Fan Fiction ❯ Advent Of The Goddess: Book 1-The Awakening ❯ Fourty Shades Of Grey ( Chapter 8 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The night was long and restless, the grief-stricken pair lying awake, side by side, unable to sleep for the fear of what awaited them on the other side..
Shasta sighed softly in the darkness of the grubby shack, her forehead still warm with the reminents of a shock-induced fever and her small body drenched in cold sweat. The story of Taigo's past had shocked her to the core...
How someone could endure such hardships and abuse for so long defied belief...defied all logic and reason....but his eyes never lied. There was too much pain etched forever in those haunting orbs of sapphire to tell her anything other than the absolute truth..

No wonder he's so.....numb.. she thought to herself, turning on her side to look at the silver haired man resting on back beside her.

He was caught in that strange little state of semi-conscious, not awake, but not sleeping either. Thin lids were half-closed in a semi-trance, face devoid of all lines of worry and strife but for the faint track of tears streaking down his hollowed cheeks. One hand hidden behind his pillow, the other rested gently on his clothe-covered abdomen, his ebony kimono loosening just enough to show a tiny sliver of the porcelean muscles beneath, forever marred by greyish-purple bruises and the occasional line of silvery scar tissue.

The young pink-head blushed when she saw those muscles...soft, slight definations of strenght on an otherwise frail looking body, a war-scarred chest rising up and down softly with every shallow breath.
Rolling onto her stomach and propping her head up on her crossed arms, she gently patted his hand, causing him to blink and snap out of his semi-conscious state.
"Taigo-san?" she whispered softly, hugging a pillow under her chin.

"Mmmm..? What is it?" he let a loud yawn escape his lips, stretching like a cat as he did so and caused the fods of his kimono to split even more, the ghostly white skin beneath glistening in the light of the moon.

Shasta's blush intensified."Uhh...I-I can't sleep." she simmed, adverting her gaze to the worn patches on the pillow.

"What d'ya want me to do about it, woman? Sing you a lullaby, perhaps? Warm some milk? I have no cocoa but-" he replied in an overly sarcastic tone, a phantom smile tweeking the edges of his full, pouting lips. Turning on his side, he propped himself up on his elbow, left hand free to absently trace patterns on the rags between them.

"Tell me a story?A-about Arailani? I-h...Her name.....I feel like I know it-oh!" Shasta started, only to be cut off with one long, thin finger on her lips as the silver haired man-beast silenced her.

"You should...the two of your share more than just looks, you know.."he said with a soft smile, finger moving to gently twirl a strand of rich, fushia pink, intriqued by the glint of silver bouncing off the silky locks as the moon shone down upon her.

"I-I look like her?" Shasta felt the blood rush to her cheeks like a torrent wave rushing the sandy shores of the island. His touch was like ice against her spin, yet it made her feel warm and tingly in the pit of her stomach...and to hear that he was likening her to the likes of Arailani, the so called love of his life...
She could'nt help but smile at that thought..

"Mmm..you have her eyes, Shasta...I'd never forget those eyes. Electric green and full of mischief." He replied, snapping her from her slight daze.

Chuckling in spite of herself, she gently placed her hand over his, shaking ever so slightly as her fingers brushed the icy cold of his skin.
"..Stop...you don't know what you're saying...how can I look like her when I don't even know her, let alone share her blood?"

"You don't look anything like the woman who raised you...don't you find that strange? Especially when you think of her as your mother?"
Taigo said with curiousity in his voice, rolling onto his stomach and mimicking her actions of curling a pillow under his chin, arms folded and resting neatly upon the coarse fabric.

The young girl gave him a look of utter confusion, her dark fushia brows furrowed as she looked upon him with uncertainty, waiting for answers..
"W-what are you saying? Ayumi....was'nt my mother?" her voice turned hoarse at the mention of her fallen mother, the images of that night in the morgue so achingly clear and vivid in her young mind, visions of a blood-splattered, transculent woman forever haunting her each moment her eyes dared to flicker shut...

..Was it really true? Was Ayumi just a stranger? A kind woman who took pity on a lost child?

She did'nt to believe it, but as Shasta's mind replayed the question over and over in her mind, it made more and more sense..she had awakened on the sandy shores of Dolphin's Cove with no memory of how she got there....and no recollection of anything before that..
Ayumi had taken her in, given her six months of shelter, warmth and comfort and treated her as her own. She was all the young girl knew...the only mother she ever truely had...but Taigo's words made perfect sense to her..

