#actually had to search up the last two because I was unfamiliar they had Lore

[bad-regretevator-confessions]

glevil and boots kiss i think yeah and timmy is the kid yeah i think i think that pretty cool

.

[legends-live-in-memories]

“How Did All This Happen?”- A Memoire by one Marinette Dupain-Cheng 5

hi. im back. after slightly longer than usual (my usual was like everyday, not happening again) i have returned. :) this update is also slightly longer than usual too but who complains about that?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6

without further ado

Did Marinette Miss Her Own Wedding? I

Constantine was having a horrible time, as far as Marinette could tell. His phone kept ringing, which he was pointedly ignoring, and he looked more and more frustrated as he skimmed through one of his many grimoires. He was also very sober. Maybe that had something to do with it.

After Marinette’s little excursion out with Plagg the previous night, Constantine joined her and her grandfather and explained the lore behind the Renlings and what they were capable of. Marinette was already over it. It’s one thing to be magical guardians of one set magical gods, but animal spirits that transform the wielder into the respective animal is borderline ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. And Constantine wants her to find them. Why not the Justice League? Or their team of proteges? Well, apparently, Constantine has a healthy distrust of the Justice League and magic they are unfamiliar with. Something about a mystical house no longer existing because somebody was suspicious. They fucked around and found out, as Plagg so eloquently put it. She didn’t know how she felt about aiding Constantine in his paranoia.

Anyways, Marinette was now Constantine’s go-to whenever he wanted to keep things away from the JL. She would have said no like a reasonable person, but she was at least getting more magical training and could actually use some of the spells in the Miraculous grimoire. Speaking of which, the grimoire that Constantine was hunching over was supposed to help them in finding the other Prodigiouses. The Kwamis were surprisingly unhelpful as they have never heard of the Prodigiouses or Renlings. 

After what could have been hours of grueling translating and spellwork, Constantine had finally figured out the location of the eight total Renlings and what their prodigiouses looked like. While Marinette and Master Fu began scheming appropriate retrieval plans, Constantine went to answer his many missed calls.

“What?!” Well that sounded concerning. Constantine looked ready to pull his hair out from scalp with tweezers. Whatever news he just received must have been awful for him to lose his composure like this. Good.

“You lot are planning to do what now?” Oh, was this JL business? Should Marinette be listening to this, albeit one-sided, conversation?

“And why do you all need to do this?” 

“Don’t give me that attitude. I’m working on something important.”

“Yes it is important, Zatanna. Please don’t let that group of League Juniors do this.”

“You even got me saying ‘please.’ No I can not tell you why”

“Well what do you mean you can’t trust me?!” This was starting to sound serious. The popcorn that Wayzz brought was also making this ten times more entertaining. 

“Zatanna-” Oh he got cut off. Serves him right.

“Fine, be that way.” Constantine forcefully ended the call and was pouting like a child. 

Marinette didn’t know if she should ask anything but she had the feeling it was related to the prodigiouses and tracking them. Were the League getting involved? It would explain his desperation to not have them interfere. 

“I can’t believe them.” Looks like Marinette didn’t have to make the decision after all. He was going to rant about it.

“What can’t you believe, Constantine?” Her grandfather appeared equally as curious.

“The Team are going to try and track down the prodigiouses. Luckily, they only think there are five rather than eight.” He paused to run his hands through his already disheveled hair. “I don’t know which five they’re tracking. Also, they probably know you have the Snake’s Fang.”

“Pardon?” Marinette doesn’t know what she would do if she was on the Justice League’s most wanted.

“Zatanna didn’t outright say it, but Kobra probably told them it was taken from him. That’s probably how they knew about the others too. Thanks for that.”

“First of all, I didn’t even know what these things were so don’t blame me. Second of all, this could have all been avoided if you just told them!” Marinette did not appreciate the blame being put on her for the League’s involvement. She wasn’t done ripping Constantine a new one yet either. “Especially considering the fact that you knew that their secondary team had a mission there. UN rules or not. But no! You wanted to keep all your magical secrets to yourself. So don’t blame me for the consequences of your own actions.” She was fuming at this point, probably overreacting, but she was tired of cleaning up after people who won’t so much as thank her. 

The ensuing silence was deafening and eyes that weren’t on Marinette were on Constantine. He looked rather surprised at Marinette’s show of spine, probably forgetting that she was born and raised in the League of Shadows. He never will again if he keeps pushing his luck. 

Fu cleared his throat, probably clogged from the awkward tension. “Well, now that that’s all dealt with, do you know what your next move is Constantine? Do we actively hinder the League for the sake of your own peace of mind or do you talk to them and work collaboratively with them?” 

Constantine, who was still doing his best fish impersonation since Marinette—no, Mei Fu—dragged him for everything he’s worth, tried to string together an answer. 

“I still think it’s best we don’t involve the Justice League with this. We should try to intervene and cut off their attempts of retrieving the prodigiouses.” He sounded like a child trying to convince their parents that they didn’t break the expensive vase. Very pitiful and very unconvincing. 

“Fine.” Pardon? Did her grandfather just agree? “We’ll help you keep the prodigiouses and the Renlings away from the Justice League.” Wow. Okay. So he’s just agreeing with him. Three guesses as to who will actually be the one to retrieve them. Wonderful.

Groaning with the weight of a thousand suns, Marinette also voiced her consent. The Kwamis were silent throughout this, not expressing their opinions. Except for Trixx, who had periodically rolled his eyes so hard Marinette would have been concerned he had popped a few blood vessels, if he had any. 

They spent the rest of the week planning and convincing her parents that she wasn’t in danger with her grandfather. They agreed that Marinette would retrieve the Dragon’s Claw first. Despite Brazil being closer, the Monkey’s tail would be harder to find in the dense forestry so they didn’t want to waste time on an extended search until much later. 

If you were to ask Marinette, the week was not enough to prepare. She made arrangements to stay with the Tsurugi family and convinced Kagami to help her in the mission. Her mother would be providing them with non-miraculous weapons as a back-up. Lady Tomoe was too understanding of her daughter being a magic-wielding superhero in Marinette’s opinion. Not one to look a gifted horse in the mouth, Marinette did not make any comments about the very impressive artillery of weapons. She chose a pair of double broadswords while Kagami stuck to a katana. Kagami also had the Dragon and the Ladybug prepared while Marinette stuck to the Tiger and Horse. Plagg didn’t want to miss out on the action and planned to tag along again. Wayzz made an off-handed comment about Plagg’s sixth sense for chaos and his recent desire to accompany Marinette on these missions. Overthinking whatever that was supposed to mean had cost Marinette six hours of sleep. 

While everything had been physically prepared, Marinette had yet to cope with the whole ‘going behind the backs of the Justice League because Constantine was paranoid’ thing. But this will not be the worst thing she has done. She also has the godsend, Kagami, to pull her out of any impending mental spirals. Now all that’s left is to actually get the Dragon’s Claw.

According to Constantine, the Dragon’s Claw was located inside the dojo of a martial arts master, O Sensei. Kagami, to be referred to as Tonbo, meaning Dragonfly, was to guard the perimeter for any individuals who could get in the way, while Marinette, codenamed Tigerlily with this combination of miraculouses, was to find the Dragon’s Claw, camouflaged by the tiger miraculous, and teleport them both back out. It was simple enough in planning and should be simple enough in execution. Even if the sensei of the dojo was to be made aware of their presence, They were expecting the element of surprise to give them an advantage. You know, outside of Marinette’s assassin training. So, yeah the plan was simple.

Except for the part where a group of the young Justice League heroes were already there negotiating with whom she assumed was O sensei. She recognized Kid Flash, Robin and Nightwing. The two women with them were unfamiliar. She also found the Dragon’s Claw in the sensei’s hand. She was positioned on a tree branch looking into a window in the room. If she timed this right, she could grab the necklace and portal out of the room to Tonbo and then portal back to the Tsurugi residence. That plan carries the risk of being seen but the pay-off should be worth it.

Poised to leap from the branch, Tigerlily steadied her breathing and prepared to call on the Horse’s Voyage. Still camouflaged, she jumped through the window and summoned the portal, about to grab for the necklace. Except she grabbed nothing and was suspended in the air. 

Who she knew now was Ms. Martian was using her telekinetic abilities to suspend her. Kid Flash sped his way over and quickly tied her, the contact breaking the camouflage charm. They must have figured she would appear at one of the locations eventually and planned a contingency plan for her appearance. The martian hasn’t read her mind yet, so maybe they thought she was non-hostile. That thought wouldn’t last long however as Tonbo emerged from the portal and, using the Flame Dragon, took down Ms. Martian. Tigerlily used the distraction to undo the bindings and get in a fighting stance. Nightwing and Robin were protecting O sensei while Kid Flash and the other woman charged at the two. 

Kid Flash was circling the two faster and tighter, corralling them together. Tigerlily drew for her broadswords and slashed the old floor boards. Kicking them in Kid Flash’s path, she knocked him off balance and thumped him the back of the head with the butt of her blade, knocking him down. Tonbo called for her Storm Dragon to subdue her opponent, who was also knocked down, then strung up both with the Ladybug yoyo. Tigerlily began a steady approach to the two batboys. She was ready to attack first but Nightwing got the upper hand. He drew his escrima sticks and swiped for Tigerlily’s head. She blocked with one sword and jump kicked to his chest, missing him entirely as he had crouched to sweep her legs from underneath her. Rolling out of the fall, Tigerlily slashed for his rising back but he intercepted with his other stick. He turned to face her and barrelled his full strength into her. They crashed into the nearby wall and at a standstill.

Tonbo was caught in a clash of katanas with Robin, neither side giving way to the other. If Tigerlily was more conscious of their fight than her own, she would have noticed familiar fighting techniques that were ingrained in her since birth. Alas, her attention was on the blue bird in front of her. Using his force that kept her against the wall, She double kicked him in the chest, forcing him away. Robin and Tonbo had broken away from each other and Tonbo aimed to stab Nightwing in the leg. Nonfatally of course, she wasn’t an ex-assassin as far as Tigerlily knew. Right? 

Anyways, her attack switched up the fight as now Tigerlily tried to dodge under Robin's incoming blade. Sliding on her knees, she reached to where O sensei was situated with the Dragon’s Claw. Frustrated with the night’s turn of events and forgetting all sense of pleasantries, Tigerlily tried to grab for the necklace. The business end of a katana was swiftly placed under her jaw. One wrong move meant game over.

“What do you want with the Dragon’s Claw?” Robin sounded like he was holding back from saying something. 

“An acquaintance of mine wishes for you all to not have it. I am merely doing him a favor, Tweety Bird.” Where did that nickname come from? She must have been internally catastrophizing more than she thought she was if she was actually trying to flirt her way out of this. Tonbo’s exasperation was made loud and clear with that answering sigh.

“Flattery gets you nowhere, Mei.” Robin’s arm twitched at that.

“Wait, you know her?” “You know him?” Nightwing’s and Tonbo’s voices overlapped but Tigerlily registered none of it as her ears were ringing with spiked emotions she thought she had buried years ago. Only a few people knew her by that name. Kagami, Chloe, Luka and Adrien were the only people outside of the League of Shadows who knew her by that name. Even then, there was only one person her age with the Shadows who knew her. But it couldn’t be him. He was supposed to be dead. There was no way in hell that the Boy Wonder holding a katana to her throat was—

“Damian?!”

Taglist:

@deathwishy @neakco @virtualreading @f-rget-lt @your-resident-chicken-nugget @nathleigh @toodaloo-kangaroo @irontimetravelflower @trippingovermyfeet @t1dwarrior-of-earth @tip-tap-tired @fidget-eep @thenillabean @officiallydarkgeek @mystery-5-5 @moonlightstar64 @just-an-observer-ignore-me @nightstarblue @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @fan-written @jjmjjktth @vixen-uchiha @zorua-adorable @nnon-it-up 

[skeleton-richard]

A Fact About Me That Sounds Fake

But is true. I went to Dashcon.

Dashcon, for those unfamiliar, was the one attempt at a convention organized by and for tumblr users, much like a regular geek convention like Comic Con, just smaller and essentially limited to people on tumblr. At the time, early 2014, it didn’t sound as crazy as it does now, I swear. July 11th, 12th, and 13th, 2014. I was 19 and had just graduated high school. I was a nerdy autistic homeschooler who had made most of my friends through online fan communities, on tumblr and deviantArt. One of these friends was planning on going to Dashcon, since she was in Illinois at the time, and I ended up deciding to go as well. The previous year I’d gone to ChicagoTARDIS and it was a blast, so this would basically be the same thing. I lucked out that not only would my parents let me go, I would get to stay at the hotel hosting the convention by myself, they were getting a room at another hotel. I had never been away from my parents for more than sleepovers and I’d never been entirely on my own. I was going to go to college that fall, but I would be living at home, so this was my one chance to experience that sort of thing. The convention… the convention has entered internet lore for how poorly it was managed and how some of the organizers were flat-out shit. I won’t waste time recounting it here – if you’re interested in the whole story, YouTuber Sarah Z has done a far better job than I could explaining what went down that week. The important parts to my story are 1) my friend and I would finally meet and we would on the last day cosplay as Cecil and Carlos from the science fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and 2) the actual Night Vale podcast would be doing a live show on Sunday. It was great getting to meet my friend M, who I’d known for a while now through our mutual interest in Doctor Who. In fact, we’d made a trade of our skills, she knitted the Fourth Doctor’s scarf for me and I sewed a replica of a particular jacket from the Third Doctor. Oh yeah, I used to sew. Anyway. The insanity on the first day, Friday, happened. No, I didn’t give them any money (Please, if you don’t know what I mean, watch the video I linked above, its explanation is the best I’ve seen). The next day was way better, though. I got to meet my fellow Hoosier Doug Jones, the modern Man of a Thousand Faces, who played Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies. Doug is 6’ 4" and one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. I told him about an essay I’d written for school about the Christian themes of the Hellboy comics, since I knew he’s a Christian like me, and he thought that was awesome.

Me meeting Doug Jones. I’m wearing my Eighth Doctor cosplay. My hair is not actually curly, it was a perm. My hair does not perm well. Then Sunday, the last day of the convention, Welcome to Night Vale was scheduled to do a live show, which cost extra. In the end, they walked because the con refused to pay them. I don’t blame them, honestly, but it was a little disappointing. Until someone had the idea to have a fan panel. They had several Cecil cosplayers and they asked if there was a Carlos, and my friend told me to go up and be on the panel, which she joined too. I have massive anxiety issues and I don’t like being the center of attention or even having multiple people looking at me. I’m always nervous when I have to go in front of people, but I gathered my courage and sat at a big table in front of a lot of people and talked. We answered audience questions in character, which was very fun, especially when an audience member asked me as Carlos how I escaped from the desert otherworld he was at the time trapped in. I had one of my rare moments of quick thinking and said “Have you ever heard of a man called the Doctor?” The assembled geeks, with many Whovians among them, cheered my response. It sounds conceited to say that, but they applauded and I knew I’d made someone– lots of someones– happy. That’s the best feeling in the world. Then we decided to do our own show,  and we chose “Old Oak Doors Part A,” which had been released the month prior. It’s a great episode, the beginning of the end for Strexcorp, and in its original form was a live show. Sharing iPhones and tablets to read a transcript online, we recreated it. My friend M played Intern Dana, I playing Carlos. There’s a part where Dana calls Carlos a hero, to which Carlos replies “I’m not a hero. I’m a scientist.” I read that line and the audience went insane. It was my finest moment. Dana’s next line was “Then scientist will always be my word for hero.” The audience exploded again and to this day I marvel at how a short exchange between two characters had such an impact on those listening. This panel and reading are, as much as I can recall, the first time I’d ever really had people applauding something I’d done on my own rather than as part of something else, like plays at church. And what made it even better is that it was something I would never have thought I would do. The convention was a disaster and many things could have gone better, and I still feel sorry we didn’t get to do some of the things we’d planned. But the good things that happened were worth it, to me. I listen to WTNV while doing chores and every year I start from the beginning again, and when I get to “Old Oak Doors,” I’m reminded of the spontaneous reading and my Big Line and how I’d faced a ton of fears that weekend and come out making others laugh. There is, as far as I know, no recording of that panel and reading online. I’ve searched YouTube and googled it but nothing has turned up. If anyone ever comes across it, I’d love to see it again. I’m also looking for pictures that were taken that I know were on my old blog at some point, in the hopes that I got them to my current blog before I deleted the old one. But even if I never find those pictures I have the memories. And a line that reminds me that I may not be a hero, but I still am what I work on being.

(I was originally going to post this on my Dreamwidth, but it was too big. Wow.)

[rawrroarart]

Diakko!Odyssey AU

Most recent update: 8/28/2020 I added the comic of them meeting and also wrote a little snippet under the Diakko section

Welcome all. This post will officially be my master post of the Odyssey AU which will be updated as time moves forward so that I can link all of my related art to it. Yes I will not be posting multiple separate Updates in text posts how it’s traditionally done, but instead there will be information with each art and then a link back to this post. This is to avoid clutter since I hardly post on this blog anyway so it wouldn’t be fun having to scroll through all of my “OH ALSO THIS HAPPENS!” to get to art. Also I keep changing my mind on a lot of things in the AU so disregard information under the arts anyway as I will be posting here what is actually relevant.

Another key thing: I will be avoiding spoilers as much as possible until they are either shown in art or stated explicitly like I do in posts because I am the absolute worst at surprises. But anyway fear not for spoilers. Things said here are things that should be hinted at/known already. (and also I hardly know anything but maybe I will in due time)

Without further ado..

Introduction

What is the Odyssey AU?

The odyssey au is an alternative universe combining both Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Little Witch Academia into this (very random) adventuring story that takes place in ancient Greece. I guess I can’t say that it’s random since one of my favorite things about both ACO and LWA is the ties/references to mythology with the former obviously more rooted in the mythology and the latter just fun easter egg references. 

The general premise is that Diana is a misthios(mercenary) who travels with Akko, a shapeshifter, across Greece to find the answers pertaining to her origin.

The first art post: Diana and Akkoros

While living her life as a misthios, Diana searches for the answers pertaining to her origin and superhuman (described as “magical”) abilities along with Shapeshifter Atsuko, who commonly uses her powers for flight, but is not shy to switch to animals more suited for combat.

But I don’t know what Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is?

