Katie woke up early the next day. She didn't intend to, but she figured she could work on some training with her injured leg. She didn't have time to laze off and wait until it properly healed.

She headed by the trees first, greeting the night-duty guards on the way, and found Bandit munching on a patch of grass. Smiling to herself, she petted his mane and he snorted in reply.

"It's been a while." She spoke softly, "I promise I'll sneak you a juicy apple later." 

Leaving it at that, Katie found the wooden swords in a stack beside the horses. Picking one up, she stretched her body out before doing the basics. Her legs ached from the injury but everything else was bearable.

The sword felt so right in her hands after all the days she took off to heal. Like Mark with his bow and Theo with his spear, Katie found that the sword was her greatest weapon. 

Her wound started aching less as she started depending on her legs more. She trained her muscles to remember the sword techniques she learned back at the castle.

Before she knew it, the sun was already rising and more knights started to get up and join her.

Some of the knights that knew she was a woman stayed closer to her, blocking her from the other men, while the other kingdom knights stayed in their respective spaces. She wondered why until a blushing Carlos approached her.

"Um.. Miss Gunderson." He started, making Katie stop in her track, "Your clothes are.." 

Katie looked down at the tunic she was wearing to see that it was see-through from her sweat and the water she poured on herself earlier to cool off.

"Oh." She said at first and then remembered she was the only woman in a group of men, "oh!"

She dropped her wooden sword in embarrassed shock as she worked on trying to cover herself.

"Sorry- I just noticed too." Carlos mumbled as he looked away, and Katie sighed.

"Thank you for telling me." She said as she tried to get out of the knights' sights, but she seemed to be stuck in the middle.

As embarrassing as it already was, she wanted to scream, "Everyone, look away!", but she wasn't one to cause a commotion either.

Just as she was debating on her options, a long jacket fell on her shoulder and she looked up with wide eyes to see Keith frowning down on her.

"..Katie.." 

His tone was one of disapproval, and she looked away in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know my clothes were.." she muttered, covering herself up with his long jacket. It was too big but that was the intention. It covered her entire upper-body completely, falling to her knees.

Keith sighed as his eyes fell on her smaller figure again.

"It's fine, I just didn't like the way the others were staring at you." He said as he put his arm around her shoulders and led her away from the men to her tent, "Go wash up and meet us in my tent later for another meeting."

Blushing slightly, Katie nodded and scurried into her tent with speed she didn't know she had.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she prepared everything to take a bath. She tried not to think too much about what he said, but both her heart and head betrayed her.

'He only did it out of courtesy.' She told herself so she wouldn't fall in deeper, 'Only courtesy, nothing else.'

After all, Keith was the prince of her kingdom, someone she would never be able to reach in ranks. He would soon marry Princess Allura after the war and rule the kingdoms with her. So, Katie needed to make sure her feelings for him wouldn't grow. It would be beneficial for both her and Keith.

After taking off the sticky sweaty clothes, she went off to a nearby stream with her essentials and washed up to get the sweaty feeling off her.

Once she was done, she changed back into new clothes and got ready to meet the others. She walked in the tent and immediately noticed she was the last to arrive. Keith, Mark, Theo, and Dorrie seemed to be waiting for her in silence.

Making eye contact with Keith, Katie found a seat beside Dorrie instead of sitting beside him. He frowned but cleared his throat to begin the discussion.

"So, how should we approach the problem?"

"We can't attack head-on, right?" Katie spoke up and got frowns from all of them in unison.

"With their 1 million? We would die trying." Theo remarked, making Katie sigh.

"Then how would we confront them? We've already come this far. We can't back out now." She said, and she saw Keith clenching his jaw as the others grew silent.

"We could try sneaking in again to take them down from the inside, but they would be more aware now because we've snuck in their kingdom before." Mark said as he met Katie's eyes, "it's risky, but it's something."

Dorrie immediately put her arms out in an X, frowning.

"No way! Katie's too injured, we can't send her in again." She wrote messily in her notebook and put it up for the men to see. Katie frowned at her, crossing her arms.

"I can train just fine. I can manage myself if we sneak in again." She stated stubbornly, but she felt disapproving stares from both Theo and Keith too.

"If we're sending people to sneak in again, it can't be you." Theo said, looking at her and she scowled immediately.

"I know I'm injured right now, but I'm also one of the only ones who knows how the kingdom looks from the inside." She said as she passed Mark a look, hoping he would vouch for her, "please tell them that I have to go with you again."

"Pidge.." Mark's expression was one of apologetic, "I'm sorry, but I don't think you should come with me either. You can't risk being in danger like this again."

