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Hi, here is the first entry in this journal. It's only the prologue so far though. :)
Title: Chronicles of Tesselle
Author: kmeree
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Warnings: m/m slash, violence, cursing, etc.
Prologue
“Ow!” A boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen resentfully glared at the man opposite him as he held his bloody and now weaponless right hand to his chest. “You do realize that hurt, right?”
The massive man grinned nastily as he readied his huge sword for another attack. “It was supposed to.”
The boy blinked thoughtfully. “Oh, right.” With that, he turned around and fled down the nearest street, nimbly swerving around obstacles as he tried to get away from the man. Looking back, he noticed that the man was having difficultly pursuing him, being bigger, slower, and less agile than the boy himself. The boy grinned to himself…
…Only to run headfirst into a immovable wall that felt strangely…padded. /Were walls normally padded?/ the boy thought to himself as he shook his head to clear away the dancing fairies that had suddenly popped into his vision. Then he looked up.
/Uh oh./
Before him was another very large man, even uglier than the first with a jagged scar down that started just above his right eyebrow and trailed across his face, over his nose, and all the way to his left ear. It looked like it had been cut with a piece of rock, for no blade could have left a scar that messy.
The boy blinked when he realized that while he had been staring at the man’s scar, the first man had reached them and was now sharing a joke with Scar Man. Well, maybe not a joke, but they were definitely laughing in a not-so-friendly manner.
And they were both looking at him like they were about to jump on him and tear him apart…which wasn’t actually that unlikely a possibility.
“So, gasha, seems we’ fin’lly caugh’ ‘ou,” the first man said with a sneer on his face.
The boy was indignant. It was quite rude for someone he had never met to call him the same name as a dung-eating double-ended worm that was so stupid it often ate itself with one of its mouths. He told the man so.
Both men laughed meanly.
“Di’ ya heah dat?” Scar Man asked the first. “Da li’le gasha t’inks we’s no’ po’ite! Wha’s he t’ink we heah fo’, huh? Ta ha’ tea li’ an ari’ta’rat? No’ a sma’t t’ing ‘s he?”
The boy looked at him in confusion. He was pretty sure that the man was speaking Pendel yet he had no idea what had been said.
“Are you lost?” he finally asked. “You must be a foreigner or something, speaking like that.”
His concern only got him a growl of rage before the man threw himself at the boy. The boy yelped as he jumped back to evade the attack. When heavily muscled arms suddenly locked him against a broad chest, he realized he had made a mistake. He had forgotten about first man in his attempt to jump away from Scar Man. /And to think I was just trying to be nice and give him the benefit of the doubt!/ was the boy’s though as the man rushed at him with his frighteningly large broadsword.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Then heard a thud and a yell that sounded a bit too low-pitched to be his voice but he knew that it was likely just his ears losing accuracy as he died. /Though it is strange that I don’t feel any pain….I guess it’s just a side-effect of dying./ He felt the man’s arms release him and heard another thud as his body crumpled to the ground. /So after everything, this is how I go. Goodbye world, goodbye Spirits, goodbye Shikishi-my dearest friend who has saved me from so much but failed to save me this one time….Maybe I shouldn’t have left him in the market to pet the kitty….Oh well, can’t do anything now. Goodbye yummy meat pies, goodbye soft fuzzy blanket that has been my loyal bed companion for so long, goodbye…./
“So how long are you going to lie there?”
The boy paused in his final farewells. That voice sounded uncannily like Shikishi’s. /Oh no! Did my stupidity kill Shikishi too? I’m such a terrible, terrible friend! I should be crucified and then burned at the stake for my thoughtlessness! No! I should be quartered for my stupidity! No! I should…./
A cool metal object poked him in the side. “Nen? Are you okay?”
/How can I be okay? I’m dead, and you are too. I’m sorry Shikishi./
There was a sigh and a slight rustling of fabric before there was a sudden sting on his cheek. /Ow! I’m dead. Leave me alone…./
“You’re not dead, Nen. And neither am I. But we might be soon if you keep lying here.”
Apparently he had voiced his inner thoughts. So…might as well continue doing so. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty positive.”