There was no resemblence...no blood ties...no similaritys. Just a bond that felt artificial, as loving as it was....something that always felt out of place, something that was missing...buried deep beneath the golden sand..

Feeling drained, Shasta staggered off the shabby futon, heading towards the flap of animal hide that concealed the enterence to the shack and pushing it roughly aside. She had to get out...she had to be cleanse of all this pain...of all these lies..

"HEY! Wait!" Taigo called to her, springing to his feet as he chased her outside, darting along the trail of footsteps in the sand as she ran towards the frothy white waves of Dolphin's Cove, franticly wading out into the blackened water as she ignored the man-beast's cries.

"No....no, it can't....I won't let you take her away from me...!" Shasta gasped, more to herself as she waded up to her chest in the icy water, hoping in some way that the salty black water would wash away all the pain and misery trapped within her body. Feeling the heavy fabric of her nightclothes cling to her body, she struggled against the strong waves, ignoring the sting of pain as her bare feet stubbed against pebbles and jagged sea-shells.

What the hell is she doing?! She's going to drown at this rate! Taigo thought in alarm, abandoning his fruitless pleas as he shrugged off his kimono.

Clad only in a flimsy pair of kendo pants, he took a running jump towards the wave, diving into the black ocean as she continued to fight against the wave, now swimming against the strong current, struggling to keep her head above water.

Not on his life would he dare let the last remaining fragment of his lost love throw her life away so foolishly..that said, it still did'nt help the fact that he was'nt a strong swimmer..and with such a weak heart..
No time to think about that... he thought as he breast-stroked against the torrent waves, feeling the harsh sting of salt on his face. Shasta was just out of his reach, her head of deep fushia hair bobbing on the waves like a strange buoy as she fought a loosing battle against the tide.

Fatique was settling in now, her strokes slowing down as the power of the water became too much to fight against, her head disappearing underwater as a particularly large wave rolled over her.
"Ngh!" she coughed and spluttered as her head broke through the waves, panic setting in. Her limbs flailed about helplessly in the black ocean, beating fruitlessly as Mother Nature fought her without mercy.

Taigo felt as though his heart and lungs were going to explode. The waves seemed to get stronger with each stroke of his arms, beating hard against his bare chest as he struggled to reach the frantic young girl that rapidly loosing a fiece battle.

Her head disappeared under the water again, but this time she did'nt resurface.

"NO!" Taigo yelled out in alarm, only to be met with a mouthful of sea salt. Spitting against the tide, he took a deep gulp of air and dived under the turbulent water
If he thought the surface was dark, it was nothing compared to the pitch black that greeted his salt-stung eyes beneath. Trying hard to supress a growl of frustration, he lit a cornflower blue ball of ki the size of a football in his hand, casting a bright glow against the darkness...but alas, he still could'nt find her.
Swimming with all his strenght, he scoured the dark waves for the young girl, mentally berating himself for raising such an alarming subject..

Stopping his search only to surface for air, he found her after what felt like hours, lying in a bed of seaweed and coral. Blood floated in the water around her from were she'd cut her head on a rock as she fell to the sea-floor. Feeling his lungs crie for air, he grabbed her by the scruff of her collar and gave her a hard shake, hoping to the higher deieties that her eyes would flutter open...but, to his distress, she was out cold....and now it was his turn to panic.

His lungs were set to explode at any moment and he'd never make it to the surface in time...

Taigo was already feeling woozy, his vision beginning to blur as the last tiny shred of oxygen left his body in a stream of bubbles, floating up towards the distent surface..

..his eyes began to flutter shut...to suscum to uncertainy..

..That's when he heard it.

A high-pitched clicking sound. Faint at first...then...it got louder...louder still, untill he could take it no more..

Opening his eyes slowly, feeling as though he was somewhere between life and death, Taigo was quite supprised to be staring into the friendly eyes of a dolphin.
I must be going mad.... he thought, drifting in and out of consiousness like a tumbleweed drifting in the wind.

Still, there was no mistaking the creature's cheerful chirrup, high pitched and inaudible to all but the most attuned of ears. Watching as his surroundings blurred around him, the silvery-haired man-beast was vaguely aware of something nudging him..something sooth and sleek to touch brushed against his bare chest, the clicking, chirruping and high-pitched song of the dolphin seeming to come from all angles.

