Maleficent paced in front of the magic mirror before her, growing more and more frustrated. She had been trying for hours, but the mirror couldn't conjure up the image she wanted.
"Again. Show me the princess, ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈." She commanded, and the mirror's surface distorted her image and began to swirl with green smoke. She waited, crossing her arms and scowling, until the smoke finally cleared and revealed an image so blurred and hazy she could only make out a few colors. Green, gold, (hair color), and (skin color), and that was it. Maleficent scoffed and her hands balled into fists.
"What magic is keeping you from me?" She pondered aloud, studying the image the mirror was reflecting, hoping to see some kind of clue as far as where you were, even if it was just a landscape. She couldn't make out a single thing. She bit her lip so hard it drew blood, and she waved her hand over the mirror, the image going black once again, and reflecting her own glaring face. "Show me King Stephen."
Once again the mirror swirled with green smoke before clearing up to reveal the king of the Enchanted Dominion as he sat on his throne. The bags under his eyes and the lines that a serious lack of sleep had put on his face made it look as though he had aged ten years since she had last spied on him. Someone else was in the room next to him, though the mirror could only show the image of the person she was asking after. She could only assume it was one of his generals advising him on what to do now to try and get his youngest daughter back.
"Who could have taken you? And where would they be hiding you?" Maleficent asked no one in particular as she waved her hand over the mirror again, having it show her huntsman next, hoping that he might have caught up with you by now. For you to be hidden from her as you were, there must have been someone helping you. Something had to be keeping you from her grasp. The mirror cleared to show the huntsman crouched down, a knife in his hand as he carved something out of a dark shadowed figure. She was able to deduce that it wasn't the body of any princess, nor any werewolf. "Despicable boy, who have you killed now?" She watched him with little interest as she studied his surroundings. He was clearly in the woodlands, but she couldn't tell much else about where he was or what he was doing. With a final pull of his knife, blood splattered his face and he groaned in disgust. His wolf came over and began trying to lick his face, and Maleficent scoffed again and cleared the image.
She was now faced with her own reflection, and she looked into her own eyes with a grim expression on her face. She put her hands on either side of the mirrors frame and leaned in on it threateningly, as though daring it to fail her again.
"Show me my daughter..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Axel, he's hurt." You said quietly, tucking your hair behind your ear. It was cut so short during your escape from that mad man, and you weren't used to it being in your face like it was now. It was normally stuck behind your shoulders for the most part, but now it wasn't even long enough to touch them. The boy who had saved you—and cut your hair—was following behind the two of you, doing a poor job of perusing without your knowledge due to his limp. He was stumbling around and breaking twigs, and using the trees as support every few feet.
"If he gets any closer, he's going to be a lot more hurt." Axel shot back, loudly so the boy could hear him. You wanted to stop and help him, and Axel clearly didn't.
"Oh come on, he saved me." You argued back in a whisper.
"He also held a knife to your throat."
The boy began coughing, and fell to his knees, holding a hand over his side where blood began to soak through the strip of fabric he had tied around his waist.
"Axel." You stopped, crossing your arms.
"We can't help him. I have to get you home, and—" You began to walk back to the boy, and Axel grabbed you by the arm, "If you go help him I swear to—" You pulled away from him and continued back to help him.
"Hey, are you okay?" You called out as you tentatively approached him. He was still around twenty feet away, so you figured you'd try just talking to him first. He did seem easy to anger and unpredictable earlier, and after everything that happened to you today, you were done risking your neck.
He looked up at you with tired, teal eyes, and was about to say something before collapsing face first into the marshy dirt. You sighed, and walked over to him, thinking now might be the best time to check on him since he couldn't put up a fuss about it. You knelt down by him and turned him over, undoing the fabric tied around his waist, then lifting his shirt to see how bad the wound was. It didn't look very wide, but it was deep and pouring blood now that the pressure from the fabric was off it.
"He needs stitches." You said as Axel walked up, seeing that you were bent on helping this man who tried to kill you.
"Well, good thing we have lots of thread and needles around." He said sarcastically as he came over.
"He's going to die if we don't help him. He's losing a lot of blood."
"Good. Let him die in peace then. We need to get moving. We're loosing sunlight, and I do not want to be in the Woodlands forest overnight."
"I'm not leaving him to die. He saved—"
"And then threatened your life. I know. Now let's move."
You hardened your gaze, and he sighed.
"What do you want to do then?"
"Get me some water. I need to clean the blood off before we can do anything."
"Where am I going to get water?"
