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The first time Sir Angelo wakes up following his battle with the Kite, he is being touched by more hands than he can count. He tries to open his eyes, but it seems a useless battle. The few glimpses he gets show him numerous faces, dark and indistinguishable against the flickering lights behind them. The hands are hooked beneath his armpits, his back, his knees, beginning to pull at him.
It all happens so fast. Sir Angelo tries to sit up from whatever he is laying on and shake of the hands, but even before he strains his muscles to do it, an excruciating pain shocks through his back and there are voices all around him and the hands disappear but there is… giggling… and he has to save Milltown and he has to see Olala and he has to get to the Citadel to save the queen and he is trying to speak.
“Ale!” he tries to shout, “Olala!” But he can feel that he is barely making any sound and then suddenly from among the strange voices there is one that is familiar, and from among the unfamiliar hands one moves to his chest and determinedly pushes him down.
"Calm down, schoolboy. You're going to kill yourself," Ale’s voice is firm. It should be virtually impossible for anyone to hold him down, but at the slightest resistance, Angelo feels his muscles turn to puddy. Angelo strains against Ale’s arm, his throat closed up in panic. “Ale…” he croaks out, “Ale…I need to save Olala… and the Queen… and the Citadel…. and… Milltown… It is… my duty… I-“
“Angelo.” Ale says firmly. “Calm. Down.”
And Sir Angelo the Strong falls silent. A shadow passes and candle light briefly lights Ale’s face and he looks… firm, unwavering, strong, and… concerned? It reminds Angelo of some of the looks Rilla would sometimes shoot to him and Damien when they came to her hut covered in battle wounds yet again. Her looks never shut either of them up though. Rilla loved their stories.
When Angelo clamps his mouth shut, the look in Ale's eyes relaxes just a little bit, but Angelo can feel the slight increase of downward pressure from Ale's arm across his chest. That's when Angelo realizes that despite the excruciating pain spiraling through his entire body, he is still straining against Ale's arm to get up. Ale's eyes flicker pointedly to where his arm pushes on Angelo's chest and back to his eyes, challenging. "Are you going to lay back down, schoolboy? Or do I need to knock you out again?"
It takes a moment, but then, with a pained groan, Angelo lets himself fall back on the bed. "Good, "Ale says. For a second, his arm remains firmly strained across Angelo's chest, like a warning. Then, he releases Angelo and moves back. Angelo misses the contact greatly.
“What happened,” Angelo manages to get out, “to Milltown?”
"Everyone is safe," Ale says and Angelo breathes a sigh of relief. It burns through his entire body. "But... how? That Kite... He was..."
"I told you Milltown can take care of itself." Ale's voice is firm, but his eyes are not unkind.
“And…” Angelo fears to know. “Olala?”
"That's the little girl who followed you, right?" Angelo nods, pain immediately shooting up and down his neck.
"I don't know what happened to her. I imagine nothing good." Ale's hand is already back on his chest before Angelo has fully realized that he is trying to get up again. "I must- "
"What you must is rest and heal. There is nothing you can do for her in this state." Ale states matter-of-factly. The little push he gives Angelo is barely needed for him to fall back down with a pained groan. Angelo is silent. Defeated. What kind of knight is a knight who cannot fulfil his duty to protect those who need him? Olala needed him. The Queen needs him. Milltown perhaps did not need him, but he should have been there to help. It is his duty. His purpose.
Angelo thinks Ale says something more, but the sound of giggles clouds his mind and then he is gone.
---
The next time Angelo wakes, he is alone. It is still dark, but the light from a candle now dances unhindered across the walls of what seems to be a big tent. He feels different than before. There is still the excruciating pain in his back, spreading out to his chest. But he is lying on something far more comfortable than the last time he woke up and his mind feels just a little more clear. With a groan, Angelo slowly reaches up to touch his shoulder when his fingers find something hard and…wooden? Panic rises to his throat at the feeling and he realizes that the strange texture is also covering his arms and parts of his chest and without him telling them to his fingers start to tug on whatever of the thick, strong layers he can get to.
