some money troubles?" Said Jammy through his many, many layers of bandages on his face. Jammy was possibly the luckiest of them all at the fort, with 724 wounds and still standing.

"Well leaving before payday and staying inside a house doing nothing but eating food from the market will do that to you," Ben joked. It was good to see the rest of the men were alive and well.

"Maybe this will help you, but it's a two-man job," Tick handed over a flyer. Drawn on the flyer was a scribbled message with poor handwriting and spelling:

'To all adventureres!

We warlocks, nown to you as Mark, Jim and Ben are in need of two warriors to aid us in our qest to save princess Phrexia! Meet us tonite- when shops close- at our base. Thats Megafun mansion, Bowerstone Markit for all you non-magic people.

We will paye 500 gold.'

"I'll take it, Emily has just about healed, so I'm sure she'll help" Said Finn, reading over the flyer twice.

"I bet she will," Grove side whispered to Jammy. He then said to Ben, "So, are you and Emily, you know-"

"No!" Ben exclaimed. "We're just friends."

After some unimportant chatting, the four soldiers parted ways, each going to their own hiding place, waiting for Swift to send the next message of action. The last Ben had heard of Swift was that he was hiding in Page's revolution headquarters; The other soldiers unfortunately were not allowed to have any knowledge of the headquarters in case one is captured and tortured, god forbid. Ben hurried back to his home, where Emily was busy with cooking something that smelt divine. Emily learnt to cook when she came to the castle, whereas before, she was never taught any of it. Ben didn't have any books in his home, and no merchants in industrial sold any, so Emily just cooked, even though she would have preferred to read novels. Whenever Ben finished a chapter of his autobiography however, she would read through it and spell check. She added in the chopped carrots and was carefully stirring the stew when Captain Finn walked in.

"I'm home."

"Hello, food's almost ready."

"Nice. So listen; I found a job for 500 gold, but it needs two people. Care to stretch your trigger finger?"

Emily smiled at that. It had been a while since she was last able to do any fighting, and she was missing it a lot. "What's the job?"

"Three warlocks need two adventurers to save a princess."

"Annabel?"

"No, Phrexia."

Emily sighed. She knew exactly who these three warlocks were. "Would these so-called 'warlocks' be called Jim, Mark and Ben?"

Ben seemed surprised. "Why, yes."

"Then you should know that these men are insane. Every month they ask two adventurers to help them with their games, but nobody is dumb enough to actually do it! Two people did that job once, actually."

"Yeah? What happened to them?"

"I'll let you know when they turn up."

Ben changed his eye's into little puppy dogs. "Come on pleeeease, we need the money and it could be fun-"

"Okay, okay!" Emily laughed. "Just stop doing the eyes, its creepy!"

"Deal."

~Normal~

We were outside Megafun Mansion, flyer in hard and doubtful expressions on our faces. The house seemed dilapidated, desperately in need of repair, though I suppose being three nerds only interested in board games would mean that the house would become a little neglected. I bet they only ever came outside to post more posters for adventurers.

"Wow… please can we leave, before it's too late?" I begged Ben. Surely he could see this would be a bad idea?

But alas, he grabbed my hand instead and dragged me inside, though I had to admit, I wasn't too unhappy about the whole hand thing. If only Ben wasn't so clueless. "Come on, I'm sure they're not that bad."

Oh, but they were that bad. As soon as we walked in, we were welcomed by three men in long, red cloaks with the hoods up. They seemed extremely surprised to see us.

"Ah! Do we have two adventurers, braving their lives to save the kind- and very beautiful- princess Phrexia?"

"Uh… yeah." We stood there awkwardly for a moment before one of the men, the shortest and most soft-featured of them went to the worn cabinet and struggled to pull it open. With a loud creak, the cupboard door flew open. The cloaked man pulled out a blue, cloudy orb from the cupboard and threw it at us. Ben had barely grabbed it before it fell to the floor.

"Jeez- what is this thing?" Ben asked.

"That is the 'Orb of Interplanar Transference'. It's how you're going to save princess Phrexia!"

"Right. Um, whose princess Phrexia, and what are we saving her from?" I enquired, since the poster didn't really have too many details on it.

"You are saving the princess from the evil baron, who mercilessly kidnapped poor Phrexia and holds her trapped inside his castle. But technically… They are small pieces of cards." One of the gamers picked up the card and waved it around. On it was a young woman, dressed like one of the nobles at the party. "The orb will make you smaller, by the way, so you can fit onto our board."

