The triumphant return to Anakar after the last battle against the Alchemaster: a dream lingers where the falling petals of return when its people cheered the victors’ are what she pines for to one day smell, too.
Up the many twisting ramps of the vast tree-filled metropolis must’ve ridden Hyarno of Sideria at the front, his back strong and cape of all colors flowing to the cheers of the thousands of kin welcoming him.
Him, but not anonymous Rouvenor who also fought for the Coalition of the Free, for Rouvenor never willingly went among kin despite being human-then-kin…
It’s a dream she’s had many times before.
“A scent like roses, but straight grain’s burn?”
Arm-in-arm like the procession of veterans and survivors of the long night then, an utterly aimless girl follows always the tugs of who she clings to.
“It’s below a false god’s standards, but not too far down.”
That brave, electrifying, and always pouncing man sips again from a crystal-cut, clear bottle that smells like…
(… Humans …)
“Oh?” He chuckles, for her head presses against his shoulder in distaste. “Want to sample at last?”
(… Taste… tasting, so… so strongly not… us …)
No petals fall. The cheers are silent.
Only the fairy lights dancing above for the not-prince’s benefit, leaving the girl at his side stricken with the drunken feeling of wandering in a daydream, seem like they enjoy the revelry. Wandering through the glade’s many trees has no destination, nor has it availed anyone yet of any good of the sojourn.
Kin don’t even have faces that can be remembered from this journey. Their cherished enjoyment is blank.
Except for him, there is only the cursed peace of absence!
(… Adris’ taste… is so… strong, and ALIVE …!)
Oh, it’s a mistake again when she notices her hand covering her shameful privates is now at her stomach to seek that remaining living warmth. A finger touches a still viscous glob upon her bare skin. The texture forces her to scoop up its lukewarmth!
Then, to her lips she brings the complexity. An endless compression of her soul only lessens with this possessive flavor that sees the hungry many beyond her own notice watch this plunge of his essence into her mouth.
(Aaah, I’m fluffy again!?)
The terrible burst of sourness makes her gaze wander upward!
Arboreal music rocks this once quiet night, begun the moment they set out with a frenzy unnatural to the simplicity of a walk. Slithering forward is hard when tilting toward the sources of its mind-bending beats!
(My heart is going… dundundundun like the spirits’ beats!)
Her hand creeps back down, resting over what will feel so, so good if a circle is rubbed over it…!
“Have you never truly put yourself out to be witnessed before now, Ave?”
Shaking, shivering, and clinging tighter, the whole world spins in a circle around a heroine whose triumphant “parade” back above the roots can only be called “lewd”. A man who she can never seem to refuse, no, never seem to not agree with, smiles at her as she tries not to shake apart. The endless echoes of her lewdity reverberate through the gazes of the many upon her naked skin!
(I… have… but, it wasn’t good, nor uplifting. They wanted me for… formality, hated me, laughed and… I didn’t soar as now… but!?)
So, she can’t share in the form of words the dozens of overwhelming experiences stabbing, tickling her! Even his question is like a daydream she only half hears. Instead of responding, she stares down at the mossy forest floor to hide her blushing.
(How can I… answer when YOU feel so… wickedly like it only matters if you’re the one watching, and being watched…!?)
She can’t touch when he’s looking at her, or she’ll never stop! But, not rubbing in time now to feel ecstasy again means missing a new height when stalling out. She stifles a whine, a part of her jumbled mind begging her to ignore everything but his touch and to let her fingers work.
(Don’t… be just lewd, Ave!)
She remembers her journey through Petripolis to seek understanding instead of succumbing to need!
All of the sights the same, or similar, with the many people come to meet them; but, not the ambiance, no, and so she falls again into this dreamlike scene of now to be battered by it.
The silence beyond them astounds, a fantastical land where everyone rests above them projecting the most potent longing; then, they recoil and flee when her gaze lightly touches upon them to comprehend this longing.
