Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

Sakura stood barefoot and still dressed in her nightshirt next to Ren; arms crossed at her chest, head tilted to the side, and a mixture of surprise and admiration painted across her face. “I can’t believe you actually did it.” She looked between Zero and her glaive sitting in the cart. “How?”

The devil scratched at his elbow as he glanced away, uncomfortable with their eager eyes on him. “Since I couldn’t pick it up myself, I thought I could possibly do so by tying it off with a rope and pulley system,” he said lightly, finding the words. “I dug under the handle and blade and tied the rope around it. It moved a little, but I guess me pulling the rope was still like me attempting to wield it. So, I went back to the mountains and rolled back a boulder. I tied off the rope as tight as it’d go and used a large branch to wedge the boulder along the rope which lifted the glaive since I wasn’t exactly the one lifting it. When it got high enough, I lowered it onto the cart, and it was easy to bring back.”

The woman blinked. That was a whole lot of words in a very short amount of time from the boy. The day was just brimming with miracles. “What about the nibblers?” she asked.

“Marisol said they absorb the magic from the trees and can only cast enchantments at night while someone’s asleep and vulnerable. So, I’d leave the forest at sunset and return at first light.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Zero.” The demon softened towards the boy. It had to have been a huge undertaking for him to go through all of that to return her glaive to her. It would have been so much easier for her to go retrieve it, but he had taken on the burden himself so that she wouldn’t have to.

He nodded, staring at his feet. “I wanted to.”

Sakura swallowed the tightness in her throat, feeling as though she could cry from the thoughtfulness of the gesture, but like all things, Ren had to ruin it.

“I’m so proud of you!” he wailed, trapping Zero’s arms at his sides as the angel wrapped around him and lifted the devil off of his feet, twisting and swinging him side to side. “You’re such a good boy! My little man’s growing up!” Ren set him back on the ground and pecked his forehead, ocean eyes shining with adoration.

The boy looked up at him blankly, any hint of emotion completely erased. “You’re an idiot.”

Ren kissed him on the forehead again. “And you’re perfect. Let’s feed you. Ivy’s making breakfast. Do you know how much I missed you? How worried I was?” The angel draped his arm around the devil’s shoulder and dragged him off towards the house, rambling a mile a minute.

The woman walked to the cart and pulled out the glaive, holding it before her and staring up at the dramatic curvature of the blade with forlorn affection.

Raz.

He hadn’t wanted her.

“Thank you, Raz,” she whispered and followed after Ren and Zero. She leaned the glaive against the house and entered to a state of comforting disarray that she was quickly becoming accustomed to. She acknowledged Ivy and Zero and maneuvered herself around Ren as he rolled around on the floor with Jose, gently tugging the boy’s tail as he swiped at her and went upstairs to change.

Marisol stood in the room at the hutch, Luna wrapped on her back sleeping, her tiny ears twitching with her dreams. The jaguar looked at the fox in her nightshirt. “Would you like me to leave?” she asked as Sakura was already pulling the shirt off.

The vixen snorted and proceeded to change. “Not like you haven’t already seen everything.”

“That’s true.” She nodded, grabbing a bundle of dried flowers and popping the buds from the stems. “Would you like to borrow something else to wear? I’m sure I have something that you can fit into.”

“Is there something wrong with my clothes?” Sakura asked, genuinely curious as she looked down and observed that they looked the same as always. Shirt and shorts covering all the important bits with only a little fraying in spots. They weren’t great, but good enough, and the important thing was that they were easy to move around in. It wasn’t exactly convenient traveling and killing pests in a skirt.

“Women just typically wear dresses. I’ve never known one who doesn’t.” Marisol pointed out with a shrug. “But I suppose there’s nothing typical about a fox girl far from her den running around with that weapon that Zero brought back. I can see how a dress would get in the way of swinging that thing around.” She looked over her shoulder at the woman’s sheepish grin and antsy feet before returning to her task. “You look like you’re ready to leave. You should wait, give yourself time.”

Time was something that they had already wasted so much of waiting around for Sakura to wake up. There was no need to waste anymore of it. “I appreciate it, I really do, but we’ve already taken up so much of your hospitality. We couldn’t possibly take up anymore.”

“You can and you will,” Marisol stated firmly, leaving no room for argument. “You were bitten by a nibbler, and even though you survived, you should be dead. You will stay a while longer and regain your strength.”

