The twins gawked at the forest that shined like jewels.
"It's beautiful," said Reinel.
"Look! It's an Alitalia plant!" Renèe said running up to a strange spikey plant that had golden dew on each spike.
"Don't get too close, Renèe. Each drop of golden dew is enough to take out a full grown beastman!"
"Don't Xanderians use this poison for medicine though?" Asked Renèe eyeing the plant.
"Of course they have it processed first, idiot,"
"Too bad we don't have any ethren glass vials..."
Nightshade is only for knocking out a beast for a few hours but poisons found in virgin forests are as strong as acid therefore using a normal glass vial would do no good.
"I think there's a reason mother didn't give us anything other than scissors, magic string, bags, water, food, and gold," laughed Renèe.
After a little while the twins finally found the snakeweed tree.
"Look, Ren! The snakeweed is black!" exclaimed Reinel excitedly.
Snakeweed differentiates it's color depending on weather, environment, time, season, and how much mana is in the air.
Snakeweed can come in many different colors like white, pink, red, blue, purple, turquoise, yellow etc but it's rarely ever black. The last time black snakeweed was found was exactly 100 years ago.
"This is amazing! It makes me want to stay in this forest and study this snakeweed tree's behavior and its surroundings!" Said Reinel quickly stuffing his bag with black snakeweed.
"This'll be worth so much gold! We could manipulate even the slade kingdom's economy if we harvest this whole tree!" exclaimed Renèe doing the same.
The twins both had very different goals and outlooks on life but were still perfectly in sync which amazed all who had met the real them.
"Wait.... Ren.... Did you hear that?"
"Hm? Hear what?" Asked Renèe wondering how much money he can make out of his bag.
Reinel stayed quiet for a bit to listen again but heard nothing. "Nothing I guess,"
"Alright. Hey, wanna have a picnic here??" Asked Renèe all giddy.
Reinel nodded as they unpacked their picnic.
As they ate they recalled stories their mother had told them about this forest.
"I wonder. If mother came here when she was younger with king Victor, king Lennon and their wives, do you think history would repeat itself and we would have to come here too to discover the secrets of this forest?" Asked Reinel as he took a bite from his favorite chocolate cookie.
"You'd like that wouldn't you? With Snow and the prince of Fantasia," laughed Renèe taking a bit out of his favorite strawberry cookie.
"What secrets did they find here I wonder," said the twins in unison.
They looked at each other and laughed.
"Jinx!" they both said again.
"Hey, why don't we make Snow's necklace now?" Asked Reinel
"You know how to braid??"
"Of course I do," Reinel took a few pieces of snake weed and started braiding them while Renèe ate as he watched.
"Give me one of the gold coins," Reinel asked.
"Why?" Said Renèe confused.
"You'll see, now melt it," Renèe did as he was told and melted the gold coin.
Renèe had a strong fire affinity and Reinel had a strong earth affinity but when they were both together they had a secondary called hypnosis. One twin could not use it without the other.
The gold melted into Reinel's earth mold and after the gold was poured Reinel immediately dipped one side of the necklace to make the clasp.
The two had worked together and made a beautiful necklace and all it was missing was a pendant to match it.
"It's perfect, Rei," said Renèe holding it up proudly.
"Thanks-"
Reinel suddenly felt uneasy.
"Hey... Ren... I think we should go home now..."
"Rei, don't. Move." Reinel looked at Renèe's terrified face and resisted the urge to look back.
"Get up slowly and don't make a sound..." Said Renèe, not taking his eyes off of whatever he was looking at.
Reinel got up slowly and started to hear thunder from behind him, despite it being a clear and sunny day.
Renèe also tried to get up slowly but stepped on a tree branch.
The thunder was even louder this time as Rei heard a booming roar.
"RUN!" Renèe grabbed Reinel and ran as fast as he could.
"WHERE ARE WE RUNNING TO?" Shouted Reinel frantically.
"NO IDEA," Renèe replied, panicked by the thundering paws that he heard gaining on them.
"Wait! THE ROPE," Reinel shouted in realization as he took out his scissors to cut the rope.
"It's not WORKING!" Shrieked Reinel.
"Your mana! Use your mana you idiot!"
"Oh, right," as Reinel tried to cut the rope again his shoulder hit a tree and he dropped it.
Trying to stall for time Reinel jumped to grab a tree branch and swung Renèe on it.
Renèe quickly helped up his brother as the thunder manticore looked around with its electric filled eyes.
"Rei, give me your scissors," Renèe whispered.
"Can't, I dropped them while trying to cut the rope remember?" Reinel whispered pale.
Renèe quickly looked for his scissors but saw that his scissors were right under the thunder manticore.
The two of them started to panic as the thunder manticore found the scissors and started to sniff it. It would only be a matter of time before they were found.
"What do we do now?!" Whisper shouted Renèe.
