[Multi-Chapter] To Catch a Falling Star: Or Stardust, Tegomass Style, Ch. 3
Title: To Catch a Falling Star: Or Stardust, Tegomass Style (Ch. 3)
Genre: AU
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Massu/Maki, future Massu/Tegoshi
Characters: Arashi, Kanjani8, NewS
Disclaimer: Done purely for entertainment purposes. I only own my warped imagination. And go read Stardust. Neil Gaiman is love. ♥
Summary: Massu gets that much closer to finding Maki's star...
Not as quickly as the first two chapters but it's still going rather fast. @__@ I haven't thoroughly read this over so, uh, pointing out errors would be greatly appreciated? 8D
This is still coldbloodedfire 's fault. 8|
Deep within a rather average looking ancient wood, stood a rather average looking witches’ hut hidden among the dark tangle of trees. It was mildly sinister looking, but not enough to really be impressive, much to the owners’ dismay. Once upon a time it had been a place that struck fear into the hearts of the bravest of adventurers and would-be heroes, but at the moment the slight sag in the roof and the dullness of the spiderwebs draped across the eaves did little to make the occasional wayfarer or lost child who happened upon it look twice, let alone quake in their boots as they once had.
In this hut there lived three brothers who, like their abode, had also once been impressive and able to instill fear in any who dared cross them. This time was long past, however, and at the moment they looked more like slightly senile, unkempt hermits than the powerful warlocks that they had once been.
At the moment, the middle brother (it was easy to tell by his short stature and the dusty, moth-eaten wig resting crookedly atop his head) was hobbling around their hut, a bag of runes clutched in one hand as he mumbled angrily to himself about the lack of appreciation young people these days had for magic. He stopped to catch his breath and took a seat on their badly leaning, weather-worn front stoop, his brows furrowed as he continued to murmur the occasional curse.
He’d just about made up his mind to set the toenails of every person under the age of 14 within 100 miles growing inward when he lifted the bag of runes and pulled it open with one shaking, knotted hand.
“Teach them to bother me. No respect, touching a person’s wig like that,” he grumbled as he tossed the runes out onto the ground in front of him, his lips curving into a frown as he read the pattern laid out before him.
“No… surely not after all this time….” He squinted his age clouded eyes and leaned in closer, his rant forgotten in favor of the stones in front of him. He sat up straight after a moment, his eyes wide and twinkling with an excitement that they hadn’t held in many, many years. “Brothers, come here! Quickly!”
“What now?” A voice grumbled from inside the hut as two sets of halting, shuffling footsteps made their way to the door.
“Don’t ask questions, Takuya, you doddering old fool!” he replied, his mouth set into a thin, uneven line as he continued to stare at the stones scattered on the ground in front of him.
“I’ll show you doddering.” The voice was louder as the man’s two brothers stopped behind him, the oldest leaning heavily on a walking stick that looked to be about as ancient as he was, while the youngest of the three stood behind him, looking only slightly less hunched as he stared at both his brothers curiously.
“Did a child follow you home from the village again?” the youngest asked, his voice almost hopeful.
“No… bother you and bother those brats. This is more important than any inbred villagers, Hideaki, or your damn tea time, Takuya.” He turned and gave them both a superior look as he motioned to the runes spread out in front of him. “Look.”
The oldest brother huffed as he shuffled forward, stooping lower to read the pattern laid out in front of him. After a moment he stilled, his eyes widening as he turned to give his middle brother a look. “It can’t be.”
“What?” The youngest brother asked as he moved forward to read on his own. “I can’t see. Can’t you just tell us for once instead of being so cryptic, Koichi?”
“If you wore your damn spectacles instead of being so vain you’d be able to read it yourself, idiot,” Koichi snapped back and gave his youngest brother a scathing look.
“Oh, as if you have any room to talk about vanity, wearing that dusty dead thing on your head all the time-“
“Quiet!” Their oldest brother shouted, punctuating the words with a loud thump of his walking stick. “This is not time for your petty arguments. It seems a star has fallen.”
“A star?” The youngest brother froze, his eyes suddenly echoing the greed reflected in both of his brother’s expressions.
“Two days east of here,” Koichi added with a careless wave of his hand toward the stones.