"We're literally surrounded by water." You shook your head, thinking he was just being difficult.
"There's no way I'm going anywhere near that water. Are you crazy?"
"Axel."
"Fine, I'll go into town, by some skins of water, and a needle."
"Maybe you could get some healing balm from the gypsy camp—"
"No, they uh...they moved on. When I was looking for you earlier, they were the first place I went, and they up and moved their caravans."
You sighed, "That's too bad, I could really use some help." You had gotten pretty good at patching up scrapes and cuts over the years, but you had never dealt with anything life threatening like this before. If you had been able to get to him sooner it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but it was clear that this wound had been open for hours. That he was able to keep on his feet for so long was almost as shocking as it was impressive.
"Alright, wait here, stay hidden, and I'll be back as soon as I can." Axel said, dropping the leather bag of supplies you had gathered in town before transforming into a wolf and sprinting off in the direction you had come from. He was fast, but you worried about how long your silver haired friend here had left. The best you could do was bundle up the old cloth he was using, and use it to apply pressure to the wound to hopefully lessen the bleeding until Axel could get back.
You decided to try and make him more comfortable, and lifted his head so it was resting on your knees while you leaned over him to apply pressure to his abdomen. His eyes were closed peacefully, and his silver hair blew lightly in the breeze, and you couldn't help but stare at his features. He looked young, maybe a few years older than you, and he had a few light and faded scars on his hands and arms, and even a few were visible on the small portion of his abdomen you could see, as well as some deep, bloody scratches that you could see through his shredded sleeves, but his face was almost perfect aside from the dirt. There was dried blood above his right eyebrow where it looked like something had been bashed against his skull from the bruising, and while that was pretty big, it was also the only thing on his face to distract from it.
"You must have been in quite the fight before you found me." You softly spoke out loud, hoping that maybe it would help in some way. You thought he might be able to hear you and fight for consciousness, or maybe it would just be soothing to listen to a gentle voice after going through so much. "I hope I can help you before it's too late. I'd really like to thank you. You saved me, you know. You saved me from the most horrible fate imaginable. Axel doesn't understand. You didn't just save my life by killing that...man. I don't know how you found me, but I'm so grateful you did. Zack and Axel were only seconds behind you, but who knows? If you hadn't come in when you did, he might have killed me before they got there."
His peaceful expression began to change, and he winced in pain as he began to regain consciousness. "Snow..." he called out weakly, his eyes starting to open slowly.
"Welcome back." You said with a small smile as he blinked a few times.
"Where—"
"The Woodlands still. You passed out. But don't worry, I'm going to help you."
"Snow?" He looked up at you, but you shook your head.
"Afraid not."
He had to squint against the sunlight flooding his eyes to make out the details of the figure above him, but couldn't really see much besides pink lips, and short _______ hair. He recognized that hair, from...somewhere...It wasn't his sister's, and it wasn't one of the maids...
His eyes shot open and he jumped upright, causing himself a great deal of pain as he turned to look at you without the sun obscuring his vision. "You're...that girl." He said before getting woozy and slumping forward. He retained consciousness, but pretty much fell limp into your arms.
"Relax, we're safe here. Help is on the way." You said, helping him lay back down onto your knees.
He muttered something else, but you could only make out the word 'huntsman'. "Don't worry, he's long gone." You said, remembering distinctly how frightened he was of Zack.
"You two having a nice chat?" Axel said as he came up with a bag of supplies in one arm, and tossing a coin pouch up and down in his other. "I may need another ring of yours if we keep up this kind of spending, you know." He sighed as he dropped the bag by you, and then sat down with his back against a tree. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, trying to rest for a moment, even if he couldn't sleep.
"You're not going to help?" You glared at him as you began to reach for the bag. He got water, a bottle of rum, a sponge, and a pin. Everything you needed was there, now you just needed a clean environment to work in.
"No. I don't know how, and even if I did, I don't want to."
"Well, you could at least start making some kind of camp." You shot back as you grabbed a sponge from the bag and soaked it in alcohol and water and began to dab it around the stab wound.
"We're not camping here." Axel said firmly.
"He's not going to be able to move—"
"We can't. We need to get out of the woods, or find some kind of shelter."
"Well where do you propose we go? We can't go looking in the woods for a place to stay, and I will not go back to that town."
"It's too far to drag him anyway..." Axel said, scratching his chin as he thought.
"There are houses around here...old, abandoned, but...shelter." The boy said, barely keeping conscious.
