AN: Okay... I must have entered the twilight zone last night or something because I KNOW I put this online... I even remember the time... weird. Anyway swiftly moving on. Forgive any typos in this because I read through it all last night and removed a few but it seems like ffn didn't save them and I can't remember what I did nor can I be arsed doing it all again, this turned out twice as long as I both expected and planned but that's a good thing surely. They finally meet peoples!

Warnings: Again parts of this are not great for squeamish stomachs. Not so much violence this time as gentle gore... If such a thing actually exists.

Firefly In Ice

Chapter Four

"You're going out again."

"Yes."

"I wish you would tell me where, my prince, my duties are to protect you."

"I need no protection."

"But it is night, sire, they come out at night."

"They also come out at day, if you opened you're eyes enough to look."

"Sire?"

"Nothing. Just thinking aloud. Are you going to stand aside or do I have to use force to leave my own room?"

"N-no. But please, allow me to escort you. My lips are sealed, I have told no one about your movements and I swear to tell no one where those movements take you."

"Fine! I do not have time for this, just follow, and I promise you if you make even a tiny mistake I will order your execution."

"Yes your highness."

"Father, please. Listen to reason." Yami opened his arms, palms flat and facing the ceiling, to emphasise the stupidity of his father's argument.

"No. It is too dangerous, we don't even know for sure that the entrance to the mountain is on the eastern face." Hisashi, the king and Yami's father, flattened his palms on the table in front of him, unintentionally paralleling his son's gesture.

"But the scouts saw the goblin's using it! What else could it be but an entrance!?" Yami's voice rose in his anger, practically shouting over the dinner table. "So what if it isn't a main door, all the better for getting in undetected."

Hisashi swallowed another bite of the roasted arctic hare on his plate, "We don't know where it leads. It could be a storage room for all we know."

"Which means we could still sabotage them, whether it be food or weaponry we could still cause damage to their infrastructure!"

The king stood up with force, the thrown-like chair scraping harshly on the stone floor, "And what good do you think that would do? So we sabotage a few barrels of water or rust their armour, how long would that slow them? If at all?"

Yami's mother, Shizuko, placed a slim hand on her bonded's arm, Hisashi calmed visibly and sat back down. She turned to Yami, looking at him worriedly from across the table. "Darling," he bristled angrily at his childhood name but she ignored him, "You must understand that we cannot afford to risk anything, especially now with our latest losses. What you are proposing is preposterous, the crowned prince spying on the enemy? Imagine what could happen. It would be impossible enough for a normal soldier."

"So you are suggesting we take this opportunity, the only lead we've had in months, and forget it?!" Yami was close to throwing his knife and fork at his parent's heads just to see if it knocked any sense at all into them. His knuckles were white, clenched around the fine silverware as if trying to snap them in half. But he forced himself to remain calm when talking, anger and actions meant little to his parents. Let words speak, and let them speak with clarity and thought. "I could take a couple of the Elite with me, turn it into a rescue mission along with the potential sabotaging possibilities. Our losses where heavy, you mentioned it yourself mother, but they could be at least a little elevated if we could free the captured."

"They could provide us with more inside information, even if we only freed one of them." They turned to look at the previously silent member of the dinner table, Yoko, Yami's grandmother and previous queen. The prince almost sighed in relief and gratitude, at least one member of his family possessed an ounce of sense. "I agree with Yami in that sense, we should do something to free them or find a way in at the very least, but that does not decrease the sheer level of danger you would be in." With her combined age and natural intelligence Yoko was not someone you took lightly, though her long hair had long turned silver-white with age her skin and eyes were as fresh and alive as they had always been, earning her the title of 'Great Mother' among the subjects of the kingdom.

"But mother surely… Yami cannot, my son cannot…" Shizuko pleaded with her mother-in-law imploringly, having lost her nephew in the war only weeks ago she had become ever more worried for her son's own safety.

"I never said that Yami should be the one to lead this operation, I simply said there was danger involved despite the intelligence behind the idea."

"What?" Yami's eyes widened in disbelief, "Grandmother this was my idea, I'm the only one that could lead the Elite into something like this. You have to let me go!"

