Despite it's small outer appearance, the cabin acted like a labyrinth once you were inside. Robin took several minutes to find the main room of the house, the one with a fireplace, and moved Capala in there after cleaning up what dirt he could. He lit a globe of faery fire in the dusty hearth and set about finding some bandages for the iron soldier's wounds. They had no clean, spare cloth to make bandages out of, so Puck used glamour to conjure small strips of fabric that would fade away after a little while, making them almost pointless. The ground outside the cabin refused to grow anything, despite Robin throwing copious amounts of glamour at it, so they had no food either.
They stayed the night there, drinking water they melted from the fallen snow and listening to the sounds of their grumbling bellies as they sat huddled around the fireplace. Robin gave it his best, but the fire he made didn't provide much warmth. They slept fitfully, tossing and turning and clutching each other in their sleep as each fey's demons haunted their dreams. In the back of his mind, Puck felt this house and the world around it was fighting them.
Robin woke first after several hours' rest. No light penetrated the thick curtains covering every window. He staggered to the front door and opened it, squinting into the bright glow of day. He noticed the snow had stopped and went back inside. He knelt down and shook Capala awake, careful of her various wounds. "Cap," he whispered. "It's morning. We don't have much time."
"Time for what?" the woman yawned, hissing in pain as she sat up.
"We have to warn Meghan."
Capala blinked. Her hand went up to her hair, feeling the growing curls between her fingers. "Yes, we do," she murmured. "I let Arrakis take my world from me once before. I won't let his daughter do it again."
They lurched to their feet, each fey leaning on the other, and staggered out of Thorne's cabin and through the frozen forests of Tir Na Nog.
Hours passed, each one more hungry and exhausted than the last. The storm had passed on, but a terrible chill filled the air. Ice crunched under their boots and they shivered as crystals of ice formed on their clothes if they didn't keep moving.
Shadows seemed to linger at the corners of Puck's vision. Wicked creatures with glowing yellow slits for eyes watched him when he wasn't paying attention, disappearing when he focused on them. The darkness grew with every step they took, and Robin would turn around to see the path behind them pitch-black, like the shadows were following them.
Capala grew more and more pale, shivering and small. Her eyes seemed to dull and lose their sparkle, and her lips turned blue. Robin would constantly fiddle with her bandages, but they were thin and fragile and lasted for very little time. The pair felt sick to their stomachs from so much action and so little food.
The twilight of Tir Na Nog grew darker. A cold breeze on Robin's neck made goosebumps rise on his skin. He could feel Capala trembling beside him. "I can't go on any farther," she mumbled. "I'll f-freeze."
"Then w-we should stop." Puck took a shaky breath. "Off the m-main path."
The woman pointed. "T-There."
Of the edge of the path, an overhang of snow cast shadows over the entrance of a small cave. The duo stumbled over there, Robin casting a dim ball of faery light that hovered over their heads. "God knows what's living in here," he muttered.
"If we kill it, we can eat it," Capala pointed out.
"Good point."
Deep inside the cave, it was dry and warm, where the cold breezes from the front of the cave could not reach. A few rocks and some clumps of fur from god-knew-what kind of animal made a fire much warmer than anything Puck's drained glamour could conjure up. Here, the dirt floor didn't have the same allergy to plant life that Thorne's lawn did, so Robin grew something edible, which they then boiled and ate.
"Feel better, Cap?" the jester asked.
The woman nodded. "Much." She nibbled on a leaf. "Bit bland, though."
"Sorry, I forgot my spices back at the cabin."
Capala smiled briefly. "How long do you think until we get back to the Iron Kingdom?"
All traces of humor left Robin's face. "We're in Tir Na Nog," he said, staring into the fire. "Ages away, and that's assuming the Wyldwood isn't being difficult, which...it kind of has been."
A few minutes passed. "Do you sing, Robin?" Capala asked.
"I...yes. A little. Why?" A grin spread across his face. "Aww, Cap, do you want me to sing with you? That's so romantic..."
"No, I just...back when we were walking to the dryads, ages and ages ago, remember when we met Grimalkin?"
"Yes...?"
"He mentioned a song. Do you remember what it was?"
Puck forced his mind back to the old conversation. He put on a wistful smile. "'Why I Wander,'" he said. "I wasn't paying attention, then, but he was telling me the name of a song. I knew the lyrics, but not the name."
"Well, if you know the lyrics...can you sing it for me now?"
Robin paused, then smiled. "Long ago, I knew a maiden fair..."
They slept snuggled together for warmth. Wrapped in his arms, Puck kept a firm grasp on the woman in the night, feeling safe, fed and warm. For a while, their troubles abandoned them.
Of course, then life had to go and screw everything up.
Robin woke to cold. The fire had gone out, leaving the inner depths of the cave drowning in darkness. He got to his feet, his arms around himself to hold in as much warmth as he could. He noticed, then, that Capala was gone.
He immediately fell to his knees, scrabbling around in the dirt to see if she'd rolled over or just gotten up in the night for some reason and fallen back asleep in a different place, but he had no luck. She was gone.