In a rush of bubbles, the darkness rapidly faded to light, little spots of shimmering white against the murky blueish-black of the surface, getting closer and closer untill, after what felt like an eternity, he burst through the dark waves, gasping as though he'd just found oxygen for the first time, taking in all in for fear of never experience the precious air again.
Lungs burning with salt, he took several long gulps of sweet, sweet oxygen, clinging limply to the back of the dolphin, watching as the shore came into view. The sun was beginning to rise slowly over the east, an omnious red slash on the horizon casting a bloody tinge of light to trickle over the rockery surrounding Dolphin's Cove.

As he watched that eerie sunrise, Taigo was suddenly jolted back to reality. Shasta!

Glancing around wildly, his deep sapphire eyes searched for that telltale mop of untidy fushia hair...

..There! Drapped like a rag-doll over the back of an accompanying dolphin, her head was bowed low, lolling patheticly from side to side as the creature escorted them both to shore, no sighs of life in her deathly pale skin..

"Stupid...stupid little witch!" Taigo hissed raspily through his cheeks as he stumbled onto the shore with the unconsious young girl in his arms. Laying her down on the rough sand, he haistly pressed hard on her chest to dislodge the water from her lungs, shaking her several times in a vain attempt to resussicate her.
When that failed to rouse her, he let out an aggitated growl of annoyence and pinched her nostrils harder than nessicary, parting her blue-tinged lips and breathing into her.

No sooner had he filled her lungs with stale, salty air did she lurch forward like a puppet on a string, a forceful gasp escaping her throat. Coughing and spluttering, it took several minutes for her eyes to take in her surrounds: A little sandy cove, surrounded by high cliffs with an omnious-looking cave cut deep into rich terracotta rock, seaweed and driftwood scattered wildly along the shore.....and one very wet, very angerily looking young man sitting crouched over her, eyes blazing with a mixture of concern and raw fury.

"You....insufferable....little...brat!!" he huffed in anger, practically red in the face as he forced the words from his breathless lungs, face twisting into the mother of all glares. She almost killed them both with her sudden outburst of melodrama, he thought angerily to himself, one hand reaching to steady the heart that was thumping painfully hard against his ribcage.

But the fushia haired girl did'nt seem to regiester her words..all she could do was make a series of choked, raspy breaths, as though an invisable force was strangling her slowly, the grip tightening with every breath she tried to take..
"The Dark Lady....awaits.....to bide her time.....the dog forever.... loyal......hunts down the....startled kitten....!" her voice was low and raspy, like someone on their deathbed, miles away from the normally light and flowery tones Taigo had become accustomed to in the short he knew the young girl.

At the sound of her choked, gritting words, his glare fell into a look of pure terror intermingled with anger.
"Pandora....!"he hissed, eyes darting about wildly for any sign of the infamous Goddess of Death....but only a seemingly endless stretch of sand and tropical plantlife greeted him, green leaves swaying in the wind, frothy waves lapping at the sandy shore. Nothing sinester...only ordinary sand....normal cliffs....the same turbulent waves that had almost claimed them both..

The work of Cerberus, the eternally loyal 'lapdog' of the Dark Lady..she was out there somewhere, he knew..but the link between slave and master had been severed, the crystal once embedded in his forehead now lying forgotten within the smouldering ruins of what was once a young girl's home..
..but still, he could feel her. There was no escape from such a choking scent...a scent like sex, murder and blood. It singed Taigo's nostrils, but he'd long learnt to ignore it...to focus at other matters at hand...

"Shasta.... Shasta, wake up.." he lowered his voice from it's previous scoulding tone, eyes still etched with fear as he gazed into the young girl's emerald pair. They were glassy and blank, the irises bleeding into the whites and pupil to leave only two orbs of darkest green, unfocused and almsot...corpselike.
A chill ran down his spine. He'd known that look so well..

"Please wake up..!" he gave her a shake for effect, thin hands grasping her shoulders firmly as she sat, back painfully arched against the unseen force controlling her being. She let out a low, zombie-ish groan, eyes rolling back into her skull before, the dark grip losening, she collasped against his chest with another loud, throaty gasp. It was then that her eyes regained sight, the whites and pupils returning to leave a look of pure, unfathomable terror.

"The beast...the beast that-that killed-!" she gasped, eyes wide with the look of a woman who'd just stared death in the face and lived to speak of it. Her voice was high and shaky, trailing off into a long, low scream, muffled by Taigo's bare chest as he held her close.
He knew exactly the torment she was going through....possession did that to people.....but it virtually devestated those who were too weak to resist.

