A/N: at the laundry now, doing clothes. Got back home not that long ago. Argh, I can�t wait to be able to sleep over at the new house permanently! It�ll be so cool! My room has a bed, a real bed and not one on the floor! And the air duct is right over me! I have air conditioning!

And plus the computer over there had Fable on it, which I�ve grown very attached to now. I don�t bitch about Vista as much now, though papa did get the premium.

And, aaah I�m beginning to forget things that I do with the story. w;; Must be lack of sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

�The little queen is very odd,� said an older man next to Cuchulainn. He nodded in agreement as Emer watched him.

�You praised her a great deal when you saw her fight before,� said Emer, not liking her husband�s sudden change in feeling toward a woman who she had heard such grand things about. A woman who had taken the throne like a king and held it without a problem, who rallied all the islands to the battlefront and had taken the sick and dying peoples of the border desert into her own home and gave them work. Such a woman should be praised, not gossiped about like the men seemed to be doing.

�Aye, but I never actually met her. As it seems, she had never seen me either, I feel,� said Cuchulainn as he looked at the stairs where the odd young man with red-brown hair came down. He had seen the young man take his queen up to her room when she left so abruptly. He didn�t want to tell Emer that something strange had occurred when he spoke to the queen, that he could still feel the faery kiss on his cheek tingle as he had drawn himself closer to Arturia. He didn�t mind taking a lover, but a queen? A queen who was possibly looking for a husband? He didn�t want that anymore than he wanted to be separated from Emer for long periods of time.

Emer watched him and touched his cheek gently. �Cu� if she bothers you, you can say something. I�m sure she won�t mind moving away from you if you feel uncomfortable with her around.�

That was the thing. He couldn�t decide if she made him uncomfortable or if he really wanted near her. He simply felt odd about the woman, uneasy. Especially since he watched her stagger away.

Cuchulainn leaned close to Emer and kissed her ear. She went pink in her ears and cheeks almost immediately. �Cuchulainn, please� not in public.�

Cuchulainn grinned and let his hand wander down her side to her waist and pulled her tighter to him. �No one would notice. They�re all busy with themselves, my love.�

Emer�s small hands attempted to push herself away from Cuchulainn, but he held her tighter to him still. He licked around the shell of her ear and then sucked on her earlobe. She shivered and trembled against him. �C-cu� please..�

He let go of her and smirked at her as she hid her cheeks with her hands. She flicked her eyes to him and went redder still. He offered his hand to her with a charming smile plaster across his face. She looked away for a moment and then took his hand with hers. With that, he pulled her away out the kitchen entrance and outside where he picked her up against him and kissed her hard. She answered the pressure and wrapped her arms and legs around him. He nuzzled against her neck and down to her breast before stopping and kissing her gentler between the soft mounds hidden beneath deep purple velvet and silk. �I love you,� he murmured.

She pulled his face up with her small hands and smiled warmly at him. �And I love you as well,� she said softly, �my hound.�

He grinned and picked her up properly. She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck to stay upright as he carried her away.

Gawain had found a nice woman to stay with, however, and Arturia was glad he had found a woman to woo, at least for the time they were there. He might send letters to her to continue or he would forget the entire affair, but she was glad her nephew was taking an interest in finding a wife for himself.

Also, while she had been there, she noticed the grand majority of the people in Ireland were pagan. Conochbar was Christian, as far as she knew, for he had described something akin to a Christening for his new baby, but he was the only one she had seen that seemed as though he was. Might she have mistaken the custom he described and they were all pagan instead?

When they finally reached Camelot, Bedivere was beside himself with worry, though he didn�t show it. Gawain had to pull him away forcefully as he kept giving Arturia paper after paper after paper to look over just to have an excuse to keep talking to her.

Emiya approached her that night, his head bowed and his hands at his sides. She looked to him, frowning faintly. �What is it, Emiya?�

�I wish to know what had caused my queen to be so disturbed,� he said. His accent was still present, but his ability to speak English was a lot faster.

Arturia looked away from him. �I do not know what you mean, Emiya,� she said.

