"Kesesesesese…."

Matthew groaned in his waking, curling up more tightly into a scaly ball of sleep. The others had already gotten up hours ago. Alfred's stomach had grumbled him awake which in turn had made the young naga wake up his keeper Arthur for breakfast. Francis had gotten up as well to make fun of Arthur's cooking so Matthew was left all alone to sleep in…..kinda.

"Kesesesese…", the noise was followed by some rude poking to the small of Matthew's back where the sensitive skin there started to merge into scales.

"Gil…stop it…", Matthew groaned, trying to bat off his annoying attacker without really getting up to do so. It didn't work as well as he would have liked.

"Get up then, Birdie.", Gilbert hissed softly, moving closer so that his fingers of sleep deprivation could do their worst to vulnerable sides.

"Don't even think aboot it, hoser.", Matthew growled, sensing immediate danger that made his tail's end twitch in warning but not from the albino naga.

"The Hero to the rescue!", was the battle cry which was soon followed by the sounds of two bodies hitting into one another and punctuated with a lot of colorful cussing, mostly from Gilbert. Matthew, who hadn't even bothered to uncurl himself in the quake of the disturbance, could already envision the tangled mess that rolled on the floor beside him.

"Al, Father is going to kill you when he sees that dent in the wall.", Matthew mumbled sleepily, refusing to move out of his ball position to view the damage.

"It's not that bad." Alfred whined in defense. It sounded like he was all twisted up with Gilbert, their scales dryly rasping together as the pair continued to stuggle. Matthew might of felt something close to jealousy over it if not for all the detailed threats that were being ushered from Gilbert, mostly in German or Prussian if the albino's odd originals were to be believed. While his younger brother was a German naga and quite firm on the matter, Gilbert claimed to be proudly Prussian, his egg one of the last few hatched in the lost country. Matthew wasn't sure if that was a valid claim or not, but it kept the pale naga happy.

"Get off me, fat ass! Your tail weighs a ton.", Gilbert snapped, the angry retort followed by some more harsh Germanic. Though he was quicker and his power negated Alfred's super strength, the silverette was losing the fight due to superior body weight on the other's part.

"My tail is not fat! Mattie tell him!", Alfred wailed, sounding close to tears. Matthew groaned inwardly. His twin had always been touchy about his weight. Even worse, Alfred decided to make the whole point of his 'heroic' deed moot by picking Matthew up to shake him fully wake.

"I hate you.", Matthew blurrily glared at the two nagas before him, one of them who he was regretfully related to as his tanzanite shaded coils unfurled in scaly loops to hit the burrow's earthen floor with a dull thud.

Any further argument or denial of excessive body mass were cut short though. "What is all this hullabaloo about? Can't I enjoyed my cuppa without a ruckus?", the three young nagas heard Arthur call out.

"Oh crap!", Alfred muttered, dropping his brother to curl himself up in front of the damaged wall.

"Smooth, Al.", Matthew rolled his eyes as the older naga entered the den. Even in the dull light cast by the burrow's glowworms, Arthur made an impressive figure. As with most nagas, his tail was the same shade as his eyes, a luminescent emerald that swirled in his scales with other shades of lighter and darker green. Like his brothers who lived nearby, Arthur was from a tribe of Celtic nagas so he carried the marking of his clan on his skin, the pale flesh of his arms and chest tattooed with elaborate and twisted knots that meant something to a select few. They were created from an ink made from the petals of moon flowers and could only be seen in the light of stars, moon, and glowworm. Matthew thought they were pretty but Alfred was entranced by them and would often trace their paths on Arthur's skin until the older naga got too uncomfortable with the attention.

"What's going on here, lads?", Arthur asked, sitting back on his tail to stare menace down at the younger nagas, who all tried to look as innocent as they possibly could, some more so than others.

"Nothing.", Alfred said too quickly for anyone with ears and a working brain to believe. Gilbert and Matthew both stifled sighs and face palms at the obviousness of it. That sort of response might have worked on Antonio or Feliciano, the two of the three tomato fairies not the brightest of fae, but not so much with the quick witted naga.

