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Hey there, furballs! Welcome to Fae's Christmas Music-Themed Special 2011! That's right! Another year, another five stories wrapped about five pieces of music that I'm particularly fond of.

Here's the fourth of your five stories for the Christmas Special! Keep tuned; there's still the grand finale for Cameron and Ryan's tale to go!

• Ol' Saint Fae

Flame Trees

If Nardrossia hadn't been reduced to a glassed, cannon-slagged hunk of rock in the sky, Ken Basal would have made his annual pilgrimage to its surface. If Nardrossia hadn't been blasted into oblivion by the same militarized government that had sent good people to die for hopeless causes, the white-furred tiger wouldn't have needed to so bitterly look at the remains outside his starfighter's canopy.

"You don't have to go alone again." Those had been the worlds of his boss and friend. The red dragoness had been sincere in her offer to accompany him. "Ivar can look after the Nest," she'd said. "Carla's picking up the new recruits in a few days and I'm stuck doing fuck and all. Often at the same damn time."

Ken had turned her down, of course. The tiger's feline eyes roamed over the remains of the once-pristine world below. "I promised it this way," he'd told the dragoness. "I'm keeping my promise. He was your friend too, Sol, but... you know."

He'd personally delivered the message to the Flint family, years earlier. He'd caught them first when Nardrossia was still a sight to behold, an emerald in space. He'd seen the home that the young kangaroo he'd known had grown up in. He'd met the parents that had shaped the male he'd come to trust with his life. He'd been the one to tell them that their son - his lover - was dead. "Damian deserved better," was the line Ken had used. And Sol knew it too. It was why she let Ken make that trip.

The second trip had brought Ken to the Nardrossian Memorial Station. It orbited the slagged ball of Nardrossia calmly, in silent witness to the travels of the planetary corpse. The station was a place of mourning for many, and it was a home for the kangaroos of the Avanguard in place of what they'd lost. And while many had gravitated towards whatever could be salvaged of their homeworld, many more had chosen to stay away. The Flint family had never moved away. They had chosen to stay close. They had chosen to look out over the ruins of their homeworld every day.

"To remind us who to be angry with," Damian's mother had told Ken on more than one occasion.

"Unidentified starfighter, this is MemStation Control," crackled a stern female voice from Ken's comm console. "Transmit identity and state the purpose of your approach."

Ken just rolled his eyes as he aligned his ship with the main hangar. "Memorial Station, code 129-J8F-8AW. Process, please." It was so much easier to slice into the Avanguard military network in advance of his visits to give himself clearance. Telling them that he was a star pirate for one of the most notorious bosses in the region just didn't open the doors it used to.

It took a few seconds, but eventually the comm unit lit back up again. "Identity confirmed. Welcome back to Nardrossia, Commander. Will you need any assistance from our staff on your visit to the station?"

"I'll need all security details kept away from my position at all times." Ken hoped the little, satisfied smile on his muzzle didn't show through. "Additionally, I would like my jump drive refuelled and absolutely nothing else seen to, if you don't mind. I trust your mechanics will take care with this ship. High Command and Military Intelligence will come down hard on you if anything is out of place, and everything except the refuelling mechanisms will be protected by a potentially lethal security system. Do inform your people to be careful."

"I... can assure you, Commander, than no one will lay a finger on your ship," came a rushed reply from Control. It wasn't hard to imagine the thoughts that were running through the female's mind. Avanguard military technology was a closely guarded secret. The modifications Ken had made to the stolen, prototype Talon stealth starfighter only made it that much more unique. That anyone else couldn't fly it wasn't the problem. That a nosey or entrepreneurial mechanic might run off with a piece of the drive diffusion system was. "Bay three, Commander. Slot fourteen is yours, and fuel will be waiting. Enjoy your stay.

Coordinates lit up on the navigational systems of the fighter, and Ken guided the craft in towards the indicated hangar. Nardrossia had once maintained independence from the Avanguard's control through its trade routes. The Memorial Station retained them, but the Avanguard maintained a strong presence both in-system and on-station. The hardest way to avoid trouble with them was to forge an identity that they would accept. It was also the best way, if it could be pulled off.

The mechanics and pilots scattered across the hangar bay as Ken's fighter roared in through the magnetic containment field. The three wing-like assemblies that protruded from the sides and top of the fighter's fuselage hummed as the ship's manoeuvring thrusters stalled out its forward momentum, and the tiger rolled the Talon to the side to point himself right back out at the inky black of open space. Dust kicked up beneath and behind the starfighter as he set the craft down, and the Talon's signature forward-swung wings folded back in on themselves as Ken powered the ship down.

