Fic: Morning Song (1)
Title: Morning Song
Characters/Pairings: KuroYuui, KuroFai, mild FaiYuui, KuroFaiYuui and many, many minor others mentioned/alluded to.
Rating: M - warnings for eventual incest, character deaths, attempted suicide, suicide, general unhappiness, some bad language, and sex.
Summary: AU. Life and love in the palace by the sea - it’s a cycle of sorts; what rises will fall, and rise up again, and all while the years go by, and the children grow older. (Growing wiser isn’t guaranteed.) “Youou, do you like me?”
A/N: …This isn’t totally as depressing as the rating/warnings/summary suggest, I swear? ;;; And so - the first part to a much, much belated birthday present for Crys - which somehow morphed, and became a monster, and ate my brain. Seriously, all that’s left rattling around my skull at the moment is a dried peanut. Stop celebrating the day of your birth, woman; your monster-baby murdered my brain cells. X3
Second part to come…I don’t know when. I just really wanted to post this first part, because really, it’s a gift, and it’s already kind of overdue. ;;;
*****
The palace is all but on the seashore, but the child they call Fai isn’t allowed near the sea. He hasn’t been allowed down to the sea for almost two years exactly - Kurogane knows it, because he has a good memory and had been there on the day the ban had been instilled and besides, Fai keeps a diary, regular as the tide comes in, and the tides goes out. (Kurogane saw it once.) All its pages are blank, but some of the numbers are circled for the dates ahead. The important ones. Fai doesn’t have many important dates, so the meaning behind this one is pretty clear.
The palace is all but on the seashore, but the child they call Fai isn’t allowed near the sea. Not that Fai’s really a child anymore - he’s eighteen this year, one year and six months older than Kurogane, but he’s not twenty-one yet and nobody’s an adult until they’re twenty-one, and Ashura’s say-so goes until then. In theory, anyway. Kurogane knows Fai sneaks down to the seashore at least twice a week and knows Fai knows he knows, but they both keep it a secret from everyone - even Sakura, who it’s near to impossible to lie to due to her glass-green eyes and wavering smile. She’s Fai’s fiancée and she’s fourteen, and the marriage will make Fai a prince before he’s even properly an adult - they’re to be married when Sakura turns sixteen because that’s acceptable, and the King nods and Ashura nods and everyone goes with it; the tide comes in, and the tide goes out. Kurogane thinks Fai is an idiot. Nothing changes.
The tide goes out, out, out…
#
They were found, contrarily enough, on the seashore, only a few weeks old, two blond-haired baby boys fast asleep in soft white linen, curled around each other in their basket in the sand. Nobody knew where they’d come from; no-one had any idea who their parents could be, but their magic was strong - painfully so - so they were given to the Palace’s Chief Mage, Ashura, to find a suitable set of parents. He adopted both children himself and named them - Yuui and Fai. He had no children of his own, and he loved them. The Palace approved, and nobody said anything about how, on the same day, all the fishing nets near the shore had been neatly torn through, and the fisherman commented about the strange calmness of the waves.
Youou Kurogane was born over a year later, in the regular way, in the heat and sunshine of a summer afternoon, the gulls crying in the distance. He was the first child to his parents, and the birth was a difficult one. The Lady Kurogane had never had very strong health, and Youou would be her only child. They wrapped him in bright colours and took him to see the rest of the Palace - the King said he was a healthy, strong boy, and hoped he might have a child of his own someday to give Youou a playmate. Youou started squalling, and refused to quieten however much his mother rocked him, fussing in her arms.
The noise brought Ashura, who had been with his own two fosterlings and their nurse. Yuui and Fai were walking by that point - a little shakily, watched over carefully, but still up on two feet and very mobile. They were curious children and asked as many questions as their developing vocabulary would allow them to, clutching onto their father’s long robes for balance, pointing and stating ‘that’ for every object they couldn’t recall the name of. Following Ashura in Yuui did his usual trick and toddled off forwards alone, curious about the noise coming from Lady Kurogane’s arms. The adults were used to him, and no-one minded when he held onto the hem of the lady’s gown at the end of his journey, small face showing his curiosity.
“That?” he asked, pointing at Youou, and trying to reach up to grab at the pretty cloth wrapped around the babe that caught his eye. Tiny birds had been picked out in the material in gold thread, gleaming under the lights.
“This is baby Youou,” the woman told him, crouching down so Yuui could see her little boy. “My son.”
Yuui regarded the baby thoughtfully for a few minutes, Youou’s eyes screwed shut as he continued to wriggle and wail in his mother’s hold, his face wrinkled up in his temper or distress. Yuui looked up, and met the lady’s eyes. “Loud,” he stated matter-of-factly, and then blinked in confusion when the adults laughed.
“That’s a good sign,” Kurogane’s father said, standing beside his wife and smiling down at the Court’s foster-child, ruffling Yuui’s hair. “It means he has a healthy set of lungs.”
“So we know the baby isn’t sick, Yuui,” Ashura explained, eventually coming closer, with Fai clinging to him with every step he took.
“Baby at-choo?” Fai queried hopefully, recognising the word ‘sick’.
“No at-choo,” his twin informed him solemnly in response - and then blinked again and looked back at Youou, startled by the sudden lack of noise coming from the baby. Youou had finally quietened, looking up at his mother and Yuui leaning over him, eyes large and liquid, a beautiful shade of red. Yuui beamed down at him, an easy smile. “Hi baby.”
Youou bopped him in the nose.
Yuui had to be carried away after trying to hit the baby back, not understanding that Youou apparently hadn’t meant it, while Youou’s parents and Ashura attempted to apologise to each other, Yuui fussed at his nurse, Fai got upset at the fact his beloved brother was upset, and Youou started crying again.
It wasn’t a terribly auspicious first meeting.