That’s fair and understandable. Honestly my AU diverges a lot from the game so I don’t think knowledge of ACO is exactly necessary it’s just fun to understand the connections if you know them. Basically the key things you need to know from ACO as of now is: 

Kassandra (the protag) is known as the Eagle Bearer because she has an eagle that is known as the “eagle of Zeus” throughout the game. And they adventure together and Ikaros (the eagle) can hunt n kill things and See things and tbh he’s rly just a cool eagle but not a shapeshifter or anything lol

Kassandra is a Mercenary (misthios) which is basically a for Hire fighter/person who will p much do anything for money (if they want to do it) 

Kassandra is usually referred to a demi-god because of her powerful fighting abilities in which I mean yea she literally has powers and can blast people like a billion miles away (im jk but-)

Kassandra can tame animals (which ones depending on your skill level). You can tame uhh wolves, lynx, leopards, lions, bears. This is where my ‘shapeshifter’ idea began and it pretty much fit perfectly since Akko’s favorite spell is the shapeshifting one. 

Other than this, the most important things to know for this AU is just,, general mythology,, I guess? Or history? General history of mythology and how people worshipped/acted in accordance to the gods. And I’m not saying im going to be historically accurate obviously, nor even mythologically accurate (if that’s even a thing lol), I’m just here to have a good time and enjoy my gay mercenaries while talking about gods/goddesses as if I even know (thankfully I have my gf who is way more interested in mythology than me to help me)

I’ve only played like half of the Atlantis DLC after beating the game so whoopsie. I honestly really wanna replay everything now that I have this AU just so I can focus more on details and what I can yoink.

Characters

Diana

Art: 

Diana’s sketch-dump though she really needs a new one.

Diana in wheat field

Diana is the main protagonist of the story, but they pretty much both share the spotlight anyway. Her goal is to find out why she has certain powers (which I have officially decided, finally...) that aren’t exactly human. Since being a misthios was an easy way for her to travel and make drachmae, she chooses to do it while on their journey. Dammit I came up with her lore but as per the rules of this masterpost I can’t write about it until it’s out smh.. Ah I forgot that I already spilled that she is a goddess/demi-goddess (haven’t decided which yet) so yea that’s the Tea.

Described as very beautiful, there are rumors of her that state she is a pathway to Elysium (despite many people not deserving to go to Elysium). She is also known for her stoic face and a red bird that follows her around.

Diana is only found smiling with Akko and keeps buying Akko clothes despite her outer grievances each time Akko destroys something.

Diana was there with her mother at Chariot’s speech/performance.

Diana is skilled with any weapon.

Akko

Art:

Akko sketch-dump

Akko is a shapeshifter who travels with Diana across Greece in search for her idolized Chariot. Trusting both Diana’s skills and powers, Akko decides that Diana is the best choice to help achieve her goal as they adventure together.

Orphaned at a young age, Akko is, at first, very unfamiliar with how exactly to use her powers because there was no one around to teach her. She uses a bird most often because it is her first and most skilled transformation, but eventually learns to use stronger animals over time. Also eagle-vision is much more useful to Diana when they’re scoping the grounds anyway.

Like all shapeshifters, Akko has a symbol on her neck that signifies what she is. Due to the high prejudice against shapeshifters, Akko stays an animal to avoid being known, and also does not transform in front of others unless to kill them. If she has to be a human, Akko commonly wears a hood to hide her neck. 

Akko is one of the last shapeshifters to exist, and, despite Chariot being rumored to have finally been murdered, she still believes Chariot is alive. 

Akko was with her parents when they all attended Chariot’s final speech/show and here began her dream.

Akko can use a dagger if she needs to.

Side-characters

Akko’s Parents: Shapeshifters who were murdered when Akko was a young age.

Chariot: A shapeshifter who somehow had a voice and power that even normal people listened to. Akko idolizes Chariot because, despite the hate against shapeshifters, Chariot was well known and was an activist for shapeshifters despite the danger upon her head. Chariot mysteriously disappears one day for reasons unknown, and everyone but Akko assumes she was finally murdered.

Shapeshifters

Shapeshifters are defined as humans who possess the ability to transform to any animal at will. Unfortunately, because animals were seen as less than human, shapeshifters were defined as “punished by the gods” and so many decided shapeshifters needed to be removed from the world for sin. This causes a massacre of shapeshifters to the point that they are instead a rarity.

Shapeshifters do not transform with their clothes, and so either destroy them or lose them depending on their transformation.

All shapeshifters have a symbol on their neck which is what is used to find them. They can also be found by their human personalities/characteristics when they are an animal. 

If weakened, shapeshifters return to their human form and cannot transform until they are stronger.

Diakko

Art:

Meeting (Comes with a 500 word story!)

Misthios!Diana and Shapeshifter!Akko Sketch-dump

Diana and Bear!Akko

Fancy Diakko (the first continuity error lol)

Diana and Akko adventure together and do all of their quests together as a rag-tag chaotic duo. God I’m so excited for this section I wish I could make art FASTER but anyway:

They meet at about 17 years old but the main story takes place when they are 18+

The two get off to a wrong start when Diana saves Akko’s life. Because Akko is a shapeshifter, she’s high in value to kill probably by some cult idk but there is always a bounty on her head. When Diana saves her, Akko assumes Diana only did so to steal the drachmae from the original perpetrators, but Diana really just leaves her alone afterwards. Confused, Akko legit just starts tagging along LMAO she finds Diana interesting and so follows her and Diana’s just like what the fuck but eventually she gets over it. They become powerful assets to each other as Diana can now scope the skies with Akko and Akko is pretty much protected under Diana. Then when Akko gets much stronger Diana gets extra manpower and protection too. 

Akko enjoys staying in her human form to spend time with Diana.

Diana keeps buying Akko clothes just because it makes Akko happy (and also, despite Akko uncaring because her transformations are so frequent anyway, Diana doesn’t want her to be naked??)

Diana is easily persuaded by Akko and puts Akko’s interests first (feeds her first, considers what Akko would want, etc.)

[bcbdrums]

Stone House, Forest of Oak

AO3 link --> https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158797

FFn link --> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13583219/1/Stone-House-Forest-of-Oak

(Regarding the links, pick your poison!)

A Drakgo Fantasy AU for @duckymoose because she cheered me up when I didn’t think I could be cheered.

I've never done fantasy before, and as I researched the specific lore I get into, sources I found were conflicting and even directly contradictory on facts. It appears that when it comes to fantasy, authors write whatever they need to make their story work. So...that's exactly what I did.

I repeat, this is a Fantasy AU.  Rated “M” for violence, dark themes, and mature themes.  Full story below the cut.

---------------------

Prologue

A stone house stood timeless in a small clearing on the shallow slope of a hill. The hill was the highest in the land, but the house was concealed by trees that peppered the sides of that hill and others, as far as the eye could see. Oak and ash, beech and elm, and so many others grew wild over the land that was largely untamed.

But years passed on the Earth, and the years brought change.

Towns would spring up in the fertile valleys between the hills, but they either remained small or were quickly abandoned, once their people learned of the horror that lived in the stone house. But the knowledge never went far in the wild land, and so centuries would pass with town after town rising and falling, their peoples fleeing or falling prey to the dark terror from atop the hill.

New centuries brought new ideas. And in the present day, whenever the people built their towns they would cut the trees. Gone were brick and stone and sod, as logs and timber took their place. Timber for their houses and furniture, timber for their wagons and the boats that sailed the river. The once-lush hills became sparse. And as the need for lumber grew, the number of woodsmen increased, and the clearing of the forests on the hills happened ever faster. The natural beauty of the land was slowly destroyed, and the forests dwindled to thin groves of no use or enjoyment to anyone.

But on the shallow slope of the hill the stone house remained, because no one ever dared to go near enough to cut the trees that surrounded it. For fear of their lives they stayed away, and would only whisper among themselves of the horror that lived there.

Those that knew and endured made their peace with it, knowing that any day they would either live or die. The three closest towns formed a dark agreement, that to protect that which they loved most they would sacrifice the weak. And in that cycle the three towns were sustained and grew, never losing respect for the terror of the stone house.

Over time their people prospered, and their populace grew. And the numbers of the trees grew ever less.

---------------------

Shego's chest ached for breath as she ran through the grove of trees, her pursuers closing in fast. Each time she glanced back their torches grew nearer, and her step grew slower. But she had to keep going, as far away as possible even if it meant her life. She couldn't betray her home to them, her beloved and wise old oak.

Even under the cover of night and with her silent steps, the dryad's pursuers never faltered. They had tracked her for years, memorizing her paths and patterns, driving her further and further away from her home, until that night they had finally cornered her as she took her human-form to cross the river. But cross she had not, because it would lead back to the one place she could never let them find.

She wouldn't let them near her home as long as she had breath. She would be a willing sacrifice for her oak and had nearly already been on many, many occasions. She could still feel the agony of the woodsmen's blades from the times they had caught her in the past, and her arm was bleeding sap from the axes that had glanced her that night. But the idea of her own death, as terrifying as it was, wasn't nearly as horrible as would be the death of her oak.

So she ran.

She must have been running for an hour that time as her pursuers refused to relent. Her human form, unused to such rigors, was giving out. She had been struggling to find real cover on the ancient hillside, so sparse with trees due to the humans' interference. But in the distance down the other side of the hill she could see the tall towers of beech and elm that would be her salvation. If she could only hide herself, take her true form...

The men would search for awhile, as they always did, but then they would give up. And she would spend yet another day trying to get back home.

She darted around a small, straight row of ash saplings, her heart feeling as though it might burst, when she stopped suddenly. Between her and her destination was a stone house. And standing in front of it was a man, holding a spade in one hand and an oil lamp in the other.

Shego's head began to swim. She couldn't get to the trees without the man seeing her. And what if he was as bad as the others?

As she caught her breath and calculated her next move, she realized the man was tending a flower garden. A dirt path led away from the door of the house, and on either side were two small ponds with blooming water lilies. Standing above each pond were four trained angel's trumpets, their trunks growing against tall pillars of stone and their branches weaving into natural arbors along wrought iron bars above the ponds.

The man had leaned his spade against the house and was kneeling to tend some night orchids that grew by his door. Shego took a longer look at the stone house, far older than her hundred years. It was covered in climbing vines of white moonflowers, and the path that led away from the door was lined with beautiful evening primrose. Lush grass and purple verbena covered the ground everywhere around the ponds, and at the end of the path was a wrought iron trellis, also adorned with moonflowers. The roof of the house was sod, with green grass peeking through the vines.

Of greatest interest to Shego were the scattered dark manzanita trees that grew in between where she stood and the beautiful garden of night flowers in front of the house. She realized then that the even row of saplings she had passed weren't wild and had been planted, probably by the man of the stone house.

A shout from behind her caused her breath to catch, and the man looked up with a furrowed brow. Seeing his obvious care for growing things, she took a risk and darted towards the closest manzanita tree. She ran past it until she reached an ideal spot and then stood firm as she shifted into her oaken form, nothing more than a tree to any eye of man or beast that may light upon her. And to her relief, she didn't think the man of the house had noticed her.

Her pursuers suddenly appeared over the crest of the hill and from behind the last safety of old elms she had left, their torches high and blazing in the dark night. She held as still as possible, but the exhaustion of her human form was overwhelming her. She worried she wouldn't be able to stand for long. And while the manzanita was a blessing, it wasn't enough cover; she was the only oak near the house.

The shouting and the fiery glow drew nearer. Terror ripped through her aching heart as she saw the dangerous light gleam on the woodsmen's axe-heads. And then, the man tending the flower garden stood and turned to face her pursuers, a perturbed look on his face.

The woodsmen suddenly halted their approach just as they reached the saplings, looking as though they'd seen a ghost.

"It's...it's him!" a man shouted, his eyes wild as he pointed.

"It's Drakken!"

Shego looked between the woodsmen and the gardener, who looked mildly annoyed at the most by the presence of the intruders. But then a small smirk came over the man's face. He took off his gardener's gloves and dropped them on the path and licked his lips.

The woodsmen turned and ran screaming back over the hill from whence they came.

Shego looked back to the gardener just in time to see him roll his eyes, and he knelt again and continued tending to his night orchid after replacing his gloves.

'Drakken?' she thought. Whoever he was...his garden of night flowers was beautiful.

That was her last thought before her strength gave out. She slipped from her oaken form back into a human and collapsed on the soft earth below.

---------------------

Drakken sighed and shook his head as he trimmed the dead leaves from his plant. Why on earth a mob would come to attack him and then leave in a terror before even getting within fifty yards of his door was beyond him. And why a mob would suddenly appear after so many years... All of the surrounding towns were used to him. They made their sacrifices to him, and for the most part he let them be. Their attack made no sense.

A soft thud caught his ear, and he turned in the direction of the sound, toward his manzanitas. An unfamiliar pale green...something, was on the ground beneath the farthest tree, and there was a small cascade of oak leaves falling to the ground around whatever it was.

His brow furrowed. There wasn't a single oak nearby.

He rose from his knee and lifted his oil lamp as he walked the dark path between the ponds and approached the green form at the edge of his land.

As he drew near his eyes began to widen and his jaw slackened at the sight before him. The green form on the ground was...a woman.

He halted his approach at about twenty feet as he realized she was naked, though most of her form was covered by her thick, dark hair. As she lay on the ground beneath the manzanita, surrounded by the mysterious oak leaves, he wondered...

Had that mob actually been after her?

"Hello?" he called loudly. "Madam?"

There was no sound or sign of life from the woman.

He gathered his courage and approached her, his heart pounding for fear of what he may find. But the fear began to be replaced by curiosity as he neared her side and he realized... Her skin, while pale, was most decidedly green. Not that that should bother him, as his own was a pale blue. But he'd never met a green-skinned person before.

"Madam?" he asked again as he stood over her.

She didn't respond.

He knelt and with his glove-clad hands carefully began turning her over. Her dark hair fell away from her face and his breath caught. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her long, dark eyelashes stood out against the pale green of her cheeks, and her lips were like the darkest wine.

His awe was interrupted as he dared to look below her neck, and he gasped not at the beauty of her womanly form but at what he saw marring it. Her skin was covered in scars, some shallow, some deep. There was a long, jagged scar almost straight across her midsection that looked to have been made with a saw. Another small succession of scars across her arm looked like they could have been done with his own pruning shears. And one deep, ugly scar across the swell of one breast looked to have been made with the careless throw of an axe.

He shook his head in disbelief as he looked at the beautiful woman, no part of her body save her face untouched by various blades. And two places on her right arm bled dark and slow as he allowed himself a closer look at her.

She had clearly been tortured for years, to have received so many horrendous scars. And she was so young—barely more than twenty, if he could guess. But what did he know anymore, at his advanced age...

"Madam? Madam?"

She still didn't respond.

Rage against that mob filled him, and he considered pursuing them right then and returning some of the torment they and those like them had clearly laid on the stunning woman. But her two bleeding wounds and her silence stayed his wrath for the time being.

He gathered her up in his arms and made to carry her into his house. After he tended to her and saw that she was well, perhaps learn of why she had been tortured for so many years... Then, the next night, he would avenge her.

Inside his stone house he laid her on his bed and began lighting his lamps. He couldn't remember the last time he lit his house so brightly, but he wanted to be sure he didn't miss any fresh wounds.

She was breathing, but had still made no sound or sign that she was aware of him. He worriedly filled a basin with water to clean her wounds and tore some strips of linen from an old shirt for bandages. He pulled a chair next to the bedside and turned up the lamp on the wall above before bringing the basin of water nearer.

In the bright lamplight, his breath caught again as he got a better look at her. Indeed, there wasn't a part of her body that hadn't been touched viciously by a blade, and the scars ran so much deeper than he had first thought. Captivated, he ran his fingers over deep gouges in her thigh that appeared to have been made by an axe.

Who would do such a thing? To mutilate such beauty and leave her alive, only to do it again and again? Because it was clear that the wounds had not all occurred in one or even a few incidents. What had been done to her had been done over a very, very long time.

He himself only tortured his victims when it was warranted. And after so many years on the Earth, he no longer took pleasure in it. Not even the weekly sacrifices the humans brought him. His life had become mundane, and futile. Only his flowers brought him joy anymore.

He dampened a washcloth in his hand and gently began running it over the slice in her upper arm that bled dark. The blood seemed to have dried and had something sticky mixed with it, as it took some effort to remove it. Once he had, he wrapped the wound with one of the linen strips and tied it tightly. He briefly wondered about infection, but thought that with having taken so many wounds in the past she must be impervious.

He moved on to clean the next wound and his eyes strayed to her face again. The symmetry of her features was almost unbelievable in its perfection, and with the pale green of her skin she had an almost ethereal quality to her. His eyes strayed to her dark hair, as soft as silk when it had brushed against his hands. And then he noticed... In the light her hair reflected an iridescent green, not purely black as he had first thought. There were even a few strands of crimson buried within.

He brought his hand up to stroke her hair as if mesmerized. The strands were impossibly thin but her hair was dense, cascading around her shoulders like wisteria. The texture reminded him of the most fragile of his flower petals, or perhaps the thinnest parchment.

His hand moved to brush against her cheek and left him with a further mystery. While her skin appeared as any human's save the green hue, the texture beneath his fingertips was rough. The feel of her skin reminded him of...tree bark?

He let his gaze travel to her full, luscious lips, as dark as the darkest wine he had ever tried, and also with a glossy, iridescent shine. They looked like two pillows, dense with blood...waiting to be tasted. He licked his own lips. But then he felt an odd pang in his chest and he forced his gaze elsewhere.

Where his eyes went was down, past her shoulders to her ample bosom, to her slim waist, and beyond. The scars couldn't hide what nature had given her, in the most perfect example of a woman he had ever laid eyes on. He looked away quickly before desires other than hunger could rise within him.

He wrapped her second wound and then sat back in the chair, troubled by the way his pulse was racing. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen beautiful women before. In his three-thousand years, he had seen plenty. But he had never...truly looked at any. Women, like men, were only victims. Occasionally he played with them in whatever way pleased him, even using them to sate the disgusting human-like lust that sometimes bore its ugly face as he would feed. But truly, they were only food to him; his survival for another few days, and nothing more.

Now, he was entranced. This woman was a beauty that was surely sent from heaven, tormented on earth for reasons he had yet to know... His heart ached for her, for the pain she had so long endured. And why? Surely a creature such as she could do no harm. His fists clenched in rage as he silently vowed vengeance against any who had ever raised hand or blade against her. And as he stared, bewitched by her beauty, he realized...he wanted her.

