Trigger Warning: another close call with death.

Roman's P.O.V.
It was just a bit before ten in the morning, and Virgil and I had just arrived at the base of an incredibly short yet extremely wide mountain I presumed to hold the Dragon Witch's lair. I got off my horse—a beautiful white gelding named Arion—and pulled out a rope with a grappling hook attached to it from a bag that was hung from the saddle.

I fumbled with it a bit, as it had been tied in an uncanny knot. When it was untangled I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a notebook in my face, held up by Virgil, who had just gotten off the horse.

"Are you seriously about to make me climb up that mountain with that?" I read aloud. "Virgil, there's no other way. We can't teleport within the Imagination for any other means than leaving, so trying to teleport up that mountain is as useless as trying to take away Logan's Crofters." Virgil snickered, and I could practically see the sarcastic remarks in his head that I knew he so desperately wanted to say.

"Besides, this isn't my first time mountain climbing. We'll go just a bit at a time, and I'll go first so I can help you up." I tried to sound reassuring, but I know that to him it probably just sounded like me bragging about my abilities.

Virgil's P.O.V.
While I stuffed my notebook and pen back in a satchel I brought with me, Roman threw the grappling hook at the mountain as I stared in shock. He then, seemingly effortlessly, climbed up the rope.

"You know, those magical powers of yours saved your life yesterday," Roman yelled to me. "You could try to carry yourself up the mountain like that." I nodded, feeling a bit calmer with the idea that I didn't have to scale a mountain with no other support than a poorly secured rope. So, hoping and praying it would work, I concentrated my every thought on lifting myself up the mountain. I must have stood there for a whole minute, muscles clenched and eyes shut tight.

"Ok, you know what, just climb the rope." Roman said with a sigh. "Actually, don't even climb it, just hold it and I'll pull you up." The idea seemed unrealistic and stupid, but then I remembered we were in the Imagination and he had super powers and all. So, I shrugged and sighed and grabbed the rope with my iron grip. Suddenly I was jerked upward, and a few seconds later I saw Roman's hand extended out to me. I took it and he pulled me over the rocky ledge.

"Great!" Roman said enthusiastically. "Now we just have to do that about.. five to six more times."

~time skip~

We climbed up that blasphemous mountain inch by inch. Though, with Roman's super strength, it was very quick. Also, after the simplicity and quickness of the first one, I was far more content.

Finally the last pull drew near. I gripped the rope once more, and Roman pulled it; this time with much more difficulty, as his arms were growing very tired. I reached the ledge and dared to look down. The ground seemed miles away and the rocky mountain side seemed more jagged. I quickly looked back up at Roman, who was just a few inches away. Glancing from his face to the rope in his hands, sheer terror shot through me; the friction of the rope rubbing against various rocks had caused it to fray. Before I could warn Roman of the impending doom, he gave one small tug and snapped the rope.

I thought surely I was about to die, that I was about to plummet however far down and shatter every bone and crush every organ in my body. But I didn't. I looked up again and there was Roman, clutching my right hand tightly with his left and holding a rock to keep himself from falling with his right.

"I gotcha, Virgil, you're ok." Roman reassured me, his voice shaky from the effort of holding me up. "You know, this'd be a great time for your powers to work." I nodded fearfully, squeezing my eyes shut and focusing my every thought once more on trying to use my powers. Then suddenly, from behind my eyelids, a purple glow shone through. I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by the same purple mist as the day before. It carried me up onto the the rocky ledge next to Roman and faded away.

"You, you did it!" Roman yelled. I barely heard what he said, however, as I was feeling the first parts of an anxiety attack set in.

"Hey, hey, you're ok, Virgil, you're fine!" He ran over to me and pulled me into an embrace.

"What do you want me to do, how can I help you?"

Roman's P.O.V.
Virgil said nothing. I wanted so badly to sing him into tranquility, but seeing as we were still under the curse I had to give up on that quickly. A thought came to mind a moment later, so I tried it.

