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For the first time in his life, Thackery was focused on his task and his task alone. There were so many people around him and so many conversations that had the potential to be interesting, but he didn't care in the slightest - the most important being that had ever lived, this deity in human form, trusted him to fetch something meaningful to him, and everything else paled in comparison.

He could fetch. He knew he could! He just had to get past all of these fumbling apprentices...why weren't they moving?! How hard was it to put on armor (asked the boy with no actual shirt on)?

"Move! Move! C'mon, move!" he cried, jumping from foot to foot in a futile attempt to see over them. When no one seemed to take his demands seriously, he hopped onto one knight-apprentice's back, as though he was about to get a piggyback ride, then proceeded to climb over him in a very unforgiving manner.

The journey up the stairs was considerably easier than that of the corridor. The majority of the other apprentices had already made their way to the lower levels, he assumed - this staircase was very quiet, and that was an obvious explanation for such a thing.

There was a door at the top, just as Mordred told him there would be. Thackery squealed with delight and hurried towards it, trying the handle as soon as his excitedly trembling fingers could reach it.

As determined as he'd been to avoid all possible distractions, looking inside the room was sort of a requirement - especially since he assumed this was indeed Mordred's room, despite the obvious absence of sheer perfection radiating from every inch of the door.

And that should have been an indicator. He would have shamed himself for failing to recognize it, had he not been paralyzed by wonder, then fear, at the sight within. Goosebumps prickled across his skin as he heard the growling in the shadows, and he yelped at the trio that emerged from them.

Thackery had no idea that the door had even shut behind him. He'd already begun to run away as quickly as possible, down the stairs and through the winding corridors until he was undoubtedly lost, and didn't stop running until he found himself at a dead end of a balcony outside.

There was no sign of the dogs, so he took a moment to catch his breath and calm his racing pulse. Except his heart only pounded faster, and he couldn't seem to breathe very well at all; and when he glanced up to look around, seeking some sort of escape or explanation, he found that he was more lost than he'd even realized.

He'd run into a different world.

Well. Maybe.

The sights and scents of the forest might have been appealing to Thackery in other circumstances, and he might have paused to make crowns of leaves and otherwise enjoy himself within it were he not on such a significant errand.

He jumped at the sound of a voice, with a squeak that did not give a strong indication of any bravery within him, and turned to search for the source of it.

"Thackery! I'm Thackery!" he cried, one hand pressed against his chest in concern for his still-racing heart. "I'm seeking something super big-ly important to The Greatest Most Perfect Knight Mordred! And, um, I guess I'm kinda seeking his happiness too, 'cause I thought maybe bringing it to him might make him happy. I really wanna show him that I really truly see and appreciate and stuff how amaaazing he is. Do you know the way back? I maybe just noticed I dunno how I even got out here...wait, are you lost too? Are you okay or do you need help or whatever? I reeeally need to do this for My Knight, he's SO important to me, but maybe if you need something we can figure it out!"

That was a lot of words for someone who couldn't breathe very well, and he began to splutter as a result.

Hearing Mordred referred to as 'the prince' made so much sense that Thackery missed every single sign that something might be less-than-human about the small entity in his presence. Even if he had realized it, its final few words were too alarming for him to even think about anything else.

"The bad people?!" he cried, horror apparent in his words and expression and every single bit of him. "I will! I can't let anything happen to him! Noooooo, why has this happened to him?! He is too perfect for this world."

Still distressed, he quickly took the hand that was offered to him.

If there was anything that Thackery was legitimately capable of accomplishing, it was saying Mordred's name like he meant it. Having skipped alongside them the entire way, once he discovered that skipping was an option, he felt comfortable believing everything it said. Because that was somehow all it took to trust someone.

"Thank youuuu! Goodbye!" After an energetic wave and a cheerful smile at his retreating companion, he moved to approach the tree as instructed, and took a deep breath to prepare himself.

He closed his eyes, and wore a smile of someone who was making the most important wish that had ever been wished.

"Mordred," he sighed at the tree, carried on an exhale filled with adoration and infatuation and devotion, offering every ounce of everything he knew he meant when he thought of him.

If Thackery had been acquainted with the familiar anachronistic cliché of 'I've died and gone to heaven', he would have applied it to this instant.

The very first thing he did was close his eyes again to take one very deep breath, uninhibited by what would have been an overwhelming combination of each of his senses taking in the pinnacle of perfection. Though it was no longer racing, he could feel his heart fluttering in his chest, and he was dizzied by the scent that was now enveloping him. There was no impediment of other icky bodies, nor food, nor lowly creatures of negligible existences - just unequaled euphoria.

When his eyelids slowly opened once more, he was met with shades of violet in every direction, well-suited for the room's inhabitant. It was somehow a relief to know that he was surrounded by such opulence, especially now that his status as royalty had been confirmed. The guardians were not much of a relief at all, however, since he couldn't really be sure that they weren't part of the 'bad people'.

But there, asleep in the bed, was the ultimate distraction from his fetch quest.

"Ohh," he sighed, his small form shuddering all the way down to his toes. Was he too late? Surely Mordred had his own mirror now, if he was in his room. But even if he had failed his efforts to express his unyielding adoration by bringing him an item of importance, there were other ways to show how vast and overflowing his love for Prince Knight Mordred was.

He quietly sat and removed anything pointy or remotely weaponlike, then his boots for good measure, and left them in a pile at the foot of the bed. When he rose again, he took a moment to simply watch him sleeping; he was so beautiful that Thackery felt like he could cry.

And so he did. Silently. Just a little.

After wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he crawled onto the foot of the bed with the greatest amount of care and precision he'd exercised in his life, trying his hardest to avoid waking him. Then he curled vaguely around Mordred's lower half, settling his head into the crook of his arm so he could continue to watch him sleep.

"I love you so much, my beautiful Prince," he whispered, his half-lidded gaze still upon him. "I'll watch over you, so no one who's bad can ever be bad to you. You should only have everything good forever and ever."