"Mmmm….", Arthur frowned in instant disbelief at Alfred, giving him a withering look before turning his attention back to Matthew. "Oh good, you are up. Would you like some brekkie, pet?", Arthur asked, keeping an eye on Alfred, who was looking guiltier and guiltier with every passing moment.

"Sweet! Break-", Gilbert started to say, a sharp but discreet elbow to his gut cutting the albino short.

"No, Father. Please don't trouble yourself. You already have so much to do.", Matthew said sweetly, his tone so saccharine it even caught Alfred's wayward attention.

"Don't you dare.", Alfred hissed low out of the corner of his mouth, his forked tongue flicking out rapidly in distress as Arthur's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits of hard emerald. Matthew was a little impressed with his brother. Alfred tended to be an oblivious naga who wouldn't notice the mood of a room until it bit him on the tail, sometimes literally.

"Do I? Why would you say that, my sweetling? Doing what, pray tell?", Arthur asked, tapping his tail with his fingers like a countdown to doom.

"With Alfred knocking dents into the wall again.", Matthew nodded over to the sweating twin, throwing Alfred completely under that passing bus.

"I knew it! I told the drunk lecher that I felt the earth move. Did Francis believe me? No, said it was all in my head or whatever the hell he babbled at me.", Arthur yelled, darting forward to catch Alfred by his tail as the cerulean naga tried to escape. Arthur curled his longer tail around Alfred's torso easily enough as he leaned in to view the younger naga's handiwork.

"You are so dead.", Alfred muttered under his breath as he tried to extricate himself from Arthur's grip, glaring at the two nagas making their escape.

"Serves you right for letting Gilbert into the burrow in the first place and waking me up.", Matthew flicked his forked tongue at Alfred as he followed Gilbert out of the sleeping den and further into the burrow.

Slithering fast to catch up with the pale naga, Matthew took the opportunity to study the sway and movement of pale azure coils, and admire the metallic shine of Gilbert's scales. Unlike most nagas whose tails tended to match their eye color, Gilbert was an abnormality among his own kind. The pale naga's eyes were redder than wild strawberries and his hair the silver of spider's silk but his tail was the color of frozen winter sky though it was changing. With every growth shedding, Gilbert's scales were becoming lighter and lighter. It was obvious to all that the Prussian's tail was beginning to lose its blue color entirely and that it would match the naga's quicksilver hair by the time he hit full growth. Though Gilbert made light of it, Matthew knew that it bothered him, his looks setting him apart from his kind and made him a less likely candidate for mating.

Studying his friend shyly, Matthew could admit freely to himself in the safety of his own head that he actually didn't mind being woken up by Gilbert or how his tail looked.

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The Nagas' home lay underneath the enormous roots of a great oak tree and was composed of several room that were connected to one another by winding tunnels. Though each naga had his own room, all the serpents slept together in one large den filled with the soft down from the owls and the dried petals of fragrant flowers that Arthur collected from the fields nearby their tree.

Gilbert noticed that they were not going to the common room were family meals were taken, the tanzanite tailed naga slithering toward the burrow's exit instead. "Hey, I heard breakfast. I'm sure he'll still make it when he's done chewing out the idiot.", Gilbert began only to have a hand slapped over his mouth. Without any of his usual hesitation, Matthew linked their arms, the blonde practically dragging the albino out of the burrow much to Gilbert's surprise. Most of the time, Matthew wasn't this assertive. Gilbert found himself kind of liking it though and wondered how he could bring it out of the violet tailed naga more often.

"Never, ever, mention food or preparation of food in front of, near, or even within earshot of Arthur.", Matthew hissed, as the pair poked their heads out of the entrance to look around for any danger. "He tries his best but if you value your stomach, keep your mouth shut.".