His heart pounded as the thought pressed relentlessly against his mind. He wanted her. In the depths of his soul, he wanted her. And he wanted her all to himself. His and his alone, to gaze upon, to worship her perfection for as many years of life as she may have.

He loved her.

He rose from the chair and rummaged in an old trunk of things he had stolen in an age past. Finding what he was looking for, he rose to his feet and was suddenly assaulted with dizziness that caused him to stumble. He glanced at the woman and licked his lips again, and the action was immediately followed by a stabbing guilt.

He sighed and dropped the feminine garment he'd removed from the trunk. He was getting careless in his old age, as he realized it had been far too many days since his last meal. He would go out to feed...and then return to the woman.

A chime from his wall clock drew a gasp from his lips as he turned and saw the time. It was nearly five in the morning.

He had spent all the night staring at the beautiful woman, and he was suddenly aware of how dangerously weak he truly felt. There was no longer time to go out and feed. But his body demanded he be nourished that night.

A sickening realization hit him as he backed away into the corner farthest from the bed, and as the clock finished its chime a horror he had never before felt clenched around his heart.

He brought a hand up to cover his face as he began to weep.

---------------------

Shego woke up to a dim light and an ache of weariness throughout her body. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes, and then she heard a sound like a human gasp.

Startled, she sat up and quickly assessed her surroundings. She was in a building, with stone walls and oil lamps. A window was carved into the wall opposite and revealed the violet light of pre-dawn on the horizon. She looked down at herself and saw she was sitting on...what she thought was called a bed. And she was wearing...clothes?

She heard breathing and her eyes found the source. The night's events suddenly came back to her.

It was the night gardener, standing in a darkened corner of the small room and staring at her. She recoiled in fear and pressed against the stone wall behind her, but...the man made no move to attack her. In fact, his eyes were hopelessly sad. And longing. She had never seen such emotions in a human before.

The man took a few heaving breaths, and then swallowed.

"Madam. Forgive my effrontery. I tended your wounds."

Shego looked down at her arm where the woodsmen's axes had glanced her as they cornered her in the river. The wounds were wrapped in linen bandages. Her gaze drifted to the fabric she had been clothed in. 'Dress' was the wrong word for the garment, but it was like one. It was a white gown of some type, loose and shapeless, the fabric somewhat translucent where it fell over her curves. It was long and sleeveless, the hem falling just above her ankles.

She took a nervous breath. She had never spoken to any creature but her own kind before.

"Thank you," she whispered cautiously. What were the man's motives? He didn't seem to have any intent to chop her down. She remembered that he tended flowers.

The man bowed his head and shook it as he took a step forward into the light.

"Don't...don't thank me," he said. His voice was hoarse and his tone bitter, and she realized he was crying.

He took a further step out of the shadows and she saw the revealing pale blue of the skin of his face and hands. She gasped in astonishment.

'A vampire!'

He lifted his head, and her eyes widened at the sight of the brown caking of old blood around his lips from his last meal, his dark hypnotic eyes, and the white fangs that glistened when his lips parted in a soft, shaky release of breath.

She had heard of vampires from the other dryads, but had never seen one until that moment. Tales of their shape-shifting terrors were legendary, but this one...looked desperately sad. She took in the rest of his appearance.

He was dressed as most men she had seen, except perhaps not as cleanly with the knees of his blue-gray trousers a bit grass-stained where he had knelt in his garden, and his white linen shirt looking to have seen far too many winters. His black hair was of a style she'd never seen and she supposed it must be very old as he wore it longer than other men, the ends just barely brushing his shoulders. His face didn't appear either young or old, but 'seasoned' as she studied him. And to her surprise the skin below his left eye bore a pale scar not unlike some of hers.

Suddenly, his gaze darkened. He turned and shuttered the window to the dawn and in a flash he had crossed the room and caught her around the waist. Her hands flew to his chest and she pushed against him with all her strength, but she was still weakened from her earlier flight of terror. And the vampire was stronger.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, please...forgive me," he said. The fight slowly left her as her eyes turned to his face in confusion. "You're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen! Whoever harmed you deserves a fate worse than any death I could give them."

She stopped pressing against his chest as she studied his anxious face and his tears.

"Such perfection as you deserves better than this... Better than what they did to you. Better than a life cut short. I don't want to, please believe me, I don't want to!"

Her brow furrowed. He was strange... She thought she understood what he was saying, but...did he not know what she was?

Her thoughts were interrupted as he surprised her suddenly by bringing his shaking lips to press against hers, the touch soft and brief. Her eyes widened. She had never been kissed before... She had spent so much of her life hiding from the horrible humans, and protecting her oak.

The vampire suddenly released her and she fell to sitting on the bed again. He followed her down and a moment later was sobbing into her chest. Shego gasped as the man clung to her shoulders and his tears stained the thin garment he had put her in.

Just as suddenly as his sobs began, they stilled as he brought his face up to stare into her eyes. His eyes were a deep blue, and every second she looked into them she felt she was falling into a new world. But then he was gone, standing and pacing the room.

"I could make you like me, but...I couldn't condemn you to this eternity of loneliness," he said.

She tried to straighten the garment, suddenly concerned with her appearance. She ran her fingers back through her hair and sat up straighter as she looked at him. He had paused his chaotic, emotional tirade as he watched her, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Aren't...aren't you afraid? Don't you understand that...I'm going to kill you?" he asked hoarsely.

She found a small smirk coming to her lips. She shook her head.

"You can't kill me."

A soft, awed gasp fell from his lips as he gazed it her in wonder. "Your voice... It's...so lovely..."

Shego felt a little self-conscious—something she couldn't ever recall feeling before. She watched as he blinked away the fascination in his eyes. He looked even more perplexed, perhaps at her words, and he paced a few steps in exasperation. After a minute he stopped and wrung his hands.

"It's...it's better that you're not afraid. Oh, I couldn't bear your screams!"

He advanced on her again and cried into her shoulder, one of his hands softly stroking her hair. She felt a warming in her chest and her smirk grew into a smile.

After her collapse outside his house she had been easy prey for any creature and their vile purposes. But this ancient entity who was clearly in need of a meal had waited... Had not woken her, but waited until she woke of her own accord, to apologize before he fulfilled his dark nature.

The warmth in her chest grew stronger.

His sobs lessened and he lifted his head, but didn't look at her face. Instead he lifted her hand and kissed her palm, right over the scar she'd obtained from a jackknife when she threw her hand out to defend a sapling from a reckless woodsman years ago.

The vampire...the night gardener, kissed her palm again, and then kissed the scar on her shoulder she'd obtained the very first time she'd run as little more than a sapling herself.

"Precious...perfect creature of the light," he murmured through tears. "Why did they harm you?" Her breath caught then as he knelt on the ground and kissed her thigh through the thin garment she wore, right over one of her ugliest scars.

He brought his face higher and kissed over the scar on her stomach that she'd obtained the first time she'd nearly lost her life, when she'd been forced to shift to her oaken form as woodsmen cut down the trees in her grove for lumber. They had decided she would make a nice piece of furniture and had sawed into her. The agony and terror of that moment was seared into her memory as she had stood still as long as possible, until she could take the pain no more and revealed herself and fled.

Her memory shifted again as the vampire kissed the swell of her breast and the scar left by the idle axe-swing of a child. The warmth in her chest grew into a heat like fire. And fire was fear. But then the man tenderly kissed her lips again, and the warmth faded into a pleasant calming through her every limb, like the touch of the rays of the sun on her leaves.

His lips left hers and she tried to look into his eyes. But at the brief contact he lowered his head in shame.

"It's not fair," he said bitterly. "You deserve so much more. I'm...so sorry. I'm so, so sorry! Please please forgive me!"

Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed.

"Goodbye...loveliest of all beings..." the vampire breathed. His lips found her neck and she felt the pierce of his fangs. But it wasn't anything like the horror of an axe or the ripping of a saw. It reminded her of the claws of a young bird, clinging to her branch for safety before its first flight.

The sharp touch intensified for a moment, and then the man drew back, his tear-stained face rife with confusion.

Shego shook her head and smiled. "I told you. You can't kill me. I'm not human."

The man blinked. "Oh, your voice... W-what are you?"

"I'm a dryad," she said.

The man's eyes grew distant and then he gasped softly.

"The oak leaves..."

She wasn't sure what he meant, but she started to rise from the bed. He moved away to give her space, but his face suddenly became desperate and anguished.

"Don't go!" he cried.

Her face saddened, and her brow furrowed. "Do you have any water?"

He blinked, and then poured her a glass from a jug on a sideboard. He handed it to her and she studied it for a long moment before pouring it gratefully over her arms and feet, though it wasn't nearly enough.

"I've never been in a house before," she said.

His brow was twisted in confusion as he looked between her face and the small puddle on the earthen floor. "O-oh..." His face grew thoughtful, but remained concerned. "You can...go outside."

As she stepped to the door he pressed himself into the corner, far out of sight of the exit. She peered through the door and then looked back to him.

"It's all right. There's no sunlight out here yet. That's...what you're afraid of, isn't it?"

He swallowed and nodded, nervously stepping out of the corner. She smiled softly and stepped through the door.

She made a slow turn and looked over his beautiful garden of night flowers and wondered about this vampire who had saved her. When she looked back to the stone house with its climbing moonflower vines and sod roof he was standing far away from the door and peering out nervously.

"What's this called?" she asked, picking up the skirt of the garment she wore. She spun once and watched the flow of the translucent material through the air, flinging her arms out to her sides while her dark, silken hair flowed around her.

His breath caught as he stared at her. "Oh, the way you move..." he said softly, and then he cleared his throat. "It's called a...chemise. A woman's undergarment."

She studied the fabric for a moment and then began pulling it off over her head.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice suddenly panicked. She tossed the garment a few feet away from her.

"I don't want to ruin it," she said, glancing at his face that had colored purple for some reason. She stepped over to one of his lily ponds and slid her feet thirstily into the cool waters. And then with a deep, satisfying sigh she shifted into her oaken form.

The waters were soothing to her roots, and she cast her invisible eyes back toward the house. The man was closer to the doorway now and peering at her with wide eyes.

"M-madam? I...I'm sorry, may I ask your name?"

"My name is Shego," she said, a few drying leaves falling from her branches as she spoke. She knew she had heard the woodsmen call his name during the night, but she couldn't recall. "What's your name?"

"Drakken," he replied.

'Drakken,' she recalled. The woodsmen had known him and been terrified.

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

"You mean...in this house?"

"Sure. How old are you?" she continued, changing the question.

She watched him furrow his brow. "I'm three thousand, two hundred and forty-nine years old. And I've lived in this house for over twenty-one hundred years. ...H-how old are you?"

"We're one hundred and twenty-seven," she said, a few more leaves falling.

"'We'?" he asked, taking a cautious step over his threshold.

"Me and my oak," she explained. The waters were reviving, and she was starting to feel more alert. A little bit of sunlight would be a wondrous relief...

Drakken shook his head. "I'm...sorry, I...don't understand."

"The oak I was born of. It's my home. It's part of me," she said. She wondered if a vampire could even understand.

"O-oh..." he said.

Her pleasant mood sobered as she continued to explain. "If those men kill my oak...I'll die. But I'll never let them find it, even it means only my death! I must keep it safe. That's why I keep running away. But...I miss my home so much," she said longingly.

She heard him gasp suddenly, and then he disappeared inside the house again. She followed where his gaze had been, and she saw the golden rays of sunlight hitting distant treetops below the crest of the hill.

After a moment of thought she shifted back into her human form, the waters having given her some refreshment. She left the nourishing pond and picked up the chemise she had dropped and followed him back into the house. He was standing in the far corner again, slightly hunched and looking very worried as he fidgeted.

"Thank you," she said again. He jumped and his face darkened to purple as he glanced at her, and then he looked away.

She tossed the chemise onto his bed and looked at him in confusion. He had seemed devastated with the idea of her death before... Shouldn't he be happy that she would live after all?

"What's wrong?" she queried.

"I'm just...very hungry," he said quietly. "And...they'll be back."

Shego felt her pulse race in alarm. "What do you mean?"

Drakken swallowed and straightened slightly as he finally looked at her. "Whenever there's a mob... Every fifty years or so, they find me... I leave and go to one of the caves, or the abandoned churches. I'll terrorize their villages until they either...just stop coming out of fear, or they agree to leave me be."

Shego's brow furrowed in confusion. "Why can't you do that now?"

Drakken shook his head. "Because the sun is up. Even if it wasn't, I'm...too weak to travel. When they come...they'll come in the daylight. And they'll kill me."

Shego felt her heart sinking. She didn't want this man who cared so much for the beauty of nature and who had protected her at his own cost to die. She thought furiously for a solution.

She could put her roots down in front of his door, so that when the woodsmen came... She grimaced and shook her head. That wouldn't work; they would just chop her down.

"Would you...put the chemise back on?" he asked, his voice interrupting her pondering.

She crossed over to the bed and picked up the fabric. "Why?" she asked.

"Um...j-just... I would appreciate it if you would."

She struggled for a moment to find how to slip the item over her head the right way.

"Can you help me?" she asked. "I've never worn clothes before."

His lips parted in a silent gasp, and then he shook his head. "You just...put it over your head, and put your arms through the arm-holes."

Shego fumbled with the chemise until she had it figured out and stuck her head and arms through the right holes. The translucent fabric fell over her curves again, and she wondered how many other garments existed that she'd not seen.

Shego brushed her hair back with her fingers and continued brushing it back. She didn't have any other ideas for how to protect the vampire she'd met who seemed to care so deeply for her. And during the day he was vulnerable even in his home, with no defense whatsoever against the sunlight, and no escape.

A new idea struck her.

"What if...when the woodsmen come, I lead them in here one at a time, and you kill them then? You'd get a meal with each one."

Drakken blinked at her. "You wouldn't mind being party to their deaths?"

Shego's eyes darkened. "They chop down our trees. Even the saplings. Just to burn their fires, or build houses, or make their heinous parchment paper."

She looked around the small house suddenly for anything out of place. There was the sideboard and the chair, as well as the frame of the bed and a trunk at the bed's foot. The door and window shutters were also made of wood, and there was some odd small item attached to the wall. But other than that the place was made of stone, and there was no fireplace. Drakken had very little wood in his home, compared to the acres the humans sometimes slaughtered. And she was relieved.

She also realized that the tiny house wasn't really much of a home... It was a place he slept during the day, protecting his life, while his real life happened outside at night, either finding a meal or tending his garden.

"Why do they hunt you?" Drakken asked.

Shego brought her focus back to him.

"They think...creatures like me are evil. Devil's spawn. But our only desire is to care for our trees!" she pleaded with passion, stepping nearer to him.

His eyes grew sad.

"I'll kill them for you," he said. "If...if I survive until tomorrow."

She suddenly felt a worry and fear in her heart different than any she'd ever felt before. It was a different feeling than she felt for the trees. And it had something to do with the warmth she'd felt earlier, when he was apologizing for his intent to murder her. That warmth was returning as she listened to him vow to help her kind, and in a twisting confusion it also made the fear stronger.

"Can I do anything?" she asked.

He bowed his head and shook it sadly. "Not unless...you can stop the sun from rising."

The sick feeling in her heart grew even as the warmth swirled through her. She certainly didn't have that kind of power. And she dearly loved the sun...

"I'll...I'll go back," she said.

His eyes snapped up to hers. "What?"

"I'll show myself to them," she explained as she pulled the chemise off again and dropped it back onto his bed. "I'll let them chase me. I'll lead them away from here."

Drakken's arms were suddenly gripping her shoulders. "No! No Shego, you can't! I couldn't bear it if...if you were hurt."

She grinned and gently pushed his hands away. "I've been hurt before," she said, gesturing to her scarred body.

He swallowed slowly as he looked her up and down, the purple color returning to his cheeks.

"You saved me," she said, stepping nearer to him. "Let me save you."

His eyes were pools of worry, but after a moment he gave a crisp nod. The warmth burned in her chest like fire again, but it didn't scare her quite as much this time. She didn't fully understand it...except she had an idea now what to do with it. She leaned up on her toes and lightly pressed her lips to his, as he had done to her before.

She heard his gasp and his sharp intake of breath through his nose for the brief moment the kiss lasted. When she stepped away from him, his eyes had regained the longing that she had seen in them before, when he thought he would be forced to kill her.

"Will you come back?" he asked desperately.

"After I've led them away," she said with a grin.

Drakken took an anxious breath. "Th-thank you...Shego," he said.

She smiled mischievously at him before disappearing through his door, closing it behind her and sending him back to the darkness he needed. Then she took her own anxious breath as she walked down his primrose-lined path.

She was still very, very tired. But Drakken had saved her life. She would gladly return the favor.

And...she wanted to see him again.

---------------------

Drakken struggled to sleep that day, and spent much of it pacing through the warm darkness of his house, worrying. It was horrible for his weakened state that he didn't rest, but he couldn't help himself for the fears that plagued him about the beautiful dryad he had fallen in love with.

What if Shego wasn't able to find the same mob? What if they didn't take the bait, and found the prospect of killing a vampire much more appealing than killing a dryad? Or worse, what if they did take the bait, and...she wasn't able to escape them?

As the daylight waned, it seemed she had been successful; no one had come calling, and he was safe to live another day of his three-thousand years. But it did nothing to relax his nerves, only putting him more on edge. Night couldn't come soon enough for Drakken, and as soon as the sun was gone from the sky he flung his door open and began watching for her.

An hour passed, and then another. He forgot all about tending his flowers as he paced anxiously, wringing his hands and waiting as he battled potential fainting spells due to his lack of sustenance.

Finally, he steeled his nerves and stepped outside, gathering his remaining strength for a shape-shift. He couldn't leave her to fate any longer.

He would need to choose the most inoffensive of creatures, but something that could travel fast on limited energy—an owl, he decided, for its stealth. It would tire him... But during his search for Shego, he could find a meal.

He gathered his strength and changed form, taking off in a leap as his feathered wings spread. And he flew low over the hills and beneath the scattered tree tops as he started toward the nearby town that was the most likely origin of the common enemy he and Shego shared.

As he tiredly flew beneath the starlit skies his sharp eyes searched the landscape, and his thoughts drifted again to the dryad's beauty. She surpassed any flower he had ever tended in his long and lonely years, even his delicate queen of the night with its flower that lasted only for one bloom. His sweet flowers had been his only companions for millennia, but now... A hope had risen within him of which he had never even dreamed.

