Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

Sakura woke with a start, and she found herself laying on the cave’s floor, light filtering in, alone, with her cloak and Ren’s coat covering her. She pushed herself up, the bracelet falling to her hand. Bringing it in front of her face, she spun the beads around before getting to her feet. “Ribbon,” she mumbled and stuffed the long silk into her boot. She left Ren’s coat and went to the mouth of the cave.

It was like nothing had happened at all. The skies were a deep and clear azure, the sun shone warmly, the grass was green and only slightly damp. There wasn’t a single flake of snow on the ground as proof of yesterday’s storm.

The woman stepped out onto the road, wondering where to start her search.

“Sakura!”

The demon spun to the side seconds before a smaller body crashed into her. In a frenzy, she pushed the girl back, grabbing at her face, arms, torso, and legs, examining every inch of her body.

“You’re okay!” Relief washed over the demon as she engulfed herself completely around the girl, crushing her into herself as she rained kisses down on amethyst waves. Muffled noises came from her chest and Sakura paused her pampering to acknowledge them. “What?”

Ivy pushed the fox back enough to raise her face out of the demon’s bosom. “I can’t breathe!” she laughed with tears in her eyes. “Your boobs are too big!”

Sakura stuffed the girl’s face back into her cleavage. “Get used to it.” She lovingly nuzzled the girl’s scalp. “This is where you live now. You can never leave.”

The crunching of footsteps drew the women’s attention up the road where Ren and Zero were coming down towards them. Ren’s wings were exposed, and he carried wood in one arm and waved with the other, a wide grin plastered on his face.

“I found them!” he announced merrily.

Sakura gave Ivy another squeeze before releasing her. She swiftly approached the two men, her sights set squarely on Zero. The devil stiffened, accustomed to the fox’s rough treatment towards Ren, and prepared himself for the same.

He wasn’t prepared for her to wrap her arms around him as her ears tickled against his face.

“Thank you,” she sighed. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

The devil looked back and forth between Ivy and Ren, waiting for one of them to tell him how to handle this situation. The most he got was a shrug and a smile. He raised his arm like it was the first time and patted her head awkwardly. “Okay,” he managed.

She beamed at him before turning around and bounding down the road and into the trees.

“She’s gone,” Zero stated, struggling to comprehend the last minute of his life.

“She’ll be back,” Ren assured. “She can’t live without me.” He walked into the cave and dumped the wood for the next visitors. They probably wouldn’t be as lucky as he had been, after all. He grabbed his coat and joined the other two in waiting for the fox.

It didn’t take long for her to come running, the glaive secured to her back. She tossed Ren his bracelet and he slipped it on, his wings and coat disappearing.

“Let’s go.” The fox pushed ahead. “I hate this place.”

“I dunno.” Ren smiled at the demon as he fell in step beside her. “I kind of like it.”

Sakura ignored him and spun around to face the other two, walking backwards. “Where did you two end up?”

“There was an emergency hut about four kilometers south of where you were,” Ivy informed her.

“Four kilometers?!” Sakura was shocked, certain she had misheard. “There’s no way!”

“That’s where I found them,” Ren confirmed. “The huts about four kilometers, maybe a little farther.”

The demon stared at the devil in disbelief. “How did you make it that far in that storm?”

“I walked,” Zero stated, the answer obvious.

“Yeah! But how?”

The devil considered the question and the puzzlement on the woman’s face. Maybe he should explain further. “I put one foot in front of the other.”

“He did,” Ivy jumped in. “He carried me on his back and just kept going until we got there.” She thought of the dark graying of his skin and pushed the thought away, reminding herself that it was an illusion from the snow.

“But still,” the fox insisted, unable to accept such an unlikely scenario. “That’s so much time stuck in that storm. How did you not freeze?”

Zero shrugged. “I don’t really get cold.”

She observed the boy closely, still unsatisfied with the answer. It seemed impossible for anything less than an ice demon to go that distance in that severe of a blizzard. But Ivy had confirmed it, and Sakura didn’t even think that Zero had the capability to lie.

“Well, either way,” the fox conceded. “We probably shouldn’t separate or leave the road again. We’re halfway out of these mountains. Let’s just get out of here as quickly as we can.” She spun forward and continued on.

Ivy quietly turned to Zero, poking him in the arm. He looked down at the girl as she smiled up at him. Contorting his face, he tried to do the same. Violet eyes lit up with laughter as she changed the faces she made towards the devil. He followed along, giving his best effort to imitate the same expression.

The group managed to make their way out of the mountains by mid-afternoon. With the range now at their backs, Ivy pulled the map from her bag and examined it.

“It’s clear for a few kilometers and then we’ll enter a forest. We can settle down there for the night. Not far outside of the forest is a small town called Sunnen. I’m sure it’ll have more than the mountain village.”

“How much longer until we reach Astern?” Ren asked.

“After Sunnen it should be about three more days,” the girl decided. “Luckily the storm didn’t actually hold us back since we had already settled for the night. The mountains should be the worse of our problems. Everything’s relatively flat from here.”

