Fic: Ever After (11.1)
Title: Ever After
Characters/Pairings: Characters abound from the multiverse, and if you think you spot a pairing, it’s probably there.
Rating: T
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: Posted in two parts, although the second part might be a while in coming. *just felt bad leaving you all without any sign of fic for a long while*
Chapter I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X |
Chapter XI
Once upon a time, back when the stories were still being newly dreamed of, there was an angel. He was white-winged and silver-haired, pale as the moonlight he was named from and three times more aloof. As the moon circled the earth so too did the angel revolve around his master, a once-king, a magician, who smiled even though his heart was so heavy and sad. He and his lion brother had been crafted out of nothing by the mortal man, devoted in every way to him, aiding him, easing him, entertaining him when time called for it. They were his companions.
“Yue,” the angel loved to hear his master say his name, large hands slipping through his hair, undoing the plait that bound it and letting it sweep out in a waterfall to trail the floor.
“Master,” Yue would often reply, and bow his head.
“Clow,” the man would correct him, and Yue would smile vaguely then, tiny, small, and be drawn into the star-speckled robes the magician favoured, breathing in the scent of his life.
Yue did not ask why it was he and his brother, Keroberos, had been created. He did not ask and Clow did not tell them, looking out of the window sometimes to some faraway place where all the wings of heaven could not carry them. Perhaps Clow saw yesterday and tomorrow out there, perhaps he was just watching the clouds. Yue did not ask, humbled, and Clow did not tell him, so Yue crept forward in the night and laid his head in his master’s lap, letting Clow run fingers through his silver hair. It was an uncomplicated love in an uncomplicated, small world. If Clow sometimes looked at him and perhaps saw someone else -
Yue was the moon, there to reflect his master’s glory unquestioningly, put there to comfort and calm and advise. Keroberos played tricks and Yue scolded, but they were all close as the years went by, tripping over one another, fast flipping pages of a book.
And then came the day that Clow announced he was going away.
“Where?” Yue immediately asked, envisioning the three of them on a journey together, and already hearing how his brother would gripe about his fur getting tangled.
“Somewhere you can’t follow,” Clow told him, and Yue froze in shock.
“I can follow you anywhere,” the angel insisted - he had been created by Clow; there was nothing he couldn’t do, because Clow’s power was practically limitless.
“No,” Clow corrected him, gently, gently, and touched a hand to his cheek. “You can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Keroberos asked, forlorn, and Clow laid a hand atop the lion’s head, soft comfort.
Clow smiled at them both, serene, sad. “I’m going to die.”
Yue left the room, and refused to speak to Clow for a week.
“Yue,” Clow called to him, when he thought the angel had had his time to grieve.
“You don’t need to die.” Yue stubbornly refused to look at the magician. “You can live forever.” Clow looked at him, and Yue sagged. “Do you really want so much to go?”
Clow took his angel’s head upon his lap, and stroked a hand through Yue’s silver hair. “Everything has its time.”
Clow sent his guardians away, to his blood relations, to the kings and queens and children of the kingdom of Clow, the place beyond the mountains. They went unwillingly but dutifully, Clow’s kiss upon their foreheads and the promise that they would be what they needed to be when the time arose. They were to serve the royal family in any way they could, and they were to wait for their next Master, who would be born of the line, a princess who called down a key from the stars. She was destined to take down Clow’s brother, the magician named Fei Wong Reed.
The fated princess was born in the reign of King Fujitaka and his wife, Queen Nadeshiko, their second child and only daughter. She was pretty and clever and oblivious and sweet, clumsy in some ways but terribly astute in others, lighting up the rooms with her smile. Keroberos took her for rides on his back and Yue let her trail after him, tiny hands tugging at his long robes, green eyes pleading if Yue-san would pretty please let her braid his hair…? She’d called down the star key when she was only three, and Yue had bowed to her at once, and called her ‘Master’.
Sakura had stomped her foot, put-out. “I don’t want t’be Yue’s Master!” She had taken the angel’s hands, bubbling with her childish enthusiasm. “Yue will be my friend.”
Yue had been extremely doubtful.
Despite all the guards and magical wards the kingdom placed upon her, Sakura was stolen away from her home on her seventh birthday, taken by Fei Wong Reed. Unable to recall her with their own strength Clow could do little but send out their guardians, Yue and Keroberos, to remain with the child, both creatures flying swiftly after their charge. They found her in a floating castle separated from time with heavy magical wards all about it, heavy with faerie enchantment and a foreign, ancient magic that sang of cold lands beyond the woods.
