Sorry updating took so long, spring break -;;


"Quite the entrance," Albel grumbled as he lay pinned to the floor.

"It's so good to see you!" Nel said, surprising herself with the words almost as much as the warrior beneath her.

"Do you mind?" Albel asked after a moment of awkward silence, a betraying hint of color gracing his cheeks as he tried to move his body.

"Sorry," she apologized feeling her face grow warm, and then absentmindedly dusted her clothing free of any dirt that may have attached itself to her.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Albel asked, cocking an eyebrow at her all white ball gown.

Nel looked down at herself and was surprised to find that she was still wearing the gown that she had woken up in when she had had her fateful encounter with Nellexis.

"What happened to you?" Albel asked after there was no response to his first inquiry.

Nel took a deep breath and recounted her entire experience from beginning to end. When she had concluded her experience she finally took note of the frown upon the warrior's face as he watched her from the spot he had taken up leaning against the wall.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Nel accused, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him. She knew her tale had been more than a little farfetched, but even Albel the Wicked would have to admit by now that anything could happen here in this castle.

Albel shook his head, uncrossed his arms, and pushed himself off of the wall so that he was standing straight, "It's not that I don't believe you… it's just that when you were gone, I checked a good deal of the doors," he stopped briefly, thinking over how he was going to state what had to be said.

"And?" Nel asked anxiously.

"And," Albel glowered, irked by her impatience, "all the doors are gone."

"What do you mean gone!" Nel demanded, her voice a little louder than she had intended it to be.

"I mean exactly what I said; all the doors are gone. They vanished when I tried to open them," he said with mild annoyance at the fact that he had to explain himself, along with the fact that he couldn't quite comprehend what was going on within the castle himself.

"How do we get out of here then?" Nel inquired, although knowing that he wouldn't have an answer for her.

"How the hell should I know? At least the hell-spawn in this place aren't after me," he said with a shrug and turned his back to his female companion, only to feel a sharp pain at the nape of his neck. "Ow!"

"You can at least be a little more considerate; you're a part of this as much as I am," Nel scolded, still holding the man's bound braid in her hand, threatening to yank it again.

"I am not," he argued, snatching his hair away from her. "I haven't seen a single ghost since we have been in this castle. Its you that has been attacked by a purple phantom, abducted by a dead princess, and has been harassed by everything short and tall in this god forsaken castle! Not me."

"You saw a ghost also," Nel yelled back at him. "Remember the face in the window from when we tried to get out of here the first time when the door slammed shut?"

"That was nothing," Albel said after a pause. "It was just lightning reflecting off of the glass; nothing but eye trickery."

"Albel Nox!" Nel yelled. "You know you saw that face, so don't try to deny it. Besides, maybe it can tell us how to get out of here."

"You want to talk to the ghosts now?" Albel scowled, only to find that the Aquarian woman was already making her way down the corridor back to the lobby, white dress flowing behind her. "She's crazy," he muttered to himself, feeling obliged to follow her... protect her?

"Will you hurry up?" Nel chided from a good distance down the hallway.

Albel shook the thought out of his head, there was no way that he was going to voluntarily play bodyguard for someone who nagged his ear off every chance that she got. He frowned and began to take longer strides.

Nel was looking at the window that they had tried to break earlier when he entered the lobby.

"Break it," Nel ordered Albel when he had sauntered over to her.

"Are you broken or something? Why don't you break it?" he snorted back, crossing his arms and glaring at her.

"This is no time to be a stubborn child. You have that gauntlet to keep you from getting hurt; I don't." Nel scolded him as if he were indeed and small boy. "Besides, you like to destroy things, so quit complaining and just do it."

Albel continued to glare at her and for a moment and then reluctantly struck the glass. The glass began to repair itself as it had done when they had previously shattered it, the many shards glinting and reflecting the lighting and rain drops from outside.

Nothing happened.

"Break it again," Nel urged after receiving a skeptical look from the man at her side.