If only she would consent to be his... He already felt he might die without her.

He felt his wings tiring far too soon, but he was nearing the edge of the remains of the forest that had concealed his home so faithfully for so long, and the valley with the town below. He forced himself to alertness as his sharp, avian eyes searched all across the sparse scenery.

He wasn't even sure what he was looking for. Now that it was night, would she be in her human form? Could she travel in her oaken form? Would he even recognize her if she had taken on the disguise?

His worrying thoughts were halted in agonizing force when suddenly, at the crest of the hill at the edge of the tree-line, he saw her—a familiar green form, collapsed on the ground; and standing above her holding an axe and torch, a woodsman.

Drakken's eyes took in the fresh wounds that had been laid into her flesh, jagged and deep. She was un-moving again, no more than a crumpled heap, and the thought that she might be dead caused a searing pain to erupt within his breast.

A rage darker than any he'd ever felt began to burn within him. His owl eyes glimpsed a mob on the periphery, carrying torches and weapons as they left the town and ascended the hill toward the forest. And then his acute avian hearing picked up the voice of the lone woodsman who would threaten his beloved.

The man was pacing, his haggard face furious as he stared down at her. "I don't care what they say, and I can't wait for them to get back. You're not so bad now, that you're chopped down to size. I...I won't wait for them to get back," the man said, and Drakken watched as an evil that could have been straight out of hell entered the man's eyes. "They won't let me have you. Well, I'll have you, you forest-witch! And then...then you'll be sorry you toyed with us."

Drakken watched the man toss his torch and axe aside. He turned Shego over to lay on her back, vulnerable and exposed. And then the man reached for his belt buckle.

Drakken folded his wings into a dive and his rage emerged from his beak in a piercing screech that caused the man to look up from his vile endeavor. His face contorted in fear as Drakken shifted before his eyes back into his familiar, vampiric form and landed skillfully on his human legs. The avian screech changed with his vocal cords into the shrillest, most terror-inducing shriek he had ever cried as he landed in front of the frantic man who didn't even have a chance to cry out before Drakken's fangs pierced his throat.

The man struggled, but Drakken had no qualms about beating him into submission even after the calm-inducing venom filled the man's veins and his writhing ceased. Drakken feasted with a dark pleasure he hadn't felt in years, driven by the jealous, protective love in his heart. No creature—man, beast, or fey—would ever defile the perfect beauty that was Shego as long as he had breath.

He lost himself in the sweet taste of the blood, the nourishment filling him, reviving him, and intoxicating him. It was only the distant voices of men and the approaching light of torches that startled him back into the present, and after one final lip-smacking slurp he turned distraught eyes to Shego.

She was un-moving, her wounds still fresh and bleeding out her thick, brown blood. With renewed strength, Drakken shifted into one of his most terrifying forms which had been inherited through his ancient bloodline—a magnificent dragon, with dark blue-gray scales like iron that no weapon formed by man could pierce. He delicately lifted Shego in his claws, and then as an afterthought, picked up the dead man and his axe with his other foot. He could finish his meal later; and the axe...he had a strange feeling he might need another weapon come the morning.

The terrified screams of the approaching mob might have thrilled him as his wings thundered during his take-off, but he was too worried for Shego to take any pleasure in their fear. In his haste to depart, one of his victim's legs slammed into the ground. Drakken grimaced as he watched the limb rip off at the knee and fall back to the ground. There was still so much blood he could have consumed in the half-leg. But, he had more pressing matters to attend to as he rose high in the sky.

The fear-stricken cries of the mob reached his ears again, and with a rising fury he turned and circled the town. It had been long since he had attacked, the routine of their sacrifices to him having become comfortable. It was time he reminded them of who he was.

He swooped low and let loose a roar that echoed far over the hills, and then the burning rage within him burst from his mouth in a plume of fire. He was careful to tuck Shego up against his scales before he set the town ablaze, knowing that even one spark could be dangerous to her true form. But with his other foot, he dragged his dead victim against the man-made cobbles of the street, further mutilating the body and delivering unquestionable evidence of his power and cruelty.

Leaving them with that reminder of his timeless presence, he finally turned and began his flight back over the scant forest, the flap of his powerful wings creating a sound like thunder through the valley.

His rage began calming as he looked at the now-unrecognizable human who had threatened his beloved. Vengeance against at least this one tormentor had been served. And then he looked at the still form of Shego in his claws and worry quickly overwhelmed his fury. He increased the speed of his flight.

He didn't know where else to go, but home. He had never bothered with the dryads before, preferring his reclusive life and his flowers. How did one save a wounded dryad? Would it be anything like the non-sentient flowers he had cared for, for so many centuries?

She still wore the linen bandages he'd tended her with the night before, he noticed, as he gazed on her fresh wounds. The wounds were numerous and deep, some overlapping the already-existing scars that couldn't begin to mar her perfect beauty. As her blood seeped down over his claws, thick and sticky, he realized it wasn't blood at all, but some kind of sap. She was more tree than human, he understood, despite her appearance, and he felt more confident in tending to her as such.

In his great and terrible form, the return to his home took mere minutes. He was careful that his footing would be sure before he shifted back to his most familiar shape, and as his human arms captured Shego in a protective embrace the human he had slain along with the axe fell down to the earth in the clearing beyond his house in an ungraceful, forgotten heap.

Drakken ran with all his strength, cradling Shego to him as he sprinted beneath his trellis and along his path of evening primrose to his lily pond. His chest heaved for lack of breath as he stepped several paces into the waters, not minding about his clothing as he knelt down and gently lay Shego into the shallow pool, her head and shoulders resting atop his knees so her human lungs could draw breath. A small cut was across her chin, and he licked his thumb and absently tried to wipe the blood away.

Water was what she had wanted before. Perhaps water could save her now. He removed the linen bandages from her arm and wet them, using them to wipe the smears of excess blood—sap—from around her deep wounds, being careful not to touch them. Trees healed on their own, from what he had seen, if they weren't too far gone.

As the minutes passed he became aware of the familiar, soothing fragrance of his garden. But it did nothing for him as he stared at the un-moving face of the beauty who had so entranced him, and had risked her life for his with no other cause than her own kindness.

He shakily set his fingers beneath her chin to feel for a pulse, wondering if a tree would even have a human pulse. She'd had human breath, the night before... But now she was utterly still.

Tears filled his eyes. He bent over her and pressed his cheek to hers as he began to sob, mourning the perfection he had found and lost in a mere a breath of his long, lonely life. How could he possibly go on? His three millennia of life seemed utterly meaningless now as lifted his head and gazed on her beautiful face, her dark eyelashes still standing out like coal on her pale green cheeks, and her plump lips like the darkest wine.

He placed a chaste kiss on her lips and then rested his cheek on hers again, embracing her as he cried. He vowed then not to move again unless she lived, for his life was nothing without her. If his dryad was lost, he would stay by her side until the sun rose and burned him to ash, ending his pitiful, lonely existence.

His cries gradually diminished into sniffles. And then he let his thoughts fade into nothing as he readied himself for the death that would come many hours later, at dawn. He lifted his head and cast his gaze over her beautiful form in the pond. He wanted the last thing he saw in his life be her.

And then—there was a slight rippling in the waters under the starlight. His lips parted in a gasp. Her eyelashes fluttered, and slowly lifted.

"Drakken?" she asked weakly. He stared in disbelief, a soft cry leaving his lips. Her green eyes were vibrant as she looked up at him. "It's all right now," she continued faintly.

"Oh...Shego!" he gasped, and then pressed his lips to hers. His heart soared as she returned the kiss, her touch soft and gentle as a breeze.

He shifted to sit more fully in the waters and drew her up into his lap, cradling her close. Her slender fingers loosely gripped the front of his shirt as he rocked her gently, too overcome for words.

"I led them away..." she said tiredly. "Far away from you, and my oak."

"Oh Shego..." he cried into her hair. "You're hurt... I shouldn't have let you go. My life isn't worth it!"

"Of course you are..." she said kindly. Her hand rose to caress his chin once before weakly falling down to her lap.

He gazed upon her face in awe and amazement.

"In one hundred years...I have never seen a human give even a passing glance to my kind, except in malice," she said. "But you... You have cared for me... Risked your life for me."

Drakken looked around at where they were, seated in the water under the his arbor of angel's trumpets.

"Is this helping you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes." He realized her alluring voice was already stronger.

He carefully stood up, holding her close to him, and then with his hands holding her elbows for balance he helped her to find her feet. Her form shifted before his eyes into an oak, her roots displacing his water lilies as all semblance of the beautiful woman she was became hidden beneath the guise of a tree.

He stepped back and watched her branches settle, a few dry and ripped leaves falling down to the pond's surface. And then he stepped forward and threw his arms around her trunk, embracing her tightly.

"Please live..." he pleaded softly through his tears. "I couldn't bear your loss. They won't come for you again, I promise. Not after what I've done to them."

"What did you do?" she asked through a sigh that sounded of relief.

"I...set their town on fire. As a dragon," he explained, releasing her and slowly stepping away, his damp cheek brushing against her rough bark. He saw the many gouges that went deep into her sapwood, and his eyes darkened again. "And I feasted on one of them."

He suddenly remembered the half-finished meal that he'd dropped in the clearing.

"Will you be all right here," he began, "if I finish my meal?"

"Yes," she answered, her silvery voice ringing from somewhere above in her leaves.

He nodded shakily, and then ran out to the clearing. If he wanted to gain any more nourishment from his victim, he would need to hurry. Old, dead blood was of no use to him. He needed it warm and fresh. And his strength was still diminished from lack of food, and the great effort he had made in rescuing Shego.

He located the mutilated body and hurriedly resumed his feast. It wasn't as sweet as it had been, but the human's blood was still health to his bones. He cast his eyes over to the dead man's axe that had fallen nearby, and inspiration struck... He would set it up alongside the corpse of the man, at the edge of the clearing as a warning. Any trespasser on his privacy was unwelcome, but the woodsmen would be the most unwelcome of all.

He felt secure in his resolution, and after sucking every last drop from his victim he licked the blood from his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It had been too many minutes... He hurried back to the house, and to Shego.

Relief swept him as he saw her still standing in the pond, her leaves seeming greener and her branches higher and sturdier.

"Are you all right?" he asked quickly as he reached her side, wiping his mouth once more for propriety's sake. Or would she like the look of her dead captor's blood on his lips?

"Yes," she said. He was surprised as she slowly shifted back to her human form. The new gashes in her flesh still oozed sap, but much of it seemed to be hardening over the wounds.

"Are you in pain?" he asked, taking a worried step toward her.

She nodded, her eyes sad. And yet she was still favoring him with her beautiful, gentle smile. Oh, she was perfect!

"I'll nullify my agreement with the towns," he said. "I won't accept their sacrifices. From now on...I feast on woodsmen, and woodsmen alone."

Her eyes were bright and verdant as she stared at him, her smile growing. She slowly stepped out of the pond with more strength than he thought she would have had, and then...she gave him a coy glance before she spun delightedly, dancing to a rhythm that only she could hear. The starlight reflected off her dark hair with its iridescent green and hidden red strands. A brief laugh of joy left her lips as she brought her feet to a stop next to his door, and she knelt to smell the blooms of his night orchid.

She glanced at him and her smile grew. "Your garden is singing," she said. "Do you hear it?"

The desire he had felt the night before rose in his chest, from when he'd first looked on the perfect beauty that had been senselessly tortured for an age. Everything within him wanted her, and his desire burst forth in an impassioned plea.

"Stay with me!" he begged, taking a step toward her. He couldn't even find it within himself to be embarrassed. He was desperate for her. To have that beautiful creature to gaze upon each night... "You can live here, in my garden. I would tend you faithfully!"

Her smile grew, and she rose to face him. "I tend myself," she said. Her gaze grew sympathetic. "And...I must tend my oak."

She stepped slowly toward him, and he averted his eyes from her womanly form. He knew his heart would break without her. But his resolve to avenge her was sure.

"I'll still feast on the woodsmen," he affirmed with a nod.

"Drakken..." she said, and his heart leapt at the sound of his name on her lips. He looked up, and even in his despair at the loss he knew he must endure, he still found joy in her smile. She spoke again. "I can tend my oak in the day."

His eyes widened. A soft gasp fell from his lips.

"And I can come to you in the night," she continued, her smile becoming mischievous. She reached her hands towards him, and he eagerly took them in his. She spun around again, this time bringing him ungracefully with her in her dance to his garden's song.

His heart soared... She would come back. Perhaps each night! Finally, when he talked there would be someone to answer, and not just the silence of his flowers. He would be happy for all of eternity—

He released her hands suddenly as a dread thought occurred to him.

"Shego..." he began. She stopped her dance and faced him with her happy smile. Oh, he loved her! "How...how long do your kind live?"

Her smile began to fade. "If we are not murdered... Most of us have a lifespan around two hundred years."

'Two hundred...' his mind echoed, as he remembered their conversation the day before. Her life was already more than half over.

"Some of us live longer... The oldest is nearly six-hundred. And I even heard legend of one oak that lived to be a thousand," she encouraged gently as she approached him.

He smiled in acknowledgement of her kindness, but he still knew that exceptions weren't the rule. He might have the bliss of her presence for the next hundred years of his life. But then she would be gone. And he would live forever.

"The day you die..." he said soberly, "I shall step into the sun."

She rushed forward and brought her rough hands to his cheeks, her bright eyes growing suddenly sad. He had never seen her eyes like that before.

"You can't!" she gasped desperately and shook her head. "The world deserves a kind being like you."

Boldly, he slipped his fingers beneath her jaw and slowly moved them back into her silken hair. He shook his head in awe of her.

"In my youth, I traveled the whole of the Earth...searching for anyone to be companion to a creature like me. I refused to limit my quest as I encountered being after being, for over a thousand years." His voice fell to just above a whisper. "But not even the other immortals...could soothe the ache in my soul."

He turned and cast his gaze over his precious garden that he had tended for so many centuries, blooming faithfully for him under the starlight. "I only ever found the flowers. But you," he turned back to her, "are the most perfect creature... After knowing your beauty, your kindness, your spirit..." He shook his head again in awe, and then his gaze fell in sadness. He let his hands drop to his sides. "I couldn't go on for all of eternity with only your memory. It would burn me as surely as the sun."

Shego took three steps away. He dared to look up at her, and the compassion in her eyes sent an ache through his chest. What torment he had bound himself to, in finally finding the creature who would complete him only to learn her life was little more than a vapor.

A light came to her eyes suddenly, and slowly the mischievous grin returned to her face and he couldn't help feeling curious despite the sadness that threatened him. She bit her lip and spun away once, and then hopped back to him. He was amazed by her strength, with the wounds that still oozed sap from her flesh.

"Would you like it..." she asked, her confidence briefly hidden under a very feminine shyness, "if I let my acorns fall here? Around your home?"

He blinked and straightened up. "Acorns?"

She nodded and her smile grew. "Yes. If you fertilize me, then my acorns will grow... And then someday, when I'm gone, you can have my daughters. And then my daughters' daughters, and their daughters... They can be with you every night, forever, so you won't have to be alone."

Her eyes had grown wild with excitement, and she retook his hands as she fairly danced on her toes in front of him.

"Fertilize...?" he asked, thinking of the rich soil he made sure to always plant his flowers in.

"Yes," she said, spinning away from him suddenly and hiding behind one of the arbor's pillars. He started as he heard her gasp in pain. When she peeked out at him playfully from behind the pillar, she was holding one of the deep wounds on her waist.

He blinked at her as she grinned, seeming to be expecting something. But he didn't know what. It didn't seem to perturb her as a moment later she lithely leaped out from behind the pillar, almost floating back to him across the path. She took his hands and swung them playfully. The shy feminine look came over her face again.

"We're always fertilized by human males, but...your kind must reproduce? Don't they?"

Drakken's head swam and he suddenly felt very hot under his collar. He focused his gaze on the trellis at the end of the path and cleared his throat. A moment passed, and he found himself holding his breath as he bravely looked down at her smiling face again.

"Your daughters?" he asked shakily, awestruck as he began to fully comprehend what she was suggesting.

"Yes. And you...you could help scatter my acorns far across your clearing! And my daughters' acorns! For each generation!" she said, growing more excited with each word and bouncing on her toes. Her eyes shone with the brightest green he had ever seen. And then suddenly her voice fell into a soft awe. "My oak's spirit...can cover the whole of the Earth, with your help... We...we could live forever..."

Her dancing ceased as tears of hope suddenly filled her eyes. Her small green hands held his blue ones tightly as she gazed up at him with her pure, joyful smile. He hadn't thought his perfect creature could be any more beautiful, but in that moment, with that smile meant only for him, she was. Red tears of happiness pooled in his eyes.

"I love you," he said, the words falling softly from his lips as he gazed at her.

"...Love me?" she asked. She suddenly appeared as awestruck as he felt.

He nodded as a flush came to his cheeks. He'd known it since he had first tended her, and it had grown in his heart every moment since.

"Yes... Love is...what you feel for your oak," he explained, just in case her kind didn't have the concept.

There was wonderment in her eyes as she gazed at him. "You feel that...for me?"

"Yes, Shego," he said, smiling kindly.

"I..." she began slowly, her gaze falling to where she held his hands up between them. The wonder in her eyes was growing. "I...love you, too. I would never let harm come to you."

"Nor I you," he said, agreeing without question. He understood that protection was deeply rooted in her understanding of love. And his for her was no different, as he knew he would defend her to his dying breath.

Her hands left his and uncertainly moved to rest on his shoulders. And then she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss. He wanted to pull her to him, but he didn't dare touch her with so many open wounds on her body. But the gentleness of her lips was more than he could have ever hoped for, and he kissed her back with all the love in his heart.

When her lips left his and she settled down on her feet again, her fingers lightly pulling at the fabric of his shirt at the shoulders, the shy look ghosted over her face again.

"I hope...I can grow a hundred daughters for you," she said.

He watched her as she slowly stepped back, and then with the elegance of a blooming flower she was suddenly seated on the ground at his feet with her knees drawn up to her chest. She continued to smile as she slowly leaned back on her elbows, but her wince of pain did not escape his notice. She slid her feet forward soundlessly over the ground, her toes pointed, and then moved her knees far apart as she lay back comfortably in the cool grass that blanketed the ground of his evening garden.

She looked up at him calmly, and expectantly.

