A/N: Well as I started this chapter, I had just left for Ryan's funeral in Virginia a 25 hour car ride, straight through both ways. And to top it off, I spent the night rubbing at my eye, only for my mother to declare it pink eye when she woke up. So that's not just 50 hours in a car, that's 50 hours in a car with pink eye.
Damn life hates me right now. First my friend dies the day after my birthday, then I get pink eye as I go to his funeral. Again I'm venting sorry.
Well. After posting four new chapters I was elated and lifted and ever so grateful to find 13 new reviews, some from a lot of the same people but still, 13, 11 of them in a matter of hours is... just... Well... You guys are making my life bearable right now. So thank you ever so much from the bottom of the heart of a currently broken soul.
So to my amazing reviewers for seeing me through a dark time:
CountrygalxHetalia, thank you for being the first to review, and reviewing each chapter even though I really only expected reviews on chapter 7.
coolcat101s, thanks for getting me to dance again, I really needed that.
Axelgirl14, thank you for your long reviews, they make me think over my work, and they make me smile.
J-J-ANIME-ROCKS, thanks for coming back and thanks for thinking not only my story is amazing but that I am too. Even if I don't agree right now.
HermesChildOfRain, thanks for the hugs, thanks for being here, and thank you for making me laugh and recognizing Greece.
AnimeApprentice, thanks for being like psychic, and guessing the original first version of the plot, they say great minds think alike.
I.F.T.S. thanks for thinking is 'fabtasamazing'. I like made up words.
And to my one guest, who ever you are, thank you for letting me give you a good start to your day, and thank you for making me laugh really really hard. I also needed that.
You guys are great. And we can not leave out you awesomeness folks who favorited or fallowed. You are all deserving of your own Gilbirds. Take good care of them.
Sorry for the long author note by the way.
Well lovelies, read to your soul's content! Or at least until the chapter ends. Read da!
Heat cradled Feli in a sweltering cocoon and rocked him across the dark dream scape of his mind. It was stifling, sticky, and uncomfortable. Like someone had tied him up and left him at the open mouth of the volcano on the most humid day of the year. Suddenly his blank mind exploded in wakefulness, coming fully too. Sound and light flooded his senses, overloading them, causing him to sit bolt up right. Bad move. The heat circled tighter, settling on an throbbing pressure in his lower abdomen. A whimper left him as he wrapped his arms around himself and dropped back to his side.
Slowly opening his honey eyes so as to avoid the sensory overload again Feli found himself facing his bedroom from the wall opposite his door. It was getting to be dark now, and evening light illuminated the bamboo wood in golds and soft yellows. It was as he had left it the morning of Storm Festival, right before he had left for the docks, and...
Ludwig! His Luddy was finally home! But then where was he? Was he okay? Had he been hurt somehow? Why had he been gone so long? These and more swirled through the omega prince's mind before he groaned and rolled over again, this time onto his stomach. And that was when he noticed how hard he was, and by the gods it hurt. Strangely pleasurable, but not enough, and his body wanted more of what ever contact he could get.
But before he could even begin to process what was happening to him the curtain separating his room from the rest of the house was lifted aside and in stepped Kiku. The Shaman had a smile on his face, a calm, happy one. He perked up at the sight of the prince laying in his day bed pile of pelts and pillows and wide awake. He carried a small leather satchel with him today, he'd seen it before. He used it when his patients could not come to him, and he had to go and see them instead.
"Ah you are awake. Good, I was beginning to wonder if you hadn't hit your head harder." He said as he let the curtain fall back behind him. He approached the whimpering over heated omega and settled onto a spare jungle deer pelt next to him. Feli could only guess now that what he felt was his first heat. It was the only thing that could possibly make him feel so good yet so pained at the same time.
"W-where's Luddy?" He asked carefully as the beta flipped open his satchel and removed a thin packet of leaves wrapped in a bamboo leaf. The scent that drifted to him through his own identified it as mint. Often used to cool the high temperatures children sometimes experienced. He supposed they would help relieve the heat a little. Kiku smiled a bit wider at him.
