Chapter Text
The patrol caught sight of a large group running through the thick snow, and the patrol leader was quick to corral them before they did anything to the nearby village, only a few hours' ride away.
The group huddled together, small children clutching young mothers and old fathers, the teens seeming to be the most protective.
“What’s this, then?” The patrol leader asked, glancing at the adults. They held very little, only bags stuffed full with… unknowns that made him cautious. They came from the north, and judging by the clothes they wore, the ill-suited cloaks meant for warmer winters. It was obvious to most that they were from the Essempi, the Empire’s bitter enemies.
The only reason he was entertaining this group was the amount of children who looked genuinely scared. Neither nation would dare stoop so low to include young children in active fighting zones.
“We mean no harm,” the voice was young, and a young man wearing the warmest cloak stepped forward, face hidden by the heavy hood and hands up in surrender. From the little that was shown under the cloak, the patrol leader saw clothing that would have once looked fancy or noble, now ripped and rumpled.
“Essempi citizens, saying they mean no harm,” another patrol member laughed harshly. “That’s a good joke, kid.”
“Please, we are the only ones who managed to escape,” the young man insisted, and something about his voice sounded familiar. While the patrol leader had not been to the other nation, there have been times there were peace talks between the nations’ rulers. Something was oddly familiar in that sense. “We have nowhere else to run.”
“Run?” The patrol leader questioned, only now motioning for the rest of his group to lower their weapons. “Who are you?”
The young man slowly removed his hood, keeping one hand up to show he wasn’t about to grab a weapon - there was no scabbard to be seen - and the patrol leader’s eyes widened at his appearance. He was younger than he looked, barely an adult with shaggy brown hair, short but just starting to curl horns close to long ram ears. Encircling his hair, however, was what caused the leader his surprise. A thin circlet of silver, emeralds and blue diamonds embedded at the front, resting against the young man’s forehead.
“I am Prince Tubbo of the Essempi, and I am asking for sanctuary for the last of my people. The Essempi has been invaded by the Badlands, and we are all that managed to get out.”
Tubbo had not known an exhaustion quite like this before. For all his all-nighters, his tinkering around with little inventions, his blueprints of builds he oversaw - none officially oversaw by him, he was still too young despite Dream’s siding with him that he should be acknowledged for his efforts - for all he had done previously, nothing had left him quite this exhausted until the Badlands invaded.
It hadn’t been a quick invasion either. Dark magic had been included, and much like falling asleep, it started slow and then, all at once, it was everywhere. Tubbo hadn’t noticed until he had to flee, with as many people as he could save.
He could only save roughly two dozen citizens. He knew from the last census, the Essempi’s total population was in the few thousands throughout the land. And he could only save two dozen.
Five elderly folk, three young mothers and their children, and the rest were teenaged orphans who had all managed to avoid the magic, or the Crimson, or whatever the hell the Badlands brought over. They hadn’t all been from the capital, in fact only the other orphaned teens had been from there. The rest had been found along the way to the Empire and Essempi’s borders.
They had been surrounded by their enemies. The refugees had been running for weeks, terrified of seeing someone else falling to the dark magic. Tubbo had seen it before, it was not something he cared to see again. Standing before the last of his people unmarked by the dark magic or whatever corrupted everyone else, just a hair away from getting on his knees and begging for his people’s safety, led to the present moment. Being escorted to the very center of the Antarctic Empire, a nation that had been at war with his own for as long as he could remember.
One of the mothers, just a few years older than Tubbo himself, asked if any would carry her daughter, a two-year-old toddler too small to waddle through the snow, and he offered to let her ride on his shoulders, careful she didn’t yank on his horns or the only remaining thing that proved his status. He had been wearing it when the castle had been invaded, and while he’d much rather throw the dumb thing away, it was the only thing reminding him of his promise when he had run from the castle, doing his best to ignore his own brother’s shouts.
The journey to the capital of the Empire was roughly a week’s ride, Tubbo remembered idly as they walked down the main road that would eventually lead them to the enemy’s castle. He had a feeling it would be taking them much longer. Not that he cared too much, as long as his people would be safe, and then…
He wasn’t sure what he was going to do after that. Would he be put in prison for being the son of the Empire’s enemy? Would he be executed for this? Would his people? They had done nothing but survive an invasion that not only took the land, but the minds of their loved ones.
