Disclaimer: I observer the original creators rights of their characters and seek no profit from them.

With that said, this is the follow up chapter from "Lost Courage." I'm not going to say much here but instead let you read it through. This chapter I have been planning to write since "Chance Encounters" the first book. I'm now here...and I'm very fortunate to have you come along.

Forever Autumn

By: Mauser

"I should've gone home!"

Aleutian showed his grinding teeth towards the ground, helping him to expel his inner rage with another completed push-up.

"I should've been there for him!"

His fists were anchored to the ground as his spiked knuckles dug into the dirt. He dropped his body down, only stopping when his back was perfectly aligned with his legs. He held the pose for more than a second, feeling his biceps burn from the overabundance of the lactic acids building up in his overworked muscles. The pain never fazed him, never commanded the sentient being inside him to stop. Even the idea of counting was far removed from his racing and guilt ridden psyche, hoping as he went along that he could replace one pain with another.

"You need to stop beating yourself up," echoed Rogue's voice.

He grunted as he lowered himself down again, his fist and face tightening as he fought within himself to cast Rogue's voice of reason aside. But as he lifted back into the air, another filtered through his mind.

"Have you gone home yet, Aleutian?" This time it was Control's voice, her amber diamond eyes still burning the question at his scared face even from weeks past.

He hissed his increasing rage at the leaves below him, relaxing his arms just enough to drop down and hover with his bare, furred chest just mere inches from the ground. His strength was starting to lose out to gravity, his arms shuddering to stay up as he struggled to keep going. He squeezed his face as he lifted himself up, already concluding that he was going to make another attempt, never caring what muscle damage it might cause in the long run.

Sonic's voice filtered in as if the blue hedgehog was there beside him, still pointing squarely at his chest; at his birthright before he turned his back on his people. "And he was the one who led us!"

Aleutian barely completed the next set, his arms feeling numb all of a sudden, bearing more than his physical weight as his emotions compounded against himself. Sweat rolled off his back, arms, and face, tracing his long, deep scar across his tempered muzzle before dappling on the leaves below him. It wasn't long before the drops of sweat soon fell as tears. When they came, he surrendered to all his anguish, all his pain and gave into gravity to guide him to the ground with hardly any show of remorse. Slamming his weight across his tucked in arms, he rolled over onto his back, finding comfort within himself to close up into a fetal position, holding himself as if he was trying to keep warm.

The passing wind swayed the overhead branches, tousling the dead leaves on the ground that drowned out his long sobs while chilling his body through and through...

"...my Guardian."

Emee's dying whisper ate at his cold heart, making him yearn for her warmth to be back in his caring arms. And there, he lost all control of his tears, letting them fall without any resistence. He slammed his eyes shut from the approaching setting sun, struggling to breathe over his mournful sobs as he tried to force away the voices in his head that felt more of pain than reason.

Where he succeeded only brought his own in return.

"It finally hurts after all these years," he whimpered in his aching mind. "What have I become? Is this all I'm going to feel...hurt; bitter...alone when I'm not?"

A long, wrenching moment passed with his lungs finally settling into rhythmic breaths as they found closure to his troubled sobs. He still felt cold, still kept his eyes shut while daring not to look at the white crest on his chest.

"...Let her go, friend...let her go."

Mathias' voice lifted his strained eyelids, his soaked vision blurry at first. But when he cleared his eyes, his trembling face was showered by Locke's sympathetic gaze and gaping mouth. Silence gripped the moving air as father and son locked stares with each other. When Locke finally spoke, his voice sounded as if he was on the verge of losing all control of his emotions as well:

"I'm here for you, my son. Talk to me and I will unders..."

Aleutian cut his father off with an enraged look that swept over his scarred face in a heartbeat. "You will never understand me!"

Locke still held a disarming look but his heart sank deeper into his stomach all the while. "If you just talk to me, I will," he pleaded as he leaned over and offered his hand to help his son off the ground. The favor was savagely returned with a sneering growl and a hurling slap across Locke's offered hand.

"Now you want to talk to me!? You could've done that sooner..."

Locke matched his son's angered expression with his. "It wasn't me who ran away, Aleutian! It wasn't me who had the choice to come home!"

Aleutian rolled over on his hands and knees, seeking the urge to stand over his tempered self. "Then why didn't you take my offer!?" he growled, climbing to his feet with his back turned the whole time.

