The forest doesn't take a break from trying to ward off the unwelcome intruders.

And when the forest doesn't stop attacking, they are left with no choice but to never stop evading its unfriendly way of welcoming them.

Lloyd, who had been walking slowest behind the group before, now walks faster than he's ever did in his life after tripping over a root that grabbed him by the leg in return, almost swinging him to the ends of the forest if Lancaster hadn't sliced it in two.

"Just how far do these vines grow?" Alaina pants, bending over to take short breaths after a long run, one that they narrowly escaped being pecked to death and turned to stone by a cockatrice.

Flames burst suddenly forward, stretching several miles before them and lighting up the path ahead with Lancaster narrowly avoiding them. "Still not close enough," Kai says as the flames vanish.

Behind Kai, Lloyd doesn't seem to be surprised at all by the sudden outburst of flames. Instead, he beams for the first time upon stepping into the forest. "What can't you do with those flames of yours?"

Although Lloyd's words are obviously a compliment, Kai seems to be taken aback by them. He turns to Lloyd and eyes him curiously for a short moment before saying in an impatient tone, "I can burn you."

"The flames are unable to help you control your temper, that is certain," Lancaster says immediately, shaking his head at his reaction. Alaina stifles a laugh beside him, and Kai turns red.

Swallowing words of denial threatening to escape his mouth as it'll only prove Lancaster right, Kai turns away furiously to hide his scarlet face of embarrassment. He continues forward, refusing to look back, trying his best to contain his flaring temper in an attempt to prove Lancaster wrong.

"Your highness," Lancaster says softly as they slowly follow behind. "How did you even manage to convince him to help, anyway?" Lancaster whispers as softly as he can manage and at the same time loud enough so that Alaina can hear.

Smiling satisfactorily to herself, she whispers back, "you just have to know the right words."

"I have to say, your highness, you improvise well," Lloyd says, clearly impressed. "Now we have a human torch --"

"Hey, I hear you crystal clear," Kai snaps from the front. All previous efforts of his to contain his anger disappear the moment he turns to glare at them through angry eyes. "For the millionth time," Kai nearly yells of frustration, taking a step towards them, "will you quit talking like I'm invisi --" a string of thuds takes over his voice and he never finishes, for he trips and falls, returning darkness to its rightful throne in the process as his fire extinguishes and disappears once again, this time not by his own will.

Alaina, who is -- was -- standing nearest him, jerks her head around to where he was standing last she remembers, only to find empty darkness. Eyes wide with alert, she calls out to him, "Kai?"

Soft moans near her feet pull her gaze downwards, and she squints her eyes and barely makes out Kai. His figure shifts in the dark, and Alaina bends down slightly to find him hanging on to the ground they stand on. As for what's underneath or rather how far deep the hole goes, she hasn't a clue, but the way Kai holds on to the edge of the ground -- clinging for the grass or the roots and logs of nearby trees -- suggests to her that the hole isn't one to be fallen into.

Pulling his weight together, he uses his arm he'd managed back on the ground to support and to lift his body up, his legs still dangling dangerously over the seemingly infinite hole.

Already beginning to adjust her eyes to the dark in the absence of Kai's fire, Alaina takes a few small, careful steps towards him, stretching her hand out for him. But as she gets close, his face only displays additional panic.

"Don't -- wait, stop --" he tries to warn, but it's too late.

However careful Alaina had been a few seconds ago, the effort vanishes into thin air as she too slips, the culprit being the disgusting greenish gooey slime she'd sworn to avoid not too long ago.

She falls, directly knocking into Kai and the impact forces them down the hole, even when she tries clinging to whatever she sees in an attempt to prevent the inevitable.

In the blink of an eye, they are falling. The hole is definitely larger than what Alaina imagines from just its looks -- it is able to swallow them both. As they fall, distant yells from Lancaster and Lloyd gradually fade as they bump into each other constantly, scraping down the dirt around them and occasionally trying to stop the fall by hanging on to the sides to no avail.

