Together

Prettiest Of Views

Hey kiddos. Back with some more adventures and fluff with Harper and Patrick. I hope you've all been enjoying these travel chapters, because I had so much fun writing them (and I'm determined to take this trip one day!) enjoy this one- comment/vote x
-ab

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February 3, 2026

Patrick

It's quickly realized that early mornings are going to be a common theme of this trip, as Harper and I must wake up early to move on to our next location in our tour. Augill Castle, where we are booked for the next night, is going to be fun, but we won't have as much time to explore the grounds and the area as we did here at Chateau Rhianfa.

It's a lot of driving. If all goes well, it'll be around four hours in the car. We are headed back into England for this stop on our tour. Before going to Augill, though, we are going to stop at the south end of Yorkshire Dales and check out the park, as well as Skipton Castle, and the remains of Pendragon Castle. If we end up finding anything else exciting along our drive through Yorkshire Dales, we will probably stop at that, too. It's going to be good to break up the drive, as it is so long.

I've planned for us to just take sandwiches for lunch and have a nice little picnic out in the park. I know that Harper will be perfectly fine with that, as well.

When I wake her up, she's not thrilled about how early it is, but when I promise her that we will be seeing three different castles today, she perks up a little bit and drags herself out of bed to pack up her things. Then, we are good to check out of our room.

On the road, Harper turns on her music to try to wake her up. It sounds a whole lot like the 25th anniversary cast album from Les Miserables, which causes me to giggle.

"Only you, Harper Alwyn, could love a show so much that you could be in it for a year and still want to listen to the music on the daily."

"For the record, it's been about a week."

"Oh, okay. That makes it so much better," I state.

"Shut up," she mutters, clearly stifling a laugh. "So, what's the plan for today?"

"It's still a surprise," I reply, pursing my lips to indicate that I have no plans of revealing anything.

It's quite a long drive, but we eventually reach our first stop, at Skipton Castle, which is really cool. I'll be the first to admit that. Harper seems to be instantly taken with it, though.

"Oh, Patrick," she gasps, looking up at the looming stone building in front of her, "it's gorgeous."

"I figured that you'd like it," he tells me with a smile. "So, what do you say we go explore?"

With a nod, Harper grabs my hand and starts to run towards the building.

We walk around the grounds for probably an hour, exploring everything, inside and outside of the castle. Harper takes lots of pictures, and I make sure to snap some of her, both candid and posed.

"Are you ever going to get tired of castles?" I ask her with a laugh.

"Probably not," she giggles. "They have been my favourite ever since I was a little kid. I can't even count how many times I've been out to Windsor Castle, but I love it so much, every time."

"That's good," I laugh. "If you weren't an actress, I think that you'd be some sort of castle historian, god."

"Probably," she acknowledges with laughter. "But I'm glad that I ended up where I did."

"If not, you'd probably be stuck in university still, working towards, like, a doctorate degree so that you could be a professor, because honestly, what else would one do with a degree in history?"

"Maybe I'd be a tour guide at a castle. Do you think that they'd let me be one of those people at the Tower Of London who dresses up and tells people stories?"

"Aren't those all men? Besides, isn't their title a 'beefeater?' Need I remind you that you don't eat beef?" I let out a cheeky giggle at my own joke.

"I'm not sure," she giggles. "It really has been a while since I've been to the Tower."

"We should go someday," I suggest. "I mean, it's almost a castle, and it's such a quick tube ride from our flat."

"That sounds like it would be a lot of fun," Harper replies.

After only a few more minutes of exploring, I suggest that we head back to the car. "I thought that we could go into Yorkshire Dales for a picnic lunch."

"That's perfect," Harper tells me. "How much longer until we get to the final destination?"

"Well, we have to drive through all of Yorkshire Dales, then one more stop. We should arrive there around dinnertime. We are just going to eat in the dining room there."

"Perfect," she repeats. "I can't believe that you organized this."

"Believe me, a lot of it was the tour company that I worked with. They were fabulous," I laugh.

"Either way, you're the one responsible for making it happen."

"I just wanted to put a smile on your face," I admit. "It's been crazy for you recently, especially with your dad and all..."

"Yeah. That reminds me, I should ring him. Is that alright?"

"Be my guest."

Harper pulls her phone out of the auxiliary cord and rings her parents.

As she is talking, I listen to her part of the conversation and look around at the gorgeous scenery throughout the park. Every now and then, there are signs pointing drivers in the direction of certain attractions, but I know that I need to continue going due north.

Harper talks with her parents for nearly half an hour. It helps the ride to go by quickly, and before I know it, we have made it to our next stop: Pendragon Castle. Or, what remains of it, I suppose.

Harper and I walk over to the stone foundation, from what was once a glorious building, and she observes it all closely. "I wonder why it fell."

"I'm not sure. It's super old, though. Probably just age sent it into ruins," I shrug. "I'd bet that you could google it."

"Maybe tonight."

We don't spend nearly as long looking at the ruins of Pendragon as we did at Skipton. After only fifteen minutes or so, we find ourselves back in the car, headed towards Augill Castle, our final destination. It's quite a short drive, so we are there before we know it, hungry and exhausted from all of our fun adventures today.