As soon as he said that, the floor felt like it was shaking, and the room began to get a lot larger, with only Ben and me getting any smaller. Once we had stopped changing size, we looked around. Next to us was the orb, still in its original size, and the game table was so high up we couldn't even see anything on it anymore. It was extremely creepy to see everything supersized, especially when two hands were looming towards us.

"Hey, get your hand off me!" I screamed when the hand had picked me up, taking me to the table. I looked over at Ben, and he too was being carried over to the table. The man had too tight a grip on me, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Eventually, he put me down, and I began to breathe normally.

"Well, that hurt." I looked around. The place seemed nice, with lots of greenery and a beautiful village in front of us. There stood a little sign next to a gate: Welcome to Lightwater Village.

"Helloo… can you hear us down there?" called a voice from above us. We looked up to see three ginormous, grinning faces; Ben on the left, Mark on the right and Jim in the middle.

"Yes," Ben and I said simultaneously.

"Good. So first, you need to go find out where princess Phrexia is, and I suggest talking to the villagers. They're… also made of cardboard," said Mark.

Jim elbowed Mark in the rib. "Hey! It's no fun if they don't work things out themselves and achieve self-discovery," argued Jim. He seemed rather pleased with his string of words into a sentence, and looked very smug about it.

"This will take forever," muttered Mark under his breath.

"If you want us to finish this as fast as possible so we can grab our money and go, we should get going now," whispered Ben to me, quiet enough so the quibbling fools didn't hear us.

I nodded, and we followed a dusty track down to the small village, where we could see little cut-out people. The village seemed very realistic for a board game, with birds chirping and a soft wind blowing. In front of us stood an old gate, which like the cupboard took a while to finally get open. Dotted over the scenery were the 'people' we were supposed to be talking to.

"Where should we start?" I said out loud, talking more to myself than to anyone in particular.

"How about talking to Arturo? He's the one by the gate- OW!" Gamer Ben was on the receiving end of yet another of Jim's elbow-jabs.

We followed a little pavement in front of us, hoping to find another gate. I looked to my left, and I could see the gate, with a character standing next to him, presumably Arturo. He was the image of an old man, with a cane for support and holding a key in above him.

"Greetings strangers!" said Mark, trying to make it seem as though the cardboard was talking. "I can see from your good looks and your heroic demeanour that you must be on a quest to rescue the princess!"

He paused for a while and we realised he was waiting for us to reply. "Yes, we are. Could you tell us where she is?" Ben replied.

"And quickly," I added. It was obvious that I wanted nothing more than to leave, whilst Ben seemed to be enjoying himself quite a lot.

"Well, I saw her yesterday, carried off by the Baron's evil servants, a troop of Hobbes!"

"Great," I murmured sarcastically. I hated Hobbes, they were just too… squishy, and Walter had agreed with me.

Arturo, or Jim, continued. "They took her through this gate, up to the castle on the hill."

Above us was Ben, dangling a key that was tiny in his hand but large in mine and Ben's. "Here you go! It's to open the gate."

"Hey!" Jim called out. "What, no riddles? No puzzles? It's too easy!"

"Oh just give it a rest, Jim," said Mark, exasperated. "Just let the adventurers continue."

"But-"

We let them continue arguing whilst Ben and I open the gate. The key slot into the hole easily, and after a bit of twisting, there was aloud click, and the gate opened. We followed another small path that led us to the Castle. It seemed normal enough, with a stone bridge and a large number of steps to the entrance. Meanwhile, the gamers had made up, and were now narrating our actions.

"The adventurers decided to investigate the eerie castle on the hill…" commented Mark.

It didn't seem that scary the castle, and Jim agreed with me. "It's not really very eerie though, is it?" Jim turned in irritation to Ben. "Ben, you did the tower, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I though you said pretty. I mean, look at all the fluffy bunnies? Aren't they adorable?" By now it was obvious to tell who was who. Ben was the more… feminine of the men, whilst Jim was their bossy leader, leaving just Mark to be the normal one, despite being a gaming Warlock who never leaves the house.

"Let me fix this," said Mark.

Suddenly, the sweet rabbits changed into giant rabid wolves, snarling and steadily walking towards us. I saw blood on their mouths, and they were hungry for more. Both Ben and I took out our guns; his rifle, and my trusty Holy Vengeance. One by one we shot the wolves down as they came towards us, neither of us getting scratched or bitten. Ben had his back to one, and as it jumped I managed to get a shot between the eyes.