Emiya looked up at her and frowned disapprovingly at her. When had the boy grown to look so adult as he did now? �You lie. Something made my queen unhappy. I wish to know what it was.�

Arturia sat down on a chair and put her hands in her lap. �I met a man whom I wished to meet, wished to know, but found him already married and happy.�

Emiya�s face softened as he gazed at her. He moved to sit on the ground at her feet and looked up. Arturia looked to him and frowned. �Sit in a chair, Emiya.�

Emiya watched her a moment and then took her foot and unlaced her boot. �I will massage my queen�s feet. They must be very strained.�

Arturia frowned as she watched him pull off her boots and start working her feet. Indeed, her feet were a bit pained, but she was accustomed to it, for she had to deal with it all the time. She watched in fascination as he gauged her responses to his gentle prodding and responded to make his moves harder or gentler to compensate. It was the same way he fought. He did it with conviction and compensated for things that surprised him.

�My place is at my queen�s side. Be it standing or on the ground,� he said softly. �I made a vow to serve and I will serve gratefully.�

Arturia watched Emiya through her lashes. She reached out and stroked his cheek with her cold fingers; making his cheeks heat up more. �Then, you will serve me in ways you will not like, for I do not forgive and do not take the offenses of others.� She continued to stroke his cheek, as though petting a precious pet. �You will do things that you will hate yourself for and it will break you.�

Emiya shook his head. �No, I won�t break. I�ll overcome it!� His gaze was hot and steady, confident in his own ability to be whatever she wished him to be.

She leaned back in her chair, feeling cold and empty. �You will break. Your heart is hot and flows freely; your spirit is like that of my knights, but younger and more tender.�

Emiya frowned. He knew he was to be an assassin, for she had told him before that was what she would have him do. What more could she possibly want of him?! A thought came to his mind that made his cheeks heat more. She couldn�t possibly be thinking of bedding him, could she?

Arturia thumped him between his eyes, making him fall backward. �You are thinking bad thoughts. I�ll not have you doing so while fondling my feet.�

Emiya went bright pink and scratched his nose as he looked away sheepishly. He had forgotten he was massaging his queen�s feet when she started talking to him. He sighed and stood up. �I vowed to be whatever you wished me to be and I swear by it even now. I will not betray my queen,� he said as he looked to the floor.

�Very well, then,� she said softly, �We shall see soon enough. For now, you can do whatever tasks you feel useful for until I ask you to do something. You will need to learn how to stay low and be unseen; those are things that can only be learned while one is doing a task. If you fail the task by being seen, you will learn from that experience.�

Emiya looked over to Arturia and bowed. �Yes, my queen.� He stood up and smiled at her. �Would you like me to cook something?�

Arturia eyed Emiya for a moment before nodding. �I would like that very much, Emiya,� she said softly. The image of Arturia with her stocking covered feet crossed over each other as she reclined in the chair she was in was a most alluring one, despite the fact that he barely saw any actual skin aside from what she showed daily. It made his cheeks grow hot once more as he turned away from her and walked out to go to the kitchens. As he left, however, he didn�t watch the small, very faint, smile crawl across Arturia�s face. Emiya was definitely coming along nicely for what she had in mind for him in the future and she would use him to the fullest extent possible.

He recalled that the people in the ruins covered themselves up so they wouldn�t be picked apart by those afraid of them. However, it made them easy to spot, with their scarves and whatnot wrapped around their bodies tightly.

Agravaine walked ahead of Emiya, almost disappearing in the crowd. Emiya frowned when he couldn�t see the man and pulled the wrapping from his head so he would be able to see and hear better. Almost instantly, someone pulled him away into a darkened alley and put a knife to his throat. �You! I should have known! You�re that damn queen�s lapdog that she�s been training!�

Emiya saw Agravaine�s face and blinked at him in confusion. �Ah� y-yes, I am the queen�s servant.�

�Following me?�

Emiya felt the tip of the knife bite into him a little. He winced. �N-no.. I wasn�t� please sir, I was only trying to learn how to disguise myself!�

The man moved the knife away from Emiya and sheathed it, spitting at his feet. Emiya couldn�t understand why the man seemed so angry at him. Didn�t he know he was supposed to be tailing him? Wasn�t this an exercise?