"Relax. We'll take care of the rest." You said to him, and his head fell back against your lap and his eyes closed. "You hear that? There are plenty of places to find shelter around here." You said to Axel, who was beginning to get twitchy again.
"Need I remind you of the last house you stepped out of from these parts?"
"I'm not leaving him." You said adamantly. He sighed and began to grumble to himself as he scratched his head like a dog with fleas as he paced around.
"Okay. Okay fine. Close him up enough that I can carry him, and then we will find a place to stay the night. But this water stays with me." He grabbed the skin filled with water to make sure you wouldn't use it all on this stranger. You gave him a look, and he sighed again, "I swear on my next meal, I won't abandon him here." He said, putting a hand over his stomach as though that were the same as swearing on his life. To him, it might as well have been as significant.
"Good. Why don't you go sniff out the surrounding area? This might take a few minutes." You said, going for the bag again and grabbed the sponge, wetting it with the bottle of rum before dabbing it over the bloody mass on his abdomen. He winced and struggled away from you, but was ultimately too tired to get away. Axel decided he didn't need to see this, and went to scout around for a decent place to stay.
"Don't get lost." You said as he began to walk off.
"Men don't get lost. We go exploring." He said lightly, and you rolled your eyes as he disappeared down the path.
You returned your attention to the boy, and apologized lightly under your breath as you continued to clean his wound in a rather painful way, but there was really not much else you could do for him since Axel didn't get any water that he was willing to waste on cleaning a wound. Once the area was as clean as you could make it, you pulled a silk string from the fraying fabric of his sleeve, managing to get a long enough strand to be able to use it as a stitching thread. Axel had gotten you a pin rather than a needle, so you had to work to fasten the string to it and would have to worry about pushing the ball of the pin through this poor boys skin when the time came.
You half wondered if you shouldn't let him drink the rest of the rum, or maybe use the bottle to knock him out. "This is going to hurt. A lot." You said, though you weren't even sure if he was conscious.
"I'll be fine." He said. His expression didn't change and his eyes stayed shut, and you found yourself once again in awe of his strength. He was going to need it.
"I'm sorry." You said once again as you held the threaded needle between your fingers and tried to position yourself so you could work quickly.
(If you're afraid of needles, go ahead and skip this bit. It's not long, but if it bothers you, it bothers you.).
You were able to pierce the skin for the first incision easily, and he let out a calm breath as you did, letting you know that he was okay with this level of pain. You hoped he knew this wasn't the worst of it as you pulled the needle all the way through his skin, until the ball on the pinhead was the only thing left that needed to pass through.
"Deep breath in." You said, but he didn't listen to you. You couldn't afford to wait around for him to comply, so you went ahead and began to forcefully pull the pinhead through the already red and swollen skin. He clenched his jaw and his hands made fists around the marshy dirt as he fought the pain. Once you had the pinhead through the first time, it was much easier to double back through the skin to make sure the thread would hold, but it was only going to get harder from here.
"One down..." You sighed, able to see the pain just that one stitch had caused. He grabbed the bottle of rum and gulped some down as he winced against the throbbing, stinging pain. You took a swig of the rum yourself as you gave him a break before you began round two of ten...if not more.
~~~~~~~~~~~(It's safe again, needle phoebes)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You had just about finished up when Axel came walking back to you. For a while there you worried he might not be able to find you again, but he had your scent—or rather, his scent, from the jacket of his you were wearing—and that was more than enough for him.
"There's a place not terribly far from here...it's grim, but it'll do." He said as he approached. He nudged the silver haired boys foot, "How's the lump?"
You pulled the thread into a tight knot before using the blade from the sheath on his hip to cut it away from the pin. "He passed out sometime ago, but hopefully he's better now. He best pray none of those scratches on his arms need any attention." You sighed, exhausted, as you stood up. You felt the bones in your back crack and your leg muscles sing out in joy for not being pressed into the cold wet ground anymore.
"You know, this isn't a needle, it's a—ow." You mumbled lightly, feeling a sting of pain as you pricked yourself on the finger while trying to show Axel the pin.
He immediately jumped forward, knocked the pin to the ground, and grabbed your hand to look at it.
"Jesus, are you alright?" He asked looking at you as if this small injury was fatal. "Answer me, do you feel faint?"
"I'm fine. It's just a pinprick." You laughed slightly, trying to hide the uncomfortable look on your face. After everything you'd been through, you would have hoped that he wouldn't get bent out of shape by something so trivial happening to you, like your father, the fairies, your sisters, and the guards always did.
"Stay away from needles. Do you here me? God, you've nearly given me a heart attack." No needles. Ever." He said with a surprisingly stern tone.
