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He was… tired. 

An entire world, an entire people of every kind - gone, abandoned; because he was tired. I… I wasn\'t sure what to say. I didn\'t - the thought had irked me for weeks, the months once I knew the truth. Every instance I thought about it, I always came upon a different answer to justify the here and now. 

Maybe the Hero lost, maybe the Demon Goddess was just much too powerful for him… perhaps Kronocia\'s destruction was just an inevitability, an eventuality, something that couldn\'t be prevented.  But here he was, outright telling me that maybe it could have been… 

But alas… Leonardo was tired. 

He was staring again. The road tended by one eye, and the other, noticing my sudden silence, my sudden disquiet. 

"You think I am to blame," He spoke, so barefaced, that I couldn\'t help but stare right back. "You think I should have saved them. That I should have kept fighting. Be the hero that everybody believed… that thought I was."

I replied, quiet, mildly surprised by my own calm. "I didn\'t say that." 

"But you thought that," He rebutted, sifting through the glove box again and lighting another stick between his lips. "As I had, have. Many times, so many times. I know." 

Again, when I didn\'t respond after a while, he continued to speak, blowing a gray cloud that swirled thick and heavy. 

"It\'s okay. What I did was terrible, there is no justifying it, no reasoning with it, you don\'t have to accept it, so don\'t try it, don\'t even think about it. Just… if you could, just… just understand it, understand me. My whole life, I was never free. I was always serving someone, something else. I never got to live for myself… I never even got to live at all, not really… so, I decided it was time that I should."

"Only at the expense of everybody else\'s…" I quietly tacked on at the end of his sentence.

"If only you knew the things I had to go through…" 

"But I don\'t, I don\'t know," I interjected, my voice as flat as his. "How could I? You never told me… neither of you did." 

Now it was his turn to keep the silence. He drove, he puffed, and before long, we were speeding past the last stretch of road home already. I think he\'d thought I\'d be mad, that I\'d resent him for not doing anymore… he was acting like I already had, and really, I don\'t blame him for thinking that. 

All things considered, I should. He lays this out all on me, tells me played a pivotal part in literal genocide, and before I could even have a moment to think, I\'m supposed to understand? I really had every right to be upset, he was practically begging for it too. But I couldn\'t. The things he\'s done, and the things he hasn\'t were all worthy of contempt, and yet… for some reason, I just couldn\'t bring myself to look at him that way… what he did…

  I could understand. 

"Do you…" I shifted my eyes towards him again. "Do you regret anything?" 

He finished his smoke, snuffing the flames, the cinders, into a pile of burnt ash. "That I didn\'t decide to leave any earlier." 

God, just what was it going to take? Just how many more heinous things must I know about before I finally decided that my parents were not the people I thought they were? 

Still, sitting there, staring there, I understood him. 

A little while later, he was pulling up at the makeshift driveway, parking the truck where the permanent indent of tire wheels lay etched in flattened grass. All in all, we\'ve been gone a good hour or two. I learned so much, heard so much, and yet the questions I had just kept getting larger, more convoluted, intricate. 

But I had enough, after everything else, I didn\'t have to urge to know anymore… and seeing that little sullen look in Dad\'s eyes, I think he\'s running on empty with answers as well. Besides, the past was the past. It was the present now that mattered, the situation I was facing now. Harry still wasn\'t cured, and until he was, I didn\'t have time to dwell on what-ifs. 

I landed my feet onto familiar ground and without a word, we both fell back into procedure. Supplies in the barn, groceries in the house. He hauled his, and in the direction for home, I carried mine. I only took five short footsteps, I think, before I noticed that I wasn\'t hearing his alongside my own.

Instead, a bag slung over his shoulder, he stared, he spoke, "You\'ll be better," a slight crease at the corner of his lips, not a smile, but close. "I didn\'t do a lot of good in my time, I am not a good person… but if there\'s anything good about me - then it\'s you, it\'s your sister… you both are the only two things I can genuinely be proud of. And I know that whatever I\'m not, whatever I couldn\'t be, I know you can be, you will be..." 

"Dad."

His feet began to trudge across the dirt, gaze untethering from mine, the sun up high loomed his shadow over me.

"And if you really manage to do what you said you\'ll do," He said, as he walked off into the distance, parting words with a genuine smile. "Then you already are."

Speechless was what he left me as. Even after all that, hearing a side of him I never knew, so easily, so seamlessly, I found myself staring at the shrinking outline of the father I always knew and admired.

Either he was just that charming, or I was just that easy, either way though…

"Thanks, Dad."

The walk back home was surprisingly light and easy, up the porch, and into the house I went, the slam of the front door announcing my return, and I noticed it was quiet, which made sense, \'cause last I checked, mostly everyone else was out and about.

Then I whirled around the corner to the kitchen, and I soon realized, I was sorely out of date with the times.

Clattering of plates, chinking of glass, Mom\'s eyes caught sight of me in an instance, both her hands plunged deep in the foamy kitchen sink.

"Oh, you\'re back, welcome home!" She exclaimed over the running faucet, delighted. "Was starting to worry I might have two runaways on my hands."

Runaways? Oh, yeah…

"Sammy\'s with a friend," I said, placing the groceries on the table. "Should be back soon enough."

"Mmm, I should have guessed as much," Her gaze followed me all the way forward, taking notice of the paper bags brimming full. "Ah, right, you went with your father. Ash mentioned that, oh, and I completely forgot! I wanted to text you to pick up something else. Oops, slipped my mind."

"Something else?" I said, shooting her a look and a frown. "We nearly bought the whole store. What else could we possibly be running low out of?"

That\'s when I finally saw it, dark and tall, protruding out from the rubbish bin so prominently. A glass bottle, an empty bottle. Mom quickly shut the faucet and promptly began wiping clean the dishes, and the glasses… wine glasses.