“But there were these big ugly men that attacked me. I’m sure that one of them killed me with his equally big ugly sword.”
“Given that I don’t see any blood or any bruises, I doubt that the man hit you with his sword. Since he didn’t hit you, you must be alive.”
Nen couldn’t really find any flaw in the Shikishi-voice’s logic.
The Shikishi-voice continued, “Do you feel any pain?”
“…No.”
“Then you’re alive. Open your eyes, get up, and we’ll go.”
Nen obediently opened his eyes and found his smiling friend crouched by his side, his walking stick in hand.
Shikishi was undeniably beautiful. He was not feminine-his figure was definitely male. Yet the word “handsome” was too harsh of a word to describe him and “attractive” did him no justice. His hair, made up of pure white strands with black tips, was what Nen liked the most about Shikishi’s physical features. It was not particularly long, unlike Nen’s own russet strands that reached just past his shoulder blades. It framed his perfect heart-shaped face with forelocks that fell in front of his closed eyes and brushed his jawbone. Part of his hair, near his right ear, was bound by purple and gold ribbons that were intricately weaved about the hair. At the end of both ribbons were a series of four pretty glass beads that, when looked at closely, proved to be far more detailed than simple glass beads. Nen still didn’t know their meaning. The rest of his hair was rather wild in nature, sticking out at all angles. Rather than making him seem unkempt, his messy hair only seemed to make him more beautiful. Nen knew from experience that Shikishi’s feathery hair was as soft as it looked.
While his hair was Nen’s favorite part of Shikishi (actually it was the reason he met Shikishi), the rest of Shikishi was far from uninteresting. His height was relatively average, perhaps a bit short for men, but he was taller than Nen. His form was lithe, more like the body of a dancer’s rather than the warrior that he was. His skin tone was a light gold that made him seem somehow unworldly. But it was Shikishi’s eyes, Nen supposed, that would interest the most people. They were always closed. Despite the fact that Shikishi never ran into anything and always knew where things were, he was completely blind. Even Nen had never seen Shikishi open his eyes.
Although Shikishi appeared to be in his late teens, Nen knew that he was much older than that. It didn’t strike Nen as odd since he himself was nearly fifty years older than his apparent age. In Shikishi’s case, he acted older than he looked; in Nen’s case, Nen acted younger than he looked.
With big hazel eyes, creamy skin, and long, curly reddish-brown hair, Nen was most often described as “cute” or “pretty.” Given how he acted, it was most often the former. Nen wasn’t sure why he acted the way he did-he was pretty sure that he didn’t always act like a child. But he honestly never gave it much thought. It was just the way things were.
The only thing that detracted from his appearance (at least these days) was the intricate black tattoos that twined around his left eye and ran along his right arm. It was because of these markings that Nen was constantly being attacked. They were the reason he had to wear a hooded cloak, even in the blazing heat of summer. Luckily, summer was drawing to a close and soon he would actually need his cloak.
Nen was broken from his contemplations when he felt a warm hand touch his forehead.
He blinked up at Shikishi’s ever-smiling face. “What is it?”
Shikishi just shook his head. “You were just sitting there for so long that I wanted to make sure you weren’t coming down with something. It would make things rather difficult if you became ill.”
Nen pouted petulantly. “I’m not sick, ‘kishi.” He paused, something about Shikishi’s words made him suspicious. “Did something happen?”
“Besides you once again being assaulted?” Shikishi held up a hand to halt Nen’s protest that it wasn’t his fault that those brutes had attacked him. “In fact something else did indeed happen.”
His previous feeling of being accused unfairly forgotten, Nen quickly jumped to his feet. “What? What happened, ‘kishi?”
Shikishi smile was like that of a mother for her errant but beloved child. “If you really want to know….” He trailed off.
Nen jumped up and down. “I do! I do! Shikishiiiiii…”
“I have acquired a means of leaving Pendelia.”
“Really? Really? But I thought we didn’t have much money.” Nen’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand.
“We don’t. That’s why it’s not the safest means of leaving the country. If we could afford it, I would feel much safer if we joined an armed caravan. However, our funds will not permit it.”
