Chapter Three
Title: The Myu Chronicles - Book One: The Dancing Lion, the Warlock, and the Wardrobe
Author: KY
Genre: pnish/TeniMyu/Narnia crossover
Characters/pairings: TutixNagayan, MorixDaiki, KazukixShirota, SaitoxAoyagi, various others, pnish, original cast, new cast
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,085
Summary: *pnish*, the chosen humans destined to become Kings of Narnia and do battle against the White Warlock and the minions of his ice palace, must return peace and eternal summer to this mythical world.
Tuti awoke to a dark room doused in shadows, his cheek still propped against the palm of his hand and half of his face gone cold from the lack of heat. He shifted in his chair and blinked, focusing on the dying orange embers in the grate that had burned down to shriveled lumps of coal, feeble tendrils of smoke still escaping like twisting serpents into the air. A shiver took hold of him as the frigid temperature in the room registered on his skin, and it left his teeth knocking together briefly as he straightened up with a frown.
“Crap, how long was I out?” he asked the room, rubbing a dry hand over his chilled face and across the chapped flesh of his lips.
When there was no reply Tuti twisted around to face the other armchair, but much to his surprise found it empty. There was no sign of the faun, though the serving tray still sat between the chairs just like it had hours earlier.
“Hello?” he called a bit louder, the hairs on his arms standing up on end as silence greeted his question. Tuti pushed himself off the seat and was surprised to hear a loud crunch under his shoe. He looked down and was barely able to make out the shattered fragments of a teacup sprinkled across the stone floor. His teacup.
“Takashi? Are you here? Hello?” he called again, stepping around the broken shards. Almost all of the candles in the room had gone out, leaving the entire cave bathed in a cold, silver light that turned everything into mixed shades of gray. Tuti’s eyes were drawn up to a circular window cut high above the main room directly into the rock face, and through it he could see unpolluted starlight and the waning moon in a cloudless sky, their feeble light offering all there was to see by.
Tuti swore aloud. “Dammit, I gotta get back.”
“It’s no use,” a faint voice said from one of the dark corners.
Tuti spun around in surprise, searching for the source of the voice. “Takashi?”
A brief hiccup and the sound of a soft sob were his only answer. Tuti immediately stumbled in the direction of the soft breathing and muffled crying, swearing again as he bumped and tripped his way across the floor and knocked aside a few pieces of furniture in the process. He finally reached the hunched form of the faun in one of the far corners, who was slumped against the cold stone wall, arms gathered around his legs and head buried between them.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Tuti asked, lowering himself beside the trembling creature.
Takashi shook his head and gripped his elbows tighter as Tuti leaned over him. “Tell me what’s wrong, why are all the lights out? Did something happen? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I couldn’t,” Takashi replied, the words thick with tears. Then he continued in a softer voice, muffled by the arms around his head, “I’ve done something awful.”
Tuti sat back on his heels in silence, feeling that same prickle of uncomfortable fear crawl up his spine. He almost couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. “What are you talking about?”
Takashi sniffed and raised his head, and even in the moonlight Tuti could see glistening tear tracks coursing down his smooth cheeks all the way to the corners of his lips. He frowned and wouldn’t meet Tuti’s eyes. “Would you believe that I’m a terrible faun?”
Tuti’s confusion tried to manifest itself into a smile, but the muscles in his face just wouldn’t move the way he wanted them to, and it came out feeling terribly weak and fake. Takashi still wasn’t looking at him anyway. “I can’t believe that. You’ve been nice to me. You gave me tea and let me eat all your cookies. I would have been a human icicle if you hadn’t helped me.”
Takashi laughed quietly, but the sound was broken and watery. “No, I’ve been completely selfish. You wouldn’t have come with me if you knew… if you knew what I was really like. If you knew why I asked you to come here.”
Tuti’s subsequent silence at this confession prompted Takashi to look up and meet his eyes for the first time, and there two sets of pained expressions met under the moonlight, one of disbelief and one of abject guilt. Takashi somehow managed a tiny smile at Tuti’s look, a bittersweet twist of his mouth that made his bottom lip tremble and didn’t reach his eyes. “I was going to give you to the White Warlock,” he explained calmly.
“The who?” Tuti asked, curiosity jarring him out of his silence.
“The White Warlock,” Takashi repeated, his head bowing again as he spoke. “He fashions himself king over all of Narnia. It’s winter here because of him. He makes the ice and snow and stops spring from returning. Always winter. Always winter and never Christmas.”
Takashi sighed and leaned against the stone wall behind him, tear stained face turned up toward the starlight, and in that moment Tuti finally understood that he was seeing the look of someone who had given up hope, and who was expecting Tuti to hate him for what he’d planned to do.
Tuti ran a hair through the back of his hair. “Okay. We’ll pretend for a moment I actually know why some guy I’ve never even heard of before would want anything to do with me. You were planning to give me to him? But you’re not anymore?”
