Nope. It's not really here, you're seeing things. You are, I'm not kidding.

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True Love's Meeting

The hallway was dark; smoky and flickering light from intermittent torches providing the only light. Sounds of battle echoed off the walls, clangs, growls and grunts carrying through the stone bowels of the Dark Fortress.

Ongaar stepped backwards into another flickering pool of light as he dodged a swing from the monster in front of him. The monster, off balance, stumbled forward into the light as well, the fire briefly illuminating its dark green and slimy skin.

Ongaar's sword swept through the air and in a spray of bright green blood severed the monster's arm from its body. Hissing, it started to fall backwards, only to be shoved forward and onto Ongaar's sword by the weight of the monsters behind. Ongaar jumped over a low-swung blade from his right and landed a step or two closer to the wall. A claw scratched at his leg, but the warrior swung his sword down with ease and chopped the claw off at what passed for an elbow.

Another monster stepped onto the back of that one, swinging its rudimentary club towards Ongaar's head. Ongaar swung his own weapon up to meet it, neatly slicing the club in half. A kick sent the monster crashing into those behind it, allowing Ongaar a moment to look behind him and judge how far he still was from the next passage entry.

It wasn't far, although the faint sounds of more monsters coming from farther down the hallway made Ongaar faintly worried that he wouldn't be able to retreat fast enough to reach the side entrance before reinforcements arrived behind him.

Retreating another slow step back and towards the wall, Ongaar faced his numerous foes as they finished sorting themselves out. Hacking at wings, claws, heads, torsos and other body parts too strange to name, Ongaar fended off the horrors that were attacking him as he slowly gave ground and moved towards the passage in the wall behind him.

The sounds grew louder behind him, although they did so slower than Ongaar had expected. There was something unusual about the noises as well, and Ongaar wished he had a moment of clear thought to sort out what it was as he tossed a knife into the crowd of monsters with his left hand, while cutting through the neck of the beast in front of him with the sword in his right hand. The beasts behind stumbled and Ongaar stepped back once again, cold rock brushing against the bare skin of his shoulder.

It left him too close to the wall too soon, but before he could step into clearer space, that space was filled in with new monsters, pressing around him on three sides now, and cutting off his carefully planned retreat towards the side passage.

Cursing, Ongaar attacked again with a renewed fury, hacking and slashing as best he could with his back to the wall, unable to dodge as nimbly as he was used to.

A swing was deflected by one of the monsters' swords, missing its target but imbedding in the fleshy side of a beast instead. Ongaar drew his last knife to stop the killing stroke aimed at his head as he struggled briefly to get his sword out of the body in front of him.

It pulled free with another spray of the eerie green blood, soaking Ongaar and leaving his simple loincloth stained an unnatural color.

Ongaar cursed again and wiped the blood out of his eyes. While he'd been temporarily blinded the number of monsters had nearly doubled, their calls and shouts nearly deafening in the close hallway. Slipping a step to his left in hopes that he could still make it to the side tunnel, Ongaar brought a blood-covered finger up to his lips and licked the blood of his enemies off of it.

It tasted horrible. Like blood and metal and feces and fear. But Ongaar could feel his heart speed up, and the world around him slow down until time was oozing like blood, and all Ongaar could see was the enemies in front of him.

Launching himself from the wall, Ongaar dove into the fray, hacking at anything that moved, dodging weapons in a way that nothing human should be able to do.

Eyes solidly black spouted green fountains as Ongaar hacked at green scales and brown feathers and silvery claws. Thunk and squish and grunt were all that the berserker heard, until suddenly there was a clang instead.

They stood still for a frozen moment as Ongaar's eyes and mind cleared enough to recognize the being in front of him as not-enemy, large brown and white and human eyes looking back at him and faintly narrowed.

With a grunt Ongaar pulled his sword away, turning his back on this unexpected ally, and they both faced their enemies for a moment.

That was when the floor collapsed.

Briefly stunned by the fall to the next level, Ongaar rubbed a hand on his forehead as the last of the berserker rage left him and his mind cleared enough to take in the surroundings.

They were in a cage. The floor hadn't fallen in so much as it had opened, and Ongaar and the stranger were left trapped in a metal-barred box, the ceiling far above, and a few of their enemy's corpses still littering the ground around them.

Studying the stranger, Ongaar found himself in turn being studied by those brown eyes.

"Ongaar," he grunted.

