The Anomaly

by Cream Pudding

Axel, a creature of the night and inhabitant of the demon world, leaves his home once a year to feed on meatsacks living in other realms. He wanders the streets, watching the realm's creatures engage in their weird costumed 'trick or treat' behavior. He eventually finds someone to feed on but it leaves a funny ache in his chest. AKUROKU - Axel/Roxas - Smut - Modern AU - Demon AU

2. Part 2

Story Notes: Dub-con. Transactional sex. NSFW. High fantasy. Ends on a cliff-hanger.

The Anomaly
Part 2

Summary:
After much wallowing, Axel comes to the conclusion that he has to find his own answers and way back to Roxas, even if it means doing all the things he hates and despises.

---

Time passes. Axel sleeps in his nest of soft and prickly bedding, hidden away in an enclosed cavern atop of a spire, which can only be reached by those with wings or very sure of foot. He wakes occasionally, a sick and painful feeling rousing him from his dreamless slumber. At night his cave is pitch black. When the weak, orange sun rises it casts long beams of light into his abode, through the small cracks and holes, peppering the far side of his cave, all the way up to the lofty ceiling. It is the only bit of natural light that filters in during the day, and also provides ventilation, and acrid water when it rains, which trickles down into pools where the rock formations have created natural basins.

He watches the beams of light meander across the bumpy and craggy interior for a while, his mind blank, forcefully so. He focuses on not thinking. His head is too foggy and an agonizing heaviness sucks all energy and will to live out of him. He passes out again, for it is the only relief he can get. But he periodically wakes, each time feeling the vibrant red fabric he still clutches. He can't let go of it.

It hurts too much to let go, hurts too much to hold on. A half-promise is embedded into the fabric of the piece of cloth. He has no energy to act on his word, a thought which would burn him up, if he had any strength in his limbs. He seeks solace in the knowledge that it is too dangerous to leave: The wastelands he calls home teem with roving packs of feeders; demons and dark creatures who couldn't make it through a portal to gorge themselves on meatsacks and animals alike; or those who chose to stay behind because they know they can trap and milk other demons and creatures for what they desire, to fill themselves up.

The cities, though safer because legions patrol the streets, especially the first few months after Feastings Tide, still serve no guarantee of safe passage. The chances of getting devoured, drained, and tortured are too high. There are seedy, sketchy, dangerous places and creatures, even in the cities—especially in the cities. Even if he wanted to go to crowded places, he isn't welcome there anymore. They offer up no protection for him. Not since having given up his rank.

He may be powerful, but he isn't dumb. So he stays put in his cave, curled up safe in his nest; a safe haven for him. He knows the bands and packs out there. He knows to keep away. It brings him comfort to have an excuse as to why he cannot go out and look for answers to unknowable questions.

Plus...he can afford to wait and bide his time. He feels stuffed to the brim with...the name hangs in the back of his throat, choking him, bringing a sting to his eyes. The more time passes between his encounter with...that creature, the more he can't bear to think about him—it. Foolishly though, he keeps clinging to the fabric, raising it to his nostrils occasionally, to smell, and taste. It brings him comfort for a split second before enveloping him in excruciating pain. He curls in on himself, as he lays on his side, his wings pressed against himself, the claws at the ends digging into his skin, at first by accident, then on purpose. He keeps pushing, pressing, forcing; drawing blood. The sting takes away from the crushing weight which sits on his chest. He forces his claws deeper into himself, all the while inhaling with a wince, the fading scent clinging to the fabric.

His claws stop digging, his cheek stings. Axel flings his eyes open; glaring at Pretzel, which twitches above him, poised to strike again—it does. Axel catches it, wrings it with force, causing himself pain. He goes limp with the futility of it all; his wings fold soft against himself, his hands—in loose fists—clutch his floppy, inanimate tail.

"You miss him too," Axel whispers, stroking the tip of his appendage.

His head hurts as much as his heart. He wishes he could give himself a Goodnight's Kiss, to forget...just as his heart's desire has now forgotten about him. But all he can access is sweet slumber, so that's what he does.

He continues to drift in and out of consciousness, unsure of the passage of time. 'Enough' must be an answer because he startles out of his slumber by a somewhat surprising, but no less expected, visitor. The flutter and squeak filling his cavernous abode clue him in, but he doesn't stir. He isn't sure if he wants to deal with him tonight—deal with anyone, really—for the foreseeable future.

The squeaking stops and gives way to a soundless poof; the air in his home gets disturbed as the shapeshifting vampire turns to his larger form.

A grinding and clicking fills the space; Axel's glowing stones activate, shedding a soft warm glow that grows bright enough to fill the whole cavern. Axel presses his eyes shut against the unwelcome light and the shape of the familiar silhouette creeping up the wall, looming ever larger.

"Yo! Axel. Are you alive?" comes the slightly amused sounding greeting.

With a groan, Axel raises himself, stiff from his slumber. He turns to face his home, squinting against the light.

A hungry hum is followed by, "You look like you've had a great feast while you've been away." The vampire's fangs bare with a smile. He saunters over, his slim frame and dark red skin plumper than the last time Axel's seen him.

"You look well-fed too, Reno" he comments, his voice dry and hoarse from disuse, over what must be weeks, if not months. "What's it like out there?"

"You know. Carnage. Ponto and his ilk are catching anyone using the roads. Serves 'em right using roads," Reno rolls his eyes. He's closer now, scrambling up the roughly hewn footholds to get to Axel's nest on its elevated alcove.

"Good thing you never use roads." Axel makes room for Reno, rolling onto his back, curling his tail around Reno's leg, and slipping it up the reedy thigh and around his tapered waist as the vampire settles on top of Axel's hips.

A wicked grin greets him. A lick of the lips. Reno's hair hangs loose. Bright red locks cascade down his back. Axel stretches up with his tail, flicking the tresses and takes brief delight in Reno's short flyaways creating a halo around his sharp face; jaw, chin, nose, all pointed, and fangs long and protruding.

Reno grips Axel's arms hard. His nails dig into the deep-red-almost-turned-black of Axel's skin, scraping over his bulging form. It always takes a while for Axel's body to fully fill up and show the exploits of his feeding. Axel looks down and observes himself for the first time. The muscular frame is an oddity, even to himself. He hadn't been nearly this big when he had gone to sleep however long ago. With a wince he's reminded of what he left behind.

"How many little meatsacks did you milk? Must have been ten. You're fat!" Reno husks, licking his lips, hands still trailing over Axel, moving down, even as the vampire slides backward, onto Axel's thick thighs. "I'm getting hungry just looking at you. Gimme!" He grabs Axel's cock, his broad hand and long fingers strain to grasp the full circumference of him. "Scratch that. Twenty meatsacks. I haven't seen you this fed...well, ever." Satisfaction and a greedy desire sit on Reno's face. His eyes glint and the smirk cocks the right side of his lip.

Axel shifts. His wings folded under him make him uncomfortable. This conversation...is less than desirable. "Help yourself," he offers up to Reno, even if it's just to shut him up for a while and to maybe forget his disquiet.

Reno hums with satisfaction, and with lightning-quick reflexes bends down, both his hands on Axel's limp cock, his maw wide open to try and fit Axel's head inside so he can gorge on some of what Axel's storing away.

The fangs scrape against Axel's head. Reno's tongue laps at the fluids starting to ooze out, and he seems to be enjoying himself. Axel...not so much. Reno is the only other dark creature he lets feed off himself; they have a history; Axel has an agreement with him; he considers the vampire as good as a brother to himself, a companion...but now...having someone on him like this...Axel shifts. He feels uncomfortable and heavy in his fed skin. He hates how this is all because of...he hates how what Reno is doing to him right now doesn't feel like it used to.

Reno keeps slurping, sucking up what Axel's leaking out. He hums with delight, swallowing the tremendously big shaft down his throat, not even getting a quarter of it in. He massages Axel's cock, but Axel can't stop shifting.

Reno pops off. "Mm, you taste different, but I like it. Gimme a little spurt though," Reno eggs on and goes back down on Axel, sucking harder, pumping his shaft with both hands, to fit all the way around it again.

Taste different. Does he taste like…? His chest aches in a foreign, but no less acute, way. Overbearing loneliness grips him, winds him, almost like an outside force assaulting him. He can't stand it. He roars, lurching up into a sitting position. He flings his wings out either side, and is too busy shoving Reno off to notice the physical pain that's radiating up his phalanges from having smashed his wings into the rock wall on the right him.

Reno, thrown back for only an instance, lunges forward, his talon-like nails gripping and digging into Axel's thighs. Reno hisses into Axel's face, his teeth bare, gray-blue eyes glowing a venomous green for a tense second.

Axel's skin prickles, the hairs on his back stand on end, his tail ramrod straight and his teeth bared. The heat inside himself threatens to combust. His skin shimmers a fiery red, and heat radiates off him.

The hisses and snarls continue. Demon and Vampire nose to nose, threatening each other, on the edge of a brutal fight. Though Reno must surely know he would never win, he doesn't back down. Axel has never known Reno to back down. So Axel must because he is close to doing something he will later regret.

He huffs out a tremendous bellow of air. The heat dissipates as quickly as it's risen and he leans back a bit.

Reno's nails stop digging, his fangs grow smaller and the gleam in his eyes fades away. "Yo, what's got you in such shit mood? Something you ate?" Reno chuckles at his dumb joke.

It ruffles Axel the wrong way though. "You want a feed or not?" he snaps.

"Yes. Could use more strength around the shit that's going on outside."

"Then shut your mouth and get to it."

"I've been at it for longer than this would usually take, and I'm not getting anything to really satisfy me. You want me to suck on you all night? I've got places to be." Reno leans back, sitting between Axel's now-splayed legs, looking down at the flaccid cock. "C'mon, you're not even hard. What's wrong with you?" Reno flicks his fingers at the side of Axel's head.

Axel leans away, a slight snarl curling his lips for a second, but then an embarrassing thought enters his skull. He isn't hard. Reno has every right to complain about that. Axel gets easily aroused (which comes with the territory of being what he is), and he can also get it up at will, but right now..."Touch my horns," he says so quietly, his voice fades into virtual non-existence before he can finish that simple little sentence.

Reno stares and says, "What?" His eyes narrow and his head tilts to try and hear better.

Axel takes a big breath of air, forcing his words to come out louder, "Suck on my horns," he tries to command, but it comes out a meek question instead. He did this with a complete stranger, so surely, doing it with Reno is far more acceptable.

Reno says nothing. He simply stares, a look of disgust twisting and skewing his mouth, and narrowing his eyes, even as they dart up to look at Axel's massive curved horns growing out of the front of his head, and curling all the way backward and around again to sit under his ears.

Reno laughs then. "What the fuck kind of a joke are you pulling on me here?"

Axel's fragile mood sullens deeply. Renewed heated anger sparks inside. A flash of flaxen hair and vibrant blue glowing eyes accost his mind. He snarls, pushing Reno away, "Forget it. Get outta here."

Reno scrambles back upright, "Wait a moment. You want me to touch and suck then sure, whatever. It's weird but I'll do it for ya if that's what you need to give me a little somethin'." Reno raises himself onto his knees, reaching out for Axel's horns, but Axel completely loses interest and isn't feeling it anymore.

"Get out," he snaps, a slight guttural rumble to his voice, his skin flaring up with a redhot sheen again.

Reno pulls a face: confused, appalled, annoyed. But he backs up, shuffling away from Axel. "Alright, yeesh, you really did eat something foul, didn't you."

Axel bellows, pulling up wretched hate and anger from his gut.

Reno slips down toward the cave floor, saying, "I'll come back another night," and before his feet touch the ground he turns into a bat and flaps off into the lofty areas of Axel's home, to slip through one of the cracks and leave Axel alone.

Axel throws himself onto his left side, turning his back to the glow stones that emit their soft warm light. He stares at the shimmering onyx of his cave wall, tucking his wings against himself and holding the tip of his tail in his hand, thumbing over it gently, while rubbing the tip of one of his horns. It elicits a tingle inside of Axel, but it also brings a wave of feelings and memories he wishes he didn't possess.

Anger and upset broils inside him. He feels ready to tear his own wings off if he is left to think any further about soft, delighting touches, and sucks on his body. His head hurts, his body aches. He does feel unwell, like he hasn't since he was a much younger version of himself. He shuts his eyes and manages to fall back asleep.

---

The flutter of bat wings occasionally rouses Axel from slumber. He gives Reno glares, swats him away with his wings, or tail. He rolls over and falls unconscious again.

For how long this continues Axel doesn't know, nor does he care, but one time Reno poofs out of his bat-form and sits on the large stone table in the middle of Axel's abode.

"Yo, what's wrong with you?" Reno grumbles, sitting on his ass, knees up and arms resting on them.

"Nothing. Just a food coma," Axel croaks, his throat coarse and dry. How long has it been since he has eaten or drunk anything? Too long, yet he still doesn't feel like he's wasting away. He feels overstuffed...and weathered and beaten by emotions every second he is conscious. He squeezes his eyes shut, wishing for sleep to take him once again; his head hurts and there is a sharp ache in his chest.

"You're a shit liar," Reno harps on, his voice grating. "What happened to you out there? This isn't like you."

Axel grinds his teeth. "Nothing happened. Leave me alone."

"Not before you give me what I want. It's been too long. We made a pact. You feed me when I need it, and Adra," Reno growls, "I need it." He slams his fist against the stone-hewn table.

Axel rouses from his cocooning slumber, his blood pulsing and heat sparking. "Bit of hunger shows up and you call me that?" Axel's lips uncontrollably raise in a snarl.

"You're keeping that raw feed to yourself." Hunger glints in Reno's eyes. He's on all fours, crawling toward Axel's sleeping spot, slow, predatory.

"Don't look at me like that," Axel threatens, hating the greedy tone in Reno's voice.

Reno continues his slow creep toward Axel. In a low, threatening voice, he husks, "Give me what I want! Either an explanation or a feed. Preferably both!"

"Nothing happened," Axel insists through grit teeth. Speaking about it...about him with anyone...he can't bring himself to entertain it. It's too raw, too personal, too...embarrassing. The things he did. The things he said. Those empty promises...he can't believe how much that meatsack has gotten under his skin. "Do you even care about me?" he throws out, a half-formed thought, not ready to be voiced, but there it is.

Reno stops his crawl, tilts his head and stares up at Axel, nonplussed. With startling speed he leaps up, his face right in Axel's, seething, "What happened to you? Admit it!"

"Nothing!" Axel snaps, his teeth bare and his forehead pushed against Reno's.

"Like Heaven's Asshole it's nothing! You tell me what happened or you give me what's my due," Reno snarls, his hands on Axel, his claws digging, drawing blood. His hunger is too great to even care to think that Axel has the upper hand.

Axel grips Reno's wrists, twisting them, pulling the claws off himself. A raw growl leaves his throat, his hackles are up. He feels affronted seeing this side of Reno directed at himself, when for an eon they have remained amicable and close. "I don't owe you shit," Axel growls, flinging his wings out either side of himself, a menacing reflex.

"You do, you reckless mistake," Reno spits with bile and venom, knowing where to hurt Axel the most. "Who do you think got you out of that dungeon?"

Axel shudders with abhorrent rage; his body glows red, his tail ramrod straight. He squeezes Reno's wrists so tight, he can almost feel the bones inside cracking, but Reno doesn't budge, doesn't pull away, doesn't let weakness or fear show. He still thinks he can contain Axel...he's probably right. Axel powers through his anger to arrive at thoughts—at words; "You said we were brothers. That we would look out for each other. We are the same—banished."

"We are," Reno glares dangerously, his eyes burning with green fire. "So give me what I want and I will be what you treasure," he says, his face pulled into a hideous mask of anger.

Axel startles at that word choice. His grip relaxes for a fraction of a second long enough to let Reno have the upper hand, pushing Axel over, landing on top of him. He caresses Axel's cheek, traveling up to his mane and...horn. There is a coolness to his touch and his face wears a devilish smirk. He husks, "I will hold you and lick your horns," he slowly traces a finger up the bumps of Axel's horns, eliciting a tingle along Axel's spine, "and I won't even tell anyone about how you've lost yourself and...fallen for a meatsack." Reno suppresses a shrill laugh.

Axel's embarrassment, mixed with anger, explodes. He roars and flings himself up, lunging at Reno, tearing at his skin and hair. Reno poofs, his tiny bat wings faltering to work in unison for a second, but then he manages it and squeaks up toward the ceiling. Axel jumps up after him, his powerful wings raising him up into the lofty parts of his home. He reaches out, struggling to clutch at Reno's small form.

They race against each other. Reno flits through a crack in the rock, which opens up to the cloud-filled sky above. Axel slams into the rocks, finding purchase for his hands and feet. He glares through the crack, seeing Reno's gleaming eye on the other side and hears his grating laugh.

"So it's true." Reno laughs even more. "I was kidding about the meatsack, but...wow. You really were made completely wrong. Daddy-dear truly wasn't thinking when he made you."

Axel bellows out of rage and smashes his fist against the rock. Pain radiates down his arm. Shards of rock break and fall to the ground below.

Reno laughs some more, but less of a mock, more dry and displeased now. "You're no good to me like this. Get your horns screwed on right again. We need each other. Nobody else will have our backs. I'll return to check on you later."

"I don't need you," Axel screeches, but Reno's already gone. Axel strains to loosen his tight grip and plummets for a moment before gliding back down to the ground. His head hurts, his arm throbs with stinging agony, and his throat is parched. He knows he can't keep hiding away. It's not making him feel any better, and now he's lost the one ally he's had in this world. And then there is the meatsack, the hooman—human—Axel corrects himself, imagining the disdained on that cute little face. Mirth bubbles up for the first time since that night. It quickly crashes, leaving him with an ache which curls Axel's lips up into a sad sneer. Roxas. A well of deep sorrow gushes forth. He breathes it down. How long has it been now? Axel doesn't know. Long enough for Reno to look gaunt again, and to feel his hunger pangs. Long enough for the frenzy outside to have died down, he hopes.

