she's dreaming

June 25, 2021, 1:06

Cairo, Egypt

6th of October city

"like what you see?" Evdokia is smoking out of the kitchen's window, wearing an oversized white shirt and black cargo pants, tattoos and soulmate mark out on display.

"You found them." Thomas concludes from the illumination of the mark, and she knows exactly what he's referring to.

"He's a floor above us right now." Evdokia exhales, chuckles even.

Thomas's eyebrows fly up in confusion.

"It's YuNing."

Thomas hums, a hint of disappointment showing on his features, but he's quick to conceal it. "why are you up? You need the rest."

"Can't find it in me to, but thanks for the instructions mum."

Thomas scoffs and rolls his eyes at her before shoving her shoulder off, making her snicker.

"it's fucking stuffy in here." Evdokia observes.

"It is." Thomas puckers his lips up "Sorry, didn't really have time to install an air conditioning system for your highness."

"Oh shut up." she flicks his forehead and he yelps, flinching in his place.

They stare into each others eyes and fall into a comfortable silence before they both start laughing out of nowhere.

This is nice, great even.

Evdokia misses her best friend.

"I missed you, you know?" Thomas beats her into saying it.

She smiles sweetly at him then shifts her eyes to the outside world of a sleeping city, street lights and buildings giving it a bit of life. She takes one last drag from her cigarette before lighting it off.

"Me too." She looks back into his eyes, in there's so much raw fondness in those sharp dead eyes, and she opens her arms for him to fit right into it.

"come back home with me. I can't promise you perfection, but you look way out of place here." He says into her shoulder, where he buries his nose, face tickled by strands of hair escaping her bun and splayed all over her.

"it's not that easy, Tommy." She sighs.

"when has something being hard ever stopped you." He asks as he pulls away from the hug to catch her eyes. She snorts at him.

"You're godamn right." She says humorously.

"I always am." He pouts, and every barrier of sharpness and coldness suddenly falls abruptly. "So what will it be?"

She lets go of him and goes back to leaning over the window. The sky is clear yet she can't see a single star, quite sad.

"I have built a life here." She says.

"a life that doesn't fit you."

"you don't know that."

"No. No, I don't. But I for sure know you and what you aspired to be."

"and what would that be?" she closes her eyes and lets her head hang low between her shoulders. Maybe she does need sleep.

"A leader. A leader who takes care of her people."

"I am a leader here. A double if you will." She smiles to herself but her smile falls as quick as it showed.

"You know that's not what I meant."

"What do you mean then, know it all dude?" she asks.

"A queen. Deep down, you always wanted to become the queen."

"I did?" she asks herself more than him, "I don't think I ever considered it before dad's death." She sucks air through her teeth, the memory sending a shuddering electrical fire through her body.

"I heard of his last words, don't you think you're failing him that wa-"

Evdokia pulls out a dagger from her hair and hold Thomas by the collar of his shirt, dagger resting against his collar bones and neck.

He visibly gulps.

"Don't you fucking go there." She whispers darkly.

Thomas raises his hands in the air, mortified look on his face, before she lets him go and closes up the dagger, twisting her hair back up in a bun and clipping her hair with the clip attached to the dagger's handle.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Are they even alive?" Evdokia shout whispers lowly. Thomas realises she's on the verge of tears, but he never really saw it because she turns the other way around.

"Who?" he asks, confusingly.

"My people, are there ones alive or did your father fucking make my kind extinct out of spite?"

Thomas doesn't answer, and Evdokia almost hiccups over her tears. Almost.

"Yes, they picked themselves up after your loss in the battle. They don't have a leader, though." He says, then.

"Because not a single royalty survived, am I right?" Evdokia shuts her eyes closed, tightly.

"Well, except for one." Thomas says, chest open.

Evdokia audibly inhales before walking out of the kitchen, throwing a 'good night' over her shoulder on her way out.

She finds Jean sleeping on his left side, face scrunched up in a frown and arm left by his side where Evdokia's body usually occupies. She crawls her way under the covers and fits her head between Jean's bare chest and the sheets of the bed, and he instantly wraps his arms around her figure, a force of a habit, she recons.

