Disclaimer – ½ Prince and all of the characters belong to Yu Wo
Note – This is set somewhere around the end of volume 1, before Yu Lian has joined the Odd Squad, directly after Gui joined, before Gui Wen has met Tian Lang (though I'm not really sure quite when this happened in the original story, it hasn't yet here xD) before they first met Dark Phantom, etc etc.
A strong wind blew across Gui's aching body, chilling him slightly, though it was so hot out there in the blazing sunlight. His clothes, his hair, and all of the rest of him was completely soaked with cold ocean water, which kept splashing over his legs at regularly paced intervals. Groaning in pain, his eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at the bright blue sky, small, puffy clouds and the infrequent birds darting past overhead.
Coughing up some water, he grimaced and spat it out onto the sandy beach he was laying on. Sitting up, he rubbed some of the grime off of his face, and watched as a small crab fell off his shin from where it had been crawling about.
Gui lifted his gaze to the ocean endlessly stretching out in front of him, waves loudly crashing onto the shore. Looking to his left, and then to his right, he felt bewilderment wash over him as forcefully as the ocean waves at his feet. No one else was in sight there on the beach, nor could he see any strips of land on the horizon. The only sounds were the wind, the waves, various birds calling to one another, and his own ragged breathing.
Twisting around, he ran his eyes at what looked like an impossibly huge jungle of dark green leafiness, very unlike the deciduous forests he was used to seeing in-game. In fact, he'd never before seen a place that looked like this anywhere in Second Life. Not that he'd been to many areas in the two months since he'd bought the game, but this place definitely didn't look like the sea port in Central Continent, where he and the others had just been a short while ago. At least, he assumed it had been a short while; he wasn't quite sure just how long he'd been laying there, having fallen unconscious after the boat that he and his teammates had been on—Lolidragon had wanted to look for sea monsters, for some reason or another—had capsized in a spontaneous and very violent storm.
Slowly, shakily, Gui stood up, nearly falling over once he managed the feat. Wincing as fresh pain shot through his body, he attempted to quell the nausea roiling up inside.
It didn't work.
Doubling over, he threw up all over the sand at his feet. Mostly all that came out was sea water, but it was still very gross.
Wiping his mouth off on his sleeve afterward, he continued to stare downward. His purple shoes had washed away at some point, leaving him with only a pair of sodden, dirty stockings to keep his feet safe from harm.
Oh, just perfect.
Stumbling backward in the damp sand, Gui turned around, looking about himself again. "Guys, where are you?" he called through his chattering teeth over the team channel. Taking a few steps away from where he'd washed up on shore, he scanned the beach, looking for them, and rubbed his hands up and down his arms in an effort to warm himself quicker, though now that he wasn't laying in the water, he was already feeling quite a bit toastier.
"Guys?"
There was no answer, regardless of how many times he repeated his calls.
Eyes widening fearfully, he tried to keep his breathing level as he made his way along the edge of the beach, stepping carefully over the scattered bits of wood, seashells, and countless rocks so he didn't hurt his feet. Perhaps the others were still unconscious somewhere like he'd just been, and simply couldn't hear his calls at the moment. That had to be the reason they weren't replying. He couldn't have been the only one who ended up… wherever he was.
"Where am I, anyway?" he muttered to himself, eyebrows lowering into a puzzled expression. Pausing in his progress down the long stretch of wet sand, he quickly said, "System, map!" and watched expectantly as the large system window opened before his eyes. His mouth dropped open in disbelief, staring up at the completely solid black square where the map of the continent was supposed to be resting.
"System, map!" he repeated anxiously, eyes searching all over the blackness, waiting for something he recognized—or anything at all, for that matter—to appear.
Nothing happened, so he continued with increasing hysteria and anger, "System, map! System, map! SYSTEM, MAP! I SAID, SYSTEM, MAP! STUPID GAME! SHOW ME THE MAP!"
The 'map' stayed resolutely blank, not showing anything at all, no matter how many times he tried to bring up the map, or how loud he shouted.
"Oh, go away, stupid thing!" he snapped as he closed the system window, feeling as though the system had done it on purpose to annoy him.
