Tsunami hugged her dog tightly and the creature grunted in response. It was a medium sized, fluffy, green dog with small brown antlers growing.
"I love her!" She sobbed into the animal's fur.

"Oh...today's our wedding rehearsal..." Oak noted.

Tsunami nodded, she really had never seen a dog before. The girl picked it up and pat it's head over and over until Oak was sure it had done some damage.
"Princess, why don't you put the dog down..."

Tsunami didn't.
"Nutmeg is safe in my arms!"

Oak stopped in his tracks.
"You know what? I'm going to find out what the Ice Queen's been rambling about. You know your way home, right?"

Home. This was Tsunami's home now, both of them would have to get used to saying that.

"No..." Tsunami started.

"Well, you can figure it out." He said, jabbing his thumb in the massive castle's direction.

Oak began walking away, the opposite direction of his palace.
The huge country forest that Snow had tried to run away to time and time again. Plagued with who knows what and crawling with creatures and warriors it didn't seem a delightful place.
But the first time Snow had done this in front of Oak she had told him to go to the heart of the forest. It had stuck with him. Oak had to go there, at least once.

"Oak, where are you going?" Tsunami called.

"Just a little trip to the country!"

Tsunami scrunched up her nose and stopped petting Nutmeg.
"Why? It's our wedding rehearsal today!"

Our.

"I have to do this." Oak said.

Fern thought it seemed like a bad idea for Oak considering his unhinged parents.
But if he was so sure maybe she'd get to see Cliff- maybe even Rose!

"I'll come too then." Fern exclaimed.
"It'll be a fun trip!"

Oak shook his head as if she were crazy.
"It's not going to be fun. It's going to be dangerous. Maybe you shouldn't-"

"Carnation!! Carn!" Fern called.

Carnation turned away from the puppies crawling on her lap.
"Yes?"

"Oak and me are going on a 'dangerous' journey and he's scared."

Carnation gently placed the dogs down and moved over to the duo, putting a hand on both of their shoulders.
"I'd gladly come with you! All you have to do is ask!"

If anyone's getting hurt it's Oak. It's not Carnation.
"No!" Oak snapped.
"This is really important to me and it doesn't even matter to you! Just stay out of it!"

Carnation took her hand back.
"I...you know what? You're not going anywhere, young man."

Oak stood in silence for a few minutes, pouting.
Carnation stared him down.

Eventually he moved over to Carnation.
"Hey, I'm sorry. But I really have to do this."
He hoisted his fist in the air.
"For the Queen! God save the Queen!"

Then he took off running. Fern placed down her new dog and it chased after him.
"We'll be home before tomorrow, Carnation!"

Carnation sighed.
"Good luck, dear."

The dirt roads seemed like she hadn't walked them in forever. Come to think of it, it very well may have been a month at the palace. Fern lost count pretty fast in all the stress and rich people drama.

"So," she started.
"Why am I allowed to come but Carnation isn't?"

"Well, this is personal to me and since you're a mix it's personal to you too."

"Since I'm a what?!?"

Oak looked at Fern.
"A mix." He said simply.
"You know, when two people of different elements love eachother very much-"

Fern folded her arms.
"I am the princess of water. That's...obvious, right?"

Oak didn't seem to doubt it.
"Yeah, well, royalty isn't always pure. I mean, my mom-" he chuckled.
"It's okay, Tsu. I'm like you."

Fern didn't know how to feel.
She was expected to just say her name's Tsunami and she came from the water kingdom.
Now suddenly she's supposed to know all about her family tree and she's a mix and everything is one big stupid lie?!

"You're a mix?" Fern asked.

Oak laughed, putting his arm around her.
"Yeah! I mean, that's the only reason we're getting married-"

Fern's hands shook. If that was the only reason....when he found out...she'd be beheaded.
"Would you still like me if I...wasn't a mix?"

Oak took a moment to think about it, the longest minute of Fern's life.

"I like you. I don't actually care but...my dad...he'd go ballistic. If I ruined his plan I'd be dead, but if you ruined the plan...well he'd destroy the whole water kingdom and slaughter you brutally. Good thing you're a mix!"

Fern took anxious steps back, letting Oak's hand drop back to his side.
"What the- what- what- what-"

"Princess? Are you okay?"

Fern tried not to seem suspicious but it was too late.
"Why would he want me to be a mix?! Everyone hates mixes!"

"It's okay to be a mix! You being a mix saved my life!"
Oak said.