Albel shattered the glass once again and grabbed hold of a large piece of glass that was making its way back to the window frame, feeling the magical tug on the glass as it tried to free itself from its imprisonment within the metal of his clawed hand.

"Look!" Nel said urgently, gesturing to the window.

The pale face of the man that they had caught a glimpse of earlier was starting to manifest itself upon the glass of the window; he didn't appear to be very pleased.

"Give it back you ruffian!" it yelled at Albel, referring to the hostage piece of glass.

Albel cocked an eyebrow and slid his gaze to Nel, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"We're very sorry to trouble you, but can you tell us how to get out of here?" Nel asked, being as polite as she could.

"Use the door, dummy," it said irritated. "Now give me my glass back!"

"The door won't open, and all of the other exits have vanished," Nel explained, losing some of her courteousness at the ghost's rudeness. "That's why we are asking you if you know how to get out of here."

"How should I know? I live in a window!" the ghost said bitterly, still glaring at Albel.

"Are you sure you don't know any other way out of here?" Nel prodded, positive that he knew something.

"I told you, woman, I don't know. Now tell your little boyfriend to give me my blasted glass back!" the face demanded angrily.

Nel faltered at the title the ghostly face had given Albel and took a few seconds to speak again. "Albel is not my boyfriend," she corrected the man in the glass, her temper flaring.

A sly smirk crossed the ghost's face, "I do so believe that I Struck a – ack!" he began to say before he was cut off by Albel's clawed hand through the glass.

"Tell us how to get out of here!" He growled when the glass had repaired itself, the hole where the glass that he was still holding gaping wide and obscene.

"Quit doing that!" cried the face, flustered.

"Then quit wasting our time," Albel yelled back, a small fire burning in his sienna eyes.

"I don't know any other way out of here besides the door right there at your side!" the face said stubbornly.

Albel shattered the glass once more and glared at the face when it had reassembled the window.

"Stop it!" the man cried in annoyance.

"Is there anyway that you could let us leave through you're window?" Nel asked, grabbing hold of Albel's wrist as he was about the attack the glass once again. The last thing she needed was the ghost to get even more flustered so that their time would be wasted even more than it already was.

"Are you insane!" the ghost wailed.

Nel blinked and stared at the face for a moment, "Why can't we just go through? It would only take a few seconds," she tried to convince him.

"Because!" was the ghost's snootish response.

"Because?" Nel asked, losing her patience with the ghostly being.

"It's like me asking if I could play in your intestines. Now give me my glass back and leave me alone," the ghost said impatiently.

Nel glared at the face and released Albel's wrist. Albel, immediately aware of his freedom, smashed the window in the time frame that a blink would occupy.

"If I tell you a way out will you leave me alone!" the ghost asked exasperatedly, giving in to the two mortals that were bullying him.

"Yes!" Nel and Albel cried in unison, both at the end of their ropes.

"Fine then, but if anybody asks, you never heard this from me," it said, looking side to side.

"There is no one else in this castle to tell!" Nel sighed, shaking her head.

"Go to the throne room and sit in the King's throne. There is a small switch underneath the left armrest that, if pressed, will take you to a secret pathway. The pathway will lead you directly outside the castle," the ghost whispered as if there where many people around them that he didn't want overhearing them.

"Thank you," Nel said, knowing that the ghost had knew something all along "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

"Hmph," was all the ghost mustered.

Albel let the imprisoned glass out of his hand and watched it mend itself back into place, making the glass whole again.

"One more thing," called the ghost after his two harassers, "The button only works once. It is a safety mechanism so that once the king escaped the enemy couldn't follow. The button would have to be reset by a specialist to be usable once again; so you better make your one chance count."

Nel looked at Albel after the ghost faded away; she hadn't liked the sound of that one bit.