Only those bravest ones rush forth into greetings where their reality as kin becomes real to the heroine. Through the pinkish-throbbing-red-and-white of her vision, they coalesce into a heated obsession to share projects clutched tightly to themselves. Their feelings are strong, almost sinister in how a memory long repressed renews with their arrogant, but ever-silent, offerings making them identical to her past!?
(Deafening! Please… stop thrrrooobbbinggg…!)
Only the “distractions” give her respite. So many “games” have been played just behind a tree or brush by their hands teasing lewdly to quell these dark feelings; graduating to greater challenges as a not-prince demands more since the under-village journey…
The tingling memory of creamy mashed fruits spread over her milky breasts being cleaned up nicely by an obsessive tongue is one memory! She rubs her front to feel the tips still rock hard, and nearly moans!
(He’s also stroked me… from ear to… tttaaail tip…!?)
She begs her body to quieten!
Lightning like Orloss’ crosses her skin forming goose bumps at the echoes of his touches. Boldly, they’re always made before witnesses that hinge on every deliberate movement!
Nobody in the city’s market in Petripolis considered her as singular enough to follow every movement. The anonymity was comforting, if a little sad, too.
This proximity is a sharing she’s never felt when by her actions and his bit by bit, ever more distant they’re isolated by the astounding pleasure while being amongst others!
(When all notice you like… in Rouvenor’s tales where his heroism commences…!?)
… Nothing you do can escape judgment even if it involves them not at all …
… It’s like a prison you carry with you, even if the imprisonment is pleasing …
“Ngaah!?”
Touching IT finally happens despite her efforts!
“… Hah, have I neglected you for too long?”
“N-No! I’m… just…”
Her poor… clit burns up to its root at the slightest brushing, so she drags her hand back while panting!?
“How… do you… move through this… feeling of being chased?”
The question for her leader sees him arch an eyebrow proudly high!
“Chased? How could your kin following ever frighten?” He drags her behind himself as if she’s a child! “We’re not chased. We permit others to follow, Avenalliah. Punish them with what they miss.”
More sternly, but also boldly, his movements let his shaped physique and her lacking curves, both soaked now, glitter in the darkly lit glade. The branches shadowing them from the free-floating fairy lights make them a curious fey-like pair of travelers whose magical journey breaks the quiet night like territorial cries of their importance!
“What they want, who they crave; be that answer, then never afraid~.” A whimsical rhyme makes the stares so much sharper! As if he’s wrong, but totally right, rejection turns the gloom so bright!
(He’s… so different… so ‘shining’!)
Instead of halting her wooziness, his confidence just makes the whiteness left proudly on her stomach smell so much stronger. To be what’s chased without caring or concerning invites more of the paint that’s left on her to raise toward her lips, hoping to take more of his confidence into herself!
“Cleaning it off would stop your hand from straying. Every time you move it, I… feel like they stare harder. See?” He nods toward the lurid flower that she shouldn’t reveal, but is when her lustful hunger strikes!? “Because you’re so liberated, a whole village knows the shape of my elf’s pretty vulva now. At least from their angle~.”
(… I’m… dy-dying!?)
A wilting, shivering weed like herself is kept moving through that shame solely by these looks all around prodding her to do so; but, where kin are solemn, even worshipful, perhaps also mournful at her behavior, this… man is…!
“Somehow, despite being so kind, so loyal, you’re also the most… perverted woman I’ve ever held, Avenalliah.”
(Perverted!? ME!? No, you’re just… making fun of me…!)
“Ahhhnnn…!? I can’t clean it, because… I have to… show everyone what you gave me to wear, like you… said to…?” Into his ear she softly hisses. “Make sure they all see your… greatness…!”
The collection of white streaking pearls at her navel is his latest gift on their journey through paradise that he colors black.
“Right?” No matter where, or how dangerous, Ave proudly must be what he is showing off because Adris wants her to!
(I… can’t stop SHIVERING!?)
“Right. They should see how you feel about me, and I about you, Ave.”