Cerberus invaded her mind, her private thoughts with the same fierocity as the nigh he'd attacked the little house in Fujitsu Falls. He sharpened his claws on her brain and took delight in sending memories of the chaos flooding back to his young victum, relishing the sensation as her pain made him stronger.
Now she was forever open, forever vulnerable to another mental attack...but Taigo had sworn to protect her and protect her he would.

He knew now his destiny....why fate had intertwined their paths....she was a goddess, but all the same, she was still a child...she needed guidence....training...discipline....love, even...

The silver-haired man-beast blushed slightly at that thought. Not untill she's eighteen, you pervert! He mentally smacked himself for thinking such scandolous thoughts and resigned himself to the role of her tutor....for now, though, he held her against his bare chest as she cried, screamed and groaned against the aftershock of the sudden mental attack.It would be a while before she was thinking clearly again, he knew, picking her up in his arms as her cries died down to a dull series of groans, walking back towards the forrest clearing...the shack was'nt very far from here, he knew..........but would it be safe?

If the wrenched devil dog could invade their thoughts, it would be only a matter of time before he found Shasta........Taigo did'nt want to think about what might happen then..

"T-Taigo....?" a small voice alerted him to his senses, causing him to glance down at the frightened young girl in his arms, looking up at him with the eyes of a startled fawn, peering out fearfully from under a mop of damp, tangled pink hair.

"Hmmm?"

"I-I'm sorry...I ran out.....I tried not to obey, but-but...he....he scared me and..." her voice trailed off as she began to shiver. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and rested her head against his war-scarred chest, letting it out as a sigh.
"Please don't leave me...I just....I don't know what's going on anymore...."

A soft smile crossed Taigo's lips for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Hugging her a little closer to his body, he rested his chin on the top of her head and sighed gently.
"You dont have to worry about that....I'll take care of you. But you have to trust me..." His smile faultered slightly. He knew they were'nt safe in Okinawa or on Earth for that matter...not when foul creatures like Cerberus could invade their thoughts. They needed to be somewhere where even angels feared to thread...a place devoid of life were they could hide, undisturbed and undetected.........

...That place was the Terre De Mortes....

How he had dreaded with every fibre of his DNA, with every cell in his body, from the bottom of his heart to the core of his soul, coming back to this kingdom of darkness. It was just as he'd remembered it. Fourty shades of grey, from the bleakness of the perpetual storm clouds overhead, to the scorched black of the barren, arrid wasteland that stretched as far as the eye could bare. Over the turrets of the imperial palace, the sun burned blood red on the horizon, fleeing the omnious dark thunder clouds that rolled overhead as it rapidly set in the East.

It had been so long since he last set foot in this bleak, monochromatic waste of a kingdom.....so long since he stood in the shadows of the dark crystal palace, looming omniously over a small scattering of what once looked to be a thriving village. All that remained was the burnt out shells of huts and houses, the stench of sulphur hanging in the air like a death-cloak as Taigo walked onward towards the hilltop he had once called home.

Shasta was scared. This world was unlike anything she'd ever seen....even in her most vivid and terrifying nightmares could she have envisioned such a dark, post-apocolyptic land..the lan was barren and dead, scorched trees serving only as posts for ancient skeletons to dangle from the neck, swaying patheticly in the dry wind, dust swirling around being the only sign of life, the occasional tumbleweed rolling by..

"Taigo....t-this is it....the Terre De Mortes?" Shasta whimpered quietly, curling her fingers around a stray lock of the man-beast's silvery hair as he carried her through the rusting black ironwroth gate, the sounds of rat skeletons crunching underfoot doing little to ease her fear.

"Yes....this is the place of my birth...not a fact I'm particularly proud of.." he replied, more to himself than anything else, expression unreadble as he roughly shoved the creaking iron doors open with his shoulder. A toe-curling squeak emitted from the ancient latches, suddenly disturbed from their rest after a near millenia.
Stepping inside, the doors swung shut behind the silver-haired prince with a loud, empthy bang, leaving him and the young girl in his arms alone in a dark corridor.

