Summary: Enslaved to an evil wizard, Tai is forced to kidnap a maiden of mysterious powers. Some say she's the embodiment of Mother Earth, others say she's flowerborn. One thing was sure though, when a flower meets the sun, it never wants to turn away. A fantasy story in which fate brings Tai and Mimi together; only she can break his curse and only he can save her life. Alternate Universe.

Pairings: MimixTai, SoraxMatt, KarixT.K.

Theme Song: "Colécciónista de Canciónes" by Camila

Act I: "Written in the Stars"

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Prelude: The Boy Who Burned Under the Sun

His feet burned with every step he took, the pebbles under him impaling and searing his skin. The ground was hot and unforgiving, but he barely paid any heed. He had to press on, to keep on walking; else he was sure he would melt into the hard ground. Ahead, small specks of grass gathered as he neared the cliff, so his bared soles found a small reprieve from the pain of the rocky soil when he stepped into the short pasture.

Taichi was blinded by the scorching sunlight, making him stop for the sliver of a moment. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples as he looked around again and again, but his heart gnawed and screamed at him to keep walking towards the cliff. Somehow his heart knew that if he blindly followed his instincts, he would find the truth by the cliff. The wind ruffled his hair, yet brown tufts stuck to his face at awkward angles, half drenched in the sweat that continued to seep from his scalp and forehead. His skin, usually pale white from lack of sunlight, had red burns caused by the sun wherever exposed.

All around him, everything was so bright and red and searing hot. Taichi stopped right at the edge of the cliff, his bared toes hugging the ground else he slipped and fell. Below the cliff there was nothingness. He was so high up he could not see the end. If he fell, he would hardly see where he would crash, or if he would crash at all. Still, something told him that he would not fall. That if he took a leap of faith, the sun and the light and heat would wrap him in their embrace and lift him up to the heavens.

He considered it, until a gleeful voice startled him from behind. Taichi whipped around, his predator instincts awakening from their slumber. The giggles reached his ears and he had to squint his brown eyes in the blinding light to see the figure that was approaching him from the distance. A person, unlike any other he had seen before, walked and twirled and laughed as they approached him.

She had curls that under the sunlight looked like liquid honey. Nearly naked, her intimate parts were wrapped in leaves that seemed to protrude from and be part of her very skin. She hummed her way closer to him, unaffected by the searing ground and blinding sunlight. "Are you going to jump?" Her voice, too, was thick and sweet like honey itself. He wanted to reply, but the words were stuck in his mouth—or rather, his body wasn't letting him.

When her hand made contact with his wrist, his body became ablaze. Not painfully ablaze, but overflowing with uncontrollable energy. He could jump! He could do it and not fall! He could bring her with him and make love to her until their bodies became one. He was going to do it, too, until she withdrew her hand and gave him a terrified sort of look. The girl whipped around and fled, her body disappearing within the blinding light in a matter of seconds, leaving him burning with confusion.

No matter if she left him. She had given him the energy and encouragement he needed. Without second thought or warning, Taichi jumped. Suddenly a searing pain overtook his back and as he looked back he realized he had sprouted grotesque, lizard-like wings. The realization elated him. He knew how to control them, too, he quickly discovered.

Taichi ignored the painful blinding of his eyes as he beat his wings over and over and over again against the nothingness as he drew closer to the sun. The sun was calling him, and oh he would answer that call. Taichi laughed manically as he got closer and closer. His skin seared and scorched and his hair suddenly turned aflame. Pain turned to pleasure and back again, and suddenly his entire body was on fire. He panicked, and his wings, which were now two flaming banners, gave out on his weight. Taichi fell with a silent scream, and his entire form went out like a banishing flame. Then there was nothing.

Taichi awoke from his slumber with a panicked gasp. He clawed at his own neck deliriously for a split second, until he realized the blackness and the cold that surrounded him and calmed knowing that he was back to himself. His breathing slowed as his eyes adjusted from the harsh change. He was in his chambers, he realized. Back in the cold and the damp and the blackness. A pair of eyes glowered at him by the oak entrance door, eyes that much resembled that of a wolf. Aside from the odd glint in those eyes, everything else remained deathly dark and still in the room.

"What is it?" Being able to speak felt like sweet relief, for he had been unable to in that nightmarish dream, when the honey maiden captivated him and stole his voice.

The shadowed being moved closer to his bed and his countenance came into better view, not that he needed reassurance of who this was; only one person in the castle had the eyes of a wolf. "Is sleeping beauty having a nightmare?" His sworn brother asked him insolently.

Taichi threw the quilted sheets off him in a rage and stalked to his wardrobe—a gigantic thing of oak with gargoyles carved along the edges—to withdraw an appropriate set of clothes. "Drop the sarcasm and be done with it or get out of my chambers," he spat. Yamato Ishida was a boy who could barely hold his own against Taichi; he was treading on dangerous ground every time he spoke to him with such audacity.

Yamato wasn't a fool, he supposed, for he cleared his throat with a cough and quickly said, "Lord Apocalymon has summoned us."

"Do you take pleasure from watching me sleep?" Taichi turned back to the boy now that he was fully dressed in a sleeveless doublet and sturdy trousers of boiled leather. A simple steel sword, his companion, hung lazily on its scabbard by his waist.

