𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐬 ✓

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓣𝓱𝓻𝓮𝓮

PUBLISHED ONLY ON WATTPAD

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"Look, I'm sorry," Louis tries to apologize to Harry. "The information about the route you were going was leaked, well released, too late to make a decent plan. I didn't have time to study the whole territory!"

"And I am supposed to have more chances of survival with you?" Harry scoffs. "Are you kidding me?"

"Look… I'll figure something out. I always do."

"We are going to die," Harry exclaims.

"No, we're not," Louis exhales. "This whole area is north of Crows, our house. We have to find where the south is and go in that direction. We should find some houses," Louis proudly tells him his plan, cheering. "See, I always figure something out."

"How will you find south, genius?" Harry asks, not wanting to bring his hopes up.

"Moss grows in the north. We have to fund it. Don't you know anything about nature and surviving?"

"I spent almost every day in nature until my 18 birthday when I had to follow my father everywhere and learn from experience so I could be a great king like him."

"Your king isn't great," answers Louis grumpy. "But you didn't know about moss?"

"... No, no exactly," admits Harry.

"I'm not surprised. Not many old books have that written in them, and I assume you learn from the ancient books that are in the royal library."

"Hey," Harry frowns. "They are not that ancient," he says, but he knows he is wrong. Some books are falling apart from old age and need to be rewritten. The pages are ugly yellow colour, dust seems like it melted with the pages and covers. Some books have missing pages or half torn pages. When Harry first held a book like that, at the age of seven, he thought he would get sick and threw it at the window which shattered. He was punished for breaking the window and 'immature behaviour', he still has scars to prove it.

"I can see on your face you know I'm right," Louis snickers. "Let's go find moss."

"What if it's around the whole tree and not only on the south side?"

"Then you look only at the trunk of a tree and not the ground. On which side is the moss bigger, that’s the cold part, and south. It's harder for the sun to shine over every part of the forest since it's, well, forest. A lot of trees and everything. Moss likes colder and wet spaces so it learnt to hide from the sun so the sun can't make mosses water, it has to live, evaporate. Easy peasy," Louis smiles.

Harry is looking at the peasant, shocked he is so educated. He never even knew that and he is supposed to have the best scholars. Suddenly, Harry feels a weird attraction towards the rebel. He has to admit, Louis has really nice curves and body, his intellect and resourcefulness oddly attractive.

"You're looking at me like you want to bend me over and fuck me. Or threw me on the grass and fuck me, which, ew. I'll get leaves and small animals in my hair."

"I do think about how attractive you are," Harry admits. Inside the castle, he never hid his flirting and wanting to sleep with men. It was not allowed for the public to know so he was careful and warned those who slept with him not to tell.

Harry watches as Louis smiles and then goes into the woods, leaving him at the small meadow. "I'll go find branches for the fire, you just sit down or go drink."

"From the stream?!"

"Or maybe go die from dehydration! Your choice, princey!" Louis enters the deeper forest where Harry could not see him. He sighs and decides to go drink the water. It does not look bad and polluted, in fact, it looks fresh and cold. He dips his hands in the water, letting the stream go through his fingers before cupping water in his hands, splashing it at his face and again cupping it, taking as much as he could. He drinks and drinks he did not know he was this thirsty until the water came in his mouth. He does not know how long he drank but when he stops Louis is back with branches for the fire.

"See? Told you to go drink. You were thirsty like a motherfucker who fucked a mother," Louis jokes.

"More like a fatherfucker who fucked a father," Harry seriously says, not figuring it is a joke.

"Oh… so men, huh?"

"You knew that," Harry nods.

"I thought… Nevermind."

Harry sits on the ground and watches as Louis prepares the wood in a pile looking like a pyramid and then, using a knife and stones, starts a fire. It is already after sunset, the moon shining over them, and no one came looking for them, or better said, no one found them. The survivors retreated, they were all injured — the boys did not know that, but they assumed it since there was not a single soul they saw except each other since they escaped.

"Good night, princey," Louis whispers ten minutes after Harry gets in a somewhat comfortable lying position, thinking he is asleep already. Harry pretends he does not hear the man, even though he does. He does not want to talk anymore, no matter if the last few hours were spent in silence. He thinks about what happened today, how he would be asleep in the tent with a comfortable bed if the assassins or Dead Crows did not attack. How he would not meet Louis and how he would not want to spend time with him. He is the enemy, Harry thinks. Yet he still helped me.

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