Chapter Text
Mother didn’t like for Blue to go out into the gardens at night, but it was the only reasonable way for him to see his friend from the forest.
He’d first met Red when he spotted them sitting on top of the garden wall, covered head to toe in dirt, twigs and leaves. Blue didn’t know at the time that Red was technically trespassing, so he invited the other to play a round of hide and seek with him and his sister. Mother had not been pleased upon finding out Red was there, so she had them kicked out. The very next day, though, they were back. How they always got over the garden wall, they never told Blue, but they always did somehow, and the two eventually figured out that the best time to meet up would be at night.
“Red?” Blue called out as he went past the peonies. “Are you there?”
Red didn’t respond. This never really concerned Blue; sometimes, Red just didn’t show up for one reason or another. They had a life outside of their friendship with Blue, the prince had come to understand. While his own life was almost entirely within the confines of the castle grounds, Red roamed the forest freely, and sometimes wouldn’t be in the area.
“Red?” Blue called again, to no reply. “Probably busy doing forest things,” he sighed, turning around to head inside.
He was around five steps away from the door when he nearly tripped over a cat.
“Gods—Kitty, you scared me,” he breathed as he squatted down to pet the cat. That was how he noticed a scrape on its front leg. It was fresh, still slowly leaking blood. “Oh, you poor thing… C’mere, I can help.” He held out his arms for the cat, and it limped into his hold. “You’re a friendly li’l thing, aren’t you?”
“Meow!”
Quietly, Blue took the kitty inside, watching carefully for guards as he began to make his way to the laboratory. He had been practicing making potions lately, and he’d ended up discovering that dandelions, peppermint and blueberries could be mixed together with a common base to create a slow-acting elixir to heal scratches, cuts and bruises. He hadn’t expected to use his new knowledge so soon, though.
The sounds of a clarinet startled Blue and the cat, though Blue calmed down quickly. “It’s just my sister practicing,” he reassured the cat. It probably didn’t know what he was saying, but it seemed to calm down nonetheless.
After the shock wore off, the music was actually quite lovely. As much as the midnight practice sessions bothered everyone, Green was an exceptional musician, having mastered the clarinet and the flute by now. She was only ten, a year younger than Blue, who could kind of play a bit of piano, but he wasn’t great at it. Then again, he was comparing himself to Green, and nobody was as good as her when it came to music.
Blue just barely realized in time that he was still walking to stop himself from slamming into the laboratory door.
“Ah, here we are,” he announced, taking the cat into the room. It was still a mess from the siblings’ failed experimentation earlier in the day. They had heated a potion for too long, and it ended up exploding and turning every nearby object sentient. It had taken three mages to undo the potion’s effects, and nobody had taken the time to clean up properly yet.
Thankfully, the ingredient shelf was protected by a magic barrier, so Blue didn’t have to worry about fetching the required plants. He put the cat down on a table and got to work.
One miscalculated jump had led to Red tumbling over the garden wall and scraping up their arm pretty badly. It was a stupid mistake, and they didn’t want Blue to know about it, so they had turned into a cat to avoid suspicion. They’d tried to sneak over to the other side of the garden to climb back out (curse this garden and its stupid layout where the easiest ways to get in and out until they learned to fly as a bird were so far from each other), but they’d completely fumbled their escape by walking directly in front of Blue.
Now, they were in a messy room of potion things, laying on the table, watching as the prince set up a brewing stand.
They’d be lying if they said they knew what half of what Blue was doing here was, but it was interesting to watch. They recognized that Blue sorted out the flower of a dandelion and the scent of peppermint leaves, but the little purplish berries definitely didn’t grow in the forest, so Red didn’t know what those were. They were pretty confident Blue wouldn’t feed anyone anything toxic, though. His compassion was one of his best traits, in Red’s opinion.
The prince used a metal cone to pour a bright orange powder into a hole in the brewing stand, then used a small flame spell to light it ablaze. Red didn’t know what the powder was, but it was quite obvious that it was fuel for the reaction. They’d made a few potions themself, and despite using a wildly different method from this, they’d discovered pretty quickly that heat was needed to activate the effects.
Finally, Blue added the potion bases and twisted a knob on the brewing stand. The smell definitely wasn’t that of the potion bases Red was used to, being much more bitter than bases made with the nightbloom seeds Red used. They might’ve smelled something similar before in the garden, but the scent was diluted too much for them to really tell.
While the potions brewed, Blue took out what looked like a long, thin roll of cloth and approached Red. “Hey, kitty, mind if I bandage your leg up?” he asked. Red wasn’t really sure what he meant by that, but they trusted him, so they approached to let him do as he pleased.
Apparently, bandaging something up meant to wrap it snugly in the cloth Blue had grabbed, and within a minute, Red’s arm was thoroughly wrapped. “There you go, that’ll keep dirt from getting in and blood from getting out,” the prince explained with a radiant smile. The cloth was going to have to be removed before they changed back, but Red appreciated the thought.
Blue went back and took one of the now bright green potions from the brewing stand, pouring it into a bowl and giving it to Red to drink from. It did taste like dandelions and mint, but the berries added a distinct sweetness to it. It reminded Red of Blue, in a way, and not just because Blue was the one who gave the potion to them.
Once they were done the potion, Blue opened up the window. Immediately, Red went over, headbutted Blue’s hand in thanks, jumped down and ran back into the forest. Blue would likely never know it was them, and that’s the way Red had been taught to keep it. Maybe one day they’d tell Blue, but that was a long time away.
For now, they were just happy they had someone they could always rely on.