“So what is it? And how’d you find it?”
“We are to join a small band of travelers that are leaving together in two days. While I am unsure of the backgrounds of our companions-to-be, the risk is probably for the best. After all, since we don’t know about them, it cannot be expected that they should know about us. As to how I found it, when you decided to leave me for a cat, I took the liberty of enquiring at a local tavern.”
Nen frowned. He may be childish but he was entirely innocent. “Shikishi….”
Shikishi patted his head. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself just fine.”
Nen’s frown didn’t lessen. “I know ‘kishi…but…but people in taverns aren’t…good.” It wasn’t the most elegant sentence but it was adequate in showing Nen’s feelings on the matter. He had always been strangely protective of the blind boy.
Shikishi merely smiled, pulled the hood of Nen’s cloak over his head, covering his features in shadow, and said, “We’d best leave this place before we have more visitors.”
“So what happened to those big uglies that attacked me?”
Shikishi looked across the table at Nen. They had managed to reach the rundown inn that they had being staying at without anymore trouble. The crowded, boisterous common room allowed for them to talk-quietly-knowing that it would be impossible for others to hear them in the din. Shikishi, with his acute hearing, could easily hear Nen. Nen, on the other hand, sometimes had to ask Shikishi to repeat himself several times before getting anything that was said.
“I got rid of them,” Shikishi said simply.
“What?” Nen leaned closer, obviously unable to hear his friend.
“I got rid of them,” Shikishi repeated in a slightly louder voice.
Nen blinked. “You killed them?”
Shikishi, smiling, shook his head. “No, but they won’t wake up for a while. And when they do, they will discover that they have been thoroughly hidden, disarmed, tied up, and gagged. It will likely be quite some time before they are discovered and are able to pursue us again.”
“Maybe you should just kill them so they can’t chase after us anymore.”
It was a statement that anyone who didn’t know Nen well would have thought unusual for him. However, Shikishi knew that Nen was far from the innocent child-like being that many thought him to be. Not that Nen was bloodthirsty, he merely was willing to do anything to survive. It was the result of his past.
Shikishi shook his head again. “No, if I killed them, we would only have one more crime that the authorities could pin us with. As it is, the fact is we not only ran from official persons, we-I rather-caused them bodily injury. The Pendels will be insulted and angered. They will be even more keen on catching us.”
Nen groaned and flopped onto the table. “I don’t think I can take even more ambushes!”
Shikishi merely smiled sympathetically while thoughtfully sipping his mead.
The next day, the two rose early to gather the supplies they would need for their journey across the Pendel-Faniue border. It would be a long and dangerous trek across lands untouched by the hand of man. Because their traveling party was not keen on being found, they were going to bypass the roads, cutting straight through the heart of the wilderness. It was not going to be a pleasant trip.
While lugging their purchases home, Shikishi left Nen for a short period to “tend to business.” In other words, they were being followed and he left to remove the threat of their stalkers. Whenever Shikishi left Nen like that, Nen felt filled with dread-he was sure that others would find him and drag him away before Shikishi returned. Nevermind the fact that he occasionally wandered from Shikishi on his own. Those times, his mind was focused elsewhere and he didn’t worry…until he ran into trouble anyway. But, like always, Shikishi returned.
Without further ado, they continued their trip back to the inn. Nen dreaded the morning when they would have to carry all of their things out with them. Not that they had much else. Everything of importance, they kept on their immediate person. Shikishi carried around his walking stick (which he’d had as long as Nen had known him) which did not seem any different from any other wood-and-metal walking stick. The only other non-clothing item he had was the silver-wrought collar-like necklace that was constantly about his neck. Inscribed on it were strange figures that Nen didn’t understand and a single purple stone. Nen’s only item of value (emotional at least, if not monetary value) was the gold ring on his right hand middle finger. It was the one thing he had left of his life before he began his travels with Shikishi. Everything else they owned consisted of necessities such as clothing, blankets, food, and medical supplies.
As he lay in bed that night, Nen had the feeling that on the next day, his life would be changed forever. He wasn’t sure if it was a good feeling or not.
