We've been riding for a long time now, my brother is trying to find the Castle, but it seems he can't remember the directions. The sun starts to go down and the sky begins to turn orange, but I can see the castle far off into the distance. "We made it!" I yelled.

I just hoped for Brandon's sake, it was before the Knights. When my two brothers notice the castle, all of us got on the horses and rode quickly towards it in excitement. I could see my brother Brandon smiling as we get closer and closer to the castle. No matter what happens, I wanted him to stay here and get another Blacksmiths job, or even better, become a Knight. He deserved it, instead of being out here with us chasing my dreams, or rather curse.

"Do ya see that guy's?" Brandon says with complete excitement. "We're almost there!"

"Are we really going to bug them at night though? Shouldn't we wait until its morning? I don't want to be in a cell, and I doubt the King will want to see us this late at night." I said.

"We can't wait until morning, I don't want to risk the Knights getting there before we speak to the King." Rodney says. "We are so close, we can't wait now."

"If they put us in a cell, then he can choose when he sees us, but if we wait till morning, we choose when we want to be seen. Didn't you say it's best to wait anyways if its dark?" I said.

"Yeah, you're right. But I don't think the King would wait to see us until morning if we went now..." Rodney explains.

"Put it this way, if you are eating, or enjoying your family and peasants like us decide to bother the King, would you let them, or would you put them in a cell until it's convenient to see them?"

"I would probably wait until its convenient." Brandon says.

"The King would undoubtedly do the same."

"Fine, we wait till morning, but I still want to be nearby just in case anything happens. I don't want to be caught off guard or catch them off guard by being out here." Rodney says.

Rodney and mom scout out a place that looks sufficient for us to stay the night as we get closer to the castle. We find a place a quarter of a mile away. We get out the food we were saving from the field and chow down together as a family. Now that we got to relax, everyone decided they wanted to know more about what I am and when it started. Rodney asked the first question, and after that, it took off, between how I felt, and what I wanted in the future, which I was still unsure about. But I can't deny my thoughts or feelings for now.

"Please, one question at a time guys." I said.

"Why do you want to be a guy?" Rodney asked.

"I just always felt like one. Whenever you guys peed standing up, or worked with dad, or got a job as a Blacksmith, I felt envious."

"Doesn't that just mean you want to do what guys do? How does that mean you are a guy?" Brandon asks.

"Because it's what I feel inside, ever since I was a young kid. When I think about myself, dream about myself, think about my future, I see a guy, I dream of a guy, resemble a guy, and I just want that on the outside too. It hurts being called a girl, and not because I'm limited to being a girl, but because I was never born a guy. I've never had a penis, I'll never make love to a girl the same way, and those are things I've always wanted in my life. I don't know why I'm this way, I don't know what happened when I was just a little thing in moms belly, maybe it's a birth defect, but what matters now is who I am and am going to be. Because we can't change the past, and as far as I know, there is no cure for this other than the man in the center of the world. If it was my choice, I wouldn't be this way, because it hurts. Everything that's happened up to this point would have been avoided if it weren't for me. But I have to be honest, happy and accepting of myself."

"What do you want from this man that you keep speaking about?" Lilly asks.

"I haven't figured that out yet. I haven't decided if I want him to make me a man, or take away the feeling of being a man. All I know is, I just want to be happy. I want to be like you guys."

"Alright, I know you guys didn't ask many questions and not many were answered, but I think we should give it a rest. This is a personal subject that means a lot to Ashley."

"Mom, remember the name I want to use?"

"I remember it starting with an H."

"Yes, Henry Nikolas Weston. If it's okay with everyone, I would like you guys to use that name from now on, Just until I figure things out for myself."

"I think that will take everybody some getting used to, and honey, you are starting to become a woman, nobody will understand if you go by Ashley instead of Henry. I want you to think about it." Mom says.

Everyone looked at each other and at the same time, my brothers both said that they couldn't do that, but Lilly said she would give it a try. My mother frowned upon her for that, but it made me me extremely happy to hear her say that. It was like being free for the first time since I was born. I know my brothers and my mom won't say it yet, but I think they will come around. I know it could be scary and potentially dangerous for me to be out as Henry in front of others, but I can't live my life as Ashley anymore. A tear or two dropped down from my face from both sadness and joy to get this stuff off my chest. I wiped them away.