“Well, we need to hurry, then, before someone else hears of it! If we hired one of the village boys to carry our things we could be there in no time at all…,” the youngest began in a low, excited murmur, the idea of having another star fall after so long making his head spin.
“Leave off with your village boys,” the oldest shouted as he struck his walking stick against the youngest’s shin. “One of us will use the remaining bit of the last star’s heart and will go to fetch this one. It’s what we’ve been saving that piece for.” And with a flourish the eldest held out his hand, three straws clutched inside.
The younger two brother’s eyes met, then, sizing each other up as they each reached out and plucked a straw from the eldest’s hand. All three brothers held their hands up as one, then, displaying their choices for the other two to see.
“It looks like the honor will be mine,” Koichi said with a triumphant look as they all stared at the obviously short straw in his hand.
“Then let’s get on with it,” Takuya spoke, all three straws disappearing with a quick wave of his hand. His expression only looked slightly bitter while behind him Hideaki visibly pouted. “There’ll be youth enough for us all once we find this star and cut out its heart.”
--
“Good,” Ohno remarked as he eyed Takahisa up and down, his expression approving as he took in the other’s new outfit. “Now, time to go find your star."
Takahisa blinked as the small, hairy man shoved the stump of a candle into his hand. He cocked his head to the side and stared down at it, his gaze lingering on the rather pitiful looking length of wax. “A candle? “
Ohno nodded and turned to stare off into the distance, his tiny nose twitching as he scented the air. “Fastest way to travel, by candlelight. “
Takahisa gave the man a skeptical look and followed his gaze, trying to make out whatever he was staring at so intently. He was fairly certain his new friend wasn’t quite right in the head, but he was too polite to say as much. Besides, the other had been kind enough to feed him and find him new clothes, and if he seemed to think that the little stump of the candle he’d handed him would help he wouldn’t question him.
“There.” The little man pointed into the distance and gave a nod before turning to meet the boy’s eyes. “It should be about 100 miles that way. Just enough to get there and back again before the wick burns out.”
“What’s that way?” Takahisa asked after a beat, confused by far too many things in Ohno’s statement to put words to them all.
“Your star,” Ohno answered simply and reached out to pull the younger man towards him, shifting him a bit to the right ,and then back to the left again, before giving a grunt of approval and moving away to dig through his tattered, paint splattered pack.
Takahisa watched him, his confusion only growing and his trust in his new friend wearing a little thin. Still, his politeness was too much to allow him to question the other, so he simply waited patiently and watched him digging around in his pack instead.
“Now,” Ohno began as he turned back to the other with a slightly smashed box of matches and a length of delicate, glittering chain in hand, “you’ve just enough to get there and back, so you’ll have to be quick collecting your star. Once you find it, just grab hold of it and start walking back this way.”
Takahisa nodded dumbly, his mouth hanging open a little as he watched his diminutive friend tuck the chain into the pocket of Takahisa's new jacket before striking one of the matches.
“Candle,” the man spoke and Takahisa found himself lifting the hand still curled around the candle, all his questions dying on his lips. He watched as the other lit the wick, the flame flickering a deep blue and the thin trail of smoke it gave off curling in upon itself in odd ways. “Good luck.”
And with that the man laid his hand on the small of Takahisa’s back and urged him forward.
--
Subaru often wondered what it was like to have siblings that you could actually share a beer with without fear of being poisoned.
This was, of course, usually just a passing fancy, but sometimes when he thought back to his childhood and the time he’d spent with his brothers before their father had started encouraging them to kill one another off (as any good father would), he couldn’t help but feel a little wistful. He remembered the way his younger brothers Yasu and Maru had looked up to him as children and all the late nights he and Hina had spent sneaking around the castle. It was at these times, and only these times, that he allowed himself to feel a slight pang of guilt for what he’d done to Maru.
Although, to be honest, it wasn’t entirely like he’d planned to run the other over with his own horse. Things had just happened that way and, well, it wasn’t as if he could show favoritism and look such a gift horse in the mouth, right?
“Daydreaming again, brother? Dangerous habit, you know.”
Subaru spun around in his chair, his eyes wary as he looked his youngest brother up and down. “Not daydreaming, little brother. Planning. Someday you’ll know the difference.”
