Fic: Ever After (13)
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: In which Watanuki sees stuff, Yue and Seishirou talk a lot, and Kurogane is awkward.
>>
Chapter I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII |
Chapter XIII
Once upon a time, an awfully, terribly, ridiculously long time ago, there was a young king who ruled over all the fey, and he was called Ashura. To everyone he was a fair, just ruler, and a loving and faithful husband to his pregnant wife, Shashi. His skill with both blade and magic was renowned, and his courtesy considered unmatched. He entertained humans, fey and spirits alike, and did favours for all - but none could ever truly repay him in the way he wished for most of all.
Ashura-ou, you see, had a terrible problem. It was a hereditary thing - and as the days went by, and the day of the birth of his first child drew nearer, Ashura-ou took to worrying. He went to his books, and the archives, and his research, and looked for some way to spare his child from his curse, but for all his magic, he could not find a good enough solution. He was distracted - too distracted - and neglected his ambitious wife - the lovely, vain, arrogant Shashi, who was as cold as her husband was kind, and as proud as he was humble.
Shashi had enemies at the Court - so many enemies, it was impossible to count them all. None of them wanted to see her give birth to Ashura-ou’s heir, to see her elevated even further above them all and all hope of their own succession of the crown so thoroughly dashed. So they plotted, and they colluded, and whether they agreed with each other or not one thing came of it: - they poisoned Shashi, laced her cup with a delicate faerie flower that had her coughing blood on the fine cloth of the Court dinner table, groaning and slumping in her seat.
Ashura-ou’s child was cut from Shashi’s womb before the woman was fully dead, tiny and pale and kicking for life. ‘Ashura’ was born to the sound of screaming, to shocked gazes and confused faces who wondered at the child’s pointed ears, the lack of any gender. They whispered that the baby was cursed, even as Ashura was being laid in Ashura-ou’s arms for the first time.
There was fighting in the Court, within the first few weeks of baby Ashura’s life. The Monous, Sumeragis and Sakurazukas all tried to take advantage of Ashura-ou’s distraction, the three fey women who headed the branches - Saya, Toru and Setsuka - all offering to take in the royal heir, to raise them with their own children. The king was busy, after all - let someone else raise the child until Ashura was of age; let someone else take the burden. It would be better for Ashura to be raised with the other noble children of the court - Kotori, Kamui, Subaru, Seishirou, Fuuma…none of them were terribly old. Ashura would have plenty of playmates.
Ashura-ou gave Ashura to Hisui, a smiling, gentle lesser noble already raising a little girl - Kohaku. Hisui was a step away from the Court’s wrangling, uncaring of the jostle for political power, but quite powerful enough to protect the baby heir. She took Kohaku and Ashura away from the main of the Court, at the edges wrapped in spells, when the sunlight filtered down through the branches and the children could play, where the children could safely grow up.
Ashura-ou made a wish. There were less people in the business of wish-granting then - less options for people looking for their heart’s desire. After all, it was such a very long time ago. Ashura-ou made a wish to a wide, smirking magician, and the magician gave him a time, a location, in return for a faerie-crafted castle that flew in the air with glittering wings that only appeared under the moonlight. The answer to his problem - his child’s problem - would appear then - however Ashura-ou felt like dealing with that answer was his own concern.
The years passed - so very many years. Another magician came to the Court - he was well-known for his skills, even to the fey, and Ashura-ou greeted him, and the beautiful woman he brought with him. She was sick, very sick, so the king offered to heal her - he did so, and the magician and the woman both gave him their sincere thanks. At the epicentre of the Court, in the Throne Room, the magician worked his skills - a sakura sapling flourished under the human’s hands, shooting up into a young tree heavy with blossoms, ripe with magic. In the light of the moon it became gilded with silver frost, but when morning’s light came once more the tree remained undamaged, eternally caught in spring.
“A gift,” the magician told the astounded Court with an affable smile, “and a prophecy.”
“A prophecy about what?” The king asked him.
“Wishes,” the magician replied, “and what good can come of them.”
#
There was a girl standing on the lakeshore when Watanuki returned from Himawari’s tower to the lake where Yuuko kept her shop. She was tall, with brown, curling hair and a vaguely lost expression, the tips of her shoes almost in the water as she stood rigidly still and looked out towards the island.
“Excuse me?” The girl jumped when Watanuki spoke and approached her, whirling around to face him. One of her heels landed in the water, sending up a splash of tiny droplets. “Are you alright?”
The girl had a hand to her chest, over her heart. “…I’m sorry.” Slowly, she let the limb fall. “I didn’t expect to see anybody else around here. I just…” she looked back out towards the island again, trailing off.
Watanuki glanced at her. “…Can you see that island?”
“…Shouldn’t I be able to?” The girl sounded confused. “It’s right there. I was just wandering under the trees when I saw the light
glinting off the lake, and I couldn’t help but come closer and -” another pause. The girl shook her head, smiling slightly ruefully. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know why I’m here.”
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of people I’ve heard say that…”
“Pardon?”
Watanuki shook his head - the comment hadn’t really been directed at his companion. Yuuko’s shop had a habit of drawing in the people that needed her services, whether they knew they needed those services or not. He’d tried to point out the unfairness of a captive audience to the witch before, but Yuuko had only waved the comments aside in her usual lackadaisical manner, and told him to get on with airing out the matting. “Would you like to cross the lake with me? There’s a shop out there - even if you don’t want anything I can still offer you some tea.”
The girl looked unsure. “I wouldn’t want to impose…” Watanuki was already stepping into the nearby boat and offering out a hand to her. Nearly everyone who saw the island eventually went there. Tentatively, the girl took his hand. “If you’re sure.”
Watanuki was sure - quite sure -, having lost count of how many times he’d gone through the same routine before. (He’d suggested to Yuuko on more than one occasion that she just build a bridge to her island to save the problems incurred by having to boat people to and from her shop, but Yuuko had claimed that a bridge would ruin her mystique (of all things!) and besides, the exercise was good for Watanuki - wasn’t she a kind employer, making sure her subjects kept fit? (Watanuki had ranted about that comment for a good while.))
He took the girl to the island and showed her into the lounge, wondering at the quiet inside the shop. Maru, Moro and Mokona were nowhere to be seen (or heard) so Watanuki fixed the girl something to drink himself and went off to find the three mischief-makers and their ringleader.
Yuuko was in one of the side-rooms, kneeling on the floor while Moro painstakingly combed through her hair, Maru standing before them both and holding up a large oval mirror. (Where Mokona was was anyone’s guess.)
“Watanuki~,” Maru chirped, spotting the boy in the doorway first.
Moro nearly dropped the comb she was holding, and spun around. “Watanuki’s back!”
“There’s a customer in the lounge,” Watanuki said to Yuuko, watching as the woman turned around slightly to face him, her lips already half-curved in their usual knowing smile.
“I’ll see them shortly.”
Watanuki nodded and Yuuko looked back to the mirror, unwittingly drawing Watanuki’s attention towards the glass as well. It was a beautiful, ornate thing with wreathed flowers of metal around the edge, and the glass at the centre was smooth and unblemished. Yuuko’s reflected hair was black - so black -, fine strands that seemed to sweep across his vision of the mirror, until the background sank to blackness and there was only the white of her face, growing smaller, smaller, smaller -
It was so very dark. Watanuki didn’t move, didn’t breathe - the air felt frozen in his lungs, the hairs across his body prickling up with the knowledge of cold.