"I came on this mission to be in danger! I came to be of help!" Katie bursted out when she had enough of how they treated her like she was delicate. "I'm useful to you so use me. I can't stand not being to do anything and sit back."

"You are not only a tool to me." Keith said, his voice sharp, making everyone turn to him, "You are still healing so you need to stay back for now. An order is an order."

When Katie responded in silence, Keith urged her to reply to him,

"Do you understand, Knight Gunderson?" He said, his eyes a scary dark purple and his voice icy, and Katie nodded, unable to hide her bitter expression.

She remained silent the rest of the meeting. 

They discussed a couple more plans on how to take over the kingdom from the inside, and who they would be sending with Mark. Katie stared down at her legs as they debated on who to send. 

She felt so useless, and she hated it.

After it was confirmed and voted on to send Kenneth and a skilled dorian knight with Mark, Katie stormed out the tent first to the forest. She felt childish, but she didn't want them to see tears forming in her eyes. She knew they were leaving her out for the good of her health, but she felt hurt for not being able to be useful.

She was wiping away angry tears when she heard a small knock on the hard surface of the tree. Dorrie approached her softly with an understanding expression in her eyes. 

Sitting beside Katie on the log, she patted her shoulder. Katie took the gesture and laid her head against the younger princess's shoulder. She sniffed away her tears and ranted to Dorrie on how unfair she thought the whole thing was. Dorrie could only listen to her about the problem because she wouldn't understand how Katie really felt. 

"You can do much more here while they sneak in there. You're useful out here too." Dorrie wrote in her notebook and Katie nodded, knowing she was somewhat right.

"I guess I can find other things to do than risking my life every time." Katie said, cracking a light joke as she finally brightened up. It felt good to get that off her shoulder. She was glad to have Dorrie who would just listen to her.

"I'm sorry for my outburst back there." She mumbled as she sniffed her snot away, "thank you for listening to me."

"I think I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." Dorrie wrote with a small smile, "the prince only said that to you because he was worried. You should apologize to him."

Katie looked down at her shoes, knowing she was right. Keith was never cold to her like today, but the reasoning was because he was concerned. She didn't have the right to be angry at him after everything he did for her.

"You're right. Thank you." Katie said as she lifted her head off Dorrie's shoulder and gave her a small hug, "I'll see you later!"

She wandered around the camp, looking around for where Keith could be. She couldn't find him anywhere but found the twins by the fire.

"Hey.." She approached them carefully, embarrassed that they had also witnessed that side of her in the meeting, "I'm sorry for earlier. I was frustrated."

Mark looked up first as Theo finished grilling some fish on sticks.

"It's alright Pidge, we all feel like that sometimes." He said with a smile as he patted Theo's back, "this brother of mine also has a nasty temper when he's frustrated."

"Hey!" Theo said, his cheeks flushing up as he finally looked up, and Katie giggled, glad that the mood was uplifted again.

"Do you know where Keith is?" She asked, and Theo met her eyes, rubbing the back of his head.

"He should be by the stream. He said he needed time alone to clear his head." He said, and Katie pressed her lips together. She hoped it wasn't because of her.

"Thank you, I'll see you both later." She said one last time with a small salute before wandering off to the stream.

She found Keith sitting against the stream, dipping his fingers in the water and running them through his hair. He barely turned back when he heard her footsteps.

"What is it?" He asked, and she found a seat by him, making herself comfortable.

"I'm sorry for earlier. I shouldn't have raised my voice." She muttered as she rested her head against her knees that she hugged to her chest.

"Look Katie." Keith said as he sighed, turning to her, "I know how much passion you have, but you're only human. You need rest right now, and you need to take care of yourself. You're in no position to be going in danger right now."

"I know, I'm sorry." She said, looking away but he forced her gaze on him again. She met his beautiful dark violet gaze under the moonlight. 

"And don't you ever refer to yourself as someone I would only use because you're useful again. You are not only a tool to me." He said, his gaze hurt, and Katie realized he was the one that was offended by what she said.

"I'm sorry." She apologized again, feeling like she needed to apologize many more times, "And thank you. I promise I won't."

"Thank you." He spoke softly, a smile on his lips. 

Her heart pounded in her chest as he turned back to looking down at the waters.

She wouldn't possibly be able to ever get over him at this rate.

———————————————————————————-

A/N

A (super late) update but it's up! 🥰

We all know Katie's fooling herself by pretending she can get over Keith.. (I mean who can?)

I'm adding much more Kidge scenes now so get prepared to feed your souls for the next chapters 😍

Thank you all for reading, and I hope to see you all next time! Have a good day! 💜

-Silver