"Thank Apris," Nel muttered as they entered the dark and gloomy throne room after one of the most agonizing walks ever. Albel had never once let up on teasing her about her new outfit and how peculiar she looked in it. Nel, however, hadn't stood by and let him say these things without defending herself. Their small argument had soon turned into an all out verbal war. The throne room had served as an intervention between them before they decided to go from verbal war to just plain war.

"Let's hurry," Nel said after taking a few steps within, feeling her skin crawl as a draft of dank air circled about her, lightly moving the skirt of her gown.

"Are you afraid?" Albel asked, a crooked smirk gracing his face as he found something new to harass her with.

"No," Nel said defensively. "It's just that this place makes me uneasy."

"Then you are scared," Albel said triumphantly, stopping and turning to face her.

"Being uneasy doesn't make me afraid, now shut up and keep moving," she said, balling up a wad of gown at her side in an effort not to clobber the Glyphian unconscious with her bare fists, "The ghost in the window is more bearable than you ever will be."

Albel smirked and began to resume his way to the two dusty thrones that sat at the far end of the large room.

"The larger one must be the King's," Albel said to himself as he inspected the two seats. He felt underneath the arm of the chair and felt a small button beneath his fingertips and then turned his attention to Nel, "What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how this thing will open," said the Aquarian, who was inspecting the wall around the back of the throne. "It looks like it will just spin around with no marginal space."

"So we have to sit then?" he asked, looking at the dirty throne with disdain.

"I believe so," Nel said.

Albel sat down on the throne, a diabolical grin crossing his face, as he watched a look of horror cross Nel's.

"No," she said quickly and louder than she had anticipated.

"You wanted to get out of here so bad, and we can only use the button once; there is no other option," Albel said, patting his lap, his smirk growing more sinister as he watched the color rush to Nel's cheeks.

The last thing that Nel wanted to do was be close to Albel Nox, yet alone being on top of him once more. Nel heaved a sigh, he was right, there was no other choice. She spun around and carefully lowered herself onto Albel's lap, disturbed to discover that it was surprisingly comfortable.

"Ready?" she heard him ask, feeling his body vibrate against her back.

Not waiting for a response he pressed the button under the armrest and the throne began to loudly rotate.

Nel jumped a little when she felt Albel's hands touch the sides of her thighs as he brought his arms in so that they wouldn't be taken off by the edge of the wall. She was then forced to lean further back into him as the top of the opening threatened to clip her head off.

"Why is this thing going to damn slow?" she groaned as the throne creaked around at a turtle pace, "If it went this slow back in its prime the King would have been dead by now."

She felt Albel sigh when the throne finally completed its rotation and then felt his hands move up the side of her body in the pitch blackness of the pathway. She could hear her heart start to speed up and her cheeks grow warm as his palms firmly, but gently, touched the bare skin of her back.

There was a sudden push.

"Hey!" Nel cried as she was snapped out of her trance-like state, barely retaining her balance after being roughly shoved off of Albel's lap.

"Let's find a way out of here," he said, ignoring her. He had seen an object that looked like a torch when the throne had spun around and was currently searching the wall for it.

"Light this," he ordered after finally locating it.

"What?" Nel asked, still orienting herself to the darkness, not sure about what he was talking about.

"It's a torch; light it," he said again, shoving the torch into her hand.

Nel lit the torch with a fire spell and then turned to Albel and stifled a small laugh. She must have put a little extra "umphf" into the fire spell than she had intended.

Albel, however, was far from laughing as he wiped his face of the blackness that the Aquarian's spell had covered him in.

Nel let the laugh escape her lips and regretted it almost immediately when Albel growled at her.

"Run," he snarled.

Nel let another laugh out and then a small yelp when Albel actually began to move towards her.

This probably won't turn out very good, Nel thought as she darted down the pathway, only the small bit of flame lighting the immediate area around her and a fuming Albel the Wicked at her heels.


The ending was kinda blah in my opinion, but i got distracted by Time magazine and Viva La Bam. I may go back and revamp it a tad.

Thank you for reviewing everybody, my selfesteem has been kinda low lately, so you have really helped me out a lot!