Add props himself up on his elbows in the grass, staring in disbelief at his own feet. Nothing on him is bloodied, nothing stained. He lifts one arm slowly in shock and runs his hand under his ribs. No signs of fractures, no tears, no coagulating blood that coats his fingers when he raises his hand to his eyes, utterly dumbfounded. Just dust and grass that sticks to his back and prickles his neck.

He was dead. He was supposed to die there in that wasteland, breath crushed out from beneath him, at Ara's side. It was supposed to end there. His purgatory was supposed to end the moment he closed his eyes at her side, and it didn't, and everything is wrong.

And that's not even the worst of it. As he shakily gets to his feet, dynamos strewn in a mess around him, he looks up into the bluest sky he has ever seen. The sun's shining. Grass (actual grass!) carpets the ground he stands on. Not a single storm cloud lines the sky, and Add feels that something is terribly, horribly wrong because of it.

He's alone in this forest clearing, standing in the grass, and doesn't know where he is.

There must be a way out, of course, so he gets around to rebooting all of his dynamos and looking for directions. The time sickness didn't repair his console—it lies crushed to fragments and wires in his inner pocket, and he has to go through the tedious process of rebooting each dynamo individually. Thankfully, they survived the impact, and soon he's got them cruising in the sky, looking for signs of civilization.

The forest burbles and crackles with life, a magic that Add lacks any understanding of. He stops to listen, though, and tries to follow the sounds. He doesn't know it, but the instincts that his ancestors followed kick in as he seeks out a stream that may or may not exist.

He stops by the stream, watching the water ebb and flow over the rocks. This idyllic scene is so different from what he's used to. Gone are the days of crimson skies and blood-stained earth; far behind him are the war cries and battle commands in the distance. This Elrios does not have war flowing in its sullied veins, but rather a peace that thumps along in its lasting heartbeat.

It's by this stream that Add finds her. His landing coordinates were locked on her; it was only natural that he'd find her again. She's strolling on the other side of the stream, a handful of wildberries in hand as she pops them in her mouth one at a time. Her hair flows freely down her back, with only her braids secured in place with her hairpin. She's smiling.

It doesn't matter that this Ara wears orange and white instead of black and gold. It doesn't matter that she keeps no spear in hand. It doesn't matter if she doesn't recognize him. This is Ara, and Add feels himself relax again in her presence.

He brings himself to meet her eyes, and wonders what he must look like to her. A stranger, of course; dragged through the mud, covered in grass, armor bloodied, sclera the colour of night. All he can think is that she's here, and he's safe again.

One foot in the water, and then the other. The reeds on the banks bend as he slips past by, the sound of leaves crunching lost in the current. He doesn't care that his pants are going to get soaked, or that he's slowly sinking into the mud with each step. He wades into the stream, towards those beautiful golden eyes that beckon him home unknowingly.

Add reaches the opposite bank and quietly puts his arms around Ara in a hug. It feels right, even though he knows it's absolutely wrong to be hugging a complete stranger like this.

"Do I… know you?" Ara asks, although she doesn't struggle from his grasp.

"No. You shouldn't, anyhow." He sighs. "I'm just glad to see you."

(It doesn't help that his heart skips a beat when she puts her hands on his shoulders and holds him tighter, like he actually means something.)

This is the story of a kinder Elrios, with blue skies and pastoral farmland. The air is clean, the mountains are topped with light snowfall, and newborn phorus skitter around in the forest without fear of being eaten. The day is filled with sunshine; the night is filled with fireflies that scatter into stardust at the slightest wave of the hand.

Ara seems amused that Add is so transfixed with this Elrios. "I know," she says, guiding him out of the forest with a basket of herbs and berries hanging at her elbow, "I felt like this when I first moved south, too."

They walk along the edge of the stream as she continues to fill her basket with plants and even a few mushrooms. She offers some of the berries to Add, and he's surprised to find how sweet and tart they are. Sometimes they stop to splash their faces and quench their thirst with water cupped in their hands from the stream.

In hindsight, Add should have expected to meet the others soon, too. Maybe it's because he's spent so long away from them (his isolationist self-purgatory immediately followed by the horrors of the last timeline have done him no favours) but he's almost surprised when Ara mentions bringing him to meet her friends and allies. The thin coat of fear that lines his stomach when he sees the warm blaze of the campfire surprises him.

"Everyone, I found someone in the woods!" Ara calls, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward before he can disappear into the shadows. "His name's Add. Come say hi!"

"Jeez, Ara, it's nearly nine," Elsword scolds, but he gets to his feet and reaches a hand to Add in good nature. "Add, you said? I'm Elsword. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Add says weakly.

The others come around to introduce themselves as well. This El Search Party seems to be a blend of the ones he's met from timelines past, with different abilities and appearances. They seem extremely content with their lives; Raven's got a ukelele in his hand and is strumming with the tips of his mechanical fingers, while Elesis sings old hymns and Lu naps on Eve's shoulder.

In a word: home.

Sparks from the fire crackle into the otherwise still night air. The others turn in for the night, one by one, saying their goodnights and their sleep-tights. A few of them remain by the fire—Add, the original insomniac; Ara, snacking on berries; Elsword and Elesis, playing some sort of children's game with sticks in the dirt; and Rose, watching Elesis with a degree of fondness that can only be described as love.

"Dynamos, you called them?" Elsword grins as he pokes the dynamo floating closest to him. It wobbles in the air, but doesn't fall. "That's really cool! I've never met anyone who can fight with electricity."

"Eve fights with electricity," Elesis points out, making a face at her brother.

"Eh, but she's not made of flesh and bone, and she's not scared of getting shocked." This timeline's Elsword is easygoing, with what feels like a permanent smile and a swing in his step that doesn't fade with exhaustion. Add wishes he could have half of this guy's energy. "Seriously, dude, that's sick. I can't wait to see you in a fight."

Add freezes. "Do you guys," he says, and then tries again. "Do you guys fight often?"

The others don't seem to go any more tense at this question; in fact, they almost relax, like it's some sort of joke between them, the whole fighting thing. "Nah, we spar sometimes, but for the most part we don't have to do a lot of fighting," Elesis tells him. She's just as nonchalant as her brother, playfully poking his side of the line in the dirt with her stick. "There were a few bigger threats that we had to take care of—"

"Banthus," Elsword supplies. "The whole issue with King Nasod taking Ruben's El. The demon invasion of Feita." If he notices Add flinch at the words demon invasion, he doesn't comment on it. "But that was all months ago. These days, we're just cleaning up the countryside after all the battles. A lot of the smaller demon strongholds never got the message to surrender."

