Thirty minutes down the mountain they had a few minutes of hiking left to do. Patton was curled up slightly in Roman's arms, seemingly a little calmer than he had been in the cave, but still bleeding and still asleep. Logan wasn't doing much better. He was moving slowly and sluggishly, there were points where it seemed that Virgil was dragging him rather than helping him walk. Roman was trying to keep him awake by babbling about something, nobody was really sure what he was talking about since nobody was really listening but it seemed to be working.

Or it had been.

Virgil and Logan were falling slightly behind Roman and Patton. The Dark Realm prince pulled Logan a little harder than he meant to in an attempt to wake him up but it did little good. Suddenly Logan's eyes were rolling to the back of his head and Virgil was fumbling to stop him from hitting the ground. Four awkward seconds later Roman heard him squeak uncomfortably and turned to find Logan's body draped over the shorter boy's back like a human cape. "Seriously? Couldn't today just have been an easy day?" he asked as he tried to think of how he was gonna carry both Logan and Patton down the rest of the mountain.

Virgil struggled to move his arms so they still held Logan up but allowed him to sign as well, 'Give me Patton, you take Logan'

"What?" Roman said with a little bit of doubt, "No offense to either you or Patton but I don't really think you're strong enough to hold him"

He was honestly probably right to be fair. Despite Virgil being nearly as tall as Roman and several inches taller than Patton Virgil was also thinner than Patton was and didn't have a lot of obvious muscle. Still, Virgil sighed, 'I can levitate him'

"You trust you're magic enough to levitate Patton the rest of the way down?" He winced a little bit at how that sounded but Virgil seemed to understand he didn't mean it how he said it

Virgil shrugged, 'We don't really have another choice. Besides, I've done levitation spells hundreds of times and I haven't made that spell explode in years' Virgil paused, that probably wasn't reassuring, 'I got this I swear'

Roman stared at him for a moment before carefully setting Patton on the ground, "If you make my friend explode I'm gonna kill you"

Virgil gave him a thumbs-up as Roman tried to find a way to carry Logan down now. Logan was taller than Roman, making him the tallest in the group, and eventually Roman decided to hold him as though he was going to be giving the nerd a piggyback ride. He lifted him onto his back and Virgil wrapped Logan's arms around the other prince as Roman held onto him. Then Virgil turned back to Patton and carefully began to lift him off the ground with his powers. His eyes tinted slightly purple and Patton slowly began to rise into the air, his chest was higher than the rest of his body as he hung limply in the air.

Roman watched it for a moment before sighing, "You sure you got this?" He asked worriedly. Virgil nodded quickly, not taking his eyes of the floating body as he slowly started moving forward again. Roman nodded in return as he started moving as well, continuing to lead them down the mountain.

When they got to the bottom Roman carefully and awkwardly set Logan down on the ground and turned back to Virgil, "You got him?" he asked Virgil who seemed to be struggling to set Patton down. Virgil shook his head quickly and Roman lunged forward to catch Patton just as Virgil lost his hold on him. Patton dropped into Roman's arms and Virgil fell to the floor, sweat pouring down his head and panting for breath. Roman quickly set Patton down and kneeled down next to Virgil, "Ann are you okay?"

Virgil nodded slowly as he signed for Roman to get him some water. Roman did as he was asked and watched Virgil chug the water down quickly as though he was a drowning fish. "You over-exerted yourself, didn't you?" Roman asked

'I'll be fine after a nap. I'm gonna heal them though, I'll make a list of stuff for a potion, you need to find it for me'

"Uhm, maybe you shouldn't do any more magic?"

'Need to, could get infected' Virgil said before pulling his notebook out of his bag, along with one of the textbooks, and beginning to write the ingredients for the potion down. Roman watched him saying nothing until Virgil handed him the list and textbook, 'Find me the stuff on this list, pictures are in the book'

Roman looked down at the list and then up at their surroundings. It was going to get dark soon, saving Patton and Logan had taken some time. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "After helping them you're gonna get some rest okay? Patton would kill me if I let you overwork yourself"

Virgil nodded his head and waved his hand dismissively as he dragged himself over Logan and Patton's bodies. Roman left a moment later, leaving Virgil to attempt a healing spell on Patton. His hands shook slightly as they hovered over Patton's injuries and moved in the proper pattern. Patton's breathing bean to even out and his muscles relaxed. The wound on his head began to close and scab over but thats where Virgil stopped. He pulled his hands away and wrapped them around his stomach, whimpering slightly when he began to hurt.

