For King and Country ⭒Caspian x Reader⭒

Chapter 13

My spoon clinked against the porcelain bowl, chiming along with Morgan and Peter's while sitting at the breakfast table in the King's wing of the castle. Morgan stirred her oatmeal lazily, her head resting on her hand.

Peter was the only one amongst us who could function in the mornings. He was fully comfortable carrying on a one-sided conversation as he rambled about the things he saw down in the camps when he strolled through last night during the revelry.

"-then the dryad told me she came from a pine tree, and I remembered that there are no pine trees for hundreds of miles from here. Why lie?" He was gesticulating wildly with his hands, and Morgan's eyes shifted to the side with annoyance, watching him being far more vibrant in the morning than what was acceptable.

I let out a snort of amusement while adding a sprinkle of brown sugar to my bowl as the door to the small dining area swung open. Backlit by the early morning light, Caspian walked in. He had half of his hair pulled up and back as he normally did and wore his usual sailor's fare that didn't quite match the dress code of the castle, but still, somehow he looked different.

It was if before he had been some caricature I had built into my head and now he was something tangible, or maybe it was more like hearing someone's name tossed around in conversation, but never having seen them, so you build a version of them in your mind, but when you meet them they shatter every expectation.

"Good morning," Caspian said. The volume of his words conveyed he was addressing the room, but yet, he was only looking at me, his eyes shining with the memory of the time we had spent together in hours past.

My spoon hung mid-air as I watched him, fully aware that I was blushing down to my neck.

Morgan cleared her throat exaggeratedly, "Good morning. Did you sleep well?" I whipped around to look at her and she just shrugged.

"Better than ever," He said skirting around the table to take his place at the head, as he passed by his fingertips just brushed my shoulders.

"Yeah..." Morgan stared into her bowl of oatmeal and then back to me, "We have so much to talk about,"

Caspian seemed entirely unphased by the pointed phrases as he plopped the oatmeal into his bowl.

"Did you enjoy yourselves at the ball last night?" Caspian asked looking to the couple sitting opposite of me.

"After the ball was more fun. Lucinda in the kitchens invited me to a small servant's gathering. That was a party," Morgan said, staring into the stone walls recalling some event from the night before.

"You're saying you didn't enjoy Doran tromping on your feet the whole night?" Caspian teased prompting Morgan to reach over and shove his arm.

The two of them had a relationship that mirrored what I had always hoped me and my brother, Alexander, could have had given the right circumstances. Although, Morgan and Caspian weren't siblings. Since Caspian's father had ruled and into Miraz's years as regent, the two of them had grown up together in Calormen in the region of Telmar, since Lord Destrian was an advisor to Caspian IX and served the regency after. From what Morgan had told me, their friendship fed on chaos. They got caught as adolescents using increasingly smaller objects placed atop Caspian's head as the target for Morgan's archery practice. Apparently, aiming an arrow at the crown prince was considered inappropriate.

"I'm saying watch your back," She retorted.

Caspian grabbed at his heart, "I guess it's a good thing I have a second sense when an arrow comes whizzing at my head," He raised his spoon full of oatmeal up like a toast to the statement.