"—I know where they are."

It had been late at night when Patrice suddenly burst into your room. He wasn't even fully dressed, and his fingers shook as they clutches the doorframe. It wasn't like Patrice to bother others, especially not his king, but the look of urgency on his face was unique and vivid in its appearance.

He'd elaborated. When travelling last, he noticed golden vines on some of the birch trees in the woods up by Lumin territories to the East. It hadn't clicked to him they were vines left by Faes until recently, and... That was why it hit so hard.

His parents. His people. The ones that he had yearned blindly for, for nearly two hundred years were found. He wouldn't feel so incomplete and out of place anymore. It made him want to cry and rejoice.

He had only known those vines had anything to do with faes because his arms had golden vines that appeared on them when he felt emotional, like then.

He insisted on setting off at dawn the following day, which is what happened. Some old advisor took to the throne as the king and butler set off to the woodland together, oddly alone. It took days of travel and stealth to find the same woodland.

When he eventually did get there, he was shaking again. His fingers shuddered with weakness as he felt around the bases of trees, until one eventually...

It rattled. Once, twice, whenever pushed. The bark of the tree opened outwards on a himge to reveal a door into a whole other world.

It was even lusher than the forest they knew as the one by Lumin, full of greenery and large willow brances, while the sun spilled through the gaps in the leaves like clear water. Small huts, little shopping stands... They were everywhere. By now, the sun was setting over everything, and that cascading light was beginning to dwindle and go from pink to a midnight purple. The people around these stands on the streets were packing them up. But he didn't care. For a while, he just stared, purple eyes wide as saucers. Before, eventually, he muttered.

"I'm home."