#
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Squirt, you’re not actually being given an option here.” Lord Kurogane knelt down beside his pouting son, Youou wobbling significantly as the support he was clutching onto shifted, but steadfastly remaining on his feet, no matter how much he wanted to sit down. “It’s bath-time.”
“No.” Youou looked mutinous - he was a stubborn brat, and ‘no’ was apparently his favourite word. His mother swore it had been his first, though his father maintained the gurgle that had come out a few days previously had been a ‘mama’. His mama could get him to do anything - his father seemingly couldn’t even get the one year-old into his evening bath.
“Listen you -” Kurogane had faced wolves, demons, foreign armies in battle - he was not being defeated by an obstinate babe who couldn’t even string a full sentence together yet, no matter what set of eyes he unleashed upon the world at large. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
“No bath,” Youou insisted, clinging to his father’s legs for balance, pouting for all he was worth. Kurogane had managed to get the boy undressed and to the bathroom, the bath ready and waiting, but Youou refused to go within a metre of the large tub.
“The hard way it is,” his father told him, plucking him up from the ground and stalking over to the bath, sitting Youou down firmly in the water and holding him there, no matter how much the toddler wriggled and complained. The brat even got a few good kicks in, and about half the water in the bath over the side or on his father. If he hadn’t been drenched through, Kurogane might’ve been impressed.
Youou was carried out of the bathroom by his father about ten minutes later and thankfully handed off to his mother, wrapped in a towel with a few bubbles still clinging to his spiky hair. She only laughed at the state of her family, positioning Youou on her hip and drying him off some more while she waited for her husband to return from fetching a towel for himself. Youou squirmed when she passed the towel over his head but was docile the moment he could see again, fisting a hand in the front of her robes and laying his head rather sleepily on her chest. By the time his father came back, towelling his own hair dry, Youou was most of the way to sleep, mumbling nonsense as he was taken back to his bedchamber.
“Did you have fun?” Lady Kurogane asked her husband softly, as she gently eased Youou off of her, pulling his nightshirt on over his small head.
“The little brat soaked me, as you can see.” Kurogane was leaving a puddle on the floor, and didn’t dare go any closer to his son’s bed for fear of getting the sheets wet. “He insisted he didn’t want a bath.”
“No bath,” Youou sleepily echoed from the bed, curling up on his side as his mother pulled the sheets up around him to tuck him in.
Kurogane sighed, and pulled his damp ponytail up from where it was sticking to the back of his neck. “See?” His wife laughed again, before looking around her son’s bed. Apparently not seeing what she was looking for there, she started casting her gaze around the chamber at large. Kurogane frowned at her. “What is it?”
“Nyah,” Youou said, huddled up against his pillow. “Nyah.”
“…You’re going to have to say that one again, squirt.” Kurogane came a little closer to the bed despite himself, looking down at his little boy.
Youou only looked at him, rubbing his eyes a little. “Nyah,” he said again, a slightly plaintive note creeping into his voice. “Want Nyah.”
“His toy cat,” Lady Kurogane said quietly, still glancing around, looking for a familiar black tail or paw poking out from behind some piece of furniture. “That the Queen made for him, back when she heard she was first expecting? He won’t sleep without it.”
Her husband stared at her. “He called it ‘Nyah’?”
“Actually, I think one of the twins did, and it stuck -”
“Nyah,” Youou asked again, now definitely plaintive, pushing himself up into a sleepy upright position, holding his hands out to his mother.
“I can’t see it,” his father said, also looking around.
There was a tiny knock at the door.
Kurogane went over and opened it, a little surprised when he found he was looking at no-one - until he glanced down, and saw one of the palace waifs looking back up at him, tiny, blond, and clearly having stolen out of his own bedroom.
Said little boy turned sleepy eyes on the lord, smiling absently and wobbling a little on his bare feet. “Hi.”
“Hi yourself,” Kurogane replied, amused despite himself, and crouched down so that the child had something to hold onto instead of falling over. “I’m afraid it’s a little too late for Youou to come out and play right now - shouldn’t you be in bed yourself? I’m sure your brother and your maid will be looking for you.”
The child shook his head, golden curls flopping around his cheeks. “Fai’s here.” He pointed a little further down the corridor and Kurogane craned his head out a little to see, blinking once at the sight of the other side of the duo, clad in a long white nightshirt like his twin, but with an armful of what looked suspiciously like a black toy cat. Its tail dragged along the floor. “See?”
“I see.” Kurogane smiled and Fai edged closer - Yuui meanwhile was busy wrinkling his nose, having grabbed onto the lord and discovered the adult’s clothing was still soggy.
“You’s wet,” the boy complained, his brother solemnly nodding agreement beside him.
“You are wet,” Lady Kurogane absently corrected, coming over to the doorway to see what had held up her husband - and spying the cat Fai bore. “Ah - you brought Nyah! Did Youou leave it with you both when you were playing this afternoon?” The twins nodded. “How kind of you to bring it back for him. Youou,” the woman turned back to the bed, where her son had crawled to the edge of his mattress, having heard the voices of the twins, “they brought Nyah. Say thank you.”
Youou blinked at her, before holding his arms out towards Fai. Apparently, he wanted his cat back first. Kurogane rolled his eyes at his son but stood, hefting Fai up under the armpits and carrying him the few steps over to the bed, setting the little boy down beside Youou, cat and all. Yuui hastily tottered after his brother, jumping and wriggling up until he was firmly ensconced against Fai’s side once more. Nyah was safely deposited back in Youou’s arms, the youngest boy holding onto it tightly.
“Say thank you,” his father reminded him. Youou pulled a face. “Youou.”
“Tha’ you,” Youou eventually mumbled out, pink, before quickly laying back down and turning his back on the two interlopers in his bed. Yuui giggled and started trying to wriggle back down off of the bed, apparently ready to head back to his own room again, but Fai yawned, milk teeth showing, and cuddled up beside Youou on the bed.
