Title: Fairy Tale

Author: Dezi or Jezebel Jinx or VampireQueen21

Couple: Rath/Dakeri, Zan/Ava; some Rath/Lonnie in the beginning but it won't be for very long

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Prequel to 'Twin Set of Lovers'. You don't have to read TSOL to understand this. But a quick overview about Dakeri she is the dupe version of Liz. Liz and Dakeri are aliens that were born instead of hatched.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Warning: Some violent scenes.

Prologue

Tampa, Florida; 1999

Dakeri holds her dying mother's hand, resting her head against her mother's forearm. "Why can't I save you?" Dakeri whispers in agony.

Francesca Star wakes hearing the anguish in her daughters voice. "You're not supposed to my angel." Dakeri lifts her head at her mother's barely there voice.

"Why am I not supposed to? I can do anything you told me I could…so why can't I save you mommy?" Dakeri sobs out. She hasn't called her mother mommy in years.

Francesca eases her hand from her daughters placing it on Dak's head smoothing her hair down. "I don't know baby. But this is just something that you can't do."

"Then I'll…"

"You've done everything that you can." Francesca's voice becomes fainter. "You must do me this last favor."

"Anything mom." Dakeri takes her mother's hand back in her own and kiss her palm. Whatever her mother asks her for she'll do it, anything to make her happy.

"Find Rath." She simply states.

"Rath? The General in the stories you were always telling me?" Her mother nods. "But I thought he didn't exist?"

"The woman that I always said was his true love…is you my darling girl. Find him, be with him."

Dakeri holds back a sob nodding her promise. She couldn't contemplate leaving her mother even in death; he mother was her life. In this life Dakeri had no friends that she could call on to help her through this troubled time.

"Say it, promise me you will find him and be happy again." Francesca insists. She knows her daughter would die with her if she didn't promise out loud. Francesca couldn't allow her daughter to take her life just to be with her.

"I promise mom, I'll find him." She whispers, knowing that now she spoke her promise out loud, she'd never break it.

"That's my girl." She lays back down on the bed, closing her eyes in exhaustion. "Why don't you go make us something to eat ok?"

Dakeri stands. "What would you like?"

"I'd like a four-course meal, but since I can't handle that, I'll go for applesauce." She tells her wonderful daughter. Dakeri has been taking care of her since she got sick. She's been working two jobs to pay for the bills, food, and medicine that helped her live longer. Francesca never went to a hospital because of the alien blood.

Going to the hospital wouldn't have helped anyway. Francesca knew this was going to happen because she had it on Antar. It's an alien disease that no medicine on Earth can fix, and since there is no way to get home…it's impossible for her to get better.

"Ok, I'll be right back." Dakeri kisses her mother's forehead leaving the room getting her mom her applesauce. While in the kitchen Dakeri makes herself a small sandwich, eating it and mentally preparing herself for seeing her mother that frail and fragile.

Ever since she can remember her mother has been a healthy, physically strong woman. Now…her mother was dying, how is this happening to her? Her mother has never been anything but wonderful and loving. She doesn't deserve this.

Dakeri wipes the tears that fell away her face. Picking up the bowl with the applesauce she walks down the hallway to her mother's room, the walk seemed agonizingly slow. Dakeri opens the door; her mother is lying there sleeping.

Quietly tip-toeing over to her side she sets the applesauce down on the nightstand. Turning to her mother she notices something odd about her mother. No movement. Not even a tiny flutter of her chest rising and falling in time with her breathing.

Dakeri lightly shakes her mother, not registering the slight coldness of her shoulder. "Mom?" She whispers softly.

"Mom?" Dakeri shakes her mother's body slightly harder, and speaks louder desperate to get her mother's attention. Her mother has to be sleeping, she has to be sleeping there's no other way to explain it. She wouldn't let her be dead.

"MOMMM!" Her tears let loose flooding her face.

"NOOOO!" Crumpling to her knees, she sobs loudly. Her world had gone deaf, she feels tiny something's enter her skin. She takes one last look at her mothers still body and falls away into blackness.

TBC