The elder Guardian stood there, burning a hard stare at his son's shoulders as he fought within himself to speak the truth. He wanted to lie; wanted to shield Aleutian from the truth that the boy had known since he was six. Since he told him of his brother's destiny. But the lies, Locke painfully realized, have done nothing more but divide his family, causing too many irreparable riffs; one especially with Aleutian.

And that was when Locke understood the reason why he needed his son.

"Because I was raising your brother."

Two seething breaths filled Aleutian's tremulous lungs, expelling them through his grinding teeth.

Locke bowed his head with his eyes sagging in remorse. "You were right, Aleutian," he began in a solemn, defeated tone, "you were right after all these years. I should've listened to you the first time...but I didn't...and I'm sorry."

He didn't know why but he felt something lift from his soul, as if the burden of a stale-mated war had suddenly ended with one side surrendering in before the shooting resumed. But he didn't feel any better about it. Searching for the reason in his heart, however, only uncovered more lingering questions that were dormant from times past.

"And you didn't tell Knuckles about me?" he asked bitterly.

"Because I didn't want him to go looking for you. I needed him on the Island."

"And why didn't you come yourself...my offer?"

Locke held a curt pause under his regretful thoughts before he answered.

"I wanted you to find the strength within yourself to come home...I was wanting for you to forgive."

A quick snap of his head brought Aleutian's searing face to the forefront. "And what you said that I was as good as DEAD!?"

Locke felt his grey beard rustle in the increasing breeze, cooling his welling eyes as he offered his expression as an apology. "There is no excuse in what I said...and there is no excuse for me being so blind. Why it should be me wearing your scars...not you."

His son's face never flinched, never gave into acceptance of his father's apology. Instead, he turned back toward the north, fixing his burning blue eyes on a path through the forest of mature trees, and left his father where he stood, bewildered.

He didn't get far when Locke shouted out to him:

"Aleutian! Don't runaway from me now!"

He kept moving, struggling to ignore his father's pleas but failing all the same.

"I'm willing to make amends with you! I'm willing to start over...to help you...to bring out the true Guardian in you..."

Aleutian locked every sore muscle in his body and came to a grinding halt, spinning hard back towards his father:

"I DON"T WANT IT!" he screamed over his tears. With his denial came his heavy gloves, grabbing the fingers and forcing them off his hands one by one, and throwing them to the ground as if they were poisoned fruit, trash; never reflecting that they were gifts from his mother; the one who still believed in him.

Not knowing what to say or do, Locke stood his ground and watched his son skulk away from him, trailing him with his eyes until he saw Aleutian's back disappear through the forest. The waving trees was all that could be heard, there shadows eclipsing into one as the sun's light slowly weakened into darkness. A deep sigh brought him to his son's gloves. Picking them up, he cringed with sadness as he felt Aleutian's warmth leaving them.

"Where did I go wrong, Archy?" Locke asked in the air through telepathy.

It wasn't until a brief moment had passed when the purple smoke came and dissipated with Locke feeling the added weight or Archimedes' boots resting on his shoulder. Raising his heavy eyes, he lumbered a glance to his former mentor, seeing that the ant's face wasn't far removed from his.

"Follow him, Locke...just follow him."

And with that he did, weaving through the cluster of trees and light undergrowth as he searched out his son. Picking up the rest of Aleutian's belongings, Locke's eyes fell to the leaf littered ground in pain as he felt his son's.

His soreness and aching joints kept him from running this time, even when his heart urged him to bolt clear away from everything. Aleutian's growing frustrations replaced to wanting to lash out at a tree beside him, but guilt of harming something that didn't do anything to further his pain stopped him from slamming his naked fist into it. Instead, he stalked through the forest, finding paths as if he knew where to go...as if he'd been there once before...

Aleutian stopped dead and sized up the small trail before him. Rough trunks of cedar trees lined the narrow, twisting path with other numerous species of trees scattered in the landscape. It floated to him on the wind, piercing his silk, crimson fur and spawning goose-bumps underneath his hidden skin. There, his vision went blurry as past memories flowed into his fragile mind, grabbing his heart and emotions that called for his tears that he didn't want to rain down across his face.