Two thoughts entered his mind simultaneously; the first, a wondering if it was even possible for a creature like him, an un-dead horror of the night, to mix with the perfect beauty that was the dryad to create viable offspring; and his second thought, a stomach-turning disgust at the idea of a terrible being such as himself defiling her perfection in the way she was asking of him, even if the purpose was pure.

"You're still hurt," was what softly left his lips as he couldn't help but gaze down at her offering.

She lifted one of her arms from the grass to look at the wounds there, but he was far more concerned with the deeper ones over her waist, legs, and back.

"How long will it take for you to heal?" he continued.

"I'll feel like myself again in a few days' time," she answered, "but the wounds will always hurt..." she said, her fingers sliding over the long, jagged scar left by a saw on her stomach and then resting her hand there.

He slowly knelt at her side, and then offered her a hand to sit up. She took it in confusion, and when she was sitting upright before him he gestured over the garden.

"Is there a place here, you would like for your roots? When you come in the evenings?"

She seemed to consider, gazing across the symmetry he had worked hard to attain in his garden, and then smiling she pointed to the far side of the lily pond that she had dipped her roots in before.

"There."

"May I till the soil for you?" he asked, smiling at the idea of her beauty adding to his garden each night. Though he knew with her presence, he would neglect his flowers as he already had that evening.

"That would be lovely," she said, looking back at him with a tender smile that strangely sent a flood of desire rushing through his cold, dead veins.

She must have seen it in him as she leaned back on her elbows again with a mischievous smile, but then paused as her face became concerned. He took her hand again in dismay, not wanting any worries or fears to ever cloud her perfect visage.

"I'm sorry..." she began, looking melancholy, "I should have asked... Do you want my daughters?"

A pain gripped his chest when he realized his actions could have conveyed rejection. The pain was followed immediately by the ache of the deep love he had for her. The offering of her children to keep him company for all eternity, and greater still, the offering for them to be their children, hers and his, was a gift that transcended every earthly definition of love. He desperately wanted it, with everything within him. And he would honor that love for the rest of time.

He softly squeezed her hand and then lifted her forearm to his lips, kissing one of her older scars. "Yes," he answered. "And...when you are gone..." he said, his heart thudding in agony at the thought, "I will tend your daughters...and your granddaughters, and their daughters...and as many as ever take root. And I will see that the spirit of your oak lives forever."

The love that filled her eyes took his breath away, and he, the one with the power to hypnotize all beings suddenly found himself entranced as she rose to her knees and slipped her arms around him in a gentle embrace. Her soft, wine-dark lips met his in a kiss that sent desire racing hot through his veins, and he kissed her back tenderly, afraid of what the force of his lust might do to her. Her fingers slid into his hair as she continued to kiss him with longing, her taste sultry and exotic like the scent of a gardenia, the caress of her dewy lips petal-soft. For the first time he let his hands roam freely over her womanly form, his fingertips tracing every scar and skipping carefully over the fresh wounds as he exulted in her soft curves, the roughness of her bark-like skin not deterring him for a moment.

He could have easily lost himself in her perfection and beauty, but the weakness with which she held him pressed against his mind. As deeply as his soul wanted her, he couldn't take any risk of further harming her.

A whimper escaped her lips as he pulled his own away, and he caressed her cheek and looked adoringly into her green eyes.

"You're still weak," he explained softly.

"I'm sturdy," she pouted, crossing her arms.

"I know," he said with a slight laugh, looking over her many scars. He leaned forward and placed a lingering kiss over the deep axe-scar on her breast. "But you are injured," he said when he pulled back. He could feel it in her trembling frame as he held her. "Rest, my love... Let me till your soil. Then later, when you have your strength back..."

He slowly, carefully released her and rose to his feet. She remained seated in the grass and looked up at him warmly. He wondered again if her kind and his could produce offspring at all. But she had said dryads were usually fertilized by humans... And his kind sometimes created offspring with humans as well. And he was of an ancient, pure bloodline. It seemed more and more possible as he thought about it. And oh, how he would joy if it were true!

He put on his gardener's gloves, discarded by his front door the night before, and picked up his spade. He crossed to the opposite side of the pond that she had indicated and began digging the soil to make it tender and ready to accept her roots.

He looked back at her and found she had lay down on her side along the shallow bank of the pond. Her cheek rested on one of her arms that was stretched out above her head, and with her other hand she drew a pink water lily to her and caressed its bloom. Her feet were dipped just beneath the water's surface, one of them moving back and forth and causing dark ripples to occur, revealed only by the starshine.

She gazed at him adoringly as he worked, and he smiled back at her. A peace he had never known filled him then as he imagined the barren hills someday being covered in a vast forest of oak. Even though he may only have her for a century, he knew the company of just one of her daughters that came after would be the greatest of joys. And to have hundreds of young, tender oaks to tend... Beneath whose shade he could plant more orchids...

He had the fleeting thought that instead of feasting on woodsmen, he should thank them for bringing her to his door. But the thought vanished as his eyes fell on her scars and wounds again. No, all woodsmen would die, their blood sustaining him and thus Shego's daughters as they would give him the nightly strength to tend the young oaks—an ironic and delicious twist of fate.

Drakken licked his lips in anticipation of the vengeance he would wage for eternity against the kind that dared harm the perfect beauty of the dryad, and he grinned wickedly as he continued to turn the soil with his spade.

A soft laugh from near the pond arrested his attention, and he turned his eyes to where Shego was smiling her mischievous smile. He leaned on his spade and gestured down to the loose ground at his feet.

"Is this all right, to start? Should I till it each night before you return?"

Shego rose, minding her wounds, and stepped over into the freshly-turned earth. He watched as she shifted gracefully into her oaken form, some of her roots pressing deep into the earth while others still dipped into the edge of the pond.

"It's perfect," she said.

Joy rippled through him, and he embraced her trunk and kissed her rough bark. So enraptured was he that he almost didn't notice when she slowly shifted back to her human form, his arms falling comfortably around her. Her arms encircled him and she looked lovingly up into his face, and elation filled him as he returned her gaze. He was finally, perfectly...impossibly happy.

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Epilogue

In fertile valleys beneath densely forested hills lay the ruins of many towns, all burned to ash. Signs were posted on the ancient roads, warning travelers to beware and to turn back. But in the valley beneath the highest hill, one small town remained. It was the dread of all the Earth, for in that town lived the people of the Cult of Drakken.

The people of the cult roamed far throughout the world, capturing woodsmen without explanation and with no provocation. All who were captured were taken back to the dread town and never seen again.

The few who had been brave enough to visit the cult and lucky enough to escape came back with tales of the shape-shifting vampire of the oaks, who detested all woodsmen and demanded weekly sacrifices. It was the sacrifices of the cult that stayed the entity's wrath, and kept more towns from burning. This was the ritual that had gone on for nearly two millennia, making enemies of the people of the cult and all other men on the Earth.

The sacrifices were always carried by two elect members of the cult over the hills through their immense, dense forests of oak to the edge of a clearing on the shallow slope of the highest hill. At dusk the elect would bind the sacrifice of a live woodsman to the trunk of a manzanita tree in the clearing, and then they would hide behind a straight row of massive ash trees to be sure their sacrifice was received. If it wasn't, then one of the two elect would be given up in the woodsman's place.

They would watch the timeless ritual, listening to the last screams of the woodsmen before they were devoured by the vampire that was the cult's namesake, terrified and at the same time put at peace, knowing their weekly task had been completed. They saw their role as one of honor, saving far more people of the world than were being sacrificed. And sometimes the very bravest would remain, to watch the strange vampire who tended the orchids and the oaks, and who lived in a place of beauty that contrasted his dark demands.

For in the clearing where the sacrifices were made stood an ancient stone house with a sod roof, its walls decorated with climbing vines of moonflower. Natural arbors of angel's trumpet overhung two lily ponds in an expertly-cultivated symmetrical garden of night flowers in front of the house—symmetrical, but for one stark feature.

At the far side of one lily pond rose a single tree, taller than the house and standing out on the hill despite the dense forest that blanketed its every slope. But this tree stood out for another reason besides the marring of the symmetry of the garden. It bore scars innumerable from axes and saws that must have been taken to it for nearly a hundred years. And still in even greater contrast, the beautiful garden of flowers was alive and vibrant; the lone oak was dead.

The brave members of the cult would watch in awe and confusion as after the vampire feasted at dusk, he would go far into the forest to tend the youngest oaks, often shape-shifting into an owl to speed his travels. Then he would return to his home and tend the flower garden with a care and gentleness that defied the fury with which he always devoured the woodsmen.

And then as his final act, he would spend the last hour of each night seated at the base of the dead oak next to the lily pond until the danger of the dawn when sunlight would illuminate the treetops of the forested hill.

This was the strangest of the vampire's acts, for he never merely sat at the base of the lone oak. He embraced it, and cried his tears of blood into its dead heartwood. And then at the last possible moment, when the danger of the sun grew too great, he would kiss the oak's trunk once and then vanish within his stone house to rest for the day.

The cult members would leave in bewilderment, but never-minding about whatever motivated the vampire. They would continue to sacrifice, and live. And he would continue his nightly ritual of feeding, tending the flowers, and embracing the dead oak, for all eternity.

[ft-dads-au]

Once Upon A Nightmare - Chapter 5

Shadowlight Week 2020 Pairing(s): Sting x Rogue, Orga x Rufus Prompt: Free (Rain)

A Collaboration by @mdelpin​ and @oryu404​

AO3 | Prev: Ch 4

Summary: Rogue does his best to get better, but setbacks have him losing his confidence. A night out with some friends gives him hope that things are improving, but when he tries to act on his feelings, it's too much, too fast. Frustrated with his progress, he makes an important decision.

Chapter 5: Rain

July 10, 2014

The following weeks were difficult for Rogue, full of successes but also setbacks. Overall he had kept to his promise to take better care of himself, even though there were some days when it was a fight just to get out of bed.

But the nightmares kept coming no matter what he did to try to tire himself out, and every time he had one, it took every bit of willpower he possessed not to fall apart all over again. It was so frustrating to fight the same battle day after day. To have to force himself to perform simple tasks when he knew that he’d be paying the price for the victory of success with his energy.

And yet, no matter how hard he fought, it never seemed to be enough. Just one bad day could easily outweigh all the good ones that preceded it, and what progress did he have to be proud of anyway? He felt like he was going nowhere fast, running himself ragged but barely moving forward.

In contrast, Sting seemed to be doing better every day, miles ahead, out of reach. It was hard not to feel resentment sometimes. Even though Rogue was well aware it was only his own stubbornness that kept him from experiencing the same.

He did appreciate that Sting had given him room to handle things his own way, only really giving him a hard time if he wasn’t eating. Merely knowing that there wasn’t any pressure put on him returned a sense of control, something he’d lost in so many ways already, but that did nothing to exempt him from the pressure he was putting on himself.

Sting had always been the brighter one between the two of them, facing the world with his chin held high, and his teeth bared in a blinding smile, never letting any hardships bring him down for long. Out of the many reasons why Rogue had fallen for him, this was perhaps the biggest one. Their attitudes used to balance each other out, but now that Sting was so close to being himself again, the difference between them was merely a harsh reminder of reality. He seemed unbreakable, while Rogue had no choice but to admit what he’d wanted to deny all this time- he was broken.

And broken things that couldn’t be fixed would eventually be replaced.

That thought was the whip on his back. No amount of well-meant compliments or I love yous were able to convince him that that wasn’t happening.

No matter what, he had to keep trying, so he forced himself to get out of bed despite his crippling exhaustion and made himself as presentable as he could before leaving the bedroom.

He paused in the doorway, noticing that Sting was talking to someone on the phone.

“A concert? I don’t know, I don’t think Rogue would be up for it. Maybe we can get together another time,” Rogue could hear the disappointment in Sting’s voice, and it was enough for him to completely ignore the little voice that was trying to tell him Sting was probably right.

He waltzed into the room and asked in as even a voice as he could manage, “What wouldn’t I be up for?”

“Oh, hey,” Sting smiled at him in greeting, but Rogue could tell he seemed uncomfortable, and he couldn’t help but wonder just how many invitations Sting had already said no to because of him.

“Uhm, Orga wants us to meet his new boyfriend,” Sting explained, “They’re having a picnic at the park tonight, you know, one of those free concert things.”

“That sounds great, let’s go,” Rogue did his best to sound enthused, but even he could hear how shaky his voice sounded.

“I don’t know,” Sting hedged, putting on a smile that didn’t fool Rogue one bit. “Are you sure? I was kind of looking forward to watching more of that anime we started last night.”

Rogue glared defiantly, knowing this was Sting's attempt at giving him an out, and while he appreciated it, he was no less determined to go. Sting finally looked away with a worried frown, but to his credit, he didn’t argue. Instead, he turned back to his phone, “Okay, we’ll be there. What time should we meet you guys?”

As Sting continued to talk for a few more minutes, getting the details for their outing Rogue tried to quell the doubts that immediately followed now that the outing was a done deal. It was no big deal, they were going to go have a nice night out with friends. The type of thing they should have been doing all along. That they used to do all the time.

And despite how loud and obnoxious he could be, Rogue liked Orga. He’d always been a good friend to Sting, and they’d had fun when he came over. They'd even hung out a few times after Sting had left, bonded in their love of music while missing the same person. He was one of the many people Rogue had avoided or lost touch with after the attack.

He left the room, searching for his cigarettes and heading for the backyard, trying not to think about how many people would be at the park. Or the guitar that was stored in Cana’s old room, along with all the other things his family had discarded but couldn’t bear to get rid of.

How long had it been since he’d put it there? Had he even touched it again since Gajeel had dropped it off?

He lit his cigarette before he could think of the answer. A few moments later, he heard the sliding door open behind him and turned to see Sting step onto the deck, a glass of orange juice in his hand.

Rogue tensed in wait, expecting him to say something about his decision to go out that evening, but Sting only gave him a quick once over before sitting on one of the chairs.

“Can’t believe Orga found someone that actually agreed to date him,” Sting grinned, “ Not gonna lie, I’m pretty curious.”

Rogue snorted in agreement. “Remember the last one?”

“Actually, there was another one after that guy, equally disastrous.” Sting informed him, “He called me last Spring to tell me about it. You know how he is -”

“Go big or go home,” they chorused, trying to imitate Orga’s booming voice, and realizing Sting wasn’t going to say anything, Rogue relaxed, taking a seat next to him.

“Should we bring something?” he asked.

“Orga said Rufus, that’s the guy’s name, was gonna take care of everything, but maybe we could bring a bottle of wine or something?”

“We could stop at the liquor store on the way there, pick up a couple of bottles,” Rogue suggested, and now that he wasn’t worried about Sting’s reaction, he began to feel a small surge of excitement and pride.

He was moving outside his comfort zone, trying to go do something with friends as a couple, and it went well, it could be the beginning of better things.

“I’d have been fine with staying home, you know,” Sting’s voice broke into his thoughts, bringing him back down to reality.

“I’m tired of holing up at home,” Rogue said stiffly.

“Okay,” Sting said softly, grabbing Rogue’s hand and kissing his knuckles gently, “We’ll have fun.”

0-0

By the time they arrived at the park, it was already seven o’clock. Their arms were full of bags from both the liquor store and the bakery, Sting’s sweet tooth as insatiable as always. When they had walked past it, he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to bring a few dozen treats, just in case Rufus hadn’t packed enough desserts.

Even though the music wasn’t scheduled to begin for another hour, there was very little available space left on the grassy areas. Couples, families, and groups of friends sat on blankets, talking, cuddling, or playing games. Young children ran around with sparklers, but Sting’s attention was fixed on the food carts that were lined up near the stage.

Rogue chuckled, seeing the childish anticipation in his boyfriend’s eyes, “We’re supposed to be having a picnic, remember?”

Sting pouted briefly but immediately smiled, leaning his head on Rogue’s shoulder in a sort of head hug.

“Alright, how hard can it be to find a green-haired giant in this mess?”

Rogue shrugged helplessly, trying not to focus on how many people there were and how hard it was to move around, or on the images that his mind was determined to show him, of how this park had looked on a particular rainy day.

He could feel sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature dripping down his neck as they searched, and he knew he should ask to go home or at the very least stop for a moment, but before Rogue could do either of those things he felt something hard slam into him.

It wrapped himself around him and picked him up in the air, spinning him. His breathing sped up, and a scream lodged in his throat until Rogue heard Sting yelling.

“Damn it, Orga, put him down for fuck’s sake!”

The urgency in his voice was unmistakable, and Rogue was soon placed back down on the ground gently.

Orga stood before him, looking contrite. “I’m sorry, Rogue, I didn’t know you spooked so easy. I was just happy to see you.”

“It’s alright,” he managed through closed eyes and clenched teeth. Everything seemed too loud, but he was determined to stay. It had been an unexpected scare, but it was just Orga. He was safe, and honestly, he should have expected it.

“Are you alright?” The voice was unfamiliar, but the tone was kind, and he opened his eyes slowly, curious as to who it belonged to.

A man stood in front of him, holding a humongous basket which he shoved at Orga, “Carry that.”

He was fair-skinned with long blond hair that was tied back in a low ponytail, his green eyes peering at Orga fondly before turning back to Rogue, “He means well, but he’s an idiot.”

Rogue snorted at the comment.

The man smiled at Rogue’s response and introduced himself, “I’m Rufus Lore.”

“Hey!” Orga complained, looking to Sting for support, seeming surprised when Sting appeared to be watching Rogue intently.

Rogue ignored Orga as well, not wanting him to see how his greeting had affected him. He attempted a smile and managed it even if it was a bit forced. “Rogue Fullbuster.”

“Happy to make your acquaintance,” Rufus bowed his head in what his mother would have called old world charm, and they began to walk behind their boyfriends.

“Uhm, same.”

Although Rufus was incredibly handsome, Rogue was surprised Orga would be interested in someone who was clearly so different from him.

“Have you known Orga long?” Rogue couldn’t help but ask, smiling when Rufus only chuckled.

“I know, we don’t seem like we’d make a good match, but there’s something about him that intrigued me. Even though he was incredibly persistent, I finally realized if I kept saying no to his advances, he would eventually stop asking me out. The thought made me kind of sad, so I figured, what did I have to lose by giving him a chance?”

“He’s a good guy and a great friend.”

“Yes, he is,” Rufus agreed, “He thinks very highly of your boyfriend and of you as well. It made me a little nervous about meeting you, actually.”

