Nathan was almost running with how fast he moved down the hallway. David was concerned for his soulmate, what if it was not his sister? How heartbroken would Nathan be? How crushed would his hopes be? Would David, at the end of the day, have to piece his soulmate back together?

David suddenly stopped walking, and, because his hands were locked with Nathan's, Nathan was tugged backward. For the first time since Nathan's "sister" was mentioned, David's soulmate looked at him. David could see hope in his eyes. He hated that he was about to ruin it.

"What if Arnold is lying?" David suggested, "What if she's just a doppelganger of your sister?"

"And what if she is my sister?" Nathan asked him, "I need to know. Plus, I trust Arnold with my life, which is why I told him you were a leshy. Pretty sure he still doesn't believe me about that anyway," Nathan took a deep, shaky breath. He could feel David's concern, and he was thankful of his thoughtful soulmate. But he needed to know the truth. He pulled David closer, lifting their linked hands to his mouth to kiss his hand. "I know you are concerned, but I'll be fine, I promise. I know it's not possible. I watched them bury her casket alongside my parents. I know she should be dead, so I'm not expecting it to be her. But there will always be this little part inside of me that hopes it's true. I just want to see for myself if it is."

David nodded in understanding. He squeezed his soulmate's hand in comfort, and said, "I'll be here for you, no matter what."

Nathan nodded, smiling. He leaned forward and gave a kiss on the lips to David. The kiss, one of the few actual kisses they've had, was short and sweet, yet it calmed Nathan down and prepared him for what was to come.

And then, side-by-side, hand-in-hand, they continued walking to the dining room. This time, more calm, and slow.

David wondered what it was like to have a family. Of course, all Leshiye were the children of the original Leshy, known as the "Old Man of the Forest." The old man, legend has it, had skin that was tinted blue, stark white hair, and a pointed head, like a hat. He was a trickster god like Loki of the Norse, but he was less harmful. He did things like make people lose their way in the woods. David had heard everything from "a man covered in fur with blue blood" or a maniac who raids taverns for vodka with his personal pack of wolves. He had heard stories about the children of the old man too. Leshiye, like him. The legends say that leshiye hibernate, rape women, and abduct children.

But none of those descriptions applied to him. He had the same almost-white hair, but that was it. All of the powers that a leshy had were granted to him. He was most certainly a Leshy.

However, he didn't fit in entirely with that category either. He grew up around other Leshiye because, when you were a younger leshy, you didn't have a forest to guard yet. You were trained on how to guard a forest, the possible threats, how to shift into the species you prefer, and you picked a name that you would go by. 

David picked "David" as a name because it was from a story about a young, weak man named David defeating a giant all by himself. 

Compared to the other leshiye, David was the weak one, and they were all giants.

They were never like family to him. They never treated him like they did other leshiye. And he, still to this day, didn't know why.

 But enough of his problems, he thought. Because they had reached a set of doors that David assumed was the dining room, seeing as how Nathan had stopped dead in front of them. David watched his soulmate steel a breath, preparing himself, and gave his soulmate another reassuring hand squeeze.

Then, Nathan opened the door.

Behind the door was General Reno, for some reason, and a woman. Arnold was also there a few seconds later, since it took him a while to catch up with Nathan and David.

The woman had tears running down her face, but David wasn't focused on that. He was focused on Nathan's sudden feelings of regret coursing through his veins. David sure hoped this woman wasn't being a liar, for her own sake.

"Dominic," Nathan said with strain in his voice, "What are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" General Reno replied, "I'm questioning her. It's my job-"

"Your job is to be dealing with the Kain situation," Nathan interrupted, "I'm the one who should be questioning her. Go on," Nathan gestured to the doors behind him.

"But what if she's f*cking evil? Shouldn't I be here to protect-"

"David has got it covered," replied Nathan, obviously trying really hard to ignore the woman for now.

"Him? What is he going to do to-"

"Arnold," Nathan said, getting sick of listening to Reno's backtalk, "Please escort General Reno back to his chambers."

"Are you f*cking kidding me?" General Reno, or Dominic, said, his eyes getting darker, deadlier. David looked over at Arnold who had an "Oh no, here we go again," expression on his face. Nathan and Dominic had a stare-down until Dominic started walking over to the doors.

Before he left, however, he looked at Nathan with a fed-up, yet angry expression. 

"You're glad you're the son of the f*cking king or I would have left this sh*tty job ages ago," Reno snarled.

"If it's so bad, maybe you should quit," Nathan huffed. The king was getting real tired of this kid treating him like he was only just the prince. The boy had to be, what? Two years younger than him? Seemed like it. Because no sane adult would act like that, especially in front of his king.

"I would, but the kingdom would get overthrown if I left," the general replied. Nathan hated that he was right. "And I promised that I'd keep this kingdom out of Kain's hands."

The thing Nathan despised about General Reno was that Reno acted as if his father was still alive. He kept saying things like "your just the king's son" or "I promised your father this and that." Reno was only eighteen when his father died!

Still, it made Nathan wonder what Reno did to get hired by his father at such a young age. It made Nathan wonder even more how his father gained Reno's loyalty.