"He is resting at his home, with Aldrich and Berlitz. He's taken a rather nasty thump to the head, but he should be fine. Now chew on these, they'll help. I've been asked to make sure you do not leave the island for the festival tonight." Kiku explained before handing the packet of mint leaves to him. So it was still Storm Festival day, and his promised was home safe and sound. He smiled softly and tore the bamboo strip off, before taking two of the leaves and chewing on them carefully.
"Good, I'll be in the main room if you need anything." Kiku seemed satisfied with him and left his room quietly letting the curtain flutter back into place. The mint did help to quell the heat he a felt a bit, but it did nothing for his aching arousal. Ludwig wasn't here right now, and he knew that no one else in the world would ever touch him in such a way. So he would have to make due until he could see him again. So with that, Fell quickly loosed the red dancer's sash holding his striking blue pants up. The silver tassels ticked his over sensitive skin and sent sparks racing up his spine. Of what he wouldn't give for a soft caress like that from an actual hand. Well his own would have to do for now.
As soft moans lifted from the far south end of the beach back in the jungle near the heart of the village Ludwig was only just coming to. His old room in the house was still as it had been left, with a hammock hanging in the corner, the old cat skin laid out on the floor, and a few other pelts piled and layered beneath the window on the left wall. It wasn't big, a room large enough for the child he had been back then, and it had worked just fine.
Berlitz rested easily in the soft pelts keeping watch over his newly returned partner. When Feli had pulled the last sheet aside it had taken Felicity, Pele and Winawe to keep him from snatching the man up up in his teeth and tail. He would have held him there for the rest of his life too and never let the blond alpha leave his sights. Instead he had to wait for Aldrich and Romulus to carefully lift him onto his back to be brought back to his home where he now guarded him closely.
The groan from the hammock peaked his hidden reptilian ears and he carefully stood, ducking, and eased over to the swinging bed before laying down again. A pale hand appeared from within the dark green fabric cocoon and then an arm. Gripping the edge of the fabric quite tightly the now conscious Ludwig slowly rose into a sitting position. Linen bandages were wrapped neatly around his forehead, keeping a medicinal salve on the large goose egg he sported on the left side of his head. Keeping one well muscled arm taught on the hammock and the other gently pressed to his fore head he opened the beautiful blue eyes that Berlitz had so missed. They were harder yes, than those of the little boy he remembered, but it was him.
He looked around with bleary eyes for a moment until they focused and his vision sharpened into clarity. And then he began quizzically and confusedly glancing around the room. When his eyes fell on Berlitz's large form curled up beside the hammock he nearly startled. But they softened almost instantly and he held out a hand.
"I'm sorry, friend. My memories are fuzzy these days. You are my Berlitz, ja?" He asked in a quiet voice. It was much deeper, but it still held the gentle touch and affection the casaraptor was used to hearing from his beloved partner. He trilled warmly, and nuzzled into the hand eagerly, and was rewarded with thick fingers carding through his frill. Oh how he had missed that touch. Feli took excellent care of him mind you, and he doted on the omega and protected him as part of his family, but no one could replace his partner's touch.
"Ahhh, you are avake. Its good to see you up." A new voice asked. In the open door way stood Aldrich. He had heard the comment about fuzzy memories. The hit to the head and time had probably blurred his memories of the past. But if he remembered Berlitz, there was a good chance he would remember others as well. He smiled as Ludwig jumped slightly and looked up at him. Berlitz turned his large head around to look at him as well, and cooed a greeting to the older man. Aldrich had in eight years lost much of the commanding alpha power he used to hold, at almost sixty years old, but in it he had gained a look of gentle wisdom.
"Aldrich, grandfather. I don't think I could forget you. Though it is a blur yet. My head still hurts." He said, again softly, now more due to the fact that he didn't want to aggravate the pounding in his head. The elder alpha smiled, nodded and approached. He leaned on Berlitz's side and stroked his soft feathers quietly.