"Alright." You answered quickly, wanting this shift in his mood to be over as soon as possible. Maybe he had a fear of needles? Although come to think of it, everyone at home always asked for you to stay away from small sharp pointy things as well.
"Let's just...get your friend to safety." He turned his back to you as he walked over to the boy and pulled him upright. It was awkward and you worried his stitches might tear open, but Axel managed to get him into a piggyback so he could carry him. You offered to help in anyway you could, but he insisted he could handle it himself as he began to lead the way towards the shelter he found. You bit your cheek as you watched him walk further ahead of you, feeling almost hurt. He was really one of the first people to ever treat you like you weren't some precious princess who needed to be protected at all times, and yet here he was, shutting you out like everyone else always did.
You wondered if he was mad at you for getting caught in that vile man Kefka's web, but even so, you were safe now, and he had no reason to freak out over a drop of blood drawn from your finger by a needle. You wanted to confront him about it, but bringing it up and talking about how hurt you were feeling would probably just make him look down on you even more. You hoped the shelter was close by. You were eager to go to sleep and be away from everyone.
You watched Axel's back as the other boy hung limply on it, and noticed just how thin and beaten looking he was compared to the unconscious but otherwise healthy boy. You wondered if maybe you weren't more capable to carry the boy yourself, but you knew he would never let you do so in his stead. He got to be the way that he was from a lifetime of hardship and struggling along alone, so he was probably used to being alone and needing to shoulder every burden on his own. That's why he must have been mad at you. It was just displaced anger at himself, you thought, for not being able to prevent Kefka from taking you while you were under his watch. Little did you know about the details of the curse hanging over your head, and the true threat a prick to the finger held for you.
"Are you alright? You're awfully quiet back there." Axel called out, looking over his shoulder at you.
"Everything's fine, thanks." You replied, looking out at the murky green waters of the swamp around you. The trees were unbearably dense this deep in the woods, broken up only by the swampy pools, and the moss coated everything the eye could see, making the whole place glow green as the sunlight crept in through the canopy of leaves up above. It was quite cold actually, but the water seemed to be giving off steam that tiny bugs swarmed in as the sunlight hit it, making it feel humid and muggy. You desperately wanted to be anywhere but here at the moment, and he could probably sense that.
"Well, at any rate, we're nearly there." He said, looking over his shoulder at you again, and then he got a confused look on his face. "Your hair—"
"Was cut. I know. Stop bringing it up." You sighed, taking a hand and running it through your greatly shortened tresses.
"No, it's...it's longer now."
"If you're trying to make me feel better, you can just stop. I've accepted it, and you should—" You actually stopped walking as you ran your fingers through your hair, realizing that it was now past your shoulders when minutes ago it wasn't even touching them. "I...I don't..."
"Maybe it's just the universe trying to correct this heinous crime?"
"I doubt the universe cares that much about my hair, and neither do I."
"Most girls would."
"Well, this girl just wants to find shelter and lay down."
"We're almost there." He said, returning his eyes forward to focus on getting to the abandoned houses location more quickly. You looked around as you followed after him, taking in your surroundings as you got farther and father from town and were now deep in the Woodlands.
"This place is incredible." You said, in awe of it all. It was haunting, and filled with its own strange magic that was both frightening and intriguing, but most of all it was just captivating. You could swear you heard whispers in the wind, and the earth beneath your feet didn't feel like anything you had ever walked on before, like it was alive and breathing somehow, and able to shift and move under your feet.
"This place is a death trap waiting to eat us alive." Axel replied in his typical cynical nature. You decided to keep your wonder to yourself, and just follow along quietly as you glanced around at the scenery and ran your fingers through your hair again, still confused by it.
The walk took a good bit longer than he was making it seem, but you finally got to the house he found. It was literally half sunken into the marsh under it, and looked like it was almost on its side by the way that the front door and windows were leaning more towards the sky.
"This is a joke, right?" You asked, "Can we even get in?"
"I told you it was grim. But I checked out the inside, and it seems good. It's dry, anyway. And at least the floor in there won't try to eat us."
"Alright then." You said as you looked up at the slanting roof and crumbling walls. This didn't look safe at all, and you wondered if it wouldn't just be better to make camp outside, but you knew Axel would shoot you down the moment you suggested it.
