the dryad / .

Asher looked at the other, reading the expression on his twin's face. They were never good at hiding it. "Don't tell me you've had contact with mom and dad, wherever the hell they are. Are they still alive? Druids are fucking annoying to get rid of." They didn't die, for centuries, then they just came back. "Don't look at me like that, I haven't talked to them since I got turned. I have no soul, remember?"

"Of course I have," words stated with ease, for Nikolai had nothing to hide from his brother. "Once my memories started to come back, I reached out to them. Yes, they're still alive. They're doing good, too." Though, he doubted Asher would care for the last comment. "I won't condone what they did, but they are still our parents, Ash."

"One of the keepers are a good place to start, maybe Eren or Esme or something." He'd heard the former might be able to help with that sort of stuff but the other seemed to know a lot about everything related to the druids. "They're your memories, though," Atlas said with a shrug; he was pretty sure if it was him and it was something painful, he'd prefer to leave it behind. Life didn't always give you that opportunity, so when it did, it felt like it was worth taking it. "you don't have to get them back if you're fine without."

Eren or Esme; Niko would have to commit those names to memory. If he did decide to work towards retrieving his lost memories. A part of him knew that he needed them, to understand who he was; but another part of him worried over what would come up. Konstantin had not seemed worried when Niko had returned, nor had Asher when they'd crossed paths. A life with one brother was partially remembered, while the other was not; yet neither seemed put off by his sudden return to being... well, human, in a sense. "But what if I'm not myself without them? What if I'm missing something by not having them back?"

"Human? Yeah, yeah." Alek was inadvertently getting more and more information about the family tree than he wanted to hear about. He remembered something about an Asher, an uncle or grandpa or great something. That made Niko his- fuck it was happening again. "Damn man, you're making my head hurt. Did you know I just had brain surgery, you're gonna send me back to the doctors again."

How intriguing, that another human should be born within their family. Though, Niko supposed that it wouldn't be unheard of. Given how many generations it now spanned. Well, he actually wasn't certain how many there were now. "You --- you had brain surgery?" That had not been common before his curse, nor even successful. So there was a tad more concern in his voice than perhaps should have been. "And you're fine?" Though he supposed Alek standing before him, talking normally should have been all the answer he needed.

Because a century-long curse was just a bad experience. This guy was... Pretty, definitely pretty. "Well bless your heart." Atlas said as he tried to be as authentic as possible for Niko's benefit. "Did you want to remember?" That was maybe an important piece of the puzzle, Keepers worked with memories all the time, the good ones anyways. Though Atlas wasn't sure about letting any of them root around in his head, sometimes he thought the archdruids, except for Octavian, didn't know what they were doing.

The tables were starting to turn, Asher feeling more and more like a shitty brother. Niko had showed up anyway, ready to talk about it all, and Asher had bared his teeth. Now, though, he looked down at his hands, drumming his fingers against the drink in his hand, "Well we're here now, yeah? And you're the only family I have left in this place. And I'm not dyin, and you'll always reincarnate, so....I guess you're stuck with me, yeah?" His hatred for druids had only waned slightly, but not too much – Niko was helping him along.

Only family; it was comical, given that they indeed had other family within the city of Rome. But it seemed Asher had no intention of meeting them, or even acknowledging them. That was fine by Niko, for he'd do the task for the both of them. "Of course I'm stuck with you, I've always been. You're my twin, remember?" He offered as a soft grin slipped onto his lips. Stuck had always been the wrong word, but he'd play along with it this time.

“Yeah, we are dating,” Zoey tells him brightly, squashing down the little voice in the back of her head wondering if the fact that Mushroom-tree boy doesn’t know about her means Kon doesn’t want to introduce her to his family. The voice is still enough for her to frown briefly and tilt her head in consideration. “Well, I think we are dating. We are definitely doing couple-y things but we have never actually defined anything, you know?”

That had... been a lot to take in. Dating, but perhaps not dating. Doing couple like things, yet it remained undefined. Niko hadn't understood much of what had been told to him, though that may have been due to his lack of familiarity with Konstantin. "Well, if you are dating, then I'm happy for the both of you," that seemed like the right thing to say, right? If they were doing couple-y things, then surely that meant his brother was happy. Perhaps he'd need to find him and bring it up.