"That's good," Add says quietly. Upon the strange looks he's getting from the others, he elaborates: "Although I'm from Velder, I've been travelling for a long time, and the last place I stayed was constantly being attacked by demons. My lo—" he looks at Ara for a second, and thinks again. "My travelling companion and close friend was killed shortly before I made it here."

Elsword looks shocked. Rose stays stoic, but her wide eyes betray her horror. Ara has her hands over her mouth, eyes sparkling with tears. "And so you returned here to escape a cruel land," Elesis summarizes. "Dang, son."

"Is that why you were covered in mud?" Ara whispers, almost too soft to be heard. "Oh, you poor thing."

And that's too much, so he shakes his head and smiles. "It's alright. I'm home now, so it'll be alright. I'll wash off the mud soon, I promise." He can't quite bear to look her in the eye, so he drops his gaze onto his mud-stained knees. "I'll avenge my friend. By living the life she wanted to."

He manages to glance up, and in that moment he meets her gaze. Despite the tears, she looks so resolute, so unshakeable, so much stronger than him. "I'll live the life she wanted me to."

Within a month of Add joining the El Search Party, they're able to force the demon forces to retreat towards the badlands of Lanox. Elsword chalks it up to Add's superior technology, which he quickly claims is a product of the nation he'd been travelling in. Eve eyes his dynamos once and never again, and he's just glad that he changed the design long ago to exclude Nasod elements.

If the last timeline was hell on earth, then this is paradise. Add still stops occasionally just to stare at children playing in meadows, or the way a drop of rain rolls off a blade of grass, or that puff of harmless smoke from the chimney of a bakery in town. The others watch in amusement as he goes out of his way to stare at a fat bumblebee; he just watches the bumblebee, transfixed by the fur that lines its tiny form.

If this is paradise, then Add doesn't want to leave.

The way the others behave implies that this is the busiest they've been in years, that the few skirmishes they get into are some sort of impending doom of the future. Add thinks about the daily battles from the last timeline, the mornings when he'd wake up not to (her) hands on his bare skin but explosions knocking down their door, and thanks every god he knows by name that he won't have to fear the sound of splintering wood in the morning ever again.

Nonetheless, there is time to stop and enjoy life, to cherish life. The war against the demons still rolls by every day, putting that constant worry of battle in sight, but it's not war as Add knows it. Yes, there's the fighting, the skirmishes, the injuries, but there's also time to rest, to live, to love.

"Don't rush yourself," Ara laughs from her perch on a higher platform as he grabs onto yet another ledge and pulls himself forward. "We're almost at the summit. You'll only hurt yourself if you reach wrong and fall."

"Remind me why I let you drag me up this mountain," Add grumbles. There's sand in his eyes, and the altitude is making it a little harder to breathe, but if it makes her happy, if it makes her smile, he's willing to come up here any day.

"Because you said you wanted to see the sunset," she tells him, offering him her hand as he approaches her platform. He takes it gratefully, and allows himself to be hauled up to stand beside her. "And I don't know of any better place to see the sunset on this side of Elrios than here."

He stands up straight, and watches as the sunset lights up his world in pink and gold, glittering across a rapidly darkening sky. The horizon is lined with clouds so soft and wispy that he wishes he could reach out and catch them.

Then he looks over at Ara, and his breath catches in his chest. The light turns her dark hair to golden flame, illuminating her in all the colours of the sunset and catching the rosy glow in her cheeks. She says something, laughs out loud, and all he knows to do is to smile at her and bask in the comfort of her warmth.

Yes, there's the fighting, the skirmishes, the injuries, but there's also time to rest, to live, to love.

I love her, Add realizes, as Ara yells out his name and knocks an arrow out of the sky, shattering it into a million splinters before it can seek out his heart.

I love her, he tells himself, as she casually slips an extra bandage into his hand after watching him struggle with a scrape from some close call with an incubus's knife.

I love her, he muses as she flies through battles and skirmishes like she's dancing on air, and then proceeds to trip her way across flat ground to sit on the log beside him.

Then the weight of a million lives hits him, and the sun goes down as the campfire burns low and pretends not to laugh at his suffering. Add, a lonely time traveler with a chronic supernatural illness; Ara, an angel sent to him by a god who only laughs at his ingratitude. In what timeline would someone as wonderful as her return the feelings of someone as broken as him?

"I love her," he whispers, mostly to himself, as Ara nods off on his shoulder, just as he saw Rose nod off on Elesis's shoulder so many months ago. She looks so peaceful, even with her dark hair sticking in every direction and her cheek all pushed up against his armor. In the warm light of the fire, Add sees a home in her. "Oh. I love her."

Too little, too late, something inside says mockingly. This isn't the answer.

And to that, he honestly has no response.

If it were just Add and Ara, partners in crime, travelling across Elrios, maybe this wouldn't be so painful. Maybe Eun would encourage them to talk, to fight together. Maybe they'd grow close, closer, in a whirlwind of midnight dances. Maybe Add would muster up the courage to confess, punctuated with a soft kiss across her knuckles or the gentlest brush of his hand across her face. Maybe she'd reciprocate. Maybe they'd be happy.

Instead, Add has to watch in abject horror as his friends get themselves together, one by one. Elesis and Rose finally stop beating around the bush and laugh their pining away into a starry night. Aisha finally gets the guts to tell her feelings to Elsword's face, and soon they've got their legs tangled together as they nap under a tree. Even Chung and Eve, shy as they can be, are discussing their futures as sovereigns of separate but united nations together.

"You love her," Rena notes with amusement as Add stares over the wedding festivities, gaze focused on Ara laughing and dancing in the middle of the venue. There are stars in her hair and stars in her eyes and stars upon her lips as she laughs out with all the sounds of joy to exist. "You know, we've been making bets as to when you'll finally confess to her."

"I thought you said you were above betting," he mutters. "What happened to the Rena who said that moms don't gamble?"

"She just got married," Rena jokes, looping her arm tighter around Raven's. "Go dance with her. You look like such a sad little puppy watching her out there."

It seems strange to see Raven smile, but he does, and somehow it seems fitting with the golden bands on his and Rena's fingers. "You should," he says. "Happiness doesn't always come directly. Sometimes you have to reach just a little out of your way to find it."

