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Caelan nodded and kissed her |
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Adele smiled, kissed him back, then pulled away to finish packing. Once she had everything, there wasn't much, she followed Caelan to the stables and helped him tack up the horses. She was glad to see Calvin doing well. She secured her baggage and mounted, riding next to Caelan at a nice jog. |
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Do you want to act the person who takes Caelan?) Once they finally reached the border, Caelan leaned over and pecked Adele's cheek. "Be safe, my love." He said softly |
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(I was gonna ask you that lol. Sure!) . Adele nodded. "You too." She waved to Caelan, then urged Calvin into a slow canter, bending around trees with ease. Soon Caelan was out of sight, and Adele focused her mind on riding. She didn't want to run into a tree because she was thinking about Caelan. . A group of Day Kingdom guards was training in the forest, practicing manuevering their huge mounts around obstacles. One young guard, named Finneas Huntington, was asking his gray mare to jump a fallen tree, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It looked like someone on a horse, heading towards the... shudder the Night Kingdom, but they were gone too quickly for him to tell. Without thinking, Finn steered his mount away from the path and charged through the underbrush as quietly as possible. He emerged onto a barely used path, and saw, a few yards ahead of him, a shadowy figure on a horse. Finn quickly snuck off the path and followed alongside the rider, careful to stay out of sight. His mind raced. What should he do? If he let him, and Finn now saw the rider was a man, get away, he could be risking the safety of the Day Kingdom. Finn decided to capture the rider, bring him to the palace, and put him in the dungeon. The king and queen would know what to do. At a convenient bend in the trial, Finn waited for the perfect moment to attack. When the rider was a few feet away, Finn charged up in front of the rider, making his horse rear. Finn leapt off his mount and pulled the rider to the ground, covering his mouth and threatening him with a dagger. "Yell and you're dead," he hissed. Finn tied up the rider and put a gag in his mouth, then hung him like laundry over his saddle. He mounted, leaving the rider's horse in the woods, and cantered as quickly as he could make his mare go to the castle. |
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Caelan's hand darted toward his dagger as the attacker grabbed him but the blade fell to the ground. He wanted to snap something at the guard but stayed quiet with the cold metal biting his skin. He was jostled quite a bit on the way to the kingdom |
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Adele made it home in about an hour, but when she arrived, she saw something strange at the stable. It was a horse that looked like Aurora, Caelan's mare. As she rode Calvin closer, she saw that it was Aurora. She had scrapes and small wounds all along her flanks, and her tack was in tatters. Dread grew in her as she dismounted and walked up to the groom who was tending to Aurora. "Where did you find this horse?" Adele asked the young girl. "Ma'am? I found her over there, drinking out of the water trough." The girl pointed. Adele's eyes widened. "There was no one on her?" The girl shook her head. "No, ma'am. Just her. What a poor sight, ain't it? I wonder what happened to her..." Adele let the girl tend to Aurora's wounds, handing Calvin to another stable hand. She trudged up to her room, questions swirling in her head. 'Why is Aurora here? And without Caelan? Why does she have all those wounds? Where's Caelan? WHERE IS HE?' Dread changed to panic as the explanation came to her: Something must have happened to Caelan, and Aurora had run back here in fear. The truth slowly sunk in, and Adele barely held back a sob. Caelan must be dead. . Finn, proud of himself for capturing a possible threat to the Day Kingdom, arrived at the prison in about half an hour after capturing the man. He handed him to the nearest jail guard, saying, "I found this one heading towards the Night Kingdom. He could be a traitor, or a spy. Lock him up immediately. And tell no one of this." The other guard nodded, and roughly led Caelan down into the cold dungeon. He pushed Caelan into a cell, ubinding his legs but leaving his hands tied together. He also left the gag in place. the guard shut the cell door and locked it, then marched off. |
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Caelan walked to the door ad repeatedly kicked the door, the metal clanging around the stone hall until Caelan was exhausted and nearly collapsed. . Meanwhile, in the night kingdom, Caelan's mother was released by nightfall, the king presumed dead from not being sighted in the last nearly 24 hours. The news was broadcasted to both the night and day kingdom and also that Caelan's mother would be taking the throne by morning. Once the coronation was done the next day, Caelan's mother, now queen, called off the truce between kingdoms--again, on both day and night kingdom news |
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Though hours passed, Adele was oblivious. As if from far away, she heard her mother come into her room and say that the night kingdom had comfirmed that Caelan was dead. No amount of comforting could get Adele to turn away from gazing blankly out the window. Eventually, her mother left, but Adele still didn't move. One thought kept resurfacing in her head: 'Gone. He's gone.' More were swirling around, but too many to list. All were hopeless and defeated. Later, her mother came in again to find Adele in the same position on the bed. She told her that Caelan's mother was now queen, and that she had called off the truce between the kingdoms. This finally broke Adele from her trance. She turned to her mother, eyes flashing. She looked as if she was about to say something, but instead gritted her teeth and turned back to the window. Her mother gave up talking to her and quietly left the room. All Adele could think now was how wrong this all felt. 'Caelan's gone, dead from who-knows-what, and his mother is going to start a war between the kingdoms! How worse can this week get?' - Only one guard was allowed to see the former king in his cell, and that was a huge, hulking man named Thomas Whitsworth. He was stationed outside Caelan's cell, sitting on a bench that looked as if it was going to fall apart any second. The leading guard of the Day Kingdom was named Henry Williamson. Despite looking like a loyal and obeying soldier, Henry was a conniving man. He secretly hated the king of the Day Kingdom, and was planning a revolution. He despised the Night Kingdom with all of his being, and when he had the chance to take their king prisoner? Well, he jumped at the opportunity. He thought the Day Kingdom could easily beat the Night in a war, so he was more than happy to hear that their new queen was likely to start one very soon. Henry had no intention of letting Caelan go, and only three people knew about his capture. Finneas, the young soldier who had taken Caelan off his horse, Thomas, the guard outside Caelan's cell, and Henry himself. He made sure that word never got out that the former king was, in fact still alive, and hidden right underneath the king and queen of the day kingdom's noses. They trusted Henry completely, and always knew him to tell the truth. Henry laughed darkly and said to himself, as he sat in the chair at his desk, "What a mistake. What a mistake indeed. |
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(That one was so fun to write! :D) |
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Bright Sunshine with a few High Clouds