Delight bubbles as the keep continues for far longer than any of the previous ones and Davheira finds himself smiling against Nikolai's lips, a fond twist to his features as he sinks into the kiss. He is willing to keep still, to stop and allow for the druid to push the flow of their kisses, altogether too satisfied about getting to feel his lips against his to push him beyond what he is comfortable doing. The high elf doesn't expect anything than the slow all encompassing kisses, but a gasp escapes him as Niko moves.

That persistent feeling of uncertain itched along his skin, of whether he was doing this right or not. Whether this was what Davheira wanted or not. There hadn't been much time to explore anything when he had been younger, to know what he liked or didn't before he'd been sent off to the Pyramid. Before he'd found himself within a curse that hadn't let him out of its grasp until recently. Everything he did now was new, was different in the sense that he was testing the waters for seemingly the first time. And Niko worried that everything he did was a misstep.

"Please stop talking." Alek had just had brain surgery, again, he couldn't handle all these greats and what had to be the most convoluted family tree anyone had ever heard of. This guy had a twin too? It just felt this list was getting bigger and bigger "Bitten, why, do you have another family member that's a lycan that nobody ever told me about?"

"Do you still like helping people after the trouble it landed you in last time?" That felt highly relatable, unsolicited advice was kind of a running theme among the druids. "You don't remember? That's wild." That was probably something the druid should know, but maybe not knowing was part of the curse. Seemed like something they'd want Niko to remember but Atlas was kind of getting the impression that the druid's head was more in the clouds than anywhere else.

"Fuck me man." Alek moved to scratch at the back of his head, first Rowan, now this guy too. "Yeah, we're a dime a dozen. My brother mentioned something about you and-" he shrugged, if anyone had a breeding kink it had to be the archdruid who just threw his load all over the place. "I don't know, sounded like a bunch of people. You have any siblings I should know about? Extended cousins? Uncles? Aunts? Sisters once removed?"

There was a mild case of shock, confusion, given that Niko had not been alive for that long in this life. Though, he supposed that being cursed to a hundred years as a tree would warp that sense of time. He wouldn't have known how many generations had followed after his youngest brother. It would be an interesting, albeit confusing thought, with all things considered. "I have two siblings, brothers. I guess one would be your great, great... well, you might know better than me how many, grandfather. The other is my twin, Asher. He's in town, but is a little more... apprehensive about the family tree." Well, apprehensive might not be the best term for it, but Niko wouldn't want to get into all that at the moment. "So, you're a lycan? Born, or were you bitten?"

Davheira gets no definition, not framework to follow from his druid. What he gets instead is a gift that he takes greedily, nearly desperately. The feeling of Niko's lips against his is not quite victory, not yet, but it is closer than he has felt it for months. It's a confirmation that he had not lost his druid, that despite the confusion and the barriers between what it had been and what it is and what he wants it to be, this is more than he had expected after the war. More than he had hoped for, stuck on his restless unmoving daydream.

Thoughts slipped into his mind in the form of doubts, of whether this was what he should be doing. There was still so much that Niko didn't remember, that he didn't understand about what the pair of them meant to each other. Perhaps he had been missing something. Or perhaps there was something so glaringly obvious that he should have known before he had so hungrily attacked Davhy. It were those thoughts that he tampered down, that he shoved to the far recesses of his mind so that this moment was not ruined. So that he did not pull back, nor create even more doubt within the mind of the other.

They hadn't been able to finish their talk and the war had seperated them to a point that had ended with the worst type of loss. Aren had known the loss of children in many lifetimes but it never got any less difficult to bare. He'd taken Nikolai's body along with the rest of his family to Prometheus' graveyard and he remembered that. The majority of his memories of the useless, agonizing 5 years Aren permitted to fade away, but not what was important to remember. Finally gathering the courage to come up to Nikolai again after losing him, the Archdruid didn't expect to hear what he did.

Memories were important to druids. They were the foundation of the lives previously lived, of the traits that were special to each of them. And so many found themselves connected in various ways to those around them. Druids, and other species alike. It was precisely why Niko had been struggling to retrieve his for so long. Pushing himself harder to catch upon the fleeting memories as they slipped by, to draw them out so that he could understand who he had been. And who had made an impact upon the lives that he had lived.