Takashi shrugged helplessly. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why? Why doesn’t it matter?” Tuti reached out and took the faun by the shoulder, his cold fingers digging into surprisingly warm flesh. “Takashi, what’s going to happen?”
Takashi’s head lolled to the side and met Tuti’s worried expression. His mouth fell into a deeper frown that might have been on the verge of a pout if his eyes were not so serious, and Tuti could see remorse clear as day in their dark depths. “I’m sorry. You’ve been here so long already. They’ll come even if I don’t tell them you’re here.”
“Do you know that?” Tuti insisted, giving his shoulder a brief shake.
Takashi shook his head and then shrugged again with a sigh that seemed to tremble through his entire body, and it quickly turned into a half sob. “I’m so scared,” he whispered.
Tuti edged closer on the stone floor and softened the grip he had on his shoulder, cupping his palm around the top of the faun’s arm. Takashi responded by closing his eyes and leaning wearily to the side, closer to Tuti. “What are you scared of? Tell me,” Tuti insisted quietly.
“Everything,” Takashi replied immediately, his voice no more than a fervent whisper. “Him. This winter. Losing my home. Being thrown into prison for not doing his bidding. Of watching more of my friends disappear. Of never seeing the summer sun again. Never smelling green grass again.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m afraid of forgetting.”
Tuti wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but he was definitely starting to get the idea that the state of this world was not quite as peaceful as he’d originally envisioned. “Has it really been that long?”
“It’s been winter for a hundred years. Long, cold years.” Takashi lifted his face to look up at Tuti shocked expression. “Can you imagine what it’s like? A hundred years of no season but winter, always winter but never Christmas?”
“Shit, that is terrible. I’m sorry. How can this bastard do something like that?”
Takashi blinked in surprise at Tuti’s outburst before chuckling weakly. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never met a human before, and we were told that if ever a Son of Adam were to appear in Narnia, we were to enchant it and turn it over to the White Warlock. But I didn’t expect you to be…” The words trailed away and left Takashi studying him in silence, something unfathomable and painful still lurking in his eyes though the tears had stopped falling. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
“I hear that way more often than you’d think,” Tuti retorted, grinning a bit more easily, and Takashi replied with a small smile of his own.
“Mr. Tsuchiya…”
“Tuti. Call me Tuti,” Tuti interrupted, his smile widening. “Mr. Tsuchiya was my dad, and I’m not quite in a position to fill his shoes yet.”
“Are you really called that?” Takashi asked in disbelief. He sniffed and reached up to wipe away the moisture still on his cheeks, only now noticing the mess his tears had left behind. He looked somewhat sheepish at the realization and ducked his head to the side to finish wiping his chin and throat with the back of his hand.
“Most everyone does,” Tuti admitted, leaning back to let his hand drop from the faun’s shoulder. “Close friends and family call me Yuuichi.”
Takashi made a funny choking sound, and after a moment Tuti realized he was laughing again. The faun shook his head at Tuti’s perplexed look and took a deep breath. “Your names, they’re so strange. I’m sorry for laughing.”
Tuti wrinkled his nose in jest. “You think my name is weird?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I think it’s nice, just… different. Exotic, I guess. You itchy?”
“Close,” Tuti said with a grin. “Maybe stick with Tuti for now, it’s easier to remember.”
“Nothing about you is hard to remember,” Takashi admitted quietly, his face averted from Tuti’s dubious stare. “I think I’d rather die than hand you over to the White Warlock.”
“Hey now, don’t say things like that,” Tuti protested, feeling his cheeks warm unaccountably. “My life isn’t worth anything more than yours is, no matter what some crack-hat on a power trip says. So what if he can make it winter? Pfft, snow, no big deal. I’ve got a freezer full of that stuff at home. You’ve got a nice home here, you’re young and healthy, and I’m sure you and your friends can learn how to have snowball fights once you get yourselves some warmer clothes.”
Takashi had been smiling during Tuti’s tirade, but his expression fell by the end, and he shook his head despondently. “It’s been a long time since we were allowed to have fun. It isn’t safe outside anymore.”
“Allowed?” Tuti snorted. “Were you one of those fauns that always listened to what his parents said and never got in trouble?”
Something in Takashi’s expression froze, and it was visible enough by the moonlight that Tuti leaned in worriedly, returning his hand to the faun’s shoulder. “Hey, what is it?”
Takashi pulled away abruptly from Tuti’s touch and moved to stand. “You need to go,” was his reply, his voice clipped.
“Well that’s the idea, eventually,” Tuti agreed, blinking in confusion at the sudden change. He found himself at eyelevel with Takashi’s waist as he was left kneeling on the floor, the faun’s face left in shadow and nothing but the tight curl of his fists to indicate that anything was amiss. “But why don’t you tell me what’s wrong first?”