Sakura had cried out when she saw her guardians, having been scared, clutching at Yue’s legs. The angel had knelt down beside her. “Mistress.”
Sakura pouted at him. “I don’t want to be your Master, Yue.” Her eyes were as earnest as when she’d been three. “I want to be your friend.”
They tried to take the princess from the castle but the magic of the castle was too strong. Sakura cried a little, missing her family and her friends, and her guardians gently covered her with their wings until she fell into sleep. The man who’d taken the princess for Fei Wong Reed approached them and both guardians snapped defensively, but the stranger only smiled and bowed and introduced himself as Kyle Rondart. They would be provided for, in the castle, in accordance with their good behaviour. Raising your bow and baring your teeth, Rondart tranquilly informed them, just as Yue and Keroberos did those things, did not classify as ‘good behaviour’. It would be best to play nicely whilst at Fei Wong Reed’s mercy - it would be dreadful, after all, if the little princess had to suffer neglect in any way.
Yue and Keroberos snarled, but there was little they could do except obey, distrustful of Rondart, of Fei Wong, of the castle and its magics, of the entire situation. The years passed by like that, and nothing happened, save Sakura’s growth, in age and looks and power and smiles.
The princess was sixteen when Kurogane crashed in for dinner.
#
Ashura, sole blood child of Ashura-ou and Regent of the Faerie Court, sat in a splendour of red and gold, a slim figure amongst exotic cushions and brocades, servants fluttering about bringing in dishes of food and flagons of drink. As Fai entered, Sumomo singing out his introduction, the servants vanished, seemingly melting into nothing, Ashura looking away from his lap, where he seemed to be threading something together, gaze settling on Fai.
Fai inclined his head. “Your Highness.”
“Sumomo, you may leave us.” Ashura dismissed the chibi, the little girl prancing out with a cheerful ‘bye~!’ The Regent didn’t rise from their seat, but stretched out a hand to Fai, pausing their work for a moment. The faerie’s fingers were pale but scratched, decorated with thin lines of red. What on earth was Ashura making-? “Come, rest here awhile with me, and we shall talk like the siblings we should have been.”
Fai glanced up. “Syaoran-kun -”
“You and yours have my protection, and I am very much my father’s child when creatures break my rules.” Ashura’s smile was knife-thin, their hands detached from the sharp expression as they continued to thread - those were brambles. Why-? Fai approached the other slowly, taking a seat amidst the cushions as Ashura bid him to. “Lord Seishirou still bears the scars of the day he laid hands on you - ah,” the faerie spoke, seeing the flicker of Fai’s expression; “you were never told of his fate, were you? They etched a sakura tree into his back with a dull blade - the branches curve around his stomach, trail to the end of his wrists. My father damned him to carry his transgressions always, visible scars, and placed a restriction upon him. He has been forced to remain within the Court all these years, bound by the Crown’s magic.”
Fai remembered how Seishirou had been wearing long sleeves. “He seems the same as he was when I first left this Court.”
“Because he has not changed - not for the better, not for the worse. His participation in anything and everything is based entirely upon self-interest.” Ashura reached forward, pouring something rich and red from one of the flagons into two goblets and offering one of the cups to Fai. “Lord Seishirou does not like or love any set being - rather, he likes to amuse himself, and to someone as apathetic as him he finds the best amusement to lie in some form of torment.”
Fai took a swallow from his drink - it was alcohol, bitter and potent, slamming into his senses and making his head spin for a few long seconds. Even when his thoughts cleared themselves a little the edges still blurred, a curling haze, and he licked his lips for the moisture that lingered there. “I’m honoured to be the entertainment.” The sarcasm lay heavy on his tongue - he could quite easily get drunk on whatever it was Ashura had given him.
“You’re human,” the Regent mildly surmised, as if that explained everything - to one of the fey, it probably did. Ashura continued to thread the thorns in their lap, binding them into a rough circle.
“No,” Fai denied slowly. “I’m too old to be human.”
“Do you think of yourself as a faerie, then?” Ashura queried, and picked up their own drink. “You were raised by one, the most influential of us all. Magic keeps you going, as it does for us.”
“No,” Fai shook his head again. “I’m too much of a liar to be fey.” Hn - he could see why Yuuko was so terribly fond of Faerie wine; the stuff was strong.
