Dedicated to Arallisea the second place winner in the contest.

I have to thank each and every one of you for this. I haven't been doing a very good job of thanking you all for the milestones we reach, but it happens so fast I can't say thank fast enough before the next one comes around the corner.

So I have to say thank you for 200 followers, it's only been not even 3 months since I hit 100, it's taken me by complete surprise. I have any idea of how to thank you all, thought it will take time with finals next week and such, but I will do it.

Next, I don't know when the last time it was I thanked you all for the number of reads I've hit in this book, really though. Not only have we reached over 10k, but now 14k! How crazy is that! I never knew I'd have people like my stories this much, and for that I'm so glad I committed more time to writing stories I care about, because it really has paid off with the love and support you all give me.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you all from the bottom of my heart. No I don't want to delay the chapter any further, this chapter is a special chapter, something I've been cooking up and planning since before I started posting this book, when I was still planning it. And I know some of you have been dying for what is to happen to happen, even if you at the moment have no idea what I'm saying, but you will when you get there.

~~~~~

Falling to Rise

Chapter 20

"There comes a time when you have to choose between turning the page and closing the book."

~~~~~

A silent morning routine. That's what it had become. Each morning at sunrise everyone wakes, everyone but Seto. Jason and his siblings get ready, dressing and eating before heading out into the woods. Apparently Jason works a bit far from here, but the environment is very child friendly so his siblings are watched and cared for wherever it is he works at.

Jerome, Ian, Mitch, and Adam on the other hand, still not knowing the land stayed within the area.

The very next morning after being taken in by their kind host, Jason was kind enough to help them gather up all their belongings from the night before. Unfortunately it seemed something had gotten to their food. But all material things seemed to be in good condition, including the staff Jerome had been carving previously.

Now, while Jason and his siblings were out, Ian took it upon himself to cook meals, saving Jason the trouble of doing so after work. Which Jason was eternally grateful for. Words could not describe how much of a load Ian had lifted from his shoulders. Besides working early in the morning to late at night, he still had to make sure his family was well fed and clean. Plus laundry and cleaning.

Now that was Adam and Mitch's job. Adam was more than glad to do a bit of cleaning and laundry, though never actually getting anything done because of his short-attention span, he was glad to do it. Mitch on the other hand grumbled and complained the whole day, since never having picked up a broom in his life, metaphorically speaking. He just wasn't used to it. Though it did not tire him, he just lacked the common sense to efficiently complete the tasks.

Jerome would've taken his place, but he was left with the bit more daring task. The task of coaxing Seto out of his eternal confinement to the small guest room Jason had spared for him. Meals being the only time Jerome left the outside of the door, not before leaving a bit of food outside the door for Seto, since whenever they tried to give him a full meal, he only ever ate a small portion. They couldn't waste the food their kind host had so generously let them use.

No matter how hard Jerome tried Seto would not answer his calls, it was so silent, if not for Jerome's enhanced hearing he would've thought Seto dead. But he could hear the creak of the mattress and the crying, though muffled. So Jerome was left with sitting outside the door quietly whittling away at the staff he was carving for Seto. He managed to borrow a knife he'd found in the kitchen without Ian noticing, and of course he cleaned up all the wood shavings after he was done for the day.

Jerome would sometimes catch himself dozing outside of Seto's door and dream of pleasant days he could barely remember. His mother's gentle brown eyes, his father's strong paws. His treks through the woods as his father showed Jerome every nook and cranny of a hiding space there was.

He knew how it felt to lose his parents, just like Seto. He'd lost his however when he was young, six if he remembered correctly. He hadn't even got to go on a proper hunting trip with his father, it was his first day. He'd just turned six just several days before. His father had finally agreed to take Jerome out hunting by the river.

Though that didn't last long.

His father was killed by humans and his mother killed because of Jerome. Because Jerome was weak, he ran away after watching the brutal beating done to his father. He ran to his mother who swiftly followed him to his father, where the humans were still beating upon the limp body of his father.

He didn't like to think of this day. It reminded him just how much he hated humans. Humans who thought they were so powerful because they could kill any morvic they wanted without that morvic even lifting a paw. Like his father.

He remembered every moment after. The moment his mother's eyes landed on his father's glassy eyes. The moment his mother lost it. The only moment his mother ever raised a paw to a human.

She'd always spoke kindly about them. Even though they treated creatures like him like dirt, she always commented on how intelligent they were, how kind and adaptive they were. How creative they were.

Jerome could still see his mother, twice the strength of the humans, brought down two, no three of them before the fourth killed her with his sword.

