Chocolate Fic for noble_scarlet
To: noble_scarlet
From: sireensilver
Title: The Ten Songs Of Ever-Parried Love
Pairing: Sawajiri Erika/Nishikido Ryo
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Medieval AU. Upper-class, noblewoman!Erika and knight!Ryo.
A/N: So it's not really medieval fic--more like medievalesque, shamelessly romanticized and fused with stuff from other periods. Call it a loooot of artistic license (medieval history buffs, please don't hunt me down). But I hope you enjoy the fic anyway! :< For noble_scarlet
~
I. She's a child, like him, but she's a beautiful child, and it's only when he sees her for that last time does he really begin to think he understands what he is supposed to do.
Erika is a girl, and she'll grow into a lady like he'll grow into a man, and all Ryo knows is that he's supposed to protect her. It's all he's been taught. Someday he'll be a knight, someday he'll join the order, and that's when she will need him most. Not just her, of course, but all girls, ladies, all children... all the weak.
This is what he thinks, and it's so purely embedded into his mind that he makes the mistake of telling her so.
Erika scowls, because she's unladylike, and she actually looks like she wants to push him to the ground. She's fully capable of it, too, because though neither of them have ever said it they both know she's stronger. She's not supposed to be, but she is, and it's the worst thing about being an eight-year-old boy to Ryo.
But she doesn't. As much as they both know she's the stronger, they both know she's been told to be on her best behaviour. Soon enough, she'll be sent to the convent, where she'll receive her proper training for the next few years, and where she can't afford to be difficult. She knows this because her father has told her this himself, and everyone knows that she adores her father, so she'll do as he says. Even if she doesn't want to.
So she doesn't push him, only sits on the grass and sulks because this may be the last time she can stain her dress like this, and she just glares at him fiercely when he asks her if she's crying.
She's not, really, but to Ryo it seems like it's the thing she ought to be doing.
"One day," Erika tells him, through gritted teeth. "One day I'll be married and my husband will fight you and you'll be destroyed for my honour." She sniffs a little. "And then we shall see who is crying."
Ryo's a little taken aback by her vicious tone, but he can't back down to a challenge. "By then I'll be a real knight," he tells her, reproachfully, "and I'll fight him properly--and I'll win."
Erika snorts. "No you won't," she says haughtily. "If I could beat you, then there's no way my husband could lose to you."
"You couldn't beat me!" Ryo cries, "You're a--" She glares at him again, this time so fiercely that he is subdued. The last time he had said so was precisely the reason why she had pushed him. Now he sulks a little, too. "...bet your husband couldn't be better than the White Knight, anyway."
"Could to!"
"Couldn't."
"Could!" Erika insists. "He's not yet, but he will be, because he's a lord."
Ryo sulks further. It was true that lords far outranked knights, but it would never stop him from admiring the White Knight. He's the best.
"He protects the weak," Ryo explains to her. "And he doesn't ask for rewards. And he's the strongest. He's the best."
"You've never even met him," Erika points out, still huffy.
"So what?" Ryo shoots back, ears red by now. "You've--you've never met your husband either!"
When their fathers find them, they're sitting with their backs to each other, identical scowls on their faces.
~
II. "From here," says Ryo's father, "to here." He encircles a portion of the map. "Sawajiri manor. We do not, under any circumstances, abandon her side until we reach the inside of the grounds, you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Ryo replies, respectfully, but he cannot help but add a question. "But--why?"
"Why what?"
"Why is--she returning to the manor? Is it time for her wedding already?"
"Don't be a fool, Ryo. It's several years too early for that." Ryo's father sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. He looks tired. "Lord Sawajiri has just allowed for a special trip home for his daughter. That's all. Nothing strange."
It is strange. Ryo is only twelve, but he knows enough about the world to know that when a girl is sent to the convent, she will only leave to be married. Even if Lord Sawajiri is as fond of his daughter as everyone says, he is not above the convent law. He supposes that lords are a class too far above and too complicated to be made sense of after all.
Inexplicably, he rides alongside her. He suspects it is his father's idea of making her more comfortable, by having someone the same age in proximity. He doesn't have to tell his father that it's of little help. She barely glances at Ryo, and for a while he even thinks she does not remember who he is.
She's taller, thinner, and very unlike when he saw her last. She looks formidably clean, pressed, every inch proper. He knows her face, the same sort of shape one only thought to be found on such noble women, but her eyes are so round with seriousness that Ryo finds her unrecogniseable.
She catches his stare and raises an eyebrow. Ryo catches himself, and nods politely, embarrassed at being caught.
"You're supposed to call me 'my lady'," she tells him mildly, as though awakening from a kind of stupor. Her eyes are more familiar now, as she looks at him.
Ryo tries not to scowl. He wonders why he did not expect her to speak down to him. But he nods again. "I apologise, My Lady."
She smirks. "You'll never surpass my husband if you can't even remember basic addresses."
So she did remember. Ryo is caught between being touched that she does and just being exasperated. "...I'm not--trying to surpass your husband," he finally says, stiffly. "I'm--trying to be as great as the White Knight."
"You and all the rest," Erika says, scoffing.
Ryo doesn't quite understand what it is he feels. Under normal circumstances it should be anger, at least annoyance, because of the way she dismisses him so; and yet he cannot back down politely as he is meant to.
The ride is not supposed to be very long, but Ryo bears many more snide remarks on the way to the manor. It's a shame, because otherwise the conversation would have been plainly civilised--they discuss their families, their homes, and other trivial things. Erika uses a careful, bored tone when she speaks of her own life, but Ryo knows she is fond of her family. It almost comforts him, to think that she at least has that in common with him, but time and time again he is reminded that she rides ahead.
Ryo lets out a breath when they catch sight of the manor. It seems like Erika feels the same, and they stop talking. She keeps her eye trained on the visible rooftops, and she steers her horse sharply, as if afraid it could delay her. Ryo wonders why the sudden tension, but he doesn't say anything, only dutifully dismounts and offers to help her down once they finally arrive.
She refuses his help, dismounts, and excuses herself. Without so much as a goodbye, she turns away from them and is brought inside by a swift entourage of her household servants. Only a few remain to welcome the company. Ryo frowns. He supposes, somewhat bitterly, that they are at least being tended to and paid before being sent on their way.
He feels a hand on his head. "Good job, boy," his father says, resting his palm on Ryo's bare head.
Ryo is puzzled. "What did I do?"
"Bore the brunt of her attitude," his father says, grinning. "No other man in the company was up to it."
"Oh." Ryo feels a little like he has simply accomplished a meager job that none of the others wanted, but he doesn't say so.
"Also--" Ryo's father glances at the grand manor doors. "--I think you kept her occupied. Let us keep a steady pace."
"What do you mean?"
Ryo's father shrugs. "She's like her father, that one. Strong as long as she has something to keep going on. But weak when it comes to Lady Sawajiri."
"Lady--?"
Ryo's father shakes his head. "Not well. Not since last month, I heard, but took a bad turn last week."
Ryo feels hollow. "...Oh." He vaguely remembers a rule that allows girls to leave convents temporarily to see dying relatives.
He hopes, for a little while longer, that Erika does not become Lady Sawajiri just yet.
~
III. Six months before Erika is to marry her husband, she is released from the convent. Ryo has not seen her in years; he only knows this because Lord Sawajiri decides to throw a banquet at her return.
He expects her to be beautiful. Many noblewomen are, because they are spared from harsh work and they have the gold to care for themselves. Ryo is also told that a crucial point in the growth of a proper lady takes place within the convent, and so it should not come as a surprise to see her and find her so decidedly changed that she must be beautiful.
What he doesn't expect is becoming smitten.
He would have cursed, were it polite. Spell-struck, Ryo can only stare as much as the other guests as she enters, presented by her father. She seems taller again, but more graceful, elegant, and impossibly ethereal. She floats rather than walks down the steps, and yet her eyes are so firmly fixed on the society receiving her that she has captured them all. Ryo does not even realise he is holding his breath, until those clear eyes sweep across the room and land for the tiniest, briefest of moments--on his.
Ryo exhales, and blinks, and then the moment is gone.
He spends the better part of the evening trying not to think about her face, a perfect, creamy oval with a mockingly red mouth, and eyes, such eyes, and how they might have looked at him. He even leaves the hall the first chance he gets, stepping outside into the vast Sawajiri gardens with a vague hope that the air can clear his head.
He frowns into the night, unimpressed with himself.
Love is not discouraged among knights. In fact, if anything, it is encouraged. It is a viable motivation, and it helps the growth of understanding the importance of being protectors. But honour, duty, and courage have always been the most valued and cherished in their order, and everything learned is never unaccompanied by teachings of caution with regards to women. The right one ensured everlasting happiness, the wrong one everlasting ruin. And Erika, with rank and beauty that is a seduction all on its own, is the wrong one for him.
Ryo shudders in the breeze, thinking of the girls he'd known and paid attention to, and allowed something to blossom inch by inch. They were good girls, sweet and kind and the right sort for him, and greatest achievers in propriety in the world. Yet none have made an impression strong enough to withstand this sudden overwhelming attraction.
He draws his sword, a sudden swift movement that gives the footman a fright. Ryo blinks, and then lowers his blade apologetically. The footman gives him a fretful, reproachful look but apologises for startling him.
"Lady Sawajiri has requested to see you," he says, stiffly. Commendable is that he can still make a graceful, sweeping bow as he offers Ryo the direction into the deepest parts of the gardens. "Please, this way."
