Writing in the style of light novel/anime is probably one of the geekiest things you can do (behind the keyboard) and one of the most enjoyable. As usual I fell in love with my characters and couldn't let it go. If you missed the first episode, A New Green Man Appears, Stefan Hanover is hunting in the mountains and finds a gate that leads him to a different world where magic and elves and other anime type characters exist. He finds himself in a land embroiled in a bloody civil war with one way home, and he has no desire to take it.
We find our characters still on the beach at the Blue Sea because that's their favorite place, and Stefan realizes that it's time to meet his future father-in-law who he fears may not like humans. As always, except for the characters that I invented, I don't own these characters, I'm just borrowing them and their world from author Takumi Yanai, A-1 Pictures studios, and Sentai Filmworks LLC. who created the source material "Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri"
~~~~~~*~~~~~~
It was a beautiful night on the Blue Sea, the three moons, Trinidad, Antonio, and Concepción, seemed to grow in size as they slowly spun, locked in their strange orbit around themselves. Two lovers splashed in the warm saltwater sea, Lelu, an emotionally shattered elf who was still suffering from her years of imprisonment and torture, and Stefan, a human male who arrived on this world through strange circumstances and was suffering from a strange ailment that left him weak and worn out.
It's been less than two weeks since Lelu and Stefan found themselves entranced by a reaction caused by their own pheromones mingling when suddenly Lelu's elven mind melded with Stefan's mind and they became inexorably bound together mentally, emotionally, and to some point physically. They were separated by their governments and Stefan was being sent back to his own world and the separation almost killed them. Lelu being an elf was so much stronger than Stefan, she also had two very powerful arch-mages who used their healing magic to keep her alive and heal the scars from her incarceration Stefan did not have that care and nearly died.
Now healing, they finally consummated their marriage on a warm evening beach then waded out from shore to rinse off. It took Stefan ages to walk from the shore of the Blue Sea to the base of a large tree that Lelu coaxed him to walk to. He was still as weak as a newborn kitten after their brush with death. "
Are you ok
?" asked Lelu as they paused, and Stefan leaned against the tree. Although slim and curvy with toothpick arms, Lelu was incredibly strong, and she half carried Stefan to the edge of the forest from the beach where they had made love and played in the surf.
"
I'm ok-ish
," said Stefan panting.
"
I can carry you
," she frowned. Being an elf, she has four times the strength of a human being, but she realized that Stefan needed to maintain his pride.
"
You can carry me to my funeral
," he said silently, his lungs starting to suck in enough oxygen now. He was exhausted from the walk from the sea, his cock was still tingling from the mind warping sex with Lelu not long ago. After making love for the first time, they relaxed in the surf before heading to the forest where Lelu's father waited for them in a cabin. She dropped his backpack and hugged him against the tree. They kissed passionately as a hot freshwater shower started and rinsed the salt and the beach sand from them. When their lips parted, Stefan stepped out of the shower and sighed "
Wow! That was unexpected
."
"
What, the kiss
?
I love to kiss you
," smiled Lelu knowing that he meant the shower. Lelu dug a towel out of his backpack and handed it to Stefan. "
Mom and dad built this cabin after they got married, it's really amazing and they worked on it constantly until
..."
She closed that part of her mind and Stefan chose not to pressure her about it. Instead, he looked around and saw nothing but trees. "
Cabin? I don't see any cabin
."
"
You're in the cabin silly. This is the basement
." She grabbed a vine on the trunk of the tree and pulled. Suddenly the hot shower became a cold shower. "
Ooops, sorry, wrong one
." She pulled another vine and silently a set of stairs lowered from above. "
Can you make it
?" she asked, seriously concerned about Stefan's condition.
"
Maybe
," he said as he looked at the stairs. The stairs were made of incredible craftsmanship, the woodwork was perfect, not a single nail or screw was used, it was all perfect joinery that held this masterpiece of woodwork together. "
This is amazing. I know woodwork and this is... simply amazing
!" he gushed.
