Merrium remained wary of her guest as the week progressed, but prince Arstel remained well behaved and friendly. She would forever be grateful of the kindness he extended to her that first night, but she still felt questioning of his intentions. Though she couldn’t help feeling a little giddy at his attentions, it was beginning to cause conflict within. She felt so incredibly guilty to feel even just a little bit happy with him, a man who was not her husband. And if William ever discovered this, who know what he would do, to herself and to the prince. She didn’t want anything to come of this.

And in addition to this, she had been receiving many requests from the businesses around town for her to favor them in her tours with Arstel, all vying for the foreign prince’s approval of their wares. She did her best to be fair to her townsfolk, but there was only so much that could be fit in an afternoon, and she became annoyed by their pushes for future returns. Besides, majority of the time he seemed to want to see the places she herself enjoyed, and she had made a promise to be open and honest with him.

It was the day before their return to Istel, their homeland, and the summer weather had been completely replaced with the chill of fall. The king and his son had been invited to attend the tradition royal hunt to start off the autumn hunting season. Prince Arstel wanted her to attend, but the royal hunt was not a scene she wanted to be a part of, and she was glad he consented to her wishes. It gave her time to recollect herself, and to catch up on her personal supplies. She hadn’t had time to gather from the hills before the cold temperatures came in, so she’ll need a safe supply for her elixir stock to last her through winter. And at the very least there were still things she could gather while it was cold as well.

After giving the staff a list of tasks to perform, she made her way across the field to her secret grove.

Her previous mixture would be ready to test today. She had done many self-tests in the past in order to help alleviate her visions, with very mixed results. But her last one had made substantial progress; it seemed to have lowered the frequency in general, and had the side effect of making her feel calmer. She had suspected they may be linked to stress and hysteria, as it wasn’t uncommon for those who have been traumatized to see things that aren’t there. She decided to increase the concentration, and add a few other ingredients she knew could aid in calming the nerves.

She pulled the chilled bottle out of her stash and settled herself safely, having cures at the ready in case something goes wrong. She looked around, hoping for anything that would allow her a test of sorts, something she knew for sure was a hallucination. Sure enough, she saw that strange rabbit creature again, almost seeming to come out of the bushes like she called for it. It’s red eyes were piercing and watchful, almost unnerving to her, far more than the longer-than-average ears and the feathered wings. She took a breath to calm herself, and prepared herself a glass.

The taste was bitter, a lot more bitter than last time, but she was expecting that. The cold seemed to exaggerate the bitterness, she’ll need to remember that in the future. She set her glass down and made herself look at the rabbit creature.It seemed to watch her, too.

Minutes passed and nothing seemed to really change. The rabbit scratched its ear, got a drink from the spring, nibbled some roots, did fairly normal animal-like behaviors. But it’s eyes remained bright red and it’s wings would flutter from its back. Every now and then it would glance back at her, almost in exasperation, but wouldn’t leaved the grove.

An hour had passed, and Merrium started to feel strange. Despite sitting still, the worlds began to feel like it was tilting. Turning her head created this strange sensation of delay, like her body had to catch up with where she felt it should be. Her heart-rate began to rise, and fear began to fill her. The trees around seemed to melt and drag, causing her even more panic. Colors jumped towards her, and shapes, startling her. Her heart didn’t seem capable of slowing down.

The rabbit creature responded, darting over to her with eyes wide. Merrium fell backwards and away in surprise as it came up to her lap, sniffing at her body and face. It then went to the bottle and sniffed at it as well. Then suddenly the hairs on its body stood up, and it let out a strange, alarmed trill. It looked back at her again and then darted into the trees and took flight.

Sweat formed on her body despite the cold, and her breathing began to feel labored. She reached for her cures but found them not where she left them, instead stretching far out of her reach. She fell over, dizzy and exhausted and scared. This was poison, she had made and drank poison, and now she was going to die. She felt so guilty for being so careless while the world began to fall apart around her.

A voice echoed in the kaleidoscope void that had created itself around her. It was faint, but familiar, and slowly grew clearer. Someone was calling her name in a panic, but she couldn’t see them. She felt her body move on its own, propped up against something warm. A strange, sort of draining sensation spread around her body, like poison being drawn out. The voice became clearer, and the chaos began to dissipate.

“Hang in there, Merrium, you’ll be okay…”

“Arstel, this is interference, you know our laws about that!”

“She’s an important person, trust me, it will be bad if she dies here.”

“She’s a human, sir. A singular, simple human woman, how important could she possibly be?”

“...very. Just trust me on this okay? I know what I’m doing. And don’t tell my father about this.”

Merrium’s vision returned, though still very fuzzy. Prince Arstel was hovering over her, his eyes bright and worried, and crystal ruby red. His hair was sky blue once again, and his hand glowed as he held it over her. A sort of dark mist seemed to come away from her body and gathered into it. Behind him stood a fidgeting and worried Istellian soldier, who had bright orange hair and violet eyes, and that strange winged rabbit on his shoulder.

She let her head loll back. This mixture was a total failure. She let her consciousness slip away into blissful black.