Hey guys,

I've got the fourth chapter for you! But before I jump right into the story, I'd like to address the comments/reviews from previous chapters.

I realize there is some ambiguity surrounding the meaning of Aina's name and that was indeed intentional! Though to sate your curiosity I don't mind revealing this; her name utilizes two different translations, one is surrounding her heritage (which will stay a mystery for now) which means view/sight and the Japanese translation is love/affection. It will be mentioned more throughout the story and my reasons for choosing this name will become clearer as things unfold!

Maya Yoan: You were right about someone happening upon her in her vulnerable state but the 'who' of that will have to be read to be revealed! This chapter will prove to be somewhat of a building block upon Aina and Shin-ah's relationship!

Without any further delay,

Chapter 4

I should have been able to hear the murmuring of voices that were slowly increasing in volume. Possibly then I would have had time to prepare myself for the unexpected visitors that had happened upon my tranquil spot.

Though as fate would have it, I stayed blissfully unaware. Until that bliss was shattered brutally.

"What do we have here?" The voice was close, so it soundly popped my bubble of leisure and thus threw me into full awareness immediately, yet it was too late to do anything. I bolted upright, cowering under the water and doing my best to hold on to my modesty. That was futile though, they had already clearly gotten a good eyeful, enough to peek their interest at least.

There were two men, I couldn't be sure if they were members of the small community that resided in the mountains, they didn't have masks on like the others had. I wish they had though, then maybe I wouldn't have to read the expression of glee and appreciation in their eyes as they leered at me. One of the men stepped forward, and I soon realized he was the one who had spoke before.

"What's a pretty little thing like yourself doing out here?" I think he aimed to sound soothing, but the excitement that was riddled over his face just made it sound eager and wanting. I cringed at the sound, cursing myself for not listening to my baser instinct that told me this was a bad idea, especially since I was alone.

I chose not to speak, hoping against all hope that maybe not engaging them would cause them to lose interest in me. It appeared that luck was not on my side though.

"Not much of a talker, huh? That's okay…we don't need to talk."

The insinuation was not lost on me in my naked state and I immediately was flooded with panic. It was strange now that I think about it, I was sold for this purpose specifically but the thought of these men taking my innocence away from me drove a shard of fear deep into my chest. The terror must have been visible on my face by this point because the second man chose this moment to speak.

"Hey…" his voice was hesitant, like he wasn't sure if he should speak at all. "Is-Isn't that…the girl that was given to…him?" His gaze was locked onto mine and I finally had confirmation that these men were indeed members of the villagers I had met before.

"What the fuck are you blabbering about? This can't be that girl, the filthy dragon definitely would have fucked and disposed of her by now." His cruel words were unsettling, but the part that made me flinch was the mention of the dragon.

Were they talking about Meilė?

I couldn't picture any amount of cruelty coming from such a gentle soul and it only made me wonder why it was these people seemed to detest him so much. He was nothing but kind to me, and he didn't deserve this. A swell of irritation overflowed within me, drowning out the fear momentarily.

"Meilė would never do such a thing to me," I bit out with the edge plain to hear in my tone, my instincts rushing to the defense of my owner's character. It made me feel poorly, for that was exactly what I had expected of him when we first met, but he proved that he had nothing but gentleness to offer. That boldness was quickly washed away when the men's focuses were relocated onto me. Confusion clouded the features of both the intruders before me.

"Meilė? Who the hell…?"

It appeared realization had dawned upon them simultaneously, finally seeing past the name I had allotted to my master. I knew this because the second man looked as though his worst nightmare had just been confirmed in front of his very eyes. Yet the first one…his expression was terrifying.

He looked as though he had just been issued a challenge he would take pride in crushing. I knew that the thing to be crushed in the end would be my spirit, right alongside my broken body.

"So, maybe he already disposed of you alive? Looks like that good for nothing menace finally did something for his people!" His excitement rose along with the resentment I could detect in his voice. I didn't understand why he was acting this way, but before I could ponder it any further he was speaking again.

"Come on out, come show me exactly what the Blue Dragon taught you, precious." I curved my body further in on itself under the water, wishing it would swallow me and make me disappear from this place. I was so scared, I wanted Meilė here.

I began to tremble as his impatience grew and he began to tread into the water after me. This got me moving, though where I planned to go I had no idea. These men were standing in front of my only true exit and I knew even if I could bound back into the cave I would lose my way long before I lost them.

He was eating up the distance in front of me and my body insisted on springing me out of the water and onto the ledge of the ground behind me. The coldness bit into my skin but it was drowned out by the adrenaline rushing and pounding in my ears. I hoisted and wriggled my body to gain leverage and then I finally was able to pull myself to my feet.

