A/N: Hey, another update! So, yeah, I got distracted from this for a little while because I was reading through some of my older stories that I'd posted, and I thought to myself, "Wow, some of this is really crappy." So, I went on a huge editing kick until I'd "fixed" The Love of an Angel and Come Save Me. I'm still working on Little Angel because that one is getting some major renovation. But, I finally got back on track and finished this chapter. Enjoy!

In Memories Forgotten

Chapter 11

"… so then my uncle came in so drunk he could barely stand and wearing the bodice of the dress my mother had just made. He kneeled down in front of my aunt and started proclaiming his undying loyalty as a knight of the king."

Yugi laughed aloud at the hilarious image that sprang to mind. "And what did your aunt do?" he asked.

Atemu chuckled. "Well, she stared at him for a moment, then grabbed a spatula and chased him out of the house shouting at him to not come back until he was sober."

Yugi leaned back against the couch the two of them were sitting on. "Wow. I thought my relatives were crazy."

Atemu shrugged. "I think everyone's relatives are crazy, some are just more apparent than others." Yugi laughed again and put his head on Atemu's shoulder. Atemu began stroking Yugi's long hair, which he hadn't bothered to braid that morning.

Yugi smiled to himself; he was glad that Atemu was finally remembering happier things about his mother, things about his life before the curse. He seemed much more relaxed than before; he was quicker to smile and to laugh, and enjoyed telling funny stories about the escapades of his aunt and uncle. He still would look off into space with a sad, wistful look occasionally, even though it was a less common occurrence than it used to be. Yugi idly wondered what Atemu would have been like if the curse had never been cast, but he quickly abandoned the thought. It would be like wondering what he would have been like if his mother was still alive.

"Atemu?" Yugi asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Hmm?"

"Do you know if there's a way to break the curse?"

The two of them stared at each other for several moments until Atemu shook his head. "I looked for a long time," he said, "but there was hardly any information about nightwalkers at all, let alone how to break the curse."

His brow creased. "I think, though…" he stood and went to the bookshelf, searching through its dusty contents. Yugi followed him and looked over his shoulder.

"What are you looking for?"

"There's a book," Atemu said, turning around and looking about the library with a frown. "I can't remember what it's called… Was it Mythical Creatures? Myth and Curses? No… Um, Magic and Myth? I know it had the word myth in it…"

"Magic, Curses and Mythical Creatures?" Yugi said.

"That's it!" Atemu said, snapping his fingers. "Wait, how did you know that?"

Yugi held up a book that he had found stuffed into the very back of the shelf. The faded gold lettering on the front tiredly proclaimed Magic, Curses and Mythical Creatures. Yugi opened the book to the contents listing and scanned through it while Atemu peered over his shoulder.

"Let's see… Naiad, Nemean Lion, Nereid… Nymph… whoops, too far… um… aha! Nightwalker!"

Yugi quickly flipped through the pages until he found the right one, but was disappointed to see that the section about nightwalkers was quite brief. He skimmed through the description, as most of it was stuff that he already knew. Nightwalkers were cursed, could not go out in sunlight, immortal, have no body heat, so on and so forth…

Finally Yugi came to the end of the section. He felt his heart skip a beat as he dared to hope that, maybe, there was a way to break the curse that tortured Atemu so, but instead the passage simply said, "The only way that the curse may be done away with is to expose its vessel to sunlight, which is the curse's only weakness. However, the destruction of the curse also results in the death of the vessel if the curse has been present for more than twenty years. Even if the curse is destroyed within this time frame the vessel is still at risk. In the few cases of nightwalkers that have been recorded, many of the nightwalkers willingly walked into sunlight to rid themselves of the curse despite the consequences."

Yugi stared down at the words on the page, wishing that they said something different. There had to be some other way to break it, some way that the curse could be destroyed and Atemu could have the life that he'd never gotten a chance to live…

"I knew there was a reason that I hid that book," Atemu said with a sigh. "I remember finding this and, not wanting to face the truth, I hid it and eventually let myself forget what I had read."

He took the book from Yugi's hands and put it back on the shelf, then turned to see that Yugi was staring down at the floor dejectedly.

"Now, now, little one…" he said, putting his arms around the smaller boy. "Don't be sad. I don't want you to be unhappy because of me."

Yugi shook his head. "I just… I thought that, maybe there would be a way to…"

Atemu put a finger to Yugi's lips. "But there isn't, Yugi. There's no way to break the curse." Yugi looked down at the floor again and Atemu could see unshed glimmering in his eyes. He hugged Yugi tighter.

"Yugi…" he said softly. "I would like for the curse to be broken, too, but… please know that you have given me enough happiness in these past weeks to make up for all the lonely years of my life."

Yugi looked up into Atemu's warm crimson eyes. "And that is just as good," Atemu said.

