"Khashmyr, you, me, store, NOW!" Leif said, giving the cat one last shove out the door.

"But! But! But!" Khashmyr started, without being allowed to finish.

Leif winked at Vaskin on the way out, and he gave her a confused look.

"Go talk to her! She's got to be awake by now, and it's Saturday, so no school!" Leif replied to his expression as she slammed the door behind her and Khashmyr.

"Oh, right." Vaskin mumbled, standing there dumbstruck. Suddenly the door opened and Leif called to him, "And for heaven's sake please put a shirt on or you'll embarrass yourself!"

Vaskin just stood there, looking at the floor. He then looked over at the counter, where sitting there was a plastic case of cupcakes. He was starving, especially since Khashmyr had insisted on cooking until Leif had convinced the cat that despite what she thought, she was not the world's best cook. Vaskin heard the engine of the car in the garage, and he decided he would try and figure out how to work the television while snacking on the cupcakes. However, the plastic box containing the cupcakes was not as keen on his plan as he was, and it simply refused to open. Vaskin pulled and pulled at the box, seeing the loot gleaming at him inside, and he felt his stomach growl. He just couldn't give up on those cupcakes, perfectly frosted and ready to eat. He heard a door open upstairs, and he figured it was too late to put a shirt on now. Manx would be down the stairs in any minute, and Vaskin wanted to open the cupcakes even more now that he knew she was awake and she could share in the spoils. He heard her footfalls on the stairs and he desperately pulled at the clear cupcake prison, hoping he would be able to get it open before she saw him struggling with it. Vaskin yanked and pulled at the edges of the plastic box, and finally it was open! But just as he was about to exclaim his victory, he saw the cupcakes fly up into the air in slow motion, propelled by the force of the opening of their plastic prison. Vaskin leaned back to try and catch them, but he leaned too far back and fell on his back. And then, to his horror, the cupcakes came back down, just as Manx turned a corner and walked into the kitchen. And there she found him, on his back, shirtless, and covered in cupcakes. Vaskin blushed and sat up, and then he stuck his finger in the frosting of the cupcake on his head and asked, "You want some?"

Wide eyed, Manx tried not to look at his bare chest, but she couldn't help staring at his slim, muscular frame, until she was interrupted when a cupcake slid down his face and into her field of view. Manx wasn't sure what she felt, and she shrank back in embarrassment, still not used to seeing him without a shirt on.

"Mmm! These whatchamacallits are really good! You wanna try some?" Vaskin asked.

Manx twirled a stray hair around her finger and looked at the ceiling and mumbled, "Y...ye...no!"

Vaskin looked up at her face, light streaming in through the window and catching her golden hair in a dreamlike haze. She hadn't bothered to wear the amulet that day as she knew in advance that she wouldn't have to leave the house. There she was, beautiful and serene, but he couldn't quite read her expression. She looked thoroughly embarrassed and seemed extremely tongue tied. He thought she looked adorable in the outfit she had chosen, a cozy green sweater with a skirt that came down to her knees and a pair of long stockings. Manx shook her head and took off her sweater, revealing a light pink tank top that perfectly accented her slender frame. She looked so delicate and fragile, like a soft lily in the spring. She stooped down slowly and began wiping up the cupcake mess on the floor with her sweater, avoiding eye contact. Vaskin reached out his hand to lift her chin so he could see her face to see if she was upset. They locked eyes, and for a second the whole world and all of existence faded away. And then she bit him, hard, on the hand.

"OW! What was that for?" Vaskin asked in surprise.

"My hands were occupied cleaning up your mess." Manx replied in annoyance.

"I'd rather you have slapped me." Vaskin said.

Manx looked at him with an indignant stare and said, "Good."

"What's your deal today?" Vaskin asked her, confused at the sudden outburst.

"Put a shirt on." Manx replied sheepishly.

"I was going to, but I..." Vaskin started.

