In this world, there are things people would rather not speak of. Taboos of all kinds strike fear in the hearts of the ignorant, and hatred in the eyes of the devout. Those curious dare not dabble in their mystery, and those who are found intolerant deny their very existence. To the gifted, they inspire concern, and to the dense, they instill awe. Only the ones who play into in such forbidden lore can understand its full worth. In this world, there are things many people will just never understand…

Caelum is one of those things.

The foreboding tickle of dusk shrouds the empty little park, casting long shadows with its ominous gaze. A light breeze threw waves across the grass, rippling each blade as it flowed through. Slowly, one by one, falling leaves trickle to the ground, showing their last moments in a spectacular display of twisting and dancing through the wind to the ground, where they fall, only to be broken and forgotten. Everything is calm and quiet here in the lonely park on this warm near autumn evening. Nobody could ever guess what magic may happen beyond the shroud of leaves and darkness.

A lonely little park bench, simple and wooden, placed strategically at the edge of a walkway. Sitting there, legs apart, slouched over with his arms lying limply on his legs, was a skinny young man. Shaggy black hair mostly covers the boy’s eerie white, pupiless eyes as they stare blankly downward. The palms of his hands are turned upward, showing the disfiguring scars burned into them. Disdainfully, he looks at his mutilated hands, looking over the pentacle shaped marks within them. These are cursed hands, marred by the horrors of his past.

Incandescent purple flames flicker across these hands now and again, dancing magically among fingers and scars. Like a violet manifestation of the boy’s soul, the little flickering flames seem to implement shadow and light at the same time. Balefire - both hot and cold, burning and freezing the very souls of those unfortunate enough to be caught in its unforgiving path.

“Caelum!” An exasperated gasp of a word comes from a boy jogging in the direction of the lonely park bench. Quickly, the balefire’s dance is halted as it fizzles out of existence, and pupiless eyes turn up to look in the direction of the caller. Caelum watches silently as the boy bounds towards him.

“I… I was… looking for you.” Stammers the boy once he is within arm’s reach of Caelum’s sitting place. The sitting boy’s face goes from one of near shock to one of concern. Though he cannot seem to place how he felt about someone ‘looking for him’, it was a mix between apprehension and flattery. This meant that was very wrong, or the floppy eared boy merely missed him. Either way, it was a new feeling for the outcast.

“Why don’t you sit?” Caelum offered, tapping to indicate a place next to him. The energetic boy happily took the offer, flopping down in the rickety old park bench. After a pause, Caelum decides to speak again, “Why are you here, Lepus?”

“I told you… I was… looking for… you.” The words were half muttered, and the boy seemed almost ashamed to speak them. As though he wished he hadn’t have said them.

“Is there something wrong?” A rare trickle of kindness, reserved for the boy sitting next to him, showed its way through. There was no doubt about it - he was genuinely concerned.

“Not really, no.” Lepus said, quite honestly. It was very rare that the boy ever spoke a lie, and this was no exception. As far as he knew, there was nothing wrong. …Well, not really anything wrong, anyway. “I just worried about you, that’s all.”

“Is that so?” There was the shock again, though it was cleverly disguised by the nonchalance of the statement. Why in the world could anyone ever worry about him? It seemed so alien to the boy; he was nearly at a loss of words.

“Well… I hadn’t seen you in a while, and you seemed kind of down lately… I figured I’d come find you. Try to cheer you up!” An enthusiastic wiggle of his cute little tail finished off the statement quite nicely. Now, words completely failed the other boy as he stared blankly into the soft blue eyes of his friend.

“…Thank you.” Whispered Caelum, rather quietly. Rather unsure of what else to say, he just left it at that, and turned his head back down toward the ground. It was easier to stare at the ground than it was to stare at Lepus.

“What’s the matter, Cae? You can tell me…” It was obvious to the blue haired boy that something wasn’t going quite right with Caelum.

“I… really don’t think you’d understand.” The three tailed boy commented, rather quietly. Lepus just wouldn’t understand. He would never understand. Not this… that anomalous feeling bubbling up in his very soul. It barely made sense to him… how could it ever make sense to Lepus?

“I’m not as dumb as you seem to think I am.” Lepus growled, getting more and more frustrated with Caelum constantly dodging his questions. He was just trying to help! Why couldn’t he understand that?

“I… I know that. I just don’t think you’ll understand, okay?” Caelum was continuing to be as calm and nonchalant as ever, even as a situation such as this.

Maybe it wasn’t entirely that Lepus wouldn’t understand that made him silence himself. More like Caelum was afraid of what Lepus would say. How the boy would feel if he spoke his mind. As much as he hated to admit it, he was afraid. Afraid of what Lepus would think, afraid of loosing a friend - and more than anything else - he was afraid of being rejected.

Lepus was always so playful and happy. It was so hard to tell what he was really thinking. It was so hard to determine exactly how Lepus felt about things. Of course, he was always quite caring and friendly… but was it pity, or was it true friendship? More than anything, Caelum was afraid of getting close to someone - and he hated admitting fear. So, instead of facing the problem, he chose to sit alone in an empty park in the middle of the night, drowning in his own self doubt.

“Maybe if you told me, I’d be able to understand…” Lepus was trying not to show how aggravated he’d gotten with Caelum’s constant refusal.

“Look. I… I just don’t want to talk about it.” It was getting harder and harder to keep saying that.

“Why?!” Lepus was visibly upset now, “Why don’t you trust me? I try, and I try, and I try to be friendly with you, and listen to what you have to say! I spend so much time, trying to figure out what’s wrong with you, and all you can do is push me away!” There were tears now, running uncontrolled down his face as he yelled, “What is wrong with me?! Am I not good enough for you?!” His wings burst open, and his ears perked up as his words became ever more intense, “What the hell did I do wrong!? You’re right! Maybe I won’t understand! But you could at least give me a chance! I just want to…!”

The statement goes unfinished as Caelum grabs him into a kiss - full of longing and passion. At first, Lepus is too shocked to react, but quickly finds himself kissing back. It was clear to the both of them now that they each wanted this as badly as the other. Warm, comfortable, and an incredible passionate burst of tension lifting off of their shoulders. Every moment was made slightly more comfortable with the knowledge that they were equally nervous about it.

Just as quickly as it had started, it was over, and Caelum stood to walk away, leaving Lepus to sit in wonderment. A flicker of purple danced across his right palm, but it was quickly quelled. Walking broke into jogging, and before long, Caelum was running. He wasn’t sure where he was running to, or what he was running from… but he’d started running, pausing only momentarily to catch one last glimpse of the boy he loved.

Lepus sat and hesitated for a moment as Caelum stood up. He was still too shocked to comprehend it all. Quietly, he whispered to himself, “I told you I’d understand…”