He paused again, and carefully shook his head as though he was attempting to make himself come to his senses. This wasn't good. He'd only been there for a little while, and he was already treating the game system like it was alive. Had he really come to need companionship so much in such a short amount of time? He'd been just fine playing by himself but a few weeks ago before he joined the Odd Squad, and now the loneliness was nearly overwhelming.
Although his desperate want for company may have been due to being stranded seemingly by himself without a map on some unknown island in some unknown place without any known way of returning to the Central Continent.
Gui took a moment to remove his cloak and rolled up a large rock inside of it, tying the thick cloth securely in place. He picked the bundle up, and planted it in a noticeable spot halfway up the beach, hopefully out of the reach of the incoming tide, and then quickly continued on down the beach to search for the others, leaving his makeshift marker where he'd left it.
He walked for several miles, with increasing anxiety as no one else came into sight. Wildly looking around, though everything there was exactly as it had been where he'd washed up on shore, his steps began to quicken even more. "Where am I?" he wailed in confusion. "Guys, can you hear me? Where are you? Guys!"
Panic rising in his chest at their lack of response, he broke out into a run and dashed across the hot sand, spraying it up behind himself as he continued to scream desperately over the team channel, hoping they weren't dead, and hoping that he himself wasn't going to die there all alone.
For nearly ten minutes he blindly ran up the stretch of beach until he suddenly tripped over something, and promptly fell face-first into the sand.
"Ow!" he cried, lifting himself up and wiping the gritty sand off. A large wave suddenly crashed over him, adding insult to injury. Glancing backward in annoyance as he wiped his face a second time, he looked at what had tripped him.
Correction; who had tripped him.
"YOUR HIGHNESS!" he yelled with a mixture of relief and horror, flinging himself at the unconscious and very soggy elf, partially buried in the sand. Grabbing Prince by the shoulders, Gui roughly shook him back and forth. "WAKE UP! PRINCE! PLEASE, WAKE UP!"
Gui quickly stopped shaking him to see if he was awake yet. Rather than waking up, Prince's head simply flopped backward again.
"PRI–!" Before Gui could finish, yet another enormous wave washed over the two, drowning out his call and replacing it with a garbled, choking noise as salty water filled his mouth and rendered him incapable of speaking any longer. At least, coherently.
Angrily blinking the water out of his eyes, Gui stood up and grabbed Prince under the arms, dragging him away from the incoming tide. Gently laying him back on the sand, Gui put his ear to Prince's face, and drew back in fear a moment later.
Prince wasn't breathing.
"What do I do? What…" His mind reeling, Gui fretfully attempted to remember how to perform CPR. He'd seen a diagram somewhere recently—maybe during his brief tour of the university he'd just been hired at; the infirmary had some charts hanging on the walls—but he hadn't taken a very good look, having only glanced into the room on his way by, since the physician wasn't in at the time.
It couldn't be too difficult to do, Gui supposed. Hopefully.
Shakily, Gui took Prince's chin, tilted his head back, and then removed his chest armor. Gui planted his mouth on Prince's and gave two breaths. Sitting up again, he quickly began pumping Prince's chest as hard as he could, hoping he was doing it correctly.
Pausing, he apprehensively waited to see if that had done anything. It seemingly hadn't, so Gui repeated the process.
On the third time, a great deal of sea water suddenly sprayed out of Prince's mouth, and Gui watched in relief as he started coughing and taking deep breaths on his own. Patting Prince's shoulder, Gui leaned back on the sand and sighed with happiness that it had worked.
After several minutes of coughing, Prince sat up, and glared at Gui in the usual distrustful manner. "Did you just do what I think you did?" he demanded hoarsely through continued coughs, wiping his mouth off.
"I gave you mouth to mouth resuscitation, because you weren't breathing!" Gui replied with a bright smile, leaning toward the elf to see if he was really okay and feeling very alleviated that he wasn't the only one there on the island.
Prince's color didn't look very good. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse all of the sudden, rather than better. But his lungs had just been filled with water, so not looking his best was probably to be expected at the moment.
