The Last Dance (7)

Hey, so the timline might be a little confusing but basically everytime the POV changes, time has passed.

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Chapter 7 - Thinking

Celia's POV

"Aunt Cee!!" Maria and Chloe ran up and threw their hands around me. I smiled, being away from the castle was just what I needed.

Annabelle was close behind, she laughed when she saw me buried under the twins.

"Girls! Behave, why don't you two take Coriolis into the stable?"

"Horsy!"

"Come on pony!"

"To stable hurrah!"

"Giddiupp!"

They ran off towards the back of the property with the Fief's attendants running to help. I smiled and embraced Anna.

"The kids are so big!"

"They're quite the handful, they remind me of you when you were young"

"Hey! There was only one of me, and I was no trouble at all"

"No, only when you were with John, and then there were two of you, and twice the trouble" She laughed at the memory. I shifted and laughed nervously.

She looked at me knowingly, Anna could always tell when something was up, especially something involving John.

"What did he do?"

"Actually... it's umm... more something I did," I finished quietly.

She looked at me curiously while I turned red under her gaze.

"So you came here to get away from him?"

"Not exactly, he left early this morning to go to Fief Newberry."

"I'm guessing there's more to this story."

"There is... but can we... maybe talk about it later... like in the evening?" I wasn't quite as ready as I thought.

She nodded and waved at me to follow her.

We spent the rest of the day keeping busy, we rode to a nearby village to pick up supplies and just sat around inside catching up and chasing after the twins. The afternoon was spent helping teach some of the local children to ride horses.

Before I knew it the day was over and Anna and I were settling down with cups of cider before a hearth fire. We sat quietly for a while before Anna finally broke the silence.

"Alright Cee, tell me what's going on"

John's POV

I hadn't been able to find Cece before we left. I had gotten up early and looked everywhere, the practice courts, the mess hall, even her place in the woods, but she wasn't anywhere. She's always up before the sun so it was pretty obvious she was avoiding me, but why?

"Johnathan, see that horizon up ahead? That's the Redwood Forest, we should be upon it in about an hour and stop there for the night."

I nodded "Thank you Sir Corry"

The knights were friendly and we had gotten along well and eased into a sort of friendship early on. Once the business of discussing the problems at Newberry were out of the way we had talked about our lives until breaking for lunch and I had finally gotten them to stop calling me 'My Prince'.

After lunch we had saddled up again and lapsed into a comfortable silence and my thoughts had turned to Celia.

I couldn't figure out why she would have avoided me. At first I was hurt but the longer I thought about it the more angry I got. She had no right to be mad at me, I hadn't done anything wrong! I mean the least she could do was face me, but no, she just ran away.

I thought she was braver than that.

Forget it, she wasn't even worth it, no wonder we've always hated each other, that's just the way it's supposed to be.

I had calmed myself down by getting distracted by the surroundings. We were close to the line of trees now and they stretched ahead of us and to the west as far as I could see. It was a stark contrast to the road we had traveled on until now which was flat and only lightly vegetated.

Finally we left the main road for the first line of trees. I dismounted and looked around.

"Beautiful isn't she?" I turned around startled, I hadn't heard Sir Roden coming up.

"The forest?"

"Of course, nothing beats sleeping under the trees with the stars peeking through, if I do say so myself"

I smiled, this forest looked much larger than the one by the castle, but I had never spent the night outdoors before. "Anything I can do to help set up camp?"

He grinned at me "Yes, come along then, the basics of setting up camp are something everyone should know"

He and Sir Corry showed me how to find and clean water, build a fire and pitch a tent. We gathered up our bags and hung them from a tree.

Though we had brought our own food, Sir Corry taught me how to set up an animal snare for catching small game. It was a crash course that I worked hard at to learn as much as I could. Finally it was time to retire for the night.

"Does one of us need to stay up as guard?" I asked Sir Roden.

"That won't be necessary tonight, the Forest goes right up to the edge of town and as such is fairly clear of bandits and the like. We're perfectly safe as long as we stay at the edge."

"But not deeper in?"

"The forest runs between the road on this side and the Newberry River on the far west. You tend to get people living along or near the water, and you never can be too sure whether they mean you harm or not so it's best to stay clear. But as long as they leave the village folks alone we let them be"

Interesting, so it was possible to live in the forest...

I set my sleeping roll outside alongside the tent so I could enjoy the cool night breeze. Sir Roden was right, there really was nothing like this. I smiled to myself, and started drifting off to sleep.

Celia's POV

"Alright well, it all started on my birthday..."