The cockpit popped open, and the tiger didn't even bother with the ladder rungs that emerged from the side of the fighter. He just dropped down to the deck in a crouch, white fur contrasted well with the black of his flight suit. Blue eyes tracked around the hangar, and a gloved paw came to rest on the holstered, military-grade repeater pistol strapped to his side. A couple mechanics who looked like they'd been about to protest his harsh landing quickly found their gaze drawn to that blaster, and their muzzles jammed up quickly.

Ken allowed himself a moment to check the hangar itself. No one else seemed to care too much about his presence there just yet, but he wasn't about to take chances with his baby. Without turning back to the Talon, the tiger pressed a couple fingers to the belt his blaster was strapped to. Red light glowed around those fingers for a second, before the belt beeped at him. Ken nodded once and headed towards the hangar's exit, paw still at rest on his blaster. Nardrossia wasn't exactly Weregar Minor. That didn't mean Ken wanted to take any chances. Good thing, too; the tiger only made it a couple steps before the electrified hull of his ship shocked some poor person who'd tried to touch it.

The curses of said person vanished behind Ken as he stepped out of the hangar and into the station proper. He simply strode right through the customs checks. No one on-staff was going to give an Avanguard Commander anything but a wide berth. Instead he turned his attention to his memory, as the feline wound his way through the station's corridors.

Damian had been good. A jokester, but not a prankster. Fun, but not obnoxiously so. He'd hated the Avanguard too, but not so much it would have jeopardized his chance to fly. Wealthy parents could have given Damian and each of his six siblings anything that they desired. Damian had just wanted to fly. And Ken could remember just how well he flew.

Oh, there were better pilots. He'd regularly topped the kangaroo on the score charts... and, well... elsewhere too. Sol and Carla were equally far ahead of Damian, too. The three of them were great, but that didn't diminish how good Damian had been. Ken's teeth ground together, and he didn't realize he had begun to growl until others began to stare. It was just a shame that 'good' wasn't good enough for the Avanguard. It was just a shame that good pilots didn't usually survive the graduation process. It was just a shame that Damian had been sent in an obsolete fighter with no ejection system against a small, capital-grade warship. It was a shame that only the great and the lucky survived.

While there were a handful of other species around - he spotted a couple other tigers, and the odd wolf milling about the port section of the station - the overwhelming sight was that of a horde of kangaroos. They moved about their business, almost innumerable. Each one had a story. Each one had a life to live. Ken's brow furrowed as he all but stormed his way through the throng of people. Each had what Damian no longer did.

The feline paused in his steps for a moment. He stood, surrounded on all sides by the survivors of the Nardrossia siege, and closed his eyes. Ken couldn't allow himself to think like that. He knew better. He knew what it did to people. It was the kind of thinking that had turned him into a mercenary after his father's murder, following in daddy's pawsteps. It was the kind of thinking that put his spec-ops skills to use, taking lives to fill the void left by what he'd lost. It was the kind of thinking that turned the ordinarily warm tiger into a cold killing machine.

Ken let his thoughts wander instead. Memories drifted into his mind, played out like a holofilm behind shut eyelids. When he'd first met Damian, he'd been a screw-up in a class of screw-ups. Damian had tried to make excuses for why he'd been shot down in the simulator program that the group had been running, and the asshole commander in charge of them hadn't bought it. When the simulation's squadron leader had backchatted the commander, it'd given a few of them the chance to talk and compare notes. It'd been the start of an enduring friendship. Tiger, kangaroo, vixen, dragoness.

The memories flowed on. Later simulation. He'd flown on the roo's wing, kept his backside covered as the squadron ran a virtual mission against a pirate nest. Reprimanded by the commander for fraternization talk on open comms during the mission. More backchatting from Sol had earned the dragoness another backhand across the face, but it'd deflected enough attention from Ken and Damian to get them off the hook. They'd taken the chance to nip off to the commissary early. First date, of sorts.

Even as the anger and frustration boiled off Ken, his muzzle curled into a slight smile. Military rations and a crowded mess didn't make the most intimate or appealing of dates, but the company had more than made up for it. It was there that Damian had explained that he'd run away from his family in the hopes of becoming a pilot and seeing some real excitement in the galaxy. He'd told Ken that the most exciting thing so far had been meeting the tiger. Ken had, for the first time in years, blushed. After all, was was that little roo - barely out of his teens - doing flirting with someone ten years his senior? Was he trying to get himself in trouble?

