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WITHOUT THE EVERNIGHT, Axion had no magick to draw upon. The shadows would not come when he commanded, they would not pool beneath his feet, and give him access to anywhere within the Eridan. He would have to walk like everyone else, one foot in front of the other.

After returning to Aelurus, he delivered the news of his abdication. The Shadlings were shocked, the ones who knew Axion beyond his title as Night Prince and Shadow King, Shadlings like Oskar, less so. They couldn't trust a man with their well-being who couldn't pay his tab on time. He would let the Shadlings decide on a new leader for their Glittering Glade - a king, a governor, whatever they desired.

Abby prepared to leave the following night, Margo telling her she had something to do but would be joining them later, Lucy vowing to go, despite whatever Reven may say, Axion answering with only a coy smirk when she asked if he would go too.

But she was sure he'd be there. Ean was an overcast city that didn't get much sun, and because of the myriad of factories and late-night shifts, there were plenty of sandwich shops open at all hours. Plus, the citizens already knew him - as the strange bandaged man who hung around Abby's plant shop. It would make a good home, if Axion let it.

In the morning, Abby went to the great hall, where Archmage Mattias was in the middle of summoning the portal that would take her home. The black and white furred Aelurian swayed as magick's blue light misted around him. His arms dipped and rose, the world cracking, the room splitting in half and peeling back.

Axion slunk into the hall behind her, so quiet she yelped when he touched her shoulder.

"Jumpy," he said, bemused. "Eager to get home?"

"Your touch," she said, glancing at where he touched her, "still carries a chill."

He leaned in, more at ease with getting close to her than he had been. "I'll be more careful next time." A mischievous grin split his face, and Abby sighed.

Next time.

She was at his mercy, wasn't she?

His grin widened, which in turn, made her grimace worse. If it really came to it, Abby would dust off her ivory boots, slip them on, and give his crotch a pummeling. She didn't know if such tactics could work on a former Shadow King's shadowy bits, but she'd try if he got too close.

Abby suspected he wouldn't though; Axion had become gentler lately, more sincere. Often he wore his blouses rolled to the elbows, his collar unbuttoned. It left him more exposed than he'd ever been, giving her glimpses of large swaths of his stars. His Aureate veinings had become more prominent too, permanent fixtures in the tapestry of Axion's universe. Aureate and Shadling, Axion no longer suppressing one to appease the other.

A door creaked opened behind them. Margo ambled in, a clay pot in hand. Abby gave her a gentle smile, one the mouse wizardess returned.

It made Abby's heart swell, knowing her friend was capable of smiling again, and willing to leave her rooms. Abby nodded at the pot she carried.

Margo stiffened, her lips a hard line. Radiance, grey and dull, clouded around her. "Calleighdia's remains," she said, clasping the pot to her chest. "I don't know where she was born, but I figured I could sprinkle them over the ruins of the Un mage's conclave in the mountains. After saving me, it's least I can do."

Abby clamped a hand on Margo's shoulder. The mouse wizardess shrank under her touch, but she didn't pull away like Abby had expected. Another good sign. "I'm sure she'd like that."

Margo snorted, and her mouth curved, her whiskers following suit. "I'm sure she'd hate it and call me a stupid, sentimental ratta."

"She'd be the idiot then," interrupted Axion. Margo's eyes flew to his. "If she would deny such an act of kindness." Her radiance softened, a soft pink parting the gloom.

This too was good, Abby thought. When they'd returned from the Evernight, Axion had gone to Margo's chambers to make amends. She'd slammed the door in his face, rightly so, and swore to the Cloudian Sister suns she would turn him into a toad if he showed himself again.

Axion, convinced like a certain someone, he'd make a very handsome toad, stood outside her door every day for an entire week. By the start of the second week, her door had been left open a crack, and he took that to mean the mouse wizardess was willing to listen to what he had to say.

Margo had accepted his apology, but it was clear, by their stunted and limited interactions, that she had not forgiven him.

Abby knew forgiveness took time, and that sometimes there wasn't enough time for forgiveness to occur. It was okay either way, so long as the pair remained civil around each other. Abby didn't know the first thing about caring for a toad, after all.

With the world split wide, the portal steeping the room in blue, Mattias stepped off the dais, face fur peppered with sweat. He gave them a low bow, though nothing in Aelurian law demanded such a show of respect.

"It is done. The road to Exul open."