At Gui's explanation, Prince's face suddenly fell into disgust, and he wiped his mouth all the more vigorously. "YO-YOU JUST… STUPID!" Taking one last deep breath, he roughly shoved Gui away, snatched up his armor as he stood unsteadily, and took several steps to one side while he put his armor back on.
Gui looked up at Prince in bewilderment as he continued to cover his mouth. That bizarre person, why was he angry this time? Was Gui supposed to have simply let him suffocate? Who knew how long one could go without breathing in Second Life before they died. It had been an emergency.
"No, no, calm down," Prince muttered under his breath, seemingly to himself, rather than to Gui. "It was just CPR. It wasn't… That doesn't count."
Gui stood up and stepped over to Prince to ask him if he was really okay, but received a punch-to-the-stomach when he got within arm's reach. "Y-Your Highness!" he gasped, fighting to breathe as he held up one hand pleadingly and gripped his middle with the other.
Never mind dying all alone on the island. It seemed now that Gui was going to die because there was another person with him.
"Don't stand so close!" Prince snapped, backing away a few feet. "Where is everyone else?"
"I don't know," Gui answered, rubbing his stomach and feeling worry build up again. "I only just woke up a little while ago, and you're the first person I came across. And no one answered over the team chat when I called."
Prince whipped around, looking up and down the beach as he took a few steps toward the ocean again. "A-and where are we?"
"I don't know that, either," Gui said, biting his lip.
"System, map!" Prince called, eyes going unfocused as he stared into space. He suddenly paled even more and screamed, "HUH? WHY IS IT ALL BLACK?"
Gui refrained from once again saying that he didn't know, and instead pointed a hand down the beach as Prince's eyes came back into focus. "My map is like that, too. We should search for the others. I was heading in this direction when I found you."
After a moment, Prince nodded once and took off down the beach, anxiety smothering his face. Gui quickly followed after, out of arm's reach to avoid getting punched again.
"No guesses as to where we are?" Prince asked, briefly looking back at Gui as they walked. "I don't remember there being any islands on the system map. Just the continent. But the port we were at earlier didn't look anything like this."
"I've never seen any islands, either," Gui replied. "It's odd that this place isn't charted. But maybe it's just a bug of the system, or something. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon."
With a vague noise of agreement, Prince fell silent again and continued onward. Gui worriedly glanced at him, and looked away again. The elf looked extremely distressed over the situation, and Gui attempted to think of some way to help lift his mood. It seemed the only way Gui had been of help cheering up Prince in the past was to let him beat him up.
Now really didn't seem like it was a good time to be acting like a moron, and at the moment he didn't really want to be punched, but if it helped Prince feel better…
"Your Hi-i-ighness!" Gui called, energetically skipping toward the elf as he prepared himself to be severely beaten. At least, he tried to skip to him. But before Gui got anywhere near Prince, his foot landed on a very sharp bit of stick he hadn't noticed poking out of the sand. Tears immediately began gathering on his eyelids as the unexpected burst of pain shot up his leg.
Prince looked back in alarm as Gui let out an extremely loud "ouch" sort of noise. "What happened?"
"I hurt my foot!" Gui howled, staring downward as blood started soaking the sand around his stocking-clad feet.
Raising an eyebrow, Prince stepped over to him and frowned. "Well, no wonder. Where are your shoes?"
"They got washed away before I woke up. Never to be seen again, I suppose," Gui mournfully whimpered, crouching down and removing the stick from the bottom of his foot.
Sighing in irritation, Prince grabbed Gui's injured foot and dragged him by the ankle across the sand toward the water's edge, pulling off the ripped sock as he went. "P-Prince, what—OW! OW! That stings!" Gui exclaimed, attempting to extract his foot from the salty water, but Prince forced it to stay submerged as he swished it from side to side.
Once the blood and sand were washed off, Prince dragged Gui back up the shore, and quickly tied the sock tightly around his foot, dropping it to the ground afterward. "Be more careful, moron," he grumbled, striding down the beach again.
