Chapter 10

"Look, look, what do we have here?" Something tipped his shoulder.

"Hrm... Myde?"

"Maid? Hey little dude, the sun hasn't been that hot, has it?"

"What?", Ienzo opened one eye and had to blink heavily at the huge figure which stood against the sun.

"Obviously yes", two strong arms caught him and lifted him up. Ienzo had wobbling knees and a blurred mind from the deep sleep.

"Uhn... Braig?"

"The one and only! What'cha been doing outta here?"

"Uhn... I was...", the pictures floated unasked into his mind. Warm lips on his and hot honey, liquid and sweet and rich, floating through his body, reaching everything. It floated his finger, his toes, the roots of his hair. The honey trembling in him, demanding and impressive.

And the dark and pleaser full moan in the back of Myde's throat. Vibrating through him, making him shiver and twitching. And the loss of control as the cool but warm hand reached out for his back, stroking him, sending bolts of hot pleasure. And his drag melted away. He melted into the kiss.

Then this deep and rich lullaby hummed by the merman. And the heaviness of his eyelids and...

"Iz? Is everything okay with you?"

Ienzo looked down onto the water. It was as if he saw Myde's face with a teasing smile. He narrowed his eyes. And really, some meters under the surface the merman floated in the green water and waved. With one last grin he turned and had vanished.

"Woah! Easy Ienzo!" Braig grabbed him by his upper arm as he was about to tumble down into the water. He shook his head.

"I'm okay."

"Yeah, I see that", with that he swung Ienzo over his back in piggyback and climbed the rocks down.

"Braig! I'm not five! Let me down!

"Sure you're not, Izzy. But I like it that way. And we're faster."

"Don't call me that," he grumbled dark.

Braig laughed at this. "Okay, Izzy." A dangerous growl was the answer. However Ienzo leaned at Braig's back, who made big and fast steps through the woods. He wore his black hair short and after the day on hunt it was spiky and wild and little sticks and leaves were stuck in it. Less for the sticks and leaves it was its natural shape after all, though Braig always said he wanted to grew it, like Dilan's, cause it looks manlier. But he was so clumsy and every time it was longer than his ears it got caught in one of his machines and ripped nearly his head off.

"Ah, you know, you're lucky devil, Iz? Finding six pearls in five oysters!"

"I guess...," he felt silent. Hasn't he read something like that. 'And in every oyster a pearl?'.

"Braig?" he asked sing- song -y after some minutes. "May I ask you something?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

"Have you ever been in love?" Braig nearly tumble at this, because his foot found a just fitting root.

"Hrm... why're you asking me?"

"Well, I know Alaeus hasn't. And I won't certainly ask Xehanort or Master Ansem. And I fear for Even that science is the only love he ever found. So there's just you and Dilan left. And I ask you because you're here and you're older than me and I know that you can be, stress on the can, quiet if you're asked to do so. So..."

"Ah, so I'm just the one and only possibility?"

Ienzo rolled his eyes. "So have you ever been?"

He could hear the smile more as he could actually see it. "Hmh, once or twice..."

"Once or twice?" He smiled teasingly.

"Hmh, maybe also some more. But if you want to have an advice, let me tell you about my first love. Cause you never forget your first love, k?"

"Sure."

"Ok, you know that I haven't been born in Radiant Garden. Actually I was born in one really really really small village two or three days away from the town. An old village, very old. With all that deadlocked traditions and all that crap.

Anyway when I was 16, and I was very mature for that age, cause my old guy had passed away a year earlier, I fell in love with the youngest daughter of the major. And in this village you're not voted as a major, you're born as one. If you are the old major's oldest son, of course.

So, yeah, I fell in love. And if I say fell I mean in literally. I fell through the roof of her father's barn, in which she was currently petting the new born lambs. And the first thing I saw as I opened my eyes were glittering stars. And then I saw her pretty face. From that moment my heart was hers and after she scold me for crashing a hole in the roof of the barn, her heart was also mine.