“No need to be nervous, I’m more concerned about whether you’ll still want to date him after seeing him with my idiot. Do you go to MU?”

“I did, I graduated last year. I actually work as a research assistant in the building where Orga works as a security guard.”

“Let me guess, he took all his breaks near you, serenading you while flexing his muscles.”

Rufus' laugh was melodious and very contagious, “Something like that. Subtlety isn’t exactly his strongest suit.”

“Are you talking about me, Babe?” Orga slowed down, waiting for them to catch up, and Rogue searched his face to see if Sting had told him anything but didn’t see any change from Orga’s usual expression.

“Of course,” Rufus winked, and they both stopped for a quick kiss. It was adorable, and Rogue felt a pang, remembering a time when that had been him and Sting.

He looked towards his boyfriend, not wanting to openly stare at the couple, and they shared a shy smile.

“Do you have any idea where we’re going to sit? This place is packed.” Sting complained.

“Relax. Dobengal saved us a spot, he’s been here for hours,” Orga declared smugly.

“Dobengal?” Sting groaned, “You didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“Well, duh, then you wouldn’t have come,” Orga pointed out, “You’re already coming up with lame excuses all the time. I was beginning to think you didn’t want to be friends anymore.”

“Hey, isn’t that him over there?” Sting hurried, and Orga chased after him yelling, “Hey, slow down, this basket is heavy!”

“And they’re off,” Rufus chuckled. “So, Orga tells me you’re a writer. I’ve tried my hand at it, but I have to admit I prefer reading.”

“Oh, really? What kinds of books do you like?” Rogue asked, delighted to find some common ground. They continued to talk about their favorite books and authors until they finally found the spot Dobengal had been holding for them.

It was a great location, close enough to the stage to be able to see everything, but far enough away to not be overwhelmed by the massive speakers. Orga had already stretched out the large blanket Rufus had packed on the grass. Both he and Sting were stuffing their faces with the pastries Sting had brought, keeping them away from Dobengal, who was whining childishly and lunging at them.

“There they are. Our lovers,” Rufus remarked loudly, his voice full of barely concealed sarcasm, “Aren’t we lucky?”

Rogue couldn’t help but snort at the embarrassed looks on all three men, although Orga recovered quite nicely, a mischievous grin curling on his lips. “You know you love me, at least that’s what you were yelling last night when-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence Orga Nanagear,” Rufus threatened, but Orga only laughed.

“Fine, I’ll behave. For now,” Orga disentangled himself from his two ex-roommates and walked over to Rufus, leaning in to whisper something in his ear that made Rufus blush and swat the larger man away. Still, Rogue could see something akin to anticipation in Rufus' expression.

It was a look he had seen on Sting often, but not lately. He left them to have their moment and walked over to the blanket, handing Sting the wine bottles he’d been carrying before sitting down.

“Did you leave me any?” he teased, noticing the crumbs that were littered all over the blanket, the only visible reminder from their battle.

“Lots,” Sting grinned proudly, offering him one of the bags. On impulse, Rogue leaned into Sting and kissed him, grabbing the bag and handing it to Dobengal as he did so.

“Thanks, Rogue!” Dobengal cheered, opening the bag and digging in.

“That was a dirty trick,” Sting murmured, eyes crinkling in amusement.

“So’s ganging up on Dobengal, I thought you two had outgrown that,” Rogue chided as Dobengal tossed him a pastry.

He bit into it, moaning at the taste, and when he looked up, he noticed Sting gazing at his mouth.

“You’ve got a little something there,” Sting leaned in, lips moving ever closer and Rogue didn’t wait, he leaned in as well, meeting Sting halfway, feeling the soft brush of Sting’s lips on his and sucking on them.

Sting’s hands moved to Rogue’s head, tugging at his hair with long fingers, their kiss deepening as weeks of pent up need rose to the surface.

“Geez, get a room you guys,” Dobengal whined, “Have a heart will ya, I can’t fucking look anywhere without being reminded I’m alone again.”

Rogue felt that kiss flow through his entire body, awakening a desire that had been lying dormant for so long, and the last thing he wanted at that moment was to be at the park surrounded by people. He wanted to go home to continue what they had started, but that would be rude, and looking at the vast amounts of food packed into the basket, he could see Rufus had put a lot of work into it.

Sting didn’t seem much better, and when Rogue whispered To be continued, he looked just as impatient as Rogue felt.

“You guys brought wine, that’s great!” Orga commented, grabbing a bottle and looking at it, “I hope you also brought an opener cause these do not twist off.”

Sting and Rogue looked at each other in consternation, neither one of them had thought of that.

“Don’t look so glum, this basket came with one,” Rufus announced, unclipping the device from the lid amidst cheers from the others. “You guys sure brought a lot of bottles with you.”

“It was on sale,” Sting admitted, adding cheerfully, “We did bring cups though!”

Rufus set about opening the first bottle, which was quickly divided between the five men, immediately followed by three others. Dobengal sat next to Orga, having given up his space to a group of his friends from the University.

They were already pleasantly buzzed when Rufus began pulling out wrapped sandwiches from his basket, followed by some trays filled with raw vegetables and fresh fruit cut up into bite-sized pieces. Another dish contained cheese and crackers, which were devoured almost as soon as they touched the ground, giving him no chance to distribute the cutlery and napkins he’d brought.

Rogue felt kind of bad, the man had obviously put a lot of work into the presentation, and it was utterly wasted on them, but as much as he wanted to say something nice, he was too busy digging in at the same pace as the others. Both he and Dobengal had learned from experience that you couldn’t fool around when it came to Sting and Orga and food.

“This is delicious,” Rogue managed in between bites.

“How can you tell?” Rufus asked, peering at all of them in horror.

Sting looked embarrassed, and Rogue snickered, knowing his boyfriend was likely hearing his parents yell at him in his head, “Thank you so much, this is all really good.” Sting said politely, having the grace to wipe his mouth with his hand before elbowing Orga.

“Oh yeah, Babe, it’s great!” Orga mumbled while opening another bottle and pouring some into everyone’s cups. “The wine is great too. This whole thing is…. great!”

Sting shook his head at Orga, moving away from him to sit behind Rogue and whispering, “He’s so not getting laid tonight.”

Rogue giggled, the words but you might flitting through his mind before he could stop them, although thankfully, he didn’t say them out loud. He drank the rest of his wine, and when Sting wrapped himself around him, surrounding him in a cocoon of warmth and that cologne he always wore, he was overwhelmed with need.

Fuck the concert, he wanted to go home and well … fuck.

Maybe.

Definitely.

His thoughts blurred more and more as his senses became overloaded, and all there was was Sting. His head resting on Rogue’s shoulder, his arms wrapped around his middle, his legs on either side of him. Rogue felt Sting's breath, slightly heavier than usual, tickling just below his ear, his cock coming to life between them, pressing into his back and letting him know he wasn’t the only one affected.

“How long do you think we need to stay?” Rogue asked Sting in what he thought was a quiet voice, but from the amused looks he was getting from the others, it seemed it might have been louder than he thought.

“Oh my God, you two haven’t changed one bit,” Orga exclaimed, rolling his eyes at them, “No wonder Sting never wants to go anywhere, I wouldn’t either. Go, get out of here, we’ll get together another time.”

Rogue expected Sting to protest, but instead, he’d already gotten up and was grabbing him by the hand, tugging gently.

“It was great to see everyone, uhm bye,” Rogue tried his best to be polite, but all he could think of was getting home.

They left quickly, and as they reached the entrance, the park lights went out, replaced by the stage lights, signaling the beginning of the performance. The music soon began, but neither of them even stopped to peek, both intent on reaching home as quickly as possible.

0-0

They stumbled through the front door, hanging on to each other, breathless from walking so fast and locking lips the second Rogue had stopped to get his key. What little of a shirt Sting was wearing still managed to offend Rogue, and he nearly ripped it in his hurried attempt of getting it off.

"What was in that wine?" Sting chuckled as he raised his arms above his head to allow his top to be pulled over his head easier.

"Don't know, don't care," Rogue shrugged, wasting no time in attacking the newly exposed skin with his mouth.

The force behind the action caused him to tilt forward a bit too quickly. The combined rush of alcohol and his almost feral arousal made everything around Rogue spin for a few seconds before they bumped into something, tipping them over until he had Sting pinned against the hallway closet. He couldn’t say he minded.

A loud crash echoed through the room, the sound of wood hitting the floor and shattering ceramics prompting them to stop and look at the damage. The end table that had held one of his mother's plants had been knocked over, leaving the floor covered in dirt and shattered pieces of pottery.

Sting observed the mess with a sheepish smile. "How is it that we're always this destructive?" he laughed, the sound blending into a moan when Rogue ground against him and sucked a love bite into his neck.

Rogue snorted, he'd never liked that plant anyway, and even if he did, he was too caught up in the way Sting made him feel. The last time they'd done anything more than innocently kissing and cuddling had been in the first week after Sting had arrived, but it felt like so much longer. And even then, Rogue had lacked the eagerness he'd had before Sting left and during his Christmas visit to Edolas, the same one he had now.

He didn't answer the question, too lost in the sounds he was able to coax from Sting, wanting to hear them more, louder.

They somehow made it to the bedroom without causing any more damage, ditching Rogue's shirt along the way. As they fell onto the mattress, the sensation of falling lasted longer than it should have, making Rogue's head spin once again, but he ignored the little voice at the back of his mind that reminded him of how much he'd had to drink.

Sting, however, seemed more concerned about it. He slowed them down to ask, "Hey, are you sure this is okay?" He cupped Rogue's cheeks, a trace of worry shining in his eyes, the beautiful blue just a thin circle outlining his blown pupils.

"Yeah," Rogue kissed him again, unbuttoning his jeans and kicking them off the bed. "Fuck, I want you…"

It wasn’t enough, not when Sting’ s body was still half covered. With a grunt of frustration, his hands moved to the offending button that was keeping him from what he wanted. He could feel Sting’s eyes on him, but he didn’t want to meet them just yet. Instead, he continued to fumble until he got it open.

Feeling victorious, he lowered the zipper, and when Sting didn’t lift his hips right away to help, he pouted. Not to be deterred, he moved the metallic teeth out of the way giving him access to Sting’s underwear.

With a wicked grin, he grabbed the waistband with his teeth, tugging at it until Sting relented, lifting his hips slowly.

Rogue let go gazing at Sting and purring, “Good boy,” before pulling his pants down slowly, eyes never leaving his boyfriends until they were entirely off. For once, he felt very much in control, and that was almost as intoxicating as the wine.

He noticed Sting gulp as he watched him, and the responsive twitch in his tented underwear. God Sting was beautiful, especially when he was like this. Rogue traced a path up Sting’s leg with his finger, moving ever so slowly, enjoying how Sting was trying so hard to stay still for him, even though it was obvious that he wanted to touch.

When he got as high up as his thighs, he started adding soft puffs of warm air, which made Sting squirm. Rogue licked his lips in anticipation at seeing the wet spot on Sting’s underwear, once again keeping their eyes locked as he continued to trail his finger up until he could trace the outline of Sting’s cock, giving him the barest of touches.

Sting’s wanton moan made him pause a moment, the sound the only music he ever wanted to hear. And when Sting called out for him, he moved the underwear out of the way to blow against the flushed skin of the head of his cock, just short of pressing a kiss on top of it.

"Roooogue," Sting whined again, trying to laugh off his frustration. Rogue smiled back at him innocently until he couldn't smile anymore, his lips wrapping around Sting's cock, taking him in slowly, inch by torturous inch.

He watched transfixed, following every sign of satisfaction that graced Sting's face, feeling more turned on by the second by the effects his efforts were having. Like the rest of his personality, Sting wasn't the timid type, and Rogue knew him well enough to know how to get the reactions he wanted.

But as much as he liked teasing, his patience was running thin. He'd been hard since they'd been at the park, and though he'd been distracted by dirty thoughts, now he was aching for relief.

With that in mind, he took in as much of Sting’s cock as he could manage, moving slowly back up and giving one last hard suck before letting go. Ignoring Sting’s protests at his absence, Rogue removed his underwear. He was done with playing, and he could only snort when he saw that Sting had already removed his as well.

“You really want this, huh?” Sting’s eyes were half-lidded, his voice sultry.

Rogue paused for a moment, the words loosening something, but once again, he ignored it, too full of the vision of Sting’s gloriously naked body underneath him to pay attention to anything else.

Instead of a coherent vocal answer, he straddled Sting's hips and rubbed their cocks together, moaning low in his throat at the sensation he'd been craving. Fuck, he probably wasn't going to last long.

He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling building up inside him, trying his best to hold off and go slow, denying his body's persistent demand for more. Rogue felt a slight tickle as Sting ran his hand up to his thigh before wrapping it around both of them and tugging along with his rhythm, groaning at the increased friction.

Rogue was getting close, but along with the climbing tension, he could feel the panic rising within him and begged internally, please, not now.

It did nothing to calm him down, though. He broke his rhythm, feeling suddenly unable to breathe.

He opened his eyes again to reassure himself that he was safe at home with Sting, but when Rogue searched for the well-loved features, he only saw Maru grinning back at him.

See? I knew you wanted it...Doesn’t that feel good?

The feeling of having his cock jerked was already too much, but the added vision, combined with the voice in his head, was enough for him to scramble back in response. He managed to catch himself before he fell off the edge of the bed, but he still couldn’t breathe, and his hand immediately moved to his throat.

“Rogue, are you okay?” He could hear the fear in Sting’s voice, and he wanted to answer, but all he could do was wave him off.

“Just give me a minute,” Rogue pleaded.

“A minute? What just happened?” Sting had already moved off the bed, his forehead creased, and every vestige of his desire gone, replaced by a concern that pissed Rogue off.

“I said to give me a goddamn minute, “ Rogue snapped, surprising both of them.

“Please,” he amended, even though he knew it was too little too late.

No, no, no, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go!

"Okay," Sting conceded, calmly putting his boxers back on and sitting back on the bed, resting against the headboard. As if they weren't just brutally ripped out of a heated moment.

Rogue knew he was waiting for him to say or do something, and with every passing second, he grew more stressed. He felt cornered, unable to be honest about what had just happened, although he was reasonably sure Sting already knew.

A part of him just wanted Sting to make this decision for him, tell him to get a fucking grip already, but he didn't even know what he really wanted anymore. Continuing where they'd left off or even starting over was hardly an option, but so was stopping. That would only drive home everything Rogue didn't want to acknowledge.

"Hey…" Sting softly called him out of his thoughts, "don't beat yourself up over this, we can always try again another time."

There it was again, the gap between them, seeming more significant than ever. A dark abyss that would swallow Rogue whole if he dared to try to cross it.

"That's easy to say for you, isn't it?" Rogue scoffed, "Because you're not fucked up like I am?"

It flew out before he knew it, no matter how much it frightened him to feel this much anger towards Sting for no rationally explainable reason. He had given in to the darkness, and it was feeding off his turmoil.

"I didn't-"

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't! So you're just going to lie to me then?! Pretend that I'm not the cause of all of our fucking problems?!"

Whatever reaction Rogue was hoping for, he didn't get it. Sting didn't confirm nor deny his words, he didn't get angry for being yelled at when he did nothing wrong. The expression Rogue found on his face he could only guess was pity, and it managed to piss him off even more.

"Fine," Rogue got dressed again, choosing to leave before he'd say or do something worse than he already had, "Just leave me alone."

As soon as he'd slammed the door behind him, the devastation of silence and solitude hit him, making him regret every word he'd said. Needless to say, he was too stubborn to go back and apologize, so instead, he curled up on the sofa and tried to get some sleep hoping things would be clearer in the morning.

But sleep wouldn't come, even though he was exhausted from everything the day had brought. He was forced to relive the disaster he'd just caused word for word, the only respite he was given being more flashbacks from the attack. Now that the anger had ebbed away, he was able to reevaluate the situation, and it dawned on him that what he'd seen in Sting's eyes had been repressed hurt. Pity was just what his inner demons had wanted him to believe.

He'd done it again, and he was terrified that he might not be able to come back from it this time.

Rogue tried his best to breathe through it as he felt the cold sweat rising and his mouth watering, but his stomach was already feeling tense. He got up fast, getting lightheaded from the sudden movement, and he thanked his lucky stars that he knew his house like the back of his hand. He made it to the half bath just in time to bend over the toilet and violently expel everything he'd had at the picnic.

It burned, the tears in his eyes and the acid in his throat. His head was spinning again, but not in the pleasant way it had before. A sharp jabbing pain came with it, and the spots dancing in front of his eyes made him heave again.

He'd pushed himself too far today, made all the wrong choices, and now it was time to pay the price.

0-0

The alarm went off, but as soon as Sting reached for his phone on the nightstand, he recognized the sound of rain pelting the house’s aluminum siding, mirroring the throbbing in his head. He quickly decided that he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. While he loved the sound of rain, he didn’t particularly enjoy running in it, especially with a hangover.

Eyes still closed he stretched out his arm reaching for Rogue, hoping that despite how the night had gone, he would have returned to bed. He was disappointed to find that side of the bed was not only empty but cold.

Sting was determined not to get discouraged by the relapse. He’d noticed little changes over the last few weeks even if he hadn’t said anything, afraid that if he brought attention to them, it would make Rogue self-conscious.

He must’ve fallen back to sleep at some point because the next thing he knew, he woke up to the smell of something burning and the sound of Rogue cursing up a storm. Soon he understood why: the fire alarm started going off.

“Everything okay?” he called out, clutching his head miserably as the noise pierced through it and added to the headache he was already experiencing. Still, he was determined not to get up unless the house was actually on fire, but the sound of a chair scraping across the floor told him that wasn't likely.

“Yeah, I just- Ah, fuck, hold on!” Praise the heavens, the beeping sound stopped, only to be immediately followed by the ringing of Rogue’s cell phone.

Sting could hear his boyfriend talking to someone, and he sympathized with him deeply, especially as Rogue’s tone became more and more exasperated with every incoming call.

“Hello? No, there is no emergency, just trying to cook breakfast. What? This is Rogue Fullbuster, yes, thank you.”

Sting stretched and yawned at hearing Rogue's end of the phone call, "Cooking breakfast, huh? I'll be right there, just gotta untangle myself from the sheets... and hope my body won't stay down as my soul ascends when I try to get up.”

"Just stay put,” Rogue ordered, “I’ll come to you.”