Her skin all over glistens with thin fluids to show that! The reasons are many for so much gathered, for her stomach isn’t the only spot sprayed… but, the scenes repeating in her mind make every last encounter throughout their trek just another rediscovery that they’re man and woman!
(… The closer… I am to him, the more good feelings that I gain without knowing anything else …!)
She thinks back to when she found out what he desired of her…!
Like with the painting that they stood before as an example, she’s become a canvas too.
For, an elf she could not even truly notice through her haze of pleasure brought them to stand before a large landscape piece. Beside each other with their postures terrible while viewing, they’d partaken while panting heavily of this imagined forest being consumed by armies of walking metal monsters.
Of a distant land not theirs: brutal slashes of colors shaped abstract carnage!
White was the worst hue for a land ensnared by tendrils of it! And the longing for pleasure, and subversion of it, in which the forest accepted the invasion with its trees reaching toward them; yet, also rejecting when touching the white.
“War isn’t quite like… guh, this impression, though, but… the feelings convey.” Only Adris had truly understood something while squishing sounds distracted him.
An improvisation of their hands that showed their opinions of being touched by trees added to the critique, for a heroine’s hand drew to a man’s length as that man’s union reached to her hole that had instantly flooded upon his fingers undamming it!
“White isn’t scary if… you paint with it my way.” The feelings of the painting had fueled the growing carnage between them! A “brush” readied to work was red at its tip when stroked by thin fingers!
“Squeeze your feelings onto my brush, Ave.”
“Hnnn, A-Adrissss!”
“Let’s mix~!”
Ave couldn’t add a single thought to the lewd demand, only scream when his own touches became a blur over her tiny nub! A slow, tugging start built swiftly to simultaneous collapse with his other hand crushing her nipple between his middle fingers.
All at once sweating, the heat of night became intolerable. A release needed or they’d die, they stared not at the painting toward the end but at each other’s distorting faces!
“Your prettiest kin’s pussy, her beauty is… too, is… ar—Ah…! Too much potential to leave bare! An artist… unloads all his feelings…!” Pleasure made her face hideous, while his naked boyish indulgence made her want to kiss him!
So expressive; so naked; so… SO!?
The other artist had shrunk back while clutching herself, panted hard like them when watching another’s own counter work progressing. Eventually she’d slipped her hand beneath her cloak to twirl her fingertip like another kin experienced, added to the shame felt!
“There’s no part of Ave that doesn’t make me harder than iron. I’d spend… all day licking her juices up… if…!
Ah, you’re pumping so fast!? Down my… length… Ave!?” The onlooker caught in their art show even collapsed upon her knees when Adris’ mouth opened wide and he groaned a name that was so fulfilling to hear. So loud he cried out when she finally struck the right tempo, slid over his head with her pinky when pumping his serpent sideways! “A-AVE! Oooh!”
Ave’s clumsy grip finally brought out the best of this virtuoso as ropes of white paint. Deep within, her burning had exploded into a need for that white to soak into her skin!
“Painting… you!”
So many who’d partaken of watching collapsed or recoiled, when hotly upon her stomach his great work splattered! His head jerked back with each spurt of color from his tube!
“Haah… ahah, my masterpiece… you’ll become, each step more that.”
“NHAAAAAA!?”
She soared on his fingers when they sank past her flushed lips and curled upward to force his work to scream! Her bladder tingled along with the orgasmic pinch, and for what must’ve been the hundredth time already she “perished” while reaching a white heaven!
“I want the world to experience… all of ‘Ave’ as I see you!” He’d screamed for that with a joyful howl, but the sky fell with falling birds that crashed then scampered off when a heroine’s own climax tore her from sentience to return her to being an unthinking vine of clinging need.
(Nobody will feel except us, so he wants us to express everything…!)
At too many stops before and after, already a count now lost, he jumps upon her without warning. Only anticipation is left for her to hoard while her body also plays tricks she never plans…!
