A/N: Thanks for over 1000 views on "A Loyal Son" so far! In exchange for a slightly longer wait for this chapter, "Dust" has a scene inspired by your comments.
Illustrations I've made to pair with this fic can be found on the tumblr HeetaWorks under the tags "A Loyal Son" and "Ao No Exorcist."
DISCLAIMER: Ao No Exorcist is property of Kazue Kato. I do not own Ao No Exorcist, only my own writing.
"Dust"
Dim light from the mounted wall lamps barely filtered through the air in the room Okumura Yukio usually taught in. Dust obscured the ceiling lamps as well, coating the rafters in what appeared to be white rapids. Two long wooded top erasers were slapped together with an echoing clap. A cloud of multicolored chalk filled the mostly unoccupied cram school classroom, inciting thunderous coughing from the lone student in the room. Hacking the inhaled dust out of his lungs, the cleaning adolescent foolishly covered his face with his right sleeve, coated in the same irritating particles. He unintentionally huffed in the very material he was trying to escape and doubled over from the inhalation invasion on his respiratory system.
"How the hell am I supposed to clean these things without any windows in this room?" Rin complained, spitting out the colorful film coating his tongue and cheeks. Clenching the wooden cleaning blocks between the fingers of his left hand, the annoyed boy continued to cough into his right as he returned the slightly less filthy erasers to the ridge below the chalkboard where they belonged. He looked at the odd black sputum in the middle of his palm that came up with the chalk he had breathed in. Tacking the gunk between his index finger and thumb, the curious boy tried to look through the dark goo by holding his hand towards the brightness of a lamp on the teacher's desk. No light shone through the sticky material.
"Gross. I don't think we even have any black chalk...I hope my chest isn't full of this shit," Rin contemplated, disgusted by the idea of dark phlegm coating his insides like a coal tar infestation. He wiped off his hand with a sheet of paper towel misted with the cleaning solution used to wipe down the tables. With a few full body shakes, the debris covered student attempted to rid his uniform and hair of as much of the dusty mess as possible. The chore-laden teenager slapped his tail against the wide green board, layering it with patterns of yellow and white. Before wiping the whole blackboard down with a damp washcloth, he took a moment to admire the abstract splatter halos left by his dirty appendage.
As he checked the room over once again to make sure he hadn't missed any cleaning duties, Rin went around each table, pushing in all of the chairs. The academically-challenged Okumura snickered, his punishment-happy little brother hadn't specified that he had to sweep up the floors again after cleaning the erasers. Boy would some teacher be in for a treat on Monday when the air conditioning was turned back on. With his final penalty from Yukio complete for the day, the belated student picked up his messenger bag by the door and flicked off the lights on his way out.
The fluorescent fixtures lining the cram school hallway had already been dimmed for the night by the time he had finished cleaning every nook and cranny of the multipurpose classroom. It was lucky for the demon descendant that he could see fairly well in the dark, or else he would have probably walked in circles on his way to the entrance hall. Although the cram school was rarely bustling full with people, something unsettled him about how completely deserted the building was as he walked down the shadowy hallway. His stomach growled from the hunger that had built up over the previous twelve hours since he had skipped breakfast due to his tardiness and spent his lunch period in day school detention. The rumble echoed through the empty walkway, but that wasn't the only sound Rin's acute hearing picked up.
The pointy-eared boy could have sworn he heard a faint scraping sound coming from the ceiling, trailing behind him. Turning the first corner, the scrabbling was accompanied with a dull thump. As he came around the second corner, another thud came from above, but the sharp-eyed student saw nothing when he surveyed the upper wall.
"Man, this old building is creepy," the walking adolescent murmured to himself, somewhat spooked by the mysterious scurrying. Overly alert of every scratch, bump, and creak due to the sway the night had over him, the supernatural exorcist subconsciously hastened his pace towards the way out as the sounds continued to follow him. Rin was relieved when he finally stumbled upon the front entrance and eagerly exited through one of the unlocked towering double doors. He slammed the massive entrance shut behind himself with enough force to make its hinges tremble. Dashing outside, the last pupil that had been inside of the evening school didn't skid to a stop until he was several yards from the entryway.