Fern sat down on a rock and Oak next to her.
"The King was going to kill me for my mother's affair with a commoner. But back then the water king and him were allied, it came to the light that his daughter was exactly like me. Elm changed the betrothal. You were supposed to marry Basil, but I got you instead, so that one day we'd have a baby, that would end the war."

"A baby? And the war will be over?"

Oak nodded.
"Don't worry. It'll be fine."

"You're...really good at comforting. Like you'll say 'my dad will kill you' 'We're having a baby' 'My mom had an affair' and...then you'll just say it's fine?"

Oak pointed into the forest.
"It is! Come on! Let's go!"

Nutmeg seemed a lot more attached to Oak than his official owner. Chasing after Oak barking, Fern had to run after her pet.

"Where the heck are we even going?"

"The heart of the forest!"

Oak ran, and Fern ran after him. She would have been faster in a race but he had a head start so it wasn't completely fair.

Apparently princes don't have the best endurance as he dropped like a fly in the first clearing he saw.

"Loser." Fern wheezed.
"I could've gone on for ages!"

Nutmeg rubbed her face against Oak's.

He groaned as he pulled the dog to him.
"Why are we always running?"

"It's always your fault." Fern claimed.
"Why do you have to go here again?" Fern had been in this forest almost daily since as long as she could remember. But ever since Thorn's conspiracies...
"It's kind of creepy-"

Wait...Oak was a mix...he wanted to go to this forest...wasn't this the place that every mix was obsessed with? Wasn't this where they became unhinged?

"Oak, let's go." Fern said firmly.

Oak looked at her curiously.

Fern waved her hands in front of his face and put them on his shoulders so that he'd look her in the eye.
"We're not going in deeper."

Oak shook his head, a serious expression coming across his face.
"We don't have to go anywhere. But I do."

"Don't go!"

"I'm going and you can't stop me!"

"You could die!"

"I won't!"
Oak rested his hand over the bridge of his nose.
"Just...just go home, princess."

Fern grunted, turning around.
"Maybe I will!"

"Maybe you should!"

Tsunami walked away and in the distance Oak watched it change to a run and Nutmeg followed after her. He hoped she knew the way back.

Whatever. That wasn't important right now.
He continued deeper into the forest, and things only grew creepier.

The forest sent shivers down his spine, the air was cold and the trees seemed to block out all light. What he could see of the sky looked grey and ready to storm.

The trees were huge and scraggly, autumn was beginning but many of the smaller trees looked like they had shed their leaves long ago. Everything looked dead.

No animals rustled, no voices sang, there was just the light wind, ever present, sending leaves dancing eerily across the forest floor.

Maybe I should turn back...

Oak couldn't see past just a few feet. Too dark, too many trees.

The roots on the ground caught on his expensive boots like bony fingers and Oak had to step high to avoid them.

Here, in what must have been the forest's heart was absolutely nothing. Something -anything- would have been better than this.

What if the Ice Queen sent him out here to die?

But as Oak pulled through a few more spiny trees he discovered something. An old stone wall. He put his hand on it to find it was damp.

Water elves? Or perhaps just the humidity?

Oak followed along the wall, dragging his hand across the mossy stone only to discover that it wasn't just a wall. It was a circle, a maze, a dome.
Surely, this was what his mother sent him after. Not the structure itself, but what was inside.

Oak fantasized of ancient weapons, turning points in the war, treasure, dragons! Anything you could find in a...whatever this was.

Suddenly Oak saw a bright light and something flew by his head. Fallen leaves crunched and a centaur woman walked into the light her arm extended.

"Did you just throw a spear?!" He shrieked turning around to see what had just whizzed by him.

In a calm, accented voice she answered.
"Yes. You shouldn't be here."

The centaur's skin was darker than that of most the centaur's around the Capitol, and her hair was long and purple.

"I-" Oak pointed to himself, trying to look dignified.
"Am a Prince!"

The centaur went to collect her spear from the grout in the stone wall.
"Oh? All the more reason for you to stay away from such dangerous places."

Oak folded his arms over his chest and grunted.
The centaur raised her voice.
"I am the sworn protector of this prison. I will guard it as my mother, and her mother, and her father, and his father, and his mother and her-"

Oak nodded, disappointed and annoyed.
"I get it! I get it! Wait...prison?"

The centaur bit her lip, obviously regretting what she had said.
"Go home, kid."

Oak frowned, turning up his nose.
"Nope. I want to know what's so~ dangerous in this...prison."

"I have literally never heard anything stupider."

When the woman knew Oak wouldn't leave she grunted.
"Alright. Let's go."

