I must say, I adore Neopets and all that goes with it, such as the virtual pain in the ass that you have to feed and play with. Mine is called Naoyatsubato, meaning four-leaf clover.

Well, I've played the Castle of Eliv Thade quite a few times, and even managed to beat it once...but that was long, long ago...*sigh* I couldn't help but notice that everyone has a story about Eliv meeting someone alive that falls in love with him first, and then must win him over in some way. Maul refuses to fawn on anyone, so you needn't worry about that.

I mean yes, there is a friendship forged here, but how...that's the odd thing. When you think about it, though, mutant Kacheeks aren't exactly the biggest talkers...but...it's weird. There's just no way around that.

I'm getting ahead of myself. This is the story I've written, dedicated to the one game that truly challenged me in the most delightful ways possible. Enjoy.

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Eliv Thade was used to visitors, it's true, but as long as he could remember, he had hated them immensely. The ones that came during his lifetime were cocky and rude, and the ones that came during his death were brutish and even more rude than that. He was perfectly and completely sick of the yelling and the challenges to 'Come out and fight,' as they put it, and the ransacking of the rooms of his ancient castle only served to put him in a fouler mood than most would have thought possible.

It was an interesting surprise, then, when he awoke from his troubled sleep in the Crypt and found, on the desk in his library, a small bag containing thirty-five Neopoints, and a small note.

"Mr. Thade:

I hope I have not offended you in any way, but a friend told me of your expansive array of books and I'm wondering if I may, with your permission, come here to read now and again. I have enclosed payment for this service, which I hope is enough. If not, please tell me so we can decide on the proper amount.

Maul"

That was it. No indication that she knew him as anything other than a potential business partner, and no overbearing flattery to try and sway him to her argument.

Eliv's first reaction was anger, which intensified greatly when he spotted the offending character sitting primly in an armchair with an enormous book on her lap. She took no notice of him, which was normal of most people, but what was peculiar was the intent way she stared at the pages, as if she knew that she was about to be chased from the room and wanted to absorb as much information as possible.

He moved closer, and his lip curled back in disgust. He, with his crudely stitched face and glowing red eye, looked nothing like the handsome Kacheek he had been in his lifetime, but this child (she couldn't have been older than fifteen) was truly hideous. The pink tissue of a brain poked though the top of her head, bright in contrast to her mottled blue fur. Fangs that would be the envy of any Gaarl protruded over her lower lip, their sharp edges glinting in an odd light that he didn't recognize for a moment. It was then he realized that she had brought her own coal and lit a fire in the fireplace.

So this was Maul. She came into others houses, lit fires, and read while paying an almost insulting amount for the trouble she caused. Eliv wanted to frighten the ugly thing out of his library and house, but then felt a sudden, wild urge to laugh at her sheer cheek. She sat quietly, not speaking, her only movement being to turn the page with a gentle paw that obviously knew how to handle old books.

Eliv remained silently where he was for a moment, not sure of what to do. On the one hand, she was trespassing, but then, she had paid him a fee for using his library, like any civil being would. It was all so out of the ordinary that, for lack of anything better to do, he moved to the fireplace and let the softly glowing flames bring warmth to his ghostly body while he took a better look at his new nucience.

It was true that she was terrifyingly ugly, but there was an interesting quality to her face; a still coldness that settled on her small, pink nose and immature mouth, but her eyes...her eyes were alive with expression. He had never seen such an odd contrast to anyone's face before in his life or beyond, and it were those mud-coloured eyes that he found himself staring at, not caring if it was rude. Her eyes told the story, the true story, behind that cold, unmoving face that looked so out of place in the now-friendly warmth of the library.

As she read, he watched her eyes go through the full array of emotions that were possible for any sentient being. They lit with laughter, they screamed with pain and rage, they softly caressed a lover and whispered sweet nothings to no one at all. Yet, she never moved.

This was a relief. When it wasn't the people who hated him that came crashing about, it was the ones who claimed that they knew him well and wanted to be his friend, and they were just as anger-inducing as the others. He waited, crooked teeth clenched, for her to try and strike up a conversation, but no words were forthcoming.

Before long, she stood and walked slowly and stumblingly to a shelf, placing the book back exactly where it had been before picking up another and making her way back to the chair. Once again, no words were spoken, but the only sounds were the soft cracking of the flames and even softer turning of pages.

