Welcome to Gaia! ::

Do you hate being here?

His question echoed in the recesses of her mind pulling forth a memory of the first time he had asked her something similar. However, unlike before her honest answer did not come so decisive or freely.

“There isn’t a simple answer to either of those questions.” She admitted with an almost distant voice. Scooting back further on the bed, Laven leaned her back against the wall and patted the spot beside her; a silent request for him to relax because this may end up being mentally draining on them both.

I already told you what happened the day I was conscripted into this war. But telling was very different than being immersed in the moment.

The light from the sun pierced through the ice like a white hot lance illuminating the frozen sheet of water in an almost ethereal light. Emersed beneath the frozen lake there was no sound just a sharp pain in her chest and a panicked voice in her mind begging for help. Her body would not move, would not fight as death’s hands wrapped her in it’s cold embrace slowly pulled her under.

Then there was darkness...

It could have been hours or days even before the nameless creature that she had become finally opened her eyes. Dirt and dust settled on her, peppering her body with debris in the still... soundless water that, for a time, had been her grave. In a curious confusion she stirred, blue strands of hair floated around her in a tangled mess but she paid it no mind as she swam upwards, hand reached out towards the bright glow only to be stopped by the frozen wall. She struggled to break it but finally it cracked and like a baby bird she was born anew.

“To say I was confused or scared is like putting a bandaid on a broken arm simply because it hurts. They’re simple words that convey a basic emotion but in reality it’s a far cry from the terror I truly felt” Snow crunched beneath her feet as she made her way across the dock towards the stairs that lead to the cabin she had been staying in.

It’s one thing to be startled because someone jumped out at you. It’s another thing entirely when it is your own reflection. Before she could even open the door she caught sight of herself in the window. A loud scream erupted from her as she jumped backwards and in that same motion her foot slipped off the first step. Heels over head she rolled down the slick snow covered stairs and landed at the bottom in a tangled mess of limbs.

What is this? What happened to me?” The questions echoed in the recesses of her mind. Her voice shook like ripples across the water after a stone had been cast into it as she looked down at her arms… her hands… then reached up to touch the horns on the side of her head. Her body trembled as she stumbled her way back towards the end of the dock, the last place she remembered standing and it was there she found the mug she had been holding. This isn’t real…

Tears fell freely from her icy colored eyes as she took hold of the horns, gripping them as hard as she could in a feeble yet desperate attempt to remove them. However, they were not some cheap accessories bought from a party store that had been glued to her head like some cruel joke. No, these were real, fused with her skull they would not budge.

There was a deep sense of primal fear as she rubbed her palms against the bluish tinted ski, and when that didn’t seem to work she instead raked sharp claws along her arms and tore the webbing between her fingers. Pain bloomed where blood flowed freely and yet in the maelstrom of emotions she her mind simply could not register that her body was broken and torn; her ankle twisted from the fall with ribs bruised from tumbling down the stairs.

Like a slide show, the memories she shared came quicker. Blood spotted the snow around her as she sat in the cold silence surrounded by forest and trees. But then a man appeared in a black uniform. A gentle hand place upon her shoulder. His eyes were concerned and caring as he helped her to her feet. It was his presence that made the storm of emotions quell into a numbing silence but at least for a time she had the voice of someone else to focus on, to hold on to.

“Lopezite saved me that day. ” kind of... “I went from being a carefree woman, a student with a career goal and aspirations for what I wanted to do with my life. To being a prisoner of circumstances.”

Laven’s eyes wandered around her bedroom and in her mind things familiar to her began to disappear. At first it was small objects, riverstones, a lamp, a few books on the shelf; but then large furniture blinked out of existence along with them until it was only her, kneeling in the center of a darkened room. Her head hung forward, hair hiding her face from view. Arms bound behind her back with a short chain that kept her tethered to the room she was in.

On the outside she had tried to make it seem like everything was ok, that she was coping well enough so her Captain didn’t worry. But inside she was struggling, desperately tugging against the shackles until her wrists bled. There were voices outside the room as people wandered down the hallway, oblivious to the captured creature that was hidden away behind the closed door. She was like a star act to a freakshow at a circus just waiting for a reveal.

It took four days of near starvation before she finally found the courage to open the door, eyes cast downward in embarrassment and shame she found the cafeteria and froze like a deer caught in the headlights when the other officers looked in her direction. Some wore an expression of intrigue or curiosity while others observed her in disgust Whatever questions they had on their mind, Laven didn’t stay long enough for them to ask as she grabbed a piece of fruit from the nearest bowl and ran back to the safety of her prison cell of a dorm room.

In that moment as her frantic heart beat wildly against her chest like a scared animal, she needed Lopezite like nothing else. But he was not here, he was a human with a life where the Negaverse and Dark Kingdom were only a small part of it but she, more than life or breath itself, needed him to save her from this place.