"Why are you crying sweetie?" Mom asks.

"It's just a lot to take in, I know you guys want to wait to call me Henry, but its a relief to just know you guys are trying to accept me and that makes a huge difference to me. This has been a huge wait on my shoulders and I just want to say I'm so thankful for each of you in my life."

Everyone got up from where they were sitting to give me a group hug. I cried a little bit more and then told everybody to stop as I laughed a little bit. Everybody had smiles on their face as I wiped the tears away. I laughed and said men don't cry. Brandon turns to me and puts a hand on my shoulder he whispers in my ear. "Let me tell ya something kid, men do cry. Just not in front of anybody. I'm glad you aren't bottling up things anymore." and then he ruffles up my hair a little bit.

We all relax by the small fire and get comfortable eating our food. Mom ended up making a soup with some water she collected from a small stream nearby the Castle. She added the vegetables my brothers stole, and bread was our side dish. It was yet again another cold night and everybody got close to one another. Rodney pulled out two blankets. My mom felt excitement, she wanted to ask where he got it from, but she already knew the answer. Her face fell down in disappointment, but she understood why he stole them from the cabin. Brandon, Gwen and I were under one, and mom and Lilly were under the other one. Rodney stays watch all night. I just stare at the fire. Lilly, my sister is sound asleep, with mom closely following her.

"Hey, I have a question, how did you pick the name Henry?" Gwen asked.

"Well, when mom was pregnant with Lilly, they were trying to decide on a name, and one of the names I heard was Nikolas, but my dad thought it was too modern and turned it down. My mom loved it though, but I didn't really want the name Nikolas as my first name, so I decided it was going to be my middle name. When I was in town one day with mom, I heard them talking about the heroic Knight, Henry. I just loved that name instantly. So I decided Henry Nikolas was going to be my name one day." I said.

"I'm proud of you." Brandon said.

"Hey, let's all play Guns and Flames." Rodney said.

"Rodney, that's a really long game though." I said.

"It'll help pass the time though, and it doesn't look like you're going to go to sleep any time soon." Rodney says.

"Gwen and I are fine, we're going to go for a walk I think." I said.

"Don't go too far, it's getting pretty dark out, and I don't want you getting hurt." Mom mumbled.

"We'll be fine, we'll be back soon."

As we begin to get up out of the blankets and leave, Brandon tells us to wait. He comes over to us and gives me his knife and tells us to be safe and careful and to not get closer to the Castle. He also said if anything happens to let us know. We agreed and walked off. I put the knife in my pocket for safe keeping. I look back at our little campsite as Rodney and Brandon are getting ready to play the game.

Brandon pulls out the cards and deals them out to Rodney. Gwen and I walk out of sight. We continue walking until I find the little stream mom went to earlier to get the water for the soup, we stop and both drink from the water. We choose a spot that has a lot of moss growing so that the moss filters the water a little bit. I sit down and stare at her, watching the moonlight slowly shed light on her face. She stares back at me and smiles. I smile back out of shyness and look down at my feet. I kick the dirt a bit and put my hands in my lap.

"Why did you bring me all the way out here for?" She says.

"Because I wanted to do this." I say, before pulling her in for a kiss.

Our lips connect, I can feel the softness of them as we continue to kiss. She grabs my waist and pulls me closer, our chests touch one another and our body heat increases. I can feel her smiling, but she pulls away.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"It's nothing." She says, smiling as she looks down.

"Why did you stop kissing me?"

"What if one of your brothers come looking for us, or your mom, or somebody sees us? I like kissing you, but I don't want anything bad happening. Plus, it's dark, and we should be with the others."

"Nothing bad is going to happen, we're fine here. I have a knife to protect us from anything."

"I know, but we can kiss when things get better. Come on, I'm cold." She says as she gets up, holding out her hand for me to grab.

"It's fine, just go on, I want to stay here for a bit." I sigh.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I say as I watch her leave.

I sit on the ground alone and sigh again, looking up at the night sky. A part of me wishes I hadn't kissed her. She didn't respond how I thought she would have. I twiddle my fingers and take a few more breathes before getting up and heading back. But after a couple of steps my brother Brandon stops me. He was peeing and told me to wait until he was done, I turn around so I don't see anything. After he was finished, he walked up to me and put one of his hands on my shoulder.