"Yami will you for once still your tongue and show respect!?" Hisashi snapped, gulping down the remains of his bright purple drink, made from extracting the spicy sweet juice from the extremely rare puniceus berry. A nearby maid immediately refilled his glass. "Listen to the wisdom of your elders as a future king should rather then dismissing them as the insignificant child you seem to believe they are!"

Yami opened his mouth in anger but bit back his retort, he wasn't getting anywhere, time for a new tact, "Then who would you send instead father, you know very well the council would elect one of their own and you know just as well that as genius as they may be they are incompetent as field leaders."

"We will send no one as of yet." Hisashi stated.

"First we must discuss this with the council, see if they can formulise a more sufficiently competent plan for this 'raid'." Shizuko chimed in, her voice naturally soft, quiet, but the sound of it did not calm Yami.

"The council will take an eternity, they always do! All they do is discuss!" He stood up and glared nastily at his father.

"Yami," the prince turned to his grandmother, "It would be best if we could wait for your grandfather to return before we attempt something this risky, Sugoroku may have found something to alleviate our difficulties without having to resort to a long shot."

"But it will be months before grandfather returns, all of the captured would be dead by then!" He couldn't quite believe what he was hearing, had the kingdom lost its reason as it had its strength?

"Not necessarily, my bet is that the goblin's will keep what they can as a way of bargaining with us later."

"They do not bargain! They kill! They aren't looking for an end to the war, they're looking for a way to annihilate us!" Yami looked at each of his family members in turn, fury making his eyes turn an even darker shade of red then was usual.

"Then why did they retreat from our latest battle without finishing us. They clearly would have had the upper hand if they had pushed forward yet they did not. They retreated, because they must want some form of victory from us. How would a massacre benefit them in the long run?" Hisashi matched his son's glare evenly with one of his own.

"There was a disturbance at their rear. Did you not see it father or where you too busy with your attempt at claiming glory? It was substantial enough for their defence to scatter uselessly, whatever it was that caused them to retreat was at the edge of those barren woods and I intend to find out what. This could be a key to our victory, it is a long shot that cannot be ignored in its potential." When he saw neither consent nor belief in their eyes he realised his frustration in a resounding "Argh!" snatched his glass from the table and stormed from the dining room, throwing the drink and smashing it on the floor on his way out.

If they wouldn't agree then he would do it himself!

The stench was overpowering. For a long minute Yami regretted persuading three Elite to come with him in the dead of night to investigate the Goblin mountain fortress. There had been nothing of interest around the woods that marked what Yami thought he remembered as the disturbance in the rear defence. This morning's blizzard had covered everything, not even the remains of the red and black blood that had painted the snow previously and so completely could be seen, buried and frozen under the fresh layer of hardening ice. He shuddered at the memory of it congealing together disgustingly on the legs and flanks of his poor mare. The only thing the Elite could pick up on was a few shallow claw marks gouged into tree trunks and the barely perceptible snapped twigs of the sparse bracken under the thick snow. The marks made a trial that lead about half a mile into the forest, and then stopped at a collection of mutilated Goblin corpses. Five of them in total, barely any flesh left to cling onto the mustard yellow bones, though the heads remained intact as did most of the organs and intestines, splattered across the floor and vegetation like a macabre scene of abstract art.

Even through the preserving bitter cold the open bowls of the dead creatures stunk from miles away. It would not be long before the bears and foxes found them, birds were already picking out the half closed, glassy eyes of the dead faces, some frozen with expressions of horror, others blank in fear.

Yami could feel the pain that had been suffered here. It was an elfin gift that could be shut off when needed, like in battle, where the pain suffered there would immobilise an elf with its intensity. The memory of it was burned into this forest and would be for a good few centuries. Agony seemed to ooze in waves off the trees and pool at his feet but it didn't feel quite the same as the pain from the battlefield. There was an undercurrent of something he couldn't quite pick up on, it was pain but it was something else too. Frowning he trudged through the snow, skirting the corpses in an attempt to find the source, if they could find it than perhaps they would find what had caused the disturbance. Yami was adept at this type of tracking. There had definitely been a sixth presence within this clearing and it had been the one to crash through the forest and into the battle, he was positive.

