The Dark Forest

17

TW: small mention of abuse and blood

Roman woke up with a headache, he probably wasn't drinking enough water. Well, it was hard to find clean water in this forest.

He saw Logan was awake and leaning against a tree. "Good morning," the prince said, sitting up and rolling his shoulders and neck, trying to ease the soreness.

"Good morning, Prince Roman," Logan replied.

The prince looked over to the ravine, there was a bridge going across it not too far from them. He didn't know if he rathered to go across that or through the black trees again.

Remembering Virgil's scream from yesterday, he would rather go across the ravine then relive that. He couldn't imagine how afraid Virgil was.

"We're running out of food," Logan sighed.

"It's only been a day, how are we already running out?" Roman asked.

"Four mouths to feed and only two bags full of food, food which only satisfies our hunger for only a little bit because there's no meat, dairy, or carbs, only fruit and vegetables. Plus we've been running and chasing after a lot of things. Yesterday was a very long day."

"Well, when you put it that way that does make a lot of sense. Even if we do make it to the fae kingdom, how the hell are we supposed to make it out this forest before starving to death?"

"Or being eaten by something." Logan looked over to the black trees and shuddered.

Roman thought about what everyone said they saw yesterday. "Is it true that you arrested the man who hurt Virgil?"

"Well, I never met Virgil myself, but my partner did tell me about the young, purple scaled dragon witch that saved her life." Logan's eyes darkened. "And I did see the bloodstained room she told me she found him in. It looked like a murder room."

"No wonder Virgil freaked out. I'm just glad I got there in time."

"I'll... admit, I felt quite... silly for almost falling for the same trap yesterday. I should have ignored the visions like you did and I should have seen the black branches that were reaching out towards me."

"Well, guess you don't have 'the sight' like I do," Roman teased.

"Please, you only know about it because Virgil told you about it. You had no idea about it until we came to this forest."

"Somebody's jealous."

"I'm not jealous, I have other senses to rely on."

"Not only do I have better eyesight than you, specs, but I can see things you can't."

"It's apparently the other way around, you see through things that aren't real therefore you don't see what we see."

"Still a pretty cool ability, I wonder if Remus has this sight? Or am I one of a kind?"

"If this ability has a name for it, although it's a lazy name, then I'm pretty sure you're not one of a kind."

"One in a million is still pretty good."

"You don't know how common it is!"

"Wh-what's going on," Patton mumbled, woken up by the bickering.

"Nothing Pat, I was just messing with four eyes here," Roman reassured him.

"You do know that Patton wears glasses just like me, right?" Logan reminded him.

"Twinsies," Patton mumbled, still half asleep and laying on the ground.

"You're an adorable puff ball, Patton. So kind hearted, unlike our knight and our sleeping dragon over here- ow!" A rock was thrown at Roman's head by the 'sleeping dragon.'

"You're all too loud," Virgil growled, still curled up and not bothering to turn towards them.

Logan leaned forward with a smirk, "I think you bothered the sleeping dragon, my prince."

"Shut your royal mouth!"

"Since when am I the royal pain here?"

Roman made offended princy noises and Virgil actually snorted.

"Royal pain, that's hilarious," he mumbled.

"You're half asleep, clearly delirious, because that's not original or funny at all!" Roman defended.

"But four eyes is?"

"Oranges!" Patton interrupted. "We got oranges for breakfast!"

Virgil broke into laughter, quickly followed by the other two as Patton grinned, happy to see everyone laughing.

"Okay my dear violet scaled friend, time to sit up off of the dirt," Roman giggled as he helped Virgil sit up.

"Humans are so weird," the dragon witch commented.

"Tell me about it," Logan replied.

Patton smiled wide as he tossed everyone an orange each. As horrible as their experience has been in the dark forest, moments like these almost make it worth it.

Virgil started peeling his orange. "So, what's the game plan?"

"We follow your amulet," Logan said. "Unless it points back to those living trees, then we figure something else out."

Virgil held out his amulet, "Find Janus." It pointed across the giant ravine. "That's going to be fun."

"Maybe it's not that big of a drop?" Patton tried to sound hopeful.

"Hopefully the bridge won't collapse with us all on it, it's too long for us to go one at a time. That would be time consuming," Roman mumbled.

"At most, we should go two at a time," Logan suggested.

"We shouldn't waste much time then," Patton sighed.

"Great, I wonder how we almost die today." Sarcasm dripped in Virgil's voice as he finished off his orange.

"Hopefully the bridge will be the most challenging thing we face today," Logan added, making a small hole in the ground to discard their orange scraps. It wouldn't be wise to leave a trail.

"Something tells me it won't," Roman said, pointing across the ravine. There was a heavy fog that was covering the trees across from it. Considering the last time they were surrounded by fog, Roman wasn't very excited.

"How common is fog in this forest again?" Logan asked Virgil.

"Normal or magic? Normal fog, not so much, just in the winter. Magic fog? Very common. I'm not an idiot, I know how dangerous this place is, which is why I never left the gate. And now the gate is destroyed and so is my home."

"Do you know what you're going to do after you rescue your family?" Patton asked.

Virgil shrugged. "We might go live with my uncles, but I have no idea where they live. I think I remember Janus mentioning something about them before he was kidnapped and the tower fell, but I don't think it had anything to do with where they live exactly. I remember a few years ago he mentioned the fae destroying their last home, so I'll assume we'll do whatever they did last time."

"You have uncles? Do you think we could get some help from them?"

"Again, I don't know where they live or how to find them. They mostly just visited during holidays or birthdays, they're pretty busy. But to be fair, they're technically not related to my mom, one's a vampire and the other is a faun."

"Fawn? Like a baby deer?" Roman said with a puzzled expression.

"I think he means faun, as in F-A-U-N, a species that is half man, half goat. They're typically seen as nature spirits," Logan explained.

"Oh, that makes much more sense."

"Yeah, and in between one sleeping all day and the other taking care of plants in this forest, they don't have a lot of time to visit," Virgil added. "Plus the journey between our homes is dangerous."

"Any journey through this forest is dangerous."

"Speaking of which, let's continue the one we're currently on," Logan suggested, standing up and dusting the dirt off of him.

"Time to head across the unstable looking bridge," Roman said with false cheer.