Patton and Logan weren't healed yet though. He needed to continue but if he did continue he could mess up. He might hurt himself or Logan and Patton. Or he might mess the spell up. But if he didn't their wounds might get infected and they could get sick. And then they wouldn't be able to help get his kingdom safe again. Roman might even make them turn back and return to the Light Realm. So many bad things had happened on this trip. He just wanted it to be over, for everyone to be safe and for this to be over. He just wanted to go home and curl up in a blanket and hide. He wanted Remus to think up pranks to pull on Janus, and for Remy to drag him around the kingdom until his father got so worried he sent out search parties, and for Janus to convince random strangers of the most elaborate stories that he made up on the spot. That's what he wanted. That's all he wanted.

"Ann, I found everything except the deadly nightshade root, but I think Logan has..." Roman's voice trailed off when he saw the state Virgil was in, he put the items down as he kneeled down in front of Virgil, "Hey, you're shaking pretty bad, is everything okay?"

Virgil shook his head and attempted to sign but his hands were shaking too much for Roman to understand, "Okay, hold on Ann, let me find you your notebook. For now can you get started on that potion?" Roman asked as he grabbed a bowl out of one of the bags they had brought and put it in front of Virgil. Virgil nodded and with shaky hands started mixing ingredients.

Roman first went to see if Logan had the missing ingredient, searching his friend's bag and eventually finding it near the bottom of one. He handed it to Virgil who shakily added it to the mixture before searching for Ann's notepad. It took him a little longer to find it since he knew his way around Logan's packing style much better than he did Virgil's (after all he had known Logan for years and he's known Virgil for two weeks) but eventually he pulled it out of one of Virgil's bags and placed it next to him.

Virgil paused what he was doing and picked up his pen and paper. The writing was a lot messier than it normally was but still legible, 'I think my anxiety's acting up. Also, I might pass out from exhaustion

Roman's eyes widened slightly and he looked up at Virgil, "Did I read this wrong? You're gonna pass out?" Virgil only gave a shrug in response as he put the last ingredient in before holding the potion as far from him as possible. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and turned his body towards Roman, who by now had started to recognize Virgi's hints about when something was gonna explode and turned away as well. After a good forty-five seconds of nothing happening, Virgil smiled in triumph and announced that the potion was a success with nothing but a thumbs up directed towards Roman.

Roman helped Virgil apply the potions to Patton and Logan's injuries seeing as Virgil didn't like touch and he could pass out at any moment. After that, the Light Realm prince pretty much prepared the camp completely himself going as far as lighting a fire the old-fashioned way rather than having Logan use his magic to do so, and tucking both Patton and Logan into their sleeping bags.

Virgil, who did not need to be tucked in, was leaning up against a tree while in his sleeping bag. His body had yet to crash which to Virgil seemed to translate into, 'I'm gonna push my body to the limits until it negatively affects me and there's nothing anybody can do about it'. Roman was starting to consider spiking his dinner with that weird powder Virgil keeps throwing at people but figured it probably wasn't a good idea seeing as he didn't know what exactly that was or how it worked.

At some point Virgil was able to get Roman's attention by throwing a small pebble at him. He wanted to ask Roman a question but wasn't sure if it would look right or not, eventually, he just decided to go for it. 'How were you able to convince the dragon not to kill us'

"I talked to it," Roman replied simply as he worked on their dinner.

'You can talk to dragons?'

"I can talk to lots of animals," Roman said, looking up at Virgil's surprised expression with a smile, he laughed, "I talk to my horse all the time, didn't you notice? Or did you just think I was crazy?"

'Remus talks to the rats.' Virgil signed before his surprise seemed to grow 'Can Remus talk to rats?'

"No. He can't talk to animals at all"

'Can you talk to all animals?'

"No, just some. Honestly, I didn't even know I could talk to dragons, we very nearly could have died today" Roman said, making Virgil hesitate slightly.

'How can you talk to animals?'

