The storm hadn’t entirely faded but it had reduced in ferocity somewhat. Enough for him to be able to see better than he did the previous night.

His soiled hair stuck to his cheek as he awoke, both from the dried blood and wet stripes of tears and for once he harbored no concern for his appearance. Although he rose slow and disoriented, an immediate panic rushed to his mind.

“The locket–!”

Haetia swiftly crawled to the tree at which he’d thrown the necklace, scavenging and clawing through the thick layers of snow with his bare hands, desperately hoping that the storm hadn't picked it up in the gales somehow and carried it off.

The longer it took to unearth the necklace the more his panic rose and it took him nearly reaching the bottom before his fingers grazed some form of object. A little respite tinged him yet not completely just yet, Haetia aimed his boring at the spot until finally the soft gold of the locket gleamed through the snow.

Almost simultaneously laughing and crying in relief, he held it with both hands against his chest, finally taking a moment to calm down.

The locket still didn’t open but this time around he didn’t give it much effort. Instead he absorbed its detailed engravings of flowers, vines, and the like.

“...”

He never paid much attention to his retainer but he knew that there was never a day he didn’t see him wearing it. And if it meant that much to him…

“...Can you…”

He somehow found himself nervous to ask, a part of him remembering what the pixies had told him. You don’t deserve it.

Haetia shook his head, brushing away the thoughts the best he could and steeled his resolve.

“Can you show me where he is?”

The rim of the locket delicately glowed, and then, a thin trail of azaleas peeked through the snow, leading further off into the distance.

Even he didn’t realize the beam that came to his face at the sight and ecstatically he rushed to his feet, tying the locket around his neck once more, and with a firm hold around the necklace, he followed the small path of flowers.

Once he’d walk a part of the trail the azaleas would regress back into the earth then grow a little further ahead, seemingly stretching further and further away from the main road. It uneased him to stray away from it but he trusted in the guidance of the locket, knowing that Linias would’ve done the same.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He took far less breaks than usual but still much more than he ever remembered his retainer taking, if at all really. For the longest time Linias had walked beside Summer and never once did he recall him commenting or complaining about it. And for that matter, even outside of traveling did he not remember Linias ever complaining about anything. While on the other hand he could name a thousand times he bitched his ear off, as much as it made him wince to look back on.

…Would he even want him to save him? Or what if he doesn’t even need saving? He could’ve joined the Seronites or escaped on his own. As much as Haetia believed in his retainer’s loyalty, he felt it only reasonable that after all that he’s done for him to leave him behind. But if that was his intention, he wouldn’t have given him the locket, right?

No matter how much Haetia fought with himself over it all he couldn’t get any closer to understanding Linias’s intentions behind his actions. It could’ve been to save him, or to get rid of their ties, or to kill him, or some other greater plan of his. If he took the time to know him better, he would’ve been able to take a better gander.

For the time being though, Haetia’s deliberation about his retainer took a pause once he’d laid eyes upon a pond. It didn’t even cross his mind to clean off the dried blood that covered his body. Instead, he took to finding a way to break the sheet of ice that covered the top.

Luckily, being in a forest and all, there were plenty of rocks, branches, and the like for him to try and use. So he found the nearest one of sturdy size and struck the ice until it cracked and finally broke, and in the process he watched in disappointment as all the surrounding fish scattered.

Sighing, Haetia cupped some of the water into his mouth. It wasn’t the cleanest but it was better than nothing. He hadn’t ever gotten sick in his life so he hoped that this wouldn’t be the stroke that got him now.

Next, he gathered a few twigs, small branches, stones, and dead leaves. Without a fire there’d be little to no use in him even attempting to catch any of the fish, unless he took to eating it raw which even in a situation like this he’d still much rather stick to berries than doing.

The prince wracked his memory trying to recall how Linias used to do it in the past but all he could remember was every subsequent time Revi would start a fire with just a wave of her hand.

He tried a number of things for several minutes, from striking the stones to rubbing the branches against each other yet alas, not even the slightest bit of smoke came about.

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Haetia pursed his lips, sitting by the edge of the pond where he’d cracked an opening and staring at his still reflection in the water. “Can’t I do anything?! Myrin can hypnotize people just by singing, Revi is literally made out of fire, and Linias is a fucking dryad! I’ve known him my entire life and this whole time I thought–” Clicking his tongue he flicked his reflection, causing the water to ripple and distort it. “You could be good for something, I just don’t know what. What if I die before I reach him because I get attacked again? Then I’ll never get his locket back to him…”

He leaned in closer to the pond.

“You have to be able to do something. If the Seronites are right, and I really am some ‘Host’ or whatever it is, then I have to be able to do something.”

He focused his eyes onto the water, throwing his open palms into the mix as he tried to manifest anything from himself.

Stillness.

Stillness.

Stillness.

Groaning.