The forest came sooner than they had expected, and Ivy gasped at the sight. “All the trees are blue and purple!” she admired, entranced by the fantastical sight.

The peculiar colored trees reached high towards the sky, their thick trunks crooked and knotty. They twisted and hunched over, their willow like branches and leaves sweeping above the ground.

Ivy skipped ahead of the others, spinning under the slender branches that swayed and danced around her. “It’s like a fairy tale!” she joyfully exclaimed, her enthusiasm carrying everyone deeper into the forest.

As the sun set and the fire was built, the prancing of the girl’s feet turned to singing as she poured rice and lentils into a boiling pot. Zero sat beside her, deconstructing the carcass of a rainbow pheasant that Sakura had pierced with a dagger as it ran out in front of them earlier on the trail.

“Aren’t you just the happiest thing, Little One,” Ren commented, as he laid a stack of wood near the fire.

“I don’t know about that.” She stirred supper and smiled at the angel as the boy dropped chunks of meat into the pot.

The man grabbed a stick from the pile and bopped each of them on the head. “I do,” he grinned and threw the stick into the fire.

The demon came into the small clearing from the trees, empty handed. “Looks like that’s all the meat for tonight.”

“That’s alright,” Ivy chirped. “It’s almost done already and there should be plenty.”

As it finished, the girl cheerfully served the meal and ate with gusto. She looked up towards the sky, but the trees blocked the moon and nearly every star so she brought her attention back to the group, her eyes darting between Sakura, Ren, and the tent she’d already set up. She noticed as Zero took his last bite and took a deep breath along with it.

Now or never.

“Zero’s sleeping with us tonight,” she declared.

No one moved. Breathing was forgotten. Three separate heads heavily turned towards the girl, each pair of eyes a different level of bewilderment.

“What?” Zero was the first to break the silence.

“You’re sleeping with us,” the girl informed him. “In the tent.” She turned to Sakura and nodded confidently, hoping to leave no room for argument. “He’s sleeping with us.”

The demon stared at the girl, wondering just who this person before her was. Where did she come from? When did she go from asking to telling?

“What if I say no?” The fox was amused as she gauged the girl’s expression.

Ivy held her ground, refusing to budge or back down. “Then I’ll sleep with him outside.”

An eyebrow crept up Sakura’s forehead. “When did you get to be so stubborn?”

“I’ve been slowly learning it from you.”

The woman was impressed and felt a sense of pride welling up inside of her. Her little girl wasn’t so little anymore. Decisions were being made, and they were all her own. “Fine,” she agreed and looked at Zero with a chuckle. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

The girl squealed and scrambled to her feet, grabbing Zero’s arm and pulling him towards the tent as he stared wide-eyed at Ren, uncertain of how to proceed. There was no one to come to the boy’s rescue as the angel gave a little wave and went back to his food, leaving him to figure it out on his own.

The devil felt swept up in some kind of chaos that he had no say or control over. He looked at the girl who was clamped to his arm, dragging him along. She looked so happy, and pretty, and enchanting, and…

“I can sleep outside,” he meekly protested. “It’s okay.”

“I told you last night that I wouldn’t let you be alone again,” she smiled. “So you won’t be.”

Zero’s chest tightened. “But… Ren’s here.”

Ivy stopped just before the tent and looked up at the boy, her eyes dewy and pleading, a soft rosiness to her cheeks. “I guess I can’t stop you if you want to sleep outside with Ren,” she pouted sweetly.

The devil’s already tight chest began to crush his lungs and heart. “I don’t.”

“So, you want to sleep with me?” Her voice hopeful.

He started to feel dizzy. “I do.”

“Good!” She pushed the boy through the opening of the tent without a moments hesitation. “Get in!” And followed behind him.

Sakura watched the pair disappear. “Maybe I’ve made a mistake?” she questioned halfheartedly. “I need to sleep in there, too.”

Ren had moved on to the leftovers in the pot. “Nah,” he reasoned, scooching closer and offering the fox a large bite of food which she readily ate. “Zero’s more innocent than a newborn fawn. He wouldn’t know what to do with it even if you gave him detailed instructions. That girl however...” He stuffed another spoonful into Sakura’s mouth. “She’s terrifying.”

“She kind of is,” the demon agreed, swallowing her food and opening her mouth for another morsel. “But I can’t hold her hand forever. She doesn’t really need me anymore. You know how they are at that age. No one can tell them what to do and those two are practically connected at the hip. She could run off with Zero at anytime now and we’ll never see either of them again.”

“I doubt it,” Ren scraped the pan clean, giving the fox the last bit. “You’re all she knows. She won’t leave. She’ll just drag Zero along and he’ll follow.” He looked at the tent and smiled. “I’m glad he found her. She’s good for him. There’s only so much I can do for that little guy, but the way he’s changed just by being around Ivy is…” he stalled. “It’s really amazing. He’s never acted like this. It’s nice.” Craning his neck, he peeked around the woman and snatched Ivy’s bag beside her before snooping through the contents.