Jerome remembered never moving from his hiding spot in the bushes. He remembered how his mother's chest rose and fell, how she crained her neck and sniffed the air before turning to look directly at the bushes where he sat. He remembered her last words before her breathing ceased. He remembered how for hours he sat watching, neither crying nor speaking, even after humans had come and dragged their fallen humans back with them, even after they kicked his mother and father.

And most of all. Jerome remembered how when night fell, he spent every waking hour digging graves before he rolled his parents in, side by side together, paw in paw. Then he spent the rest of the night in mourning.

He remembered the pain all too well. He wished there was some way he could convey his feelings to Seto, tell him that he knows the same pain. However, his parents death is the one thing he never speaks about to anyone. Not even to the other morvics he worked with in Duhita. He isn't even sure if he can ever say anything to anyone.

The knife in Jerome's hand slipped and nicked him in his paw. He hissed internally before shoving his paw in his mouth to suck the blood out. He would need to clean the wound, but Ian was probably cooking dinner by now. He sighed, gathered the staff and knife and marched down the stairs. He would wait down here until he could clean his wound.

"Let me borrow that knife will you."

"What?" he mumbled with the injured part of his paw still in his mouth, "No, I need it."

"You're not even using it right now! I need to fix a few arrows." Mitch made a grab for the knife Jerome had set down on the dining table. While they were busy arguing Ian was almost done with dinner and Adam almost done with whatever it was he was doing. Oh right, sleeping.

Jason and his sibling have yet to come come, it was late in the night and for the past few days that they have stayed here, it was unusual for them to be gone this long.

"Quit it and let go of the knife, just get one from the kitchen!"

"Ian is in there you stupid dog! Notch knows not to disturb him while he's there."

"Then get Jason to get you one!"

Mitch tackled Jerome to the floor, Jerome still holding the knife away from Mitch, "He's not even--" before he finished his sentence, the two stopped fighting when they heard the doorknob begin to jiggle.

"Oh, well look at that," Mitch carefully dusted himself off, leaving Jerome to get up by himself. He walked to the door. The door opened, "Welcome bac--"

Mitch in with a full smile cut his greeting short when he was met face to face with an unfamiliar guy. Sure the three people behind the stranger were Jason's younger siblings Glen, Ava, and Venir, but the man in front of Mitch was not Jason.

No. To Jerome he looked to be a slightly tanned human with thick black square things on his face. They reminded him of the things the Adam fellow wore, he believed he called them sunglasses, but these did not have tinted lenses. The stranger with his non-tinted sunglasses squeaked before breaking out into a full panic.

Mitch slammed the door in his face and stumbled back. "Who the nether was that!"

He pointed to the door with a look of panic. The door was swung open, the stranger with a similarly designed shirt as Mitch's hoodie screamed. "Stand back everyone! I will deal with these burglars! No doubt spies from Emedo or some sh*t!"

"Uh wait, Tyler--" Glen, the tomboy, and the second oldest of the family tried to speak up, but her voice went unheard in the commotion.

The stranger pulled out a sword from a sheath strapped to his back and charged full speed at Mitch who left his bow far out of his reach. He swung his sword and Mitch narrowly dodged before shoving the guy away from him and toward Jerome. With little time to react, Jerome used his knife to block the incoming blow from the sword. He hissed at the applied pressure to his small cut, the bleeding once again starting.

"Watch it!" Jerome shoved the guy away from him and into Mitch. It went on like this for several minutes, ping-ponging the guy to each other to avoid injury. The stranger did very well at adapting to his new opponent each time.

"What's going on?" Adam came downstairs and yawned, he lacked his sunglasses.

"Adam can't you see we're busy!" Mitch yelled.

"Oh," he yawned, "Ok, I'll leave you guys alone..." he waved, and turned to leave.

"H-hey! Don't leave!" Jerome yelled, "We need your he--"

"Adam set the table will you." Ian interrupted, ignoring the commotion going on.

Adam sighed and avoiding Mitch, Jerome, z moved to bring out the plates and silverware. The table was not large, it could not fit them and Jason's family, so their little group usually ate picnic style near the table out of respect. They were intruding on another family so it was only right that that family got to eat at their own table. While Adam was neatly making the table, the three younger siblings of Jason were busy trying to somehow get their friend to stop.

They yelled and pleaded, but he ignored them, drowning out their pleas with his own cries that Mitch and Jerome, along with the other two were burglars. Though in all honesty, such claims did not make sense under the circumstances that Ian and Adam were obviously helping, but such fact went unknown to the stranger. A regular case of jumping to conclusions.

