They travelled through the next day and didn’t reach the next town until nightfall, Key once again reading riddles to Onew from his book while Jonghyun decided humming or even signing would be a great way to pass the time. Halfway into their travel Minho decided to give up on trying to get either of them to be quiet and resigned himself to any trouble that might find them because of this.

And trouble did find them. Of course it did. They ran into bandits sometime after midday and took out most of them. Then their reinforcements came and all of them decided that running to the next town would be a better option than staying and dying.

Minho was quietly relieved that Jonghyun knew how to cover their tracks, and after running for a while they thankfully managed to shake off the bandits.

By the time they reached town they were all so exhausted even Key agreed they should sleep in a proper bed and not in the open underneath the stars. So, they found an inn for the night and decided to look around town the next day.

Despite everything in his body protesting, Minho spent some time before dinner feeding Hae her favorite food, carrots, and brushing her down, removing all the dirt and dust from her coat, mane and tail. She had always enjoyed being pampered, but Minho rarely had the time for it, especially now that they were travelling throughout the days. And after the day they had had, she deserved it. She had carried both Onew and Taemin, who had been the slowest runners out of all of them.

“Good girl,” Minho murmured when he was done and her muzzle.

She nudged his head affectionately and he smiled at her.

“When this is over, I’ll let you rest for a whole month,” he told her. “You can run around in the fields as much as you want with nothing weighing you down.”

He gave her a last pat and turned, only to nearly jump out of his skin. Key was leaning against the doorway to the stables, his arms crossed over his chest. Minho hadn’t heard him arrive, which was worrying seeing as he was supposed to be a palace guard. In other words, he was supposed to be very perceptive and not easily surprised or ambushed.

Key grinned at his noise of surprise and straightened up.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to interrupt your moment.”

Minho sighed.

“Did you want anything?” he asked. “Or are you just here to annoy me?”

Key approached them and caressed Hae’s neck, laughing a little as she nosed at his collarbone.

“We’re about to eat dinner,” he said and glanced up at Minho as he let Hae press her nose to his cheek. She sniffed at him, her muzzle moving up to his hair and huffing at it. “Everyone’s already in the dining hall and I thought you might want to join us.”

“Oh,” Minho said. “Yes, I would like that.”

Key smiled and pulled away from Hae after pressing a light kiss to her muzzle. His hair was a bit ruffled from where Hae had explored it and Minho had the sudden urge to reach out and pat it down. He resisted it and marched ahead, leading the way back to the inn.

“So…” Key began when he caught up to Minho. “What are our plans for tomorrow?”

“Ask around town for the prince,” he said. “Since Jonghyun said he would have to travel through here on his way to the mountains, someone might have seen him. I can only hope there are more people out there that see through spells.”

Key hummed. Minho glanced at him as he opened the door to the inn and held it. Key looked a little surprised but smiled and entered with a soft ‘thank you’.

“I think Onew might have that ability,” he said as he moved through the dining room to a table in the corner, where Onew, Jonghyun and Taemin were sitting. “He’s great at the confusion spell, so he should be able to easily see through one as well.”

“That would be helpful,” Minho said.

Key threw a wink at him over his shoulder and sat down.

“What would be helpful?” Taemin asked as Minho took a seat as well.

Key pulled one of the goblets on the table towards him before answering.

“Seeing through a confusion spell,” he answered and turned to Onew, taking a sip. “You should be able to, right?

Tilting his head, Onew watched him for a moment. Then he frowned a little and glanced around at the rest of them. Minho raised his eyebrows when his eyes lingered on him and he quickly looked to Jonghyun, who shrugged.

“Yes, I can if I concentrate. Though sometimes it’s faulty,” he said and narrowed his eyes at Key. “I do believe the prince will recognize me, however, and run as soon as he sees me. Especially if I’m in the company of either you or Minho.”

Key wrinkled his nose at him.

“Why would he run if he saw you?” Taemin wondered.

“Because I used to spend time in the royal palace as an ambassador’s son,” Key explained. “Onew was the head mage at the royal palace, and Minho is basically signaling everyone he’s a royal guard with that clasp he has. The prince will most likely, and correctly, think we are here to take him back home.”

“Well, it’s a risk we will have to take,” Minho argued and grabbed a goblet as well.

It was filled with mead and he sighed, pushing it back to its original place. He caught Jonghyun's amused grin and Key’s small smile, but ignored them both.