“Neither human nor fey,” Ashura breathed, studying the goblet in their hand like it held all the answers in the world. Beads of red smeared the metal from the Regent’s fingers - it was interesting to note that the fey bled scarlet. “Tell me then, what does that make you?”
Fai smiled wearily and leaned back in his seat, letting his eyes slide shut, his body sink into the cushions around him. “Tired.”
#
“Ooo,” Syaoran was deeply thankful for Mokona - the little creature was deeply unaffected by the amount of faeries looking at the two of them as they stood in the Faerie Court, too occupied by the table piled high with food that was nearby, “Syaoran, Syaoran, that looks tasty!” Mokona hopped down on to the table, enthusiastically bouncing around what looked liked glazed apples. She grabbed one, tossing it up into the air slightly before opening her mouth and swallowing it whole, core and all.
Syaoran stared. “Mokona, Fai-san said -”
“Don’t touch the burgundy fruit; don’t touch the gold meat, and poke everything before you eat it~!” Mokona rattled off the list Fai had given them before being pulled away in a sing-song, already starting on her second apple. It quickly went the same way as the first. “Mokona knows.”
“But why-?”
Mokona didn’t seem to be listening, on a mission towards what looked like a basket of bread rolls. She grabbed the one on the top and opened her mouth to swallow it whole - only for the ‘roll’ to suddenly wriggle, and morph into what looked like a tiny, cobweb-bound (and gagged) faerie, bright wings frantically a-flutter in the face of impending doom.
“Mokona!” Syaoran upset six bowls of food as he suddenly lunged over the table to grab the faerie before Mokona could accidentally(?) eat her, knocking food down and staining the front of his clothes in his haste. The faeries around them stared at the human boy suddenly sprawled across their table, a few smothering chuckles behind their hands at the state Syaoran was in. Syaoran didn’t care - he held the faerie he’d rescued loosely in one hand, trying to undo the little…creature’s bonds with the other.
“You almost ate me!!” The liberated faerie certainly had a fine set of lungs, turquoise hair all tangled as one tiny finger was pointed accusingly at Mokona, righteously indignant. “Me! Primera - the one and only idol!!” Fai’s advice about poking everything before attempting to eat it was slowly beginning to make sense.
“Mokona is sorry -”
“‘Sorry’?!” ‘Primera’ wasn’t having any of it. “I was almost swallowed by a meatbun!!”
“Primera-san,” Syaoran tentatively began, “I’m pretty sure it was an acc-er,” the boy blinked - Primera had suddenly flown to him and wrapped herself around his finger, hugging it.
“My saviour.”
“Er -” Syaoran really wasn’t terribly sure about what to say to the faerie. “Primera-san -”
“You saved me.” Primera was keen to reinforce the point, still clinging to the boy’s finger. She was barely the size of his hand. “After those brutes tied me up and glamoured me I thought I was going to die there, and then you came along, my knight in shining armour - oh, just wait ‘til I tell my Shougo what those idiots did!! Then they’ll be sorry - they’ll see!!”
“‘Shougo’?” Syaoran queried.
“My boyfriend.” Primera gave a heart-struck sigh. “He’s so…so wonderful.” The little faerie detached herself from Syaoran, fluttering away to sit on the end of a nearby dish and look distantly into nowhere. “We’re going to leave the Court together and get a place of our own…”
“That sounds very nice,” Syaoran said politely, still sprawled rather inelegantly over the dinner table.
“Doesn’t it?” Primera was in raptures. “We’ll be free of this place forever, Shougo and I - no more singing on demand, no more hiding…” She trailed off dreamily, clearly already envisioning her future life and home.
Syaoran started clambering back off of the table, wincing when his movement upset even more of the dishes of food. Mokona watched. “Syaoran’s all messy…”
Primera leapt to her feet. “I can help!”
Syaoran held up his hands. “Ah, no, Primera-san, that isn’t really necessary -”
It was too late. Primera had already extended her hands, a glowing, aquamarine light enveloping Syaoran for a moment before fading away.
“Ooooo.” Mokona seemed entranced, looking at Syaoran, who was then brushing his down newly-cleaned clothes. “It worked.”
“Of course it worked, you stupid meatbun!!” Primera stomped her foot and threw a nearby mushroom at the fluffy ball - Mokona merely opened her mouth wide for the incoming missile, and swallowed it. Primera pointed a finger in disgust. “You did that on purpose!!”