Ryo laughed, the sound holding a sharp edge to it as he sat down across the table from Subaru and reached out to run a finger over the half-empty wine bottle beside Subaru’s plate. “Perhaps I should have taken lessons from you when we were younger, then. I daresay I lack your dedication.”
Subaru snorted and nudged the bottle of wine further way from himself, his eyes wary. He was fairly certain Ryo couldn’t poison something through glass, but he’d learned not to put anything past his youngest brother. He’d proven to be the most vicious and ingenious of them all. “We both know that dedication is one thing you don’t lack. Scruples, maybe, but never dedication.”
“All’s fair.” Ryo leaned back in his chair with a smirk.
“Indeed.” Subaru picked up his napkin and wiped the last bits of grease and lingering wine from his lips before he stood and gave his brother a slight, ironic bow. “I’m afraid I must retire now. I suddenly feel ill.”
Subaru turned and hurried up the stairs, Ryo’s laughter following him to his room. It was only once he’d shut and firmly bolted the door behind him that he could breathe a sigh of relief.
--
Takahisa wasn’t entirely sure if he enjoyed traveling by candlelight. It made his head spin and his stomach churn and, while it was indeed fast, taking a step and landing in an entirely different place than you'd started was more than a little ennerving. It didn't really leave a body much time to get their bearings when miles upon miles of scenery rushed by in an instant like this.
He was fairly certain that he’d much prefer horseback or even the hard, splintered seat of his father’s wagon over this anyday.
There was little time to really dwell on such thoughts, though, as each step brought a rush of air and light and color around him, leaving all of his senses feeling a bit frayedt. He vaguely registered some of the places he stood when he finished each step-a dank smelling cave, the middle of someone’s rather cluttered living room, the summit of a mountain-- but it was always jut a brief flash of awareness before he took another step and the scenery shifted around him again.
Just when Takahisa’s mind was finally starting to catch up with the rest of him and he found himself actually starting to grow curious about this strange form of travel, it ended. He took a step forward, cautiously, and found that the scenery around him didn’t move (to both his relief and slight disappointment).
He glanced down at the candle still clutched in his hand, laughing a little to himself as he remembered Ohno's words. “By candlelight… I guess it really is faster this way.” Maybe his new friend wasn't as crazy as he'd seemed.
Taking a deep breath and another hesitant step, Takahisa glanced around and found himself standing in the middle of a rather non-descript forest. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d expected to find a fallen star someplace a little more grand. Afterall, this star was going to win him a kiss from the girl of his dreams; the place where he found it needed to be special.
“I guess the traveling by candlelight part was pretty special…,” Takahisa mused, consoling himself with the fact that at least part of the story seemed special enough to make up for dullnes of the forest around him.
“Is someone there? Help… please!”
The soft, rather pitiful sounding cry was enough to snap Takahisa out of his own musings. He’d never been one to refuse help when it was needed, and he had a special soft spot in his heart for children and girls. Judging from the sofness of the voice, he was willing to bet that whoever it was asking for his help now was either one or both of these.
“Just a moment! I’m coming!” he answered, his feet moving him forward across the forest's carpet of dead leaves without the need for further consideration. He stopped short a few steps later at the edge of a rather obvious crater tucked in amongst the trees. He wondered how he hadn't noticed it straight away, as it looked about twice as wide as his father's barn, but decided to chalk it up as an after-effect of traveling by candlelight . He peered into it, blushing a little at the soft string of curses he could hear, his eyes widening as he caught sight of the slight form curled up at the bottom.
“Are you okay?”
The person turned a pale, tear streaked face and large, pleading eyes on him then, and Takahisa couldn’t help but feel his heart clinch in sympathy for this small, delicate creature that was somehow caught out here alone in the woods, helpless and likely very afraid. He still wasn’t quite sure if the person was female or even a child, but they were small and scared looking and in need of his help, and that was really all that mattered.
His sympathy was cut short, however, when the person’s eyes narrowed and the perfectly pink lips drew into a thin line. “Yes, I’m lying at the bottom of this bloody hole crying out for help for a lark. What do you think?”