Yuuko was still before him, now a distant figure, and her smooth face was impassive, lashes drawn down over her eyes. In the dark dress she was wearing she looked like a doll in all the black, lying limp against invisible bonds, limbs pulled out into the oblivion. Watanuki couldn’t see what had caught Yuuko up, why she was arranged so, and then silver gleamed in all the black, hundreds and thousands of wires that came from nowhere out of the dark and wrapped themselves around Yuuko’s limbs - her neck, her arms, her legs, her waist.
And then tightened.
Yuuko began to bleed.
The wires cut into Yuuko, pressing into her dress, her skin, taut with tension and still pulling, pulling, pulling until it had to hurt, had to wound, but still Watanuki couldn’t say anything, unable to move to help Yuuko, unable to speak as Yuuko slowly - slowly - opened her eyes.
It was impossible. There was no light source, nothing to cause the glow for the colour to be reflected off of, but still that rich red slowly bled out across white, trickling down Yuuko’s wrists, her legs, her throat, gathering into fat drops that dripped down from her suspended form and plunged into the waiting darkness below. Dripping her dry - of blood, of colour, of life…
Red eyes caught Watanuki’s as he stood there, a helpless observer. Red eyes caught, and held, the wire around Yuuko’s throat tightening further, pulling more, Yuuko’s lips moving. She was too far away to hear - far too far - but Watanuki heard her all the same, as if she’d whispered right up against his ear.
‘Watanuki…’
She sounded tired - so incredibly tired, even as the wire was choking her, cutting into her skin, her face flashing with pain.
“Stop it.” Watanuki regained a little control of his voice, his lips, but he still couldn’t close his eyes, look away from the image of the witch strung up to die before him.
‘Watanuki.’
The wires pulled tighter, more blood ran down, bright crimson that stained Yuuko’s clothes, bubbled forth from between her parted lips. If it pulled any tighter -
‘Watanuki!’
Yuuko cried out in pain.
Watanuki closed his eyes.
“Watanuki~!”
Something small and hard slammed into Watanuki’s chest, winding the youth and sending him back a few steps. He smacked his back off of the wall behind him and only just avoided banging his head, his eyes sliding shut at the collision before opening to see Mokona bouncing around the shop room floor in front of him.
“Watanuki spaced out~!” Mokona chortled as Watanuki immediately started complaining, leaping over to bound into Yuuko’s lap. Maru and Moro had just finished fixing the witch’s hair, Moro clapping her comb-free hands in delight. Something new to tease Watanuki about was a great part of the amusement in their day.
“Spacey Watanuki~!”
Maru, as ever, was quite happy to join in. “Watanuki the space-case!”
Watanuki flailed, indignant. “I am not a space-case!”
“He’s a space-case,” Mokona confided to Yuuko in a stage-whisper, even as Maru and Moro began twirling down the corridor, hand-in-hand, singing ‘space-case, space-case~’ as they went.
“I am not a space-case!” Watanuki protested again when Yuuko started nodding along - and then Watanuki stuck his head out after the two prancing girls. “And don’t bother the customer!” Their laughter drifted back to him. Scowling, Watanuki looked back to Yuuko, who was rising sedately to her feet, Mokona in hand. “I’m not.”
“No?” Yuuko seemed mildly amused - Watanuki hated that smile of hers -, brushing down the front of her robes. “So what were you doing looking so absently into space for so long, Watanuki-kun?”
“I -” Watanuki started to speak - and then stopped, the words catching in his throat as he looked at the witch. The memory of the wires wrapped so tightly around Yuuko, the blood, it - it was just… Watanuki looked aside, lowering his eyes. “…I was distracted.” He waited, expecting either Yuuko or Mokona to comment, but both remained silent, Yuuko walking past him to go to the lounge. She paused at the door for a second, though, to lay one hand on his shoulder, but then went on her way.
Bothered, Watanuki went to the kitchen, and hunted out some small cakes, taking them and a pot of tea out on a tray to the lounge. Yuuko and the girl he’d brought in were already deep into their conversation - the girl had just stopped speaking as Watanuki put a cup of tea before her, Watanuki arranging the cakes out as well so he was left holding only the empty tray. He stood slightly to the side, waiting - Yuuko often told him to fetch things from the store room for her customers, and he didn’t doubt this would probably be another one of those cases.
“…Will you grant my wish?” The girl - Yuuko’s customer - placed her hands around the cup given to her, letting the warmth of the tea bleed through white china into her skin.
“No,” Yuuko replied, ignoring Watanuki’s start of surprise behind her, and the way the girl visibly drooped in her seat at her reply, spent. Yuuko pointed at Watanuki with one finger - Watanuki did his level-best to not look like he was hiding behind his serving tray. “He will.”
“What?!”
#
Seishirou was waiting for him. Fai tried not to sigh - he really did - at the faerie blocking the doorway to his old rooms, although he did absolutely nothing to quiet the uncharitable muttering in his head that started up in place instead. He was tired; he had been wandering the Court for the better part of the day and had kept a smile in place all the while the fey had gossiped behind their hands about him, and just wanted to curl up somewhere familiar and rest. Fai wasn’t in the mood to play the cat-and-mouse game of words Seishirou so favoured - especially since, on some level, Fai always felt like the mouse. There were many things he liked having thought about him. ‘Dinner’ was not one of them.
But still, there Seishirou stood. Plain as day and with that irritating half-smile fixed firmly on his face, securely planted outside the chambers given to Fai and his brother as a child waiting for the world to come to him - and it would be rude, and ego-battering, to attempt to ignore him.
Fai was sorely tempted to try an attempt, anyway.
Seishirou rose from the elegant slouch he’d taken against the wall when he saw he had Fai’s attention - it was hard to miss; they were the only two in the corridor -, and though it was (probably) only paranoia talking Fai could’ve sworn he saw the flicker of a smirk touch Seishirou’s lips, smug pleasure at having stolen away any opportunity for Fai to pretend the faerie was invisible.
“You look very fetching in black, Fai-bocchama,” Seishirou smiled pleasantly and Fai eyed him warily (wondering at the commentary of the fey wardrobe he’d been given to wear whilst at the Court and strongly reminding himself that hitting Seishirou would be a bad, bad idea, and it would inevitably make things worse, and - and Fai had really been around Kurogane far too long, to be entertaining these sorts of ideas). “It brings out the white of your skin.”
Fai looked at the faerie, and didn’t offer a response.
Undeterred, Seishirou held out his hand. “Walk with me, if you would. I think we have things to discuss.”
Fai walked with him. He didn’t take Seishirou’s hand.
Seishirou led him to the old Throne Room, to the courtyard with the enchanted sakura tree ever-blooming at its heart. Fai stopped short of entering the place, lingering on the threshold, and regarded Seishirou with all the distrust the faerie could be accounted for and then some more, for good measure.
“Why here?” Fai had seen this place too often.
“It’s quiet here.” Fai had to admit Seishirou’s words were true - when the door swung shut behind them the gossiping of the Faerie Court was finally silenced, and there was nothing but the sound of the wind, and the sweet-smelling blossoms fluttering through the afternoon air. It was beautiful… “Didn’t I tell you when you were small that I liked sakura blossoms?”