"Ale!" He finds himself yelling hoarsely. "Ale!"
To his left side, a tent flap opens, but in peaks the face of an unfamiliar woman. Angelo gives her a panicked look as he manages to pry one of the roots off him and he immediately starts to bleed. The woman's eyes grow big, the next moment she disappears, and a couple of branches and a lot of blood later Ale rushes in.
"You idiot, calm down!" He hisses, grabbing one of Angelo's hands to pry it loose from where it is clinging to one of the vines creeping along his shoulder.
"Ingrid!" he says to someone Angelo can't see, "help me hold his other hand down.”
“I'm coming," Angelo hears a voice say, and then the woman from before comes up from behind Ale and then both his hands are trapped and if only he had all of his strength they wouldn't even stand a chance, but his muscles ache and the blood has made his fingers slippery and his arms burn with a pain greater than he has ever felt before.
"Angelo, stop!" Ale hisses, "you're hurting yourself!"
"What are these- these things, Ale?" Angelo can feel his throat fight against the words. "Get them off me! Please!"
"No, Angelo, damnit," Ale grabs back the hand that has slipped from his grasp. "Angelo! I will explain, but you have to calm down. These roots away are saving your life, just trust me!"
Trust me.
That is what stills Angelo's movements. Because he does trust Ale. Perhaps it is foolish, for he knows he does not know Ale and that his sensibilities might be clouded by the turns and twists of his own heart. But he trusts Ale and Ale seems to trust the branches, and so Angelo’s hands still where they are still firmly grabbed by Ale and Ingrid.
"Are you done?" Ale asks, eyebrow raised, but his grip loosening.
"Yes," Angelo croaks. Ale holds his gaze for a second, then nods and lets go of his hand. Ingrid lets go as well, but it is only the hand that Ale was holding that Angelo feels tingling from the touch.
"Ingrid, will you reapply those roots, please?” Ale asks the woman, who nods and immediately gets to work. Angelo shoots Ale a panicked look, but he shows no mercy. "Trust me, schoolboy." he says, and Angelo does. "I'll tell you about whats going on around here, but you have to promise to not tell anyone else about this. Especially not your friends in the Citadel."
“I promise.” Angelo says, and he moves to softly touch Ingrid's arm. “It would be wrong,” he wishes he could speak more clearly, but it comes out as a mumble, “for me not to introduce myself to someone who is showing me such kindness. I am Sir Angelo the Strong, knight of the Crown. Thank you for your help.” Ingrid eyes him wearily, but shakes his hand.
“Ingrid,” she says curtly. “Thank me by sticking to your promise.”
“I will.” Angelo says and Ingrid nods.
She lets go of his hand and gets to work on the roots hanging from his arms. When he looks back at Ale, Angelo can't read the look in his eyes. Then, Ale sighs and he begins his story. He tells him about the dryads and their neighborly traditions and the camp the citizens of Milltown have fled to. Ale keeps his explanation short, but Angelo finds it hard to stay focused anyway, sleep tugging at his mind. At times the giggling of what he assumes must be the dryads gets so loud he can barely catch Ale’s voice among the wall of sound. When she is finished reapplying the roots, Ingrid stands up. "It's all done," she says. "Do you want me to clean up the blood, Ale?"
"No, that's okay. Thank you, Ingrid." Ale says. "I'll take it from here. Go get some rest."
"You should too. You look exhausted. The others can handle it without you for a few hours."
Ale smiles, but doesn't reply. Ingrid sighs and fixes her eyes on Angelo instead. "Do not forget your promise." She tells him sternly. "One word to anyone from that Citadel of yours and I will find a way to make you pay." Then she stands up and without looking back she exits the tent.
“I find it hard," Angelo finds himself saying, "to learn that our Citadel has caused your people such fear."
"Well, it is hard to have to be afraid of the people who say they will protect you." Ale bites.
"I am sorry," Angelo says, because it is all he can think of.
In the silence that follows, the giggles of the dryads seem louder than ever. Drowsiness tugs at Angelo’s eyelids. Ale sighs.