*

June 25, 2021, 14:00

Cairo, Egypt

6th of October city

Evdokia wakes to a dull ache in her temples, granted, it wasn't that surprising. This wasn't the first time she had cried herself to sleep. She also feels uncomfortably sweaty, hair sticking to her nape and forehead, shirt drenched in sweat. She hates the weather here.

She tosses around in bed, only to not feel another familiar body with her in bed. Her heart sinks down. She opens her eyes slightly, peaking at the world around her, then her watch, which she never takes off.

Her father has once given her a practical class in mechanics, and the watch was the fruit of their combined labour, and it's so fucking precious to her, she never finds it in her to let go of it for a second.

It's two pm.

Fuck.

Evdokia hurriedly gets off her place, falling onto her face flat against the ceramic floor. She forgot for a second this bed wasn't as big as theirs.

She sees Jean in seconds running into the room and to her side, face constructed with worry.

"what the fuck happened?" he asks, hand reaching for the tissues box on the bedside table, realizing Evdokia's nose is bleeding from the slam.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she yells at him half heartedly.

"Why would I?" Jean frowns. "You looked tired yesterday, you needed every minute of sleep."

Evdokia drops it, back resting against the bed's frame, hand holding onto Jean's writs that is holding a tissue to her nostrils. She allows her eyes to roam over his face, black circles gone, hair tied in a tight bun, face as sharp as it can get.

She often forgets how dashingly handsome he actually is due to the fact that she sees him mostly every second of her days. She drops her fist off his wrist and goes to trace that same scar going across his eyebrows to the other side of his nose. She finds all eight of his face scars beautiful. Even if they hold an ugly memory behind them, she still finds them wholesome in some way, maybe reminding her from time to time that this man that feels like he walked out of one of her dreams is in fact not flawless.

She doesn't think she deserves him. He always says she's perfect, but she believes Perfection makes mistakes. She imagines what it would be like to be with someone like her. Quite a handful, but Jean would also say good thing he has two.

"I think it stopped." He says, and she almost doesn't hear it from how drunk she is on him as whole.

"Thank you." she whispers.

"Anytime, love." He smiles at her, and there she goes again. She closed her eyes as he leans to kiss her eyelids. "You're sweaty." He scrunches his nose in the same way that makes her heart does a double flip dip.

"Thank the weather for that." She yawns as she stretches her limbs away from her body.

"Hmm. Take a shower while I make you breakfast. " Jean gets up and collects the blood soaked tissues to throw away.

"Jean." She says, before he's out of the door, and there he is, smiling encouragingly at her, shifting her world upside down.

"about last night..." she starts.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shut you out." Jean admits eyes low in shame, "I promise, we'll talk it out."

She smiles at him and nods, and he smiles back, taking it as his queue to leave.

*

She finds them all in the living room, scattered around on the couch and chairs. Robin is cross legged on the floor with Reema's head cradled in his lap, Jean and Dodo on the couch, while Andy and Ira are sitting on two arm chairs. Ufuk is still down, but his wounds are getting better. Valodya and Thomas are also on the floor, looking through scattered images of, what? Their lands?

On her way to the couch she sees a familiar tree trunks gates, charcoaled and dead, not so close to what she's familiar with. She bends down and picks up the image.

"That's Domoa's garden." She whispers, and Jean looks over her shoulder to see his home sweet home, but all he sees is brown and black. Ashes and charcoal. His breath hitches.

"What have they done to you?" Jean takes the photograph and looks at it closely. It's depressing to say the least, he thinks. The garden was after all his favourite hide out place during his younger days.

"What are those, anyways?" she asks.

"photographs I took over the years of my travelling, though, some are not mine, more of reporters shots.

Evdokia looks through more of the pictures and realises there's one missing photograph.

"you never went to the sky castle?" she asks Thomas.

"no, not really. I never went back to the south after the battle." Thomas says.

"I see." She says, her heart longing for more than just a mere memory of her kingdom, her home. "We should talk about your plan." She says instead.

"Right, of course. Where should we begin?" He says, putting down the photographs from his hand, fixing his posture, laptop balanced on his lap.

"first of all, are you sure you have no eyes on our backs?" Valodya asks.