When he finds a toy he likes, she gravitates her hand to his nethers to pull out the toy she likes and play with it while he has his fun. Watches how it throbs, how its filled veins are blue while the head is red, and the tip is milky when enjoying her hand…
But it’s not just her, or him, starting it.
Bumping into the other, blinking at random happenstance while another kin shows off pearls made to shine bright enough to fill the sky, it becomes impossible to speak when mutual longing sees him push his cock into her mouth to have it polished while listening to the next kin talk!?
(… I’m… I somehow have become… his eternal art …?)
Even the memory of these, and more, events turn her sight white again, the omnipresent vibrations that leave her fuzzy rumbling!
(Painted on… chipped down, rubbed and squeeeeezed…!?)
“Aaahhhaaa!?”
She shakes apart like an earthquake when naming in her thoughts being HIS!
A small spray of fluid splashes onto her tail below where she quivers, then collapses onto a manly-smelling cloud to float!
(Ohhh, ooohhhhh!? No, no, no…!?)
“Hah, hahaha!” Adris has led the way without alleviating her fluffiness outside of their “stops”, except like now when so tightly he clings that it feels like it’s intentional to make her leak more! “Hmm, hmm, words are still lacking for you even now, Ave?” He drags her to skittishly slither through the mind-breaking sensations. She weaves and bobs in a drunken slide, then matches his heavy breaths to keep from hyperventilating when even touching the ground wracks more!
“A-Adrissss!? I’m trying to talk, but… I can’t… anymore, it’s too much…”
“I could make an entire night of you talking about what you’re feeling. Even now, I… shiver, too, when watching you cum. I’ve never met a woman who went off so lightly, and so many times…” His kind smile warps into an unnaturally wide grin that seems monstrously comical when she surrenders entirely all credibility with that praise!
“We’ve gone so far, met so many… please, I can’t even see their faces anymore… only… ‘feel’ as if I’m stuck in a summer storm!”
“You’re far too rare like this, Avenalliah… but, if you’ve had enough ‘fun’, then let’s have some my way. The real show can start.”
(Thaaank… you…!
… Real show…?)
How he can whisper the last words so lowly that even she can barely hear them is amazing, and she’s already about to fall over when he leers at her wickedly… until he nods with a serene expression replacing his out-sized happiness!
“Avenalliah, though keeping your wits is just as important as caring about others, those wits aren’t what I want them to enjoy right now.” Again he lifts the strangely human-like alcohol made by the kin they just met, one whose brews all reeked of foreign feelings and soured her stomach with smell alone.
“… What do you…?
Ah? No, I don’t…!” His mouth covers her own, then lips part!? “Nnngh!?”
(Blweh!? It’s so burning! Kin don’t like thiiiis grainy flavor!?)
Already so woozy, the moment the thick liquor touches her tongue she’s spinning faster!
She gulps just to be rid of it, but would never escape from the agile tongue that follows the liquor to torment her own…!
“Kuh! How does it taste from my mouth?” He asks, after pulling away!
(It tastes like Adris~!)
The fact that it fermented briefly with his saliva makes the disgusting flavor so wonderful!
“Not being able to kiss is troubling.” He says, as her world spins in so many bubbly colors! Back to her tongue he returns his own, their lips smushing as they breathe each other’s truths! “Share your… nnnth, passion.”
(Prince, kiss, kiss, prince, my…! Kiss…!? Umm, UGH!?)
“AHHHHH!?”
Again, she shudders when dwelling on this small act of joining!? The sky blinks, and the smirking boy that is two dancing images slowly swirls back into one!
“Haha! See? Your tongue expresses everything without words well enough.” Somehow, his might keeps her from swooning to the roots and they continue on when he denies more kisses. “It’s troubling for me because… you keep licking up more of my semen despite craving my tongue. The alcohol cleared this flavor, right?” Her tongue is numb as she obeys every single order this man’s touches send through her.