“…Fai,” Yuui said, having hopped off down onto the floor, hands flat on the bedspread as he looked at his brother. “Fai.”
“Mmph,” said Fai intelligibly, snuggling into the pillow beneath his head.
Yuui looked up at Youou’s parents rather helplessly.
“You can stay here for the night, if you want to,” Lady Kurogane told him, seeing how the child was still blinking to keep himself awake - it was sheer determination that had him up on his feet. “You and Fai.”
Yuui smiled - rather angelically, in utter contrast to the devil’s mischief he got up to around the palace with his twin, before clambering back up onto the bed, and snuggling up against Fai’s back, all qualms answered. He smiled, and mumbled a ‘thank you’ of his own when Youou’s mother tucked him in, apparently quite happy to cuddle his twin and drop off into sleep. Yuui, Fai, Youou and Nyah.
“I’ll tell their maid,” Lady Kurogane said lowly, as they slowly made their way out of the bedroom. “So she won’t worry.”
“Alright,” her husband nodded - and then glanced down at his still-wet apparel when a passing servant eyed the puddle he was trailing along the hallway’s floor rather darkly. “…I’ll go finish getting dry.”
#
Because they were so close in age, it seemed the easiest thing to do to put Yuui, Fai and Youou into a nursery together. It was supposed to be less taxing for the maids and nurses - the theory was that there would be fewer rooms to tidy up afterwards, less people needed to watch after the three little boys if they were all in the same room. That was, of course, taking for granted that said three little boys would be perfectly happy to share a nursery, would be happy to share their toys and time and become the best of best friends.
The ‘theory’ got very nicely ruined within a very short space of time. The first nurse who was appointed sole charge to the three toddlers broke down in tears after four days and refused to go in the same room as her former charges when they were all together, and her following two successors didn’t last very much longer. A day usually started off well with a group game or project - but then things always seemed to inevitably go wrong. Youou was a sore loser and the twins often bested him at games; Yuui became easily jealous when Youou monopolised more than five minutes of Fai’s attention at a time, and Fai was prone to crying whenever people raised their voices too loud. In with all the yelling, screaming and crying that came about as a result of putting the three together came the trashed room - broken toys from lost tempers, crayon-covered walls from artistic endeavours gone unchecked as a nurse attempted to break up two squabbling boys and let the third roam alone too long , three sets of torn curtains, a smashed vase, a horribly mangled rug -, bruised knees, noses, bloody lips and scratched arms, and three sulking, crying, wibbling children sent to bed early for so many days running that their parents lost count, despairing that the children seemed incapable of being friends - or even just getting along.
A few months in, many, many nurses later, Fai drew everyone in the nursery a picture. Everyone. The two nurses (one alone just couldn’t cope), himself, Youou, and his brother - Fai toddled around to them all and handed out his colourful scrawls (‘kitties,’ he insisted resolutely, when one of the nurses asked him what it was - one of the kitchen cats had given birth the previous day). Yuui toddled around after him and solemnly inspected all of the pictures - Youou was terribly reluctant at first to show the picture Fai had given him but finally caved after a tense, two-minute stare-off with the older boy, letting Yuui see what it was his twin had drawn. After examining it, Yuui just as solemnly handed the thing back into Youou’s sticky clutches, apparently having deduced that it wasn’t anything like the one Fai had given him.
Fai came over, curious as to what his brother was doing. Yuui looked at him, and then very deliberately - and abruptly - latched onto Youou. “Friends!”
“Off!” Youou insisted immediately, and started flailing.
“Friends?” Fai asked inquisitively, watching as his brother attempted to hug Youou - who was trying to kick him. “Youou?”
“Friends!” Yuui chirpily agreed, completely ignoring Youou’s thrashing arms, and somehow managing to avoid an elbow in his eye - it went into his stomach instead. Youou wasn’t terribly pleased with the offer of friendship. Yuui stayed leeched onto him all the same though - apparently Youou’s agreement wasn’t necessary.
#
“This is Prince Touya,” Ashura explained to his two sons half a year later, having taken the boys to see the Queen the day after the safe delivery of her first child. Nadeshiko was still abed but she was smiling, perfectly happy for the palace fosterlings to clamber up beside her and see the new baby.
“He came from…there?” Fai laid a hand on the Queen’s stomach, just below where she was cradling Touya.
Nadeshiko smiled, and nodded. “That’s right.”
Fai seemed confused. “But how did he fit?” His foster-father was making a rather strange face over in the corner beside the king - Yuui stared at them, perplexed at why the adults were being weird, and missed the next question. “How did he get in there?”
“…Ah…” Nadeshiko looked up at Ashura.
“…Magic,” the Chief Mage said briefly, after a few minutes contemplation. “A special kind.”
“That makes you get fat?” The adults twitched as Yuui took his turn to voice a question.
“…Yes,” said Nadeshiko faintly.
“…Yes,” said Ashura, and hastily helped his sons down off the bed, and started ushering them towards the door. “A very special kind. Now, let’s let Their Highnesses rest - it was very tiring magic, after all.”
“Oh…” the twins were quite content to go, absently holding hands as they trotted along. Yuui bowed his head thoughtfully, before piping up again: “Will I get fat too?”
“…I think,” said Ashura, when both boys looked up at him inquisitively, “that we should go somewhere quiet, and have a talk.”
#
“Ew,” said Youou later, when the twins recounted their talk with Ashura to him.
“Mm,” the older boys agreed feelingly, and they left it at that.
#
The children liked swimming. Ashura took Fai, Yuui and Youou down to the seashore with a maid one time when he wasn’t too busy, listening to the three young ones chattering away - or rather, Yuui chattering away, Fai chiming in, and Youou trailing Nyah along the ground in one hand and pretending he wasn’t listening. He was quite a determined little thing, sulking when he was told that it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to take his toy into the water of the rock-pool with him, and splashing Yuui with seawater when the older child kept trying to drape seaweed in his hair.