Gui stared at his bandaged foot for a moment, and then smiled gratefully at Prince's back. Quickly getting to his feet, he stumbled after the elf, resuming what he was doing before, only with a lot less joyous skipping and a lot more painful, one-footed hopping.
Grabbing Prince from behind, Gui gave him a squeeze. "Thank you so much for treating me, your most gracious Highness, Prince! My foot is all better now, because of your wonderful–"
"Get off me!" Prince snapped, prying loose Gui's arms and shoving him away. Gui fell backward and landed lightly in the sand, watching in amusement as Prince's progress sped up several times as much as he nearly ran down the beach to escape from the annoying bard. Well, that livened him up a bit, and hopefully they would find the others sooner.
Mission accomplished.
Picking himself up again, Gui limped along after Prince as swiftly as he could and tried to keep down the rising anxiety.
They walked for several hours, making their way around the entire perimeter of the island, though Gui mentioned to Prince that the others probably wouldn't be on the other side of the island—given the direction that they all had come from, they would have all washed up on basically the same side—but the two kept walking, anyway, "Just in case," as Prince had reasoned.
At regular intervals along the way, they sent messages calling for the others across the team channel, and checked the map every so often, but no one messaged them in return, and the map was still a big, black square of nothing.
Gui was at least thankful that he healed in that time, leaving the sole of his foot happily pain-free and looking like he'd never stabbed a stick through it in the first place. He hoped he'd be able to avoid getting any more cuts on his feet, seeing as how he had to use them to walk, and all of those other important uses that feet had—standing, running, romping, skipping, kicking, chasing Prince, trying to use them to pick things up when bored and wondering if it's really possible, and so on and so forth.
It wasn't until the sun was nearly set that Prince finally halted, staring further up the beach to a spot near the leafy tree line. "What's that thing?" he asked curiously, striding away from the water's edge and walking toward the covered rock Gui had placed.
"That's my cloak," Gui answered quietly as Prince tugged the fabric off of the rock and shook it out. Gui took a deep, calming breath, though he suddenly wanted to run about in a panic all over again. "I left it here earlier to mark where I woke up. We've gone all the way around the island."
Prince's eyes widened, and he turned around, staring in every direction. "A-all the way? But… but we haven't found the others yet! We can't have gone all the way around!"
"I don't think the others are here," Gui observed. "I would say that they went into the jungle for some reason, rather than staying on the beach and looking for us, but if that was the case, they would have answered our messages."
With a steadily paling face, Prince gaped at Gui for several minutes, not moving or saying anything more. Without warning, he dropped Gui's cloak and dashed off toward the ocean. "I'M SWIMMING BACK TO THE CENTRAL CONTINENT!" he screamed, jumping into the water.
"Prince!" Gui yelled, chasing after him. Grabbing the elf's belt, Gui leaned backward in an attempt to drag him back to shore. Prince kept pushing through the waves, regardless of Gui's weak efforts, splashing water all over the place in his frantic struggles.
How in the world did Prince expect to be able to swim all of the way back to the continent when the sun was setting, and especially with no map? And what would he do if another storm hit like had unexpectedly happened earlier—causing this whole mess?
"You can't, Your Highness! You'll drown!"
"Let me go!" Prince snapped, turning around and grabbing Gui's shoulder. When Prince drew back a fist and thrust it forward to punch him, Gui suddenly realized getting hit would not be a good idea at the moment, and let his reflexes take over.
He ducked for the first time.
"Wait, Prince! Don't hit me!" Gui pleaded as the fist whistled overhead, but never loosened his death-grip on the belt.
Prince initially looked a bit confused at Gui's evasive actions, obviously seeing as how Gui usually seemed more than willing to be beaten to a pulp at any given moment, but Prince quickly got a hold of himself and raised his fist a second time. "If you don't want me to hit you, let me go!"
"I won't!" Gui refused, stubbornly shaking his head and attempting to quell the shivers starting to take over his limbs from being in the cold water, even if it had only been a short while. He was determined never to let go, unless Prince had calmed down.
"Fine then, I'll hit you!" Prince concluded, taking a few more steps backward and furiously glaring down at the bard as the icy water lapped around them.
