Large leaves blocked his way, greedily soaking up all the sunlight. The part Brendan couldn't see, was how little sunlight there was left for them to fight over. Hundreds of feet above, the tall and regal trees stood proud, basking in broad daylight, swimming in more sunlight than they needed. But need was no match for want. At his head height, the shorter, wider plants were using all they had to absorb as much of the leftovers as possible. 

      He used the knife he'd brought, hidden inside his jacket, to hack away at the leaves in his path. Though of course, he had no path, he'd just decided that because he wanted the most direct route, he deserved the most direct route, which meant making it. However, he'd completely misjudged the size and thickness of his victims and his kitchen knife whose size was chosen for ease of concealing it wasn't up to the task.

      Slipping the knife back into one of the few pockets inside his heavy jacket, Brendan used his arms to throw the branches and leaves out of the way instead. One clear vision came to mind - pushing away that final leaf that would reveal his sister standing alone and undefended. She wouldn't be able to ignore him then, wouldn't be able to pretend he didn't exist. Sixteen years he'd had to live without her. He'd already lost his mum and then he'd lost her and she'd taken their dad with her. Bruno may have stepped in but he had his own family to look after and he couldn't always be there. Brendan had asked if he could go to live with him but apparently his dad still had sense enough to love his child and want him, however incapable he was. Rose had been his best friend, until she'd taken his whole life from around him in one sudden sweep.

      How dare she get to steal his life and sell it to get a new one for herself?

      If the oracle said she was alive, Brendan knew where to find her. Colours can change, but certain details can never really be hidden or replaced. There was no doubt in Brendan's heart that-

      "Rose!" His voice boomed across the small area, rattling the cottage and the trees. He was in the right place, this had to be where she'd live, and besides, part of him recognised it too. He couldn't quite place why or how but the recognition was clear to him all the same, and he knew his way round it before he'd even opened the door. 

      "Rose!" He called through again, assuming that she was just ignoring him and trying to make a break for it. He ran through the cottage, calling her name, throwing open doors and wardrobes. Eventually, he stormed out, coming to the conclusion that she'd already left. She'd looked straight back at him, after all. Eyesight wasn't one way when two eyes met. Unless one was blind, of course, but he highly doubted that was the case in their situation. Her eyes had changed but it almost seemed to Brendan as if she could see more. In his jealousy, all he felt for his sister became anger. The fear of her death, the worry for her life, the missing her during sleepless nights all collided in a storm of frustration. He bet she'd never feared he may have died while she was gone, bet she never worried how bad his life may have turned when she'd left, bet she'd never known a sleepless night in her life. 

      Why worry for the brother you'd left behind when you could pretend he didn't exist?

      In fact, isn't that what she'd done? Forgotten he existed? At least forgotten his face in any case, she'd dated him after all. He couldn't blame himself; she'd changed her appearance so much and never quite looked in his eyes - and it was eye contact that had eventually made it click. And there had always been this overwhelming sense of connection, which, of course, he now knew was down to a tighter knit relation than clearly either had expected. 

      Perhaps he shouldn't have chosen a fake name but keeping multiple girls at the same time meant making sure none of them realised you were cheating, and you couldn't stop them from talking. However, he did have the power to change what they talked about, or more specifically, what names came up amongst the gossip. And besides, if he hadn't, he'd never had the first hint that she'd been someone else too.

      Brendan stormed through the forest, searching relentlessly for the girl who'd taken everything from him, even if it was he who had given it to her in the first place. 

      Having decided his knife wasn't enough, he'd grabbed a much larger one from the kitchen as he'd torn the place down in the hunt. Leaves of growing darkness fell around him, hacked and torn, worthless to him and now nothing more than crisp rug on a rocky floor.

      "Stop!" Her voice poisoned his brain and left him paralysed, the forest suddenly seeming less accidentally in the way and more as if it was trying to suffocate him.

      A moment later, Brendan remembered what it was he was there for and, actually, that it it was where he'd wanted to be, even if it was he who'd had the element of surprise when he'd played it out in his head. He was there, knife in hand, and somewhere not too far, was her. 

      Her. She wasn't his sister anymore. She'd decided that for herself when she'd changed her name and appearance and, however she'd disappeared, she'd never come back to him. Not even to his dad who was still suffering from depression, no matter how much the hope tried to mask it. 

      And now they'd meet again for the first time. For a while, he said nothing. What name to use? Rose or Violet? He couldn't call her Rose. She wasn't Rose; his sister was. But how could he call her Violet either after she'd come to him for a guardian, and then a boyfriend, with that name? After so much silence passed that he thought he might go insane, he managed a commanding, "Show yourself!" And then he tried to get his breathing back to normal and his heart rate down. He couldn't let his excitement get the best of him. Not now he was so close. 

      The leaves parted around her slim figure, trees never too far from her in any direction, a shield she'd earned as a friend of the forest. "Brendan," she started, tears rolling down her cheeks. Not enough to make him change his mind.

      "Save it," he said calmly. "You never came back and you'll tell me why. Now," he demanded, walking forward all the time. 

      A look of confused understanding washed over her pretty face. With her next words, he found out why. "The same reason I left to begin with."

      She'd left him on purpose. It was the only thing he'd been able to doubt, so he'd done just that and doubted, and now he couldn't. There was nothing left that could save her unborn child. 

      The knife moved before he could process it and certainly before she could get out of the way. He plunged it into her rounded stomach and watched her eyes widen in horror and pain as she fell to her knees and the forest consumed her once more. 

