…
He had found the best spot on the entire ship! Can you guess where it is? It’s in a place that’s named after a corvid. It’s also the place that Jack the sparrow captain steps off of his ship when he docks in the first book. Have you guessed it.
He was in the crow’s nest. That was the best hiding spot right now. He looked down all across the ship as it was moving effectively through the water, and he noticed something. Aisling was right there. She was looking at the mast he was on top of.
Her head rose up ever so slightly. The move was so ladylike that he thought that even his mother would be impressed. But as he was thinking such thoughts, she managed to lock eyes with him.
A shiver went up his spine, then in an instant, it vanished. It was as if she was hunting him rather than simply trying to find him. Then, realizing that this was just a game, her mind shifted to that of a game once more.
She moved over to one of the workers that was currently finishing up swabbing the deck and asked him something. He simply brushed her off which made the young boy mad. She shook her head a little as if to reprimand herself and then looked back up to him.
He couldn’t tell what look she had on her face, but he was starting to feel like something that only the knight’s accolades could do was about to happen. He shifted in the nest and made to start climbing down, but then he felt a could wind pick up. The ship rocked a bit.
In the crow’s nest, it felt much more powerful than when he was on the ground floor. He nearly was hurled over the rim of the nest. But, he stopped himself just in time to notice that Aisling was climbing up the ladder.
He hurriedly made to get in the nest, but the wind nearly knocked him out of it. Only, the hand of a girl that looked four year’s his elder stopped him from falling out. A hand gripped the back of his collar, and he felt a bit of bile rise in his throat.
He looked back to find Aising had grabbed him and made sure he hadn’t fallen. He sighed in relief that she had been there and had managed to save him from tipping out of the nest.
She pulled him back and he fell on her. The crow’s nest was rather small and cramped. It was fine when it was just him in the nest, but she was here now. His cheeks flushed a little and he stepped a bit away from the slave. Her gaze stayed the same as it always was, blank with a hint of tiredness and exasperation.
He smiled as if he hadn’t just nearly fell to his death and chuckled.
“You found me! Now it’s your turn to hide,” he told her, but he stopped himself from climbing down.
“But can we stay here for a bit? I just want to calm down a bit,” he told the girl, and she nodded in return.
He was being truthful, unlike a normal child. That the boy prince was only eleven, yet he knew the danger of going down the ladder scared. It was strange in all honesty. If he was a normal child, he probably would have just ran down the ladder and fallen. But he was smart enough to tell when he should rest his nerves. The slave girl nodded her head, then she scooted over to the rim of the nest.
Instead of just sitting down to calm down, he grabbed her hand and gently pulled her to the center of the nest. She quirked her head to the side, but stayed silent, letting the boy move her.
Then, as someone with eyes could see, he sat in her lap. This got a reaction out of the girl. Her cheeks blushed ever so slightly, and her wings twitched. He sat on her lap sideways, him being able to look at her from the side of his face.
As Aisling hadn’t been able to guess this was what the boy was going to do, she wasn’t prepared psychologically for it. The special forces turned catgirl was shocked to say the least.
The first prince of the Kingdom of Francia was sitting on her lap. This wasn’t very proper at all. She was a mere slave; she wasn’t supposed to get emotionally attached to anyone at all. The simple fact that she was forming a bond with the first and only prince of Francia was bad.
She looked at the boy while hiding the majority of her shock. He looked back at her as if this was normal. Then again, Augustus had no friends. This might be the first time he actually started to interact with someone close to his age for more than a couple hours.
She had put his head in her lap, so he might have thought that sitting in another’s lap was normal for people their age. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. A boy might do this with his mother at this age though.
“Why are you sitting in my lap my lord?” she asked the first prince.
He tilted his head to the side, “Why not? Are we not friends?”
This question made sense to Aisling, but it was going to be hard for her to answer. She would not consider them friends. She was just a slave after all, a person who could be bought and sold; and he was a prince, a member of royalty.
“My lord, I do not know if a slave and a royal can be considered friends. We have just met, and you don’t even now this one all too well,” she told the prince.
The first prince looked a little dejected at that answer. It seemed that he really wanted a friend after all. He was the first prince at the end of the day; he couldn’t afford to make friends with commoners or the riff raff.
Even the noble children weren’t allowed to be near him. His dad didn’t trust the rest of the noble families even if they were related to the royal family in some way, such as the duke of Aquitaine. It was honestly really strange how paranoid he was.
“Well, then do you know what your master the duke is getting me for my birthday?” he asked with hope; he really wanted someone to call a friend.
Aisling answered him with a slightly saddened face, “I am afraid I do not know the answer to that my lord.”
It seemed to him that she was genuinely sad that she didn’t know what her master was getting him for his birthday. But honestly, that was fine. He simply asked the question to move on from the somber mood that had encompassed them.
“May we get down from here, my lord?” she finally asked Augustus and he nodded in the affirmative.
As he got out of Aisling’s lap, he directed her to start hiding as he covered his eyes with his hands and spun around a couple of times. This was to make sure that he didn’t guess where she was going to hide. But it was also to hide that slight blush he had from seeing up her skirt.
…