“But Mokona likes mushrooms!”
“Don’t eat things when I’m throwing them at you!!”
#
The fruit was a gorgeous silver, the soft sweetness inside vivid purple, the colour of a rich new bruise. The juice left a stain on Fai’s lips, a dark smear on his features reflected back at him from the metal of his cup, a steadying focus when the Faerie wine span things just a little too much around the mage.
There was a silence between him and Ashura, he Faerie Regent contemplating the tale he’d coaxed from Fai, the reason that had brought the human to his Court.
“My father…” Ashura paused, distant in thought, “he once had an enchanted castle, I know, with wings that lifted it into the sky and shone like starlight. He traded it away not long after I was born though, I’ve been told, in payment for a wish.”
“A wish to Yuuko-san?” Fai queried, setting down his cup.
Ashura shook their head, the long earrings in their ears making a muted jingle. “My father didn’t start any dealings with the Forest Witch until many, many years later, shortly before your brother and yourself were brought to this Court.” Fai looked slightly taken-aback. “Did you perhaps think the Lady Yuuko was the only one in the business of granting wishes? I assure you; she is not.”
“Then who-?”
“I do not know the name of the one who granted the wish - I do not even know what the wish itself was.” Ashura had eaten very little that night, still braiding brambles, occupied by the delicate twist of thorns. “The castle was traded away but no doubt strong strands of my father’s magic remain there; when you disturbed the curse upon your fiancé perhaps it took him to the castle for the curse to be recast under the assumption that was where my father would go - faeries are drawn to the strongest point of magic, after all. It’s in our natures, and our natures are in our spells.”
“You think…the curse on Kuro-sama might be broken?” Fai hesitated, not really having thought too much into that. If the curse was broken, then Kurogane was no longer a wolf, and he’d be free to return to his home in Nihon.
“I could not tell you, Fai-ouji.” Fai winced slightly at the title, but Ashura pretended not to notice. “I did not craft the spell.”
Fai finished his fruit, placing the dark red stone that had been at its heart on a plate in front of him. He could’ve sworn he never took his eyes off of it but the plate seemed to blur all the same, a quick blink and the stone gone, the plate clean, Fai unsure whether he’d just imagined the stone’s existence or whether a servant had whisked it away in the snatch of a breath. “Do you know the castle’s location?”
Ashura shook their head. “It was not common knowledge, though there will be records of it. Stay upon my hospitality in this Court a few more days; I will have clerks look into it.”
His human companion inclined his head. “My thanks, Highness, but -”
“My father will not be returning here of his own volition.” Ashura interrupted him, Fai glancing up to see the Regent’s oddly fixed face. “The Court will sink into chaos, for I am the heir, and am capable of bearing no more heirs.” The faerie reached down; lifting up the thorns they’d been weaving that night, revealing a delicate, jagged circlet. This was offered to Fai, Ashura’s eyes serious. “You know what I’m asking of you.”
Fai’s insides felt like ice, and he quickly shook his head, caring little for rudeness. “I don’t want it.”
“You are my father’s beloved, and my brother in all but name.”
“I don’t want it.” Fai wanted a peaceful life with his brother -, that was all. Everything was for Yuui, not for the trickery of the Faerie Court. The problems of the Court were not Fai’s concern; he’d abandoned and been abandoned by political wrangling before, and wanted no dalliance with it again. He was essentially human; why would a faerie offer the crown to him-? “Isn’t there a hierarchy for these things, anyway? A noble to inherit -”
Ashura looked at him. “A ruler can bypass the hierarchy if they want to.”
“Who are you bypassing?”
“Lord Subaru.” Who’d vanished from the Court with his brother even before Ashura-ou, and was in the midst of just as much turmoil as the errant king. “Lord Kamui. Lords Seishirou and Fuuma.” Any one of them would be a disaster, as the others would always be involved. It would be crowning chaos.
Fai breathed out, slowly. “…I pray that you will forgive me, Your Highness, for my bluntness,” he looked up to meet the Regent’s golden eyes, “but there was no love lost between us before tonight. Why are you offering the throne to me?”
“Some things…” Ashura smiled, and it was sad, terribly sad, “some things cannot be avoided forever, no matter how hard we wish they might be so. And sometimes people get caught up in those lamentable wishes, through no true fault of their own.” Fai looked at the Regent, trying to see where they were going with the explanation. “You would do right by this Court, and where else would you go when this year is done, your fiancé returned to him home? There’s nowhere else.”