“… Y-Yesss… I see…!? Kisses… friends… kiss, too, need a clean mouth. I didn’t know… I was asking for kisses, but denying them…”
“In very erotic ways. Never tame.” His devious smile comes with a pat on her behind that shocks her with how she feels the impact swaying! Her backside lewdly gyrates, bumps up against him…!
“I didn’t know you could be so lewd in your thoughts that they’d become how you move, Ave. Very nicely, too… I think you’ve reached the right mood, yourself.”
(… Everything I do… is shameful, maybe, even to him …?)
“Screams like yours destroy the silence they’ve bred.” The not-prince’s want leaves her back cold, but her loins burning! “Your warmth is a beacon in the cold. What does your heart desire, though? What makes it happy… is a question they should have.” Her tongue flicks out, preparing to betray the knowledge of the million jumping bugs that fill her head right now. If only her mouth wasn’t so dry suddenly, she could!
(I think… about… want YOU…!)
Before everyone, with nothing to hide her anymore, the heroine that will never be suitable is brought back to where they started their trek while only one thing fills her mind!
“Being honest, communicating, kin should do this. Ah, for instance, myself? What do I feel? You… make me feel like conquering the dark for you, Avenalliah.”
(… And how you make me feel is …!)
The moment is passed up to her absolute disgrace, unable to speak as he continues with that pleasantly imperious tone he reserves for her in private. “They don’t understand what your perfect self, strong heart, and link to me could mean for them, yet they still seek… me.”
At a young, soft bush with fluffy leaves is where he chooses to rest. “Your kin gave so much eagerly, but what am I to make of it all?” Her boiling head ends up on his lap. For once, his mighty scepter doesn’t poke up when she sniffs, then licks her lips as he continues to spin a dark web of his powerful thoughts! “I don’t hate mementos…? But, as you said, gifts should be light.” A bottle of overpowering alcohol which would appeal only to foreigners; a small portrait of himself in a nouveau art style that eschews the onyx mask, and almost doesn’t even bear a resemblance aside from spiky black hair; even to the conspicuous, heretical cloak of gilded leaves whose feeling of “vanishing” feels oppositional to her own cloak’s, the multitude of unkin-like gifts only confuses an already melting mind.
“‘To have is to be changed’, why is this shadowy impression what I feel through… ‘aura’ (TRUTH) when touching the sum of it all?” Along his thighs rests these gifts that he strokes. “Only Mython has ever been close to honest. Why can’t they openly cry for the salvation that they obviously desire?
What are they hiding, Avenalliah?”
(I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t!?)
“Relax, Ave. There’ll be a time again soon to go wild with me~.” Even trying to sit up is stopped by his palm to her forehead! Any attempt ends when stroking her head makes her eyes roll back!?
“Ugghh!? Adris, I’m too… ‘loose’…!” Melting out of her long ears, the recognition of something being fundamentally wrong with the obsessive occupations of kin is almost lost despite the not-prince noticing it too.
“I’ll decide when that’s true. I apologize for this rhetoric. I’m… weaving a magic spell at the moment. Pursuing only one obsession when the dark is coming is… troubling for me to continue to accept when the magic to end it exists. So, I’ve begun my role.” His promise makes her feel distant, but close, and concerned by the strangeness of the moment.
(… What kin has only… one fancy, one constant aside from love …)
“After all, I am the one who rules in the dark. They must properly revere it if they live in the world tree that is shadowed. Isolation denies comprehension of it. Many trees should join to resolve it, as you’ve spoken of.” Greater trees devoted to the equally greater crafts and arts are natural; but, to be filled by only one pursuit forever defies the spontaneity of wind!
“Not speaking desires is the greatest crime against me.” For this man to gaze with disappointment at the glade denies Ave’s hopes for its wonders to purify this feylord’s heart! “There’s no fun in a tension that tries to be playful, but instead keeps repetitively plummeting. No game is fun without changing the rules a bit when growing dull.” A heart opened to others’ feelings by the not-prince now throbs with satisfaction, guilt, and pain of longing never fulfilled when speaking of falling, for her people feel trapped in descent!
