Chapter 1
“Tell us everything. From the beginning.”
Alice sighed, wishing to just get this interrogation over with as soon as possible.
“…Fine.”
Alice was being followed.
If the rustling of the bushes and the cracking of the leaves carelessly stepped on could tell anything, they would suggest Alice that her tracker was a bit incautious, but also agile: since she’d stopped in a clearing to face her pursuer, after hours of careful galloping, the sounds had seemed to be coming from all around her, as if she was being circled around by a predator.
She put a hand on her undrawn sword, wondering who on earth would follow a Godric’s Knight, armed to the teeth, so far into the Forbidden Forest: Alice herself couldn’t tell exactly where she was, despite having to memorise the geography of the Four Kingdoms as part of the knight training, because the centre of the Forest was mostly unexplored, and the borders sort of merged, forgotten, where the trees got thicker.
Come forward, you coward!
Alice unsheathed her weapon, circling around on her horse, but all suspicious sounds had stopped: no more footsteps, or traitorous sticks, or brushing leaves. All quiet.
Alice lowered her sword, still wary.
Then, a loud scream came from nearby, and Alice barely had the time to cover her face with the vizard before a woman rushed into the clearing, limping visibly. Alice immediately went to help her, dismounting and checking for any wounds as quickly as possible.
“Please, please,” she implored Alice, frantic, “A man tried to kidnap me, I ran away but I fell, now my leg hurts.”
Despite the ragged appearance the woman looked overall uninjured, so Alice went to lift the long green skirt to check the leg, but the woman shoved her hand, surprised, and Alice now realised how bad that must’ve looked. But, well, she had to check how grave the situation was.
She couldn’t explain herself, since her voice didn’t pass as a man’s, so she raised her hands in apology.
“Listen, my lord,” the woman begged, holding Alice’s hand, “Help me on your horse so I can rest my ankle, the kidnapper couldn’t have run too far, you’ll reach him in no time!”
Alice nodded, and instead of taking the woman’s hand to help her up, as good manners required, she lifted her (avoiding the injured leg) and sat her on the horse.
Perhaps a tad harshly, but she had a chase to pursue, so Alice ran into the woods in the direction the woman came from, sword ready.
Once surrounded by trees, Alice started looking for tracks: footsteps, marks in the trunks, anything, but that man had left no traces.
She was about to go back to the clearing when she heard a cheerful laugh, and the sound of hooves over the leaves, and then the blonde woman reappeared, on Alice’s horse, riding it like it was second nature.
Like she didn’t have an injured leg.
“You’re naive, my lord!” she mocked, trotting around her. Alice had to turn around to keep watching her, and she must’ve looked ridiculous, because the woman was having the time of her life.
“How fast do you think I can make this beast go?” she taunted. “It’s a Godric’s Knight’s horse, a Red Horse. My guess is really fast.”
And with that, she turned around and jumped right by Alice, swiftly galloping towards the clearing they’d come from.
“Oh, for Godric’s sake,” Alice cursed under her breath, then started running after her own horse. Right out of the woods and slightly out of breath, after a moment to recompose herself, Alice let out a single, loud whistle.
Red Horses were yes the fastest among Nations, but also the most loyal.
The blonde woman’s chase came to an abrupt stop, her face buried in the horse’s mane because of the momentum.
The horse trotted towards Alice, and she met him halfway. She cocked her head at the pouting blonde.
“I was just having some fun,” she began, defensive. “Am I in trouble?”
Alice sighed, then shook her head.
Immediately the woman smirked and jumped off the animal, landing on two (perfectly healthy) feet, and then got closer to Alice, looking up at her as if she could see something behind the helmet.
Alice prayed she couldn’t.
Sometimes she feared her eyes were enough to betray her.
“You don’t talk,” noticed perspicaciously the woman. Alice shook her head.
“Why?”
Alice raised an eyebrow, but then figured her expression could hardly be read, so she tilted her head.
“Okay, obviously you wouldn’t tell the woman who tried to steal your horse. Fair,” she checked her reflection on the breastplate, smirking, “I wouldn’t even tell you my name.”
Interesting. Why wouldn’t she?
The woman looked up, devilish. She was undeniably gorgeous, with deep blue eyes, lips as red as roses and cheeks pink with liveliness.
“I did show you my face,though,” she spoke, as if she’d caught Alice staring. “Could you take off that helmet for me, my lord?”
Alice stepped back, and instinctively brought her hand to the sword resting on her left.