Afterwards - salty, sandy, and very, very tired - they trailed back up to the palace again, and slept very soundly that night. The children loved the seashore.
#
“She squeaks,” Youou said, surprised, when he was introduced to the newborn Princess Sakura.
“Monster,” her brother said, sitting sulking at his father’s side. Fai blinked at him.
Youou stared at the little baby being held by the king. Sakura cooed up at him. “Monsters squeak?”
“She’s pretty~,” Yuui sang out, leaning on Youou’s shoulder. Youou attempted to shake him off, but Yuui was a limpet. “Can I hold her?”
#
The tide comes in…
Fai’s diary shows a special date, and he turns eighteen. It’s a special, special date, ringed three times in Fai’s diary, though the page was a bit blotchy and it always looks as if someone has cried on it. Fai won’t say though, even if Kurogane asks him - and Kurogane doesn’t ask, because it’s Fai’s diary, and he isn’t supposed to be looking at it in the first place, even if the pages are mostly blank.
Fai’s diary shows a special date, and he turns eighteen. The palace throws him a party and Fai smiles all the night, dancing with Sakura, his betrothed. She smiles too, even if it borders on a little unsure sometimes, and everyone says they make a lovely couple, and it’s only two years to go, aren’t they looking forward to finally getting married? Fai smiles some more and Sakura uncertainly smiles with him, and when Kurogane sees Fai later he’s sitting on the seashore where he isn’t supposed to be, with his knees drawn up to his chest. Kurogane thinks it’s very likely Fai’s crying again, but Fai won’t say and Kurogane won’t ask, but he goes up behind him and lets Fai know he’s there.
“Happy birthday,” he says simply, and hears Fai laugh bitterly, oh, so bitterly. “Happy birthday,” Kurogane repeats, and looks at the sea glittering under the rising moon. The tide is going out, and Fai will have wet sand on his clothes. “To both of you.”
The tide goes out, out, out…
#
The Kurogane family was one of the main noble families in the kingdom, Lords of Suwa on the eastern border, a newly-formed territory half-taken from a conquered nation out that way. It was a difficult, troubled land, plagued by wolves from the forest, demons, and angry enemies - and so it had been given to Lord Kurogane, a renowned fighter and loyal general to the King, and his family after him. The lord had asked, however, that until a more true peace had been established out there, that his family be allowed to remain in the capital, under the palace’s protection, where his wife could study and his son could learn what peace it was their family strove to defend.
And so it was, with King Fujitaka’s agreement, that the Lady Kurogane and her son lived in the capital’s palace by the seashore, and their husband and father left them safely there, returning when he could to see and be with his family.
“One day,” Yuui promised as Youou’s father was riding off into the distance, away from the palace to return to fighting once more. Youou was manfully blinking back tears as he watched his father’s receding figure, and Fai and Yuui just as manfully pretended they couldn’t see them, “one day Fai an’ I’ll be strong enough so that your papa can stay all the time.”
And so help him, Youou believed him.
#
When he was four, Youou had started a habit of sulking at dinnertimes. He refused to eat the majority of what was put on his plate, pouted and glared mutinously at everyone who spoke to him, and wriggled and squirmed when his mother helped him tuck his napkin in or pulled his chair closer to her side.
“Mama-!”
“How do you expect to eat,” the woman asked him, ignoring his protests, “if your chair’s almost a metre away from the table?”
Youou folded his arms, and tried to scoot away again. “Don’t want to eat.”
“Then you’ll get hungry,” his mother said.
“Don’t care,” Youou insisted, and then pointed out the two familiar blond figures in the distance, both of who were running out of the dining hall, in an attempt to validate his argument. “Yuui and Fai don’t eat. They play.”
“They play,” his mother said firmly, “because they’ve finished eating.” She pulled his chair closer again. “And you can’t run off to join them until you’ve cleared your plate.” Youou looked at her doubtfully. “Youou, if you don’t eat, how do you expect to grow up to be strong like your father?”
Youou looked at his father, on his other side, and the man nodded. “Eat your food, Youou.”
Youou, reluctantly, ate.
#
Nobody had ever managed to quite figure out the logistics of it, but when Yuui was only six years old he - somehow - single-handedly - he insisted, though many had the strong inkling Fai had probably helped significantly but since it was mostly Yuui’s fault he was confessing to stop his brother getting into trouble as well - managed to blow up the palace astronomy tower. No-one quite knew how he did it; there was nothing explosive up there - except for, apparently, one very determined young boy, with smudged cheeks, bright blue eyes, and a far-too-cheerful ‘oops’ with which he greeted his frantic father and the King when they came to investigate why the uppermost floors of the tower were suddenly smoking ruins.
Fai tagged along behind them, poking the rubble with a curious, slippered foot, whilst Youou started waving his arms and flailing over how he’d left his sword up there after their last lesson and now Yuui had blown that up too! (He wasn’t very happy to be told that, since the sword was only made of wood, it would be quite easy to make another one.)
“I can see the clouds,” Fai said, completely ignoring his brother and his friend, spinning around a little as he looked up at the gaping hole in the roof with a bright smile, fascinated by the swirling patterns in the sky.
Yuui was ‘grounded’ for a month, after being told off for a good hour. Fai sat and waited for him outside until Ashura had done scolding, and made Youou wait as well by sitting on the younger boy so Youou couldn’t move. Both twins had their magic classes upped - as a defence, they were told; the palace only had so many towers they could spare.
#
“Is it dead?” Yuui asked curiously, looking at the limp jellyfish on the shore. The tide had rushed out some time ago and left the sea-creature behind on the beach, exposed to the hot sun’s rays.
