je t'aime Means I Love You

I began to shiver from the cold, and lifted the small boy into my arms. He was still shaking violently even with my warm wrap around him, so I hurried to get him back inside opting for the main entrance to the castle instead of going up the tower which was faster to get pack to my room, but longer outside. As I opened the huge wooden doors of the castle I looked over my shoulder, and saw that every guard in the courtyard was staring at me and my lack of dress, for the first time I felt insecure in my own home. I rushed inside refocusing on the shaking boy in my arms.

When I was inside I was met with even more stares. I walked over to a guard by the door whose eyes grew big at my approach. "Tell my hand maid to come up to my room immediately with warm bath water, and Some of the Princes warmest clothes..... Now!" I said. He rushed off to go and get her, and I walked up the main staircase until I reached the top floor, and turned down the hallway with my door at the end of it. The boy in my arms was shivering a little less violently, but still he was freezing and if I didn't get him warm soon he would get hypothermia.

 I looked down at him nervously, and saw that his lips were an icy blue, and he had no color in his face. The only thing that told me he was still alive was his violent shuddering. I rubbed his face, and whispered, "Open your eyes, please? Please open your eyes." I kissed his eyelids as I rushed down the hallway in a mad dash to get to my room where I could get him in front of the fire.

 When I kissed his little eyelids they fluttered open startled, and I smiled down at him. He was still shaking so hard that he couldn't talk so I spoke to him desperate to keep him awake. "I'm Avalon; it is so nice to meet you! Do you know where you are? You are the only boy in the whole kingdom who has ever been in the princesses' room, but if you want to tell everyone you have to stay awake. You have to keep looking at me." I said smiling down at him. I burst into my room at the end of the hall finally, and rushed over to the fire.

I rubbed his arms to try to warm them, and held his hands in between mine. They felt like tiny ice cubes, and I was sure that if I wasn't careful his little fingers would break they were so brittle, and he was shaking so hard. I heard a quiet knock on my door, and the maid walked into the room carrying a huge bucket of steaming water, and some of my little brothers warmest clothes. As soon as she saw the little boy shuddering and freezing in my arms she gasped and almost dropped the hot water everywhere.

She walked over to me and placed the water next to me on the floor. "I think we should warm him up slowly so we don't send him into shock with the sudden change in temperatures..." She said, pulling a cloth out of the pile of clothes. She dipped it in the hot water and motioned for me to let go of this little boy's hands. I slowly and gently loosened my grip on his shaking hands and suddenly, with a grip like a vice he clutched my fingers with his small one's and he would not let go.

I looked up at the maid desperately, and she sighed in response and wrapped the cloth around both of our hands covering them in the scorching water. "Why on earth did you save this poor boy?" She asked me quietly as she held the cloth around our hands. "He is inches from death, or he was when you saved him."

Slowly his hands became the same temperature as mine, and she removed the cloth. "Because I would want someone else to do he same thing for me." I whispered in response to her question. "Even if I was a centimeter from death." The maid nodded slowly with a look of deep thought on her face, and she re dipped the cloth in the bucket of water, then slowly draped it over his feet and carefully massaged the warm cloth into his feet and toes.

"A-A-Ava-Ava-Avalon-" I whipped my head down to look at the little boy in my arms. He was moving his lips silently trying to say my name again. I nodded.

"Yes, I am Avalon. Who are you?" I asked him. A huge tear welled up in his eye as he looked up at me. I could feel my eyes grow wide, and confusion grip my mind. Why was he about to cry? I heard the maid in the background wet the cloth again, and rub his legs with it. I motioned for her to hand the cloth to me, and she complied placing the hot cloth in my hand.

Gently I touched it to his ears and face, warming his face up so he could speak to me without chattering as badly. "Please don't send me back out into the cold. I'm begging you. Please don't make me leave!" He burst into tears. I pulled him closer to me cradling him like a baby in my arms, and dropped the cloth because he had all but stopped shaking.

"No, I'm going to let you get all warm, and you will stay here." I said comfortingly to him rubbing circles into his back to comfort him. I looked up at the maid panicked, what was I supposed to do, my father would never let him stay in the castle. She shook her head at me and shrugged her shoulders.

"Avalon Briars!" I heard me father's voice boom down the hallway. I didn't even have time to panic before he was beating down my door. He burst into the room and took in the scene in front of him. I shrank back slightly at his tall form. He was well built and a military figure with a strong loud voice that had always made me slightly skittish. His brown hair was tied at the base of his neck and ran a few inches after that in curls that mirrored mine. "What were you thinking, bringing a peasant into the castle in the middle of the night, and doing so with only your night clothes on? It was utterly inappropriate!" His massive beard shook at the intensity of his anger at my actions, but I had been slightly prepared.

"Daddy, he would have died if I hadn't saved him! And I forget to grab a blanket when I rushed out of the room. I'm sorry, but not for saving him." I said

"What, pray tell, is this boy's name?" My father asked. I looked down at the shaking boy in my arms, and the obvious terror in his face told me he wouldn't talk even if he really could.

"Christian. His name is Christian, and you are not going to make him leave, because it would be murder of a citizen without cause and you promised me that you would never do that ever." I said with finality.

"Avalon, I promised you that when you were five. You are a seventeen year old girl now; you must understand that I can't let him stay." He seemed to be begging me to understand, which was unusually for him to look any way, shape, or form weak.

"If you send him out in that freezing cold I will be going with him." I said daring him to contradict me.

"Fine, he can stay for the night, but tomorrow he will have to leave." My mouth gaped open as I was about to argue with him. "That is final Avalon." He boomed. I hung my head slightly and nodded. Little did he know that I had different plans....