"Thank you, Mattias," said Margo, whose relationship amongst Lucy's court had strengthened over her moons serving as the Cloudian ambassador.

Mattias's spotted black and white ears twitched, his tail swishing. He placed a clawed hand over his chest. "Yo-you're welcome, Ambassador Fennick."

"Aww." Axion mimicked Mattias, lowering a hand over his heart. The red of his stars peeked through his fingers. "Looks like someone has a crush on–"

Abby didn't need to look to know where her elbow was needed most. She shoved it between Axion's ribs, causing the former Shadow King to lurch forward and sputter.

His stars gathered over his eyes, angled downward, and shining angrily.

Abby shrugged. "It slipped."

Releasing a groan, he got to his feet. "No harm done. What's one broken rib, when I'm sure I have many?"

She shook her head. "My elbow didn't slip that much."

"True, but--" He rubbed his side. "I can feel my skin bruising."

Abby cocked her head. That was news to her. Axion's skin was so different to hers, an entire galaxy, that she never thought it could bruise. Or get scraped or cut for that matter. "How does your skin bruise?"

Axion's lips parted, his fingers closing around the hem of his shirt, and lifted. He left his waistband and a sliver of night-black skin exposed. "Would you like to see for yourself?"

Abby turned around, face red. From anger, she reassured herself. And not from his stupid innuendos.

Behind her, his insipid laughter rose to her ears. A vein in her neck throbbed.

"Loooooove!"

Oh gods.

Abby, and her nerves, braced.

A black-haired man flung himself at her. She was pressed into his chest, her mouth full of his hair. "I do love my fur, but it's nice to hug you like this, too."

"Lu–" His hair scratched her tongue as she tried her best to rid her mouth of it. "Lucy–" She pressed against him with all her might, until he relented, and released her.

He stepped back, Aelurus's king, transformed into his human self. His hair was no longer dyed, and it was the same, glossy black as his fur. A few strands of white framed his face. His eyes were a dazzling gold, same as his skin. He wore a pair of trousers, and, to Abby's great dismay, a gold brocade tunic.

Mattias fell to his knees, head pressed into the floor. "Your highness."

Lucy waved him to his feet. "Mattias, you have done your king a great service." He shook the younger Aelurian's shoulder, Mattias's eyes widening. "Take the night off. Enjoy yourself."

With a frown and a furrowed brow, the Archmage shuffled out of the room. Abby suspected Lucy often left his followers confused by his personality. 

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wasn't befuddled, she thought.

"Am I not a sight to behold?" He twirled, his hair, tied up and back with a familiar black ribbon, flying around his head.

"You look–"

"Ravishing? Dashing?" Descriptors rushed out of Lucy's mouth, eager to finish Abby's sentence on her behalf. He clapped his hands together. "Stunning, that's what you were thinking, yes?"

"I was thinking you look..."

He batted his eyelashes, and the word she was going to say, less impressive than any of Lucy's words, slunk back down her throat. "Yep," she said instead. "Stunning. You look it."

Once more, she was wrapped up in his arms. His lips pressed gently against her hair, as he muttered, "thank you," in a voice so low only she would hear it.

"Well," interjected Axion, stepping toward the portal. "Those hemma sandwiches won't eat themselves..."

"He's right." Margo's fingers tapped against Calleighdia's funerary urn. "I should get going, if I want to make it to the ruins before–"

Letting Abby go, Lucy turned toward Margo. "You'll be okay?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"And–" His hand closed around her wrist. "You won't use magick? If you come into any danger, you'll–"

"You've instructed your Wanesguard to protect me, failure to do so, resulting in their deaths."

Abby's eyebrows rose. "Lucian!"

"I didn't mean it." His head swiveled between Abby and Margo. "I just...I just really want our Miss Puffs to be safe."

"I will be." She flashed him a reassuring smile, and his hold loosened. She slipped from his fingers, and turned toward the door. "Without those horrible Aelurian whiskers uglying up your face," she said, her radiance a pale blue, "you're pretty okay."

She left them - Lucy, a blushing, gaping mess. Abby grinning as she enjoyed quiet for the first time ever in Lucy's presence. Axion, yawning, as he often did when the current going-ons didn't involve him.

"Seems Miss Puffs can still cast magick," Lucy mumbled once he'd remembered how to make his lips meet. He spun on his heels. "Well," he nodded at Abby. "You ready to go home?"

