The green beneath their feet sunk as Frank and Gerard moved away from the cork tree. It had been a few hours now, or it at least felt like a few hours. Frank carried a small pack full of prepared fruits on his back as he followed Gerard's direction. They had been fairly quiet throughout the journey thus far, like neither knew where to begin a conversation.

Frank let himself instead be distracted by the sounds and colors of the world around him as he followed Gerard. Chirps. Croaks. Shuffling. Blues. Pinks. Greens. He held the straps of his pack tightly as he continued to catalog the sounds and colors. No matter if they repeated or not, it was something to occupy his mind from everything it wanted to think about.

"We should be okay to take a short rest if your tired." Gerard called out. Frank looked up to see that he was positioned on a large rock, looking back towards the direction they had been moving away from.

Frank turned to look in the same direction, but he only saw trees that seemed to create a dark tunnel the deeper he looked. He turned back around just as Gerard leapt off the rock. He landed in a crouch before straightening himself and looking around the spot they had stopped in. "Seems like, a good spot." He grinned.

"Yea, sure." Frank nodded. He stepped up to the rock and let himself sink to the ground.

Gerard plopped himself down beside Frank and gestured to the pack he carried. "Let me get some fruit."

Frank shrugged it off and passed it to Gerard. The redhead dug through it for a moment before pulling out a brown bundle. He unraveled that to reveal slices of a deep blue fruit. He took a slice for himself before holding it out to Frank.

"No thanks." Frank shook his head.

"Sure?" Gerard took a bit of the piece he had taken for himself, "s'good."

"Not feeling hungry." Frank assured him.

Gerard frowned, but nodded. He rewrapped the fruit and stuffed it back in the pack. He took another bite of the piece he had taken out. "So," he took a moment to chew before continuing, "how's your chest doing?"

"Fine." Frank answered immediately, clasping his hands together in his lap to avoid them shooting up to his chest that no longer held the protruding dark mark. He hadn't shared the mark's absence with anyone.

"Hey, it's okay!" Gerard moved to reach out to Frank, but stopped himself. He instead held his hands up. "Don't freak out, we don't have Patrick's calming influence constantly around us anymore."

"I was supposed to feel calm there?" Frank almost laughed. He had gone through practically every emotion but calm during his time under the cork tree.

Gerard shrugged before popping the last of his fruit piece into his mouth. "Calmer than you would have been otherwise."

"That makes me feel so much better..." Frank muttered. Sure, he appreciated that Patrick had helped him through his shadowed memories, but part of him wished it had all stayed buried. Everything he had been feeling since... if it was that bad under a calming influence, how bad was it going to get now?

Something nudged his shoulder, making him turn to see Gerard had moved right beside him. He smiled and nudged Frank again. "You're not trying to get lost in your own head again, are you?"

"I didn't try the first times." Frank muttered. He scooted himself back closer to the rock. He straightened one leg against the ground while bringing the other up at an angle. "It was just like... I got stuck reliving the moments. I was right back where I was when they happened."

Gerard looked back towards him. There was a flash of something across his face before it settled into a frown. When he noticed Frank looking at him, however, he grinned and gestured towards him with the wave of his hand. "Well, at least there's no smoking arms this time."

Frank lifted his arms to look at them. He twisted them around, only seeing his Norma skin tone. "Yea, that's a relief."

"Can you feel it now?" Gerard cocked his head as Frank turned to him with question. "Your magic, I mean."

"I don't know." Frank lowered his arms back to his sides. "It's... hard to remember what exactly it felt like mixed with everything else that was happening." One hand raised back to his chest as he tried to recall the feeling of magic. How, in the memories, the darkness had sucked into his skin but, in reality, the darkness was seeping out of him. He wasn't quite sure when it started or when it stopped, but at the moment there was nothing.

"Understandable." Gerard began to rise to his feet. "It was... a lot." He stretched his arms over his head with a yawn. "Don't stress over it too much now, we still have quite a bit of ground to cover."

Frank rose to his feet without a response. He kept his eyes trailed towards the ground as Gerard explained their routing. He barely heard a word Gerard said over the static that seemed to fill his ears as his thoughts began to wander.