“I don’t know…” Fai stepped a little closer to the jellyfish, kneeling down beside it.
“It looks dead,” Yuui insisted, leaning over his brother’s shoulder. Fai began drawing symbols in the sand; part of a simple levitating spell Ashura had taught them to lift small objects. “What are you doing?”
“Putting it back in the sea,” Fai replied, and finished drawing the last symbol. The writing glowed blue in the sand and the jellyfish lifted slowly into the air, moving slowly down the beach to the waiting water. “Even if it’s dead we should give it back to its family, right?”
“…I s’pose.” Yuui watched rather broodingly as Fai’s spell gently lowed the jellyfish out into the sea - dead or alive, the little creature was back where it was supposed to be. “Some things just aren’t made for the land, are they?”
Slowly, Fai shook his head.
#
After much coaxing, cajoling and general prodding from his mother, Youou tried playing with the little Princess Sakura one day - even though he didn’t want to, because the princess was little, and squeaky and a girl. And made a rubbish knight, and always insisted on climbing out from behind the fort Yuui and Fai were supposed to have kidnapped her to. (That was ignoring the fact the twins made rather rubbish kidnappers as well - what sort of kidnapper would feed their hostage chocolate cake when they were supposed to be locking them up in their deepest, darkest dungeon? The hostage didn’t look at all terrified as a result. Or much like she wanted to be rescued. Stupid kidnappers.)
So Youou played with the princess - and Fai came along to investigate after a little while, having been trailing after his father with his brother before that.
“Youou,” the little mage said rather thoughtfully after a few minutes of watching, his hands tucked behind his back, “what are you doing?”
“Playing,” Youou grumbled back at him - and threw the ball Sakura had just brought back to him away again, sending the little girl back after it with a firm ‘fetch!’ Sakura happily scrambled after it, going as fast as her little legs would allow.
“But Youou,” Fai repeated again, looking curiously torn between laughter and shaking his head (he was too young to shake his head and if he did Youou was telling Mama that the idiots were making fun of him again), “she’s not a puppy.”
“I know that.” Youou scowled at Fai when Sakura came trotting back with the ball - Youou promptly threw it away again, Sakura toddling off after it once more with a happy gurgle. “But she sounds like one.”
#
Youou insisted on sword lessons from his father. Lord Kurogane was amused by the demand at first, but caught on to his son’s determination and eventually started teaching the boy some basic moves, letting Youou spar with a dummy.
“I’ll help father,” he told Fai proudly later, new sword (another toy) hung jubilantly at his side.
“Really?” The other boy asked, one eye on Youou and the other on Yuui, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor about a metre away scribbling on a bit of paper, biting his lip in thought.
“Really!” Youou maintained, and then gawked when there was a sudden poof of blue smoke from Yuui’s paper, and Yuui’s hair turned a lovely shade of lavender. “…What.”
“You drew it wrong again,” Fai told his brother, half-laughing behind one hand, so Yuui pouted and rolled his paper-spell up into a ball, and threw it at his sibling’s head. It missed of course, when Fai ducked, and when it hit the wall instead there was another poof of smoke, and Yuui’s hair went green.
#
“They swim like fish,” Nadeshiko commented one day, sitting on the edge of one of the seashore’s smaller rock-pools with a three year-old Sakura in her lap. The little girl was wriggling and happily kicking her legs in the water, apparently fascinated with the pretty seashells that decorated the pool. Touya was back on the beach behind them, very determinedly building what was supposed to be a miniature replica of the palace with his new best friend, a son of a minor noble, Yukito Tsukishirou.
“Hm?” Her friend, Lady Kurogane, sitting beside the Queen, looked up from the slimy piece of seaweed Sakura had presented her with, petting the child on the head before glancing in the direction Nadeshiko was indicating - a little further out in the sea, to where Ashura’s sons were swimming.
Fai and Yuui were happily cutting through the water, ducking under now and then to see who could hold their breath the longest - something they were only allowed to do within their depth, where the water only came up to their chests. Youou was spluttering beside them - apparently Yuui, on his last duck under, had grabbed the younger boy’s legs, and pulled him unexpectedly under too. Youou was still spitting out seawater.
His mother only smiled. “Yes, they do.”
“Mama,” Sakura patted her mother on the leg to get Nadeshiko’s attention, beaming when both of the adults with her looked at her at once. “Mama, look!” She pointed a little further out in the rock-pool, to where some tiny yellow creatures were swimming through the water - seahorses. “Baby dragons!”
“That’s right,” her mother commended her, letting Sakura slip off her lap to closer investigate the fish.
“They’re much quieter than Suwa’s littlest dragon,” Lady Kurogane said, watching as her son finally got his breath back out in the sea, using it to yell at Yuui - who only laughed at him, and swam away when the other boy tried to chase him. “But then, he’s not really a baby anymore.”
“They’re always our babies,” Nadeshiko replied, about to say more, but Sakura waded back over to her, pouting about how all the seahorses had swam away. Lady Kurogane went back to looking out at the sea at her son and her friends - Youou had finally caught up with Yuui, so Yuui was attempting to use Fai as a defensive shield. Fai, getting splashed in the face by a ton of water as a result, had decided to turn and help Youou dunk his brother. Yuui eeped, and got a mouthful of seawater.
#
“Don’t you want rooms of your own?” Ashura asked the twins one day, seeing them sprawled out over the same bed in their bedroom, reading together.
Yuui and Fai glanced at one another, and then looked back at their father. “No,” they said together, so Ashura let them go back to their book.