Speaking of the boy. “Zero told me he didn’t know how old he was. That you told him.” The woman looked to the man for answers.

The awaited prize was discovered, and Ren pulled out a bag of dried fruits. He opened it, pulled out an apricot, and stuffed it between the fox’s lips before grabbing one for himself. “Yeah, well based off of his mother’s kidnapping and some of the sketchy records I found, I’m pretty confident I have his age down to within a few months. He’s definitely eighteen but may be leaning closer to nineteen at this point.”

“His mother was kidnapped?!” She slapped her hand over her mouth, realizing that she was almost screaming. Another fruit was stuck in her mouth to keep her quiet.

“Oh yeah.” As if it was common knowledge. “She was an angel, but she wasn’t just any angel. She was a super high up, fancy, royalty angel. Her father was some baron or earl or jester or some other better-than-thou bullshit. She got snatched up by Zero’s father and the whole kingdom freaked out and spent years trying to find her. By the time they found his fortress, she’d already been long dead.”

Sakura tried to process everything. It was like a story you’d hear that had trickled its way into countless ears and repeated out of endless mouths. Not one that was so close you could actually touch it. “Okay… so how did you come across Zero?”

Ren licked his fingers, savoring the sweetness of the fruit from each digit. “Well, I killed his father.”

“You killed his father,” she repeated, finding it hard to understand why anyone would follow around their father’s killer as if they were old buddies. She thought of the vague memories she still had of her own father. And she thought of Raz. Of the years she’d spent looking for the one who took the man who raised her and Ren while she searched for information about Ivy, her nose always aware of the scents around her. There was no way she wouldn’t kill him given the chance.

“That guy was a real asshole.” The angel spit into the fire. “He had Zero locked up and had been torturing him. I don’t know how anyone could do something like that. Next to Ivy, Zero’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

The woman’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach as she looked at him. “He was tortured? For how long?”

“Who knows. He’s never been much of a talker, and what little bits I’ve gathered over the years haven’t really shed a real bright light on his upbringing. She didn’t seem like the most stable of mothers, understandably. And his father… well, death was probably too much of a kindness for him. All Zero really remembers is being locked up until I found him.” The angel looked at the tent, a sad tenderness in his eyes. “I know he’s a devil, but I couldn’t just leave him there like that. I took him and never reported his existence. He’s so quiet, and normally keeps his head down so no one really notices him. The ones who have are probably too confused to say anything, and I’m pretty good at convincing people to leave him be.”

It was no surprise to Sakura. Ren had always been a compassionate person and never thought twice about putting others before himself. That’s why he ended up with Zero. Why he ended up with her. “You did the right thing by taking him.”

He turned to her, the ocean washing over emeralds. “I told you I’d kill a devil and I did. I just wasn’t expecting to bring another one along with me. But I didn’t do it because it was the right thing. I did it to get back to you.”

She closed her eyes, her head sinking with the weight of the words. “I know,” she whispered and pushed herself to her feet. “Goodnight Ren.”

He grabbed her wrist, stopping her from going. “Let me sleep with you. If Zero gets to sleep with Ivy then let me sleep with you. I’ll be on my very best behavior.”

The woman bent towards him with a small smirk on her lips. “No.”

The man nodded, contemplating. “You’re right. There’s probably not enough room in there. Sleep with me then. But you better be on your best behavior.” Eyes and smile so warm.

It was difficult not to be amused by his persistence as Sakura bit back the beginnings of a laugh. “No.”

“Why not? You slept with me last night. You loved it.” The cracks were beginning to show in the fox’s facade and Ren could almost count each and every one of them.

This time, she did laugh. “You were useful last night.”

“I can be useful again.”

The demon flicked his forehead while pulling her other arm from him. “Goodnight Ren.” She turned and walked to the tent, aware that the man was watching her the entire way, just biding his time.

He leaned back once the vixen was gone, looking into the obscured sky. Something picked at him. Something deep in the recesses of his mind that he couldn’t quite reach. He felt an uneasy force creeping, slowly wrapping itself around him. He could almost hear the groaning and creaking from the trees. Sense the changes around him. Ren laid down, the fire’s glow struggling to survive. He knew whatever would be had already been set in motion, and he allowed it to pass. Because whether he liked it or not, he had no real choice in the matter.

Sakura crawled into the tent, trying not to wake the current occupants. She cautiously made her way into the blankets, laying on her side facing the pair. Zero lay on his back, his crimson eyes staring into the tents ceiling as Ivy’s body was cradled between his arm and body, her head on his chest, eyes closed and breathing shallow.

“Zero,” the woman whispered. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” his voice barely audible. He turned his head towards the demon. “I’m sorry. For this.”

Her heart ached deeply for the boy. “Don’t be. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Words that meant more than he was aware. “Get some sleep, okay.”

Zero nodded and rested his chin on the girl’s head, his eyes closing.

Sakura watched them, two bodies and souls connected, and tried to ignore the yearning from her own.