They sat there for precious hours, time upon time, eternity, a few minutes, seconds. They sat there, and the crickets grew louder, louder. They sat there, and there was no chance of a recovery, no chance of a reprieve from Susie's words. The ground absorbed the blow, absorbed the cursing, absorbed it as it seeped into Lancer's mind. Susie's lips peeled, her teeth shone for fleeting seconds, finding what to say, before she shut her mouth once again. This happened again… only once more, before she decided what to say.

"Look… I don't know a lot about bein' a good son or daughter. Hell, nah. But I know about giving and taking. That's easy enough for me. When you give something, you gotta get something. When you get something, you gotta give something. That's all. But when you give without getting, or get without giving…"

Susie fell silent, letting her eyes stab the tree in front of her, the leaves matching her eyes' color.

Lancer didn't want to feel shameful. There was no way he'd be willing to feel anything like that… he was the Crown Prince, le prince héritier...,and he seldom felt as if he'd feel anything else. But he still felt it, and it was a garment, a three-sizes- too-large tunic covering him, absorbing him into the ground just as the ground was absorbing Susie's words. He felt like a child, demure, reticent. Anything that Rouxls saw him as, he was. Anything that the Chaos King didn't want him to be, he was. Susie's lips peeled again.

"...that ain't love. No matter how you cut it."

He knew it wasn't love, and he knew it would never be love; a part of him, instinctual and hated, told Lancer so. He shoved it down whenever it usurped itself, usurped itself like it was another Lancer and he was…. he shuddered… another Chaos King. But it was buried too deep inside of him to voice itself most of the time. Buried by what happened after Lancer would lock Steed in his shed and head inside the castle every evening.

He looked up at the dark, ever- present. Omniscient. Never leaving this world, as much of a truth as the Virgin Mary was. But the stars always here, always hanging, swaying during the forever- night, when the shadows would come. The night was the only time when everything outside the castle seemed to have a sense of normality, and everything inside the castle would have the nonsense, the insanity of abnormality. It was buried too deep inside of him. Buried by-

Noises came, noises from the back of one of the trees. Cracking, popping, shedding of leaves. Even Susie knew to hop up and stand aside… she didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea. Even Susie knew that if a girl like her was too close to a boy like him, pandemonium would ensue, a black hole from the heights she'd never be able to rip herself from. She knew, knew from countless parts of books and movies from the Upper World, that a commoner like her shouldn't be "consorting with royalty." She didn't know what the consequences would be, but they would be nothing compared to back in the Upper World, back to someone else she thought was more special. Someone who was a "she", someone who, with just one letter, managed to transform it all from something normal to something agonizingly stunning…

Bleck, they'd say. Bleck, bleck, bleckity-bleck. Ick.

They stood there for ten minutes, too fixated on the ground, too fixated on the trees, to look at each other. Who would believe what she had said? Who would believe how he had lived?

Who would believe how they had lived?

The answer came, blaring, a speakerphone, more noises coming, quieter this time. Cloven hooves appeared in the woods, and almost immediately, Lancer resorted to the hunting lessons with Rouxls, to those tranquil days when Rouxls would reach out his hand and steady Lancer's aim… gentle, gentle, slow… but first, there were calls to know. Always in Latin, in case there were commoners in the woods, or French, which Lancer used just for the hell of it. Besides, commoners also need game. He found that oftentimes, aristocrats chased their glittering tails with whimsical tales.

"Chamois!"

It was muttered, kept in the painted veils of socialization that were rife in the Dark World. Otherwise, Susie would have turned her head, sprinted, thought Lancer as insane. The shadows lengthened with a slight flinch, and the hooves were seen with a green layer hanging over them. The hooves skittered, inched forward, as if whoever was behind the bush knew the call. Lastly, the body forced itself through the bushes… and it was Ralsei, barefaced and brazen, green scarf and all, plucking off a rogue bushleaf.

"Erm… what did you call me?"

Oh, God. As if Lancer could embarrass himself even more. The discomfort with Susie mixed with this latest emergency, and he was unable to do anything other than mix a "nevermind" with no dares to meet any of their eyes. But perhaps that was alright with Susie, as she wore her hair as a shade over her eyes, claiming to never have a need for sunglasses or anything of the sort. But Lancer knew. He knew how her eyes were green, although she never wanted to say anything about it; it was a taboo subject…

"Anyway, you two, I came back here to tell you that we're getting close to the palace. We'll be there in about a day."

Susie raised an eyebrow; Lancer was too discomforted to try to raise one of his, much less speak. "How did you get here?"

