Chapter 2: The Lost Lenore

Lost in the siren's song of the woman's voice, it takes Mew a few seconds of fluttering his eyelashes to formulate a response from brain to tongue.

"I-I'm sorry...What did you call me?" His tone a mix of confusion and prepubescent giggling.

"Elemental Overlord. That...is what you are, right?" The lady then turned up her teasing tone from a one to a spicy five, "Ooooh, maybe I got the wrong number?"

"No no no!" Mew stands right up and swings his hands out as if the lady was within arms' reach. He then put on his best smile and propped a thumbs-up before his chest.

"Elemental Overlord Mew, the one and only, at your service!" The certainty in his voice left the mysterious waif laughing, and Mew a little stiff in the knees.

She delicately answered "I know" and then told him "Ease up. Sit back down. Then we can talk."

Mew slowly followed her directions. He was hypnotized by both voice and words. But the picture was incomplete. It require a little more...color. He gently closes his eyes to try and gauge her appearance through the fog.

She left neither hair nor hand in view. Her pearly whites acted as the gateway keeping Mew trapped inside his hormone driven imagination.

A dark soon began to poison the view, joined by a certain demon's feral growls. Mew had heard "D." growl before, it was practically his default tone. But something about his voice this go around was more aggressive, fearful almost.

"Still playing with men's hearts...Witch?"

The lady's smile did not defer to the demon's accusations, "I almost didn't see you there. Funny, I thought parasites were supposed to have a short life span."

"You always had a spiteful way with words..." After a tense pause with Mew wedged between these two clashing egos, "D." gave him a brief heart attack by forcing his hazy yellow eyes between him and the source of his flight of fancy.

"If there's any time to listen to me do so now boy. Do NOT entertain this woman's request. Lest your life be forfeit."

Once Mew's shock passed he blinked a few times then mentally shoved the demon aside. The lady's smile remained unshaken, though now it seemed amused.

"Well the nasty demon in my head says not to trust you soooo..." Mew's lips crease into a mocking smile towards "D.", "What do you want from me?"

"You blithering...! Ghhhh...!" Mew safely shoved the demon's agony into the back of his head as the woman's soothing voice continued to get a rise out of him.

"Hmm, I don't know...What I require is someone strong..."

Mew flexes his decently impressive biceps and declares, "That's me!"

"Someone brave..."

"Show me an army of ferocious dragons and I'd knock 'em down!" Mew bragged with his chest puffed out and a sneer.

"Someone...capable." That requested was spoken with a deeper voice than the rest, as though it was attempting to re-contextualize the tone her prior words carried.

"C-Capable...?" Mew's confidence deflated like a hot air balloon in the cold. He rubbed the back of his head and murmured, "Capable as iiiiin?"

"Come to my place and you can find out~"

"W-Whoa..." Mew's mind began to drift off, his cheeks turning red like newly blossomed roses.

"You will find me at my city floating above the North Pole. I shall contact you again once you arrive." And like a nightlight flickering off, her smile and the fog around it went dark.

Mew laid back against the couch feeling pretty good about himself. He even had this big dumb grin for an entire minute. But then it slapped him right in the face and caused him to jolt upright with a gasp of shock, "The N-North Pole?!"

A little later he's in his room checking his belongings to see if there's anything important he needs. As he's busy haphazardly tossing stuff onto the bed he mutters aloud, "Got to leave a good first impression."

"Unbelievable..." "D." growls.

"Oh give it a rest 'D.'," Mew responds, "Why would I ever trust you?"

"Why should you trust her?" "D." throws back with spite, "Oh, that's right. Because her sultry wiles appealed to your masculine sensitivities..."

Mew bites his teeth down and chuckles, "I-Its not like that!"

"Think with your head boy! And not the one suffocating in your pants..."

As Mew motions for the drawers he remarks "Yeah yeah yeah. I gave it plenty of thought."

He a pointer finger up separate from the rest, "One, she requested an Elemental Overlord's help. She must be in the know about all that."

