We begin our walk for the Yami Forest, no clue how long it’ll truly take us. Lia has a rough idea of the travel time but it isn’t an exact thing to rely on.

"Do you think we’ll see some other animals along the way?" Amelia asks with curiosity in her voice.

"I’d imagine so," I answer while scratching my head.

"The path we’re taking will probably show some other animals along the way. I don’t think it’ll be anything crazy though," Lia chimes in.

"So what would we see?" Amelia asks.

"Foxes, deer, and maybe bears," Lia answers with a mostly confident tone.

Honestly it sounds like the animals she listed are pretty much the same ones we could already see. I don’t know if Amelia realizes that or not since she didn’t really look for them like we did.

It was kind of part of the hunting process while I tried to find something intially. I didn’t see any foxes, deer, or even any bears but I’m sure they are out there.

Not entirely sure a bear would be a good source of food for them to have... Taste wise at least.

"Dante have you seen a lot of different animals since you’ve been traveling?" Amelia asks with a curious look in her eyes.

"Not really," I respond.

"I’ve seen a few interesting ones but I don’t know what to call them in the human language," Lia speaks up while scratching her head.

The walk continues as we all make small talk, nothing too interesting at the moment. Lia just kind of tells us about some of the basic animals she’s encountered.

Amelia is in awe about it all since they didn’t have a whole lot of different animals for her to see. Mostly due to them being kept outside of the areas that she was allowed to wander in.

But eventually we reach a hill that looks over a nice giant open grass field with different flowers scattered about.

"It is rather pretty here," Amelia says with some excitement in her voice.

Lia looks up towards the bright blue sky.

"It is spring at the moment so this is the best chance for them to bloom like this," Lia mentions while staring at the skies above.

I do forget about the seasons since it is something humans came up with quite some time ago. A way to properly track everything so they know when to grow crops, stock up on food, and to keep from going out as much.

My family never really gave it much thought when it came to these seasons since it didn’t mean a thing to us.

Feeding needs to happen regardless of snow on the ground, colder temperatures, or even hotter days. I do understand why they have to track all of these different seasons... Just it’ll never be something I care about.

"Vampires don’t care for the seasons do they?" Amelia questions while staring back at me.

"It just never made a difference to us I guess," I respond softly.

"Makes sense. You guys probably don’t have to change much when it comes to the change in conditions," Amelia says while picking up a flower.

"Some conditions matter, just not all of them. I just can’t remember them right now since it has been a long time," I reply while crouching down.

I take a closer look at the flowers and immediately see one that reminds me of my younger sister. She was the one who always enjoyed flowers and picking them whenever she could.

Astaria was the one who brought a sense of peace to our home more than anyone else ever could. That’s why it hurts to even think about what happened to her.

Death isn’t something she deserved to experience.

"If we wanted peace, why are you bringing about bloodshed?" A familiar voice asks.

Quickly I glance around at the sound of my sisters voice, only to realize that no one else is here. Just Amelia and Lia are here with me.

"Everything okay Dante?" Lia asks with a concerned tone.

"Just making sure we aren’t being followed by anyone," I answer quickly.

"I think we should be good for the time being. It would’ve been surprising if anyone did think to follow us from the capital, but no one saw us," Lia assures me.

I can’t admit that I’m hearing all of these voices from time to time or she’ll think I’m crazy. There’s already a lot that I deal with as a vampire alone... Being considered crazy is not part of it.

There has to be a cure for whatever the hell this is that I’m dealing with lately. I don’t mind them occasionally but it has been slowly becoming more of a problem.

When is it the right time to consider it urgent!?!

"Voices. Voices. Voices." Her voice echoes.

I stand up and look past Amelia and Lia.

"We should probably continue since it isn’t a good idea to waste the daylight," I suggest while looking towards the distance.

Just barely I can see a forest in the distance, but how long had we been walking anyway? Lia didn’t really know the time it would take us to get there, but maybe it is closer than we thought.

"You’re right about that," Lia replies in agreement.

"I’m sure we’ll see more flowers at some point," Amelia says optimistically.

"We definitely will. But for now it is best to move forward," I assure her before walking past them both.

I continue forward as the two of them follow behind me for awhile, until we finally reach the forest we are looking for. The trees are all covered by these pink leaves all around us, how interesting.

My eyes scan all around the entrance of the forest before us.

Crinkle!

I turn around to see Lia looking at the map for a few seconds as they both stop in place.

"This is definitely the entrance to the Yami Forest," Lia says with confidence in her voice.

"We really didn’t have to travel all that far to get here," I reply with a bit of shock in my voice.

"Well, we did all of the initial travel with our stop over by that waterfall previously," Lia says while folding the map gently.

"Then I guess we should head into the forest," I reply while keeping one hand on my sword.