Robber Royale: Fairytale of a Thief and a Scoundrel

True Love's Kiss

She watched as he processed what she was saying, confusion and alarm flowing over him in waves as he shook his head slowly. "No...No." The second 'no' a little stronger, a little more sure than the last. Then emotionally, almost pleadingly he said, "Gael...I know you love me."

She laughed once, though it was also somewhat a sob. "Love you? Of course I love you Fox. I loved you as Daeris, I loved you when you didn't even exist...and I love you now. That is my curse. No." She shook her head, a brief ironic smile brushing her lips. "It is you who doesn't love me."

"But..." He said after a time, his head absolutely refusing this foreign idea. "You told me we..."

She interrupted, explaining. "I believed, for a time, that you did love me." She shrugged "And maybe you did in your way...but it didn't last." Then as if adding the last shovel of dirt to her own grave she said defeatedly, "You don't love me Fox...you hate me."

And, taking a breath, she finally told him what she'd been needing to tell him since before their very last goodbye.

"Only a short while before we met, we were betrothed, a hasty affair that had everything to do with wanting to stop the next war. But you have to understand as East and West...well, we had spent our whole lives hating each other, though we'd never met.

"I all but refused to go through with it, sure that you were every bit the blood thirsty tyrant I'd been raised to believe. But my father as well as told me it was my life for the peoples'...as I'm sure your father did as well. So I agreed, how could I not? But I begged my father to let me meet you...see you...prepare myself, and finally, he allowed me to tag along with a party of ambassadors going to your kingdom to attend the festivities your father was throwing in honor of the betrothal...or rather, peace agreement. The catch was, I was not to reveal myself under any circumstances, but was to stay out of sight. Observe but not be observed. Only...I messed up."

Fox nodded once in understanding, though his emotions were masked. "Archery lessons."

..."I was going to ask what you were doing here, but after witnessing that atrocity, I think the reasoning is clear."...

"It was soon obvious that you weren't a tyrant at all, but rather that you were...wonderful." She smiled sadly, fresh tears in her eyes, the word coming out only in a whisper.

"But I didn't know how to tell you the truth. At first, I didn't think it mattered and then, as things...progressed...I was afraid, afraid I would lose your affections by telling you." She shook her head at her own weakness. "And then it was too late."

"On your way to my father's castle for the wedding, you got sick, waylaying in an Inn in a small village a ways from here. You were sick for weeks and almost died, I wasn't even told of it until it was almost too late! I snuck out of the castle in the night and raced to your bedside, climbing in your window of all things." She smiled at some memory long gone.

Then her smile faded and she shook her head in frustration, "But that ninny of an innkeeper's daughter they had caring for you was making an absolute mess of things..." She seemed to suddenly realize what she was saying, and pausing, she apologized to him for some reason, as if he should care what her opinion of the innkeeper's daughter was.

"Sorry...I'm sure she was doing her best..." She cleared her throat. "Anyways, so I took over. I'd wait until she fell asleep at night and then come in and care for you, apply the herbs, change your bedclothes, swath your forehead, whatever was needed; riding back to the castle for the day. And slowly," She smiled, reliving the relief, "You began to recover, eventually able to continue on to the palace, I arriving hours only before you."