“I don’t want you to think he abandoned me. But when you’re used to being able to go on walks, to stretch your legs and breath in the fresh air or call a friend to chat for a few hours to having it all be taken away… It made it feel like the world was collapsing around, threatening to swallow me whole and there was nothing I could do to keep from falling.” Hours felt like days and days like weeks. But he always found time to see me, it's just that… three hours a day was never enough for the times he did bring me outside so I could run free.

A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she then shared a memory of when Samir took her to the reservoir. Her head tilted upwards towards the sky, soft clouds swept across the horizon but above them was open and blue and beautiful. The sun kissed her skin, warming her in a way her body all but craved as she then stretched and from her lips fell a single word

“Freedom.”

At that point it wasn’t that she wanted to go back to her old life, it was that she simply needed to be out. To bury her feet in the damp sand, to run and play, to forget everything and simply… be.

Since then we slipped into a comfortable, reliable routine. Work and play… play and work. But then you showed up. A memory of the moment they met flashed in her mind, the surprised look on his face when she nearly smacked him with the door. “Like an errant child throwing a tantrum in a department store you came crashing through upsetting the delicate balance we had created.” As she described his entrance in her life there was a light air of humor that seeped through the tether that linked them.

Before Wolframite could begin to have doubts about their friendship Laven reached over and placed her hand atop his paw then leaned her head against his shoulder. “Don’t,” she gently scolded before his mind could wander into darker places.

A seam appeared in the dark room and there he stood silhouetted in its light an overconfident cocky grin on his face as he approached.

“If you don’t have the strength to do it, then I will” Although the context of his statement had nothing to do with the thoughts she shared it was very applicable to impact it had on her view of things and how in that moment he had changed her perception of this new life. There was such stubborn conviction in that statement that when swung with his large paw, his claws connected with chains and the links that bound her shattered beneath his strength.

It was their spar that set things into motion.

Where she had been a simple girl standing alone in a glass dome room beneath the ocean where the light could only reach past the thick glass wall only a few feet. A small crack appeared on the barrier, but under the pressure it grew and spread into a weblike pattern before shattering completely. Water came rushing in grabbing ahold and tossing her into the currents sweeping her into the darkness where she felt eyes had been observing her for some time. Only when the world stopped reeling did she realize that she now stood before the beast within.

Wise eyes regarded her with compassion rather than hunger as it stretched its neck out towards her and in turn, rather than trying to swim away, Marissa reached her hand out and placed it on its smooth blue scales. It had the power and strength to swallow her whole but it seemed content to simply be as it was; an observer looking to be entertained.

She was its vessel, and it was her charge; together they were one and it was his action that brought them together.

Flashes of memories filtered through in rapid succession but not necessarily in chronological order. .

Wolframite on top of her, teeth sunk into her shoulder. Her on top of Winter strangling him on the floor of his room. The two of them sitting beneath a tree eating tacos. Walking side by side down a weather beaten path. Running among crystal clusters after a youma, glancing over her shoulder and catching sight of his exasperated expression. Her holding him closely as colorful lights flashed around them as he tried to remember how to breath after walking through the maze of mirrors.

There were feelings of hurt, anger, pure and unadulterated joy, worry, concern and a hint of something she still had no name for yet. Everything in their own place and own time but when it came down to it, what it meant was that for the first time she truly felt alive.

“Do I hate being here?” Laven gave his paw a squeeze then turn to look Wolframite in the eyes. “No. As long as I have you two in my life I am happy where I am at.”

For a time, Lavendulan tried her best to calm her mind and quiet her emotions to allow Wolframite to process all that she had shared with him. things that had always been there but kept in a locked chest beneath the turbulent sea that guarded them fiercely.

Through the tether that linked them Laven could feel the rise in irritation or anger towards certain images or emotions she had allowed him to see, not towards her but the circumstances that surrounded her existence. He, in turn, allowed her to see glimpses of people and places that were once, or currently important to him.

A woman in a beautiful dress and a gallant knight at her side. There was a symbol there that lingered but even that image was fleeting. In its place was an image of a man standing beneath the snow covered branches, a half youma as they were; Faustite, his general. Laven felt a warmth filter through the link; one of respect and with it a sense of belonging and purpose.

It was an emotion, a feeling, that she could relate to as it was something she felt towards both him and her Captain; although it was albeit different for each of them. Lopezite was to her as Faustite was to him, but with Wolframite there was an unknown.

Then suddenly his emotions shifted and as the wave of possessiveness crashed down upon her, the beast within her stirred. Emerging from dark fathomless depths it swam upwards towards the light above and with a loud roar that caused branches to shake and birds to take flight it breached the surface in a spray of water droplets and seafoam, calling out to that which lay hidden in the darkness beyond the thinning tree line.