"Shirt. Now." Manx snapped, staring at the floor.

"Manx! Your arm!" Vaskin exclaimed, noticing that she was using both arms to wipe up the frosting and cupcakes.
"It's fine." She replied coldly.

"Prove it! You're going to hurt yourself, and Khashmyr said that those kinds of wounds don't heal!" Vaskin said with concern.

Manx let out a heavy sigh and gave him a dead serious stare and said, "Shirt."

"Not right this second." Vaskin replied in protest. She then nailed him in the arm, before looking at her left fist with satisfaction.

Vaskin looked at her in shock, partly from the pain and partly from the fact that she had just punched him using her injured arm.

"See, it works just fine. Shirt." Manx said, with a self satisfied smirk.

"Let me see it!" Vaskin exclaimed in alarm, grabbing her left arm gently around the wrist. She responded by clasping his wrist using her captured arm and painfully twisting his arm backwards. Vaskin whimpered and tried to stay strong as she gave him a triumphant smirk that clearly meant she wouldn't let him touch her without consequence.

"Please, Manx! I'm trying to help you, and I want to make sure you're alright!" Vaskin exclaimed.

"You just did. Now let me go." Manx replied.

Vaskin stood up, still grasping her wrist, and he used his free hand to remove the bandages. He looked at the arm with shock and surprise, as the wound had seemingly cleared up all of a sudden leaving behind the line of stitches.

"What?! How!?" Vasken said, pulling her arm closer.

"I said let me go!" Manx yelped, feeling incredibly awkward.

"After what happened yesterday, this is just...just..." Vaskin began, before receiving a light kick to his shin. He dropped her arm in surprise and yelped, "Ow! There's still a bruise there from the last time you kicked me!"

"I said 'let me go', and I meant it. I also told you to put a shirt on, and I meant it." Manx replied.

"I need to know that you're okay. I can't lose you." Vaskin said solemnly. Manx looked away. She wished she could tell him how she felt, but she was afraid, and she wasn't ready for hugs or any sort of prolonged physical contact. So instead of hugging him, which was too much, she punched him, because she was too afraid to show her full affection.

"Please, Vaskin. Put a shirt on." Manx pleaded, feeling uncomfortable and afraid to look at him like he was. She was nervous and embarrassed because she didn't want him to know that she found him attractive, and seeing him without a shirt on made her feel strange.

"I don't want to leave your side. What if the wound gets worse all of a sudden?" Vaskin said, looking at her with sad brown puppy dog eyes.

"You don't have to. I'll find you a shirt. Just...just stop it! Stop it with the face!" Manx said, turning to leave for the stairs.

"The face?" Vaskin asked, confused.

"Shut up. I'm getting you a shirt." Manx said, shaking her head scoldingly. She ran up the stairs and into his room, where she thrust open the closet and rummaged through the available clothing.
She quickly decided on a white tee shirt and an orange-brown vest, and knowing he had followed her up the stairs and was standing right behind her, she nonchalantly turned around and pushed the clothing into his arms, saying, "Here, put this on."

Vaskin pulled the shirt over his head and looked up at Manx, raising his hands when he was finished and saying "There, you satisfied?"

Manx covered her mouth to stifle a giggle and said, "Did you have to do that in such a way that my laughter was inevitable?"

"Of course!" He replied, "I live every day to see you smile."

"Then you're going to have to live quite a long time." Manx said, shaking her head.

"All for you, my love!" Vaskin said with a bow.

Manx rolled her eyes with mock annoyance and said, "Do you have to be so poetic?"

"I really mean it. Manx, I love you." Vaskin said, no longer in jest. He looked hopefully into her eyes and asked, "Do you love me?"

Manx looked down at the ground and said, "How can I answer that? Love isn't a tangible thing. It isn't a whisper or a raging storm. I..."

Vaskin blushed, and suddenly she threw herself into his arms and said, "I'm not afraid of you. I trust you. I know you. I miss you when you are gone. I need you. But I don't know if...If I..."