Abby rubbed her hands together, and exhaled. She hoped Crum had remembered to water her plants every other day, and fertilize the ones in the window boxes. A fire needed to be started once every week, to keep the house from getting too cold and the pipes from freezing.

They'd rest at the shop, and then, once Margo returned, they would work on finding the Dawn Stag. On saving magick. On finding Sebbi.

Axion looped his arm in hers, and sauntered forward. Abby stumbled behind him. "As I've learned recently, you can only get somewhere, after putting one foot in front of the other."

"Hey—" whined Lucy. Axion marched right past him, Abby at his side. They entered the portal, Lucy close behind, muttering something about how unfair his life had become.

*

It rained in Ean. Streams rushed alongside the roads, cable cars windows were splattered with drops, the faces of the occupants inside obscured by fog.

Lucy groaned, his arms over his head in a vain attempt to shield himself. "Rain will ruin my coat."

"You don't have fur now, you have hair," Abby corrected, stepping over a puddle.

"It'll ruin my hair then."

Abby's eyes sparkled. She relished the rain, it was welcomed changed from Aelurus's humidity. It tamed her frizz, and cooled her cheeks. "Have you thought about telling the rain it drenches a most exquisite king? Perhaps then, it would only fall around you."

She snickered, and Lucy, helpless as he always was when it came to rain, lowered his head and pouted.

"It's not funny. I abhor getting wet."

"I know," she said, giving him a few pats on the back. She wondered if it had the same affect it had on him when he'd been a cat? It certainly brought her a certain amount of comfort, though it was much harder to do now considering he was much bigger and she had to stretch to reach his back, and her hands ran over hardened muscle and not soft fur.

Above them, the lanterns crackled to life. A soft blue light flickered inside their glass cases, the raindrops reflecting a world touched by alchemy.

She walked under them, blue staining her skin. A cable car whizzed past, and the third bell rang out, a signal the work day had finally come to a close. The sidewalks would soon be bustling with crowds eager to get home and rest their legs. Thankfully, Axion was keeping to the shadows, slipping between alleys and under awnings. He hadn't brought his bandages, so he had to be careful no one glimpsed his stars, and fainted because of it.

"I would offer to hide you under my coat." Abby came to a stop, allowing a cable car to cross the road before she did. "But I have no coat, and you're far too big for that anymore."

Lucy nuzzled her neck while they waited. Raindrops made his eyelashes glitter. "What I wouldn't give to be a cat, right now. Cradled in your arms, protected from this," he frowned, and peeled a few strands of soggy hair from his cheek, "dastardly weather."

Abby nudged him forward once the road was clear. "Come on, we're almost home."

"You know what I'm going to do the second we're home?"

She smiled, knowing exactly what he'd do.

"I'm going to–"

"--open a bottle of wine?"

He wrapped a hand around her. "You know me the best, don't you, love?"

"I certainly–" 

They rounded the corner, that would take them to the western slopes, and Abby's little plant shop. Abby stopped, blinking, sure what she was seeing was a trick. She rubbed her eyes, and squinted. Through the rain, sure enough, were golden eyes staring back at her. As they had dozens of times before, from the shadows of the kitchen, the underbrush of the forest. Eyes that glared down at her from one of Sir Simon's branches.

"Love–"

Her breath hitched. The gold eyes were there, surely they were there. "Lu-lucy–" she said, unable to hide the tremor of excitement in her voice. "Is that..." She raised a shaking hand, and pointed at the eyes.

"Is that, what?" he asked.

The eyes grew, and under the lamplight, she saw them better. Golden eyes, black hair. Tall and a little gangly. Awkwardly rubbing his hands over themselves, as he ambled toward them.

"He hasn't seen us yet, has he?"

"Who, love? Who hasn't seen us?"

Her heart crashed against her chest. "Sebbi." She grabbed Lucy's hand, and squeezed it. "It's Sebbi, Lucy. He's come home."

Lucy stiffened, his gaze landing on the man coming down off the hill. His shoulders were slightly slouched, reminding Abby of all those times he'd slink on the hill on the estate, belly and tail low to the ground as he chased after a beetle. Only he wasn't a cat, or an Aelurian. He was human. A living, breathing human.

"How is it–"

A sob rose out of Abby's mouth. Sebbi's head snapped up and his eyes met hers. The rain pounded in tandem with her heart.

She stopped walking, afraid if she got any closer, Sebbi would turn tail and run and never stop running until he was beyond her reach forever. He should have already been beyond her reach.