I could hear the boisterous splashing behind me and as it grew louder the beat of my heart did in turn. I could feel it pulsing like the frantic beat of drum beneath my chest, panic was seizing my coordination from me and I was unsteady on my feet from the abrupt change in climate. My muscles failed to work, frozen along with the air.

I tripped and quickly scrambled to right myself but then I felt a harsh grasp on my ankle from behind me. I thrashed, trying to dislodge his hold on me but it was no use. He easily flipped me onto my back, the motion jogging my brain a bit. In the next instant, his body hovered over mine and my arms instinctually went to protect my body, from his gaze or his intentions I didn't know. Either was most likely in vain at this point and I could feel the tears of defeat stinging my eyes, I was so useless. I couldn't even defend myself in this situation, I could only flail like a baby bird who broke it's wings before being able to fly.

Stunted and beat.

I began to sob as his hands slimed over my body, I felt disgusting and helpless. It felt like slippery eels were writhing against my skin instead of human fingers and I couldn't hold in my cries. He was whispering things in my ear that I couldn't catch over the pounding of my own pulse. Moisture was raining down my face and a surge of adrenaline sparked my body in motion. My limbs pushed, warred and rained down on anything I could touch or get a hold of. I may have been doing more harm to myself than him, but when I heard a sharp hiss after a particularly powerful swing it spurred me on.

Unfortunately he captured both my wrists in his meaty grasp, squeezing them painful tight before pinning them down above my head. A zing of fright shot down my spine and I knew that my position was as bad as it could be now. The lower half of his body had mine pinned into the cold grass beneath my back. And now he had my arms under his own control as well, any means of defense I may have had, had been stripped and I was completely exposed.

Tears flooded my face with a vengeance and my vision also failed me as it blurred around the abundance of liquid. All I had left was my voice now.

I made good use of it.

I screamed at the highest volume my vocal cords would accommodate. It pierced the silence of the night like a dome of glass, the shards raining out and echoing through the hollow woods behind us, but I didn't relent. I screamed and I cried. And then I called.

I called for Meilė.

"MEILĖ!" my throat felt raspy and sore but I didn't quit until it failed me. The man on top of me flinched with my outbursts, his grip slackening out of probable shock, I still couldn't see. I retched a hand free to join my voice in the fight against my attacker. He quickly muffled my cries with his repulsive hand, clamping it over my mouth and swearing at me.

"You little bitch. No one's going to come for—"

Before he could finish his sentence his weight and presence was retched from my body, being tossed a few feet away from me. My nerves sagged in utter relief. He heard me.

I blink away the rest of the tears clogging my vision and am met with my savior. Meilė is standing over me now, his stance fierce and rigid as he faces my assailant. A noise slices through the quiet air as he unsheathes his blade that I now noticed resides on his back. He poises it in the man's direction, the threat clear.

Suddenly my body begins to tingle, turning numb and light as a feather. I feel any residual energy whisked away with his presence and my vision begins to blacken. My consciousness is fading away, but I catch one word before I drift off into a weightless see of nothing.

"Mine…"


I suddenly felt an extremely soft thing feathering across my neck. It woke me a bit so that I was able to feel some other sensations. That feeling continued and was accompanied by the loud squeal, "Pkyuu!" that sounded right by my ear. That jolted my mind awake abruptly.

There were a few things that I became aware of simultaneously as I regained a conscious state of mind. They were revealed slowly but surely and I was not quite sure how to take in the situation.

Firstly, was that it had been Ao who had been nuzzling into my neck and squeaked into my ear drum.

Secondly, was the fact that I was still nude, though I thankfully had a familiar pelt covering my exposed bits. The brief thought of where my clothes went wafted through my brain but quickly took its leave as I registered the other things that were going on in this moment.

Like the fact that I was being cradled in someone's warm lap, I could feel the heat radiating off of their body and I was oddly comfortable in my position which could have been the reason as to why my brain was so slow to take in everything around me.

The last thing and the one that struck me the hardest, was the familiar masked man holding me close to his body, or should I say the unmasked man.

I gawked. I wasn't sure what else I could possibly do other than blatantly stare directly at the newly revealed face of Meilė-sama.

My brain quickly threw any other observation out the window as it quickly made room for all of this new information. The softness of his skin was so plain to see with our closeness. Also, the strange red markings that laid just beneath the gentle curve of his lashes that were resting on his cheeks at the moment. He looked so peaceful and serene in his sleep. Not to mention, beautiful. He was a gorgeous man to behold and it only made me more conscious of my current state of dress and how I resided quite snuggly nestled between his legs.

This situation was scarily intimate but I wasn't running away screaming. Though, just as I finished that thought the reality of why we were here in this position hit me with the force of a hurricane. I almost didn't register Ao leap from my body and onto savior's head as I began to break down.