"I have been here before," he painfully realized. The walk up the steep grade as Locke told him of his brother's fetes, his death, his resurrection. Decaying leaves crunching under his shoes offering their sounds as a leap from one memory to the next, making his surroundings become all to familiar in the heartfelt moment. Yet it looked matured somehow; older, taller. Like him! He tried to find the meaning in what he was seeing. Tried to reason why his mind didn't feel euphoric about his surroundings. He wished it, wanted it...longed for it; only becoming crushed when he didn't feel it over his contemptuous thoughts for being brought back.

Not believing the coincidence the second time around, he pushed on, his troubled heart guiding him along the way.

"Where are we, Archy?"

Archimedes' eyes never strayed from the path, his face somber but yet afraid somehow with the passing wind. "Remember what I said last night...when I asked you if you wanted to continue on with this?"

"Yes?" Locke said as he navigated around some saplings.

The Fire Ant ended up shaking his head, casting what he wanted to say back into the furthest reaches of his mind. "Just keep after him," he finally whispered in the air.

The trail branched off into many as the trees became less clustered. But even so, Aleutian was finding his way, passing mature trees that he remembered were once mere saplings over seven years ago. Ducking under a low lying branch, Aleutian slipped to the right of a large maple tree before weaving to the left of an older pine. Looking beyond the thinning forest that sprouted boulders as if Aurora had thrown them blindly, he felt his lungs begin to seize, for the clearing he saw far ahead made every nerve in his body shiver.

"...I'm over here, Aleutian!"

Every bone and muscle locked into place, stopping Aleutian dead as he threw his senses to the wind. "Emee?" he breathed out, searching the land all around him with his wide, blue eyes. She wasn't there. Only the wavering trees filled his yearning sight at that moment.

Leaves were lifted from the ground on the wind, some gliding passed Aleutian as he followed a few with his gaping stare, wondering if her voice was a trick of his mind. He took a breath, then another...slower and deeper than the first. It was as if they were calling to him, beckoning him to go forward, showing a path which he needed to take.

"...Allleeuuuttiiiann..."

Her faint voice floated to his ears, calling him onward with his inner self not believing what he was hearing. As another passing breeze carried more leaves with the moving air, Aleutian swallowed the tightness in his throat, and answered the wind with a determined stride.

"Did you hear that?" Locke fightingly asked.

Archy's voice was above a whisper when he replied, "Aye, mate."

"What's going on then, Archy?" he festered, struggling within himself to push onwards. The answer he got threw all his thoughts to the increasing wind.

"You ought to see this place during the fall, Locke...It's a paradise."

Locke shot a quick glance across his shoulder, his face wearing his emotions evenly. "What do you mean?"

Archy never spoke, his concentration seeming someplace else as his eyes wondered in sadness.

Aleutian wanted to weep along with it. Towering up to the furthest reaches of the forest canopy, it seemingly posed as a monument to lay testament that it was a far greater species of tree than what grew beside it. Aleutian's eyes slowly watered as he took in the long, stringy vines and leaves of the weeping willow tree, beckoning him to cry along with it. He wanted to, felt the paralyzing urge to make good on his emotions; but he held on, waiting for reasons he didn't know.

A moment passed as echoing memories filtered into his yearning mind again, filling him with anguish that suppressed his soreness.

"I think I love, Aleutian. Please tell me I'm not wrong...that I'm not dreaming this."

He felt his knees wanting to collapse under him, wanting him to fall to the ground along with his tears.

"Why dad...why do this to me?" Aleutian breathed out in his psyche. When he heard his father's bolt laced boots crunch the leaves behind him, he slowly pivoted around and bared his trembling, angered face.

Locke wanted to match Aleutian's temper but something inside him told him to forget it, to show himself as nonchalantly for reason's sake and not for resolve. And he did.

"For you to remember of who you are, Aleutian. For me to know who my son is."

"BUT HERE!?" Aleutian screamed, his fist balling along with his body. "Where she touched me!?"

"Is it not the better part of your life?" Locke retorted cautiously, "can you at least share that with me? Can you at least give me a reason why you won't let go...why you won't stop the pain in your heart which I feel in you!"

Aleutian held his maliced pose, coldly shifting his seething blue eyes for something other than his father's. The wind seemingly kicked up with it, sending shivers down Locke's rigid spine that commanded him to drop Aleutian's gloves, jacket and pack.

"I hold the deaths of people in my memory, father," Aleutian quietly whispered all of a sudden, catching the two off guard. He never looked at them when he spoke, saving his haunted stare for the ground instead of his father. "I still..." He couldn't fend off the feeling to cry, swallowing only to boost his aching head to speak, "I still hear their screams in my dreams. I still see the blood that..." A mournful choke expelled from his throat as tears caressed his face as if they were trying comfort him. "...that I feel as if I can't wash away from my hands."