“Forgive me,” Fai’s tone was wry, even as he moved closer to the courtyard’s tree to place one hand on the bark, press against the old ridges and whorls that had been half of the spell on him back when he’d been so young. “I think I was rather distracted the day you told me. It must’ve slipped my memory.”
Seishirou looked up at the branches overhead, and sidestepped the prince’s sarcasm. “Have you never wondered about how at home you feel beneath this tree?”
Fai glanced at him, sharp, remembering dreaming, waking in frost, unpicking ice and brambles from his hair. He’d never spoken of the night to anyone, and had certainly never displayed the crown Ashura had given to him anywhere anyone could see.
Seishirou lowered his head, impassable smile still fixed as a perfect mask on his face. “People made a place for you here for a reason, bocchan. Maybe you should start thinking about what that reason was a little more deeply - or do you intend to rule this Court more loosely than even the Ashuras do now? The barren heir’s heir…” Seishirou mused aloud, ignoring how Fai had frozen by the tree. “Of all creatures, a human.”
“Seishirou-san…” Fai pinned a smile of his own in place, well aware that it lacked any kind of warmth and uncaring of the fact, “what are you trying to do?”
Seishirou moved closer to him, letting his eyes open and focus on Fai; Fai kept his ground. “Nothing against you, Fai-bocchan, so you don’t need to fret.” The assurance did nothing to reassure Fai in any way whatsoever. The fey couldn’t lie, but Seishirou was nothing if not a master of bending words and meanings to suit his needs. Seishirou came closer still, and Fai turned to face him fully. “You grew up, after all, and grew stronger. I couldn’t seduce you now without your permission, little bocchama, and I doubt that’s going to be forthcoming anytime soon.” The faerie tilted his head, spoke pleasantly. “I heard you were engaged to a sweetheart.”
Fai winced slightly at that, feeling his own smile flicker as an awkward half-laugh escaped him. “…Kuro-sama has something against being called ‘sweet’.”
Seishirou reached out, snake-fast, and grabbed Fai’s left hand, pulling it before their gazes. “You wear his ring.”
“Habit,” Fai replied automatically, and pushed his hand back. Nothing precious could be trusted with this faerie. “It was good etiquette to wear it around my fiancé, and I’ve grown so used to keeping it on it bothers me more when it’s removed.”
“You’re very modest,” Seishirou commented, “especially when the tales of your devotion are still circling the Court. They said you searched through over a hundred flowers for the perfect one to craft Souhi - the faeries of this Court delivered them all for you to sift through, you know. The first message the Court receives from Ashura-ou in a while, and it’s not even a message for his child; no, Ashura-ou requests flowers, and sends them all back again the day after their delivery insisting that a sword be made from the most precious one by the High Blacksmith herself - at once. From the flower that feels like moonlight, wind and snow - even if hundreds of years have gone by since anyone truly human remembered the dead kingdom you were born to, bocchama, your magic still sings of it.”
Fai flinched. He couldn’t have avoided that one if he’d tried - his life in, and the eventual fate of, Valeria was still endlessly sore in his heart. His parents were buried there, even if everyone alive had ever forgotten a nation had been born there to begin with. The snows of Valeria had melted. For others, the world was warmer now.
“That sword was all wrong for you, though,” Seishirou continued. “Presea said so, as did everyone else who came into contact with the blade. It was too heavy - but she’d made it according to the feeling in the flower, so the sword must’ve been what you intended it to be. Since it obviously wasn’t suited to you, one can only assume you intended that beautiful sword to be a gift for someone else. Did you give it to your sweetheart? It was certainly a sword for a prince’s Champion.”
Fai shook his head. “He’s not my Champion.”
“He can be both Champion and consort - although he’s probably better suited for the last one alone if he’s inept enough to have landed himself in some situation where you’ve got to chase after him.” Seishirou smiled, cheerfully bright. “Or did he leave you on purpose when you messed things up?” The vindictive bas-
“I really don’t think that’s any of your business, Seishirou-san.” The perfumed air did nothing to cover up the poison Seishirou came out with, and Fai was weary of listening to it. He moved to step past the faerie, intending to leave the courtyard and go check on his companions; it’d been a while since he’d last seen Syaoran and Mokona. “Excuse me; I have things to do elsewhere.”
Seishirou moved to block his way again. “I have a present for you.”
Fai stopped just short of walking into him. “…What?”
“I have a present for you,” his companion repeated. “A wedding gift, for when you undoubtedly meet up with your sweetheart again.”
Fai was, naturally, suspicious. Seishirou could look as disarming as he liked, standing amongst the flowers and covered with blossoms - he was still Seishirou, and the list of things he’d done, as well as very likely to have done (proof could be so hard to come by when witnesses vanished so tellingly), was far too long for Fai to accept any gift-horse from the faerie, no matter how charmingly it was offered. Even gifts from the most well-meaning and innocent of givers usually had at least one sort of string attached; Fai didn’t want to consider how many strings could come along with a present from the puppeteer before him.
He moved to go by Seishirou again. “Thank you for your generosity, Seishirou-san, but I’ll pass.”
“And if it meant you’d never lose track of your fiancé again?”
Fai stopped.
#
It was well into the afternoon when Kurogane managed to track down Yue in Leval, the angel having disappeared after escorting Sakura to her rooms. Kurogane had been patient, and given the creature his brooding time - Rondart’s words had given Kurogane himself something to think about, so he’d only naturally assumed that there’d be even more to think over for someone to whom the words actually made sense -, but he wanted answers (and Keroberos was locked up with the princess for a nap, so that left Yue).
The sun slanted in through the windows of the corridor Kurogane finally found his prey within, the light catching the silver of Yue’s hair and giving the angel away, even though Yue’s wings had vanished from sight and his long form was curled up in a window-seat. Again, despite himself, Kurogane was reminded horribly of Fai - Yue had taken up a feline pose, and the distant look on his face was all too similar to the expression Fai had worn on more than one occasion back in their home beside the waterfall, looking out at the water of the pool, the Enchanted Forest.
Yue, on the other hand, didn’t smile when he caught Kurogane looking at him.
“What?” The angel was irritated again, glancing with a scowl over his knees at the waiting Kurogane.
Kurogane snapped out of his recollections, and took another step towards the guardian. “We need to talk.”
“We don’t need to do anything - there is no ‘we.’” Yue brushed the comment off, and looked away from the shinobi. “Now go away, human; you’re breathing too loudly.”
Kurogane bristled, and slammed his hand on the wall beside Yue’s head. Yue jumped - and then swivelled his head around, stone cold, and glared. Kurogane let the glower bounce off of him though - the angel could be ruffled the same as anyone. “We’re talking. You don’t get a say in the matter.”
“If I don’t get a say,” Yue sniped, “that effectively makes anything you come out with a monologue.”
Kurogane carefully restrained himself from throttling him.
“…You wish to know about Rondart,” Yue said eventually, with obvious reluctance, his expression closely akin to someone who has had something particularly unpleasant wafted under their nose. That he’d spoken, however unwillingly, made it clear that he’d seen Kurogane’s point - some things needed to be said. “And what he spoke of in the garden earlier.”
“That’s about it, yeah.”