"He's that bad?", Gilbert asked incredulously. If he were being honest with himself, Gilbert could freely admit he wasn't the best of cooks either, that chore more often than not taken over by other members of his family. Despite being a stuck up aristocrat, the brothers' cousin Roderich was actually the most talented of the four though he was a very picky cook and tended to also take the longest. His mate Elizabeta's food inclined to be spicy and she was a little heavy handed with the paprika. Out of the three, Ludwig did most of the cooking, his food rich and heavy with wild potatoes and wurst made from mice.

"Arthur's cooking makes the owls gag.", Matthew admitted with a sigh, feeling bad about talking ill of his father figure though it was all true.

"But birds really don't have a sense of smell.", Gilbert said as the information settled in his head, the pair starting to climb up the oak using the secret pathways carved into the tree's bark by all the different fae that lived there.

"My point.", Matthew shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the other naga to arch a brow at him.

"Oh…OH! That's really gross.", Gilbert mimicked gagging, his thin lips curling in open disgust to reveal his sharp teeth.

"Yeah. It's wonderful when Papa makes food, but sometimes he'll let Father make a meal just to prove his point.", Matthew sighed. He was getting a bad feeling that such an ordeal was upon them again, Francis being noticeably absent lately around meal times.

"What happens?", Gilbert asked, the naga always curious about the morbid.

"Usually something catches on fire, bubbles over, or attempts to take over the world until Alfred eats it.", Matthew said, catching an inattentive grasshopper. He ate half of it before passing it back to Gilbert who devoured the rest.

"That's disgusting.", Gilbert mumbled around his digits, the naga slurping bug juice off of them. "I thought his power was super strength."

At birth. every naga had one power that was theirs and theirs alone. While other spells could be learned, taught, and mastered, one life magic was given to every naga at hatching to be called upon whenever they wanted and it could literally be anything. A life magic could be a wondrous and powerful gift or inane and completely absurd farce. It really was luck of the draw.

Alfred's power was super strength, much to everyone's distress, the young naga still uncoordinated and clumsy in his youth. Arthur's gift was that he could speak with fairies of any kind from any of the seven realms and be understood both ways. In contrast and leaning toward the more absurd side of things, Francis could make flowers appear from his fingertips, though roses were what he mostly chose to produce. Matthew's own ability was invisibility though he was still learning how to control it because his own family tended to overlook him if he was not careful with it. Matthew never had to worry about that with Gilbert though. The albino's power was negation. No one's powers or magic could work around Gilbert. A natural side effect to this gift was that the pale naga could see through any sort of glamour as well.

"It is but apparently he has a natural high resistance to toxins as well.", Matthew shrugged. Better Alfred than him in Matthew's opinion. Some of what Arthur had made in the past was still moving on its own accord well after death.

"Where are we going?", Gilbert asked. He had not been this high up in the tree yet. He looked on in interest around him, finding his own family's thorn tree by the stream.

"To go see the owls. They should be still awake. I want to get some down from them for Arthur before they go to sleep.", Matthew explained, "Plus Al will not think to look here for a while.", Alfred didn't often hold a grunge for long but it would be better from them both if they avoided his twin for a little while.

The two nagas made their way up the height of the oak, being very careful to stay on one side of it. In a hollow on the other side of the trunk lived an Urisk named Vash. Like most of his fae kind, Vash was extremely territorial and would often shoot 'intruders' on sight with magically hardened nuts or acorns using his slingshot if they wandered too close to the tree's perimeter or his hollow's door. Going directly against his solitary nature though, Vash had adopted Lili, a delicate Asrais, a while back after she had been caught outside just after dawn. If viewed in sunlight, her fairy kind melted away into water. As the story went, Lili had been quite very close to death when Vash had found her, the Asrais having collapsed right outside his door when her wings had turned to mist. Matthew had only met the dainty Asrais on a handful of occasions but she seemed very happy with her overzealous protector so Matthew reasoned that Vash couldn't be all that bad despite his gruff exterior and antisocial demeanor.