A few minutes later, Rogue entered the room, holding a tray Sting had never seen before. It was laden with all sorts of food items, including pieces of burnt toast, even more burnt bacon, as well as some overly runny eggs.

Rogue waited for Sting to sit up before handing him the tray, which also contained a bowl of sugary cereal and some fruit along with a glass of milk.

“I’m sorry, I tried to multitask,” Rogue rubbed the back of his neck with one hand while peering down at Sting through his bangs.

“No, it looks great!” Sting was quick to reassure him, surprised that he had put so much effort into making him breakfast after the sounds he’d heard coming from the bathroom the night before.

He began picking at the fruit, not wanting to bring attention yet to what had happened. “Thank you.”

Rogue snorted, “It does not, but you’re welcome.” He left the room, returning a few minutes later with two large mugs of coffee.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Sting asked, eyeing the eggs warily, trying to ignore the queasiness in his stomach as he willed himself to eat them, but before he could make a move, they had already been taken away.

“Don’t eat those,” Rogue paled just looking at them and gagged when he took them to the bathroom to flush them down the toilet. “No, I ate already. This wasn’t my first attempt,” he admitted when he came back, looking rather sheepish when he had to add, “we, uhm, need to go to the grocery store.”

“Maybe after the rain clears?” Sting suggested, not really expecting him to agree but wanting to act normal. He felt a surge of relief when Rogue just nodded in reply.

Like he’d thought earlier, last night had just been a relapse. One that had been both terrifying and frustrating, but not the end of the world. Things were still changing for the better, it was just slow going. He finished his breakfast as best he could, and despite Rogue’s protests got up and helped clean up the mess in the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a trace left of the havoc they’d wreaked in the hallway the night before.

“Want to go sit on the front porch?” Sting asked. Now that he was up, he was in the mood to sit and watch the rain. The fresh air would probably do them good.

Rogue stared at the door wordlessly but eventually replied, “Yeah, okay, I have a book I want to finish.”

It wasn’t excitement, but it was something, and Sting liked watching Rogue read his books, it was one of the few times when he was truly relaxed. He hurried to their room to change into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, deciding to remain barefoot. He grabbed his phone and headed outside, finding Rogue already sitting down with his book on his lap, although his gaze seemed a million miles away.

Not wanting to disturb him, Sting sat down and poked around on his phone, finding a text from Yukino, asking how they were doing and telling him that she missed having him around. He’d started swiping a response when Rogue broke the comfortable silence.

“I used to love the rain,” he announced, “just everything about it, the smell, the way it felt on my body on a hot summer day, and the rainbows that came after.”

Sting didn’t quite know how to respond, so he remained silent and let Rogue talk.

“Cana, Gray and I would chase each other and jump in puddles, even though we’d promised my mom we wouldn’t. And on good days, when Dad and Gildarts were both around, they’d join in. We’d play tag and just laugh ourselves silly.”

Rogue chuckled softly, “Sometimes those two were bigger kids than we were.”

Sting put his arm around him, urging him closer, as he could see that even though Rogue seemed to be having a pleasant memory, there was something ugly lurking underneath, and he was sure he knew exactly what it was.

“We’d all come home covered in mud, and Mom would give us that look of horror when she scolded us for all the mopping and laundry she’d have to do, but then once we were all showered there was always hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows waiting for us."

“Now, I have a whole new set of memories that resurfaces whenever it rains, and the good ones have all been overridden.” Rogue closed the book on his lap without looking, continuing to stare blankly at the driveway, which was as good as flooded. “And all it took was no more than five minutes. I know, because if it had lasted any longer than that, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

“Someone would’ve found me, lying in that alley, cold and soaked, with mud in my hair and my pants pulled down.” The hairs on Rogue’s arms stood on end and goosebumps formed on his skin, Sting could feel it underneath his fingertips as he brushed his thumb up and down to offer some sort of consolation. “I’ve seen that outcome too, in one of my nightmares,” Rogue spilled.

Sting held his breath, entirely overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. He was both glad and surprised to finally hear Rogue disclose some of his feelings about what had happened, but the fact that he could’ve died that day, even by accident, sent chills down his spine every time it came to Sting’s mind. The mental imagery of the nightmare made his gut scrunch up in revolt.

“I don’t like to think about that,” he admitted, resting his head on Rogue’s shoulder.

“I...There have been times when I thought it would’ve been better if-” Rogue stopped, swallowing back the words that didn’t need to be said, “But that's not how I really feel. Some amazing things happened that I'm glad I didn't miss out on, and I like to think that there will be many more in the future.”

"There will be," Sting said confidently, wanting to cement that positive outlook more than anything in the world. “It just takes-”

“Time, I know, but how much time has already passed? How much time will it take? How many times will I bring myself down, possibly taking you with me, and how long before one of us doesn’t want to get back up again?”

“I don’t have the answer to that, no one does,” Sting ran his fingers through his hair, “I’m going to tell you the same thing Bob told me. You can’t do this for me, or even for us, you have to do it for you. I will still be here, for as long as it takes.”

“And I don’t care about last night, or any other nights like it, because I know you will get past this.”

“I do care about last night,” Rogue countered, “I’ve felt so distant from myself and from you, and then suddenly, I didn’t, and I desperately wanted to chase that.”

He chuckled bitterly, sucking in his bottom lip when it began to quiver. His voice was watery and cracked halfway through as he added, “But the truth is, I have no control over anything, not the way my body responds or the thoughts and images my mind feeds me. So no matter how much I missed it and wanted it, I couldn’t.”

Sting had heard him cry only once, caught a few sniffles when they’d curled up on the couch together after Rogue had shown him the journal. He’d had no idea what to do or say then, and he didn’t now, either. His chest felt tight, and tears began to well in the corners of his eyes as he witnessed Rogue breaking down in front of him, little by little, shattering Sting’s heart.

“That might be okay for you, but it’s not for me-” Rogue wiped his tears, but it was pointless, there was no stopping the grief that spilled, and all he managed to do was turn his skin red and raw. “This has taken so many things from me already. All the things I used to love and enjoy have been tainted, yesterday was just another cruel reminder of that.”

“And I’m so sorry,” his voice quavered through his hands, interrupted by the spasms of sobs and hiccups, “I should’ve been grateful that you were so understanding instead of giving you shit because I couldn’t cope with the fact that I’m so far from your level. I was frustrated and disappointed, and I took it out on you.”

Sting let him pour it all out, shifting their positions so he could wrap both arms around Rogue and let him cry on his shoulder. Neither of them seemed to notice Rogue’s book falling to the ground.

It killed him inside, knowing that the one he loved so dearly was in so much pain, but Sting was happy to offer the comfort he could tell Rogue needed from the way he clung on to him.

“You know, there’s no such thing as your level or my level...” He stroked through Rogue’s hair, thinking about the guilt he still felt for not being there right after the attack, or during the difficult moments that followed after, when there was no one Rogue trusted and felt comfortable enough with to be this vulnerable. This was, in some way, healing to Sting as well, to be able to offer that comfort even though it was long overdue.

“My troubles cannot be compared to what you’re going through, and even if it could, we’re two very different people. We have different personalities, different beliefs, different cultures, and upbringing. All of that defines what does and doesn’t work for us, how we react and deal with things."

Rogue was slowly calming down again, releasing his tight grip on Sting’s shirt. He spoke softly, almost whispering, his voice barely reaching above the rain that clattered down on the overhang above them. “Your therapist...Do you think he’d want to see me?”

Sting pulled back from their embrace, surprised by Rogue’s words. He studied his tear-stricken features for a hint of confirmation that he’d heard that right.

“I’m so sick of it, Sting, I want me to define me again.” Rogue got up and moved to the edge of the overhang, leaning against the wooden railing. Reaching out a hand, palm side up, he let the rain coat his fingers. A shiver went through him that was unlikely to have been caused by the chilly weather, but he didn’t retract his hand.

“I’m tired of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome and still being let down when it doesn’t happen,” He sniffed, staring at his bare feet and wiggling his toes in the shallow pool of water he was standing in.

“And I’m terrified- the admission made him choke on the word, “but I know I can’t do this on my own anymore, I’ve tried that.”

Sting walked up to him, making sure to give him some space first and asking, “Can I hold you?” wrapping his arms around Rogue again when he nodded his consent.

“You don’t have to do this alone, I’ll be there whenever you need me,” he promised, “And of course Bob would want to see you, he told me he’d gladly make time for you if it was something you ever wanted.”

“I want to,” Rogue confirmed, sliding the raindrops around between his fingertips, “I want the rain back, I want my music back, I want my writing focus back, I want us back…”

“But most of all, I really want myself back. I miss the person I used to be.”

“Then I’ll text him right now,” Sting said, his fingers already flying across the screen of his phone as he sent a message to Bob, asking if he could see Rogue over the weekend.

He went back to holding Rogue close, nudging them back to the bench where they could sit comfortably. Rogue was limp, obviously exhausted from his outburst, and Sting could see his eyes were fixed on his phone, so he gave it to him to hold.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” Sting murmured into Rogue's hair, rubbing his arm gently when he noticed that he was shivering, “and I know it’s frustrating, but we’re gonna get through this together. I wasn’t joking when I said you were stuck with me, you know.”

“There’s no one for me but you,” Sting continued reassuring Rogue as best he could, “I know that just as my dad knew when he met my Mom.”

Rogue wasn’t sure how much time they sat like that, him holding on to Sting as he kept talking, both waiting for the tone that would alert them to Bob’s response. When it finally came, Rogue had almost fallen asleep, lulled by Sting’s words and the sound of his heartbeat. He looked down in slight trepidation, almost sobbing with relief when he saw the words light up the screen.

How does tomorrow at 3 sound?

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

Hoo boy, these chapters get keep getting longer and longer. I need an editor pls send help

Up until now, I would’ve said you didn’t need any prior knowledge of my pre-Road Trip fics to follow along with the plot, but this chapter in particular heavily references the lore I’ve established in my other stories (the skull necklace, the spectacles-pried-clean-off-his-face incident, etc). As a side note, the word ‘Neminis’ is Latin for ‘nobody’; although I couldn’t get around not naming the sister, I thought it’d be a fun nod to the redhead’s anonymity in previous works.

If you haven’t read any of my other fics, you could probably get away with skipping this chapter altogether; the next (and last!) chapter will be the smutfest you’ve all been hoping for!

(SFW; Click on the link above or the cut below for the full text of Chapter 4.)

It took two weeks of dedicated searching, but the shortlist of women living in Lestallum that matched the criteria of the individual Ignis was hoping to find proved to be mercifully brief. According to the census records and telephone books Ophelia had combed through during her lunch hours, forty-seven Altissian merchants had established permanent residency in Cleigne in the last twenty years, but only a dozen of them had married native-born Lucians; of those twelve couples, five were deceased, four had returned to the island archipelago of Accordo, which left three possible leads to explore.

The first couple the strategist had tried ringing up on the phone ended with him spending almost an hour discussing his Elegant Orange Cake recipe with a very kind but very hard of hearing old woman, who had evidently mistaken the Date Of Birth line on the most recent census for the last four digits of her citizenship identification number, resulting in a fifty-year discrepancy on her paperwork. He didn’t even bother dialing up the second couple, since Ophelia had pointed out to him that their wedding announcement clipping she’d found in the digital archives of the local newspaper had been dated for only six months prior. The third couple, unfortunately, no longer appeared to have a working landline, but the home address listed for one Mr. and Mrs. Neminis had remained active and unchanged for the last thirteen years.

Which is why it took yet another week for Ignis to drum up enough courage to follow through with the whole dreaded ordeal, because the very last thing he wanted to do was make an unsolicited house call that might’ve devolved into him sobbing in a puddle of his own snot and tears on the floor of some stranger’s kitchen. It’s only when his coworker-turned-personal psychiatrist jokingly threatens to slip salt into his morning Ebony rather than sugar for each day he chooses to postpone the inevitable that he finally resolves to put an end to his waffling, but strictly under the agreement that she help him navigate the unfamiliar path to house located just beyond where Randolph hammered out his eccentric weapons.

So help him she does, just as she’d helped him come to the grudging conclusion that some closure was better than none, and he listens to the sound of Ophelia scolding children who are playing precariously close to the main thoroughfare as he follows her up the city’s northernmost hillside. She had even gone so far as to cajole Mr. Tostwell with her usual charm into letting them close up the grill early, so that they might make it to their destination before the sun went down that evening; there was never really a good time to tackle these sorts of things, but Ignis didn’t want to risk dropping an emotional bombshell on Mrs. Neminis in addition to interrupting her supper.

Try as he might to suppress his anxiety, the strategist’s heart is nearly in his throat by the time they reach the front doorsteps of the address in question; he knew this bloody endeavor of his was likelier than not to fail—the odds of the stars aligning and this truly being the immediate relative of his former protégé were mind-bogglingly steep—but the keen intuition that had served him well in the past is causing the hairs on the back of his neck to tingle, and something in his gut is telling him to prepare himself for what lay just beyond the threshold.

Before his trembling fingers can ring the doorbell, however, Ophelia touches her hand to his elbow and speaks in a low voice. “Would you like me to wait outside? I recognize this has the potential to be a rather intimate conversation.”

“That’s not necessary,” he says, masking his unease with a cheeky grin. “Who will help stabilize my severed spine if my knees decided to collapse out from under me?”

He then swallows his reticence and presses the buzzer, listening intently for anything—a clanking pipe, a running faucet, a squeaky floorboard—that might indicate signs of habitation within the home. His heart pounds harder inside his ribcage with each passing second, until his ears prick at the sound of light footsteps padding through the foyer from the other side of the door.

A loud creak follows. “May I help you?”

The strategist’s occluded eye widens as the voice greeting him from inside the doorway slowly registers in his mind; the logical half of his brain understood that similar vocal patterns were relatively common among closely related kin, but the other half nearly short circuits under the strain of not quite comprehending the fact that he wasn’t actually talking to her.

“Are you Mrs. Neminis?” he asks.

“I am.”

He’d rehearsed his side of the conversation more times than was probably necessary—something to the effect of ‘I do so hate to be a bother, but it has come to my attention that you may be privy to a tidbit of sensitive information I’ve sought after for quite some time now’ had been rattling around inside his head for several days—but all traces of rationale suddenly escape him, and he blurts out his next words without nary a second thought. “I think knew your sister.”

A long pause. “My sister?”

He can barely hear Mrs. Neminis over the sound of his own pulse screaming in his ears. “I’m not entirely sure if I’ve run into a dead end here, but I have reason to believe you might be related to a young woman who worked as part of a security retinue in Insomnia some years ago.”

Her footsteps shift ominously against the hardwood floor of the landing. “Who are you, exactly?”

He hesitates, until he feels Ophelia’s hand brush against his shoulder. “Go on, Ignis,” she says. “She can’t very well help you without giving her the whole picture.”

“Right.” He clears his throat in an attempt to dislodge the frog that has mysteriously taken up residency there. “I’m a former strategist and advisor to Lucian royal family. I was also employed as a dagger and lance specialist at the Citadel before the crown city fell.”

Nothing but empty silence emanates from the threshold for several agonizing heartbeats; before he can apologize profusely for the unwanted intrusion and make a beeline for the city’s central plaza, however, he hears the sound of the door creaking on its hinges and widening further. “Won’t you two come inside? I think I need to sit down for a moment.”

The strategist’s legs remain frozen in place; he generally disliked entering other peoples’ homes, since he didn’t particularly enjoy the experience of bumbling around unfamiliar layouts like a behemoth in a porcelain wares shop. But his knees finally yield when Ophelia grips him gently by the elbow, and he trails closely behind her as they pass through a series of hallways leading to what he presumes is a living room.

“I’m sorry for dropping in on you like this unexpectedly,” he says as Ophelia guides him to sit in a nearby chair. “I tried calling ahead of time, but it seems your phone number listed in the local directory is no longer working.”

“My husband had it disconnected a few years ago,” Mrs. Neminis replies, her voice so eerily similar to that of her sister’s that it leaves the strategist wondering whether they might have been twins. “It was getting to be prohibitively expensive, what with power at such a premium during the long night.”

“Is your husband also home?” Ophelia asks. “We’d been on the lookout for an Altissian merchant residing in these parts, which is how we found you.”

“Regrettably, no. Former merchant, I should add—he gave up the trade to focus on ferrying refugees back to Accordo, which is where he’s headed at the moment. If I were to guess, he’s probably floating somewhere near Angelguard right about now.”

The strategist nods solemnly. “An admirable effort, to be sure.”

He then listens as Mrs. Neminis settles into a seat a few feet to his left. “So—my sister,” she begins. “She’d been interested in the pike from a young age, which is why she ultimately made the move to Insomnia. Is that how you came to know her?”

“Correct. She was an early pupil of mine, and show great promise with the halbert. If I recall, she climbed the ranks faster than anyone else in her hiring pool.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Scientia.”

“Scientia,” she echos, her voice suddenly sounding miles away. “You were one of the Crownsguard who served the last king of Lucis. I remember reading about your name in the papers—this country owes you a great deal of gratitude. You have my thanks.”

His cheeks warm slightly, and he wipes a clammy hand on one thigh. “Think nothing of it.”

A lull descends on the three figures sitting in the living room; Ignis ruminates on the thoughts that are clouding his mind, pondering how best to broach the subject of his wayward protégé’s whereabouts, until Mrs. Neminis seemingly recognizes the question hovering on the tip of his tongue and does the difficult work for him.

“I presume you’re not here to tell me you’ve miraculously heard word from her,” she says quietly.

A cascade of numbness washes over him like a rising tide. “I was actually hoping you might have.”

“Hope—such a strange concept, when you really think about it.” He hears Mrs. Neminis shift against the cushions of her seat, and a long sigh escapes her. “One never quite realizes how much hope they are able to cling to until they’ve gone and lost nearly all of it.”

But then he does begin to feel something, like a scalpel being inserted just under the collarbone with such surgical precision that the pain isn’t obvious until after the sharp blade has already punctured the walls of the heart. “Indeed,” he says, his voice utterly deflated.

“Did you know her very well?”

The strategist narrows his clouded eye, recalling to mind memories of the men and the women he had entangled himself with over the years, before they had all become entirely irrelevant in her shadow. “I did,” he replies softly. “We were quite close at one point.”

“It’s good to hear she had at least one trusted confidant at the Citadel. I know she was feeling rather despondent right after she got there, since our parents had pelted her with guilt for leaving in the first place. I’m sure the only reason they forgave her is because I ran off with a sailor I barely knew and took the heat off of her.”