I began to softly hum Once Upon A Dream, the first song that came to mind. Immediately Virgil seemed to calm down, his breathing becoming steadier. When the song was finished, he pulled away and sighed, mouthing an embarrassed 'thank you.' We stood and looked around, a certain feature making me gasp. A large gaping hole, one big enough to fit a Dragon Witch, was carved into the mountain right behind us.

"You ready to search it?" I asked him. He nodded, and we entered slowly.

The lair was very different than I thought it would be. There was only a large, open space with nothing in it, and on the far wall was a door, fit for the average human being. So me and Virgil curiously entered, and I gawked at the room before us. There was a large bookshelf, what appeared to be a fire pit, hundreds of lit candles spread out across the room, some cooking utensils, and a makeshift bed—all of it fit for someone my size. How the Dragon Witch lived there was a complete and total mystery to me at the time.

A confused sounding noise came from Virgil, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing as me by the look on his face. He then gestured to the bookshelf, so we began our search through every book on it.

Virgil's P.O.V.
I couldn't help but feel like something was wrong there. There were things in that lair that would be of no use to a Dragon Witch, things that weren't even as big as one single scale. But that wasn't the only thing giving me a bad feeling about that place; I felt like me and Roman weren't alone.

Still, I tried to push the eerie feelings away and focus on searching the books. I was certain that one of the hundred books on that shelf would have something about a counter curse or a reversal spell, something along those lines. I started with a book called The Effects Of Different Herbs When Used For Magical Purposes. After thirty minutes of flipping through pages, the book proved to be useless to our cause.

More and more useless books piled up: Magical Cures, Common Enchantments, Mischief Making Hexes And Jinxes, and so many more. No matter how promising the title may have seemed, no matter the size of the book, they all turned up to be a waste of time. I glanced over at Roman's stack, which was about twice as large as mine and untidy.

A sudden noise from behind me turned the attention of both of us away from the books. There was nobody and nothing there other than my neatly stacked pile. Not a single book had fallen or been out of place at all, making me wonder what the noise was. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw something black move into a shadow where it couldn't be seen. Roman appeared to have seen it too, as he drew his sword and stood.

"Virgil," he whispered sternly. "We need to go, now." I stood and ran to his side. We both cautiously made our way out of the lair without seeing or hearing anything else. But as we reached the daylight once more a thought occurred to me; how in the world are we getting down this mountain? Roman, as though he could hear my thoughts, said the answer out loud.

"Alright, looks like we're gonna have to jump. I would've done this on the way up, but there was no certainty if there was a safe spot to land." He sighed pleasantly and told me to hold on tight. Then he picked me up bridal-style and jumped off the rocky mountain ledge.

I yelled as I wrapped my arms around his neck and the ground grew closer and closer. Then, just like what had happened about a day earlier, we began to slow down to a stop in midair.

"Virgil!" Roman yelled. "We would have survived the jump because of my powers, you didn't have to do that!" I looked down, seeing that Roman was standing on top of what looked like a purple cloud. He put me down with a pout as the 'cloud' carried us gently to the ground.

"Thanks." Roman said in a very forced manner. "I think it's about time we leave. Whatever is in that lair could easily follow us out." He grabbed my forearm and teleported us to the living room of our house. Immediately, Logan poked his head out of the kitchen.

"Ah, you're back." he said. "Did you find something to break the curse?" Both me and Roman shook our heads sadly as Patton excitedly ran into the room.

"Oh my gosh I missed you guys so much!" he yelled, pulling us into a big hug.

"Patton, you're crushing us." Roman said. Patton pulled away and stepped back but continued to smile widely.

"You two were starting to scare me; you'd been gone for over twenty-four hours in a row!" I nodded dismissively as Logan walked over to us.

"Well, I had something prepared for you two in case you didn't find anything that could help." He waved for us three to follow him, so we did. He lead us into the kitchen, where there was a very small pot on the stove. The three of us leaned over it curiously and carefully to see a pink liquid boiling inside.