"But we don't know if there's a rebirth point here!" Gui explained hysterically, securely wrapping his arms around Prince's middle as the elf started to struggle harder in his clutches. A wave crashed over Gui's head, thoroughly soaking him, but he only tightened his grip and tried to keep himself from inhaling more of the cold, salty water.
Pausing in surprise at Gui's reason, Prince's fist finally lowered, and he stopped trying to run further out to sea. "What are you talking about?"
"If there isn't a rebirth point, what will happen if one of us dies?" Gui challenged hastily, still resolutely hanging onto Prince just in case he was going to try to escape again. "We can't message the others, which means, unless they all logged out for some reason, that the island isn't connected to where they are. And if it isn't connected to other places, we might not be able to reappear on the continent if we die! So don't hit me, and don't try to swim away!"
Prince was still for a long time, staring down at Gui's desperate expression. Gui hoped he'd finally gotten through to the panicky elf. There was little one could accomplish if they were simply acting out of fear, unless perhaps they wanted to die quicker.
After several minutes, Gui finally stood up again. "Let's go back to the beach," he suggested, cautiously unwrapping his arms from around Prince, though still at the ready to grab him again if he made another escape attempt.
Prince gave one last, longing look toward the open ocean, and nodded, striding past Gui to return to land. Heaving a relived sigh, Gui quickly followed after, trying and failing to ignore the incredible discomfort of his freezing cold, sopping wet clothing plastered to his skin. It hadn't been so bad when he woke up earlier, since the sun had still been out, but now that it had gone down, the cold pressing in from all sides was almost overwhelming.
First things first; they needed to build a fire. Preferably a huge one.
Halting his steps as he finally sloshed up onto the sand again, he watched as Prince proceeded to draw a long line with a stick, making it stretch from the water's edge up to the outskirts of the trees. Planting the end of the stick into the sand after he was finished, Prince pointed at the line, and glared at Gui. "No crossing this line, you pervert, or else!"
Oh, good grief.
Regardless of wanting to laugh at Prince's constant mistrust, or maybe angrily yell that he wasn't interested in such things, Gui instead forced himself to put on a coy smile, and blinked innocently at Prince. "Oh, Your Highness, I would never ever do anything of the sort! I shall stay on my side, if that is what you want," he declared sweetly.
With an inward roll of his eyes, Gui pushed his dripping bangs off his face, and strode toward the jungle to look for suitable firewood, feeling his mood steadily drop. Even if he really had been gay, Gui highly doubted he would have been plotting to do something lewd to Prince, given the dire situation they were in.
Staying alive until they got rescued was the top priority, and Gui knew that meant it was important to keep himself out of harm's way by not going overboard with his usual behavior. Here and there to lighten things up a bit, of course, but definitely not to his normal extent.
"Hey! No walking around the edge of the line!" Prince warned, threateningly waving the stick in Gui's direction. "Just because I can't draw it any longer than this, doesn't mean the boundary isn't there!"
Gui glanced back at him in annoyance for getting interrupted, wondering just how ridiculous he could get. Smiling again, he explained, "I'm going to look for firewood so we can warm up. I said I wouldn't cross it, didn't I? I promise that I won't, don't worry."
"Oh," Prince muttered, lowering the tree branch. But when Gui turned to continue on, Prince yelled, "Wait!"
Sighing deeply, Gui whirled around to questioningly stare at the elf, not bothering to plaster on yet another smile and feeling the irritation begin to build up and up. It was cold, getting colder, Gui wanted a fire, and he wanted it now. What could Prince possibly have to say that was more important than thawing out before he froze to death? Gui wasn't going to cross the damn scribble in the sand, even without orders from the ever-suspicious elf.
"Your feet," Prince continued with unexpected worry, "you'll hurt them again if you go in there without any shoes on, especially now that it's dark, since you won't be able to see what's on the ground very well."
Gui's annoyance was suddenly replaced with shock as he watched Prince hurry toward the trees in his place. Prince actually… One second he was acting completely cold, the next he was actually being considerate.