On their journey upward toward the highest branches of the tree, Gilbert and Matthew found and passed Francis along the way. The older naga was drinking rose dew wine with Antonio again, the pair already half in the bag and leaning on each other for support. Gilbert snickered his odd laugh at the tomato fairy, Antonio so drunk he couldn't even get his golden wings to work properly. The tomato fairy overcame this mild setback in transport by riding on Francis's tail, the naga looked very amused about it. Someone who was not enthusiastic with the entire situation was Romano, the little tomato fairy almost as red in the face as his favorite fruit. He circled around the pair like an angry wasp, cursing and yelling at them.

"I bet the reason Romano is so pissed off is because Feliciano is with West again.", Gilbert chuckled at the enraged fairy, his negative disposition only enflamed further by Francis's laughter and Antonio's kissy face. "The little winged piece of fluff has been over at our tree every day since we moved in. Ludwig almost pissed himself when he woke up to find himself curled around Feliciano. If you were wondering, fairies sleep in the nude."
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As they drew closer to the tops, the pair of nagas grew quiet and careful. The owls shared the branches of the oak with a trio of ice elves, a brother and two sisters-Ivan, Katyusha, and Natalia. They tended to hibernate most of the year, but were quite active in winter or on any night that frost coated the forest floor. The ice elves sheltered the tree through the worst parts of the cold season, the trio never letting the oak's limbs become too heavy and overloaded with burdens of ice and snow.

It was late summer so Ivan and his sisters would be hibernating this time of year and it was best not to wake them. Ivan could be particularly frightening then he wanted to be without even really trying.

Their neighbors, the owls, were strange birds as well who had migrated from far off Nordic countries. They stood sentry over their shared home of the oak at night and would attack any who posed a threat to them and it fiercely with talon, claw, and old magic(Spells that owls only seemed to know and would never share with other birds though the crows had tried many times before to steal them).

The largest of the five was a monstrous bird with stunning blue green eyes that had the bad tendency to glare without really meaning to, the poor creature terribly short sighted for his species. He was a great grey owl and his name was Berwald. He could often be found looming over Tino, a tiny spotted owl whose feathers were the color of caramel and whose eyes were bright shards of amethyst. Tino usually tended to be appear nervous around his constant company(though Francis claimed it was true l'amour), the much larger owl often referring to him as 'ma w'fe' and could always be found easily enough in the near vicinity of the much smaller owl.

The group's self proclaimed leader was an eagle owl with reddish brown and white feathers named Dany. The crazed looking bird sported striking blue eyes the color of stormy cobalt and wild plumage that stuck out at odd angles from his head. His orders, boasts, and rants were dutifully ignored by a pair of brothers, Ice and Norge, the two snowy white barn owls similar in nature and total lack of expression on their heart shaped faces and in their dull sapphire and lilac tinted orbs. Despite their inattentiveness to Dany, the pair were always seen near him, even snuggling up on either side of the eagle owl during the day when they slept(though both would deny it with cold stares and sharp clicking of curved beaks).

As it was, the owl were just settling down and getting comfortable before they fell asleep. Dany made it his duty to order everyone about in doing so. He would then spent a fair amount of time putting his feathers back in order from all the curses that Ice and Norge threw at him in answer. The three owls looked a little too magic happy and involved in their before bed argument so Gilbert and Matthew moved further on to the two remaining owls.

Curling up their tails so that they sat side by side, Gilbert and Matthew watched a curious sight and each wondered in his own way if this was common practice of sleep for owls. Having just dozed off, Tino would wake with a start to realize that he was side by side with Berwald and that he was being pressed so far into gray feathers by an overly large wing that the tiny caramel colored owl was buried in the depths of the other's plumage. Tino would then extricate himself from his impromptu cozy bed and hop a few spaces away from Berwald. Just as the tiny owl settled down to sleep again, he would start to shiver from cold. Noticing this, Berwald would then creep up from behind and gather Tino close to him with his wing. The owls would repeat this set of actions several time until Tino grew too tired to resist and eventually fell asleep hidden from sight in Berwald's feathers.

