Jaekel

Jaekel slept better than he had in years, deeper and uninterrupted. No dreams that made him wake up in a cold sweat, not even any dreams that made him feel uneasy or just dreams that made him sleep lightly and wake up easily.

It was odd that it was outside, laying on grass, that the young prince had such an undisturbed sleep, but he could probably sleep anywhere with how sleep deprived he always was. It was the lack of dreams that made him sink into such a deep sleep.

He only woke up when the sun was hitting him fully on his face. And even then, it took him a while to come fully awake. As he was slowly becoming more aware of his surroundings, he became increasingly aware of the warm body pressed close to his back and of the lithe arm that was encircling his waist.

Rune must have rolled over in her sleep. He carefully removed her arm, doing his best not to wake her and stood up slowly. As he did so he heard her move slightly and glanced at her.

She was still asleep, her red hair sprawled over the grass(and most likely getting tangled in the sticks that they had not even thought to remove last night). The blanket was falling off of her shoulders. She looked like a mess, albeit an adorable one.

Jaekel pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. He stretched a little and looked away from her. He wondered how much farther away the horses had gotten from them. He really hoped they found them, as he was pretty fond of Snowflake(that was the name of his horse).

After a while he could hear as she got up, some twigs snapping underfoot. He could hear as she tried to sneak up on him, and turned at the last minute just as she jumped at him in an attempt to climb on his back.

He stumbled back, quickly wrapping his arms around her waist to keep her from falling as her legs wrapped around his own.

"You're not a koala, Rune." He said as he tried to coax her off of him, "And we need to get moving again, as well."

She giggled, a childish look on her face. He sighed to himself. He was concerned that if she acted like this all the time she might run into problems. Of course, she had nothing to fear from him, but still there were limits to what she should do to a man.

She hopped back, and he released her. She had a bright smile on her face as she looked up at him. "Alright then, come on."

They began following the tracks again. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, his best friend pulling out her journal and jotting down in it real quick. He did not ask her what was in it. That was personal to her, and he would respect that. Even if he might joke about reading it on her, unless she purposely showed it to him, he would not.

The path their horses had taken led into a thicket of trees. Their horses had probably calmed down and once they managed to catch up it should not be too hard to get them to come. They might not be trained for battle, but Snowflake at least was loyal and the mare that Rune had been riding would follow him.

While he had thought that it was a thicket originally, he gradually grew aware that there were a lot more trees here, there had just been a slope that had made it hard to notice, at least from the side he had been on, and that it was actually a decently sized forest.

Rune stumbled on the uneven ground, as they had not been expected the steep slope. He managed to steady her enough that she did not fall flat on her face, but they still slid down and ended up on their backs instead.

At first, he was stunned, as he stared up at the leafy canopy above him, that allowed peeks of a clear blue sky beyond. And then he heard Rune start to giggle, and a small smile came to his face. Laughter came out of his mouth as well, as he turned his head to look at her.

She definitely had twigs in her hair now. As well as leaves, and a caterpillar that was climbing over her red hair. He reached out and plucked the caterpillar off of her, with a slight grin on his face, "Look at that, Rune. You've made a new friend."

She giggled even harder and then managed to get out, "He's a cutie, ain't he?" She took the caterpillar and placed it down on a nearby tree root, and watched as it began to crawl away.

He watched the adorable look on his best friend's face as she giggled over the insect. He did not fully get it but he was happy she was so happy. After a while he stood up and offered her his hand. They needed to keep going.

It took them a while to refigure out exactly which route their mounts had taken. But eventually they did manage to find what they thought was their trail.

They had been struggling to follow these tracks for a while when an arrow whizzed past Jaekel's head and embedded itself in a tree. His eyes widened in surprise.

"Who are you? You are from the kingdoms by the look of you, so what is your business here?" The voice was feminine, soft and lilting with a slight trill to it. "Answer me or else I will shoot again. I don't have to miss you know."