"Well what are we supposed to do? Fire can't melt this and it's not like earth can cut through this thin line!" Reinel whispered back.
"So then what are we supposed to do!? Just use our teeth?!"
The twins looked at each other.
"Quick, Ren! Your fangs!" Reinel took the twine and tried to cut it with Renèe's fang.
"Ow! Are you trying to pull out my baby teeth?!"
"Ugh, infuse mana! Hurry!" Reinel rushed trying to cut the twine again.
Just then they heard another booming roar. The manticore found them and they had no choice but to jump off the branch.
Renèe had fallen butt first on the ground but Reinel landed on something much softer.
"Uh oh..."
Reinel had landed on a resting storm stallion.
The angry stallion got up abruptly and tried to throw Reinel off its back but Reinel held on like his life depended on it, which it did.
The stallion started running through the forest with Renèe being literally dragged through the mud.
"HELP! A LITTLE HELP PLEASE!"
Reinel had one hand on the stallion's mane and the other reached out to Renèe.
Renèe was finally on the stallion as the two tried one more quick time to cut the rope using Renèe's fang.
And it worked. The two were back near the carriage but were also still on the stallion galloping away further and further from Michael.
"Young masters!" Michael quickly separated one horse from the carriage and chased after the twins.
The storm stallion, narrowed it's eyes at the horse feeling challenged.
The stallion slowly rose up and the twins were flying high in the sky.
"I HATE HEIGHTS" Screamed Renèe.
"I love this!" Exclaimed Reinel.
In what seemed like minutes the sun had already set and it was nightfall.
The tired storm stallion landed on a cloud to rest.
Reinel feared that if the stallion were to leave they'd be stuck on this cloud in the middle of nowhere and would probably miss the princess's birthday so Reinel tied many pieces of snakeweed to make into reigns.
At first the stallion resisted but after a little while he gave up. He had never carried this much weight for this long in his lifetime and decided to just drink some rainwater and eat the cloud.
The twins never got off since they read that only very little beasts can walk on clouds and that the twins would probably go right through them if they tried stepping on it.
Just then the jewels on their necks started glowing.
"Hello, my darlings,"
"Mother!" The twins called happily.
"Your father is losing his mind here, boys," she said with a tender smile as the twins heard frantic shouting in the background.
"Are those the twins?" just then the jewel was snatched from lady Bellatrix.
"Oh thank god you boys are safe," sighed their father.
Bellatrix angrily snatched the jewel.
"Of course they're safe who do you think I am?" said Bellatrix annoyed.
"Ahem, boys, just smash this jewel and both of you can return home," She smiled.
"Mom, can we stay for just-"
"No no absolutely not!-" said their father
"Wait... Is that... No..." Bellatrix suddenly snatched the jewel and gasped.
"A storm stallion!" she exclaimed excitedly.
"Wait so that means-- boys! Don't use the jewels! They were set on coordinates and if you use them now we don't know which part of the sky you'll drop from! We don't even know how high you are right now!" Liam's face was pushed away from the jewel and Bellatrix angrily huffed as she sprinted to her room.
"Now, boys, promise me you'll marry someone unlike your father-- LIAM!" She screamed as Liam tripped her and stole the jewel.
"Boys, don't marry someone like your m--,"
"Boys, let me speak to the stallion," she whispered she was definitely hiding.
The boys showed her the stallion as the stallion looked at the jewel indifferently.
"If you bring back my boys safe and sound I can give you this," she said dangling a glowing magic crystal.
"That's a crystal heart..." said the horse.
"Wow, it talks!" exclaimed Renèe.
"I don't need it..." he said shaking his head.
"Hmm, this?" She pulled out an extremely rare fruit that permanently increases magic capacity.
The stallion shook his head again.
"I am not in need of anything you have to offer..."
Then they heard the stallions's tummy grumble.
He obviously couldn't eat properly with the twins on him.
Reinel took and almond oatmeal cookie from his pocket and tried to give it to the stallion.
"I do not need--" started the stallion then reinel stuffed the cookie in his mouth.
The stallion chewed a little then neighed happily.
"That... I want that..." he neighed excitedly.
Bellatrix looked at them happily. She was so proud of her boys.
"You can have as many as you like here if you deliver them safely. And you'll finally get a load off. I won't see you here though, boys, mommy has to go back to Slade... But be careful out there and mommy's very proud of you, love you, bye," she said as she ended the call.
"Then is it a deal, mr.Stallion?" Renèe asked holding another cookie.
The Stallion nodded.
"I will give you my blessing so that you can rest assured that I will not escape you," The stallion then knocked them off his back as the twins screamed.
Reinel cautiously opened his eyes to see that he was actually sitting on a cloud!
Reinel slapped Renèe who was still screaming.
"Oh..."
"I will deliver you later..."
"Alright!"
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°and cut!°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°