The Wizards of Ceres: 17
The Wizards of Ceres, chapter 17 - Breathing Space
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R overall, PG-13 in this chapter
Warning: Explicit description of Fai's eye injury, but nothing gets any worse than it was.
Summary: In which Kurogane and Fai get some facts straight between them, and Kurogane gets a quick education in the uses of magic.
Bonus: The wonderful konnichipuu has drawn an illustration for this chapter! If you have a DeviantArt account, please go let her know what you think!
Author's notes: This chapter is short, I know -- I'm about halfway through the last section of the fic (the last one will be the confrontation with Seishirou.) But it turned out to be too long to fit into one chapter, so it'll be broken into two, instead.
Part 1 - Chapter I - Chapter II - Chapter III - Chapter IV - Chapter V
Part 2 - Chapter VI - Chapter VII - Chapter VIII - Chapter IX - Chapter X
Part 3 - Chapter XI - Chapter XII - Side Story: The Prince of Valeria - Chapter XIII - Chapter XIV
Part 4 - Chapter XV - Chapter XVI - Chapter XVII - Chapter XVIII - Chapter XIX - Chapter XX
Kurogane drifted towards consciousness out of a dreamstate that was nervous and scattered. Lacking any coherent narrative, they were mostly fragmented collections of images and feelings; and, he suspected, not entirely his own. He groaned; he hurt all over.
"You're awake," a familiar voice said from nearby. A slender hand descended on his shoulder. "Don't try to move yet."
His eyes popped open, revealing a world filled with blurry blobs of color. A lingering sense of panic prompted Kurogane to ignore the advice, rolling over on the -- ground? -- and pushing himself to a sitting position. Almost as soon as he raised his head, a dark dizziness boiled up in his vision, and he collapsed again. His heart was pounding as though he'd just run a marathon, worsening the panicked feeling. The same slender hands from before caught him before he could hit the ground, and eased him back into a lying position.
"Told you so," the voice said.
He opened his eyes again and concentrated on bringing the world into focus. Both the voice and the hands belonged to Fai, who was kneeling beside him, bending down towards him with a worried expression. Above him the sky was filled with light, real light, not the eldritch magical glow of the cellar; they were outdoors. Somewhere nearby, he heard the crackle of a fire and smelled woodsmoke.
"Where are we?" he said; it came out as a croak. His throat hurt, which he supposed shouldn't have come as a surprise, and he was thirsty as hell.
Fai smiled down at him, but Kurogane could clearly read the tension behind that smile. "I'm not exactly sure. It's hard to control the remote locus of a portal when you're in the middle of casting the local one; I couldn't exactly choose my destination. But judging by the position of the sun and the mountains, I'd estimate we're somewhere in the mountains, approximately twenty-five miles southwest of the Ceres-Nihon border."
Kurogane was far too tired to translate that into ri in his head, but Fai wasn't done yet. "And about three times that due north of the valley of demons."
"Demons!" Remembering that particular hazard -- they were still out in the wilderness, you could never let your guard down -- his hands clenched, futilely seeking a sword hilt, and he squirmed, trying to get back up and get on guard.
But Fai's hands on his shoulders pressed down harder, keeping him flat. "Don't worry. I can take care of anything that shows up," Fai told him. "You should lie still. You... lost a lot of blood. I -- it almost killed you."
There was a catch in his voice, and Kurogane heard the guilt and sorrow behind it all too clearly. "Stop that," he murmured, not feeling up to dancing around the issue and choosing instead to get right to the point. "Stop feeling guilty. Remember, I volunteered. And it worked, didn't it? We're both alive -- and safe."
The dark emotions lightened, at least a little. Fai's tense smile became a little more real. "Yes," he said. "Thank you."
Fai moved away, then came back a moment later with a blurry object in hand. "Here," he said. "You should drink. You need to get some fluids back in you."
"I can do it myself," Kurogane groused, but when he reached up, his hand shook wildly and he could not support any weight in it; the cup nearly fell out of his hand when he tried. Giving up, he let Fai help him; one hand holding the cup, the other behind Kurogane's head to help support him. To his surprise, it was hot tea, not cold water; and where'd he gotten hold of that tin cup, anyway?
Fai took the empty cup away and eased Kurogane back down, which was annoying, since he wanted to get a good look at their surroundings and all he could see from here was sky. "When you feel up to it, you should eat," Fai was saying. "I've got some stew going. You need to eat to get your strength back."