As the newlyweds start crooning at each other like preening birds, Add makes the split-second decision to escape before they can start getting gross. He drains the ale from his glass and sets it on a nearby table before running onto the dance floor, slipping past the slow dancers and reaching the table where Ara has retreated to alone, still smiling.

"You don't seem like the type to dance," she comments, tilting her head curiously with wineglass in hand. "Looking for a way out of the chaos?"

"Surprisingly, no." He pauses, unsure of how much he wants to tell her, how much he wants her to know. "I learned to slow dance during my travels. It's… been a while, to be honest."

Ara laughs, pure and clear as the bubbling brook where he found her. "You and I both, then. As you might imagine, I have two left feet on the dancefloor."

"Hey, practice makes perfect." It's now or never; he holds out a hand to her, hoping that she sees his attempt at a kind smile before the nervous shake in his arm. "Would you practice with me?"

The perfect o of surprise that her lips form is just as nerve-wracking. "I… oh, wow," she says, and this time Add is close enough to see the gentle dimples that compliment the rosy glow of her cheeks. "I'd be honoured."

They don't bother with formalities of dancing, because this is just for practice, after all. Ara's hand feels like a home in itself on Add's shoulder, like a warmth he can only crave in memory. He puts a gentlemanly hand on her waist, and she grins childishly and slides it down to rest on her hip.

Maybe this is heaven after all. Maybe Add really did die on that fiery battlefield, his chest crushed under the cruel step of an entire army. Maybe this is his Valhalla, his Paradise, his Nirvana: the lights dimmed to make way for a million stars; Ara in a sunset-dipped dress, safe and sound in his arms as a kind night blankets them in its warmth. The band plays on, and in between the hums of the violin Add thinks he can pick out the words in Elrian and in Elvish.

May it be an evening star, shines down upon you

May it be when darkness falls, your heart will be true

You walk a lonely road

Oh, how far you are from home

Mornië utúlië, believe and you will find your way

Mornië alantië, a promise lives within you now.

Then Ara shifts her hands, and rests her head on his chest, and that's it, Add can't be in heaven because no heaven would send him an angel like this. His heart is pounding out of his chest, and he's certain she can hear it, but she just closes her eyes and smiles like this is where she belongs.

"Ara," he whispers, and the way she looks up at him makes him melt down to his very bones. "Ara?"

"I'm listening," she says softly, so gently that it physically pains him to say what he needs to say.

"You're stepping on my feet."

She looks a little startled, but she takes it in good stride, laughing gently as she pulls away just enough to deliberately step away. "Practice makes perfect," she echoes, pressing her face back to his heart, "so we'd best practice some more, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he says, not daring to breathe, "practice makes perfect."

"I love you," Add says.

It's a beautiful day, not unlike the one where Ara found him, and even though he always says that she did there's an unspoken you helped me find myself lining it. Their friends tease and prod whenever it's sunny out like this and they pack for a happy little picnic, but it's a ritual that neither Add nor Ara can shake off, a sacred procession as they hold the basket between them and head into the fields.

There's a lot of well-kept gardens and parks in Velder, but all of them are far into the city, where the snooty upper-class live with their walls lined in tapestries and sorrow. The fields once filled with demon patrols are now safe for the children to play with, and it's here that Ara spreads her tartan picnic blanket in the thickest of the wild grasses, and it's here that Add lays his head in her lap and tells her that he loves her.

The first few moments after he says it, Add forgets how to breathe. The wind picks up, and Ara's black hair billows out around her like an ebon kite. There is a twinkle in her smile that feels like home, a spark in her eyes that speaks a million words before she even opens her mouth.

"I love you too," Ara says.

The world freezes.

"Oh! Don't cry, sweetheart," she says, and brushes away a tear Add didn't realize he'd shed. "I love you, and I mean it."

"I mean as more than a friend," he tries, and the pressure builds way too much in his chest, enough to burst at a moment's notice. "I mean as much, much more than friends."

Because why would someone as perfect as Ara love someone as broken as him; how could she, an angel in every sense of the word, fall for a wisp of a human like him; in what life would she willingly tell him that she loves him without being on her deathbed herself?

(Because Ara is just too perfect, and Add is just not.)

So when she smiles and presses her hand to his cheek, he feels like his heart has stopped altogether. "I know," she says, "and I do, too. I love you, Add, with all that I am."

"Please," he croaks, "say it again."

She hums, and leans down, and presses fleeting kisses to his forehead, to his nose, to his eyelids. "I love you," she murmurs, and with every word, Add gives another fragment of himself to her. "I love you. I love you."

When her lips touch his, he forgets all else. The world could be on fire, and all Add would know is the feeling of Ara's love. She holds him like he's dying in her grasp, like he's held her so many times now, like he actually means something to her and isn't just a broken burden.

"Ara," he says faintly when she lifts her head and breaks away, "I think I'm dying."

"That's okay," she giggles, "but you gotta promise to live for me, okay?"

She lifts her legs just a little, and he obliges with the motion, lifting his head so that she can slip out from beneath and lay down next to him. There's grass in her hair, and a tear at the corner of her eye, but by god if she isn't the most beautiful, radiant person Add has ever seen. "We'll both live, together."

(He loves her—)

"I promise," he says, whispers out his oath reverently as he leans in to kiss her again, "I promise."

It turns out all of their friends had been making bets as to when they'd get together, and so when they return from that picnic hand in hand, Add very clearly sees money being passed into Rena's waiting hands. There's congratulations all around, and at least one finally muttered under one's breath, but it's all good; Add has been pining for far too long, and if their friends' anecdotes are anything to go by, so has Ara.

Add finally learns what la vie en rose means when he wakes up with his head in her lap as she's reading, and he opens his eyes and sees her smiling as she plays with his hair. With the tide of her breath, he learns to breathe; with the ebb of her consciousness, he learns to dream. He cherishes each day like there's no tomorrow, loves Ara like she'll be gone.

So it's no surprise when Ara follows through on her word and asks him to live with her, together, after the war. He accepts wholeheartedly, because what else can he do? It's not like he has anywhere else to live but at her side, close to her heart. They pick out a house on the outskirts of Elder before the war comes to a shuddering stop, and by the time they hold their housewarming party, it's already time to think of the post-war triumph parades.