He stood for a moment and closed his eyes as the three Elite behind him the same, it was easier to sense with their eyes closed. Evoking the magic of his heritage Yami searched through the memories the forest would yield to him, it was jumbled and vaguely confusing, the images that flashed behind his closed eyelids were barely visible, like trying to see through amber yellow fog thicker than soup. But he barely made out, through the memories of mundane things such as a deer stripping leaves from a summer weed or a springtime butterfly being caught by autumn's icy grasp and freezing like an ice sculpture on the smoothed rock of a dried river bed, he could just grasp flashes of a strangely shaped figure, a shadow, as it massacred everything it came across, the oval shaped vision's edges blurred impossibly but Yami just managed to catch sight of the shadow against the snow, dark and ripping violently at the edges like nicotine coloured fire in the unstable vision.

He opened his eyes with a confused frown. Releasing the magic and the spirit of the wood as he thought. That figure had looked awfully like a creature of legend his history tutor had taught him about when he was young… but it couldn't be… they were extinct. Had been for millennia.

He shook his head and dismissed it, the spirits visions were known for being inaccurate simply because of how jumbled and incoherent they were. You could not, after all, expect an entity that was not truly alive or even corporeal to think like an intelligent creature. The forest was many things, not a single mind, and he was lucky to have gotten what he did from it. Glancing back at the Elite, elves of excellent standard in everything from warfare to healing, he knew from their expressions that they were having less luck than him.

Yami turned his head sharply as his senses caught a flicker of that presence again, the trail this time led a little to his right and deeper into the woods. Intrigued he followed it, moving quick before he lost it again. It was impossibly faint, emotion trails faded after a few hours and it had been over a day now, it was only Yami's natural talent that allowed him to feel it at all at such a late stage. That and the emotions had been strong enough to linger for longer. It was still too late, however, for him to identify the emotions felt to create the imprint. He only managed a few more feet into the woods before he lost the trail completely. Cursing Yami scoured the area in an attempt to pick it up again. But his attempts were useless, it was too old and the blizzard had not helped matters.

Growling in his anger he stalked back to where the Elite waited for him, a female and two males, two of them with jet-black hair, the third with sandy blond, curved scimitars at their hips. The blades imbued with ancient elfin that not even the royal family could read now. Their lost language, it died with the creatures that had become feared legends in their mythical children's stories. There was nothing else they could find here. He motioned for them to follow him and begin the arduous journey over snow and ice covered meadows to climb up the eastern face of the Grey Mountain.

"Your Highness. Hideki has found the way in, there were guards but only two, we have dispatched them already." Malik, the Elite commander and second in command of Yami's not entirely legal operation, bowed to him and the female Elite who had stayed with the price to watch their backs. Even they drew the line at letting the crowned price go first into very definite danger.

"Good," Yami nodded, they were all tired from the hike and climb up to where the scouts claimed the entrance to be. It had not been easy to avoid being seen and get up here at the same time. Nighttime was when the Goblins tended to be most active, but it was the only time Yami and his group could get out of the Kingdom unseen. He could just see the walls of the Great City, his home, glimmering in the moonlight in the distance; they were miles and miles away but the altitude allowed for an extensive view. An unexpected reprieve had come in the flow of Goblin movement a half hour ago that had allowed them to get so close. Yami could feel the excited atmosphere in the air as the Goblins had passed; clearly something was happening in their underground city that had drawn them all away.

The navy blue sky was clear and filled with tiny stars; it had caused the temperature to drop heavily and icy vapour to rise like silver mist from the mountain slopes, the temperature was as good a reason as any for the Goblins to be underground, though. They felt the cold, unlike the elves, and would freeze out here without many layers of protection. So perhaps that was the only reason they had mostly vanished.

But as for this being a storehouse entrance? If this wasn't one of the more important doors then Yami would remove his crown and declare himself a human, and that wasn't going to happen any time in the next century.

