Aurora woke up just before the sun began to rise and looked around the room. "Eachuin?" she called out hopefully to the empty room. When she got no reply she sadly thought 'It was just a dream'. She then saw the open window and her eyes grew wide. 'It's not a dream!' Aurora scrambled out of bed, still wearing her beautiful white dress, and ran outside and into the woods, following the Indian trail. After a while she found the tree of death and kneeling on top of a mount where the tree grew out from was Eachuin. She slowed down to a walk and her smile dropped. The mound looked like a grave.

"Eachuin?" Aurora asked cautiously. He blinked his eyes at this but didn't look up; Aurora slowly climbed up and sat down next to him. "What's wrong?" she asked as she lightly touched his arm.

The hessian bit his bottom lip, breaking the skin. He remembered who was sitting next to him and quickly licked it up slightly embarrassed. "Everything." He said bitterly. "I wasn't always… like this…" he looked up at her with a weak smile. "I was once human. Innocent. My father died when I was twelve and my mother relied on me heavily. But because my father had died, I had to take his place as a mercenary. They shipped me and my mother to America and forced me to train in combat but I refused to hurt anyone."

Aurora frowned and Eachuin smiled, for real this time. "I know, I've changed. They found out about the connection between me and my mother and threatened to kill her if I didn't comply. So for years, I went to war, fought, killed. I even let them file my teeth down to sharp points to make me look like a monster, to match my eyes apparently. But when the wars died down and I went to the cottage where my mother was supposed to be living in, I found her dead..." His voice faltered slightly. He hadn't opened up to anyone before, but then again, he had been dead for over three hundred years and even when he was, no one seemed to care. "They had killed her. She wasn't important to them anymore." He said a little stronger.

"I then found the men who had killed her and cut off their heads. I was then 'not important to them anymore' and I was hunted down like an animal." He said looking down at his grave. "They used my own sword to kill me… I never had a normal life; I just wanted to have a normal life. Not be on the run, not be in a war, just live." Aurora reached out and took his hand and squeezed it gently.

"Now you can." She said smiling. Eachuin looked at her hand than her face with a mixture of shock and hope. "Come with me, I can help you!" he swallowed and nodded his head.

xXx

Aurora opened the door to her room and Eachuin walked into the room, half scared something was going to happen. She closed the door and pulled out a history book from her suitcase and sat on the bed and patted the empty spot next to her. The horseman sat next to her awkwardly and she opened the book and began to show him the history of the world. Hours later and several books later, she told the hessian to hide in the wardrobe for a few minutes while she goes down stairs.

A few minutes later, Aurora and her father stumbled in carrying a huge metal bathtub. "Are you sure you want this in your room?" he asked, huffing and puffing. They put it down not too far away from the window and her father stretched his back out.

"Yeah dad, I'll get the water and have a nice long soak tonight in here. I'm really tired and I feel uncomfortable bathing near the kitchen…" she began but was interrupted by her mother and a several new servant girls carrying buckets filled to the brim with piping hot water.

"Here you are dear, I knew you were going to ask for a bath so I had this water heated up for you." Calissa said as she poured the water into the tub.

"Thank you. Both of you. This means a lot to me." Eachuin listened from the wardrobe, and watched through the small gap. 'This means a lot to me?' he thought 'I mean a lot to you?' Aurora's parents bid her goodnight (and only then did Eachuin realise the time) and walked out along with the servants, leaving Aurora alone with the horseman. "You can come out now." She called out to Eachuin as she poured a bubble mixture into the bath to help 'cover' him up and save his dignity. The hessian cautiously stepped out of the wardrobe and walked over to the girl.

"A bath?" he said raising his eyebrows.

"Well, no offence but you have been sleeping in the dirt for over three hundred years…" she said with a sly smile. He chuckled slightly which shocked Aurora but it comforted her slightly, it meant he still had a sense of humour left in him. He began stripping while she stirred the bubble solution around to create a mass amount of bubbles to last. Eachuin was completely topless and began undoing his pants.

Aurora looked up and gasped, the horseman looked bulky with his armour and cloak but he was slim but muscular with a touch of dark hair on his pale skin. He pulled his pants down and reached for his underpants that looked similar to modern day boxer-shorts. Aurora quickly got up and turned her head the other way, her face going red. She heard him slide into the water and assumed it was safe enough to look and turned around. The hessian picked up a bottle of shampoo and stared at it intensely wondering what on earth it was. Aurora bit her lip, trying not laugh at this, she thought it was kind of cute.

She took the bottle out of his hand and knelt beside the tub. "This washes hair, you wet your hair and then you rub this into your hair and then you rinse it out with plenty of water" the horseman looked at her sceptically but went underwater for a second and then rose again and shook his head like a dog. Aurora went slightly pink again, his hair was dripping tiny droplets of water onto his chest. She quickly opened up the bottle of shampoo and squirted a bit onto her hand and then began massaging it into his hair. "Ok, rinse it out."

Eachuin went underwater and ran his fingers through his hair, getting rid of all the suds within his black (now shaggy) hair. He sat back up but his hair covered his eyes. Aurora pushed his hair out of the way slowly and stared into his eyes. 'Why was I even afraid of him? His eyes are beautiful…'

"Um Eachuin?" she said with her hands still on his face but tracing his facial features. "What does 'Sie sind wunderschon' mean?" Aurora said in her best German accent.

The hessian chuckled slightly and touched her soft hair. "It means, 'you are beautiful'." She smiled and they both leaned forward, closing their eyes. Their lips were centimetres apart when Eachuin froze in fright. Aurora sensed this and decided to make the first move. She lightly kissed his lips and a chill ran down her spine, a chill created by excitement and foreboding. He instantly replied to her kiss with more soft kisses that soon turned into more fierce kissing. Eachuin wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up to the edge of the bathtub and against his dripping chest.

Aurora wrapped her arms around his neck with one hand in his hair and the other on his bare wet back. He growled and accidently bit her bottom lip making her gasp out in pain. Eachuin quickly pushed himself away, sloshing water onto the floorboards and nearly falling out himself. He felt so ashamed of himself, he had hurt her, the beautiful angel. Aurora touched her lip and felt the small cut where the blood was slowly seeping out of. "I'm sorry." He whispered, slightly curled up in the tub.

Aurora waved the apology away and handed him a bar of soap and a towel. As he washed himself, she opened the wardrobe door and stood behind it to get changed into her nightgown.

As he got out and dried himself, Aurora opened up the mysterious chest and found found a pair of old-fashioned pants and white shirt that looked like it could fit Eachuin easily. She pulled them out and handed them to the horseman who had his towel wrapped around his narrow hips. He looked at them shocked. "Ichabod…" he murmured.

"Sorry?" she asked.

"These are Ichabod Crane's clothes." He looked up at Aurora and smiled. "He also freed me from the witch's control." His smile didn't last long though. "I dragged her to hell last time but she somehow managed to claw her way back to the land of the living…"

"Living isn't all it's cracked up to be, all the beauty in the world is gone…" she quickly glanced at Eachuin, whose hair was still dripping. She shook her head and smiled again. "Get dressed into these and I'll make you a bed, there's not much room in mine."

The hessian smiled slyly and nodded his head.