“You, Ave, have demonstrated how they could be beautiful, and embrace their true selves if only they, to me, just…
surrender.”
(Surrender!? They’ve, naaaah!? All never… e-e-even ONCE achieved their “true selves”, is that why you’re mad…!?)
Mad he must be as she stares past this smiling boy toward the heavens. Observers who seem blurry spike other sensations to make Ave cringe with sadness.
Reduced to an almost naked lump covered by worn, torn citrus petals and nothing more, and spread so widely over the roots, a heroine feels the contrary oppression of the village’s discontent losing against the comforting safety of the way the heroine’s head is stroked.
After the endless pleasure, what remains of shame’s strange joy is the sticky feelings on her hands, stomach, lips, and groin!
To even touch down there where the redness makes her lips stand out now might hurt after how many times he furiously rubbed over the hood of her nub to learn the movements of her fingers already there, even lightly slapped at it with his hand to make her cry out while he grinned!?
“Do you want me to… call out…? To them? I… want to, but… my throat is… a bit…”
“Hah, you used it well.” Memories of it being filled and scraped by his thickness make her tingle anew! “A bird’s song can be soft or sharp. I can make you sing both ways, isn’t that fun?”
(I felt so much, did such… naughty, not how kin should…!? But, they didn’t laugh? Or jeer, or even…)
Get ashamed, or… excited themselves, except when very close? None of them sought self release like she might if Adris hadn’t gifted her so much.
“Don’t call them. You’ve tried hard enough to reach them.”
Kin wanted, expected, something else from her that she hasn’t given, but now she’s passed up when he lowers his tone.
“It’s my turn to ask these trickster fools: ‘isn’t this fun’?”
(Refusing to reveal, to share… they’re shadows outside and within…?
Wait, who is a fool?)
Something about the air, or the mood, steals away every longer, important thought she might reach for and leaves her kin wooden, aloof, and opaque.
Lessened…
(All I feel is…? That maybe we… and I, aren’t too different from them, sometimes? Still, Neesiette, Kol, and… we’re all a bit too “wooden” when what we feel is hard to explain…)
Silent leaps that are hard to miss hearing mark that those wary of this man still gather under the boughs above him.
The longing of the passed up by Adris is a seething mess.
Those few who attained his attentions cannot stay far as they creep closer than the forbidden, and the duality of rejection and fascination wracks them with a pain that feels like stomach acid boiling over when a heroine tries to share in this psychic mood.
There’s recognition, then the feelings flee so fast that they can only be being hidden! As if once understood, they might destroy something… the heroine wants to cry at that pain.
(Whatever Adris has done, or why, the shadowed sleep shall end…?)
“Happiness is something always within reach, so long as you aren’t blind or greedy.” An age of longing is this emperor’s rule with the hungry unseen many who follow the movement of his uplifted, gesturing hand.
What she soaks up from their concentration begs from him their next…
(Taste? What’s going on… I don’t know anything anymore…?)
“The monsters that seek to steal happiness may appear from outside…” With them, with Adris, and with herself, it’s all jumbled up inside what to think when her head and ears are stroked while others aren’t comforted too. “But, only the victim can choose to surrender their treasure before the monster is forced to risk storming the fortress… no, village to take it.”
Truly missing from the mind-numbing bliss that tears at her sureties now is any certainty as to whether she was happier with the kindest man in the universe from before in Petripolis, or with the dominating emperor who has grown more assertive in forcing his name from her lips when going deeper into the Castillo…?
“Those who have surrendered themselves willingly can only pine for what’s stolen, but remembered, after. It’s a comforting oblivion to say nothing, think nothing, and feel nothing.
The perfect escape from the monsters you fear… for a loser.”
She sinks into his resolute sermon even as the chosen ending word piques the forest!
(My kin aren’t… LOSERS!)
