Angel awoke as someone briskly shook his shoulder.
"Rrrrnnngghh," he said, demonstrating his incredible talent for conversation. "No...sleep."
"Angel, wake up," a voice replied.
"Sleep," he said with great assurance.
"Wake up, you big lump of royalty. We'll miss it!"
Angel finally recognized the voice as Garwin's. He cracked open his eyelids to glare at his disgustingly awake compatriot. "Miss what? This had better be good."
"Well, it's just, you were so excited about being in the sun yesterday, that, I guess I thought you might like to see the sunrise. You can go back to sleep if you don't want--"
Angel threw back the blankets and dashed for the door. "Let's go, let's go!"
"Angel!" Garwin's voice arrested him. "I did allow enough time for you to get dressed."
With a sigh, Angel turned back to throw on his clothes in great haste.
****
He had never really witnessed the dawn, the first time he had been human. He sometimes stayed out carousing until the wee hours, but he was too drunk and caught up in the pleasures of the flesh to care about something as commonplace as the dawn.
He had been mistaken.
There are occasions in life where the feeling of anticipation overwhelms every sense in the body. It happens to children when they wake up on Christmas morning, it happens to actors right before the curtain goes up. Adrenaline sings hymns in their veins, they breathe faster in excitement.
Angel felt all this and then some as the first grey streaks of dawn tinged the dark early morning sky. He could hear songbirds begin to sing in the distance as they sensed the morning coming, and their song was the same of his overflowing spirit. In the capitol city, cocks were crowing, and the world was coming to life. But he remained frozen amongst the spires of the royal palace, willing the sun to rise sooner so that his heart wouldn't leap from his chest.
Slowly, ever slowly, the sky lightened, promising a beautiful day. Garwin heard his prince gasp as the sky caught fire, flaming into amber and violet and gold. The clouds were everchanging masterpieces, shifting in a faraway wind.
Angel's knuckles were white with clutching as the sun himself finally crested the horizon. It was nothing and exactly like he remembered. It began to dry up the morning dew and Angel let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding in.
Finally he turned to the man at his side, a look of incredible gratitude in his eyes.
"Thank you, Garwin."
Garwin looked at him for a moment, his green eyes unreadable in the morning light. Finally, he nodded, leaving Angel alone with his sunrise for company.
****
Willow was awakened by the sun streaking through her window. She stretched luxuriously, smiling sleepily as she saw Marie was sitting beside her bed. "Morning, Marie. How are you?"
Marie smiled at the newly awakened princess, brushing her tousled red hair away from her face. "I'm fine, Willow. You need to get up and put on your habit now, love."
Willow looked at her in tired confusion. "My habit?"
"Your riding habit, dear." Marie gestured to the plum colored garment laid across the foot of the bed. "You and Prince Alaric are going riding this morning."
Willow looked at her in shock. "Prince Alaric? Riding? With me?"
Marie looked out the window. "I suggested it to your mother. She thought it would be a good way for the two of you to get to know one another."
"I thought you didn't trust him."
Marie said nothing for a long moment. "I don't really know him, my dear. He may be nothing at all like-"
With a hasty look at Willow, she amended her statement. "Like, like the sort of man who would do you harm. Now quickly, you need to eat your breakfast and get dressed. You are meeting Alaric in the stables in one hour."
Willow gave her a smile as bright as the morning sun as she threw back her blankets. "Thank you Marie. I will be glad to spend some time alone with-"
"I didn't say you would be alone, Willow. That would hardly be appropriate. His man Garwin will accompany you."
Her statement gave Willow pause. Garwin had watched her like a hawk at the banquet the night before, and only Angel's presence at her side had made his scrutiny bearable. Still, if it meant she would be able to talk with Angel, she would be able to deal with Garwin's company. If Angel liked him, he couldn't really be bad at all. Besides, she had more immediate concerns to think about.
How on earth was she going to ride a horse?