"Go to sleep, Angelo. I will go get some stuff to clean up the mess you made."
"You need to sleep too,” Angelo mumbles, his eyes firmly closed by now. ”Ingrid was right. You look tired. Not that you look bad! It's just..."
"I don't need sleep, schoolboy. I will be fine."
Angelo feels he should object, but the haziness is making his mind slow and before he can think of a thing to say, Ale is out the door and Angelo is fast asleep.
---
The next time Angelo wakes up, the first hints of an early morning sun peek through the gaps left by the tent flap functioning as a door, casting yellow-white stripes across the thick roots crawling across the jungle floor towards him. He supposes it is perhaps a good thing that he could not see clearly before or his panic might have been even greater than it was.
A soft nasal grunt catches Angelo's attention and slumped in a chair in a corner of the tent, head tilted back against the wall, snoring softly and face slack with sleep, Angelo finds Ale.
It is not necessarily a pretty sight, but it endears Angelo greatly.
He supposes that, lying still on this field bed with nowhere to go and no way to move, there is no time like the present to reflect on the fact that, yes, it is absolutely a man who has him feeling this way. Strangely, Angelo finds that he stopped minding that a few near-death experiences ago. The only thing that truly matters is the way his heart speeds up when he looks down and sees that every drop of blood has been cleared off his arms and when he recognizes the disappointment he feels at not having been awake to feel Ale's ministrations.
So, yes, Ale is a man and Angelo feels attracted to him. Perhaps he is twin-hearted with Damien after all. And while he still feels like that might be a bit redundant, Angelo now knows to trust his own senses and to believe others when they tell you who they are - he learned that from Little Mousey.
But then there is a question more terrifying than any crisis of the heart: what does he do now? Saints know that Angelo is incapable of hiding his affections once he knows that they are there. But in the past his enthusiasm had usually scared the objects of his affections away. Surely, Ale already knows how Angelo feels. Surely, it has been obvious from the beginning? Surely, Ale would say something if he felt the same.
But then he did call Angelo 'cute', right? But he also seems annoyed by Angelo? Just like so many others had before him, and that had never turned out well, had it? Where is Damien when you need. him! He would know what to do!
Although his heart would be broken if his affections were not returned, Angelo knows he could survive it if only he and Ale could remain friends. Or... become friends... Angelo would say that Ale is his friend. But hadn't Sir Caroline once said that he was not her friend even though he said she was his? Angelo is certain that he is Sir Caroline's friend now, even though she acts like he is not. But what if right now Ale feels the same as she did a few months back? Regardless of his romantic feelings for Ale, he too admires his skill with the sword, and his bravery and the goodness of his heart and his stubborn will to protect his own. Angelo would be honored to even be allowed to call Ale his friend.
But what if he had already ruined their possible friendship with his treacherous heart? Once Angelo got better and the Kite was gone, he would return to the Citadel and that would be that and Ale would be relieved to not have to deal with... with...
"Stop stressing yourself out." Ale opens one eye as he speaks up, directly catching Angelo's stare.
"Ale!" Angelo's voice cracks. "I thought you were asleep."
"Hm..." Ale hums, closing his eye again. "I am. Or rather... I was. You're staring quite aggressively."
Angelo doesn't know if that's what makes his throat dry up or if it already was and he only now notices. "I... eh..." he sputters.
"It's okay.“ Ale interrupts him, thankfully, "you're making the dryads work quite hard though."
At their mention, Angelo does realize that the giggling of the dryads has become quite loud again.
"Why do they giggle so?" Angelo asks.
"That's just what they sound like," Ale answers, his eyes still closed. Angelo keeps watching him. "They are trying to put you to sleep. The roots are their work. It is how they replenish you after you’ve lost blood in battle and it is easier to replenish someone when they are not up and moving around and getting themselves stabbed again. Plus it gives your body the time it needs to heal itself, too."
