Sunny groans as he starts to wake up. He had one bad headache. It felt worse than the time he had fallen off a log when he was playing catch with Dawn.
Dawn!
The memory of everything that happened before he was knocked unconscious plays in his head and he forces his eyes to open. The bright full moon gives him enough light to see two large sacks nearby and he tries wiggling his tied-up form closer to the one nearest him.
Marianne would get a kick out of seeing him moving like an inchworm.
"Dawn, is that you?" Sunny whispers quietly.
"Please tell me that's you, Sunny," Vincent mutters.
"Yeah but I'm caught too, so I won't be much help," Sunny comments. "What's going on, Vincent?"
"I got an idea but I'm not entirely sure," Vincent admits. "I do know one thing, though, and that is you can't open the sack Dawn is in."
"Huh? Why not?" Sunny questions.
"I'm positive that pink dust they threw at her was a love potion. If it is then she'll fall in love with the first creature she sees," Vincent explains. "But I'm not sure why they threw it at Dawn."
"From where I was singing on stage, it didn't look like he did it on purpose. He looked really shocked when it happened," Sunny remarks. "I think it was aimed at you but Dawn got in the way since she was dancing with that male fairy that came with you."
"Obviously, they were planning on grabbing her as well since they had a sack ready but I wonder why they didn't dust me as well if that was their plan. Do you know where we are?" Vincent asks.
"It looks like we're in the Dark Forest. Not far past the bor...," Sunny starts before hushing Vincent and wiggling back to where he was to pretend to still be unconscious.
"I can't believe you lost it!"
"Don't blame me! You were the one that dusted the princess and lost the potion, Rufus."
"No names, you idiot," Rufus growls. "We still got that elf problem."
"What problem? We just kill him along with Vincent after we make it to the Dark Forest castle. Those monsters get blamed and we get the rewards we deserve."
"Kill the prince?" Rufus repeats hesitantly.
"Well, we can't dust him, now can we? At least with the princess dusted, the Light Field still won't be able to claim innocence since they assured everyone that the goblins were safe. Everything will still work out in the end."
"But what about...," Rufus starts.
"Who cares! Now come on! We have to get these three to the castle. Hopefully, Jason and the others don't mess-up their end."
"This would be a lot easier if the others had stayed to help instead of returning to the palace because this place gives me the creeps, Alexander," Rufus mutters.
"Which is why we're going to clear this foul forest along with its grotesque inhabitants," Alexander comments. "We'll be heroes."
Sunny nearly alerts them to his wakefulness as he hears Dawn's muffled protest from being handled roughly. At the sound of Vincent's muffled cursing, Sunny forces himself to relax just before he's picked up and placed roughly into place. He takes a chance to open his eyes once they start moving and almost groans at the sight of squirrel fur and gleaming Light Field guard armor.
They really were pulling out all the trimmings to frame the two kingdoms.
His brown eyes fill with tears at the thought that they just might succeed. With Marianne busy celebrating a Dark Forest custom, there's no way she'll be coming to their rescue this time. It's doubtful that anyone else saw what really happened. He only saw it because of being so close to Dawn at the time the lights blinded everyone.
Maybe if he had just pretended that he didn't see anything and not have gone after them then maybe he could have done something instead of being caught and tied-up. Why did he think it was a good idea to try and attack three fairies more than twice his size? He wasn't Marianne. He's just Sunny.
A flash of something bright distracts Sunny from his disparaging thoughts and he squints into the forest around them.
What was that?