      Brendan stood there, alone. No knife, no blood, no proof any of it had ever happened. Nothing but the sweet memory of that look in her eyes as she realised - she'd created this monster. From somewhere too deep inside him to get any real hold on, a calling rose, telling him the girl would survive and the child would not and that it was time to go. That his mission was completed. It wasn't just a wish, or an instinct. He knew, in that far off part of him, it was the truth. For a moment, he stayed there. With no evidence any of it had happened, perhaps he should push further into the forest so his eyes could seek out the open, bleeding wound. But he wouldn't. Just because he couldn't see it, didn't mean it wasn't true. Proof was overrated, especially when you couldn't get caught. 

      The forest seemed a little brighter now and dead leaves on the ground led him back the way he'd came. 'Besides,' he thought, 'If Sophie and Lola really are the friends to her I think they are, all the proof I need will be written on their faces tomorrow.' Because that was just it; while chasing proof usually got you in trouble, ignoring it usually brought it running for attention to you. And he thought to himself again that, perhaps, he wasn't just talking about evidence anymore.

      Emerging from Lachinsinsi Forest, Brendan walked straight to the pub by the farms at the edge of the kingdom furthest from his house. 

      Sat at the bar, Brendan drank away the guilt that the memory had given birth to at some point during the walk from the forest to the Wide Mill Tavern. Beside him was a man in his fifties who had aged as well as a . His grey hair was long and wiry, his eyes sunken and fearful. Known to everyone as the Crazed One, he could always be seen at the bar, rambling about life before the mountains stole the world. Brendan always struggled to understand him. There was such passion there for something that seemed so ridiculously impossible. 

      "Carlton," Brendan began after a while. They'd been sharing the drink they called loneliness, because it was better than drinking alone, but eventually, even the unspoken things had to come out. "How is the wife?"

      "Still dead," came his raspy reply, the pain long gone with his sobriety. When his glass hit the table with a thud, fingers still clasped around its empty shape, he added, "But she will always be in the mountains." It was the same reply Brendan always got, and soon would come the question to which he'd give his own practised response. Except this time, it changed, "And your nephew will be with her."

      Spluttering and choking, Brendan tried to hold himself together, feign ignorance. "What-"

      But his words were lost to the stuffy air and smell of drunken men, because Carlton had long since faded back into his own head-space, no doubt dreaming of mountains and a lake that existed in a life unknown to Brendan. 

✹✹✹

      Augustus' eyes were glued to the purpling black that leaked from Bruno's pocket. "Bruno..." His friend looked down at Gus before following his line of sight. He quickly took his arm back from around the king's shoulders and grabbed at his pocket, the acorns being dragged upward and then falling into the palm of his hand. 

      Responding to the immense heat radiating from the tiny oak nuts, Bruno's hand unfurled explosively, releasing them to the gravel road. He remembered having picked them up at some point during his time in Lachinsinsi Forest. The acorns cracked. What looked like miniature galaxies flowed out from inside the shell, lifting into the air around their heads before dissipating, becoming spread out to the point of invisibility. And then they started speaking. Bruno recognised the voice immediately as that of the oracle from the forest:

"The forest is your friend,
Do not fear,
The person you look for
Loves it here."

      Both men looked at each other then. "Does that mean she doesn't want us to find her?" Augustus was heartbroken and despite not wanting to believe it at all, what other explanation was there? Unless they'd simply read into it wrong, but he was too caught up in his first thought to consider any other. He'd have plenty of time to roll the words over in his head later.

      Bruno seemed to listen to what Augustus had asked but he didn't answer. His gaze was distant, his mind whirring behind his glassy eyes. It was hard for the king to see his friend that way. After all, Bruno had never been anything less than quick-witted and focused. It was hard to remember that his friend had been through the forest, that he'd seen things that perhaps Gus would never see. A shake of the head later, and the Bruno he knew was back. Or so he'd first assumed. The light in his eyes had returned and his gaze had shortened, but the odd expression that drove him to turn and walk away instead of answer Augustus' long-forgotten question had remained. 

      They walked that way, Bruno ostensibly hypnotised with his king trailing behind, all the way back to the royal house.

      Upon walking through the door, Bruno suddenly came alive again. "Wow. Well then," he started, and, clearly not knowing how to continue, finished. With a sigh, Augustus dragged himself up the stairs and flopped onto his bed in the most unflattering way he thought possible. In the background, floating just beyond the words of the acorns, he was vaguely aware of the clicking and clanging of mugs and spoons as Bruno played around in the kitchen below.

✹✹✹

      Brendan stared into the bottom of his glass, tracking the last drop round the curved edge as he turned it round in his hands. 

      "Top up or quite enjoying your depressed moment?" the bartender asked, her coffee eyes laughing from behind the few strands of custard-cream hair that had slipped out of her ponytail. She couldn't be any older than himself, he thought, pausing before choosing his answer. 

      "Something new," Brendan decided, removing his hands from around the body of the glass. 

      The bartender laughed shortly, "I'm paid to make drinks. I'm not a slave." At his confused and slightly annoyed expression, she rolled her eyes, "Hand the glass over." Reluctantly and increasingly confused, he picked his glass back up and stretched his arm out in her direction so she could take it from him. "Oh, for Mountains' sake, we don't want you overexerting yourself now, do we?" she mocked, plucking the glass from his fingers and gesturing for him to sit back again. She filled the pint glass with a drink he'd never had before, its green colour a little off putting. She hadn't even rinsed the glass first. Another laugh later, and she was talking again, "Let me ask you, you ever worked?"

      It was such an odd question, he thought. Did she not know he was the prince? What reason was there for him to work?

      "Thought as much." Handing the glass back, she had one more comment to share before serving the next drunkard with nowhere to go, "Everyone has a job to do." 

      Later, he'd find it outrageous that a bartender had spoken so much when their job was to serve drinks and only that. He'd also find it laughable that she'd said such things. But in that moment, all he'd had time to think was, 'what is my job, then?'