Kai finds Alaina in the midst of their fall and pulls her close to shield her, carefully not allowing his skin to touch hers; it is, after all, half his fault -- the other half being her own -- that she's in this mess. No matter how hard they try to make their fall easier, however, as they fall down the hole and then roll down a tiny slope, they both still gain scars and scrapes in the process.

Hearing a thud echoing from below, Lancaster's heart skips a beat. He draws near the hole, the blurry image of Alaina reaching her hand out to Kai appearing before him. He had been near them, but not near enough to stop their fall. Yet he blames himself, thinking he wasn't fast enough.

Taking several steps closer to the hole, he shuts his eyes, allowing guilt to swallow him. He means to call out to them to check if they are fine, but his rationale is clouded by fear -- something he hasn't felt in many years.

A hand on Lancaster's shoulder stops his advancing footsteps. "Don't get too close; do you want to fall, too?"

Pushing Lloyd's hand away, Lancaster returns to his senses. "I am not going to fall."

"Just making sure," Lloyd shrugs, "that nothing else like that happens to either of us. We shouldn't be separated. They'll be fine, at least they're both together. Rose, on the other hand --"

"Will you be afraid, if you were to be left alone?" Lancaster raises a brow.

"No! Why would I be?" Lloyd stammers, almost tripping over air at Lancaster's sudden question regarding his fear. "Anyway, we should check on them," he says quickly, changing the subject.

He takes a few careful steps towards the hole, and when he is close enough, he peers into it. "Your highness?" His voice echoes through the hole, and he crosses his fingers, hoping his voice is able to reach them with the help of the echo.

Lloyd patiently await their reply, but the dead silence only challenges his patience and increases his fear. Turning to Lancaster, he asks, "do you think they are... still in one piece?"

"Do not talk as if they are already dead," Lancaster glares, although he, too, is worried. Frowning, he turns to the hole. "Your highness?" he calls, allowing the echo of his voice to travel down the deep hole.

Lancaster's mind flashes to their main motive, Rose, and he stares straight down the dark hole where Alaina and Kai had just fell into, conflicted.

Right now, they can only hope and wait.

❃❃❃❃❃

The fall had drained them good.

"Your highness?"

Familiar voices travel to Alaina's ear, and she gradually returns to her senses. Still light-headed from the fall, she forces her eyes open, feeling she'd just landed on something else rather than ground.

The instant her eyes flutter open, her heart beats so fast it drums in her ears, drowning out every other sound around her.

Ruffled brown hair and a familiar face greet her eyes. The face, so foreign yet so familiar and warm, almost welcoming; so close yet so far.

Kai's eyes are still closed when she's directly face to face with him, and her heart is in too much of a state of shock to even bring herself to check if he's all right.

Fortunately for her, the moment lasts no longer than a blink of an eye as Kai slowly stirs. She shifts; but as he opens his eyes to find himself in a similarly awkward position as Alaina's, their eyes meet and they stare blankly, staying that way as if time has stopped.

None of them utter a word, until the distant calls of either Lancaster or Lloyd reach them once again, breaking their little infinity of a moment.

Heat isn't something Kai feels, but this time, it's debatable. On instinct, he jerks upwards to his feet in a swift movement, dropping Alaina on the ground before he realises what he's doing.

Ignoring the warm feeling he can't comprehend stirring in his cheeks, he dusts himself, not turning to look at her. Other than Alaina behind him, there's nothing but darkness surrounding them, perhaps even darker than the forest, now that the moon isn't directly above them.

Yet Kai has other things occupying his mind, preventing him from rationally lighting a flame for their sake. He rubs the back of his neck with his hand furiously as his mind searches for the right words to say. With all the complex emotions bouncing up and down, he hardly understands himself when he says, as less awkward as he can make out, "I guess we survived that fall..."

Kai allows himself to trail off when they are interrupted again by the voices echoing from above, silently sighing in relief and thanking them for the timing.

