The two young royals no w walked a much nicer path along Camelot's marketplace. Alianna had been explaining to Maven how and why she had ended up where he found her. The boy was shocked enough to see her out of the Drakoniel Castle, honestly he was shocked to see her in anyway at all, but hearing her dramatic tale left Maven speechless. He was listening to her every word silently, until she turned to him and pulled forth his input with a question.

"That place... Maven, I didn't even know a place like that still existed anywhere within the United Kingdom's. How could a place like that possibly be real?" She looked up at him with wide, question filled eyes. She looked horribly sad, and disappointed. It was in that moment that Maven realized just how innocent Alianna truly was. She spent all her time learning and preparing for the world, yet she knew nothing of it at all. Maven had been one of her only friends, and it had now been three years since it was decided he was too much of a distraction and that he could no longer visit the girl. What did the girl get to experience if she had no friends, no freedom, and no real-world view? Maven didn't want to be the one to break it to the girl that the world wasn't perfect no matter how prosperous it was, but he had no choice.

"Well, of course places like that have to be real," he started. "The world has to have balance, its ups and downs, it's rich and it's poor. No matter how equal a place is, and how many opportunities there are for people, well, some just can't grasp those opportunities. Some are too sick too work, or use all the money they gain from work to feed their large family instead of to improve their life. It's very hard for those who are as impoverished as those people to help themselves and move up in the world. We just try to do what we can for them. That's why I was there. I was bringing food to some of the larger families so that the parents could eat as well as the children, and I also brought a job offer to a man there who walks with a quite debilitating limp. So, yes, places like that still exist, but we do what we can to make even those places better."

"Oh," Alianna whispered. She was quiet for a while as she thought over all Maven had told her. Her thoughts didn't stop there. She thought of the man, with his spitefully caused intentions. She didn't understand how she had heard what she could only assume we're the man's thoughts.

"Hey, Maven--" The questions still licked at Alianna's lips but she was cut off abruptly by a voice calling her name.

"Alianna Ambrosius! You better brace yourself for a world of trouble, your father is worried sick!" The strong but friendly voice of Camelot's King called out from seemingly nowhere.

When Alianna looked up she saw Arthur Pendragon strutting through the crowd.

"Father, you're strutting again!"

"I do not strut!" The demeanor of a grand king melted into that of an exasperated child. The man walked right up to his son and stuck a finger in the boys face. "Don't forget I have a bone to pick with you, too, Maven!"

"What did I do?"

"I told you that you were to stay in the castle today because Merlin was visiting."

"Merlin's always visiting, Dad!"

"Merlin is not always visiting." Arthur argued, but it was hopeless, he knew his son was right even if he wouldn't admit it. "--and even if he was you'd still be expected to greet him each time!"

"But whhhhhy?" Maven showed his true age with the way he dragged out his words.

Arthur huffed. "Because I said so!"

Alianna felt like she was watching a fast paced sword fight, her eyes going back and forth between the two Pendragons with each verbal blow. She could not follow their bickering for the life of her.

Alianna was just starting to gain her bearings when the King turned his attention to her. "And you?"

"Me?" She asked, wide-eyed.

"Yes, you! Your father is back at the castle trying to pace a hole into my new deerskin rug worrying about you!"

Alianna scoffed and crossed her arms. "Let him worry. It's his own fault for keeping me on a ball and chain my entire life."

"Now, Ali." Arthur began with a sigh. His voice was soft. He was acting the perfect part of the kind uncle figure she had always known. "You know he only hold true intentions."

"Well if his intentions are so true then why does everything feel so false?" She stomped her foot down.

"Because he's scared!" Arthur nearly exploded towards the young woman.  The King was growing tired of the miscommunication between Merlin and his daughter.

Alianna had never once heard someone say her father was scared of anything. She had never seen him falter. He was always strong and sure of everything. She could not imagine her father nervous or cowering. The words "fear" and "Merlin" did not exist in the same plane of reality. They couldn't. It just wasn't possible. --at least that's what Alianna thought.

"My father? Scared? The great Dragon King isn't scared of anything."

"That's where you're wrong, Alianna. Your father is scared of many things, that's exactly what makes him strong. And, well, losing you? That's his biggest fear."

"Someone should warn him that he's already losing me."

"Oh, he knows. It eats at him every second of every day, more and more each time you're shoved further apart. But he's willing to let that happen if it means he won't lose you in ways you can't come back from."

"What does that mean?" Alianna inquired in confusion. Did her father think she was going to... to... die? Surely not; but she just couldn't truly know.

Arthur sighed. "There is much you do not know, and do not understand," he told the girl. "But it's not my place to tell you."

"But--"

"We don't have time for 'but's," Arthur interjected. "Let's go see your father."

The King walked off without another word. The young Royals had no choice but to follow.

"It makes sense, you know," Maven informed Alianna as they walked. "In a weird... kind of twisted... confusing sort of way."

Alianna rolled her eyes. "Thanks for that, Mav. It was just what I needed."

"Oh, come on, Ali. You know what I mean!"

Alianna sighed and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "I know. I do. That's the problem," she muttered.

It didn't take very long for the set of royals to reach Camelot's Castle. Alianna couldn't help but stop before it and gaze up in wonder.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" A young maiden in a rough but beautiful dress spoke beside her.

"Yeah," she breathed. "It is. I'm sorry I ever got the chance to forget what it looked like."

Her name was called by Maven who was waiting for her at the large main double doors of the castle. She quickly shook herself of awe and followed him.

Here goes nothing.