The deeper they venture into the wood, the more suffocating things become. The fog closes in around them. The trees boxing them off. The air so thick it could drown.

Each step feels less confident than the last, but this was the only path forward--until it wasn’t.

The group comes to a fork in the trees; a path left, a path right. With the forest shifting as it was, there was a chance they would not be able to backtrack from here. Their decision may be final. Crimson eyes dart from here to there, trying to decide which direction to go, before he tosses his head over his shoulder and commands.

“Which direction?”

It is to all of them. Morgan, Leif, Hushen; but to Dhanvi most of all. She was suppose to be leading this merry band, but it seemed more and more evident that she had her own goals in mind.

(I actually drew something yesterday omg. More rarepair hell I love them okay. I honestly like how this came out like... The lighting s kind of nice the pose is cute over all I’m satisfied.)

Morgan, acting strangely, has run off into the dark somewhere, but Dhanvi urges Arvis and Leif to ignore him and continue onward through a tunnel carved out of the warehouse in the basement. It is at this time that Hushen decides to confide in Arvis, where neither Leif nor Dhanvi can hear: Morgan is cursed, he says. He had sensed it when Morgan had melted one of the forest’s trees. It is better to leave him behind.

The regent’s attention is sparred for little else than the dingy path they walk, and echoes of water droplets. It is only when Hushen’s fan slaps his shoulder does Arvis look to his pact-spirit.

The fan spreads to dampen their voices, as canines whisper against his ear.

Cursed? Arvis looks to the shambling outline of Leif walking a few paces ahead of him.

“If Morgan is cursed, what of Leif? Please Hushen,” Tone sober, gaze resolute. The fox spirit was the only thing Arvis could trust in this moment. “Do you know anything of the toxin affecting him? The condition he is in?”

Hushen will tell Arvis that what's happening to Leif (with a rash now spreading from his wounds) looks frighteningly similar to what happens to humans infected by the forest blight

The words stop the beating of his heart. More than self interest, more than foolish pity. Something deep and animalistic in Arvis fears these words. A vision of Julius in such a state has the regent snapping his eyes shut against dry eyes.

With an exhale, something dawns on him however. ...Was this his purpose in this story? If not, it may doom him to spending eternity in it.

Perhaps that would be just. Maybe this was his purgatorio.

Arvis leans close to Hushen’s ear, enough that fur tickles the curve of his cheek.

“The herbs. Will they cure him?”

The fox barks a single laugh and bats Arvis away with a strike of his fan.

‘You mean those weeds you presented to me some time ago?’ Hushen waves his fan in front of his face, but his voice is more subdued than before. ‘They are just that: weeds that grow along the bank of a spring. Some magic lies within them, but it is inconsequential to someone as great as yours truly.’

Weeds... weeds?! No... they couldn’t be?! All this couldn’t have been for weeds!

Foolishly, stubbornly, perhaps contrary in the face of facts, Arvis forges on. He can not swallow that all was for naught. Just then,

There's something moving nearby and seems to be attracted to your fire, but won't come closer to it. You can barely make it out in the dark beyond the circle of light, but from the shuffling and the stench, it's likely one of those flesh monsters

Arvis walks slowly, and keeps his fire carefully controlled, but ready to throw if need be.

It had been a few days since Elise had been sick- thankfully she was feeling better at this point, only the occasional cough being the reminder that she had been sick. She’d been cuddling with Morgan for the duration of that time- and she couldn’t have helped but notice how he was coughing more and more, and that he had a slight fever when she felt his forehead.

There was absolutely no hesitation or reluctance on Amelia’s end as she kissed her husband back, she loosely wrapped her arms around his neck and her whole body feeling as if she were melting into it. It didn’t matter how much they were together or how many times they kissed, she was always hungry for more.