It is as if a rush of blood floods his head, but he nods once and makes his way through.
Even without seeing her, he is alerted to her presence. Hovering just by the rosebushes is her dark figure, visible by the shining of the moonlight on the stones adorning her person. Ryo thinks he sees her eyes, too, and his heart nearly stops when she lifts her hand to him.
"My gratitude for coming to see me," Erika murmurs, her eyes not leaving his as he lowers his lips to her hand. The touch of her skin excites and upsets him, and he struggles.
"Not at all, My Lady," Ryo says, voice unlike anything he's known. It is as if he cannot swallow something. "Was there--anything you would have of me?"
She smiles, and it becomes the most dangerous thing he knows. "Anything...?" she repeats, withdrawing her hand.
Ryo does not trust himself to speak.
Slowly, her hands find his face. Before he is even aware of it, his face is lowered, closer to her face than he has ever been. Her thumb rubs lightly, a short path from his cheeks to his ear, and Ryo's mind becomes a blank.
"Stop."
It is only when her hands are lowered and she is a step away from him that Ryo realises that he has spoken. She is not smiling now. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes are still staring at him.
"This would be a disgrace," Ryo can hear himself say hollowly, "and a dishonour to both you and your father. I-I can't--I cannot--" He still feels as though he cannot swallow. He cannot even look at her and her perfect beauty and her unreadable expression. "--Th-though I appreciate your feelings..."
A strange sound erupts from her, like a fountain's sudden splay of water. She is laughing. Ryo gapes, in equal parts confused and captivated by the sight.
"Very good," she says, and the smirk is back on her face. "Maybe you'll be a real knight yet."
"...My Lady?"
"I have to admit I was hoping you would fail," Erika says, nonchalantly sweeping a hand across her skirts as though readjusting herself. "but you are one of the few tonight to pull through." She glances at him, amused at his utter confusion. "You don't think my father actually planned this banquet on his own, do you? I convinced him, in fact, that it was a good idea to test all his men's loyalty. Not only for his sake, but for my husband's as well." She shakes her head. "A surprising number were weak to a few smiles and soft words. Men who give up years of loyalty just like that truly are disgusting, aren't they?"
"Then--this was--?"
"A test," she says, brusquely. "And you passed it. Beyond expectation. You can rest knowing my father will count on you and your family's loyalty more than ever." Erika looks heavenward, and Ryo can see her eyes shining again. There's turmoil in his heart--like he's both betrayed relieved--but he also cannot help but feel impressed. She has not met her husband yet, but already she is taking charge of their future with practical hands.
Upper noblewomen are scary, after all.
"Ryo," she says, before he leaves, and his heart stops again at the sound of his name. There is a pause, and then she continues, reluctantly: "I want to thank you. For those years ago. How you and your father took me to my mother."
It's the beginning--he will never have her, he thinks, but he can help her.
~
IV. Ryo remembers the day. It's a normal day, with still air and thin rays of sunlight. It's neither auspicious nor ominous, and so Ryo lets his guard down.
Or maybe he has for a while. The months following his newfound devotion to Erika--(Lady Sawajiri, he reminds himself, and soon Lady Takashiro)--become a strange period. He allows his family and friends to believe that it is in line with his approaching knighthood, but the truth is so much more complicated. He is determined, more than ever, to achieve his knighthood and to be the best that is expected. He works hard, training ardently and studying properly with so much vigour that all become amazed at the dedication.
They predict, with excitement, that he'll surpass the White Knight.
Simultaneously, he harbours his private devotion. Ryo knows, and acknowledges, even in his awed stupor, that he cannot ever hope to be with Erika. This will not prevent him, however, from serving her as best he can for as long as is possible. It is not difficult to disguise it as a natural progression from his family's devotion to her father--when Erika marries (becomes Lady Takashiro), he will be there. And, he thinks within the whirlwind of his mind, this will be enough.
She shows no sign of ever knowing his intentions, but all the same Ryo has suspicions. They see each other more frequently, as she is residing in the manor once more, and in many ways she has not lost the edge she held out for him even as a child.
"You stare far too much," she tells him, in a mild way that lets him know she is not actually disturbed. "Did you know?'
"I was only thinking," Ryo says, hiding his embarrassment.
"Thinking...?"
Ryo feels caught. "Well--that you've---grown," he says, trying not to cough. "Taller."
She gives him one of her most unreadable looks for a full minute, as if considering, but in the end she simply smiles sweetly and says, "Oh? I'm sorry I can't say much the same for you..."
He wonders, once, if maybe he's meant to suffer in love. It would certainly make more sense.
Of the husband, he cannot pretend to be ignorant of. Lord Takashiro is one of the most powerful men in the realm, born and high bred and most likely Erika's perfect match. Ryo hears the whispers and the rumours--how he's probably the only man who can control Erika, who stands so straight and strong that even her father bends to her, and other outrageous things like that. They can't seem to see that, strong or not, Erika is already pursuing everything in light of her husband. Ryo knows that every step she takes is, in one way or another, calculated for their life.
And so it comes as a surprise to him when she becomes nervous at the arrival of her first meeting with Lord Takashiro.
"If he's supposed to be so far superior to me, that would make him extremely good," Ryo tells her, half-jovially. She scoffs.
"It is not so great an achievement to be above you," she tells him snidely. It is clear that she is worrying.
Ryo crosses his arms, looking to the side in order not to meet her face. "My Lady."
She looks up. "...Yes?"
"...I apologise for not being present tomorrow."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snorts, softly. "I don't need you there." Ryo is silent. All the same, he thinks... Erika shoots him a look. "You're to meet your greatest hero tomorrow for the first time in your life, and you're hesitating?"
"There's no surety of him coming tomorrow," Ryo says softly. He is stock still, resisting the urge to take her hand.
"All the same," she replies, firmly. She is close now. "The White Knight. "
The White Knight.
Ryo's ears burn when he hears the first of the news. When the White Knight does not appear for the ceremony he is attending, Ryo's disappointment only knows as far as the rumours simply being false. It never suspects anything else.
Ryo cannot meet any other eyes at his order. None of them can. They're all knights, or knights-to-be, and they all know the implications. That the best of them all, the greatest, would be disgraced. That he would fall. And for--of all things--seducing the Queen.
Trial. A week from tomorrow. Imprisoned at the tower. Queen is ill. King is angry. Very angry.
He's hollow again. Someone he has never personally met has just ruined his entire life's devotion.
Exile. If he's lucky.
He's supposed to be sworn into the order in less than a month. What's the point now?
Ryo knows his eyes are dark, knows he's boiling, despairing, and that he'll only upset his family more by staying. With short, freezing tones he announces that he has been summoned by Lord Sawajiri, and he rides in that direction. Blindly, angrily, he swears as the horse nearly stumbles.
Curses. For the first time .
His eyes are hard, and somewhere in the turmoil of his mind he runs over the possibility of seeing Erika. Fresh from meeting her husband, infuriatingly smug. He'd have to own up to her, whether or not she'd heard it. She was right. He laughs, sharply, to himself as he arrives at the manner, in so dark a mood that the servants trip over themselves to tell him in small voices that Lord Sawajiri is not to return until the next day. He's welcome to stay the night.
"The White Knight, was it?"
He starts at her voice, turning on his heel. She's found him, deep in the gardens, brooding. She crosses her arms as he glares at her for the first time since they were children.
"My Lady." He sounds sarcastic, grating. She raises an eyebrow, but doesn't comment.
"In this way, at least," she says now, voice oddly flat and arms still crossed, "you'll have no problem surpassing him, won't you?" Her tone becomes lofty as she paces, not really looking at him. "Really, Ryo. To be so pathetic to put your life out for one man."
The contemptuous quality in her voice ignites him, and he grabs her by the shoulders mid-step. Her arms become uncrossed, and there is a look of pure shock on her face before it gives way to anger.
"Let me go," she says, icily.
"Nobody will come," he tells her, to see if she'll be frightened.
"Did I say somebody would?" she asks him spitefully. "Let me go, or you'll regret it."
"What, you really think I'm above what he did?" Ryo asks, bitterly. "You don't think I'm to repeat the sin of a predecessor?"
"Let me go--at least you still have a chance!" she finally raises her voice at him, pushing him away. "You lost an ideal, and that's all>." Ryo glares at her again, but then notices something in her eyes. It's a strange, angry, hurt quality, as bitter as he is feeling. He pauses, thinking back. She laughs at him. "Looks as though we were both disappointed today," she says to him, lowering her voice again.
He wants to ask--and he should, because then she can tell him and they can lament and he can be there for her, like he idealised--but he instead finds himself wrapping fingers around her wrist and pulling her to him.
"Let go," she says, tiredly. "This does not change anything."
"I don't expect it to," he says, roughly, pressing her to his body. He feels another push, and he leans back far enough to see her face without letting go. She is glaring, and suddenly her eyes are hard again, fierce.
Her mouth reaches forward and finds his, and for a full moment Ryo is so shocked that he almost lets her go. Then he reaches up to her face, and pulls her in more, and they're pressing so close together that Ryo cannot think.
~
V. It is surprising, but life goes on much as it did before. It is not very long before Erika is married to Lord Takashiro. It is not very long before Ryo is knighted, and sworn into the order.
It doesn't stop him from seeking her out.
"What are you doing here," she hisses.
"Fulfilling my duties," he says, nonchalantly, though already he is reaching out to touch her. She swats his hand away.
"None of them have anything to do with me."
