#themb

The deep wood hides no secrets to a trained eye - not with the little pitter patter of the prince’s feet against the leaf litter. He can practically see them with his own two eyes just by sound alone. Four eyes? 

“Two eyes,” The Moon hisses from behind him. The Sun ignores him in favor of walking in jaunty steps across the grasses. They are not far. They can never be too far, and isn’t that fun? 

“Four is better than two, you know.” Ignoring The Moon is boring, so he ends up needling back anyway. Who else is he going to chatter to if the prince insists on running away so much? “With the prince, now it's six!” He holds his hands behind his head to ring the bells next to The Moon’s face, laughing merrily at his hissing. 

“You suck at hunting. Switch with me.” The Sun considers this. They’re truly not that far - he can almost see their blue garb down a few rows of trees. But he wanted to surprise them…

“Fine. But let me out for a verse or two! Or Three! Or Four!” Sun is hardly finished speaking when the gears click and whirr, the clockwork spinning their face plate around with barely a break in stride. The Moon digs his heels in and jumps to a branch, scrambling over to where they run. Their face is a shade of red that rivals the bloodiest of roses. 

It's easy to catch up to their human strides. The Moon hooks his leg around a vine and drops upside down, jangling merrily as they shriek in surprise. 

“How are you - go away!” The jester laughs maniacally at such a silly sentiment. Go away? This new prince seems to have some fantastical notion that if they threaten them enough they’ll get some hint. What does a jester care for this when they’re just so fun?

“Away where?” The Moon flips himself onto the ground, landing a scant inch from their face. It's so enjoyable how much taller the Jester is compared to them. “The Queen’s palace? The Club badlands? Deeper into the forest?” He hopes for the latter two. Delivering them to the queen would be an end to this ruse - such a sad end to entertainment. He steps forward with each suggestion, pushing them back till they lean against a tree.

“Anywhere. Or I’ll…” They trail off. Threats seem to have lost their luster after it failed to do anything the last few times. 

“Or?” The Moon prompts, spinning the gears in his face plate around in a circle. “Do tell. There are many other places we bleed.” He takes hold of their hand and presses it to his bicep. Their eyes widen in frozen shock. 

“Here. Or maybe the stomach again? Or perhaps the heart?” For his efforts, he’s granted a hateful, scathing glare. The old prince’s face hardly moved! The Sun pushes at their internals at the elation in their body from this, baying for a turn. 

They twist once more, The Sun changing their grip on the prince’s wrist to pull them backwards into a waltz. “Me next friend! If you stab Moon on the left, could you do mine on the right?” He lowers their wrist to his side, squeezing their hand into his felt. “It's only fair, right your highness?” 

“What do you know about fair.” The words are hissed, but they allow themselves to be pulled and spun around in quick succession. “You do as you please.” 

The Sun dips them low, spinning right back around into The Moon. He dips the prince even lower, forcing them to lean entirely into Moon’s arm. 

“Isn’t that fairness? Doing as one pleases?” he stares at them expectantly, wondering if they’d get the hint. They could march right into the claws of the wretched Queen, but if one opens their eyes just a little wider…

Instead, the prince unsheathes his sword and opens The Jester’s body a little wider. They go right in the center, jamming the clockwork in rapid succession. Of course, this inevitably locks his servos and sends him toppling forward right on top of them.

“If you wanted me to pin you to the ground all you had to do was ask~” The prince practically growls at this, seizing hold of his sides to flip them back over. He flops onto his back in a screech of jarred metal. 

The Moon is ignored in favor of the sword seized, raised over the prince's head to stab them right back down in savage anger. The air fills with the full body laughter of The Jester, blue blood spilling between the two of them. 

“So enthusiastic!” The Sun shouts from behind them, feet kicking. “Don’t mind if we do!”

Moon takes his queue and snaps the clockwork to sink his own claws right into their torso, down to the ribs. They spit blood all over him - what a pretty cherry red! The mixture creates a lovely purple that feeds the ground well. 

“Let-gah!” They struggle in earnest, only succeeding in getting Moon’s claws in deeper. He can feel the rabbit quick of their heart practically beating out of their chest. Fear? Pain? Exhilaration? He can’t get enough of it! They clasp the sword in trembling hands and stab all the way through, nailing him right into the ground and most certainly ruining The Jester’s entire chassis. How wonderful!

“Come on little prince,” he coos. He can still move his legs, after all, and the prince isn’t dead yet. “You gonna finish it?”  

They don’t get their wish. Their eyes roll back, the puff of smoke ending their life in an instant. Aw. 

“Boo!” The Sun forces their head around to look himself, poking at the rapidly cooling body. “You went too hard, stupid! Now look. We’re going to have to wait foreeeeever till they get back up!”

“I didn’t see you protesting, moron.” The Moon retorts, now bleeding into the dirt in earnest. They’re going to be stuck like this for at least a few hours. 

“Oh well.” The Sun maneuvers their broken arm into the chassis, feeling blindly for the core. “Till next time.”

Awful searching laughter echoes through the forest. The Jester and their beloved little prince still with the forest.