Her eyes filled with understanding "Let me guess, the High Ball?"

I nodded "His parents gave me a beautiful gown for it and John brought up the last time I tried wearing a dress."

She grimaced "That sounds like John alright."

"Anyway, we got in a big fight, bigger than we ever have and I... uh... challenged him to a duel."

"You did what? Celia!" Her eyes were wide with shock and amusement "Well I hope you at least beat him."

I smiled guiltily "Well yes, but that just made it worse. He made this huge scene and demanded a rematch and the whole castle turned out..."

She cringed "Oh no, you beat him in front of everyone?"

"Of course not, I... let him win."

"That can't have been easy Cee, but I'm proud of you."

I smiled gratefully "Thanks, but I'm afraid that's not all."

"Oh, go ahead then"

"Well, I tried really hard to make it look like he won fairly but afterward he followed me and called me on it, and I got really mad and yelled at him and left."

"Well, isn't that the way it always goes between you two?"

"Yes, but then the next day... he came and apologized."

Her eyes widened "That is certainly different"

"I know, I thought it was some kind of trick, but he looked like he meant it, and then he asked for my help with swordplay" I could feel the shock radiating from her face but I had to finish "So I agreed and, it was the weirdest thing Anna, we actually got along, we were having fun and making each other laugh, and things were going so good, and I just... panicked. I started getting confused and... flustered"

I could feel my face heating up and looked resolutely away from Anna. "And then I accused him of being nice on a bet and got completely hysterical and ran off. He even stopped calling me Cece, finally, and you know what I did? I actually told him to keep calling me Cece" I could feel the tears stinging my eyes, only barely managing to keep them from falling. "And he got me this beautiful bracelet" I held my wrist out for her to see. "And I didn't even know it was from him, he just left it somewhere for me to find, if the merchant he bought it from hadn't seen it, I don't even know if he would have told me. When I tried to find him to apologize that morning he was already gone" I buried my face in my hands. I felt better about getting it all out but just thinking back to everything that had gone on the last few days made me feel ashamed and embarrassed.

After a few moments I looked up and was shocked. Anna had an amused spark in her eyes and was trying to hold back a smile.

"Anna! Who's side are you on!?"

"I'm sorry Cee, but listen to what you just said, John was going out of his way to be nice, got you a birthday present, and here you are feeling bad about the way you treated him, can't you see what's going on?"

"Not at all, you've completely lost me." I thought back over the last few days, and yesterday, trying to figure out what she meant.

Nothing.

"You mean you don't know?" She asked in disbelief.

"Well of course not, that's why I came to you," I whined.

She shook her head at me, "Oh no, I can't tell you, this is something you need to see for yourself"

"See what? You're the big sister you're supposed to tell me" I pouted.

"I can't Cee, and I'm sure deep down you know what I'm talking about, you just can't admit it to yourself"

"Fine! I don't need your help anyway" She tried to come over and comfort me but I stepped to the side and huffed out. I knew I was being childish but I couldn't help it, I felt betrayed. How could she not help me when I really needed her?

***

I woke up feeling no less confused and angry than I had the night before. Walking out behind the manor I went through the hardest training patterns I could to work off my frustration.

I swiped up in a blur of motion. How could Anna refuse to help me?

I swung my blade down and up. This was all John's fault, if he had just left me alone to cool off like usual I wouldn't be in this position.

I crouched low and flung the sword out in an arc. Why did I keep over-reacting? First John and now Anna. I just kept pushing away the people I cared about!

With a jerk of surprise I sent my sword flying to bury itself in a tree trunk not far off. Pushing away people I cared about?

Did that mean I actually cared about John?

John's POV

"Welcome to Newberry, Prince Johnathan"

I looked down from the top of the hill to see the village spread out before me in the bright afternoon light. There were children running around on the streets laughing and sparing with sticks. Linens were hanging from strings between houses, and market stalls lined the center square.

I stood there trying to take it all in; the castle town was nothing like this! Our village was more a place of commerce then socializing. The only children around were the kids training to be knights, and very few people owned houses in the village.

The Knights laughed at my wide eyed expression but I just couldn't stop looking. And the smells, you could smell the dust being kicked up from the road, soap from washing, freshly baking breads, and spices from the market stalls.

"Life is different outside the castle" Sir Corry said voicing my thoughts.

Sir Roden grinned and swung his arm out to take in the view. "This is what your Kingdom really looks like."

After gawking for another moment we started down the hill into town. I was immediately relieved that I choose to only bring plain cotton garments with me rather than the finer clothes I usually had to wear around the castle, I stuck out as it was.

