The Princess Knight by: Tauriel Rogers

Chapter 38

"How was your little, shall we say adventure?" Lydia asked teasingly.

"Most tiring and stressful. Who knew it would be so hard to find someone?" the princess said.

"Did you meet anyone that was note worthy?" her Maid wanted to know.

"Funny you should ask because I did; I met the one that they call an island dream," Alice retold her tale and Maid Lydia sat, attentively listening to every detail.

"He kissed you?!" Lydia gasped baffled. Alice nodded with a small smile on her face.

"He is certainly something else, but he is no Captain Riley," Alice quickly made the observation.

"As soon as the King ordered for someone to go out looking for you, Derek immediately prepared his horse before anyone could object. He was so worried about you! We all were," her Maid explained.

"I found Hue's son or at least where he will be when he comes back from the sea."

"Hue will be most happy," Lydia smiled, her face slowly turning into a frown. "Maybe one day I can be reunited with my family."

"Where did you go? Why did you go?" Queen Rosalind asked concerned at breakfast the following morning.

"I was helping a friend," Alice said coldly, putting her elbow on the table.

"What have I told you about putting your elbow on the table?" her mother scolded.

"To not to," the princess mumbled, adjusting her arm.

"Since when do you have friends?" the Queen asked confused.

"Since I started tra-I mean since I started going to the market," Princess Alice caught herself. Queen Rosalind raised an eyebrow. Alice looked down and continued eating her morning meal. The King glanced between the two of them, noticing Alice's nervous expression. Her mother thankfully didn't question her further. After breakfast, the princess felt the desire for another training session. Derek was busy teaching Thomas a new move. "Princess! What can we teach ya today?" Larry asked politely.

"Derek was planning on having me try on some armor today so I could train in that."

"Ready for the full experience now are you?" he teased. "Hmm, I don't know if we have armor small enough for you, but I'll see what I can find." Alice followed him into the armory and accepted the leg, shin, and arm armor. "I think this about your size," Larry said, holding up a piece of chest armor to Alice. "And you'll need these to," he held out shoulder armor.

"Thanks," Alice said, trying to balance the weight of the pile of armor in her hands. She took the pile outside by the watering hole and began putting her shin and leg armor on, knowing it was the easiest one to put on. Then the princess put her arms through the long piece of arm armor and tied it up. Next was the chest armor. Alice found no difficulty tying the sides up to where they would fit her body, but the shoulder armor was tricky; she had to crane her neck uncomfortably to see where she needed to tie it.

"Alice," she looked up and saw Larry throw two more armored pieces her way and caught them before they hit the ground, "Those are important as well." Alice looked them over and recognized them as bracers. She got them on easily enough, but trying to tie them was hard.

"Need some help with that?" Jacob teased. Alice laughed to herself as she held her arm out for him. "I can never seem to tie these darn things by myself either," Jacob said.

"Is all armor this uncomfortable?" she asked. Jacob chuckled.

"And here I thought you were going to complain about the weight of the armor. No, it's because your a girl, but Captain Riley is still working with the blacksmith to get armor made for you."