Hi everyone! So yes I'm ashamed that it's been so long since I updated this story and I'm really sorry to all of you for that, I want to thank all of you who have still stuck with this story after such a long pause and I hope you come to enjoy the next set of chapters because it's going to get rough for all our heroes. I will warn that among the usual there are going to be many spoilers for those who aren't catching the latest episode. So once again, thank you for all your support, I hope you have a nice day. And to quote one of my favourite characters. "Well darling. Let's get on with this shall we?"
Peter sighed softly as he stared down at the cursed form of his beloved. A curse that could even break true loves kiss. He stared down at the blank and pained face of James. The show of spectacular star lights, the brightness of the evening that had almost seemed to perfect to be true... It had all been just another torturing plot. The slightest moment of release to make the strain of the curse even worse.
Worse for the fact that now James seemed to be having these forms of attacks...
Peter would walk into the camp and the boy would be screaming as the others were trying to hold him down when he spewed his crimson life force and tried to scratch his own skin wide open. He had come back one night to find the boy gnawing at the bound ropes which were stopping him from breaking free and attacking himself... only later to see the boy beginning to bite and try to kill himself.
Just like a trapped bear.
But the answer to his problems came nothing but a few weeks later.
Peter had spent the near enough amount of the day out, going through the deepest amount of his magic. Trying to search for some remedies, some form of sorcery which may have just allowed him a bit longer into James' head than before. On the previous attempts that he had done it, Peter had found himself sat in the front of a sports car convertible with the other boy. Watching the world go by around them as they drove down the path on a cliff side. James had at first seemed at complete and perfect ease.
The sun on their faces as Peter turned up the radio and watched the way the clouds were breaking apart.
It was only when James had reached out with a sad smile, playing a kiss on Peter's cheek and pushing a small piece of paper into his hands, did Peter actually realise that James' face was draining of all colour and the world around him beginning to fracture.
He opened the paper of unsure what to expect, but what he saw, made his heart stop cold and in pain. I LOVE YOU. KILL ME. PLEASE. Was written across the small note in large bold lettering.
He watched as the ink on the page slowly began to bubble as though rain was pouring down and making the ink run fresh and free. It slowly began to spread across the page as his eyes began to burn with a faint anger and own defiance. His desperation to figure out somehow to fix this all. To help the boy he loved! To save James from the fate which was now making the boy wish he was dead. "I'll find a way to fix it." Peter whispered but as he looked up he just caught sight of his grape purple eyes glowing ever so faintly. He tried to reach out but as James lifted his arm, the skin across the boy's wrist and palm tore wide open sending blood splashing about everywhere across Peter's face.
The ink began to bubble as his fist closed around the paper which began to violently tear apart just like James, till they were pulled out of the mental connection spell and Peter was left, staring at the blank and broken face of James as the boy passed back out again.
But back to the day when he had finally found his answers.
Peter had turned up in the camp, to come across the last sight he had expected to see having come back into Neverland with his beautiful prize.
"What the hell are you doing here!?" He snarled.
James was slumped back into his bed as a thick and swirling cloud of emerald mist was circling his head, caressing his skin as it would softly fill his lungs. His eyes were glazed over and almost glowing the same shade as the mist it self. This was very much old magic. Magic Peter hadn't seen for a long, long time. Simple, yes. But old, all the same. Something like that which would belong to a Shepard in the hills of his farms. "Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. My. James!" Peter snapped as he watched the mist emitting from behind the cover of a nearby tree.
"Oh darling. Is that really anyway to talk to me?"
Peter's eyes ran over the figure as they slowly stepped out from behind the shadows of the tree. The first thing to emerge from the shadows was their startling pearly smile. The shining colour of their dark, cold eyes, and the brilliant winter snow colour of half of their clothing and hair. "Oh you have got to be kidding me." Peter growled under his breath.
The boy as he emerged stepped with a raised eyebrow as the sleek midnight black, business shoes crushed through the litter of the forest floor. The figure had a thick black fur coat wrapped around their prestige white and black pressed suit. The colour across was a moved blur between the winter and night colour. It's white and black gloved hands reached out, flexing as they pulled themselves from the cover of shadows. Revealing the soft peachy skin as their curvy twig like figure lent back against the hard trunk base. He looks like he belongs on a tree with that twig body. Peter sneered in his head as the long black fur curled around the boy's leather tight trousers. But the boy certainly had style... Peter would give him that much.