Add quite likes the new house. The day they move in, Ara sets all of her cotton clothes into her new dresser and hangs up all of their armor in the closet, and Add relishes in that one moment when he sneaks up on her and surprises her by kissing the back of her neck. He knows their friends are still in the other rooms, bringing in kitchen supplies and furniture and books, but the sunlit bedroom is just his and Ara's, for that moment and for their eternity.

"You look lovely," he tells her sincerely. "I haven't gotten a chance to tell you that lately."

Ara smiles as she turns to cradle his face. "You told me that just this morning," she says teasingly, "when we woke up, and again over breakfast."

"It's been too long," he says, even though he knows fully well that she's right. "I have to say it or else my heart will explode."

"Well, that wouldn't be good, would it?"

They hold each other a lot more these days. After initially dancing around each other in the days immediately following their confessions, Add has been less afraid to show his affection physically, just as Ara does. Sure, he's still awkward as all hell in public, but when she threads her fingers through his, he feels like he could fly to the moon and pluck a star out of the sky for her.

So maybe Add isn't dreaming when he gathers Ara into his arms, and buries his face in her hair. Maybe he isn't imagining things when she holds him close, when he's sure she can hear his heart beat out of his chest.

"Leave some room for Elria, you two!"

Ara yelps, and Add lets go of her as they both fly backwards. Elesis is grinning in the doorway, holding a basket of clothes that they must have forgotten to bring in earlier. "Jeez, we're literally in your house, you guys are anything but alone," she chides. "Wait until we've all left, at least!"

"Is this revenge for us being insufferable about you and Rose?" Add groans.

"Eh, maybe."

Late into the night, after everyone else has left, Add finishes drying off the last of the dishes and sticks it on the shelf. "Anything else?" he calls.

In the candlelight, Ara looks rosy and warm, her hair plaited and glinting gold upon jet. "I think that's the last of it," she says, wrenching her dishcloth out over the basin. "On the upside, we won't have to cook for at least three days, with all the food they left us."

"I'm not looking forwards to eating Chung's cooking for the next few days."

It's then that the gravity of it all hits him, like someone hit him in the face with a sack of bricks. This is their house, that he and Ara bought together with their funds from the war. He's standing in their kitchen right now, putting away the dishes that they picked out together last week at the bazaar. They have a whole house of their own with a little garden in the back that Ara intends to populate with zucchinis and tomatoes.

And Ara, who he once thought to be a faraway star, Ara is here with him. She's humming something as she works, wiping away the ashes on the stove. There's a lilt in her voice and a dance in her step as she turns around, apron and skirt turning a second later, to put away a stray wineglass.

It's then that the fact that Ara loves him really hits, and that's when the tears begin to flow.

"Gosh, where'd I put the rest of the small dishes?" When Ara turns around, it pains him to see the worry that fills her face. "Love, what's wrong? Please don't cry."

"Nothing's wrong, I'm just…" He freezes as her hands brush across his cheeks, and he stops to stare at her in sheer reverence. Ara is his Helen, his Laura, his Beatrice Portinari at the end of Purgatory. This little house in the woods outside Elder City has become his Paradise as she holds him so close, as if nothing will ever come between them and their love. "It's only just hit me that we're living together now."

Ara smiles and kisses him so gently that he swears he can see the angel wings sprout from her back. "I know, Add. We've been travelling so long with the El Search Party that settling down feels strange." She brushes away an errant tear, thumbs away a strand of hair that has wandered into his eyes. "But it's okay. My home is where you are, Add. And if that means here in this house, then we'll make a home of it together."

"That's a good thought," he says quietly, face pressed into her palm. "My mother used to say that home is where the heart is, and my heart is yours, now and always." He turns ever so lightly and presses a kiss to the soft skin of her hand. "We should make this our home."

There's no band playing, and no means for them to play music, but Add takes up Ara's hand, and she puts her other one on his shoulder, and they sway together in a wind that blows only for them.

It dawns on Add that he should probably consider proposing when Ara catches the bouquet at Elsword and Aisha's wedding, and immediately pushes the flowers at him with a bright, beautiful smile. "I caught it," she laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Look at the flowers, Add!"

He does look at the flowers, and while the mix of purple roses, pear blossoms and scarlet camellias is stunning, it was definitely made for the bride, and he knows Ara will be holding something even more brilliant when she walks down the aisle.

His first thought is that he should make the ring himself, because his workshed in the backyard of their little house is quiet and lonely and has a whole lot of tools. A few failed attempts later, he realizes he has little to no experience whatsoever with turning a sketch into reality without breaking out the paints and 3D printer.

So Add swallows his pride, and goes to Raven for help, because Raven has been married for two years and has had two opportunities to present a ring in a proposal. Raven stares at him from the doorway, sighs, and lets him in with all the air of someone who has dealt with this exact question too many times.

"I bought a ring for Rena," Raven says, passing a mug of steaming tea to Add, "so I can't say the same about you trying to make one." He has to stop here and put the kettle down as he pinches his nosebridge, as if it'll make the headache of dealing with the rowdy kids of the El Search Party any better. "Just don't do anything that'll hurt her in the long run, and you'll do fine."

Add thinks of Ara's whispers to him, of how Rena has cried because she knows Raven is just a drop in her life's ocean, and decides not to comment. "You picked a ring that you thought she'd like?" he asks instead, snuggling the mug between his hands. "Something personal?"

Raven shrugs. "Rena's a traditional kind of person. You saw how many elven customs there were in our wedding."

In the end, he locks himself in his workshop while Ara's out helping Rose and Elesis move into their new house, and goes back to the drawing board. He has a 3D printer borrowed from Eve, and a bunch of engraving tools lent by Rose, and a scribbled guide from Luichel from Elder. None of these help him in the slightest when he doesn't have any idea what to make.

"Something that suits her," he mumbles, prodding a loose topaz stone with his grease pencil. The gem rolls lazily across the tabletop, eventually dipping into a rift in the wood and falling into the surface. "Or something that she'd like? Or something that represents us?"

There's too much to think about, and he just wants to curl up into a ball and have the perfect ring and present it to Ara and be hers forever.

But that's not what he can do, and that's not what she deserves.

"Something she deserves," he says out loud, the thought suddenly hitting him. "Something as perfect as she is."

The final ring reflects him just as much as it reflects her: a simple golden band, inlaid with mithril to strengthen the metal and prevent it from warping. Two little gems of lavender amethyst and marmalade citrine adorn the top, sparkling in the sun but set in tightly so that even the harshest battles cannot knock them out. They fit together the way Ara's hands fit into Add's, the way their bodies become flush with one another in the coldest nights, the way they've given this cold world light with their love.

