Chapter Text
Dark Choco wasn’t entirely sure how it’d happened, but one moment he was mindlessly wandering the wintery wilderness of the Dark Cacao Kingdom border. The next he was plummeting through empty air, cloak flapping in the whistling wind.
Unless he spontaneously gained the ability to fly, there was little he could do but brace for impact and hope for the best. Dark Choco closed his eyes and prayed to any deity who would listen.
Mere moments later, he landed with a dull thump and in a tangle of limbs as he landed on somebody. Unfortunately he couldn’t quite gather the mindset to question who .
Dark Choco sat up with a groan, clutching at the lancing pain in his head. The landing had not been a very friendly one, only barely cushioned by-
He glanced down, immediately locking gazes with a pair of very angry purple eyes.
Fuck .
Dark Choco scrambled off of the stranger as fast as he could, every ache in his body loudly protesting and making itself known.
“I’m so sorry!” he said automatically, holding out a hand to the other to help them up. The purple-eyed stranger ignored it, getting up on their own with a tight grimace, brushing shoulder-length dark hair out of their face. Dark hair with bold streaks of white.
It took an embarrassingly long time for Dark Choco to connect the dots, and his mouth moved without any input from his brain as the stranger briefly straightened out their clothing.
“Father?” Dark Choco blurted out, taking a reckless step forward. Purple eyes snapped up, and they were unmistakable, having a way of scrutinizing and making one feel very small. They were slightly lighter without a whole kingdom’s welfare weighting on them, but they were his father’s eyes all the same. The hair and pinched expression all but sealed the deal, but the lack of wrinkles and heavy armor hinted at something more to the situation. Was he a victim of time magic? Had he been sent back in time? Or was it another one of Pomegranate’s illusions?
The stranger, Dark Cacao, his father , immediately reached for his sword and unsheathed it, swinging the blade in a smooth arc to settle at his throat. Dark Choco took a very cautious step back.
“ Father? ” Dark Cacao scowled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about - I don’t have a son!”
Dark Choco couldn’t help feeling a pang in his chest at those words.
“You do not deserve the mantle of a prince! You are no son of mine!”
The words from the past (or was it the future? he decided it didn’t matter all that much) echoed in his mind as he pulled on a nervous smile.
“Right- um, yeah I think I mistook you for someone else-” Dark Choco eyed the blade still leveled unwaveringly at his throat and held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I sincerely apologize for falling on top of you and mistaking you for someone else - could I ask for your name?”
Dark Cacao, slightly mollified with the apology, lowered his sword but didn’t sheathe it.
“I accept your apology. My name is Dark Cacao - who might you be?”
Dark Choco very carefully not putting his hand on the hilt of his own sword, replied, “My name is Dark Choco.” He gave a cursory glance at his surroundings. He was in a small clearing of some sort, surrounded on all sides by dense forestry. It was cold, and there was a slight hint of frost though no real snow, and a simple camp was set up not too far away. “I’m afraid I’m a stranger to these lands, could you tell me where we are?”
Dark Cacao’s eyes narrowed, still staring him down with a hint of suspicion. Seeing that Dark Choco had no intention of going on the offensive, he sheathed his blade in one swift motion and let out a slow breath in a small cloud of steam in the winter air. He turned slightly, hand still resting on the hilt of his sword in a silent warning.
“We’re in the outer forests along the Great Icing Ridge,” Dark Cacao said after a short pause. The look in his eye was now almost… sympathetic? At the very least it had softened a little. “Since it seems you are telling the truth, would you like to camp with me tonight?”
Dark Choco, momentarily stunned by the sudden offer, gave a hesitant nod. “Thank you.”
Dark Cacao, already heading back to the simple camp, replied over his shoulder. “It’s fine. You can collect firewood in return since you interrupted me earlier.”
Dark Choco looked down at his feet, finding truth in the other’s words. He quickly gathered the sticks scattered about and set out in the surrounding area to search for more. Making sure to stick close to the clearing for fear of getting lost, he briefly let his thoughts wander and processed the blur of events that had just occurred.
To start, he was clearly in the past somehow. His father was undoubtedly younger, and very very slightly less stern. Next, he was in the forests near the Great Icing Ridge, an inhospitable area along the borders of the currently non-existent Dark Cacao Kingdom. Honestly, it probably wasn’t even very far from where he’d been in his original timeline. And finally, and perhaps most crucially, his father didn’t yet possess the Grapejam Chocoblade, his trusty blade that only he could wield.
The timeline, the location, the missing sword-
Dark Choco paused for a moment, staring at the dry stick in his hand like it somehow contained the secrets of the universe.
All of the pieces pointed to one thing - Dark Cacao was on his quest to defeat the twin dragons, and Dark Choco had landed (quite literally) in the middle of it.