“Rondart…” Yue rose from his seat, walking a few steps away to stretch his legs after having had them tucked up too long. The pause hung heavily in the air and Kurogane thought for a second that Yue would take the opportunity to continue being a monumental pain, but the angel (thankfully) seemed to have reached an internal decision to put away that catty side of his that was armed with claws, and began to speak. “Kyle Rondart is the one who brought my mistress here when she was a child, at the bidding of his master. He comes here to check up on my mistress fairly regularly, and oversees the balls held roughly every month. He does… something that lifts the charm on the castle for three nights and creates a new spell instead - the people drawn in through the barrier, the people that live in the town below, they come up on those nights, and everyone dances.”
Kurogane made a face. “Why make everyone dance?”
“Because it takes energy, and emotion.” Yue walked a few steps further, agitated, and Kurogane followed him, unwilling for to let the other wander away when he was being so forthcoming. “Rondart is not a magician in his own right; he has no power of his own. He can, however, using a technique from his master, manipulate the energy offered up by others - the balls are the easiest way to work a complicated spell and turn it on my mistress.”
And the guardian could do nothing to stop it, for fear of further harm being inflicted on the princess. It was no wonder that Yue and Keroberos had looked as though they’d wanted to tear Rondart limb from limb in the garden.
“What does the spell do to the princess?”
“It drains her.” Kurogane was glad Yue had put away his wings, with how restless the guardian had become it would have been very likely that the limbs would’ve been shifting too, and Kurogane had no desire to be smacked with feathers in his face. “Of her magic, primarily, though since a non-magician is in charge of the spell it often takes other things from her as well unintentionally.”
“Like what?”
“Her strength. Her skills.” Yue was properly walking by that point; Kurogane spurred himself into movement as well, walking abreast with the guardian. He’d never been in that section of Leval by himself - getting lost in an enchanted castle didn’t seem very appealing to him. “Her memories.”
Kurogane was silent for a short while, thinking on that, of the green-eyed girl who bore all of what Yue was telling him - and had still smiled so brightly at him only that morning.
…Different in looks or not, the princess definitely shared the same patient determination Tomoyo had, bright silver, steel and gold.
“Who is Rondart’s master?”
Yue glanced at Kurogane from the corner of one eye. “His name is Fei Wong Reed, and he is the younger brother of my late master, Clow Reed. I have never met him; I was created after my master and he parted ways, and by that time his reputation had already been firmly made. He deals in wishes, like the Witch of the Forest, but his prices have seen the death of empires, worlds.” Yue paused, let his eyes narrow, looking to something beyond the castle, beyond where they were. “Not all wishes should be granted.”
They walked together, for a little while, Kurogane thinking through what Yue had told him - and then they reached a crossroads in the corridor, and Yue stopped the human beside him from taking the hall leading straight ahead.
“We shouldn’t go that way.”
“Why?” Kurogane poked at the statement, demanding as ever. “Is something dangerous down there?” If he was going to learn to avoid part of the freaky flying magical castle, he wanted to know what he was avoiding and why.
“No, but…” Yue looked hesitant - and then wiped the look off of his face, instead fixing in place scathing irritation. “I know you’re about as magical as a plain rock, human, but even you should be able to feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“Magic. The magic that keeps the castle working; it all comes from h- where do you think you’re going?” Yue’s wings flared with his temper, Kurogane casually ignoring both of them and striding deliberately down the corridor the angel had told him not to use.
“If all the magic comes from here,” Kurogane told him bluntly, still walking, “then the magic must be able to be broken here.”
“Don’t you dare,” Yue hissed at him, hurrying after the troublesome warrior. He could’ve used a spell, perhaps, to grab the idiotic human - but he could feel all the magic in the air pressing down on him, even if Kurogane could not. Yue had no idea how his magic would work with the magic of the castle, and did not want to do anything that could possibly endanger his mistress. “You have no idea what you’re doing!”
“So I’m going to go have a look,” Kurogane elaborated, making sure to include the patronising tone Yue had used on him too many times already, “and see if I can figure out how things work.”
Yue began cursing him, but followed after.
#
Fai’s ring seemed to burn on his finger as he made his way back to his old rooms, his left hand limply by his side as he studiously avoided looking at it, at the glitter-gleam of Yuuko’s runes in the silver, Seishirou’s magic, his own magic on top of it all. He’d sworn he’d never use his magic again, but - but Kurogane - and -
There was always a ‘but.’
Fai had never meant to hurt anyone, but it seemed inevitable when people got involved with him. His father, his mother, the people
of Valeria, Xing Huo, Yuui, the Faerie Court, Ashura-ou…why could he never make things right? He’d tried - he had tried, so many times over the centuries, but at the end of everything it was always just him, just Fai, and it was easiest to let life drift by him, to touch nothing and cling to no-one, alo-
“Fai!” Something small, white and furry bounced up into Fai’s face the moment the mage opened the door to his room, stopped from painful impact by sheer skill alone.
Fai tilted to the side slightly, and Mokona landed on his shoulder instead of smacking his nose. “Mokona-chan,” he greeted, smiling - and the nodded his head at the boy at a desk in the toy-filled antechamber in front of him, looking so seriously his way. Syaoran could always be depended to remain so, in any situation. “And Syaoran-kun.”
Mokona cheerfully ignored his acrobatics, and began immediately chattering away in Fai’s ear, talking about the smithies they’d seen, and Syaoran’s sword, and Primera and Presea and how the flower was as nice as Souhi, and did Fai want Souhi back because Mokona had been carrying it faithfully and she bet all the faeries would like it a lot.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Mokona, could you hold onto it a little longer?” Fai didn’t like the weight of the sword on his hip; it hadn’t been made for him to carry.
“Mokona will do her best!”
“Ashura-sama said we’d probably find you here,” Syaoran said, watching as Fai crossed the room and perched on the edge of the desk beside him, Mokona still happily settled on the magician’s shoulder. The boy’s tone was hesitant. “We weren’t sure if we should come in or not, especially as you weren’t here, but -”
“It’s alright, Syaoran-kun.” Fai cut him off, reaching across to ruffle the youth’s hair and smile at Syaoran’s immediate blush. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, but I’m glad you came in. The seats in here are comfier, ne?”
“Mokona likes it here~,” the little creature swayed from side to side on her perch, all but radiating sparkles. “Mokona has never seen so many toys in one place before!”
Fai kept smiling, but it felt even more awkward than before. The room was, as Mokona had so blithely pointed out, full of toys - shelves spilling with games and trinkets along the walls, soft dolls and animals with doe eyes on the couches between cushions and little carriages that could be set up to be drawn by enchanted toy horses pushed out of sight beneath. This was the antechamber of the rooms; there was a door in the wall that led to the bedroom, bathroom and wardrobe - but one didn’t even need to go see them to be able to tell that the set of rooms had been designed for a child, for children.
Which, of course, begged the question of why the rooms had been assigned to the very adult Fai.
Fai could see the question in Syaoran’s eyes, so he answered it before the boy could give it voice, lazily extending one hand so that Mokona could hop along his arm and onto the nearest shelf to investigate some of the sparkly gewgaws there. “I knew the children who lived here, once.”
“Were you very close to them, Fai-san?” Syaoran’s natural curiosity wasn’t so easily sated.
Fai smiled at him, close-eyed. “You could say we were friends.”
Mokona stopped poking at one of the baubles she’d found, pretty silver balls swinging back and forth on strings, carried by their own momentum after one push from her paw. “We should go meet them! Mokona wants to meet Fai’s friends.”
Fai shook his head, and an odd, confused silence fell over the trio, the only sound the quiet clicking of the balls of one toy hitting each other up on its shelf. “They’re both dead now.”