"Kismet," the stranger said nodding as he stood up from the floor and settled his blue robes about himself. He picked up his sword, wiped it on a rag and sheathed it at his belt.

Ongaar followed suit, standing up and looking around the room which now housed their cage. It was large but dark, and Ongaar's eyes kept being pulled back to the stranger who was sharing this strange fate with him.

Long dark hair speckled green with drying blood, limbs long and lithe under freely flowing robes. Lips thin but red, and tasting of blood from a cut lip. Tongue warm and supple, slippery as it slid next to Ongaar's own.

Kismet's hands grasped at the muscles of Ongaar's side and chest, seeking purchase but sliding along through the monster blood.

Light suddenly flooded the room, along with maniacal laughter that was suddenly strangled. "What is this?" A dark voice demanded, its tone clearly offended.

The Dark Lord stood in front of his throne, his arms dangling in the air where he'd clearly been surprised halfway through a dramatic gesture. Not that either of his mortal enemies noticed, both too involved in what they were doing to see the Dark Lord's actions—dramatic or stupid.

"What is this?" the Dark Lord demanded again, dropping his hands to his sides and clenching them into fists.

In the cage, Ongaar pulled back from Kismet's mouth enough to nip at his neck. "Where have you been all my life?" he gasped, pressing closer and closer until they fell back against the bars of the cage.

"Looking for you," Kismet replied, hands finally settling on Ongaar's buttocks and pulling those yet closer.

On his dais, the Dark Lord ground his teeth in frustration and gestured for one of his four body-guards to approach the cage, spear out and ready to poke or stab the unsuspecting prisoners.

Ongaar fumbled his way into Kismet's robes, pulling the opening wide as he touched as much skin as he could. Pulling a knife out of a hidden sheath on the man's back, Ongaar switched it into his other hand and threw it into the eye of the approaching guard.

He took half an instant to make sure the knife had hit its mark, and then returned to ravaging Kismet's lips, their hips thrusting together almost frantically.

Ongaar threw his head back to make a throaty groan as Kismet found the strap that would release his loincloth, that scrap of fabric falling to the floor. Kismet merely leaned forward and bit Ongaar's neck, licking at the sore spot for an instant before stopping to spit out the green blood of the slain that covered nearly all of Ongaar's skin.

The room grew strangely dark. Strangely because the dais remained lit, growing brighter as the darkness filling the rest of the room grew darker. The Dark Lord spat out spidery syllables and purple light began glowing around his hands.

"I will not be ignored!" the Dark Lord shouted as he finished his spell and drew back his hands to let the light fly at the distracted heroes.

In their metal prison, the two warriors were thrusting together with more and more urgency as they felt the end building inside of them.

As the purple light flew towards them, Ongaar felt his moment of release, moaning, "I love you," as he came.

Those words were the last straw for Kismet as well, and he tumbled over the edge with his own declaration of love at the moment the purple light engulfed the cage.

Power, previously dormant but now realized and released, sprung up around the two heroes and reflected the purple light back at its caster. The Dark Lord disappeared in a scream and a cloud of purple smoke.

"I didn't realize that this is what they meant when they said I would find my destiny here," Ongaar mumbled into Kismet's neck, his tongue licking sweat and blood off of his newly-found true-love's skin.

"Nor did I," Kismet replied, eyes staring blankly into the near-darkness as the first dying keen of the monsters began, their death following that of the mage that kept them alive. "But it is not something that I would deny."

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Fin.
BTW: If you're not laughing (or chuckling, or snickering inwardsly) that's probably because the joke is on you.

:insert usual pleas for reviews:

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A/N that most of you won't care about:

I had little to no time to write this winter (there was a rabbit! and an ipod! and the flu! and abnormally long books! and- and- and...), so I didn't...get anything written.

Before the winter I was working on the rewrite of Captain Skyler, which I'm planning to continue working on during my illusive 'spare time'...but I'm not planning to post it here (at least not until it's done). I also wrote this and another short story, but the other wants to be a bit longer than it is, and I started on that (about half-an-hour before the flu struck), but did not get very far (see 'flu,' above), so I don't know when (or if) you'll ever see that.

But rest assured that I've not (entirely) forgotten you! If I ever have free time again I shall return! Just...don't hold your breath.

In the meantime, you can follow the link on my profile to my LJ and receive exciting news about my rabbit and (lack of) progress on my writing.