One moment the intruder was defending the lives of three innocent people, the next Jerome and Mitch moved to be on the same side, gave one last shove to their attacker at the same time. Their attacker flew forward. The sword flew from their hand as they shrieked and the sword embedded itself into the floor. The man on the other hand stumbled into Ian, knocking Ian into the meal he was preparing and scattering it all over the floor and the counter.

Exaggerating a bit, it was like time had frozen. There was silence, the three siblings, Glen, Ava, and Veni, had ceased their panic, standing shell-shocked and staring wide-eyed at the event that had occurred. Adam had stopped placing down the plates and silverware, his eyes transfixed to the kitchen, just as Mitch and Jerome held their breath, for what they didn't know, it was just a feeling in both their hearts. The same feeling of a child who just broke their mother's favorite vase, or an artifact of deep importance and were now staring at their horrible, horrible crime they had just committed. The feeling of all hell about to break loose.

For a moment, the strange freckled boy with the thick, black glasses laid dazed on the floor. His glasses somehow remaining perfectly on his face. He groaned sat up and looked around. His eyes met those he had been attacking, but he was confused, why had they stopped.

Like the hands of death, the boy felt a chill run down his spine as a shadow loomed over him from behind. He crained his head up and gulped, his eyes shielded by thick glasses met the eyes of an angry, hands-on-hips, full frown plastered on face, man, bits of wasted food clung to his clothes.

~~~~~

Seto was woken by noise. Loud noise, unlike the noise he would normally hear down below. This was more of yelling and screaming.

With his eyes now open he sat up. He didn't know what was going on, he didn't want to. In the days that it has been since arriving here, he's been feeling less like living and more like... He wouldn't say dying, the thought of it scared him, but more of vanishing. See that, sounded better, like a buttered up version.

Seto silenced his thoughts, he heard the shuffling of feet, the quiet creak of the floorboards by his door and then the steady thump of someone walking down the stairs.

Seto sat up and combed a hand through his curly hair. His hair was unkempt and flattened on one side, the side he'd laid on for the past few hours. He felt the urge to stretch, reluctantly he stood up and stretched his stiff muscles. He wouldn't lie, the feeling of moving felt good and sent energy through his body. He smiled ever so slightly, he wasn't feeling happy, but he did feel somewhat free. Perhaps the feeling of moving was filling him with a bit of energy.

He jumped because of the loud screaming from down stairs. What in Notch was going on?

Out of curiosity, and the need to stretch his legs more, Seto decided to push his melancholy away and go down stairs. He shouldn't keep being selfish like he's been these past few days. He should just take the chance, as much as it terrified him to face them after ignoring them for so long.

With wobbly steps he made it out the door quietly.

"Uncle! Uncle! Uncle! Gah! I'm sorry! I'm crying uncle!" Seto heard a voice scream out, quickly followed by the angry shout of Ian.

"You wasted food! Sorry isn't good enough, you might as well lick it off the floor!"

"Ian calm down, you're scaring the kids!" Adam pleaded after.

Something was going on, and Seto almost wanted to turn around and ignore it. It did not seem like the kind of thing he wanted to get involved in on his first day out of the room.

However something about that voice made Seto keep walking, keep walking down the stairs. Walking until his foot stepped on a creaky floorboard and Jerome perked up at the noise and turned around.

"Seto!" Jerome's over joyous voice went, and Seto stopped walking. But he didn't stop because Jerome called out to him, or because of the 3 pairs of eyes that turned his way.

He stopped because the breath in his throat got caught, because his eyes landed on the figure Ian had pinned by the knee with one arm pulled behind his back as he aggressively and painful exacted his revenge on the waster of food. He stopped because that man was still crying out "Uncle" until their eyes met and the world stopped for the both of them.

Even though Ian still had him pinned, and was still threatening the poor man, it was like the pain vanished and the circumstances he managed to land himself in vanished along with the outside world. It was only seconds before both Seto and the man instantly recognized the other. And like they'd rehearsed it in some sort of play, each spoke the other's name in synchronization.

"Tyler."

"Seto."

~~~~~

I've been dying to write Tyler and Seto seeing each other again for a long time, ever since I started planning this book XD. Yep a long time. Man so many of you thought he was dead, *cough* *cough* *you know who you are* *cough*

Literally I've waited so long for this! And this is not the only awesome scene I have planned in the future, stay tuned for more!

Also tell me the ships you ship in this book, and your favorite scene that represents that ship. I will not make ships a thing in this book, but I want to know anyways for something special.

~WrittenDarkness