"Ugh." The thought of eating now made him faintly queasy, although he thought hunger was buried in there somewhere, as well. Lying back, Kurogane tried to assess his condition. He'd known blood-loss before, but never this severe. Every inch of his body hurt like he'd been beaten by sticks; he felt too weak to move; and he was freezing cold. Although, perhaps, not as cold as he ought to be, lying on open ground in late winter... Kurogane frowned, moving his hands across the surface beneath him. He was lying on a blanket? And another one was covering him.
"Where the hell did you get these supplies?" he asked suspiciously, turning his head to look at Fai. "Magic?"
Fai's aura brightened still further. "Ah! You won't believe this," he said happily. He turned his head and, without moving from Kurogane's side, put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
From somewhere off to their left, a horse neighed, and Kurogane started as he recognized the sound. "You're kidding me," he said.
"Nope." Fai said, and grinned as he took his hand away from his mouth. "We left all our stuff with the horses when we climbed the pass to Ceres, but Bella still remembered. She answered my summons not long after we arrived here, and she still knew where we'd left the cache, and guided me back to it. Your horse is here too, but he's not as sociable, big lump that he is."
Kurogane fell back against the blanket, feeling faintly stunned and more than a little sense of deja vu.. Apart from the debilitating weakness, he could almost imagine that no time had passed, that this was a normal morning that they'd camped together on patrol in the wilderness south of Nihon, without another care in the world... no wars, no kings, no terrifying demon-sorcerers...
While he was still pondering that, the fatigue crept up on him unawares, and he slept. The last thing he was aware of was Fai's hand, gently stroking across his forehead and smoothing his hair.
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The next time he woke up, he felt much better; at least, his body still felt like shit, but his mind was almost clear. And he could, with effort, sit up without the movement causing him to black out, so that was a great improvement.
He must have slept all night, because it was early morning now, with sunlight illuminating the cloud-streaked sky but not yet touching the hill-shadowed ground below. There was still plenty of light to see by, though, and he shivered in the cold morning air as he pushed away the blanket.
Their makeshift camp was in the middle of a round mountain meadow, a gentle dip in the terrain -- perhaps at some point in its history it had been a pond that had since drained dry. The banks on all side were grown thick and high with brambles, the leaves showing the distinct serrated-triangle shape of blackberries. He could see no natural break in the hedge, nor could he see over the top of it; from the outside, it would be almost impossible to either see or get in here. The ground was covered with short grass, filled with tiny ivory flowers; the first growth of spring, pushing forth a tentative effort against the cold.
He could smell and hear running water nearby; some painful twisting located a small freshet springing up from the lowest part of the dell. Two horses were picketed there, his own familiar black gelding and Fai's grey mare. A pile of camping gear was heaped nearby them, and various objects scattered haphazardly around the grass. How the hell the wizard had gotten there and back again in such a short time, to say nothing of getting the horses in here through the briar hedge, Kurogane had no idea and wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Speaking of Fai -- his head turned like a needle pointing north to locate him, on the other side of the fire about a dozen paces away. Fai looked up when he felt Kurogane's gaze, and gave him a tentative smile.
Kurogane watched him narrowly, trying to assess his condition. Actually, he looked surprisingly healthy; he looked better than Kurogane felt, in fact. He was still thin and bony, obviously having lost all the weight he'd accomplished while traveling with Kurogane, but much changed from the pitiful near-skeleton he'd been in the dungeon. He was clean, dressed in his own clothes, (presumably from the same unexpected cache that had produced the blankets and cooking gear,) and standing and moving with ease. Only his eyes -- one still demon-yellow, the other hidden completely behind a carefully-brushed lock of hair -- gave any hint to what he'd been through in the last few weeks.
His scrutiny was broken when Fai came around the fire towards him, holding a steaming bowl and ladle in his hands. Kurogane's stomach growled hungrily at the smell of that steam, and he was reminded that he at least hadn't eaten in at least three days.
"Think you can eat something?" Fai said, coming to sit beside him.
"As long as you don't insist on spoon-feeding me, yes." He reached out to take the bowl, but once again his hands began to shake uncontrollably as soon as they took the weight; hastily, he supported it on his lap, and glared as he defended it from Fai's attempt to reclaim it. "I'm not an infant." To prove his point, he held the bowl firmly in his lap and ate one-handed; he had enough strength to manage that. Gods, he'd forgotten how good Fai's cooking was.