He snaps out of his reverie long enough to glance up at her. “Are they still alive? Your parents, that is.”

“They’re not, sadly, although they lived longer than anyone probably expected them to. Sometimes I think the only thing that kept them going was the hope that she might walk through their front door one day.” Another shift against the cushions; another long sigh. “I was told a starscourge infection had devastated their town and wiped out all but a few people living there, but the more likely reality was that they simply died of a broken heart.”

Ignis hears his companion stirring on the seat to his right. “I’m terribly sorry,” Ophelia says. “So many have lost so much in the tragedy. My thoughts are with you.”

He then listens as Mrs. Neminis taps her fingers along the arm of her chair absentmindedly. “It’s hardly polite to speak ill of the dead,” she murmurs, “but I often wondered if my parents would’ve held out the same kind of hope for me, had our roles been reversed. My sister was the one with the red hair, but I was more of the surly stepchild, as it were.”

The strategist’s eyebrows furrow behind his visor. “Did you break contact with her after you moved to Lestallum?”

“Not at all. We might’ve had our own petty sibling rivalry, but I was always happy to receive letters from her once she took up office in Crown City. Reading her rant about the neverending stream of arrogant men who tried courting her was always good for a laugh.”

“She was quite the charming talent—everyone who met her was immediately captivated by her.” He allows himself to indulge in a small smile, but his grin quickly fades. “The world is undoubtably a little dimmer without her in it.”

Mrs. Neminis’ fingers have evidently moved on from their tapping, and Ignis picks up on the sound of her plucking at a loose cushion thread. “You know, between you and me, I think she was always destined to die young. A flame that burns twice as hot only burns half as long, as they say.”

“She… certainly left her mark on those closest to her.”

“I mean, really—can you imagine what she would’ve been like at twenty-five, or even thirty? She would’ve made a terrible mother, if she’d carried an infant around even half as roughly as she did her beloved pike.”

The imaginary scalpel in his heart twists further still. “I’m not so sure about that. She could be rather accommodating when called upon, at least in my experience with her.”

“Would you happen to have any personal anecdotes of her you’d be willing to share? After all, there’s no better way of honoring the dead than by keeping their memory alive.”

His hand moves to his visor, if only to mask the sudden dampness plaguing his eyelids. “Well,” he says, “she was smart as a whip, and a quick learner. She managed to pry my spectacles clean off my face once using nothing but her lance and a well-placed foot to the hilt.”

Mrs. Neminis laughs beside him. “That sounds like something she would’ve done. I know she had used her steel-toed boots to ward off more than one overly ambitious suitor in the past.”

“This was back when my eyesight was only marginally better than it is now, mind you, so I probably shouldn’t be giving her too much credit.”

Her chuckles continue for several moments before eventually fading into silence. “Thank you for that. It truly warms my heart to know she was remember so fondly.”

“I can only hope she was happy. In the end, at least.”

But the somberness in his tone doesn’t quite match the cadence of Mrs. Neminis’. “I don’t see why she wasn’t,” she replies merrily. “The last letter I received was her droning on and on about a man she had apparently fallen head over heels for, although she refused to tell me his name no matter how hard I pressed her.”

The wincing in his heart eases a tad, and a weak smile touches his lips. “You don’t say? How curious.”

“You know how silly young women can be—they positively love their secrets. Although I suppose if one has to meet the Draconian prematurely, taking their leave on a high note is the way to go.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Silence befalls the living room once more, and Ignis rakes a hand through his hair as he heaves a sigh. He then hears the sound of Mrs. Neminis leaning forward in her seat, followed by the sensation of her fingers pressing gently against his forearm.

“I know this wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for,” she says. “I’m left with quite a few unanswered prayers of my own.”

He covers her hand with his own and offers her a placid expression. “It’s all right. I’ve certainly unearthed more than I was realistically expecting to find.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I just—”

His voice wavers, but for once in his life, the strategist doesn’t shy away from his own vulnerability, or attempt to hide his despair behind an aloof facade. “I just want to let it be said that she was dearly loved by those she chose to share herself with. As long as there’s someone out there who knows that, it’s enough.”

“I have a confession to make.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t particularly care for the taste of coffee.”

The strategist frowns. “Then why on Eos are we paying good money to sit here and choke down bitter Coeurl excrement?”

Ophelia’s melodious laughs ring out beside him. “Because it’s not polite to look a gift Chocobo in the mouth, especially when you’re the one who offered to buy.”

They were, in fact, sitting on a bench overlooking Taelpar Crag just a few hundred paces away from the Coernix Station; not wanting to stay in Mrs. Neminis’ hair for too long, and not wanting to immediately bolt home to wallow in pity, Ignis had proposed stopping by the same coffee kiosk as before to grab a quick cup in an effort to take his mind off what had transpired inside the house on the hill.

Her giggles subside and she resumes a measured tone. “I hope you don’t feel like I coerced you into doing anything you didn’t want to do. I know this was rather difficult for you.”

He can feel the chain of his necklace encircling his throat, but it no longer threatens to strangle him like a hangman’s noose; rather, the skull pendant seems almost to have increased in lightness, the weight of the pewter pressing against his collarbone more comforting and less suffocating than before.

“On the contrary,” he says. “It’s something I should’ve done of my own volition a long time ago. You were simply the spur I needed to get on with it.”

“Are you going to be all right? You don’t have to lie just to put my mind at ease.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.” He reaches out a hand and pats what he hopes is her knee. “Thank you for the kindness you’ve shown toward me. You do quite the honor to your namesake.”

“My namesake?”

“Ophelia—it means ‘to help’, does it not?”

“Oh. Right.” He hears her lean back against the bench, the scuffling of her feet echoing against the concrete balcony as she rests one knee over the other. “I’m happy I was able to be of service, if only just a little. Perhaps I’ll find a way to apply that helpfulness to my own life one of these days.”

His features furrow into puzzlement. “Are you in need of help yourself?”

She grows silent for a time, and it’s only when he begins to wonder whether he’d made himself audible enough that she stirs beside him again. “It just feels like something’s missing—I thought quitting my job at the power plant to become a baker would’ve been enough to make me happy, but I’m not feeling as fulfilled as I would’ve hoped. Like I traded the risk of radiation exposure for yet another contamination, by way of flour.”

“Work is generally a means to an end, at least for most people. Do you have any friends to keep you occupied?”

“I do, but they’ve all started families and moved on with their lives. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in the same rut I was in when my parents died, and it’s left me feeling rather alone.” His ears prick as she turns in her seat to face him. “Have you ever worried what it would be like to reach the end of you life, only to realize you never shared it with anyone else?”

“Truth be told, I didn’t even think I was going to make it this far.” He grimaces as he stares blankly into his coffee, then empties the stale liquid off the end of the bench before crumpling the paper cup into a waxy ball. “But I gave up hope a long time ago that I might meet someone who’d be charitable enough to embrace the complications of being with me. Seems rather unfair to subject a partner to a lifetime of my disability, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say that’s not really your decision to make for other people.”

“Come now, no one would willingly put up with my idiosyncrasies. The prospect of having to herd me around like a senile cat alone would make them want to positively tear their hair out.”

“I would.”

He looks over at Ophelia then, straining desperately to make out any recognizable glimpse of human features. But not even the aura of calmness and tranquility he can sense emanating from her is enough to agitate the damaged nerves in his right eye, so he resorts to doing exactly the same thing he’d admonished her for weeks prior and inches a little closer to her side of the bench.

“At the risk of coming across as a lecher,” he says carefully, “may I touch your face?”

The strategist might not have known what she looked like, but the grin in her voice is unmissable. “What happened to not being the touchy-feely sort?”

“Be that as it may, this is the only way I can ‘see’ anyone, so to speak.”

Rather than responding with a wry quip like he expects, he feels her hand reach over and draw his own from his lap, and soon the sensation of velvety soft skin registers in his mind as she presses his palm to her cheek. His fingertips trace the outline of her jaw before moving across the bridge of her nose; the bone there is both at once delicate and strong, and as his fingers glide up toward her forehead, he can make out the distinct furrow of a worry line centered just between her eyebrows.

He then drops his hand and offers her a small smile. “I can tell you’re quite beautiful. No wonder Cid always asks for you by name.”

But her own hand is still grasping lightly at his forearm, and she is close enough to his side that he can feel her warm breath on the exposed skin of his neck. “Would you consider letting me return the favor?” she asks. “I promise not to knock your visor askew this time.”

He snorts softly, but an inkling of anxiety trickles into his gut; he’d never been on the receiving end of a woman’s touch in public before, not even once, not even when he had said goodbye to the redhead for the very last time, even though all he had wanted to do was shout her name from the rooftop of the Citadel and carry her across the threshold of the home they would never have together.

But Ignis is no longer the man he used to be, back when appearances were everything and consummate professionalism was more important than telling the woman he loved how much she truly meant to him, and he wasn’t about to let himself make the same foolish mistakes of his youth. “Go on, then,” he says quietly.

Her hand meets his bare face, tentatively at first, then more deliberately as he yields to her touch. He can smell her Sylleblossom perfume mingling with the aroma of coffee that must have dribbled over the side of her cup while she was holding it, and his mouth parts slightly when her fingers graze the vertical scar that splits his lower lip. And although the strategist doesn’t quite understand it, she somehow feels like honesty and virtue and pure kindness all rolled into the palm of one gentle hand, and his eyelids flutter shut as her hair stirs in the breeze around them and tickles his cheek.

Then a whole new sensation registers at the back of Ignis’ mind, and an explosion of invisible fireworks goes off behind his blind eyes when he feels her lips brush softly against his own.

[bluntsmoker666-blog]

Minor spoilers; I was very careful not to reveal anything major, but NieR: Automata is one of those games I feel is best enjoyed without any prior knowledge of its content, so proceed with caution. I spent the last 30 days banned from Facebook; during this time, I did little of note. Afflicted as I was by a seasonal depression, I spent my days either sleeping in bed, attempting to be physically active, or consuming media and pop culture. Of course, this sort of thing is hardly exceptional, the winter months being nondiscriminatory in whom it chooses to oppress, yet I did find some solace in one of these meaningless ways I passed time; instead of merely being idle, I was able to enjoy a masterpiece of a video game, the title of which is NieR: Automata.

I must admit that this is my first foray into the DrakeNieR series, despite my awareness of Yoko Taro and his 'ideas'; the man has a reputation for eccentricity in both his interests and his works. To make amends for this, I have therefore spent the last week studying both the man and the lore of his creations; what I've discovered is a man who is so dedicated to his vision that he's willing to sacrifice good taste and accessibility; essentially, he is a modern-day idiot savant, a creative genius the likes of which have not for some time been seen. Indeed, contrary to NieR: Automata's positive stature within the gaming community, the other entries in his series are nigh-universally considered mediocre, suffering from a myriad of problems, among them of which the gameplay simply being boring is a consistent issue. Yet, I find myself completely fascinated by Yoko Taro; he's a man completely true to himself and whether it is through sheer force of will or the tides of fortune that he has survived at Square is as good as anyone's guess.

I must admit that I have completely and truly fallen in love with the world of NieR: Automata; it is not often that a game thrusts you into a world completely devoid of human life, having been utterly ruined by centuries of war between two different factions of automata, and despite my issues with some of the aspects of the open world-nature of the game (such as the frequent presence of invisible walls), I must say that the rather spacious map truly drives home a feeling of emptiness, of a planet long out of touch with mankind. Certainly, though the game is at its core very linear, the open nature of the game certainly compliments the main idea brought forth within its open cut-scene: that of life being an eternal struggle.

As the game begins, the protagonist, an android named 2B , opens up with a few lines of dialogue which the player is certain to remember as they play through the game;

"全ての存在は滅びるようにデザインされている。 Everything that lives is designed to end. 生と死を繰り返すと螺旋に…… We are perpetually trapped 私達は囚われ続けている。 in a never-ending spiral of life and death. これは、呪いか。 Is this a curse? それとも、罰か。 Or some kind of punishment? 不可解なパズルを渡した神に I often think about the God who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle いつか、私達は弓を引くのだろうか？ and wonder if we’ll ever have the chance to kill him."

As I heard this, I was immediately stricken; long have I viewed life as a trial that one must overcome; moreover, it has always been my opinion that it is too long and too tiring to be of worth and that in this bleak universe full of fear and despair, that the only thing worth attempting to discover is a meaning for oneself. So, naturally, I made sure to play through the game very thoroughly. Remembering 2B's words, I cleared the various side-quests which abounded in NieR: Automata and found myself both hypnotized and horrified by the various crises and pleas of the many side-characters. Many of those in need of help were robots, who without human masters or connection to a central network, struggled in finding purposes for themselves. I had at first interpreted this to be Yoko Taro's answer to the transhumanist movement; that machines might some day be so human-like as to render the distinction between flesh and technology indistinct.

However, upon further reflection, this is not the entire message of Automata; though transhumanist themes are certainly touched on, the game's heavy references to various Existentialist philosophers emphasizes that the game's overarching theme is meant for those sorry individuals lost in their own quest for meaning in the world.

Each of the primary character's motivations are tied to conflict and searching for meaning; 2B, for example, is a machine whose purpose is to kill in spite of her personal convictions, a piece of hardware engineered to murder those she loves no matter what the circumstances. 9S, a reconnaissance/hacking-oriented model, must deal with the inevitable consequences of his own natural curiosity; even the one of the antagonists, Adam, who represents a physical manifestation of the enemy network, is explicitly driven by his own quest to understand what it's like to be human.

Being an artificial construct, Adam has no inherent understanding of what it means to be human; in an effort to circumvent this, he emulates humanity as much as possible. Whether its through wearing clothes, reading books, or eating food, Adam attempts to get to the truth of what being human means; and yet despite this, or perhaps because of this, he never quite grasps it. The clothes he wears are, though fancy, mismatched; the books he reads are never more than literal stories to him, Adam never examining them through the use of metaphor; even the apples he eats, inspired as he was by the Bible, are not things to be enjoyed but tools to be gained in an effort to understand humanness. The apple is to Adam nothing more than what the Bible says it is to him, a fruit that bears knowledge, knowledge that to the end eludes Adam because he's never able to, or perhaps completely incapable of, understanding the meaning behind the Bible's words.

Though Adam is but one character, this underlines the next part of the theme of struggle; that even if one struggles as hard as they can, that they may fail and die regardless. And this is a tale relevant to the whole of humanity; each and every individual on this earth has their own goals; each and every individual on this earth ends up in a different state, even if the goals are the same; each and every individual on this earth lives, struggles, and dies and even that despite the unchanging result of all of these lives, the contents contained between these beginnings, middles, and ends is so varied as to be immeasurable.

Now the idea of struggle being at the center of life is one that Nietzsche discusses frequently; myself being something of a Nietzsche acolyte, I've spent more than long enough thinking about the meaning of 'pain' and whether or not the presence of it adds value to our lives. Nietzsche was of course very fond of this idea; he famous stated

"To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities — I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not — that one endures."

Essentially, as I have long believed, if one were to view life as one big test, or even a game, of such a high difficulty as to make the majority of participants regret attempting it, would not persisting in spite of this be the grandest example of flourishing? After all, if such an arduous tribulation is able to be triumphed against, who comes out looking the mightier? The wise yet coddled masses who choose a life of comfort and grow to live to an old age? Or those impetuous and courageous few who decide that despite such treats and treasures that they're willing to elect for themselves what or what doesn't make them feel fulfilled?

The reptile brain within yourself should naturally be inclined the latter; though the former choice offers a wonderful choice bereft of the unknown, the animals inside us are naturally wont to side with the mighty few able to choose their own destinies, our ancestors living as violently as they did; the world before man, or even when man was still uncivilized, was filled with blood. Death, sex, and hatred abounded, early hominins, protosimians, dinosaurs, and even sea creatures struggling as hard as they could so that they might pass on their genes to the next generation. Certainly, the logical part of our brains desires an easy and comfortable life, but the truly primitive part of ourselves wishes nothing more than to be one of the few at the top, overlooking the masses, ensuring that they're able to reproduce and indirectly persist in the future.

Therefore, it might be said that violence is at the heart of what it means to be human; and indeed, Adam broaches this topic through his challenge of 2B and 9S at various points of the game, his explicit motivation being that through his hatred he hopes to discover more about humanity. I, given my background within the anthropology field, find this to be something worthy of affirming to myself; for if we are to truly understand ourselves, we must understand our ancestors, and if we are to understand our ancestors, we must understand those parts of ourselves we share in common with our ancestors. Thus, it might be said that the idea of struggling is inherent to the human condition, if not altogether essential to it, given that it has been the constant friend of mankind since before life even left the ocean.

So then; what might we say of those who are able to be those few? Does that make those masses less human or, perhaps, more? For certainly, though logic and sentience are altogether human inventions, to deny our own feelings regarding strength is to deny ourselves the truth and fall away from the world in which we actually live, which is to say that the only things with meaning in the world are those things in which we can actually prove. Thus, I find that in order to be truly human, we must pursue the shadows of those victorious few, for none can deny power when power is manifested; of course, to sleep in is nice, but are we then able to prove the value of our lives? Because again, if we truly live and have lived, we must leave SOME proof of our existence, whether it be children or something else; if there nothing exists that is left of us, how can we prove that we ever existed at all? And certainly no one remembers the statistic, the victim, no matter how good a life they were able to live, even if the means of forgetting that person means a 100 or 10000 years have passed. Yet everyone remembers Alexander, even if he did die young and in pain.

Which leads me back to my point; is not struggle the meaning behind life? For if it truly is, then that makes NieR: Automata the most life-affirming game of all, despite its dark themes; because despite how much it attempts to crush its characters, and despite many of its characters dying and failing, none of them ever attempts to give up. And it is this determination that characterizes them, that tells the player that despite whatever hardships afflict them, that life is worth living.

So perhaps this is why I have found myself so deeply touched by this game; for a man who similarly has struggled near endlessly his whole life, I cannot help but be moved by the story of people trying to survive a land that doesn't them to. Because, despite the length of time between the world of 2B and my own is separated by a span of some 9000 years, we each of us do our best with the hard circumstances we find ourselves in. And I think that's incredibly beautiful.

What do you think? Perhaps I feel as if I have talked myself into circles. Still, I definitely feel like going through the game again as, despite the loss of my save data, I am more than willing to get inspired by 2B and 9S once more.