Vaskin gently stroked her hair and said, "Love is a choice. And you chose to trust me, you chose to know me, you chose to fall into my arms this very instant. So why are you so hesitant?"

"Love is such a strong word. When you love someone, you give them your heart, your soul, every fiber of your being. When you love someone, you let them in to hurt you. It's like handing someone a knife whilst knowing they will stab you in the heart." Manx said

"Then you shouldn't love someone unless you trust them not to hurt you." Vaskin replied softly.

Manc looked up into his soft brown eyes, stared long and hard for quite some time, and then she said, "Here is my heart. It's broken and scarred, but I know you will take good care of it. I love you, Vaskin."

Vaskin hugged her tighter, looking into those sunset red and orange eyes of hers was like looking into the universe itself. This moment was theirs, and they both knew finally how the other felt, and how they felt about the other.

"They used to hit me in the dungeon." Manx said solemnly, before continuing with, "I never received any physical contact besides being shoved around or thrown to the ground. That's why I never let anyone touch me. It's because I'm afraid of being hurt."

Vaskin looked at her with shock and said, "I'm sorry. I never knew."

"It's not your fault." Manx replied.

"I wish I had been there to fix it. I could've..." Vaskin started

"No, you wouldn't have been able to do anything. It's in the past." Manx said.

"Did your parents ever do anything to stop them?" Vaskin asked.
"My dad left the day I was born. I met him for the first time on our first quest together. Mom raised me, up until I was five. That's when they took me away, put me in a cage, made me wear this awful collar that inhibited my powers. Mom visited as often as she could, but it wasn't enough. She was never allowed to touch me. Many times she tried to fight them, but they were too strong and they threatened to never let her see me, so eventually she bagged her fists and stayed quiet. She stopped visiting when I was fourteen. They told me she was dead. It turns out she was secretly ferrying Silver Helixes away to a hidden Island where they could be safe from persecution. Before you and I met, Leif became the new Empress and she set me free. I had plenty of books to read in the dungeon, but I was to conspicuous. Not long after being freed I was cornered in an alley by two centaur thugs. I got scared, my powers came out, and I was shipped off to court. And the rest is history." Manx said.

"Is that why it's so akward between you and your dad?" Vaskin asked.

Manx shrugged and replied, "To be honest, I blamed myself for him leaving. When I met him, I wasn't sure what to think. He doesn't have the right to order me around when he barely took the time to get to know me. I know he tried to fix the hole he left in our family, and Mom has clearly forgiven him as if nothing had ever happened. Now I blame him, I guess. He could have easily crushed Naegori the Swift and her dungeon managing idiots, but he didn't. I met my father while he was in service to the Red Shadow, sent after us to destroy our questing party. I still don't know why he didn't kill us all, even though I stood up and put myself in his path. Everyone thinks he had a change of heart, but I think he is just back in the family for himself. He acts like he didn't ever leave."

"What if he left to protect you?" Vaskin asked shyly. Manx pulled away and said, "How could you say a thing like that?"

"Manx, I know your father and I aren't that close, and that he'd probably kill me if he saw what happened today, but I heard his side of the story around the campfire when we were on the quest to find you when you ran off to the harrow forest." Vaskin replied.

"And what exactly does he think makes it right that he left us?" Manx fumed.

"He said that he knew that if the Red Shadow knew about your existence, you would have been enslaved instantly and trained up against the good side. He left so that your mother would have a chance at raising you in safety." Vaskin said clamly.

Manx punched the wall, making a large hole in it, and she yelled, "How do we know which side is right? The Creator has done nothing to stop the pain!"
"The Red Shadow only wants destruction and chaos. If he had found you as a child you would have turned out so much worse!" Vaskin exclaimed.

"At least I would have had my family!" Manx sobbed.

"Nothing can change the past." Vaskin said, standing there like stone.