"
It's just stairs
," she shrugged. "
Come on and take it easy
." She led him up the stairs that never once creaked or groaned as they slowly climbed. They paused twice for Stefan to catch his breath, but they finally made it to the top of the stairs. When they got there, Lelu tugged a vine and the stairs rose with hydraulic silence, and as it rose the stair steps, the risers, rotated flat and the raised staircase became part of the wooden walkway that they were standing on, twenty feet up in the forest top.
The guard rails of the walkway were low walls made of woven twigs; an ancient craft known as wattle. Here the wattle walls were still alive, leaves grew from the woven twigs creating beautiful living camouflage. The leaves hid all evidence of a cabin and tree top walkway which was why Stefan couldn't see the cabin. The walkway went from tree to tree until they came to an actual building that was built twenty feet above the ground, supported by four sturdy trees that grew close to each other. The cabin had windows on all four walls and gentle amber light flowed from the windows. "
Daddy's home
!" Lelu said with an odd tinge of sorrow as they crossed the bridge from the walkway to the cabin. She eased an exhausted Stefan onto a bench in front of the cabin. "
You wait here, I'll be right out
."
As he waited for Lelu he felt the gentle swaying of the trees around him, the leaves illuminated by the three moons lulled him into a pleasant state of near sleep. He laughed, he had heard that the Japanese argued for weeks over whether the Special Region was earth or not and all they had to do was look up, the three moons would have settled the argument. He could tell Lelu was distressed, occasionally he could hear her and her father arguing, and through his bond with Lelu he could feel her sorrow. Something was seriously wrong, she was trying to tell her father something, but he wasn't paying attention.
Finally, she stepped outside, and Stefan struggled to his feet. "We need to go," she said aloud. Something is definitely wrong; Stefan and Lelu never speak aloud unless they actually want someone else to hear what they're saying.
"Why? I want to meet your father."
"He's not up for company," she said sadly.
From inside the cabin Stefan could hear her father call out, "I'm fine, I really am Laylah. Who is out there with you?"
Lelu closed her eyes and took a deep breath then let it out. "Laylah is my sister. He's been so lost since mom and I were captured. I've been trying for a week to convince him that I'm Lelu." She looked like she was going to cry, and Stefan couldn't blame her. Her dad lost his wife and daughter decades ago to the empire. In a raid on their village the empire captured Lelu and her mother, while Lelu's father and sister escaped. Lelu and her mother suffered a similar fate as each other; however, Lelu was held in the dungeons of the imperial palace and was released by Itami, her mother was held elsewhere, and Lelu had no idea where her mother was or how she was being treated.
Like Stefan and Lelu, Lelu's parents are bound to each other, and her dad must suffer through each of the assaults that Lelu's mom suffers. Only his connection with her and his loving and encouragement keeps her alive and sane. "
He doesn't believe it's me, he saw me after I was released
..." and now she did start to cry. She was tortured, raped, and physically mangled, when she was held by those animals she was horribly abused. It took a week of non-stop healing magic from two of the most powerful arch-mages in the empire to repair most of the physical damage done to Lelu and they're still not done repairing the damage.
Stefan leaned forward until their foreheads met and he put his hands on her temple, and she placed her hands on his temple and together they calmed each other. A week ago, she was fractured, hideously misshapen, horribly fragile, but inside Stefan saw her as the most beautiful woman he's ever met. Now her external beauty has been restored, but inside she's still a fractured, abused girl and he's here for her. "Ok," she said in a tiny voice, "come meet daddy."
Stefan saw her father through Lelu's eyes, a tall, strong elf. He was powerful, an elf that could move the world to a different orbit if his twin girls were too hot or too cold, at least in Lelu's eyes. But the elf Stefan met was a slim, one would say skinny elf who looked to be just a few years older than Lelu. If he were human Stefan would guess his age at twenty-four, but he's approximately three hundred seventy-five years old. "Daddy, this is Stefan, Stefan this is my daddy Dayv Jowns.