Muttering something in a foriegn tongue, Taigo gave a click of his fingers. At once, electric blue flames surged to life in brackets all along the walls, illuminating the still gleaming flecks of silver set deep inside black marble. Taigo walked in silence, too lost in his own dark thoughts and memories of this miserable castle as he accended a long, flowing staircase that lead towards the bedrooms, the empthy brackets on the wall surging to life with crackling blue flames with each one he passed.

Nudging open the largest door, at the end of the blue tinged corridor, he walked inside and placed Shasta gently down on the bed, turning to haistily lock the door behind him."There are creatures in this palace, woman....creatures unlike anything you've ever known.....but you've been through enough already to deal with them tonight.." he finally spoke as he clapped his hands, causing the room to be illuminated by warm orange flames in oil lamps on the walls.

The room was rather scarce for a palace, devoid of any fancy furniture but for a simple queen-sized futon, a dresser-drawer, a termite-ridden wardrobe and a threadbare couch of dark blue leather, styled much like a psychologist's chair. Like the supprisingly good condition feather-stuffed sheets of the futon, the walls were painted a muted shade of greenish-blue, muslin hangings billowing out like ghosts in the breeze from the one large window which Taigo promptly closed and locked with unnessiscary haiste.

"C-creatures?" The young pink haired girl queried, pulling her knees to her chest and folding her arms upon them, eyes uncertain and bewildered in the dim lantern light. Seating himself on the worn leather couch, the silver haired man-beast nodded, eyes dark under his foot-long, layered bangs.

"Mmm....Terre De Mortes.. quite literally, it translates into 'Land of The Dead'...the creatures I speak of...they are lost souls, unable to cross over for many reasons... perhaps they have unfinished buisness...or took their own life and died by their own hands..I don't care to find out tonight...or any night, for that matter, which is why I am locking us both in 'till morning. The safest room in the palace.." he waved a hand, gesturing to the room in a bored sort of way.

"..but if these walls could talk.."he trailed off into a cruel laugh, masking the urge to cry tears of frustration as the unforgiving walls bore down upon him.

Call it instinct or not, but Shasta sensed the pain deep inside his chest. His face..it looked so pained when it was usually so stern and soleum...as though this place broke past an invisable barrier, his emotions flooding through as he buried his head in his hands to conceal silent tears.
What could she do?
She had lost her parent and guardian...but he had lost a little piece of his soul..a piece of his being, carved out and beaten senseless, untill he too became cold and distent..maybe he was afraid.....he had known only pain all his life...would it really hurt if she could comfort him, she wondered?

With a sigh, she got up from the bed and walked over the dusty wooden floor to the threadbare couch.
"Taigo...." she whispered softly, placing a hand on his head in a soothing way. Looking up, he could see no judgement in her eyes...no lies or deciet....only a sadness that matched his own.

Her hand dropped down to his cheek, stroking it gently in the hope of perhaps easing the dagger from his heart just that little bit..
"Don't-" he started, but she silenced him with a finger to his lips, pulling him down onto the floor in a soothing hug, holding him as he'd held her that tragic night in Dolphin's Cove.

"Why did we come here?" her voice was small and meek as she tilted his chin upward, eyes heavy with fatique and more misery than any ten year old should ever have to face.

"This is the Land of The Dead....the last place Cerberus would look for powerful spirits....and believe me, woman...you are a powerful spirit.." he stood up, walking towards the window once more and seating himself attop the threadbare storage seat that served as a sill, sapphire eyes staring bleakly out at his kingdom of death....endless plains of sand and ashes of the fallen stretching on for miles. Bleak...like his life.

"If you still want to know, I'd like to tell you about her.....about your true mother."

"....." Shasta said nothing, resigning herself to sit huddled on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest as she gazed upon the dark prince, the diming light of the scorched sun glinting in his glossy silver hair, ankle-lenght tendrils that cascaded over his shoulders like a torrent waterfall, framing his face neatly and casting dark shadows upon the near-corpselike flesh.

He was like a living statue to her, so cold and listless as he sat on the windowseat, arms folded over a bare chest as pale as moonbeams and marred by an eternity of scars. His eyes....they were the only things truely alive about him....they betrayed his darkest thoughts and his hidden emotions, as blue as a Carribean lagoon, but cold and forlorn as an icy winter's dusk...

Are all princes this beautiful? She found herself thinking at random, a furious red blush flaring from her cheeks as she realized what her mind had silently mused.
Mentally smacking herself, she scooted forward slightly, smiling in a sheepish sort of way as Taigo cast her a questioning glance.