#
They took lessons together, for the most part, seated in a study with their heads bowed over their books, and their tutor at the front. Languages, history, geography, mathematics, art, philosophy…all were conducted in the same room, with the windows open to the sea and the sun slanting in through the clouds in the sky. In the afternoons they did weapons practice and horse-riding, watched on jealousy by the two royal children. Youou took extra classes in swordplay from his father or the generals of the palace whilst Fai and Yuui studied magic with their father, and all three were commended by their tutors for their skills - although their patience was lacking a bit, at times.
When Youou was eight a travelling bard came by the palace one time as part of a caravan, sitting down in the great hall after the jugglers and dancers had done their work and singing a song from over the sea, playing a harp along with his strange, foreign song. The instrument fascinated the twins and Sakura and all three pleaded to be taught how to play the harp - and so another tutor was hired, and they set about learning.
The princess was still a little too young to quite follow the more complicated melodies but Fai and Yuui thoroughly enjoyed the classes, their fingers nimble and quick in a way that actually impressed Youou, though he never admitted it to either of his friends. The twins sang, too - they had sweet voices that mingled well, Yuui’s a little higher than his twin’s, and they sang and played for the palace more than once, together. It was the more common practice, Youou knew, for Fai to play the harp while Yuui sang, for Fai liked making up the melodies most of all, and Yuui the words to go with them. And yet, when asked, most of the palace seemed ignorant about that fact - didn’t the children switch around, after all? They were both so similar, did it matter which was which?
Yuui sang songs about the sea and Fai played chiming tunes to go with them - they practiced on the beach, when they could, in the evening after they’d eaten and everyone was content to let them be. The sand was still warm from the sun and it was comfortable to lie on, peaceful with the sound of the tide and the twins’ music, Youou falling asleep more than once in the sunset glow and waking at night to find the music had stopped, and Yuui was poking him in the stomach to get him to wake up so they could all go back up to the palace.
Sakura loved it when the twins played. She always begged them to play for her, delighted when Fai took her smaller hands and gently moved them over the harp strings, or when Yuui let her snuggle up against him as he sang her a lullaby. She always slept deeply after that.
Youou had passed by their room one evening, and seen the little girl fast asleep between his two friends, Fai still idly plucking at his harp’s strings, Yuui humming under his breath. They all looked perfectly content and Sakura had been smiling in her slumber - something had pricked inside of Youou then and he’d hurried on, a small ache in his chest that he’d tried to squash, and didn’t fully understand. He must’ve been too noisy because there was the sound of light, quick footsteps after him - Fai, it turned out to be, who’d put down his harp and come after him. He’d frowned at Youou’s face but said nothing, taking the younger boy’s hand and leading him back to the room where Yuui waited, Sakura still sleeping on him. He would’ve come after Youou with his twin, but doing so would’ve woken the princess.
Youou fell asleep beside Sakura that evening, when Fai started playing again, hearing the twins talking softly about him, but too content to actually care. (He was woken a few hours later by Yuui’s complaints and Fai’s laughter - apparently Youou was squashing them. Sakura squeaked and flailed, and somehow managed to elbow Youou in the stomach. She spent the rest of the night attempting to profusely apologise, before having to be literally dragged away to her bed by her maid.)
#
Yuui liked to talk. It was a well-accepted fact in the palace, and many knew how the slim child could chatter for hours on end about what seemed like nothing, as long as someone would listen and respond to him. Fai, loving his brother and the chatter, often filled in that role, and so it came as no surprise to anyone to see the two nine year-olds walking together along one of the palace corridors, Yuui talking, Fai smiling and nodding along. Or at least - smiling. Sort of. Fai was looking out of the windows they passed, at the glittering ocean, and eventually he stopped altogether, leaning on one of the sills.
Yuui stopped as well, surprised, looking at his brother. “What is it?” He asked.
“I thought I saw…” Fai frowned, still staring out of the window at the water. After a few more seconds he shook his head, and looked back at his twin. “Never mind.”
The following day, it was discovered all the fishing nets were torn again.
#
“You’re like a monkey,” Kurogane told his son one day, when Youou had climbed one of the tallest trees in the gardens to fetch a ball Sakura had tossed up to fetch it. Touya had tried to climb up and get it first, but Yukito had begged him not to.
Youou pouted. “I’m not a monkey!”
“Monkey-boy~,” his father teased, and Youou continued to flail at him.
“He’s your son,” Lady Kurogane reminded her husband, amused at the display. “So what does that make you?”
#
The tide comes in…
The years drag by, it seems, but they go too quickly all the same. Kurogane knows there’s nothing different about the time between Fai’s eighteenth and twentieth birthdays - but still, the years feel whisked away from him all the same, vanishing into history far too swiftly. Fai’s a little taller, a little leaner, lithe and handsome with the same pretty, broken smile he’s had since he was sixteen. Kurogane’s taller too - at nineteen, he’s a head taller than Fai, broader and darker-skinned. They make an unusual pair, everyone says, but a complimenting pair, all the same.
The years drag by, it seems, but they go too quickly all the same. Sakura turns sixteen, sweet and blushing cherry pink when Fai kisses her hand. Her smiles are real - and so it’s easy to tell that she’s still confused, floundering, but daintily holds onto Fai’s arm, as that’s what’s expected, and helps prepare for their wedding. Fai helps too, seemingly delighted by every single infinitesimal detail, but he goes down to the seashore almost every night, even though it’s still forbidden, and wades into the water still fully-clothed. He doesn’t swim, and he doesn’t answer when Kurogane calls his name, but he walks out a few hours later, sopping wet, and never offers an explanation.
“Let’s hold the ceremony at sea,” he suggests to Sakura a few days later, holding her hands and keeping her gaze. She’s flustered by the suggestion but thinks it’s a lovely idea - a sunset ceremony, on the waves. The palace raves over the romantic proposition and Kurogane snorts and eyes Fai in suspicion - his friend only smiles blithely back at him, and disappears. Fai has his wedding to plan after all; it’s a good excuse to avoid Kurogane.