Rivulets of water ran down the youma’s long slender blue scaled body as she stood on the sandy shore where pulverized stone met dirt and grass.

Claw to claw, teeth to teeth. Glacial blue eyes remained locked with those of moonlit yellow. Regal in her own right with elegant horns and a spinal ridge of fins that ran down her back and elbows it was clear that the youma was of an adolescent age when compared to the ancients that slept within the Rift; but it gave an idea of certain traits her whelping of a vessel may take on should she continue to grow.

So this was the youma it had antagonized for months now...

The azure dragon regarded that which guarded the Dark Forest for many moments circling him not once but twice appraisingly. Low growls and snarls were met with her own until the youma paused beside him. Like an overseer, the monster within her had laid in wait, patiently observing its charge allowing the young girl the only freedom it could offer. But that did not make it complacent to her desires to want to leave; it was as selfish and possessive as the Wolf and would not let her go so easily.

Similar to the time in which Lavendulan had once rubbed her cheek against Wolframite’s paw affectionately, it too leaned against and brushed the side of its scaled face against the large dire wolf’s soft fur. As a show of trust and faith the blue scaled beast lowered its head submissively in a deep bow which left it’s neck exposed and vulnerable.

In that same moment Laven reached over with one webbed hand and brushed her fingers through his bangs. “I will not let you drift so far that you lose sight of land. Nor will I allow you to drown.” She had proven it not once but twice and would continue to remind him until he understood.

“I cannot tell you what to do with regards to Mali, that is for you to decide but I will support and respect your decision.” She knew as well as he did how hard it was to make friends as a half-youma. Understand that dragons are possessive creatures and will fiercely protect what is perceived to be theirs. With that in mind, know that I will not stand idly by and allow him to continue to hurt you either.

Like a flower blooming in the sun’s morning rays, Laven allowed her own happiness to slowly filter through the link and mingled his so Wolframite knew that the feeling was shared between them.

Cheek to cheek, Lavendulan closed her eyes pulling comfort from his gesture as her youma side settled comfortably beside the Wolf and at that moment found peace.

When finally she stirred beside him, her head turned and in that motion, she gave him a soft yet brief kiss against his temple. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” Laven spoke softely as she turned to adjusted the pillows beside her and scooted to where the purple plushy had previously been sitting.

“You can stay here.” After placing a pillow on her lap she gave his sleeve a gentle tug inviting him to lay down on her bed with his head in her lap.

Once he was settled, she reached over and pulled one of the throw blankets that had been wedged between the side of the bed and the wall then draped it over him carefully.

Similar to when the two of them were at the faire she began to hum a soft tune all the while combing her fingers through his hair. Wolframite was no one’s pet but she knew from experience that no animal liked their ears messed with while they tried to sleep and so, to the best of her ability, she avoided accidentally brushing against his.



In her mind, Laven recalled the moments they had spent together. A chance meeting in the hallway where two of them had been ships passing in the night for almost half a year only to collide upon a threshold that was the door that opened to new beginnings.



She shared with him the memory of when she held him beneath the tree, colorful lights and laughter near but at the moment felt so very distant. The image then shifted to when he had guided her through the hall and into the Rift; her forehead against his back she pulled from him what strength he had to offer only to fall to her knees.



In her mind, Laven shared with him an image of his withdrawn expression as they walked side-by-side down a water beaten path, flanked on either side by leaves of changing color; desperation gripped her and without thinking much on her action, she knocked him over. Winter’s expression shifted from a distant look in his eyes to that of shock and surprise. A smile tugged at her lips as he brought her down with him. It was a moment where the ends justified the means because she had managed to bring him back.



Together they sat beneath a tree, sunlight filtering in between the leaves and branches. Her head resting against his shoulder and for a moment she felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted. It didn’t matter what kind of trials or tribulations life threw at them because at the end of the day there was always forgiveness before parting ways.



Even though Wolframite had agreed to wear the earring and allowed her to glimpse into his mind, she knew that in his heart he would continue to worry about history repeating itself. And when those moments happened, she would be there to remind him that she is not like the people of his past.

Like him, she too was half youma and as such, that meant that they were on a different path one that could not be walked by normal people. She was not a Princess, or Knight, or General even. More importantly was that she was no longer human, not fully anyway. All she was, or ever would be, was Lavendulan and he was and forever will be Wolframite.



As she finished the first chorus, she looked down and smiled softly after noting his even breathing and how relaxed he appeared to be. With great care, Laven removed the cuff from his ear and put it back on her own before resuming her quiet humming until she too felt the heavy weight of sleep welcome her into a blissful slumber.