"Do you still want to know about her?" he queried, brows furrowed in an unreadable expression.

The pink haired girl swallowed a lump in her throat. As fresh as Ayumi's death was in her mind, a morbid sense of curiousity urged her to listen to the silver haired prince. Arailani. A name that sounded familiar to the young girl....stirring a strange feeling of warmth in her heart. Unnerved, she swallowed back her unease and remained silent as the grave, eyes perminantly fixed upon Taigo's as he began to speak.

"You already know what I am, hmm? The Overfiend, prince of all animal life on Earth...I am a mythical being, as was Arailani...but that's where the similarities end.
I am not quite human, but I'm also not quite an animal. I bore the curse of being the only son of Panterasu, the king of this wretched land and for that, I was seen only as an anomaly, as fiendish as my father and his before him." he spoke softly, eyes blank and unblinking, yet his mouth frowned as he spoke of his father, hands involentarily clenching in his lap.

"Arailani was a sacred creature, a goddess revered and loved by all. She was the queen of the Sun and bringer of fertality and love. In short, she was....perfect in every sense. Just looking at you sitting before me...you look so much like her it defies belief.."

"S-so....that means I'm a demi-god?" Shasta whispered softly, eyes widdening slightly.

"I suppose...." Taigo then went on to describe, as best as he could to a bewildered ten year old, the creation of the gods and goddesses, of Tanaka and the Divine Counsill untill, satisfied she understood the long and complicated fables that coursed through her blood, he spoke more of Arailani.

"Unlike conventional goddesses, Arailani longed for children....something I could never give her, for as fleeting as our love was, it was forbidden for a divine being to even glance at a man-beast, let alone share affection. Not long before you came into existence, the third planet of the Milky Galaxy-Earth to you- was threatened by a fierce army of warring extra-terrestrials known as the Kalothians. Planetary merchents, they sought to exterminate all life on your quint little planet and sell it to the highest bidder on the galactic black market.
The former guardian of Earth, one Lady Chikyuu Shimagami, gave up her immortality in a bid to protect her land and ward away the invaders. Details of the battle are patchy at best, but if I remember right, the army was decimated for all but one- Lord Haplor."

Taigo paused, moving to brush several strands of silvery hair from his eyes and let out a deep breath as a sigh.

"A foul, disgusting, leecherous little maggot....a pathetic excuse for a Kalothian war-lord, but a skilled warrior if I must say. Seizing the moment Shimagami had given the last of her strenght to uphold the Earth's safety, he blasted her out of the sky and used her lifeless body for things not ment for your young ears... in the wake of the tragedy, Earth was without a guardian to protect her.
That's when Arailani stepped up to the plate. Oh, how I remember Pandora's rage at being passed over for the job!"

He gave a sardonic laugh, fingering a series of fading criss-crossing scars winding up and down his arms as he spoke, the scars of the Dark Ladie's short temper.
Opening her mouth to say something, Shasta could find no words to voice her shock at the story he told, and thus remained silent, brows knitted as she listened with earnest.

"Well, that's a story for another day....to cut the chase, Arailani created you with the intent of having you become Earth's new savior....but before you could begin training, a fight broke out and you were prematurely born into a world where happiness is swiftly tarnished by pain and discord...she sent you to Earth to protect you, but in doing so, she threw you into the curse that is human nature..."

"So what now? My path is torn.." Shasta's words escape her lips in little more than a whisper, her face fixed with a grim expression.

Brows darkening, Taigo stood up and folded his arms over his chest, a stern resolve etched upon his porcelean features.
"Sometimes, we must walk through the darkness in order to find the light....rest well, woman....for tomorrow, your training begins.."

A/N: Whoo...hard chapter to write, but it needed to be done. Now, for those of you who are gagging for me to update as soon as possible, please take into account the fact that I am now a college student and while my schedule is'nt one that has a ton of brick-like books dumped on me each day, the only time I can write is at the weekends. Add to this a busy home life, dental and radiolodgy appointments (I'm almost completly deaf in one ear and I need check ups, so it can't be helped) and it's no wonder I take so long to update....so I ask you all kindly, to just sit tight and be patient. Don't worry, I fully intend to finish this story, so I won't leace you all hanging. Besides, good things come to those who wait! ^_^
I'll do my best to update soon, but for now, in the wise words of Gerard Way:

#So long and goodnight! So long and good-niiiight!#

~*Shasta*~
19/09/05