Axel looks down at himself. He still barely recognizes himself with how buff and filled out he is. Even after a long hibernation following his past feeds, he usually doesn't retain such an overstuffed appearance for very long. He can't believe how potent his feeding with that small creature have been. There had been so much feeding. A frenzy really. And his own cum leaving him—that uncontrollable tugging and release he felt inside himself...something about it niggles at him. A hint of forgotten familiarity.

He shakes the uncomfortable thought from his head and walks to the far side of his cavern, where the water trickles down from the cracks and gathers in naturally formed washbasins in the rock wall. He dips his cupped hands into the cool liquid, drinking from it. It tastes bitter and sulphuric, much like the general air in the Hearth. The taste is stronger than he remembers, making him wrinkle his nose and shudder with mild disgust, but he keeps drinking. Sweet taste still clings to the back of his throat. So sweet. Any thought connected to his last feeding experience hurts him.

He detaches from the thought and washes himself in the basin, splashing it on his face and shoulders, washing away the micro-traces of—he stops, and bends over, clutching the side of the natural stone bowl. Pain smashes through him, making that hollow part of himself that had been filled with so much warmth back then, burn and ache.

He doesn't know what it is; why he feels this way; feels at all. He breathes through the agony, clutching his chest. He thinks of going back to sleep, but isn't confident that it will help. He's woken up from feeling this pang in his body before. It ebbs and flows in strength. It's not getting better. Maybe it's because he made a promise. But why should he feel guilty for not following through with it? He's done worse in his life than break promises.

That sweet face with its wet, aching tears flashes through his mind, making him double over and wince. The yearning in his body grows. He looks at his faint reflection in the water. His hair is longer and he sweeps it out of his face, tucking the tufts around and behind his horns—his horns! Somehow they look thicker—he goes to touch them, ignoring the tingle in his gut as he does so—they feel different; they have grown in girth and length. His tips curl up more now.

"That explains the headaches from before," Axel mutters to himself. They have grown a lot. He hasn't experienced a spurt like that since...he doesn't recall. He thumbs over his face and the two deep scars under his eyes, with a frown. If he had his gift back, he could go visit in the blink of—No! He snaps at himself. That is not an option.

There are only two options—sleep and forget, or go out and find answers. He knows which of those two options he'd rather take, but it is also the least effective one.

With a heavy sigh, he decides that he needs to make a move. The awful feelings inside aren't going away on their own. Maybe when he comes up with nothing, at least the abhorrent guilt can leave him and he might get better sleep.

---

Axel makes provisions for heading into the capitol: Razoleth. He dons on an old maroon cloak, caked with dust, and riddled with holes; but still sufficient enough to hide his ample meatiness from the world. He also takes the piece of fabric with him, feeling unable to part with it, so he wraps it around his head, fitting it snugly beneath the base of his horns, and it does keep some hair out of his face, which is nice. With his cloak and bandana, he feels better about treading into the city, which is half a day's travel by wing.

He leaves his cave through the narrow and dark passage and departs with a great flap of his wings. He has nothing but his thoughts to keep him company as he travels, which is rather unpleasant. He focuses on the landscapes, on keeping a watchful eye on any ambushing dive-bombers. The hours widdle away as he flaps and glides high in the rusty skies. Dwellings appear, dotting the rocky and boggy countryside below as he gets closer to the city. He secures some breeches which he spies hanging out to dry as he flies over a hovel. He leaves some coin in its place, not one to feel good about stealing when it can be helped. But he requires more clothes than just the cloak if he hopes to be let into the city.

He also manages to source a simple white shirt and some boots, which are too small. He will suffer them for now, for it will not do to waltz into a city naked, as it is an instant call-out to one's status; banished, ostracized, wild. The legions will kick him out before he even sets foot inside the gates of the walled-in city if they suspect, so he must look the part that he once played too long ago to fully remember.

The flat dusty lands surrounding the city's tall, obsidian and basalt walls, are beginning to come alive with merchants selling last-minute goods to travelers making tracks out to the wilderness or toward other cities and towns. Though daylight's rays are dim enough to not upset night-faring creatures; those who are too sensitive, and those who prefer the full cover of night, the majority of creatures living in this world prefer to come out in the evening hours to live their day-to-day lives. It is predominantly this reason why Axel made his way to Razoleth by day; to avoid getting targeted by roving wilds.

He makes his way past the merchants and enters the city through the dark gates, pulling the cloak's hood down to hide his face and his scars, which are a sign of his banishment; the legion guards don't even give him a sideways glance. Axel ditches the boots as soon as he is inside and pushes through the crowds of demons, witches, ghouls, vampires, and many other creatures great and small as they hustle and bustle about the wide cobblestone streets, getting their day started.

Legions patrol to keep the peace, particularly through the markets and close to the taverns, which is also incidentally where Axel heads to. He doesn't know where to start with gathering information, or what information to even look for, but he does know places that hold all sorts of information, so he figures this to be his first port of call. He needs a way to get back to that world—a reliable way, guaranteed to work. Thoughts around wishing he hadn't given up his gifts accost him. Thoughts of asking—begging—for forgiveness enter his mind as he steers toward the Ogre Pox, a rough place in the Lower Scew; a district not for the more morally uptight creatures. Nobody would bring their kin here unless to curse them or plot someone's demise.

Axel has connections here though. He is on speaking terms, one might even go as far as saying chummy, with the barkeep; an ugly old lich by the name of Tic'zil.

Tic'zil has lived a long and shadowy life. He possesses relations and associations who might know of someone or something which holds secrets. So Axel finds himself at the small establishment, with its dilapidated shop-front; boarded-up windows, with a few planks hanging loose; the once jovial wooden ogre standing by the door is missing an arm, and faded paint chips hint at the reds and greens which once decorated it.

A lone lantern swings, creaking in the sallow air which mists around the cobbled street. Despite the creatures mingling, haggling, spruiking what unsavory things they have to offer, in the diming and fading light of day, the Ogre Pox feels empty and deserted. Axel knows that this is never the case, but an overwhelming sense of loneliness threatens to choke him. He pushes it aside, breathing out the deeply unsettling feeling and enters with a shove against the wooden door. The change of scenery evaporates the heavy feeling inside, though it still lingers. He focuses on how this place is much like he remembers; dank, pungent smells, and sticky floors. He pulls the cloak closer around himself and Pretzel stays twirled up against his leg as he walks.

Robust conversation is going on at the far side of the tavern, a werewolf and a troll are engaged in an arm-wrestling match with a crowd gathered around. Other more brooding sorts hang about as well, keeping to the sides in deeper shadows of this already shadowy place.

Axel heads for the bar, for Tic'zil; wearing a long-sleeved shirt, rolled up to the elbows, revealing rotten, hanging flesh and muscle, and the whites of his radius and ulnar protruding.

The creature looks haggard and appalling. "You've seen better days," Axel comments as he pulls up a stool and flicks at a centipede which crawls past.

"Adra, you are a sight for sore eyes," the lich greets, his voice like sawdusty grime.

"You mean hungry eyes," Axel corrects, not balking at the detested name usage, and looks at the beady red glow from those hollowed-out eye sockets ogling him with great appetite.

A hollow laugh rattles out of the lich and a mug of root brew gets shoved under Axel's nose. "What can I do for you? Haven't seen you around these parts since you needed some coin."

Axel fishes for the bits of metal to pay for the drink. A bony hand lands on his. "Keep it. Your coin isn't good here anyway."

Axel cocks an eyebrow, though he truly would have been shocked to walk out of this meeting with his coin-pouch lighter. He knows what Tic'zil wants. He knows what all creatures he will have dealings with want. "Always with the bartering?" he says, mildly exhausted from just thinking about it, and extremely put off by the knowledge that he'll have to feed this grotesque lich before he leaves here.

"Always," Tic'zil's obscenely long tongue flicks out, running over his half-rotted off lips. He is more skeletal than flesh from the shoulders up, and his rotting gums and hanging teeth make Axel already want to take a long sulfur bath.

He leaves the coin in his pocket and grabs for the mug placed before him. He gulps down the bitter swill inside. It smells like fermented cheese, with the consistency of a slugs mucus trail and leaves an instant, warm buzz inside Axel's throat and stomach. It is much more potent than anything he would ever find in any of the other realms.

"So what do you need?"

"Information."

"Ahh, that's gonna cost you extra."

"Of course. Gimme another drink. I'm gonna need more than this to make me forget your face if you hope for me to be able to repay you properly."

Tic'zil snickers and makes to refill Axel's mug. "You better pay up in full. I won't be satisfied with a half-measured feed."

Axel pulls a face but nods. He downs the refilled drink like it is bad medicine. He hopes it will go some way in making him forget.

---

The lich comes through with the goods, pointing Axel in the direction of an old merchant. Axel leaves the backroom of the Ogre Pox, buttoning up his pants, with Tic'zil licking his lips in satisfaction and an, "Always a pleasure dealing with you, Adra."

He remembers now. He remembers why he will never debase himself to get his powers fully reinstated. He hates it too much; this tradeoff, to come and go as he chooses, only to be sucked dry by those who contract his services...or worse yet, being told he has to go feed someone because someone above his own station demands it to happen—fury grows and bile rises. He loathes being used like this. The thought of it happening again...At least creatures like Tic'zil have no power over him to take more than he is willing to share.

He calms himself as he exhales the musty warm air outside.

The street is busier than before, with night having finally fallen. The Hearth is always livelier at night. Axel looks left and right, and heads in the direction Tic'zil instructed. A shudder runs through Axel's body. He can still feel that skull sucking on him, demanding more than what Axel wanted to give. He tries to quell his outrage by reminding himself that he is using TIc'zil as much as the lich used him. Axel is aiming for something, and he has to pay for it, sadly.

But is it really worth it? Is one meatsack worth all this trouble? To himself? To his dignity? Having creatures—worms really—like Tic'zil—like this antiquities merchant he is now searching for, get their mouths on him, milking him, makes him so angry. He asks himself again, is this really worth it?

Painful feelings stir up inside himself. He thinks about the little meatsack with horns and an insatiable appetite; he thinks of his sad, dripping eyes, of the anger and frustration directed at his own existence caused by the cruelty of the world he finds himself in. All worlds are cruel, no matter how close to the Light they are, yet Axel still wishes he could somehow protect the little meatsack from feeling so alone.

An immense feeling bursts forth in Axel's chest, stopping him in mid-stride. Anger boils up again, but a different kind. An anger at the injustice, an outrage at anyone hurting or mistreating the meatsack. His meatsack. He huffs and shakes his head. He keeps getting battered at the most unpredictable moments by torrential storms of emotion. Ever since his return from that world...he hardly recognizes himself, both in body and mind. A gnoll crashes into him from behind. They exchange snarls, snaps, and hisses. Axel moves on again, woken out of his daze.

Keeping busy helps somewhat. It is better than sleep. It doesn't negate the powerful surges of emotion, but he has something to pour them into. An unnatural drive resides in himself. He needs to try. He doesn't know how far he will go, how much of himself he is willing to lose, all for the sake of reconnecting with the little creature...but he is going to find out. His purpose and strength all come from one source: his need to return. Those thoughts keep the bitterly angry, interspersed-with-anguished sadness away...but only just.

He heads to the far end of the city, through the dwelling districts, where little gnats, imps, and fairies play and frolic. Past the markets, down the sewer, to find an out-of-the-way little shop.

Hynsbess is the gnoll's name. It knows of something, and of course, Axel has to pay. He offers coin and gets rejected for it, so again he debases himself and lets himself get fed on. But Hynsbess doesn't know him like Tic'zil does, so he keeps most of his essence to himself, spurting it into the hyena's maw sparingly, and leaves, to follow the trail of crumbs in search of knowledge.

He sees twilight turning the stone and wood dwellings orange. The daylight rises, and creatures affiliated with the nocturnal scurry away to rest. This makes his hunt a little harder. He decides to put himself up in a lofty little tavern, where they thankfully accept coin, and he rests for a little while.

Not everyone he meets demands a feed, so he can at least get a room without having to debase himself yet again. It is mostly those who know who and what he is who state that coin is not sufficient. Annoyingly enough, news of him travels faster than his legs, and occasional flaps of his wings, so when he gets back out there to resume his hunt, he gets pointed this way and that; a lot of misinformation aimed at getting from him what is not the informants actual due.

Axel loathes to give these obviously-scheming no-goods what they ask, and he doesn't, unless he suspects it is genuine information. At least he is clever enough to discern the fakes from the pool, which allows him to leave in search for another avenue—or he ends up threatening them with a clawed hand to the throat, and a show of raging fire beneath his skin until a proper answer is forthcoming.

In this manner, several nights pass before Axel gets some valuable information from a blonde witch of a harpy about a place supposedly full of information. He finds himself deep within a narrow cave network, near another city—Lask'Kasj—a day's flight west of Razoleth. He enters a maze via a grotto outside of the city, at the settling of night. As he makes his way, the space grows denser, darker, and while his eyes are used to dim light it becomes pitch black. He curses himself for having listened to the harpy as he walks, his hand and wings skirting along the cool, damp cave walls, so he doesn't lose himself completely. He uses his magic—bursting flames from his hands—to illuminate his surroundings. The dark walls don't look any different from one another or harbor any distinct features to aid him in his aimless wandering. Using his magic drains him, so he throws out balls of flame sparingly.

For how long he is down there for, he isn't sure. Occasionally, he comes to a fork in the labyrinthian tunnels. He can feel the extra space; his wings stretch out so he can gauge where the walls are, and he goes off his gut instinct, turning left, right, moving straight ahead. And sometimes he catches a whiff of something—fresher air, a breeze coming from somewhere—leading him ever further into the place the harpy promised would hold answers, even if they aren't to questions he seeks.

Eventually, the air smells less sour. An earthy mustiness creeps into the mixed scent of dust and dank rot. The damp chill from the cave gives way to the warmth he is far more accustomed to feeling from an enclosed dwelling. Axel begins to make out shapes in the gloom. Huge stalactites and stalagmites give way to columns and a dim light shines around an actual smooth corner.

Axel softly pads through the space, which seamlessly (and most probably through magic) transitions from the cave he's been aimlessly wandering about in, to a lofty corridor with smooth, cold stone tiles. Glow-worms dot the walls all the way to the apex of the space, illuminating enough for Axel's eyes to see the columns chiseled out of the stone walls on either side of himself. He also makes out heavy drapes hung up between the columns. That lightens his mood. He is getting somewhere now.

It's not long before he comes to a heavy-set wooden door with brass manticore-headed handles. He turns one. It groans and jams. He jiggles it and leans his shoulder against the door to pry it open, eliciting an echoing screech and creak as he forces it ajar. Beyond this door lies a vast hall lined with towering rows of wooden and stone shelves. Torches sit in sconces along the walls, merrily flickering away, but poorly illuminating the center aisles. Axel ambles along, his tail dragging against the clean feeling, polished-stone floor, observing how deafeningly silent it is. He notices a distinct lack of cobwebs or dust lining. He trails his fingers along the shelves he passes, while heading down the center aisle. The shelves themselves contain—he stops in mid-step. Thick, thin, bound. Books. Axel doesn't ever recall seeing a book anywhere but in other realms. Well...he has seen ledgers merchants use. These could hardly all be ledgers though, right? He warily eyes the tomes' spines, as if they might turn into bats and attack him. He snaps his fingers, bringing a small flame to life on his thumb, which dances merrily, so he can try to read the writing which is embossed on some of the spines. There are symbols and words he can't make out, and others that he can. The writing doesn't sound like ledgers, but actual histories.

Snuffing out the flame, he continues on, trailing his finger along the spines now, bump, bump, bump. He looks around at the aisles of shelving he's wandering through, up ahead, and behind himself...so many. They reach high up into the darkness above. Shelves upon shelves, rows upon rows. Axel wonders if all the books in existence, both here and from other realms, are collected in this place, and then he wonders why? Books aren't something creatures like himself cherish. But someone cherishes these, with the care that is taken in preserving them.

He heads ever further down the hall. The shelving ends and the space opens up to a large circular area where a giant round white marble table stands in the middle of it. Books, manuscripts, parchment papers and quills litter and are stacked up high on the table. A magic glowing orb floats a good three feet above it, casting a warm, steady light onto everything, which includes the creature sitting in a high-back, ornate chair. Axel startles at the sight, not having caught it with all the books around. It is male, if the warm golden beard is anything to go by. It matches the color of his hair, which is long, reaching past his shoulders. He is dressed in a white gown and long, spiraling horns protrude from the top of his head, at a slight, backward-facing angle. Spectacles sit on his nose. Axel stares at the creature as it reads.

Time passes, heavy pages, inside of a thick and large tome, get turned. It is the only sound that fills the space, aside for the faint crackling of the torches, and the slight hum emanating from the glowing orb.

A deep sigh startles Axel. Tired, yet vibrant blue eyes, peer up at him out of a face which is neither young nor old, but definitely weary. A deep and slow voice, scratching with disuse, rumbles worth, "Are you lost?"

Axel's mouth drifts open. He takes a deep breath, wondering where to start or how to comprehend what he has found. "What is this place?"

"This is Dihiquar, our sacred tomb of knowledge. A repository of all that ever was."

None of those words make any sense to Axel. He tries for something simpler—"Who are you?"

The male's forehead creases in thought. He readjusts his spectacles and hums deeply, as if biding his time to find an answer to this straightforward question. "Ansem, I have been called that. The wise. And you?"

"Ansem?" Something is recognizable about that name. "Oh, Ansem the fool. That Ansem?"

A deep furrow crosses the other creatures' brows.

Axel laughs it off. "Last anyone heard from you they said you disappeared. Driven into madness. Is this where you have spent all your days? Hiding? Wasting your life away down here?" He looks around himself, finding it unimaginable to be holed up in a place like this.

"I have important business to attend to down here," comes the cold response. "I am keeper of histories, tender of books. The caretaker."

"You know no one cares about books, right?" Axel drawls.

"And yet here you are. A foolish little sprout. What might you want, and who might you be?" A smirk ghosts on lips.

Axel stares, his mouth hanging open a little. He scoffs. "Name's Axel, got it memorized?" he taps at his head. "And you would do well to note that I am not a sprout."