Directly in front of the cram school building was a large open courtyard stippled with elaborately manicured trees and scattered white stone seating, divided by numerous pathways leading to the various parts of the True Cross campus. Although there were several lamp posts lining the walkways, their light radius was rather small, leaving most of the area in complete darkness. Once the adrenaline filled teenager deemed that he was a sufficient distance from the cram school building, he stopped to catch his breath, which the short-winded adolescent didn't realize he had been holding for several minutes. The bodiless noises thankfully hadn't stalked him past the front door, but the alerted student soon noticed the silhouette of a person, who appeared to be wearing a skirt, standing next to one of the many courtyard maples.
"What is someone else doing out here so late after classes are over?" He thought to himself while walking towards the feminine figure. Strange noises coming from nowhere may have alarmed him, but he wasn't afraid of some student lollygagging about. Not that he had been afraid of a few bumps in the dark, the flame-wielding adolescent assured himself.
As he neared the other person, the unknown individual turned towards him abruptly, alerted by the crunch of stray leaves under Rin's boots. In the dark, the demonic young man noticed her distinctive hair: violet pigtails. Unable to see her classmate since he was outside of the lamp lights, the petite exorcist went back to furiously focusing on the glowing screen of the cellphone in her right hand.
"Hey Izumo! You're out late, I didn't take you for the type to be nocturnal. Waiting for someone?" Rin inquired over-enthusiastically. He surprised the distracted girl as he stepped into the brightened area surrounding the lamp, next to the tree she was under. At first, she looked somewhat frightened before recognizing her knuckle-headed schoolfellow and letting out a small huff.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" The pale young woman snapped, giving her phone another glance before shoving it into the full school bag draped over her shoulder.
"Well yeah, I guess. I asked, didn't I?" He laughed, scratching the back of his head. Rin tapped the toe of one of his boots on the pavement and stumbled over his words, "If you aren't, I just thought maybe we could head towards the dorms together. Since it's dark out and I can see pretty well at night. I think the girls dorms are right across the way from the old building Yukio and I are in...it's cool if you're busy though."
One of Izumo's dot brows raised at the Okumura boy's awkward behavior. She sighed and buttoned the compartment on her sizable purple bag she had placed her phone in, double checking to make sure everything was zipped and fastened. "Might as well. It would be pathetic if you got lost."
"Che, I'm not the one standing alone out here in the dark," the nocturnal adolescent protested.
His scrutinous classmate looked around the defensive male. She raised a hand to her forehead, scanning left and right before staring at him. She retorted, "I don't see anyone else with you, idiot."
Rin accepted his defeat graciously, shrugging it off with a foolish grin. The two Esquires began their stroll down the path in front of them in silence, Izumo trailing slightly behind her night-vision capable escort. The scope of the True Cross campus engulfed by darkness was completely different from the ground level in comparison to how Rin overlooked the school on his evening runs with Kuro along the tops of the outer walls and scattered rooftops. It felt as if the night itself desired to swallow up the two teenagers, mere specks in a vast labyrinth of groomed greenery and looping footpaths. Maybe it was because of the mysterious scampering he had encountered inside the school, but Rin was looking forward to seeing that run down old boy's dormitory. It was nice to not walk alone though, no matter the circumstances. He especially appreciated Izumo's lone company since he so rarely had the chance to be alone with the only girl left in their Esquire class.
The silence was beginning to make him feel awkward, he had never been great at socializing, but he was pretty certain that conversation was a basic requirement of friendship. It was simple in theory, but he didn't know much about Izumo to talk about. He knew she was one of the top students in both day and night classes, that her best friend was Paku, she hated Arias, and that her family's shrine had somehow been affected by the Blue Night, but he didn't know how. That night was definitely not something he wished to bring up casually, it was a sure-fire way to drive her away, he thought. School though, that was an innocent enough topic. Hadn't Shima mentioned that she was a class representative? That seemed mundane enough to talk about.
"So you're the girl's rep in your day class, right? It seems like a lot of work." He attempted small talk with the bossy girl, hands shoved in his pockets casually as they continued down the unmarked path.
"It's not hard. Paku usually convinces me to volunteer for the position since no one else does." Izumo's focus idly drifted to the ground as she followed Rin's footsteps. Fallen autumn leaves crunched beneath her heels, a few small flakes stuck to her knitted socks.
"So it's possible to convince you to do something, huh?" Fur-tuft appendage swaying behind him rapidly, the tailed adolescent smiled back at his classmate, "You should be class rep for the cram school, so we could have a booth at the school festival too. Maybe a haunted house, that would be cool..."