The tears immediately sprung to fill my eyes, my body trembling with the memories of my assault. My mind quickly raced to fill in alternate endings to my horrific encounter, visualizing just how bad it could have been had Meilė-sama not come to my aid. I tried to hold in my sobs so that I wouldn't wake him with my cries, but it was a fruitless effort. I couldn't stop my body from reacting to the terrifying nightmare playing out in my mind.

I noticed him stir in his sleep, his eyes began to flutter to wakefulness slowly and instantly I was entranced, silent tears raining deafly down my cheeks. The shocking amber color of his irises were so—breathtaking.

I felt as his arms instinctively pulled me closer as he woke, it sent a shiver of awareness back into my body and suddenly I was blushing brighter than a tomato even as I cried. As his focus seemed to hone in on me, he took notice of me shaking like a leaf and sobbing quietly. I didn't even register my own pitiful sounding whisper, "Meilė…" my voice was broken off by the hiccup of another sob breaking its way out of my throat. My total lack of honorifics didn't even cross my mind.

His eyes shone with intensity and it stole the breath straight from my lungs.

I was torn in two different directions at this moment. One was utterly stunned by his beauty and the other was readily tearing itself into shreds with the flashes of my nightmare. I was a mess. His arms tightened themselves around my form and the action was extremely comforting. I couldn't comprehend why it was that his touch soothed me so completely but I relished in the feeling of safety it provided me.

"…I'm…so sorry," His voice was strained with regret and I knew he was in pain in seeing me this way. It was so awe-inspiring to see his face, he wore his emotions so openly and purely in his features, it was nothing like I had expected. I could read him so plainly, it was like some of his mysteries had been solved with the removal of that barrier between us.

I couldn't help myself, it felt as though my actions weren't even my own. My hand raised itself to cup his cheek tenderly. My gaze trapped in his fiery depths, the words escaped my lips without my consent, "So…beautiful…" My face caught fire at the unintentional admission.

But I was still staring directly into his eyes despite my sheer embarrassment. I couldn't help myself, he was so amazingly handsome in every way conceivable and I couldn't believe I was in the presence of such a specimen, clothed or not.

He seemed to snap back to alertness and realized his revealed face because he quickly snatched the mask resting beside him. My hand fell limply between us as he quickly shielded his face from my penetrating gaze and I felt disappointment. Though now that my trance was broken, it seemed my body had finally settled into one direction for my emotions and unfortunately that was total despair.

I felt somewhat rejected as he chose to hide from me and it only added to the weight that was already resting heavily on my heart. My tears upped their downward momentum, steadily streaming down my face. My face fell forward into Meilė-sama's chest, burrowing my head into the crook of his neck to muffle my cries and hide my pitiful face.

Now I was embarrassed for multiple reasons, my awkward actions and my complete breakdown in his arms.

He didn't seem to mind in the slightest though, just securely wrapping his arms at my back and pulling me further into his body. My fingers strangled his shirt in my grasp as his support just seemed to open the floodgates completely.

My sobs wracked my form as I tried to choked out, "I…I—" hiccup. "I was so…scared," I finished brokenly. "I—I don't…know what I…would have done—" hiccup. "…without you." His hands were soothing in their brushing along my spine and they were serving to calm my gasping and cries. I finally felt like I could take a shuddering breath, trying to get my tears under my own control again.

I broke away from his embrace, looking into his masked face once again and trying to keep the disappointment from painting across my face so clearly. I missed his eyes already. His hand was braced along my back to keep me steady in his lap and immediately I began to stutter out of sheer embarrassment, "I—um, w-where are my clothes?" I couldn't look at him anymore by this point, my cheeks felt like they were flaming and I could only risk a peek at him quickly before breaking away once again. His cheeks were pink too!

"…I couldn't—you…" his voice faltered in a way similar to my own and it would have been funny listening him trying to find the words to say if I wasn't so humiliated.

"…I couldn't dress you…" he offered finally, sounding sheepish and ashamed. I didn't quite understand why he sounded that way, I couldn't blame him for not dressing me in my unconscious state. I think I would have been more ashamed had he tried to. That would have meant he got a good up close and personal view of my naked flesh. It comforted me a bit to know he tried to give me back some of my modesty by just covering me rather than fumbling with clothing me.

"…I'm sorry," he was saying that a lot, and it made me feel bad that he was feeling bad.

"Don't apologize," I jumped to reassure him, "I appreciate you covering me up, I don't imagine it would have been easy to try and dress me while I was passed out." I hoped he understood that I didn't think poorly of him for keeping me this way, he had saved me from a terrible fate. I was more grateful to him than he would ever know.