"You are old?" Ansem asks, leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms which are draped in long white sleeves, with ornate patterns around the large cuffs.

Axel side-eyes him, his nose wrinkling slightly at the question.

"How old," Ansem prompts.

"I was the first of my kind." Whether Axel says that with pride or disgust he isn't sure of himself.

"With a name like Axel?" amusement tints the caretakers' words and sets off a sparkle in his eyes.

"My name is Adraxelous—Axel for short." He can't keep the contemptuous disgust off his face and doesn't fully understand why he is speaking so freely. Magic, is all he can think.

Ansem's eyes widen, he sits up a little straighter, taking in Axel's whole being. "Disrobe," he says, with a simple yet compelling command to his voice.

Those words put pressure on him and he's possessed to comply. Axel slips off the cloak.

"All of it," Ansem's voice booms, knocking into Axel's chest.

Axel pulls off the shirt, and slips off the trousers, feeling better for having his bare skin touch the warm air. He's never been one for clothes when he can help it. Though he does wish for at least the cloak to cover his bareness, as blue eyes pierce and scrutinize him in an unsettling manner. There is something uncomfortable, something painful in that stare; a sense of familiarity he can't quite place. He shifts with the disquiet in his bones; his tail twitching, his wings stretching, his hands resting on cocked hips.

"I remember you. You are an incubus," comes the flat statement after a pregnant pause.

Remember? It doesn't matter. In his past life he rubbed shoulders, cocks, and asses with a lot of different creatures. Axel puffs out some air instead. "Was," he corrects.

"Are," Ansem intones gravely. "That which made you can never be taken. You are imbued with it at your very core, even if you have given up the added perks." Ansem rises from his chair to a formidable stature, rivaling Axel's own. He slides his chair back with a piercing creak and the sound of clip-clopping echoes in the quiet chamber. Axel stares as Ansem—a satyr—draws close.

The white robe is richly embroidered, a sign of status, because no creature tasked with the daily need for survival has a use for such finery. But Ansem probably has no need for anything but luxury, cooped up here, in this place. Heavy chains hang from his neck, gold, silver, copper. Bracelets around his sandy-brown, well-manicured, and trimmed fetlocks clink as he approaches. Axel notices the gold-tipped hooves, and he suspects if he ever saw the underside of them he would see golden shoes too.

'Complete luxury,' Axel thinks with disdain, and a memory from his past flickers to life. He still isn't sure if he has ever met Ansem before, though an air of familiarity hangs about him.

Ansem comes to a stop before Axel, his head held high, looking down his spectacles at him. Ansem's voice holds gravity and authority as he says, "What brings a disgraced powerless incubus down into Dihiquar? What use could the likes of you ever have for the knowledge which is contained within these desecrated grounds?"

Axel rouses himself, straightening his back a little more. "I'm looking for ways to portal to other worlds."

"You are looking in the wrong place. Ask Father for forgiveness."

Axel feels his hackles raise. "He's a maker not a father, and he hates me. He'll never forgive me, and I never want his forgiveness either." Dragging himself through the dirt to get to this place has reinforced this fact to him in spades.

"You are his favorite. Asmodeus is only crowned prince because you forsook your people."

"I am not here to be anyone's slave," Axel snarls, baring his teeth and leaning in, snapping at Ansem's face.

"But you are. That is precisely why you were made. You, the first of your kind...forsaker of duty." Ansem turns away, his cloven hooves echoing on the tile flooring. "First's always go wrong, they say."

Axel snaps at that quip, launching himself with a leap, aided by a flap of his wings, toward the table. He grabs a large book and flings it at the back of Ansem's stupid head—but he freezes, lifted off his feet. The book he flung, hangs in mid-air. He scrambles to touch the ground, but only the claws on his toes manage to barely scrape against the floor.

Ansem stands, staring at Axel with fire in his eyes, his hand outstretched, invisibly holding Axel by his throat. The weather-worn weariness is gone, and before him stands a creature, youthful and strong, whose fury elicits grave terror in Axel.

"Now listen here, young sprout, there will be no disrespecting the books. Lunge at me all you want, but leave my charges untouched, or I will do worse things to you than the wilds do to meek and feeble prey out in the Burning Seas," Ansem says, a dangerous edge and tremble to his words. "Do I make myself clear?"

Axel finds the strength in himself to nod a little. The constriction spell eases and Axel collapses to the ground, grabbing his throat and sucking in deep breaths.

"Tell me, and be truthful, churl, what do you seek here? You are correct. Creatures of the Hearth have no use for books, but you are here. Why."

Still gasping for breath, Axel's vision focuses on gilded hooves before himself. Refusing to look up, he says, "I told you. I'm looking for ways to manipulate portals so they'll take me to where I want to go."

Ansem stares down at Axel. "What have you lost out there that makes you so desperate to come all this way to find an answer?"

Axel grimaces at the floor. Without looking up, he says, "Nothing which will remember me."

A deep hum sounds out of Ansem. Axel lifts his eyes and glances up.

Ansem hums again, grabbing the book which still hangs in mid-air and walks back around to his chair, sitting down. He stays there, quiet, book open, flicking through the pages as if he's completely forgotten Axel's very existence.

Axel stays on the floor for a while, rubbing his neck, still catching his breath and thinking. He probably shouldn't be so hostile toward the old goat, especially if he hopes to find answers. While he hasn't thought of books as holding his answer—thinking more he could find someone to talk to who had done what he was seeking to do and could offer guidance—he concedes that perhaps this trove of old tomes might provide what he needs. At the very least, it is worth a shot. There are so many books after all. The answer he seeks must be in one of these. Right?

"Tell me," Ansem says after a while, "and without wanting to destroy anything or anyone, how were you made wrong?" There is the slightest glance over his spectacles at Axel.

Axel grumbles and slowly raises himself, though he slouches, finding no pride inside himself. "I...disagree with my station, my maker. I am not...satisfied with what I have been dealt. I want…" more feels like the wrong word. "Something else." He doesn't know how to put it any better than that.

"What is this, something else?"

"I don't know." Axel feels himself getting testy with the question he has no answers for. "There is something empty that no amount of feeding fills up." A heavy sigh leaves Axel. His mind instantly flashes to his last feed. He had felt full then, with that little human. "I feel," he breathes out.

"Too much?"

"Too much," Axel nods, looking away, trying hard not to think of the human anymore, which makes him think about him in aching detail; his scent, taste, sound, touch.

"It is a terrible curse and affliction," Ansem sympathizes.

"I've never felt it until…" Axel swallows down the words.

"Until…"

"The thing that I made forget—Roxas," he says in a whisper, and it burns in the hollow part of his chest. Nothing feels right ever since his run-in and feeding session with the small creature. He can't explain it, but he just doesn't feel like himself anymore.

"You did the right thing."

Ansem's words startle Axel out of his ruminations. "The right thing? It doesn't feel like the right thing. I can't breathe without thinking about him. I can't breathe when I think about him."

"I am sorry. It would be better if you had never experienced it."

Axel huffs out a big breath of air. "How can I get back to him?"

"You can't, not like you are right now. Take back your gifts and you can see him whenever you so choose."

Axel stomps his foot, and drags his claws along the floor with a screech. "I am not doing that."

"Then there is no other way."

"You are not encouraging or helpful at all, old goat. There must be a way. You can't tell me in all these books, in all these years, you've never found an answer. Think!" Axel snarls with desperation. "Maybe it didn't seem important to you but think! You must have read something about creating portals—"

"I have looked, sprout," Ansem snaps with a deliberate dig. He huffs out a small, tired laugh, adding, "More than you will ever know."

Taken aback, Axel stares for a second. "Do you...have an affliction too?" he asks, his breath catching in his throat. The thought that another of his ilk might also have...grown fondness...for something that is there to be consumed...it heartens him, even a little.

Ansem fixes Axel with his cold, blue stare before nodding minutely.

A boulder of weight rolls off Axel's chest. At last! He might actually have a lead—an ally. "Is it a meatsack? Have you been back to see it?" he fires off, rapidly. But then his heart sinks the moment his brain works again—"Hang on...you...can portal to wherever you want to go." It is the privilege of being...well, privileged. Though it is limited to only working during the short window of time when the portals are open across worlds. "So...why...You could go back every year—what have you got to feel afflicted by?" he challenges.

"It is not a matter I wish to discuss further. You are here for your own issues, and what you seek cannot be done," Ansem shuts down, a rumble to his voice, warning to tread carefully.

A small pout creases Axel's lip. But he is far from giving up just yet. "What is it, old goat? Why do you make yourself needlessly suffer?"

"The same reason why you do, pestilent sprout," Ansem's voice booms. "We cannot undo a forgetting spell."

He winces with that slap of truth, but he's also getting heated, "Make your meatsack remember you! Go back there and make it remember you!" Axel's voice rises with desperation. There has to be hope, because if someone like Ansem is hopeless then...what is left for Axel? "There must be something that can be done."

Ansem's face is set in stone. "You waste your and my breath. There is nothing. Learn to live with what ails you. A human life is too short-lived. Soon you will be free of what burdens you, and in the meantime, bury yourself in work. It is what I have done." Ansem returns to his books, flicking through the pages.

An utterly ice-cold dread flushes down Axel's spine with the dawning realization of how precious his time is. It leaves him speechless—a world without—even if he can't reach him right now...to think that...Axel's face sets in stone with grim determination. "Become a recluse shut-in like yourself? No thanks, old goat." He strides around to the far side of the table, clear from the clutter, and sits atop of it, with brash disregard for Ansem's precious books. "I will find something. I will find a way to get back—to win his heart again—to bring him back with me—"

Ansem's eyes shoot up at Axel, stilling his brazen rant.

"Bring him back?" Ansem says with shrill disgust. "To what? Humans cannot live here. They become ill and suffer; if not instantly then weeks, a few months at best. You have no inkling of what you speak, churl. Wisen up before you kill the thing which you cherish...if you ever even find a way to achieve the first two of your bold, overreaching statements, which you won't."

Fire, bred from sheer will and defiance, blows up inside of Axel. A flash of bright heat bursts forth from Axel's body. "I will burn this place to the ground if it yields no use to me," he snarls, even as he rises up, standing on top of the table, burning holes into Ansem with his piercing glare.

Ansem grows taller with magic and tremendously deep and quiet flowing rage. The space around Ansem darkens, warps, and saps the very light and air from the room as he rises up to the table and strides toward Axel, bumping into him with his puffed-out chest. The darkness cocoons both of them, protecting the hall and its books. An eerie silence muffles even their own ragged breathing.

"You will do no such thing, or I will personally guarantee eternal damnation for you. And mark my words, sprout, I will find this affliction of yours and rip its beating heart out before your very own eyes and make it devour itself," Ansem glowers with ferocious power and earnestness.

Axel grinds his teeth. He itches for a fight, even though he knows he cannot win this. He wants to rip Ansem limb from limb, and feed his precious books to him while he tramples and defecates on everything, before burning the whole place to cinders and ashes. Axel is beyond heated. His hair's a scorching flame, his skin bright red like molten lava, with black veins crisscrossing every which way. He would love nothing more than to go out in a blaze of glory, but...Roxas.

His temper cools; his skin returns to a burnt and ruddy crimson, his hair lies limp against his shoulders and trails his spine. He laughs out the last of his anger, steps back, out of the protective bubble, and drops to the floor.

The black bubble around Ansem disappears and he says nothing, simply turning back, picking his way through the contents on the table, and returning to his seat. Axel sighs and picks at the dirt under his claws for a while, in thought, and to give his racing heart a chance to placate itself.

Normally, he doesn't lose his cool this easily. Everything is complicated ever since he came back from Feastings Tide. He doesn't understand himself anymore. He returns his thoughts to the place he is in, to the infuriating satyr at the opposite end of the large table. What are the chances of Axel meeting someone like this who knows and understands...or maybe Ansem doesn't, and that is the reason he acts this way. If the goat truly were afflicted the way Axel is, then he would have found a way to make it work. He wouldn't have given up so easily. Wouldn't dismiss Axel and his requests now. Axel decides he doesn't need the goat. He will find a way to make it work. In all these books there has to be an answer somewhere. But he looks around himself. The sheer volume of tomes in this crypt, unfathomable. It will take Axel five demon lifetimes to just scratch the surface. Roxas...doesn't have the luxury of that much time.

A bubble of sick sits in the back of his throat.

"You never told me if there is a way to manipulate portals, or create ones without having the gift," Axel says, distracting himself from his unpleasant thoughts, and seeing if he might still eke something out of the satyr, now that they have stretched their demon muscles and gauged each other's seriousness.

Ansem lifts his head and looks around, peering past the illuminated space and into the far-reaching corners of the large hall, with its hundreds of shelves, and tens of thousands of books. "I have told you all that I can."

That sounds like a bullshit cop-out to Axel, but he doesn't say anything other than, "Mind if I browse?"

"Go ahead. But know that every day you spend down here will cost you."

Axel gets a sinking feeling. The goat is being a total ass now. "Do you take coin?" he asks, a wishful hope, really.

"I will only accept daily feeds. But you better hurry with trying to find a highly-unlikely portal spell, because I am very hungry. I don't think you'll last until Feastings Tide."

"Gee, thanks. You ever think you're stuck down here because no living creature could stand being in your vicinity for more than ten minutes?"

Ansem hums, sounding a little amused and disregards Axel's words. "Do you agree to the terms?"

"I don't agree to daily. With the amount of books here...and you being completely unhelpful, it could take me a feastings rotation or two to find something even remotely useful. I'll be turned to dust."

"Then you'd better find the answers you seek sooner, rather than later."

Axel grimaces. Of course, it is too much to expect even a shred of kindness from creatures of the Hearth. With grit teeth, he concedes, "Fine."

Ansem's attention ceases to be on Axel, and Axel is left to his own devices. He looks around the shelves, he wanders up and down the long hall several times, touching books, trying to get his bearings. It doesn't help. He returns to the center and, Ansem, when prompted, explains to Axel how the large bibliotheca is ordered—into eras, into pre and post, into scribes bodies of work. All this information is still useless to Axel and he tells Ansem as much, which leaves Ansem giving him the cryptic hint of, "Start at the beginning so you understand your own history and reason for existing." And so Axel spends hours pouring over books older than he is, sitting on the opposite side from Ansem, where some space exists. Axel wonders how the satyr can just sit there, reading, writing, cleaning for such long droning hours.

Boredom makes Axel listless. Reading about long ago things—mentions of wars between the righteous and the blasphemous, detailed lists of calamities, about the in-between realms—causes him to yawn, and get up several times to stretch his legs and wings. He does read about meatsacks eventually. That news excites Axel a handful of times, only for it to be quashed as the texts turn toward unrelated topics.

He plows on, shaking himself awake, though inevitably, sleep takes him.

He awakens to the rhythmic sound of waves, the scent of brine in his sensitive nostrils, and quiet murmurs. Raising his head, his bleary eyes focus in the direction of the sound. Ansem is there and—Axel raises his head and blinks rapidly—he sees a slip of a small creature; dressed in a plain white robe which does nothing to disguise the slim figure underneath. Long platinum-white hair cascades down the back, and grand blue eyes take his breath away. They dart to look at him. The creature spooks and steps behind Ansem, who looks over. He turns around, presumably to say something to the creature and then Axel catches sight of the figure fleeing down an aisle and vanishing into the dark beyond. With it, the briny smell and wash of waves leave as well.

"You have company down here?" Axel yawns.

"Her name is Naminé. She is a sea nymph, and brings me my meals. I ordered her to bring some bedding down for you, if you intend to stay."

Axel rouses at that. "I certainly intend to, yes."

"Very well." Ansem claps his hands once, the sound reverberates around the grand hall. "I shall retire for the day. I expect payment for the first night on my return."

Axel rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "Yeah, yeah, but I determine how much."

"Suit yourself."

That response surprises Axel. It certainly comes as a relief. Ansem turns to leave, a stairwell appearing out of nowhere. As he departs he remarks, "Naminé shall take care of your needs during the day, but like my books," he stops, turning to stare at Axel with menace, "if anything happens to her, the threat I made earlier will be actuated."

"Got it, old goat," Axel responds with great disrespect.

Ansem hums and departs, the stairwell disappearing alongside him.

Axel is left alone, with the orb above his head pulsing ever so slightly, and the books he's perusing, scattered about. Axel smiles to himself. The old goat doesn't seem nearly as strict as he plays at being. Axel could read all the books during the day and leave during the night, never running into Ansem again, but still reaping the benefit of their deal. He decides to use this to his advantage, but also decides to stay the first night anyway.

He returns to the pile of books containing histories and lores and old pacts between ancient houses and demons and creatures alike, trying to scour the old pages, with their terribly scribbled cursive handwriting, for anything that sticks out; key phrases or words.

He keeps at it for a while, until the smell of salty water and a breeze picks up from nowhere and ruffles Axel's hair. He looks up to see the nymph dart between the aisles, carrying things.

"Hello, I'm Axel, got it memorized?" he says, tapping the side of his head and wearing a small smile.

An audible gasp leaves the lithe creature, who freezes for a second before zipping behind another shelf.

"I don't bite," he tries and waits.

She eventually pops her head out but quickly hides again after a fleeting look at him.

Axel looks on with some amusement, and then hears a meek, "C-clothes."

Sudden awareness hits that he is still stripped naked, a state that doesn't phase creatures stuck out in the wilderness, but for city-folk, like this sensible sea nymph, Axel supposes it is a little uncouth. "Oh, right." He moves to find his clothes, pulling on the trousers but not bothering with the shirt, as it is too warm and he doesn't like how the fabric feels around his shoulder blades and wings. "Is this better?" He stands, arms outstretched.

Blue eyes peek around the bookshelf a moment later, stare, and then the rest of the nymph steps forward, carrying something bundled in her arms. "Hello," she says, her voice soft and breezy, the smell of salty water rising. "Master said to bring you this for your rest." She raises her arms slightly, drawing attention to the bundle. "Where would you like it?"

Axel looks around at the bookshelves and the large stone blocks that form the walls on either side of this long hall. "I guess, anywhere over there against the wall is fine," he vaguely points in the direction of the nymph. "You think the old goat will let me rearrange the bookcases? I don't much like sleeping in the open."

