A Royal Adventure

17: Devil's Snare!?

Remus’ POV

SONG: Don't You Dare Forget the Sun
By: Get Scared

“Guys, stop. Get off your horses!” Molly screams as she jumps off. Roman and I pull our reigns back, stopping Carmel and Midnight from walking anywhere. We look at her like she’s crazy. The horses’ don’t move. They don’t freak out and jump around. I look at Roman and he’s just as confused.

“Molly, you okay?” Roman asks. She looks scared.

“Get off...NOW!” She screams at us. I don’t think twice. I hop off Midnight. Roman doesn’t though.

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.” Roman says, facing her. Half of his body is twisted around to face her. Her feet are shoulder width apart, her arms outstretched a bit. She looks like she’s trying to keep her balance.

“What’re you doing?” I ask her. Molly looks left and right. She’s frantic and getting scared. I think Roman feels the same way, but we make it look like we’re not worried or anything.

Suddenly, Carmel and Midnight start to jump around, like they’re searching for a safe place to stand on the ground. Molly rushes over to help me, Roman tries to keep Carmel quiet and calm, but nothing is working.

“Why’re they worked up, Molly!? They only get scared when they feel something they don’t like!” Roman shouts at her, still trying to hold Carmel still. He tries to bounce Roman off his back and make a run for it, but Roman knows far better. Again, we’re firmly trained in this.

“I felt an energy coming from somewhere, but I didn’t think it was anything. Until we got here.” Molly says. We’re not on the train tracks anymore. Instead, we’re in the woods again. Dark, damp, cold and my kind of thing.

Somehow, Carmel kicks Roman off his back. Carmel runs away, but is quickly calmed down when he reaches a certain area in the woods where we can still see him. Molly lets Midnight go. I look at her concerned and confused, asking if this is a good idea. She looks at me and nods. I let go and Midnight went over to Carmel. They stay and stare at us. Molly summons some food for them and a fence, so they can’t go anywhere.

The floor began to shake. Molly and I tried to maintain balance. Roman tried to get up, but he fell through the floor. He screamed. I felt like the grass and tree roots had wrapped around my ankles and started to pull me under. I screamed for Molly to help, but there wasn’t anything she could do either as we were both pulled under.

We fell, me landing first onto a huge pile of thick black and greenish vines. Roman looked at us confused. I looked at him confused, then we looked at Molly. She didn’t know where to look, so she just stared forward.

“Woah.” Roman said. I looked forward to where Molly was staring, but it just looked like a wall with thick green vines. Maybe a tint of blue showed up on the edges of these, indicating some light from somewhere. I just couldn’t tell where.

I tried to get to know my surroundings a bit better.

“This is kinda gross.” I hear Roman say, checking his hands. I too feel some slime and goo on my hands. I lifted up my hands to see them and a thin smile came from the vines. I laugh and start to play with it.

“Do you think this would be a good lube?” I ask, to really anyone. I don’t have to look up to see Roman’s face. I hear him groan in disgust and that’s enough for me, but I continue to laugh. I don’t hear anything from Molly, so I don’t know what she thinks of that joke. I hear something move from behind me.

“Woah!” Roman exclaims as he leans back a bit. I look up to face him, a curious expression on my face. I look behind me and see vines start to crawl to us. Roman tries to get up, but the vines wrap around his legs and knees. I laugh even more, clapping my hands together, making lots of sound. Roman grunts slightly as he tries to pull away the vines. I look over at Molly and there are a shit-load of vines wrapped around her. I burst out in laughter. Roman and Molly fight against the plants, but I remain still.

“Stop moving, both of you.” I say, as some vines wrap around my legs, chest, arms and neck. They ignore me and continue to struggle. “This is like that one thing from Harry Potter. You have to relax. If you don’t it’ll only kill you faster.” When I said: Harry Potter, Roman’s eyes lit up in excitement and he stopped moving.

“Devil’s Snare. That’s what it’s called!” He said, happily. I smile at him.

“Kill us faster!?” Molly shouts, trying to pull the vines from her neck. “Oh, now I can relax.” She says in a sarcastic angry tone. I smile at her and feel my body sink through the vines.

“REMUS!” Roman and Molly shout together. I land on a platform of solid concrete. There’s a staircase that leads up to someplace, but I’ll find that out later.

I look up and see the undercoat of the vines. Green, black, and sticky. I sigh, in disappointment. I was kinda hoping these plants would be like those ones from the original “Evil Dead”. You know, where the girl got railed by the trees. That was actually rape, and that’s disgusting, actually. Plus, the director said he regretted putting that scene in the final cut of the film. But, I wouldn’t be against it. As I would love to get fucked up by a tree. Or vines, whatever.

“Now what’re we gonna do!?” I hear Molly shout. I look back up and smile.

“Just relax!” I shout back, cupping my mouth to make my voice louder.

“Remus, where are you!?” Roman shouts at me.

“Do what I say,” I ignore him. “Trust me.” I can imagine Roman putting himself in Harry Potter’s situation when he was in his second year at Hogwarts, and he relaxes. I see him fall through the vines and land next to me on his feet.

“You okay?” I ask Roman.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He says, trying his sadly best to wipe off the ooze and fix his hair. I smile at him. He smiles at me and we look up, waiting for Molly. We hear her shout for Roman in worry.

“She’s not gonna relax, is she?” I ask him.

“Apparently not.” He says.

“Do you think she’s read any of the Harry Potter books?” I ask him. We still haven’t looked at each other. Roman takes a minute.

“That is also an “Apparently not”.” Roman says, looking at me in annoyance. I look at him when he looks back up, then I look back up. I shake up my body a bit and take a deep breath. We can hear Molly’s voice become covered.

“We gotta do something.” I say, looking around. We can’t use our weapons, they won’t reach up that far.

“What?” Roman asks, looking around too. Roman then suddenly remembers something and stops. He gasps, covers his mouth quickly, looks at me and smiles.

“I remember something!” He says, uncovering his mouth and speaking in a sing-song tone. I give him a very curious look.

“What would you guys do without me?” He says. He pulls out his sword and tries to match it up with the light coming from the staircase. I don't question his actions just yet.

The light hits Roman’s sword and bounces to face the vines. The light makes me cover my eyes slightly. The light quickly untangles Molly and she drops to the floor. I kneel down to help her up.

“Molly, you okay?” I ask her. I help her up and she nods.

“What was that?” I finally asked Roman. He puts his sword away, smiling with glee, proud of himself. He puts his hands on his hips and looks at us in the most positive way. I make a gesture that says: Explain!

“If that’s something similar to Devil’s Snare in Harry Potter, then it’s gotta hate sunlight like it does in the book.” Roman says. I can’t even argue that he came up with that. He shrugs and walks up the staircase. Molly turns to me.

“Sorry I wasn’t relaxing. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone on a crazy adventure with you guys.” She says. I intertwine my arm with hers and we walk up the stairs.

“Don’t be. These things take time. Besides, I haven’t been out of my own kingdom in forever. It feels good to get out.” I tell her, smiling. We chuckle. We then stop when we see Roman standing in front of a huge room with even bigger chess pieces that are about 9 feet tall. Maybe taller. We all gaze at the sight. There are candles that burn on the sides of the board.

“Now, how’re we gonna do this?” I ask, turning to Roman, smug.