The food arrived then and they busied themselves with eating for a while. After a few bites Minho decided that since they would help him look for the prince they could as well see the list of characteristics he had been given for his search. He had barely looked at it after the first month, as he had taken it out and read it over so many times he knew it by heart at this point, but he still kept it in his pocket. So, he pulled it out, unfolded it and laid it down on the table for everyone to see.

“This is some of the defining characteristics of the prince,” he said to Jonghyun and Taemin. “Even if he is using the confusion spell, some of it might still be visible.”

Jonghyun picked it up and scanned it over.

“Blonde hair,” he read aloud. “Pale skin, dark brown eyes, presumably wearing travellers clothes befitting that of a royal, nicknames, birthmarks, scars, yadda yadda yadda.”

“Helpful,” Taemin quipped at him and Key snorted.

Jonghyun grinned back cheekily and handed the list over. Taemin took it and looked it over in silence, frowning. Then he ruffled through a small bag attached to his belt and pulled out a paper and a pen, proceeding to take notes.

“It’s not like you’re gonna get tested on it, Tae,” Jonghyun drawled and leaned back in his chair, taking a sip from his goblet. “We’re not in school anymore.”

Taemin ignored him.

“I actually find that taking notes helps me remember important things better,” Onew said and Jonghyun leveled him with an unimpressed look.

The rest of their dinner consisted of Key, Onew and Jonghyun arguing over the importance of taking notes while Taemin silently read and re-read his notes. Minho tuned the arguing trio out, but couldn’t help discreetly glancing at Key from time to time.

Some of his hair had fallen into his face and that impulse Minho had had to reach out and touch him in the stables came back. He ignored it but a small part of him wished he wouldn’t. He had thought Key was good-looking since he first saw him, but he had no time to entertain that thought. His priority was finding the prince, not play around. Though he wasn’t one to play around either. Key, however, seemed the type.

Suddenly Key met his eyes and Minho realized he had been staring. He quickly looked away and pretended to focus on cutting up his food, but he still caught the small smile Key tried to bite back.

Great. Well, so much for being discreet.

He cleared his throat and picked the goblet up for a drink before he remembered it was filled with mead. Sighing, he put it back down again and looked around for a barmaid to ask for some water.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Key said then and they all looked at him. “Onew you said the prince would run if he saw Minho.”

“Yes,” Onew confirmed.

Key looked Minho up and down.

“But you never met the prince,” he continued.

“No, I haven’t,” Minho said slowly.

“So, the prince wouldn’t know what you look like,” Key said. “Then why don’t you take off all the things that advertises you as a royal palace guard?”

Minho blinked.

“What?”

“Oh, that’s actually a good idea,” Taemin chimed in. “Then the prince wouldn’t know who you are and you’d have a greater chance of finding and capturing him.”

Minho stared at him.

“Capturing?” he repeated. “What… I’m not here to capture anyone.”

“Isn’t that essentially what you’re doing though?” Jonghyun scoffed and Minho narrowed his eyes at him. “I mean, you’d be taking him back home against his will.”

Minho opened and closed his mouth a few times, but he couldn’t find anything to say because it wasn’t that far off. He had been instructed to find the prince and bring him home by whatever means necessary, though he had never thought of it as capturing him.

But was it really capturing someone if he simply wanted to bring him back to his family?

Then again, that family would force him to marry and move away. So he guessed that was capturing the prince in some way.

Though, wasn’t it a prince’s duty to do what was good for his country? And if keeping a union between the Kingdom of the East and the Tribes of the West intact was what would be good for his people, wasn’t it his obligation to make such a union continue?

Minho glanced around the table and realized they were all watching him curiously, waiting for his answer. He was afraid they would never get one, as he couldn’t decide which was the right one.

Putting down his knife and fork, he pushed away from the table and stood. He ignored their questions and left the dining hall, pausing for a moment in the lobby of the inn. He contemplated going up to his room, but decided he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts, so he made his way back out to the stables.

He didn’t know how long he sat in Hae’s booth; he might even have dozed off at some point. Hae moved around him, nudging his head, nibbling at his hair, before she gave up trying to get his attention and simply stood watching the other horses in the stables.

The realization that he had simply mindlessly followed orders without stopping to think first hit Minho so hard he found it numbing. He used to always think for himself, question things and seek the answers, but during this entire search he had only mindlessly followed what he was told needed to be done ­– find the prince and bring him home.

But what if the right thing to do wasn’t that? What then?

“Minho?” came a soft voice that he recognized as Taemin's and he sighed.

“Here,” he answered.