Takashi only shook his head. “You can’t stay here, they’re going to come find you.”
Tuti pushed off the floor with one hand on his knee and stood beside the faun. “I think that if anyone was going to come they would have been here by now. I’ve been here for hours, and you’ve done nothing but sing to me and stay inside the house, right? For all you know they could just want to talk to me, see the unusual human and parade me around in front of all the locals for awhile,” Tuti said, attempting to sound light light-hearted. He stopped though when the faun did nothing but shake his head, shoulders once more tight with tension, and Tuti felt a sudden stab of guilt at the thought that he’d made the faun cry again.
Tuti lifted his hands helplessly, fingers hovering over the faun’s shoulders. “Takashi?”
Takashi finally looked up at his name, dark eyes locking with Tuti’s. Tuti was startled by the stony expression he found there, but the faun’s voice was trembling as he spoke. “He wants to kill you. They’ll capture you and kill you just like everyone else that’s ever been taken to his palace. He killed my parents, he killed my friends, and now he wants to kill you too. Every moment you stay here your life is in danger, and if I’m responsible for your death, I… I couldn’t live with myself.”
The lump of cookies inside Tuti’s stomach rapidly turned to ice at Takashi’s words. “He killed your parents?” he asked hoarsely.
Takashi blinked and looked away, the frigid mask melting to reveal a glimpse of the scared faun underneath. “It was a long time ago,” he said quietly.
“That’s why you’re doing it?” Tuti asked suddenly. “The bastard’s blackmailing you?”
Takashi’s guilty and crestfallen expression was all the answer Tuti needed, and the taller man was momentarily stunned into silence as the reality of the situation swept over him, humbled by the thought of someone being manipulated and badgered into serving under the murderer of their own parents. The reason for the faun’s terror made startling sense now, and it was a feeling Tuti did not enjoy, being able to see the truth in all its ugly nakedness. He was angry, and genuinely worried, and scared for Takashi, who was breaking every rule by not turning Tuti in and endangering his own life all for a perfect stranger he’d met by chance in the snow.
Takashi crossed his arms uncomfortably, not meeting Tuti’s eyes, and after a moment turned away to walk across the stone floor. “We should get you back, before it gets too late,” he advised, mounting the shallow stone steps leading up to the door.
“Yeah…” Tuti agreed, still too weighed down by his thoughts to say much else. He slowly maneuvered around the furniture to follow the faun and joined Takashi in the entryway with a minimal amount of shin bruising along the way. Takashi struck a bit of flint and lit a small candle resting inside a sconce against the wall, the flames casting a rusty glow over his face and bare chest. He moved into the small sleeping area and dug through a dark pile beside the bed, and finally returned with two long objects in hand. He tossed the first scarf around his own neck and twisted it into a complex knot so that the two ends fell neatly and with even lengths across his collarbone, and then held out the other scarf for Tuti.
Tuti accepted it and wound the soft material several times around his neck, smelling pine and something warm and wild in the fabric that immediately reminded him of the small faun and the home he’d been welcomed into. His small smile of thanks was lost as Takashi turned his back, standing on tiptoe to blow out the candle above them, and the room was once more plunged into inky darkness, leaving spots of red to dance through Tuti’s eyes.
Takashi quietly opened the front door, leaving only a space large enough for his head to poke through, and a tense moment passed while he cautiously observed the surroundings outside. Finding nothing amiss he pushed the door open wider and motioned for Tuti to follow behind him with a finger to his lips, and together they silently exited the mountain home, the stars acting as their only guiding light as they moved down the icy path. Takashi kept close to Tuti’s side, his footing far more steady and sure than the dancer’s, and helped to guide them both over the more treacherous places with a warm hand on Tuti’s arm or lower back.
They made it into the forest without incident, though Takashi’s nervous glances had Tuti on edge as well, his own eyes darting about in an effort to discern what the faun was keeping an eye out for. Tuti had tried to speak once, but was immediately waved into silence and then drawn to lean closer to the faun by a hand on his elbow.
“Some of the trees are on his side,” was the whispered explanation, and the subsequent shiver that ran through Tuti’s body was not entirely to blame on the subzero temperature of the air around them.
He was frozen up to his shins again by the time they reached the lamppost, and had both arms crossed against his chest in an effort to preserve the warmth that was rapidly depleting from his body. They turned to face each other under the hazy circle of orange light, twin clouds of warm air rising from their mouths to twine together above their heads, and for a long pause there was only silence as they watched the other.
“You need to go,” Takashi reminded him, breaking their moment of quiet staring.
Tuti nodded and hugged his arms a bit tighter to his body. “Just so you know, I forgive you,” he said quietly, and smiled cheekily at the look of surprise that flitted across Takashi’s face.
“You don’t have to say that…”
“No, but I want to,” Tuti cut in, staring in earnest at the shorter faun. “I’ve thought it over, and you did a lot more for me today than I can ever repay. If someone else had found me, or if I’d wandered around totally lost I could be dead right now, and not necessarily because of the crazy loon that thinks he runs this place.”