"Thanks," growled Ben, as he finished off the last of the wolves.

"And so the hero slew the last of the wolves which proved to be a mighty challenge!" narrated Jim, who was getting more excited by the minute as the adventure unfolded.

Ben, however, was not impressed. He huffed, "Does everything haveto be about fighting?"

Jim looked at him like he had just asked if breathing was essential to life. "Yeah. Story is conflict."

And so we continued on into the castle, with me hoping that this job would be over soon and we could grab our money and go. I was beginning to miss the shabby home I had grown accustomed to whilst hiding from Logan's dogs.

Inside the castle was a room that looked a lot like one of the many factories in Bowerstone Industrial, with a conveyor belt with… "What?!"

"Are those… Teddy bears?!" asked Ben. He had the same quizzical expression on his face that I had on mine.

Jim was once again criticizing. "Teddy Bears? What are Teddy Bears doing here?"

"Aren't they sweet? I put them in," A smug gamer Ben said, being his girlish self, "Nice, eh?"

"This is the evil Baron's castle, notice the word evil, and you put in TEDDY BEARS?!" Jim was practically screaming at Ben now, although we couldn't see them. My guess by all the sounds, Jim was close to strangling gamer Ben to death.

"Hey, Hey, hey! Let me fix this- again." Mark changed the bears to heavy weapon machinery, making the place much more… evil Baron's lair. "You see? Much better."

Suddenly, two cardboard characters appeared on the conveyor belt. It was the same one that Mark has shown us earlier, Princess Phrexia, along with another. He was another old man holding a cane, although no key this time.

Gamer Ben spoke in a remarkably high pitched voice to imitate the princess. "Help! OH, please help! I have been captured by the evil Baron!"

"Oh, brother," I heard Ben mutter beside me. Even he must have felt this as being so horrific, that it was worth more than 500 gold. "We are really going to need a pay rise."

"I second that," I agreed.

"Muahahaa," Started Jim, in a deeper, raspier voice. "I am the evil Baron, and the princess shall be my wife!"

"I shall never marry you!" Said gamer Ben, once again in his princess Phrexia voice.

We continued down the stair to the doors, Ben noticed a something to the left and stopped in his tracks. "Emily, wait. There's a chest here, it could help us." He proceeded into opening the chest. A wizard then popped out. "AH! I mean, ah, a wizard." Ben cleared his throat and pretended that he hadn't been scared by a cardboard wizard popping out of a chest.

As I tried to stifle my giggles at Ben, Jim began to speak for the wizard. "Riddle me ree-"

Mark cut him off. "No, we are not having one of your puzzles, they are far too hard! Look, just give them the sword."

After a couple of seconds, the wizard ben back inside the chest and a sword came out of it, with a dark red aura. I looked at Ben. "What are we supposed to do with this?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't think 'they'-" He pointed up to where the three gamers would be if there wasn't a roof, "-are going to help much. Who knows, maybe it'll help later." He picked it up and replaced his own sword for that one.

We walked away from the chest and continued down the hall to the door. Kicking the door open, we came to a large, spacious room, with the only thing in it being a lever. We slowly walked toward it. We looked at each other. "On three?" Ben nodded. After counting, we pulled the lever towards us, which just plunged us into darkness. We stood there for a moment waiting for something to happen but it never did.

Above us, Jim sighed. "Okay, who set up the lever?"

"I thought you did, Jim."

"Hang on; it was Ben, wasn't it?"

"No, no I could have sworn it was Mark."

"Oh, let's just make something up, okay?"

"I have an idea!" Cried Ben. Butterflies appeared out of nowhere, fluttering around Ben and I. "A cloud of lovely butterflies!"

Jim seemed on the verge of giving up. "Worst. Game. Ever."

Mark intervened at the last minute by proposing another idea. "How about a standard hollow men attack?"

The other two agreed on this, much to Ben's dismay. Wisps slowly began to seep into the ground, and the undead, fit with weapons and armour, unleashed their fury. I just about heard "Oh, for fu-"before I had to unsheathe my gun once again and shoot the hollow men down. The two of us were back-to-back, firing bullets one after the other. It reminded me of when we fought at Mourningwood.

There was just one hollow man left. Muscling together all the energy I had left, I rammed my sword into its stomach, causing it to explode into little bits of dust. We stood for a moment, gathering our breath.