"You're one to talk! At least you had a family!" Manx howled, toppling to her knees and sobbing.

Vaskin stood still for a moment, and then he said, "At least when you lost your family you got them back."

"And what makes you say that?!" Manx said, looking up and blinking back tears.

"Ever wonder why I'm afraid of wolves, why howling in the night makes me cry sometimes, and why I stare longingly at the full moon? You aren't the only one who lost your family." Vaskin replied, stooping down and lifting her chin.

"What were they like?" Manx asked.

Vaskin sat down next to her, hugged his knees, and said, "I had a family once. My mother, she was a wonderful cook. And my dad, he was a successful miner. They didn't have much, but I always had a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in. And I had a brother, too. He was seven years older than me. Last I remember of him was him putting worms in my breakfast. That morning was like any other morning. I was six. And that was when we heard the howling. At first we thought it was just ordinary wolves, but then screams came from the edge of the village. It was the Wulven, hybrid creatures from the Naedorian pits, more demon than wolf, with a long tendril on their heads. My father made me and my brother hide in the cellar. When the wave of screams came over our house, my brother crawled out of the cellar and that was the last I saw of any of them. Ficklewitt, the family cat, was there. The next day all there was were bones, and the streets were red. I ran to the city and grew up stealing scraps, anything shiny could buy me a meal. I cared only about myself then, until a dragon crashed into my little camp with a human kid in her claws and a broken wing."

"Then what happened?" Manx asked eagerly.

"Well, that dragon, she was crazy. She was determined to fly but she couldn't. She never took impossible for an answer. I told her that she was trying to fly all wrong, and she tricked me into teachin' her." Vaskin said, staring longingly into the distance of the past.
"What was a human doing in our world?" Manx asked

"Well, the human was the child of a well known dragonslayer that had happened upon our world by accident. Back then it wasn't so hard to cross between our world and this one, see, and the child was going to die for its father's crimes against the dragons. That crazy dragon dragged me along but somehow, she bonded with the child and was even thinking of taking the kid's place. Soon enough I was at the grand council of the Empress Naegori the Swift, and the human was on trial. The dragoness who had crashed into my place boldly stood before the Empress, see she was a mere soldier, and she was standing to defy the simplest of orders for what she thought was right. And Naegori decided to promote her! And the child was allowed her life, under the guardianship of my dragon friend." Vaskin said.

Manx tilted her head and asked, "So everything went well? Where is this dragon today? Is the human still alive? What was the child's name?"

Vaskin stared off into space and replied, "The girl's name was Anna. She had hair like fire and eyes like the stars and will be remembered forever. And the Dragon, well, her name is Leif."

"So, basically, you singlehandedly taught the Empress how to fly? But how did she become Empress?" Manx asked

"Well, after the ordeal with the child, Naegori was so taken by Leif's boldness that she took her under her wing and wanted her constant company. Naegori was a sad dragon, and growing old. Seeing such a young and hopefull dragon full of dreams kind of softened her heart and made her feel young again. But well, Naegori was murdered, and the child along with her. Leif and I know who killed them, but nobody else believes us. Leif escaped because black worms hate water, and she was wet from swimming when she leaped at the sound of Anna's screams." Vaskin said sadly.

"Black worms?" Manx asked curiously.

"They are like slugs, but bigger and incredibly fast. They eat flesh and their saliva dissolves most creature's flesh in an instant. How they killed Naegori I'd rather not discuss, but when it was over, all that was left was her hide and bones underneath. I was there that day, and I survived because my insides are poisonous to those nasty things. My venom runs through my veins and neutralizes most other toxins on contact." Vaskin said.

Manx looked at him with a deep sadness in her eyes and said, "If you know who killed the human child, why can't you find them and do them justice?"
Suddenly, Leif burst into the room and said, "Because it's not like Lyrica is going to exactly present herself on a silver platter! And it was me she was really after. I had to go into hiding and fake my death when I was chosen as Empress because of what that vile worm is capable of."