"Yes, well, you guys killed them all. Markian was the worst link, as long as he's dead, we're good."

"correct me if I'm wrong, You said that was the name of the guy who killed your friends?" Evdokia asks YuNing.

"Yes, his badge said so." YuNing confirms.

"He's a sadistic beast. Just a look in his eyes can tell you that much. But that shouldn't matter anymore." Thomas hums.

"I get what you mean." YuNing murmurs.

"I can tell that the explosion was his idea and his execution too." Thomas continues.

"What about after leaving this realm, what's your plan?" Jean asks, "do you have mercenary forces back there ready for a fight? I mean there's so much we can do."

"I do, actually, around five hundred people. They're all ready to devout their hearts to our cause and my father's time. But added to those, I was thinking of you guys bringing together your own kind and nations that were close to your parents and add them to-"

"Can I ask you something?" Ira interrupts.

"Shoot." Says Thomas as he puts the laptop to the side.

"Are my parents alive?" Ira barely whispers, almost like he's scared if he asked they might as well die.

Thomas claps his hands and gets up on his feet, going to look through the pictures scattered on the floor.

He finds a picture, and he shows it to everyone in the room, where the ocean waters stand tall like a shield wall, emperor Dima standing behind it with his forces, while the vampires, incubuses and crow demons attack on the other face of the wall, pointlessly so.

"This was one of the photos taken during this epic battle, which your father won without losing a single soldier on his side. He never attacked, he only protected his people and shielded them. My father learnt not to underestimate him that day, he lost half of his army solely in this battle."

"So mother and father are...?" Ira eyes are glossy with nostalgia, he hasn't seen a picture of his parents since they came here, he only had to relay on his memory, and it hurts, so fucking much.

"They're alive and the Atlantic empire is still standing tall, at least until I came here, but I doubt my father would ask for a rematch anyways." Thomas nods.

Ira's hand flies to cover his mouth to stop himself from audibly whimpering in longing. Is this his chance to go back and see them again?

"If we're taking votes on this, I vote for going back." Ira's still crying, but his mood is lighter than everyone else in the room, and he only realises that when he looks over the rest of the presences' faces.

"it's not that simple, Ira." Thomas calms him down.

"Really? Who was begging me to go back on the plane?" Evdokia scoffs.

Thomas rolls his eyes at her and goes back to his original seating position. He takes a long inhale, exhale.

All eyes on him.

He has to do this. They have to do this. There's no other answer to this everlasting war that has cost millions upon millions of creatures their lives-

"I vote no." Jean puts his foot down with his words. Plain and simple. No. No going back. No fighting for greater good. No to giving up the little of good life they have left. "you just want to be the hero who saves everyone, leave us out of it."

Thomas grits his teeth and tense up his jaw.

"No, I care about my people, that's all I wish to do, to save everyone from this hell hole your parents dug, is that too much to ask?" Thomas spits out.

"Our parents? We're not the animalistic creatures who went on full kill mode when we lost one prince, for fuck's sake Thomas, are you hearing yourself?" Jean shoots up to his feet, making Evdokia flinch in her place.

"Are you hearing yourself? You? Of all people? Are you going to overlook everything your father has done to other societies and his own people. All the theft, hunger strikes when he was doing better than ever in his fancy little gold castle? You included. You also had that privilege. Hated by your parents or not, you still haven't actually felt what being poor and stumped upon by other creatures felt like." Thomas yells back at Jean.

Jean is speechless. He just stands there staring down at Thomas. Fuming and fists clenched. It still feels the same. Still stings the same.

He has always been less than Jean. Jean was taller, Thomas was shorter. Jean was rich, Thomas was struggling. Jean had Evdokia; Thomas could never have her. Jean had a guardian like an angel over his shoulder, Thomas had to clean his own shit by himself.

"You fucking repulse me, you know?" Thomas smirks at Jean, pointed chin held high.

Jean doesn't say anything, and for his own good and everyone in the room, he marches out of the room before he commits a crime.

*

The weather in fact only gets worse with every second they soend in this country. The air smells like garbage cans all the time and she isn't having a blast with it. It's thick and heavy but she doesn't complain, at least they're safe here, she thinks.