Malik and the woman (he hadn't bothered to learn her name) fell into step behind him as he approached the entrance from above. They were joined by the third Elite, Hideki, stood crouched on the outcrop of grey frosted rock that hung above a hole in the mountains side, only about ten feet both wide and tall. 'Hole' was the best way to describe the entrance; it was nothing more then a roughly oval shaped gap in the rock, which lead into a downwards-sloping tunnel darker then the pitch of a clouded night. Impossible to see into. The enemy weren't stupid, despite their looks, this main door was hardly noticeable, the chances of being found minimal, the elfin scouts had been lucky. Two goblins, one on each side of the hole, were sat as if asleep on the floor. Yami could sense their recent deaths, though nothing else would indicate that they weren't simply resting, no arrows in their backs, no blood or sword wounds on the bodies, his company weren't called 'Elite' for nothing.

Swiftly dropping down from the outcrop with the silent, flawless grace of a feline the prince used his magic to heighten his senses, hearing and sight were the focus, he did not want to be able to smell anymore of the goblins than he already could by the door. It did little good with regards to the tunnel, complete dark was complete dark after all, and without light he hadn't a chance of seeing his way, he would have to risk a light. He could sense no one but his companions near him and so he was confident that they could reach the end of the tunnel without being seen. Searching momentarily through the small leather hip bag on his side Yami pulled out what looked like a star shaped ice shard. The frosted surface shimmered with a faint light of its own, no larger than his palm. He muttered a word to it in the ancient language, not understanding the word's meaning but knowing its effect. The shard began to pulsate just slightly in his hand, the light growing bright enough to see by in the tunnel, though still subtle enough to appear like moonlight. Yami nodded his consent to the Elite and walked first into the thick darkness of the tunnel.

It was shorter then expected. Ten minuets later found Yami crouching hidden behind an empty wooden barrel at the end of the tunnel, it had sloped steeply downwards, winding gently, until it ended at a crossroads marked by a single flaming torch, the light flickering strangely in its bracket, as if being pulled several ways at once. Yami beat down his curiosity, fire was not something you saw very often in the elfin kingdom, the only thing it was used for was cooking and weapon making, neither of which Yami had ever participated in. Elves never felt cold but they could feel heat and the sensation of it intrigued him, but this was not the time for that. Being so far underground made him uncomfortable, the rock walls felt damp and claustrophobic, the moisture from outside naturally being heated underground to make the air feel humid to someone who had never experienced warm air in his life.

Yami, stood slowly, not sensing anyone nearby, and glanced down the left and right turns the tunnel split into. All the way down their ears had picked up the sound of voices shouting, but it had been coming from far below them making them unable to identify the reason. The noises had stopped now though, which meant that whatever had been distracting the goblins had ended, meaning they had little time to get in and out unnoticed. They had to move fast but how when they didn't even know which way to turn? Yami closed his eyes in an attempt to pick up any elfin emotion trails, but couldn't feel anything over the overwhelming goblin presence, and evoking the mountain spirit would be foolish while stood in the middle of enemy territory. In the end Yami decided to head right, it slopped downwards with a steeper gradient then the left turn and he had a feeling that they needed to get deeper before they found the prison cells.

Dismissing the silver light of the star ice he placed it back inside his bag, the corridors were now lined with flaming torches and so there was no need for any extra light. Moving swiftly to counteract the growing feel of urgency as they sensed an increase in movement below them, they had met no one as of yet which caused the prince to become ever more suspicious, this had been far too easy. Darting from shadow to shadow and choosing whichever paths seemed to lead further down it didn't take the prince long to realise that they could become very easily lost, if they didn't start back before the goblins began swarming over the pathways again then even he might not be able to pick up on their own emotion trails to lead them out. The corridors were becoming steadily wider and more substantial, cutting into the grey rock with deeper purpose, this gave him greater hope that they were heading the right way. Doors began appearing on each side of the corridors, rough stone entryways blocked by damp splintering wood that was deceptively strong, reinforced by dark iron brackets. Fear began to become recognisable in Yami's heart as they began to see goblin shadows flickering along the paths in small groups, his and the Elite's senses only just allowing them to choose the correct paths to use so they wouldn't be seen, it was becoming more and more reckless the deeper they went, the closer to the centre of the underground city the more goblins they felt and saw. At one point the four of them had been forced to break the rusted lock on one of the side rooms so they could hide inside from a passing troop of nearly twenty goblins. They had found themselves inside a cloak room, although it was more of an armoury, Malik had suggested donning goblin garments over their own to mask their scent. Yami had reluctantly agreed though it was quite the task to find clothes big enough to fit them, the goblins being generally smaller then the average elfin male. Now he was stood crouched behind a collection of food creates in a stinking goblin overcoat made of old bearskin, the white fur permanently dirtied brown with age and use.