He grinned as Takashi visibly stifled the urge to laugh, but the faun collected himself quickly and pinned Tuti with a serious stare. “How can you make jokes when your life is in danger?”
“Sometimes that’s the best time to laugh,” Tuti replied honestly.
Takashi frowned doubtfully and then glanced around them, but the silence of the forest was cold and all encompassing, and whether this was a good or a bad sign he didn’t say. “Can you find your way back from here?” he asked.
Tuti pivoted around, scanning the tree line, and smiled with relief when he saw the same patch of darkness and faint glow of light that had appeared behind him after stepping into the forest. He pointed so Takashi could see. “Right there, that’s the way back to my world.”
Takashi followed the direction of his finger and looked on in silence, a curious expression on his face. “It’s summer there, isn’t it?” he asked softly.
Tuti looked down at the creature beside him, taking in the small horns on his forehead and the delicately pointed ears behind his glossy black hair, a color that perfectly matched the fur around his waist and down each of his legs to the tips of his black hooves. Somehow the entire image still wasn’t enough of a deterrent to stop the question that slipped out of his mouth. “Do you want to come with me?”
Takashi looked up sharply, his lips parted in surprise, but just as quickly he shook his head. “I… that is, thank you, but… I’m not the only one here. It wouldn’t be fair for me to leave and abandon them. This is my home.”
Tuti nodded in understanding, having known it was a futile hope to think that he could whisk this creature away from the harsh life he was being forced to endure, and to bring a faun back with him to Tokyo was insanity in of itself anyway. But he hated the thought of leaving him here helpless, trapped in a perpetual winter, alone without living relatives or friends to trust, and Tuti was surprised to feel his own vehemence concerning the situation smolder that much hotter in his heart. He would do something, perhaps not tomorrow or in a week, or in a year even, but he’d find some way to help these people free themselves from a life that no creature should be forced to live.
He looked down at Takashi, their eyes meeting. “I guess I should go now.”
Takashi nodded, and then reached up to Tuti’s throat, his fingers worming under the scarf wrapped around his neck. With a few short tugs he had it free and then knotted again so that it rested comfortably around his throat, the soft fibers tickling under his chin. “It might be awhile before you get this back,” Tuti said.
The faun only smiled somewhat sadly. “Consider it my way of saying sorry.”
It was a surreal moment as Tuti backed away, watching the distance of snow between them lengthen with every step, Takashi’s silhouette framed by the glowing lamp light that gave his dark hair a touch of gold, and Tuti was almost glad that the darkness prevented him from seeing the despondent expression on the faun’s face. Almost.
He felt the trees at his back and turned to head into the thicket, snow once more piling high on his shoulders and sticking to his hair and lips as he passed beneath their boughs, and he pushed through them a little more urgently when the bulky shape of several fur coats came into view. Tuti heard his shoes connect with wood floor of the wardrobe and sighed aloud in relief, and then without preamble shoved his way to the open door and burst forth from the wardrobe in a tangle of limbs and coats.
“I’M BACK!” he shouted.
There was a sudden crash where Wasshi stood blinking, one hand fisted to clutch at his chest in surprise and the broom and dustpan lying where they’d been dropped against the floor.
“You scared me!” Wasshi exclaimed, his face unnaturally pale and eyes wide.
Tuti returned his startled look with one of his own. “Wasshi! What are you doing here? How long was I gone?”
“Gone?” Wasshi asked in confusion, bending over to pick the broom and dustpan off the floor. “Did you go somewhere?”
“Yes! I’ve been gone for hours, don’t you… why are you still cleaning that up?” Tuti asked, finally noticing the mess of straw and packing material around his feet.
“I just started,” Wasshi said, his brow furrowed as he stared back at Tuti. “Eiji told us to clean it up, remember?”
“But wasn’t that… I don’t understand…” Confused, and feeling a touch frantic, Tuti turned around and threw open both doors of the wardrobe, letting the full light inside the room illuminate the interior. He pushed aside the coats and to his surprise saw a solid panel of wood immediately behind them. He reached out and gently rapped against the back of the wardrobe with his knuckles, honestly half expecting his hand to pass right through the material, but it was real and solid and only echoed dully.
“Tuti? Is something wrong?” Wasshi asked, peering into the wardrobe from his place beside him.
“Yes, no, I mean… I really wasn’t gone?” Tuti turned to look at Wasshi, one of the most honest men he knew, and felt his heart sink into his stomach when the actor only frowned in confusion.
“Where do you think you went?” he asked instead, his confusion beginning to shift to a look of worry for their youngest member.
Tuti quickly shook his head, stalling the concern before it had a chance to take root in Wasshi’s brain, and turned around to shut the doors to the wardrobe. “No where, I was just joking. I didn’t go anywhere.”
