Fic: Ever After (2)
Title: Ever After
Characters/Pairings: KuroFai, AshFai, SyaoSaku and DoumWataHima(ish?) Basically, anything implied (or outright stated in recent chapters of the manga with some pairings) in CLAMP canon that my mind stumbles across.
Rating: T - for implications, this chapter.
Summary: ‘Fairytale’ is a very trying place. Children get abandoned; loves fall under evil spells, and various members of royal families get abducted on an almost regular basis. Even with a witch on-hand all ills can’t simply be wished away - but then, if it’s really the ‘happy ever after’ you’re looking for, it’s quite obligatory to start with ‘once upon a time…’ AU, with heavy reference to canon.
A/N: The second instalment?I’ve not really much to say this time around, save a) things are slowly getting explained and, b) Kurofai fans, please don’t hit me? ^^;
Important note: For the sake of familiarity I've switched the names of the twins around - 'Fai', in this, is the Horitsuba!Fai, Fai-of-Celes and Yuui-of-Valeria - aka, the twin who lived. 'Yuui' is the twin who died - Horitsuba!Yuui.
Chapter I
Chapter II
Once upon a time, not really that very long ago considering it was only fifteen years or so, there was a kingdom called Clow. It was a desert kingdom, on the other side of the mountains, on the other side of the forest on the edge of Nihon. It mostly relied on trade to get by, dealing in precious metals, fine cloths and perfumes.
The king of Clow Kingdom had once been a man called Clow - a powerful magician. He’d died quite a few years back - or at least, he’d disappeared on everyone, so he was assumed dead. The current king was his descendant, Fujitaka, his wife and Queen, Nadeshiko.
Fujitaka and Nadeshiko had two children - one boy, the Crown Prince Touya, and one girl, Sakura. They were both beautiful, clever children in their own right, a delight to their parents and to their kingdom. Sakura, however -
Before Clow had died, he’d made a string of prophecies. Quite accustomed to that sort of thing his two magically-crafted companions, Yue and Keroberos, took note of what was said - or rather, Yue took note, and Keroberos played with a ball of wool in his sealed form, much like a winged kitten would.
There was to be a princess one day, Clow said, who would fall in love and marry her destined one, the two together taking down the evil that was Clow’s estranged brother, Fei Wong Reed. They would know the girl by the star-key she summoned by herself, plucked from the night sky by her own magic, her own destiny. And Yue and Keroberos were to guard her.
Sakura was that little girl. In her third year she’d stretched out a hand to the night sky and a small key emblazoned with the sign of a star had appeared in her hand, the sealed staff the little Clow princess would one day carry. Fujitaka, Nadeshiko, Yue and Keroberos had immediately closed in around the girl in worry - Sakura, destined to be the destruction of Fei Wong Reed, could incur nothing but that dark magician’s wrath.
Fei Wong Reed came and stole Sakura away on her seventh birthday, sending in his minions to take the princess from beneath her parents’ noses, snatching the girl away from her childhood friend and playmate. The boy had cried out, anguished, and the king, queen, prince and kingdom had wept, but there was nothing anyone could do, save send out Yue and Keroberos to guard the little princess the best they could, wherever she was doomed to be. Fei Wong Reed was too strong to take on.
Sakura was taken to a faraway castle in the distant mountains, a place enchanted by faeries so that only magical beings - or ones who bore magic - of considerable strength could reach it. Yue and Keroberos came to her there, and cradled her as she cried, but were bound by magic stronger than themselves - they could not take the princess away. Fei Wong Reed, likewise, overcome by his brother’s lingering strength, could not send away these creations of Clow - and so the guardians stayed, and watched Sakura grow.
They were all to be there for a very long time.
#
The brunet boy groaned as he leaned on the table, his head in his hands. It was late morning; he’d promised himself to only eat and drink a little before telling the witch his wish the night before but then Yuuko had kept filling up his glass with sake and-!
“Hangover?”
The boy at the table looked up; meeting the frank gaze of the one Yuuko had called Watanuki. The black-haired young man was already in his apron - he probably lived in it, considering how much Yuuko had eaten the night before -, a glass of water and some weird powdery pills in his hand as he approached the stranger to the shop. He offered them out.