The scholarly student laughed lightly, mouth covered by her hand. "That's not how it works at all; the cram school doesn't participate in festivals or have a representative. It's not like True Cross wants to go around advertising their exorcist training school. You really don't think about these things before you speak."
"Ah, well, I still think you'd do a good job at it," he trailed off, beaming a supportive smile in Izumo's direction. One of the walkway lights lit his face enough for his hot and cold classmate to see his goofy grin.
"You think I'd do well at something that doesn't exist, thanks," she rolled her eyes at him as she hid her smile, wiping a windblown hair away from her face with a flip of her hand.
A blanket of clouds rolled lazily overhead as quiet settled between the dorm bound adolescents. Several minutes passed by with only the crackling of dried greenery underfoot and rhythmic chirping of cicadas hiding in the grass. Rin closed his eyes and slowed his stride, appreciating the benefit of taking the same route so many times. He breathed the chalk-free air deeply, relieved to not cough up nastiness in front of his schoolmate. Sweetness seeped into his respiratory system, slowly infiltrating his senses.
"Candy...?" He mumbled under his breath. The young demon's mind cranked slowly as he began to feel a rumble of uncertain panic in his gut. When he tried to localize the scent, the sugary odor became overwhelming. Rin side-stepped a few inches closer to Izumo. He sniffed near her hair cautiously. No, her's was a spicy aroma of cinnamon and clove, not that of pure sugar. It had notes and layers that tickled his nose, unlike the simple, syrupy odor that was invading his senses.
"Did you just sniff me?" She stared at him accusingly, eyebrows raised. Izumo put space between them again, switching her bag to the shoulder closest to Rin.
The saccharine scent wafted on the evening air heavily, triggering the young demon to crook his head and inhale curiously once more. Rin's tail flicked instinctively, causing a chill to run up his spine. "Do you smell that?"
"Smell what?" Izumo lightly sniffed her hand. "My perfume?"
"No, it's like someone dumped over a vat of simple syrup." He looked about for its source along the academy pathway. There was no food cart or vending machine in sight. The spooked student tried to laugh off the odd sweetness to his empty stomach, "I'm so hungry from all that cleaning, I must be imagining things."
He glanced back towards the cram school courtyard, briefly brushing his arm against Izumo's shoulder as the taller teenager leaned past her, eyes scanning through the darkness behind them. Less than twenty minutes had passed since they had began walking together, but the cram school behind them was already obscured too much by night for normal human vision. Rin could just barely make out the wide open double doors that the demonic exorcist was certain he had slammed shut on his hurry out of the school.
His stomach dropped and he stopped in place. Rin's eyes darted from along the bench-lined path for any sign of movement. So focused on the space between them and the cram school, Rin jumped at the sound of Izumo's resumed footsteps. He followed his classmate along more closely than before, easily keeping up with her increased pace.
Izumo drubbed her thumb anxiously against the side of her cellphone, checking its empty black screen. Frustration released from her mouth as a low huff.
"Are you waiting for a call?" He inquired, noticing her particular attachment to the device. It was a lot newer than his phone and had several more cutesy mascot charms danging from it on brightly colored cords.
"It appears my prior plans for the night were canceled unilaterally without mutual knowledge of such change." She frowned, brows lowered.
He blinked and stopped in front of the fountain central between the split to the old and new dormitory buildings. "You got blown off?"
"Some people just don't care about fulfilling their responsibilities." She smoothed her bangs and readjusted the bag strap on her shoulder. The short young woman looked around the empty courtyard, heading towards the right path. "It's faster to get to the girls dorm from here. Don't forget the essay for demon pharmacology, I won't help you if you show up empty handed again."
"I could walk you back to the dorm since it's so dark." Rin offered, glancing warily towards the cram school building. He shoved his moist palms in his pockets and wondered how to not come across as paranoid while still being wary of the sweet scent.
"That's not necessary; I am fully capable of walking myself home. Goodnight, Rin." Izumo dismissed him with a wave.
"Thanks for walking with me. See you in class tomorrow." Rin called back to the young woman who was already picking up pace towards the sculpture decorated fountain in the courtyard ahead of them.
She nodded at her hellish classmate and walked down the fruit tree-lined path that lead towards the girls dormitory without further farewell.