Then he holds up his middle finger "Two, she doesn't like you. So obviously she's trustworthy."

"Everyone despises me, that hatred serves as my lifeblood." "D." pleasurably retorts, causing Mew to roll his eyes.

"...The maestro plays beautiful music because they know how to press the right keys to make the piano sing their tune."

Mew stares at his open drawers and hovers his right hand over the shirts, which are all exactly the same as the one he's wearing now.

"This one looks good." He picks up the leftmost one and swaps them out. He then looks at himself in the mirror and gives his face the ol' pat down. With a brimming smile accentuated by him pressing his cheeks he says "Lookin' like a real lady killer there Mr. Mew!"

"...Of all the Hells I could've wound up in, why, oh why, must I be stuck in this one?"

As Mew waltzes out the door he stares up and chuckles "Hey cheer up, maybe this gal will be able to get you out."

"Hmph, if I could be so lucky..."

After grabbing a quick snack from the garden Mew takes off. He reconfirms his disbelief at what he's doing, then flies straight for the North Pole.

A thin projection of fire keeps the cold off his back as the temperatures drop below zero. Though, parts of his body were already feeling hot enough to melt snow.

With a constant smile he thinks back to the image of the mystery woman's own smile. His vivid sense of imagination wanted to piece together her appearance prematurely. She was a puzzle without edges but curves instead.

Once he started with the bare essentials of her skin and frame he saw fit to dress her. "The soothing voice of a temptress..." Surely that belonged to a woman with little shame in how she was clothed.

"Sleeveless. Low-cut. Cloth cut down to expose the legs, leaving the rest to act as curtains for her front and back." Mew slowly bobbed his head.

Mew's eyes moved for the face and wanted to fill in that blank canvas with hair and glittering eyes...But he paused at the chest. "Speaking of 'filling in'..." Mew began to nudge his eyebrows up and down.

"STOP! Cease at once!" "D." hissed like he dowsed his eyes in a full gallon of bleach.

Mew's eyes opened sharply and "D." crassly continued, "Is it bad enough I suffer your idiocy?! Now you plague me with your endless sexual urges?!"

Mew couldn't help but snicker as he said, "Y-You sure took your sweet time stopping me."

"...Because its scary how accurate your assessment of that witch is." "D." growls, and Mew goes "Huh?"

He then gets the idea to ask, "Say 'D.', you seem to know who this woman is. Think you can tell me more?"

"Forget it. You're on your own." The demon dismissed him like a brat.

Mew shakes his head and sighs, "Someday you're going to have to pay rent dude..."

He looks up just in time to see a slight distortion in the sky that he rams face first into. The rest of his body follows suit. He lays there for a few seconds as "D." gets his laughs in.

"Oh but moments like these are simply priiiceless..."

After peeling away Mew pays down the invisible space and goes "Hmmm..." He squints his eyes and pats a little higher. His fingertips touch empty air and phase a little into it. Mew puckers his lips, raises his hand on the right, then starts to close his hand.

He grips onto a solid ledge, grins, then with a form "Hup!" he pulls himself straight through an invisible force field. After a short slide on a floor of glass Mew stands and looks around.

"Whoa..." He pauses and holds his mouth open for a moment or two.

The city stretched for miles and floated independently of any laws of physics known to man. The skyline dome kept the suns' rays in but shoo'd out the chilling arctic winds, making the whole city feel brighter than it should be. Mew's expectations for the houses were a lot more whimsical than the straightforward tribal huts he was presented with.

Below the glass throbbed and pulsed waves of energy the likes of which he never felt. He could tell that the energy was responsible for keeping the city afloat.

Everything he described to this point paled in comparison to the surprise he felt once he looked at the people who lived here.

They wore an odd assortment of clothes befitting the era, like t-shirts, sneakers and caps, or unfitting such as kimonos, toga dresses and corsets...But they all dressed in the same skin, hair and bone he proudly wore day after day.

"They're...humans?" Mew's jaw remained slacked as he waited for the trick to drop. Antennas popping up on the head. Skin color changing. Bodies cracking apart to reveal the predatory hellspawn inside.