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: In which Watanuki sees stuff, Yue and Seishirou talk a lot, and Kurogane is awkward.
>>
Chapter I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII |
Chapter XIII
Once upon a time, an awfully, terribly, ridiculously long time ago, there was a young king who ruled over all the fey, and he was called Ashura. To everyone he was a fair, just ruler, and a loving and faithful husband to his pregnant wife, Shashi. His skill with both blade and magic was renowned, and his courtesy considered unmatched. He entertained humans, fey and spirits alike, and did favours for all - but none could ever truly repay him in the way he wished for most of all.
Ashura-ou, you see, had a terrible problem. It was a hereditary thing - and as the days went by, and the day of the birth of his first child drew nearer, Ashura-ou took to worrying. He went to his books, and the archives, and his research, and looked for some way to spare his child from his curse, but for all his magic, he could not find a good enough solution. He was distracted - too distracted - and neglected his ambitious wife - the lovely, vain, arrogant Shashi, who was as cold as her husband was kind, and as proud as he was humble.
Shashi had enemies at the Court - so many enemies, it was impossible to count them all. None of them wanted to see her give birth to Ashura-ou’s heir, to see her elevated even further above them all and all hope of their own succession of the crown so thoroughly dashed. So they plotted, and they colluded, and whether they agreed with each other or not one thing came of it: - they poisoned Shashi, laced her cup with a delicate faerie flower that had her coughing blood on the fine cloth of the Court dinner table, groaning and slumping in her seat.
Ashura-ou’s child was cut from Shashi’s womb before the woman was fully dead, tiny and pale and kicking for life. ‘Ashura’ was born to the sound of screaming, to shocked gazes and confused faces who wondered at the child’s pointed ears, the lack of any gender. They whispered that the baby was cursed, even as Ashura was being laid in Ashura-ou’s arms for the first time.
There was fighting in the Court, within the first few weeks of baby Ashura’s life. The Monous, Sumeragis and Sakurazukas all tried to take advantage of Ashura-ou’s distraction, the three fey women who headed the branches - Saya, Toru and Setsuka - all offering to take in the royal heir, to raise them with their own children. The king was busy, after all - let someone else raise the child until Ashura was of age; let someone else take the burden. It would be better for Ashura to be raised with the other noble children of the court - Kotori, Kamui, Subaru, Seishirou, Fuuma…none of them were terribly old. Ashura would have plenty of playmates.
Ashura-ou gave Ashura to Hisui, a smiling, gentle lesser noble already raising a little girl - Kohaku. Hisui was a step away from the Court’s wrangling, uncaring of the jostle for political power, but quite powerful enough to protect the baby heir. She took Kohaku and Ashura away from the main of the Court, at the edges wrapped in spells, when the sunlight filtered down through the branches and the children could play, where the children could safely grow up.
Ashura-ou made a wish. There were less people in the business of wish-granting then - less options for people looking for their heart’s desire. After all, it was such a very long time ago. Ashura-ou made a wish to a wide, smirking magician, and the magician gave him a time, a location, in return for a faerie-crafted castle that flew in the air with glittering wings that only appeared under the moonlight. The answer to his problem - his child’s problem - would appear then - however Ashura-ou felt like dealing with that answer was his own concern.
The years passed - so very many years. Another magician came to the Court - he was well-known for his skills, even to the fey, and Ashura-ou greeted him, and the beautiful woman he brought with him. She was sick, very sick, so the king offered to heal her - he did so, and the magician and the woman both gave him their sincere thanks. At the epicentre of the Court, in the Throne Room, the magician worked his skills - a sakura sapling flourished under the human’s hands, shooting up into a young tree heavy with blossoms, ripe with magic. In the light of the moon it became gilded with silver frost, but when morning’s light came once more the tree remained undamaged, eternally caught in spring.
“A gift,” the magician told the astounded Court with an affable smile, “and a prophecy.”
“A prophecy about what?” The king asked him.
“Wishes,” the magician replied, “and what good can come of them.”
#
There was a girl standing on the lakeshore when Watanuki returned from Himawari’s tower to the lake where Yuuko kept her shop. She was tall, with brown, curling hair and a vaguely lost expression, the tips of her shoes almost in the water as she stood rigidly still and looked out towards the island.
“Excuse me?” The girl jumped when Watanuki spoke and approached her, whirling around to face him. One of her heels landed in the water, sending up a splash of tiny droplets. “Are you alright?”
The girl had a hand to her chest, over her heart. “…I’m sorry.” Slowly, she let the limb fall. “I didn’t expect to see anybody else around here. I just…” she looked back out towards the island again, trailing off.
Watanuki glanced at her. “…Can you see that island?”
“…Shouldn’t I be able to?” The girl sounded confused. “It’s right there. I was just wandering under the trees when I saw the light
glinting off the lake, and I couldn’t help but come closer and -” another pause. The girl shook her head, smiling slightly ruefully. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know why I’m here.”
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of people I’ve heard say that…”
“Pardon?”
Watanuki shook his head - the comment hadn’t really been directed at his companion. Yuuko’s shop had a habit of drawing in the people that needed her services, whether they knew they needed those services or not. He’d tried to point out the unfairness of a captive audience to the witch before, but Yuuko had only waved the comments aside in her usual lackadaisical manner, and told him to get on with airing out the matting. “Would you like to cross the lake with me? There’s a shop out there - even if you don’t want anything I can still offer you some tea.”
The girl looked unsure. “I wouldn’t want to impose…” Watanuki was already stepping into the nearby boat and offering out a hand to her. Nearly everyone who saw the island eventually went there. Tentatively, the girl took his hand. “If you’re sure.”
Watanuki was sure - quite sure -, having lost count of how many times he’d gone through the same routine before. (He’d suggested to Yuuko on more than one occasion that she just build a bridge to her island to save the problems incurred by having to boat people to and from her shop, but Yuuko had claimed that a bridge would ruin her mystique (of all things!) and besides, the exercise was good for Watanuki - wasn’t she a kind employer, making sure her subjects kept fit? (Watanuki had ranted about that comment for a good while.))
He took the girl to the island and showed her into the lounge, wondering at the quiet inside the shop. Maru, Moro and Mokona were nowhere to be seen (or heard) so Watanuki fixed the girl something to drink himself and went off to find the three mischief-makers and their ringleader.
Yuuko was in one of the side-rooms, kneeling on the floor while Moro painstakingly combed through her hair, Maru standing before them both and holding up a large oval mirror. (Where Mokona was was anyone’s guess.)
“Watanuki~,” Maru chirped, spotting the boy in the doorway first.
Moro nearly dropped the comb she was holding, and spun around. “Watanuki’s back!”
“There’s a customer in the lounge,” Watanuki said to Yuuko, watching as the woman turned around slightly to face him, her lips already half-curved in their usual knowing smile.
“I’ll see them shortly.”
Watanuki nodded and Yuuko looked back to the mirror, unwittingly drawing Watanuki’s attention towards the glass as well. It was a beautiful, ornate thing with wreathed flowers of metal around the edge, and the glass at the centre was smooth and unblemished. Yuuko’s reflected hair was black - so black -, fine strands that seemed to sweep across his vision of the mirror, until the background sank to blackness and there was only the white of her face, growing smaller, smaller, smaller -
It was so very dark. Watanuki didn’t move, didn’t breathe - the air felt frozen in his lungs, the hairs across his body prickling up with the knowledge of cold.