A smug smirk materialized itself upon Yamato's fair face, "It's been a long while since I've seen you dream, Taichi Kamiya". Taichi inwardly agreed. Dreams were not something one simply came by in the Castle of the Undead.

The two left the chamber wordlessly. Taichi continued to muse on his dream even as he stalked, side by side with Yamato, to the highest chamber inside the main keep of the castle. Everywhere they went, the halls were just as dark as it had been inside his room. What a contrast the dream had been. Taichi could scarcely remember the last time he saw anything but nighttime, let alone such a blinding sun.

The torches along the stone walls casted eerie, green lights unto their faces as they walked, revealing their features. Yamato had dirty, wild, yellow hair that looked fluorescent under the harsh lighting of the magical torches. Two long scars marred the side of his cheek and nose, where long ago wargs of his own kind had left him beaten and bloody deep within the Forest of Woes. He wore boiled leather under his signature steel plated armor that left certain areas of his body exposed to allow for his agile movements. His boots, clunker and cheaper than Taichi's, made the castle halls resonate with the sound of his footsteps, awakening the undead as they went.

Castle of the Undead was a majestic fortress overlooking the most haunted forest in the kingdom, the Forest of Woes. Four pointed towers protected the main keep from the north, south, east, and west, and a wall of moldy stone as high as the eye could see surrounded the towers and the main grounds. The towers, however, paled in comparison to the terrible grandeur of the main keep, where the Lord of the Castle of the Undead resided. The tallest tower spiraled up from the main keep, losing itself in the black fog that surrounded the castle and the forest, shrouding them in perpetual nighttime.

The stench of rotting corpses impregnated their senses as they came upon the two ancient oak doors that led to Apocalymon's chambers. The handles were of an iron so rusted that unsuspecting visitors might cut and infest their own hands by just attempting to pry the doors ajar. The doors creaked loudly as Taichi pushed them open, and almost as if startled by the noise, a dozen decaying bodies turned sharply to their direction. The Lord of Castle of the Undead wouldn't allow himself to be without his puppets, so Taichi was not surprised to see Apocalymon surrounded by his summoned wights.

Apocalymon was an ancient Dejimon, so old that it was said he had lived through five centuries. He was tall and lean, with a pointed face that was more demon than human, and short, sharp teeth, that yellowed and rotted with his age. He always wore the same ebony black robes embroidered in the sleeves and neck with crimson silk. His cape, long and black just as his robes, had a majestic collar that stood two heads higher than his own head. Today he wore a helmet forged from dragon bones itself, which hid half his face and skull, allowing the thin strands of his spidery hair to sway freely behind him.

He sat on a stiff chair of broken stone, which he liked to call his "throne." The Lord of the Castle of the Undead rose when they entered the room and Taichi and Yamato bowed down to their knees so low that their noses touched the ground, as it had been engrained to them since the moment they entered Apocalymon's service. It was either their noses touch the ground, or their noses be sliced by the Dejimon's long, steely fingers.

"My lord, pardon our delay," Taichi was the first to speak. To Apocalymon, Taichi was always late and at fault.

"How did obtaining the little lady go?" Apocalymon's words were icy cold and unforgiving. The wights around them soon lost interest in their exchange and went back to overlooking down the windows… patrolling the hall… guarding their master…

Taichi was momentarily confused, but it was Yamato that answered. "Flawlessly as usual; the town folk believe she was taken by bandits for ransom."

Lord Apocalymon chuckled and it was then that Yamato and Taichi felt safe to leave the stone ground and stand straight once again. "Foolish humans, thinking they will get their little heiress back," he let out a self-satisfied chuckle, which brought shivers down Taichi's spine. Taichi served Lord Apocalymon for as far back as his memory could take him, yet he could never grow accustomed to the necromancer's mannerisms. "I will have to see to her soon; my spirit is growing hungry."

He approached Taichi in several quick steps, towering over his prodigy and first in command. His rotting teeth glistened under his sneer as he spat out, "Taichi, I didn't call you here just to look at your insolent face. Tonight, you will be leaving with a special assignment."

"Whatever my lord commands," Taichi tried to bow again, but Apocalymon stopped him by placing one deathly pointed hand upon his shoulder. "There is a peasant in Piyo Village, right from where the little lady came from," he paced in front of Taichi, his eyes travelling from his two subordinates over to his undead creatures and back to his throne chair. "I predict she harvests… an interesting power. If my prediction is true, then I want to possess this power, and if she doesn't," he chuckled cynically again, "She can just become fodder to my creations. We all know they get quite hungry every once in a while. Bring her to me. Come back without her and I will not forgive you your life."

His brown eyes hardened. "How do I know who she is?"

Apocalymon's golden eyes dilated in sheer mirth, "You will know because she will seem like she is your life. Quite literally."

She will seem to be his life? Suddenly an image of the maiden with the honey hair and that honeyed voice filled his head. No, dreams were for foolish children who had families and lived happy, peasant lives. Dreams daren't enter the Castle of the Undead. And dreams were certainly not for him, for he was the prodigy of the Dejimon Apocalymon and heir to his undead castle. Taichi Kamiya forcefully shook the thought away. "As you wish, my lord. I will bring you this girl."

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