Fai looked embarrassed, and shrugged a little. "Sorry," he said. He fidgeted a little, and Kurogane got the impression that he was vastly uncomfortable sitting here and watching Kurogane eat, when he could not. His strange and incredible view into the other man's mind was gone -- he was unquestionably back in himself -- but a trace of the link seemed to remain, enough that Kurogane could tell his true emotions almost as intuitively as his own. "I'll go check on the horses, shall I?" Fai said, and started to get up.
Kurogane's free hand shot out, and grabbed his wrist. Although his grip was as weak as a kitten's, it was enough to stop him. "Stay," he said, and he made the command soft.
Fai sat back down.
Kurogane set aside the bowl and spoon, and looked Fai squarely in the eye. "How are you feeling?" he asked straightforwardly.
Fai flashed him a bright smile. "Much better than I was expecting to feel today, that's for sure!" he said, although Kurogane heard a touch of evasiveness in it.
"You look a hell of a lot better than you did back in the dungeon. How long have I been out?" Watching Fai, he inhaled deeply, testing the air. It was strange; Fai's scent had definitely changed, but he could only barely detect the smell that he usually associated with demons. The foul reek that nearly overcome him in the dungeon was gone; only a faint lingering trace of it remained, not so much a bad smell as a strange, distinctive one, like the tang of a rare metal in the air. Obviously, a chance to clean himself of the aftereffects of his imprisonment had done him a world of good; but how much damage was left?
"Only yesterday and last night." His smile faded, and he looked away. "It seems there are some benefits to... to my new state. As soon as I provided my body with the proper fuel, it was able to heal itself of most of my other injuries."
Other injuries? That particular choice of phrasing sent a pang of alarm through Kurogane. He looked closer. Fai was still trying to hide the left side of his face from Kurogane, turning his head away and ducking so that his hair fell over his cheek. "But not that one?" he asked softly, already knowing the answer.
Fai bit his lip, and looked down. "It seems that injuries sustained from before I became a demon don't heal," he said in a quieter voice.
Kurogane reached to brush aside the curtain of hair. Fai leaned back and away, out of reach of Kurogane's hand. "Don't," he said uneasily. "It's -- there's nothing there to see, Kuro-sama."
"Let me see," Kurogane said, letting a note of iron command leak into his voice. He had no intention of letting Fai neglect a serious injury.
It seemed that even now, Fai couldn't resist Kurogane. After a moment, his shoulders sagged, and his head dropped forward. Kurogane completed his movement, brushing the concealing fall of hair carefully back and smoothing it over his temple, bringing his hand down to cup Fai's cheek and turn his face towards the light.
Fai had made an obvious effort to scrub himself as clean as he could, with cold water and no soap, but his efforts had not extended here. Perhaps the injury had still been too raw and painful for him to be able to clean it properly by himself. It seemed that some healing had taken place nonetheless, since no new blood seeped from the wound; it looked like it had been closed for a week, although still a raw and ugly red crusted with black scabs. A series of now-sealed scalpel cuts sliced the flesh around -- and in -- the eye, seeming almost to form some kind of symbol or sigil; Kurogane wondered what sick purpose or whim had driven that knife. Dried blood mixed with salt tears formed streaks around the orbit of the eye. He could feel Fai's sick shame as though it were his own, at the ugliness of the mutilation, the eyelid torn to useless shreds and doing nothing to conceal the gaping hollow.
Kurogane's breath hissed in unexpected sympathy as he saw the extent of the damage, and the soup he had gotten down threatened to curdle his stomach. "I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling the sickness spread to his heart. He'd wasted weeks, idling around uselessly in Nihon, while Fai was being tortured. "If I had only gotten there sooner... maybe..."
Quick as a flash, Fai's hand darted out and caught at Kurogane's wrist; Kurogane was startled once more by the iron, inhuman strength of his grasp. "Don't apologize for this," Fai said, and anger and some stranger, more complex emotions made his voice vibrate dangerously. "Not to me. Not you. Not ever."
Kurogane was speechless. He could feel the raging tempest of Fai's emotions, but he couldn't fathom what drove them. Fai took a deep breath, perhaps sensing his own bafflement in turn, and closed his eye, pulling Kurogane's hand back up to press against his clean, unscarred right cheek. "You saved me," he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. "When I was lost in the dark you came and brought the light back to me. You gave me everything. So don't you ever apologize to me for things that were never your fault."