___
Gerard

"Sound good?" Gerard asked. He turned to look at Frank, but Frank seemed to be off in his own world. He sighed and reached out to grab Frank's wrist instead. "I'll lead the way until we reach a good resting point for the night." He spoke softly as he began to pull Frank forward. Frank moved forward, but otherwise didn't react.

Gerard tightened his grip on Frank's wrist and began to move onward. He wasn't sure what to do here. He didn't know what was going on inside of Frank with his mind or his magic. The one person who had any kind of idea was being left further and further behind them.

The previous day, when they were discussing what to do after Frank and Gerard had returned from the surface, Frank had been absent in his own head. Patrick didn't want to try to push him to try anything else due to his state.

"I don't know what he saw in there." He shook his head as he looked at Frank's blank stare. "I only know who I heard."

"Okay, so if it was her, does that mean her magic is something like yours?" Pete had proposed, "Passed on?"

"Does that make her..." Gerard bit his lip. He didn't want to say it, but the word seemed to be on everyone's mind without having to be said out loud.

"I don't know how her magic worked." Patrick shut his eyes. "Whether it passed on... like mine, or if... they're related." He reopened his eyes and looked towards Frank. "Though I could never see the end of her timeline, I can see a lot of his."

Gerard leaned forward. "Care to share?"

Patrick frowned. "The future is never set in stone. That's why it gets harder to navigate. But Frank... it seems like his many paths lead to two outcomes that I can't see beyond..."

Without looking away from Frank, Patrick reached for Pete, motioning to him. Pete immediately took his hand with a sharp intake of breath. "What kind of seer shit do you need for this kid?" Pete shut his eyes tightly as Patrick's eyes began to glow.

With his free hand, Patrick reached across the table to Gerard. Gerard was quick to take it, gasping as tingles of Patrick's magic dotted their way up his arm. A yellow haze came over his vision, making the world blur to the point that he couldn't stand it. He shut his eyes tightly.

When his eyes were shut, the yellow hue remained. It began to create shapes and different imagery against the darkness.

Patrick began to speak, but his voice sounded different. There were layers to it, as if ten different versions of him were speaking at once. "Born of both the sky and land, when the planet makes its final stand. One will choose the fate of all, will they fly or will they fall? Unintentional pain could be their undoing, or the influence of another that left something brewing. The river of fate they can't escape, for if they try it will be too late. First magic failed the world we know, this second time is our final go."

While Patrick spoke, dust like yellow images that followed his words played behind Gerard's eyelids. A bundle floating between the heavens and the planet's surface that spun into a human figure. They looked up and down before curling into themself and stretching out to form a glistening yellow flow of water. Eyes looked up through the water's current as bubbles popped around it. Finally, the water pulled back, revealing the form of a woman in a long, flowing dress. Her head was down with hands held to her chest as the dust blew away, taking her form with it.

Patrick inhaled sharply after the words spewed from him. His grip went limp in Gerard's hand. Gerard opened his eyes as Patrick's hand pulled away back across the table. Pete was holding Patrick's unconscious figure with wide eyes. "Holy shit."

"What was that?" Gerard flexed his fingers on the hand that had held onto Patrick's. He could still feel the lingering tingle of Patrick's magic. "That didn't feel like a memory."

Pete snapped his head in Gerard's direction, eyes still wide. "It wasn't. That was a prophecy." He looked down at Patrick, shaking as he brought a hand up to brush hair away from his face. "He hasn't had one in years. Never something so long or... holy shit."

"I thought we were looking into Frank's future." Gerard looked between Pete and Patrick. There were long pauses between Patrick's breaths. Pete was holding him tightly, making sure to keep a hand against his skin to share his own magic with him.

Pete shook his head. "Gerard, really think about what you just heard." He spoke slowly, as if he was repeating it in his own head. "Born of both the sky and land. He has the Mother's magic and was taken from a Force base. This prophecy was his future." He turned his attention to Frank, who still seemed to be miles away in his own head. "He's either going to save or kill us all."