The door in front of them was huge compared to the others they had seen and they realised they had finally found the entrance to the main city, it was open wide enough to allow them to see in and study the crowds that were moving around inside. There was no way they could get in this way but they knew from overhearing the goblins talk (though it took them a moment to decipher the gibbering language) that the prisons cells were somewhere under the main city.

Yami glanced at Malik, annoyed when the commander nudged him in the side to get his attention, to watch him gesture with a jerk of his head to a dark and narrow flight of stone stairs leading steadily upwards. He stared at it for a moment; there were hardly any emotion trails around it and those that were there were hours old, the stairs were barely used. He glanced back at Malik and nodded, understanding, to get under the city they would first have to go over.

Yami couldn't tare his eyes away from the sight that met him. Even the three Elite were staring in shock, despite their extensive experience. They had followed the narrow path, which had been utterly empty, to what looked like the highest tier of a coliseum, the structure was massive, far bigger then they would have believed the goblins capable of. Below them a small clean up crew were clearing the very fresh mess on the floor, a circular fighting arena. This had been what had drawn the goblins away. Now the room was all but empty, the golden sand that was covered in blood and corpses, most of them mutilated beyond recognition, being swept away to be replaced by fresh sand, the bodies and body parts being piled up in a corner to be burnt later. Yami felt disgusted at the sight and worried by the knowledge that there were a fair number of dead elves down there. He hoped there were still some left alive in the dungeons or their rescue mission would all be for nothing. The goblins truly were monsters that needed to be disposed of.

Spotting a way down into what was unmistakably the dungeons that was relatively hidden from view the prince reluctantly followed Malik down, they weren't going to allow him to go first. But when they reached one of the lesser entrances to a collection of prison cells, Yami now able to follow his senses because the emotion trails around this area were strong and clearly elfin, he pushed Malik out of the way. There was no way that he was about to let the Elite commander receive greater credit then him for his idea.

He winced when the door creaked open on badly rusted hinges, Hideki had already dispatched of the guard and stolen his keys for the cells but that didn't mean they were safe. He stood still for a moment before the open door, waiting for something to happen, to be sure no one but the inmates had heard, when nothing did he took a confident step forward.

The others followed him. There was a long row of chiselled out deep alcoves in the walls on each side of the corridor, the alcoves blocked off by thick metal bars, this time un-rusted, to create prison cells. Between each cell a torch burned, well all but one further down that must have blown out. He scowled at the sight of the cells, there were only a few still occupied but he could feel the others had been too. They must have been killed in the coliseum, he cursed his father, had the king agreed to his clearly genius plan then they would have managed to get here in time to save those elves. He stalked down the corridor, confident they would not be found just yet, and left the opening of cells to the Elite. The imprisoned elves only gave quiet sounds of relief and gratitude as they saw them, both knowing that louder sounds would alert the guards and because they must have sensed them coming.

He stalled at the point where the single torch had been extinguished. And gave a rare smile and nod to Era on the other side, she was a well known lieutenant from the first regiment and so he was both pleased and unsurprised to see she had survived. She bowed tiredly to him, her injuries making her less flexible then usual. The prince glanced to the side dismissively, not expecting to see anyone in the opposite cell. But he did a double take at the sight of multiple chains attached to the wall and leading into the darkness at the back. He could see nothing but the presence he felt inside was unmistakeable. He frowned, it wasn't anything like what he'd felt before, it was definitely not elfin but it was anything but goblin. He heard the shifting of chain links from the shadows and turned so he was facing the cell bars full on.