Yuuko was still before him, now a distant figure, and her smooth face was impassive, lashes drawn down over her eyes. In the dark dress she was wearing she looked like a doll in all the black, lying limp against invisible bonds, limbs pulled out into the oblivion. Watanuki couldn’t see what had caught Yuuko up, why she was arranged so, and then silver gleamed in all the black, hundreds and thousands of wires that came from nowhere out of the dark and wrapped themselves around Yuuko’s limbs - her neck, her arms, her legs, her waist.
And then tightened.
Yuuko began to bleed.
The wires cut into Yuuko, pressing into her dress, her skin, taut with tension and still pulling, pulling, pulling until it had to hurt, had to wound, but still Watanuki couldn’t say anything, unable to move to help Yuuko, unable to speak as Yuuko slowly - slowly - opened her eyes.
It was impossible. There was no light source, nothing to cause the glow for the colour to be reflected off of, but still that rich red slowly bled out across white, trickling down Yuuko’s wrists, her legs, her throat, gathering into fat drops that dripped down from her suspended form and plunged into the waiting darkness below. Dripping her dry - of blood, of colour, of life…
Red eyes caught Watanuki’s as he stood there, a helpless observer. Red eyes caught, and held, the wire around Yuuko’s throat tightening further, pulling more, Yuuko’s lips moving. She was too far away to hear - far too far - but Watanuki heard her all the same, as if she’d whispered right up against his ear.
‘Watanuki…’
She sounded tired - so incredibly tired, even as the wire was choking her, cutting into her skin, her face flashing with pain.
“Stop it.” Watanuki regained a little control of his voice, his lips, but he still couldn’t close his eyes, look away from the image of the witch strung up to die before him.
‘Watanuki.’
The wires pulled tighter, more blood ran down, bright crimson that stained Yuuko’s clothes, bubbled forth from between her parted lips. If it pulled any tighter -
‘Watanuki!’
Yuuko cried out in pain.
Watanuki closed his eyes.
“Watanuki~!”
Something small and hard slammed into Watanuki’s chest, winding the youth and sending him back a few steps. He smacked his back off of the wall behind him and only just avoided banging his head, his eyes sliding shut at the collision before opening to see Mokona bouncing around the shop room floor in front of him.
“Watanuki spaced out~!” Mokona chortled as Watanuki immediately started complaining, leaping over to bound into Yuuko’s lap. Maru and Moro had just finished fixing the witch’s hair, Moro clapping her comb-free hands in delight. Something new to tease Watanuki about was a great part of the amusement in their day.
“Spacey Watanuki~!”
Maru, as ever, was quite happy to join in. “Watanuki the space-case!”
Watanuki flailed, indignant. “I am not a space-case!”
“He’s a space-case,” Mokona confided to Yuuko in a stage-whisper, even as Maru and Moro began twirling down the corridor, hand-in-hand, singing ‘space-case, space-case~’ as they went.
“I am not a space-case!” Watanuki protested again when Yuuko started nodding along - and then Watanuki stuck his head out after the two prancing girls. “And don’t bother the customer!” Their laughter drifted back to him. Scowling, Watanuki looked back to Yuuko, who was rising sedately to her feet, Mokona in hand. “I’m not.”
“No?” Yuuko seemed mildly amused - Watanuki hated that smile of hers -, brushing down the front of her robes. “So what were you doing looking so absently into space for so long, Watanuki-kun?”
“I -” Watanuki started to speak - and then stopped, the words catching in his throat as he looked at the witch. The memory of the wires wrapped so tightly around Yuuko, the blood, it - it was just… Watanuki looked aside, lowering his eyes. “…I was distracted.” He waited, expecting either Yuuko or Mokona to comment, but both remained silent, Yuuko walking past him to go to the lounge. She paused at the door for a second, though, to lay one hand on his shoulder, but then went on her way.
Bothered, Watanuki went to the kitchen, and hunted out some small cakes, taking them and a pot of tea out on a tray to the lounge. Yuuko and the girl he’d brought in were already deep into their conversation - the girl had just stopped speaking as Watanuki put a cup of tea before her, Watanuki arranging the cakes out as well so he was left holding only the empty tray. He stood slightly to the side, waiting - Yuuko often told him to fetch things from the store room for her customers, and he didn’t doubt this would probably be another one of those cases.
“…Will you grant my wish?” The girl - Yuuko’s customer - placed her hands around the cup given to her, letting the warmth of the tea bleed through white china into her skin.
“No,” Yuuko replied, ignoring Watanuki’s start of surprise behind her, and the way the girl visibly drooped in her seat at her reply, spent. Yuuko pointed at Watanuki with one finger - Watanuki did his level-best to not look like he was hiding behind his serving tray. “He will.”
“What?!”
#
Seishirou was waiting for him. Fai tried not to sigh - he really did - at the faerie blocking the doorway to his old rooms, although he did absolutely nothing to quiet the uncharitable muttering in his head that started up in place instead. He was tired; he had been wandering the Court for the better part of the day and had kept a smile in place all the while the fey had gossiped behind their hands about him, and just wanted to curl up somewhere familiar and rest. Fai wasn’t in the mood to play the cat-and-mouse game of words Seishirou so favoured - especially since, on some level, Fai always felt like the mouse. There were many things he liked having thought about him. ‘Dinner’ was not one of them.
But still, there Seishirou stood. Plain as day and with that irritating half-smile fixed firmly on his face, securely planted outside the chambers given to Fai and his brother as a child waiting for the world to come to him - and it would be rude, and ego-battering, to attempt to ignore him.
Fai was sorely tempted to try an attempt, anyway.
Seishirou rose from the elegant slouch he’d taken against the wall when he saw he had Fai’s attention - it was hard to miss; they were the only two in the corridor -, and though it was (probably) only paranoia talking Fai could’ve sworn he saw the flicker of a smirk touch Seishirou’s lips, smug pleasure at having stolen away any opportunity for Fai to pretend the faerie was invisible.
“You look very fetching in black, Fai-bocchama,” Seishirou smiled pleasantly and Fai eyed him warily (wondering at the commentary of the fey wardrobe he’d been given to wear whilst at the Court and strongly reminding himself that hitting Seishirou would be a bad, bad idea, and it would inevitably make things worse, and - and Fai had really been around Kurogane far too long, to be entertaining these sorts of ideas). “It brings out the white of your skin.”
Fai looked at the faerie, and didn’t offer a response.
Undeterred, Seishirou held out his hand. “Walk with me, if you would. I think we have things to discuss.”
Fai walked with him. He didn’t take Seishirou’s hand.
Seishirou led him to the old Throne Room, to the courtyard with the enchanted sakura tree ever-blooming at its heart. Fai stopped short of entering the place, lingering on the threshold, and regarded Seishirou with all the distrust the faerie could be accounted for and then some more, for good measure.
“Why here?” Fai had seen this place too often.
“It’s quiet here.” Fai had to admit Seishirou’s words were true - when the door swung shut behind them the gossiping of the Faerie Court was finally silenced, and there was nothing but the sound of the wind, and the sweet-smelling blossoms fluttering through the afternoon air. It was beautiful… “Didn’t I tell you when you were small that I liked sakura blossoms?”