The centaur led him through a complex of hallways not unlike a maze, Oak followed close behind.
"What's your name?"

"Lilac." She grunted, seeming embarrassed.

"Oh that's a very cutesy name for someone as tough as-"

Lilac leaned down to inspect him.
"You're...not Basil, are you?"

Oak shook his head. Only a nomad could mistake him for his brother.
"Prince Oak." He corrected.

Lilac nodded, pretending to know him, though, she obviously didn't.
"You Basil's baby brother or something?"

Oak growled
"Yeah, sure."
He was supposed to be the most well known and it was embarrassing to just be known as Basil's baby brother.

As they walked Oak noticed this confusing 'maze' of a prison didn't have any doors.
"Where are the cells?" He asked, changing the subject.

Lilac looked him dead in the eye
"Cell."

Oak...wanted to chicken out now.

Before he could voice this they finally reached a door, the door was too small for someone part horse to dip through, but if Oak crouched he could make it in.

Lilac gestured to the door, ushering Oak inside.
He looked back at her.
"Umm...you're not coming to protect me?"

"Oh, you'd have come with a guard if you cared about that."
Lilac chuckled.

Dang it! Why am I such a jerk to Carnation?!

"Am I gonna die?"

"Hm..." the centaur put a hand to her chin before shrugging.
"Possibly. Be careful, your highness." She bowed slightly and Oak's nerves were all but calmed.

I think royal endangerment is illegal...you could be beheaded for this...but hey, no witnesses...

Lilac pushed him slightly and the cell door slammed closed. Oak jumped. He wished he had never come.
All around the lower walls of the circular room were blue-green gems, they glowed brightly, illuminating little parts of the huge pitch black room.

In the centre was a giant geode of the same gem. It was beautiful...

Someone growled, and it echoed across the large room, bouncing off the walls and arriving back in Oak's ears.
His cattle-like ears twitched and he tried to listen for where it came from.

Then he saw chains.
Chains from seemingly all across the room rattled, all attached to a single form.

His mother's voice called out to him
"Oak! You're finally here-"

Oak's ears flattened against his head and his hands quivered.
"Y-yes..."

There was a woman, chained to the floor by her wrists and ankles. Her features were hard to make out from this distance, but that distance felt like the only safe one.

"Come closer..." She beckoned.

Oak took a few steps from the door.
"My mother wanted me to see you. Why?"

The woman laughed, now her voice sounded more like a man's.
"I just wanted to see you!"

"How did you do that? Change your voice I mean?"

The woman looked up at him with one golden eye and one red. Now Oak could see her, even if it was tainted by the gem's blue-ish glow.
"My element...is the mind. That's how I do it."

Oak had never heard that before.
"The...mind..?"

The woman's skin was pale in some parts, dark in others. Her eyes mismatched and even her hair multicoloured.
She was the very definition of a mix.
"I can get into people's heads. When it comes to mixes...thats where it gets fun." She chuckled.
"I can possess any mix. And all that possession...it was always to free me. But the last few years...I want you and I want Tsunami."

"You...you're the Ice Queen..." Oak realized.

The woman nodded.
"That's right...but my parents named me Amalgam, you can call me by that if you do wish..."
her teeth were sharper than anyone he had ever seen.
"Oak, I've been nice to you. I haven't possessed you in a year, that's because of my blooming respect. Do you respect me?"

Hardly.
"Y-yes..."

Amalgam fumbled with her chains.
"Then free me."

Oak looked back to the now closed door. He could make a run for it.
He pivoted on his foot ready to run but felt himself unable to move.

Her name was Amalgam and she wasn't just named after the warlord empress. She was Amalgam. She started the war.

"Break the chains, prince." the woman said again calmly.

Oak shook
"Why would I do something for you if you won't do something for me?"

Amalgam slammed her fists against the floor.
"My mercy is reward enough!" She barked.
"And now..."

Oak felt himself pulled towards her. She released him and he realized she had been hardening the air, she was...just what she was said to be.
Oak fell down a foot or so in front of Amalgam.
"You're making me mad." She said.

Oak heard a slam before he even felt it. He hit the wall hard, a burning sensation trailing through his body along with an excruciating pain.

There was fire, there was stone, there was ice. But somehow, Oak managed to pull himself up and rush out the door.
He didn't remember what he did, it was a blur and his head was spinning.

He pushed past Lilac and kept running, his vision hazy and hearing distorted.
Eventually the young man collapsed against the forest floor, unable to pull himself up.

Infinite blackness.