Both slowly began to walk circles around James. Like two predator wolves, figuring out which one was stronger and which one would attack first. "Who the hell are you?" Peter growled.
And there again was that pearly smile. There was no warmth about it. Just, cold, dark, and intelligent knowing.
The boy slowly let one hand come to rest on his hip as the fur fell around him. "Oh I take such offence! Especially since it is so obvious!" He purred softly, his bright blue eyes, so startling and cold, dark and vicious, darting over to Peter as he lent in and breathed that soft mist across James' face, leaning in a bit further to annoy Peter as though he was going to kiss the boy. "But I wouldn't expect a small boy to know someone who plays with the big dogs."
"This small boy is more powerful than you could ever dream of!"
"Keep thinking that boy." The figure smirked.
"So then. What can I call you?"
"Charles." The boy grinned even deeper. His unnaturally rouge lips parting slightly in a smirk. "Charles De Vil. And I've come to take what will soon belong back to us." The boy grinned, letting the manicured finger of his white gloved hand, reach out and curl under James' chin. Lifting James' glowing emerald gaze to meet the boy's startling turquoise ones. "There we go. Perfect, darling." He reached out slowly and began to pull James to his feet, keeping their gazes perfectly locked. Not moving. "Come with me my dear." Charles kept whispering, watching as James' eyes were glowing brighter and brighter.
"You're not taking him any where-"
"Stay there."
Peter froze as the mist hit him square in the face and all muscles in his body locked down. Not one finger refused to move at all. Even with Peter's desperation to lunge forward and rip Charles apart. He couldn't. All he could do was keep hearing Charles' words in his head. Those words which were set heavily into his body. Making it so sure that he couldn't move. That son of a bitch! He has his mother's skills of-
"Oh please. Do not compare me to Mummy." Charles smirked. "Now dear, please don't mind me. I'm just here to get something that belongs to someone." He turned those bright eyes back onto James. "Aunty just better not give me a harsh grilling because he's damaged... then again, a couple months ago, she would have been in no position to complain about being damaged, herself. Still it's quite funny." Charles laughed, twirling slightly on the heel of his shoes as he lent close to Peter's face and smirked.
I'm going to rip your fucking heart out and shove it back down your throat. He thought over and over.
But Charles just smirked deeper. "You fought so hard and long. Spending weeks here now to try and shield him from a curse. To shield him from those back in that pathetic little town... and here I am. Taking him back. I expected so, much, more." He paused, clipping off his words and pouting out his lip as he laughed quietly. "But here's the thing. That little curse? That wasn't just any ordinary little thing. It was a corruption spell. A fancy little bit of blood magic." Charles sighed, wrapping the fur of his coat around James who stood on shaky legs. Unable to lift his gaze as something in his body was trembling. "The more that there was goodness in his heart, the stronger the pain would become to try and crush it." The boy laughed. "So thinking about it, all this time. The more you showed love and affection to him. Trying to care for him and shield him... it kind of means-"
I put him in this amount of pain. Peter's eyes widened.
"Ding, ding. We have a winner!" Charles burst out into laughter.
"Y-You won't leave Neverland." Peter stammered as his mouth begin to fight against the betrayal which had taken him over at first.
"Oh darling. We were never really, even truly here. Regards via my mother and aunts."
Peter had heard blood curling cackles in his life... but as Charles exploded into a dark laughter, shinning brilliantly with life before he and James exploded into the Green mist.
They had just been illusions... They had just been...
Peter's eye twitched.
They have James... and they made me think that he was still really here...
The control over his body broke as his fingers began to flex.
Now he could be any where else... with-
Then it finally clicked in his head.
Who would have sent for James so desperately.
All over Neverland, Peter's roar and scream of anger could be heard as they tracked his explosive launch into the sky and across the horizon.
-Break-
The soft sounds of birds chirping was the first thing that Charles heard as the blank and dark canvas of his closed eyes came to a restful stop from the spinning cycle which had been the return of his and James' consciousness from Neverland. He had always hated using a spell like that. But only his words, his voice and his cunning mouth could he have done that job and the others knew it. Of course they had originally decided on leaving everything to be started later, against the wishes of their recently returned companion.