Every isolated intimacy before with the man who holds her now feels like a proud statue turned upside down. The… “love” of past was less overwhelming, and far… kinder than how he’s leaped at her, then insulted her own people!?
“Witness, those who are afraid to even breathe…”
“Nyaaah!?”
“… a happiness that is so easy for me to possess~.”
She can only moan when at her forehead he strokes upward into her hair! The pleasure is over fast, but lingers to punish her for not speaking out in their defenses…!
(I’m possessed!? Ah, I sort of… act like it.)
When she doesn’t deny it, a pain like arrows piercing her skin injects those “greenish” feelings anew!
Monologuing within the hospitality of one’s patrons is strange for the hero to do, she thinks with sudden alarm!
(A-Adris, they’re becoming odd…!?)
“Avenalliah Aurmaris is the only existence truly worthy of being named ‘kin’, for none here could ever be taller than her proud tree.”
From all around the court seethes, branches cracking, shifting with palpable anger! Then frustration creaks, and despair that freezes the soul whistles without the wind!
(Wha-what!? I’m not the only one!)
Because this is done by him, she cannot intrude too much.
Whatever this man must do she knows will eventually be… righteous and good!
“My kin of these woods…” But, because her kin are also somewhat lacking, she can intrude a little. “Are NOT losers, Adris!”
In the tongue of Mandostesse of the First Age, she affirms this up at the boy whose attention returns to her slowly.
“You’re being… so mean Adris…”
“Mean?”
“… Flaunting how… happy we are… when kin are suffering. It’s… mean!”
“Because I’m having fun? Because I’m proud to hold you?” He smirks again with the infuriating energy of one who knows better!
“Adris… they’re unhappy! It feels… wrong to be happy when they aren’t…?”
(I don’t want to show off! I don’t want to hurt them more…)
“Only a fool would choose to be unhappy simply because others are, Avenalliah.”
She shakes with embarrassment when it sounds like she’s being called one!
But, she cannot shrug off this man’s weight.
The pleasantness of his touches is…!?
“Life is too short for mortals, so they grasp what the undying have apparently forgotten: every moment that exists solely for you is one you should enjoy. If it’s a good moment, then be happy. If it’s a bad one, then cry, and seek better. Any other manner of living is… an illness.”
That one word stifles all the raging emotions.
For the first time since entering Ysanne… there is absolute quiet.
(… How can you… deny us so harshly, when… you also “feel externally” like we do …?)
Even if he calls it “aura” that he senses with, it’s the same facet of kin that separates the oldest people from the rest of Zennians. Never before has he sounded so mean as now, even if darker, timider parts of herself echo with some agreement about what they mutually feel.
“They don’t have to be losers, Ave, I promise. With you as their goal, they can become elves worthy of the names of any of your favorite heroes.” His devilishly impudent sneer, with cheeks lined from arrogance, turns baby soft as he smiles.
“However… they will have to become useful, first.”
(… Useful …?)
“To endure, then survive, and finally thrive, only those who seek to cherish the light will bask in it.
The sun of my world was cruel. But, you are kinder, Ave.”
(Why me?)
She’s frozen like ice, but his heat keeps rising with his tone going more reverential when saying her name over, and over, and over again!
“When you are happy, you shine like nothing else in Ysanne ever has. That light makes the dark world bright and filled with green.”
His logic is usually so simple, that it’s strange that she cannot in the least comprehend it right now!?
“But… I’m not the light…!?”
“Modesty is also kindness. All here have witnessed your supreme beauty, and…”
When his grin turns boyishly hopeful, and his eyes soften, what hope he has strangles her own.
“To languish in a joyless existence is worse than perishing. For the sun they’ve longed for to return, they need to beware the cost of its warmth. Those who pray for gods to rescue them shall find that with their manifesting, follows also… submission.”
(… Adris is right… but he isn’t at all about kin …?)