Angelo wants to say that by now his body must have had plenty of time to heal given that it is already morning again, but while he feels significantly better than a few hours ago, he is still too tired to argue. BUt even though sleep is tugging his eyelids closed again and again, each moment of darkness lasting longer and longer, Angelo wants nothing more than to desperately cling on to this conversation and the sight of Ale's calm face. Angelo manages to mutter, "so it's really that bad, huh?"
Ale huffs. Angelo thinks it might be something like a laugh, but it's hard to tell with his eyes closed and he just cannot get them to open to check. "I think it's for the best if you don't know how bad it is.”
“I must have lost a lot of blood if I need this many roots.”
“I bet you could fill two whole men with the amount of blood you lost.”
Through the haziness, Angelo grins. "Begads! Two men? Why, Damien is going to be so jealous!" he mumbles. "Surely, that must be some sort of record!"
There he hears that little huff again and this time, against all odds, Angelo manages to drag his eyelids open just in time to catch a glimpse of a smile on Ale's lips. "I'm sure it is." He says." Now go to sleep or you will never be able to tell your Damien about how your stupid bravery almost got you killed."
Angelo wants to say that that would be old news to Sir Damien and that Sir Damien's isn't his, but Rilla's and the scaly lizard man's, but that really Sir Damien is no one's but his own, because in a particularly frightening conversation with Rilla following something clueless Angelo had said, he had learned that romance had nothing to with ownership, but was rather a matter of... of...
But sleep weighs his mind and tongue down and he figures Ale probably knows all that already anyway, smart as he is.
So instead, he lets his eyes fall closed, replaying that soft smile in his mind like a lullaby, and he mumbles, "okay. Thank you."
And then he lets sleep carry him away.
---
A few hours later, Ale's hand is warm on his back as he helps Angelo to sit up and Ingrid holds a cup of water up to his mouth to help him drink. She has not grown more open toward Angelo, but at least she has not threatened him again either. While Angelo is kept shut by the refreshment of the water, Ingrid and Ale’s silent work is interrupted by the entrance of a stern looking woman.
"Ale," she says, eyeing Angelo, "can I speak with you for a moment?"
Ale looks at Angelo for a moment. He turns back to the woman.
"You can tell me, Aurora," he says. The woman looks as surprised as Angelo feels, although her surprise comes with a displeased humph as well.
"Hm. Okay." She says. "Well, the alarm went off."
Angelo feels the hand on his back tense. "Someone is looking for Milltown."
"Mayor wants you to go take a look." Aurora says and Ale snorts.
"I thought I was on forced bed rest." That explains why, when Angelo woke up a short while ago, coughing and choking on his sore throat, he had woken up to Ale seemingly angrily stabbing the air with his sword.
"Well, bed rest is over," Aurora says, "you're our best duelist and the lookout reported our visitors seem to be a knight and their companion."
At the word 'knight' Angelo perks up. "What did the knight look like? Was it a woman? Did they receive my letter? Did they say anything about the Kite or the Queen?”
The look he gets from Aurora is cold and even Ingrid seems to withdraw from him a little, but Ale looks from him to Aurora and raises his eyebrow. "So? What did the knight look like?"
Aurora grunts, but answers, "I don't know. The lookout wasn't very detailed in his description."
"If we just let them wander around they'll just end up a couple of miles north if they manage to run into the camp. I'd say we just let them search." Aurora nods firmly, but Angelo clears his throat.
"If I may, Ale," he says, "I would not ask this of you if it were not important. But I need to know who the knight is. If they are one of my trusted friends I need to warn them about the Kite. If they are not, I could judge how big of a threat they pose to your people and advice you on how to best deal with them."
The second argument is a bit of a stretch, Angelo knows. Ale just said the knight and their companion will never find the camp. So it comes as a surprise when Ale nods. "Just to be safe," he says. "Plus, it would be fun to beat another knight at their sword game."
Ale grins, but Angelo just nods. "Thank you, Ale."
For a moment, Ale looks at him. Then he gets up and picks up his sword that was laying in the corner. Before he exits the tent, he turns to Ingrid, "make sure he gets some more sleep while I'm gone."