Wordlessly, the nymph looks to where Axel points and heads over. Axel follows, losing sight of her between the bookcases. A gust of wind suddenly blows from the direction he is heading and when he walks through the gaps between the rows of shelving, to arrive at the wall with its sconced torches, he finds a deeply-recessed, high-arched alcove. There is a large shelf, at Axel's head height—6 feet off the ground.

Axel smiles, taking the bedding from the nymph and slides it up onto the shelf. "Thank you," he says.

She tucks her hair behind her ear and a shy smile tugs at her lips. "Would you like supper?"

"I don't need much. A light snack and some water would go a long way for me."

She nods and breezes away, her slippers scooting over the ground, her robe fluttering. Axel watches her disappear into the dark. He turns back to his temporary nest, raises his arms up to the shelf, and pulls himself up, falling heavily into the puffed and feathery blanket. The space is deep enough for him to nearly stretch out completely, though he needs to keep his wings tucked in, which is fine. He likes them wrapped around himself when he sleeps.

He dozes off and rouses again to the soft cooing of his name. Peeling his eyes open he rolls over to look down at the ground, where he sees the nymph standing, holding up a bowl and mug. Her eyes are impossibly blue, hinting at an ocean, not of this world. Her skin holds a pearlescent sheen, and her hair waves gently, even with no air currents to tousle her locks.

"Sorry to wake you," she says.

He smiles down at the much-too-beautiful-for-this-world creature. "It's alright, sweet sea child." He stretches a little before sitting up and sliding down to the ground, where he picks up the still held-out items from the dainty grasp.

The nymph blushes slightly and pulls her arms behind her back once Axel's freed her of the things.

"I know Ansem told me your name, but would you care to tell it to me yourself?" He sits down in the alcove below his nest, patting the floor next to himself.

"Oh," she takes up the offer, kneeling down and tucking her legs under herself. "I am Naminé, a sea nymph."

Axel digs into the bites of dried meat, and chunks of minerals, which get mined for food. "You come from here or somewhere else?"

"I...was born far away, in the Sea of Tiamat."

"That is a long way away. I am surprised something as beautiful as you was ever born in a place like that."

Naminé looks down at her knees, her cheeks reddening. "There are many beautiful things under the sea and in the hidden places of the world."

Axel smiles at her. "What brings you out here on land? So far away? If that old goat's done things—"

Naminé's hands fly up, flailing about wildly, "No, no. Nothing like that. Master has always been very good to me. I asked to come here."

"Asked?" Axel can't keep the disbelief at bay. "What could you want here and from him?"

A confident smile graces her lips. "The same as you, I suppose. The same as anyone who ever wanders into this place—knowledge."

"Ah," he drawls with understanding.

"Master is a great teacher, and I am his apprentice. He is teaching me how to harness my powers, how to transform, and shift, and create."

"Like you did with this alcove?"

She nods, something akin to pride sparkling in her eyes.

"Well, it's very nice. Thank you for making it for me."

"You are welcome. What about you? What knowledge do you seek?"

Axel chews his meal thoughtfully and takes a sip of the tepid liquid, wetting his tongue. "I need a way to get back across worlds, to a specific place, and to do that multiple times, reliably." He thinks if he can't bring Roxas here he might at least make the small human happy by visiting regularly.

Naminé hums and looks thoughtful.

"Have you ever heard of something like that existing? Have you seen anything in these books like that?"

She thinks. She looks around. She shakes her head. "I find reading hard. Master is teaching me to, but a lot of these books…"

Axel nods. "There is a lot of archaic language in there that I don't even understand."

They share a smile, born from a kindred feeling. Axel suppresses a yawn, the full weight of his adventures, and the lack of a proper, deep slumber, really weighing on him.

Naminé fusses over him, insists he gets some sleep and leaves him to curl up in his lofty nest, to sleep in the cozy warm silence of the bibliotheca.

---

Axel spends a lot of time in the quiet, pouring over books, following up leads, but getting nowhere with it. He relearns about the wars and calamities, which kindled Lucifer to remake the world and the systems which govern it—which created him—a harvester of energy, and a feeder of the creatures high-class enough to afford such a service.

He also spends long hours during early mornings—though he can only tell it is dawn by Naminé's appearance—talking with the nymph and explaining about their home, the Hearth.

"Why is it called that?" she asks once, as they sit in the alcove, Axel still pouring over a book in his lap, and the nymph sitting behind him, braiding his hair.

"Well, you know how I told you that all the worlds are tangled together in a giant web?"

She hums. "You said there are dark corridors and tunnels connecting everything—we are at the center of all of that."

"Yes. If you look at it like this," he sweeps his hand horizontally, "we are in the middle of it all. But if you look at it like this," he moved his hand vertically, "we are at the bottom. You get me?" He casts a look behind himself.

Naminé gives him a blank stare.

Axel huffs with a gentle laugh. "The point is...everything connects. Everything funnels down. Light rises to the top and spreads outward, while darkness sinks, falling to the bottom and sitting at everything's center. We are in the well for everything dark."

"Why isn't it called The Well then?"

Axel laughs. "It's too hot here to be a well."

She scowls at him with a soft pout. "And you could travel the corridors before?"

"Yes." Axel turns around again, looking at the book in his lap, without really seeing it. "Before. Lucifer himself made my kin—he has to make everything at least once for it to be able to exist in the world; succubi, vampires, ghouls, sprites, trolls, nymphs. Everything."

"I...when you first came here I heard you say you were your first," she says quietly.

"Yes."

"You said you were made wrong."

Axel winces a little. "You have really sharp ears, don't you."

Naminé titters lightly, but then in a dropped tone says, "Can I ask...how?"

There is that question again. He feels more inclined to tell the nymph more details, even if she is just a spy for the old goat. "You know what my job was, right?"

"Mm, you traveled the worlds, gathering energy to supplement feeds. That sounds like a nice thing to do."

Axel, with a mild derisive energy, scoffs, "Nice. Yeah, being used like a servant, a slave. You know the system is rigged to only benefit those with coin and status, right? It was first supposed to benefit everyone—I was told that I was to go out, gather energy, and feed those in need—but dark creatures are hungry and greedy. It isn't helped with the population growth. There aren't enough of my kind to supply everyone. And yes, you might say, 'well, just make some more,' but he never does. That's because he and the other demons in charge don't want every creature to have equal access to the energies of other worlds. The stuff my kind collects is powerful—it can change, and alter, and grow you. And those in charge don't want the low scum and dregs to rise."

Axel clenches his hands and wrinkles his nose. "My kin could rule the Hearth if we didn't have to keep depleting ourselves. But my brothers and sisters are happy with the luxuries their status and rank gives them. They are happy to be bought for service, even though—" the thought rankles him. "I'm not happy with it. That's why I was made wrong. At first, it was okay...the first thousand or so years I did my duty, but...I don't even know," he sighs. "Slowly, over time, something changed. Every day I had to do my job grew a bitter taste of anger in me until I couldn't stand it anymore."

"What made you decide to stop doing your duty?"

Axel grimaces and takes a deep breath to keep the rising heat at bay. "I was pushed too far one night. They were going to take everything from me—every last drop—turn me into a husk and into dust while they laughed. Saying it 'was my duty'," he clenches his fist, claws digging into his palm, but the physical pain pales in comparison to the memories agony. "I burnt them all to a thin crisp, and with it nearly myself, too. He came. He never comes. But he did then. He took me away. Fixed up my charred remains," Axel scoffs. "Offered to fix up the rest of me, the stuff inside that he said is broken, but the fix was to make me compliant. To take the burn out of my soul. I didn't let him. I told him I'd rather have this kernel smolder inside me because it keeps me alive. Do you know how many of my kin disintegrate because of mismanagement? Because of compliance?" The thought makes him shudder.

Small hands aren't on him anymore—probably haven't been brushing and braiding his hair for a while—but he's only aware of it now. Axel turns around to look down at Naminé. Her hands tremble. Her eyes watery, and a chill emanates from her very body.

Axel, stricken at the sight, calls out softly and with concern, "Little pearl." He reaches for her, laying his hand gently atop of her head.

"What about Master?" she asks, her voice straining. "Does he...I know you feed him."

"Ansem…" Axel casts his mind toward the old goat. "He doesn't take from me. He doesn't force the issue like others I've had to feed. But...he has the power. Any creature above my station can just take whatever they want, giving my kind no say."

"That is horrible," she whispers.

"The world is a terrible place if you don't look out for yourself."

"But your kind...you're revered."

"We are used and discharged like food scraps. We are hungered over and lusted after, but not cared for."

Naminé flinches. Her eyes squeeze shut and tears fall.

Axel feels guilt swirling over having taken her smile away. He doesn't know how to make it better. The truth hurts, and it isn't pleasant, but he feels better for her knowing, even if some of that shimmer from her skin dulls a little.

He eventually distracts her with the offer of listening and helping her read through a book on legends, which she found a while ago, and enjoys immensely. They sit together, Naminé in Axel's lap, reading aloud.

She leaves in a better mood and Axel falls asleep.

---

He awakens with a wince and lands on the floor. Axel springs to his feet, skin shimmering like hot coals, but douses at the sight of Ansem before him, wearing a scowl.

"What in his name you do that for?" Axel rubs at his skull where Ansem had pulled his hair, and also rubs at his face, where he had hit the ground.

"You will pay up."

"I do every night. No need to wake me like that, old goat," Axel grumbles. He's been too lazy to sneak out, and with Ansem very lenient around the quantity of the payment, he hasn't really needed to leave.

Ansem's face pulls into a disgruntled mask with anger dancing around the edges, deepening the scowl. He grabs for Axel's horn; squeezing.

Axel winces with the sharp pain burning down his spine and igniting his cock with a flurry. Anger burns the feelings away and he snarls into Ansem's face, which is too close for comfort, "Let me go!"

Ansem squeezes harder. Axel's eyes shut against the sensation. "You will pay double."

Axel growls, feral, and shoves Ansem away. The grip on his horn eases, but he still snaps, "What the fuck is wrong? Double? No way!"

"You will!"

"For what?" he howls with rage.

"For what you did to Naminé."

Axel startles, but still shouts, "I didn't do anything!"

A light-swallowing aura blazes up around Ansem, plunging the two of them into darkness. "I have warned you not to hurt her. That includes sharing dangerous knowledge with her," Ansem seethes with a growl.

Axel's anger snuffs out to protect himself from Ansems' furry. He takes a small step back, "Relax. The last thing I want to do is harm her."

They stare at each other silently. The darkness fades and the torches' light flickers and reaches them again. Some of the hard malice in Ansems' glare fades. In a low grumble, he orders, "Follow."

Axel does, his heart beating at a fierce pace. They head through the gaps between the bookcases to the large circular open area, right up to the table.

Axel comes to a standstill behind Ansem, who leans forward with his hands placed on the white marble edge of the table, his robe hoisted up, hooked on his perked-up tail and draping down his flanks. Axel huffs, unzipping himself, and grasps his cock, pumping himself into arousal. He stiffens and slickens rapidly, a gift of being what he is, but mostly a curse. His pre-cum leaks out, dripping and spurting a little onto Ansems' backside, dribbling between his fuzzy cheeks and darkening the sandy-brown fur.

"Double," Ansem reiterates. "Double the full amount. I know you hold back."

Axel grumbles and pushes in slowly. He loathes how much he loves the tight warm squeeze around his cock. He hates how he gets used, hates his base instincts making it feel welcomed and desirable, even when his head screams 'no'. It's always why he enjoys seducing meatsacks; they never know what he is; they never take from him. His mind wanders to the last meatsack he was with. His chest feels too tight and a heaviness lands on his shoulders.

Gripping Ansems' furry hips, and thrusting with a steady rhythm, he talks to distract himself, "Naminé wouldn't be half as upset about the things I tell her if you actually taught her anything."

Ansem huffs with some strain. He never overtly lets on that he enjoys the feeds, but Axel can read the small hints in the way his breath labores and how his muscles clench around him. Ansem clears his throat, saying, "I teach her what she must know. She asked me to help her harness and grow her latent abilities, so that is what I specialize in with her."

"And she's asking me to teach her everything else you keep from her—" Axel winces as Ansem thrusts his rump against his groin, and a deep, unexpected tightness grips his chest, leaving Axel bewildered, but doesn't still his motion.

"She is but a tender one hundred years old. Would you give a babe whatever it wants?"

Axel wrinkles his nose, now not so sure if he wouldn't rather be thinking about the constant ache in his hollow parts rather than having this conversation.

"She doesn't need to know everything that has happened before her birth," Ansem continues. "It will only taint the light inside of her. You have seen it, haven't you."

"Yeah, so? She'll find out about the world eventually anyway," Axel grunts with the pleasure of his thrusting. "Better you equip her now so she can learn to protect herself."

"I am teaching her all that she will need to protect herself in the future."

"You're doing a poor job."

A small pant leaves Ansem as Axel thrusts deeply. "Perhaps you are right. I let you in here and all you do is burden her with excessive darkness, which smothers her light and spirit," Ansem bites back.

Axel grumbles, but before he can say anything, Ansem says, "Enough chatter. I grow tired of this. You are not easing my hunger."

Axel huffs and keeps thrusting, a little sharper and deeper, refocusing on the pleasure he is begrudgingly bestowed.

Tight heat pulls at his groin. A pressure is exerted on him—something familiar which he has forgotten about. It is Ansem's mental persistence, urging him on, demanding from him, using his privilege and power to take, which stokes resentment inside Axel. The old goat hasn't done this at all before. Axel gets that he's pissed off, but feels affronted by the delicious tugging at his senses.

He grips the furry hips harder, rocking in and out of the goat. Despite wanting to hate this...Axel can't. His eyes slip shut, gentle gasps escape him. The pull is too powerful. He plunges into the heady pleasure, and it unravels him. It feels just as good as last time.

"Axel."

He smiles at that sweet and familiar voice. With a struggle, he opens his eyes. His vision blurry, but he still sees blond hair and feels that tug, deep within himself, urging for release. Axel chuckles, with giddy inebriation, brought on by the pleasant sensations swirling in himself.

"Axel, please," a little louder this time. It brings with it the scent of...something savory, something sweet. The mellow smile spreads ever wider across Axel's face. His heart feels light for the first time since last Feastings Tide.

"Shh," Axel whispers, laughing a little at Roxas' impatient begging. He rests his head against the creature before him. He pistons his hips with quick jerks, then drags his cock in and out, teasing his sweet delight, pressing kisses to his shoulder blades.

"Axel," Roxas moans his name with intoxicating heady delight. Axel smiles. The taste of salty sweetness hitting the back of his throat. He ruts into the tight heat, driving himself into deeper pleasure, with wild abandon.

A soft moan sounds out which isn't his own. Axel wants to make Roxas feel so good. He slides his hand off the hip, forward, under the rough fabric, seeking out the hard, wet, heat of the erection hidden there. His other hand snakes up into hair and grasps the base of one of the horns. He gives a rusty giggle, surprised at the thick diameter he finds there. Has it really been that long for Roxas to have grown so much? He touches, pumping shaft and horn, and himself in and out of the pulsing hole, fast, and faster, and harder. Pleasure rises and drowns him. The voice inside himself to release everything he has, screams through his head, mingling with the heady groans from himself and his little human before him. Axel tugs at the horn, pulling it down toward him, tilting and craning the head before him backward. His vision swims all the harder with pulsating delight as his body gets ready, and as he lets himself completely suffocate in the euphoria.

He licks the tip of that sharp horn before engulfing it with his mouth for sucks. Heat and wet explode all over his hand, and with it his own release gets pulled from inside with a strangled cry. He feels sucked on, energy leaving his body, draining, draining. He would happily give his all to Roxas, no matter how much he wants that spilling in his hand to be inside his ass right now. Though...something feels different—tastes different. Rich, bitter and leaves burn in his throat. He's left hungry, not getting even a small hit from Roxas' ecstasy.

"Suck me, please," he groans, inviting Roxas to turn around and take his turn, thinking he might get full that way.

A strained humming groan escapes sweet lips, but an unexpected gruff tone scratches, "Don't touch me," and with it whatever illusion Axel fell into, snaps. He shakes his head, jerks his hands and mouth away from the old goat and pulls out, dripping and puffing. He curls in on himself, hands on his knees, gagging on the taste in the back of his throat and shivering from the delight and exhaustion coursing through his veins. Outrage and disgust rips through him. He's too weak to do anything except breathe.

His head reels and spins. He foolishly forgot what it's like to feed a demon of Ansem's class. All the small feeds he had to do to find this place...all the feeds he's ever given Reno...all pittances and small morsels. He now understands Ansem's full appetite...understands how the satyr has been holding back out of...kindness. He feels so drained, it makes him sick.

Ansem stands at the table, his head bowed, breath rasping, and ass dripping.

"That was—not—double," Axel wheezes.

"Why did you touch me!" Ansem snarls, looking behind himself and twitching his tail, letting the bunched up fabric of the robe cascade down, covering himself.

"You—you started it! You touched my horns before. Y-you—you did something to me!" Axel's mind clouds with the spend of the feed. But he knows that he smelled and tasted Roxas. He knows it was him, even though it is impossible. Anger rouses. "You used some...illusion magic or something, to get more out of me!"

"I did no such thing." Ansem rises and towers over Axel. "We do not touch horns! What vile creature are you? Get out!" he roars, the room growing dark and all warmth seeping out of the space.

Axel scrambles to his feet, feeling dizzy and depleted. He thinks about going to grab his shirt and cloak but his breath misting as the room turns ice cold makes him reconsider.

He runs and flaps his wings, heading in the direction of the big door he had come in from what was probably 3 months ago now. He finds it, yanks it open and—he falls, wind whipping against his face and hair. The roar of the ocean rises from below as fierce waves crash into sharp rocks. Axel spreads his wings and catches a draft, gliding for a while, flapping to get more height.

He has no clue where the bastard ported him to.