"Come out of the shadows." He spoke commandingly.

"No sire," he heard Era gasp from behind him but dismissed it.

"Whatever you are show yourself or we will leave you here to fester."

The chains rattled again as something moved, and his eyes widened at the sight that met him.

It was a boy. A human child. Barely dressed in linen rags, filthy and coated in goblin and elfin blood, clearly freezing to death in this atmosphere. Yami knew very little about humans, only that they were quite weak creatures (although similar in shape to elves) who were very sensitive to temperature. They lived far to the south of the elfin northern kingdom and were very rarely seen so far north. The thought of the south confused Yami, a land without snow and ice sounded impossible to him, how could he live without being surrounded by something that had been there all his hundred and seventy years of life? Humans did not live for very long either, elves lived on average eight hundred years while goblins lived for just under four hundred, yet humans were lucky if they managed one hundred. Weak creatures indeed.

Era made a strange noise behind him but he once more ignored her. The boy was startling, it wasn't just his state of dress but everything about him surprised Yami. He hadn't known boys could look that pretty but he supposed that might be his inexperience with humans talking. His body was slim and delicate, his height, although diminutive, seemed well suited to him; his long slim fingers were twisting the hem of a destroyed linen sleeve anxiously. His hair surprised the prince the most though, his hair was utterly unique in the elfin world and yet this human's matched it surprisingly well, there was less blond in it and the red tips shimmered a dark purple instead but still… The boy's eyes caught him like a fly in honey, wide and liquid and filled with an innocence Yami could never have even imagined before, amethyst eyes that leaked pained tears from their corners.

"Help me," the child muttered so quietly, and sounding so broken, "please."

Yami drew in a breath at the voice, so sweet in its pain. And gestured for Malik to throw him the prison keys, he caught them smoothly without even having to watch their trajectory and unlocked the door with the same motion. He stepped inside.

The human took a shaking step towards him under the weight of the chains.

"Your highness, no, it's a trap!" Era hissed desperately. He frowned to himself at her words, what was wrong with her? It was just a human, a child at that, and he clearly needed help.

Yami helped to support the little human child as he stumbled, injured and confused and so very pitiful. "Where did they take you from?"

The boy looked at him with those bright pretty eyes, "Wha – excuse me?"

He sighed, a little exasperated, "The goblins. Which human town or village did they kidnap you from?"

The boy blinked for a moment, his lips forming what he thought was the word 'human?' before he spoke in a confused way, "I-I don't know. I just woke up here. I think they must have hit me on the head or – or something because I vaguely remember a forest but then nothing until just two days ago."

The Prince suppressed his annoyance, great just great, a human with amnesia. Just what the escape party needed. But they couldn't leave him here, not and survive the guilt of knowing what would happen to him here, a boy as soft and rare as this would be thoroughly used and broken before he was killed.

He helped the boy to stand on his own and hated the pity that made his chest hurt at the sight of those harsh chains and shackles biting into the poor child's white skin, he scowled at the boy who was staring up at him openly, absolutely no respect. Who didn't know who he was? The human should be on his knees begging and thanking him for his selflessness in helping him. Amnesia be damned.

There was no other key on the guards ring for the shackles and Yami knew they had no time to waste looking for one, the captured elves were already free and being helped with their injuries and they had no idea how many guards there could be out there or when they made their rounds. He would have to break the chains. Quickly scanning the length he found what looked like the weakest link near the boy's left wrist, gripping onto the metal he concentrated on a different form of magic, this one much more instinctual then his sensing magic, and watched as the chain link frosted over in thick ice. He heard the boy gasp and smirked smugly in pride at having impressed him. When it was brittle and weakened even further by the ice colder then any nature could create by itself Yami pulled his dagger from its sheath with a sharp jerk, the runes imbued onto its surface glowed in response to his touch and magic, and brought it down hard onto the frosted chain link. The ice shattered under the combined elfin magic and his daggers potency and with it the metal splintered and broke as if it were rotten wood.

