It was broad daylight when we infiltrated the Bête Noire field and from the looks of the darkening skies, we had been in the field for a considerable amount of time. I had Caleb shut his eyes the whole way out because his vision would only open more opportunities for the field to play tricks on him. He was extremely jittery and he would jolt in trepidation from the things he would hear that I couldn't perceive.

His hands gripped tightly around my arm while entrusting me our future of getting out of this grassy labyrinth. Of course it was only right for him to entrust me with this great responsibility. I was the master of directions and the Lord of intuition.

We will not get lost I assure it. 

Caleb made another leap accompanied by a scream before pulling me in for an embrace. Asphyxiation will surely be the death of me.  

"Ca-can't do this...I'm so scared..." he wept and sniffed through his clogged nose.

 The werewolf had been clinging to me ever since we pushed our way through the meadow. His  body heat was causing me to bathe in my own sweat.

"Please bear with it for a bit more. We are getting closer."

I believe.

I was never good in consoling someone. If anything, I had more potential in heaving down their self-esteem and crushing whatever dreams they had for the future of their grandchildren. Lucius was the son blessed with the talent to inspire people and to bring out their best qualities, while I was the son accursed with the power to shut people out and to shut them out for good. 

It was nothing of personal issues with the person of interest. It just came natural with my tongue. It was my fluency. 

I did not mean it.

Honest. 

I swear on Lettice's life that was perhaps non-existent now. Who knows. 

While I slowly guided Caleb's trembling form, a soft melody sounded in my mind. It was a melody from a song that I was quite familiar with when I was just a child, but ever since they stopped singing lullabies to me, the lyrics faded with time.

A humming began as I tried to remember how okaasan sang to me and how Lucius would take her place whenever she wasn't around. Their voices merged inside my head as a foreign feeling lingered in my chest.

Whenever I tried to reminisce my past the first things that would surface were the lamentable memories that I would much rather preferred to be blurred. But these memories come back to me as if they were happening all over again. They were indissoluble  stains that would never wash off. I will always see them even if I shut my eyes. 

I was an innocent child back then who dreamed with no end. I wanted to become as mighty as my otousan and as righteous as my oniisan. I would cry for the simplest of things and would get consoled with the greatest of gifts. I did not know evil or its existence. I did not know of what it could do to people and how it would transform such innocence into an impurity that could potentially hurt others too.

If the child Lucian and the current Lucian would meet, I was sure that the very first question that the child Lucian would ask would be:

"Why did I become you?"

Indeed, it was the same question I had asked myself ever since I realized that everything that transpired in the castle was an atrocity. Every principle that I had stood by throughout the years was erroneous. 

Indeed, what have I become?

Did my parents take pride of what I turned out to be? Was I even seen as a child to them? What worth did I have?

"That's really nice..." Caleb murmured. "I don't remember hearing this from my mother."

The humming stopped and my lips slightly curled. "It really is a nice lullaby," I blankly praised.

"You heard it too?" Caleb asked with his eyes still shut.

"Yes, I supposed we can hear the same things now," I simply replied before the humming started again.

The lullaby helped ease the werewolf and diverted his attention from the past which still haunted him. My eyes could see the end of the meadow through the curtain of grasses and once we stepped out, I faced Caleb and tapped his cheek.

"You can let go now," I told him.

Caleb opened his puffy eyes and he looked around and became even more visibly relieved.

"We made it," he sighed with his shoulders slumping down.

"The others aren't here yet," I reminded him.

Caleb looked ahead to the forest waiting for us and his stomach growled. "Let's set up a camp and wait there. I want to be as far as possible from this field!" he suggested in a hurry.

The werewolf started the pyram and the fire became more luminous as the skies became completely consumed by darkness. I had built a small roofless house for us so we can gaze at the starry night sky and the werewolf gathered wide leaves to serve as a mattress for our tired bodies. He also questionably showered his urine at the trees surrounding our house saying that "It would keep away intruders."

I didn't know the correlation between his urine and intruders but he looked very pleased with himself.