Haetia struck the pond again and made his way back to the pile of a failed campfire, then tried again to ignite it.

He repeated this process until well into the night.

Try to make a fire, give up, try to do magic, give up, then rinse and repeat.

The closest he’d gotten was a little bit of ebony to come to the branches and a thin, fleeting rise of smoke, but just as quickly as it appeared it vanished.

Aggravated with himself more than anything, he collapsed right back next to the opening in the pond. With that same reflection gazing back at him. He held his hand above the water, ready to dismantle it again, but instead, he lowered his arm and sighed.

“If Linias were here I would’ve already been fast asleep by now. Right by a fire and a stomach full of these fish.”

Ready to call it quits for the night, Haetia settled on merely tapping the water and…a small patch of ice formed.

Did he see that right? It wasn’t the weather? No it couldn’t be–The winds had stopped hours ago. And it wouldn’t make sense for the water to freeze just in that spot and as instant as that.

He did that.

He did that!

“Linias!” Haetia exclaimed as he whipped back only for the snow to return his excitement. “Right…”

Still, he tried not to get too discouraged. He did something! If he kept practicing, maybe he could do other things as well or at the least improve on the apparent dormant magic he possessed, which hopefully it was that and not some fluke.

Haetia repeated the same maneuver he did before, lightly tapping the water and when it froze in the spot he’d touched again he sighed in relief. Being able to recreate it gave him leagues of comfort yet on the other hand possibly leaned towards confirming whatever the Seronites believed him to be.

A little disheartened, the prince shook his head and tried to keep it high. “I really need to sleep–actually eat first.”

He rummaged through his cardigan, not having too many berries left to him now so he plopped them into his mouth sparingly. By now his body had become accustomed to its small portions for better or for worse.

There was little else he had to do with the bountiful time before him and he didn’t feel as though sleep would come to him too easily now after he’d just become hyper over his miniscule accomplishment.

After some thought as to what to do, he began to gather some snow into a round pile, patting it down to retain its circular shape. Then he rolled up another pile of snow and placed it atop the previous one, and together they were no higher than his knees. It was far worse than the snowmen he used to make when he was a child but still better than he expected it to turn out.

He didn’t have much to make the finishing touches: just the failed materials of his fire. First were the small branches for arms, then some stones for eyes and a twig for the mouth. Originally he was going to put a few more to make it more into a smile but settled for the straight face, though he did use the leaves for the hair.

Once he was done he smiled and clapped his hands together. “There! You look just as…depressed as you always do. Here, I’m sure some food will cheer you up. Everyone loves eating!”

Haetia picked off a berry and placed it by the snowman’s twig mouth.

“Delicious and very very filling, I know, no need to rave about it. I know how much you love your fruits. Wait…do I?”

Now that he thought about it, he didn’t have much of any memories of Linias having their fruits-for-dinner in the past, or eating at all, which also led him to realize he hadn’t the faintest idea what his favorite food could possibly be then.

“Hah. I’m terrible aren’t I?” The prince held his knees to his face, staring at the snowman in the vague image of his retainer. “I already know you know what my favorite food is. Or anything about me down to my sleeping habits. And you don’t even sleep! But I’m sure you like things, right? Like maybe…oh plants and animals! I’m pretty sure. And…flowers but I guess that counts as plants. The outdoors? But that also counts as plants in a way….What about dislikes? I’d say…you dislike…probably when I’m being difficult.”

He hugs his legs tighter together.

“Which I guess is always too. Wouldn’t that mean you dislike me then?...I hope not…but I wouldn’t blame you.” Slapping his cheeks, Haetia tries to push his anxieties aside once more so he uncurls his legs and crosses them instead, then changes topics. “Back to food! I wonder if because you like animals that you’d be a vegetarian, or maybe you live by that ‘everything returns to the earth’ principle and so you do eat meat. I bet you’d hate bitter foods though, everyone hates bitter foods. Actually–maybe you’d like them then. For some reason I feel like you’d go against the grain if you rarely even eat in the first place. How’d you even get so big then? Muscles from use?–What am I even saying of course they are, with it being your job and all.”

Haetia plucks off the berry from the Linias-snowman, threading it into his mouth. “Since you don’t seem to be eating it. I’ll actually start a fire and catch a fish next time, promise. I still can’t get over the fact that you’re a dryad, then–Fuuuck.” His eyes dropped. “That dryad girl–” Then he disheveled his hair. “Fuck me–You definitely don’t want to see me–I wouldn’t even want to see me! Okay, wait. Calm down. What iffff I got you a gift or something? ‘Hey Linias, sorry about, you know…ordering to kill your own endangered kind, here’s this…’ this…What would you even want as a gift? Flowers?–No you could just grow those instantly. Probably my dead body! Hahaha! Ha…”

The snowman stared blankly at him.

“...I hope not.”