Disclaimer: "But if you tell on us- ... pain! Lots of pain! Your insides will become your outsides! Your entrails will become your extrails!"

(An: See, ha! I told you I'd update faster. -holds arms out a la Superman-)

After that, everyone agreed sleep would be a good idea.

Rogue was kept awake long after Kitty and Kurt by the sound of Remy banging his head against a tree. After about fifteen minutes of this, Rogue got sick of it and went over by him. "What the hell is the matter with you? Is it physically impossible for you to be quiet for a while or something?"

Remy, head still leaned against the tree, turned and stared at her blearily with yellow eyes.

"...Weren't those brown yesterday?"

"Probably," Remy agreed. "I don't change all the way, oh no, but they-" he made a vague gesture at his eyes, "-have a way of changing that plays havoc with picking clothing."

Rogue stared at him.

"Tough crowd, tough crowd," said Remy, turning his eyes to the tree.

Rogue rolled her eyes and pulled herself up onto a branch. She reached for another, and then glanced back at him. "You coming or what?"

"I would," said Remy, "but I don't think the tree likes me very much." He waved a hand at the branches, which were shrinking out of reach.

"Stop that," Rogue said, kicking the limb she was standing on.

The branches snapped back to their
positions.

"No problem," said Rogue, climbing higher.

Remy blinked and followed.

It took a lot of climbing to get to the top. Remy's eyes widened as Rogue shoved aside a few branches to reveal the moon. He grinned. "Merci, ma chere."

"Would you stop calling me that? I don't even know what it means!"

"My point exactly, chere."

Rogue glared at him but Remy was focused on the moon. "I used to break out of my room at night to stare at the moon. I was adopted, so my family didn't get it."

"They don't know?"

Remy's mouth curled up in a bitter smirk. "Oh, they know. And so rightly they avoid me like the plague. As soon as I finish this job, I'm quitting and getting my own place- far, far away from them."

"You don't get along well with them, do you?"

"Is it that obvious?" Remy drawled, leaning against the branch.

Rogue frowned. "It's just I don't remember my family at all." She shrugged.

"They aren't my family."

"Well, then, who is?" Rogue asked.

Remy didn't answer.

&&&

The next morning found Kitty and Kurt awake before Remy, which only happened never.

"Is he dead?" Kurt whispered.

Kitty glared at him. "Of course not! Watch." Kitty give Remy a good hard nudge with her foot. Remy rolled over, muttering something in his sleep.

Rogue dropped from a tree. "Get up," she said to Remy before noticing Kitty and Kurt. "What?"

Remy sat up, blinking.

Kitty shook her head, threw up her hands, and, to Kurt's eternal confusion, refused to say anything more until they got going.

&&&

It was luck that they stumbled on the road, whatever Remy might've said to the contrary. It would've been good luck, except that the exact same carriage they'd gotten off the road to hide from was coming at them. Remy grabbed Kitty and threw her back into the brush. "Stay there," he hissed, and to the others, "try and look casual."

Rogue flicked her hair over her ears and Kurt ducked into the shadows, becoming nearly invisible, as the carriage slowed.

A man leaned out. "You, there, what's your business in the forest?"

Remy bowed. "Just passing through, monsieur," he said, keeping his head down.

"Who's the girl?"

"My, uh, sister, sir," said Remy, straightening up. "We're going to meet family on the other side of the forest."

The man frowned. He was about to lean back into the carriage. That was, of course, when Kitty came tumbling out of the forest, the beginnings of a poison ivy reaction on her arms, the mark on her hand prominent.

The man in the carriage gasped and jumped out, followed by the driver and another guy.

"Oh, great," Remy muttered, squaring himself. "Just great."

"It's three against four, no problem," said Kurt.

That was when the other carriage drove up.

"Ok, this is a problem."

Remy jerked his head at Kitty. "Get her out of here." He pulled out three pieces of metal from his pocket and began screwing them together. "Move it, fuzzbutt!"

Kurt grabbed Kitty and bamfed.

Having assembled the metal... thing (it looked like a stick to Rogue) he grabbed her hand. "Do you trust me?" he hissed.

"Do I have a choice?"

This seemed to be the answer he was looking for, as he grabbed her around the waist and polevaulted them over the carriage into a tree. Their pause was long enough for one of the archers from the second carriage to graze Rogue with an arrow. She pulled on it at the same time that the archer yanked on the rope attached to it. The arrow came loose, opening a large tear in Rogue's shirt as Remy grabbed her again and jumped out of the tree, running deeper into the forest.

After a few minutes of running, he stopped. "This should be enough," he stated, leaning against a tree and panting. "The guards never come very far in here." He glanced at her. "You ok?"

"Um, yeah," said Rogue, trying to hold together what was left of her shirt.

Remy handed her his coat without a word.

&&&

"Are you all right, Kitty?" Kurt asked, eyeing her nervously. They were pretty far from the road and he thought they were good.

"Yeah, just a little itchy," she muttered. "He threw me in a poison ivy patch." She picked a stick off the ground and snapped it in half as though it'd done her a great personal wrong. She held out a stick half the size of the original, only a little longer than her palm. "Point us," she instructed. The stick spun and pointed west... the way they'd come, in other words. "Great."

&&&

"What just happened?" Rogue asked. "If they were palace guards, couldn't they have just taken us with them?"

"The regent is corrupt," Remy explained. "Everyone knows that she's ordered to have anyone bearing the royal mark killed. In other words, it's in our best interests to keep quiet and out of sight."

"And why are we in such a hurry?"

"The regent gets coronated two months after the death of the king and queen if there is no one found with the mark," Remy explained. "That's about a week and a half from the full moon, I believe."

"So what do we do now?"

"Wait," said Remy, sitting on the ground. "Kitty and Kurt'll be here soon enough."

&&&

It took Kitty and Kurt ten minutes to find their way back to the road. That was lucky, since if they'd been any quicker they would've been caught. Seeing no one nearby, Kurt bamfed them across. Kitty repeated the pointing spell, and they stumbled upon Rogue and Remy five minutes later.

Kitty immediately backhanded Remy, hard. "The hell was that for?" Remy cried, rubbing his head.

"For dumping me in a poison ivy patch and then crossing the road without us!"

Remy glared at her and Kitty glared back. Kurt facepalmed with a sigh. "Oh, dear, this is gonna take a while."

(Bwahaha! I am Spartacus! Fear me! Or better, review me!)