"After a point," he says, dryly, "they have everything to do with you."
She pushes past him. "It may have escaped you, but I am married now. Nothing outside of it matters anymore."
Ryo pulls on her wrist, expression pained. She can't see it, because she's too busy trying to leave, but he pulls all the same. "Erika..."
"Don't." She doesn't turn around, but her tone is cold. "Go back to your order, and your precious knighthood, and stay true to your code. I'll stay with my marriage."
"Your marriage," Ryo tells her bitterly, before she can really leave the room, "is about as real as our code."
She pauses, but she does not come back to him. "It isn't really about whether it's real or not," she says, and the worst part is that he thinks he hears sadness.
~
VI. He does not even try to forget her.
Erika curses the day when he comes, knowing he has come only to see her. It is easy for him to find reasons to come, and it is frightening for her to find that she has no more control. He comes as he pleases, and he comes to push, prod, and coax.
"You want something when you cannot have it," she tells him, scornfully. "Were I not married you would want me less."
He protests that this isn't true, because he clearly wanted her even before the marriage, but she points out that she has always been promised.
He is infuriating. He is always there, to her, even in absence. Erika cannot deny the attraction to his company--he is mercifully smart, has access to the outside world, and he carries something within him that Erika feels is liberty. It is infuriating, to be trapped and to have him in front of her, always, flaunting that freedom and wasting it by being with her.
She attacks him with her words, her best weapons. She wants him to leave.
The silence is utterly deafening when he does.
Erika can't pretend that she is unhappy, because in many ways she is not. She rules her mansion in her husband's stead, and their lands prosper so steadily that Lord Takashiro is almost not missed. She likes the arrangement--she is confined to her lord's grounds, but they are vast and wide, and she has control. She had no such thing at the Sawajiri manor, and even less at the convent. Life in many ways is ideal.
Why did men have to ruin it?
Lord Takashiro was not always present; he lived up to his name of being a powerful man, invaluable to the King himself, and as long as he lived Erika would never want anything. Yet it was always a trial when he did return to the manor, tired but indulgently happy to see his wife, insistent about going over all the workings of the mansion, but most of all bringing so many tales of life outside that she feels miserable. He always asks her, kindly, how her life is and what she has done to occupy herself in his absence, and she hates how her answers are so bland and stale.
Then there is Ryo, with his frequent visits, so calculated to occur more often when Lord Takashiro is out than not. She deliberately makes sure they are never really alone together too long, not trusting the servants to not start gossip, Slowly, she finds that he is beyond caring, really caring, and he comes for his own sake; gone are the days where she can subdue him with her words, and now he simply takes her sharp attacks in stride and languidly stays as long as he wishes. Many times he makes suggestions, the kind that makes her shiver, but she always evades, always refuses. He makes her angry, this Ryo--so disillusioned and bitter and angry, like she is, but so much more willing to throw everything away than she is because he is a fool who can't see how free he really is.
And then... her father.
Erika is not a fool. She knows Lord Sawajiri has given her so much more freedom than most women in her upbringing, and her time away from home was easily the worst of what she had to bear. She loves him for it as much as she hates him; if he had held her tightly, never let her think, kept her ignorant like most of the silly noble daughters in the world, she might be living in bliss. Sweet, ignorant bliss. So she hates him as much as she loves him, and the day she leaves his house is as much a painful affair as it is a relief. She tries not to look back, for everyone's sake.
She does not expect him to leave her, too.
Erika rides, this time not bothering with the idiocy of a carriage, and to the amazement of all her escorts she rides the horse so well that it is flying. It flies, reaching the Sawajiri manor in so smooth a course that the people around her are awed. She doesn't care, only dismounts the horse on her own and thrusts the reins to a servant before rushing inside. The familiar halls and steps blur past her as she makes her way to his room.
There are other people there.They expect her to weep, to bawl, and this is in spite of her reputation for being like steel, so when she turns to dismiss them all, they graciously leave.
Erika looks at her father's cold face, numbed at last.
"...I'm sorry," she hears from the doorway, a gruff voice that could only belong to one person.
She begins to tremble.
"...Erika?"
She turns so sharply that Ryo is taken aback; the full force of her rage is evident in her face, but Ryo only has a moment to take it in before she has crossed the room and slapped him soundly.
"How dare you," she says, still shaking. "How dare you come here, of all places--"
"Erika!" he says, urgently, trying to reach for her. She hits his arms away.
"--taking advantage of a woman in grief," she says, through gritted teeth. "--I should have you cut open."
"Erika!" she barely registers that there is real anguish in him, too. "Eri--My Lady. My Lady, I promise you. I promise you. I only came here to offer condolences and respect." He tries to pull her to him in an embrace, but it is the worst thing he can do for her, and she hits him again.
She can feel tears crawling down her face now, in hot trickles, and she hates him even more. "Get out. I don't need you here."
"Erika--"
"You're not supposed to be here," she tells him, as vehemently as she can. Already she is beginning to feel tired, worn. "Get out."
Ryo looks at her, pain so clear in his own eyes that she turns away from him and waits for him to leave.
He does, but not before telling her, bitterly: "I don't see your husband anywhere."
~
VII. It's the first time Ryo sees her all in black, and for some strange reason it breaks his heart.
He only spent the past few years trying to break her, to persuade her to throw everything away to be with him, because he just knew that underneath the exterior she carried the same flame for him as he did her. And so he learned to dodge or to take her verbal blows, to simply smile darkly when she asserted her authority, and in short to slowly gain the upper hand so he could make her his.
Now she is in pieces, and he hates it.
He sees Lord Takashiro take her hand, and he can't even be jealous. There is no warmth in the way she lightly grasps back, only an empty kind of feeling as she keeps her eyes on the funeral procession. She isn't crying, but Ryo knows that the stony expression behind her veil is many times worse.
The next few months are a shadow. Ryo does not remember why or how, only that he feels like he simply has to do it, and every chance he gets he leaves her something. A small rosebud she would probably crush beneath her heel. A feather from a pretty guinea hen that she might let fall into the fireplace. A silk ribbon in the darkest shade of blue, for her hair, that she will never wear as long as she lives. Ryo has to keep trying.
"There's nothing left for you here," she tells him once, flatly, without looking up from the parchment where she is going over accounts. He is there with her, stopping by to see how she is doing, and she is unimpressed with his inability to come up with a real excuse for being there. "Go home and finish your terms with my lord before you become involved with the war."
"So there is a war?" Ryo asks, mostly to divert her attention but also to confirm such rumours.
"And why wouldn't there be, in this world," Erika mutters. She glances at him. "In a month's time you'll have fulfilled your contract with my lord. It would be best if you did not renew it, and pledged loyalty elsewhere."
"Whom I pledge my loyalty to is none of your concern," he tells her.
"It is if you're pledging false loyalty to my husband," she retorts, scathingly.
"How is it false?" Ryo challenges. "I serve him well."
"But you're betraying him by always coming to me," Erika says, with triumph but without relish. "Go now, while you can."
"I can't."
Erika looks up at him sharply. "Ryo."
"I can't," he insists, and for the first time in months he reaches out to her. "Erika, I lo--"
"Don't,," Erika warns. "I won't believe it."
"It's the truth."
"Don't say that," Erika says, and there is now an odd heat in her voice. "Don't say that!"
"But why?"
"Why can't you see that it can't happen?" For the millionth time in their lives, she pushes him away. For the first time, it's a gentle one.
"You love me too," Ryo tries, petulantly. "Don't lie, I know you do."
She glares. "So what?" she says, crossing her arms and staring at him. "On my side it hardly matters. I'm married. My greatest ruin will come in the form of me running away from my lord and into your arms."
Ryo frowns. "I wouldn't let anything happen to you."
"For the time being," she says, snorting softly. "If I seem beautiful now, Ryo, one day I won't be. And you'll be less willing to care for me. And then where will I be?" She looks away.
"No," Ryo says, protesting. "No, I promise--"
"'Promise'," Erika scoffs. "Men's promises. Look where that took my mother."
"Your mother?"
Erika looks at him somberly. "I suppose you, like everyone else, believed she died of an illness?" Ryo doesn't answer. "She did. The worst kind. Heartbreak." Erika closes her eyes, as if her head hurts. "...Her lover finally married someone else."
Ryo can't say anything. All this time...
"So don't ask me to run away with you," Erika says, voice soft but firm. "I could want it, but I won't do it. I am not going to be like my mother; I am going to live with my lord and do as I wish, because at the very least my future is secure with him." There is an odd, heavy lack of love. "Go home, Ryo. Find a nice girl and marry her, and make her as happy as you can. If we both try... we'll have that in common."
She returns to her accounts, and Ryo returns home, heart emptier than ever.
~
VIII. Three years is a long enough time, but Ryo never does as she says. He never finds someone, though his mother would have obliged if he let her, and he never marries. He is not sure if this is as much clinging onto Erika as it is him being resigned. He does not even switch loyalties, like she told him to; he remains tied to Lord Takashiro. It is clear, however, that he can no longer seek out her company, and there are no longer times when he can simply see her for his own sake. Instead he meets her unexpectedly when he reports to Lord Takashiro at the manor, an occurrence extremely rare, or when he is to deliver something there and she is nearby, which is even rarer.
She greets him stiffly, politely, each time.
It is not as though Ryo has time to ponder. Already he learns that staying with the Takashiro camp means that he has to answer the call to war.
He doesn't know how long that means.
With a wry smile, Ryo thinks that maybe he should have done as she'd said after all. But he can't regret it.