It confused him that a human child could be so covered in blood and be held down by such excessive restraints. The goblins certainly didn't want to let this one go. He wondered about the extra, seemingly useless chain on the floor, the shackle still locked, and about the loop of chain around the boy's chest that he could easily step out of. But he dismissed the thoughts as the human spoke to him in that incredibly soft voice of his.

"Who are you?"

Yami continued to work on the other chains, it was only a shame that he could not unlock the shackles; they would have to remain for now. "A Prince." His tone was annoyed and dismissive, he did not look at the boy who by all rules had no right to be speaking to him, and so he missed the dark scowl that momentarily crossed the boy's innocent features at the words. It took only a few more minutes with Yami's skill before the boy was free to move and he surprised Yami with how steady he walked, despite his obvious discomfort with something, pain he supposed.

Era rushed up to them, her ankle almost fully healed, and Yami raised his eyebrow at how she skirted the boy nervously, throwing him suspicious glances. The human just blinked up at her, as if nonplussed. The group of elves, now nearly twenty of them including himself and the Elite, stood on guard by the entrance waiting for them.

"Sire we cannot take this child, he is dangerous, he will kill us!" She whispered loudly, fiercely.

"Era, this child is a child. A human. How is he dangerous?" This was beginning to grow tiresome.

"He is no human. He is a beast, my prince, a demon!"

Yami's other eyebrow rose to meet the other, "A demon, Era? You are aware there hasn't been a living demon for millennia, they are extinct, and this child is not a demon."

"But I saw him! Wings and tail and everything! I spoke to him!" She turned to the other elves and asked the ones that had fought, "You saw him didn't you? In the coliseum! How he killed!"

A soldier shook her head, "I was too busy fighting to stay alive to notice mush else, Miss."

Another soldier next to her, a male, agreed. The rest of the party following suit. Era growled at them for disagreeing with her and turned to glare openly at the boy, who shrunk visibly into the prince's side to hide in fear.

Yami turned his head to look down at him, though he was only a little less then a head shorter then the prince, "Well child? Are you a demon?"

The boy looked at him and blinked, "No, sir, I have never seen a demon in my life. I don't really know what they are. Perhaps if they are extinct as you say then maybe she hit her head in the fight and mistook a goblin for one."

Era bristled in rage but the argument had no time to develop any further for Malik turned from the door with an urgent expression and said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, "Sire, there is someone coming. I think the goblin king is here!"

The room fell deadly silent in terror, the king would have an entourage with him and there was no way they could fight through that without alerting the entire city of their presence.

"Everybody move now! Follow Malik!"

"Sire!"

"What!"

"…N-nothing. I just thought – "

"Well don't think! It is not your place and rarely does anything of worth come out of that mouth!"

"But I thought I… I thought I saw something just then."

"A bird no doubt, or a fox hunting a bird."

"No, bigger. Sire this is a dangerous place. These woods are known for – "

"Living Shadows. Yes I am aware of the myths. But they are myths not reality; those villagers' tales will not influence my reason. You will stop here."

"What?"

"Did you truly think I was going to allow you to follow me the whole way? I am not such a fool. You are lucky I have allowed you to come this far simply to prevent you worrying unnecessarily."

"Worrying unnecessarily? My Prince, with all due respect you are entering the most dangerous forest in the kingdom!"

"Only made so by the stories that surround it. There is nothing in here that is more dangerous then anywhere else. Stay here!"

"But – "

"Stay! I am late enough as it is."

AN: Nyeh I don't know if I like it, felt like it dragged to me. Oh good news, I turned eighteen last staurday (and is still recovering from the resulting party. You know it's an eighteenth when an ambulance is called, you wake up as drunk as you were when you fell asleep, and you're mum is yelling at you for the state of the house) and I now have my own laptop. Whoot! Updates should be faster now, hopefully, though you may have to wait until after the summer exams. I have my college finals to study for.

Review Please!