Kurogane swallowed painfully, and nodded silent acceptance. He wouldn't push Fai, not now, not when the memory of pain was still so fresh and raw. Instead, he changed the subject.
"So I'm 'Kuro-sama' again now, am I?" he said. It gave him a little shock, to realize how much he had missed those stupid nicknames. "Whatever happened to 'my lord Suwa?' "
Fai blinked, and looked up at him again; he lowered their caught hands together to his lap, but didn't let go. He smiled again, and this time it had a tinge of apologetic embarrassment. "I never knew you hated being called by your name so much, that you liked the nicknames better," he said. "You never said."
He'd never admitted that to Fai. How the hell had he -- oh. Kurogane had been inside Fai's mind, close enough that their souls had touched; he'd seen Fai's truest thoughts and feelings in there. It only made sense that Fai would have seen something of himself in return.
Which meant -- oh. Oh, crap.
Swallowing against panic, Kurogane tried to remain nonchalant. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "I hate those damn nicknames, too. It -- it's just that you started calling me by my name on the same night you tried to -- " He broke off, feeling the stiffening unhappiness in Fai's shoulders. He looked away. "The night you stopped being my friend," he said instead.
"I never stopped wanting to be your friend, Kuro-sama," Fai said softly, but there was a ache and a yearning in his voice that Kurogane could not ignore. He remembered what he'd seen inside Fai's mind; he knew the truth about Fai's feelings from him. They ran much deeper than friendship, even the close warrior bonds of companionship.
And if the reverse held true as well... then Fai knew what Kurogane had been trying to hide from him, from himself, from everyone. But he respected Kurogane's privacy, his reserve. He would never bring it up if Kurogane didn't first. But he would always be wondering, waiting, hoping...
It was cruel to pretend any longer. What was he hoping to save? His pride? To hell with that; like he had any left these days anyway. He took a breath and reached to take Fai's hand again, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight. Fai looked up, eyes widening, breath catching with hope. "Kuro-chan?" he said faintly.
"You've always been someone I consider a friend," Kurogane said firmly. "And... and not just a friend. Something more than that. You've become someone very special to me, and..." He stuttered awkwardly, groping for the words. Damn, they should have sent a poet. "And I've fallen in love with you."
There. He said it. Even in his confidence, Kurogane felt his heart speeding up and his breath seize; how much more painful could the uncertainty have been for Fai, who had no such surety? Every nerve on edge, Kurogane waited for a response.
After a moment of stunned and gawking silence, it came in a thoroughly unexpected format. Fai began to laugh; first as a low chuckle, then escalating to loud, full-throated gales of laughter, doubling him over with lack of breath.
At first, Kurogane didn't mind all that much; at least, it was a relief to hear real happiness in Fai's laughter again, not the frightening hysterical cackling that had heralded madness when they'd been trapped together. But after several moments when Fai showed no signs of stopping, Kurogane felt pride begin to make a reappearance. "Oi," he said, annoyance edging his voice. "You know, this is not the sort of response that a man who just made a declaration of love wants to hear."
"S-sorry," Fai gasped, raising his left hand to awkwardly swipe at the right side of his face, wiping away tears of laughter from his flushed cheek. "It's just -- so -- funny! Don't you see?!"
"No, I don't see!" Kurogane snapped, beginning to feel genuinely stung. "I was serious, mage, so I don't appreciate you treating it like a joke!"
"No, no -- it's not you, it's --" Fai took a deep breath, visibly getting hold of himself, although now and then a giggle escaped his control, hiccuping his speech. "Seishirou -- he kept telling me, you see -- what a great joke it was -- that I was in love with someone I was going to have to kill! He -- he kept telling me how f-funny -- that I'd fallen in love with a demon-hunter -- someone who would despise me for, for, for what I'd become!"
Kurogane stilled, his anger and hurt pride draining away. "That's... not actually funny at all," he said numbly. Just the thought of it made him feel ill.
"Yes, but don't you see? That's why it's funny! Because he was wrong!" Fai's voice rang out like a clarion trumpet in the still, cool air of the mountain meadow, bubbling over with joy. He threw back his head, and laughed to the sky. "Wrong!"
Kurogane couldn't help but feel moved, although he still wished Fai would quit laughing. He pulled Fai's hand insistently, trying to get him to shut up. "Of course he was wrong," he growled. "Everything that bastard said was wrong. Everything he was was wrong. Everything he said to you, just retroactively assume it was wr --"
He was cut off mid-sentence when Fai abruptly leaned forward, his free hand circling around the back of Kurogane's head to tangle in his hair, and kissed him.
