"It was late when they stopped."
Honey knew this because... well because they'd finally left the Wild Woods, or at least reached its rim. No trees grew in this place - leaving a perfect view of a full moon. Lukas and Dai looked lost in a memory, staring at the open village before them. The air was dry and gray and whenever the wind picked up it carried the scent of ash but, cast in moonlight, the Ash Village seemed oddly beautiful.
"We're here," Lukas said with a groan, collapsing to the ground. All of them were worn to the bone. "After all this time I can't believe I'm back here."
"Back?" Honey asked, sitting on the ground. At first glance, she thought she might end up covered in soot, but the ash here had long since become a part of the environment. It was so deeply embedded into the ground that it had no need for her. Honey sighed in relief as she stretched out further. "You've been here before?"
"Why do you think it's called the Ash Village," Dai grumbled sitting down next to Honey, his legs crossed and most of his weight balanced on his cloak as if he didn't want to touch the ground. His golden eyes flashed in the moonlight.
"You know that story too?" Lukas asked with a hum. "How does it go? I feel qualified to correct you since one of us was there and the other wasn't."
"How do you know?" Dai asked, cocking a brow. "I could be a thousand years older than you and you wouldn't know."
Lukas scoffed.
Honey, on the other hand, looked between them. First at Lukas and then Dai and then back at Lukas. His face was completely neutral, giving nothing away beside the slightest curve of his lip. Honey turned to Dai. His expression was a little more open. Cold and hard and exactly what Honey deserved for spilling his secret.
"I am so, so sorry Dai but on the bright side, he didn't kill you for it," Honey said with a sheepish smile.
"It wasn't your secret to tell," Dai said with a flick of his tail.
"Don't be mad at her," Lukas said, resting a hand on Dai's shoulder. "I mean, I was the one who pressured her into it."
Dai clicked his tongue.
"I'm sorry," Honey whined, looking down. "I really am."
"I'm cautious for a reason, Honey. What would you have done if Lukas had tried to kill me?" Dai's tail was flicking now. "Secrets have worth. More worth than you could ever know. Don't throw them around like that."
"I am sorry," Honey said.
"Lay off her," Lukas said. "She didn't do anything wrong."
"But-"
"But I did," Honey said, earning looks from both Dai and Lukas. "What I did was wrong. I put Dai's life in danger. That's why I'm trying to work to become stronger." Her nails bit into the flesh of her palms. "I'm sorry Dai. It won't happen again. I'll make sure of it."
Dai sighed, but his tail had stopped flicking. "You really are annoying, you know that."
"Oh yes, people told me that all the time in my village."
"By the gods, Honey," Lukas said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Don't just take that sitting down."
"I'm too tired to stand up," Honey groaned, throwing her entire body backwards. "You know what, I think I would like to hear Lukas's reasoning for burning an entire village down. Was an evil, world destroying villain living here and your fight completely took out the city?
"Not exactly," Lukas said. "This is where Moon's creation lived."
"Oh," Honey said. "The super evil world destroying villain that you killed." She closed her eyes. "Did you just burn the village down for fun then?"
"Accident," Lukas said.
"This was the first city built by the Mutare," Dai said. "And some kid spewing fire burns it down before sun could properly rise. Decades of culture, just gone." Dai, poked Honey in the side. "He never even felt bad."
"Should I?" Lukas asked. "I was just doing my job."
"Hm, let's see how many bodies we can dig out of the ash because you were just doing your job." He rolled his eyes. Hard.
"Please don't fight," Honey whined, sitting up again. "I'm already exhausted from all that training today so I really can't handle the pair of you getting into another ethical debate about murder." She closed her eyes and collapsed once more. "Because Dai, if this was a village of Lekki Lukas had killed to stop the end of the world, would you care?"
"I wouldn't know about it," Dai said.
"Not the point," Honey said. "Just... imagine."
"I've only wiped out one temple of Lekki," Lukas said with a little frown. "And they were mostly bad people. Sacrificing young women. Though I think I might've killed a couple of the future sacrifices so-"
"That's-" Honey took a deep breath, "awful!"
"I- yeah, it kind of is," Dai said. "I mean, of course, I don't care about it as much as this place because I didn't know those people. Not 'cause they're Lekki."
"Oh?" Lukas asked. "So... you were alive here?"
"Hm, yeah," Dai said. "I'm one of the few people that survived the fire. Afterwards, I went to the Keep and served the Dark Master."
"And how long ago did this place get cremated?" Honey asked, awe stuck.
"Eleven- twelve hundred years ago?" Lukas scratched his head. "I'm in my thirteen hundreds so around that time seems reasonable."
"Dai... you spent all of that time in the Keep?" Honey asked.
To live for that long was one impossible thing. It seemed like a hard existence, but that was for gods. Gods who could freely do whatever they pleased. Gods who could lounge in the heavens or sail the seas or become tyrant kings over an entire race of people. It was different for Dai, though. Because Dai wasn't a god. Dai was trapped in a building, in darkness, for all of that time.
No wonder he seemed so... cruel. Cold. Harsh.
"Not all of it," Dai said. "In the early years, I would fight sometimes. And about every half century or so, I'd head to the borders. Just to... check up on them and see the sun." He tilted his head. "But yes, most of my time was... in the Keep."
"You were the one," Lukas said, slowly. "That kept the Mutare functioning while the Dark Master was gone."
"It was more the council than me." Dai shifted from side to side.
"So the Ice Prince... it doesn't just mean you're good with magic, it also has to do with how you were basically the king of the Wild Woods for a thousand years!" Honey exclaimed.
"I always wondered..." Lukas said before smiling and shaking his head. "Well isn't my familiar a special little snowflake."
Dai smiled then. It was a small thing. A sad and pitiful thing when you really thought about it. But Dai still smiled. And Honey found herself smiling right beside him and Lukas as their laughter filled the darkness of the sky. And as they took their last breathes of peace, they smelled the storm in the air but ignored it.
Something awful and dark was coming but it wasn't coming tonight. So they laughed while they could, just a little while longer.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Dai - powered by the hugs given to him from the last chapter - is having none of Lukas's shit today