Ralsei smiled, although it was crinkled on the edges, more so than the royal flag after a day of the wind's insanity. "I would say I got here myself, but I met this man who told me he knew a shortcut back to your guys… he was really weird. His eye started glowing like some sort of laser, and his hoodie was the exact shade of Lancer's, I mean, the exact shade, I don't know what to do, I don't know, I don't know if he's some type of stalker or…"

Lancer looked towards Susie, chuckled, cringed. He let the humor dangle, a lone, flimsy, unwieldy piece of machinery, but was tenfold relieved when she chuckled right back. It was as if she'd muttered, So the son of God's come back. The red exploded across Ralsei's cheeks, and the ground itself seemed to laugh. A breeze blew, as unforgiving as it was chilly, as chilly as the sky was dark, and the ground laughed even more, oh, how it laughed…

How she laughed

. "We know this guy, Ralsei. Don't worry. He's alright. His name's Sans, but Lancer here…"

She was going to sock the middle of his back, but she hesitated, shuddering her fist back to her side. Before Ralsei could say anything in protest, she spoke again.

"...he keeps on calling him Sahn."

Lancer stuck out his tongue, and for the first time in months, it felt genuine, without atrocity. Without veiling some sort of horror. He lingered there in that moment, savoring it, rolling it around him as if it were a ball of yarn, wondering if he were to stay there forever. Wondering if he could stay in there forever. Wondering if the insects, if the animals, if the darkness closing and lengthening, lengthening and closing, would ever allow him to.

"Suze!" Without thinking, without any ounce of effort, he rabbled, tousled his hand through Susie's hair. "You know I can't help that!"

The conversation died with the quietness and slowness of a turtle, and before Lancer knew it, the laughter seemed to strip the red off of his cuts, if only slightly. He loved moments like this, loved to bask in them. But it was only amount of time before the light peeped out, before the lightheartedness of it all scorched his wounds and brought them out again, made them painful again, burned them with its knife. So he shuffled forward with the rest of them, feigning Fate, lugging along Steed as a passenger; trying to catch up with them would only leave him lost and them frustrated, strangled by Steed's exhaust. As Ralsei led him back, Lancer's eyes darted, flinching whenever something would come out of a corner, revealing itself as blue. He scared away quite a few bluebirds like that.

The shadows lengthened past noon, and while Ralsei's stomach rumbled and Lancer's stomach whimper-howled, Susie's didn't react at all. Neither did she react to the subtle calm that came over the both of their faces or stop her lovable bantering. A half an hour stretched out until Ralsei couldn't stop his gnawing hunger anymore, until he asked Susie if she had anything to eat.

She fetched a yellow cylinder from her pocket. "Cheese stick. Anyone want it?"

Lancer was close enough to look on it, to pierce through the Dark World's veil and notice the intricacies, the textures that betrayed it. "Bull."

"Whaddya you mean?"

"That's, uh…"

His stomach flipped, tumbled, almost forced Lancer to double over. It was pain, but it was an instinctual sort. He couldn't be this desperate, right? He couldn't afford to be. He was a member of the royal family. He was supposed to eat banquets with his father, was supposed to hog all of the food the commoners often accused his family of taking. He wasn't supposed to eat… this.

He was stabbed in the stomach again, instinct the knife. Maybe… maybe…

Lancer snatched the chalk, ate it as if it were a cheese stick, ate it as if it were an entire royal pig, roasted over an open fire, tantalizing and tormenting the royal family for hours. Ravaged pieces scattered about, and Lancer darted his eyes toward the ground, an instinct to avoid the eyes pressing in on him, the feet stopping. He didn't look up or feel anyone changing where they were, where their eyes were shooting, until a full minute later. He fumbled. He tried to cover it up. But there wasn't any way to say it, nothing that didn't give away the fact that the Chaos King, the one who ransomed everything Lancer knew without giving anything back, wouldn't allow him to have what he needed.

Maybe…

he didn't know.

Maybe Susie was right.

"Just hungry" was the only thing Lancer muttered for a few seconds. "Just hungry, alright? Now drop it. Just… drop it." although he couldn't escape Susie's eyes glowing down at him, her eyebrows furrowing, mouth at a slight frown.

After a "C'mon, guys, c'mon! Can't we step it up a little? The fountain won't grow any younger…" Susie almost broke to a ran, treated her axe as if it were a downy- feather. Lancer had to mount Steed in order to catch up, and as Steed's engine growled to life, Ralsei was left to his own devices, left to run on his own.

Susie was right.

How couldn't she be right?