Taemin's head popped up over the door to Hae’s booth and he frowned.

“What are you doing down there?”

Minho shrugged.

Taemin watched him for a moment before he unhooked the latch keeping the door shut and silently slid inside, giving Hae a small pat. He gathered some hay in a pile beside Minho and sat down on it.

They sat in silence for a while, both watching Hae move around.

“I can see why you came here,” Taemin said after a minute. “It’s so quiet and peaceful.”

Minho leaned his head back against the wood behind him and stared up at the ceiling.

“Mom always told me to go to the stables when my dad came home drunk,” he said softly. “She didn’t want me to see them fighting. We had a mare there that I loved very much. She always calmed me down.”

Taemin hummed.

“That’s nice,” he said. “Is that mare Hae’s mother?”

Minho closed his eyes.

“No,” he mumbled. “Dad took her when he left. The Royal Guard gave me Hae.”

“Oh.”

Silence fell for a moment.

“You know, Jonghyun's mouth often runs without him thinking first,” Taemin said after a while. “I don’t think he intended to insult or hurt you. Neither did I.”

Minho snorted.

“It’s not really that,” he said. “I just couldn’t decide what was right or wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Minho opened his eyes again.

“What Jonghyun said had me thinking about what I was doing,” he explained. “Is it really anything else than me capturing the prince as though he were a criminal just because he doesn’t want to marry whomever his parents want him to marry? Then again, as a prince, the only prince, of the Kingdom of the East isn’t that his duty? Shouldn’t he take care of his people?”

Taemin sighed.

“That certainly is a conundrum,” he said. “Though I don’t think it is for you to worry about.”

Minho looked at Taemin, his eyebrows rising.

“No?”

Taemin smiled.

“Isn’t it something the prince himself should worry about? What is morally right for him to do no one can answer but he himself.”

Minho smiled a little.

“I guess you’re right,” he said and stood up. “Let’s get back. I’ve been sitting here for too long.”

He held out a hand to help Taemin up as well and after they each gave Hae a parting pat they made their way back to the main house. They parted ways on the landing to the second floor, Taemin leaving for the room he shared with Jonghyun and Minho making his way over to his own room, feeling a little better.

The next morning they all gathered around a table in the dining hall to eat breakfast and plan out their day. Minho had left anything that could give him away as a Royal Guard in his room and it made him feel exposed. However, much as he hated to admit it, it actually was logical for him to not make his occupation so glaringly obvious.

As they ate breakfast they decided Jonghyun and Taemin should take the east and north part of town, Key and Onew the west and south and Minho the center. They split up soon after eating and Minho spent hours upon hours wandering around and asking anyone he could get a hold of if they had seen anything suspicious, heard any rumors, or actually seen the prince himself.

As he had come to expect over the past months, no one had any valuable information. But he still continued searching and didn’t return to the inn until his stomach began complaining with hunger. He found Jonghyun and Taemin already seated at one of the tables in the dining hall, eating, and fell down into the chair opposite them just as Taemin poured some liquid into his cup from a tin pitcher on the table.

“How’s the search been going?” Jonghyun asked through a mouthful of potatoes. “Anything new?”

Minho gave him a disgusted look. Then he sighed.

“No,” he muttered. “Nothing. You?”

“Nah, I didn’t find much,” Jonghyun said, still chewing on his potatoes. “But I earned some money while performing.”

Minho sighed.

“You were supposed to look for the prince.”

Jonghyun hummed and stuffed his mouth with some meat.

“Well, I always say the best way to find someone is to gather a crowd and see who acts the weirdest,” he said sagely. Then a wicked grin spread on his face. "And then pick their pockets."

Minho turned incredulous eyes to Taemin who rolled his eyes and shook his head, though he was smiling a little. Jonghyun swallowed and nudged him with his elbow and Taemin shot him a questioning look. Jonghyun sighed and tipped his head in Minho's direction. Minho raised his eyebrows at them when he saw Taemin's eyes light up with understanding before he turned to him.

“Oh, right. I heard that there’s been someone staying in an abandoned farmhouse a bit out of town,” Taemin said. “No one’s ever really seen that person, but maybe it’s worth checking out?”

Minho frowned.

“Why would the prince stay in an abandoned building?” he asked.

Jonghyun shrugged.

“Well, a mystery person no one’s ever seen seems pretty suspicious to me,” he said. “I thought you were supposed to follow every lead you could find.”

“You found a lead?”

Minho turned and watched as Key and Onew picked their way through the chairs standing hither dither in the dining hall.

