| Fever | ENHYPEN |

1

Nightfall to many means darkness or monsters, to some it means fear and uncertainty or to the 'realist' it could just mean the end of another day, but to the people who like to believe it signifies freedom and mischief, it means being able to hide from any forced duty, any forced emotion, it means independence, it means free time, it means the stars are out and no worry is left in the sky until the sun comes back up.... It means hope.

The palace is always quiet at this time, where the guards are found patrolling the lowest and highest levels looking for intruders or monsters, sometimes if you're lucky you could find a cook or maid wondering around doing whatever cooks and maids do at this time of night, you could find maybe a mouse or two scuffling around in the court yard before it gets stomped on by a bored guard who has nothing to, you could find the king and queen sleeping peacefully in their chambers their worries and duties resting with them, what you can't find though is the prince and princess safely in their rooms doing as their parents do inside the palace walls, no not at this time of night.

"Every time we come out here it feels like we're one more step closer to getting caught by dad Emi" the prince complained watching as his older sister skips across the lake that sits behind the palace lost and forgotten.

The lake wasn't really a lake at all, it was more of a pond that grew larger over time, it was so deep that the bottom couldn't be seen and murky enough to be steered clear of incase one of the swimming logs turned out not to be a log. The lake however was accompanied by what looked like an old bridge swimming in the middle, the large stone slabs making up what could've been a grand pathway but broken off leaving giant gaps one wouldn't dare to jump, it was indeed a wreck and older than maybe the castle itself but old doesn't always mean useless

"Riki my dear brother, what the king doesn't know won't hurt him" the princess smiles mischievously earning an eye roll from her brother, he watches as she jumps to the other end of the water waiting for him, once across his sister grabs his arm pulling him close before running off into the forest line away from safety.

...

"It still amazes me that this place exists" the princess smiles walking across a large fallen over tree, it was more than a couple years old and sat just along a natural riverbed that cut through the forest, the prince ignored his sisters comment holding his hand out for her to pull him up, she did so with a little struggle before jumping off the other edge stumbling a little bit catching herself, her brother copies her action but a little less clumsily.

"It amazes me that you're almost 20 but act like you're 13" he mumbled as she walked in front of him, arms stretched out as she put one foot in front of the other acting as if she was on a tightrope, the princess mock laughed not replying.

And there they stopped on the other side of the tree listening and watching the river flow, it was peaceful the prince couldn't deny, something about the stars reflecting in the water really made a beautiful impact on how they viewed this scary forest, the princess looked around seeing everything was exactly how it usually is.

"I wonder what this place looks like in the day time" Emiko thinks out loud making Riki shrug.

"Probably how it looks now just I don't know day time" Emiko rolled her eyes playfully at her brothers observation, she wanted to ask more but there's nothing her younger brother could tell her that she didn't already know.

"So is dad planning to marry you off to one of those lords from the next kingdom over?" Riki asked trying to fill the silence, he didn't really like silence although sometimes it was peaceful other times it unsettled him.