“Oh,” the woman reacted, “You won’t attack me. I’m defenceless, and just a weak woman. It would go against your code of honour, wouldn’t it?”
Alice smiled to herself, because that woman may have been physically weak, but she spoke unabashed, her words wielded like a blade. And, well, the fact Alice wasn’t a man technically went against the code of honour, so her own life was an anomaly already.
She let her hand away from the hilt, turning around. Then she walked her horse towards one of the trees at the borders of the clearing, tying him to a branch. She sat down, back rested against the sturdy trunk, and let her hand travel across the grass blades and the white daisies that covered the ground. They looked so delicate, between her fingers covered in metal.
“Take off your breastplate, then,” the woman ordered, kneeling down between her legs. Now that was improper.
Alice looked up so fast she hit the tree with the back of her head, making the woman giggle.
“Come on. I want to see at least a piece of you, and if the face is off limits, I don’t have many more options.”
That made Alice chuckle, but she managed to keep as quiet and short as possible.
Still, the woman looked pleased.
She leant closer, raising a hand to lift her vizard, but Alice quickly grabbed her by the shoulders and easily jerked her so she was laying next to Alice, going down with a yelp.
“That was no way to treat a dame,” the woman lamented, sitting up. “How about this. Give me a glimpse. Show me your eyes, or a knee, a finger. Anything. And I’ll be satisfied, for the time being,” she offered her hand. “Deal?”
Alice considered it. It was a game, for that woman. And showing a hand couldn’t be so risky.
She began removing her metallic mitten, the woman watching her intently, her raised hand forgotten. Then Alice took off the mail glove, and her hand now laid in the grass, naked, among the blades and the flowers. The woman took it and brought it to her lap, taking her time to study the shape of her fingers, the slope between each one of them, letting her own finger pads feel Alice’s short, dirty nails and trace the freckles, the scars, and the splinters of the back, but also the dark lines and the hard calluses on her palm. Satisfied with the results, she let two fingers run across the palm, up to Alice’s wrist, right over her raring heartbeat.
Then the woman smiled, intertwined their fingers, and kissed the back of Alice’s hand.
“This was really educational,” she began, standing up. “But I have to get home now. It was nice meeting you, my knight.”
She was turning to go back to the forest, but Alice was quick to get up and grab her arm with the bare hand. She pointed to the horse behind her, hoping she’d understand.
The woman looked puzzled, but then her eyes widened in understanding.
“I don’t need you to escort me, don’t worry.”
But Alice grabbed her tighter. Are you sure?
“I can handle myself,” she smiled, and Alice’s grip was loose enough to make her fingers travel down the woman’s forearm, ending up laced around hers. “Besides, if I really wanted a ride home, I could’ve easily stolen your horse.”
You wish.
Maybe that woman could read her mind, because she chuckled as if she’d spoken.
“Could we, perhaps…meet here, again? In two days?” she asked, hopeful, squeezing her fingers.
Alice brought the woman’s hand to her lips and knelt down in front of her.
That was more than enough of an answer.
“So, where did she go?”
“I have no clue, she disappeared amongst the trees like a dryad. I’ll meet her again, though. In two days,” Alice replied, dreamily.
“So we have no name, and no specific location.”
“You don’t need it, Potter,” Alice commented. “Because you can’t go into the Forbidden Forest.”
“But whyyy?” James whined from his bed, where he’d been asking Alice questions about her secret meeting in the forest. She’d walked into her room in an incredibly good mood and with a bounce in her step, so of course James and Sirius felt the need to investigate, and when they found out it was because of a woman they had shown so much interest, one would’ve mistaken them for passionate ladies reading a romance novel, rather than knights in training.
“You’re too young!” Alice replied. “Tell him something, Frank.”
“I want nothing to do with this,” Frank answered, flipping a page of his book. “Good luck with your secret meetings, and good luck with keeping them secret.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Sirius, next to James on the other side of the room.
“We can keep secrets just fine!”
“As long as you don’t get involved, it’s not a problem,” commented Alice, laying in bed with closed eyes.
“She doesn’t want us involved! Can you believe it?” Sirius turned to James, indignant.
“We’re your superiors,” explained Frank, “And that means you can’t get hurt or do illegal activities because you’re under our protection.” Alice didn’t have to see Sirius mocking Frank to know he was doing it, the same way he always did when Frank scolded them.
“And Alice, you have to remove the bandages. Binding for too long is bad for your health.” Frank continued.