"Nice, wine..." I connected the dots, glancing back at her. "You drank just now?"

"No," She responded slyly, raising a now pristine glass over her wry smile. "We drank just now."

"We? Who\'s w -?" I gave a few mystified blinks, and then right after, I felt the realization, the final connected dot, bulge my eyes wide in horror. "You did - what?!"

From up above, I heard a loud crash shake the ceiling - and my horror grew to terror, considering my room is the one directly right above the kitchen, and the last I checked, the only person in my room was…

"Tell me you didn\'t," I desperately pleaded, snapping my gaze back at her. "Just say you\'re an alcoholic, tell me you\'re a drunkard! You have a drinking problem, it\'s bad, it\'s terrible, it\'s tearing our family apart - say it, admit it!"

Alas, Mom\'s smile only grew more prominent than ever. "It\'s lonely drinking alone, and since my darling husband wasn\'t home, and Adalia hates the taste, I thought Ash wouldn\'t mind it one bit if I had her  join me for a glass or two."

Another loud thud resounded, this time rattling across the walls. 

"Or maybe three…" She corrected herself, ever so happy too. "Or four…"

Oh God, oh boy…

"She\'s not very resistant for an Elf…"

"You\'re a monster," I whispered, breathless, before I whisked myself up the flight of stairs.

And in my rush and panic, I heard her call out from below, "No, just a very impatient, hopefully, soon-to-be grandmother - good luck, dear!"

The moment I reached the second floor, I could already hear it - beyond the closed door of my bedroom, muffled, there were noises, voices...

"This is… very… unpleasant…"

And to my ever-escalating shock, it was Adalia I was hearing on the other side. Her usual dreamlike tone no longer present, now she sounded stressed.

"You are being… very… unpleasant…!"

Like, very stressed.

"Escape is futile, you cute adorable vassal of the night! Haha!" sounded a louder, more boisterous voice. "Resist if you must, but you will submit to my strokes! You will be stroked, you will be cuddled! The Divines demand it so!" 

Another loud crash echoed - I think a shelf just toppled over.

"Get down from there, you!" shouted the voice again, whining out loud. "Ceiling is unfair! You are being unfair! This is an injustice - and I demand you set this right!"

Alright, I heard enough. I barged inside, nearly swinging the door off its hinges, and my lungs filled and brimming, "Alright, that is - !"

"MASTER~!"

A high-pitch excited squeal, almost a scream - and in an instant my eyes were blinded and flooded by white… silky, snowy white. 

My neck, my neck, okay, ow, my neck - MY NECK. I\'M GONNA DIE.

"You\'re back, you\'ve returned to me, your touch, your warmth! Oh, how I missed it so ~!" 

The pressure, I could barely breathe! So tight… getting tighter!

"A-Ash!" I gasped, desperately trying to break free. "C-could you just…"

"Ah, my name! Master has called me by my name! My lovely, beautiful name that he had so generously bestowed upon me," I heard her take in a deep gulp of air, and then I heard release it, a zesty fruity scent to her breath, and a passionate, tender whisper to her words. "And I just can\'t get enough of it ~ "

Finally, for a moment, she pried herself loose, and I lived to see another day.

Green. Glowing, glittering green, inches from my gaze. Her eyes, they looked… they looked like something that I\'d never seen before. 

Somehow they were more illustrious, mesmerizing, like there was something else beyond staring back at me, something peering through her emerald greens and they looked… 

Fiery.

"Now that I have you within reach, you will never, ever, ever, leave my arms again," She said, slurring, smiling, locking her arms around my neck. "In my embrace forever and ever, this vow, I promise you eternally. Till death do us part, as they say!"

"No, I don\'t think they do, actually…" I muttered, exchanging bewildered looks with the vampire-shaped spider clinging to my ceiling. "Better idea, how about we just put you to bed, and we can all pretend you just have a strange dream?"

Except it seemed Ash had other plans. I only had a fleeting second to see the helicopter spasm of her ears, the sleeve of her dress hanging loose slightly revealing... and then she buried herself underneath my chin, nuzzling, cooing, happy, and content.

"I miss this, I miss you! Oh, starved, longing, craving for your touch! For you to stroke my hair, to feel you lightly caress my cheek, your fingers intertwined in mine. Our lips grazing, your hot breath warm against mine… yearning for more, a little more… a kiss?"

She looked up at me, gazing with green eyes round and wide, and her voice growing faint and meek. 

"But we mustn\'t. Alas, we shouldn\'t. Master can afford no distraction. He must remain focused. I must support him in his endeavor. I mustn\'t falter nor lead his resolve astray. I must keep my desires in check, suppress it, even if… even if… oh, but I just love him so much!"

She pushed, I slipped - and we both lost our footing. With a loud crash, Ash sent us sprawled out over the floorboard. 

There was no pain, why would there be? Right then, adrenaline was pumping through my entire body. Natural instinct, fight or flight kicking in, thanks to this new and bizarre experience unfolding on top of me.

Ash, once again, a ditzy smile, and in complete serenity, snuggling and nuzzling all over my chest.

"Mmm, Master..." She murmured dreamily. "Perchance, may I request a serving of Frosted Flakes? You always serve them the best…"

What could I do? What could I say? This is as it is now. Nothing I can do about it.

Adalia seemed to share the same sentiment too. I don\'t know, kinda hard to read facial expressions when they\'re not even right side up, and you\'re suffering from a mild concussion, but she looked sympathetic enough, I guess.

Hopefully, there\'s a wiki page somewhere that states how long precisely do Elves stay drunk for.

In the meantime, however...

"Sure, Ash," I said, sighing, giving her a light pat on the head. "I\'ll get you fixed up right away...."