This went on all day, without end. Eliv watched her intently, waiting for her to do something disrespectful to his precious books, but nothing at all was done. She didn't fold the edges, nothing was torn, no volumes were left dog-eared to make their spines go crooked. She only read, devouring page after page as if the books were water and sunlight to her dying plant.

At long last, when the fire had burned itself out into small glowing embers, the time came for her to leave. It was at exactly seven o'clock when the hideous mutant turned, placed a book back carefully on its shelf, and made her way to the door. She stood there, one paw on the handle, before turning once more and nodding very politely in Eliv's general direction. Her face showed no indication of liking, or even that she cared at all about the fact that the ghost existed, but her eyes glowed warmly, kin to the embers in the fireplace.

Though she couldn't see him, Eliv nodded back, then turned away as if he had more important things to do. For a brief moment, he wondered if he should let her leave or keep her here and make her suffer the same slow, agonizing death he had gone though, then chastised himself for being so crude. She had done nothing but read. Even to a madman, that made perfect sense; he had been burned by the same curiosity as a child of her age, and Maul was harmless in her eagerness to read, to learn all that she could while she had the time.

He could feel, without having to look, that she was gone. Deep down, in the marrow of his bones, he knew that he was alone once more in the castle he loved and hated dearly, and the feeling was at once unsettling, and calming, and depressing. Everything was back to normal.

Eliv was truly surprised the next morning, when he woke up and found that his new annoyance had returned and, once again, found refuge in his library, with a calm fire glowing in the hearth and a bag of thirty-five Neopoints on his desk. She didn't look up when he entered, and didn't call after him when he left to wander the gloomy passages of the castle, which was an old hobby of his.

There was something oddly comforting about walking with no purpose in the dark, and he made sure to pass the library often, just in case she was up to something. Each time it was the same. That stony face under those bright, expressive eyes; the child was a hideous, wonderful statue as she sat there and read.

Once again she left him alone, and once again she returned with more money. This continued for what felt like months, until Eliv found himself marking the passage of time by how often she got up to get another book, or when she came and went. It took her ten minutes to get through a book of medium thickness, half an hour for a book of very thick proportions. She arrived precisely at six in the morning and left precisely at seven in the afternoon, and always nodded politely as she went, her eyes smiling at him while her mouth did not.

She spoke only twice the whole year she came. On one occasion, she was reading when her mouth opened and she made a slightly disgusted noise.

"There is no grammar in this work," she muttered so low that Eliv had to strain to hear her, and her eyes shone disapprovingly. Her voice sounded like a child's simple sound that was made to grow mature much too fast, with the result that she sounded sharp and uninviting. His own gravely voice meant he had no place to judge, but he couldn't help but wince at her ugly tones.

The second time, she was reading a work of fiction when she gave an almost silent sigh and her eyes went dull with boredom.

"A were-wolf male and a vampire female. Where haven't I heard that before?" Once again, he wouldn't have known she had spoken if he hadn't been sitting so close to her. It had become a habit of his to pull up a chair next to her and read along, all the while amusing himself with the volley of emotion that shone from her murky eyes.

At that last comment, however, he found himself actually agreeing with her. It was true that the pairing of a were-wolf and vampire, always woven with 'forbidden love,' was too common in books and stories, but the fact that the hideous child had said something sensible and slightly amusing was far more interesting than the teenage love story of two stereotypical outcasts. However ugly she may be, however cold her expression, the little Kacheek had common sense. That much was certain.

Only once did their cycle break, and it was then that something very peculiar happened. Maul was reading the Neopedia when, almost imperceptibly, she stiffened and her breath caught in her throat. These signs would have gone unnoticed to Eliv, but by now he could detect even the smallest movements from her after long hours of sitting very close to this small, disgustingly ugly creature. He looked at her face and saw that she was as cold as ever, but her eyes had taken on an expression he had never seen before.

They glowed softly with something that looked like affection, but it was shifting about in sudden rushes that made it look like she might throw back her head and laugh, or break down and cry, or perhaps even scream out with animalistic rage. Alarmed at the sudden change in the child's eyes, Eliv peered worriedly at the page and found that she was reading the Neopedia article about himself, the ghost Kacheek of the Haunted Woods.