Anyway, after Reno left, Nathan told Arnold to follow him. One reason was that he wanted to talk to this woman with only David and himself watching. The other reason was that he wanted to make sure Reno's anger didn't affect anyone else in the castle.

Soon, after the two left, the atmosphere had calmed down again, and Nathan and David sat across from the woman, who was still crying. David was curious as to why.

"N-Nathan?" she sobbed, "Oh Nathan, I'm so sorry."

David immediately didn't like her. If she wasn't his soulmate's sister, that meant she was just playing with Nathan's feelings. That made him automatically hate her.

"Prove to me that you are my sister," Nathan said seriously, "And then we'll get to apologies."

Nathan agreed that she looked almost exactly like his sister, only a bit paler than before.

The woman looked down as if she was thinking.

"Ech day me comëth tydinges thre,For wel swithë sore ben he:The on is that Ich shal hennë,That other that Ich not whennë,The thriddë is my mestë carë,

That Ich not whider Ich shal farë."

To David, this was complete nonsense. Yes, he did speak multiple languages, for he had come across some humans from other countries that scoured the woods he lived in. But this sounded more ancient, not a language, but an older version of one.

Nathan knew that poem, however. His mother sang it to him and his sister every night. It was a poem that his mother's grandmother had sung to her at night; therefore, his mother sang it to her children too. It wasn't until he was older when she told him what it meant: the fear of dying, not knowing when you'll die, or where you'll go after death. It made him even more upset, after her death, to remember it.

He didn't know anybody else, other than his father, who knew the poem, word for word. He didn't know anybody who would know that his mother sang it every night, other than the other members of his family.

Some part of him, the doubtful part of him, was telling him that it couldn't be true. He had watched her casket be planted into the ground. He had seen her body, dead in a box, buried six-feet under. There was no possible way.

"I- You do know how impossible this sounds to me, right?" Nathan said, his voice choking up, his hand squeezing David's harder, "Can you give me more proof?"

The woman was silent, biting her lip, but she nodded.

"Remember Penny Gibson?"

"Oh my god," Nathan stood up, gasping, "You are my sister."

He never told anyone about Penny Gibson, the girl he had a crush on when he was just a boy. His sister, however, had caught him in his room once, spying on Penny from the castle window. As a child, Nathan was a pretty good liar; any other person would have been fooled by his excuses. But older sisters knew everything. And she ended up being the only person he told.

And the only person he could go to for comfort after Penny Gibson broke his heart.

Nathan rushed around the table, breaking his hand from David's, latching himself to the woman across from him. Now the reality caught up with him, he was crying. David wanted to rush over and comfort him, something a soulmate should do if their other half is crying, but he decided to stay away.

He suddenly felt guilty for not giving the girl a chance and awkward to be stuck in this family moment, feeling as if he shouldn't be there.

"Where have you been? Why have you come back? Is dad and mom still alive too?" Nathan asked, which were all valid questions. David was wondering them too.

Like her tears had disappeared, she gently backed away from Nathan, and calmly told him to sit down. He did as she said.

"Like I said, I'm so sorry," she explained, "I-I just couldn't handle it. After mom and dad died, it was my turn to take over the thrown and I-I just couldn't take that responsibility yet. I wasn't ready for it."

"And I was?" Nathan asked, sadly, "Mary, I could have helped you through it. You didn't need to leave. You didn't need to leave me."

David felt like he was seriously intruding on this moment, but he agreed with Nathan. Why would his sister do that to him?

"I was afraid!" she cried, "I'm so sorry, Nate."

"But, But how?" Nathan asked, "I saw you, you were dead. You were buried."

"That's the complicated part," she explained, "You would never believe me."

"Yes, I would!" he responded, "You have no idea what I have been through since you left. I-I've seen some crazy things."

David realized that, yeah, Nathan has. Nathan learned about most of the supernatural world after his sister "died" and fought in a war with them as well.

"Well, I-I've been turned into a vampire," his sister revealed, cringing as if she expected him not to believe it, "So, I was actually dead. But I rose back to life as a vampire because I made sure to be bitten before I was put into a casket...that's how I faked my death."

Unknown to her knowledge, Nathan did believe it. And he stood up, quickly backing up toward where David was sitting, hiding behind the leshy's chair. David was confused, and it was comical to him until he saw the look in his soulmate's fearful eyes.

It was then when David remembered that Nathan was deathly afraid of vampires.

"Nathan is scared of vampires," he explained shyly to Nathan's sister, who looked confused. 

She breathed a quiet 'oh' and said, "Don't worry, Nate. I won't hurt you. I feed on animals, not humans."

Nathan nodded, but he didn't come any closer. Instead, he settled next to David and re-grabbed his hand.

"S-So, you drink blood?" Nathan asked, "Like a vampire?"

"Yes, silly, I am a vampire," she rolled her eyes, then focused on David again, "Who-Who is this? I've never seen him in the castle before."

"This is my soulmate, David," Nathan replied quickly, "He's a leshy. Also, why did you come back now, after all of these years?"

His sister smiled. 

"Nate, I think ready to take over the throne now."