"Its good to know you remember some things. Time and rest will help clear them up again. So other than your head," Aldrich asked with a knowing smile, "how are you?" He kept his tone to a whisper so as not to flare the pain his head was sure to be causing him. Ludwig smiled softly in return, one reminiscent of the child Aldrich had once cradled at night. He had certainly changed, grown obviously, again only time would tell.
"Fine, I guess. Though I vonder after my companions, Mei and Herakles? They are both betas, they should have been vith me." He questioned still carding his fingers through Berlitz's thick green and yellow feathers, occasionally scratching his scaly cheek and chin. The raptor loved this attention, so much so that it actually set the plumed end of this tail to flick back and forth happily much like some of the jungle cats would. Aldrich smiled, admiring g his concern for his two friends.
"You got here just in time, tonight is Storm Festival. She wouldn't tell us anything so we sent Mei to Tiberi to be taken home to Kilowe. She seemed happy about that. Herakles is staying with Shaman Kiku for now. He hasn't woken up yet, Kiku thinks he may have hit his head as well." Aldrich explained. The girl had been rather skittish with them, but had listened to reason when Kiku had fixed the long scrape on her arm. She had quietly ridden with Romulus to Tiberi where she would be rejoining her tribe for the first time in eight years. Ludwig smiled faintly.
"Forgive Mei, she is shy. And you don't need to worry about Herakles, he's lazy, and enjoys his sleep." He said shaking his head. Berlitz now rested his head in his partner's lap. He gave a low rumble, like a hurrrr sound, as if agreeing even though he had but seen them once. Aldrich stroked a hand down the lizards lower neck and shoulders.
"Mmm, well then he should be fine as well." He stated simply. They sat in easy silence for awhile, simply grooming through Berlitz's feathers, loosing dead ones and adding them to the pile of pelts in the opposite corner. But while Ludwig was still in pain and his head a blur of whirling faces and places, and jumbled letters trying to form names and words, he was not ignorant to the puzzled look Aldrich would take one for a moment at times.
"You look confused, perhaps more than I am, vhat are you thinking of?" He finally asked as the elder returned from retrieving a lantern of flicker flies to give a gentle light to the dark room. The moon only offered so much, and the small glowing bugs when gathered together produced enough soft yellow light to cast the larger shadows from the room, though other still clung to corners.
"I am vondering, vhat ever happened that day, vhen Dead Tribe attacked and you vere carried off. Vhat happened after that, to you and the others who vere taken from us?" Almost immediately he regretted asking that question. Ludwig locked up, every muscle tensed as if ready to spring at a moments notice. A shiver crawled over his broad frame and set him to shaking lightly. Berlitz lifted his head from his relaxed position and nudged at his chest, and nipped at his pulled back hair. This woke him from what ever waking dream had been having about days past. He looked at the casaraptor and patted his cheek before turning to look at his grandfather once again. Aldrich had rarely seen his grandson scared as a child, but now he could only just barely make out the blue in his eyes his pupils were so wide blown in sheer terror.
"Vell, it's, it's hard to explain, but I vill try." He said carefully. Aldrich nodded and slipped down next to Berlitz to the floor. He figured he would want to sit down for this. After all eight years is a lot to catch up on, and he was an old man now, he wasn't going to remain standing.
"Just try, you don't have to if you don't vant to." Aldrich said gently. If it was that painful he almost didn't want to know, but he needed to.
"Alright I'll start from the attack then, at least vhat I remember of it." And Ludwig began his story.
A/N: And wa la! Chapter 8 is finite. I will begin to explain what happened to Ludwig slowly over the next few chapters, as we repair the damage done to his memory. Also I can promise a more emotional reunion for the next chapter. Again, thank you all for your grand encouragement, hugs, and reviews. Your guys rock.
So I'll see you in the ten minutes it take me to get chapter 9 up.