He lingered around the fountain for a few minutes. Pacing back and forth only worked him up. He sat on on the cold stone surface as estimated how long it would take for Izumo to get back to the girls dorm, so that he could leave without upsetting the nervous feeling in his gut. Checking the time on his phone, he scratched his nose, still bothered by the sweet irritant clinging to the air.
Rin doubled back into the dark. He stopped next to a maple over four times his height and inhaled towards the sky. Hand on the lowest branch, he climbed up the tree and sniffed again. His tail twisted itself around the flimsy limb he stood on and snapped it out from beneath him. Rin jumped onto the lawn and grabbed his mischievous tail near the base of his spine. He pulled his arm quickly down the fur to its tufted end with one hand as he held onto its midpoint with the other.
He stood still and listened to the night. The hum of a nearby lamp as bugs sizzled on its surface. Leaves blowing over stone before getting trapped and torn apart in the grass. Cooing birds; talons scraping on bark and twigs. The distorted wail of an emergency vehicle siren from the city below. A distinct, destructive-sounding gnashing that reminded him of the old record player he had grown up with at the church. The needle had warped over the years and would take to grinding down the grooves in the records it played until they cracked.
"Hello?" Rin called out into the night, hand gripped on his sword bag. A few birds scattered out of the trees, but no reply came. He sighed and swore under his breath.
The exhausted youth turned the way he had came and slowly made the winding trek back to the boys dormitory. Rin scraped his nails against the wall to his side as his outstretched hands dragged against the gritty stone. Jumping on top of the divide, he visually surveyed the school grounds he had roamed. He turned to face the interior courtyard the wall enclosed and noticed a familiar pattern of fabric bunched on at the foot of the wall. Squid and jellyfish atop a stylized ocean wave pattern, the boxers were a souvenir from sea-side exorcist training he regularly wore, and now they were sitting out in the open atop a patch of dead grass.
He leapt down and swooped the soft article up in his hand. A few feet away, he spotted a lone sock. Rin looked up at the courtyard and noticed Kuro scampering about, dragging a piece of clothing thrice the critter's size along the dirt.
"What are you doing?" He balked at the split-tailed animal. The taller demon furiously grabbed for several more pieces of clothing.
"I want to play with Rin's smelly clothes too!" Kuro responded. The cat skittered off, one of the tired student's dress shirts carried in his mouth by the sweat-stained collar.
Rin chased his mischievous familiar around the courtyard, picking up stray clothing along the way. He picked glass chunks from the broken lamps out of a uniform jacket near one of the walls, cutting the outer side of his hand on the shard. Hardly more than a scratch, he flexed his fingers as the cut healed and wiped what little blood had come to the surface onto the laundry-bound black jacket.
Surveying the grounds, his eyes burned and watered as he peered into the darkness of the treeline behind the boys dormitory. Prickling pain tingled in his lungs and a wet cough resulted in grimy gray sputum sprayed onto the filthy coat. Between being worn to exorcisms and a target of Kuro's curiosity, he was certain it had seen worse. The filth of chalk, blood, and questionably-colored lung expectorate on his own body already, he was definitely looking forward to a long wash of his own.
After combing through the entire lawn, Rin was certain he had finally collected all of the strewn about clothing and linens by his rambunctious companion. Fabric articles piled in his arms he pulled bits of leaf from the items as they scratched against his skin. Walking towards the dormitory, he turned to his his familiar, nearly calling out the cat's name when he notice how still the animal was, faced towards the wall he had jumped over earlier. He watched Kuro sniff the air with shuddering whiskers and ears laid back.
The cat sith's fur stood on end. "We should go inside," He mewled quietly.
Rin nodded. His stomach whined, muffled by the clothing he carried. "I'm so hungry; I hope Ukobach already made dinner."
"Can we run after dinner?" Kuro asked, jogging ahead of him.
"No, I got in a lot of trouble today for being late. Even if he cooked, it's going to be midnight by the time we finish dinner. I already have to catch up on a ton of homework anyway and someone had to go and start a lawn party with all of our laundry." Rin peered at Kuro accusingly from behind his familiar, coughing into the clothing pile.