He pushed on the rotting wood of the door and it swung open with relative ease, and he stumbled into the house with the boy still on his back. You could see that it was difficult for him to keep his balance on the wonky, slanted floor with the weight of the boy. He was about as big as Axel was, if not bigger—or at least denser. You hurried in after them to help, grabbing the boy under his arms as Axel leaned back, allowing him to slide off his back and into your arms before Axel turned around and helped you lower him to the floor. You got the dusty old tablecloth that was sitting on the table in the middle of the room and wadded it up to use it as a pillow under his head while Axel took the supply bag from you and began getting out things to eat. He tossed you a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese before he plopped down in the wooden chair that was by the table. One of the chair legs cracked as he sat, but the chair held him so he didn't get up. He was obviously exhausted, and you didn't blame him. This had been one of the longest days of your life.
The house itself was ancient looking and somehow cold and muggy at the same time. Everything was caked in layers of dust and cobwebs, and you couldn't even begin to guess when the last time this place had been lived in was. You saw a fireplace in the corner, and wondered if you could light it, just for a few minutes. Axel saw your eyes settle over the fireplace, and he sighed. "We can't risk someone seeing the smoke."
"Would anyone even be able to see the smoke through all the trees?" You grumbled.
"Yes. ≈≈≈≈≈≈, you don't even want to let the animals in this forest know you're here. Why don't you get that everything—"
"Everything here is dangerous. I get it." You snapped, finally reaching your limit for how much belittling you could take for a day. You weren't a child who thought they were on vacation. You had been kidnapped, almost murdered and raped, saw a man die, had your hair cut painfully by a knife, and had to brutally stitch shut a life threatening injury, and that was just today. Other than that, you had been mildly bewitched by magical shoes, chased up a beanstalk, kidnapped by goblins who threatened to make you dance on smoldering iron, spent the night passed out on the forest floor with a tree branch over you, and nearly drowned in a lake. You knew this wasn't a good old time camping out in the woods.
"I didn't mean..." He said weakly, trailing off. Didn't mean to upset you? Presume you didn't understand the scope of things? He didn't mean any of it.
"It's fine. I'm going to bed." You sighed, getting to your feet and beginning to look around the various rooms of the house. There weren't many; there was an old, rusted and rotted kitchen in the corner of this living room area, then there were three doors off into different rooms. The first door you tried led to a tattered old bathroom that was on the sloping side of the house, so it was half submerged in the marsh. The tub was full of the swamp water that had leaked into the room, and had been sitting in there so long the water had gone black and rotten with large chunks of algae and other...things floating around in it. The smell throughout the whole house was relatively putrid, and you just found the source of the smell.
You quickly shut the door and moved on to the next room, only to find a flooded pantry type broom closet room. It wasn't clear what the original purpose of the room was because it was so water damaged. You shut that door quickly as well, and began grumbling to yourself about how strangely built this house was. What was the point of a house with no bedroom?
Across the room, on the less sunken into the mud side of the house, was the third door, and hoped that maybe it would be there. You crossed the crooked floor and put your hand on the cold metal handle. The rest of the doors were plain with copper handles that had rusted over the years, but this door was different. It was heavier, and the handle was polished silver that still looked new, despite a few places where dirt was caked into the engravings on the handle.
You twisted and turned it every which way, but the door was resisting. You wondered if it was just stuck, and began to get more aggressive with your attempts to open it. You finally gave in and jammed your foot into it to kick it open. It creaked and screamed on its hinges as it swung open. The smell of musty old air somehow hit you stronger than the pungent stink from the rest of the house. The rest of the house was pretty cold, but there was that swampy mustiness in the air that this room lacked. It was chillingly cold and the atmosphere was heavier than anywhere else in the house. Goosebumps instantly formed on your arms as soon as the door was open and the air from the room hit you. You couldn't explain it, but something felt completely different and grim about this part of the house.
Your curiosity was strong enough that you didn't let that stop you, and you walked into the dark room. You couldn't see anything very well, but it definitely seemed more like a bedroom. There was thin, varyingly tall furniture everywhere covered in white sheets, all placed around in a circle framing the otherwise empty room. You wondered what could possibly be behind the white sheets, since they were all too thin and tall to be anything but maybe bookshelves. You walked up to the nearest one and gripped your hand around the sheet before stopping for a moment to gather your nerve.
Something about the room just felt so overwhelming, like your body was fighting to leave the room. You took in a deep breath and pulled your hand back, taking the sheet with it. You turned your head and looked away, expecting to be showered in dust when the sheet came down, but you weren't. You looked up, and immediately gasped and jumped back at the sight of another person in the room suddenly. It took you a minute before you finally realized it was your own reflection staring back at you.