Caleb's stomach continued to growl and he squeezed his eyes shut and punched his gut in an attempt to quiet it down.

I have grown trees which bore fruits just outside our dwelling and he would eat them however, it would seem that werewolves cannot be satisfied with a plant-based diet.

"I still forbid you to eat meat," I told him which caused him to be teary eyed.

"Bu-but—"

"I am aware of your sexual desires so I will welcome your ling with supreme joy," I deadpanned.

Caleb smacked his hands all over his face and he scrambled back. Although it was really against my principles, I didn't want Caleb to starve to death.

"I was merely developing my sense of humor. Please, by all means, find food that would suffice your fluffy instincts," I approved against my will.

Caleb enthusiastically nodded and rose up with eagerness. "I'll be quick! Please don't move away from our campsite!" he begged and scampered out. I watched his body get engulfed in darkness and I released a short sigh as I watched the pyram.

After eating another peach, I lied down on the leaf and stared at the sky. The sound of crickets filled the atmosphere and multiple thoughts raced inside my head.

My eyes kept sweeping outside to see if Caleb returned, and every time I returned my gaze to the pyram my hands and feet would get tingly.

I never thought that being left alone can be this bothering. For eighteen years I was left in solitary in the seclusion of my room and this was no new occurrence. Even if my parents lived in the same castle, they never did make me necessary in their everyday living. I was just there for them to have the means to say "Yes, we have a son. He is staying at the left wing."

I gazed at the bright flame and thought of Lucius. He destroyed the defense that grew thicker and sturdier and made me into something useful like this pyram. He was bright, he was adored, and yet he was a threat to me. He was turning me into something like him yet I know that I can never be as bright as the light that he emitted.

"Will you ever come back?" I asked.

All his talk about trying to make up for lost time was all a lie. He can never really keep his promise. Not to me. 

"What do you feel?" Lucius' non-existent voice filled my hearing. My chest tightened and I swallowed the pain in my throat.

I thought that his voice was actually within the vicinity that I had to stand up and look around. My heart rose so high from the thought that it utterly crashed down to my stomach when I realized that there was no Lucius or Argo around.

Having your expectations soar so high only for nothing to meet it was...the worst feeling to have.

"I feel...lonely."

I lied back down and shut my eyes. I will try and get some sleep. Once I wake up, I would hear Caleb's voice again and maybe the others would be here at that time as well. We will travel by morning and head to the place where aniki had told us to go.

Lucius will follow. He was strong. He was a general of our army before wasn't he? He was always confident. He radiated with positivity. He was driven. All his characteristics made him withstand the journeys that he had turned into my favored bedtime tales as a child. He was no mere fallacy. 

I was awakened with a heavy feeling in my chest once I realized that I was still alone. The fire that Caleb had started had weakened and needed wood to fuel it to its original flare.

I walked out of the house to see if perhaps my companions were just sitting somewhere close, but found nothing but a strange tree bearing a fruit that I had never seen before in my entire existence. 

The leaves' colors were alternations of green and silver and they were glittery. I approached the tall tree and wondered why I have never seen such a fruit yet still reminded me of something.

The fruit was long in length. Its skin was red and it would seem that it covered the fruit's edible part that was pink in color. The skin didn't cover the whole edible area and left a small visible piece which showed a tiny slit in the middle that was dripping with something white.

What an odd fruit.

I cocked my head to the side and then peeked inside my pants. I looked back and forth between my ling and then the fruit. I never knew that a ling can grow from trees.

I had made a discovery worth mentioning to my brother and Caleb.

My eyes widened when the tree began to speak in a very low tone of voice and curiosity filled me.

"Salutem! (Greetings!), I am Tom. I am a professional baby-maker, fruit bearer, fortune-teller, bystander, day sleeper, afternoon sleeper, night sleeper, and dawn sleeper. Would you like a penisot?"

Was I just offered another ling? Where will I put it? I will just have to set it aside as a spare.

"When are you awake? You seem to sleep all day," I deadpanned.