He leaned in and brushed his hands up with a mute "Weeell...?", but the people just looked at him funny and continued on their way.

The only oddball here was him. What he saw was all he'd get out of them. There was no reason to fear or panic, but there WAS a reason for Mew to droop his head and sigh.

"That's...kind of disappointing. I was expecting aliens...Or wizards," Mew then raised his head, crossed his arms and pondered, "Still, what are a bunch of humans doing here? North Pole ain't exactly in the Top 10 Real Estate spots..."

"Well, why not take a moment to look around?" The woman's voice made Mew jump and let out a yelp that got the other humans staring back at him for a little longer.

He turns to avoid their narrow gazes as he stammers out "S-Sorry can you repeat that?" to the second voice in his head.

"On the northern part of town you'll find a temple. That's where I shall be waiting. Feel to take your time. Relax. Get to know our city a little more."

"Wait!" Mew had some questions but she was as gone as quickly as she had intruded. Dropping his head, Mew grumbled "I don't even know what the temple looks like..."

He picks his head up and turns around with a finger already raised straight out, "North's that way...Guess I'll get a move on."

The idea of "walking" was pretty foreign to Mew, but its probably for the best that he take it slow in this unknown location. Once Mew made his way to the menagerie of huts he found himself blending right in with the people. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was still off about them.

"Its like they all walked out of Earth History Con X. I mean good grief who'd be caught dead wearing disco pants this day and age?" This loud opinion clung to no one's ear as he walked by.

He found himself glancing at a lot of their right arms and noticed they were adorned with stone bracelets, "And what's with those? Is that what's trendy here?"

A small grin a moment later showed this was all in good jest on his part. He kept his eyes forward and remarked, "I bet I'm the first person from Earth to visit this place! How exciting!"

Mew saw some kids playing hopscotch, others his age hanging around outside a juice bar, and some adults talking about what their kids are doing. All this done without stuffing their faces against a smart phone.

But that wasn't the first technology whose absence Mew felt. He sniffed the air and murmured "No carbon..." meaning there wasn't any cars. But there were no bikes, skateboards or scooters either. People's feet were the go-to mode of transportation.

There seemed to be other ways to pass the time though. Entire buildings a few dozen blocks large were dedicates to recreational activities like basketball, rock climbing, and yoga. There was a hospital for the sick, some grocery stores filled with food, and even a massive three-story mall for all other needs.

Yet the way these buildings were built out of stone and metal and glass was too eerily similar to what Mew was used to on Earth. Even when he took a brief detour into the grocery store he did not find anything to the city there. Just slap-dashed parodies of popular brand names awaited him.

"Aur-eos" for Oreos, "Choco Puffs" for Cocoa Puffs, and the most insulting of all...

"Toridos? Toridos?!" Mew slapped the bag of chips formerly known as Doritos back onto the shelf and left the store in a huff.

The magic of this place was dwindling down fast as this city came across more as a mausoleum of Earth culture over the years than some hidden alien habitat. But, at least there was still the temple to look forward to.

"Maybe that's where all the magic is," Mew thought aloud.

After reorienting his sense of direction he walked northbound and just kept walking. It wasn't very long until he found the place.

It was about two hundred feet tall and god knows how many feet long. The corners of the building were pointed like obelisks up, and there were some stained glass windows that Mew saw when he peeked around them. But the windows were in no condition to display anything but the dust and grime that was so thick he might as well been staring at swamp water.

The rest of the building fared no better. He could tell that his place was a paragon of beauty at some point. No amount of scars, and there were a LOT of scars, could cover up the smooth blue crystals that were used to put this temple together. With all this damage present Mew's eyes quickly locked on to an out-of-place graffiti tag on the rusted up front doors.

A ring of words saying "Aurian Approved" surrounded a hand giving a thumbs up. The striking crimson paint could've been seen a mile away. Mew snickered as he stared at the tag and thought about what it meant.