Trouble was one thing that they always seemed to avoid, though. Ken's smile grew wider as he remembered their little meetings, the secret rendezvous. Damian would convince others in the makeshift training squadron to take over their duties for short periods, and Ken would hack the security feeds to keep them out of sight. They explored every inch of the base, as if they were a pair of cubs on holiday. And whenever they found a secluded spot, they...

Ken's eyes snapped open as he quickly hunched forward slightly. A quick glance around didn't show anyone nearby had noticed the tenting in his pants. Flight outfits weren't good at concealing that sort of thing, after all. The tiger took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself, but found himself unable to stop the diverted blood-flow of his body. He muttered a curse as he glanced for the most shadowy corner he could find, and began to hurriedly move towards it. Underneath the frustration lurked a hint of amusement. Even years after he was gone, Damian could still get him hard.

Once tucked away in a small side corridor, Ken allowed himself to straighten up with a sigh. No way was going back out there in the crowds right then. He wouldn't even need his paws to point himself in the right direction. The tiger leaned in against a wall and let his forehead touch the cool metal as he heaved another sigh. He wasn't going anywhere for the moment.

And as frustrating as it was, the images and thoughts and memories that flitted through Ken's mind didn't want to shut themselves off. The quiet giggle of the roo as he'd wriggled in close against Ken's side, the way his paws had been larger than most but twice as gentle, the way Damian loved to curl his tongue when he-

"Stop it," Ken growled at himself, as he pushed his forehead harder against the wall. A little spark of pain flashed through the tiger's head for a moment, but it faded quickly. It didn't stop the cascade of memories, and it didn't stop the way the affected him. His body reacted to the thoughts the way they always would, and the sense of loss that flooded through Ken's body only made it feel that much more bittersweet.

There was no escaping the memories. The whole station reeked of kangaroo. There were barely any other roos in the galaxy anymore; so many stuck to their own little enclaves. But with so many in a tight space and so few other people to dilute their scent, it was almost overpowering. It kept the memories anchored. It kept the images and remembered feelings flowing. It just reminded Ken that much more strongly of Damian. It was almost like he could smell his old lover in the collective musk of a thousand bodies.

Again and again, Ken thudded his head against the wall. Metal refused to yield, and the memories followed suit. They mingled with the new sensations that tingled in the tiger's sheath. Ken felt his tip begin to poke out and rub against the fabric of his pants, and the tiger hissed quietly to himself. That wasn't going away. No matter what he might want, it wasn't going to just vanish into thin air and leave him alone. He had to do something about it.

Unfortunately, there were so many beings crowded around the area outside the small side passage that it would be impossible to get anywhere else without a whole lot of people ending up ground against his concealed hardon. Ken wasn't exactly a tiger of much shame, but that didn't mean he really wanted to go humping against random people as he tried to get through them. A quick glance down the passage showed a darker corner, and Ken slipped down towards it.

A glance around that corner showed that the passage linked up to another massive hallway, filled with as many people as the last. Frustration tickled at the edge of the tiger's mind as he slipped back towards the corner, and a sigh slipped through his muzzle. "Fuck," he muttered, as he looked back and forth between the two ends of the passage. There had to be some way out, something that would...

The tiger's thoughts stalled out as he glanced at the corner itself. Something caught his eye, something just a little out of place. Feline eyes narrowed and peered into the dark corner in search of whatever had sparked curiosity in Ken's mind. They found it a moment later, almost too light to make out. Stains, on the wall. Always hip-height or lower. Stains that looked to have been caused by spilled liquid.

Another memory flitted through Ken's mind as he smirked at the stain. He and Damian, still in training, on one of their last nights together. They'd been caught between patrols on the base, and hadn't been able to move from the little alcove that they'd sat down in. On a dare, Ken had teased Damian to see just how much control the roo could keep before they got into trouble. The fact that they'd been caught only minutes later when the kangaroo's yips had grown too loud had answered the question perfectly. It'd been worth it.

The strain of Ken's shaft against the fabric of his pants lightened as he unzipped them and fished his firm length out. Fingers wrapped around it as his eyes closed, and Ken's body slipped as deep within the shadows as he could go. He knew he was going to paw right there, in plain view of anyone who walked down the passage, but the tiger equally knew that he didn't care right then. The sights, the smells, the memories... they were all too much.

He could remember it all, just like it was yesterday. He remembered the way Damian had giggled as they'd first slipped into the shadowy little alcove. Normally they were filled with small shrubs; little pieces of greenery to brighten up the sterile white walls and steel floors of an Avanguard military academy. One had gone missing, with the lights behind it disabled. It'd been the perfect spot for the pair to sit and talk, out of sight.