"Any injuries?" Ben asked me in between breaths.

"None. What about you?"

"A little scratch on my arm by aside from that I'm fine."

I looked over at his arm to see his sleeve torn a little, with a small amount of blood dripping out. It didn't seem like an urgent injury and Ben wasn't all that bothered by it, so we continued on through the next door.

The door led to a giant, open cavern. It was red and dark, with a small blanket of fog surrounding us. There was a stone bridge in front of us, and visible on the bridge was the baron, without the princess. By this time, I'd had enough. I wanted to go back to Ben's apartment in Industrial and sleep until noon, not have to spend late into the night fighting to save a piece of cardboard just so we could pay for food and rent.

"What now?" I sighed. It was probably coming to midnight now. Ben, however, looked wide awake and still excited.

"Foolish adventurers!" Cried out the Baron. "Your pursuit ends here, for you will be devoured by the killer monsters of this ravine. Ha!" He disappeared, leaving the bridge open for us to walk over.

"Charming fellow isn't he?" Ben joked.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Come on; let's finish this so we can go home."

Ben raised an eyebrow at me. "So, you think my apartment is home, eh?"

I didn't look at him. "For now," I replied.

We hurried over the bridge and climbed up a steep rocky hill. I continued for a little, until I realised that Ben wasn't following me anymore. I ran back, trying to see where I'd lost him when I saw him to my left picking something up. I moved closer to see what it was.

"Are those… condoms?"

Ben lifted his chin, trying to seem dignified with his reply. "Yes. I don't want the many… many women have to raise a child on their own."

Right then, I wanted to shoot him for being so weird. But instead, I turned around and continued up the hill, desperately trying to find the pathetic end to this game. We managed to reach the top of the hill, where there lay a giant crater. There were human remains placed everywhere, and also…

"CHICKENS?!" Jim was above us screaming at Gamer Ben. I was surprised at this point that Gamer Ben was still standing and breathing, the way Jim was practically trying to kill him. Mark to the right stood bored, waiting for the feud to end so they could continue the game. "You know, when I told you to design something demonic for this level, I did not say CHICKENS!"

Gamer Ben choked out a reply. "I- thought it was time- to put something cute in."

Mark pulled Jim away, and Jim begrudgingly allowed himself to let Gamer Ben get back oxygen into his lungs. Gamer Ben rubbed his sore neck. "I also thought it would make us think more about our relationship with food and that."

"This is not a philosophical discovery of the meaning of life; it's a grand, exciting adventure to save a beautiful princess."

'These men take these games way too seriously,' I thought to myself.

"Why do I always have to fix things," muttered Mark, who then began to move things around.

"What are you doing to my chickens?" Cried Gamer Ben, as Mark replaced them with larger, black-shadowed chickens.

"I'm improving them. There- I behold, a fire-breathing, demon chicken!"

The chicken coughed up a fireball. I sighed. "Now would be a good time for Annabel's magic."

"Well, we still have our guns," Ben smiled his flirty grin at me. I felt myself thaw at his smile, though it shouldn't have. I shook myself out of my dream-world and began shooting.

They were fairly easy to finish, since one shot killed them instantly, but it was getting close to them that was the problem. Every few seconds, a fireball whizzed past our faces, singing hair and burning small parts of our clothes. We finished off the last chicken.

"And so the mighty adventurers triumphed over the fire-breathing demonic, um… chickens, of Doom!"

"Anyway, on they ran, seeking a way out of these dark and gloomy caverns."

We walked out of the cavern to the other side of Lightwater village, shielding our eyes whilst they adjusted. I almost laughed with glee- I could see the end of the table!

We could hear Princess Phrexia -or Gamer Ben- call out. "Help me adventurers, you're my only hope!"

"You adventurers will meddle with me no more! My army of elite Hobbes will eliminate you!" Yelled out the Baron, who was beside Princess Phrexia. They were a long way away, with a wall of Hobbes in front, blocking our way.

"Close and bloody?" Ben side-whispered to me.

I looked at the Hobbes and smiled. "Let's do it."

Swords in hand, we ran down to the Hobbes and began to hack down our squishy enemies. It was good to kill some of these again; I hadn't encountered them since our journey to Mourningwood Fort, at Mistpeak Monorail. The elite Hobbes was much were difficult, and every extra Hobbe I fought the more frustrating it became as they dodged my swings.