Takahisa blinked, his blush deepening as the slight figure openly scowled at him. At that moment he couldn’t help but be reminded of his mother when she’d gotten into one of her moods and ordered him and his brother about. Perhaps this person wasn’t as helpless as she… he... er, it? seemed. “Sorry… stupid question. Just a moment, I’ll come down and get you.”
“Hurry up. I can’t take sitting in the dirt like this much longer.”
Takahisa pulled away from the edge and did his best to ignore the occasional curses he could hear from inside the crater as he made his way around the edge, searching for a good spot to climb down. He was so busy with his search and his embarrassment that he failed to notice the flame on his candle burn out.
--
Hina frowned to himself as he moved down the hallway toward his eldest brother’s room, the soft sobbing of the Inn’s serving girl echoing off the thin walls and nearly drowning out the accompanying frantic sounds of the rest of the hotel staff. He could hear his brother’s valet, his voice low and grief stricken as he retold the events of the past few hours.
“… invited her up. ‘Tweren’t the best idea, I know, but you can’t never tell master these things. He’s got a taste for women, you see…”
Hina stopped to lean against the wall across from his brother’s room, his face a picture of serenity in the current sea of chaos. He could see his brother sprawled rather unceremoniously across the bed, his shirt unbuttoned and one leg out of his trousers (which actually managed to raise an eyebrow--even if Subaru was the drunkard of the family it was a rather undignified state to be in, even for him). The serving girl was seated on a chair in the room, a throng of hotel staff gathered around her as they tried to quiet her weeping.
“… don’t know what happened. We were just-and, and then he took a drink of the wine and h-he… I didn’t know it was poisoned, I swear to the heavens! That brother of his-the slight one with the dark hair and that smile-- gave it to me, said it was his favorite. “
“And the brother? Where is the scoundrel?”
“… gone, sir. Packed up his things and left, not a trace of him to be found. I should’ve known something was amiss when he wanted to settle his bill up front.”
Hina sighed, shaking his head a little. It was a good ploy, sending the wine up with a girl like that, but Subaru should have known to ask. Then again, Ryo had been counting on the fact that he wouldn’t.
He couldn’t help but admire his younget brother’s ingenuity, even if this meant that things had just gotten a lot more difficult for himself.
Genre: AU
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Massu/Maki, future Massu/Tegoshi
Characters: Arashi, Kanjani8, NewS
Disclaimer: Done purely for entertainment purposes. I only own my warped imagination. And go read Stardust. Neil Gaiman is love. ♥
Summary: Massu gets that much closer to finding Maki's star...
Not as quickly as the first two chapters but it's still going rather fast. @__@ I haven't thoroughly read this over so, uh, pointing out errors would be greatly appreciated? 8D
This is still coldbloodedfire 's fault. 8|
Deep within a rather average looking ancient wood, stood a rather average looking witches’ hut hidden among the dark tangle of trees. It was mildly sinister looking, but not enough to really be impressive, much to the owners’ dismay. Once upon a time it had been a place that struck fear into the hearts of the bravest of adventurers and would-be heroes, but at the moment the slight sag in the roof and the dullness of the spiderwebs draped across the eaves did little to make the occasional wayfarer or lost child who happened upon it look twice, let alone quake in their boots as they once had.
In this hut there lived three brothers who, like their abode, had also once been impressive and able to instill fear in any who dared cross them. This time was long past, however, and at the moment they looked more like slightly senile, unkempt hermits than the powerful warlocks that they had once been.
At the moment, the middle brother (it was easy to tell by his short stature and the dusty, moth-eaten wig resting crookedly atop his head) was hobbling around their hut, a bag of runes clutched in one hand as he mumbled angrily to himself about the lack of appreciation young people these days had for magic. He stopped to catch his breath and took a seat on their badly leaning, weather-worn front stoop, his brows furrowed as he continued to murmur the occasional curse.
He’d just about made up his mind to set the toenails of every person under the age of 14 within 100 miles growing inward when he lifted the bag of runes and pulled it open with one shaking, knotted hand.
“Teach them to bother me. No respect, touching a person’s wig like that,” he grumbled as he tossed the runes out onto the ground in front of him, his lips curving into a frown as he read the pattern laid out before him.
