"Guys can we rest for a minute please, my legs are hurting," Derogan asked.

"Now?" Deutsche said surprised, "can't you keep going for a little longer, we are still too close to the kingdom."

"Deutsche, we have been walking for over two hours, I'm pretty sure we have gone far enough to be at a safe distance," Mandara grumbled.

The German sighed, "Fine, but let's get off the road just in case."

The brothers agreed and they headed a little way into the woodline, not too far from the road but enough to hide them from prying eyes.  They found a good flat spot and Mandara and Deutsche set Derogan down against a tree.

"Are you ok, brother?" Mandara asked, Derogan flashed him a small stink face for asking a stupid question.

"Here, let me take a look," Deutsche said as he knelt down beside the Mandorians.  Derogan raised a brow but said nothing, the German took this as an ok to go ahead and he carefully rolled up the winged prince's pants leg to get a better look at the wound.

Deutsche shook his head at the nasty gash, "it is pretty deep, we need to stop the bleeding before anything else."  so he proceeded to untie his cowl and wrap it tightly around Derogan's leg, he whimpered from the pain but bit his tongue so he didn't cry out.

Deutsche then turned to Mandara, "can you do the same thing to his wing please."

Mandara nodded and tied his cowl around the gash on his brother's wing.  When that was done, the German told the two to stay put and that he would be back soon, the Mandorians exchanged nervous glances but nodded, so he stood up and walked further into the forest.

It was starting to get dark when Deutsche finally returned, the brothers were surprised because they thought he abandoned them, but he came back holding a lot of plants and other woodland stuff.

"You have been gone for hours to go flower picking?" Derogan asked angrily.

"Relax, I was looking for herbs and spiderwebs for your wounds," Deutsche answered calmly.

He sat down, unwrapped the blood-soaked cowl on Derogan's leg, and got to work dressing the injury.  When Deutsche tried to put the herb paste on the wound, Derogan yelped and moved away.

"Don't move, it's going to hurt worse if you keep squirming." the German said.

"Well you're putting chewed-up leaves on my injury, of course I'm going to squirm." Derogan spat.

Deutsche sighed irritably, "these 'chewed-up leaves' are Yarrow poultice, it's going to help stop the bleeding and keep the wound from getting infected, so stop moving if you want your leg to heal."

"How do you know about herbology?" Mandara asked, Deutsche didn't look up but answered,

"Whenever I would misbehave as a child Prussia would abandon me in the middle of the woods, so I learned quite early about what plants can heal you and what ones can hurt you, among other survival knowledge."

Both Mandara and Derogan hummed but said nothing further, eventually, Mandara left his brother in the German's capable hands and went to find firewood since it was getting darker by the minute.  He came back later with a bunch of sticks just as Deutsche was finishing up Derogan's wing, so the two set up a small fire pit and lit it by rubbing a few rocks together.  Once the fire was nice and big, all three princes sat around it, Deutsche on one side and the brothers hugging each other on the other.

Everyone was silent, they were all having trouble believing the situation they were in and mostly just stayed quiet to process it all.  Mandara eventually ended up crying himself to sleep on Derogan's shoulder, so his big brother hugged him tightly and wrapped his good wing around him to keep him warm.

"I am dreadfully sorry Derogan," Deutsche said at last, the Mandorian looked up at him as he continued, "if I had arrived sooner, your father could have had more time to prepare."

Derogan shook his head, "it's not your fault Deutsche, there is nothing you could have done to prevent what happened."

The German bit his lip, actually, if he hadn't told Prussia of Mandoria's retirement, his father probably never would have come, he decided against telling Derogan this because if they were going to survive they had to have a positive relationship.

"Maybe so," Deutsche sighed "but I still feel guilty that my father killed your's, and for what, the title of King Wing?  What he did was pointless."

"Deutsche can we not talk about this please," Derogan grumbled firmly.

The German was slightly taken aback by the Mandorian's change of tone, but he understood it and nodded, "sorry ... how about you get some sleep, I'll keep watch for predators."

Derogan nodded sleepily, but before he closed his eyes he asked, "what do we do now?"

Deutsche stared at him as he contemplated how to answer, in all honesty, he didn't know.  When Prussia would dump him in the forest alone, he would always just make his way back home, but now there was no home to go back to, for any of them.

The former prince looked away with a rueful sigh and threw a stick into the fire, "I don't know.  Personally, I think we should look for a town or village and ask for help tomorrow, but I don't know what we are going to do in the long-run."

Derogan also looked into the fire, he sighed as well but instead of a stick he plucked a feather from his and Mandara's wings and threw those in it.

Deutsche raised a brow and watched curiously as Derogan muttered something inaudible as he watched the feathers burn, and once they were reduced to ash the Mandorian hugged his brother a little tighter and went to sleep.

Deutsche was intrigued as to what he witnessed Derogan do, it looked like some sort of ritual and the German wondered what it meant or what it was for. 

"Maybe it had something to do with Mandoria's death" he guessed in his head, if that was the case then it would be disrespectful to ask about it, so he let the brothers sleep and instead climbed a large tree so he had a better vantage point to watch for danger.  He took out a knife that he kept in his boot and started fiddling with it, so if a predator smelled the blood from Derogan and came to investigate, the German would be able to fight it off.  Thankfully, no animals paid the princes a visit and they all ended up sleeping soundly. 

When the sun rose the next morning, Mandara felt its warm rays on his face and he blinked his eyes open.  He saw he was still in Derogan's embrace and he snuggled further into it, he felt like if he let go then his brother would leave him too.

The embrace was interrupted when a loud snap came from a nearby tree, it was followed by a surprised yelp and a thud.  Derogan awoke with a jump and Mandara stumbled out of his arms, the two looked to each other, then to the area the noise came from.

"Ow," a voice came from within a bush.

"Deutsche?  What are you doing in there?"  Mandara asked, he got up and walked towards the bush.

"I was up in the tree watching for danger last night and fell asleep," Deutsche explained, "for whatever reason the branch I was sleeping on decided to break."

Mandara looked up at the spot where Deutsche fell from, "well maybe next time don't pick a tree that looks like it's been through a forest fire."

The German grumbled, "whatever, just help me up."

Mandara chuckled and held out his hand, Deutsche grabbed it and the Mandorian pulled him out of the bush, brushing the leaves and twigs off of him.  When he was semi-clean, Deutsche took a couple of steps to make sure he didn't compromise his legs, which were fine, thankfully.

"Well, at least I didn't hurt myself too badly," he said with relief, "definitely can't have two people who can't walk."

The brothers nodded in agreement, then Derogan piped up, "speaking of walking, the nearest village is about eight miles from here, if we want to make it there before dark we should get going soon."

"Can't we find something to eat first, I'm hungry," Mandara said.

"That is a good idea," Deutsche agreed, "we need to keep our energy up if we're going to walk eight miles.  I found a few wild apple and nectarine trees when I was gathering herbs so I'll go get some."

Without waiting for a response he walked off to gather the fruits, and when he came back he was carrying quite a few of them, Mandara and Derogan wondered why he picked so many but decided against asking.  Once they were done with breakfast, Mandara and Deutsche helped Derogan up and they set off for the fore-mentioned village, all three of them hoping to make it there before dark.