"Heh, well someone's been a little rebellious haven't they?" He whispers. He thought perhaps this place was respected at one point, but then why would the graffiti artist say they "Approve" of it if they were defaming the place with their spray paint?

"Perhaps the woman waiting inside could tell me" Was what Mew thought as he stared at the door some more. The fifty foot gates were the last thing standing between him and the mysterious gal who called him up here. Getting his last second ideas in about what she looked like, Mew slowly raised one hand to the door and pushed it open.

"Hello?" He cast his greeting into the echoing void as he peeked past the doors and headed on in. The inside of the temple was in better shape, but that's like saying that ants are prettier than worms. Mew at least didn't have to fear kicking up a cloud of dust into his nostrils with every step.

"Hello?!" He hollered again with a lot more 'Oomph!' in his voice. His eyes wandered around and saw decapitated statues on the sides, five to each row.

He froze up for just a moment and murmured, "From normal city to spooky crypt...The hell's up with this place?"

He couldn't decide if the lack of wind in this place made it more creepy or less creepy. When he thought he heard one of the statues creak, he had to say "More creepy. Definitely more creepy..."

Through the dim shadows of the temple Mew say someone standing in front of a barren wall with their head lifted. He squinted to try and get a closer look, and all of a sudden a familiar voice spoke not through his mind, but directly before him.

"Hmhm, how about I make this a little easier for you?"

Mew's eyes widened as the person turned and slowly made their way out of the shadows and into the limelight. First her legs step into view, covered on the bottom by white socks and brown sandals, while the rest was obscured by beige jeans. Not the most tantalizing first impression, but that was where the rest of the body compensated.

Most of the rest of her body was covered up by a silk teal robe adorned with pink cloud prints and a sash around the waist. But all that clothing could do was fight and struggle to contain her hourglass frame. Mew was only mildly ashamed to compare the size of the woman's breasts to cantaloupes, and only a tiny bit less ashamed to notice that her hips were wider than her chest.

A dark pink undershirt concealed the gaping cleavage, and the act of her gently laying her right hand atop the chest concealed only served to conceal it further. With a whisper of "Tut tut tut..." the lady succeeded in drawing Mew's lucid glare towards her face.

Her skin was as smooth as her robe. Utterly flawless, an almost unfair contrast from the ugly temple atmosphere. Her hair and eyes, much like her robe, were teal. The hair was kept in a bowl cut with the sides curved down to her ear lobes, and a half circle of her hair at the front dyed bright pink. On one ear was a golden moon earring, on the other a golden sun. Curiously though, what glittered more than her gold was her eyes, which contained literal sparkles in the irises.

With the kind of smile that'd melt ice, the woman left her eyes half open and asked the dumbstruck, slobbering boy, "Is that better?"

"Hoooly shit..." Mew let slip free from his mouth. As a cold sweat formed on his forehead he tried really, really, REALLY hard to maintain eye contact.

"Focus dude...Say something to break the ice...Take it nice and sloooooow..."

"H-How's it going sweet tits?" Mew said with a partway sincere smile, only to crease his lips together right away. He shifts his gaze to the left with his pupils shrunk and then curses himself out in his head, "Shit! No!"

The woman lays her fingertips on her lips and starts giggling uncontrollably. Mew stares at her and murmurs "I-It...worked?" then pretends to pump his fist before his chest while smiling and weakly going "Yes!"

She then lowers her hand by her chest and closes the last few inches between them, pushing her chest up against his while laying her cold fingers up against the boy's cheek. His body reacts with a blush while his eyes shift from her hand to her face.

Now that they were in each others personal space Mew noticed one last detail that tickled his fancies. She wasn't looking straight at him, but down at him. And there were no heels or leaning involved. She was naturally an inch or two taller than him.

His knees were weak but the last thing he was going to do was let the pressure take him down. Keeping his eyes on her face, he noticed her smile subtracting a tiny bit as she appeared to him. The gentle caress of her hand moved down to his chin, where she gave it a brief pat and then pulled it and herself back.

"Just like him..." Mew swears he heard her say.