“No… surely not after all this time….” He squinted his age clouded eyes and leaned in closer, his rant forgotten in favor of the stones in front of him. He sat up straight after a moment, his eyes wide and twinkling with an excitement that they hadn’t held in many, many years. “Brothers, come here! Quickly!”
“What now?” A voice grumbled from inside the hut as two sets of halting, shuffling footsteps made their way to the door.
“Don’t ask questions, Takuya, you doddering old fool!” he replied, his mouth set into a thin, uneven line as he continued to stare at the stones scattered on the ground in front of him.
“I’ll show you doddering.” The voice was louder as the man’s two brothers stopped behind him, the oldest leaning heavily on a walking stick that looked to be about as ancient as he was, while the youngest of the three stood behind him, looking only slightly less hunched as he stared at both his brothers curiously.
“Did a child follow you home from the village again?” the youngest asked, his voice almost hopeful.
“No… bother you and bother those brats. This is more important than any inbred villagers, Hideaki, or your damn tea time, Takuya.” He turned and gave them both a superior look as he motioned to the runes spread out in front of him. “Look.”
The oldest brother huffed as he shuffled forward, stooping lower to read the pattern laid out in front of him. After a moment he stilled, his eyes widening as he turned to give his middle brother a look. “It can’t be.”
“What?” The youngest brother asked as he moved forward to read on his own. “I can’t see. Can’t you just tell us for once instead of being so cryptic, Koichi?”
“If you wore your damn spectacles instead of being so vain you’d be able to read it yourself, idiot,” Koichi snapped back and gave his youngest brother a scathing look.
“Oh, as if you have any room to talk about vanity, wearing that dusty dead thing on your head all the time-“
“Quiet!” Their oldest brother shouted, punctuating the words with a loud thump of his walking stick. “This is not time for your petty arguments. It seems a star has fallen.”
“A star?” The youngest brother froze, his eyes suddenly echoing the greed reflected in both of his brother’s expressions.
“Two days east of here,” Koichi added with a careless wave of his hand toward the stones.
“Well, we need to hurry, then, before someone else hears of it! If we hired one of the village boys to carry our things we could be there in no time at all…,” the youngest began in a low, excited murmur, the idea of having another star fall after so long making his head spin.
“Leave off with your village boys,” the oldest shouted as he struck his walking stick against the youngest’s shin. “One of us will use the remaining bit of the last star’s heart and will go to fetch this one. It’s what we’ve been saving that piece for.” And with a flourish the eldest held out his hand, three straws clutched inside.
The younger two brother’s eyes met, then, sizing each other up as they each reached out and plucked a straw from the eldest’s hand. All three brothers held their hands up as one, then, displaying their choices for the other two to see.
“It looks like the honor will be mine,” Koichi said with a triumphant look as they all stared at the obviously short straw in his hand.
“Then let’s get on with it,” Takuya spoke, all three straws disappearing with a quick wave of his hand. His expression only looked slightly bitter while behind him Hideaki visibly pouted. “There’ll be youth enough for us all once we find this star and cut out its heart.”
--
“Good,” Ohno remarked as he eyed Takahisa up and down, his expression approving as he took in the other’s new outfit. “Now, time to go find your star."
Takahisa blinked as the small, hairy man shoved the stump of a candle into his hand. He cocked his head to the side and stared down at it, his gaze lingering on the rather pitiful looking length of wax. “A candle? “
Ohno nodded and turned to stare off into the distance, his tiny nose twitching as he scented the air. “Fastest way to travel, by candlelight. “
Takahisa gave the man a skeptical look and followed his gaze, trying to make out whatever he was staring at so intently. He was fairly certain his new friend wasn’t quite right in the head, but he was too polite to say as much. Besides, the other had been kind enough to feed him and find him new clothes, and if he seemed to think that the little stump of the candle he’d handed him would help he wouldn’t question him.
“There.” The little man pointed into the distance and gave a nod before turning to meet the boy’s eyes. “It should be about 100 miles that way. Just enough to get there and back again before the wick burns out.”
“What’s that way?” Takahisa asked after a beat, confused by far too many things in Ohno’s statement to put words to them all.
