Caution woke up with a smile on her face, a song in her heart and a bruise on her back. She rolled over and put her arm around the man lying next to her.

“Morning, Sunshine,” she yawned leisurely.

“Good morning, my queen.”

Caution jumped and jerked her hand away, as the memories from the latter half of last night before came flooding back.

“Is something wrong?” Andy asked as he climbed out of bed.

“Um... no,” Caution said slowly. “No, everything is fine. I'm just... not used waking up next to someone... else.” She paused uncomfortably. “You know what? Forget it. How'd you sleep?”

Sufficiently, I suppose,” Andy sighed. “You should go back to sleep. I ride out in less than an hour.”

Caution sat up, pulling the covers around her. “Do you have to?” she whined. Men, after all, were easy.

“Of course I do,” Andy said indignantly.

Caution feigned disappointment. “I guess so.”

“I do have a little time,” Andy said, looking suddenly interested.

Caution caught the aw, crap that was trying to escape her mouth, and forced it back down. She had, it would seem, pushed the wrong button. She thought quickly.

“Good,” she said, smiling. “Come talk to me.”

Andy looked bothered, but he kept waggling his perfect eyebrows suggestively. “Not what I had in mind,” he said, faking a smile.

“Oh,” Caution said, doing her best impression of a dumb blonde. “Well what did you want to do?”

“Really, Caution,” Andy said, frowning.

“Okay, what did you really want to do?”

Andy almost threw up his arms in disgust. Caution was getting ready to congratulate herself on a thwart well done, when Andy suddenly smiled.

“Well, I could show you,” he said, his voice like honey.

Caution suppressed a shudder. It didn't make sense; Andy was attractive. He was good-looking and charismatic and, objectively, not too shabby a bedfellow, but something about him made Caution squirm—and not in a good way.

She smiled. “Yeah, I guess you could,” she said seductively. She'd gotten herself into this, after all, knowing fully well what she was committing herself to.

Andy leaned over Caution, putting both hands on the sheets beside her, pinning her down.

There was a knock at the door.

Andy sighed angrily, and Caution caught herself in time to do the same.

“Sire,” a voice on the other side of the door said.

Caution had to put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile; it was Creep.

“What is it?” Andy groaned.

“It is nearly time,” Creep said through the door. “Will you speak to the soldiers before you go?”

Andy groaned again, and stood up. “I suppose I must,” he growled. “Allow me time to dress, then, will you?”

“Yes, Sire,” Creep said.

“I am sorry,” Andy said, as if he had just crushed all of Caution's hopes and dreams.

Caution did her best not to look relieved, and very carefully didn't say, Thanks, but I think I'll manage. Instead, she sighed, and said, “Just be careful. Try to come back to me in one piece.”

Andy leaned over and kissed her forehead, before disappearing through a door, presumably to dress.

For having to ride out in less than an hour, Andy took a really bloody long time to leave—at least, it seemed so to Caution. She watched him from the window of her own chambers as he gave a long and presumably uplifting speech to a very large group of soldiers before they rode out. The attack on the castle last night—according to various members of the staff, at any rate—wasn't really an attack at all. Or it was a really small attack, and all the booming and tremors had been the result of an earthquake. The castle was in no imminent danger, it would seem, so Andy had decided to go ahead with his plan of buggering off to wherever it was that he was going—which suited Caution right down to the ground.

Finally, Antaetharon gathered up the troupes and they marched, kind of loudly, through and around the castle, and out over the drawbridge. Caution waited (and waited) until the sounds of heavy footsteps and clanking armour faded before she went in search of Creep.

It wasn't much of a search. Creep was standing outside her chamber door.

“Where'd you come from?” Caution asked. It had been a while since Creep appeared out of nowhere like that, but it still didn't startle her the way it once had.

“I thought you would come here, after the King left... Your Majesty.”

Caution stepped sideways and held the door open for Creep. “None of that,” she told him with a smile.

Creep walked through the door. “But you are my queen,” he said in a tone that skirted bitter.

“Fine,” Caution laughed. “Then I command you not to call me Your Majesty, Your Highness, or any other name that makes it sound like I'm more important than you.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Huh? Okay, I guess.” Caution paused before adding politely, “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Creep, you're acting weird.”

“I am sorry, Caution. For a moment, I thought you asked me how I slept, knowing you were in the bed of another man.”

“I couldn't help that,” Caution said, her smile disappearing. “It's not like I can say, Oh, sorry Andy, I know we just got married and everything, but I can't tonight; I have headache. I mean, what do you want me to say?”

“I would prefer if you didn't act so casual, Caution, that is all.”

“Casual?”

“You were smiling.”

“Oh, I'm not allowed to smile now? So you walk in here, and I'm supposed to frown and sulk, and not be glad to see you? Would that make you happy?”

“Could we not discuss this?”

“Creep, why are you here? I mean, did you come here just to freak out on me for smiling? Yeah, I slept with Andy. And yeah, I probably will again. Probably a lot of times and for the rest of my life, because that's what I had to do. It makes me sick. And I did it for you, Creep.”

“Caution,” Creep snapped. “I do not need you whoring yourself on my account.”

“What did you just say to me? You know what, Creep? I think I liked you better when you didn't talk.”