She then laid her hand back upon her chest and tilted her head an inch to the side, "I'm sorry. You must be so confused. Perhaps it'd make things better if I introduce myself?"

The sincerity in her voice did not unnoticed. Mew stammered a bit with "S-Sure" and then tucked his hands into his pockets to finally learn the fair maiden's name.

"My name is Auris Aurora. And I welcome you to Sancturia, the city of the Aurians."

"Auris...Aurora?" On the tip of his tongue the name sounded familiar, but the more Mew thought on it the less recognizable it became.

He quickly raises his brows and tries to compensate for his lack of manners by hastily saying "Oh right, my name is-"

"I already know silly. Or have you forgotten why you came here that soon?" Auris stated, resuming the kind of teasing Mew had been introduced to her by.

"R-Right..." Mew rubs the back of his head and chuckles, then pops one eye open and says, "Soooo...This place is called Sancturia?"

"Do you like it?" Auris asks while beginning to walk around Mew, his eyes drawn to her like a lovesick puppy.

"The name or the city?" He wonders as he picks up his shaky legs and follows her along to the door.

"Take your pick," She offered with her hand extended beside her shoulder, "You've had plenty of time to think of both."

"Well..." Mew crosses his arms and looks down, "I guess I was expecting a lot more mysticism?"

He lays his hands up by his sides and says, "A floating city's rad and all, but seriously? No hoverboards? No two-headed beasts?"

"Hmmm, yes..." Auris grabs onto the door and slips through, turning her head over her shoulder to tease Mew with an appetizer of info, "Perhaps I'll need to fix that."

Once they're both out she closes up the temple, where Mew looks back at the graffiti for a few seconds and finds his thoughts on it to now be outdated. He keeps pace with Auris a couple feet behind her and says to her, "You said you guys are called Aurians."

"Correct."

"And that's...not a person's name?"

"Also correct."

"Huh..." Mew stopped for a moment to think then picked up the pace to catch back up, "Then do you know who put that graffiti on the temple?"

"I do," She whispered with a subtle nod of her head, "Its just a child who wants their voice to be heard. Nothing wrong with that, no?"

"Can't deny the paint's an improvement..." Mew smirked then wondered aloud, "Unlesssss that kid also dirtied the place up."

Auris plants her feet firmly down then swerves back with her left hand extending a bit off from her hip. She gives it a brief twirl as she inquires lovingly, "Do you sincerely believe that one child could damage a temple that badly?"

Mew lifts his eyes and imagines himself as a kid using his powers to slap a ton of dirt on the temple walls. He then slacks a grin and answers "Maybe?"

"Hmmm..." Auris gently closes her eyes with a smile then continues moving forward.

As Mew starts walking he immediately asks "Where are we going anyways?"

"My house. Its not far from here." She even takes a moment to try and single it out among all the other huts. Straight from here, its roughly another five-foot walk, so they'd get there within a minute or two at their pace.

Mew decided to take it upon himself to fill the dead air with conversation. Laying his hands behind his head he tried HARD not to focus on her hips. They were swaying a only a little bit, like she was holding back deliberately.

"A-Ahem..." Mew coughs out his dirty thoughts for a brief moment, "Tell me a little more about yourself Auris. You called the Elemental Overlord an 'old friend'...Was he like, close to one of your distant ancestors?"

"No." Was her simple, ambiguous response.

"No? Ummm..." Mew rolls his eyes around a bit and tries to think of another way to connect the two. He stares at Auris and remarks in his head, "She's older than me...But still young enough to be my big sister. Maybe she's just a huge Elemental Overlord fanatic?"

The one time "D." would be useful to him and the demon had to go and clam up. With one big sigh Mew accepts that he'd only get answers as Auris saw fit to give them.

Finally they were at her abode, which looked no different from the rest on the outside. But perhaps, finally, Mew would find something in there that'd blow his socks off. Auris took her hand to the cloth doorway and pushed it aside to allow Mew first.

Mew stood in front of her then paused, backed up a moment, and held his arms towards the door with genuine sincerity to his actions, "Ladies first."