“Your star,” Ohno answered simply and reached out to pull the younger man towards him, shifting him a bit to the right ,and then back to the left again, before giving a grunt of approval and moving away to dig through his tattered, paint splattered pack.
Takahisa watched him, his confusion only growing and his trust in his new friend wearing a little thin. Still, his politeness was too much to allow him to question the other, so he simply waited patiently and watched him digging around in his pack instead.
“Now,” Ohno began as he turned back to the other with a slightly smashed box of matches and a length of delicate, glittering chain in hand, “you’ve just enough to get there and back, so you’ll have to be quick collecting your star. Once you find it, just grab hold of it and start walking back this way.”
Takahisa nodded dumbly, his mouth hanging open a little as he watched his diminutive friend tuck the chain into the pocket of Takahisa's new jacket before striking one of the matches.
“Candle,” the man spoke and Takahisa found himself lifting the hand still curled around the candle, all his questions dying on his lips. He watched as the other lit the wick, the flame flickering a deep blue and the thin trail of smoke it gave off curling in upon itself in odd ways. “Good luck.”
And with that the man laid his hand on the small of Takahisa’s back and urged him forward.
--
Subaru often wondered what it was like to have siblings that you could actually share a beer with without fear of being poisoned.
This was, of course, usually just a passing fancy, but sometimes when he thought back to his childhood and the time he’d spent with his brothers before their father had started encouraging them to kill one another off (as any good father would), he couldn’t help but feel a little wistful. He remembered the way his younger brothers Yasu and Maru had looked up to him as children and all the late nights he and Hina had spent sneaking around the castle. It was at these times, and only these times, that he allowed himself to feel a slight pang of guilt for what he’d done to Maru.
Although, to be honest, it wasn’t entirely like he’d planned to run the other over with his own horse. Things had just happened that way and, well, it wasn’t as if he could show favoritism and look such a gift horse in the mouth, right?
“Daydreaming again, brother? Dangerous habit, you know.”
Subaru spun around in his chair, his eyes wary as he looked his youngest brother up and down. “Not daydreaming, little brother. Planning. Someday you’ll know the difference.”
Ryo laughed, the sound holding a sharp edge to it as he sat down across the table from Subaru and reached out to run a finger over the half-empty wine bottle beside Subaru’s plate. “Perhaps I should have taken lessons from you when we were younger, then. I daresay I lack your dedication.”
Subaru snorted and nudged the bottle of wine further way from himself, his eyes wary. He was fairly certain Ryo couldn’t poison something through glass, but he’d learned not to put anything past his youngest brother. He’d proven to be the most vicious and ingenious of them all. “We both know that dedication is one thing you don’t lack. Scruples, maybe, but never dedication.”
“All’s fair.” Ryo leaned back in his chair with a smirk.
“Indeed.” Subaru picked up his napkin and wiped the last bits of grease and lingering wine from his lips before he stood and gave his brother a slight, ironic bow. “I’m afraid I must retire now. I suddenly feel ill.”
Subaru turned and hurried up the stairs, Ryo’s laughter following him to his room. It was only once he’d shut and firmly bolted the door behind him that he could breathe a sigh of relief.
--
Takahisa wasn’t entirely sure if he enjoyed traveling by candlelight. It made his head spin and his stomach churn and, while it was indeed fast, taking a step and landing in an entirely different place than you'd started was more than a little ennerving. It didn't really leave a body much time to get their bearings when miles upon miles of scenery rushed by in an instant like this.
He was fairly certain that he’d much prefer horseback or even the hard, splintered seat of his father’s wagon over this anyday.
There was little time to really dwell on such thoughts, though, as each step brought a rush of air and light and color around him, leaving all of his senses feeling a bit frayedt. He vaguely registered some of the places he stood when he finished each step-a dank smelling cave, the middle of someone’s rather cluttered living room, the summit of a mountain-- but it was always jut a brief flash of awareness before he took another step and the scenery shifted around him again.
Just when Takahisa’s mind was finally starting to catch up with the rest of him and he found himself actually starting to grow curious about this strange form of travel, it ended. He took a step forward, cautiously, and found that the scenery around him didn’t move (to both his relief and slight disappointment).