"That's not how ya woo a girl man. She wasn't impressed. Now, I don't know if she's into guys, or into girls, or both, but she likes ya. She wants to be treated like every other girl, like she's special, man. That means givin' her things, talking to her romantically, makin' her feel good, not just kissing her. And most importantly, ya will make mistakes, but that's all part of love." Brandon says.

"But I don't know how to do any of that, I don't even really know how to kiss her." I said.

"Nobody knows how to do these things, we just learn them. Either by watchin', or doin' what our instincts tell us. Give her a flower next time, or don't hide her from us. Take pride in the fact that she's yours, if you want her to be."

"I don't even know if she is mine, and what if the rest of you guys don't feel comfortable with it?"

"Ash- I mean... Henry, it doesn't matter what we feel or dislike, we came out here for ya, to protect ya. We didn't let ya die by the Kings hand. We love ya, and yeah, maybe we are an odd family for accepting ya, but that's what love is about. Acceptance. We aren't going to try and change ya, even if we don't like it. Times need to change, and people need to be allowed to be themselves, even if it's strange to us."

"Can I ask you something, Brandon?"

"Go ahead."

"Are you gay?"

"I'm not gay, Ash- I mean..." He sighs, "Henry."

"Then why are you this way? So open and accepting?"

"Is it really that hard to believe that I just want people to be happy and accepting?"

"Actually, yes. People aren't that way unless they're different themselves."

"How is mom different, or Rodney? Heck, I think Lilly is the most accepting of us all."

"Dad abused her, so she knows what it's like to not be loved and accepted. Rodney and Lilly, I'm not sure yet. What's your excuse?"

"Ha." He sighs. "Um, the Princess, mate. It's about the Princess."

"What about her?"

"She comes down to the shop with the King's helper, as one of the blacksmiths would help with fixing the Knights weapons and armor, she and I would court each other in the backroom. She happened to get pregnant, she's about four months now. None of the royals know, but once they do, they'd want my head. So we would've had to leave anyway, only because of you, it was sooner. Which I'm thankful to you for that... She and I love each other, but obviously, that's not accepted. The King is trying to get her married, but she keeps doing things to make the men say no. If she keeps it up, he will beat her and put her in a cell for the rest of her life for being a disgrace. Her sister will end up taking her place on the throne. I tried taking her with me before coming to get ya, but there was no time. I worry about her."

"I can't believe you're in love with Emily." I said in shock.

"It's Muriella, not Emily."

"Why Muriella? She's rude, Emily is the nice one."

"You're wrong mate, as I said, Muriella is making herself undesirable to men for me. She doesn't want to be with anybody else. Emily, she is two-sided. I've seen how she really is, it's not somebody ya want ruling your Kingdom."

"Why didn't you tell Muriella you wanted her to marry so the Kingdom has somebody good?"

"I tried mate, she wants to be faithful to me."

"But her people need her too."

"I can't change what she does, I can only try and protect her and our baby. And now, I can't even do that. But what I can do is protect ya."

"Brandon! Ashley! Where are you guys?" My mom yells out.

"We better get back, come on." Brandon says, putting his arm around me as we walk back to where everyone else is at.

"Where were you guys?" Mom asks when she sees us.

"We decided to have a bit of a chat."

"What were you guys talking about?"

"She... Sorry, I mean he wanted to know if I could teach him how to be a blacksmith eventually. I told him he needed to find his own passion."

"Oh, really? Well, do you have any passions, Ashley?"

"I don't know, I haven't really thought about what I would be good at. Just what I didn't want to do, that's what Brandon and I were discussing." I said.

"It'll come to you eventually, hopefully when everything is settled down and we're living in a new place you'll know your passion."

"We should go to sleep, it's getting late and we want to be up bright and early in the morning for the King." Rodney says.

"You're right, we should be sleeping." I said.

We each said our goodnights to one another in response as everyone got comfy to go to sleep. I laid down staring at the Castles walls and watched as people walked along the top. I wondered what they were looking for, or rather who they were looking for. The fire started going down and the night got colder, I felt Gwen getting closer to me. I turned over and wrapped my arms around her, now facing the sky. I watched the stars twinkle, the moon shine bright, and clouds slowly pass by. I couldn't sleep, I was too nervous for tomorrow, I just laid there, listening to Gwen slowly breathe and listened to the bats fly by. At least it was a peaceful night.