What a strange person.
"I'll go get the firewood," Prince offered, dropping the stick he had been holding and slipping into the trees. "Be back soon!"
Staring after Prince until he disappeared from sight, Gui finally closed his mouth and smiled to himself as he sat down on the sand to wait. Prince certainly was unique, and it seemed in many more ways than his more-handsome-than-should-be-allowed looks. He may have been annoying at times, and very confusing with all of the different sides he had, but he was the first person in quite some time that had so thoroughly stirred up Gui's curiosity.
"Prince, be sure the wood you pick up is completely dry. Fresh wood doesn't burn very well," Gui called after a moment, suddenly wondering if Prince had ever built a fire before. In the past, it had always been one of their other teammates picking up firewood. Prince always seemed to be too occupied with the food part of the cooking process to pay much attention to building the fire.
Prince didn't reply for quite some time, and Gui glanced at the trees, feeling a bit worried at the silence. After so many hours of trying to reach the others, it was unsettling not to have an answer right away.
"It looks dry," Prince finally observed.
Letting out a whoosh of relieved breath, Gui replied, "The outside might, but break the branches in half to see if the middles are sappy. Good firewood is dried through, and shouldn't be very difficult to break into pieces. Green wood will be flexible, rather than brittle. It's hard to light, and lets off little heat, unlike when it's dried. And try to get a variety of thicknesses."
Prince went quiet again, and then remarked in a surprised tone, "…You sure know a lot about this stuff. Have you gone camping before, or something?"
Chuckling slightly, Gui smirked at the tree line. "No, I haven't. I read a lot of nonfiction, and the information simply sticks."
"Really? I read a lot, too, but I don't know all these things," Prince said. "Though mostly all I read are novels and cookbooks… Books packed with info sound like they'd be too boring to get through. I don't think I'd remember anything afterward."
"They can be boring, at times," Gui agreed. "But there are plenty of other ways to learn, besides reading, like a hands-on approach such as this. Really going through the process is very helpful."
"Mm, yeah," Prince mumbled in a distracted way. "I've got a pretty big armload of branches, do you think that's enough for a fire?"
"For tonight, but we'll probably have to gather more tomorrow if we're still stranded here," Gui replied somewhat dismally, standing up and picking up the nearby rocks at his feet. Dropping them by Prince's protective line, Gui cleared a large circular area half on his side and half on Prince's, scooping a bit of the sand away. Carefully arranging the rocks around the edge of the cleared spot, he sat down again beside the fire pit, and stared at the trees, waiting for Prince to return.
Ten minutes later, Gui was still sitting in wait, rubbing his arms and shivering in the cold, regardless of how he now had his thick cloak on again. "Your Highness, are you okay?"
"U-um," Prince answered hesitantly, "no, I don't think so."
Gui jumped to his feet in worry, wondering what had happened. Had he gotten attacked by something? Did he fall into a random hole?
"I think I'm lost," Prince continued in embarrassment after a moment.
Raising an eyebrow, Gui walked toward the tree line and searched the trunks, not that he could see much of anything in the darkness. The island wasn't so large that they really needed a map, or anything. How could he have gotten lost so quickly?
"How far in did you go? Weren't there any fallen branches right near the edge?"
"Well, yeah, I picked all of those up. But then I kinda… went in deeper to find more, and, erm, forgot to look where I was going," he muttered.
Gui immediately hurried into the trees, ignoring the fact that he was probably going to have numerous injuries all over his feet again in a short amount of time. "Don't worry, Your Highness! I'm coming to look for you. Don't move, okay?"
"Wait, what about your feet?"
"Prince, I think you're more important than my feet," Gui replied seriously.
"Oh, thanks…" Prince messaged back, sounding somewhat unsure as though he didn't really know how to react to being told he was more important than feet.
"Can you hear the ocean?" Gui asked, stepping carefully over a very large, prickly plant he was very happy that he saw ahead of time.
"Yeah, a little bit," Prince said.
"From which direction?"
"…The left."
Gui sighed out loud in exasperation at the vague answer. "I meant if it was coming from the north, or the south, something along those lines."