"I am awake when the moon is full and when I feel someone's hormones rush to the south near me. Libido is my energy and love is the foundation of my existence. Why let it shoot outside when he can shoot inside? Let the energy flow inside of you and be free!" he exclaimed dramatically much to my confusion.

Have I sleepwalked and went to the fields? Was I seeing and hearing things that I was not supposed to?

"I do not understand. Would you care to demonstrate?" I asked the tree which laughed over my evident bewilderment.

"Ah my boy, although you are beautiful I do not fancy beings that do not have branches. I have a leaf fetish. But would you like to make a detka with me?"

My eyebrows furrowed and I turned away. "You are confusing. I will leave now."

"Wait! Wait! I apologize for not explaining further."

The tree cleared its non-existence throat and began to speak once more.

"I collect the natural possession of my foreseen heroes and create fine specimens out of them in the future. I feel something very special about you therefore; I would like to have your child."

I looked around me and found no signs of any people that could help me out of this situation. This tree was also part of nature. It would be uncharacteristic of me to ignore its plea no matter how demented it was.

Now that I thought about it, I didn't remember growing this tree. Where was my peach tree?

"What would you take from me?" I asked it.

"I will just take a strand of your hair, that would be enough," it chirped.

I reached up to my head and plucked a piece. I will just do what what the tree says so that I can get back to sleeping.

But it was nice to know that this was how detkas were made. Lucius didn't tell me that we made them with a woody perennial plant that talked.

"Where shall I put this?" I questioned and raised my fingers which were holding the strand of hair.

"Place it on the surface of any leaf of mine. That leaf will determine the fate of your child."

If I was made in the same process did it mean that my okaasan placed her hair on the wrong leaf which brought about the series of unfortunate events in my life? I had to choose wisely for the future of my detka depended on it.

Once I made my pick and placed the strand on the surface, the leaf curled around it and I watched at how it shimmered and then disappeared.

"What will happen now?" I questioned the tree.

"That child will be born from a fairy in a future that will be unknown to you. You are an odd fellow...and so will be your child. Thank you for your transaction! You have now made an affair with a tree!" it laughed before fading away just as I opened my eyes to reality.

It was a dream.

It was a peculiar dream.

The skies were still dark and the pyram had grown visibly weaker. There were still no signs of Caleb and the others and I have grown uneasy from their lack of presence. I went out of our humble dwelling and immediately darted my gaze at the peach tree that I have raised. The odd tree was just the product of my imagination. Still, the question remained: "How are detkas made?"

A twig snapped to my left and caught my undivided attention.

"Caleb?" I called out.

I stayed still and silent and listened more to my surroundings. The crickets were still there but now they were harmonizing with the frogs. If the one who made the sound was Caleb, the werewolf would surely greet me in the most cheerful way possible that would shake the whole forest into a trembling wake.

I heard a loud crunch from behind the curtain of darkness accompanied by slurping sounds.

"Caleb?" I repeated.

I cautiously approached the source of the sound and concluded that the one behind this wasn't my werewolf companion. This obnoxious way of eating...it must be—

"Crowley?" I spoke out louder which made the munching stop.

 I continued to walk and arrived at the other side of the tree finding nothing but bones which were still coated with fresh blood, and raw vegetables which were bitten and left out to be munched on later.

Yes, the person behind this was definitely not Caleb. He would never eat vegetables.

"It must be a wild animal," I mumbled.

And that wild animal must have just left and hid from the sound of my voice.

I turned around and bumped against a hard object which I was sure that it wasn't there before. I gazed up and found a huge male staring down at me with blood dripping down his lips. My eyes scanned lower and saw the bone he was grasping which he then lazily tossed to the side.

Dark scales covered a part of his cheek, chest, and arms and his vermilion eye trained on me. His other eye was covered with a patch that might look intimidating to some people

"Meat tastes good with vegetable; you should try it," he drawled. 

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A/N: Sorry for the late update. Here ya go! Guess whooooo~