.

Wow. The second embarrassment of the last chapter was wild. 

Sebastian scrambled to his feet and dashed after Jylan. The cold air felt strange, pure, and light since he had gotten used to the stale dungeon air over the last few days. Jylan also took off his bandana. Sebastian, out of curiosity, asked, 

"What happened, Jylan?"

Jylan glanced at him, and then behind him, where a few shouts were starting to echo. He raised an eyebrow. "I'd rather not right now, My Prince." 

Sebastian nodded, and together the two of them set off across the woods. Due to common sense, Sebastian would have readily assumed it was better to run across the snow-covered forest, but then, when he tried to speed up, Sebastian heard pine needles crunch loudly under someone's foot. Oop. Jylan was walking because walking, even though it was slower, made it so that they made very few footprints and noises. Because Sebastian's clothes were stained in dirt, and Jylan's were all black, they both blended in with the shadows of the forest anyway, meaning it was much safer. 

Finally, they neared the forest border. 

There had been a point where the shouts had gotten louder, but then, as they walked away, Jylan even daring to whistle, the shouts had faded off. 

The forest border itself, meanwhile, was something of a paradox. The trees all suddenly died out to form a sacred line, which Sebastian, for no particular reason, felt odd crossing. After that endless plains of white stretched out, and the sky was a light gray as well, so it looked strange, like the end of the world. Jylan seemed to have noticed this too, because he had paused next to the last tree on the border, looking up at the sky unblinkingly. 

"It looks like… a white canvas," Jylan said, and Sebastian didn't say anything. 

Of course, since the snow and sky were slightly different colors, it did not look like a fresh canvas, but rather one that had been previously used and sloppily painted over, but he wasn't one to ruin the mood either. Yep, he had screwed things up enough already in previous chapters. He simply leaned against another tree and brushed a flake of snow off his wig. Try to be cool, Sebastian, try to be cool! Don't mess things up again! Yeah! So, instead of messing things up, he said, 

"Maybe we should follow in its wake. How about a fresh start, Butler? Just the two of us."

Both of them silently leaned against the trees. Soon, snow started falling. 

"What choice do we have, Sebastian."