“Shit you’re right,” Alice sprinted up, the boys turning around to give her some privacy, since she had to remove the bandages in their room to avoid the risk of getting caught in the communal bathrooms. Frank, James and Sirius were the only ones aware of her secret, it had been inevitable given the fact that they were her roommates, but they had all been surprisingly supportive and helpful.
“Sirius, we’re going on a trip tomorrow,” James whispered after a moment.
“No, you’re not!” Alice answered, putting on her shirt.
“I would, James I really would,” replied Sirius, and now that Alice had turned she could see the two boys were covering their eyes with their hands. They were adorable, despite their stubbornness.
“But I have those bastard thieves to catch!”
“You can lower your hands, boys.”
“I could go alone!” James protested. “Just patrolling. I won’t go too far in.”
“You won’t go anywhere,” intervened sternly Frank, putting down his book. “Especially alone, James.”
James frowned, then fell on the bed next to Sirius, who looked at him pitifully.
Alice felt her heart clench: James had been training since he was a kid, and was one of the most promising apprentices, duelling and beating trainees way older than him.
But a few years prior, just as he was about to enter the second to last stage of the training, he started slacking. He took more hits when fencing, and he couldn’t read the opponent’s moves as fast as he used to. They’d blamed it on momentary tiredness, but it had gotten worse with time, to the point where James and Sirius, who’d joined the knights only two years before, where still in the same category. And Sirius was quickly going to enter the official Order, while James…Alice worried he might be doomed to be a trainee for the rest of his life.
She didn’t know how James felt about it, because he wasn’t the kind of guy who talked about his problems, but she suspected his almost maniacal need of adventure had something to do with it.
“I’ll meet her again soon,” Alice tried to cheer him up, getting into bed. “And I’ll tell you everything about it.”
But she was met with an unenthusiastic ‘mhm’, and soon after James was likely pretending to be asleep.
~
“Oh, Regulus,” Narcissa let herself fall onto the soft covers of her bed. Her mother would’ve killed her, if she’d shown such improper behaviour in front of her, but Narcissa was with her cousin as only company, so what her mother didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
“What is it, now? You sneaked away again?” Regulus asked from his chair, reading a book. The Prince.
“I met a knight,” Narcissa began, but Regulus was still reading, uninterested.
“From the Gryffindor Kingdom.”
“A Godric’s Knight?” Regulus asked, finally lifting his eyes from the pages.
“Mhm,” Narcissa agreed, giddy, “He was on a stroll near our territory, so I stalked him for a bit.”
‘Near our territory’ wasn’t precisely true, but if word got out that the youngest Black Princess was secretly roaming around in the middle of the Forbidden Forest unattended, all the servitude was going to get beheaded for negligence.
“And why did you follow that knight in particular?” continued Regulus, “I’m sure it wasn’t the first time you met a man in the Forest.”
Narcissa thought about it for a second, then shuffled closer to Regulus.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
Her cousin looked at her like she was mad.
“…Promise?”
Narcissa looked at his grey eyes, and found them sincere. Confused, but sincere.
“…He was humming a song.”
Regulus looked at her expectantly. “And?”
“That’s it,” Narcissa continued, “He was humming a song, mumbling a tune. And he was pretty good. Before he realised I was following him, he’d take breaks to let his horse and his feet rest, and he would sing, picking at the grass and the flowers.”
He’d looked delicate, fragile. Like his body, capable of bearing that heavy armour for days, was also apt to kindness.
“I refuse to believe you risked your life because a knight could make up a melody.” Regulus stated, suspicious.
“Well,” Narcissa continued, “He looked comforting, safe. Almost..feminine. So I followed him, pulled a little prank on him-“
“What prank?”
“-Stole his horse. Then I tried to get him to speak, but he wouldn’t even take off his helmet. Why wouldn’t he do that?” Narcissa continued, ignoring Regulus’ ‘You stole his horse?’ comment.
“So I think he’s actually a woman. I’m not sure yet, though.”
“So you’ll meet them again, I assume,” Regulus sighed, and went back to his book. For a young man, he had no interest in mystery or adventure, but Narcissa guessed it was due to his position as Heir of Slytherin. You can’t dream about romance or Slytherin, if it’s already been decided you’ll marry your cousin and rule a kingdom until death.
“I will. I’ll try to get a name, next time.” Narcissa plopped back onto the bed, watching the sky from the window. Thick clouds covered the darkening sky, promising a starless night.
“Oh, Regulus…I think I understand, now,” she sighed, almost a whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“The reason Andy left. I think I can see the appeal, now.”
Narcissa watched as two birds flew about in the sky, and wondered what the purple clouds must’ve felt like under their wings.