Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle.
The low hiss of shifting grass snaps Rukiyo out of her thoughts.
She had almost forgotten about the elf and hearing his footsteps against the grass reminded her of his presence.
A quick glance back revealed that he had decided to move closer, with his head tilted to study her more intently, his golden eyes glinting under the sunlight, and the Rukiyo tensed at his attention, suddenly self-conscious.
The bat wings behind her folded unconsciously. awkwardly and shyly.
She squared her shoulders, meeting his gaze with furrowed eyebrows. "Are you going to explain what the hell is going on? Or at least tell me where we are?"
She made sure to make her voice sound even and level, to let the elf know that she won't take shit for an answer, but the elf didn't answer and just kept approaching, slowly and deliberately, just quietly crawling towards her.
Rukiyo swallowed, her hand raising and freezing in the air, ready to shove him away again if he dared try to do something.
Well, that was until his lips brushed against hers.
She froze, not processing what was happening right away, but then warmth spread across her face and she jerked back like she had been burned by the simple touch.
"What the fuck?!" Rukiyo hissed, her voice cracking from sheer shock as she wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "Have you lost your mind?! Don't you know that this is considered as sexual harassment?!"
The elf merely blinked at her reaction, golden eyes unreadable as ever.
He tilted his head slightly while a flicker of annoyance crossed his handsome features and the elf, or whatever he is, moved in closer again, pinning Rukiyo with his cold gaze.
She quickly backed into the tall grasses because he seemed so much more imposing now and it's scaring her because as far as she's concerned, the two of them are alone, in a forest. Who knows what kind of sicko he is? What if he does something to her? Or worse, what if he murder her in cold blood?
"You're not Ryukiyo.. Are you?"
But those thoughts were thrown out when the question left his lips, enunciating each word slowly with a crawl forward.
Rukiyo froze in her spot and retired the elf's gaze and she could see that he was studying her face like he's searching for something specific. Well, who is Ryukiyo anyway? The name doesn't ring a bell.
So, Rukiyo delved deeply into her memories and searched down the memory lane about a person named Ryukiyo.
Ryukiyo.. Ryukiyo.. Ryukiyo.. Wait, what..?
Ryukiyo.
The name sounds familiar, almost as if..
Rukiyo's brain scrambles to understand, memories flickering like old photographs because the only Ryukiyo she knows is.. The antagonist in her old book, the character she had written for months during her high school days.
No way. That's impossible. Rukiyo thought as her mouth opened and closed like a fish's; her mind raced with the impossibility of the situation.
Is this some kind of sick dream? Or did she actually get sucked into her own fictional universe, like the ones she used to read when she still had a lot of time in her hands? That can't be.. Right?
No.. She thought, her heart skipping a beat when realization set in and slammed into her like a freight train.
Her fingers dug into the dirt beneath her when fragmented memories rushed back— a half-finished manuscript on her desk, coffee stains on pages where she had scribbled a messy sentence.
"Ryukiyo had always loved human, demon, and elf sacrifices alike. She never starved, but she ate these three races without discrimination."
Anxiety coiled in Rukiyo's chest, tight and painful.
She wanted to bolt, to run somewhere safe, to hide until she figured this out because she had read enough fantasy novels to know that this kind of setting never ends well.
To make the matters worse, her brain decided to flash back to the half-written manuscript on her first ever second-hand laptop.
She gave the antagonistic character a similar name to her because at the time, she thought that being strong and being scary is cool.. So, she decided to write an antagonistic character who bore the name as almost as hers, but when she graduated high school and outgrew that phase, she had been cringing so hard since then.
The name, the setting, the characters of her book— she wondered how her high school young self could ever write something like that without cringing.
It felt too cliché and now that she's in this strange world..
Rukiyo shook her head, hoping that it would shake off everything like a damn dream and well, she's also hoping that she could shake off whatever's happening.
"I must be dreaming.." She mumbled, cradling her aching head into her hand.
She has joked about falling into novels and meeting her own soulmate among the characters a couple of times before, but she didn't know that it would actually happen!
Yeah, right.
A hysterical laugh escaped Rukiyo's lips and it sounded shrill, almost crazed.
"This could never happen!" She exclaimed and laughed so hard, clinging to the thought that this was nothing, but a mere dream and she clung to it like a lifeline, refusing to let her mind drift any closer to the bizarre, terrifying truth.
"Right, right." She huffed out, her lips twitching into a forced smile. "That's right— this is totally a dream!"
Rukiyo laughed again, the sound echoing around the clearing like a broken record as she looked up to the elf, eyes wide and pleading, looking so desperate and the elf merely sat still, staring at her as she lost her mind.
"I'll wake up soon, right?" She asked him, not even caring if he was too close for comfort.
How can she care about that anyway? From what the elf said so far, it seemed like she had woken up as one of her poorly written characters! But wait— it's not just any poorly written character!
It was Ryukiyo! The only black dragon that is currently alive and has started gathering beauties from the elven race!
Why? Well, that's because her bloodline ended with her.
Two or three black dragons should exist together in millennia, but for the past two hundred years, no black dragon, or any dragon for that matter, had graced the human realm.
It was the reason why humans had started offering elves, humans, and demons alike to her.
She's the only black dragon walking in the human realm, which made her more special than the other dragons that are currently walking, breathing, and living in the realm.
Not to mention, Ryukiyo doesn't only have one elf offering that she turned into her mate..
She has ten! Ten fucking elves as her husbands! Rukiyo screamed in her mind and was shaking in anxiety, her heart beating rapidly.
Don't get her wrong though.
It's not like she doesn't want them— who in their right mind would reject ten fine specimens anyway? The reason why she's so anxious at the thought of those ten elven husbands was because Ryukiyo had forced herself on them.
She's.. She's a goddamn sex offender!