But, I think I've mentioned it before, it was an old and small village. And though she was first 15 she had already a fiancé. With no way out of this connection we tried and kept our love hidden. But, small village? Of course somebody saw us and it came out. Her fiancé was an real asshole. Or at least he was my personal real asshole, you know that kind of guy. I tried to fight her out of that engagement, but that guy was strong and smart and I never could beat him, no matter what I tried.

I've tried for three months or so in which we used to sneak out at night. Until one Sunday the priest of the village gave me a hint. The people were getting suspicious. With gossip and and all that crap. That I would try to impregnate her to have her. It was only a matter of time until the gossips would reach the majors ear and then there were two possibilities. Possibility one: he would flock me until death for dishonouring his daughter or possibility two he would send her away for dishonouring his name. So with this two marvellous opinions I took a heart and left the village."

"You left?"

"Yeah, I left. You know, it broke my heart. But I knew that she was happy and satisfied in this village with all her family and friends around her. And I knew that she would brake if her father send her away or if she had to watch my, certainly cruel and bloody, death.

So I told her to come to our usual meeting point the night after the priest had talked to me with all my belongings packed. It wasn't that much. I told her that I was tired of all that jazz and after no of my relatives still alive, nothing holds me here and that I will go to Radiant Garden, " he shifted Ienzo up and chuckled deeply. "Bought me this scar, " he pointed on the huge scar on his left cheek.

"You got this from a girl?" Braig chuckled again.

"Yeah, quite a fighter, my girl."

"So you left her for her sake? Just... left?"

"Yup, got me really fucked up. I arrived one week later in Radiant Garden. My first stop was a tavern and from that point I got high and drunk for three whole years. Then I met Dilan and we spend another year exactly the same way." He chuckled again rough. "Yeah, good old times. We used to go up to the rocks. Dilan because he likes the wind and I because I like the feeling of gravity."

"Yeah, you like gravity."

"Ooohyeah, hell I like gravity!"

"You like gravity so much, you jump down the Bastion into the valley with just a rubber rope around your feet." Ienzo commented dryly.

"That's called bungejumping . But that's not the point. So Why're you asking me this question?"

"Uhmmmm..."

"Maid's a strange name to call your girl, you know?"

"It's not Maid, it's Myde. And it's a boy. He kind of... fell from the sky."

"Aw! And you just fell in love with him? Cute!" Oddly how girlish this man could sound and yet remaining cool and manly.

"It's more... complicated," Ienzo said lamely. He wasn't about to blurt everything in front of Braig, though he was sure it was safer than in front of Dilan. Dilan talks in his drunken sleep.

"Ok, ok, I got it. But you know? After I lay down my love live on the dirt under your feet I wanna hear sometimes about it too."

"You just told me the story. And what I hear from your rooms I just know that this story was just the beginning of your really active and varied love live." Braig burst out in laughter and Ienzo laughed with him as they reached the elevator up to the castle.

"Have you ever heard from her again?", he asked after some minutes in silence.

"Yeah. A year ago she had wrote me a letter. Telling me that her father's finally dead. I think she has poisoned him or something like that. And that she has her seventh child. And that she's forgiving me for being an asshole."

"Forgiving you for being an asshole?" Ienzo echoed disbelieving. Braig laughed again his husky and rough laugh.

"Ah, Izzy. You've gotta read between the lines. Translated for the little baby boy, here in the first row: her father's finally dead, so she can finally write me without danger. Though we haven't married her life is happy. And after those years she understood why I left and why I've been such a dick to her and that she appreciates it." Ienzo made a face.

"Don't call me baby boy. I'm older than Alaeus."

"If you say so, Izzy, if you say so..."

Sooooo... that's the chapter I was so eager to write. I just like my Braig. He's so clumpsy and a cool dork and just so loveable!

Again I was honoured with an awesome piece of art dedicated to this little fiction. This time from my beloved beta-reader Scheme. the-schemer .deviantart .com/ art/ Demy-and- Zexy- 81103317

Well, what else...? Uh, have a nice day you all! And leave me some comments, it makes me always happy!