So what the hell had just happened?
Author: KY
Genre: pnish/TeniMyu/Narnia crossover
Characters/pairings: TutixNagayan, MorixDaiki, KazukixShirota, SaitoxAoyagi, various others, pnish, original cast, new cast
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,085
Summary: *pnish*, the chosen humans destined to become Kings of Narnia and do battle against the White Warlock and the minions of his ice palace, must return peace and eternal summer to this mythical world.
Tuti awoke to a dark room doused in shadows, his cheek still propped against the palm of his hand and half of his face gone cold from the lack of heat. He shifted in his chair and blinked, focusing on the dying orange embers in the grate that had burned down to shriveled lumps of coal, feeble tendrils of smoke still escaping like twisting serpents into the air. A shiver took hold of him as the frigid temperature in the room registered on his skin, and it left his teeth knocking together briefly as he straightened up with a frown.
“Crap, how long was I out?” he asked the room, rubbing a dry hand over his chilled face and across the chapped flesh of his lips.
When there was no reply Tuti twisted around to face the other armchair, but much to his surprise found it empty. There was no sign of the faun, though the serving tray still sat between the chairs just like it had hours earlier.
“Hello?” he called a bit louder, the hairs on his arms standing up on end as silence greeted his question. Tuti pushed himself off the seat and was surprised to hear a loud crunch under his shoe. He looked down and was barely able to make out the shattered fragments of a teacup sprinkled across the stone floor. His teacup.
“Takashi? Are you here? Hello?” he called again, stepping around the broken shards. Almost all of the candles in the room had gone out, leaving the entire cave bathed in a cold, silver light that turned everything into mixed shades of gray. Tuti’s eyes were drawn up to a circular window cut high above the main room directly into the rock face, and through it he could see unpolluted starlight and the waning moon in a cloudless sky, their feeble light offering all there was to see by.
Tuti swore aloud. “Dammit, I gotta get back.”
“It’s no use,” a faint voice said from one of the dark corners.
Tuti spun around in surprise, searching for the source of the voice. “Takashi?”
A brief hiccup and the sound of a soft sob were his only answer. Tuti immediately stumbled in the direction of the soft breathing and muffled crying, swearing again as he bumped and tripped his way across the floor and knocked aside a few pieces of furniture in the process. He finally reached the hunched form of the faun in one of the far corners, who was slumped against the cold stone wall, arms gathered around his legs and head buried between them.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Tuti asked, lowering himself beside the trembling creature.
Takashi shook his head and gripped his elbows tighter as Tuti leaned over him. “Tell me what’s wrong, why are all the lights out? Did something happen? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I couldn’t,” Takashi replied, the words thick with tears. Then he continued in a softer voice, muffled by the arms around his head, “I’ve done something awful.”
Tuti sat back on his heels in silence, feeling that same prickle of uncomfortable fear crawl up his spine. He almost couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. “What are you talking about?”
Takashi sniffed and raised his head, and even in the moonlight Tuti could see glistening tear tracks coursing down his smooth cheeks all the way to the corners of his lips. He frowned and wouldn’t meet Tuti’s eyes. “Would you believe that I’m a terrible faun?”
Tuti’s confusion tried to manifest itself into a smile, but the muscles in his face just wouldn’t move the way he wanted them to, and it came out feeling terribly weak and fake. Takashi still wasn’t looking at him anyway. “I can’t believe that. You’ve been nice to me. You gave me tea and let me eat all your cookies. I would have been a human icicle if you hadn’t helped me.”
Takashi laughed quietly, but the sound was broken and watery. “No, I’ve been completely selfish. You wouldn’t have come with me if you knew… if you knew what I was really like. If you knew why I asked you to come here.”
Tuti’s subsequent silence at this confession prompted Takashi to look up and meet his eyes for the first time, and there two sets of pained expressions met under the moonlight, one of disbelief and one of abject guilt. Takashi somehow managed a tiny smile at Tuti’s look, a bittersweet twist of his mouth that made his bottom lip tremble and didn’t reach his eyes. “I was going to give you to the White Warlock,” he explained calmly.
“The who?” Tuti asked, curiosity jarring him out of his silence.
“The White Warlock,” Takashi repeated, his head bowing again as he spoke. “He fashions himself king over all of Narnia. It’s winter here because of him. He makes the ice and snow and stops spring from returning. Always winter. Always winter and never Christmas.”
Takashi sighed and leaned against the stone wall behind him, tear stained face turned up toward the starlight, and in that moment Tuti finally understood that he was seeing the look of someone who had given up hope, and who was expecting Tuti to hate him for what he’d planned to do.
Tuti ran a hair through the back of his hair. “Okay. We’ll pretend for a moment I actually know why some guy I’ve never even heard of before would want anything to do with me. You were planning to give me to him? But you’re not anymore?”