But then again. None of them could have even supposed in their wildest dreams of what had been waiting for them before they had seen the explosion at the old mayor's office. All had indistinctly thought that maybe it had been some trick. Some sort of sick and twisted devilish trick. Maybe something by Regina to cover up the rumours that a certain dark Queen had made a return. Maybe something to try and draw away the fact of anything else which was going on.
But then Charles' mother and aunt had heard the stories which had been going around, after a certain Dark One had been sneaking around quietly in the shadows.
But with the time having passed so differently in Neverland than it had back here at home. They had no other choice than to bring him back before he had finished... cooking. That curse certainly had stuck through and through though. Poor little darling. But then again. Pan is the only one to blame. Charlie's thoughts rolled as he flexed his fingers experientially. Four months away from home and it's barely but been nearly a week for him there. He knew the time zone transference was going to play hell with James' body.
"Are you awake yet boy."
Charles grinned from ear to ear as he began to sit up slowly in his bed and locked his eyes onto his mother, who had taken a stance next to the window. Her black heels were thinner than the blade of a sword, which stabbed into as she took slow and deliberate steps forward. She turned her head sideways, breathing out the mist of smoke from her cigarette into the wind as her eyes turned slowly on him. "I take it you accomplished the simple task."
"Oh simple? Is that why you undertook it Mummy dearest?" Charles rolled his eyes and watched his mother's face turn sour. Her lip twitched into a sneer, her eyes flaring in distaste.
"You would do well to remember who you are speaking to."
"As would you." Charles returned as the green magic whispered from his cunning tongue. "You're just upset that he wasn't here in the first place. The little hatchling who you wish was your son."
"Well I seem to have an incompetent as my own!" Cruela swished forward. Her dalmatian coat having become reality, now never left her shoulders. The perfect black corset piece beneath her clothes. Her gloves were like talons that she would use if anyone got close enough to her. She normally never wore it much, but seeing as how they were supposed to be celebrating the occasion... well. Everyone knew by now that even she never missed an opportunity to dress up.
"Charlie! I didn't know you were back honey?"
Both mother and son turned their head to the doorway.
Cruela's dark look turned midnight black cold as she sneered at the boy. "Then you have to go and get the squid Queen's brat to fall in love with you."
"Hi Kenny." Charles purred.
There in the doorway stood the most enchanting boy who would be the only one to ever control Charles.
He slowly turned his head to gaze out the window as the light caught on his bronze face. He placed his head into his hand as he stared at his entrancing reflection in the window. His multicoloured eyes were almost impossible to describe, though they seemed to settle on a faint amber every now and then. That was always the preference that they took: amber or emerald. Not that he minded, those had always been his favourite colours. He wished the rest of him was that interesting. His lightly tanned body was lean and smooth to the touch. A pair of skinny leather jeans clamped tightly around his legs while he wore a dark green polo shirt. A studded black belt hung loosely through the holder of the jeans. His ruffled blond hair stuck up in defiant spikes. Yes he was a natural blond... his mother wouldn't let him dye his hair.
Kenny smiled brightly and swayed his hips as he moved forward. His eyes moving over to Cruela with an inward grin as he knew just how much he was bewitching her son. "Mother asked whether Charlie honey had done the job yet?"
"His names is Charles." Cruela growled.
"Not according to this." Kenny slowly placed the dog collar with a bone name tag of Charlie written on it, around Charles' neck.
Cruela's eyes flared.
Charles' cheeks blushed bright red.
"Honestly. Why do we even have you kids." She snarled.
Kenny leaned in placing a slow and drawn out kiss on Charles' lips. "Did you get him back?" He purred as he slowly lowered himself down onto the other boy's lap, curling his arms around the boy's neck and grinning from ear to ear.
"It was like taking candy from a baby."
"Good job child."
All turned their eyes to watched as Ursula took her stance in the doorway. A long emerald gown draped over her beautiful form and coco soft skin. Drapes of emerald moves along the dress' trail as it swished out hypnotically behind her. Her hands were covered with matching colour, silk gloves. As though she was some kind of jazz singer. Her eyes were blazing gold and her hair fell in strands down on either side of her shoulders. She must have only just got back as well. Charles thought as the sea witch regarded her own son... but the compliment had been aimed at him instead. "No problem." He smiled.