"Don't go blaming yourself for their deaths, lad," Archimedes said above a whisper.

Aleutian buried a hand into his right eye, forcing a tight grimace across his scared face as he savagely shook his head. "How can I not?"

"You didn't see it coming, lad. No one saw it coming. From back home, to Knothole; not even Lopper saw it coming. It was a well planned deception from the get-go."

The moping echidna took a quivering breath. "Then why can't I purge these nightmares from my head. Why can't I stop the screams?" Aleutian held a long silence over the growing wind. "Why do I still feel that she's in my arms...dying? You know how helpless that is...knowing that the power I had within in me could have saved her!? Could have saved many!"

"You still have that power, son. You just need guidance to wield it–"

"NO!"

Locke felt the venom from Aleutian's rage course through his veins like dry-ice. He beckoned himself to say something that would calm his son, but instead, his gaze wandered to the weeping willow, somehow becoming hypnotized with its flowing feathered leaves. The humbling view thawed the crushed feelings of that strained moment in time. He saw the long leaves as strings to an instrument–a violin he thought; the floating autumn leaves in the wind resembling the bow that slide across the strings, whispering a gilded song to him. But when he peered into Aleutian's angered eyes, the song went hoarse, depressing.

Weeping.

"I'm only trying to help you," he finally whispered with lowering eyes. "I wish you could see past that; see that I want you back in my life. Back in ours."

"And why should I?" Aleutian snapped back, baring his scared face along with his tears. "You two have brought me nothing but pain. Made me decide between my love and my family." He paused as he took in a deep seething breath that overpowered the rushing air. "Made me who I am today–nothing but a cold blooded murderer!"

"The only people who you are murdering, Aleutian, are those whom you've kept oppressed in your mind. If you can't relinquish their own story of the last hours of their lives, then you are no different than the traitors whom you've rightfully killed." Locke forced down a hard swallow. "I've looked passed those deeds, son. We all have looked past those dark deeds. We've forgiven you. You just need to forgive yourself. You can start by honoring your lost friends. Honor their courage...honor their sacrifice.

Honor her."

It was if a divine hand had reached into the furthest reaches of his skull and pulled out long deceased memories and resurrected them. Faces, voices, meaningful words; they all raced through his mind at a frantic pace. Aleutian should've felt comfort behind them–longed for it–but the spark he was seeking never came. The spark to bring warmth back into his heart.

With the emptiness came darkness as he slammed his welling eyes closed, only feeling the strong wind and swirling leaves licking at his body. He felt his inner-rage shiver deep within his soul from it. The same rage that cost three Overlander's their lives and produced an aftermath of continued bloodshed before an eight year old's voice brought reason over vengeance.

And with that voice brought a dream he'd once had; remembering it as if he'd just dreamt it at that bitter hour. He remembered finding himself standing on the battlefield, looking up the mound and seeing the freshly decapitated tank smoldering on the top ridge. Chard and mangled Mobian bodies–his friends–scattered across the moonscape land, their blood and spilled organs mixing with the mud. He felt sadness embalm his heart in the dream, coldly followed by loneliness before a long distant voice echoed to him in the grey morning. It had awakened him, as if calling him to go from one world to the next. And there he collapsed his head into his hands after realizing she wasn't beside him in their bed, longing for her comfort after his nightmare. Was that the spark? Was that the key? To tell what happened over two years ago.

Or was it to tell him that he didn't belong? That he didn't belong there...or here.

"Why, Archy?" he crudely whispered, opening his searing eyes and beaming a cold stare directly at the Fire Ant. "Why didn't you just leave me to die!"

Archimedes felt every strain of fiber in his body freeze in terror, only his hands seeking one of Locke's dreads to hold onto from the beating wind. "Don't say that, Aleutian."

"I would've been better off!" he screamed amidst crying.

Locke couldn't help but stare at his weeping son, trying to offer his sympathies but losing out to his own tears. "And where would've that left me?" he begged from the deepest crevasse of his heart. "Where would have that left your true family?

"Knowing how much of a liar you are!" came Aleutian's pitched vitriolic voice, his eyes eaten with acid that seemed to spill out over his blemished face and his crudely pointed finger.