Now all that's left is to actually propose, and isn't that the hardest part? He can make it grand; he can make it small. All he's certain of is that he has to do it, for himself if not for her.

So he does. He puts the ring in his pocket, and helps Ara pack a nice picnic basket, and they go venturing into the forest from whence he came. They don't talk much about the places Add went before he came to this Elrios, but the forest always represents a start for them, a beginning. A means to put some sense of purpose in his tiny existence in the grand fabric of time.

"Where are we going?" Ara asks, as they walk along the stream. Add's got the basket in one hand and her hand in the other, gripping onto her tightly as she walks along the rocks with her shoes dangling from her fingers. "I heard there's a lake really deep into this forest."

"Mmm. Maybe we can go there later." There's the bush with the wildberries that she'd picked for him; there's the rock formation by the stream that had held him in the current as he'd held her to survive. "Right now I have something for you."

He takes one experimental step into the river, and finds it cold but not uncomfortably so, just enough to ground him in the reality of the situation. "I remember," he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her middle once more, and finding her heartbeat effortlessly, "wading across this river when I saw you. I remember being tired, of being alone, and you were the first sign of humanity I had seen in ages. You found me."

"This is," Ara says, and her lip wobbles when she smiles, "this is where we met."

"It is."

His hand slips into his pocket, and he runs a calloused finger over the edge of the ring one more time, to steady himself. "You found me," he repeats, and holds the ring between them. "Please, let me find you too." He gulps, the last of his worries fading. "Ara Haan, will you marry me?"

Ara nods breathlessly, and allows him to slip the ring onto her finger. "Yes, yes, forever and always," she whispers, gripping his face so tenderly before she kisses him. "I'll marry you, a million times over, from this life and on into the next."

Then the stream gives way, and Add's foot slips just a little too much, and they go shrieking into the river. It's cold and the silt rises up to squish against their palms, and then Ara is breaking out of the water laughing as her dress billows through the current all around. Mud drips off her hand, revealing the meticulously-made ring that sparkles as she caresses his face oh-so tenderly, and he leans into her touch.

"I love you," she whispers.

"And I love you," he replies, and means it.

They hold the wedding in May, in the field where they swore their love to each other. It's small, since they're not exactly lords of Velder, and it's large, since they're not exactly normal people. It's a wedding befitting a pair of wartime heroes, no matter how much Add might refuse the title. They commission a wedding portrait to hang in their living room, and they prepare their vows, and they pick out music for their first dance.

Ara wants a wedding in the traditional style of her people, and who is Add to deny her any happiness, so he goes with it, and they integrate little things from the Elrian tradition: an exchanging of rings, a reception party, a cake. There's one white dress in the closet for the party, and a red gown and veil delicately wrapped and set on a shelf for the ceremony. Instead of vows proper, they say prayers for each other, blessings cleverly disguised as promises.

The minutes of waiting as Ara approaches the stone altar feel like an eternity, but when Add finally lifts the scarlet veil over Ara's face, and sees her beaming at him underneath with so much tender love in her smile, he knows it's all been worth it.

Add kisses Ara for the first time as her husband, and it is all he could ever ask for.

The night fills with laughter, and soon they've changed out of the red ceremonial robes into matching ensembles in white. Eun's magic fills the sky with a brilliant sunshower for all of a moment before it blossoms into stellar rainbows. With azaleas braided through her hair and a flounce in her skirt that wavers in the wind, Ara looks so radiant as she grabs Add's hands, knocking their new wedding bands together. "Come on, Add, it's time for our first dance!"

She was the one to suggest the song for their first dance, and now she's the one who leads him through the familiar steps. He holds her close enough that he can feel the pulse in her palm and the warmth of her skin through the silk of her dress, and he buries his face in her hair and tries not to sneeze from the azaleas.

"I love you," he murmurs, as the sun dapples them in sweet summer gold, and the wind picks up to stream azalea petals into the air. "I'll love you forever."

"And I, you, my love," she replies, and laughs so prettily when he does sneeze.

It's not as stunning as the band that played for Raven and Rena, but Add thinks that he could live forever in Ara's arms as the piano sings and the vocalists turn the afternoon to loving tender flame. He opens his eyes to her smile, and he's never been so enveloped in love.

And your eyes,

They tell me how much you care, oh

You will always be

My endless love.

They honeymoon in a little seaside town north of Hamel, and it's a delightful departure from walking everywhere to be in the little gondolas travelling the canals. The locals speak a strong dialect of common Elrian that rings in Add's ears like church bells, but Ara seems to love it and picks up slang over the days that they're there.

There's a flutter in Ara's skirt as they walk down the dock hand in hand, twin wedding bands warm from each other's touch. At the edge of the dock, their rented gondola bobs gently in the water, restless upon the waves. Add holds it steady as Ara boards, and off they go into the afternoon.

"Can we have paella for dinner?" Ara asks, and even if Add didn't like paella just as much as she does he wouldn't be able to refuse her for the world. "I know we had it yesterday too, but it's so good and we don't have the spices or the rice to make it back home."

"We can have whatever you want," Add tells her. "This is our time to relax. It's back to work as soon as we go home."

They both know fully well that it's not really work like it was during the war. Ara teaches a martial arts class in the city, and Add works in infrastructure now, but it's not running all across Elrios driving the demons out. They'll just return to the lively monotony of their lives, armed with brand-new wedding bands and ever-renewed twin smiles.

Someone is playing the accordion on the shorebank, a lively waltz that Ara's eyes light up at. It turns out to be a young boy sitting on a dock, a cap on his head in dark blue and gold to match the oversized accordion in his hands. He offers them a wink and a smile as they float past by, pausing his playing for a moment to tip his hat politely.

They get off by the cafe where they'd had paella the day before, and they're ushered in quickly with warm smiles. The locals seem to love Ara and her clumsy grace, and the children laugh whenever Add seemingly whispers life into pieces of scrap metal with just his bare hands. If the cafe wasn't warm to begin with, it certainly is now, as people begin to stream in to share in the laughter and the music.

It turns into a celebration of people, of colours, of merriment. Baskets of flaky bread and bowls of rich soup are passed around as tables are pieced together, and it only takes a moment of Ara's wide, dewy eyes for Add to cave in and climb onto the tables with her. The old couple who own the cafe join them, and Ara laughs and laughs as her skirts swirl up in a tidal wave.