She finds him leaning on the edge of the balcony of their room. Her heart constricts as she watches a single tear leaves his eyes, two, three.

She looks over at Jean, who's now wiping away his tears.

He doesn't deserve this, he never deserved any of this. If she could, she would have given him all the love he deserved from the moment his mother gave birth to him. She'd make sure he never scratched his knees, she'd make sure he never slept without a bedtime story in his early years, she'd make sure his side of the pillow is always cool, She'd always keep him warm through the merciless nights during winter. Evdokia wishes she could trade parents with him, because boy oh boy that man never deserved anything but love and affection, and she knows her parents would have given him just that.

But look at her now, about to break his heart with a decision she can't even get her heart and brain to agree on.

Jean seems to feel her presence, and so he moves from the middle of the railway to the side, leaving a space for Evdokia on his right, just how she likes it. Always.

"In my dreams, I've seen us settling down, having normal jobs, decorating our own home, building a family. " Jean starts, as he hears Evdokia step into the balcony. He exhales loudly, eyes fixated on a boat in the Nile stream, its people singing happy birthday to one of them.

"I have to go back." She says, and Jean expected her to be less blunt about it.

"remember when we were fifteen and we decided on having a child when you're at the age of forty, life made us forget about it, eh?" He doesn't move a muscle, even as Evdokia calls for him to look at her. He can't, he simply can't. He knows those eyes are his weakness, he knows he'll give in the moment he looks at her, and so he doesn't. He closes his eyes and rotates his head to her side.

He looks angelic that way, eyes closed, hair swaying and creating a perfect frame around his beautiful face. Even if he has countless scars on it, Evdokia still thinks he's the prettiest creature to ever grace the earth.

"Jean, please, look at me." Evdokia lifts her hands to cup his face, fingers caressing his cheeks and wiping away the tears that start falling off his lashes.

He doesn't open his eyes, not yet. He preferred buying time by pulling her right hand to his lips, kissing every knuckle softly, kissing the ring he has put on her finger for a promised future of them being together till time is out for both of them. He has always wished to die before her. He knows it'll hurt her. But will it ever be as bad as him losing her? Not by any chance. He wouldn't survive. Because what does a helpless man like him do without her love?

"Jean, please don't make this harder than it already is." Her voice is weak and full of sorrow, but she does appreciate him, she appreciates his appreciation to the few moments of peace they can get themselves.

Jean finally opens his eyes, and oh does Evdokia wish he didn't.

His warm green eyes surrounded with red, tears still pouring out of them.

"I understand why you don't want to go back, for the sake of both of us. Trust me, I understand. "

"Then why-" he chokes on his words, not able to hold it and goes go embrace Evdokia tightly. She hugs him back, she always does.

"Because..." she caresses the back of his head like he means the world to her, and he means just about that much.

She doesn't know why. Maybe to carry back up what her father and her ancestors has built? To help the ones in need? To bring the moonfolks back to their real home? To die for a cause? She doesn't know.

Jean hears it all through her touch at his nape, and he knows her, he knows her so well that he knows at some point she'll stop thinking rationally and will let her emotions get the best of her. So he does what he thinks is right.

Jean pulls away from the hug, meeting glassy golden and green eyes with his own green ones, "Even though I might not agree with you on your final decision, I'll still be there, holding your hand and walking through it, and I'm sure Valodya, Robin and Ira will do the same." He leaves a soft kiss to her forehead and leaves the balcony, and Evdokia doesn't walk behind him, she bangs her head to the railway instead.

She bangs it over and over again. She wishes she can split open her head right now or vomit all her thoughts out onto the table and look through them after organising and sorting them out.

But she can't. She needs to dig through the piles upon piles of batshit inside her head instead and its fucking painful, but she pushes through it, trying to reach that light bulb for the cost of his sanity only that she never reaches the fruit of her labour and never finds a bright idea to fix everything.

It seems that she'll have to get her hands dirty this time.

She remembers that one time she had a bloody fight against a man in a dark alley. His men where all inside the apartment and he managed to escape, jumping from the window of his office room.

Evdokia's mission was catching the man, alive or dead. And so when the man raised a cursed spell on Evdokia, she knew he was a dead man. His case also happened to be a child rapist. He would kidnap children to rape them to their death, then hide the evidence by throwing the corpses under running trains.

