• When Clare woke up a hand was over her mouth
    “hmhssh!” was her muffled yell. She looked up and saw Elizabeth with a finger to her mouth to tell her to shush. After two more seconds or so the hand came off. She instinctively moved away from whoever it was. Turning around she saw the mysterious man from the manor.
    “Hello my name is Leo.” He gave a nod to both of them.
    Clare frowned ‘why is he here?’ she thought to herself.
    “What are your names?” Leo asked both of them.
    “My name is Elizabeth, and she,” Elizabeth pointed to Clare. “…is Clare.”
    “Nice to meet you.” Leo said, but Clare wasn’t paying much attention because she was digging for a loaf of bread she had saved from a dinner or two ago. Finally finding it, it was a bit stale but hey bread is bread.

    After Clare finished her bread she looked up to see Leo looking around.
    “What you looking at?” Clare asked shyly.
    “Trying to remember where a deer path I found was.” He replied still looking around.
    Looking over Clare saw Elizabeth just finished her bread.
    “Ready to go back to the manor?” Clare asked
    “I wouldn’t go back there,” Leo said before Elizabeth could then continued,” Most of the knights were dead when I left and the thieves were still going strong.”
    “Where do we go then? We have never been this far from the manor, we have lived there our whole lives!” Elizabeth said getting worried.
    “Well I found a deer trail and I that would lead to a river and a-” Leo was interrupted
    “Okay we know you’re intelligent so let’s go.” Elizabeth said.
    Clare was still shocked that she couldn’t move. She had lived at the manor her whole life and when she went into the woods it wasn’t very far, only until she almost couldn’t see the manor but this she could be miles away. It scared her but she couldn’t go back could she?
    “Are you coming, or are you waiting for a fairy ring?” Elizabeth teased.
    ‘I definitely wouldn’t want that’ Clare thought.

    Hours later they still hadn’t emerged from the forest and it was almost noon with the sun high in the sky.
    “Do you think we will ever get out of this forest or is Hedley Kow playing tricks on us?” Clare asked.
    “Who is this Hedley Kow you speak of?” Leo asked with a frown.
    “Why you don’t know?!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “He is a faery sort of creature who plays tricks on people. One famous encounter was when a woman was picking up sticks and-”
    She was cut of by the trees stopping abruptly and turning in a meadow…only thing was it was full of the kings army.
    “Who goes there?” A Guard bellowed. Before one of them could answer, Leo turned and ran. The guards seeing Leo run now thought they were thieves or enemy’s of the king and started to run at them drawing their swords. Clare and Elizabeth were too shocked to move so they just stood there until they had surrounded them.
    “Who’s side?” A guard asked again.
    “The king’s.” Elizabeth said in a small voice.
    “State your names.” Another said.
    “Elizabeth and Clare.” Clare said working up her courage.
    “And who was your companion that ran away.” The girls waited a second not knowing what to say.
    “His name was Leo.” Clare said hoping he wasn’t some type of bandit that was well known.
    “And which side was he on?” He said with a smirk.
    “We don’t know.” Elizabeth said shrinking down with fear.
    “Well we are gonna have to-” He was cut off when a messenger came up to him and told him something in a hushed tone.
    “Really?” The guard said back to him with a sinking face.
    “Yes Sir Rumble, he thinks it is the Prince.” The messenger continued on, “And he thinks the King would probably like to question them.”
    “Well tell him I will be on my way with the twits.” The messenger gave a nod then ran off towards one of the bigger tents set up.
    “Follow me, you girls have some explaining to do the King.” The guard said motioning the others to form a circle around them, and stated to walk back to camp.

    Clare was put on horse and she started a bumpy ride to the castle….
    Clare slowly came back to reality and stared back into the king’s eyes.
    “They then brought me here and dumped me into the dungeon.” Clare said finishing up the past.
    “I have one more question… Clare, is that your name?” The King asked her.
    She just remembered he didn’t know her name at all.
    “Yes your majesty, it is.” She replied shyly.
    “So Clare what do you think of dragons?” The King rose his eyebrows in interest to what her answer would be.
    “Well with honesty I think they are very wise and noble. They know we are no friends so they fight us and try to hide, but we still hunt them, for quests to prove ourselves. I think they feel a great sadness for that because I don’t think they attacked us first I think we did. If I ever got to talk to a dragon I would ask it if it really wanted to hurt all of us because it’s its nature or because of how we have treated.” Clare finished with a sigh knowing that the king would now probably put her in the stocks or have her killed.
    “Very interesting,” The king looked perplexed. “ Sir Brandon could you lead her to the servants room?” He relaxed a bit in his throne and closed his eyes for a second.
    “Yes your majesty.” Sir Brandon replied, he walked past her and went through a side door she followed at shut the door with a hollow click. They walked down a lot of stairs and through long hallways until they got to a big room full with small bags of straw and blankets. She went in a sat down on the ground.