Together till the end of the line

Chapter 6, deeper into the forest

I wake up at what I assume was morning, no light made it almost impossible to tell time I look over to see sho was the last one to be on watch since he was the one who was awake, kat was snuggled against my back to keep me warm and kirishima was laying in front of me.  I slowly sit up which ends up waking Katsuki almost immediately since I was under his cloak and the cool breeze against his skin under the cloak woke him up and made him glare at me. "Dammit dumbass I just fell asleep." Katsuki says, it's so weird not to hear him yell, but if he did he could bring those awful spiders back. He sighs and hands me some food. It tastes absolutely awful, but seeing as we can't cook meat cause we can't set a fire we don't really have much of a choice but to eat our other rations. Once kirishima is awake we pack up camp and get moving. I felt ok for the first little while but the cold has once again set in and worse than ever. I stop walking, Kat tried to pull me along but my legs gave out. Kat catches me and kind of freaks out. My skin is ice cold. "We need to keep moving, I won't leave you in this awful place, if you give up here this whole thing is for nothing." He talks on and on, he hardly ever panics, but when he does it's hard to get him to stop. At this rate he's going to upset the spiders. Then I hear the sound of aggressive skin to skin contact, I look up to see kirishima standing in front of Kat, he actually hit him- "I'm sorry dude, but you need to calm down before you get the spiders on our tail again" kirishima say, katsuki knows he's right but he's still annoyed. "She doesn't just get to give up here!" He's still yelling. "I didn't say I was going to, just give me a moment to catch my breath" I reassure him and give him a soft smile which seems to calm him down. After a few minutes I stand on my own and we keep walking, though Kat is holding my hand tighter than he was before. We walk for a while when I pause. "Do you hear that...?" I say worried. "No?" Kiri says. "Exactly, listen...the spiders have gone silent..." I explain, it worries me, throughout my entire life there has always been some sort of movement or life of some sort that I could hear, but everything is dead silent. "You don't think there's other people with us in this place do you?" Kiri asks. "No I would hear their breathing-" I pause for a moment. My ear twitches. It's the sound of, horse hooves? I panic as I remember the tale miss Mitsuki told me and katsuki when we were young. I pull them along to hide in the trees. "What's going on-" sho asks. "Shut up!" I whisper yell. They look at me and start to hear the hooves too. "Come out, come out wherever you are friends" says a women. Her voice is high pitched and insanely creepy. "I thought she was just a legend" Kat whispers in my ear. "Clearly not" I whisper back. "Young prince, your a bit far from home, didn't your parents ever tell you not to stray to far from home, or maybe that just made you want to leave more, away from the restrictions of your father?" The woman says. Sho tenses up. "Don't go, that's just her way of catching her victims, their deepest secrets, fears, desires, it's all a way to lure them to her." I tell sho and he nods. "We have lots of royalty wandering through my forest today, or I suppose ex royalty for you young elf princess, your so cold and so weak, I promise if you show yourself you'll be nice and warm again soon." The women says. She's smart, I'm freezing and getting weaker day by day, but I don't move. "Oh little dragon, you are really far from home, don't you miss your family? Or does your so called debt you feel to these mortal royals mean more to you, I could send you home if you'd like, just come here." She says trying to convince Kiri, he doesn't move or say a word. "You know, even the great king of dragons has feelings, I'm sure you miss your home after being away for such a long time, but your here because you worry about the one dearest to your heart, you'll do anything, including face me to guarantee her safety, wouldn't you, I can guarantee her safety if you simply come here." The women says. Kat was about to move when I put a hand against his chest and shake my head. "She's just trying to get in your head, she's lying to you." I say to him. I point to an opening in the path and motion for us to go. We move as quickly as possible hoping to put some distance between us and her. After a while I hear the movement of the spiders again, I never thought I'd be so relieved to hear those things again. "Who was that?" Kiri asks. "And how'd she know all that stuff about us?" Sho asks. "It doesn't take a mastermind yo know I'm cold, but for the rest of you it's just something she can do, she was a noble warrior who lost her life in battle, and so now she tries to collect the souls of the strong in order to hopefully someday bring herself back to life, she will hunt her prey far and wide through every forest that has low enough light levels to follow them." I say and sigh, I don't know about you but I'm getting tired. They all nod in agreement and we set up camp in a large, empty fallen over log. I snuggle into kat's side for warmth and he smiles just a bit, he decides to take first watch as I once again am told just to rest, i sigh knowing I can't convince them otherwise and fall asleep. I wake up again still leaning against Kat and this time I slowly move away from him, but despite my best efforts he still wakes up and he's still grumpy as ever about it. We all pack up camp and get a move on, hoping to be out of here soon. Everything continues on quite smoothly for a while but I'm seriously starting to have issues with the cold, before I just needed frequent breaks but now it's getting worse, eventually Kat sighs and picks me up. "You are such a baby about the cold" he says with that dumb smirk on his face. He does it to try and lighten my mood and we keep moving. Until a sound I never wanted to hear again comes back, silence. Cold dead silence, followed by the galloping hooves of our worst fear. Kat takes off running with me still in his arms and the others close behind. We're so close I can just barley see the small amount of light peaking through the tree line. "There you are! You can't escape me! This will all be over soon I promise!" The women's high pitched voice yells. Sho stops. "Go! I'll catch up in a moment!" He yells, Kiri stopped as well and they both let out a barrage of flames temporarily slowing down our assailant. She does get through though and Kat looks down at me, the look he gives me when he's going to do something dumb, he hands me off to sho and runs to our assailant, as she's about to stab him with her soul sword he ducks and it gets stuck in a tree as he takes off running again. She gets free as we break through the tree line. As the sun touches our skin for the first time in days we collapse into the soft grass panting from all the running. I lay in the grass with my eyes closed soaking up the heat of the sun when Kat taps me with my foot. "You still alive over here?" He jokingly asks with that annoying smirk. "Alive and better then ever" I say smiling, I sit up and notice our little ghost "friend" starring at us from the tree line. Katsuki turns to the demon and flips her off. Kiri jumps up and grabs his arm. "Dude what if she chases us again!!!" He yells at our smug ash-blond friend. "She can't go into the sun, though she can travel between dark forests so maybe it's best we don't make her angry-" I say, he sighs and rolls his eyes, then without a word sits in the warm grass just to relax for a bit. The ghost women wanders back into the forest and we just lay there, taking some time to recover from the last 3 days.