Mai grumbled to herself as she saw the hideously long line in front of the bakery.

/I should just bake the bread myself/

With a sigh she pulled her cloak tightly around herself against the cold wind and took a place in line amongst the other servants of the town's rich inhabitants who were waiting to buy bread. As she stood there, her thoughts wandered into the past.

Mai wasn't from the little town that she now lived in. She was an orphan, but had been adopted by a very well-to-do family and grew up in the rich, bustling city. When her foster parents passed on she had received a sizeable inheritance and had been much too strong-headed to submit herself to another man. She had been quite content with her luxurious and carefree lifestyle until her inheritance ran out and she couldn't afford to live in the city anymore. Determined to get her upper-class status back, Mai had swallowed her pride and traveled to this little town. She took the only job she could get, which was working as a maid for a wealthy man and his pregnant wife.

She had only been working for them for a couple months when the wife went into labor. The delivery was disastrous; the child had barely lived and the mother was on the verge of death. Knowing that she was going to die, the mother begged Mai to take care of her child and Mai had promised her that she would. She had also requested that her son be named Yugi.

Mai had fulfilled the promise as best she could despite the apparent insanity of the father. She had been appalled that the father began forcing his son to act as his daughter, but, as a servant, Mai had no authority to tell a wealthy landowner how to raise his children. She could not speak against the beatings or the long periods of Yugi being locked in his room, but she still tried to make life easier for Yugi. She always brought him books when he was locked in and fixed all his favorite foods, provided that his father didn't find out. She taught Yugi how to play the piano and, as often as she could, would let him play outside, an activity that he rarely got to enjoy.

But, despite her best efforts, Mai still had to watch Yugi grow up lonely and confused. She had grown fond of the boy over time and it pained her to see him suffer. Yugi was sweet, intelligent and completely undeserving of the prison he had been born into. Though she had never been particularly religious, Mai began to pray each night that Yugi would someday be freed from his father and somehow find happiness.

Thus, when Yugi had disappeared, Mai secretly hoped that he had run away to a better life away from his father. It seemed improbable to her that Yugi had run away, as he was rarely so rash, but it was not impossible. However, she also suspected that Yugi's disappearance may have been caused by the boys that always picked on him at school. She wouldn't put it past them to kidnap Yugi, drag him to the forest and leave him there. She had no grounds to accuse them on, of course, but if that was the case, Mai could only hope that Yugi would make it to another village before winter or he would not survive.

Fearing that Yugi was cold, hungry and lost in the forest, Mai had ventured out into the trees during the night to search for him. But, there had been no trace of him, and as winter approached she was forced to accept the fact that Yugi was gone, dead or otherwise. And, even though she knew this as well as knowing that she had fulfilled her promise to Yugi's mother as best she could, she couldn't bring herself to leave. Something, maybe some stubborn hope that Yugi was still alive, kept her there despite the impossibility of the idea.

"What'll you have, miss?" a voice asked, jarring Mai from her thoughts. She had finally reached the bakery. She paid for her purchases and hurried out of the market, eager to get back inside the warm house.

As she left the market she could see a small, wiry man standing up on a crate and addressing a rather sizeable crowd. Mai had seen him several times before. He was a pompous, self-proclaimed expert on witchcraft that had been spreading crazy ideas about Yugi being a witch. He insisted that the "witch" had obviously gone off into the forest so that she could make a pact with the monster that lived out there which, according to him, was often done so that witches could enhance their powers.

The villagers had bought the whole story and it had spread quickly through the town. Mai had ignored the rumors at first; she didn't believe in witchcraft or the monster, and of course knew that Yugi wasn't a witch. The rumors persisted, though, and Yugi's father most certainly wasn't helping to stop them. For a few weeks he had been aggrieved of his son's disappearance, but when the witchcraft rumors started flying he began admitting in public that his "daughter" was really a witch and had held their household in a grip of terror ever since she had been born. This, Mai knew, was just as ridiculous as the rumors that the wiry man had been spouting.

However, the rumors had caught her attention when people began talking about a witch hunt. The wiry man had apparently been telling people that if the witch was caught and burned, the monster would also die because of the pact that had been made between them. This had triggered a great deal of talk about going into the forest and capturing the witch when spring came.

Of course, Mai knew that this was all utter nonsense. But, she thought to herself as she came closer to the house, there was still reason to worry. If Yugi was somehow still alive in the forest when spring came, then there would be nothing that Mai could do to stop the villagers from killing him. Mai silently prayed that Yugi was either far away from the village or already dead, because the villagers would have no mercy on him if he was found.

A/N: Oh how ominous. I'm finally, FINALLY, getting towards finishing this story. I can't believe I started this almost a year and a half ago and I'm still not done. Oh, well, as long as I finish it eventually. So, yeah, review please!