Ingrid nods and then Ale is out the door. After Ingrid lays him down, Angelo stares at the ceiling of the tent for a while. He tries not to think about Olala and where she might be and the many ways in which he has failed her. Though he wishes to stay awake for Ale’s return, eventually the dryads draw near again and sleep pulls him under.
---
In hindsight, Angelo would not be proud of how he responds when Ale wakes him to show the letter he stole and Angelo recognizes Sir Caroline's handwriting. The panic that grips him is blinding. Because if Sir Caroline is here to look for him, that must mean that Sir Absolon is in charge of protecting the Queen and Angelo knows his captain and he knows that he would never be able to beat the Kite with his frontal attack strategy, which means that the Queen and everyone in the Citadel is in even graver danger than he feared and if he does not do anything now it will all be his fault when the Kite finds the Queen's secret chambers, so he has to do something, anything, everything.
He does not feel the roots ripping from his back as he clambers of the bed. He does not feel the blood streaming down his back and arms and legs, soaking him in red. And he does not feel the ground when his body gives out before he has even reached the door of the tent. He does feel Ale's hand on him, trying to hold him back. But it is nothing compared to the desperation he feels to do anything that might protect his people and his Queen.
Let me go, Angelo says. I need to speak to Sir Caroline. I need to tell her. Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. Ale disappears and Angelo makes it another few feet, dragging himself along the roots through the door. In his panic and from his perspective on the floor he can't make much of his surroundings, but he can hear the whinnies of horses and a plan forms in his mind, but then there are hands everywhere, below his armpits, around his waist. Angelo's heart sinks when he feels how his body goes slack as the hands carry him back to the tent. He has never felt so utterly helpless.
He does not cry, because men do not cry (Sir Absolon had taught him that). Instead he is silent while Ingrid and Aurora reattach the roots to his back and Ale collects the shards of the water glass he apparently knocked to the floor. Angelo feels like he might die and the dryads are tingling loudly in his ears and sleep is tugging at his mind and dragging down his eyelids, but he refuses to let it take him.
"Ale," he mumbles. With Ale on the floor, studiously searching for slivers of broken glass, Angelo can't see his face, but the top of his head is going to have to be enough to keep his eyes opened. "Ale, I need to speak to Sir Caroline.." Ale only hums, so Angelo tries again, "Ale, please. Let me go."
"Go where, schoolboy? You barely made it through the door." Ale replies without looking up.
"A horse..." Angelo barely croaks out. "I can take a horse. Please. I need to go."
Ale sighs and gets up. He sits down on the side of the field bed and looks at Angelo. Angelo can't be sure if sleep and pain are messing with his eyes, but he thinks this might be the kindest look Ale has ever given him. "And then what? You cannot fight, you cannot run, you can't even sit upright by yourself. The blood loss will kill you before you have even reached the border of the camp. "
Angelo wants to argue, but Ale looks at him pointedly. "I promise you, Angelo. Let the dryads do their work and in a few days you will be strong enough to run to the Citadel yourself if you want to. But right now, there is nothing you can do but rest. I'm sure your fellow knights will do whatever they can to stop the Kite."
"Let me... let me speak to Sir Caroline." Ale looks over Angelo's shoulder and he hears Aurora behind him. "Captain Caroline has made it her mission to capture every single monster she can find within city walls, Ale. She would burn our camp to the ground before she's even entered this tent."
"No... she wouldn't. Not... if you... explained," words are getting harder and harder to come by.
"How do you know, schoolboy?" Ale asks.
"Th-...There was a crocodile hound..." Angelo tries to remember her name, but his mind is empty. "S-... Sir Caroline made us... show her... mercy..."
It is then that Ingrid and Aurora finish reattaching the roots to his back and he is gently lain back on the bed. Ale disappears from his vision, but Angelo feels a soft touch to his arm. "Sleep, schoolboy."
His eyes are already closed. "Are you… getting Sir Caroline? I... need to... see her..."
"I know." he hears Ale say. "I will try. But if I can't beat her, it is what it is."
"You've never lost a fight," Angelo mumbles. "Thank you."
He does not hear Ale leave.