It was just a giant mirror. You wondered how they even got it into the doorway it was so large. You laughed at yourself for getting frightened as you brought a hand up and touched the cold, smooth surface of the mirror as you further examined the detailing on the sides of it. It was extremely beautiful, and framed in gold with emerald stones, and looked more than a little out of place in this dumpy old shack. It looked like something that belonged in your home, in the palace. What's more, it was completely dust and tarnish free in the otherwise disheveled house.
"Axel, come in here. You have to see this." You called out, moving over to the white-sheet covered mirror to the left of the one you had already uncovered, and pulling it down so it was exposed as well. This mirror was similar in height to the first, but its frame was silver and much rounder and wider around the middle, whereas the first one was a tall and skinny rectangle standing on one point, so it was like a misshapen diamond. The next one over was shorter, and was a round mirror raised up on a plank of rich and dark wood carved to look like a twisted, curving tree trunk that warped around the back of the mirror.
Axel entered the room before you could get to any others. He let out an awed whistle as he stepped into the room and saw the circle of large mirrors.
"What do you make of all this?" You asked as you turned to look back at him.
"Someone really has a vanity problem?" He shrugged, turning in a small circle as he got to the center of the room so he could take it all in. It really was strange to see such elegant things lost in the middle of an old shack in a swamp.
"There's no dust, fingerprints, sign of age or decay...nothing. On any of them. How can that possibly be?"
"Uh...charms? Enchantments? Little woodland creatures come in and do the cleaning in this room only?" He guessed, as completely lost as you were.
There was regular bedroom furniture pushed off to the side of the room in a way that rendered them unusable, like a dresser piled on top of a bed, and a bookshelf facing the wall and tipped forward enough that all the books had fallen into a cobweb covered pile on the floor. Clearly this room hadn't been touched in ages, and yet there stood the seven perfect mirrors.
"I dunno. But it's creepy. Let's get out of here." He mumbled uncomfortably, looking around the room once more before making eye contact with his own reflection in one of the mirrors and shuddering. "Really creepy."
He was right; whenever you looked into your own eyes in the mirror it was like the hair on the back of your neck would stand up. You couldn't figure out why, but it was just plain eerie. You tore your eyes away from the mirror and were about to join Axel in walking out of the room when you realized how long your hair was. You didn't notice right away because long hair looked natural on you, and you were only ever used to seeing yourself that way. You never got to see what it looked like after the boy cut it above your shoulders with his knife. That was only a few hours ago, and yet now your hair was as long as it ever was.
"Axel?" You drew his attention over to you as you ran your fingers down the length of the tangled strands.
"I know. But there's nothing we can do about it now, right? Unless you want us to cut it all off again."
"No but...what if it keeps growing like this?"
"What if it does? We can figure it out tomorrow. It's not like you're going to die of long hair." He laughed as he put an arm behind your back to push you into motion to get you to leave the room.
"I'm more worried that it might make it harder to travel tomorrow if it's down to my knees when I wake up." You grumbled, looking behind you one last time into the room with the mirrors. At the last second you noticed a hatch on the floor the must have led into a basement, just like in Kefka's house.
"We can make your new friend carry it from behind you then." He shrugged, shutting the door to the creepy room without looking back. Unlike you, he'd seen enough to know he wanted nothing to do with it. "Now get some sleep."
You sighed as you plopped down onto the ground near where the silver haired boy was sleeping, and folded your hands behind your head after throwing Axel's large velvety coat over yourself like a blanket. Axel placed himself in-between you and the boy, still not trusting him, and the two of your stared up at the ceiling together in silence.
It was like that for a while, neither of you able to close your eyes and sleep just yet, until you finally broke the silence, "What is our plan for tomorrow anyway?"
"Oh, I don't know. We get out of the Woodlands, drop your friend off at the nearest town, then head for home, I suppose."
"You know, I might actually like to go home. After the day I've had, being locked up in a tower doesn't seem like such a terrible thing anymore."
He gave a wry chuckle, and was about to make a retort when the bedroom door swung open again and crashed into the wall inside the room, like it had been pushed open by a great force.
The two of you sat up and looked over at the empty doorframe with wide eyes and quickly beating hearts.
"Axel?" You mumbled, wanting him to confirm that he shared in your surprise and mild terror.
"It's probably nothing..." He managed to say back, though barely above a whisper.
"Axel." You rolled your eyes at him. It was clearly something.
"What? I don't know!" He snapped, just as dumbfounded as you.