Title: Chronicles of Tesselle
Author: kmeree
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Warnings: m/m slash, violence, cursing, etc.
Prologue
“Ow!” A boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen resentfully glared at the man opposite him as he held his bloody and now weaponless right hand to his chest. “You do realize that hurt, right?”
The massive man grinned nastily as he readied his huge sword for another attack. “It was supposed to.”
The boy blinked thoughtfully. “Oh, right.” With that, he turned around and fled down the nearest street, nimbly swerving around obstacles as he tried to get away from the man. Looking back, he noticed that the man was having difficultly pursuing him, being bigger, slower, and less agile than the boy himself. The boy grinned to himself…
…Only to run headfirst into a immovable wall that felt strangely…padded. /Were walls normally padded?/ the boy thought to himself as he shook his head to clear away the dancing fairies that had suddenly popped into his vision. Then he looked up.
/Uh oh./
Before him was another very large man, even uglier than the first with a jagged scar down that started just above his right eyebrow and trailed across his face, over his nose, and all the way to his left ear. It looked like it had been cut with a piece of rock, for no blade could have left a scar that messy.
The boy blinked when he realized that while he had been staring at the man’s scar, the first man had reached them and was now sharing a joke with Scar Man. Well, maybe not a joke, but they were definitely laughing in a not-so-friendly manner.
And they were both looking at him like they were about to jump on him and tear him apart…which wasn’t actually that unlikely a possibility.
“So, gasha, seems we’ fin’lly caugh’ ‘ou,” the first man said with a sneer on his face.
The boy was indignant. It was quite rude for someone he had never met to call him the same name as a dung-eating double-ended worm that was so stupid it often ate itself with one of its mouths. He told the man so.
Both men laughed meanly.
“Di’ ya heah dat?” Scar Man asked the first. “Da li’le gasha t’inks we’s no’ po’ite! Wha’s he t’ink we heah fo’, huh? Ta ha’ tea li’ an ari’ta’rat? No’ a sma’t t’ing ‘s he?”
The boy looked at him in confusion. He was pretty sure that the man was speaking Pendel yet he had no idea what had been said.
“Are you lost?” he finally asked. “You must be a foreigner or something, speaking like that.”
His concern only got him a growl of rage before the man threw himself at the boy. The boy yelped as he jumped back to evade the attack. When heavily muscled arms suddenly locked him against a broad chest, he realized he had made a mistake. He had forgotten about first man in his attempt to jump away from Scar Man. /And to think I was just trying to be nice and give him the benefit of the doubt!/ was the boy’s though as the man rushed at him with his frighteningly large broadsword.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Then heard a thud and a yell that sounded a bit too low-pitched to be his voice but he knew that it was likely just his ears losing accuracy as he died. /Though it is strange that I don’t feel any pain….I guess it’s just a side-effect of dying./ He felt the man’s arms release him and heard another thud as his body crumpled to the ground. /So after everything, this is how I go. Goodbye world, goodbye Spirits, goodbye Shikishi-my dearest friend who has saved me from so much but failed to save me this one time….Maybe I shouldn’t have left him in the market to pet the kitty….Oh well, can’t do anything now. Goodbye yummy meat pies, goodbye soft fuzzy blanket that has been my loyal bed companion for so long, goodbye…./
“So how long are you going to lie there?”
The boy paused in his final farewells. That voice sounded uncannily like Shikishi’s. /Oh no! Did my stupidity kill Shikishi too? I’m such a terrible, terrible friend! I should be crucified and then burned at the stake for my thoughtlessness! No! I should be quartered for my stupidity! No! I should…./
A cool metal object poked him in the side. “Nen? Are you okay?”
/How can I be okay? I’m dead, and you are too. I’m sorry Shikishi./
There was a sigh and a slight rustling of fabric before there was a sudden sting on his cheek. /Ow! I’m dead. Leave me alone…./
“You’re not dead, Nen. And neither am I. But we might be soon if you keep lying here.”
Apparently he had voiced his inner thoughts. So…might as well continue doing so. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty positive.”