As he finally builds up the courage to turn around, he finds Alaina dusting herself, an unreadable yet slightly unpleased expression plastered across her face. His smile vanishes as guilt takes over, when he realises how dumb he was to just drop a young lady -- the Princess of Theia, in fact -- without warning and ignore her for several minutes, pretending like nothing's happened.

Swallowing his pride, he strides over quickly and offers his gloved hand to her. "Sorry. You all right?" he asks, embarrassed by his own actions.

Alaina raises a brow at first, but smiles almost immediately after. Grateful, she takes his hand as she regains proper footing. "Better than ever."

"Your highness!"

Upon hearing Lancaster's voice, Alaina rushes to the source, glancing up at the opening above. "We're all right!"

"They're fine!"

She hears clumsy, scrambling movements shifting near the hole. "Be careful!" she warns quickly, easing at the pause in movements after a few quick seconds. She doesn't want them to share the same fate as hers and Kai's.

"What do we do now?" Lancaster sighs from above, seemingly frustrated. He isn't one to do things draggingly. "First Rose, now you two."

Biting her lip, Alaina feels guilty. Their priority was Rose, but because of her clumsiness, now Lancaster and Lloyd has one more thing to worry about.

She opens her mouth to say something that might make Lancaster feel better, but Lloyd beats her to it. "I've got a plan," he says confidently. Alaina smiles, her heart lightening as she knows she can always rely on Lloyd for strategies.

"Rose can get you two out of there without any more, well, accidents or the risk of any of us falling -- she can use her vines."

"Leave them here?" Lancaster asks, "will you be fine, your highness?"

Thinking for a moment, Alaina scans around to be sure. Darkness. The dark isn't really a problem, and can be easily solved when Kai is by her side.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine --" the wind carries a strange dirt scratching, growling sound to her ears, and she turns around, vigilantly inspecting through the dark. Standing just near her is Kai, poised with boredom as he yawns, stretching his arms. Shaking it off but shivering at the hallucinations, she adds in a low voice, "I think."

"Wait," Kai says, stepping in front of Alaina as he lifts his head up to face the opening of the hole above. He removes one of his gloves and produces a flame, one that's larger than his usual one, and flings it upwards.

As it reaches the top where Lancaster and Lloyd stand, the flame expands and shoots upwards suddenly. Like fireworks, it rises as high as the tall dark trees, forming a fire wall. Other than the heat Lancaster and Lloyd feel, the fire remains in its position, illuminating their surroundings harmlessly.

Although it's arguably the most illustrious and eminent of any other components of the entire forest however ethereal they may be, it can't be seen overhead as the dark trees still tower above it, blocking its obvious radiance. Kai controlled the fire just right; it's bright enough within a great radius, but not too brilliant to the point that it might attract too much unnecessary company.

Kai laughs lightly upon hearing a soft, short yelp of surprise from above. "You can use that as your source of light," he says, smiling at the vague sight of the fire from his limited view below. "If nothing goes wrong, it should stay that way... I hope."

"That's brilliant," Alaina compliments, when Lancaster and Lloyd are still frozen in awe from witnessing a tiny flame turning into a giant wall of fire instantaneously up close.

Flushing at her words, Kai turns to Alaina as he pulls his glove back on absently. Her face is lit dimly by the fire above, and he notices her genuine smile towards the fire he'd created -- a smile of fascination. She's not envious; with not even the slightest hint of insecurity in her eyes, she stares passionately at the flickering flames as if she's the one who created them, like she's the one who owns them.

It is what you make of it, firefly, she'd said. Your gift.

"Find Rose," Alaina says suddenly, snapping Kai out of his thoughts, and he turns away quickly after realising he's been staring at her. "And please, try to get along."

Upon hearing the last sentence, Lancaster frowns at Lloyd, and Lloyd returns a grimace. Though unwilling, they know better. Alaina had specifically said to try and get along.

"Be safe, your highness."