And he's not about to leave with any more regrets.
"My Lady," he greets for the last time.
She stares at him. She looks exhausted. "You really should not have come."
He smiles. "My Lady is very cold."
"When am I not?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow. For one strange moment they are younger again, eyes brighter and happier. Erika has a small smile on her face, before it fades and her expression becomes grim. "I hope you aren't here for final requests." She is still guarded. She does not want to be comfortable with him, not now that he is going.
"No?" Ryo asks, without really asking. "I'm not allowed even that?"
"We do not owe each other anything."
"I'm not talking about owing," Ryo insists. Slowly, carefully, he wraps his arms around her, and braces himself for her to push him away. "Why is it so hard for you to believe me?"
It doesn't come. She allows him to hold her, for a while, and they don't say anything. It is only when he becomes so overcome at the senses that he tries to press his lips to her head that she moves back and out of his reach.
"Ryo," she says. "Thank you for remaining loyal to my husband." Ryo blinks. She gives a reluctant shrug. "It was not fair of me to assume you had no real loyalty to him. For going on this war, with him, and for protecting him. Thank you." She says it all a little stiffly, as if she is unused to it, but the words are sincere. He frowns a little.
"You assume I'm still living by the code," he says now, slowly.
"What else do you live by?" she asks, more puzzled than snide.
He crosses his arms. "I could seem to live by it," he says. "But what makes you think I will not simply let him die?"
She frowns now, looking at him with a different regard. "...It's not in your nature to let somebody die, Ryo, whether you have the code or not."
"The code is about as real as your marriage," he says, softly, "remember?"
Her eyes widen slightly, and he thinks he might have angered her again. Instead she becomes very white and thoughtful, staring at him with a strange light in her eyes.
"Ryo..." she begins. "Do you mean to not to survive this war?"
He shrugs. He doesn't know, but wants her to think what she likes.
She frowns again. "Then you're a fool. You're still living by a disappointment you felt years and years ago. At least I've learned to accept mine." Erika pauses. Then her voice becomes very soft. "You're so silly, all of you. Staking your values on one man, claiming he's the best of the best, then keeping your heads bowed the moment he seems disgraced." Ryo looks at her, unsure. She has not mentioned the White Knight in a long, long time. None of them have. "...And what if I told you none of it was his fault? That he was not all as disgraced you were all so ready to believe?"
Ryo's mouth goes dry. "What do you mean?"
She stares at him again, her mouth in a thin unhappy line. "You will hate me for this. But maybe it's best." Her eyes have an odd quality about them, as though there is some kind of emotion there, but Ryo is not sure what it could be. She takes a breath. "He was disgraced and exiled. They would have beheaded him, but he'd done too much good. Or so they said. The real reason is because everyone at court knew the truth. He didn't do anything wrong. She did."
"The... Queen?"
Erika nods, once. "She seduced him. Offered herself to him. He said no." She looks oddly weary of the story, like she detests it. "He should have said yes."
Ryo doesn't know what to say. "Why... now? Why are you telling me this now?!" He doesn't know what he feels. Angry. Disgusted. With her? With himself? Almost... relieved?
"Because you're a fool!" Erika says, and she seems as upset as he is. "Don't you see? The code is real. It didn't die with his reputation. So if you can't live for someone else, you can at least live for that." She looks into his eyes, and Ryo understands that this is very well the last time. "Good-bye, Ryo."
"...Erika?"
"Good-bye."
~
XI. She's a child, like him, but she's a beautiful child, and it's only when he sees her for that last time does he really begin to think he understands what he is supposed to do.
This is what he thinks, and it's so purely embedded into his mind that he makes the mistake of telling her so.
He hopes, for a little while longer, that Erika does not become Lady Sawajiri just yet.
He expects her to be beautiful.
What he doesn't expect is becoming smitten.
It's the beginning--he will never have her, he thinks, but he can help her.
And, he thinks within the whirlwind of his mind, this will be enough.
He does not even try to forget her.
It's the first time Ryo sees her all in black, and for some strange reason it breaks his heart.
He doesn't know how long that means.
And he's not about to leave with any more regrets.
Ryo opens his eyes to starlight, dazed from his dreams. The painful gash on his leg wakes him up, brings him back to earth, and he groans a little at the loss of his sweet sleep. He sits up, aching all over, but without complaint he begins to dress. It's a habit now, one of the easier ones. He learns much after two years. He doesn't heal much, but he learns.
'The roads are endless,' Ryo writes, by the light of the fire and the stars. 'and it gives one a lot of time to think.' Do you think of me?
'I have always wondered where the road ends,' she writes back, prosaically. 'Be sure to tell me, once you write with news of my husband.' Yes. I should not. But I do.
'The road will end when the war does,' he scribbles, fervent. 'and for me, that means the end point is home.' Then you will be there when I return.
'A road ending where it began?' her handwriting shows no sign of mirth, but he can imagine it. 'Your greatest lack seems to be learning not to look back.' No promises. Please.
'You know me,' he says in his last letter. 'I stay true to my code. I can't leave anyone behind.' Wait for me.
She doesn't reply. It might be the first sign.
Ryo is one of Lord Takashiro's best men. He is not brilliant, but very capable, and never lacking in courage. It is thus seen as right and just when he is elevated, time and again, in position within the mobile troops. It doesn't matter if they are winning the war or not; Ryo's reputation is winning plenty.
And yet he feels no joy from it. His only real source of joy comes from her letters, and even then it hurts to read them. Like a spell, they command him to watch Lord Takashiro. To fight for him to the death.
It comes to this, Ryo thinks, when he is fully dressed. He tests his leg. Still good. He should be allowed to go back to the fighting in the morning.
Or so he thinks.
"Over?" he repeats slowly, dumbly. "What do you mean?"
"For now," says one of the captains. "Just for now. A negotiating party left a four days ago, while you were unconscious still. Lord Takashiro was with them." Ryo stares. The captain shifts uncomfortably. "He... did not make it."
There is a pause. Ryo stares some more. "That isn't much of negotiation."
The captain nods, looking utterly wretched. "The idea was there. We managed a treaty... for now."
It's an uneasy peace. Ryo doesn't like it.
More importantly, what will he tell her?
"Had word been sent to his wife?" Ryo demands, startling the captain.
"To L-Lady Takashiro? Yes. Yesterday."
A week. She'll know in a week.
Ryo waits for her to write him, to curse him or to have him killed, even, anything. Two weeks pass, then three, and Ryo wonders when silence from her has become so much worse than rage.
She's a widow now. He failed.
He gives every messenger he sees miserable looks, until finally one approaches him nervously. He clears his throat and Ryo shakes his head--he wants the message, not pomp.
The messenger hands him a rolled document. "...Your discharge papers," he informs him.
"Discharge?" Ryo is taken aback.
The messenger nods, looking a little afraid. "Y-Yes. They were drawn up at the event of Lord Takashiro's death. Your contract with his vassal-ship is now void, it seems, and so you've been discharged." He looks at him uncertainly as Ryo unrolls the parchment.
"'Drawn up'?" he repeats, still struck. His eyes scan the elegantly written form. It's been approved, signed and sealed, and he's free to go. He frowns.
"Your horse will be ready whenever you please, sir," the messenger says helpfully, before backing away and running off.
Ryo stares at the paper. His looks over the Takashiro seal, in blue wax. Had this been done in advance, or...?
And then he sees it. There, almost completely hidden by the wax, the sides of a guinea feather. And the ribbon in is hand, the one that had tied the roll together--a shade of blue he's seen before.
He is on his horse by the next morning.
~
X. She's in black again, this time an opulent kind, and her eyes are hidden by her veil.
Erika is older, he can see, even with a face as youthful as hers. She is fuller in figure and wearier, and Ryo knows that as time passes this can increase.
Yet she stands straight, tall, and even in unadorned widow's garb she is deathly beautiful.Her eyes, he sees once she lifts her veil, are the same. Bright, clear, and strong, steady with her head held high. And that, he thinks, is enough. His heart stops all over again.
"You've come back," is the first thing she says to him.
"Left something," he murmurs, once he's kissed her hand. "Part of me, I believe."
She pulls her hand away. He catches it again, quickly, and she shakes her head. "Widows are widows, Ryo. We can't remarry."
"Not here," he says, in full seriousness. Not once has his eyes left her face. "But--"
He expects her to interrupt. To protest. She doesn't.
"I'm listening," she says, and there is the tiniest hint of awe in her voice, as though she wants to hear him talk at all.
He cups her face with his hands. "You told me I would tire of you. That I would want you less if you were not married, and then less still if you grew older."
"I believed it with all my heart," she tells him, unapologetic. But she doesn't pull away.
"You and I," Ryo says, heart beating as wild as when he first saw her all those years ago, "have nothing left for us here."
There's a small hint of pain in her eyes. "No, you're right. We don't."
"You've tried to let me go free," Ryo continues, hardly daring to believe it. "More times than I can remember. This time I will. This time, I am letting you... but you have to come too."
There's an eternity that has to pass before she can reply. Her eyes never leave his face as she slowly takes both his hands in hers. She is being careful, as though she is afraid, but she is also trembling a little. Ryo feels the prickling of worry when he thinks she might be crying, because her eyes are suspiciously moist, but he blinks and they are fine again, as bright and steady as ever.
"Who's crying?" she says finally, in a funny teasing voice, and Ryo realises that maybe it's his own eyes that are tearing up.