"How is she doing?" Cruela rose an eyebrow. Her voice suddenly going soft as she thought about her rather surrogate sister as the three of them had become... well, bad news always did come in three. But the thought of of their lost 'sister' going through what she was now. It must be nerve wrecking as hell. Even for someone as strong as she was.
"You know what this means to her." Ursula said quietly as she lifted her son by the scruff of his shirt, as though he was nothing more than a small kitten, and place him a fair distance apart from Charles. She didn't want anyone bewitching her own little baby just yet. "Another reason why she is a bit... irate." Cruela and the sea witch shared a smirk as they thought just about the promise that had been made over that boy who had taken their nephew.
"She's still going with the plan right?"
"Oh. Now even more than ever. When she hears about what happened to the boy? I'll be surprised if she lets anyone in this town survive." Both cackles while trying to keep their lustrous sons from locking lips with each other as Charles and Kenny seemed hell bent on being defiant to the last second. "Now you two have work to do." Cruela grinned.
"You especially." Ursula grinned, lifting Kenny back up and walking out the door with him as he pouted his lips and crossed his arms mid air as the tentacle around his shirt lifted him higher. "Play hard boys. Because soon. You're going to be working hard."
"For a prince of darkness. I sure don't get to have as much fun as I was promised." Charles' growled, falling back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling as his mother's plan circled through his head.
"You can have your fun when we've finished work later. Now get than tongue into James' bedroom, otherwise you're going to be the one dealing with the angry dragon."
-Break-
Cruela and Ursula paused as they watched James laid out on the bed.
For the last month he had been nothing more than an unmoving and closed eyes near corpse. The only thing keeping him alive had been spell of preservation which the Dark One had provided to keep the boy's heart beating in his sleep. None had really seen him until up to this point. He had simply been a shroud of ethereal blackness. Mist which had barely even considered to look like another person, let alone the boy who was fallen in front of them. Whimpering softly like a pained puppy as he slept in a shroud of green circling mist from Charles' cunning tongue.
Both women had been startled by the remarkableness that he posed now they had their eyes set on him truly. "Unbelievable." Cruela whispered softly and shook her head the slightest of fractions. But what worried her most about this whole thing was how the last member of their group would react upon seeing the scars painted over the boy's body. The lines of what were almost now like whiskers across his face, to the deep etchings of those which were across his arms and had left large and painted pale sheds of skin and bulging bloody scabs where they hadn't been dressed or healed enough yet. "Wow, he certainly has been a run of the mill." She added in the utmost quietest voice.
Two hands quickly moved her and Ursula apart as James led the resurrected and beautiful figure into the room.
The two black perfect shoes came to an immediate stop in the entrance as the woman took in the image of James in front of her.
Or to be specific.
How the mother for the first time set eyes on her own son.
Maleficent stared with blazing eyes as she watched the way the boy was gasping in a strangled vice as he attempted to breath. He sounds as though Ursula had all her tentacles around his throat even though the boy was now in nothing less than his boxers and resting under the comfort of a soft velvet blanket. His arms planted either side of him as though he really was a corpse. His warm skin nearly abandoned of colour as in a pale sweat he tried to adjust back to his normal form.
Her eyes stung painfully with burning tears as she didn't even need for it to be said.
Cruela and Ursula cleared the room quickly and returned back to their planning, leaving on Charles, her and James in the room.
Her blond her fell in a swerved and curled bun which reached halfway down her neck. A grey and black fedora rested stylishly on her noble head. Her skin pale but yet rejuvenated looking and startling beautiful. The shadow of her eyes were tinged black which made their dark colour stand out all the more fearsome to those who looked at her. She wore a strict grey suit with same coloured trousers and black matching business shoes. Diamond earrings from Cruela looped from her ears and as always, her lips were the same shade of red which could only be found in one other comparison; blood.
This was the new Maleficent.
And she was out for revenge.
She stood over her son, staring down at his face as Charles went about his work, whispering quite and encouraging the boy to slowly surface from the pit of dreams and his slumber.
She didn't even need to speak as the boy copied suit like the other two and got out of there as fast as he could when she took a seat on the bed, watching the way the mist dived in and out of James' mouth. The way it almost seemed to taint his skin. She recalled him somewhat... like something out of a dream. A long and very painful dream. Remembering the way that she had reached out for him desperately. Her beam of sunlight among the night. His smile had been what had kindled her freezing bones when her world and thoughts had been nothing less than distorted chaos. In those dark moments, he had came and knelt to her. He had smiled and held her as she had wanted to hold him. Her little dragon fire. Her little ember.