The book spoke of his intelligence, but nothing about his accomplishments. It mentioned his death, but didn't bother with the fact that it was brought about by his own hand and a very sharp quill in his study. The servant was there, but not the riddle she had posed, nor the items she had stolen from Eliv before she abandoned him, letting him succumb to the violent madness that had forced him to take his life. He snorted with disgust, the first audible noise he had made in almost a year.

If she noticed, she made no sign. Very slowly and calmly she stood and carefully put the book back, then began the slow process to the other side of the room, though it wasn't seven o'clock yet. Eliv sat where he was, surprised and hurt as she made her way to the door, then stopped and turned around to peer intently at him with those eyes, those sweet eyes that still held that unusual expression.

"I will leave the fire burning," she said. "Unless you want me to put it out. Do you desire warmth?" Unable to speak, he nodded, also standing and slowly making his way to her. "As you wish." She broke their routine further by lifting her skirt slightly and curtsying to him, which was something he wouldn't have guessed she knew how to do.

It was then he noticed that she was floating.

"Oh, gods," he murmured, before he could stop himself. She froze where she floated, her expression stony and unmoving, but her eyes taking on a slightly apprehensive cast. He came to her, reached out and took her tiny paws, not surprised in the slightest that he could touch her. After all, she was no mortal.

He turned her paws palm upwards, finding stitches on each wrist; the same jagged stitches that marred his face where he had slashed at himself with animal-like fury until his life had bled from him and stained the carpet of his study, his quill tip scarlet with his own murder. He could tell she was familiar with the sensation of taking one's own life.

He dropped her paws and stared at her, confused and uplifted and in complete disbelief. The whole time she had been here, he had thought she was just another mortal who made an error in drinking a foul-smelling potion, and so was cursed with that hideous face, but suddenly she was a ghost like him.

"Who are you?" Eliv asked, not saying what he truly meant. He didn't want a name, for he had one for her, but he wanted a sense of her; a glimpse into what she truly was, but even the master of words couldn't express his own thoughts at that odd moment of time. The Kacheek stared back with the odd expression still locked firmly in her eyes, her gentle, ugly, beautiful eyes that bored directly into the old Kackeeck's mind.

"I am Maul," she said in that harsh voice. It was the most wonderful sound he had ever heard, but it wasn't enough. He grabbed her shoulders, trying to make her understand.

"No," he said firmly. "Who are you? What are you?" She stared back almost defiantly, the expression on her eyes growing sharper and clearer with every slowly passing second.

"I'm...dead," came the halting reply. She lifted her paws and he saw, once more, the tortured wrists that held onto her tiny paws. He impatiently brushed them aside, his mismatched eyes staring determinedly into hers.

Her eyes told the story. Also betrayed by one she trusted, also robbed of her sanity, she killed herself and died laughing, and she knew, she knew, the answer to the unsolvable riddle. She knew, and yet...she was dead, like him. The irony of it all almost made him laugh.

"You know the answer." It wasn't a question. She stared at him, and he could see himself reflecting in those brilliant eyes, set in that cold face.

"Yes." Maul sighed, her expression not changing at all. "It will do you no good."

"Damn you, girl, tell me!"

"Life." The unusual expression in her eyes was gone, replaced with deep sadness. "The answer was life, and it's too late." What she said slowly made its true meaning known to Eliv, and he could feel the madness, the eagerness to complete the riddle being replaced with a sad, hollow feeling.

"Why did you tell me? I didn't honestly want to know."

"You asked." The tiny mutant seemed to feel that she was no longer needed, and she turned back to the door, one paw reaching out to turn the handle. Another, much larger paw, wrapped thickly with grey bandages, suddenly rested on top of hers, and another caressingly touched her ugly face and made her look around. For the second time, the mutant looked into Eliv's glowing eye and didn't avert her gaze or flinch.

"Stay here," Eliv said, hardly believing the words he spoke, though he was fully aware that he wanted to say them. "We have many more books to read together." Then, further confusing even himself, he took her paw and kissed it, leading her back to their chairs in front of the fireplace.

This time, he chose a book while she waited patiently, the icy expression on her face slowly melting away, though too slowly for him to notice until he had settled down with the book spread between them, the pages open to the very first chapter. The unusual expression had come back to her eyes, he could feel it there, but something else...

He looked up from the book, and his ancient heart gave a jolt. Maul, for the first time, smiled at him.

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Meh, what can I say? I like to write oneshots.

If you want an epic thingie, come look at my story, Gryffin, in the Happy Tree Friends section. It's under M-rated.

Cheers!