"That's no fun." The small demon pouted, ignoring his tone. Kuro pushed the unlocked doors open with his body and moved out of the way before he could be crushed by Rin being unable to see the familiar under his carrying load. Disappearing down the hall, he quickly returned with a laundry basket angled on top of him like a turtle's shell. He dragged the container with him to the first step of the entrance area and dropped it in front of Rin. The cat gave a fanged smile at his friend, "Thanks for playing with me."
"Yeah, yeah. Next time just ask to play instead of making lawn decorations out of our dirty laundry. You may not wear clothes, but what if Yukio came home while that stuff was out there?" Rin dropped the clothing into the basket haphazardly, barely avoiding piling them on top of the other demon.
"I'm sorry." Kuro looked at the ground, tails curled underneath him.
Rin patted Kuro's head gently, the cat nuzzling against his fingers. "I need to clean up a bit before we eat, why don't you go check and see if there's food prepared?"
He smiled as his familiar padded off towards the kitchen, pushing the heavy basket with its horns. The exhausted boy sat on the steps separating the entrance and the rest of the dorm, bag resting beside him. He left his red boots lined by the front door and stretched out his toes. With a yawn, he pulled on a pair of slippers and headed towards the sink-lined hallway.
In front of the mirror, the dirty student caught his reflection and laughed at his chalk covered hair and uniform. With a wet hand towel, he wiped down the lapel of his uniform jacket until the fabric ran black. He rolled his sleeves up past his elbows, scrubbing his filth laden hands with soap that made his skin tingle. The gurgle of his stomach as he turned off the tap refused to wait for him to take a shower before eating.
Lured to the kitchen by the smell of food, Rin dropped his damp jacket onto the laundry basket in the corner of the dining hall on his way to the pass opening to the kitchen. Two steaming bowls of fresh ramen sat before him on the counter next to two pairs of spoons and chopsticks. He reached through the partition for a small bowl from a nearby shelf and poured a spoonful of liquid and meat from both of the filled dishes into it. With the portioned bowl and one of the larger ramen in his hands, he carried the dishes to the closest clean table.
"Time for dinner!" He called out, setting the smaller bowl across from where he placed his own. Kuro stormed into the kitchen with such speed that Rin chuckled when his eager familiar had to skid to a stop on the slippery dining hall floor. They ate like famished beasts, both noses at the bottom of their bowls within minutes.
Rin wiped his hands on a nearby rag, running a visual check over the counter for any unwashed dishes. After reshuffling the items in the drying rack, he returned the hand-washed ladle and rice cooker to their proper storage. The young man's feline housemate joined him in the kitchen, eyes on the filled soup bowl still on the counter ledge. Keeping his distance from the wet sink, the cat sith meowed his arrival to Rin.
"What should we do with the other bowl of ramen?" Kuro asked, licking the side of his mouth.
The bipedal demon sighed, "Leave it."
"Won't the noodles get soggy?" The cat peered up at Rin, front paws on the bottom counter shelf.
"If Yukio cared about soggy noodles, he'd come home to dinner. It's nearly midnight and I haven't heard a peep, so he'll just have to deal with it." The glass in his hand cracked, shards embedded into his skin. On his way out of the kitchen, he threw the remains of the broken cup into one of the recycling bins behind him.
He grabbed his basin of washing supplies from the hallway sinks and walked to the bathroom. The grime-coated youth tossed his clothing into the laundry hamper and stepped onto the cold ceramic floor of the showering area. Several shower heads on long coils lined the tiled walls, each hung on a hook three feet above the ground. He removed his shampoo and soap from the basin in his arms and turned it over on the floor. Using the plastic bin as a stool, he sat down in front of one of the shower heads and turned it on.
The sound of water running over his body soothed him as he ran his fingers through the tangles of his hair. He watched the colorful chalk stain the fluid on it's way to the drain in the center of the room. Green soap overpowered the filth quickly, water running clear as he scrubbed the chalk out of the fur of his tail. The long appendage writhed in his grip when he rubbed soap into the tufted end; he gripped tightly until it went limp in his hand from lack of circulation. Pieces of glass from his hand fell to the floor when he let go; he looked over his hand to make sure there were no sharp bits left from the cup he had shattered.
Towel wrapped around his waist and another in his hands, Rin walked out to the hallway mirrors. After he dried his hair, Rin enjoyed seeing the reflection of it laying mostly flat instead of sticking up every which way from filth accumulation. Returning to the bathroom, he tossed the towel he had used on his hair into the hamper and turned off the bathroom lights. He slid the door closed behind him.
