He hesitated. He didn't really want to be carried, and he didn't like it, and there was that part of him that didn't want to be helped out by a girl. But they needed to find Edward. Engel swallowed his pride and nodded. "Okay."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Damascus's hand felt bizarre in his own. It was certainly people-shaped, but it didn't felt like it belonged to a normal person. Which it didn't, since Damascus was a demon and not human. He normally wouldn't have put much thought into that, but the woods were really, really dark without Schadel's torch. He could barely see five feet in front of him, and kept tripping over roots and rocks that suddenly appeared in front of him and Damascus.
He needed something to distract him, and the only thing he could think about was Damascus - and his humming, which was really freaking out. It was just too eerie when the out of tune humming was coming from right near him; it felt like things were horribly wrong, and that something was about to jump out from the dark. His hand started to tremble at the thought of it, and soon he was a trembling mess trying to leave another terrified mess through a forest that only made their fear worse.
xXx
She frowned, looking over at Engel. She had noticed the pause, but couldn't figure out why he had taken so long to reply. The darkness coming off of her body licked the air, sending shadows dancing across the ground in the light of her torch as she tried to come up with an explanation.
"What's wrong, Engel?" she asked, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side. "Do you...do you not want to be carried? Why?"
Damascus felt Edward's hand tremble in his, and he softly ceased his humming. He wasn't sure the resulting silence was any better, but the humming had been starting to scare him more than the dark.
Something crunched up ahead, and he let out a little whimper of fear. Stopping in his tracks, he pulled on Edward's hand to get the boy to slow down as well. He felt himself drawing up behind Edward, and forced himself to stop. He was the older one- he should be brave and protect his brother.
"I- I'll see what it is." He whispered quietly, trying stop the shaking in his voice. For good measure, he squeezed Edward's hand once before slowly letting go and inching forward, putting himself in between the noise and the smaller boy,
He could barely hear the crunching now over his heart beating loudly in his ear. With both hands held in front of him so that he wouldn't run into a tree, he tiptoed forward.
Maybe it was just an animal, he reassured himself. A nice little... creature. Were there nice creatures in Prussia? The thought wasn't calming him any more, and so he thought of his cherry blossoms back home.
Suddenly, reaching out, he felt something warm.
Yanking his hand back quickly, he let out a screech, tripping over his own feet to run back and throw his arms around Edward.
What was that, humming, in the distance? It wasn't a bear, obviously, but it made Boris' skin crawl nonetheless.
But humming was a distinctly human, or at least humanoid, noise, so he knew it made sense to follow it. So he did, however hesitantly. If the voice were to speak, and he didn't recognize it, he planned on fleeing immediately, but as long as it might be someone he knew...
It was too dark. It was too dark, the humming kept cutting out, and cropping up again, and he realized that he'd lost the direction of it. He hadn't a clue what side of it he was on anymore, and it was all he could do to keep looking back to make sure he hadn't lost James.
Then something touched him. From behind. And screeched.
"Etwas hat mich berührt!" Boris screamed, forgetting or not bothering to try and use English.
He dashed over to James as fast as he could, grabbed his hand, pulled him behind a tree, and didn't look back.
Idiot. He should have grabbed him, and ran, not grabbed him, and froze!
The bears must have heard all this. The bears were coming. The bears were definitely coming.
Boris did not let go of James' hand.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
James was excited when they heard the humming. They had to have been getting close! So naturally, the moment Boris yanked him behind a tree for cover, he was a little annoyed. He tried to pull his hand away from Boris's grip to no avail and gave him a frown of disapproval. What did Boris think it was? They were supposed to be looking for their friends - or, well, brothers, now.
"What?" he asked as his frown turned into more of a pout when he saw that Boris was genuinely terrified. He sighed and poked his head around the tree.
Edward had initially been absolutely petrified when he heard Damascus screech and felt his arms wrap around him without warning, but the frantic response from whatever Damascus had been scared by made him immediately calmed down - it was another person, though the words were in a language that he didn't understand.
Then James's voice cut through the darkness, and relief washed over him when he realized he wouldn't have to try drawing on the ground again to get his message across. Edward tried to get out of Damascus's terrified embrace, but the other boy's grip was just too strong for him to. He settled with awkwardly trying to look around and over Damascus's shoulder.
"It's me and Damascus." He frowned, suddenly realizing that James wouldn't know who the "me" he was referring to was without some sort of clue. "Edward and Damascus," he corrected, still unable to get out of his grip.
Damascus lifted his head as soon as he heard the voice behind the tree. Oh- it was only one of their brothers. Perhaps. He still couldn't understand what it was saying, but Edward said something back and he heard him say their names. It was someone they knew, then!
Brightening, he unwrapped himself from Edward and called to the tree.
"Hello! Who is it?" He yelled excitedly, not stopping to wonder if they wound understand him.
That was Damascus' voice! It didn't say anything he could understand, but it was definitely him! He hadn't been eaten!
Boris let go of James' hand, and ran to the voice. He quickly pulled the heavily silhouetted Damascus into a hug, his prior stoicism forgotten completely.
"Damaskus! Damaskus geht es dir gut? Erschrecke mich nicht so!" he cried.
Damascus! Damascus are you alright? Don't scare me like that!
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Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
"Uh...nothing," he shook his head, not wanting to be insulting to Schadel. "It's fine. Really!"
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
"Boris!" Damascus gasped as he was pulled into a hug, more surprised that it was Boris giving the embrace than the embrace itself. "I- I don't know what you're saying, but I'm just fine, don't worry!"
He wrapped his arms around the smaller boy's neck and smiled in content.
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Brotherly concern expressed, Boris stood back, coughed stoically, and wiped tears from his face. Nobody saw that, he told himself. It's too dark, nobody saw.
"See, James?" he said, casually.
"Find him we'd would, I told you've."
'Find' was a bit of a relative term. They'd certainly located Damascus, but apart from the red glint of his eyes, and the white glint of his teeth, he seemed to be melting into the background entirely. Boris squinted, puzzling over these pronged shapes he saw, for just one second, that appeared to come out of Damascus' head.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
James walked up slowly as he saw Edward, and Boris hugging who he had to assume was Damascus, since he looked different again. He had to admit, he was surprised for a moment when he saw Damascus's new appearance, but by the time Boris pulled away from him, James had grown used to it.
He rolled his eyes at Boris's comment and looked around, searching for the token dots of white on the ground. When he spotted a marshmallow he pointed at it and into the forest. "Okay. Let's find the others, but also, I made a way back. We just follow these," he said, lifting up the now half-empty bag of marshmallows.
Schadel frowned a little bit more, but she didn't question it anymore. They had to find the others; she could bug him about it more later. Once she had picked him up and was sure he was securely in her arms, she held the torch up high and started heading back into the depths of the forest. She was guided by the sounds of voices in the distance - she was sure they belonged to her other brothers.
xXx
Edward looked down at the trail that James had made, then back up at the boy in question. "That's really smart," he said. "Schadel and I didn't think of how to get back - we just thought of bringing a light-"
As if the words had summoned it, a light began to shine in the distance. It was too far away to clearly make out what the light was from, and the shadowy depths of the forest certainly didn't help.Edward fell silent and stared at the approaching light. Was it Schadel, or was it someone - or something - else?
He pulled William up and held him close to his chest, just to be on the safe side.
Damascus was in the middle of leaning down to pick up a marshmallow when the light appeared.
Quickly, he stuffed it into his mouth and scuttled over to whoever was closest. This time it happened to be Boris, and without stopping to think of the consequences, he snatched up a hand and held it tight.