Talk had been the last thing on Damian's mind, though. The naughty little roo had only sat with Ken for a few moments before paws reached out and fondled him through his pants - paws more gentle than the coarse things that squeezed Ken's shaft there on the station. He'd grunted at Damian, insisted that the roo needed to behave or they'd be caught. And Damian had just laughed. "Let them watch," he'd told Ken. "Couple of those captains around here look like they could use a good show!"

That had been when a patrol had come around the corner. A couple armed Avanguard soldiers, alert for anything, had missed the suddenly silent kangaroo and tiger. Ken's fingers played lightly along his length as he remembered the way the hushed Damian had slipped his paw down into the tiger's pants and started to coax him out of his sheath. He remembered exactly how those questing digits had felt. His own touch melted into Damian's, drawn from memory burned into place by intensity.

Ken leaned against the wall as his paw began to slide up and down along his shaft. He moved slowly, gently, almost completely uncaring of the corridors full of people at either side of him. The tiger wasn't on the Nardrossia station anymore. Nardrossia was still a jewel in the sky, and he was thousands of light-years away with a kangaroo who desperately wanted his cock. He was gone from reality, and back with Damian.

And Damian had known just how to push his buttons. The kangaroo's deft paws had silently undone Ken's pants while the patrol passed by, and started to slide them down before Ken could protest. He remembered how Damian had just shushed him with a cheeky grin the moment that the tiger's length had peeked up from the waistband of his pants. This is gonna happen, whether you like it or really_like it_, that grin had said.

It had started off the way Ken worked himself right then. Gentle strokes, long and slow up and down along the tiger's malehood. Light squeezes around his head, while a nuzzling cheek wormed its way beneath Ken's chin. He could almost feel Damian's head there beneath his own, as his fingertips squeezed a little tighter around his shaft. It drew a soft little moan from his lips as he ground into his grip.

Damian never teased him for long. Whenever he was in a mood, he pushed for what he wanted. That night, he'd been entirely focused on wrapping his muzzle around Ken's length, and the roo didn't wait long before he went after it. He'd nuzzled down along Ken's front, a wriggling line of warmth that set the tiger's toes curling. Even aboard the station years later, Ken felt his whole body tingle with the remembered sensation. His back arched and his toes curled anew, as he leaned heavily against the wall. Down moved the warmth, lower and lower, and his free paw traced down over it as it slid up under his shirt.

That paw followed the remembered line of Damian's descent, until it rubbed against his sheath. Two fingers wrapped around it, ringed the hidden base of his shaft completely. He gasped just as he had years earlier, and his body pressed in tighter against the wall as the remembered lips of the kangaroo slid down and gently enveloped the head of his shaft.

The station was filled with cool air currents that kept the temperature as close to Nardrossian norms as possible, but all Ken felt was the warmth of his memory. Damian's muzzle slid down lower and lower in his mind, and the tiger's memory translated those feelings almost directly to the motion of his paws. Down and down they slid, stroking and rubbing gently across his sensitive flesh. Pre matted the fur of his fingers, unheeded by the tiger lost in the past.

His body moved on autopilot, guided by motions not his own. Every touch Damian had made was reflected by Ken's paws. The tiger's fingers traced lines across his body, random patterns translatable only by a single soul long since departed. There was no sorrow in the memory though; the motions were of desire and longing, not of sadness and regret. They set Ken's body alight the very way Damian had always been able to, and the feline delighted in the remembered touch.

The roo's tongue went everywhere. Every inch - every cell - was bathed by it and teased by it. Soft lips worked back and forth, up and down, twisted around and around. What Ken's fingers couldn't recreate, the tiger's memory filled in. What was a single body lost in self-pleasure felt like more. His hips twitched and bucked as Ken went through the motions, and a deep purr rumbled through his throat as he felt himself nearing his peak.

He'd tried to warn Damian. He'd tried to let the kangaroo know that he was going to pop, but he'd not had a chance. Teeth nipped teasingly at his sheath and stole the words away before they could be aired. Pleasure ran through Ken's veins instead of blood, pumped by memory rather than heart. It bubbled beneath his skin until it felt like he would burst. His muzzle fell open in a silent moan, another warning stillborn.

Once upon a time, he'd painted the roof of Damian's muzzle white with the force of his climax. The roo hadn't pulled back, and he hadn't relented. He'd only redoubled his efforts, suckling that much more eagerly at Ken's length as the tiger had fought to keep himself from moaning loud enough to attract the guards.

There on the station, memory drove Ken to bite his tongue as he found himself overwhelmed. The wall was stained anew, with brilliant white splashed across its silvery, shadowed surface. Again and again the spurts came, as the memories solidified for a brief moment. Ken could almost feel Damian's body against his own, and one arm lifted to wrap around the roo's warmth and draw him close. Paws met and entwined as one lover emptied himself into the other.

