There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

20- Laos

TRACK 20

Wash your face in the morning sun

Flash your pen at the song that I'm singing

Touchdown base living on the run

Make no sweat at the hole that you're digging

(Be Here Now- Oasis)

********

"Still asleep?" asked Merlin immediately in a partly sour tone once he made his appearance in the room, flanked by Nari. It was 10:00 in the morning, about half an hour after the end of the call Douxie had had with Alice.

An indefinite sound escaped Hisirdoux's lips as soon as he saw him, after lifting his head in a rush. The Wizard hastily dropped the bookmark inside the book -provoking a small thud in closing it- then the cell phone into his pocket and finally stood up, getting near to him. He did it all so quickly that he almost lost his balance in the process, clumsily managing not to fall back onto the mattress and on Archie by a whisker.

"Wake them up." Ordered the Sorcerer, his tone rejecting any kind of denial. "They must all be ready for what lies ahead."

"Yes, Master," he merely replied, though a small part of him wished he had tried to ask for another half hour to allow the Guardians more rest. Merlin's earnest expression had put him off instantly.

'For being ready to see an old friend, he is not in a good mood...' he thought.

'Maybe it's because Nari has to get out of the castle once we get there,' commented Archibald, finally clear in his mind. There was not even a hint of interference.

Douxie blinked a few times. It was possible. 'If they don't hurry, they will risk being noticed. '

'And we don't know how near or far the other two are.'

Yes. That was a good reason to be nervous. They had not heard from them since they left Arcadia. They could have been anywhere. And they could have been planning who knows what.

Douxie did not even have time to turn around to start carrying out the order when Merlin's voice jumped up again, albeit in a slightly less sour tone. "...Could I know what you went down to the city for last night?"

The question did not catch him so much off guard, especially considering that it was more than obvious that his Master would notice. He had reinforced the barrier for a reason, after all: To better hear both what was coming in -authorized or not- and what was going out... but it still managed to make him hold his breath for a moment.

"Stretching our legs and getting some air..." he ventured to reply.

'That's not a convincing enough excuse. You could have gotten some air in the garden, for that matter.' Archie commented.

That was true, yeah. Okay.

"... We wanted to see the landscape up close. None of us had seen Shenyang before. And I thought I had read that it was the place where they had made a movie set, but I remembered wrong. The city was very beautiful, though."

Master Merlin looked at him with an unconvinced expression, the kind that said 'you're hiding something from me,' and 'we're not on a field trip,' at the same time. He wasn't wrong, not at all. In either of them. However...

He was neither prepared nor psychologically willing to listen to all the criticism that would surely arise once he decided to spill his guts about perhaps allying with the Vampires.

Eventually, he would have to tell the truth, whether he wanted to or not -Because Merlin had to know if some of the Clans agreed. Possibly before he found a whole army in the castle. Douxie could already imagine his expression if this happened. Help. There was a cold sweat running down his spine just at the thought- but not at that moment. Not that day and not with the bad mood his Master had already shown.