“These should help with your head.”
“Thank you.” The brunet took them with a weak smile, downing the pills with a gulp of water and then draining the rest of the glass. “…Yuuko gets many hangovers?”
“Most of my mornings are spent dealing with a hungover witch.” Watanuki smiled, wry, tinged with nostalgia and despairing exasperation. (His companion was glad the other wasn’t shrieking and flailing like the previous night - he didn’t think his head could take the noise.) “Most of my afternoons, evenings and nights too. I think I’ve forgotten what Yuuko’s like when she’s sober.”
Yuuko’s customer smiled as well, before putting down the glass and extending a hand. “I’m Syaoran.”
“Watanuki. Would you like some pancakes?”
“Pancakes?” A little furry black head suddenly peeked around Syaoran’s frame and the boy jumped - Mokona was up and about, and the brunet hadn’t noticed him. “Mokona wants pancakes too!”
Syaoran craned his neck around, trying to catch a proper glimpse of the bouncing creature.
Mokona, however, remained stubbornly elusive, jumping from place to place singing his pancake song (apparently thought up that very moment, as Watanuki could thankfully say he’d never heard the dreadful warbling words before). “Pancakes, pancakes~, a very special treat, Mokona eats pancakes - very good to eat!”
Syaoran looked rather helplessly to Watanuki. “What is Mokona?”
“An ungrateful, unappreciative fluffball,” Watanuki adroitly responded.
“Mokona is Mokona!” Mokona protested, hopping up onto the table before their guest and extending one tiny black hand for Syaoran to shake. “Mokona Modoki at your service!”
Syaoran took Mokona’s hand and gently shook it, managing somehow to do it all with perfect gravity and seriousness. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Syaoran-kun’s so polite!” Yuuko waltzed into the room clad in a long dress and robe, hair loose about her shoulders and back as she leaned down to conspiratorially stage-whisper in the brunet’s ear, “Nothing like Watanuki-kun. He’s always so mean~.”
“Mean, mean!” Mokona bounced over to the witch, beaming when Yuuko reached out to pet him. “Watanuki said Mokona was a fluffball!”
“How cruel!” Mokona snuggled against Yuuko’s cheek, the witch and her creation pointedly ignoring everyone else.
“Watanuki’s cruel!” Mokona happily chimed in with the decision, apparently completely unbothered by whatever spewed out of his mouth. “He hasn’t made pancakes yet!”
“Pancakes?” Yuuko visibly perked up at the mention of the food. “Watanuki’s making pancakes?” She clapped her hands, doing a happy spin that was quite scary for a supposedly grown woman. “We’ll need more sake!”
“It’s too early to be drinking!” Watanuki gave his token protest, quite aware no-one but Syaoran was actually listening to him, Mokona and Yuuko too busy singing and twirling around the table in glee for the alcohol that was to come. “Don’t you have a hangover anyway?” (Even though Watanuki had the strong suspicion the witch feigned at least three-quarters of her morning maladies so she could get - nonexistent - sympathy from her employee.)
“Silly Watanuki-kun!” Yuuko paused a moment to pet her employee on the head indulgently, much like she’d done to Mokona. (Watanuki, therefore, in the witch’s eyes, was equivalent to the chirruping pet of the household.) “Everyone knows the best cure for a hangover is more sake!”
“Sake, sake~!” Mokona was back to spinning.
Syaoran had adopted the look of one who had inadvertently stepped into a madhouse.
#
There was silence in Shirasagi’s throne room for a long while, the morning sun almost deafening as it broke in through the large archways that worked as windows in the larger rooms of the castle. Kendappa, Tomoyo, Souma and Kurogane had resumed almost perfectly the positions they had been in the night before - the slight difference being, of course, that Kurogane was currently in the form of a large black wolf. (He looked just as pissed-off as usual though.)
“Imouto,” it was Amaterasu who eventually broke the quiet, arms folded across her chest as she eyed the animal that Nihon’s strongest shinobi had currently become, “I really don’t see what your problem is with this development. Rather, I think it’s an improvement -”
Kurogane snarled at the empress, fangs bared.