He can't even glare, though. Instead he presses her to his heart.
From: sireensilver
Title: The Ten Songs Of Ever-Parried Love
Pairing: Sawajiri Erika/Nishikido Ryo
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Medieval AU. Upper-class, noblewoman!Erika and knight!Ryo.
A/N: So it's not really medieval fic--more like medievalesque, shamelessly romanticized and fused with stuff from other periods. Call it a loooot of artistic license (medieval history buffs, please don't hunt me down). But I hope you enjoy the fic anyway! :< For noble_scarlet
~
I. She's a child, like him, but she's a beautiful child, and it's only when he sees her for that last time does he really begin to think he understands what he is supposed to do.
Erika is a girl, and she'll grow into a lady like he'll grow into a man, and all Ryo knows is that he's supposed to protect her. It's all he's been taught. Someday he'll be a knight, someday he'll join the order, and that's when she will need him most. Not just her, of course, but all girls, ladies, all children... all the weak.
This is what he thinks, and it's so purely embedded into his mind that he makes the mistake of telling her so.
Erika scowls, because she's unladylike, and she actually looks like she wants to push him to the ground. She's fully capable of it, too, because though neither of them have ever said it they both know she's stronger. She's not supposed to be, but she is, and it's the worst thing about being an eight-year-old boy to Ryo.
But she doesn't. As much as they both know she's the stronger, they both know she's been told to be on her best behaviour. Soon enough, she'll be sent to the convent, where she'll receive her proper training for the next few years, and where she can't afford to be difficult. She knows this because her father has told her this himself, and everyone knows that she adores her father, so she'll do as he says. Even if she doesn't want to.
So she doesn't push him, only sits on the grass and sulks because this may be the last time she can stain her dress like this, and she just glares at him fiercely when he asks her if she's crying.
She's not, really, but to Ryo it seems like it's the thing she ought to be doing.
"One day," Erika tells him, through gritted teeth. "One day I'll be married and my husband will fight you and you'll be destroyed for my honour." She sniffs a little. "And then we shall see who is crying."
Ryo's a little taken aback by her vicious tone, but he can't back down to a challenge. "By then I'll be a real knight," he tells her, reproachfully, "and I'll fight him properly--and I'll win."
Erika snorts. "No you won't," she says haughtily. "If I could beat you, then there's no way my husband could lose to you."
"You couldn't beat me!" Ryo cries, "You're a--" She glares at him again, this time so fiercely that he is subdued. The last time he had said so was precisely the reason why she had pushed him. Now he sulks a little, too. "...bet your husband couldn't be better than the White Knight, anyway."
"Could to!"
"Couldn't."
"Could!" Erika insists. "He's not yet, but he will be, because he's a lord."
Ryo sulks further. It was true that lords far outranked knights, but it would never stop him from admiring the White Knight. He's the best.
"He protects the weak," Ryo explains to her. "And he doesn't ask for rewards. And he's the strongest. He's the best."
"You've never even met him," Erika points out, still huffy.
"So what?" Ryo shoots back, ears red by now. "You've--you've never met your husband either!"
When their fathers find them, they're sitting with their backs to each other, identical scowls on their faces.
~
II. "From here," says Ryo's father, "to here." He encircles a portion of the map. "Sawajiri manor. We do not, under any circumstances, abandon her side until we reach the inside of the grounds, you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Ryo replies, respectfully, but he cannot help but add a question. "But--why?"
"Why what?"
"Why is--she returning to the manor? Is it time for her wedding already?"
"Don't be a fool, Ryo. It's several years too early for that." Ryo's father sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. He looks tired. "Lord Sawajiri has just allowed for a special trip home for his daughter. That's all. Nothing strange."
It is strange. Ryo is only twelve, but he knows enough about the world to know that when a girl is sent to the convent, she will only leave to be married. Even if Lord Sawajiri is as fond of his daughter as everyone says, he is not above the convent law. He supposes that lords are a class too far above and too complicated to be made sense of after all.
Inexplicably, he rides alongside her. He suspects it is his father's idea of making her more comfortable, by having someone the same age in proximity. He doesn't have to tell his father that it's of little help. She barely glances at Ryo, and for a while he even thinks she does not remember who he is.
She's taller, thinner, and very unlike when he saw her last. She looks formidably clean, pressed, every inch proper. He knows her face, the same sort of shape one only thought to be found on such noble women, but her eyes are so round with seriousness that Ryo finds her unrecogniseable.
She catches his stare and raises an eyebrow. Ryo catches himself, and nods politely, embarrassed at being caught.
"You're supposed to call me 'my lady'," she tells him mildly, as though awakening from a kind of stupor. Her eyes are more familiar now, as she looks at him.
Ryo tries not to scowl. He wonders why he did not expect her to speak down to him. But he nods again. "I apologise, My Lady."
She smirks. "You'll never surpass my husband if you can't even remember basic addresses."
So she did remember. Ryo is caught between being touched that she does and just being exasperated. "...I'm not--trying to surpass your husband," he finally says, stiffly. "I'm--trying to be as great as the White Knight."
"You and all the rest," Erika says, scoffing.
Ryo doesn't quite understand what it is he feels. Under normal circumstances it should be anger, at least annoyance, because of the way she dismisses him so; and yet he cannot back down politely as he is meant to.
The ride is not supposed to be very long, but Ryo bears many more snide remarks on the way to the manor. It's a shame, because otherwise the conversation would have been plainly civilised--they discuss their families, their homes, and other trivial things. Erika uses a careful, bored tone when she speaks of her own life, but Ryo knows she is fond of her family. It almost comforts him, to think that she at least has that in common with him, but time and time again he is reminded that she rides ahead.
Ryo lets out a breath when they catch sight of the manor. It seems like Erika feels the same, and they stop talking. She keeps her eye trained on the visible rooftops, and she steers her horse sharply, as if afraid it could delay her. Ryo wonders why the sudden tension, but he doesn't say anything, only dutifully dismounts and offers to help her down once they finally arrive.
She refuses his help, dismounts, and excuses herself. Without so much as a goodbye, she turns away from them and is brought inside by a swift entourage of her household servants. Only a few remain to welcome the company. Ryo frowns. He supposes, somewhat bitterly, that they are at least being tended to and paid before being sent on their way.
He feels a hand on his head. "Good job, boy," his father says, resting his palm on Ryo's bare head.
Ryo is puzzled. "What did I do?"
"Bore the brunt of her attitude," his father says, grinning. "No other man in the company was up to it."
"Oh." Ryo feels a little like he has simply accomplished a meager job that none of the others wanted, but he doesn't say so.
"Also--" Ryo's father glances at the grand manor doors. "--I think you kept her occupied. Let us keep a steady pace."
"What do you mean?"
Ryo's father shrugs. "She's like her father, that one. Strong as long as she has something to keep going on. But weak when it comes to Lady Sawajiri."
"Lady--?"
Ryo's father shakes his head. "Not well. Not since last month, I heard, but took a bad turn last week."
Ryo feels hollow. "...Oh." He vaguely remembers a rule that allows girls to leave convents temporarily to see dying relatives.
He hopes, for a little while longer, that Erika does not become Lady Sawajiri just yet.
~
III. Six months before Erika is to marry her husband, she is released from the convent. Ryo has not seen her in years; he only knows this because Lord Sawajiri decides to throw a banquet at her return.
He expects her to be beautiful. Many noblewomen are, because they are spared from harsh work and they have the gold to care for themselves. Ryo is also told that a crucial point in the growth of a proper lady takes place within the convent, and so it should not come as a surprise to see her and find her so decidedly changed that she must be beautiful.
What he doesn't expect is becoming smitten.
He would have cursed, were it polite. Spell-struck, Ryo can only stare as much as the other guests as she enters, presented by her father. She seems taller again, but more graceful, elegant, and impossibly ethereal. She floats rather than walks down the steps, and yet her eyes are so firmly fixed on the society receiving her that she has captured them all. Ryo does not even realise he is holding his breath, until those clear eyes sweep across the room and land for the tiniest, briefest of moments--on his.
Ryo exhales, and blinks, and then the moment is gone.
He spends the better part of the evening trying not to think about her face, a perfect, creamy oval with a mockingly red mouth, and eyes, such eyes, and how they might have looked at him. He even leaves the hall the first chance he gets, stepping outside into the vast Sawajiri gardens with a vague hope that the air can clear his head.
He frowns into the night, unimpressed with himself.
Love is not discouraged among knights. In fact, if anything, it is encouraged. It is a viable motivation, and it helps the growth of understanding the importance of being protectors. But honour, duty, and courage have always been the most valued and cherished in their order, and everything learned is never unaccompanied by teachings of caution with regards to women. The right one ensured everlasting happiness, the wrong one everlasting ruin. And Erika, with rank and beauty that is a seduction all on its own, is the wrong one for him.
Ryo shudders in the breeze, thinking of the girls he'd known and paid attention to, and allowed something to blossom inch by inch. They were good girls, sweet and kind and the right sort for him, and greatest achievers in propriety in the world. Yet none have made an impression strong enough to withstand this sudden overwhelming attraction.
He draws his sword, a sudden swift movement that gives the footman a fright. Ryo blinks, and then lowers his blade apologetically. The footman gives him a fretful, reproachful look but apologises for startling him.
"Lady Sawajiri has requested to see you," he says, stiffly. Commendable is that he can still make a graceful, sweeping bow as he offers Ryo the direction into the deepest parts of the gardens. "Please, this way."