Takashi shrugged helplessly. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why? Why doesn’t it matter?” Tuti reached out and took the faun by the shoulder, his cold fingers digging into surprisingly warm flesh. “Takashi, what’s going to happen?”
Takashi’s head lolled to the side and met Tuti’s worried expression. His mouth fell into a deeper frown that might have been on the verge of a pout if his eyes were not so serious, and Tuti could see remorse clear as day in their dark depths. “I’m sorry. You’ve been here so long already. They’ll come even if I don’t tell them you’re here.”
“Do you know that?” Tuti insisted, giving his shoulder a brief shake.
Takashi shook his head and then shrugged again with a sigh that seemed to tremble through his entire body, and it quickly turned into a half sob. “I’m so scared,” he whispered.
Tuti edged closer on the stone floor and softened the grip he had on his shoulder, cupping his palm around the top of the faun’s arm. Takashi responded by closing his eyes and leaning wearily to the side, closer to Tuti. “What are you scared of? Tell me,” Tuti insisted quietly.
“Everything,” Takashi replied immediately, his voice no more than a fervent whisper. “Him. This winter. Losing my home. Being thrown into prison for not doing his bidding. Of watching more of my friends disappear. Of never seeing the summer sun again. Never smelling green grass again.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m afraid of forgetting.”
Tuti wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but he was definitely starting to get the idea that the state of this world was not quite as peaceful as he’d originally envisioned. “Has it really been that long?”
“It’s been winter for a hundred years. Long, cold years.” Takashi lifted his face to look up at Tuti shocked expression. “Can you imagine what it’s like? A hundred years of no season but winter, always winter but never Christmas?”
“Shit, that is terrible. I’m sorry. How can this bastard do something like that?”
Takashi blinked in surprise at Tuti’s outburst before chuckling weakly. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never met a human before, and we were told that if ever a Son of Adam were to appear in Narnia, we were to enchant it and turn it over to the White Warlock. But I didn’t expect you to be…” The words trailed away and left Takashi studying him in silence, something unfathomable and painful still lurking in his eyes though the tears had stopped falling. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
“I hear that way more often than you’d think,” Tuti retorted, grinning a bit more easily, and Takashi replied with a small smile of his own.
“Mr. Tsuchiya…”
“Tuti. Call me Tuti,” Tuti interrupted, his smile widening. “Mr. Tsuchiya was my dad, and I’m not quite in a position to fill his shoes yet.”
“Are you really called that?” Takashi asked in disbelief. He sniffed and reached up to wipe away the moisture still on his cheeks, only now noticing the mess his tears had left behind. He looked somewhat sheepish at the realization and ducked his head to the side to finish wiping his chin and throat with the back of his hand.
“Most everyone does,” Tuti admitted, leaning back to let his hand drop from the faun’s shoulder. “Close friends and family call me Yuuichi.”
Takashi made a funny choking sound, and after a moment Tuti realized he was laughing again. The faun shook his head at Tuti’s perplexed look and took a deep breath. “Your names, they’re so strange. I’m sorry for laughing.”
Tuti wrinkled his nose in jest. “You think my name is weird?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I think it’s nice, just… different. Exotic, I guess. You itchy?”
“Close,” Tuti said with a grin. “Maybe stick with Tuti for now, it’s easier to remember.”
“Nothing about you is hard to remember,” Takashi admitted quietly, his face averted from Tuti’s dubious stare. “I think I’d rather die than hand you over to the White Warlock.”
“Hey now, don’t say things like that,” Tuti protested, feeling his cheeks warm unaccountably. “My life isn’t worth anything more than yours is, no matter what some crack-hat on a power trip says. So what if he can make it winter? Pfft, snow, no big deal. I’ve got a freezer full of that stuff at home. You’ve got a nice home here, you’re young and healthy, and I’m sure you and your friends can learn how to have snowball fights once you get yourselves some warmer clothes.”
Takashi had been smiling during Tuti’s tirade, but his expression fell by the end, and he shook his head despondently. “It’s been a long time since we were allowed to have fun. It isn’t safe outside anymore.”
“Allowed?” Tuti snorted. “Were you one of those fauns that always listened to what his parents said and never got in trouble?”
Something in Takashi’s expression froze, and it was visible enough by the moonlight that Tuti leaned in worriedly, returning his hand to the faun’s shoulder. “Hey, what is it?”
Takashi pulled away abruptly from Tuti’s touch and moved to stand. “You need to go,” was his reply, his voice clipped.
“Well that’s the idea, eventually,” Tuti agreed, blinking in confusion at the sudden change. He found himself at eyelevel with Takashi’s waist as he was left kneeling on the floor, the faun’s face left in shadow and nothing but the tight curl of his fists to indicate that anything was amiss. “But why don’t you tell me what’s wrong first?”
Takashi only shook his head. “You can’t stay here, they’re going to come find you.”