It…everything would be gone. The world tilted around Fai again and the blond bowed his head, thinking, because everyone and everything would be gone from him then and - was there anywhere else to go? He could shelter Yuui in the Court, if Yuui would stand with him, his brother who had slept away hundreds of years. Ashura’s offer was both cruel and kind. “Alright,” his head hurt. “I’ll do it.”
“I’m glad.” Ashura leaned forwards then, and set the bramble crown atop the blond’s bowed head. “You are royalty, try as you would to deny it - yours is a head suited for a crown.”
Fai’s lips twisted into a strange smile, his eyes smoky with shadows too elusive to catch. “Tell me then - do I wear the thorns well?”
Ashura’s fingers were still decorated with red scratches, blood that marked the brambles Fai then wore. “As well as any other prince does.”
Fai smiled again and took another swallow of his wine. It burned all the way down.
#
Yue was still an irritatingly impressive individual even when he hid his wings from sight, coolly courteous as he bid the princess, Sakura, a good night’s rest, Keroberos padding off to escort the girl to her room and guard her. Yue took charge of Kurogane, less inquiring whether the shinobi would like to retire for the night and more curtly stating that he would show the man to his room before promptly taking off - if Kurogane wanted any clue where he was going, he’d have to follow the angel, and the angel was not waiting around for him.
“Where is this place?” Kurogane asked his questions as they walked; Yue seemed to want rid of him as quickly as possible.
“The Mistress told you upon your arrival - castle Leval.” Yue’s reply was clipped.
“Which is-?”
“A place outside of time.”
“And how did I get here?”
“We do not know, and I do not care.”
Yue was grating more on Kurogane’s nerves by the second. “Whose castle is this?”
“It has numerous owners.”
“Is your princess one of them?”
There was a sudden flash of blue-white light gilded with silver, and Kurogane abruptly found a crackling arrow of light and ozone pointed at his throat, drawn back and ready to be released. He’d called it up from nothing. Narrowed lilac cat eyes met red, and a taunting meow decided to whisper its way through Kurogane’s thoughts, memories of a soft body and an edged spite that was uncaring of the situation currently at hand.
“Do not,” Yue demanded in a low hiss, “put the Mistress on par with the scum who keep this castle.”
Kurogane acutely felt the absence of his sword, and growled back. “Get that arrow out of my face.”
Yue didn’t lower his weapon. “I could kill you now.”
“You could explain to the princess why her guest is missing at breakfast in the morning as well.” Kurogane really missed his sword.
Yue glared, but lowered his bow. Clearly, they were going to get along splendidly.
#
“Good morning, Doumeki-kun.”
The eagle didn’t question how it was Yuuko knew he had taken up perch behind her when she wasn’t even looking his way - the fact the woman had set up a perch for him in her main lounge and left the sliding door to the garden open for him to fly through spoke volumes enough.
“It’s still dark, I know…” the witch was smoking, a strange bittersweetness in the air, in her veiled eyes as she turned towards her guest, “but the moon is past its zenith.” There was a long silence between them, and Doumeki knew Yuuko had seen the parcel he’d been carrying, Ashura’s price to her, and the uninjured state of his eye. She smiled, rueful, to herself. “You’ll be wanting to see Watanuki?”
Doumeki flew after her when she left the room.
Yuuko took him to the room where her employee lay dreaming, Watanuki still in the same position as he had been in when Syaoran had sat watch over him earlier in the night. His expression, however, even in sleep, seemed vaguely perplexed, a strand of dark hair having fallen over his brow. Yuuko brushed it away and Watanuki shifted slightly in his slumber, Doumeki alighting on yet another perch placed strategically beside the sleeping youth.
“It’s not my place to say what he did.” Yuuko looked up from Watanuki, and her skin seemed as white as bone in the moonlight. She rose to her feet. “You can ask him yourself in the morning; I’ll have him make breakfast.” She left the room.
Doumeki stayed behind, and kept vigil.
#
The hand was sharp in his hair, fingers knotted in the strands at the nape of his neck, pulling gently but firmly - so very there. He couldn’t quite breathe with the pressure, head tilted just a little further back than usual, his own hands fisted in material - cotton, the smell and the feel and the fibres - against a firm chest in front, close and warm, a leg between his thighs, a head dipped to mouth hot kisses to his throat.
