Why are we here again.

A surge of pity washed through Sam as Rhys finally broke down the horrors of the Forest apparently becoming too much for her, and her own breakdown pushing his limits of endurance.

"Hey," he crooned, pulling her closer to him and glancing at his watch, his heart plummeting as he realised that several more hours stood between the pair of them and daybreak.

"It'll be over soon," he said softly, "And I promise that we will come out of here alive, both of us," he assured his friend, "and we will have found those accursed trees," he added, muttering quietly, to himself.

"But first, there's no harm in taking a few seconds break, we need it," he told her, "besides, don't girls always need to redo their hair? You look like such a mess, massive disaster case right there," he told her, his tone rising just a little as he tried halfheartedly to cheer her up a little.

((We have eight trees to go, lets find a few more easily before the next near death encounter?))

Rhys curled her head in closer to his chest and held on, forcing herself to regain her composure. The last thing they needed was for her to be like this. She could break down in the morning, she had to display her Gryffindorness, But he only held her closer, and she didn't want to move. He smelt so good! How in the world... she sniffled against his chest, forcing herself to calm down, and breathing deeply, knowing that she had to move, and yet.. she couldn't stop breathing in his scent.

When he said her hair needed fixed up, she lifted her head, knowing her eyes were red, puffy, and tired looking. She probably looked like a deer caught in headlights, and her hair was a mess, with twigs and leaves, and some spider webs still left. "Hah.." She let out a soft breath of a laugh and she carefully started to pull out the leaves, knowing she was still curled up in his lap, but not wanting to move. She leaned against his arm slightly and was thankful she was in good shape so that she didn't have to worry about crushing his legs. She ran her fingers through her hair, and then frowned and curled up against him again, tears falling down her cheeks as she pulled a hair tie off her arm and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and looked up at him carefully. "We should get moving.." She said.

He was right, she looked a mess, but now that her hair was up, and the twigs and bits of leaves and web were out of it, she looked a bit better, even though her eyes were red and puffy from her small breakdown, she didn't move though and couldn't help but put a small smile on her face and she rubbed her arm. "They got me all over.." She said rubbing her arm and holding it up so he could see. "It looks like a sting.. I don't know what they were... I've never seen them before.. something in the forest that no one has seen before that took up residence in that tree probably." She frowned and then carefully pushed herself off of his lap, and held out her hand to help him up. Wiping away her tears as she did so.

Sam frowned deeply, his expression hidden from Rhys as she buried her face into his chest, an action both handy and comforting at the same time. "Rhys," he said slowly, his voice cautious but firm. "I.. I didn't see any blue lights," he said after a pause.

"I mean, I know something was there, but I didn't see a thing, maybe you got them confused with the Acromantula?" He prompted, believing that may have been the cause of it, but still at a loss as to where the welts had come from - they'd appeared before the acromantula, and spiders wouldn't do that anyway.

He hated to do this, break such a perfect moment, but he knew that sitting around would do nothing, eventually they'd be found by some other creature, and they'd be in no fit state to do anything if they both fell asleep here, curled up with each other.

Actually, that didn't sound too bad.

Sighing he made to stand up, grabbing Rhys firmly by the shoulders and hoisting her up, surprised at how light she was. "Jeez girl," he said, pulling himself up to his own feet, "You need to eat more, you're skin and bones," he commented with a chuckle.

"Come on," he then prompted, "Lets just head off, more trees await," he told her, clapping his hands together before immediately shying away from the noise.

"Shit," he muttered, "sorry."

Rhys frowned when he said there were no blue lights. She stared at him in shock for a long moment, before she was able to make out any words. "But.. they were there.... they... were giggling, and playing in my hair.. and I felt so dizzy.. and confused and stuff.. and then one stung me.. and they all started to sting me." She said and looked at the welt on her arm, wincing at how putrid it looked. Whatever the things were, they had appeared only to Rhys, and then attacked her. She stood up, but when he literally lifted her off her feet trying to get up, she yelped and was set back down as he hoisted himself up.

"Wow... strong much?" She asked staring at him, her eyes going to his arms for a long moment. What she didn't wish to just.. lay back down and bury her face there... to just.. let him hold her. They were both sweaty, and nasty, and covered with scratches and bruises, and for Rhys she had welts, but he still smelt good. How was it possible for him to smell good after running through a forest all night. "Somehow I feel like the next ones will be harder to find.." She said and looked around. "Who knows which direction it's in now.. I don't even remember which way the other tree was in.." She said glancing around and seeing that it was pitch black around them, no sign of any tree, and there was no path in site.

