Chapter 181 - Returning to His Side

The Second Prince was leaning on Prince Gutard's back as they rode, when the last rays of sunlight left the sky and the bluish light fell on the group. Alexa just felt the familiar pull, and scaredly called,

"Alexander!" before she felt herself falling too far, into her actual body again.

It took the maiden a while to remember why there was a wood plank so close to her face. Of course, she was in 'her' coffin. However, Alexa felt the floor swinging rhythmically beneath her, and the watery sounds were also familiar to her,

'Isn't there a moment when I wake up in my body, that isn't strange?' she sighed, remembering that her problems never seemed to end. 'Why the hell am I on a boat again? Or am I wandering in the sea like Danae,1 locked in a coffin?'

But she wouldn't have all the patience of the hero's mother, and she started to knock on the coffin lid!

"Eh, it seems the dead Princess is not quite dead, Your Highness," a thunderous voice was heard over the calm and rhythmic ocean sounds. Alexa was quite relieved to hear that.

"Ah?!" Magnus opened the coffin lid. He stared at her with bloodshot eyes, and a mixed confused yet relieved expression. The Prince helped her sit up and his hand rested comfortably on her back,

"Alexa! What happened?"

Before answering, the princess looked around. Night had already fallen, and she was in a boat, along with the First Prince, the cage with Romeo, and a huge man with reddish hair and goatee. The stranger held a pair of oars. He curiously looked back at the princess, and had a slight amused but kind smile on his face.

"I ... think I overslept, don't I?" she glanced at Magnus, realizing how tired and anxious he looked. Alexa wanted to throw herself into his arms and seek comfort from everything she had experienced in the past few hours, but it would be selfish… and weird. It was clear that he, too, had had a bad time.

"Too much? You slept like... forever! I really thought you were dead, and that there was nothing I could do!" he rubbed Alexa's back in circles, and although that was very pleasant, she wondered if this was his attempt to calm himself down.

So, instead of saying anything, she just smiled in thanks that he had taken care of her body for so many hours.

Alexa could understand how maddening it should be to wait her to wake up, and she not doing it. Because it could mean everything was lost to Alexander, and one of them, or both, were beyond reach... or truly dead.

"Hello, I'm Alexa," she turned to the stranger, trying to fix any poor impression he could have of her, for their first meeting consisting of her in a coffin. Now watching better, even in the dark, he dressed in good quality, although practical, and wore a stylish hat with feathers, which he took off when greeting her,

"Captain Octave Dubois, at your service, Your Highness," he spoke in his deep voice, and turned to the Prince. "Any changes in our plans, Your Highness?"

Alexa saw that they were far from the port, which could still be seen on the horizon. Looking in the opposite direction, the princess saw that they were a hundred meters from a black mountain in the middle of the water. She deduced that it was a ship with all lights out.

"Eh ... Why are we at sea, Prince Magnus?" she quickly grabbed the cloak he handed her, as well as the covered cage with little Romeo.

Responding to both, Magnus sighed, as he picked up the extra paddles again,

"The story is a little long, but that is the ship where our friends came from. Barfleur 1 is closed due to an outbreak of plague ... Brought by that same ship. That is now drifting. But we have to go there ... I need to check for survivors and ... If my gold is still there, too. "

"Oh!" it was shocking news.

But they made perfect sense, unfortunately. The ship that the second group boarded had left Holstein. And during the voyage many sailors and warriors could have been contaminated.

Captain Dubois cleared his throat,

"The ship was moored for a few days, waiting for the Prince. The captaincy expelled the ship as soon as it realized that they were the focus, after demonstrating the symptoms. People died quickly in the port region, and the disease began to spread like drunken urine out there. Let's say that people from Holstein are not welcome in the city right now. Uh, sorry for 'drunk urine' ... oops, I shouldn't have been repeating it ... I hadn't even spoken to a princess before ... Uh, I'm sorry."

Alexa found it funny, "Okay, I'm a princess with little sensitivity."

The Prince interrupted her, talking to the Captain,

"She's getting used to western etiquette, so let's keep a proper vocabulary around her, please?"

The captain nodded, amused,

"Yes, Your Highness. I'll make my best."

'Uh, so he's trying to hide the fact I'm an ogress, as he uses to rub it in… How amusing,' she mused. But something else was priority than her 'assumed lack of finesse', and the Princess asked Magnus,

"So does it mean our friends are all possibly dead or sick on the ship? And do you want to go there, all the same?"

"Should I stop checking?" he bluntly returned the question.

"I heard that some people who came on this ship died on land. But if the ship is here, it's very unlikely that anyone is still alive, Your Highness ..." the captain explained to the princess, however.

"Aren't you afraid of getting the disease?" she looked to Magnus and to the Captain, next.

"Ahem, well, I already had something like that when I was a cabin boy on a ship docking in Venice in a bad year ... They say that if you caught it once, and survived, you won't catch it again!" the captain spoke cheerfully. 

Alexa looked at the Prince, questioning.

Von Wuttenfal just shrugged, and started to row,

"I already have a yet worse disease. And you ... I had no way of leaving you behind, for what matters. But you can stay in the boat, while we check if there's anything or anyone to be saved..."

'Worse disease? What is he talking about?! ' She was not feeling very bright after the exhausting period she lived in Ashgraufelsen. But she felt a pang on her chest, listening to his dismissive words, as if he had already come to terms with whatever it was.

She need to know what was going on! One day when Acrisius went to an oracle to see whether he would have a grandson or not, the oracle replied that he would, but his grandson would kill him. Fearful for his life, Acrisius locked poor Danae up in a bronze tower to prevent the prophecy from coming true. Zeus spotted Danae all miserable in her cell, came down to her in a shower of gold. He then transformed back and laid with her. When Acrisius went to check on Danae, he saw that she had a son and had named him Perseus. Once again he tried to eliminate both mother and son by locking them in a wooden chest and pushed them out to sea, so that he wouldn't be guilty of murderer.A port in Manche, Normandy.

During the Middle Ages, Barfleur was one of the chief ports of embarkation from France for England.