The Ghost of a Prince

Chapter 27

Emrys froze for a second, leaning forward to see the lake once again. "What if I wasn't the one who was wronged? I could be running away from justice."

The woman rose an eyebrow. "Just come" she said. "I don't tend to give away my sympathy with such ease."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Valerie, Audrey, Gabriel and Iman were hanging on Valerie's kitchen. The box of pizza that was on the edge of the table was from a place Iman suggested, after she said she couldn't eat from the place Valerie usually ordered. There were a bunch of notebooks between them. Valerie cleaned her fingers with a napkin before passing her notebook with the answers of her biology questionnaire to Iman.

The beginning of December had the cold weather become more noticeable with each passing day. Valerie had never been particularly fond of the season. This year it also served as a reminder that she wouldn't be able to afford visiting her family for the holidays. When it came to school, it was the perfect time for teachers to bombard the students with assignments before the upcoming break began.

"And the whole thing was a mess." Valerie explained, standing and passing an piece of pizza to Audrey and another to Iman. Audrey and Gabriel smiled at each other, with the boy pretending to steal her piece.

"They asked me some questions about literature, and chemistry and math and they asked me the usual." she rose her eyebrows "'What do you do on your free time?' so I had to put by best face and say 'I'm deeply involved in community service, I like to aid others and use my skills in a way that's beneficial to the people around me'." she rolled her eyes.

"I also told them the whole fencing thing." she added. "I skipped over the fact that I haven't actually won anything in a couple of years, but they don't need to know that." Iman laughed.

"I assume saying 'I fight deadly knights' is not an acceptable answer." The girl pointed, scribbling the questions on her notebook.

"They would have probably assumed I'd gone mental." Valerie sighed, taking Gabriel's Spanish notebook and grabbing a pencil. "Hey, have you seen that video of that girl with a sword beating two knights? That was me!" she pointed at herself with a fake wide smile.

"That'd be counterproductive if they did believe her." Audrey began, eyebrows pressed together at a math question. "They might assume Valerie is attracting the knights and that she's a potential danger to other students."

"I mean, she kinda is." Gabriel shrugged.

"I am not a danger to anyone." Valerie scoffed, putting a small 'x' on one of Gabriel's questions. Three pairs of eyes glared at her amused. "Don't look at me like that."

"Sorry, sorry." Iman laughed, hands risen in mocked surrender.

"So, is it official?" Gabriel questioned, taking his notebook back from Valerie and erasing the answers she had crossed. "Will you be befriending the rich kids now?"

Audrey elbowed him lightly. Valerie laughed as he lifted his hands in defeat.

"I'm just asking." Gabriel laughed. "Someone has to support all of us,"

"Don't talk like that, what if with them the whole thing about being descended from Arthur gets to her head?" Audrey said in a low lament, erasing something from her notebook. "She's going to be the most popular girl over there, 'Oh, who does my family have connections to? Arthur Pendragon of course, you might have heard of him.'"

"Can you imagine that? She might abandon us and get with richer friends." Iman put her head on hand and sighed, cleaning a pretend tear from her eyes. "She'll see us in the street and ignore us and put that 'I smelt something face' rich people put'."