The tide goes out, out, out…
#
As far as most people were concerned, Yuui and Fai never disagreed with one another. They never argued; they never fought - in terms of their sibling relationship, they were quiet, demure and mature for their age, perfect children.
As far as Youou Kurogane was concerned, ‘most people’ didn’t know either of his two friends. Yuui was Fai and Fai was Yuui to them - either/or, either one worked for anything. They came as a double act, so what did it matter? Youou hated that - but very few people seemed to be able to tell Yuui and Fai apart, and so knew absolutely nothing about the relationship between the two identical boys.
Yuui and Fai debated things. At much length. Yuui decided things; Fai asked questions, and if Fai asked enough questions Yuui decided something else instead that was more appropriate. It was quite a peaceful exchange - when there were only two of them.
Youou liked to decide things too. He asked his own questions as well as listening to Fai’s, and heard Yuui’s answers - and if he didn’t like them, he said so, and decided something that was totally the opposite to what Yuui had decided, as Fai looked between them. Thereafter always followed a few minutes where Fai tried to coax Yuui to listen to Youou if he liked Youou’s suggestion better - and if that didn’t work, Fai sided with Yuui. Majority ruled, and they went with Yuui’s decision. (Or Youou went away in a sulk.)
Occasionally, Fai suggested things. He thought about them for a very long while and came out with them, airy thoughts, and Yuui nearly always agreed with them instantly, or queried about them further. Youou often thought about the comments too - now and then, he disagreed with them. Yuui didn’t even have the moment of indecision Fai had - there was no competition; Yuui sided with Fai. Majority ruled, and they went with Fai’s decision. (Or Youou went away with a sulk.)
Fai sided with Yuui, and Yuui sided with Fai. The twins always chose each other over everyone else - they always had, and they probably always would. Youou just wrote it off as part of their idiocy (now and then he was jealous, but it was hard to tell with he was jealous of one, the other, or both of them at the same time. Twins. They were too awkward to deal with).
#
Yuui announced the news one sunny afternoon a few days after his and his brother’s tenth birthday, flinging down the book he should’ve been reading and leaping from the perch on the window-seat he’d been sharing with Fai.
“Fai and I are mermaids!”
Youou glanced up from his own book - it was nothing as fancy as the magical shi- the magical nonsense his two friends had to endure, but much more practical. Military strategies. Useful stuff.
“…What.”
“It’s true!” Yuui was beaming, sunlight coming in behind him and giving him a golden halo behind his head. There was a window open somewhere nearby; the children could hear the sea crashing against the rocks. “Well…mermen. One of the maids said so; I heard her.”
Youou snorted. “I heard one of the soldiers say you came from an egg.”
“Really?” Yuui’s eyes grew round. “What kind of egg?”
“He said a dragon’s.”
“Ooooooo…” Yuui seemed fascinated by the story - for all of five seconds. His face quickly fell. “But dragons aren’t real.”
“Are too,” Youou insisted, displeased at having the validity of his story questioned. “Papa’s got one on his sword.”
“But that’s not a real dragon.” Youou frowned. “But…I s’ppose people would’ve had to have seen a real dragon to make a sword shaped like one, right?” The question was a peace offering. “So they knew what it looked like?”
“Right,” Youou said firmly, and picked up his book again. “Bet you never came from a dragon, anyway. You prob’ly hatched from a silly chicken.”
“Can chickens grow that big?” Fai finally spoke from the window, neatly laying his book in his lap and looking at Yuui and Youou inquisitively. “Big enough to have human babies?”
“We’re not humans,” Yuui protested. “We’re mermen.”
Youou snorted again. “Chickens don’t lay mermen eggs.” Yuui opened his mouth. “An’ dragons don’t either.” The youngest of the trio paused. “Why’re you a fish, anyway?”
“Merman!”
“Half-fish.”
“Fai, tell him we’re not fish!”
“I said half-fish, idiot!”
“You still said fish!”
#
“Is it true?” Youou asked his mother a few days later, swinging his legs back and forth, back and forth as he sat beside her on a bench in the palace gardens, ignoring all the other women of the palace that were spread out on the grass around them, a few accompanied by their own children. He was a little bored - his father was away checking the borders again and Yuui and Fai were being taught magic by Ashura, so he didn’t really have anything to do. Not that he minded sitting with his mother. But. Still.
The Queen and the two royal siblings were nearby, comfortable on a blanket, Touya eight and determined to practice his swordsmanship with his friend Yukito, Sakura six (almost seven) and very determinedly making flower-chains to give to her mother, father and Yukito (whilst ignoring her brother, after having stomped on her Touya’s foot only five minutes previously after he’d called her a monster again). It was a lovely day.
“Is what true?” Lady Kurogane asked her son, putting an ornamental bookmark in place in the tale she was reading and looking at the boy.
“Are the idiots fishes?” She continued looking at him, silent, waiting. “…Yuui and Fai,” Youou corrected hastily, having been scolded for being derogatory towards his friends in front of his mother before. “Yuui said they were mermen. Are they mermen?”
His mother thought quietly for a few minutes. Youou hushed and let her think, recognising that was what the pause was for, the sea-breeze coming in over the garden walls and ruffling the spikes of his hair, picking up strands of Lady Kurogane’s and blowing them about her face.
“…Mama?” Youou finally prompted, his patience wearing a little thin after a while. There was only so much contemplation a nine year-old could take.
“…There are stories,” his mother said eventually, still seemingly lost in her musings, “about mermaids around these waters. They say they’re half-human, half-fish, with beautiful smiles and pale skin, and they help sailors in trouble now and then, calming the waves or leading ships into shore. There was supposed to have been a mermaid that fell in love with a man once, and left the ocean to come be with him -”
“You’re telling me a love story?” Youou looked disgusted.
His mother laughed. “Quite a lot of stories have at least a little bit of love in them, Youou.”