The only good thing that she had ever done with her life.
And for so long she had thought him but dead.
Her face became steely as she slowly picked up a cold cloth from a nearby bowl of water. Wringing it out she placed it delicately across his brow and listened to his soft whimper as his skin steamed with the sting of a fever. She trusted not to speak any words in that moment so settled for brushing her thumb softly across his cheek. "Easy ember." She whispered softly. Her fingers traced along the weak skin. Even her lightest touch which consisted of the smallest brush of her fingers, affected the condition his deteriorating body was in.
A long line of growing bruises quickly blossomed and her heart dropped.
She turned him over onto his front and held her hand out over his back, watching as the skin of the wounds began to sew itself shut. Threads of skin, reaching out and stitching over, leaving scars. She was content that with until he awoke properly from his slumber, she would not change anything without his wish or want of her to.
But what did she say to him now?
How could she explain it to him?
She turned and looked back down into her palm as her fingers closed around her necklace.
A large silver scale charm of a Dragon's clawed hand with a red orb resting into the miniature's centre. She smiled kindly at it before giving it a soft shake and hearing the rattle echo from the inside of it. The smile that followed along her lips was involuntary.
It would have been his rattle. His first rattle.
She would have taken her first flight with him along the great coast of the enchanted forest. Taught him the connections of the land and the flow of magic. The tree where he would one day forge his staff from before sealing it with his power in the heart of a burning mountain. She missed watching the smile and joy in his eye as she would get to hold him.
All because of three people... three people she would see destroyed and mauled before being given a slow and long drawn out, agonising death.
Her teeth gripped and for a moment a sliver of scales spread over her perfect palm. "Hmmm."
Her eyes shot down as James' were slowly flickering open. His eyes locked onto the rattle as she froze. Fear ran through her as her lips became dry. Her chest tightened and she closed her hands into fists. What should she do? This was her baby. Her baby who she thought had died. Her son who had been all she had ever had left. The one thing she would see good in.
Her happy ever after.
But staring at her son now. The vacant and broken expression in his battered eyes. The ache of his bruised and battered body. The way the air seemed to bean agony to draw... it made the dragon inside of her scream out in hunger for blood.
"It seems... not so long ago. That our roles were reversed." She could already feel the overwhelming sensation of tears beginning to rise to her eyes as she lent forward over him. As softly as she could, she rolled him back over so he rested on his side, with her knelt at the bed as she stared deeply into his eyes. "Such a long time ago it felt like I saw your face... Once upon a dream." She smiled gently. "You could almost say."
James' eyes just moved through the world with no comprehension except for the pain which his body had locked him into.
But finally Maleficent could handle no more as her tears broke free and a single one, rolled down her cheek. Her fingers coming to rest on his cheek. "My little ember." She whispered over and over. Staring at her boy. That's right. Her boy. Her beautiful young baby boy. Her son. "My perfect little ember." She whispered as a soft sob escaped out of her. "This." She quickly lifted the rattle, the only thing that James' eyes had locked onto so far, and slowly began to take it off.
Her hand laced with his as her tear fell and splashed over his forehead and the boy blinked his eyes closed. "Is yours my baby." Her smile broke as she closed her eyes and lent her head against his. "This is yours my baby, and know that. For how ever many yours you were gone. I mourned. For all those years that I spent in that hell, you were my only thoughts. For all those years without you, you were my quest to get back. You were all that I imagined could be my happy ever after." She closed both of their hands. Letting the space of their palms over be distanced by the rattle she had made herself for him. "I should have made sure that they could not have got anywhere near you. I should have made sure I kept you by my side! I should have fought harder." Her tears sprang free and true now.
She leant back one last time staring down at his broken eyes, shaking her head as she leaned in and kissed his forehead.
She had no way of noticing the green shock wave which blistered through the room violently, before swirling around the house and exploding across the landscape of the hill where the mansion to the three witches resided.
Maleficent just kept her head across the boy's chest as her sobs dried out slowly and she pulled back. "I let you down my little ember." She just whispered over and over. "I just let you-"
But that's when she noticed his chest had stopped moving.
