David was not in his shack. It was eerily quiet, looking almost abandoned by the time Becky came by to check on him just before dinner. She had always worried about the boy since he arrived; ever since Eli had promised her an option to leave The Promise Land. It had been her job at first, but as she came to understand the man beneath the creature, she had grown fond of David. A friend in a world of chaos. But as she approached the shack, she could tell he wasn't at home. After two knocks on the door, she knew it was true. Sighing, he looked away, off into the fields, wondering just where he could be. Then she heard it: the unmistakable sound of steel meeting earth. The sound of digging.

Quickly rounding the side of Mystica's shack, she came upon a rather strange scene. Behind the shack, there lay a small patch of tilled earth. The black of the clean dirt clearly contrasted the vibrant greens around it. The tall grass acted as a makeshift guardian for this patch of refined earth. David could be seen, his shirt carelessly tossed aside, odd patches of dirt dotting his ghostly white flesh as he tilled the soil with a small trowel. Hearing Becky's dainty steps, he looked up in time to see her step onto the dark soil.

"What are you doing?" she asked, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. David could only chuckle as he placed the trowel, handle first, into his waistband.

"Gardening," he replied with a smile as he went from a crouched position to standing. He carefully wiped his hands on his pants and shot her a quick glance of respect. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Well, I...I've never seen you outside...in the sun," she joked, stepping toward him. She was wearing a carefully-picked blue shirt and a pair of old jeans, tattered at the knees and distressed around the pockets. "I always figured you were some kind of vampire."

"Not precisely," David answered with a shrug. "Just English. Not much sun back where I come from. This complexion is downright normal back where I come from. The city. A city of vampires."

He gave a warm chuckle, wiping the sweat from his brow. Becky could only chuckle along and glance down at the work David had accomplished so far.

"Got any idea of what you're going to plant? It's a little late in the season to grow anything summer-y. Maybe some potatoes?"

"I'm not Irish," Mystica snickered, rolling his eyes playfully. "No, I was thinking of relocating some flowers I found at the edge of the woods. Elisha only seems to eat the animals around here. Figured I'd uh...balance that. Be the flora aficionado to his fauna fixation."

"Flowers?" asked Becky. "Doesn't that seem a little...un-masculine for someone of your...tastes?"

"I'm not a cannibal, dear," Mystica muttered, still smiling. "No, I was uh...thinking sunflowers."

"Why sunflowers?"

"Well...sunflowers. Something magical about them. I was out in the pastures, just looking around at things. Met some nice people working out there. I saw how hard they work and I...I guess I felt a little inadequate with how I've been operating around here. All these kind folk toil away all day and I just sit in that shack and write about weird things and argue with myself. I thought it'd be time to make myself useful. So I saw the sunflowers and..."

"And what? Fell in love with the yellow?" Becky laughed.

"No, I remembered something I learned a few years ago. See, sunflowers. They have that name for a reason. Soak up the sun, yeh? But they have purposes other than just soaking up light. Their roots are vital. They suck up toxins. They purify the earth. That's what this whole place is about. Purification."

"Are you going to purify the Brotherhood?"

"In a manner of speaking. Their fate is in my hands at the moment. But when I beat them, they belong to Eli. They'll be the creepy uncle in the family."

Becky winced at the term creepy uncle, folding her arms over herself like a protective set of armour. David had clearly found a chink in her armour. She felt something. A hurt. He quickly rushed to her side to place a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry," he apologized, patting her back. "Poor choice of words. But do you see what I'm getting at?"

"About Duke and McAllister?"

"No, no! About the sunflowers! Purification! See, sunflowers have this ability to suck up bad things in the soil. They purify the earth. Did you know they have symbolic meaning in certain circles? They're the international sign of nuclear disarmament. They can suck up nuclear materials and store them in the stems and leaves. They stop evil things man has created. Don't you see, luv? It's all symbolic. These flowers...they're metaphoric. They stand for something beautiful."

"Beautiful..." Becky echoed, thinking about it for a moment. There was a brief pause in the conversation as Becky pondered David's words. Meanwhile, David returned to tilling the soil, finally making a perfect square of dirt in the land. He stood, placing his hands on his hips in a sign of victory. Then, his posture weakened as his knees began to shake. Another memory. He turned slowly to Becky, his eyes now appearing incredibly tired. But there was still that deep tinge of blue that seemed to look right through her; into the very essence of her being.

"Becky, do you know everyone here? Their names or anything?"

"Hm...uh, most people, I guess. Why?"

"When I was up there at the pulpit yesterday, I saw someone in the crowd. She sort of...drew my eye, I guess. Not sure how to put it."

"Bad urges," Becky warned, shaking her finger in a means of saying this might be a bad idea. But David had a rebuttal.

"No, not bad urges. Pure urges. Something I haven't felt since...since the wilds. Since that event in the tundra. I...there's this girl. Red hair, freckles all across her nose. These engaging green eyes. You must know her."

Becky sighed, moving her head from side to side as she pondered his words. Yes, someone came to mind.

"Yes, I know her. Nice girl. Eli encountered her and her sister out somewhere in the north. Maine, maybe? I don't really know. I mean, I know who she is, but...her origin is...murky at best."

"Becky, I think I'm enamored with her," David managed to choke out, awkwardly placing his hands over his face in a sense of shame and embarrassment with his own thoughts.

"Enamored?" Becky replied, sounding a bit shocked. She had never expected David to be much of a people person, let alone to be attracted to someone.

"Not like the Eric Rex...Elisha incident," Mystica quickly shot back, correcting himself mid-sentence. "I'm...fascinated by her. There's this aura about her. Something beautiful. Like a face that could launch a thousand ships. A soul that could soothe the minds of a thousand poets. Something...I cannot imagine."

"Oh..." Becky said, freezing in place. She bit her lip, not sure how to handle the situation. "Like...this is uh...different, yes...than the Elisha...incident...you seem to have more pure intentions."

"Pure, if that's the word for it," David sighed, grabbing the loose, ghostly-white skin on his chest. "My chest hurts. My head is swimming."

"Oh, you silly thing!" Becky blurted out, placing her hands on his shoulders. "You're in love, idiot!"

"Love..." David replied, copying her words. The very idea swam around in his head, doggy-paddling amidst the logical progression he usually followed. But there was no logic to this. Pure wisdom would not cure him of this ill. "Perhaps this is something I should discuss with Eli."

"I'm sure he'd have nothing negative to say about it, as long as it's pure."

"You keep saying pure. Why do you say it's pure?"

"Because of the way you said it. You talked about something you can't define. Something...what was it...that you couldn't imagine? That's a lot different than what I was thinking you were considering. You don't just want her for her appearances. You saw something deeper. That's...heck, poetic."

"Yeah, me, a poet."

"You're something like that," Becky grinned, patting David on his shoulder, much as he had done to her moments earlier. "Come on. Talk about it with Eli. I'm sure he'll understand."

"It's silly. Petty. Nothing he'd care about."

"David...

I think you'll find Eli would be very interested in your predicament of the heart."

Achievements

• 1x Tag Team Champion
  
• August 2013 Superstar of the Month (Thank you all so much!)
  
• 1x US Champion
  
• 1x X-treme Champion