“- On his looks, if not his temperament.” The woman finished. “A wolf can still be an efficient guardian.”
“Onee-chan,” Tomoyo’s tone was chiding, although obviously laced with amusement. “We can’t leave Kurogane-san like this.”
“I suppose not,” the empress reluctantly agreed. “He probably isn’t house-trained.”
“I can hear you, you know!” The angry words burst through from the throat of the wolf, Kurogane’s claws digging into the beautiful tatami matting beneath his paws.
Amaterasu flapped a hand, as if fanning herself, completely ignoring the shinobi. “It’s a pity the spell or curse or whatever it was didn’t do something about his speech.”
“It’s definitely a curse,” her sister informed her. “The one who made it probably thought any wolves that came into contact with humans would be shot and killed on sight, so their talking would make very little difference.”
Souma nodded. “That is the general feeling of the villages on the edge of Nihon, Majesty - nobody trusts anything that comes from the forest.”
“And yet Kurogane goes in there weekly.” The empress heaved a dramatic sigh. “We did warn him.”
“I’m still here!”
“Can you break the curse?” Amaterasu looked to her sister, the kingdom’s miko.
Slowly, sadly, Tomoyo shook her head. “…Whoever cast the curse is stronger than me; the same goes for the enchantment on the young man brought back from the forest. The magic…feels different, as if it came from different people, but the same…as if they used the same method? It is difficult to explain.” Kendappa-ou patted her on the shoulder, offering comfort. “I don’t know what to do, except maybe -” She trailed off, before glancing up to the empress. The two sisters shared meaningful looks.
“What?” Kurogane asked from the tatami, fed-up at being ignored. “What do you want to do?”
#/p>
“Ashura-ou?”
Ashura looked up from the book he’d been reading, unsurprised to see Chii blinking sadly at him from the doorway of the library he sat in, golden hair pooling almost miserably on the floor behind her.
“Yes, Chii?” He kept his voice gentle, seeing how pathetic the magically-created girl looked, white kitten ears drooping on either side of her head. “What is it?”
“Fai’s locked his door again,” the child confessed, crossing the floor to take a seat on the floor at Ashura’s side, snuggling into the faerie’s leg. Ashura allowed the action, knowing how starved of affection the girl was likely to be now her beloved Fai was ignoring her. “And he won’t let Chii in to talk to him.”
“Fai is very sad right now, Chii.” Ashura carefully petted the girl’s head, amber-brown eyes blinking up at him at the motion.
“Because of Yuui going missing?”
“That’s right.”
“Will he yell at Ashura-ou again?” Chii clung onto the male beside her more tightly, fingers digging in through the robes the faerie wore. “Chii didn’t like it when Fai yelled.”
Ashura sighed, and leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully contemplating the wall opposite him. “He was very hurt, Chii; he didn’t mean to scare you.”
Chii looked confused. “Chii didn’t see him bleeding.”
“Because Fai wasn’t bleeding.” Chii rose up onto her knees, putting her hands on Ashura’s lap as she tried to fathom out just what exactly it was the faerie was telling her. “He was hurt on the inside.” Ashura looked down at her, raising one of his own hands to press against the girl’s chest, above her beating heart. “He was hurt here.”
Very hurt. The youth had come back to the cottage in the forest they called home in quite a state the previous night, pale cheeks pink from exertion, hair tousled, breathing heavily. Fai had run all the way back from the clearing where his brother had lain sleeping, apparently, but he’d still had enough breath to launch himself at a rather bewildered Ashura, clinging to the taller male’s front as he cried out that Yuui was gone, Yuui was gone, Yuui was gone. In the next breath he’d stepped back from his grief, blue eyes still bright with tears turning to fury as he cursed the ‘ineffectual’ spell Ashura had laid upon Yuui’s resting place - no-one was supposed to have been able to open the lid, no-one! The curse was supposed to take effect long before the case opened - and yet, Yuui was gone.