“But there were these big ugly men that attacked me. I’m sure that one of them killed me with his equally big ugly sword.”
“Given that I don’t see any blood or any bruises, I doubt that the man hit you with his sword. Since he didn’t hit you, you must be alive.”
Nen couldn’t really find any flaw in the Shikishi-voice’s logic.
The Shikishi-voice continued, “Do you feel any pain?”
“…No.”
“Then you’re alive. Open your eyes, get up, and we’ll go.”
Nen obediently opened his eyes and found his smiling friend crouched by his side, his walking stick in hand.
Shikishi was undeniably beautiful. He was not feminine-his figure was definitely male. Yet the word “handsome” was too harsh of a word to describe him and “attractive” did him no justice. His hair, made up of pure white strands with black tips, was what Nen liked the most about Shikishi’s physical features. It was not particularly long, unlike Nen’s own russet strands that reached just past his shoulder blades. It framed his perfect heart-shaped face with forelocks that fell in front of his closed eyes and brushed his jawbone. Part of his hair, near his right ear, was bound by purple and gold ribbons that were intricately weaved about the hair. At the end of both ribbons were a series of four pretty glass beads that, when looked at closely, proved to be far more detailed than simple glass beads. Nen still didn’t know their meaning. The rest of his hair was rather wild in nature, sticking out at all angles. Rather than making him seem unkempt, his messy hair only seemed to make him more beautiful. Nen knew from experience that Shikishi’s feathery hair was as soft as it looked.
While his hair was Nen’s favorite part of Shikishi (actually it was the reason he met Shikishi), the rest of Shikishi was far from uninteresting. His height was relatively average, perhaps a bit short for men, but he was taller than Nen. His form was lithe, more like the body of a dancer’s rather than the warrior that he was. His skin tone was a light gold that made him seem somehow unworldly. But it was Shikishi’s eyes, Nen supposed, that would interest the most people. They were always closed. Despite the fact that Shikishi never ran into anything and always knew where things were, he was completely blind. Even Nen had never seen Shikishi open his eyes.
Although Shikishi appeared to be in his late teens, Nen knew that he was much older than that. It didn’t strike Nen as odd since he himself was nearly fifty years older than his apparent age. In Shikishi’s case, he acted older than he looked; in Nen’s case, Nen acted younger than he looked.
With big hazel eyes, creamy skin, and long, curly reddish-brown hair, Nen was most often described as “cute” or “pretty.” Given how he acted, it was most often the former. Nen wasn’t sure why he acted the way he did-he was pretty sure that he didn’t always act like a child. But he honestly never gave it much thought. It was just the way things were.
The only thing that detracted from his appearance (at least these days) was the intricate black tattoos that twined around his left eye and ran along his right arm. It was because of these markings that Nen was constantly being attacked. They were the reason he had to wear a hooded cloak, even in the blazing heat of summer. Luckily, summer was drawing to a close and soon he would actually need his cloak.
Nen was broken from his contemplations when he felt a warm hand touch his forehead.
He blinked up at Shikishi’s ever-smiling face. “What is it?”
Shikishi just shook his head. “You were just sitting there for so long that I wanted to make sure you weren’t coming down with something. It would make things rather difficult if you became ill.”
Nen pouted petulantly. “I’m not sick, ‘kishi.” He paused, something about Shikishi’s words made him suspicious. “Did something happen?”
“Besides you once again being assaulted?” Shikishi held up a hand to halt Nen’s protest that it wasn’t his fault that those brutes had attacked him. “In fact something else did indeed happen.”
His previous feeling of being accused unfairly forgotten, Nen quickly jumped to his feet. “What? What happened, ‘kishi?”
Shikishi smile was like that of a mother for her errant but beloved child. “If you really want to know….” He trailed off.
Nen jumped up and down. “I do! I do! Shikishiiiiii…”
“I have acquired a means of leaving Pendelia.”
“Really? Really? But I thought we didn’t have much money.” Nen’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand.
“We don’t. That’s why it’s not the safest means of leaving the country. If we could afford it, I would feel much safer if we joined an armed caravan. However, our funds will not permit it.”