Everything was spinning out of control in Locke's mind. When he stole a glance to Archimedes, he saw his old friend wasn't far off from the same conclusion. He tried to reason with everything he had, abandoning the past and asking only for his son to see into the future. To see past wrongs and honor the virtues and rights that needed to be bestowed to help find closure in every sense of the meaning. But instead, he lead his son back to old pains. Lead him deeper into the cold.

"I should have listened to you Archy..."

"I'm sorry, my son," Locke said in defeat, bowing his head in the course of the rightful apology.

"That doesn't cut it!" Aleutian barked, making his father's head shoot up while casting a hurtful expression to Aleutian before strangely transforming to one of disbelief as he gazed beyond his son's shattered face.

Aleutian's pain in his heart forced any notion of reason aside in his aching psyche, only trumping his bittered thoughts to his mouth:

"I'm threw with this! I'm threw with all this!" Rustling leaves behind him stroked his back, but he didn't care, only raising his voice higher to overpower the strong wind. "I should've made good on blowing my brains out, yesterday! I should've DIED two years ago!" He forced down a series of tearful breaths. "I wish I was dead!" he cried out before taking in a lasting breath. "I WISH YOU'D JUST KILL–"

"...Alleeuuutttiiaaannn..."

It seemed every last molecule of air expelled from his lungs in a mournful sigh as his hardened face collapsed into one of anguish before disbelief.

"...Alleeuuttiiaannn...my love...my Guardian..."

Archy found himself stammering in his thoughts, mesmerized at the sight that lay before them. "Locke?"

"I'm not doing a thing," the elder echidna replied in disbelief.

Seeing their bewildered expressions forced Aleutian's eyes to shut. He wanted to turn around, her sweet voice beckoned him to, but the urge died; suffocated by his guilt.

"Aleutian..."

"Emee?" he said above a whisper, his head lowered as if he was sentenced to death.

"I'm here, my equal," she taunted to him.

A faint spark from his heart leaped into his head and commanded his left foot to pivot on the leafy ground. A trembling, mournful breath passed as he timidly turned his aching body to the willow tree. Warmth followed; ecstacy to a yearning mind. He couldn't look up, couldn't open his eyes, feeling of what he said had shamed him from ever looking at her again...if she was there.

"It's okay, my love...I am here."

Her soothing voice was more than enough to lift Aleutian's glistening blue eyes. Her radiant textures flourished amongst the swirling leaves in his sight. Her dreads, her silk draping hair...her comforting smile; they all floated on the wind. Aleutian gave no care as to why or how she was there, only that she was there.

"I'm sorry, Aleutian," she said softly, her smile fading to sorrow; to sympathy.

"Don't be," he whimpered. "Just come back to me. I need you, Emi-La...more than ever in my life."

Her reply shattered him; "I can't, Aleutian."

"No!" he choked out, "if my brother can come back then so can you." His eyes welled up, drowning his scared face as he fought the urge to release his emotions. "Don't do this to me..."

"...Let go, my Guardian."

Locke held his breath, his heart thumping at his chest wall that brought on his tears. He waited; hoping.

Aleutian's reply came low in a whisper. "No, I won't do that to you."

"Let gooo...for your family."

He shook his head, relaxing his hands at his sides. "I can't," he whimpered from his quivering jaw. "I won't."

"Let go, Aleutian...for me...for yourself..."

With her trailing voice piercing into his mind, he looked to himself, retracing everything he'd done over the long, depressing years that had gone so slowly by.

"...I love you, Aleutian."

He looked beyond the darkness; fought hard to look for himself...his old self. The warmth was there. He felt it; yearned for it. All he had to do was follow it.

"...come in, my love."

Memories became the path: watching himself touch his sleeping brother in the crib; Chester Drake keeping the blankets warm and bundled on his ill body as he told sea stories of his father; the loving equal who kept his promise; the autumn.

"Let go..."

But he couldn't.

"Please come back to me, Emee. Be in my arms," he tearfully pleaded. "I feel lost without you."

His tears soon began to cool as the wind picked up. To his dismay, she beamed a warm smile before her textures started to dissipate with the drifting leaves. Her locks went first followed by her hair, lips and to Aleutian's crushing heart, her tranquil gaze filtering from his sight. He watched the leaves float away from him down a path to his right...feeling as if he was being robbed of her again.

But to his aching soul, she still called out to him.

"...Allleeeuuuutttiiiaannn...leeet gooo..."