It wasn’t as if the boy could’ve awoken and walked away, either. Fai had laid the sleeping charm upon his brother himself, cradling his twin to his chest as Yuui smiled his goodbyes and drifted off to dreams. Fai was more powerful than Ashura he knew, or thought he knew, but Ashura had said he’d put something on the case and Fai had trusted him, Fai had believed him, and hadn’t asked a word, because Ashura was Ashura-ou and if he didn’t ask any questions the strange faerie - faerie king - wouldn’t tell him any lies. Fai didn’t even know what the curse on the case had been supposed to do - but that didn’t matter anymore. Yuui was gone.
The blond had rushed back out into the night he’d came from, determined to search the forest as far as he could. Chii had darted out after him, crying Fai’s name repeatedly, helplessly, but Fai either hadn’t heard or he had heard and totally ignored her - it had been difficult to tell. Chii had come back, heartbroken, and cried herself to sleep in the corner of Fai’s bed, waiting for the boy to come home, when he would undoubtedly wake her.
Fai had searched the forest for his errant brother until daybreak, and obviously found nothing. Ashura had waited up for the youth to come home again - and Fai had come back with the dawn, clothes and hair heavy with the morning dew. He’d stumbled into the cottage, blank, despairing, glancing up with haunted eyes when Ashura had brushed a worried hand over his cheek.
Seeing Chii on his bed Fai had opted not to remain in his own room, going into Yuui’s, which hadn’t been touched for quite a while, and shutting the door behind him, locking it, closing out the rest of the world. He’d slept in Yuui’s bed, with Yuui’s sheets wrapped around him, and inside his cocoon breathed in the lingering scent of his twin as he reached out to his lost brother in dreams.
In the present, in the late morning light, Chii looked up at Ashura, eyes painfully wide, trusting. “Will Fai-san get better?”
The faerie petted the girl again, smoothing back one curled white ear with one hand. “I certainly hope so.”
#
“Are you ready to make your wish, Syaoran-kun?” Yuuko finally approached her customer in a somewhat sedate manner, after having forced Watanuki to make her and Mokona three batches of pancakes each. (Syaoran himself had only just managed one batch, and then watched, slightly green, as Yuuko and Mokona continued to down everything that was edible left on the table.)
“Yes, I am.” The boy sat up a little straighter at the table in the room Yuuko had led him to, ignoring the green tea placed before him in favour of meeting the witch’s eyes. He’d been ready to make his wish for a while - he’d come a long way, across the desert, across the mountains and through the forest, specifically to meet this woman.
Yuuko nodded and took a seat opposite him, cradling her own tea. Her expression gently indicated for the boy to go ahead.
Syaoran wasted no more time. “I want to save Sakura-hime. She -”
“I know who she is;” Yuuko gently cut the boy off, staring into her cup thoughtfully, “her ancestor was a good friend of mine - or at the least, a good rival. Stupid four-eyed bas-”
“Yuuko-san?” Syaoran’s turn to interrupt. “You’re muttering to yourself.”
“…So-!” Yuuko came back to herself. “You wish to save Sakura-chan - from Fei Wong Reed, the magician who took her, I will assume? That’s quite a large wish, with a large price attached.”
“I’ll pay anything.”
“You shouldn’t be so quick to say that to one such as me,” Yuuko gently chided. “Some wishes carry prices too heavy for anyone to bear.”
“I’ll pay anything,” Syaoran insisted, “if it will save Sakura-hime.”
Yuuko’s eyes softened. “…You’re a good boy, Syaoran-kun.” She paused, and then nodded. “Very well - I shall grant you your wish. As for your price -” The woman paused, raising her head slightly, as if sensing something on the breeze. Syaoran only had time to hear the witch make a quick, low mutter of what sounded suspiciously like, “someone’s going to catch me when I’m in the bath one of these days,” before a large circular…portal opened in the air, a window to another place.
A smiling girl with long hair spoke from the other side, clasping her hands together in happiness when she saw the witch looking back, “Yuuko-san, I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
#
Ashura felt his young charge’s presence before he heard or saw it, and then he felt it in an entirely different way when pale fingers lightly touched his shoulder from behind, brushing down his arm before falling away altogether.
“Fai.” Ashura raised his own head from where he’d been half dozing, half staring into space, but didn’t turn around to look at the youth behind him. Chii had left him a little while ago to pick flowers in the forest, hoping to bring back some blooms to make Fai smile again. (Ashura could’ve told the girl it was a useless endeavour, but it was even more pointless for the child to mope around the household like her two companions were doing.)