Youou wrinkled his nose, and changed the subject. “Can I go swimming later?”
“As long as you take one of the maids with you, I don’t see why not.” Lady Kurogane smiled when her son beamed at her, kneeling on the bench for an instant (after checking no-one was looking their way) and kissing his mother swiftly on the cheek. “Don’t forget your towel, alright?”
“Right,” said Youou firmly, before hopping down off the bench and dashing off through the garden, no doubt to oh-so-subtly mention the fact he had permission to go swimming later somewhere where he could be overheard by his two friends busy at their magic lesson and so get them to come with him, because of course if Youou was going they had to go too. It was quite an entertaining little rigmarole - Youou’s father had been the same when he’d been younger; the scheme gave the Kurogane men plausible deniability and the opportunity to complain about being accosted by their friends. After all, they hadn’t asked for the company.
Boys. They never really grew up.
#
Sickness came to the kingdom when Prince Touya was eight years old - everyone remembered that, because the small, stubborn boy fell horribly ill. It was a wasting sickness that drained people of all their strength, and it took lives irrespective of age. The kingdom worried horribly and the palace was vacated of most of its people - Yuui and Fai were sent away from the seashore palace whilst Ashura stayed behind, trying to do something to help cure the populace. Both the boys were distraught and fell sick themselves - but it was just a fever, thankfully, a blend of homesickness and worry. Sakura went with them, and Youou and his mother, and they remained in the country for three months - right up until the news came that Touya had recovered from his sickness, but the Queen, Nadeshiko, who had refused to leave her son, had fallen ill in his place.
A week later, the news came that Nadeshiko had died. Sakura cried and cried and cried, and so the twins sat with her and tried to comfort her, and Lady Kurogane picked her up and held her in her lap, smoothing down the girl’s curling hair the way Nadeshiko had always done. Youou listened to Sakura when she sobbed and tried to be kind to her, and the kingdom as a whole mourned. It rained for days on end, an unceasing drizzle, and the funeral was held in the damp and cold.
#
Youou’s sword lessons began to grow harder as he aged, as people expected more of him, and Fai and Yuui’s magic lessons grew more difficult by the day. It wasn’t uncommon to see the youngest of the trio wandering around with his clothing torn or a few new bruises on him, and either the two twins or some part of the palace sporting a strange magical affliction caused by a spell gone awry. (It was quickly realised, by all, that a change in hair colour was the least of anyone’s concerns when the twins managed to accidentally summon down a plague of frogs on the palace. Ashura insisted that, as a magical exercise, the two learn to fix the broken spell themselves, and so left the two boys to helplessly wonder at just where they’d gone wrong. In the meantime, the palace had to fish frogs out of their teapots and boots for a week, and check every room they entered and seat they sat on to see if there was a solemn ribbet coming from out of it first.)
After sparring with Touya one day Youou went back to his room to find it had been invaded by the twins, Yuui bouncing up from his seat on Youou’s bed to produce a red flower from his hand, presenting it to the younger boy with a flourish. Youou blushed when Yuui tucked it behind his ear, the blond beaming rather proudly at a job well done as Fai clapped in the background.
Youou put the flower in a jug on his nightstand later, filling it with water. When it began to droop he carefully took it out and dried it the way he’d seen his mother do with flowers sometimes, and hid it in one of his drawers. (When his mother asked about when she came across it once, Youou lied and said one of the maids must’ve put it there.)
#
When he had the time, Ashura liked to sit with his two foster-children, and let the two talk to him at length, tell him about their day, their week, their non-magic lessons, what tricks they’d been up to or what new type of fish they’d found recently when swimming in the sea. Fai and Yuui always had something to tell him, curled up against his side or sprawled across his lap.
“Are you happy here?” He asked them seriously one day, stroking his fingers through Fai’s hair - the boy had his head on guardian’s lap, eyes drooping after a day playing tag in the gardens.
Yuui looked up, seated reading by Ashura’s feet on the floor. “Here?” He didn’t seem to understand the question.
“The palace,” his father clarified, but Yuui only looked more confused.
“We’ve never wanted to be anywhere else.”
“Fai?” Ashura prompted the other boy, seeing if Yuui spoke truly for both of them.
Fai nodded, snuggling closer to his guardian in the process. “We like it here…”
“Good,” Ashura said softly, and rested his other hand on the top of Yuui’s head. Yuui smiled up at him, and he looked happy. “I’m glad.”
#
“Youou,” Lady Kurogane asked her son one day as they walked back together from the practice yard, “are you still interested in mermaids?”
Youou spluttered - he was twelve, and here his mother was asking him about mermaids! Touya, nearby with his own sword, smirked and hid a smile behind his hand - and then was roundly scolded by Yukito. (It was scary how mature Yukito was after only just seeing ten.) It was Yuui, after all, who’d started up the stupid mermaid tale - Youou wanted nothing to do with it, nothing at all.
“Look,” his mother said, and opened up a book she’d found in the library, putting it on a nearby desk for Youou to come over and look at. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
Youou looked, despite himself. His mother had opened the book on a perfect page - on the left was text, tiny, foreign and unintelligible to Youou, but on the right… On the right-hand page was a picture of two creatures that looked half-human, half-fish, with tails that curled through watercoloured water in hues of silver and blue and green. Their skin was pale and their limbs long and delicate, and their faces were hidden by clouds of ink-black hair.
“The author says she met them once.” Lady Kurogane spoke softly, seeing her son was entranced with the image. “At night-time, when she fell overboard from the ship she was sailing on. They towed her to shore and stayed with her on the sand until the sun rose, keeping her warm so she didn’t freeze to death.”
“…Why?” Youou asked eventually. “Why did they help her?”
“I don’t know.” His mother was distant, thoughtful. “The author doesn’t say.”
Second part to come.