---

It takes several days and nights for Axel to find himself amongst the familiar landmarks around his spired home. He had to feed two sources to get information, and that was only because the first had directed him the wrong way. To say that Axel is in a foul mood when he lands on his home, and squeezes through the hidden, twisty, cold, tight passage to get inside, is an understatement. The journey, the feeds, the old goat, that feed in particular, leave Axel's head with confusing thoughts and too many questions for the full duration of his journey.

He had heard Roxas. Smelled him. Tasted him. It makes him sick with the ache inside himself. It's why it took multiple days and nights to get home—he had to keep stopping because he couldn't breathe with the welling sadness. And he couldn't stop thinking about it because all he had were days and nights of travel with nothing to occupy his thoughts with.

His mind kept, and keeps racing, trying to figure out what happened. He still has a burning rage inside himself that Ansem is somehow responsible for it. Roxas can't remember him, doesn't remember him. He made sure of that before leaving.

But what if he does remember? What if it somehow really had been Roxas he sensed? What does any of it mean?

He doesn't know. It just makes him tired and so weary. He is exhausted and spent. He squeezes through the last part to burst out into his cavern. The sun's rays filtering through the cracks illuminate the inside, wherein everything is calm and still. Axel barely makes it to his nest before he collapses into a dreamless slumber that lasts several days.

---

Stupid Reno wakes Axel with his squeaking and flapping. The sound of the glow stones being smashed together to create ambient light echoes through the cavern.

"Yo! I was wondering where you'd gotten to."

Axel rolls over to face the wall, pulling a wing over his head.

"My, my. You must have had an adventure. You got pants on and everything," he chuckles.

"Leave me alone. I'm not giving you anything," Axel grumbles, feeling thin.

"You've been giving someone else though. I can see your spine—smell it on you. You really should wash your cock more often."

A low rumbling huff of amusement shakes out of Axel and he quirks a tired lip. "Jealous?"

Reno is silent, his footsteps sounding ever closer.

The vampire is quiet for so long that Axel rolls over to see where he's gotten to. With a fright, he pulls back. Reno is right in his face. Axel sits up with a strain, feeling hollow around his middle, and his body feels a lot lighter. Ansem has drained him too much. He wonders how much time is left before Feastings Tide.

Reno huffs with a satisfied laugh and makes himself comfortable in Axel's bedding. "Little harpies tell me you've been looking for information."

Axel rolls his eyes.

"You know I could help. I have ways—connections—to get you what you want."

"I don't want to get tangled up with any of your ilk." Axel curls his lip with disgust.

"Why not? I know ghouls and gremlins who have ways of getting the morsel you crave over here, if you talk to them and share what you know they can make it happen."

Axel swats at Reno, like the irritating fly he presents as. "You mean feed them at exorbitant prices. What're they promising you in return? You know better than anyone that meatsacks can't survive here."

"I don't need them to survive for long if a steady supply comes in," Reno says, so casually that it rubs Axel the wrong way.

"You're really considering getting into that business again? You enjoyed getting punished and banished? Do you even know what could happen to you if you get caught again?"

"You're worried about me?" Reno flutters his eyelashes at Axel, who returns a sour expression.

Reno laughs louder. "Look, I'll be alright. I got ways to look after myself. And in the end, a vampire's got to eat," he shrugs. "And since my once-upon-a-time reliable companion has decided to change the pact he made with me, well," Reno shrugs again. "So how about it? Care to get into some business dealings with my associations?"

Axel can see through the feeble attempt at a guilt trip. However, he also believes Reno to be capable of happily starting up his old trade again, consequences be damned. It churns Axel's stomach though. The idea of Roxas being farmed and slowly consumed—slowly if he's severely unlucky—makes Axel's veins throb and his skin heats up, shimmering a faint red.

Reno shifts away a little, and rightfully so. Axel isn't sure what he might do right now if provoked further.

"Just stay away from—" he lets it hang, before he gives more away.

Reno laughs. "Give me a little feed now and I promise you, you will buy my fealty. Let's go back to what we had." Reno brushes his fingers against Axel's arm.

Skin cools and darkens. Axel jerks out of the touch though. "I'm exhausted."

A grumble leaves Reno. "How about if I exchange some information for a little gobble?"

"I already told you, I'm not interested in getting caught up in you—"

Reno's finger lands on Axel's mouth. "Ah-ah. This is different. This is...about portaling," he smirks.

Axel leans up sharply. "What've you got?"

A sultry smugness spreads across Reno's face. "You won't know until you give me what I want."

Axel groans. "No deal."

"You know you can trust me."

"So why don't you tell me and you trust me to give you what you want after?" Axel huffs.

Reno chuckles. "That's not how it works with me. You know that."

With a wrinkle of the nose, Axel stares into Reno's eyes, searching for deceit and dishonesty. All he sees is a good-natured-albeit-cocky smile. Gray-blue eyes shine. His familiar scent of rusty iron prickles his nose. Axel catches Reno's gaunt frame; his ribs sticking out, his stomach concave. He doesn't look to be faring well at all. Axel suddenly becomes aware of how much his feeds do sustain Reno, now that he doesn't have access to meatsacks all the time. He sighs. "Fine."

Reno hums and scrambles between Axel's legs, shoving the limbs out wide either side, and undoes the trouser flaps. His whole face lights up with excitable greed. Axel always finds that look adorable. Cold hands grasp his cock, and Reno latches onto the head, his mouth stretched wide to fit Axel's girth.

A sigh and shudder flow out of Axel. Reno's touch and technique for milking feeds out of him is comforting. They've been companions for over a millennia. Reno has always provided reliable intel and a quiet calmness which burns away the loneliness Axel isn't supposed to feel, but does so acutely, especially right now.

Reno sucks frantically, using both hands to massage Axel's shaft in an upward direction—the way he knows Axel likes. Reno taking from Axel, but doing so nicely, always gives Axel a heady feel and a flutter in his stomach, and now is no different. This feels better than the last time Reno had been on him, just after his feeding of—with—Roxas. Everything inside had hurt too much—in truth it still does—which was why he hadn't been able to go through with the feed back then. Maybe he's happy to help Reno right now because he craves a familiar and kind touch. Having had all those grotesque creatures mouths on him the last few months really makes him appreciate Reno. Reno is so much better than strangers. Reno is Axel's chosen one. It makes feeding palatable.

Axel focuses on the building pleasure and his eyes slipping shut. Reno pumps him with two hands, and then one hand. He sucks, slurps, teases with his tongue, lips, and teeth. Axel gently rocks up into Reno's mouth, the fangs scraping delightfully against him. Reno's warm mouth, and rubbing tongue—he gasps. His eyes fling open—Reno's lightly fondling the tip of his horn. Everything feels ten times more intense as before, even at Reno's most tentative of touches.

Axel arches his back. His wings shiver and Pretzel twitches. The fire in Axel's belly bursts to life and his breathing labors.

Reno hums against him. He rubs the tip of Axel's horn with more force, and sucks on his cock a little deeper, taking him in further.

Axel lets the warmth of the orgasm wash through him, but not drown him. He repays Reno for the pleasure—just what he owes for this amount of attention. Vitality drains out of him as Reno sucks up his fluid, and then Axel switches it off, just like that. He slumps back against his wings, sighing with deep satisfaction and relaxing in a limp heap. Just that smallest of horn rubs—he arches his back again, savoring the sensation. Really...why, in a world where most things are permissible, is horn touching not one of them?

Reno pulls off him, with a mellow, deeply blissed-out smile on his face. He sighs with satisfaction and licks his lips. "Damn, Ax, you taste so good. That's some sweet stuff you've got bottled up inside you. Must have been quite the feast. It's pretty strong. No wonder you wanna have an unlimited tap on that." He visibly shivers as Axel's energy courses through him, nourishing.

Delight still tingles through Axel, though Reno's words sour his mood. His fingers and tail twitch. "So, I paid you, now you pay me," Axel rumbles, not caring to explain himself to Reno.

Reno hums with a laugh. "Given how fucked out of your mind you look right now, I think I've already given you my dues."

Axel manages to pry one eye open to menacingly glare at Reno, eliciting more chuckles out of the vampire.

"See what I mean? You can't even properly threaten me, but I'll pay up, as I said I would, and you know what? That feed was so good, I'll even throw in my fealty," he chuckles, shifts, and sits on the outside of Axel's limbs now, instead of in between. He leans back against Axel's propped up leg.

Axel wrinkles his nose, knowing what Reno really wants.

Reno reaches over, looking to touch his horns. Axel slaps the hand away, suddenly not wanting to share this part of himself with anyone else, except for—"Get on with it," he grumbles.

Reno quirks an eyebrow at him, but says nothing more about that matter. "So, you are looking for a way to get over to a specific place—specific location—during the Feastings Tide."

Axel nods.

"Yo, as luck would have it, I know what you need."

Axel is on edge, hating how Reno draws this out at utter tedium. "On with it!" he snarls.

Reno laughs. "Maybe another feed will mellow you out—"

Axel lunges forward with a roar and, baring teeth, grabs Reno's arm.

Reno yanks his arm away and the smile is gone in an aggravated huff. "You used to be fun to tease. Now you're just rabid."

"Reno!"

The vampire grunts. "There is a creature that portaled through, and did so reliably every Feastings Tide."

"Who? How?" Axel presses.

"You need to recite the name of where you want to go—if it's another creature you need a full name and title. Names hold power, and this is an ancient spell."

"And?" Axel drawls, not believing for a second that it would be so easy.

"A personal item is required, to heighten the link and connection."

"That's it?" Axel bares his top teeth in disgust at the simplicity of it.

Reno nods.

"Who did this? What is their name? How did you find out about this?"

"The name...isn't important."

"Names hold power, Reno." Axel throws the vampire's words right back at him. He smells something most foul; a ruse.

Reno shuffles slightly to the edge of the ledge Axel's nest is sat on. "Jagiuth."

"Jagiuth?"

Reno hums.

"Jagiuth," Axel says louder, the name ringing a bell, rousing his anger. "Jagiuth the raving mad who succumbed to the charms of Amphora, a dryad in the lands closest to Heaven?" Axel's voice rises and rings, ending in a shout.

Reno's already transformed and flutters away. He clings to a stalactite, in his vampiric form. "Yo, so you heard of him?" The amused lilt in his voice incenses Axel.

"I gave you a feed for this?" he roars from below. "For a faerytale brood mothers tell their clutches?" he screams and like lightning launches into the air. Reno transforms and speeds away and out.

Axel doesn't bother flying all the way up. He glides back down and clenches his hands open and shut, grinding his teeth. "A brood's tale—" he roars again from his stomach and huddles down into the straw and fabric, wrapping his wings around himself and grips his tail and runs his hand into his hair, touching the fabric he's been wearing there.

He mutters to himself about how stupid Reno is, and all soft feelings for the vampire incinerate. He is at a loss for what to do. Reno gave him hope—therein lies the problem. Axel doesn't know where to turn to now. He feels that the old goat with his books is still his best bet to finding answers. But he doesn't think he can survive another feed like he had to give before. He can't afford to let a creature more powerful than him feast on him.

The lower-class ones he can control himself with. Reno, he can control himself with. It terrifies him how easy Ansem took it on him all these months—to unleash his full power—nay, near full power—on him now...Axel doesn't know what to think. The punishment had been double. Ansem had taken quadruple because...Axel winces. Ansem had sworn he used no magic to conjure up Axel's deepest desire, but he still had heard Roxas; smelled him; tasted. He could have sworn...Axel groans louder and wonders if there is something wrong with him. He feels afflicted—cursed.

He goes back to sleep.

---

How long it's been since Reno left he isn't sure, but he tastes brine on his tongue as he rouses from his slumber. The scent is the next thing he notices, as it wafts on a breeze that shouldn't exist in his cavern.

"Naminé?" he rumbles, groggy, struggling to open his eyes. When he does manage it he sees the sea nymph standing in the middle of his abode, bathed in the ambient daylight streaming through the cracks and gaps above. He blinks rapidly, sleep falling from his eyes and he sits up, running a hand through his hair; a nail catching on the bandana which sits askew on his head. "What're you doing here? How'd you get here? It's dangerous. Are you okay?"

Naminé smiles at him. "You really do worry about me."

"Of course." Axel stretches, working the stiffness out of his arms and wings, whilst yawning. "But how'd you get here?"

She smiles. "I teleported."

"You can do that?" he asks, surprised. "How'd you even know where to find me?" Axel hoists himself off his bedding and pads toward the sweet nymph, who looks away in embarrassment. Axel looks down, noting that he never did himself up after Reno visited. He fixes himself.

Naminé gives him a cautious look and relaxes. "I can't teleport myself very far just yet. Master helped me. I don't know how he found you though."

His grumbling thoughts about being so easily accessed via a spell gets disrupted. He stares at Naminé, standing tall before her. "The old goat let you come here to see me? Why? I thought he hates me, and if you're so precious to him...why?" Axel keeps asking, his brain slowly cranking awake.

"When I awoke you were gone. I asked Master what happened—he wouldn't tell me. I've been badgering him for a month to tell me, or if not tell me, to at least let me see you again."

"I assume you being here means he didn't tell you?" A sickness bubbles up from the idea that the old goat palmed the burden of satiating her curiosity onto himself.

She, thankfully, shakes her head. "No."

Ansem is right about her inner light. Axel doesn't want to be the one to taint or diminish it; not for things that don't concern her or serve her no benefit knowing about. The feed with Ansem...that served no purpose. "Do you want to know?" he asks, hesitant.

She gives him a hard stare, a storm brewing up behind her eyes. "Would it hurt me to know?"

"I don't want to share it with you. I'd rather protect you."

Her nose wrinkles ever so daintily, but peace returns to her eyes. "Very well then. I will let it go."

Axel sighs, relieved. "What are you here for, little pearl?"

"Oh, I want to ask you to come back with me, unless you have found what you were looking for?"

"Come back with you? The goat would allow that?" Could he be in such luck?

She nods. "I told Master you deserve another chance. I told him I deserve to know the things he wants to shield me from, and if he can't do it, that I would just come and live with you."

Axel coughs. "Live with me?"

She smiles ever so sweetly and giggles. "He pulled that same face. So that is why he'll allow you to come back with me."

Axel laughs. "Why Naminé, you have us two old demons wrapped around your little finger, don't you?"

She grins, very full of mischievous pride. "So, will you agree?"

He doesn't need to think twice about it. The choice is clear. "Yes. How will we—" he blinks and feels stretched apart suddenly, "get there," he finishes and looks around himself as he stands in the old bibliotheca, with its warm, musty book smell permeating the still air, and the crackle of torches filling his ears.

Naminé giggles. "Your bedding is still where you left it, same with the books you were looking over. Are you tired? Do you need anything?"

"Ah...no." Axel feels bombarded by the questions, and slightly disoriented at the swift change of location. His head spins. He wobbles. Naminé grabs onto his elbow.

"Sorry. Your head will clear in a moment. Let me—" she leads him to the alcove and lets him sit down. "I need to check on Master, but I will be back, if that is alright with you. I wish to know what you have been doing, and maybe for you to help me read a little."

Axel nods. She smiles with radiance and quickly flits off into the dark, where she disappears for a while. Axel sits quietly, blessing his good fortune, but also still caught in bewilderment. He looks over the books he had been studying before being so unceremoniously evicted.

Naminé returns, carrying a bowl of dried meats and discs of nutrient-rich minerals, and they settle down for their lesson. He helps Naminé read her book of fables and legends, and gets lost in what Reno told him, which makes him frown deeply.

Naminé notices and asks about it, and Axel finds it comforting to be able to confide in her. "You know how I'm looking for a way to portal between worlds?"

"Yes," Naminé nods.

"Well, a vampire I know...told me something, but...it's a fool's errand and he used me for his own gain."

"Oh no, I am so sorry to hear that." Her hand goes to Axel's arm, a soothing touch.

"Thank you, Naminé."

A pensive silence sits between them.

"Axel…" Naminé says, quietly.

"Hmm?"

"Why do you need a spell like that? Why must you go back to a specific place? Why, if I could portal to different worlds, I would go to as many different places as possible." She smiles, her blue eyes staring off into a dreamy distance.

"I," Axel grinds his teeth. Being reminded of how he isn't getting any closer to fulfilling his promise to Roxas, even though the human has forgotten—he winces, not even sure about that anymore. All of it leaves discomfort to fester in his gut. "I promised someone I'd come back for them."

Naminé's eyes go wide as saucers. "Come back...to them—" she gasps, and blurts, "do you have a loved one?"

Axel can't keep the sneer away. "I'm a demon. I can't love."

The look of awe and shock doesn't leave her. "But you are going through so much trouble to get back to someone, aren't you?"

"Y-yes?"

"Why?" she asks, eagerness tinting her simple question.

Axel can't explain it. "It's not love." He becomes aware of his heart beating stronger with agitation. Love. It is an alien concept for their kind. He doesn't even know where Naminé pulled that idea from. He blames her inner light and her youth. "We are creatures of darkness, I was crafted from lust, jealousy, an ever-burning and unfulfilling hollow desire. There is no room in here for…" he wrinkles his nose, "anything else."

She scowls at him, as much as a sweet face like hers can allow anyway. "You are kind and caring. Surely there is room for love!"

"No, Naminé," Axel snaps, testy.

She digs in her heels, unrelenting, "But you wish to see this someone again."

"I promised him I would."

She gasps again. "It's a him! Oh, do tell me about him! Please? Is he handsome? Is he brave? Is he...what species is he?" her eyes shimmer.

Axel lets out a faint, 'heh,' and rubs at the back of his head. The topic of Roxas softens him and he is glad to be off the previous subject. "He's...very handsome for a mea—hoo—human." He can't bring himself to call Roxas those other things aloud. Especially not to Naminé.

Naminé's eyes spring wide open. "Wow! A human? What are they like? What is he like?"

Axel chuckles. "Small, flimsy, so cock-sure they know how everything works. He is…" thinking of Roxas melts everything inside of Axel, like he is filled with magma. "Sweet, delicious…" his smile falters, "lonely, miserable, abused." The need to get back to Roxas surges up inside himself. It grows strong enough to follow a stupid lead. "Can you read me the Ballad of Jagiuth the Madman, and his Flower, Amphora?"

