Dawn- An age of Darkness

My worst fears came alive as I climbed up on top of Ve, again. Sandwiched between Alisa and Biteria my nightmares came haunting me and well, I wanted to just crawl into a closet and hide. Okay, probably not the best thing to do. 

"Stop being such a baby," Alisa hugged me from behind. This was typical of her, every time we went somewhere like this, she\'d always hug me. And she was telling me, I was being the baby.

Alisa hugged me and I hugged Biteria. Yeah, I totally didn\'t want to fall off. 

Gorgon, the dark knight, the half-elf all climbed aboard too. 

Our destination?

A friggin forest. The only place on this entire rock, I wanted nothing to do with. 

"Good luck." For some reason, the Earl was in a great mood today. 

Wish I could get down and punch him. Actually, I just wanted to stay on the ground. 

But Ve took off anyway.

And so, my never-ending nightmares began anew. 

***

Just before noon, we landed near a massive forest in the middle of nowhere. I so, so wanted to kiss the ground right now. I thought after a certain time, my fear of heights would go out the drain, but apparently, there was no fooling my body.

I was afraid of heights and I was not afraid to use my fist the next time someone brought up the idea of flying. 

Alfeim was directly behind us, Saram was towards our left, Helsing was also on our left, while Destoa was on our right. 

In front?

The forest. 

Yeah, I was so excited. Like totally excited. 

As l looked ahead and saw the ever-deepening forest, my legs shook a little and sweat poured. 

"Are you okay?" The half-elf asked. 

"He\'s scared of forests, don\'t let it bother you." Ve answered on my behalf, I wished she hadn\'t. 

"The master of demigods afraid of forests? Hmm…" The dark knight guy wondered aloud. 

"Why the hell did you even come along?" 

Like seriously, what was this guy even doing here?

\'Is it me or is there more than enough people?\'

Wait, forests… loads of people….

It didn\'t take a genius to know where this was going. 

"Well, you always were afraid of forests, so that\'s nothing new," Gorgon spoke like it was the most natural thing in the world. How the hell did that guy know I was afraid of forests?

"Just so you guys know." I brushed off my sweat. I had to warn them before anything happened. "Some of you might end up dead."

The pattern always went like this anyway. The more people flocked to me, the more people died. It was kind of heartbreaking but at the same time, this also meant I just needed to stay away from people and that\'d- wait, wouldn\'t that be- kind of sad?

Sigh. 

It was better than having everyone die on me though. 

Gorgon nodded. "Correct. We\'re going to the enemy territory from here on out, so everyone stay on your toes and guard each other. Let\'s hope all of us makes it out alive." And he gave us a dashing smile.

Everyone nodded. 

\'Wait, what?\'

Seriously?

I sighed again. 

"People aren\'t as fragile as you think them to be. We know death surrounds us and we know we must accept it when the time comes." Alisa patted my back, though since she couldn\'t reach my back, she patted my bums instead. 

What sort of sexual harassment was this?

I sighed again and moved ahead. "Don\'t blame me if you end up dead," I mumbled. 

I didn\'t want anyone to die though. Perhaps I was too selfish. 

Sigh. 

So far, this day was full of sighs. 

***

It was midday and after resting for ten or so minutes we headed into the forest. 

The entrance was complicated. We went in by ten steps, took left, backtracked by three steps, turned right, and this whole thing kind of went on for the first half an hour, and then and only then did we finally found a nice straight path. 

I had no idea why the half-elf made us go through all this trouble but oh well. 

The forest was rather clean. 

There weren\'t any undead here and it wasn\'t clouded in darkness either. The trees were spaced nicely, almost as though the trees were regularly cut. This not only ensured that certain trees didn\'t get too big, but this also made sure that this forest didn\'t go out of control. 

Whoever was maintaining this place really knew how to do their stuff. 

"But really, what kind of monsters would build a literal kingdom insider a forest like this?"