"Baby?" She whispered, staring into his eyes as she watched the light leaving them. "N-No. Not again! NOT THIS TIME!" She bellowed, standing suddenly and beginning to pump his chest precisely as she breathed air back into his lungs.
But all she did was inhale the green mist which had been left behind from Charles and coughed it out. "N-No"
James' hand clenched tightly.
"I'm sorry." Her head fell back as she lent it against his chest. Not hearing a single sound until the echo of the bed creaking filled the room.
Her dark eyes turned up as she watched James' limp body sit up. "W-What?" She frowned.
But even her words died out as the boy's hands suddenly went to his head in a violently need to stop the pain which echoed through it. Barely giving her the sight of the gap in his fingers as the boy's eye turned deep emerald and created an aura... and image of a series of layers upon itself till he cringed and pulled his hands completely over his face, hiding himself from her. "It's okay. I'm here. James, you have to remain calm." Her hands came to rest on his shoulders but the boy just let out an almighty roar as his hair spiked up violently and began to blur. The complete nest of blond now cropping short at the sides and back leaving only the top an array of spikes. Half of the bright golden colour bled out violently and turned to a cold and merciless pitch black.
The curse... it's finally breaking. Maleficent thought as she watched James, shudder violently as veins ebbed through his skin. The black ran along his skin as it finally found itself settling along his neck and moving down his back as he tried to reach over and claw at it.
The colour began to set itself as a brand... though others would have called it a tattoo. One of the most detailed artistic pieces she had ever seen. Even among the history books of artists among the enchanted forest, even those from this new world, where he had studied the artists of the past. Hundreds of years before the new three boys of the house had even been born...
But she would have lied if she said that she didn't like the look of it on James.
It took up mostly the entirety of his back.
Two large black folded wings which could have been confused for real life ones. Detailed in every single possible shade as they were pointed and in line on either side of his spine. The main two scaled wings looking as though they were bursting from a scar which was mingled with artistic drawn bone. She guessed, there had been some scars which even this curse's transformation skill couldn't have fixed. Both wings curved delicately down towards James' lower waist while the dead centre point on his spine, sat between both perfect shades and almost, moving looking, graceful extensions.
Dragon wings. The most beautiful and graceful she had ever seen.
Wings fitting enough only for her baby boy.
His hand shot to his ear as a fine shadow erupted between the two of them. It curved around his ear and Maleficent watched as it seemed to shape itself according to him.
When the blackness finally set. Her eyes rested first on the new ear piece the boy sported. A dragon earring glinted in the light as the silver and black alloy seemed to writhe and move, almost as though it was actually alive. It was strange how it seemed to belong there, like it always should have.
A pile of clothes soon followed nearby. It was like a vest in some ways, the material was as skin tight and form fitting as was any other bits of the new uniform which was his outfit. It's colour was pitch black but the whole back of it was made up of only two connecting strips which would form a giant 'X' over his back. It would be enough in battle at a later time that he would have a fairly good descent chance of maybe learning to do a part transformation of himself and use his real wings.
But still she still studied the tattoo where the boy's real wings would have sprouted from, admiring his beautiful artistic tattoo and the way he would look in the new clothes. The way that the material of the jeans resembled the texture of leather, which would clamp tightly around him, but still looked completely breathable and flexible on his body. The way his body was slimmer than he even thought possible. He would be magnificently beautiful. Enchanting to all.
But the one fact she still hadn't comprehended yet?
Was that above all else. It had been her kiss: The kiss of a mother to her son. Had been the strongest way of breaking the curse over James as quickly as possible.
"You're okay." She whispered over and over again to him as the boy panted for breath. His eyes locked beneath him as he heaved trying to coax the air back into himself. Does this mean that the curse was only able to half corrupt him? Is there something still salvageable of my little boy? Her thoughts frantically wondered. "James? Say something little ember." She tried to draw his gaze but found he would only look at her when she gently coaxed him to. "Hello." She smiled, her own tears springing back as she watched the weak smile beginning to dawn across his lips as he studied the way she looked.
"A-Am I still dreaming?" He whispered.
"No my ember." She shook her head slowly, laughing softly and unable to stop the flow of tears as she watched him beginning to realise and come back to reality faster. "You're back." She beamed and wrapped her arms tightly around him as he dug his head into her chest and she cradled him closer than her own heart.
"Mother." James whispered softly.
"My little ember." She replied, closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of holding her baby, once again.