"Yes, of course." She flicks through her book until she finds it, and reads the story of the demon who grew insane with the need to possess a dryad he had met across the worlds, in a sea of green such as had never been seen before. It spoke about his endless travel to seek her out, and about a pact in blood, an unshakable bond of intense emotion.

"It is a sad story," Naminé laments as the ballad ends with fire and death, describing the loss of the demons' lives.

"Yes."

"Why did you ask me to read it?"

"The vampire I mentioned before...talked about Jagiuth's way being the only way of getting back to where I want to go. But it is a faerytale." A low grumble leaves his throat. He can't believe Reno lied and used him like that.

"Faerytales have powers too. The fae keep secrets that have been long forgotten, passing them down until they become something else."

"You mean nonsense lies to keep babes, and sprouts, and broods inside at night. Fae cannot be trusted. They love nothing more than to sing songs, tell stories, and play tricks. That's all their stories are ever full of."

Naminé hums thoughtfully, thumbing over the intricate illustration of the book she holds in her lap. "I know Fae like to play, but...have you ever met one?" she asks, a feistiness brewing in her stare.

"No," he admits.

"Well, I have. They play tricks but they aren't at all clever. These stories," she places her hand over the book, "come from somewhere. Lies are just secrets that haven't been discovered yet. One needs to know the key to unravel the truth behind it." There is a red hue to her cheeks.

"And how am I supposed to find the key? A mystery that can't be solved isn't worth anyone's attention. And I can't solve this without a key. So what's the use in any of this?" Axel mutters, annoyed.

"I don't know. All I know is that these stories are true." She seems very adamant, and Axel feels a strong pull to believe her, even if it is just to make her feel a little better.

"If you say so," he says, but it must be very unconvincing because her nostrils flare.

"I will leave this for you here to read over. You have read so many books but never found anything. Maybe the truth is staring you in the face if you give up your pigheaded stance and just see," she says with force, placing the book onto the ground decisively and gets up with a huff.

"Naminé," Axel tries with panic. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend—"

"I know," she cuts him off, "but you have anyway. Don't worry, I am fine. I just...need you to make an effort to see."

"I will try." He looks up at her with earnestness and picks up the book, holding it against himself.

She frowns, but it isn't nearly as stormy as a second ago. She turns on her heels and leaves.

---

Axel pours over the thick volume of childish stories and nonsensical faerytales. Admittedly, he only ever half-listens when Naminé reads to him, only keying in when she struggles with a word or asks him for a definition. He only skims over things, even now, as he browses its dusty pages. Clearly, Ansem hasn't touched this book for whatever reason. It is nowhere to the standard as all the other literature he's perused and studied thus far.

Axel wiles away the hours until the magical-appearing staircase materializes, and Ansem plods down along with it, heralding evening. Axel puts the book aside and watches, his heart in his throat over what punishment he might receive if Naminé hasn't been able to hide her upset with him well enough.

Ansem, however, only gives Axel the slightest glance. That is enough to cause a thick atmosphere of awkwardness to settle between them. Ansem obviously has only done this favor of letting him back in for Naminé's sake. He really cares for the little nymph, a thought which brings a smile to Axel's face for a moment.

Axel isn't sure what to say, or if he should say anything at all. He follows the goat with his eyes as best he can between the shelves, until Ansem disappears clear from view to sit at the table, where he will remain for the night. Axel decides that staying mute for now is the best course of action, so he goes back to reading over the simple and nonsensical stories.

The awkward silence, and neither demon acknowledging the other, goes on for many hours. Axel is a bit perturbed by it, having expected Ansem to make some big powerplay about making sure Axel knows who's boss. The lack thereof leaves him testy and unable to concentrate on the words in the book.

His attention does get caught however, by an ending passage of a story that has something to do with a sickness.

The word which cannot be named,
They feel it in each others touch
The bond is forged
A promise wrought
Forever more to have and hold

When horns caress,
Not for power, nor for greed.
But only for each others happiness,
Will they form a stronger breed.

Axel reads over it again. He reads over the story again, paying actual attention to the words. It is a cautionary tale about the perils of touching other demons' horns. Axel knows it. It is as ingrained into his being as his incubus nature, and yet he let Roxas touch him—touched Ansem in a fit of delusion—had asked and received it from Reno. He feels dirty inside thinking about it. The story talks about the sickness in visceral detail...his horns haven't fallen off, nor has he putrefied, or exploded into pustules, but the heaviness in his heart, the instability of his mind and emotions—that he absolutely can relate to, making him wonder if some truth can be gleaned amongst the nonsense. He's noticed himself getting little hot flashes of anger, over nothing. He gets deep wells of biting sadness for no reason at all, which he swallows down with great difficulty. He doesn't feel well half the time. He still doesn't feel like himself, even after so many months. Some nights are better than others, but generally speaking, he feels himself getting worse over time.

He reads over the end passage once more, getting stuck on the word bond. It bothers him, until he flicks back to Jagiuth the Madman. He reads the ballad again. He reads about Gulm'ok and Oiwqh, the two demons who touched each other and fell impossibly unwell. Axel flicks between the stories.

Could they be talking about the same thing? Is this the sort of key that Naminé means?

He looks up and cranes his neck to get a glimpse at Ansem through the gap between the shelves. With a deep breath, clutching the book, he rises and pads over. The goat is old and must know something, or he is wasting his time reading and restoring these tomes.

"Ansem." He comes to a standstill a few steps to Ansem's right.

Slowly, the satyr raises his head, like his horns weigh too much for his own comfort.

"Can we talk?"

"You are here on Naminé's insistence, nothing more," comes the bristly response.

Axel rolls his eyes a little, though he can relate. The horn thing feels so incredibly good but leaves the vilest taste in his mouth and shame clinging to the inside of his stomach lining—and feeling shame is something demons aren't known for. "I have questions about what's in this book." Axel holds up the cover, to help steer the conversation and to ease Ansem's discomfort, as well as his own.

Ansem squints and on recognizing it, scoffs. "That is one of Naminé's books. I thought you had a serious question."

"It is a serious question."

Ansem quirks his eyebrow and looks exceptionally bored. "What is it then?" He waves Axel closer and moves some of the books surrounding him, creating space.

Axel drops the book open on the page in question. "I was reading these two stories," he flicks between the pages, nearly at opposite ends of the book, "and I want to know more about this bonding thing it talks about."

Ansem, who skims over the pages as Axel talks, tenses, and his fingers stop running back and forth over the pages. "Why do you want to know about that?"

"Because it is the only lead I have to go on."

"What is it again that you hope to achieve here?" Ansem says, great disinterest in his voice.

Axel lets out a frustrated breath. "Trying to get back to the human I met."

"Why? It will not remember you."

Axel huffs but drops that uncertain question from his mind. "Doesn't matter, that is for me to deal with when I get there."

Ansem looks disgruntled. "Why do you wish to know about bonding? I thought you were after manipulating and controlling portals."

"Yes, I still am, and this story here," Axel flips the pages and points to it, "tells of a demon who could."

"These are just stories and imaginings. They hold no truths. By all rights, they shouldn't even be within these desecrated halls. I really must have a word with Naminé."

"Naminé seems to think faerytales hold truths, if you know where to look, or how to interpret them." Axel crosses his arms, "And frankly, the stories in here have given me more of an idea than all the unhallowed texts I've read so far."

"That nymph," Ansem mutters close to under his breath.

"Are there any truths to these stories? The horn stuff...like, I haven't turned to stone, my cock is still here, same as my horns, and so are yours. Well," with a smirk he continues, "I assume your cock is still on," he snickers. Ansem gives him a biting stare, which makes Axel reign it in. "If the bad stuff isn't true about the horns—"

"Then you shouldn't believe any of this nonsense," Ansem jumps in far too eagerly.

"See, your reaction makes me suspicious. What is so dangerous about this book? What threatens you about it?"

"Nothing," Ansem says, his face a mask of cold stone.

"Well, maybe it is some large-scale conspiracy because I wouldn't put it past those running the show in the Hearth. The horn thing feels incredibly good, so I don't get why it's always been made out to be terrible. I touch my own sometimes. I know others do too. But touching horns that aren't yours? Bad? Why? Is it the angels not wanting us to have any fun? And if that's the case...then we should all do i—"

"No," Ansem snaps. "It is dangerous magic."

"Magic? How's it magic?" Axel can feel Ansem's agitation. It is good. It makes the satyr open up and talk, so Axel will gladly keep pushing the old goat's buttons if it means finally getting some answers.

Ansem scowls, looking at the book for a long time before turning his eyes onto Axel. "I told you to read your histories."

"I did read the histories."

"Then you shouldn't need to ask about the bonding."

"Does it get mentioned somewhere?"

Ansem pinched the bridge of his nose and sighs again, a deep weariness flowing out with it. "You haven't read at all," Ansem accuses.

Axel scoffs, half-offended. "Have you been around this place, old goat? There are too many books. And if you don't tell me exactly what to read or where to find it, then I'm not gonna get to it, now am I?"

A sour expression crosses Ansem's face.

"You should just tell me things. Would save us all some hassle. But I guess you just want to use me, instead of really helping me."

Ansem doesn't make any show of denying it. He simply snaps his fingers. Axel cocks an eyebrow, looking at the old satyr, with his horns looking a little thicker and his golden hair a little brighter. Some of the gray flecks in his beard have also washed out, all thanks to Axel's feeds, and probably mostly due to that feed. Axel breathes out the constricting discomfort in his chest.

Axel ducks, spotting something flying at him out of the corner of his eye. Ansem catches the object, which is a heavy-looking book. He slams it onto the table before himself, dust kicking up, catching Axel by surprise. He hasn't thought a single speck of dust could reside in this place.

Ansem opens the book, the pages yellow and worn, the ink faded, the illustrations lackluster. "This is what you must read." Ansem spins the book to face Axel, who looks down at it, squinting.

He straightens up. "I can't read that."

A disgusted look crosses Ansem's face. "This should come as naturally to you as gathering energy."

Axel scoffs. "It doesn't. I never bothered keeping up with these old texts. It makes no sense and always puts me to sleep."

"You are as bad as Naminé," Ansem says, a softness creeping into his tone, and the lines on his face smooth out somewhat. "Sit," the satyr commands with a wave, and Axel sits, knowing a chair has been conjured up behind himself.

"Tell me what you know of the calamities."

Axel groans loudly. "Why're you testing me on this?"

"Do as I say."

Axel groans again and rolls his eyes. "They happen every couple of centuries. We haven't had a major calamity in over a millennia though. Nothing to wipe out cities or whole populations. Just a tornado here, some flash floods there, raging fires in the mountains." He shrugs, failing to see the relevance.

"Do you know the reason behind the calamities?"

With a scoff, Axel says, "Lucifer was being a dick."

"If you want to know the truth then stop being abrasive."

Axel grunts. "Fine," he drawls. "It was a culling, to fix the power imbalance from the lower classes growing too fat and fed off the meatsacks. Lucifer became as tyrannical as the Light Realms in what is and isn't permitted. Access to the other realms was severely restricted, my kind—I—was created, to distribute the bounty, destined to be turned to dust with overuse—"

"That is not your kind's destiny."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you never fed on any of my kind 'til they turned to dust," Axel snarls and glares at Ansem, grinding his jaw, and feeling his skin turning hot.

Ansem looks at Axel, his face set in stone, but he blinks and his gaze wavers. He looks away.

"Thought so. Don't get pious on me, old goat." Axel breathes through his rising anger to refocus. "Your kind, the ones with power, suck us dry. It's why I gave up the perks. I value my existence too much."

Ansem hums. An indistinct look crosses his face, but if Axel has to put a name to it, he would say Ansem looks ashamed.

"What's any of this have to do with the horns though, what is bonding?" Axel tries to get back on topic.

With a curl of distaste to his lips, Ansem says, "It stems from the calamities. As you said, Lucifer created them for power balance—" Axel scoffs. Ansem gives him a sharp glare and continues, "He tries to make our world a better place than where he was exiled from. The lower classes became too enmass and powerful. It was starting to drain the middle realms—was affecting everything, above and below the plains—this was long before Lucifer created your class—" he adds as an aside. "Lucifer engaged the Archangel Gabriel to fashion the calamities, wiping the Hearth's population by half. It was supposed to be indiscriminate, to be fair to all."

Ansem's eyes are on the book, but his gaze seems far away. He fingers the paper's edge and slowly turns it, revealing another turned-sepia-with-age-and-neglect page. "Of course, when news spread—through whispers, and the fae folk—demons became upset. Bargains and threats were made to Lucifer, for nights and days—"

Axel laughs a little. "Seriously? Demon's threatened...What could they possibly even threaten him with?" He laughs harder but suddenly stops, "Were you one of them?"

"I was far removed from all of this. I lived in the lands of Galgaloss."

"Never heard of it."

"That is because it was destroyed in the first calamity," Ansem tells, a morose cadence in his tone.

Axel clicks his tongue. "Was it nice?"

A far-away stare crosses Ansem's face again. The corners of his mouth twitch, whether a smile or a grimace, Axel has no idea. A deep inhale of breath wipes the look off Ansem, and he says, "It was the most beautiful place in existence."

"Ah. That's a shame then."

Ansem curls his lip. "Yes. It was." He exhaled deeply. "Before the calamities struck, Lucifer fashioned a fail-safe, a protection. Not a guaranteed protection, but something to keep those most worried from acting on their threats—and that is the bonding." Ansem pauses for a long minute, as if the weight of the realm sits on his shoulders.

Axel itches to know what is going on. All this business about his maker being just and threatanable is complete news to him. The most he has ever heard is that calamities come and sweep away the dregs, to keep those in charge, well...in charge. Axel knows he's just another small cog in the well-oiled manipulation machine. What Ansem is telling him now sounds like propaganda to keep the masses happy and accepting of the constant turbulent nature of their world. Volcanoes erupting, cyclones decimating whole slums and villages. Earthquakes, and titans coming to trample whole cities—though to be fair, Axel has never experienced that one, only hearing of it. All the bad things that kill a lot of their demon kind are either angels, looking for sport, or disasters, which everyone recognizes as being for the greater good, so no one cares as long as it doesn't affect them. It turns the saliva in Axel's mouth bitter.

"So what is it?" Axel prompts eventually, as Ansem still seems lost in whatever he is thinking about.

Ansem rouses. "Hmm?" Despite the youthfulness that Axel's feed has bestowed on him, the satyr looks old and worn once more.

"The bonding."

"Oh. It is a way for two demons to form a pact of protection."

"Protection? From what?"

Ansem sighs. "Have you not been paying attention? From the calamities."

"How is that supposed to work?" Axel quirks his lip in a confused sneer.

"Bonding allows the pair to share a psychic link. If the couple are of the same calibre they can feel each other's anguish. If one is lower it is a one-way street, to only feeling the higher level demon's pain."

Axel wrinkles his brow, trying to understand. "And that's supposed to protect anyone...how?"

"You know demons don't care. They tolerate others, are able to work in cohesion for a greater purpose, but generally speaking, everyone is on their own."

"Yeah, so?"

"It was thought that if the pain is shared the other would come to the rescue. Some demons have servants and troops, but those cannot be relied upon when danger draws near. But if one feels inescapable fear and pain, they are enticed to come to the rescue."

Axel crosses his arms and leans back, studying the goat, to ascertain whether he truly has gone mad. "And how are horns involved in this?"

"They are part of the ritual to form a bond."

"And why have I never heard of horns being used in such a thing?"

"After the first calamity a lot died—bond or no bond," Ansem's nostrils flare. "The practice of bonding was forgotten and discouraged from being used again—deemed too dangerous."

"Dangerous? What's dangerous about it?"

Ansem breathes, shallow and noisily. "Those who are left in the pair when their mate has died feel the lingering death their mate felt, in themselves. It also leaves demons open to...being more vulnerable to emotional attacks."

"That, honestly, sounds like a terrible idea. What fools would do that to themselves—did you?" Axel jumps at the strange idea which enters his head.

Ansem's silence gets Axel excited. "You did!" he laughs but instantly loses his voice as Ansem's hand clenches around his throat, murder in his eyes.

Axel gasps, eyes wide, breath failing him.

Ansem's grip eases as he gets back in control of himself. He lets go and steps back, retaking his seat.

"It is a dangerous practice," Ansem reiterated, with gravity. "It leaves scars that never heal. It leaves the mind forever changed. It was deemed reprehensible and all memory of it expunged from the history books, except for the information contained in this one," he taps the book on the table. "But you cannot read it, so you shall never know its secrets."

Axel coughs, his throat sore, "Oh, c'mon. You're being spiteful."

"I am. Learn to read it yourself if you care so much about it."

Axel groans.

"And you will pay monthly. I will take as much from you as I deem fit payment for having you loitering around Dihiquar and filling Naminé with nonsense."

"Nonsense?" Axel decries, with a whine to his voice.

"Take these books and leave my sight." Ansem picks up the dusty tome and Naminé's faerytale book, shoving them against Axel's chest.

Axel leaves for his alcove, to decipher the ancient markings, truly wishing he hadn't forgotten how to read the archaic language. He finally feels close to getting some answers to something. Whether it will be useful to him he can't say, but he makes an effort to relearn what he has forgotten.

---

Naminé finds him when dawn breaks. He tells her everything he learned, even though at the same time it feels like nothing of substance, as the details he feels he needs most are non-existent.

"You really think Master bonded with another demon?" Naminé asks.

"The murder in his eyes when he choked me says, yes."

Naminé sits in thought, the two books open before herself. "He used to tell me about a wood nymph he used to roam around with."

"Oh?"

She rubs the tip of her nose. "He met her in the woods of his home. He's often told me about the deep green leaves, and the thick and dark places, and the dappled meadows," she sighs wistfully. "It sounds really pleasant."

"I think there were a lot more pleasant places around before the calamities. The ages haven't been kind on the Hearth though. All that darkness that trickles down from the other places spoils and corrupts, like toxin," Axel says, thoughtfully. He has seen it even in his short time—the way places change. The more rancid the other worlds become, the more it affects everyone and everything in the Hearth. The packs of roving demons have gotten a lot meaner with the centuries.

