Kyou Kara Maou: Grace
Warnings: Alternate universe. Mellow angst. Kay's fetish for giving people who are in love vials of poison with which to kill one another.
( They would find no traces of the man, who did not exist. )
( They would find no traces of the man, who did not exist. )
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Why? The silent question echoes as he stands silently, foremost among the mourners.
Just a memory. He pushes away the thoughts of soft blue eyes and of the impish smile that was just for him. Enlightenment. He had worked too hard, found too much to be distracted by such infatuation. Rufus touches his arm, encouraging him to be strong in a soft whisper.
He manages to hide the turmoil until they unveil the portrait.
It is a perfect likeness of the Shinou...but in those distant blue eyes and remote expression, nothing remains of his lover. And as the Sage stands before it, he begins to understand just how precious the gift he was given and just how irreplaceable it will be.
From that moment, he wears nothing but the black of deepest mourning.
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He reigns for decades, a century, longer; the people praise his name and the peace that comes under his rule is written in the history books as one of the golden ages of Shin Makoku.
But he never forgets -- he doesn't know how to forget. And one day he turns to the sky and thinks, Even now I cannot escape you.
The Sages always tell their apprentices that caring will be their downfall, but they never say that once you have learned to love, there is no erasing it.
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He comes in rags and tatters, walking through halls made suddenly huge around him. He is not welcomed, guards watching him suspiciously as he follows the crowds into the throne room.
The new Maou sweeps in and their eyes meet. The Sage freezes, as ageless blue gleams through for a moment and his lover looks back for one split-second. He stumbles back, hands raised to protect him from the gentle reproach.
He is drawn back, a moth to the flame that lies beyond its reach, watching this simple soul that hides his lover. The burning passion of love is destruction, but the unlife of betrayal is unending pain.
Wisdom is a bitter draught when it comes too late.
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But black hair and eyes brand him as the Sage, entitling him to finery and care that he hasn't earned. His host speaks of what an honor his presence is, and of golden ages of peace orchestrated at his hand, and makes jokes that sound self-deprecating but speak of his innate confidence.
The Sage meditates on the nature of irony.
He cannot look directly at the young king and he knows that it is noticed, but the alternative forces him to confront his every regret in hundreds of years. Is it better to stay and seek to make amends, or to leave and escape the living embodiment of his guilt... to be safe from compounding his sin?
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Even if you made my baby eeeeevil and had him kill his pretty blond soulmate. T_T
Ahh, but I'm a sucker for angst, it makes my world a happy place~ ^_^
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That icon of yours always makes me smile. XD
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Betrayed, he had welcomed release in death, only to find himself shackled by duty and belief, bound into the kingdom he forged and damned to an eternal twilight of dream-like sensations. He stirs slowly in intermittent flashes of awareness. There is another, who stands between him and the world's light. He does not seek to reach out, content in the numbness of the spaces between life and death. His restless whispering breathes in the ears of a young girl-child.
The other flickers and flares, thinning the barrier that keeps him from this world enough to look through. Clad in rags, a child with inky hair and stunned dark eyes stares back.
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Not as bright or sharp as the mind of his lover and murderer, but a mind that he touches and that hears the furious words that pour forth from him in an acidic stream of pain and anger. The mind is odd, different from him in a way both simple and profound.
The anger burns and chases away the numbness, the relief. He feels the echoes of the long-gone pain shudder through him, though both poison and body are dust by now.
How dare he come back!
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A shiver passes under his skin; the king snaps, "If you cannot control yourself, I will have you sent home." His niece falls silent, but the look in her dark eyes is reproachful, as if she has expected better from him.
But he thinks that he wants the boy to stay. It is not like him, this sensation of tearing. He remembers being a child, playing at being a hero, a beloved king as the Sage had once been. That same wisdom is within his grasp now that he is king...
"I can use him," he says to no one, explaining himself to the air. He wants to be used.
Why else would the boy's first words have been, 'Will you show me on a map where the border is threatened?'
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Even an inch seems too much of a divide and he stifles the urge to cling to the other man until the world tumbles into ash around them. The blond smiles ruefully down at him, that damnable equilibrium reasserting itself. He tips his head to look up at the other, who swoops to kiss him lightly.
The affection, so easily and freely offered, steals what little breath remains to him and he finds himself clinging to the golden phantom-made-flesh as to a rock in a stormy sea. The hope wars with the deeper fear that he will be abandoned, left behind, left alone.
The arm around his waist tightens and he looks up into bright blue eyes as a deep, much-loved voice whispers in his ear. "I did not even catch your name..."
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"Murata Ken." He rolls the syllables along his tongue, sampling and savouring them like fine wine. "A good name."
The other looks up through messy bangs, dark eyes narrowed in fond exasperation as he reaches up to tug at a strand of unruly blond hair. The gesture is more hesitant but the blond smiles, leaning in to take advantage of the upturned face.
Smiling at his flushed and breathless love, he winks. "I call myself 'Lukas' now, appropriate, isn't it?"
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He categorizes every detail in his mind. He can hardly bring back the old details anymore, but who needs them?
"I don't remember you being so tall, Lukas," he says, lips twitching. Then he helplessly laughs, finding it funny almost out of relief and gratitude more than anything else. The goofy is, perhaps, contagious.
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Kay, thou art the foulest of demons. For thine talent with words, my Soul is forever etched with naught but Sin -- the most unholy of Tempests.
A.K.A Please continue or I will devourer your brains with a straw a la Egypt.
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It's Ara's turn. *nodnod*
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Rufus: Yes! *cheers!
Thank you, thank you! Ruffie will be super duper nice to Julia now! He'll be her Seeing-Eye-Gay-Boy!
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*is very much in the way, thankyou*
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