“We really do need to move on,” Sakura said carefully, grateful for the woman’s care but also unable to restrain her defiant nature. They had somewhere to be, and this was not it.

The jaguar turned to the fox, looking at her with pity. “Ivy has been doing so well in learning the ways of a healer. She comes by it naturally. It really is a shame that the woman who she cared so tenderly for would drag her off before learning all that she could. All because you want what you want and demand it all now, those around you must suffer. That girl is so delightful, so gracious, but she feels so helpless. And can you blame her? Look at the three of you; tall and strong with all your weapons. Ivy will never be that. She will never possess the same physical strength that comes naturally to you all. She has to find strength elsewhere, and healing is one way she can do that. A way for her to feel of use. Are you really going to take that from her?”

Sakura grumbled, “You’re trying to make me feel guilty.” And it was working very well.

Marisol smiled slightly. “No one can make you anything. If you feel guilt, then that is your own doing.”

A low growl rumbled in the fox’s throat, as she fought with herself. “Fine!” she declared. “We’ll stay. For now. Fuck.” She cursed lightly to herself.

Marisol’s smile grew and she turned back to her work. “Please don’t curse in front of the children. It’s so unbecoming. That angel is the same way. Filthy mouth on such a lovely face. Though, I didn’t know they allowed Fallen Ones to live.”

“They don’t.” Sakura looked away, hiding her grief. “His uncle saved him.”

“Lucky for you.”

The fox opened her mouth to argue but relented to staring at her toe as it scuffed at the ground.

“That forest is a hotbed for magic. It’s why everything is so beautiful and whimsical. For whatever reason, the magic from the land tends to pool in that area, always has. Those nibblers are created from the magic in the leaves, and the only way out of their enchantment is to escape the trees. And because they lock you in an endless loop in their territory, the only way out is to go either under or over the trees. Even those who manage to keep killing them succumb to them sooner or later unless they can get out. They’ll stop dropping from the leaves for a while, but they always come back.” Marisol walked to Sakura, jar in hand, grabbing her arm and rubbing the salve on the fading scar. “He saved you, the way his uncle did him. You owe him your life.”

The fox stared at the pinkish line that not long ago had been a gaping wound. “Yeah, well, wouldn’t be the first time,” she mumbled. It wasn’t something she needed to be reminded of. She already knew it very well.

The jaguar peeked at the fox’s pout. “That angel is very fond of you. When he first arrived with you in his arms, he kicked down my door. Literally. Right off the hinges. Terrified the children with those black wings of his and all his yelling. I had been sweeping, so I beat him with my broom.” She chuckled, the situation a funny memory now. “Then I realized you were pouring blood all over my floor and had him bring you up here while I worked on your arm, and he blubbered like a baby. Honestly, if the poison didn’t kill you, then the blood loss probably should have. But it didn’t.

“When I came back downstairs, Ivy had already cleaned up the blood and was playing with Jose and Luna while Zero was putting the door back on the frame. It was by far the strangest day I had ever had in my entire life. A person never expects to have either a Fallen One or a devil in their home, and yet, I had both. One was upstairs crying over a fox, and the other was fixing my house. It was surreal.”

A groan rumbled from Sakura as she clenched her eyes tightly closed, the image of everything that had transpired according to Marisol vivid in her mind, picking at her further. “I am so, so sorry about that. Thank you so much for not kicking us out.”

“It was no problem. Ren actually reminds me a lot of my husband.”

This had the fox gawking at the jaguar. “Was he an idiot, too?”

Marisol laughed as she returned the jar to the hutch and leaned against it. “No. He was very intelligent, often infuriatingly so. But he loved me completely. So much more than he loved himself. Watching that boy waste away beside you was like watching my own. It broke my heart. I know had you gone he would have followed, just like mine would have followed me had it been the other way around. Men have the luxury to love entirely and freely, whether that be power, coin, or a lover. They’re not bound by responsibility and common sense like us women are.”

The truth of her words were not lost on Sakura. She wasn’t ignorant or blind to it, but it wasn’t something that was easy for her to face, either. “I’m sorry about your husband,” she said gently. How difficult it must be, to be left to raise children on your own after losing the one you love.

“It was a landslide in those mountains that you all had come through. Just before this one was born.” Marisol ran a finger along the sleeping baby’s foot. “It was hard. It still is. It always will be. But that’s life and death just happens to be a part of it. In the end, if we don’t lose someone, then they’ll lose us.”