"Why doesn't he just say something?", Gilbert asked when it was all said and done between the two, Berwald only letting himself fall to sleep when he was sure Tino was safe, warm, and resting.

"Tino is too scared to. He thinks that Berwald is going to eat him or something.", Matthew shrugged, sitting up on his tail to see if the other owls were still awake. Dany, Norge, and Ice were all still fighting so Matthew decided that they had some time to kill.

Gilbert looked Berwald up and down with a careful eye, noting the owls blade like talons and razor beak that looked as sharp as any farmer's scythe. "I can see why. I would be too if I had that snuggling with me.", Gilbert snorted. He was surprised to see Matthew give him a look of disapproval.

"Berwald is actually very nice. He's just really big…and he squints a lot.", Matthew defended his misunderstood friend. He spoke with the giant owl often. Despite his short sightedness, Berwald was good at noticing small creature and even smaller details. "He's really in love with Tino but is too shy to tell him.". There was something that the owl and naga had in common though Matthew would never admit it outside his own head and could only lend a friendly ear to the love besought yet word clumsy owl.

In Matthew's case, Gilbert was a friend, one of the few that he had. He wasn't about to ruin it or make it awkward between them with an out of the blue one-sided confession. Matthew was sure that Gilbert only saw him as a friend anyway.

"That's stupid. What a dumb bird.", Gilbert snorted in amusement, losing all interest with the slumbering pair.

"Eh? How so?", Matthew frowned, "I think it's sweet he tries to show his love in other ways.".

"It's kinda pointless though if the other doesn't get it. If you're in love with someone, you should just come out and say it, and not waste any time.", Gilbert said with a confidence that Matthew wished he felt.

"But what if the person you say 'I love you' to doesn't say it back?", Matthew asked, biting his bottom lip as he ducked his head. Trying to keep his movement as natural and inconspicuous as possible, the blonde naga rubbed his cheeks with his hands, feeling the skin of them heating up from the power of his blush. He cursed himself for not letting the whole thing drop and was now tiptoeing around a subject he didn't want to be found out on.

"Who cares then? If they're not brave enough to say it back, then they don't deserve the 'I love you.' in the first place.", Gilbert said with a decisive nod of his pale head.

"That is too harsh!", Matthew gaped, feeling his heart drop down to meet him tummy, "You are not taking into account extenuating circumstances, like the other person might just want to be friends and not….".

"And not what?", Gilbert grinned, noticing that the other naga's cheeks and tail were darkening from the force of his blush, Matthew's tail turning from a soft lavender to a pretty violet.

"L-lovers…..", Matthew stammered out, wanting to find the nearest hole in the ground to curl up and die in. He refused to look up at Gilbert, the blonde naga hiding his face fully now in his hands.

"Well….that's a chance that someone is just going to have to take.", he heard Gilbert say after a tensely held moment. "We better get that down before the owls go to sleep.". The whisper of scales against bark told Matthew's ears that Gilbert was moving away from him and it was probably safe to stop hiding in plain sight. Feeling mortified with himself and praying to whatever woodland god was listening that Gilbert was oblivious as Alfred, Matthew dropped his hands with a sigh.

Matthew almost shed his skin prematurely in fright to find Gilbert's face no more than a few inches from his own, the naga's scarlet eyes boring into his tanzanite shaded orbs. It would have been frightening for Matthew if not for the blush that painted Gilbert's cheeks a striking rose tinted color. Taking advantage of Matthew's surprise, Gilbert quickly leaned in to press a kiss to the blonde naga's lips before darting away.

Touching his lips that still tingled from the briefest but most loving of contact, Matthew stared after the retreating naga, Gilbert slithering up to the large eagle owl with far too much energy not to be called nervous, demanding its down feathers from it. It made Ice and Norge click their curved beaks in near silent laughter as Dany looked down at the young naga contemplating whether or not to eat Gilbert.

Matthew broke out into a smile, the naga hugging himself for moment before slithering forward to save his silver headed naga.

"I just might do that."

The End
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