“So what is it? And how’d you find it?”
“We are to join a small band of travelers that are leaving together in two days. While I am unsure of the backgrounds of our companions-to-be, the risk is probably for the best. After all, since we don’t know about them, it cannot be expected that they should know about us. As to how I found it, when you decided to leave me for a cat, I took the liberty of enquiring at a local tavern.”
Nen frowned. He may be childish but he was entirely innocent. “Shikishi….”
Shikishi patted his head. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself just fine.”
Nen’s frown didn’t lessen. “I know ‘kishi…but…but people in taverns aren’t…good.” It wasn’t the most elegant sentence but it was adequate in showing Nen’s feelings on the matter. He had always been strangely protective of the blind boy.
Shikishi merely smiled, pulled the hood of Nen’s cloak over his head, covering his features in shadow, and said, “We’d best leave this place before we have more visitors.”
“So what happened to those big uglies that attacked me?”
Shikishi looked across the table at Nen. They had managed to reach the rundown inn that they had being staying at without anymore trouble. The crowded, boisterous common room allowed for them to talk-quietly-knowing that it would be impossible for others to hear them in the din. Shikishi, with his acute hearing, could easily hear Nen. Nen, on the other hand, sometimes had to ask Shikishi to repeat himself several times before getting anything that was said.
“I got rid of them,” Shikishi said simply.
“What?” Nen leaned closer, obviously unable to hear his friend.
“I got rid of them,” Shikishi repeated in a slightly louder voice.
Nen blinked. “You killed them?”
Shikishi, smiling, shook his head. “No, but they won’t wake up for a while. And when they do, they will discover that they have been thoroughly hidden, disarmed, tied up, and gagged. It will likely be quite some time before they are discovered and are able to pursue us again.”
“Maybe you should just kill them so they can’t chase after us anymore.”
It was a statement that anyone who didn’t know Nen well would have thought unusual for him. However, Shikishi knew that Nen was far from the innocent child-like being that many thought him to be. Not that Nen was bloodthirsty, he merely was willing to do anything to survive. It was the result of his past.
Shikishi shook his head again. “No, if I killed them, we would only have one more crime that the authorities could pin us with. As it is, the fact is we not only ran from official persons, we-I rather-caused them bodily injury. The Pendels will be insulted and angered. They will be even more keen on catching us.”
Nen groaned and flopped onto the table. “I don’t think I can take even more ambushes!”
Shikishi merely smiled sympathetically while thoughtfully sipping his mead.
The next day, the two rose early to gather the supplies they would need for their journey across the Pendel-Faniue border. It would be a long and dangerous trek across lands untouched by the hand of man. Because their traveling party was not keen on being found, they were going to bypass the roads, cutting straight through the heart of the wilderness. It was not going to be a pleasant trip.
While lugging their purchases home, Shikishi left Nen for a short period to “tend to business.” In other words, they were being followed and he left to remove the threat of their stalkers. Whenever Shikishi left Nen like that, Nen felt filled with dread-he was sure that others would find him and drag him away before Shikishi returned. Nevermind the fact that he occasionally wandered from Shikishi on his own. Those times, his mind was focused elsewhere and he didn’t worry…until he ran into trouble anyway. But, like always, Shikishi returned.
Without further ado, they continued their trip back to the inn. Nen dreaded the morning when they would have to carry all of their things out with them. Not that they had much else. Everything of importance, they kept on their immediate person. Shikishi carried around his walking stick (which he’d had as long as Nen had known him) which did not seem any different from any other wood-and-metal walking stick. The only other non-clothing item he had was the silver-wrought collar-like necklace that was constantly about his neck. Inscribed on it were strange figures that Nen didn’t understand and a single purple stone. Nen’s only item of value (emotional at least, if not monetary value) was the gold ring on his right hand middle finger. It was the one thing he had left of his life before he began his travels with Shikishi. Everything else they owned consisted of necessities such as clothing, blankets, food, and medical supplies.
As he lay in bed that night, Nen had the feeling that on the next day, his life would be changed forever. He wasn’t sure if it was a good feeling or not.