Hardcovers slammed against his desk with a thwack as he turned his school satchel upside-down on its surface. He slid the books about, tossing several onto the accumulating pile in the corner of his desk. A pencil rolled off the table and underneath the wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. He watched the pencil roll away, too exhausted from back to back detention to even acknowledge the event until he heard the wood tap against the wall.
Rin got on all fours and and tried to reach under the cabinet, wrist getting stuck in the space between the floor and frame. He yanked his hand free and laid the side of his head against the floor, peeking under the wardrobe with one eye. Groaning, he moved his head out of the way and squeezed his tail under the cabinet. The wiry limb groped along the floorboards, sweeping out decades of lost items from underneath the furniture piece. The growing pile included a couple faded pin-up magazines, a small mountain of lost writing utensils, and at least three pairs of Yukio's glasses. Pencil retrieved, he picked up one of the crinkly magazines and flipped through it.
"Pretty girls don't change much over the decades, I guess." Turning the magazine sideways, a thin wire-bound book fell out of the old pinup collection. He flipped the fallen article over, and read the cover sheet labeled "Class of 19-," the last digits lost to fading from time. He turned through the book filled with individual bust shots of young men and women until he came to a page filled with a group photograph of people standing in front of a shrine gate. A stern faced woman with short, triangular eyebrows in a flowing dress stood out to him from amongst students in True Cross uniform who were mostly smiling. He checked the page margin for a label, but most of the print was faded to the point of illegibility; only the characters for "field trip" and "sacred tree" were decipherable. Rin closed the book and placed it with the other items from underneath the cabinet, stacking them all on top of the same piece of furniture before returning to his desk.
Kuro jumped up onto his table and laid down on the pile of books tucked in the corner. He ignored the feline, focused on the open book and mildly legible notes before him. A paw reached into his field of vision, batting at his discarded bookmark. Rin laughed softly and looked up at the furry distraction.
"It must be nice to not have homework." Rin mused. He scratched the cat's exposed belly with the eraser end of his pencil. The tired adolescent turned the pages of his notebook idly, not absorbing much of the charts before him.
"I get bored when you're at school all day. Ukobach has so many rules and there's no one else to play with." The cat complained, poking his face into the stuffy tome and sniffing it curiously. He wrinkled his nose and sneezed, whiskers shuddering.
Rin chuckled and held a tissue up to his familiar's face as the cat rubbed his whiskers against it. He patted Kuro's head gently. "You probably know more about demons than I do; want to help me with my essay?"
"Sure!" The two-tailed creature replied, front paws on the edge of the desk as he tried to get a better look at the funny looking illustrations in the book.
Rin copied the disheveled rough draft into his blue journal with slightly improved penmanship and grammar. With the aid of his feline friend on the effects of various plants the cat sith had encountered over the centuries, he was able to cut down his research time. The tired student was glad to see it was still dark out when he packed up his bag for the morning and left it on his desk chair. He looked at the alarm clock on Yukio's desk and sighed.
Putting his slippers back on, he trekked downstairs. When he arrived in the unlit kitchen, he rifled through a cabinet until he pulled out a round plastic lid. The ceramic soup bowl was cold in his hands as he popped the clear top onto it. He grabbed a small strip of tape and a marker from a lazy susan on the counter. Rin slapped the label "Yukio's missed dinner" with the date onto the lid and slid it into the refrigerator.
Feet dragging, he headed back up the stairway much slower than he came down moments earlier. He smiled warmly as he noticed Kuro was already snoring on Yukio's neglected bed, hindquarters stretched askew over his younger brother's pillow. He collapsed on his own sleeping arrangements with a silent yawn. The blankets cool against his skin, he slipped easily into sleep.
A/N 1: The characters Rin saw on the old photograph from under the dresser were "修学旅行" and "神木", one of which appears elsewhere in Ao No Exorcist canon.
A/N 2: This chapter was the toughest for me to be happy with completing between of the four posted so far; I hope you all enjoy that it's also the longest chapter published for "A Loyal Son" to date.
Special thanks to Phantom Hitman 1412 for her beta work for chapters one through three and Rai for her help with "Dust."
Reviews welcome. I especially appreciate those of you who continue to review multiple chapters; your input on what you like/dislike and want to see in this story help me dearly.