Manx's eyes widened, and it all of a sudden made sense why Leif and Vaskin were so close, and why they had to get back to their world as soon as they could. She stood up and said, "Why would Lyrica want to kill you?"

"I...I can't remember! My head hurts." Leif said.

"It's because of your birthmark, that golden diamond shaped scale on your forehead! You were chosen, marked by the creator, to bring a new age upon our world, and because Lyrica is working for the Red Shadow, she wants to kill you! How can you forget that?" Vaskin yelped, standing up suddenly.

"I see you two held down the fort while we were gone." Khashmyr said, strolling into the room in her true form, tails held high. The cat then looked at Manx's left arm and asked, "How did it heal so well so quickly?"

"I don't know, but it was like that when I woke up this morning." Manx replied.

Khashmyr thought for a moment and then said, "Well, the only explanation is that the powers of whoever did that to you are being restrained. We can go home now, but we must hurry because they could break free any minute."

"We're going home?!" Manx exclaimed excitedly, grabbing Vaskin's arm.

"I don't see why not. It's a shame, because I was planning on making something special for dinner." Khashmyr said nonchalantly. Manx dove towards the ground and scooped Khashmyr up in her arms, pulling the cat into a huge hug. Khashmyr wheezed for breath and said, "If you break my ribs we'll have to wait on getting home."

Manx loosened her grip and Khashmyr's long furry body oozed to the floor, leaving her like a fluffy cat heap. Manx quickly brushed cat hair out of her skirt and then flared up her fists, letting the shadows naturally come free, and she said, "Let's go home!"

Khashmyr nodded, sat up, and put a paw on Manx's leg, channeling her strength into her so that Manx didn't have to create the portal alone. The shadows whirled around in a black and purple spiral, ripping the fabric holding the worlds apart. Khashmyr then walked over to Leif and nudged her through the portal with a gentle head butt, while Vaskin stayed close to Manx.

Manx gasped suddenly, and fell to her knees. Vaskin saw a small trickle of blood oozing down her arm, and he hastily scooped her up.

"Hang in there, Manx!" Vaskin said, running into the tunnel of shadows. Yet the end of it seemed to be growing farther and farther away, and he was worried if he would be trapped forever between worlds. The black Vortex closed around him on all sides, and he ran as fast as he could. He had to get Manx to the end of it. He had to get her home. He felt he growing limp in his arms, her weight making him fight the current pushing him back even harder. The vortex shrank, smaller and smaller, until he hardly had room to move. He felt as if there was no hope to get to the other side, and he held Manx tightly in his arms, wondering if this was the end.

And then, there was a brilliant whooshing sound, and the portal opened wider, and wider, and Vaskin ran through the tunnel still, feeling that maybe he could make it. He could barely make out a face at the end of the vortex, a face like a tiger, red eyes penetrating the darkness of it all. He half ran, half stumbled, out of the Vortex and right in front of Kaeoryn. Vaskin swallowed hard, hearing the portal close behind him. He stood there clutching his love tightly in his arms, and then he reluctantly handed her to her father.

The last thing he saw of her was the door slamming loudly as her father carried her into the infirmary and he felt a weight over his heart, wondering if she would ever wake up to see her world again. He looked behind him and saw the Empress, in her full dragon glory. And she looked at him with eyes pale and glassy, as if she didn't even know who he was. He looked down at the dragon's chest where there was a long gaping bloody wound, from when Lyrica had torn out her heart stone.

Vaskin ran to the window, and looked out over the distant burning landscape. He then ran over to the Empress, flung himself onto her large head, and he looked into her pale eyes, and he screamed. He pounded his fists on her muzzle, her scales too hard for her to feel any pain, and then he collapsed over her nose, embracing her face with all his might. And Leif, Dragon Empress of all of the Valdt, looked at him with a blank stare void of any emotion, and she said, "Who are you?"