Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

Chapter Twelve- Snow White had it easy.

Jasiana's P.O.V

As soon as Rose was out of sight, I turned to my brother with narrowed eyes, continuing to skin the rabbit.

"What happened? You've clammed up worse than when father tried to marry you to Agrial Farwth," I said, naming an attrocious aristocrat we had met last year. Thankfully, Agrial's father had "disapproved" of his daughter marrying Maio and had instead married her off to some merchant with "prospects". Really, anyone could see that Agrial was pregnant with her merchant lover's child.

Maio sighed. I waited patiently.

"She figured out who we were," he said finally. "Who I was."

"What, were you planning to keep that a secret from her for two weeks of travelling?" asked I practically. "She would have found out eventually. Whatever I think of humans, this one isn't stupid, you know.

"And so what? She knows that you're a prince. She knows that I'm a princess. I highly doubt that she'll treat either of us any different." I snorted in an un-princess-way to under-score my point. "She won't care. So stop being a butter-brained idiot and get over it. You should be glad she's so perceptive. It might be enough to keep her alive."

"Hmmm. It's just, I wanted to see how someone would treat me if they didn't know who I was. If they didn't know I was the genius bookworm prince who could be ruler one day."

I couldn't believe it. Maio was actually SULKING over this human. He never sulked. I had been sure he didn't even know how. I opened my mouth to berate him again, but he cut me off.

"Look, Jasi, it was foolish of me, you don't have to point that out anymore," he paused for a moment like he was trying to find the words to say."Rose just surprised me, that's all. And it made me feel... Bad. Real friends shouldn't keep secrets from each other," he added softly.

I winced in sympathy for Maio. The two of us were keeping more than a few things secret from our human companion. Big secrets. But if we told what we knew, there would be no question about it: Rose would become too scared and not want to take a single step more in the direction of the goblin territory. And that was not an option at this point.

I put down the fully-skinned rabbit, wiped my bloody hands on the summer grass, and placed one on Maio's shoulder. I knew that nothing I could say would get him out of this mood. Normally, Maio would go off to be alone for some privacy, likely to the Library. He didn't have his library now, or his books, or even a roof over his head. But Maio did have me. And that would have to be enough.

It was. Maio stood up and gave me a tentative smile.

"And how are we supposed that breakfast?" he asked in a suprior tone. "One whiff of smoke and you know the Gray Birds will be after us," he said, naming the special black ops team of spellcasters that their dad used to track down criminals. Or in this case, runaways.

I tossed my head, trying to look down my nose at my much taller sibling. It didn't work. For the umpteenth time I cursed my shortness.Sure, it helped me get into secret places unnoticed, but this was not one of those times. I gave up, turning my back on him in order not to see the grin that was slowly growing across Maio's face.I have my dignity, after all.

"I," I said haughtily," am going to use magic." Duh, I thought, punching myself mentally in the face. I'd actually forgotten about the Grays. Searching my memory for the right phrase in the Forgotten language (after all, there were dozens of words for "fire" or "flame"), I finally found the ones I wanted; "Acapnos igni". Smokeless fire.

I leaned against a tree, content to wait until Rose returned with the wood. Technically, I could make a smokeless fire without something to burn, but, as in the case of the apple cores, it was better for me to have something to burn other than air. If I used magic without something real to use magic on, I'd have to sacrifice my own strength to keep the spell going. If I did that too often, or used too much of my physical lifeforce, I'd die. Horribly. It was a much better alternative to be patient for the slow moving human to come back.

Speak of the devil, I thought as I heard Rose crashing throught the woods, cursing under her breath as she tripped over some out-of-place tree root.

......

Rose's P.O.V

It had taken me a while to find enough dead wood for a decent campfire. Aparrently elven forest trees don't die that often. Not to mention I must have tripped over every single rock or tree branch or fell into holes. Even when I went out of my way to avoid this, i would trip over that. So by the time I made it back to Maio and Jasiana, I was irriatated enough to walk (more like stumble) straight up to that smug princess and drop my armful of wood with all the outward appearance of not giving a damn.

Jasiana just looked at the pile of sticks and small branches, barely even giving me a glance. I would have boiled over right then if Maio hadn't come over to where we were and given me a smile.

"Great job, Rose," he said, still smiling. He seemed oblivious to the fact that I wanted to rip his sister's head off, but I didn't care. Maio was speaking to me again! Whew. I thought I'd done something wrong,

Jasiana moved the sticks around and mumbled soemthing under her breath. An instant later, a funny looking fire spread over the sticks. I couldn't help gasping a little at the sight of it. The flames were pitch black.

"Smokeless fire," explained Jasiana, staking the skinned rabbit (it looked DISGUSTING) with one of the smaller, sharper sticks I'd gathered. "So our father's men can't detect us."

There was no way I was eating that rabbit.

"Is that all we have to eat?" I asked tentativly. My stomache felt like I was going to throw up.

Jasiana gave me a half-amused, half-exasperated look.

"At least until we get to the goblin's territory."

"We have other food, in our packs," Maio elaborated, gesturing to the one Jasiana had carried yesterday. Or this morning. Whenever. "But there isn't a lot of food to gather in the winterlands, and it's not like we can stop in a town or a city to pick up supplies."

"So we have to eat what we can find," I finished glumly.

"That is correct," said Jasiana with finallity,"We will need to hunt or gather for the majority of our journey."

"But what about those apples?" I asked, grasping at straws.

"What about them?" Jasiana sounded impatient.

"Why don't we get more of those and carry them around with us? You'll have to show us where to find them, though, because while I was getting all that wood I didn't see them." I won't lie, I HAD been looking for those apples. If I'd found them, I'd be a lot less hungry then I was now.

Jasiana looked up at me for the first time, rolling her eyes.

"Stars, you're dense," she said, gesturing over to our rights to an empty clearing." The apple trees are right over there."

Both me and Maio looked. We didn't see any apple trees.

"Jasi," said Maio. He sounded nervous. "How many apple trees did you see?"

"Three," his sister answered promptly, sounding puzzled. She looked at the clearing where she said she'd found the apples. She froze. As I watched, her face grew pale as the color drained from her face. If i didn't know better, I'd say the elven princess was scared.

My vision flicked over to Maio. He looked scared,too.

"What?" I asked, starting to freak out. "What's going on?"

"Never three. Never this far away," said Maio. He sounded like he didn't want to believe his birthday party had been canceled.

"We need to get away from here, fast," whispered Jasiana, drawing her sword. "We can't let them catch us."

I turned away from the clearing to look at both of the elves at once.

"You're not making any sense! What's happening? We can't let WHO chase us?! What are we-"

A thick, hairy arm wrapped itself around my neck, choking my words off. A large hand grabbed my head, keeping me looking forward. I couldn't see my attacker, but Maio and Jasiana could. The looks in there eyes scared me even more.

"Who's chasing you? Well, that's an easy answer," said an unknown man's voice. His voice sounded like it was covered in honey, soft and melodeus. But there was malice, too. Shivers ran down my spine.

"We are."