"Sam.. I think we're lost.." she said looking at him and frowning.

Sam chuckled quietly, his face flushing red as he heard Rhy's compliment, pointing his wand pointedly away from the two of them so that she wouldn't see his face. "Well, I try," he told her quietly, secretly glowing with pride at her comment, it was nice to hear that his efforts were being rewarded - after all, it wasn't as if he wanted to give up all his spare time just for the fun of it.

"I beg to differ," he replied after a thoughtful pause. "I think that the next one will be the hardest, but after that I think we'll have at least a bit better time of it," he told her, shrugging in the darkness as he angled his wand so that it illuminated as much of the foliage ahead as possible.

"I say we just follow this path, as long as we keep moving we'll be all set, I reckon," he suggested, trying to hide the nagging feeling that he was wrong, burning deep in the pit of his stomach.

Rhys nodded to him when he pointed his lit wand down the path that was just barely visible and she swallowed hard, her eyes going to him, and then frowning and darting along the path. She moved closer to him and then took hold of his hand, gripping it tightly in her own, her eyes straining to make out the path in the glow of his wand. She moved as close to him as she dared, and then frowned and looked up at him. "So... lets go then.." she said gesturing with her hand as she waited for him to take the lead. He was the one with the wand after all.

Rhys could feel herself trembling, and she tried hard to wipe her eyes on her sleeve, trying to get rid of the fact that she had been crying, trying hard to make it look like she wasn't attempting to move closer to him, by just.. naturally stumbling against him and looking up, eyes innocent, smile forced, as she picked her way along the path, eyes straining to see, wishing she had her wand, praying the werewolves were still to busy with the spiders to come after them, and hoping the stings were poisonous, though by the looks of them they were. The welts had grown larger, and one seemed to be close to popping, a foul odor coming from it, and what looked like green puss spilling out of it. "Do you have.. anything to tie these up Sam?" she whispered, staring at her welts. There were so many, the ones on her arms seemed to be the worse though, the ones on her face and legs and even her stomach didn't look as bad as the ones on her arms, the ones where she had obviously tried to swat them away. Though she had a pretty bad one on her side, which seemed to have broken in her web cocoon, and had stained her shirt with it's juices.

Pulling off her robe, she bent down momentarily, letting go of his hand, and then took off her shirt, knowing it wasn't the most.. ideal situation to be in, but she had sports bra on, and she had seen people around school with a lot less, specially in the common room. Using her shirt, she tore it into pieces and tied one around her middle, the one on her side that had burst looked like it was bleeding, and she didn't want to attract anything, and then she tied on around her forehead, hiding the one there from view, and then another around some of the ones on her legs, but she left the ones on her arms alone, she kept the bandages so that if one of them popped she could bandage it up, but until then, she kept them there, afraid to pop them herself. She stood up and pulled her robe back on over her sports bra before she tied the remaining bandages around her upper arm and took hold of his hand again, looking up at him and frowning before she looked ahead nervously.

Sam let out a semi-exasperated, semi-amused sigh as he started to push through the dense undergrowth of the forest, his eyes darting around the area that he could see being illuminated by his wand and really, really wishing that Rhys had kept a better hold of her wand.

Hearing her speak shone his wand on her, cringing as he saw the severity of the welts on her arm, gasping as the light reached a particularly nasty burn on her forearm. "Here, I'm so sorry," he exclaimed, slapping his forehead before plunging his hands into his pockets, rummaging about for a few second before letting out a cry of happiness and pulling out a small bottle.

"You know, after the battle last year I was pretty cut up. A healer arrived on the scene after a few hours and began to help us all out. The pain which had been killing me for the last few hours disappeared with just a few drops from this little bottle here," he said, "I mean, a bottle that contained this stuff. I didn't nick the guy's bottle," he explained, a hint of amusement carrying through his voice.

"It's called essence of dittany, and it has some really great healing powers. If I may," he said, not bothering to wait for answer before he uncorked it, conjured a small water dropper and started to let a few drops fall onto each welt, each of them healing over as he worked on them. "Better?" He asked, pausing midway through to make sure he wasn't wasting good dittany.