"Oh, um, I don't know. How do I tell?"
Walking quicker, Gui attempted to think of some way to explain it. Looking upward, he stared around at the small patches of star-strewn sky he could see. His eyes quickly and easily found the north star. "Do you know how to use stars to navigate yourself?"
"No, I don't."
"Do you know any of the constellations?"
"Not very well, nope."
"…Do you have a compass?"
"No."
This was impossible. How could a person be so utterly helpless when lost?
"Okay, well," Gui sighed. "Can you hear me when I do this?" Taking a deep breath, he shouted out loud, "PRINCE!" and then waited to see what would happen.
"Oh, there you are!" a voice immediately answered from only a few yards away.
Gui nearly screamed in surprise at the loud call, which had come much sooner and closer than he'd been expecting it to have, and whirled around to find Prince hurrying toward him through the dark trees, his relieved face nearly hidden behind an enormous stack of firewood.
Feeling extremely happy to have found Prince with very little difficulty, Gui let himself slip into his silly personality again and leapt toward the elf, smiling widely. "Your Highness, Prince, you're okay! Thank goodness!" he exclaimed, almost knocking Prince off his feet as they collided. To be more annoying, Gui rubbed his cheek against Prince's, and let out a long sigh as he hugged him all the tighter, inwardly laughing as Prince dropped the firewood all over the ground.
A moment later, Gui found himself laying in the long grass with a large lump forming on the back of his head where he'd gotten clobbered with a tree after Prince had forcefully pushed him away. Prince snatched up the firewood again, and then glared down at the bard before turning and briskly walking away in the wrong direction.
Scrambling unsteadily to his feet, Gui dashed after Prince and attempted to ignore his roaring headache. "The beach is the other way, Your Highness!"
Prince quickly looped back around and shot Gui a guarded stare. "You'd better not be standing on my half of the island, moron!"
Eyes widening in remembrance of the order, Gui hastily took several steps backward, having no idea if he was on his half or the forbidden half. Prince seemed satisfied with the distance, however, and continued on in the correct direction without another look back.
Smiling to himself in relief that the fire could finally be built, he quickly retraced his steps along the path he'd taken, and soon reached the beach, watching the ground carefully to be sure he was emerging from the trees on the correct side of the line in the sand and making a mental note not to let Prince wander off by himself again.
Prince dropped the load of firewood into the make-shift fire pit, and stared expectantly at Gui. Crouching down, Gui picked out the thickest logs, stacked them to one side, and then stacked the medium-sized ones beside them. "When building a fire for warmth, rather than cooking, first pile some of the small twigs and stuff down. After that, stack some of the slightly larger branches over the pile, in a crisscross arrangement like this," Gui instructed, pausing to let Prince see what he was doing.
"What about those big ones?" Prince asked, pointing at the pile of logs.
"Those are added later to keep the fire going," Gui explained, withdrawing a tinderbox from his pouch, and held it out to Prince. "Want to try to light it?"
Looking extremely eager to do so, Prince grabbed the tinderbox and pulled out the flint. Smiling in amusement, Gui sat back and watched as Prince enthusiastically struck the flint, sending showers of bright sparks down on the pile of kindling, giving bursts of light to the otherwise completely dark beach. The wind from earlier had died down quite a bit, allowing Prince to light the wood with little trouble.
Once more kindling and branches had been added, a nice fire was blazing on the border between their island halves.
With a relieved sigh, Gui removed his cloak, and then peeled off his wet shirt, propping it up on two sticks to let it dry by the fire. Wrapping himself up in his cloak again to block out the night chill, he paused as he looked over the fire to find Prince staring at him with extreme focus and wide eyes. "…What?"
"Nothing," Prince murmured in embarrassment, quickly looking away and resting his chin on one hand. Gui continued to gaze at him in confusion, but finally looked away and shifted himself closer to the fire. Wasn't Gui the one who was supposed to be staring at Prince so ardently? Why had it just been the other way around?