The afternoon fades into a lovely evening, and the evening sun drowns into a sunset sky and leaves a starry tapestry behind. Add fastens off the gondola on the dock and helps Ara out after him. "Thank you, love," she murmurs, stepping delicately onto the dock. The faded wooden planks seem to relax under her weight. "Let's head inside."

They curl up together on the couch in front of the fireplace, fit together like puzzle pieces. Ara dances her fingers up the lapels of Add's jacket as he absently pats down the creases on her skirt in a mindless rhythm.

It feels right. It feels like he belongs here, with her head against his shoulder as she dozes off. He has no doubt that he'll be carrying her to bed sometime soon, and he's not even remotely mad about it. This is what he's wanted: the idyllic, happy life that his mother never had, that neither of his parents ever had. For once, he's happy.

I'm happy, he thinks, as his eyes close slowly and he rests his cheek against Ara's head, I'm really happy.

"Do you think," Ara asks, "we could be parents?"

Add blinks at the wad of blanket and child in her arms. It's been two days since Rena and Raven had their firstborn, and now Add and Ara are watching over little Seris while her parents get some sleep. It seems like the newborn is napping too for a while; her little pink nose and lips poke out of the blankets, her chest rising and falling just the tiniest bit to indicate that she's still breathing. "I haven't entertained the thought."

Ara hums softly. "Do you want kids?"

There's the question, the eternal one that will haunt Add for the rest of his unnatural life: do you want to hold the responsibility of raising one or more small humans and making them not messed up as you are? Do you want to bear the burden of sleepless nights and changing diapers and cleaning up toys and birthday parties? Do you want to take care of a human whose life is quite literally bound to yours?

Because Add has never had a good father figure in his life, and as such he doesn't know if he can be a father. There's still anger in his veins over his biological father, and as he gets older that particular fire just seems to burn brighter. He remembers nights of hearing his mother cry, of pretending to sleep so he wouldn't be punished, of being shaped into a literal human weapon. Maybe he didn't lose his humanity when he unlocked the secrets of time—maybe there was something in him that wasn't quite human all along, something that was imbedded in him from childhood—

"Add!"

He blinks. Ara has scooted closer to him, and with Seris resting in her lap, she's able to shake his shoulder to break him out of the spiral. "I'm sorry if that wasn't a good question," she says quietly. They've spoken about his childhood, after all; there's a level of mutual honesty and trust that they've happily maintained throughout their relationship. "We don't have to—"

"It's alright." Add catches her hand and presses it to his lips before she can take it away. "I'm just… worried, I guess. Never really thought about being a parent."

Never thought that I'd be a good one, he doesn't say.

Ara brushes her fingers against his face, and he finds comfort in the fact that no matter how scared he is, she'll be here with him. "You're not your father, Add," she tells him. "Even if you've made mistakes, you know what he did was wrong. That means you have room to grow."

"Growth is good."

"Growth is good," Ara echoes. "We don't have to talk about it anymore if you don't want to, but you know, I think I should be honest when it comes to this." She smiles wistfully, and Add melts.

(Maybe he's been thinking about this all the wrong way. Yes, he does want to pick up his kids and get to play with them and grow with them. He wants them to know the joy that a childhood should have—what he never had.)

"A family," he murmurs against her knuckles. "I think we could do that pretty well."

Ara beams.

Spring passes in sunshowers and May flowers, and soon Ara is wearing chiffon sundresses and picking apples from the tree in their backyard. Add is convinced to try fishing by an overenthusiastic Chung, and they venture to Hamel for a weekend where he is brutally taught to swim after nearly drowning in the pier.

Between jars of pickled plums and salted prunes, Add finds the joy of summer. He's never been good with heat, which balances out perfectly with Ara's hate of the cold. In their home, he finds a sort of solace in summer, tending to the garden with her and spending lazy afternoons with her in his arms in the shade of their witch hazel tree. The breeze brings in leaves and petals, and Ara tells him about each and every one of them, tells him about her childhood and the things she's learned.

He wakes up with his face pressed against Ara's leg, as she sits in bed reading. The frayed edge of her nightgown brushes past his nose; he sneezes, and she startles to attention, laughing gently as she pushes away the fabric and slides back under the covers with him. "Good morning, love."

"Good morning." He kisses her forehead once, gently, as he gathers her into his arms. "Reading at this hour?"

"Just thinking about names." She gestures loosely to the book, which Add recognizes as one she took out from the library after Elesis and Rose decided on the name of their daughter. "Honore does, in fact, mean honored. It's Empyrean."

"That's cool," Add says. "It's like she'll always have a bit of her Empyrean side even though she was born and raised in Elrios." He pokes her nose with a playful fingertip, and she sticks her tongue out at him. "My name means guardian of wealth."

"Add?"

"No, Edward." A moment's repose, as she waltzes her fingertips up his collarbone and across his bare chest. "What does your name mean?"

Ara gives a little laugh, like she's got a little joke or a secret she's keeping. "Which one?"

"Right. It's a translation, isn't it."

"Close. A transliteration." This time, her smile is a lot wider. "My name in the northern tongue is Han Aila." The words flow from her lips like silk, a language that Add cannot hope to master. "When my mother named me, she meant for the first character to mean love, but there wasn't a fitting second character to match the sound and meaning. So I suppose, in a way, my name means loved one."

"Fitting," Add says, and kisses her softly.

They stay like that for a long time, with Ara's hair slipping from its ponytail and Add's arms wrapped around her back. "If and when," she says, just as he thinks she's falling asleep, "we have kids, what do you think we should name them?"

The question was coming, of course. He knew it was coming. "If and when we have kids, I suppose they'd have to have a name in the common tongue and one in the northern tongue," he muses. "Or maybe a transliteration, like yours."

"And would they take my last name, or yours?"

"Both, on paper." He smiles into her hair. "Maybe we can let them choose when they get older."

"That sounds fair," she says. "And how about first name? We can't transliterate everything, you know. Sometimes it sounds unpleasant."

"Then how about a name that works in both languages?" He thinks; catches the sun glinting on Ara's hair, like streams of jet on fire, and the contrast to his own silvery fringe. "How about Yin and Yang for a girl and a boy? I think it's quite fitting for us."

