Forgotten Home

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Mildly graphic violence warning
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     Maybe it was the blood loss that drove him unconscious, or maybe it was his body’s desperate desire to rest, like he’d wake up and find himself back with the others in a nice city with fresh food and a warm bed. But he awoke to the same thing he slept in. Blood and a blizzard.

At the very least the blizzard had mostly subsided enough to discern night from day. Cold sweat glued his face to his knees and the wound had bled enough for it to form a shallow pool by his heel.

“...” He unfolded his legs and stared at the injury. “...What did Linias do whenever I got hurt…?”

Haetia wracked his memory. Some faint recollections of his retainer healing his little cuts when he was younger uncovered. That was it. He tried to think about when Linias got injured instead, but he could only remember when he’d lost his eye that he had it covered by bandages for some time. But, he didn’t have bandages available. His clothes were an option but…It was a last resort.

The royal crawled out of the cave, the slight shine of the rising sun momentarily blinding him. He struggled to stand on his feet, only walking a couple steps before falling over. His multicolored eyes teared all over again but he wasn’t given any time to wallow in his sorrows.

An abrupt gust kicked up the snow around him as a mass plunged to the earth. Although he knew what it was he still couldn’t bring himself to turn around since it would make that reality irrefutable.

With shuddered breaths and trembling shoulders, his gaze inched backwards and piece by piece the beast came into view. The color would’ve drained from his face if he wasn’t pale already.

It was waiting. Waiting for him to leave the cave on his own.

He couldn’t move. His instincts fled before his muscles could and thus he was left stunned and immobile.

The manticore snarled, fangs flashing as it pried its jaws open to devour him head first. Just then, a soft glow peeked through the rim of the locket and the earth rumbled beneath them. Numerous colossal roots in the shape of clawed hands erupted from the ground, springing dirt and snow into the air. Before the starved monster could get any closer the roots coiled around it at the speed of a snake’s strike. The beast wrestled against the force but it only seemed to increase its constriction as the excess roots began to dig into its skin and tear its muscles.

In the midst of its entrapment, Haetia retreated backwards until finding the sensibility to finally stand and flee as quickly as possible, ignoring his blazing wound that caused him to limp and stumble along. As he fled he heard the manticore’s yelps and bleats, followed by cracking and squelches, then heavy, wet thuds onto the snow, then silence.

Whatever the roots had done he didn’t want to know. Even the grotesque sounds of the meaty shreds were more than he would’ve wanted. It made his stomach churn and vomit crawl into his throat but he swallowed it back down in a desperate need to breathe.

He fled as far as his torn leg would carry him before collapsing onto the bark of a burnt tree with heaves and pants. From its first attack when they were younger he knew that it’d be impossible to outrun a manticore, and based on what he heard he inferred that the roots had killed it – or more accurately hoped that they did.

Haetia pressed his back further into the scorched tree. All of the trees in this area in fact were scorched. In their glory days it probably would’ve been a beautiful little abode judging by how sizable their trunks were and outstretched their branches. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought that people had lived here for a time since some of the burnt logs seemed more like furniture and the like, but with how ruined they were he couldn’t know for sure.

His eyes flickered along with his consciousness. Without any food and his impending blood loss, he didn’t have much means of keeping himself awake and he beyond expended whatever energy he regained by sleeping.

He didn’t have an option in fighting off his fatigue. And so, he slept. If the manticore truly was alive and came for him, then so be it. At least then, this would all be over.

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     Something warm and comforting graced his limbs. Like a fireplace on a cold night. Haetia gradually blinked awake, catching sight of a gentle glow before defining its origin.

Roots were delicately wrapped around his wounds and in a panic from their previous horrific display of violence he immediately flung their grasp away.

They peacefully retreated back into the earth, revealing that they had healed the scratch on his arm and the punctures on his calf, the same way Linias used to do for him.

To verify with absolute certainty, Haetia thoroughly observed his skin to look for any sign of an open wound but there was none. Even the pain itself was gone, though the dried blood still lingered. He tried to wipe it off with his hand then gagged before opting to try using the snow, which didn’t work either.

Sighing, the prince stood and looked back upon the tree he slept by. “...If it was Linias he’d thank you–Hah! What am I thinking about?” His lips pursed as he held the locket, studying its intricate engravings. “...”

Haetia clicked his tongue then continued on his way – wherever that may be.

Right, water. And food.

With the storm settled it should be easier to spot either of those things, and apparently luck started to finally turn his way. A rabbit pranced across the snow, taking a couple hops at a time with a few pauses to scratch its ears.

Glee and a grin sept into his face and in a flash he chased after it, and just as quickly it took off in the opposite direction.

“Nonono stay still!”

It led him down a steep hill, effortlessly wading through the snow while Haetia tripped over his own legs from his increasing speed. Right when it seemed in arm’s reach he leaned forward and dealt the final blow to his already steadily faltering balance, plummeting onto the ground and tumbling all the way down the hill in a series of rolls fast enough for his body to become slightly airborne along the way.

His descent only ceased when he crashed straight into the base of a tree hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Saliva spat from his lips from the impact and every inch of him ached, vision still spinning in circles about him.

Haetia laid limp long enough for someone to deem him as dead, then suddenly he slammed his fists into the snow and erupted in agony, “I fucking hate you Linias I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you! Was this really your grand plan?! HUH!?? TO LEAVE ME!!!??”

He barely had any energy left to even throw a tantrum, so just as fast as it started it ended.

The ivory prince lugged himself up again, rubbing his throbbing sides in the process when his eyes landed upon a colorful bush.

“Berries!”

Haetia plucked them in handfuls and tossed them to the back of his throat, not even thinking about the possibility of poison. He sooner grew sick of them than satiated his hunger, so he shoved as many as he could into his cardigan’s inner pockets.

Still posed the question: water.