Then again, now that Gui thought about it, Prince had also seemed very willing to let Gui kiss his hand several weeks ago, regardless of how he had seemed to have thought better of it a moment afterward. Even if Prince had thought Gui had perhaps mistaken him for a woman, Prince certainly hadn't mistaken Gui for one.
Abruptly filled with suspicion, Gui sent another glance in Prince's direction, and drew his cloak closer about himself just in case.
That No Line Crossing rule better go both ways…
Prince's eyes briefly flickered back to Gui. "Do you suppose we'll be rescued by tomorrow?" he asked quietly, returning to his morose fire-staring.
"I hope so," Gui replied slowly, bending over to rest his head on top of his knees as he looked over the black ocean. He suddenly sat up again, eagerly staring at Prince. "Hey, do you know anyone in real life who plays on the Central Continent? If so, you could ask them try to send word to our teammates about what happened, assuming the others are back on Central, anyway."
The elf froze momentarily at the inquiry, but he shook his head afterward in a very unconvincing manner. "Uh-uh, no one at all, sorry," he hastily answered, a guarded expression back on his face.
"I see," Gui breathed, nodding and looking back toward the ocean as he wondered what Prince's weird reaction had been about. "I don't know anyone, either, so that means we're stuck here until someone finds us, or until we can somehow leave ourselves."
Sighing, Prince frowned as he prodded the fire with one of the reserve branches. "I hope everyone else is okay, too."
"We weren't very far from the sea port when the storm hit earlier, I'm sure they managed to get back to the continent somehow," Gui assured, smiling faintly, though he was completely unsure of anything himself, especially since he and Prince had ended up wherever they had, even with as close to the continent as they'd been while floating about in their small boat.
"I wish we hadn't taken that boat," Prince muttered darkly. "Stupid Lolidragon, saying what a great idea it was to sail around and find sea monsters, and now look what happened… Stranded on some unknown island all alone with a pervert. And I don't even Meatbun with me as backup." At that, Prince looked extremely worried as he said, "I hope Meatbun knows how to swim…"
Gui silently nodded in agreement, though he couldn't really imagine Meatbun swimming, seeing as how the bun didn't have any arms or legs. Perhaps she could skip over the water's surface like a rock, or propel herself around by extending and contracting her squashy body like she usually did, or something. Who knew.
Prince suddenly let out a very loud yell of anguish, jumping to his feet and staring out over the waves. "WHAT IF SHE WAS FLOATING AROUND AND GOT EATEN BY A SEAGULL? OR A SHARK? OR A SEA MONSTER? OR… A-A-A-AH! MY DAUGHTER–!"
Looking up at Prince in alarm, Gui hurriedly shook his head and interrupted, "She was with Doll when our boat capsized! I'm sure Doll protected her from stuff!"
"Y-you think so?" Prince shakily asked, breathing heavily as he stared hard at Gui.
Gui nodded, hoping Prince wasn't about to go jumping into the ocean a second time. But Gui's efforts seemed to have given at least a modicum of comfort to Prince, and he sat down again, still looking very anxious over his pet's well-being.
Giving one last, searching look to the waves crashing on shore, Gui turned back to Prince. "We should probably go to sleep, for now. My alarm clock is going to go off soon, I think."
Sighing, Prince made a noise of agreement and quietly observed as Gui put a few more logs on the fire to keep it going. Prince then flopped down onto the sand. "Remember, no line crossing," he reminded, giving Gui another threatening glare before getting comfortable.
"I won't," Gui assured yet again, and watched with amusement as Prince's eyes closed. Gui sat quietly, staring at him until his breathing leveled out in his sleep. Standing, Gui mischievously used his foot to smudge up a section of the line, and walked through the gap over to the elf, obediently not crossing the line. Removing his cloak, he covered Prince with it, since he hadn't dried his clothes off. Smiling, Gui went back to his side of the island, re-drawing the line and putting his shirt back on to keep himself warm.
Laying down on the fire-heated sand, Gui stared vacantly up at the stars for a few minutes, and slowly fell asleep, hoping rescue was going to come soon.
I feel like I keep making Lolidragon the number one bringer of all chaos and conflict in every story… xD Oh, well.