Naminé looks up at Axel sadly, which snaps him out of his ruminations. "I'll take you to a place closer to the light when I figure this portal magic out."

"Oh, you will?" Her face shines with shimmering joy.

"Yeah, sure."

A sudden look of surprise crosses Naminé's face. "Did you end up finding out more about the portal magic?"

Axel stares and slaps his forehead. "I got completely sidetracked with this."

Naminé laughs. Axel grumbles.

"What the Heaven was I thinking? Oh...no, wait. I saw the mentions of bonding in both these stories," Axel grabs Naminé's book again, flicking between the earmarked stories. "I thought it might be a key, like you said. Like, I've read through this and only these two stories mention anything about a bond. So…" Axel shrugs. "Once I decipher these scribbles, I might get somewhere." Axel switches out to the big book Ansem gave him.

He and Naminé fall into peaceful quiet, as they study the texts.

Naminé goes away for a while, citing duties that need doing. On her return Axel asks, "Where do you go? Like, what is above us?" He glances up. "Is it the city? Is there a shop front I could come in from instead of that cave I found?"

Naminé tinkles with a laugh. "Master put the entrance in a cave?"

"It's not normally like that?" Axel asked, bewildered.

She shakes her shimmering white hair. "We are nowhere and somewhere. We are between the worlds. Master can put the entrance wherever he so chooses."

"Oh. Good way to avoid being found, I guess. So where do you go?"

"Master has a home, which I am sworn to not tell anyone, ever. I portal in and out of there."

"Fascinating."

She smiles. "Did you get anywhere with your text?"

"All I could make out are the words 'dangerous'. And something about touching and intense pleasure. But, you know...it isn't anything new."

"Oh," she looks crestfallen, but perks up. "Well, I have been thinking a lot about what Master told me about himself and the nymph."

"Yes, I am listening."

Naminé sits back down, smoothing out the creases of her robe as she does so. "I remember her name is Reeva. He often talked about her eyes and how green they were. She had long green flowing hair, and a wooden complexion. I always have this really pretty picture in my head of what she must look like. He told me he met her once when she was getting attacked. He stepped in to help her and they were fast friends after that."

"Have you ever met her? Does she come to...wherever it is you live?"

Naminé shakes her head. "Master only talks about her sometimes. Always in the past."

"You think she's dead?" Axel hazards a guess, molded from the conversation he had with the goat and the reaction he received.

"Hard to say. Demons don't do friendships well. They could just not talk anymore." She shrugs her slight shoulders.

"True."

"Axel?"

"Hm?"

"Are we friends?"

Axel looks up from the book. He thinks hard. "I—ve...never had a friend. So I don't know. What do you think?"

She smiles sweetly. "I think we are."

"Ah," Axel returns the smile. "Friends then."

Their conversation ends there and they fall into silence, getting back to their work.

---

The month passes pretty quickly. Axel has to consult other books in his venture to get a handle on the basics of the archaic text. Naminé produces a few more faerytale books from goodness knows where. They shed no further insight into the matter.

One evening Ansem comes down and with his jaw jutting, and the scowl heavy, demands payment.

He binds Axel's hands. Axel quips about how some demons really get into being restrained, but Ansem has no humor. He guides Axel, who is behind him, into himself, and then Axel does his due, disliking how good it feels and fretting over how much Ansem will take as payment.

Axel looks at Ansem's back and hair. The color does remind him of Roxas, but surely a memory like that couldn't have caused the full-blown hallucination...could it?

He had tasted and heard the little human. Axel's heart hurts thinking about him.

The transaction is over quick enough. Axel feels the tug and pull and draining, but it is only slight. A spurt. It makes Axel smile. The satyr really isn't so bad, but Axel will never admit it out loud to the goat.

He pulls out of the tight, wet heat and demands to be unbound, which Ansem obliges with, by a wave of his hand.

Axel rubs his wrists and pulls his trousers up, closing them.

Ansem faces him, looking deep in thought.

"What is it?"

Tired eyes raise. "I thought about our last payment. You accused me of illusion magic, despite illusions being your forte."

"I cast illusions on myself, and they are mostly involuntary," he grumbles.

"What is it you thought I conjured?"

Axel clenched his jaw. "What I desire most. What I lose myself over. What I'm willing to release my all for."

"Your affliction," Ansem states, clarifying.

Axel nods, wondering why Ansem is bringing this up. Maybe the goat is finally coming around to wanting to be helpful. Axel can only hope.

"Tell me. What did you experience?" Ansem returns to his seat, raising his hand, calling on various books from different shelves, catching them, and flipping pages.

"I heard his voice."

"What was the quality of it?"

Axel has to concentrate to keep the ache down enough for him to think objectively. "Quiet? A whisper? Getting a little louder each time."

"What did it say?"

"Just my name."

"Anything else?"

"He asked me to cum. And there was...smell. I could smell him. And...taste him. In my throat. In my body." His throat feels parched and the memory of it sends a shiver through him and makes Pretzel twitch and spasm. "Shh," he calms.

"Anything else?"

Axel shakes his head.

"Describe the taste."

"Thick, rich. Sweet, but tamed with salt. It was him. You taste very different."

Ansem visibly swallows. "I tasted that too. It is different from you, too."

"It's him." Excitement clings to Axel's voice. "What does it mean?"

"It can't be. You gave him the Kiss."

"But then how do you explain what happened?" Agitation over Ansem's disbelief wells up inside.

"I suppose, if the kiss somehow didn't work on him he might have tried to reach out to you, but...even then, it would be impossible."

"Why?"

"No magic penetrates Dihiquar. Your affliction—what is he? What species?"

"Human."

"Nonsense. No human could break the protective spells I have set up."

Axel gets even more excited then. "Maybe he's half!"

Ansem looks at Axel, eyebrow raised, and confusion wrinkling his nose. "Half?"

"Half demon."

"Nonsense!" Ansem barks.

Axel huffs out an irritated breath. "He must be half." Where there had been doubt before none exists now, even if some of it is just to spite the old goat. "Everything points to it being the case; he has horns; he fed off me! You know how many meatsacks I've fed off? Thousands, if not more! None of them ever took from me, but he did." He remembers now—remembers thanks to Ansem—that familiar feeling of being sucked dry. He hadn't recognized it with Roxas because he had forgotten what it was like to...He gasps. "He's high class too if he can do that."

Deep perplexion crosses Ansem's face. "He cannot be half."

"He is. He has to be! What else would explain how he is and looks and what he can do?"

"You must be mistaken. There are no such things as half-breeds."

Axel's eyes widen. He runs away, to his alcove, grabbing Naminé's book and returns, slapping it down on the table before Ansem, turning to the page. He points. "There! It mentions breed. 'From a stronger breed', that's Roxas."

"It cannot be."

"Why not?"

"Demons cannot mate with humans. Demons can't even mate with other demons. We propagate through natural elements, you should know this. Even going to the most sacred of shrines to pray wouldn't create a mixed or stronger creature."

With a growling huff, Axel says, "Why do you refuse to believe this?"

"Because this idea goes against everything we know of who and what we are. Everything in this book is swill. The scribe sent itself mad with Fae mead, and holds no merit. You should instead focus your energies on pursuing the academic texts."

Axel growls and feels the hairs on his neck bristle. "You know who wrote it?"

"Abraxi Ohih. A no-name drunk really. I should not let Naminé read such offal."

"I have gotten more sense out of Naminé's books than anything you've given me. And you know what, old goat?" He rounds on Ansem, teeth bared, "I know that you know the truth. I know that you could tell me everything I want to know, but you refuse to do so! You keep steering me in wrong directions, distractions, all of it. And you know something else? I know that story about Jagiuth the madman is you!" he stabs at the darkest of hunches.

"Lies!" Ansem roars, rising from his chair and sweeping the books off the table with a loud thunk.

They glare at each other, tempers thin as a hair's breadth. The air is electric, shimmers, and distorts with the tension between them, and the heat radiating off Axel's glowing-ember skin. Still as statues, they stand, with the underlying aggression of rabid dogs. Their huffs are loud. Nothing moves.

Just as quickly as it flared up, Axel douses his internal rage.

He bursts out laughing without mirth, and takes the slightest step back. "You are terrible at hiding the truth as soon as anyone comes scratching at it. I will be over in my alcove reading the nonsense until you come to your senses and tell me what I need to know to get back to my half-human affliction." Axel bends down, retrieving the book Ansem flung to the ground, and saunters off, his tail and hips swaggering, and a quiet confidence growing that he is onto something.

---

Ansem doesn't come to see Axel after that conversation. Nor does he say anything. Axel glares after him as the goat leaves for the day, and then he patiently awaits Naminé's return. He is eager to tell her all he has learned.

She is shocked, and barely believes it, but she can't explain away Ansem's reaction either.

"You really think he could be half?"

"No other explanation for it. I am starting to believe that there are a lot of things those in power don't want us to know. Roxas has too many non-human qualities. He tried to reach me—I don't know how, but the fact that he remembers me means that my Goodnight's Kiss didn't work; it doesn't work on demons."

Naminé's eyes shimmer with excitement. "I wonder who he is, what his lineage is. Roxas is a good, strong name. You said you think he must be from somewhere prestigious?"

Axel nods. "Above my station anyway, and I'm pretty high up there."

"Wow! You know, I once heard a story that connections can be made from the other worlds to ours. But it can only be started from over there. Maybe your Roxas is learning of ways to connect with you. He must really miss you."

Axel knows she means no harm by it, but it is a deep wound inside his chest. "I need to find a way to get back to him. Especially now." He grows determined to try even harder, but it's a daunting task.

They sit quietly, pouring over more books. Axel straightens his back from time to time and stretches his wings. He rubs at his face and head. He groans. The small red fabric falls out and plops onto the cool stone floor.

Seeing it is enough to cause a sting in Axel's chest. He picks it up—

"What is that? I always see you wear it," Naminé asks.

He eyes the bandana. It no longer smells like Roxas, but the touch of the cloth still instills him with some comfort occasionally. "It belongs to Roxas. He gave it to me. You wear it on your head. It keeps hair out. But it's too small for me, so I wrap it around my horns or tie it like this." He grabs a tuft of his hair from the top of his scalp and winds the fabric around.

Naminé smiles. Axel can already tell what she is thinking.

"That is so beautiful. He gave you something!" She gasps. "Do you think, maybe this fabric connects you?"

Axel pulls the cloth out of his hair and looks at it. "No?" He isn't sure. "It can't be as simple as that, can it?"

"Probably not, but it might have a small part to play? May I?" She gestures to the bandana. Axel, reluctantly drops it into her small hand.

She holds it up and turns it over—sniffs it—wrinkles her nose.

Axel chuckles. His smile fades. "I was told personal items heighten connections. Maybe...it does have something to do with…" He gasps and snatches the fabric out of Naminé's hand. "This is the only thing I have of his. I'll need it." With his voice dropping, he whispers into the cloth, "Thank you, Roxas. Thank you for giving this to me." He hugs it to himself, hope rising. He has no clear path ahead but he feels on the right track.

Naminé smiles at him. "We have his name. We have a personal object. Let's see what else we might need."

Axel beams. The idea of suffering through more texts and tomes seems less painful.

---

The days pass with tension. Axel pays the old goat no heed though, since he refuses to be helpful. He has too much to think about. Roxas is on his mind more than ever. Roxas tried to reach him somehow. Roxas remembers. That kills him most of all. He grows hyper-aware of the passage of time, where before it meandered and ambled along. Ever increasing urgency and a frantic uneasiness grows inside of Axel. He can't believe how nervous he feels at times: unable to concentrate, fidgeting, needing to leave the claustrophobic confines of the crypt. Naminé helps him with that, as well as coming back; she has taken a greater interest in learning to portal properly. Axel finds it a very sweet gesture, even though it will not help him get across worlds. He asked. Naminé, with great sorrow, told him she would not be capable of such a feat.

Axel abandons the red herring Ansem dumped in his lap regarding the bonding (despite him being the one who had asked the goat about it), and focuses on figuring out how the portaling should work. It is crucial, because Feastings Tide is coming. He must know what to do. The thought of Roxas having done something to get his attention—to try and connect—makes his heart yearn and hurt.

He follows up the lead Ansem had given him about the scribe. If Ansem doesn't like the guy it gives Axel all the more reason to look into him. It is difficult though, and not just because finding anything on the shelves—especially without Ansem's help—is challenging. He also has his emotions to contend with. Some nights he is full of energy, others he can barely get up to stretch his wings. He sleeps when he feels at his worst. Naminé checks up on him, offering to portal him somewhere to get some fresh air. He accepts, but it doesn't make a lick of difference.

The closer Feastings Tide draws the worse he feels. A flood of hurt locked away in his chest, one he does constant battle with, fills up his insides like a slow, relentless drip into a pail. Axel manages to hold it at bay, but it becomes a struggle to not tip completely over and drown in what's swelling up inside. His drive to find answers to the portal magic is his dogged companion and distraction, but some days and nights...he can barely move a muscle, feeling utterly drained, even though there is nothing physically wrong with him.

Ansem approaches him one night, stating that Naminé is worried about him and asks the dumbest thing, "What is wrong with you?"

"I don't know. I have no energy."

"Are you sick?"

"I'm a demon! How can I be sick?" Axel labores.

Ansem looks on for a moment before moving away, and that is the only bit of care the goat shows Axel.

The days drag on. Axel frets. He looks at the red bandana, gripping it tight. It no longer smells like Roxas, nor does it taste like him, but Axel holds on to it, switching up where on his body he carries the item: he ties it around the base of one of his horns, around his wrist, around his tail; Pretzel dances when he does that. All he wants is to feel Roxas against himself any way he can.

Naminé notices Axel's increased attention to the fabric. She gushes, a burble of affectionate words leaving her mouth, still convinced that Axel feels a lot deeper than he lets himself believe he does and can.

He fights her assertions; tries to ignore them, her, and the mix of anguish and anger inside himself through either sleeping or fighting himself into reading the texts which he's gathered under his resting space in the alcove.

One morning, with Feastings Tide just around the corner, he finds something; an old, tattered, barely-legible-with-how-badly-it's-written text, which falls out of one of the books that Axel picks up as he makes space for himself to sit on the floor.

It is archaic, which makes his head hurt, but before he throws it onto the ground a word of familiarity catches his eye. And then another, and another. He stares at the parchment, unable to believe he might be holding something useful in his hands, if only he can decipher the rest.

He feels more energetic than he has done in a good long while.

Naminé appears eventually, carrying a bowl with some food in it, and a drinking vessel, for Axel.

"Oh, you're up!" Her eyes are wide and bright. A smile adorns her face.

"I think I found something!"

She gasps and hurries the rest of the way, sinking down next to Axel, setting bowl and cup down to the side.

Axel points out the few words he can read. Naminé (who has been working hard on also learning a few words of the old language) points out a few more words. They stare at each other, disbelief and excitement dancing and merging into big expressions on their faces.

"This is a guide," Naminé gasps.

"An instruction manual." A wide grin slowly spreads across his face before he erupts into a roaring, "Yes!" pumping his fists so vigorously that Naminé has to duck.

She giggles. "Where did you find it?"

Calming himself, Axel looks at the paper. "In this old book by Abraxi Ohih," he points to the tome, laying open on the floor. "It was the same scribe that wrote those fables you like so much."

"Oh! That is so lucky that you found it."

"Yeah, I could have sworn I flicked through that book at least three times." He scratches at one of the scars running down his cheek wondering how he has missed it, but his head has been so foggy the past month that he shrugs it off. "Main thing is I've got it now. Just need to figure out what it says."

"I'll help!"

"Thanks, Naminé."

The pair spend hours and days pouring over the text, cross-referencing and checking the words. Axel is too stubborn to ask Ansem for help, also suspecting he would get no assistance from the old goat. Naminé offers to ask in his stead, but Axel doesn't want to give Ansem a reason to kick him out when he is so close to getting what he wants.

Feastings Tide is also fast approaching, so Axel has no time to spare. He needs to shore up his chance of success in getting to Roxas, by any means possible.

---

He is close now. Together with Naminé's help he's figured out that there are 5 things he needs to get to where he wants to go. Her company and help has been invaluable, though he does find annoyance in her level-headedness and cautious attitude because, on finally having deciphered the very last point, which had stumped them for a good week, she jumps at him to not go through with it right then and there.

"Why not?" he gives her a baffled look, as they sit in his alcove, surrounded by books to rival even Ansem's stack on the table.

"You don't know what will happen."

"Of course I do; I'll see Roxas again. He'll be so surprised," Axel giggles, excited, closing some of the books and piling them to the side.

"But you don't know if it will work for certain."

He waves his hand at her and noisily blows out some air. "Of course it will work. Why wouldn't it work?"

"Because you don't have his name—his full name," she snaps before Axel can give his familiar retort—they have talked about this very specific sticking point for two days now— "Names hold power and you not knowing his full name worries me."

"You should relax. Yes, I'm missing that, his lineage and family name, but I've been portaling since before you were ever born—"

"That was before you had your powers stripped though," she stresses, her brows furrowed deeply.

Axel turns his full attention onto the sea nymph. "It can't be that different. In the past, if I wanted to return to a place, I always imagined where I wanted to go to, and I ended up there just fine. Surely this and that magic," he gestures to the piece of paper lying on the floor between them, "can't be that different. Everything is woven out of the same fabric. Why would one thing work for one, but not another? I don't have his whole name, but I have a part of it. I know where he lives. I remember the city. I'll imagine it and I'll be fine. I've got the personal item I need," he swings his tail, drawing attention to the red fabric tied around him there, "and I have the energy to open a rift—"

"You don't know how much it will drain you." Naminé interjects, "It takes a lot out of me to take us even just a few miles away from here. I can't imagine what an entirely different world must take out of someone, and you...well, you aren't really in the best shape are you? I can see how drained you are compared to when you first arrived here. And even if you manage to open it somehow and go through...what if you collapse and can't move on the other side?"

Axel wrinkles his nose. "That won't happen."

"You can't know that! What if the portal closes as soon as you go through and you need even more energy to come back? You can't just come and go like you used to be able to."