"NOO!" he screamed at the top of his choking lungs.

With his bawling soul aching inside his heart, it numbed his aching joints and told him to run; to follow her. He bolted down the weathered trail, breathing hard as he fought to keep up with the drifting leaves. Locke's voice shouted out to him, asking him to stay. But Aleutian didn't hear it, only to be drowned out by his own:

"Emee!"

Her voice came back to him, sounding as if she was dying with the breeze:

"...Leeett gooo..."

He pumped faster, traversing the winding trail with a determined, grieving face. Something told him that the path was going to level, and it did. Trees became bunched together, darkening the ground further from the coming night. Boulders littered the terrain a few yards later, the ground hardening under his trampling feet. Suddenly, his eyes became focused, tracing the trail till it ended in front of a wall of foliage. But yet, he could make out a hole, one wide enough that he could slip through with ease. He never slowed, becoming so fixated with the leaves that he didn't hear himself yell out to stop as he bolted through the hole.

His day old shoes slid across the smooth ledge, grinding Aleutian to a breathtaking halt before he plunged into a gaping canyon. He stood in silence, breathing deeper over his sobs as his eyes watched the dead autumn leaves that his soul wanted to touch scatter in the wind, falling to the wooded canyon below as some flew to the other side.

Seven years, he tearfully realized; it had been seven years since he'd been there at that very spot...with her, stargazing through the night.

"...leeet goo...my Guardian..."

Aleutian's burden finally became too much for his waning emotioned strength. Her lasting voice seeped through his ears as a calling for his knees to give way. And when they did, so did his tears; all crashing on the stone mantle as he buried his weeping face into his furred arms. In the darkness of his sight didn't come Emi-La nor his long dead friends that he was hoping to find, but instead...his true family...his father by his side, his mother giving him a warm smile, and Knuckles, his brother, fully grown and looking to him for guidence with pride instilled in his body and on his face.

A deep breath brought Aleutian's head up, cringing his face at the darkening sky as he sagged his arms to the ground in defeat.

"I LOVE YOU!"

He let his mouth gape open, letting the salt droplets of his tears find their way into his mouth. And with another long, deep breath...he felt his very soul surrender as he shouted his undying love at the coming night:

"I LOVE YOU!"

Locke's sobs were drowned out by his son's echoing voice as he braced himself with his hands planted on the willow tree. Wiping his tears away, his blurred sight caught something that his right hand had uncovered. Hidden under the growing moss was a letter...an "I"he realized. It was crudely etched in from years past but he didn't see the point in how it was imprinted. Instead, he saw something else below it. He had to rub away more of the moss to see it, but when he did, his warrior-self collapsed into a flurry of weeping sobs that lasted through the fading sun light.

Inscribed below the "I" was an etched heart...below it, his son's name.

Night slid on her gallant cloak, snuffing out all semblance of light, save for the final quarter moon and the flickering stars. It was there that Aleutian never left his cross legged position on the ledge, lost in his thoughts in which Locke never intruded. His son deserved them that night. Instead, he stood idly by, becoming a sentry to his son's domain as he waited for him to retreat for the night. In that presence of mind, however, he joyously smiled as he felt warmth this time. Warmth within his son that he hoped would last through the night as he waited for him to come back.

Aleutian never left the rocky mantel that night...and Locke understood.

I thought the ending was a little to cliche' but I wanted to show Locke's feelings out of this. My main stay for this story at the beginning was to center it on "just" Aleutian. However to my benfite and my audience, more characters came to mind, a better plot, and a better idea. But I still wanted to focus a good portion of this on Aleutian...which I have, but yet again, something came along with it. How would a Locke try to pick up where he left off with his runaway sun and feel at the same time? With that notion, I have expanded the horizons to Locke's feelings and thoughts along with Aleutian's. It's been an intresting ride for me as I hope it has for you. Now, the story isn't over...far from it. All we have seen is Aleutian surrendering...letting go.

The chapter title is actually a song. Look it up and you all shall be plesently surprised.

Please review; I see my skill and style picking up as I mold the rest of this story. It might be another long while before I post up another chapter. I am getting well behind in my work. Usually I have maybe 3 to 5 chapters on the chopping block to be edited and post them up as soon as I get one completed. However, I JUST started on the next one, so it will be a while before I update. I'm still committed to my loyal readers. I don't know who yall are, but I see your numbers.

Thank-you.