Tuti pushed off the floor with one hand on his knee and stood beside the faun. “I think that if anyone was going to come they would have been here by now. I’ve been here for hours, and you’ve done nothing but sing to me and stay inside the house, right? For all you know they could just want to talk to me, see the unusual human and parade me around in front of all the locals for awhile,” Tuti said, attempting to sound light light-hearted. He stopped though when the faun did nothing but shake his head, shoulders once more tight with tension, and Tuti felt a sudden stab of guilt at the thought that he’d made the faun cry again.
Tuti lifted his hands helplessly, fingers hovering over the faun’s shoulders. “Takashi?”
Takashi finally looked up at his name, dark eyes locking with Tuti’s. Tuti was startled by the stony expression he found there, but the faun’s voice was trembling as he spoke. “He wants to kill you. They’ll capture you and kill you just like everyone else that’s ever been taken to his palace. He killed my parents, he killed my friends, and now he wants to kill you too. Every moment you stay here your life is in danger, and if I’m responsible for your death, I… I couldn’t live with myself.”
The lump of cookies inside Tuti’s stomach rapidly turned to ice at Takashi’s words. “He killed your parents?” he asked hoarsely.
Takashi blinked and looked away, the frigid mask melting to reveal a glimpse of the scared faun underneath. “It was a long time ago,” he said quietly.
“That’s why you’re doing it?” Tuti asked suddenly. “The bastard’s blackmailing you?”
Takashi’s guilty and crestfallen expression was all the answer Tuti needed, and the taller man was momentarily stunned into silence as the reality of the situation swept over him, humbled by the thought of someone being manipulated and badgered into serving under the murderer of their own parents. The reason for the faun’s terror made startling sense now, and it was a feeling Tuti did not enjoy, being able to see the truth in all its ugly nakedness. He was angry, and genuinely worried, and scared for Takashi, who was breaking every rule by not turning Tuti in and endangering his own life all for a perfect stranger he’d met by chance in the snow.
Takashi crossed his arms uncomfortably, not meeting Tuti’s eyes, and after a moment turned away to walk across the stone floor. “We should get you back, before it gets too late,” he advised, mounting the shallow stone steps leading up to the door.
“Yeah…” Tuti agreed, still too weighed down by his thoughts to say much else. He slowly maneuvered around the furniture to follow the faun and joined Takashi in the entryway with a minimal amount of shin bruising along the way. Takashi struck a bit of flint and lit a small candle resting inside a sconce against the wall, the flames casting a rusty glow over his face and bare chest. He moved into the small sleeping area and dug through a dark pile beside the bed, and finally returned with two long objects in hand. He tossed the first scarf around his own neck and twisted it into a complex knot so that the two ends fell neatly and with even lengths across his collarbone, and then held out the other scarf for Tuti.
Tuti accepted it and wound the soft material several times around his neck, smelling pine and something warm and wild in the fabric that immediately reminded him of the small faun and the home he’d been welcomed into. His small smile of thanks was lost as Takashi turned his back, standing on tiptoe to blow out the candle above them, and the room was once more plunged into inky darkness, leaving spots of red to dance through Tuti’s eyes.
Takashi quietly opened the front door, leaving only a space large enough for his head to poke through, and a tense moment passed while he cautiously observed the surroundings outside. Finding nothing amiss he pushed the door open wider and motioned for Tuti to follow behind him with a finger to his lips, and together they silently exited the mountain home, the stars acting as their only guiding light as they moved down the icy path. Takashi kept close to Tuti’s side, his footing far more steady and sure than the dancer’s, and helped to guide them both over the more treacherous places with a warm hand on Tuti’s arm or lower back.
They made it into the forest without incident, though Takashi’s nervous glances had Tuti on edge as well, his own eyes darting about in an effort to discern what the faun was keeping an eye out for. Tuti had tried to speak once, but was immediately waved into silence and then drawn to lean closer to the faun by a hand on his elbow.
“Some of the trees are on his side,” was the whispered explanation, and the subsequent shiver that ran through Tuti’s body was not entirely to blame on the subzero temperature of the air around them.
He was frozen up to his shins again by the time they reached the lamppost, and had both arms crossed against his chest in an effort to preserve the warmth that was rapidly depleting from his body. They turned to face each other under the hazy circle of orange light, twin clouds of warm air rising from their mouths to twine together above their heads, and for a long pause there was only silence as they watched the other.
“You need to go,” Takashi reminded him, breaking their moment of quiet staring.
Tuti nodded and hugged his arms a bit tighter to his body. “Just so you know, I forgive you,” he said quietly, and smiled cheekily at the look of surprise that flitted across Takashi’s face.
“You don’t have to say that…”
“No, but I want to,” Tuti cut in, staring in earnest at the shorter faun. “I’ve thought it over, and you did a lot more for me today than I can ever repay. If someone else had found me, or if I’d wandered around totally lost I could be dead right now, and not necessarily because of the crazy loon that thinks he runs this place.”