I was stuck for a long time on a cocky little bastard, missing my hits with acrobatics. Eventually, I pulled away, giving me enough time to pull out my gun and squeeze the trigger, aiming for his head. He fell to the ground with a satisfying thud and I realized that all of the Hobbes were one the floor, dead.

Mark narrated. "The Baron's elite guards lay at the adventurers' feet! There was nothing between the adventurers and the Baron."

We walked towards the Baron and Princess Phrexia.

"I challenge you, good sir, to personal combat, as I will not fight a lady," The Baron said, and I snorted. In my burned, smelly clothes, I looked absolutely nothing like a lady. These men were just so sexist, if they thought I was still a delicate flower after all the fighting they had seen me do. "However, I will tell you now- I am immune to all weaponry, except for one. It's a magical, dark sword that lays in my possession that you couldn't possibly have."

I looked at Ben's back, where he had kept the sword, oozing in Hobbe's blood. He looked at me and smiled, pulling the sword out and handing it to me. "Why are you giving me this?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "He's being an idiot about you being a dainty lady. And besides, my arm hurts." I saw that the small graze that he had collected earlier had significantly bled out more. I took the sword without asking anymore questions.

"Wait, wait, wait!" protested the Baron. "I can't fight a girl-"

I slashed down the cut-out and watched it fall to the floor. "Lady my arse."

"Nooo! I am slain… ack!"

"What kind of rubbish sword lets you kill the main villain in one blow?" asked Mark.

"Well you gave them the Baron's sword!"

"Yeah, but It wasn't supposed to be so easy to get!"

"Give it a rest. Let's get back to the game."

"Oh, my two, brave heroes! Thank you ever so much, how can I ever repay you?" cried out Princess Phrexia, still in Gamer Ben's girlish pitch.

"How about giving us our money and making us normal size again?" I replied irritably. What? I was tired, and wanted some sleep.

"Alright, let us create a conclusion first. Heh heh, I know-" Ben said deviously, "The two Heroes suddenly realise that their adventuring has brought them closer together, and that they have fallen in love. They kiss and live happily ever after-"

"No, I don't want a happy ending!" Jim moaned.

I sighed. "Just get us to normal size again."

The three warlocks gave up. "Alright."

The ground began shaking again, and we began to shoot up. We jumped off the table, and the growing slowly stopped, and the orb next to our feet. It felt good to be back in the real world. The three men were beaming at us.

"Congratulations!"

"You were truly amazing!"

"You lived! You didn't happen to see any other adventurers there whilst you were at it, did you?"

I put my hand up to stop them. "Okay, where's our 500 gold?"

The men shifted awkwardly. "Uh, yeah- about that-"

"You don't have our gold, do you?!" I accused them. Fantastic- I spend a whole night fighting monsters and I wasn't even going to get paid.

"Well, um," The three dived into the pockets of their robes and pulled out all the gold they had. They counted for a little while, before answering. "We have 72 gold here. It appears that we spent it all on that orb over there." He pointed to the blue, glowing orb that still remained on the floor.

I dove for it and picked it up. "Then I'm taking this."

"WHAT!?" The three men said simultaneously.

"I'm taking it," I said firmly, "And then I'll sell it for the money you owe us."

"But the orb cost us more than 500 gold!"

"Yeah, you can't do that!"

They were still protesting when I walked out of Megafun Mansion with Ben in tow, heading towards industrial. I could hear Ben laughing behind me. "What?" I asked him.

"I did not expect the quiet little maid to do something like that."

I blushed. "I like being paid."

"I can see that."

We walked along quietly down the cobbled streets, with nobody in sight except a few drunks and whores. I was exhausted from all the running and fighting, but it was still a beautiful night for a stroll, so we walked slowly. I looked up at the stars, trying to see any constellations that Elliot had taught me once. I must have been night gazing for a while, as I hadn't realized we had come to the house.

We walked in, and I was instantly comforted by the familiarity. I went upstairs whilst ben stayed downstairs and we changed out of our dirty fighting gear into our sleepwear. I went downstairs to see if Ben needed anything.

"No I'm fine," he replied.

"Okay, then goodnight."

Before I turned away, I felt a pair of lips softy touch my cheek, and Ben was standing right next to me. I turned a deep shade of red.

"What was that for?" I asked, not daring myself to speak louder than a whisper.

"I just think you're the kind of girl that likes happily ever after's." And with that, he went to his bed, and I went to mine.

I had never slept more soundly.