It is as if a rush of blood floods his head, but he nods once and makes his way through.
Even without seeing her, he is alerted to her presence. Hovering just by the rosebushes is her dark figure, visible by the shining of the moonlight on the stones adorning her person. Ryo thinks he sees her eyes, too, and his heart nearly stops when she lifts her hand to him.
"My gratitude for coming to see me," Erika murmurs, her eyes not leaving his as he lowers his lips to her hand. The touch of her skin excites and upsets him, and he struggles.
"Not at all, My Lady," Ryo says, voice unlike anything he's known. It is as if he cannot swallow something. "Was there--anything you would have of me?"
She smiles, and it becomes the most dangerous thing he knows. "Anything...?" she repeats, withdrawing her hand.
Ryo does not trust himself to speak.
Slowly, her hands find his face. Before he is even aware of it, his face is lowered, closer to her face than he has ever been. Her thumb rubs lightly, a short path from his cheeks to his ear, and Ryo's mind becomes a blank.
"Stop."
It is only when her hands are lowered and she is a step away from him that Ryo realises that he has spoken. She is not smiling now. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes are still staring at him.
"This would be a disgrace," Ryo can hear himself say hollowly, "and a dishonour to both you and your father. I-I can't--I cannot--" He still feels as though he cannot swallow. He cannot even look at her and her perfect beauty and her unreadable expression. "--Th-though I appreciate your feelings..."
A strange sound erupts from her, like a fountain's sudden splay of water. She is laughing. Ryo gapes, in equal parts confused and captivated by the sight.
"Very good," she says, and the smirk is back on her face. "Maybe you'll be a real knight yet."
"...My Lady?"
"I have to admit I was hoping you would fail," Erika says, nonchalantly sweeping a hand across her skirts as though readjusting herself. "but you are one of the few tonight to pull through." She glances at him, amused at his utter confusion. "You don't think my father actually planned this banquet on his own, do you? I convinced him, in fact, that it was a good idea to test all his men's loyalty. Not only for his sake, but for my husband's as well." She shakes her head. "A surprising number were weak to a few smiles and soft words. Men who give up years of loyalty just like that truly are disgusting, aren't they?"
"Then--this was--?"
"A test," she says, brusquely. "And you passed it. Beyond expectation. You can rest knowing my father will count on you and your family's loyalty more than ever." Erika looks heavenward, and Ryo can see her eyes shining again. There's turmoil in his heart--like he's both betrayed relieved--but he also cannot help but feel impressed. She has not met her husband yet, but already she is taking charge of their future with practical hands.
Upper noblewomen are scary, after all.
"Ryo," she says, before he leaves, and his heart stops again at the sound of his name. There is a pause, and then she continues, reluctantly: "I want to thank you. For those years ago. How you and your father took me to my mother."
It's the beginning--he will never have her, he thinks, but he can help her.
~
IV. Ryo remembers the day. It's a normal day, with still air and thin rays of sunlight. It's neither auspicious nor ominous, and so Ryo lets his guard down.
Or maybe he has for a while. The months following his newfound devotion to Erika--(Lady Sawajiri, he reminds himself, and soon Lady Takashiro)--become a strange period. He allows his family and friends to believe that it is in line with his approaching knighthood, but the truth is so much more complicated. He is determined, more than ever, to achieve his knighthood and to be the best that is expected. He works hard, training ardently and studying properly with so much vigour that all become amazed at the dedication.
They predict, with excitement, that he'll surpass the White Knight.
Simultaneously, he harbours his private devotion. Ryo knows, and acknowledges, even in his awed stupor, that he cannot ever hope to be with Erika. This will not prevent him, however, from serving her as best he can for as long as is possible. It is not difficult to disguise it as a natural progression from his family's devotion to her father--when Erika marries (becomes Lady Takashiro), he will be there. And, he thinks within the whirlwind of his mind, this will be enough.
She shows no sign of ever knowing his intentions, but all the same Ryo has suspicions. They see each other more frequently, as she is residing in the manor once more, and in many ways she has not lost the edge she held out for him even as a child.
"You stare far too much," she tells him, in a mild way that lets him know she is not actually disturbed. "Did you know?'
"I was only thinking," Ryo says, hiding his embarrassment.
"Thinking...?"
Ryo feels caught. "Well--that you've---grown," he says, trying not to cough. "Taller."
She gives him one of her most unreadable looks for a full minute, as if considering, but in the end she simply smiles sweetly and says, "Oh? I'm sorry I can't say much the same for you..."
He wonders, once, if maybe he's meant to suffer in love. It would certainly make more sense.
Of the husband, he cannot pretend to be ignorant of. Lord Takashiro is one of the most powerful men in the realm, born and high bred and most likely Erika's perfect match. Ryo hears the whispers and the rumours--how he's probably the only man who can control Erika, who stands so straight and strong that even her father bends to her, and other outrageous things like that. They can't seem to see that, strong or not, Erika is already pursuing everything in light of her husband. Ryo knows that every step she takes is, in one way or another, calculated for their life.
And so it comes as a surprise to him when she becomes nervous at the arrival of her first meeting with Lord Takashiro.
"If he's supposed to be so far superior to me, that would make him extremely good," Ryo tells her, half-jovially. She scoffs.
"It is not so great an achievement to be above you," she tells him snidely. It is clear that she is worrying.
Ryo crosses his arms, looking to the side in order not to meet her face. "My Lady."
She looks up. "...Yes?"
"...I apologise for not being present tomorrow."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snorts, softly. "I don't need you there." Ryo is silent. All the same, he thinks... Erika shoots him a look. "You're to meet your greatest hero tomorrow for the first time in your life, and you're hesitating?"
"There's no surety of him coming tomorrow," Ryo says softly. He is stock still, resisting the urge to take her hand.
"All the same," she replies, firmly. She is close now. "The White Knight. "
The White Knight.
Ryo's ears burn when he hears the first of the news. When the White Knight does not appear for the ceremony he is attending, Ryo's disappointment only knows as far as the rumours simply being false. It never suspects anything else.
Ryo cannot meet any other eyes at his order. None of them can. They're all knights, or knights-to-be, and they all know the implications. That the best of them all, the greatest, would be disgraced. That he would fall. And for--of all things--seducing the Queen.
Trial. A week from tomorrow. Imprisoned at the tower. Queen is ill. King is angry. Very angry.
He's hollow again. Someone he has never personally met has just ruined his entire life's devotion.
Exile. If he's lucky.
He's supposed to be sworn into the order in less than a month. What's the point now?
Ryo knows his eyes are dark, knows he's boiling, despairing, and that he'll only upset his family more by staying. With short, freezing tones he announces that he has been summoned by Lord Sawajiri, and he rides in that direction. Blindly, angrily, he swears as the horse nearly stumbles.
Curses. For the first time .
His eyes are hard, and somewhere in the turmoil of his mind he runs over the possibility of seeing Erika. Fresh from meeting her husband, infuriatingly smug. He'd have to own up to her, whether or not she'd heard it. She was right. He laughs, sharply, to himself as he arrives at the manner, in so dark a mood that the servants trip over themselves to tell him in small voices that Lord Sawajiri is not to return until the next day. He's welcome to stay the night.
"The White Knight, was it?"
He starts at her voice, turning on his heel. She's found him, deep in the gardens, brooding. She crosses her arms as he glares at her for the first time since they were children.
"My Lady." He sounds sarcastic, grating. She raises an eyebrow, but doesn't comment.
"In this way, at least," she says now, voice oddly flat and arms still crossed, "you'll have no problem surpassing him, won't you?" Her tone becomes lofty as she paces, not really looking at him. "Really, Ryo. To be so pathetic to put your life out for one man."
The contemptuous quality in her voice ignites him, and he grabs her by the shoulders mid-step. Her arms become uncrossed, and there is a look of pure shock on her face before it gives way to anger.
"Let me go," she says, icily.
"Nobody will come," he tells her, to see if she'll be frightened.
"Did I say somebody would?" she asks him spitefully. "Let me go, or you'll regret it."
"What, you really think I'm above what he did?" Ryo asks, bitterly. "You don't think I'm to repeat the sin of a predecessor?"
"Let me go--at least you still have a chance!" she finally raises her voice at him, pushing him away. "You lost an ideal, and that's all>." Ryo glares at her again, but then notices something in her eyes. It's a strange, angry, hurt quality, as bitter as he is feeling. He pauses, thinking back. She laughs at him. "Looks as though we were both disappointed today," she says to him, lowering her voice again.
He wants to ask--and he should, because then she can tell him and they can lament and he can be there for her, like he idealised--but he instead finds himself wrapping fingers around her wrist and pulling her to him.
"Let go," she says, tiredly. "This does not change anything."
"I don't expect it to," he says, roughly, pressing her to his body. He feels another push, and he leans back far enough to see her face without letting go. She is glaring, and suddenly her eyes are hard again, fierce.
Her mouth reaches forward and finds his, and for a full moment Ryo is so shocked that he almost lets her go. Then he reaches up to her face, and pulls her in more, and they're pressing so close together that Ryo cannot think.
~
V. It is surprising, but life goes on much as it did before. It is not very long before Erika is married to Lord Takashiro. It is not very long before Ryo is knighted, and sworn into the order.
It doesn't stop him from seeking her out.
"What are you doing here," she hisses.
"Fulfilling my duties," he says, nonchalantly, though already he is reaching out to touch her. She swats his hand away.
"None of them have anything to do with me."
"After a point," he says, dryly, "they have everything to do with you."