Rhys hissed in pain when he dripped the potion on her arm and watched as the skin healed over it, but it was like the whole area was being put under plastic, it felt stretched and sore. "I don't know.. it doesn't hurt as bad but... it's weird." She whispered, staring at him, holding up her arm, which was getting red and something seemed to be building up inside it, as though it had just been restung, and the welt appeared again. "Oh Merlin." she whispered, staring at it, as the area turned into a new welt completely, unbroken, but there. "You've got to be kidding me.." She whispered and then sighed. "It's fine.. just keep going okay.. I'm fine.." She stood up and smiled at him, taking hold of his hand again and moving forward. She felt kinda.. exposed without a shirt on, seeing as her cloak didn't connect in the front, it basically covered her back and shoulders, and her entire front was open.

"Damn it's cold.." She whispered, shivering and moving closer to Sam. She wasn't trying anything, honestly, she was just so cold. It wasn't until that moment that she realized she could see her breath, and she flung her arm out. "Something is wrong.." She whispered, staring at him and frowning. "It's cold... really cold..." she watched his breath puff up around his lips, and her gaze was drawn to them, seeing them move, and how soft they looked. She forced her mind elsewhere though, and looked up at the trees, seeing frost on the leaves. "Keep walking...." She whispered, looking around for any sign of a new tree. She saw a slight glow ahead and grinned. "Over there!! See the glow!" she gasped and hurried up, her robe blowing open completely and not caring as she pushed her way to the tree, branches grabbing at her skin and tearing it, but she acted as though she couldn't feel the cuts.

Sam cursed to himself as the welts began to reappear all over Rhys' body, coming back just as mean and angry looking as they had been before he'd applied the dittany, if not a little bit more red and painful, judging by the looks of it.

"Sorry," he muttered, a horrified look crossing his face - he simply loathed the thought of causing her pain, and he couldn't help feel a little guilty for the pain she was in now. "Come on, you're right, we're nearly there," he agreed, pocketing the bottle once more and setting off with her towards... well, wherever they were going.

Soon though the temperature was dropping - it probably just signified just how deep into the forest they'd gone, deeper perhaps than any other student had been before. It was common knowledge that most students pushed their way out as soon as possible, rather than trying to head in deeper.

"Let me think of something," he told her as they made the walk, finally spotting the faint glow of yet another tree. "Yes," he cried out, falling behind her as she shot off ahead, following close on her heels one their way to the gold. "You should've let me go first," he said, noting the fresh scratches that had appeared all over her.

"Ummm," he looked thoughfully around the clearing, "I know," he finally said. "Here," he said, dropping his robes and pulling his jumper off, tossing it into a pile on top of his robes before pulling his own shirt off his back. "Here, my jumper is loose on me - mum thinks I need to buy clothes to grow into," he said, rolling his eyes and grinning. "But the shirt is a bit older, it'll be tighter and should warm you up a little," he suggested, tapping the shirt with his wand before tossing it over to her so it'd be warm, and a little cleaner (Oh the sweat one could produce running through the forest) when she put it on.

As she did so, to avoid the awkwardness of watching her dress herself, he pulled his jumper of his head, covering his eyes for a few seconds before tugging it into his place along with his robes.

"Come on," he said, walking forward and touching the tree.

Rhys smiled at him when he gave her his shirt. "Thank you.." she whispered, pulling off her robes and pulling his shirt over her head. She couldn't help it though, she pulled it over her head, and pretended to lose the arm hole for as long as she thought decent, in order to inhale the wonderful scent of Sam. She still couldn't get over how good he smelt! It was such a familiar scent too. Finally she got the arms figured out, and pulled his shirt over her head, then pulled her robes back on and shivered as she pulled the arms into the sleeves slightly and smiled at him. "Thank you so much.. so much nicer then going shirtless." She said laughing lightly.

She touched the tree at the same time as him and grinned, listening as Felix announced the number of tree they were on. But this time, the voice went on past that.

"I think it's time we switch it up a bit... It seems this is getting to easy for you.. so here's the deal.. you now have to work against each other.. say goodbye now.. it's a race to the finish.. whoever finishes first... will get to choose which of their family will get tortured... I will give you five minutes to seperate.. have a good night."

The voice faded out, and Rhys couldn't help but turn and stare at Sam. "Work against each other.." she whispered, tears springing to her eyes, and before she could help it, she was pressed against his chest, hugging him as tight as she could.