"This is no dream, is it, love?"

"No, I don't believe so."

A few factory workers, swinging their lunch pails, headed toward them. They hurried to escape the rain, and frowned, when they passed Abby and Lucy, who were absolutely drenched. Abby would have felt embarrassed, Lucy probably would have commented on their gawking, and how it was inevitable - wet clothes stuck to his muscles, only made his physique even more striking – but none of that mattered. None of them were the ones that mattered.

Sebbi started towards them. He started toward them.

Only in her wildest dreams had Sebbi ever ran toward her. It had always been her chasing him, wishing she could be closer to him. It had been her, leaving her bedroom door cracked open, and the pillow on the other side of her head empty, in case he wanted to come in and rest beside her. It had been her filling his bowls with meat and milk, and hiding behind the servant's stairwell to catch a glimpse of him, just to make sure he was in good health. Abby had always wanted to be close, but she thought she was the only one who desired it.

And now Sebbi was alive. Sebbi was here. Sebbi was the one closing the distance, and Abby was never good at standing still.

Especially when she had something worth running towards. And gods was Sebbi worth it. Sebbi was more than worth it.

She broke out of Lucy's hold, and bolted down the sidewalk. Water splashed around her ankles and slipped inside her shoes, sidestepping puddles the farthest thing from her mind.

Rain lashing her face, her cheeks wind chaffed, her lungs burning with the heat of her effort, she crashed into Sebbi's chest, and flung her arms around his waist. He stiffened beneath her touch, but he did not shy away, he did not spurn or shirk her. Instead, after a shaky exhale, he wrapped his arms around her, and brough her closer. She burst into sobs, his hands stroking her back.

"Sebbi," she managed finally, and his name was sweet on her tongue, and everything about the world was right again. He hummed into her hair, and it almost, it almost sounded like a purr. He strengthened his hold on her, soft and warm, and safe. "Welcome home."

"It's good," he said, voice trembling, "to be back." He shuddered against her, and Abby felt her knees give, and she feared they would fall right there in the street, a helpless, happy, sobbing mess.

"It's you."

Lucy's voice reminded Abby she hadn't been the only one wishing for this day to come. Giving Sebbi once last squeeze, she slipped out of his arms and stepped off to the side.

Sebbi shuffled his feet, his eyes downcast. Lucy stood tall and proud, his gaze shrewd.

"L-luc–"

"B-brother?" Lucy croaked. Gone were his affectations - his bravado, his bluster. His king's pride. A tear rolled down his cheek.

Sebbi nodded slightly, and a smile so fierce it could burn the sun, appeared on Lucy's face. He crushed his brother in his arms, muscles straining, fingers shaking.

Sebbi's face twisted, as he reciprocated his brother's hug. "Yo-you'll squeeze me to death."

Lucy snorted. "You'll stay your tongue and let me have this moment. That's the very least you can do."

Sebbi nodded, and let himself be held.

"Although," added Lucy his eyes wet and shining, "I have missed your complaining."

A chuckle escaped Sebbi. "We've been reunited for a few minutes now and you haven't mentioned your handsomeness once." He pulled away, and stared at his brother. "Are you ill?"

Lucy smacked his brother's arm. "A handsome man such as myself need not announce his handsomeness, for it is already known, by anyone with a keen eye, half a mind, and good taste."

Sebbi reached out and brought Lucy into a hug again. "You haven't changed."

"And neither have you."

And then Lucy's head was peeking over Sebbi's arm. "Love?"

Abby glanced up, surprised. Lucy and Sebbi deserved their moment, she hadn't thought they would call out to her. Lucy backed away, opening his arms. Sebbi did the same.

"Come take your place."

Sebbi grinned. "It's right here, between the both of us."

Abby glanced between them, her feet stuck to the ground.

"Hurry up, love," Lucy whined, "Before the spot is taken by one of the other dozen beautiful women wishing to stand at my side."

She shook her head and stepped into the circle, Lucy's arm around her shoulder, Sebbi's around her waist and it was like no time had passed at all.

She was suddenly twelve again, on the verge of being thirteen, and nervous about her birthday party. Lucy and Sebbi were at her heels, wearing matching ribbons. Back then, she had just been a girl with her two cats, but with them at her side, her nervousness had given way to a sense of invincibility. Because they'd been together. 

Now they were together again, her family made whole, and nothing had ever felt more right, than being there, in their arms, getting drenched in the rain.