She pushes past him. "It may have escaped you, but I am married now. Nothing outside of it matters anymore."
Ryo pulls on her wrist, expression pained. She can't see it, because she's too busy trying to leave, but he pulls all the same. "Erika..."
"Don't." She doesn't turn around, but her tone is cold. "Go back to your order, and your precious knighthood, and stay true to your code. I'll stay with my marriage."
"Your marriage," Ryo tells her bitterly, before she can really leave the room, "is about as real as our code."
She pauses, but she does not come back to him. "It isn't really about whether it's real or not," she says, and the worst part is that he thinks he hears sadness.
~
VI. He does not even try to forget her.
Erika curses the day when he comes, knowing he has come only to see her. It is easy for him to find reasons to come, and it is frightening for her to find that she has no more control. He comes as he pleases, and he comes to push, prod, and coax.
"You want something when you cannot have it," she tells him, scornfully. "Were I not married you would want me less."
He protests that this isn't true, because he clearly wanted her even before the marriage, but she points out that she has always been promised.
He is infuriating. He is always there, to her, even in absence. Erika cannot deny the attraction to his company--he is mercifully smart, has access to the outside world, and he carries something within him that Erika feels is liberty. It is infuriating, to be trapped and to have him in front of her, always, flaunting that freedom and wasting it by being with her.
She attacks him with her words, her best weapons. She wants him to leave.
The silence is utterly deafening when he does.
Erika can't pretend that she is unhappy, because in many ways she is not. She rules her mansion in her husband's stead, and their lands prosper so steadily that Lord Takashiro is almost not missed. She likes the arrangement--she is confined to her lord's grounds, but they are vast and wide, and she has control. She had no such thing at the Sawajiri manor, and even less at the convent. Life in many ways is ideal.
Why did men have to ruin it?
Lord Takashiro was not always present; he lived up to his name of being a powerful man, invaluable to the King himself, and as long as he lived Erika would never want anything. Yet it was always a trial when he did return to the manor, tired but indulgently happy to see his wife, insistent about going over all the workings of the mansion, but most of all bringing so many tales of life outside that she feels miserable. He always asks her, kindly, how her life is and what she has done to occupy herself in his absence, and she hates how her answers are so bland and stale.
Then there is Ryo, with his frequent visits, so calculated to occur more often when Lord Takashiro is out than not. She deliberately makes sure they are never really alone together too long, not trusting the servants to not start gossip, Slowly, she finds that he is beyond caring, really caring, and he comes for his own sake; gone are the days where she can subdue him with her words, and now he simply takes her sharp attacks in stride and languidly stays as long as he wishes. Many times he makes suggestions, the kind that makes her shiver, but she always evades, always refuses. He makes her angry, this Ryo--so disillusioned and bitter and angry, like she is, but so much more willing to throw everything away than she is because he is a fool who can't see how free he really is.
And then... her father.
Erika is not a fool. She knows Lord Sawajiri has given her so much more freedom than most women in her upbringing, and her time away from home was easily the worst of what she had to bear. She loves him for it as much as she hates him; if he had held her tightly, never let her think, kept her ignorant like most of the silly noble daughters in the world, she might be living in bliss. Sweet, ignorant bliss. So she hates him as much as she loves him, and the day she leaves his house is as much a painful affair as it is a relief. She tries not to look back, for everyone's sake.
She does not expect him to leave her, too.
Erika rides, this time not bothering with the idiocy of a carriage, and to the amazement of all her escorts she rides the horse so well that it is flying. It flies, reaching the Sawajiri manor in so smooth a course that the people around her are awed. She doesn't care, only dismounts the horse on her own and thrusts the reins to a servant before rushing inside. The familiar halls and steps blur past her as she makes her way to his room.
There are other people there.They expect her to weep, to bawl, and this is in spite of her reputation for being like steel, so when she turns to dismiss them all, they graciously leave.
Erika looks at her father's cold face, numbed at last.
"...I'm sorry," she hears from the doorway, a gruff voice that could only belong to one person.
She begins to tremble.
"...Erika?"
She turns so sharply that Ryo is taken aback; the full force of her rage is evident in her face, but Ryo only has a moment to take it in before she has crossed the room and slapped him soundly.
"How dare you," she says, still shaking. "How dare you come here, of all places--"
"Erika!" he says, urgently, trying to reach for her. She hits his arms away.
"--taking advantage of a woman in grief," she says, through gritted teeth. "--I should have you cut open."
"Erika!" she barely registers that there is real anguish in him, too. "Eri--My Lady. My Lady, I promise you. I promise you. I only came here to offer condolences and respect." He tries to pull her to him in an embrace, but it is the worst thing he can do for her, and she hits him again.
She can feel tears crawling down her face now, in hot trickles, and she hates him even more. "Get out. I don't need you here."
"Erika--"
"You're not supposed to be here," she tells him, as vehemently as she can. Already she is beginning to feel tired, worn. "Get out."
Ryo looks at her, pain so clear in his own eyes that she turns away from him and waits for him to leave.
He does, but not before telling her, bitterly: "I don't see your husband anywhere."
~
VII. It's the first time Ryo sees her all in black, and for some strange reason it breaks his heart.
He only spent the past few years trying to break her, to persuade her to throw everything away to be with him, because he just knew that underneath the exterior she carried the same flame for him as he did her. And so he learned to dodge or to take her verbal blows, to simply smile darkly when she asserted her authority, and in short to slowly gain the upper hand so he could make her his.
Now she is in pieces, and he hates it.
He sees Lord Takashiro take her hand, and he can't even be jealous. There is no warmth in the way she lightly grasps back, only an empty kind of feeling as she keeps her eyes on the funeral procession. She isn't crying, but Ryo knows that the stony expression behind her veil is many times worse.
The next few months are a shadow. Ryo does not remember why or how, only that he feels like he simply has to do it, and every chance he gets he leaves her something. A small rosebud she would probably crush beneath her heel. A feather from a pretty guinea hen that she might let fall into the fireplace. A silk ribbon in the darkest shade of blue, for her hair, that she will never wear as long as she lives. Ryo has to keep trying.
"There's nothing left for you here," she tells him once, flatly, without looking up from the parchment where she is going over accounts. He is there with her, stopping by to see how she is doing, and she is unimpressed with his inability to come up with a real excuse for being there. "Go home and finish your terms with my lord before you become involved with the war."
"So there is a war?" Ryo asks, mostly to divert her attention but also to confirm such rumours.
"And why wouldn't there be, in this world," Erika mutters. She glances at him. "In a month's time you'll have fulfilled your contract with my lord. It would be best if you did not renew it, and pledged loyalty elsewhere."
"Whom I pledge my loyalty to is none of your concern," he tells her.
"It is if you're pledging false loyalty to my husband," she retorts, scathingly.
"How is it false?" Ryo challenges. "I serve him well."
"But you're betraying him by always coming to me," Erika says, with triumph but without relish. "Go now, while you can."
"I can't."
Erika looks up at him sharply. "Ryo."
"I can't," he insists, and for the first time in months he reaches out to her. "Erika, I lo--"
"Don't,," Erika warns. "I won't believe it."
"It's the truth."
"Don't say that," Erika says, and there is now an odd heat in her voice. "Don't say that!"
"But why?"
"Why can't you see that it can't happen?" For the millionth time in their lives, she pushes him away. For the first time, it's a gentle one.
"You love me too," Ryo tries, petulantly. "Don't lie, I know you do."
She glares. "So what?" she says, crossing her arms and staring at him. "On my side it hardly matters. I'm married. My greatest ruin will come in the form of me running away from my lord and into your arms."
Ryo frowns. "I wouldn't let anything happen to you."
"For the time being," she says, snorting softly. "If I seem beautiful now, Ryo, one day I won't be. And you'll be less willing to care for me. And then where will I be?" She looks away.
"No," Ryo says, protesting. "No, I promise--"
"'Promise'," Erika scoffs. "Men's promises. Look where that took my mother."
"Your mother?"
Erika looks at him somberly. "I suppose you, like everyone else, believed she died of an illness?" Ryo doesn't answer. "She did. The worst kind. Heartbreak." Erika closes her eyes, as if her head hurts. "...Her lover finally married someone else."
Ryo can't say anything. All this time...
"So don't ask me to run away with you," Erika says, voice soft but firm. "I could want it, but I won't do it. I am not going to be like my mother; I am going to live with my lord and do as I wish, because at the very least my future is secure with him." There is an odd, heavy lack of love. "Go home, Ryo. Find a nice girl and marry her, and make her as happy as you can. If we both try... we'll have that in common."
She returns to her accounts, and Ryo returns home, heart emptier than ever.
~
VIII. Three years is a long enough time, but Ryo never does as she says. He never finds someone, though his mother would have obliged if he let her, and he never marries. He is not sure if this is as much clinging onto Erika as it is him being resigned. He does not even switch loyalties, like she told him to; he remains tied to Lord Takashiro. It is clear, however, that he can no longer seek out her company, and there are no longer times when he can simply see her for his own sake. Instead he meets her unexpectedly when he reports to Lord Takashiro at the manor, an occurrence extremely rare, or when he is to deliver something there and she is nearby, which is even rarer.
She greets him stiffly, politely, each time.
It is not as though Ryo has time to ponder. Already he learns that staying with the Takashiro camp means that he has to answer the call to war.
He doesn't know how long that means.
With a wry smile, Ryo thinks that maybe he should have done as she'd said after all. But he can't regret it.