He grinned as Takashi visibly stifled the urge to laugh, but the faun collected himself quickly and pinned Tuti with a serious stare. “How can you make jokes when your life is in danger?”
“Sometimes that’s the best time to laugh,” Tuti replied honestly.
Takashi frowned doubtfully and then glanced around them, but the silence of the forest was cold and all encompassing, and whether this was a good or a bad sign he didn’t say. “Can you find your way back from here?” he asked.
Tuti pivoted around, scanning the tree line, and smiled with relief when he saw the same patch of darkness and faint glow of light that had appeared behind him after stepping into the forest. He pointed so Takashi could see. “Right there, that’s the way back to my world.”
Takashi followed the direction of his finger and looked on in silence, a curious expression on his face. “It’s summer there, isn’t it?” he asked softly.
Tuti looked down at the creature beside him, taking in the small horns on his forehead and the delicately pointed ears behind his glossy black hair, a color that perfectly matched the fur around his waist and down each of his legs to the tips of his black hooves. Somehow the entire image still wasn’t enough of a deterrent to stop the question that slipped out of his mouth. “Do you want to come with me?”
Takashi looked up sharply, his lips parted in surprise, but just as quickly he shook his head. “I… that is, thank you, but… I’m not the only one here. It wouldn’t be fair for me to leave and abandon them. This is my home.”
Tuti nodded in understanding, having known it was a futile hope to think that he could whisk this creature away from the harsh life he was being forced to endure, and to bring a faun back with him to Tokyo was insanity in of itself anyway. But he hated the thought of leaving him here helpless, trapped in a perpetual winter, alone without living relatives or friends to trust, and Tuti was surprised to feel his own vehemence concerning the situation smolder that much hotter in his heart. He would do something, perhaps not tomorrow or in a week, or in a year even, but he’d find some way to help these people free themselves from a life that no creature should be forced to live.
He looked down at Takashi, their eyes meeting. “I guess I should go now.”
Takashi nodded, and then reached up to Tuti’s throat, his fingers worming under the scarf wrapped around his neck. With a few short tugs he had it free and then knotted again so that it rested comfortably around his throat, the soft fibers tickling under his chin. “It might be awhile before you get this back,” Tuti said.
The faun only smiled somewhat sadly. “Consider it my way of saying sorry.”
It was a surreal moment as Tuti backed away, watching the distance of snow between them lengthen with every step, Takashi’s silhouette framed by the glowing lamp light that gave his dark hair a touch of gold, and Tuti was almost glad that the darkness prevented him from seeing the despondent expression on the faun’s face. Almost.
He felt the trees at his back and turned to head into the thicket, snow once more piling high on his shoulders and sticking to his hair and lips as he passed beneath their boughs, and he pushed through them a little more urgently when the bulky shape of several fur coats came into view. Tuti heard his shoes connect with wood floor of the wardrobe and sighed aloud in relief, and then without preamble shoved his way to the open door and burst forth from the wardrobe in a tangle of limbs and coats.
“I’M BACK!” he shouted.
There was a sudden crash where Wasshi stood blinking, one hand fisted to clutch at his chest in surprise and the broom and dustpan lying where they’d been dropped against the floor.
“You scared me!” Wasshi exclaimed, his face unnaturally pale and eyes wide.
Tuti returned his startled look with one of his own. “Wasshi! What are you doing here? How long was I gone?”
“Gone?” Wasshi asked in confusion, bending over to pick the broom and dustpan off the floor. “Did you go somewhere?”
“Yes! I’ve been gone for hours, don’t you… why are you still cleaning that up?” Tuti asked, finally noticing the mess of straw and packing material around his feet.
“I just started,” Wasshi said, his brow furrowed as he stared back at Tuti. “Eiji told us to clean it up, remember?”
“But wasn’t that… I don’t understand…” Confused, and feeling a touch frantic, Tuti turned around and threw open both doors of the wardrobe, letting the full light inside the room illuminate the interior. He pushed aside the coats and to his surprise saw a solid panel of wood immediately behind them. He reached out and gently rapped against the back of the wardrobe with his knuckles, honestly half expecting his hand to pass right through the material, but it was real and solid and only echoed dully.
“Tuti? Is something wrong?” Wasshi asked, peering into the wardrobe from his place beside him.
“Yes, no, I mean… I really wasn’t gone?” Tuti turned to look at Wasshi, one of the most honest men he knew, and felt his heart sink into his stomach when the actor only frowned in confusion.
“Where do you think you went?” he asked instead, his confusion beginning to shift to a look of worry for their youngest member.
Tuti quickly shook his head, stalling the concern before it had a chance to take root in Wasshi’s brain, and turned around to shut the doors to the wardrobe. “No where, I was just joking. I didn’t go anywhere.”
So what the hell had just happened?