Roman shrugged, "Logan is really bad at making potions, like probably worse than you" Roman justified, "It was only supposed to be temporary and work on all animals, obviously it didn't work right." He laughed slightly, "Oh man, I was bedridden for two weeks and Logan got in so much trouble, his uncle nearly killed him!" Roman paused stirring for a moment as he smiled slightly, "When he found out I was having fever dreams, he tried to perform another spell to stop them but they wouldn't let him. So he climbed through my window- which you might remember is like on the third story- nearly got shot at by a guard, performed the spell, and then had to hide in a secret crawl space in my closet for three hours while the guards tore up the whole castle trying to find the 'intruder that had tried to attack me'... And then he spent the night just in case."

Virgil smiled lightly at the shared memory. It was kinda funny and cute when you thought about it. 'What's it like?'

Roman shrugged,"It's a little weird. Kind of like a second language, it doesn't sound like English but I do know what they're saying. Sometimes I wish I didn't though, it's made for some very awkward moments"he smiled as he glanced over at where the horses had been resting, "I've been sending some birds home every once in a while, just to let my parents know we're okay still. But lots of the breeds you guys have don't understand me so well. So I'm mostly talking to crows and seagulls. Which is also really hard, because seagulls are surprisingly stupid and Crows are basically the bird versions of Logan." Roman handed Virgil his dinner and sat down next to him, Logan and Patton's food was still sitting by the fire to keep warm.

Virgil nodded in understanding as he ate. He had never met someone who could talk to animals before. Honestly, he just thought Roman talked to his horse like some people talked to their dogs. It had been kind of unexpected as well, Roman's family was 'pure of magic' as the Light Realm would say. Meaning there wasn't a drop of magical blood in him, nobody in his family tree had ever had magic. So Logan accidentally giving him the powers made sense.

Logan had mentioned in passing that his grandmother on his father's side had been a witch, that was who he inherited his magic from. Virgil and Janus were the fifth generations of witches from their mother's side. Before them, though there had been very little magic in their family, none as powerful as Janus or their mother. Their family hadn't been pure of family though in nearly two hundred years. Patton hadn't said much about his family but Virgil was assuming he also didn't have many, or any, magical family members in his bloodline.

'Do you miss Remus?' Virgil asked him suddenly

"Everyday," Roman answered, "Surprisingly though, I started to miss him more when I learned he was alive"

Virgil hesitated for a moment, 'He misses you too' Virgil looked up at Roman with a small smile 'He's gonna be so excited to see you.' Roman's smile grew as well at that 'He talks about you a lot. Sometimes he'd come to talk to me or Remy instead of being with Dee, cause he said we were like brothers to him and he wanted you back.'

"He did that?" Roman asked with a shakey whisper

Virgil nodded, 'He missed you so much. On your birthday, he wouldn't let us celebrate. He said he could only do that with you, so we did it the day after' Roman smiled softly, his shoulder shaking slightly as he tried to hold back his tears 'He claims he's the older brother, that true?'

Roman nodded, "Yeah, only by a few minutes though. He used to throw it in my face every day. He would take something and then say he was allowed because he was older." Roman laughed slightly, "It worked till we were like six too,"

'Were you two close?'

"Thick as thieves," Roman replied, "We shared a room till we were like twelve, and after that even sometimes we would sneak into each other's rooms and have sleepovers. We lived in a giant castle, and we refused to sleep alone for so long." Roman sighed, "What about you? Are you close?"

Virgil nodded 'Remus and I hung out when Jan and my dad were in meetings. And sometimes at night too, when everyone else was asleep. He and Remy, besides family ,they're the best people I could ever have in my life'

Roman smiled, "Like Patton and Logan to me huh?" Virgil nodded again, "Good, when we're all back together we can hang out. All of us, Patton, Logan, you, me, Remus, Janus and even whoever this Remy guys is"

'Virgil laughed quietly 'Thanks Princey, sounds like fun'

"Okay, party at your place then?" Roman asked jokingly. Virgil laughed again before nodding in agreement. Roman hummed happily as they fell into silence again and finished eating. Roman played his instrument for an hour or two, hoping that either Logan or Patton would wake up so they could at least eat but neither did. Virgil still insisted on staying up, even when his anxiety began to get the best of him again, and studied one of his books. Eventually, Roman killed the fire and set himself down next to his two friends, so if they needed anything during the night they could get to him easily. The lack of light forced Virgil to quit reading as well, and soon enough he laid down to rest as well.

The princes closed their eyes, the smell of drifting smoke fading away, the starry sky shining above them brightly, and the sounds of crickets chirping echoing slightly. It was a beautiful night, if only they had more people to share it with than just the two of them.