Axel is irritated at himself for having shared so much about his past life with her over the last few months. "You sound like the old goat; you worry too much."

"And you don't worry enough! If something happens to you, you'll never see Roxas again." Her eyes shimmer a little, and a rather chilling gale blows around them.

"Calm yourself. You'll blow all our hard work away," Axel slaps his hands down on the bits of papers scattered about themselves, which begin to rustle with Naminé's worrisome gale.

She does huff out a breath and the wind dies down a little. "Do I need to remind you that you don't even know what this bonding thing is about?"

He grits his teeth. "I'm sure it's not important."

"It's number one on the list! How is that not important?"

Axel grumbles. "Why do you have to be such a wet sea sponge?"

Naminé huffs, a little amused and the rest of the wind dies down, "Because I worry about you. And I worry that we don't know what this bonding thing is exactly." She picks up the parchment and looks at it with worry. "Remember, we figured out that it says something about needing all of the things for the portal to activate properly. You...you can't risk it without having all these things!"

Axel's mood darkens. "I'll never be able to get all those things, Naminé. I can't ask him his full name and title and heritage. Even if I could talk to him, he...he doesn't even know who his father is. It wouldn't do me any good. And the bonding...I've looked, but can't find anything, and those texts are even harder to decipher than this page." He huffs with irritation and wrinkles his nose.

"No, Naminé," he shakes his head. "I've got his name, I've got an item, I've got the strength in me to open a portal. I'm sure I'll be fine. This place," he gestures around himself, "is between worlds, which is the final thing on this list. I confidently have three and a half of the five things. How bad can it be? If the portal spits me out halfway across the world from him it doesn't matter. I'll fly as fast as the wind to get to him. That's all that matters."

Naminé squeaks in a high pitch and clenches her fists. "You are so stubborn! I know this is very exciting, but I want you to be safe. I want you to come back to me and tell me everything you found. I want you to find Roxas again. So I think you need to be smart about this."

With a sigh, Axel relaxes his shoulders. "So what do you think I should do? I have all the stuff that I need to go, but you're saying...what? That I shouldn't? That I spent all this time and energy learning a stupid dead language for nothing?"

"That is not what I am saying, at all! I think you should just wait a little more. Wait for Feastings Tide. I know we both think this spell lets its user teleport whenever, but wait until the fabric between the worlds is weaker. You will expend less energy. And while you wait, make sure the incantation that we wrote out is correct and translated right. One wrong word and who knows where you might end up! I'm still not sure about some of these words," she points at the script they cobbled together from what little they know of the language, "and you should practice your pronunciation. It's really tricky. There's not much difference between the word for a lake of lava and a town. I don't want you to be severed in two, or come out with your top half a mouse, or—"

Axel bursts out laughing. "Sweet pearl, you have been reading too many of your faerytales again. There is no way that can happen."

She scowls. "How can you not believe that creatures have come out all wrong when they portal where they aren't supposed to go, but believe that Master is Jagiuth? It all comes from the same books. They hold truths." A grumpy pout takes some of the edge off her scowl.

Axel chuckles. "Because I've been around long enough and never seen such things happen. The old goat at least gave himself away."

"I am not happy about you taking this so lightly!" A storm brews behind her blue eyes, and the wind picks up again.

Axel sighs. "I'm not taking it lightly. I am willing to take a chance though. But," he sighs again, "I suppose I can hold off a little longer—just to make sure I try and get as much information as possible, and maybe check over this incantation again. See if we got anything wrong."

The smile finally returns to Naminé's face. "Maybe we can try and find something out about Roxas, too? If you think he is half, maybe there are some clues in one of these books about his lineage? You said he must be someone from a higher station than you. Are there a lot of demons like that? Could you narrow the field?"

Axel smiles softly at her and huffs. He has no hope of that panning out in his favor, but he appreciates her efforts. "You are so sensible."

Her enthusiasm shines ever brighter on her face. "So you'll wait?"

"I'll wait until Featsings Tide, but then I'm doing this, no matter what."

"Okay."

---

It is the eve of Feastings Tide and all is quiet in the bibliotheca. Ansem apparently has a function on and Naminé is busy helping him so Axel has nothing to distract himself with. He swore to Naminé that he wouldn't go until the actual day. She worries too much, but Axel also likes seeing her smile.

Axel has meticulously prepared, but now tries to get a good night's rest. It proves difficult. Roxas is on his mind. He hasn't found anything more regarding the little creature, but he always suspected it to end up that way. At least looking for things sufficiently occupied him, and made Naminé fret less.

He can hardly believe it has almost been a full year since he met the little horned human. It is difficult to fathom how such a routine day had so completely shaken up his life. He would have been taking it easy, conserving his energy, had little to no dealings with other creatures, save for Reno, and some merchants he might need some provisions from throughout the year. Maybe he would have even found some work to gain some coin, but as it stood, his year has been filled with aches and pains, and draining feeds, and so much reading he thinks his eyes will fall out. He's also netted himself a friend, which is nice and rare. He doesn't consider Reno a friend; a companion and leech at best. He looks forward to seeing Roxas again. He looks forward to having this portal magic work and then he can come visit Roxas whenever. It will make him so happy, which in turn gets Axel all excited too.

A drowsiness comes over him, but he plays with his tail a little, the red fabric still knotted around him there, making him smile. A wave of longing crashes into him. He misses Roxas. It's a ridiculous feeling to have for a meatsack he only met once, yet he feels it in the deepest parts of his body. He longs to take the loneliness away that sat in those blue eyes, craves to make him smile and laugh, wants to touch him and send him into heady pleasure.

Axel touches himself. A finger down his stomach, to his groin, and his shaft. He hasn't felt the stirring of desire inside himself since that night. Roxas brings it forth in him, an actual want. He touches himself, plays with his foreskin, and rubs against the throbbing vein. It doesn't take much to get him wet, especially when Roxas is on his mind. It feels incredibly nice. Much nicer when he does it to himself. There is no one to use him and drain him. He can enjoy the pure pleasure of the act when it is just himself.

Axel finds it a rare treat, made even rarer because of all the association's he has with this act being one of servitude to others. He regrets how his greatest pleasure is fundamentally tied with the greatest thing he resents about his own existence. Others made him hate it. Lucifer made him hate it. Roxas...makes him love. He chokes with the overwhelming feeling whilst pumping himself into steady pleasure, for no one but himself.

"Roxas," the soft moan escapes him.

"Axel."

He launches up into a sitting position, his heart pounding painfully hard. It had been a whispering breath, but he heard it. "Roxas?" he calls out into the empty space beyond. His senses awaken; he smells him; tastes him. Faint, but definitely him.

"Roxas," he calls out again, sliding off the alcove and padding toward the center of the hall.

"Axel."

His ears prick and strain at the sound. "Roxas," Axel twirls around, looking about himself.

"Axel."

He thinks the voice is louder from the right, he goes that way, knowing it is most likely useless, but it doesn't quell the reaction his body has to hearing and smelling Roxas around himself. He drips along the floor as he walks, his own footsteps too loud in his ears with how hard he listens for any more sounds.

The smell grows stronger; Roxas' sweet pungency. Axel licks his lips, ravenous. He passes bookshelf after bookshelf.

"Axel, please cum," Roxas begs.

A wave of loneliness crashes into Axel, stopping him in his tracks. He clutches at his chest and grabs at a shelf for support. He labors through the agony, sucking in sharp breaths. The feeling doesn't leave, but it subsides and Axel marches on, the space around him getting darker with each step. He's thought himself to have wandered the length and breadth of this place and it's never been as dark as this. Even the shelves disappear, but he goes on because he can hear Roxas' panting breath, smell him, taste him, and hears the occasional call of his name.

"Roxas," he tries calling out, but his voice gets stuck halfway up his throat and suddenly, where before had been nothing but darkness, sits Roxas on the floor, bathed in daylight so bright that Axel hisses and averts his eyes with the sudden and painful illumination.

"Roxas," he tries again, his voice forming the sound now, carrying with it elation and bewilderment over finding the small human here...wherever here is. He blinks and shields his eyes behind his hand, edging closer, adjusting to the bright glare, though it is still uncomfortable; the light from another world is too hot and sharp for his senses to comfortably deal with.

He gulps and salivates at the sight of Roxas, sitting on the ground, his legs folded under himself, masturbating. Axel watches Roxas deftly work over his cock in shallow, but tight jerky movements. A look of concentration paints his face and his cheeks puff out.

Axel quivers, a mix of relief and longing. "Roxas, I can't believe you're here." He collapses to his knees before the little creature, but Roxas doesn't look up. He keeps stimulating himself, brows knit and eyes squeezed shut.

An eerie feeling creeps over Axel. Something isn't right. The light which illuminates Roxas doesn't reflect or shed onto Axel. He feels far removed and like he himself isn't real.

Roxas' scent wafts; full-bodied and heady. Axel leans closer, whispering, "Roxas."

No response. Small sounds keep escaping Roxas' throat. His breath is hectic and deep. Words snag Axel's attention, quiet murmurs, repeating something. Axel strains to hear; despite almost pressing his ear to Roxas' face—causing a weird static to buzz through his bones—there is a skin-prickling, and oddly distant quality to his voice.

"Come back. Come back to me, Axel. Please."

Axel jerks away and like a stone, his stomach drops. Swallowing, he struggles to find his own voice, "I'm right here." He reaches out to cup Roxas' soft cheek, his hand shaking.

All the hairs on Axel's body stand on end, and the same buzzing from before fills his ears, and travels down his spine. As he tries to connect with Roxas, there is resistance—a barrier. Axel pushes his hand, forcing the distance to close, making the buzzing static louder and the reverberations in his core stronger. He touches. Roxas' eyes fling open. Axel's chest fills up—he blinks—he's lying on his back and before him is nothing but a cavernous space. A firm grip on his shoulder causes him pain as it shakes him.

"Axel," a gruff voice barks, disorientating him.

He stiffens, his grip on his own shaft tightening. He lets go of himself and catapults into a sitting position, spinning around, bewildered. "Roxas?" he gasps, eyes wild and his heart racing.

"Something is wrong. There is an intrusion," Ansem, dressed in a tight-fitting dark vest and slacks, stands there, looking up at Axel, who is still on his alcove.

Axel looks past the old goat, breathless. "Where is he? What happened to Roxas?"

"You need to tell me what happened."

Axel slides down, Ansem steps aside. "Roxas...he was here."

"Impossible."

"I saw him. He was—" Axel startles and pushes past Ansem, frantically moving toward the space in the back of the hall where he had been seconds ago. His footfalls turn from walking to running. He rushes past row after row of shelves to arrive at...a wall with sconced torches. "It was here...it went back further. It was all black." Axel touches the brick wall, trying to find a way through to no avail. He hears footsteps behind him and gives Ansem a frazzled look.

"There is nothing here," Ansem coolly observes.

"You stopped me! I touched him! He looked at me—was about to. He was here!" Axel stamps his foot and feels his skin heating up.

"You touched him?" The satyr raises an eyebrow.

"Yes...well, almost. I don't know. It was weird." Axel looks back at the wall, tracking his fingertips along the coarse grain of the large bricks. "You shouldn't have disturbed me. You made it all go away," Axel snaps, turning his irritation toward the goat.

Ansem hums thoughtfully. "You should be thankful that I intervened."

"Thankful?" Axel seethed, the red glow brightening in his skin and his hair bristling.

"There are some powerful magics at work here. You shouldn't be engaging with it. What were you thinking? How did you...what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. I heard and smelled Roxas. I followed him here and found him here. You're the one who disturbed us. I could have had him!"

Ansem shakes his head slowly. "No. I found you in your alcove, touching your cock and—" his eyes flick up to Axel's horns ever so briefly. "You were muttering to yourself. There were no other creatures here."

"I was somewhere around here. Roxas was here!" Axel whines with desperation, turning back to the wall and thumping his fist against it.

Ansem hums deeply. "It must have been a potent illusion. The same kind as...before. But this time it was a visual illusion as well. Tell me, what did you see?"

Axel turns back around to stare at the old goat. "He...he was bathed in an impossibly bright light. I don't think he could see me. He was begging me to come back to him though. I...I have to come back to him. I must go!" He pushes past Ansem once more, heading back to his alcove, as if possessed.

"Adraxelous," Ansem booms, stopping Axel in his tracks, "You would do better to wait—"

"Screw waiting," Axel screams, rounding on Ansem. "I've waited a full year! I've waited weeks and weeks to appease Naminé. I will not wait to make an old goat happy! Roxas needs me! He's waiting for me. I am going. I have everything I need." He turns and rushes to his alcove, his wings flapping occasionally, propelling him forward.

He looks for the handwritten incantation, amongst all the other papers scattered under his shelf.

He finds it and stands up triumphantly. His heart races with anticipation. His palms grow sweaty and his hands shake a little. He reads over the words in his head.

"Axel!" A panicked shout rings through the quiet.

Axel turns around, seeing Naminé come running toward him, her white gown fluttering in the breeze and the smell of the sea overwhelmingly pungent.

Axel grits his teeth and curses the old goat under his breath.

"What are you doing?" Naminé huffs and comes to a standstill before him, looking up, the wild sea in her eyes.

"I'm going to Roxas. He was here, Naminé. He used his world's magic to reach me. He's desperate. He needs me."

She gasps. "You saw him?"

"Yes."

The storm in her eyes quells; she looks thoughtful. Her attention snaps back up at him. "You haven't rested. You should sleep before—"

"No! No way can I sleep! I saw him, Naminé! You can't ask me to sleep! I saw him. I have to go."

The sea nymph sighs. "Are you sure you are well?"

"Yes!"

She huffs again, the heaviness in her heart evident. "Then go. But be careful."

A smile spreads across Axel's face. He hadn't thought he needed it, but he's glad to receive her blessing. "Thank you," he throws his arms around her for a tight embrace.

Axel lets go and readies himself. He ties Roxas' bandana around one of his horns. He has the incantation in his hand with all the detailed—and hopefully correct—wording, incorporating Roxas' name and the title Axel has bestowed upon him. He has enough energy left. He knows he does, and when he gets to Roxas he knows he'll get a great feed so he'll be all right coming back.

"Where should I do this?" he asks. All around them is the void between realms, which is another requirement for the incantation to work. He has everything except for the bonding. He feels confident. He wills himself to be confident.

Naminé looks around. "Maybe...towards the other end?" She points and they walk that way.

The little nymph fidgets and looks up at Axel several times. "You are sure about this?"

"Yes," he says, despite the nervous flutters in his gut. He can't show hesitation. He can't worry Naminé.

They come to the back of the hall, where the door stands.

"You can use the door for the casting. It might make it easier to have an already existing doorway, instead of having to rip right into the Weave."

Axel smiles warmly at her. "You are so clever."

She giggles, high-strung and anxious.

Axel clears his throat, breathes down the billowing sick feeling inside and focuses his mind. He starts reciting the incantation, feeling the words thick on his tongue. He's practised the words, but never in their complete form, never with purpose behind what he says. But he does now, visualising where he wants to go, and who he wants to see, utilizing his knowledge of his former life to portal. He hopes a vestige of his past gift still lingers inside himself somewhere. Maybe Lucifer didn't strip it all away...

"Akluvoraik, kkuvv ad Lidadol, kalv daln rikd uvk kloov uvk vook, konuvk da akov dho kudo da vadvokk Roxas kav ad konav uvk hinuv, u kdlavkol klook. Oh houl no, rod dho kavolk drav dhlaikh no, I kudladado dhud vhadh ak vadhav navkord. Okov. Tuko vhud ak vookok, da klavk no da nav houldk davvoddaav."

He says it over and over again, intoning the words, annunciating and feeling his tongue twist and cramp. He directs his vision of where he wants to go and his energy to the door before himself, chanting low and slow.

The air grows heavy. A current flows through Axel. His horns begin feeling oddly hot, especially around where he's tied the fabric. A strange buzzing builds on his tongue and travels through his body. Axel has no clue if any of this is normal. He continues saying the words, reaches out and touches the door, thinking it might be a way to channel the energy further.

Like a punch to the gut, he gets winded on connecting with the wood of the door. He barely manages to stand, doubles over, legs buckle.

Naminé gasps. Axel grimaces but keeps chanting, not wanting to lose the rhythm and he forces himself to straighten up even as he feels his body weaken and drain. His energy leaves through his fingertips. He has no control over it, and it frightens him. He refocused on Roxas; finding him; being with him; everything will be all right.

His eyes squeeze shut. He opens them again when he hears a wondrous murmur leave Naminé. The door before him dissolves. Darkness swallows it up. A gale blows out from the swirling black. Axel doesn't stop chanting. He can hardly believe this is happening, that it will work, that he'll see Roxas again.

He chokes a little with elation and stops the chanting. The way is open; howling and lashing with winds carrying the smell of brine.

"You did it," Naminé says, barely loud enough to be heard over the howling wind.

Axel looks back at her, grinning. "Told ya. I'll find Roxas and come back."

She nods eagerly.

Axel's grin falls flat.

"What's wrong?" Naminé's eyes go wide with concern.

Axel feels nauseous. He feels a tug at his outstretched hand, and then a sharp yank. He yelps, getting pulled and sucked into the portal. He frantically latches onto Naminé with his other hand. She grasps at him but can't stop him. Her grip slips. The last thing Axel sees is Ansem, standing in the back, half-hidden behind a bookshelf, smirking

'Oh shit,' is all that crosses Axel's mind as he falls. His stomach turns as he feels himself get pulled thin and drawn into the portal.

---

Author Notes: I'm only updating this for that one person who left a review being 'concerned' at the lack of a second part XD I update more frequently on Archive of Our Own. cream_pudding is my name. This story will have 4 parts. I haven't written parts 3 and 4 yet but I will finish this story one day because I absolutely love this universe. I have the rest of the story outlined and know exactly where it will go. I'm just busy with other things at present.

You'll know when this story gets updated a lot sooner over on AO3 than over here. I completely forgot about this fic on FFnet until I got that comment. lol. So thank you, random citizen.

Anyway, sorry not sorry about that cliffhanger.