“Ashura-ou…” The faerie could feel Fai’s innate magic in the air, the tangible taste of ozone on the tip of his tongue. The boy breathed his magic at times, but never so much as when his emotions were strongest - and with Fai, that usually meant the boy was agonisingly sad.
Fai finally came around the chair his mentor was sitting in, sliding to his knees in a pool of sunshine coming through the windows and looking up at Ashura’s face. His pose was very similar to the one Chii had taken, but he was still kneeling slightly higher, the expression in his blue eyes -
“I apologise for how I spoke to you earlier;” he was refusing to meet Ashura’s eyes at all, gazing past the faerie with skill born of practice, even when Ashura brushed a hand over his cheek, marvelling at the beautiful, lying child kneeling before him, eternally nineteen, “it was rude of me.”
“You were right to be upset - after all, this has happened before, hasn’t it? But then…then the curse took effect as it should have done, and we found Yuui not far outside the clearing…” Ashura sighed when his companion only pressed his lips more tightly together, silent, unmoving when his mentor tucked a stray strand of gold back in its place behind his ear. “Perhaps the curse affects those with different levels of magical resilience differently.”
Fai turned his head, looking out at the window on the wall opposite. “The forest looks lovely this morning, doesn’t it, Ashura-ou?” The change in topic was blunt - Fai did not wish to remain on this subject. Over the…hundreds of mortal years he’d known the blond, Fai still kept to the simple tricks he’d used when he and his brother had been eleven. Back then, before their lives had been twined together, before the twins had entered their own time, frozen from the rest of the world.
“It’s always lovely.” Ashura gently defended the place that had always been his home, even though no real accusation had been made towards it. The forest had always been his whole world - before the twins, before he’d left his Court to -
“But it’s loveliest in the morning sunshine, isn’t it?” Fai had switched his smile on, painfully oblivious to how fragile his joyful expression was. “When the gold comes down through the tree-branches and leaves dapples on the ground.”
“Do you like the forest, Fai?”
The blond tellingly looked out of the window again. “The forest is my home.”
“Fai -”
“Do you think Chii will be gone long?” Fai shifted one of his hands from where it had been gripping the seat’s armrest to draw whimsical circles on the back of Ashura’s exposed wrist, looping around the jutting bone in whirling curls that trailed spelled out the length of eternity in spells and dreams and wishes that burned the tongue and mind and heart.
Ashura took a hold of that moving hand, stilling his charge’s capricious play. Fai looked up at him again, serious. “You should go find her.”
Blue eyes were set. “I don’t want to.”
Ashura gave up on trying to follow the child’s train of thought. “Then what do you want to do?”
With his free hand, Fai reached up and tangled his hand in the front of his mentor’s robes, pulling the faerie king down at the same time as he pushed himself up, colliding their mouths together with an aggression the blond usually kept better hidden. Ashura indulged the hard kiss for a short while before breaking apart, his own lips curving down into a small frown.
“And this will really make you feel better.” It wasn’t a question.
Fai smiled at him, a perversion of a lost wish, and leaned up to kiss his companion once more - hard, pushing himself onto Ashura’s lap. With his lips firmly sealed, he didn’t have to pretend he wanted to answer.
#
Tomoyo beamed at the strange red-eyed woman on the other side of the portal she’d called up with her magic. “Yuuko-san, I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Kurogane shifted about where he was sitting, trying to get a better view of the portal and yet not give the impression that was what he was attempting to do. He was a lot closer to the ground after his transformation - the change in height was definitely a pain.
“Nothing that cannot spare a few more moments, Tomoyo-hime…”
The woman addressed as ‘Yuuko’ was definitely good-looking, Kurogane supposed, but in a regal, cold way. She was far too pale and, with her tight, form-fitting attire, looked far too much like the sort of woman who enjoyed playing with men for fun, before leading them back to her lair and devouring their beating hearts while they were still alive. (…Wasn’t there a type of spider that did that?)
“Is this our little friend?”