“Submitting” has no true corollary in elvish. Even when Mython has deferred in spirit, it is as the wind of another gently suggesting Mython’s own to take another direction. Submission and slavery are colloquial meanings for “death”, which is itself a foreign concept and word taken from those doomed to die.
At best, submission is the inversion of “wind”, which means freedom, thus making it antithetical entirely when adding on “giving up to obtain”, which no elf would keep anything they have past its point of being appreciated and needed.
“Ysanne’s future light shines only when happy. All who cried when it departed again must realize… what they must sacrifice to sustain its presence.”
(We’re… not meeting, not understanding…?)
“All shall look upon you… and embrace your happiness as their own, Avenalliah Aurmaris.” He sounds choked up when prophesying this. Emotional to the core, when always he’s aloof.
“Your happiness, as a supreme elf which they can only beg to borrow a sliver of your purity, is not only paramount, but is what they will come to love more than games, novelty, or… tricks.”
Proved by the torrent of black aura that clings to the cross in his left hand, spreading up his body until the hand stroking him feels like it’s just as horrifying as the inky blackness of Ysanne’s dark waters!
(… Why, Adris…? All of them… devoting everything only to me, wouldn’t …)
Be my happiness.
It’s what she cannot say, not even a syllable, because Adris shines with such contentment that leaves him as if he’s finally found his true home.
Stroking the girl’s paralyzed head laying in his lap, he feels absolutely relaxed. Even as he dooms them all with his words to prove his declaration true.
“Promising ‘tit for tat’ isn’t like ‘kin’! You’re… not benevolent, more like sin!”
A singing cry, one voice out of the silent many, startles this boy who was dreaming of something incomprehensible.
The shock of the cry that sends the rest of her kin into a chatty panic is as out of place as it is somewhat petulant given the silent reverence that had overtaken to the point of making a heroine feel detached.
As if an entire world view has been upturned violently, simply because an unknown visitor wasn’t as this one elf expected, the strange idolatry demanded is revealed as improper.
“Benevolent?” After the shock drains, to be replaced by a fearsome dead-pan tightening… the not-prince scowls. “Benevolent!?” Only pretending to be a boy as powerful fey are wont to do, this mighty one clicks his tongue!
“The first fool reveals. No one that is strong is benevolent!” Then he pats another’s head more aggressively with a sudden smile, all the annoyance fading! “Those who seek the missing sun cannot complain that their eyes will hurt when finally gazing upon it! Sacrifices must be made, or do you care nothing about that sun itself, only that it should warm you?” He lazily gazes around with wondrous amusement at the missing voyeurs that he must sense, but cannot see when lecturing them. “Consider yourselves lucky, as elves who have stolen all the world’s luck often are. To those who are weak, but have gained someone’s notice, remember that when rulers stretch forth their hands to aid, the odds are that they are simply being…” The hand that was stroking her head rises, claws out toward the unseen with menace!
“Merciful.”
His opened hand shuts hard, flaring out the shadow that wafts from it like a thunder crack!
Gripping at the empathic gathering of kin, perhaps even ensnaring their very emotions, a mighty ruler makes the heroine’s heart stop beating.
“But… only if they choose to be. For me, because of this elf I’ve befriended that is singular in all ways, I know that I will never lack the light ever again. After all,
I, at least, have never shunned her as if I would prefer storm clouds to her… hahaha!”
She shivers with a feeling she’s never, ever felt before now when an absolute deluge of panic crashes into them both!
Unexplainable, it’s the most painful needle ever pressed when his laugh is at their expense, and he speaks of the salvation of light as if it can be bargained for, and that pleasing her is the bargain.
(… Adris has… never done anything wrong, except for good’s sake …)
She cannot deny that happiness he seeks by wanting her to shine, though, for he is the nurturing spring which slakes the thirst of her own soul and makes her feel like she can shine one day…
That, and his hand which returns to stroking her forehead, moving down her cheek to tickle her ear so nicely that she can only barely refrain from whimpering.
(… Still… I need, Still. I’m… confused …?)