He suppressed the shudder at the memory of his brother’s apple green eyes flecked with blood-red, the last time he had seen him.
The toddler on his shoulders babbled the entire time she was up there, pointing at all the snow, at the animals they saw in the distance. Tubbo couldn’t help but smile and laugh at her antics, and the antics the other children got up to that. It was the little things like this that proved they would be okay. He saw how a couple of the Antarctic soldiers also smiled and glanced at the kids with soft expressions.
The majority of the original patrol had split off, leaving five soldiers to escort the refugees. The soldier, probably the captain, who had found them first was still with them. Tubbo was certain he had seen that face before on the rare occasions he had been brought along with his father and brother to the Empire to discuss some attempt for peace. Not that the peace talks ever lasted long, or were very eventful. Currently, they were three years in - the longest since Tubbo’s birth - an unsteady ceasefire between the two nations.
That night, as a couple fires were made for the group, Tubbo and the patrol leader, a strong but old man - probably about his father’s age, if he had to guess - named Cardon, sat by a fire alone, watching their respective people before he felt the older man’s eyes turn to him.
“You never did say what happened.”
“It’s complicated,” he sighed in response, grabbing a stick to poke at the fire, if only to have something to do.
“Explain it, anyway. What did you mean by the Badlands invading the Essempi?”
“I… I don’t have all the information myself. It was… There’s something wrong, vines that are, like, sentient. Dark magic, probably, but it wasn’t a normal kind of invasion, like what the Empire and home would normally do.” Tubbo rubbed a horn, something he picked up from his family when they were stressed.
It started slowly. Vines, thick and unnaturally red, began spreading throughout the land closest to the Badlands. It started with rumours of citizens attacking guards and each other with little discrimination, of guards betraying their fellows, all the while unnatural flowers began to grow onto their bodies.
After the flowers started blooming, their eyes would start to change, bleeding into a sickly crimson color. Until the final day, Tubbo had regarded it as impossible. Until the final day, and his brother loomed over him, a flower’s stem curling around his crown and horns, and his eyes no longer the pleasant green he had always known. It was always red eyes, he learned.
The only reason Tubbo made it out of the castle without getting infected by the dark magic was his father colliding with Dream, ordering for Tubbo to get out, that he’d follow. He didn’t, Tubbo had seen a vine attach itself to him just before the young prince had escaped the castle. His father promised he would see him again.
He prayed to Prime that the last thing would still be true today. He had no idea what happened after he fled, after he had seen the leader of the Badlands, Bad himself but nothing like how he used to look like in almost cultish clothes and glowing eyes, enter the throne room where the family had been - where his father fought Dream - and approach the fighting men. It was… lucky, Tubbo guessed, that he hadn’t been noticed by Bad right away. It allowed him to get away, find others fleeing and managing to save the people he now watched over.
“But you don’t know if others made it,” Cardon noted, and Tubbo nodded in agreement.
“These are all I could find, but I pray others managed to save themselves,” he dropped his head and let the stick fall into the fire. “I just want them to be safe.”
“And you decided going to the Antarctic Empire was safe?” The man questioned, skeptical.
“I think you forget my nation is surrounded by water on one side, and the only other countries nearby are your nation and the Badlands,” Tubbo said stiffly. He had been over this with his own people over the past few days as they had gotten closer to the border. “What would you have had me do? Swim until we all drowned? All of our ships were destroyed or taken by the infected. Try our luck with the very nation that started this? Let ourselves be taken in by the Crimson? The best option was to kill two birds with one stone. I could warn the largest nation in the world of the possible threat that may come to them, and protect my people. This was the only answer that didn’t immediately spell our doom.”
Cardon was quiet before he stood up with a stretch. “This better not be a trick, kid.”
Tubbo scowled and stood to his full height, even though he was much shorter than the human. “Why would I lie about something like this? Do I really look stupid enough to cross the borders with civilians, by foot, to try to trick you? All we have are daggers to defend ourselves and a single sword that’s badly damaged and will break before even the most competent of the refugees could land a critical hit against your soldiers. I have lost my family and my home. Do you really think I would lie and try to enter the very nation that has tried to assassinate me dozens of times?”
Cardon stood his ground, but his eyes weren’t as hard as before as he looked down at the young prince. He shook his head and walked off, leaving Tubbo by the fire with the suggestion to bed down soon so they would be able to leave at dawn.
It was going to be a long journey.