“What -” he felt punch-drunk, slurred, the world reeling and nothing but the body against his, the cool slink of a necklace’s chain across the back of his hand, cotton and skin and heat and -
A low whisper against his ear, warm breath. “Fai.”
Fai woke up in a bower of moonflowers, the tiny trumpet-like flowers parted to the silver light shining in the late- or was that early? - night sky overhead. Their smell was sweet, sharply sweet, and Fai groaned, his head lolling to the side as the dream faded, leaving him aching rather unpleasantly. His lips felt bruised…touching a hand to them Fai could still vaguely recall a foreign mouth, a dream phantom spun up from memory and alcohol. (The reason Yuuko was so fond of Faerie wine was getting clearer by the second.)
Fai pushed himself up into a sitting position, still a little dizzy, the press of Ashura’s crown upon his head, not drunk, exactly, but definitely affected. The alcohol in his bloodstream didn’t stop his keen gaze alighting on the flowers that formed his bed however, a pale hand plucking up one of the white blooms and bringing it to his face to see it better. Moonflowers, charmed flowers, called Thorn Apples and Hell’s Bells and the Devil’s Weeds. They were used in spells of love and deliria, and could cause death. They were potent, and could summon up images and sensations of lovers lost.
Fai dropped the moonflower onto the floor, and crushed it beneath his heel. “He never called me ‘Fai’.” He couldn’t even dream of a lie anymore, it seemed.
“Did you sleep well, bochamma?” An elegant shadow detached itself from the curves of a tree-trunk when Fai blazed from the bower he’d slept in, a smiling woman dressed in black. They were still inside the Faerie Court.
Fai stopped short, registering the stranger, and then smiled slightly when memory set in. “Oruha-chan?” The faerie had sung lullabies to his brother and him when they had been in the Court, songs that had soothed Yuui when the cursed sickness had taken him and given both the twins respite from guilt and worry. For her kindness, for her aid to his twin, he’d always held the Lady Oruha in high regard.
“Bochamma,” the woman inclined her head, glossy curls tumbling about her shoulders. Like Seishirou, it seemed she had not aged a day since he had last seen her. “Ashura-sama asked me to check on and assist you, should you awaken.”
“Then why,” Fai queried after a few moments pause, “was I placed among the moonflowers?”
“You fell asleep whilst you were with Ashura-sama; you were placed amongst the flowers as a kindness.” Oruha saw his slipping smile. “You didn’t like the dreams they gave you?”
Fai fixed his usually cheerful expression more firmly in place. “They were a little unrealistic.”
Oruha kept smiling, but her gaze was far too knowing for Fai to be at all comfortable. “We like the moonflowers for the respite they can give us…no-one considered immortal has ever been fond of personal pain. Aged hearts hang too heavy when sorrow rests upon them - it is why the fey so determinedly assure themselves every day that they are always full of joy.”
The world of the fey was a place full of delusions. “Could you take me to Syaoran-kun?” He’d abandoned the boy for long enough.
“The child? He’s asleep.”
“Still.”
Oruha took Fai’s arm and led the human away from the trees and back inside the building main of the Court, brushing past the few faeries whispering along at that hour in her long gown and escorting her companion down a series of corridors, stopping in front of a plain bronze door.
“A guest room,” the lady explained, and Fai pushed the door open.
The chamber inside was dim, washed-out in golden sepia and shadows, simple in furnishings but still clearly comfortable. Fai had to step closer to the large bed to make out the state of its occupants, smiling faintly at the image of the snoring Mokona and sprawled-out Syaoran, a small green-haired faerie tangled in the boy’s hair, mumbling something or other about someone or something called ‘Shougo’
“You had a little too much wine, hm?” Fai pulled the blanket on the bed up over Syaoran a little more, patting a gentle hand on the youth’s shoulder. “Have a good sleep, Syaoran-kun. Don’t dream.”
Fai went to Oruha and the woman led him through the maze of corridors once more, elegant, smiling.
“I think this will be the last time we shall talk, you and I.”
“Oruha-chan…?” Fai paused, mid-step, and turned to look at the woman beside him.
“My ability…” Oruha laid a hand above her heart, fingers touching the clover tattoo there, “this mark is an irony, did you know? Four-leaf clovers are renowned for their luck, and so it was given to me as a makeweight for the luck many feel I do not possess. Aside from the common magic, all faeries by nature have an innate talent that is unique to them, something special that sets them apart. Our lord Regent Ashura can summon great blasts of fire. Lord Seishirou can charm the magic and minds of strangers with his presence. His brother, Lord Fuuma, can see the hearts of people. My ability, strangely enough, is the ability to know the date upon which I am to die.”