But the moment passed, and the memories passed along with them. Ken gasped as he found himself tightly squeezing at his own middle, almost tightly enough to impede his breathing. His forehead pressed tightly enough against the metal wall that it almost hurt. The tiger's breaths came fast and heavy as he stared down not at the top of the kangaroo's head, but instead at his seed as it ran down the wall. Damian wasn't there. Damian was gone. Dead. Atoms in space, in an abandoned J-4 starfighter. Momentary shame took a hold of him. Damian was gone.

Ken rolled his head against the wall quickly as he remembered where he was. Down each end of the corridor, crowds of people continued on about their business. No one seemed to have noticed him, or what he'd been doing. The tiger quickly stuffed his softening shaft back into his pants and did them up, before he all but rushed out of the corridor. The shame bubbled up in him again, mixed with an old ache.

As Ken looked around outside the corridor again though, he caught someone looking right at him. The teenage kangaroo leaned against the wall, almost opposite the wall Ken had marked only moments before. His all-blue outfit covered his cinnamon fur but for his face and his paws, and deep brown eyes smiled at him. Long black hair was whipped up by the CO2 scrubber vent nearby. If not for the colour of the hair, he might have looked the spitting image of a slightly younger Damian Flint. Certainly, the knowing, cheeky smile on the roo's face was all the Damian in his memories.

For a second, Ken wanted to go over. He wanted to wrap his arms around the roo and hug him tight and pray that he felt like the partner he'd lost. But even as he considered the option, Ken remained put. Damian was gone. He was in Ken's memories now, and nowhere else. That roo - whoever he was - was not the lover Ken had lost.

Instead he smiled back at the kangaroo, and the roo tilted his head towards the side passage again with lifted eyebrows. Ken just chuckled to himself and gave a single nod and a shrug of his shoulders. What was to be ashamed of, after all?

The roo smiled wider and offered a little nod of his own. Then someone jostled Ken for a moment and drew his attention long enough to offer a swift apology, and when the tiger looked back the roo was gone again. His eyes scanned across the crowd for a moment in an attempt to lock down the kangaroo again, but it was no use. There were too many kangaroos there to find one, and blue looked like a popular colour that year.

It wasn't like it mattered too much. What would he have done if he could have found the Damian look-alike? Ken smirked and shook his head. Yeah, Damian was gone, but that didn't mean Ken was gone too. What he was, was late to meet with the extended Flint family for their yearly remembrance tradition. There would be food and drink, talking and laughing. Nardrossians didn't mourn loss. They only celebrated the memory of life. If that wasn't what Ken had done, he didn't know what was. And as long as those memories - socially awkward as some of them might be - lived on in Ken, then Damian could never truly be gone.

Ken waded back into the throng of people on their way to and from somewhere and anywhere. He joined with them, submerged in the flow of their lives. And in spite of it all, a little spark of warmth wrapped about his heart like the embrace of a lover, and Ken smiled just that much wider.

Listen to Flame Trees by Cold Chisel with this Grooveshark link!

Flame Trees lyrics

Kids out driving Saturday afternoon just pass me by.

I'm just savouring familiar sights.

We shared some history, this town and I.

And I can't stop that long forgotten feeling of her.

Time to book a room and stay tonight.

Number one is to find some friends to say, "You're doing well,

"After all this time you boys look just the same."

Number two is the happy hour at one of two hotels.

And settle in to play, 'Do You Remember So-And-So?"

And number three is never say her name.

And oh, the flame trees will blind the weary driver,

And there's nothing else could set fire to this town.

There's no change, there's no pace,

Everything within its place,

Just makes it harder to believe that she won't be around.

And oh,

Who needs that sentimental bullshit anyway?

You know it takes more than just a memory to make me cry.

And I'm happy just to sit here,

At a table with old friends,

And see which one of us can tell the biggest lies.

And there's a girl; she's fallin' in love, near where the pianola stands,

With a young local factory auto-worker,

Just holdin' hands.

And I'm wondering if he'll go or if he'll stay.

Do you remember,

Nothing stopped us on the field, in our day.

And oh, the flame trees will blind the weary driver.

And there's nothing else could set fire to this town.

There's no change, there's no pace,

Everything within its place,

Just makes it harder to believe that she won't be around.

And oh, the flame trees will blind the weary driver.

And there's nothing else could set fire to this town.

There's no change, there's no pace,

Everything within its place,

Just makes it harder to believe that she won't be around.