“Forgive me,” Fai’s tone was wry, even as he moved closer to the courtyard’s tree to place one hand on the bark, press against the old ridges and whorls that had been half of the spell on him back when he’d been so young. “I think I was rather distracted the day you told me. It must’ve slipped my memory.”
Seishirou looked up at the branches overhead, and sidestepped the prince’s sarcasm. “Have you never wondered about how at home you feel beneath this tree?”
Fai glanced at him, sharp, remembering dreaming, waking in frost, unpicking ice and brambles from his hair. He’d never spoken of the night to anyone, and had certainly never displayed the crown Ashura had given to him anywhere anyone could see.
Seishirou lowered his head, impassable smile still fixed as a perfect mask on his face. “People made a place for you here for a reason, bocchan. Maybe you should start thinking about what that reason was a little more deeply - or do you intend to rule this Court more loosely than even the Ashuras do now? The barren heir’s heir…” Seishirou mused aloud, ignoring how Fai had frozen by the tree. “Of all creatures, a human.”
“Seishirou-san…” Fai pinned a smile of his own in place, well aware that it lacked any kind of warmth and uncaring of the fact, “what are you trying to do?”
Seishirou moved closer to him, letting his eyes open and focus on Fai; Fai kept his ground. “Nothing against you, Fai-bocchan, so you don’t need to fret.” The assurance did nothing to reassure Fai in any way whatsoever. The fey couldn’t lie, but Seishirou was nothing if not a master of bending words and meanings to suit his needs. Seishirou came closer still, and Fai turned to face him fully. “You grew up, after all, and grew stronger. I couldn’t seduce you now without your permission, little bocchama, and I doubt that’s going to be forthcoming anytime soon.” The faerie tilted his head, spoke pleasantly. “I heard you were engaged to a sweetheart.”
Fai winced slightly at that, feeling his own smile flicker as an awkward half-laugh escaped him. “…Kuro-sama has something against being called ‘sweet’.”
Seishirou reached out, snake-fast, and grabbed Fai’s left hand, pulling it before their gazes. “You wear his ring.”
“Habit,” Fai replied automatically, and pushed his hand back. Nothing precious could be trusted with this faerie. “It was good etiquette to wear it around my fiancé, and I’ve grown so used to keeping it on it bothers me more when it’s removed.”
“You’re very modest,” Seishirou commented, “especially when the tales of your devotion are still circling the Court. They said you searched through over a hundred flowers for the perfect one to craft Souhi - the faeries of this Court delivered them all for you to sift through, you know. The first message the Court receives from Ashura-ou in a while, and it’s not even a message for his child; no, Ashura-ou requests flowers, and sends them all back again the day after their delivery insisting that a sword be made from the most precious one by the High Blacksmith herself - at once. From the flower that feels like moonlight, wind and snow - even if hundreds of years have gone by since anyone truly human remembered the dead kingdom you were born to, bocchama, your magic still sings of it.”
Fai flinched. He couldn’t have avoided that one if he’d tried - his life in, and the eventual fate of, Valeria was still endlessly sore in his heart. His parents were buried there, even if everyone alive had ever forgotten a nation had been born there to begin with. The snows of Valeria had melted. For others, the world was warmer now.
“That sword was all wrong for you, though,” Seishirou continued. “Presea said so, as did everyone else who came into contact with the blade. It was too heavy - but she’d made it according to the feeling in the flower, so the sword must’ve been what you intended it to be. Since it obviously wasn’t suited to you, one can only assume you intended that beautiful sword to be a gift for someone else. Did you give it to your sweetheart? It was certainly a sword for a prince’s Champion.”
Fai shook his head. “He’s not my Champion.”
“He can be both Champion and consort - although he’s probably better suited for the last one alone if he’s inept enough to have landed himself in some situation where you’ve got to chase after him.” Seishirou smiled, cheerfully bright. “Or did he leave you on purpose when you messed things up?” The vindictive bas-
“I really don’t think that’s any of your business, Seishirou-san.” The perfumed air did nothing to cover up the poison Seishirou came out with, and Fai was weary of listening to it. He moved to step past the faerie, intending to leave the courtyard and go check on his companions; it’d been a while since he’d last seen Syaoran and Mokona. “Excuse me; I have things to do elsewhere.”
Seishirou moved to block his way again. “I have a present for you.”
Fai stopped just short of walking into him. “…What?”
“I have a present for you,” his companion repeated. “A wedding gift, for when you undoubtedly meet up with your sweetheart again.”
Fai was, naturally, suspicious. Seishirou could look as disarming as he liked, standing amongst the flowers and covered with blossoms - he was still Seishirou, and the list of things he’d done, as well as very likely to have done (proof could be so hard to come by when witnesses vanished so tellingly), was far too long for Fai to accept any gift-horse from the faerie, no matter how charmingly it was offered. Even gifts from the most well-meaning and innocent of givers usually had at least one sort of string attached; Fai didn’t want to consider how many strings could come along with a present from the puppeteer before him.
He moved to go by Seishirou again. “Thank you for your generosity, Seishirou-san, but I’ll pass.”
“And if it meant you’d never lose track of your fiancé again?”
Fai stopped.
#
It was well into the afternoon when Kurogane managed to track down Yue in Leval, the angel having disappeared after escorting Sakura to her rooms. Kurogane had been patient, and given the creature his brooding time - Rondart’s words had given Kurogane himself something to think about, so he’d only naturally assumed that there’d be even more to think over for someone to whom the words actually made sense -, but he wanted answers (and Keroberos was locked up with the princess for a nap, so that left Yue).
The sun slanted in through the windows of the corridor Kurogane finally found his prey within, the light catching the silver of Yue’s hair and giving the angel away, even though Yue’s wings had vanished from sight and his long form was curled up in a window-seat. Again, despite himself, Kurogane was reminded horribly of Fai - Yue had taken up a feline pose, and the distant look on his face was all too similar to the expression Fai had worn on more than one occasion back in their home beside the waterfall, looking out at the water of the pool, the Enchanted Forest.
Yue, on the other hand, didn’t smile when he caught Kurogane looking at him.
“What?” The angel was irritated again, glancing with a scowl over his knees at the waiting Kurogane.
Kurogane snapped out of his recollections, and took another step towards the guardian. “We need to talk.”
“We don’t need to do anything - there is no ‘we.’” Yue brushed the comment off, and looked away from the shinobi. “Now go away, human; you’re breathing too loudly.”
Kurogane bristled, and slammed his hand on the wall beside Yue’s head. Yue jumped - and then swivelled his head around, stone cold, and glared. Kurogane let the glower bounce off of him though - the angel could be ruffled the same as anyone. “We’re talking. You don’t get a say in the matter.”
“If I don’t get a say,” Yue sniped, “that effectively makes anything you come out with a monologue.”
Kurogane carefully restrained himself from throttling him.
“…You wish to know about Rondart,” Yue said eventually, with obvious reluctance, his expression closely akin to someone who has had something particularly unpleasant wafted under their nose. That he’d spoken, however unwillingly, made it clear that he’d seen Kurogane’s point - some things needed to be said. “And what he spoke of in the garden earlier.”
“That’s about it, yeah.”