“…You’re…going to die?” That couldn’t be so. It was a lie. Oruha looked extraordinarily healthy, a faerie in her prime. She’s hadn’t aged a day since he’d last seen her, back when he’d been small and Oruha had tucked him up in bed and sang Yuui to sleep.
She touched a hand to Fai’s cheek, seeing the stricken look on the human’s face. It had been a long while since Fai had had to confront death so baldly, hiding behind spells in the forest, his brother saved to a point and sleeping sweetly, soundly, Ashura pressing kisses to his own forehead, mouth, oblivion from the bloodshed of Valeria. Silly laughs and spins under the sunshine trees because it was fine, it was good, and they weren’t thinking about it. Why bear the heartache?
Oruha smiled, gentle. “It is not such a terrible thing, bocchama. All things must come to an end eventually - some sooner than others. From the moment of my birth I was aware of the time of my departure from this life; I have long since grown accustomed to it, and grown used to the waiting. It is something expected, and I shall go to my rest knowing I have done all that I would have had done, at peace.” She dropped her hand. “Death can sometimes be a blessing, bocchan, at the right time, for the right people.”
“Death -” Fai could list plenty of reasons for why someone would want to leave the world they lived in, to sleep forever, but that was a dangerous path to start down. “I’m sorry, Oruha-chan. Lady Oruha.” Fai took a half-step back. He - was he looking at a walking corpse? The outside was lovely, but -
‘All the pretty faces you pull don’t hide the fact that you’re a liar - whatever the hell it is that you’re so fixated on, get over it. The world goes on as usual, with or without your cooperation.’
Kurogane’s words had the horrible habit of lingering unpleasantly in the mind. The outside couldn’t hide the inside and -
He’d been happy before this, hadn’t he? He must’ve been happy, somehow, some way. Ashura-ou loved him, Chii loved him, Yuui loved him. He was loved and he was fixing things and he -
He’d ruined everything all over again. Misfortunate. Cursed.
“I’m sorry.” Fai smiled again, wide and cheerful and painfully hollow. “I’m sorry,” I don’t want to speak to you again you scare me go away don’t die, “I’ll go to my rooms now.”
Oruha only watched silently, understandingly, as he tripped off, heading automatically for the chambers he had been granted to share with Yuui when he’d been a child, but pausing halfway, leaning against the wall. What…was he doing-? He…it didn’t feel right to go there; he wasn’t that boy anymore. He’d put his brother into an endless sleep since then; he’d ripped apart his own magic and made life since then; he’d effectively stolen and slept with a Faerie King, putting a Court into a downward-spiralling chaos since then. He’d smiled and lied and cried and died inside so many times since then, again and again, blithe and bright to outward gazes. He wasn’t a boy, anymore. He was a different Fai now - he had been for a long time.
‘A pleasure to meet you - I am Fai D. Fluorite.’
He -
‘…You’re an idiot.’
Fai didn’t quite know why it was he’d come to the enchanted tree in the Court’s old Throne Room. The place didn’t really hold any good memories for him. Under the moonlight the ever-blooming sakura blossoms were gilded with frost, the worn bark humming with old, strong power, a magician’s foresight. The grass between the roots was soft and carpeted in pink petals, Fai sinking down there, pillowing his head on his arms. The magic there felt good, comforting, the moonlight filtering down through the branches and leaving silver dapples on his clothes, strange soft hollows in the curves of his face and throat.
Fai fell asleep there, dreamless, the tree’s strength soothing his own troubles temporarily, the magic there welcoming him in, recognising him. The frost on the blossoms slowly crept down the trunk and spread around the prince, slinking out to slumbering Court beyond and embellishing it in a thin, glittering veneer of cold. Even when the moonlight faded and the sun began to rise the frost remained, the Court waking and whispering at the sight. The sakura tree, for the first time in its life, was coated in frost during the day, the fey huddling in corners and talking about the strange magic lying in the shimmering cold.
Fai, when he eventually awoke, found himself littered with blossoms and crystals of ice, and he had to spend a good while chipping at the frost-laced crown on his head, attempting to detach the brambles from his hair.
Second part is here.