Auris smiled, then took her left hand and pressed it against his back to push him in. Mew stumbled a couple steps before getting his footing back and taking a look around.

The floor was made up of mosaic tiles, the walls painted sky blue and made of plaster. There were two couches on opposing sides of a glass table, and both were adjacent to an average sized television. Behind the farthest couch was a small, cozy fireplace currently devoid of wood, and to the right of that was the entrance to the kitchen.

There was a bookshelf to the left of the fireplace, a closet to the right of the kitchen, and a knee-high drawer that served an unknown purpose to the right of the closet. From there Mew lifted his head and saw a curved staircase going up to the second floor.

"Welp, still not mystical but..." Mew smiled and shrugged, "Least it feels like a home should be."

Without even thinking about it Mew went to take a seat on the couch and his butt sank down into the comfort of the leather cushions in seconds.

"Oooh, this is nice..." He gasps as his eyes begin to close.

Auris walking on by gets his attention as she looks his way and says "I'll get us something to drink. Make yourself at home."

She disappears into the kitchen, only for Mew to realize he didn't tell her what he likes. But she must've been reading his mind, because when she comes back in she's carrying a glass of strawberry lemonade in each hand.

"How's this for you?" She says, leaning in to hand him a glass and then sitting down next to him once he accepts it.

Mew takes a sip of the drink and his tongue lights up from the overwhelming rush of ice cold fruity sweetness inside. He leans back, wiggles the glass around in his hand, then smiles to Auris and admits straight up, "I think I'm in love."

"With me or the lemonade?" She was eagerly curious to know as she took a sip of her drink.

Mew's pupils dilate as he coughs and tries to focus on his drink, which was the same color as his cheeks now, "I-I don't know...You got some competition."

As Mew takes another drink he glances off to the side at Auris' eyes piercing their way through to his heart. She closes her eyes up, almost like she understood how badly she was toying with him, only to then remark, "I get it. You're young...And veeeeery thirsty."

Mew's eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets as he lowers his glass and almost chokes on his drink. He punches his chest a couple times and tries to sit back upright, only for Auris putting her glass down on the table stopping him partway.

The temptation of his inner youthful urges was making his heart start to flutter. It would only get worse when Auris when from grabbing her glass to latching onto his upper left thigh in the blink of an eye. Her grip was gentle, as she only dug her fingernails in deep enough to get past the feeling of denim.

"E-Excuse me...?" Mew gasped in his head like a deflating helium balloon as his body tensed up, especially from his waist downward.

Auris' eyelids sank in an almost seductive fashion. No, "almost" nothing. Any doubts towards her intentions shot right out the window the moment she poked the tip of her tongue through her lips and glided between them twice over.

She leans in closer, using the grip on his leg to solidify her dominance over his will to resist. Mew uses the last of his strength to put his lemonade on the table and then allows his arms to retreat up against his chest. By then Auris has pulled more than half of her body over Mew's legs and was still getting closer.

"I know what its like to have...urges." Auris moaned that last word with her upper lip curling and her hand shifting position from his thigh to his shoulder. The other shoulder was pinned down soon after, and Auris rose over Mew with her knees rubbing up against the bottom of his own.

Caught under this woman's shadow, Mew felt small, yet big. Everything was moving so fast, so soon. He had known Auris all of ten minutes and she already more than prepared to please every last bit of his adolescent urges.

But...is this really what he wants?

Auris suddenly drops the weight of her chest onto Mew's own and puts her eyes at level with his. She takes in a deep, ragged breath as her cheeks turn a luminescent shade of pink and she lays her heart bare, "I've felt it for soooo long...This emptiness in my heart that yearns to be filled by the love of a big, strong, man..."

Her lips spread into a wicked smile as she leans her face in and breathes into his face, "Will you be that man, my dear little Elemental Overlord?"

To answer that earlier question?

"G-Gulp..." Mew swallows heavily as the sweat and trembling on his skin worsens.

Well...it is definitely growing harder to answer by the second.

Next Time: The Overlord's Wife