People obviously knew who I was and stared at me without hesitation trying to seize me up. I returned their looks with a nod or smile but their expressions stayed neutral making me feel nervous. Children moved out of the way of the horses and pointed at me excitedly. Our path was clear except for two kids who stood in the middle of the square arguing.

"Girl's aint allowed to play with swords" A young boy yelled.

The girl crossed her arms defiantly "Just watch me, I'm gonna be better than you!" She retorted.

"No you won't girls can't fight, you'll never beat me."

"Yes I will!"

They started swinging their sticks at each other, completely unaware of their audience. Two women, who must have been their mothers hovered nearby trying to get them to stop and looking at me anxiously. The kids reminded me someone... of course, how many times had Celia and I had that same argument?

I covered up a smile, remembering I was mad at her and swung down off my horse. The women looked alarmed and embarrassed while the Knights raised their eyebrows at me, but didn't interfere. I walked up to the kids and cleared my throat. They looked up and simultaneously dropped their sticks.

"We didn't mean n-nothing." The boy stammered.

"It was all Caleb's fault!" The girl pleaded.

"No it's not! Lizzie started it."

The turned to face each other and began arguing whose fault it was.

I shook my head and laughed which caught their attention as they looked back at me embarrassed.

"Caleb says girls can't fight."

"You would never be good anyway." Caleb muttered.

I turned to the girl, Lizzie. "You know, my.. uh... friend... at the castle is a girl, and she can fight."

I turned to Caleb, "She's better than most of the boys too."

Lizzie beamed and stuck her tongue out at Caleb.

His eyes widened "No way, a girl beat the boys?"

I leaned in and whispered "I'll let you in on a secret, she even beat me"

His mouth dropped open in shock and Lizzie looked between us in confusion. I grinned at him and winked "If I were you I wouldn't get on her bad side."

He turned to Lizzie "Okay, you can fight."

"I never asked you if I could anyway."

He grinned "Want me to help you?"

Her face lit up "Okay!"

They picked up their sticks and ran off. Wow, I wish it was that easy between me and Cece.

The two kids' mother's came up to thank me and after that more villagers ventured forward to say hello or ask a question.

Sir Roden rode up and the crowd dispersed looking a lot friendlier towards me.

"Good move Johnathan, very diplomatic."

I looked at him in surprise. "I wasn't trying... I mean I just wanted to help."

"Well good," Sir Corry said riding up "Because that's what you're here to do."

Celia's POV

I had spent most of the morning outside hoping the fresh air would clear my head. I hadn't really gotten anywhere on the John situation though. We'd had too many years of bad blood, that couldn't just change overnight could it?

And yet that didn't explain why I felt the need to see him and fix things. Maybe it was just our present 'situation' that had me all confused. I'm sure once I apologized and cleared the air I'd go back to hating him, and he would go back to being an annoying jerk.

Good, let's go with that. This was only temporary insanity.

Exactly.

I bet that's it.

I made it back to the manor just as the sun started to set and sat under the tree my sword was still stuck in; I hadn't bothered to pull it out yet.

I was leaning back against the trunk when Charlie came out the back and started walking towards me.

"Hello Celia." He smiled brightly at me. I stood up and he noticed the sword sticking out of the tree. Looking surprised he grabbed onto the handle and tried pulling it out.

It didn't move an inch.

He looked at it curiously, like it was a puzzle and tried pulling it out again jerking it up and down. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

I smiled and stepped forward; holding firmly onto the handle, I pulled it out in one smooth motion.

"How did you do that?"

I shrugged. "It's all in the way you pull it out."

He looked at the trunk and back at the sword in my hands, which I was now twirling around, and laughed. "I'll just have to take your word for it."

I smiled at him. He was so easy to like, Anna was lucky.

We started walking around the grounds in a comfortable silence.

"I think I'll be leaving tomorrow."

"So soon?"

I nodded "Tell Anna I'm not mad at her."

"I think she'd prefer to hear that from you."

"I know but... she was right, I need to do this on my own, and if I see her again... I might not be able to."

He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and waited until I looked up to meet his eyes. "You've grown into a fine young woman Cee." He said proudly.

I was touched.

"Thanks Charlie"

He nodded "I'll have Coriolis saddled up for you tomorrow, and I'm sure the girls will want to see you off."

He nodded at me once more and headed inside. I felt better than I had all day and I couldn't wait to be back at the castle. As much as I loved it here, it just wasn't home.