(They're like day and night, the two of them—Add a man of the future and of technology, and Ara the speaker of myths and legends of old. And yet they carry a piece of the other within themselves, so that they might never be separated.)

"Yin and Yang," Ara echoes with a smile. "The feminine and the masculine. I like it."

"I'm glad that you do."

The morning sun starts to signal a rise to midday, and it's so warm and comfortable that Add is about to doze off again, when Ara coughs lightly against his collarbone. "Is this a bad time to mention that I've missed my monthly?"

Add instantly snaps awake. "You've missed," he tries to say, and then stops as he considers what that means. Their time in Hamel, their time since the last time they talked about raising a family, it all comes flooding back to him. "Oh. Oh."

"It's not for sure," she says hastily, like it's some sort of bad thing, and even though Add has his arms around her she's pushing away. "It could just be a missed cycle, it happens. We—I'm not sure of anything yet. I haven't asked Lord Eun. I haven't told Rena." She looks up, and her eyes go wide. "Love, you're crying."

Add pulls her as tightly to him as possible, and holds her. "Ara, we're going to be parents," he whispers, voice choked up as he presses his face into her shoulder. "We're going to be parents."

"That we are, love." When he finally dares to let go to look at her, Ara's face is shining with tears too. "That we are."

The first missed monthly turns into a second, and then Add is holding Ara's hair as she gasps for air over the washbasin and Rena scolds them with a playful twinkle in her eyes. Their friends all swing by to congratulate them, and Add can't help but notice with amusement that for once there's no alcohol among the gifts that they bring.

The pair of names they chose turn out to be perfect—they ask for Eun's blessing, and the millennium fox goes the extra mile to tell them that they're expecting twins. A girl and a boy, phoenix-and-dragon in one, and Add thanks all the gods he knows by name that life has gone this way. Yin and Yang Grenore: their names are chiselled out onto little wooden bassinets that lie on either side of the big bed that their parents share. Add spends hours childproofing their home and spoiling Ara like there's no tomorrow.

A letter from Lu comes in the mail a few weeks later. It's cleverly phrased as an invitation, but there's a distress in her tone of writing. Something is happening under her new reign in Varnimyr, an ancient danger she can't quell alone, and she needs their help. Add scans the paper with a UV light while Ara reads over his shoulder, and he can't help but sigh and put the light down.

"I don't want to say it," he murmurs, grasping onto her hand, "it would be unfair of me to. But it's dangerous out there."

Ara squeezes his fingers. "I know," she whispers. "I really shouldn't go. I can't go."

So Add kisses her goodbye at the door, lets his fingers linger on the creases in her gown that run over her abdomen. He's got a family to come back to, now, and he doesn't intend to let them down. "Don't be gone for too long," Ara laughs, her forehead still pressed against his. "I'll be right here waiting."

It's the first time Add's been away from Ara for longer than a few days since they got married. It's like a business trip, he muses as Raven steps away from the fire he's built. He hasn't been travelling for a while either, not since the honeymoon. The nostalgia of campfires and foreign foods returns in full, and everywhere he goes, Add drinks in sights to tell Ara about. The falling of leaves in Feita. The sunrise over the waves in Hamel. The wind over the dunes of Sander.

They follow Lu's instructions, approaching the edge of oblivion in Lanox to an abandoned underground demon base. "This is where they must have entered Elrios in the first place," Aisha murmurs as she sets up the sigils. The portal flares to life, and the black hole of the realm of Henir begins to drag Add in.

"Well, no time like the present." Elsword rummages in his pockets, takes out a large shard of El, and tosses it into his lantern. The ghastly glow of purity against the un-light of the portal is haunting. "Let's go, guys."

Add steps into the portal—

A woman's voice. A child's scream. A body, covered in gaping wounds like bloody abysses. The scratching of claws, tearing at too-soft skin and too-small hands. The gasp of air, a final word: you must go on. Add flounders, and takes another step—

The lives come flooding back like raging water, an ocean upon oceans turning his blood to ice. Everything he thought he'd forgotten, thought he'd suppressed, it rears its ugly head in way, laughing in the tongue of cruel gods. Ara dies in Elrianode, in Elysion, in Lanox, in Sander, in Hamel. Ara's life bleeds out in front of him, and he can't do anything.

The passageway between worlds grows dark, and something in him vaguely recalls the need to keep going, keep going. He shuts his eyes, but the hands claw at his ankles all the more, and when he has the cowardice to look back there is a single bloodstained girl, black hair dipped crimson, standing broken in the middle of the path. Between the tear streaks and the void of her eyes, he can make out the words: this isn't the answer.

Add steps out from the portal, back into the familiar blasting warmth of Varnimyr. A gust of lifeless wind brings nothing but red dust. It's been so long that it feels stranger now.

"Hey." Elsword puts a hand on his shoulder, and it's almost shocking to see how much the younger man seems to have aged in an instant. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah." Add offers him a snarky smile. "Just a little dazed."

(The blood on his hands won't go away.)

The mission in Varnimyr doesn't take too long, as Lu's ascension crisis is completely subverted once they're able to find the root of it. Stirbargen isn't executed for his crimes; rather, Lu makes him her advisor of war, reinstalling him in the position of power he once held. It's barely two weeks before the El Search Party is at the portal again, waiting for Lu to open the arcane circle that lets them return home.

Add travels alone back to the house on the edge of the woods, and spends a good few minutes picking apples in the yard before he cracks open the front door. Ara is kneading dough in the kitchen, and he drops the apples off on the table and hugs her from behind, drawing out a squeal.

"You're home!" Ara laughs, and Add is so, so in love with her when she clutches him tightly with her hands still dusted with flour. "You should have told me! I haven't gotten to finish making dinner for the two of us yet."

"All the better for me to help you," Add says, and drops another train of kisses against the nape of her neck.

They make dinner together, as they always do. Add chops vegetables and tells Ara about the world outside their little home, tells her about the places he's been and the things they've done. He shows her the souvenirs he's brought back for her: a pressed leaf from Feita, a corked tube of colourful sand. She kisses him after each one, delighted with the candies and the books but more so by the sights he's brought home.

He's scrubbing the dried sauce off a bowl when Ara starts humming by the sink, and even though Ara always hums when they're washing dishes together, somehow this just feels wrong. Words start to flow into the tune without him even noticing: moonlight, stars shine, let your glow go on. The sinking feeling in his stomach returns from the void of the portal, except this time it sings to him in the dying voice of a girl in white silk.