"Your…clothes…" I looked toward the direction of his hand and noticed a pile of clothing a foot away from us, folded neatly on the ground. I was so thankful that he had grabbed them before coming back to our room. 'Our room' what a weird concept, but I wasn't sure what else to refer to it as. I nodded my head with a small smile spared in his direction and quickly broke away from his loose hold on me to stand and dress. My grip was tight on the fur covering my front and I hesitated briefly before turning to walking away, knowing my rear was exposed. I glanced down at his form sitting by my feet. It warmed my heart to see that he had already faced away from me in order to give me privacy to change.

Ao was quick to scurry around next to my ankles and accompany me as I made my way over to my clothes, but before I did I turned my head back to gaze at the blue-haired man.

"Thank you, Meilė-sama," I was saying it for many things in this moment, there was so many reasons to thank this gentle person before me. He tensed at my words and I wondered why that was.


It was much later, after I had changed and he revealed the food that he must have disappeared to gather. We ate peacefully, my squirrel companion happily munching on her ration while perched on my shoulder. All awkwardness had thankfully dispersed from the atmosphere and now I was just left with many questions. I knew I needed to ask them, but how to broach the topic was escaping me.

I figured there was no way to ease into it other than just diving in head first.

"Meilė-sama…" I called, hoping to gain his attention, pleased to see his focus come upon me immediately at my voice. "Can I ask you some questions?" I figured this would be the best way to go about starting the conversation, that way he wouldn't feel bombarded at my barrage of curiosities.

He gave me a simple head nod, the jingle of his bells confirming his affirmation.

"Those men…" his body immediately tensed at the topic of my assailants, and I couldn't blame him. Just speaking about this brought on a horde of unpleasant images and thoughts surrounding the two. Though I don't think I could really group the second man along with the first, I wasn't even sure what happened to him after all was said and done. "They were villagers, right?"

Each word as I continued to speak felt like I was pulling them straight from my gut, scratching their way up through my throat before my mouth could give voice to them. But I needed to know. I had no idea if this would help, but I had the urge regardless of how painful the topic was.

He confirmed my hunch, and I was left to continue my line of questioning, "Why do they hate you so much?" I felt insensitive wording it like that, but I wasn't sure what else to call what I had been faced with when they had talked about him. All I could feel from them was resentment and anger all directed towards the man in front of me, and I couldn't for the life of me understand why.

He hesitated in his response, his body slumped and head angled towards his hands before he spoke. His voice was small and defeated, "I'm a monster…" A pang stung my heart at the tone in his words, it hurt me that he was hurting. Ao was quick to leave me to go and comfort her friend, rushing up his arm and nuzzling herself into his cheek.

"A monster?" I parroted back, confused and surprised that he would refer to himself as such a thing. He was nothing but a savior in my eyes and I don't think it was possible for me to see him any other way.

His solemn nod was more than I could take.

"No, you're not." My voice was firm, stronger than it had ever been. I knew in the marrow of my bones that the man before me was not capable of malicious intent, there was absolutely zero chance that he was any sort of bad person. I knew bad people, I knew their kind better than I knew the kind of man that was sat before me. Bad people never admitted to being bad.

He was so different from any person I had come into contact with, he held nothing but kindness and beauty in his heart. It radiated from his eyes the moment I was met by them. It was painful that he seemed blind to that.

My words seemed to shock him out of his slump, his head rose to meet my gaze and the disbelief was palpable from him even with the shield on his face. "Meilė-sama, you are the furthest thing from a monster there could possibly be. In my eyes you are nothing short of a savior, a guardian who protected me in my time of need."

I closed the space between us, resting my palms on the smooth skin of his cheeks, relishing in the softness beneath my fingers. Ao chose to spring away from the two of us in this moment, as though she could sense I was there to offer him comfort. I looked directly into where I knew his gorgeous eyes resided behind his mask. Willing him to discard these bad ideas about himself.

"I called, and you were there." I leaned my forehead against his, offering the same comfort he selflessly gave to me when I was vulnerable. I was surprised to feel wetness hitting my thumbs and as I put some space between our faces I noticed tears escaping the bottom of his mask.

My heart broke for him in that moment.

Instinct had me coiling my arms around his neck and bringing his face to my chest. He tensed at my actions, steeling his body for a moment before he melted into my embrace and gripped onto the fabric of my dress at my sides.

"Pykuuuu!" That abrupt noise broke all the tension in the air instantly. I released my hold on Meilė-sama and glanced over at the cute animal that looked at both of us with sparkling eyes. Unfortunately or fortunately her interruption had closed the door on the conversation. It looked as though my answer seeking session was over, but I knew now wasn't the time to push.

There was still so much to learn about my mysterious owner. I didn't realize just how much.