And he's not about to leave with any more regrets.
"My Lady," he greets for the last time.
She stares at him. She looks exhausted. "You really should not have come."
He smiles. "My Lady is very cold."
"When am I not?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow. For one strange moment they are younger again, eyes brighter and happier. Erika has a small smile on her face, before it fades and her expression becomes grim. "I hope you aren't here for final requests." She is still guarded. She does not want to be comfortable with him, not now that he is going.
"No?" Ryo asks, without really asking. "I'm not allowed even that?"
"We do not owe each other anything."
"I'm not talking about owing," Ryo insists. Slowly, carefully, he wraps his arms around her, and braces himself for her to push him away. "Why is it so hard for you to believe me?"
It doesn't come. She allows him to hold her, for a while, and they don't say anything. It is only when he becomes so overcome at the senses that he tries to press his lips to her head that she moves back and out of his reach.
"Ryo," she says. "Thank you for remaining loyal to my husband." Ryo blinks. She gives a reluctant shrug. "It was not fair of me to assume you had no real loyalty to him. For going on this war, with him, and for protecting him. Thank you." She says it all a little stiffly, as if she is unused to it, but the words are sincere. He frowns a little.
"You assume I'm still living by the code," he says now, slowly.
"What else do you live by?" she asks, more puzzled than snide.
He crosses his arms. "I could seem to live by it," he says. "But what makes you think I will not simply let him die?"
She frowns now, looking at him with a different regard. "...It's not in your nature to let somebody die, Ryo, whether you have the code or not."
"The code is about as real as your marriage," he says, softly, "remember?"
Her eyes widen slightly, and he thinks he might have angered her again. Instead she becomes very white and thoughtful, staring at him with a strange light in her eyes.
"Ryo..." she begins. "Do you mean to not to survive this war?"
He shrugs. He doesn't know, but wants her to think what she likes.
She frowns again. "Then you're a fool. You're still living by a disappointment you felt years and years ago. At least I've learned to accept mine." Erika pauses. Then her voice becomes very soft. "You're so silly, all of you. Staking your values on one man, claiming he's the best of the best, then keeping your heads bowed the moment he seems disgraced." Ryo looks at her, unsure. She has not mentioned the White Knight in a long, long time. None of them have. "...And what if I told you none of it was his fault? That he was not all as disgraced you were all so ready to believe?"
Ryo's mouth goes dry. "What do you mean?"
She stares at him again, her mouth in a thin unhappy line. "You will hate me for this. But maybe it's best." Her eyes have an odd quality about them, as though there is some kind of emotion there, but Ryo is not sure what it could be. She takes a breath. "He was disgraced and exiled. They would have beheaded him, but he'd done too much good. Or so they said. The real reason is because everyone at court knew the truth. He didn't do anything wrong. She did."
"The... Queen?"
Erika nods, once. "She seduced him. Offered herself to him. He said no." She looks oddly weary of the story, like she detests it. "He should have said yes."
Ryo doesn't know what to say. "Why... now? Why are you telling me this now?!" He doesn't know what he feels. Angry. Disgusted. With her? With himself? Almost... relieved?
"Because you're a fool!" Erika says, and she seems as upset as he is. "Don't you see? The code is real. It didn't die with his reputation. So if you can't live for someone else, you can at least live for that." She looks into his eyes, and Ryo understands that this is very well the last time. "Good-bye, Ryo."
"...Erika?"
"Good-bye."
~
XI. She's a child, like him, but she's a beautiful child, and it's only when he sees her for that last time does he really begin to think he understands what he is supposed to do.
This is what he thinks, and it's so purely embedded into his mind that he makes the mistake of telling her so.
He hopes, for a little while longer, that Erika does not become Lady Sawajiri just yet.
He expects her to be beautiful.
What he doesn't expect is becoming smitten.
It's the beginning--he will never have her, he thinks, but he can help her.
And, he thinks within the whirlwind of his mind, this will be enough.
He does not even try to forget her.
It's the first time Ryo sees her all in black, and for some strange reason it breaks his heart.
He doesn't know how long that means.
And he's not about to leave with any more regrets.
Ryo opens his eyes to starlight, dazed from his dreams. The painful gash on his leg wakes him up, brings him back to earth, and he groans a little at the loss of his sweet sleep. He sits up, aching all over, but without complaint he begins to dress. It's a habit now, one of the easier ones. He learns much after two years. He doesn't heal much, but he learns.
'The roads are endless,' Ryo writes, by the light of the fire and the stars. 'and it gives one a lot of time to think.' Do you think of me?
'I have always wondered where the road ends,' she writes back, prosaically. 'Be sure to tell me, once you write with news of my husband.' Yes. I should not. But I do.
'The road will end when the war does,' he scribbles, fervent. 'and for me, that means the end point is home.' Then you will be there when I return.
'A road ending where it began?' her handwriting shows no sign of mirth, but he can imagine it. 'Your greatest lack seems to be learning not to look back.' No promises. Please.
'You know me,' he says in his last letter. 'I stay true to my code. I can't leave anyone behind.' Wait for me.
She doesn't reply. It might be the first sign.
Ryo is one of Lord Takashiro's best men. He is not brilliant, but very capable, and never lacking in courage. It is thus seen as right and just when he is elevated, time and again, in position within the mobile troops. It doesn't matter if they are winning the war or not; Ryo's reputation is winning plenty.
And yet he feels no joy from it. His only real source of joy comes from her letters, and even then it hurts to read them. Like a spell, they command him to watch Lord Takashiro. To fight for him to the death.
It comes to this, Ryo thinks, when he is fully dressed. He tests his leg. Still good. He should be allowed to go back to the fighting in the morning.
Or so he thinks.
"Over?" he repeats slowly, dumbly. "What do you mean?"
"For now," says one of the captains. "Just for now. A negotiating party left a four days ago, while you were unconscious still. Lord Takashiro was with them." Ryo stares. The captain shifts uncomfortably. "He... did not make it."
There is a pause. Ryo stares some more. "That isn't much of negotiation."
The captain nods, looking utterly wretched. "The idea was there. We managed a treaty... for now."
It's an uneasy peace. Ryo doesn't like it.
More importantly, what will he tell her?
"Had word been sent to his wife?" Ryo demands, startling the captain.
"To L-Lady Takashiro? Yes. Yesterday."
A week. She'll know in a week.
Ryo waits for her to write him, to curse him or to have him killed, even, anything. Two weeks pass, then three, and Ryo wonders when silence from her has become so much worse than rage.
She's a widow now. He failed.
He gives every messenger he sees miserable looks, until finally one approaches him nervously. He clears his throat and Ryo shakes his head--he wants the message, not pomp.
The messenger hands him a rolled document. "...Your discharge papers," he informs him.
"Discharge?" Ryo is taken aback.
The messenger nods, looking a little afraid. "Y-Yes. They were drawn up at the event of Lord Takashiro's death. Your contract with his vassal-ship is now void, it seems, and so you've been discharged." He looks at him uncertainly as Ryo unrolls the parchment.
"'Drawn up'?" he repeats, still struck. His eyes scan the elegantly written form. It's been approved, signed and sealed, and he's free to go. He frowns.
"Your horse will be ready whenever you please, sir," the messenger says helpfully, before backing away and running off.
Ryo stares at the paper. His looks over the Takashiro seal, in blue wax. Had this been done in advance, or...?
And then he sees it. There, almost completely hidden by the wax, the sides of a guinea feather. And the ribbon in is hand, the one that had tied the roll together--a shade of blue he's seen before.
He is on his horse by the next morning.
~
X. She's in black again, this time an opulent kind, and her eyes are hidden by her veil.
Erika is older, he can see, even with a face as youthful as hers. She is fuller in figure and wearier, and Ryo knows that as time passes this can increase.
Yet she stands straight, tall, and even in unadorned widow's garb she is deathly beautiful.Her eyes, he sees once she lifts her veil, are the same. Bright, clear, and strong, steady with her head held high. And that, he thinks, is enough. His heart stops all over again.
"You've come back," is the first thing she says to him.
"Left something," he murmurs, once he's kissed her hand. "Part of me, I believe."
She pulls her hand away. He catches it again, quickly, and she shakes her head. "Widows are widows, Ryo. We can't remarry."
"Not here," he says, in full seriousness. Not once has his eyes left her face. "But--"
He expects her to interrupt. To protest. She doesn't.
"I'm listening," she says, and there is the tiniest hint of awe in her voice, as though she wants to hear him talk at all.
He cups her face with his hands. "You told me I would tire of you. That I would want you less if you were not married, and then less still if you grew older."
"I believed it with all my heart," she tells him, unapologetic. But she doesn't pull away.
"You and I," Ryo says, heart beating as wild as when he first saw her all those years ago, "have nothing left for us here."
There's a small hint of pain in her eyes. "No, you're right. We don't."
"You've tried to let me go free," Ryo continues, hardly daring to believe it. "More times than I can remember. This time I will. This time, I am letting you... but you have to come too."
There's an eternity that has to pass before she can reply. Her eyes never leave his face as she slowly takes both his hands in hers. She is being careful, as though she is afraid, but she is also trembling a little. Ryo feels the prickling of worry when he thinks she might be crying, because her eyes are suspiciously moist, but he blinks and they are fine again, as bright and steady as ever.
"Who's crying?" she says finally, in a funny teasing voice, and Ryo realises that maybe it's his own eyes that are tearing up.
He can't even glare, though. Instead he presses her to his heart.