You got to your feet and went over to the doorframe slowly as Axel called for you to get back over to him. You waved him off and crept closer to the doorway, your heart jumping up into your throat and making it hard to breathe as you got nearer. You were right at the door frame, looking into the still empty room of mirrors. Your jaw dropped and you felt your heart stop as you realized the three mirrors you had uncovered had turned to face the door way in their positions in the circle of mirrors. They were still forming the circle with the other mirrors, but now they were looking at you in the doorway instead of facing the others in the circle.
"Fantastic..." Axel muttered sarcastically from behind you, causing you to jump at his sudden appearance in the mirror behind your own reflection.
"They're just mirrors, right? I mean...they can't hurt us...right?"
"Nothing's ever 'just' anything in this place. Come on, let's get that door shut."
"Shouldn't we...I don't know, cover them back up or something?" You asked as he walked back into the living room area to get a chair to prop under the door handle to make sure it stayed shut this time.
"If you want to go back into that room long enough to do that, be my guest. I'm staying right here." He declared. It took all of your courage just to reach into the room, grab the door handle, and wrench it shut before he quickly stuffed the chair under the knob.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't see anything."
"Me too." You agreed, the two of you staring at the chair and knob now, waiting for something else to happen. After a moment of stillness, you both moved back to your spots on the floor without another word. It was obvious you were both not even trying to sleep for a while. It was kind of hard to relax when your body was on high alert like this, just waiting for that door to pop open at any moment.
It had possibly been an hour when you finally fell somewhat asleep. The ground was hard and cold, and your paranoia was making you even more uncomfortable. Any kind of sleep you got that night wasn't restful in the slightest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ven! What are you doing?" Roxas seethed through his teeth in a hushed tone as he caught Ven hopping up from his bed across the room and making to sneak out. They had been put up in some guest room off the main towers of the castle. It was nice enough and really fit for a pair of princes, sure, but the boys were getting restless and bored. It was putting them both in a bad mood.
"I'm going to go investigate." Ven replied simply, making for the door.
"Investigate what?" Roxas groaned, but got out of bed anyway.
"The princess." He didn't even wait for Roxas to get his shoes on before pulling open the door and heading out into the hall.
"What about her? She's not here." Roxas had to rush to catch up with him, still hopping slightly as he tried to get his foot fully into his boot.
"I don't know that I believe that. I mean...where is Illyn? Why won't anyone tell us anything? Why does that creepy lady keep giving us looks?" Ven went on, finally airing all of his suspicions about what had been happening lately. Lady Tremaine was making it clear that they weren't welcome in the castle, and they got the feeling that no one else wanted them there even if they were too polite to come right out and say it.
"Ven...look..." Roxas hurried along again to catch up with his brother, who was about to go charging down the marble steps of their tower to get back to the main body of the castle. "Illyn wasn't a real knight." Roxas caught a hand around Ven's shoulder to make him stop and look at him, but after giving that little bit of news Ven stopped anyway.
"What?"
"It was her. It was princess ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈. She stole a suit of armor and ran away. She doesn't want to get married, and she hated it here. She wasn't kidnapped or spelled, she just ran away...there's no mystery for you to solve."
Ven deflated and looked at the ground while biting his lip. "You mean...the first princess I ever met...turns out to be the man who stole all of my cheese?" He sighed, feeling like a bloody idiot.
"Oi, what are you two up to?" Someone called out to them from across the hall, making them both jump in surprise. It was a red haired boy with an eye patch and an armful of books hugged to his chest.
"We're just walking." Ven shrugged, and Roxas glared at the newcomer.
"Just who are you supposed to be?"
"Lavi. I'm one of the castle's scriveners."
"Scrivener?" Ven repeated.
"Scribe? I read and write things?" Lavi tried to explain, but he really couldn't make it much simpler.
"Well, I'm—"
"Ventus and Roxas Rostar. Princes of the Land of Dreams, and honored guests here in the Enchanted Dominion. I know all about you two."
"Look, I don't care who you are, or what you know about us. Is there something you want?" Roxas said, a bit snippy, but he didn't like to be interrupted and kept waiting for no good reason.
"Two young princes out of bed after dark, and you want to know what I'm up to? I'm not the one who's suspicious here." He gave them a nice cheery smile, and that only added to Roxas' glare. "There's someone else who used to wander the castle at night, you know. And now she's gone missing. I'd be careful if I were you."
"Is that a threat?" Roxas snapped, and Ven had to put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
"Not a threat, a fact." Lavi shrugged, not seeming intimidated in the slightest.