"Love?" Ara is there in an instant, kneels beside him as his head reels. "Oh, goodness, you just got back. You should be resting."

"I'm fine," he croaks, even though he is clearly not. The world sways, and then Ara is guiding him to bed, sitting down next to him to brush the hair from his face, and then he knows no more.

He catches a cold within the day, and Ara fusses and puts blankets around his shoulders and a mug of hot tea in his hands. The lemon and ginger and honey soothe his throat, but they do nothing to quell the nightmares. Within the fortnight he's feverish, and even Rena can only say that it must be a side effect of his trip to Varnimyr. Energy sickness, she calls it, and Add is reminded painfully that he really is less than human.

The winter withers through their front door, and then the mail comes: a distress message, from Elesis and Rose. Something has followed them back from Henir, flooding into their world like a plague. A few show up from Eve before Altera goes cold. Lu's last correspondence arrives scorched by turquoise flames. Even though the war has ended, a new one has been delivered right to their doorstep unnoticed.

And all through it, Add is terribly, horribly ill. The waking world isn't much better than the world of the fever dreams, so he stays asleep. He knows it's awfully selfish of him to do when Ara has to care for him and their children, but there's no strength in his limbs to even lift a finger, much less get out of bed. Sometimes, in his waking moments, he can bring himself to utter her name as she presses a beatific hand against his forehead, just to savour those few moments of her smile.

It's as though as he gets sicker, so does the world around them. The grass grows all sickly yellow, and the last of the apple harvest falls off before it can mature. Aisha appears at their front door one day, looking like she just walked through a hurricane, and casts a ward over their home before she disappears into thin air again, leaving only the message the others still need to be protected. The monsters from the void come, and Ara tells Add about them from her perch by the window, keeping her voice serene so that he can't hear the way she trembles.

It won't last. Soon, it won't be safe in Elrios anymore. Elesis and Rose have skipped to Empyrean with their daughter, hoping to escape the worst of it and fortify the other nation before the invasion can come. Rena has taken Raven and their children to the elven lands. The borders of Altera have been closed off with giant tsunami walls, a desperate bid for security.

And Add lies in bed staring at the clock on the wall, and wonders which tick will spell his end.

Hope wanes like the moon. Their food stores are starting to show signs of being empty, but neither of them can afford to hold back, not when he's as fragile as glass and she carries the precious gift of life within her. The rain falls in sheets; the snow falls like sand.

Something like a heartbeat pounds in Add's head, beating out a primordial rhythm that whispers in slithering tongues at his earside. The fire crackles by his earside, warm and comforting, a moment of repose in the roaring rivers of his head—

Add freezes. There's no fireplace in the room he shares with Ara, and the one in the living room is too far away to be heard. He forces himself to sit up, and gapes at the turquoise flames that flicker at the window. A war cry echoes in the distance; someone laughs like metal grating on stone.

Every bone in his body screams in pain, but he can't stay put. He throws the blankets off, tosses some shoes on, anything really, and in his stupour he finds his cloud of dynamos and runs into the kitchen.

"Ara," he yells, and his chest heaves with a burden too ancient. "Ara, they've found us. The Henir monsters—Lady Landar too—the house is on fire, Ara."

She's too small, too caught off guard, and for perhaps the first time in his life (this life) Ara looks scared. "The ward didn't hold?" She purses her lips. "No. The ward wouldn't protect us from the fire."

"We need to run," he croaks, grabbing her hand. The fire is starting to lap at their front door now, so they escape through the back, each pounding footstep threatening to split Add's head into a million pieces. The dynamos whirl around them in a protective circle, generating wind in a desperate bid to fight off the flames, but there's no escape.

We need water, Add thinks, and pulls Ara closer. If they have to go somewhere, it will be the stream. He doesn't know how long it'll provide safety, but it'll be better than being left to the flames. He pushes and slashes through the bushes, and it hurts to see the forest burn and be trampled underground but he has to make it, has to make sure he can get Ara to the stream.

"No," he murmurs as they trickle to a stop by what once was the stream, and is now just a dry trough in the mud. "No, this can't be it. Where has the water gone?"

And Ara—brave, heroic, selfless, loving Ara—bares her teeth and swings her arm out and her spear materializes in her hand, and she looks back at him with fire and love and Eun like snow in her hair, and she says "I'll fight for us, love," and Add can only watch in horror as she stares down the incoming onslaught of the void monsters—

They approach, and Ara turns into a bird-of-prey, flying through the air to plunge her spear into some awful body of Henir, and her silks billow up around her like wings but even the most beautiful of wings can stop beating, and then the void creature snarls and Add moves but it's not fast enough and the blade passes cleanly through her back and out her abdomen as time stands still for the being that can run away from time.

And Add—cowardly, foolish, selfish, loving Add—he screams and his dynamos scatter through the air, and the electric field pushes all the monsters of Henir out, away from this precious spot in the once-stream that is theirs, was theirs. "Ara," he chokes, falling to his knees by her side as she crumples, Eun's influence disappearing in an instant. "Ara, no, please, don't leave me—"

"Add, love—" She coughs, and blood splatters her face and his. "I'm so sorry."

"What are you sorry for, I failed you, I—"

The hand on his face is gentle. "I'm so sorry," Ara whispers, with that beatific smile of hers, so serene and precious. Even as he struggles to staunch the bleeding, why won't it stop, the light is fading from her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

Her hand drops.

Add screams until his voice goes hoarse and the world scatters like sand, and it all turns to black.

A/N: so it's been four months and i am so incredibly sorry for disappearing. i am also sorry for the contents of this chapter. it was physically difficult to write towards the end!

but it was also very hard to write the middle, especially the wedding and the honeymoon and falling in love. i've gotten so used to heavy action and heavy introspection that it was a welcome break to write something fluffy, albeit a difficult one. it was also really fun to experiment with settings for the house and the seaside town. i'm a huge fan of paella personally but it is very difficult to make when you don't have the right rice or saffron for that matter

as always i'm a sucker for slow dances, and so i had to choose music for this chapter. the first dance at Raven and Rena's wedding is set to May It Be from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, sung by Enya, while the first dance at Add and Ara's wedding is set to Endless Love by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross.

i am also going to announce that there is Absolutely going to be no update on december 1st, for the reason that i'm doing nanowrimo this year! i'm going to try and keep up regular monthly updates after that though so please stay tuned!

i love you all, peace

~Marg