“Rondart…” Yue rose from his seat, walking a few steps away to stretch his legs after having had them tucked up too long. The pause hung heavily in the air and Kurogane thought for a second that Yue would take the opportunity to continue being a monumental pain, but the angel (thankfully) seemed to have reached an internal decision to put away that catty side of his that was armed with claws, and began to speak. “Kyle Rondart is the one who brought my mistress here when she was a child, at the bidding of his master. He comes here to check up on my mistress fairly regularly, and oversees the balls held roughly every month. He does… something that lifts the charm on the castle for three nights and creates a new spell instead - the people drawn in through the barrier, the people that live in the town below, they come up on those nights, and everyone dances.”
Kurogane made a face. “Why make everyone dance?”
“Because it takes energy, and emotion.” Yue walked a few steps further, agitated, and Kurogane followed him, unwilling for to let the other wander away when he was being so forthcoming. “Rondart is not a magician in his own right; he has no power of his own. He can, however, using a technique from his master, manipulate the energy offered up by others - the balls are the easiest way to work a complicated spell and turn it on my mistress.”
And the guardian could do nothing to stop it, for fear of further harm being inflicted on the princess. It was no wonder that Yue and Keroberos had looked as though they’d wanted to tear Rondart limb from limb in the garden.
“What does the spell do to the princess?”
“It drains her.” Kurogane was glad Yue had put away his wings, with how restless the guardian had become it would have been very likely that the limbs would’ve been shifting too, and Kurogane had no desire to be smacked with feathers in his face. “Of her magic, primarily, though since a non-magician is in charge of the spell it often takes other things from her as well unintentionally.”
“Like what?”
“Her strength. Her skills.” Yue was properly walking by that point; Kurogane spurred himself into movement as well, walking abreast with the guardian. He’d never been in that section of Leval by himself - getting lost in an enchanted castle didn’t seem very appealing to him. “Her memories.”
Kurogane was silent for a short while, thinking on that, of the green-eyed girl who bore all of what Yue was telling him - and had still smiled so brightly at him only that morning.
…Different in looks or not, the princess definitely shared the same patient determination Tomoyo had, bright silver, steel and gold.
“Who is Rondart’s master?”
Yue glanced at Kurogane from the corner of one eye. “His name is Fei Wong Reed, and he is the younger brother of my late master, Clow Reed. I have never met him; I was created after my master and he parted ways, and by that time his reputation had already been firmly made. He deals in wishes, like the Witch of the Forest, but his prices have seen the death of empires, worlds.” Yue paused, let his eyes narrow, looking to something beyond the castle, beyond where they were. “Not all wishes should be granted.”
They walked together, for a little while, Kurogane thinking through what Yue had told him - and then they reached a crossroads in the corridor, and Yue stopped the human beside him from taking the hall leading straight ahead.
“We shouldn’t go that way.”
“Why?” Kurogane poked at the statement, demanding as ever. “Is something dangerous down there?” If he was going to learn to avoid part of the freaky flying magical castle, he wanted to know what he was avoiding and why.
“No, but…” Yue looked hesitant - and then wiped the look off of his face, instead fixing in place scathing irritation. “I know you’re about as magical as a plain rock, human, but even you should be able to feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“Magic. The magic that keeps the castle working; it all comes from h- where do you think you’re going?” Yue’s wings flared with his temper, Kurogane casually ignoring both of them and striding deliberately down the corridor the angel had told him not to use.
“If all the magic comes from here,” Kurogane told him bluntly, still walking, “then the magic must be able to be broken here.”
“Don’t you dare,” Yue hissed at him, hurrying after the troublesome warrior. He could’ve used a spell, perhaps, to grab the idiotic human - but he could feel all the magic in the air pressing down on him, even if Kurogane could not. Yue had no idea how his magic would work with the magic of the castle, and did not want to do anything that could possibly endanger his mistress. “You have no idea what you’re doing!”
“So I’m going to go have a look,” Kurogane elaborated, making sure to include the patronising tone Yue had used on him too many times already, “and see if I can figure out how things work.”
Yue began cursing him, but followed after.
#
Fai’s ring seemed to burn on his finger as he made his way back to his old rooms, his left hand limply by his side as he studiously avoided looking at it, at the glitter-gleam of Yuuko’s runes in the silver, Seishirou’s magic, his own magic on top of it all. He’d sworn he’d never use his magic again, but - but Kurogane - and -
There was always a ‘but.’
Fai had never meant to hurt anyone, but it seemed inevitable when people got involved with him. His father, his mother, the people
of Valeria, Xing Huo, Yuui, the Faerie Court, Ashura-ou…why could he never make things right? He’d tried - he had tried, so many times over the centuries, but at the end of everything it was always just him, just Fai, and it was easiest to let life drift by him, to touch nothing and cling to no-one, alo-
“Fai!” Something small, white and furry bounced up into Fai’s face the moment the mage opened the door to his room, stopped from painful impact by sheer skill alone.
Fai tilted to the side slightly, and Mokona landed on his shoulder instead of smacking his nose. “Mokona-chan,” he greeted, smiling - and the nodded his head at the boy at a desk in the toy-filled antechamber in front of him, looking so seriously his way. Syaoran could always be depended to remain so, in any situation. “And Syaoran-kun.”
Mokona cheerfully ignored his acrobatics, and began immediately chattering away in Fai’s ear, talking about the smithies they’d seen, and Syaoran’s sword, and Primera and Presea and how the flower was as nice as Souhi, and did Fai want Souhi back because Mokona had been carrying it faithfully and she bet all the faeries would like it a lot.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Mokona, could you hold onto it a little longer?” Fai didn’t like the weight of the sword on his hip; it hadn’t been made for him to carry.
“Mokona will do her best!”
“Ashura-sama said we’d probably find you here,” Syaoran said, watching as Fai crossed the room and perched on the edge of the desk beside him, Mokona still happily settled on the magician’s shoulder. The boy’s tone was hesitant. “We weren’t sure if we should come in or not, especially as you weren’t here, but -”
“It’s alright, Syaoran-kun.” Fai cut him off, reaching across to ruffle the youth’s hair and smile at Syaoran’s immediate blush. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, but I’m glad you came in. The seats in here are comfier, ne?”
“Mokona likes it here~,” the little creature swayed from side to side on her perch, all but radiating sparkles. “Mokona has never seen so many toys in one place before!”
Fai kept smiling, but it felt even more awkward than before. The room was, as Mokona had so blithely pointed out, full of toys - shelves spilling with games and trinkets along the walls, soft dolls and animals with doe eyes on the couches between cushions and little carriages that could be set up to be drawn by enchanted toy horses pushed out of sight beneath. This was the antechamber of the rooms; there was a door in the wall that led to the bedroom, bathroom and wardrobe - but one didn’t even need to go see them to be able to tell that the set of rooms had been designed for a child, for children.
Which, of course, begged the question of why the rooms had been assigned to the very adult Fai.
Fai could see the question in Syaoran’s eyes, so he answered it before the boy could give it voice, lazily extending one hand so that Mokona could hop along his arm and onto the nearest shelf to investigate some of the sparkly gewgaws there. “I knew the children who lived here, once.”
“Were you very close to them, Fai-san?” Syaoran’s natural curiosity wasn’t so easily sated.
Fai smiled at him, close-eyed. “You could say we were friends.”
Mokona stopped poking at one of the baubles she’d found, pretty silver balls swinging back and forth on strings, carried by their own momentum after one push from her paw. “We should go meet them! Mokona wants to meet Fai’s friends.”
Fai shook his head, and an odd, confused silence fell over the trio, the only sound the quiet clicking of the balls of one toy hitting each other up on its shelf. “They’re both dead now.”