Kurogane came back to himself from his faraway thoughts to discover the conversation had gone on without him and everyone was looking at him - Yuuko, in particular, looking far too amused from her viewpoint on high.
Instinctively, Kurogane growled. “Who’re you calling ‘little’, witch?!”
“Aw~!” That sort of squeal should not come from a grown woman. Really. Especially such an evil one at that. “What a grouchy little puppy!” Quite ignoring Kurogane’s snarls Yuuko turned back to the empress and her sister. “Are you sure you want to change him back? I’m sure he looks much cuter this way.”
Souma started to enthusiastically nod her head, but stopped hastily when Kurogane bared his teeth at her. Tomoyo clapped her hands together and looked towards the witch, eyes all a-sparkle. “If only cuteness were truly relevant in this case, Yuuko-san! Truly, my heart is breaking at the thought of all the pretty costumes I could make for Kurogane-san as he is -” (more growling from Kurogane, the wolf’s claws out in a clear indication of the swift doom that would meet any and all of said costumes if they ever came to light,) “but I know that Kurogane must be returned to normal!”>/p>
Kurogane perked up slightly. Finally someone in this madhouse was speaking some sense -
“Onee-chan says he isn’t house-trained, and I don’t think any of the servants would want to clear up after him.”
Kurogane’s snarls were drowned out by Yuuko’s laughter. When the witch was done (and Kurogane was glaring at her), she spoke again. “So your wish is to return Kurogane to his human form?”
Tomoyo nodded. “It is.”
“How long has he been this way?”
“Since last night.” Kurogane decided to speak for himself, fed-up with being ridiculed by the females in the conversation. “After I came back from the forest.”
The witch frowned at him. “…You interfered in something you should not have done in the forest, didn’t you?”
“…There was a boy.” The shinobi turned wolf felt decidedly awkward recounting this tale to the witch, the woman’s gaze horribly unsettling. “In a crystal case. I removed him from it and brought him back to this castle because I thought he was enchanted.”
“He was.” Kurogane winced at Yuuko’s dryness - and then her tone lightened, returning to its evil glee of before. “But I suppose this is just desserts for molesting innocent young boys lying fast asleep in the sun!”
Kurogane baulked, and immediately lashed out. “Who’re you saying molested someone?!”
Yuuko ignored him, turning back to the empress and Tomoyo. “…I will have to come back to you on your wish, Tomoyo-hime; it has a fluctuating price. I will be sure to contact you tomorrow - at the latest.”
“I understand.” The princess-miko smiled. “Thank you for your time, Yuuko-san.” She inclined her head, ever-polite. The viewing portal connecting the castle to the wish-granting witch disappeared.
#
“Watanuki-kun!” Yuuko was standing as soon as she’d finished talking with the princess of Nihon, crossing the floor gracefully with her long legs to stick her head out of the nearby door to call once more for her employee. (And yet, Yuuko didn’t really call. She never raised her voice and yet her words echoed all the same, the house shifting around its mistress, breathing and adapting for the witch like the woman’s second skin.) “Watanuki-kun!”
“Yuuko-san?” The boy appeared out of nowhere once more, Syaoran quietly amused at the fact Watanuki was still wearing his apron. Yuuko really did have him living in the thing.
“Watanuki, I’m going to be busy with clients today. Could you take the bentou you usually make and deliver it to Himawari-chan for me?”
“Himawari-chan~!” …Apparently Watanuki had very little complaint with the request, if the spinning, sparkly thing he was doing was anything to go by. (There was hearts in the air, Syaoran swore it. Bright pink, bubbly hearts, all emanating from the whirling-twirling Watanuki.)
“Syaoran-kun,” Yuuko was looking at the brunet again, completely ignoring Watanuki twirling in the background professing his undying love for the witch for letting him visit his ‘beloved Himawari-chan’, “if you need anything at all, order Watanuki-kun to get it for you before he leaves.” If he could get the boy to stop squealing like a prepubescent girl.
Syaoran nodded and the witch left, and the brunet was left with a cup of rapidly cooling green tea and a happy-flailing Watanuki babbling something about the goddess of love, sea-green eyes, and dark black hair.