�Run along, boy. I don�t need the likes o� you followin� me around,� grunted Agravaine.

Emiya did as he was told and put the covering back on his head, moving away from Agravaine. The man moved out of the alley in disgust and jogged away into the crowd of people. If Agravaine was surprised to be tailed by someone that must have meant that Arturia truly suspected him of foul play and hoped Emiya would find something out. Emiya slapped his forehead as he realized how stupid he had been. If Arturia had found out about this failure, and she would, he would be hit for sure!

He jogged back into the crowd and went to look for Agravaine. Emiya realized soon that he would have to turn back and face Arturia, for he had completely lost the man he was supposed to watch.

And he was right.

Arturia kicked him on the jaw as he kneeled in front of her. She stood up quickly and walked around him. �Do you know what the price for failing me is, Emiya?�

Emiya held his jaw and looked down. �I�m sorry, my queen. I had thought it was merely training and had not thought to be more serious.�

�What if he killed you? What if he decided you were best used against me? There are worse things that dealing with me when I�m angry!� Arturia shoved him and stood over him before sitting down on top of him. As he looked up at her in surprise, she leaned over him and stared at him. �Be more careful, Emiya, for I�m a picnic compared to traitorous knights who think you�re working for me. I have long suspected Agravaine to be working for my sister and I do not wish to be right, but for all I am, I can not disprove it.�

Emiya felt her hands trail over his chest as his heart jumped up several paces, fluttering madly in his ribcage like a wild bird. She got off him and walked over to her chair, sitting down once more. Emiya got up and looked to her, blushing heavily.

�Why do you suspect him? Is your sister cruel?� asked Emiya.

Arturia didn�t answer. She looked off to the side and tapped her fingertips to her lips in thought. �I can�t answer that for myself.�

Emiya frowned. �Is that why you needed to me to have succeeded?�

Arturia nodded. �Yes. I fear my sister hates me enough to find ways of breaking my peoples� already shaky trust in me. I hope the victory against Gilgamesh may have saved me that problem, but you never know.�

Emiya stood slowly and nodded. �I will work harder next time.�

Arturia waved a hand at him dismissively. �Don�t deal with it right now. He knows I�m onto him now and will likely be on the look out. Wait a while, wait until he feels secure I have forgotten and then set out once more.�

�What do you think your sister will do?�

Arturia went back to thinking. �I don�t know,� she said softly, �I feel a chill in my bones when I think of her. It feels like a warning of something to come.�

Emiya nodded. �I will go make my queen some tea,� he said, smiling faintly, �If you wish, that is.�

Arturia nodded. �That would be appreciated.� Then, she watched as the boy left. Indeed, she did worry about her sister plotting something against her. To use one of her own knights against her, a man who is her nephew, an older son to her sister, would be useful in obtaining information against Arturia should she wish to undermine her.

Arturia prayed that she had only become very chilly and not had a premonition of bad things to occur in time. She had had enough of bad things in her life. Her mother hated her, her sister hated her, the man she hoped to possibly grow closer to when she met him turned out to be married and she had the oddest feeling she had done something with him before that made her cheeks heat. She knew she hadn�t bedded him, so she must have done something else, maybe even slightly intimate, with the man before she knew his name. She recalled the dream where she watched the men surrounding her and the young man singing. She remembered that in the dream she was close to him. She felt her lips tingle and frowned faintly as she stroked them. She closed her eyes and smiled faintly. Had she kissed him? That would have been a dream, all right.

With that, Arturia waited for Emiya to come back to her. As she waited, she plotted the ways for which she could use Emiya to watch Agravaine and Gaheris, for she trusted neither. Gawain she trusted, for he showed nothing but the greatest fondness for her and for that she loved him. She wondered about his brother Gareth for a moment before Emiya came back with her tea. Then, she sat and enjoyed her tea while Emiya sat at her feet and rubbed them once more.