✧*~☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ - .*☆

"So,"

Steve began as he turned to Asling.

"What the hell just happened?"

He asked curiously.

"The fall of Pluto."

She replied.

"What happened to Pluto?"

"We don't talk about Pluto."

Asling replied shortly.

"Or at least that's what I've always been told."

She added with a shrug.

"I had always been told that the last Pluto guardian had been expelled from the Order of the Guardians because she acted out in rebellion and practiced large amounts of dark magick to cause harm to Scanthia. That's what everyone always said."

She added.

"But when Pluto was cast out I know she took a handful of her followers with her, the lived in the mountains on the outskirts of Scanthia and called themselves the moon people."

She said.

"So she took the fall for what your master did?"

Steve asked.

"It seems like it."

Asling replied with a sigh.

"I can't believe Kierran was so twisted all this time and I never even knew."

Steve walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Hey,"

He said softly,

"Don't blame yourself. How could you have known?"

He asked sweetly and Asling smiled up at him. In all this time she was truly grateful for Steve and the kindness and hospitality he had shown her.

"Steve I-"

she began as she gazed up at him but her eyes quickly drifted from his to something moving in the distance behind him.

"Look out!"

She quickly shouted, pushing Steve out of the way and quickly drawing out her bow and quiver, she fired an arrow across the secret room, nailing a shot right in the arm of a Demodog. Steve's grip on his bat tightened. The creature wasn't killed, just wounded and now it was pissed off with Asling and Steve. It growled at them and Steve stood between it and Asling. Several more stepped forward to join it, outnumbering Steve and Asling and cornering them. Asling summoned her swords, knowing her bow wouldn't be much of a match and prepared to fight side by side with Steve.

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"Steve be careful!"

Asling shouted as Steve's signature bat with nails was thrown out of his hands and across the room by a demodog that grabbed it with it's flowering mouth only to toss it aside like a twig.

"Here,"

Asling said as she tossed him one of her crystal swords. He took it without questioning her, he didn't have time to, and continued to fight against the creatures attacking them.

"I'll get your bat,"

Asling said as she made her way over to it, slashing her way through monsters with her now single sword as she did so. When she finally reached the bat that had been isolated she reached down to pick it up. When her fingers caressed the wooden handle she felt a warm breath on her neck. She looked up and there, growling at her, was a demodog. She picked up the bat, the entire time she stared at it, but this one was different. This demodog was sickeningly familiar. She knew exactly who it was.

"Kierran."

She muttered and the monster beared it's teeth. Suddenly Asling had a revelation, a painful revelation. She saw what was about to unfold, it was time for the choice the prophecy spoke about, a most difficult and awful choice. She turned back to Steve and practically ran to him, the choice had been hers to make and she had made it. Steve had to leave.

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"Steve,"

She said urgently as she handed him his bat even though he seemed to have grown rather accustomed to her sword, fighting with it almost expertly. He looked down at her and noticed the worry in her eyes.

"You have to leave."

She said and as the words left her mouth all the demodogs suddenly ran away from them, just as quickly as they came they all left.

"What?"

Steve asked, his brows narrowed in surprise and concern.

"You have to leave, back to Hawkins."

She insisted.

"No-"

He said.

"Not without you."

He insisted and Asling sighed, he could see for a moment that her eyes where sparkling with tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

"Steve,"

She continued.

"I have to do this next part on my own."

She said.

"You have to leave."

"Why?"

Steve demanded.

"He's coming."

She told him.

"Kierran is coming, the wolf. And the wolf has to be sacrificed to fulfill the prophecy."

She told him.

"I have to be the one to do it. And when I do-"

Her voice faltered for a moment.

"I don't know if I'll be able to open a portal back to Hawkins again."

She said.

"Which is why you have to leave now."

"I'm not leaving without you."

Steve said.

"You have to."

She said.

"If you don't you could be stuck here for the rest of your life."

She replied.

"But you wouldn't be alone."

He said.

"If I stayed."

He added, brown eyes pleading with her.

"No Steve."

Asling said as she shook her head.

"You don't belong here. This isn't your fight."

Asling hesitated.

"You have to go home."

She added, pausing again.

"I have to let you go."

She kept pausing between phrases as if she were trying to reach the courage to say something bold.

"Because I love you."

She finally admitted, not looking at him.

"So I have to let you go, back to Hawkins- you have to-"

She didn't get to finish her words. Steve reached down, lifted her chin so she would look up at him and without any other words he leaned down and kissed her.

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"You have to go now."

Asling said as soon as she pulled back from the kiss Steve had given her, her face still in a dreamy state of expression.

"You don't know for certain that you won't be able to open a portal back to Hawkins after this is all over, right?"

He asked her. Asling seemed to hesitate.

"Well... no I don't know for certain but-"

"When you get back, come and find me."

Steve said sternly, his brown eyes looked down at her keenly. Asling opened her mouth to disagree but rather she pressed her lips together in a thin line and nodded. She'd rather believe the blissful lie that she'd see him again than face the harsh probable truth of her current reality.