It's fine, Puck, he told himself, as his brain went into panic mode. I'm sure she's fine. Maybe she just got up to pee. Yeah, I'm sure that's it. She's fine.
He looked out to the mouth of the cave. Of course, it couldn't hurt to check.
So he lurched outside, where he found the storm had picked back up. Mother Nature hurled barrels of frost down on him as he trudged through the snow. Every stride crunched down the snow, which was so deep he had to draw his knees up to his chest just to take another step. "Capala!" he shouted, trying to see through the rain of ice and look around for the woman. "Capala!"
Off in the distance, he thought he heard a distant reply. He did his best to start running, flailing through the snow to travel as quick as he could. He stumbled, fell, and got a face full of snow. He sputtered and threw himself back on his feet and ran until the trees grew thick enough to make the snowfall thin enough for him to sprint.
"Capala!" he shouted again. This time, no reply came. He stood between the trees, cold and isolated. Which way led back to the cave, again? He had forgotten.
"Robbie?"
The jester whirled around. "Princess?" he asked, shocked. He didn't see Meghan anywhere, but her voice was unmistakable. "Where are you?"
"Please, Robbie," Meghan's voice begged. "He's coming. Don't let him kill me."
"Who's coming?" Puck unsheathed the dagger from his boot and waved it around in front of him, trying to find the source of the voice.
"Thorne. Please, Robbie!" Her pleading voice became more distant, trailing off in the direction of his right. "Help me!"
Her terrified voice spurred him into action. He ran after the voice as Meghan wailed, crying and screaming for him. He stumbled in the snow several times and the air was cold and thin, making him struggle to breath clearly in his panic. The shadows followed him all around, clawing at his skin, hair and clothes. Strange cackling penetrated his ears, shaking him to his core as he chased after Meghan's voice.
When he broke the tree line into yet another patch of snow, he fell over his own two feet and tumbled through the frost. Ice clumped in his hair and he had long lost all feeling in his fingers and toes. His nose and lips had gone numb as well. Sliding down a small hill, he landed in the middle of a frozen lake, the snow falling all around him. He tried to stand up and brush the snow off him, intending to go after Meghan once more when wicked laughter filled the area.
I'm an idiot, Robin realised. Look at me; Robin Goodfellow, led to his death by a common will-o-the-wisp.
He pressed down on the ice to push himself back up and the ice cracked under his touch. He froze. The lake must have frozen, then melted again when the blizzard died down, and now it was in the process of freezing back up again. He was lucky not to have cracked the ice when he first rolled over here, but it was too thin for him to make any sudden movements, like standing up.
"Puck?" Capala emerged from between the trees, looking slightly confused and wary. "What are you doing?"
"I..." He swallowed. "I came out to look for you, and got, um..."
"Lost?"
"More like led astray by a will-o-the-wisp."
Capala cracked a smile. "Dumbass. I had to pee, and thought I heard something so I wandered off for a bit. It's fine. Here, let me-"
"No!" The woman stopped, surprised. Robin swallowed. "The ice is too thin," he explained. "If you try to walk over here, you'll break the ice and fall in."
Her eyes widened. "Okay, then just slowly walk over here." She outstretched a hand and put a tentative foot on the edge of the ice.
Puck nodded and began to take small, careful steps across the lake. He reached out as he reached the other side, where Capala was waiting for him. She matched his steps and they slowly approached one another.
"See?" Capala said with a smile. "Easy."
They got closer and closer, their steps slow and steady like that turtle from the fairytale Robin never liked, and they got close enough their fingers brushed together. Robin opened his mouth to make a smart remark.
And then the ice cracked.
Their eyes met, shocked and terrified, before Puck fell.
Complete darkness engulfed him, the roaring of water rushing past his ears quickly silenced by a horrible nothing. He clamped his mouth shut and flailed in the water, his fingers rising above the water level and brushing the air before sinking back down into the lake. He wanted to swim, but his limbs had become tight and frozen. His fingers started refusing to move, his body not responding to his commands as he stared up at the light shining through the water's surface.
Then the water currents pushed against him as Capala jumped in after him.
Bubbles dribbling from his lips and nose as he lost the strength to flail, he felt Capala pull him up and out of the water so he gasped for breath. He tried to breathe before his mouth was completely above the surface, giving him a mouthful of water. He coughed and sputtered, and Capala helped him climb on top of the ice.
Another piece of the ice broke, pushing him back under the water and nearly making him drown again. The pair fought to get him on land, and when they reached the end of the lake they collapsed in the snow.
Looking at Capala, Robin saw the water dripping from the woman's hair already begin to freeze into small icicles. "Ar-re you ok-kay?" she said, her body trembling from the cold.
Puck felt his fingers start to freeze together. "N-No," he replied. They snuggled together, trying to get warm and failing.
"R-Robin," Capala whimpered.
"I-I fucked-d up," the trickster said. "I fucked u-up."
"J-Just stay here w-with me," Capala whispered. "W-We'll be fine." Snow began to pile on top of them, camouflaging their frozen bodies. Soon, they were gone from sight almost completely.
"I l-love you, Cap," Puck said.
"I love y-you t-too, Robin."
Then darkness consumed them.