"Princess ≈≈≈≈≈≈?" Ven asked, wondering who it was that went missing.
"Yes, our beloved princess ≈≈≈≈≈≈. Hard to tell if she's missing, or she simply just ran off for a bit of fun and got carried away." Lavi gave a soft sigh, and then shook it off, "At any rate, she's not here. No sense in looking for her around the castle."
"How would you know?" Roxas asked.
"It's a mighty big place you've got here." Ven added, looking around the large, spacious corridor with all the passages winding off of it.
"Because, I know ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈." Lavi replied simply.
"What, like you know any spot she would go to? If she's out exploring, she wouldn't be where you'd expect her to be."
Finally Lavi's façade of calm broke down, and he stared down at the ground as his fists clenched, "It has been days." He said slowly, trying not to let the anger read in his voice, but failing, "If she were here, right under our noses, this whole time...she would see what it's doing to her family and would come back."
"You knew her then?" Roxas asked, a bit gentler in his tone seeing that this boy was about as upset as everyone else in the castle about the princesses disappearance.
"Very well." Lavi sighed.
Roxas wondered if he would have done things differently, made you come back home instead of encouraging you to go onwards with your adventure if he knew you'd be gone this long and you'd be missed this much. But while he was biting the inside of his cheek in thought, Ven was running his mouth.
"Can you think of a place in the castle where she would be that you haven't looked at yet?" He asked innocently enough. Roxas wondered if he had forgotten about meeting you out of the castle and a day's journey out towards the lake lands. You weren't in the castle. They both knew that...unless Ven forgot. He did only just recently tell him the truth about the 'knight' they met.
"No, we've searched the castle top to..." He trailed off, and got a rather inquisitive look for someone who seemed so firm in his answer at the start of his sentence. "You know, no one has checked the Forbidden Tower." He admitted.
"Forbidden Tower?" Ven scoffed, "Of course that's where she'll be. With a name like that, I'm tempted to run off and explore it."
"Why has no one checked there?" Roxas asked, not sure if he was playing along with Ven at this point, or if he was actually curious about why they wouldn't search absolutely everywhere.
"Hello? Forbidden Tower. Isn't it obvious why no one has checked it? No one has been allowed to enter it since it was sealed off with..." Lavi stopped, not wanting to reveal too much to these boys. Who knew if they were trustworthy? They weren't being honest with him about something, he could feel it. And those identical smirks were frankly unnerving. "Well, it's been sealed off."
"Where is this tower?" Ven asked, looking around the corridor again. He did know that they weren't going to stumble upon any lost princesses, but he was going out of his mind with boredom, and exploring this 'Forbidden Tower' seemed to be the best thing to do around here, by far.
"I don't think it's a good idea to tell you." Lavi said, and both brothers glared at him. "Though under the circumstances, and against my better judgment, someone really should check that tower..."
"Great! So where is it?"
"I'll show you."
Roxas froze, "Just tell us."
This time Lavi got to smirk at them, "Oh no. If you're going exploring, you're taking me with you."
The boys walked in silence for a good long while as Lavi took them up and down flights of marble staircases, around corridors, and through passages they would never have understood how to get to even if Lavi had just told them how to get there. It was far more complicated than either of them was expecting. It was almost like there was a maze built around the base of this tower, just to make sure no one ever got to it. There had to be a reason it was forbidden, after all.
"You sure you know where you're going?" Roxas finally asked.
"Of course." Lavi scoffed confidently, "I know every thing there is to know about this castle. Every secret."
Roxas and Ven exchanged a silent look at one another, wondering just who exactly this red haired scrivener was.
They finally came to an ancient looking door pressed against the far wall of an extremely long, winding corridor, and all three of them stared for a moment at the ancient oak wood, and the polished golden knocker with a grotesque gargoyle face carved into it that was hanging in the middle of the door. They all stared at it in wonder for a moment, even Lavi.
Before reaching for the doorknob like the boys thought he was going to do, Lavi ran his hand over the wood as if looking for something. Whatever it was, it looked like he didn't find it. He gave a frustrated huff and put both hands on the door this time, feeling around more carefully.
"Something wrong?" Roxas finally asked.
"The opposite, actually..." Lavi answered, stepping away from the door and looking at the whole of it once more, but this time with a confounded expression. "The enchantment on the door...it's been broken. This door is never supposed to be open, but..." He took out his hand, touched the knob and gave it a push, and the great door swung open with a great groaning creak.
"Well...looks like you don't know every secret." Ven said smugly, crossing his arms as he grinned at the staircase that was revealed behind the door.