A second later I realized how stupid I was to ask that. After all, I was basically the Archduke of a certain country full of such monsters. 

"You do realize, you\'re the archduke of Afleim, right?" The half-elf hissed. 

Yeah, we got that much.

How the hell did I forget Alfeim was surrounded by a frigging forest too? I didn\'t know. 

There weren\'t many monsters around either. The few goblins or snakes that showed up were slaughtered by either Ve or Gorgon. The rest of us were taking it easy. Some of the monsters were actually going in a specific direction. And as fate had it, we were also going in that direction. \'This is not going to end well.\'

There were no signs of undead or that unholy smell I was so-not-used to, either. 

This was so easy that I had a bad feeling all over again.

"About that plan of yours." I went closer to Alisa. "You seriously think it\'s going to work?"

She grinned, very evilly.

I wanted to sigh some more but oh well. "How are their conditions, really?" I whispered. I had a feeling this conversation had to be in whispers. 

Alisa looked a bit disturbed but then came close to me, covering her mouth with a hand to not let any sound leak: my companions noticed so they gave us enough space. "The prince is tortured daily but is kept alive. And the princess-" She paused. "She\'s being abused daily." Alisa grimaced. "I don\'t think she\'ll be mentally stable even if we free her."

I walked on, without a word. My anger was seething out a little so I had to control myself. If it was as Alisa said, war was inevitable even if we freed them. After all, neither country was going to just sit by and relax while their royals were treated like that. 

***

This whole forest was the size of Helsing and Saram combined. Most of the forest was monitored by dark elves and pixies. But there was another race living within this place- that race being the demi-humans: they were the ruling kind.  Humans and demi-humans had very whacky relationships, so I had no idea how the prince of Destoa ever became friends with the duke of Xylax or whatever the name was. 

Though now I could see why the duke would befriend the prince and why stuff would happen as they did. I sure didn\'t like it though. 

The part we entered into the forest was the only unmonitored place, at least according to the half-elf. We had no choice but to trust in her ears, for now. 

And even if we were found out, there wasn\'t any way for us to know that- at least not until we got caught or something.

The last time those two were inside this forest they heard a very peculiar rumor among the trees and now they were going to exploit to no one\'s doubt. 

As usual, I had a very bad feeling about this. 

But one thing did strike me weird. There were flying things all around us- like fireflies, but no, those were pixies. 

And they were the size of my fingers. 

"How come they\'re just avoiding us?" I whispered. 

"Once you get into the forest, the surveillance stops."

"Well, that\'s stupid. And how come it was so easy to get in?"

"Easy?" The half-elf gave me a rude glare. "The pixies switch every twelve days and the entry we used would have last only two hours more, and we purposefully avoided the dark elves just meters away from us. Meaning, without the ears of my kin you could have never got in the forest unnoticed."

\'Well, that\'s a security flaw.\'

I guess she took pride in that. 

"Then how come Li- My fiancée didn\'t mind teaching me that? I mean she wanted to but we never had time." Plus I kind of forgot. 

If it was only exclusive to her kin, then how did Lianne think I\'d be able to learn something like that?

"She-actually wanted to teach you?" The half-elf looked at me, a bit too surprised. "Truly? How intimate are you two? Have you already mated?" For some reason, she was a bit too excited. 

What the hell was she even talking about?

I was very not-comfortable to answer all of those. And some of them were very private things.  "Are you seri-"

"There\'s no need." The half-elf was a bit calmer. "I suppose she trusts you that much. Let\'s go, it\'s just up ahead." She gave Ve a glance. 

Ve nodded and jumped up. Things moved a bit too fast and I was basically, just ignored. 

Before I could my companions were already in action. 

Ve went very high, roared excruciatingly loud, and then transformed. 

"Don\'t screw this up." Alisa grabbed my hand and gave me a pep talk. 

\'Screw what, exactly?\'

Did I forget to mention I had a bad feeling? Because I sure did.