The Archer Princess

Make No Mistake

Angel paced. Her mind wandered off to thinking again, and she didn't even realize it. She would walk, pause, sit down on the bed with her hand rubbing her chin, get up, and then do it all over again. The time crawled like a slug and she was watching it barely move through the hallway in front of her cell.

She did this a lot. She would also take naps to pass the time, plus she knew it would be good for her. She took a nap for an hour, and then woke up again. She had the left over rice covered with the bowl. She flipped it earlier so that the rats wouldn't get into it. Now that she was awake, she took a couple pieces and placed it in her mouth. She heard the squeaks again from the rats—and bored as she was—she threw a couple pieces of rice to the small crack of rock where the squeaks seemed to be coming from.

A rat came out, sniffed the rice out, and began nibbling the food. Angel watched it eat wondering if she could maybe train one of them to get the keys, but she knew that that was just wishful thinking.

Angel peeked out the window once again. She was hoping she might see the guard again from earlier. She really wanted someone to talk too just to pass the time, but she knew the guy must be very busy and that he might get caught doing so. Instead, she looked at the clouds and continued her examination of her available surroundings in sight.

There was a couple of grass clearing ahead of her face, about 10 feet, but afterwards, it was all forest and trees. The trees went on from left to right until the edge of her viewpoints. A couple birds were in sight searching for some worms and a gliding hawk flew overhead to disappear above the building.

Angel analyzed the birds on the ground. They were a couple sparrows. Angel brought the rice bowl up to the window and threw a small amount of rice as close as she could reach the birds. The sparrows were at first a little startled, but soon they flitted back towards the white clumps on the ground.

They observed the white mass for a few seconds until the smaller of the sparrows took it up in its mouth. The beak snapped at the food, letting the food come down its throat. As if the other sparrow caught on, it began eating the pieces.

Entertaining herself, Angel watched and threw a couple more pieces. She soon stopped and laid her head back on the plank bed to think some more. She wondered what Saber might be thinking by now, that she hasn't arrived yet or haven't given a message or reply that she's fine.

She really wasn't thinking it would end up this way. She didn't know that she would run into Prince Chance with a knife to her back. But it happened. And now she was here.

Maybe I could try leaving this afternoon.

But Angel knew she had no room for any mistakes. One mistake could make a mess of things. She decided to wait for Gavin first to see her chances.

~~~~~

Neil scrambled around following his very own tracks. He wanted to stay hidden while he did so, so he quickly, but quietly made his way through on the forest ground. He kept muttering to himself that Peter was fine and that he knew what he was doing, but the fact that three of the enemy men were hunting him down pushed itself to the front of his mind.

Peter..I'm coming. Don't worry.

He thought it over as if Peter could know what he was saying to him in his mind. Neil's feet lifted with determination.

If one of those men kill him, he was going to make them suffer triple the pain Peter had.

Neil knew that Peter was a warrior like him, but he was one of his closest friends in the world. He knew Peter could handle himself in such situations, but Neil would hate it if he died knowing he could have done something about it.