He glanced down at the candle still clutched in his hand, laughing a little to himself as he remembered Ohno's words. “By candlelight… I guess it really is faster this way.” Maybe his new friend wasn't as crazy as he'd seemed.
Taking a deep breath and another hesitant step, Takahisa glanced around and found himself standing in the middle of a rather non-descript forest. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d expected to find a fallen star someplace a little more grand. Afterall, this star was going to win him a kiss from the girl of his dreams; the place where he found it needed to be special.
“I guess the traveling by candlelight part was pretty special…,” Takahisa mused, consoling himself with the fact that at least part of the story seemed special enough to make up for dullnes of the forest around him.
“Is someone there? Help… please!”
The soft, rather pitiful sounding cry was enough to snap Takahisa out of his own musings. He’d never been one to refuse help when it was needed, and he had a special soft spot in his heart for children and girls. Judging from the sofness of the voice, he was willing to bet that whoever it was asking for his help now was either one or both of these.
“Just a moment! I’m coming!” he answered, his feet moving him forward across the forest's carpet of dead leaves without the need for further consideration. He stopped short a few steps later at the edge of a rather obvious crater tucked in amongst the trees. He wondered how he hadn't noticed it straight away, as it looked about twice as wide as his father's barn, but decided to chalk it up as an after-effect of traveling by candlelight . He peered into it, blushing a little at the soft string of curses he could hear, his eyes widening as he caught sight of the slight form curled up at the bottom.
“Are you okay?”
The person turned a pale, tear streaked face and large, pleading eyes on him then, and Takahisa couldn’t help but feel his heart clinch in sympathy for this small, delicate creature that was somehow caught out here alone in the woods, helpless and likely very afraid. He still wasn’t quite sure if the person was female or even a child, but they were small and scared looking and in need of his help, and that was really all that mattered.
His sympathy was cut short, however, when the person’s eyes narrowed and the perfectly pink lips drew into a thin line. “Yes, I’m lying at the bottom of this bloody hole crying out for help for a lark. What do you think?”
Takahisa blinked, his blush deepening as the slight figure openly scowled at him. At that moment he couldn’t help but be reminded of his mother when she’d gotten into one of her moods and ordered him and his brother about. Perhaps this person wasn’t as helpless as she… he... er, it? seemed. “Sorry… stupid question. Just a moment, I’ll come down and get you.”
“Hurry up. I can’t take sitting in the dirt like this much longer.”
Takahisa pulled away from the edge and did his best to ignore the occasional curses he could hear from inside the crater as he made his way around the edge, searching for a good spot to climb down. He was so busy with his search and his embarrassment that he failed to notice the flame on his candle burn out.
--
Hina frowned to himself as he moved down the hallway toward his eldest brother’s room, the soft sobbing of the Inn’s serving girl echoing off the thin walls and nearly drowning out the accompanying frantic sounds of the rest of the hotel staff. He could hear his brother’s valet, his voice low and grief stricken as he retold the events of the past few hours.
“… invited her up. ‘Tweren’t the best idea, I know, but you can’t never tell master these things. He’s got a taste for women, you see…”
Hina stopped to lean against the wall across from his brother’s room, his face a picture of serenity in the current sea of chaos. He could see his brother sprawled rather unceremoniously across the bed, his shirt unbuttoned and one leg out of his trousers (which actually managed to raise an eyebrow--even if Subaru was the drunkard of the family it was a rather undignified state to be in, even for him). The serving girl was seated on a chair in the room, a throng of hotel staff gathered around her as they tried to quiet her weeping.
“… don’t know what happened. We were just-and, and then he took a drink of the wine and h-he… I didn’t know it was poisoned, I swear to the heavens! That brother of his-the slight one with the dark hair and that smile-- gave it to me, said it was his favorite. “
“And the brother? Where is the scoundrel?”
“… gone, sir. Packed up his things and left, not a trace of him to be found. I should’ve known something was amiss when he wanted to settle his bill up front.”
Hina sighed, shaking his head a little. It was a good ploy, sending the wine up with a girl like that, but Subaru should have known to ask. Then again, Ryo had been counting on the fact that he wouldn’t.
He couldn’t help but admire his younget brother’s ingenuity, even if this meant that things had just gotten a lot more difficult for himself.