What made the case like a personal fight for Evdokia was the man was a fucking incubus.

That night, she punched the man to his death, literally flattening his skull with her bare hands to the ground. His head blood mixing to the rain and mud of the city.

But that's not the point, but that it happened to be the first time she killed someone with her bare hands. She remembers how hard it was to clean the blood from under her nails, how hard his skull felt under her fists before it cracked open and became one with his eyeballs and brain, how disturbing the smell of the garbage cans mixed with the blood and organs was.

That's how it feels like to go through Thomas's plan. Bloody bath of death and pain. Hard yet soft, right but wrong. She doesn't know what to do.

Does she go along with his plan, find her people from all around the kingdoms, form an army and gather allies, go through another round against the vampire clans with zero experience in war, and either wining or fucking be the cause od extinction of the moonfolks race.

Or does she stay, and live day in day out knowing she could stop a war she left behind open, causing people to die unfairly everyday for no cause.

She doesn't know, and even if she decided to go with it, every cell in her screams at her to pull back and not leave.

*

July 13, 2021, 03:00

County Fermanagh,

 Northern Ireland

The Marble Arch Cave

Unsurprisingly, when Evdokia announces her decision, Ira jumps up and hugs her and stays attached to her for what seemed to be like five minutes straight, and she can't say she didn't feel happy for finally seeing Ira in his true skin since Mizuki's death.

Jean, of course, is not as ecstatic, but he doesn't say anything, and Evdokia is glad he doesn't. Because she promised herself if he opposes her, she's going back in her words.

LiQin tells her she should never regret her decision, even if things didn't work out the way she hoped they would, that their destiny is beyond their actions.

While Valodya was still unsure about how he felt about it, he books them a flight to Ireland as soon as he hears Evdokia out. Reema and Robin agree to accompany them, including Andy and Ufuk, who has finally woken up. Reema asks Dodo to stay, knowing how dangerous and messy things would get, and she makes sure Dodo is well taken care of at the end of the day, under another captain's umbrella. Plus, her entire family lives here anyways.

Thomas, on the other hand, starts stressing out like it wasn't his initial idea, and it does, in fact, take two days to calm him down. Evdokia still doesn't trust him fully, but she keeps that to herself.

It takes the whole team a good two weeks to get their shit together and understand each other and their potentials, and Evdokia does her best to ignore Jean, knowing how well he could persuade her into backing off and rethinking everything.

She can't have herself to back down, not now, not ever, not until she dies or kills the head of the snake.

All that was left was to leave the CPA in good hands, which she does, only that after giving her last speech a lot of creatures have decided to join their quest.

Most of the CPA agents where immigrants due to the war in the first place, wouldn't it be a sweet revenge for their upcoming generations to live freely in the lands they were always meant to live in.

Given the nature of their job, they're a good, no, great addition to the team. They were joined by almost a hundred creatures of diverse races, from a elves, fairies, faes, to demons, ogres, ghouls, vampires to mermaids, sirens, selkies, and many more.

All those men and women have taken an oath to put their lives on the line to get their world back in order, to give back what has been taken and build back up what has been destroyed.

And so here they all are, standing before the portal of their nightmares, awaiting for Valodya and LiQin to activate it.

Valodya steps close to the waters and kneels before it, bringing both of his hands together and reciting a spell, while LiQin dives into the water and swims deep.

It takes three minutes for the spell to work and the water starts illuminating the room into a bright turquoise colour, like the aurora lights of the North Pole. It's beautiful, and Evdokia is glad she got to see it this time, unlike the last time when she was passed out during their arrival.

Shortly after the weather gets chilly and windy inside the cave, LiQin swims up to the surface and water starts levitating and embracing them all slowly, lighting shining from underneath their feet, encircling their bodies like a wind elf playing around with flower petals.

Evdokia closes her eyes and holds Jean's hand tightly, and he squeezes her hand back. She feels as her feet arose off the ground and oh how she missed this feeling. She hears Jean whisper in her ears that everything will be alright, before she hears a loud screech and everything goes dark and silent.

Yes, everything will be alright, or so she hopes.

*