#
Ashura, troubled, finally left the library in his home as the morning slowly slid into the afternoon, the sun above the forest inching lazily across the faraway blue sky. His charge dreamed on alone in the room behind him, a pale tangle of long limbs and soft, deep breath against the library’s long couch. The boy had dropped off into sleep as soon as their activities were done with only a thin sheet across his legs for his modesty. (If the boy truly had any, anymore. Ashura certainly didn’t know.)
“Just the faerie I wanted to speak to!”
Ashura inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of the woman on the other side of the portal he’d just called up, holding the handmirror-sized link just above his palm, his word-based magic swirling around its edges. “Good afternoon, Yuuko-san. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your desire to speak with me?”
The witch smiled at him, a dark stretch of the lips that many had learned to be wary of. “Hitsuzen, Ashura-ou, as all things are, and all things must be. There is no such thing as coincidence in this world.” Hitsuzen, fate and destiny but oh, not quite. Red strings that bound hands that sometimes did not know they swung in tandem, pulling limbs and eyes to meet across a crowded, messy world of woven lives meshed together by time and patience.
“Then I must insist,” Ashura nodded briefly in acceptance of the other’s words, “since apparently we both have need of one another at this non-coincidental time, that ladies must go first. What can the great Yuuko-san want with such a humble faerie as myself?”
“I have a client,” Yuuko had never really been one for too much preamble, “who has just recently been turned into a wolf.”
The faerie king’s eyes darkened, a storm at sea, the vague smile he’d been sporting slipping and shattering into shards of ice. “They took Yuui.” Hitsuzen - Yuui had been why he’d wished to speak with the witch.
“Apparently so. I have reason to believe that he was removed with good intentions, however, so please still your ire.” Yuuko brushed a long piece of hair back from her face, quickly resuming her professional tone. “Your magic has not increased at all since the last time someone encountered your curse, has it, Ashura-ou?”
“It has not.” Her companion’s reply was brittle, the faerie clearly still angry at the one who had stolen away one of his charges. “So I am unable to restore the wolf to their original form - not that I would, anyway. Your client is a thief.”
Yuuko completely ignored the latter comments. “The curse you laid upon Yuui’s resting place requires a spell stronger than it for it to be countered - and yet you used the limit of your magic in the curse. Breaking it would require a stronger magician than yourself…Fai.”
“The boy is not so very much stronger than myself.” Ashura shot down the suggestion. “Not now.”
“Because he locked most of his power away, and yet even the amount he kept has been steadily growing, day by day.”
Ashura’s mouth was thin, displeased. “Leave the child out of this.”
Again, Yuuko ignored what did not suit her. “You wished once, to make them smile.”
“And left my Court, as you bid me, and most of my magic, to raise them. It was a wasted wish.”
“Had you not made that wish you would be insane, and those children dead.” Yuuko’s voice was cool. “It was hitsuzen, a fact you know as well as I. Do not doubt it now.”
“I made that wish because you told me the price to make them actually happy was too high.” Ashura sighed, folding his arms across his chest.
“No,” Yuuko gently corrected, “I told you the price for you to make them happy was too high. There is, however, a way for those children to reach a happiness for themselves…”
Ashura smiled, wry. “And what would the price be for this way?”
“How well you know me.”
“Answer me.”
“Fai.” Yuuko’s reply was abrupt. “Your price would be that boy to never truly live under your roof again, taken from your protection to live his own way.”
Slowly, Ashura shook his head. “That is a price that would cost Fai as well as myself. I refuse to place another burden upon that child.” And his own attachment to the child -
“Even if he took that burden upon himself, for the price of his most burning wish? Have him come to me, to my island, to wish for his brother. To wish for Yuui, awake and well.”
“You told me that wish was impossible!”
“Circumstances will change.” Yuuko’s tone was clipped. &dquo;Now, send that boy to me, before evening falls. Or is your wish such a fleeting dream after all?”
Ashura would’ve retorted something in anger, but the witch had already closed the connection between them. Magic fell apart in the palm of the faerie’s hand, words falling to nothingness and dust. In the library Fai slept on, unaware of his future changing, past and present and potential swirling and jumbled and unravelling like a spool of black ribbon across the floor.
‘Hitsuzen’, indeed.