“Yeah,” Taemin said. “Or at least something worth checking out.”

He waited until they were both seated before continuing.

“Apparently there’s an unknown person taking refuge in an abandoned farmhouse near here,” he told them. “Jonghyun and I though it was worth looking into.”

Key placed his chin in his hand and appraised them both intently.

“You think it might be the prince?” Onew asked.

“We think it’s something at least,” Jonghyun answered, giving Key an offended look.

“Huh,” Key said. “Well, that’s weird, because me and Onew–”

“Onew and I,” Taemin corrected softly and Key grimaced at him.

“–heard the prince was headed to the Drifting Isles,” he finished.

That had to be a joke. Minho closed his eyes with a sigh and rubbed his temples.

“This is making no sense at all,” he grumbled. “First I have shifter boy here tell me he’s going to see the midnight sun up in the mountains, as far north as you can go, and now you come and tell me he’s going as far south you can go instead?”

“Well, I did tell you Jonghyun was lying,” Key said.

“Hey!” Jonghyun protested loudly, turning a few heads in the room. “Who’s lying?!”

“Oh, come on!” Key shot back. “Why on earth would it make sense for the prince to go back to the one country he was trying to get away from?”

“And why would he go to the Drifting Isles?!” Jonghyun scoffed. “There’s no civilization there! He wouldn’t last a day!”

“Maybe he’s more resourceful than you think!” Key said. “And the Drifting Isles would be a perfect place to hide since no one would ever expect him to go there!”

“No one would ever expect him to stay in his own country after running away either!”

“Really, you–”

“Enough!” Minho rumbled. They both snapped their mouths shut and turned to him with surprise written all over their faces, while Taemin and Onew shared a suffering look behind their backs. “Do any of you actually know what you’re talking about?”

They opened their mouths but Minho held up a hand to stop them from speaking.

“Don’t answer that,” he snapped.

They all watched him in silence and he sighed, rubbing his forehead.

“This is what I get for taking on companions,” he muttered to himself underneath his breath. Then he looked back up at the others. “I don’t care at the moment if the prince went north or south. We have an abandoned farmhouse to inspect. After that we can make decisions on where to go.”

Jonghyun crossed his arms with a huff, but didn’t argue. Key sighed.

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered. “Should be interesting.”

Tense silence fell for a moment and Minho had no desire to try to clear the air. He wasn’t responsible for it and both Jonghyun and Key were adults, they could figure it out on their own. Onew quietly pulled out his book and proceeded to read, while Taemin glanced between Jonghyun and Key, looking deep in thought. Then he turned to Minho, who gave him a tired look.

“So, um…” he decided to break the silence with and pushed the pitcher towards Minho. “Would you like some ale?”

Minho wrinkled his nose.

“No thank you,” he said.

Taemin looked like something just occurred to him and he took the pitcher back.

“Oh, right. I understand,” he said and turned to Key, who was now glaring at him. “Key?”

Key glanced at Minho, eyes going from annoyed to curious. Minho ignored him and flagged down a server to order some food.

“Sure,” he heard Key say after a moment. “Thanks.”

He turned back just in time to see Taemin smiling at Key and Jonghyun now looking at Taemin with betrayal.

“You’re not supposed to fraternize with the enemy,” he said.

Taemin gave him a blank look.

“Who’s the immature one now?” he muttered and Jonghyun grimaced at him.

Once again silence fell, only interrupted by Minho, Key and Onew ordering food. As the waiter walked away Jonghyun sighed and turned to Key.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “For yelling at you.”

Key watched him intently, then nodded.

“I accept your apology,” he said and turned away, taking a sip of his drink.

Jonghyun raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything, scowling down at his food. Minho caught Onew nudging him and Key shooting him a glare. Onew made the tiniest motion towards Jonghyun with his book and Key rolled his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry for calling you a liar,” he said and Jonghyun looked up at him in surprise. “I was out of line.”

Jonghyun blinked at him before grinning.

“Apology accepted,” he said and went back to stuffing his mouth with food, to Key’s apparent disgust.

Minho shook his head to himself. Having companions was so much more stressful than travelling alone. But, he thought as Taemin began explaining what he had heard about the abandoned farmhouse, maybe he could learn how to work with them.

A/N: New chapter! It took me a long time to make this but I hope you like it! And I'm sorry for taking so long!

That's really all I have to say... I'm boring, I know -.- You're still welcome to give your guesses about the prince! :)

Love<3

Bye~!