Kurogane's primary emotion was alarm; first at Fai's sudden movement, which melted quickly as the warmth of that kiss registered with him; second as Fai's lips parted under his and his tongue ran questingly along his lips, seeking entrance; third as he tried tentatively to return the favor, and encountered Fai's fangs; and at last when the extended length of the kiss threatened to black him out again for lack of air.
He lay back against the blankets, shaking and wheezing like a much older man; and Fai lay back with him, curling his too-thin body around Kurogane's. This time, his was the warmer body, and Kurogane pulled him close, grateful for the heat.
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By mid-afternoon, however, the sense of urgency was growing too frantic to deny, and Kurogane was fretful and impatient. Twice he tried to push himself to stand and do warm-up exercises; the second time Fai didn't even bother to force him to sit down, simply waiting until he collapsed and catching him before he hit the ground.
"I have to go," Kurogane said fretfully, calculating the distance to his horse. All he needed to do was get to the saddle, and then the horse would be doing the work, right? "I have to ride. It might already be too late!"
"Where do you think you can ride to?" Fai said, exasperated. He wrapped his hands around Kurogane's upper arms, holding him still. "You won't get half a mile before you fall off the horse, and probably break your neck."
"I need to get back home!" Kurogane knew Fai was right, that he was in no condition to ride, but damn it, he didn't have a choice. Demons took time to travel overland just as people did, but they could move as fast as a man ahorse; the first one would be arriving at the outermost walls anytime now. "Seishirou knows that the defenses are down -- he's going to send all his oni to attack us while we're weak. By the time anyone sees them coming, it'll be too late to defend!"
Fai sat rather heavily next to Kurogane, not letting go of his arm. He didn't have to be told what the results of that would be; he'd seen the ruins of Suwa. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle and apologetic. "Even if you could ride, it'll take you days on horseback to get back to Nihon. It will be too late then, too."
"I have to warn Tomoyo somehow!" Feverishly, Kurogane cast about for some alternatives. If only he'd had someone to send to ride courier, or a homing pigeon. He didn't have those. But he had Fai. Fai was a wizard, and released now from the dampening effects of the geas. He twisted to look up into Fai's face. "Can't you get me there sooner, with one of those portal-spells?" he asked, an unaccustomed note of pleading in his voice.
Slowly, regretfully, Fai shook his head. "I don't have enough control over it," he said lowly. "I wasn't able to decide where the portal would take us -- i just figured that anywhere away from there would be better. But maybe I can..." He stopped mid-sentence.
Kurogane pounced on that hesitation. "You can do something?"
Fai was frowning, looking abstracted. "Maybe I can send a message. Normally I wouldn't be able to, but..." He looked back up at Kurogane. "This Tomoyo, the Tsukuyomi -- she's a powerful mage, isn't she?"
Hope began to flare in Kurogane's heart. "I don't -- I don't know how to answer that question." He recalled what else Fai had said about mages -- yes, and he recalled that Fai was one, as well. "She can talk to people in their minds, without using her voice. Is that what you mean?"
"To be heard by non-mages, she'd have to be," Fai answered. He was back to frowning, and he absently tugged at a stray lock of hair, pulling it back from his face. "I can try to reach her, mind to mind. It will take an enormous effort, and Nihon has its own ways of discouraging unwanted presences..."
"But you'll do it?" Kurogane said insistantly.
Fai gave him a strained, weary smile. "I can't exactly say no, can I?" he said quietly. "I owe you too much... after Seishirou's dungeon. I'll do whatever you ask of me."
There was a strange pang that came with those words, a feeling like grief and a long weariness. Yes, for the rest of my life, whatever you ask. "No!" Kurogane was distracted -- briefly -- from his fervent concern over Tomoyo in order to address this. He grabbed Fai's arm, pulling him around to face his startled expression square on. "That's not how this is going to work. What I did back in the dungeon, I offered of my own free will, with no expectation of return -- with no thought of you owing me anything. It was the only way I could think of to get out of there, that's all it was!"
"But --" Fai looked confused, distressed. "You saved me. I owe you -- what you did, I can't ever repay --"
"I didn't do it to put you in some kind of debt to me, dammit!" Kurogane said, frustrated by his inability to communicate even this simple concept to Fai. "Yes, I saved you. I preferred that at least one of us would escape alive than that we both would die down there. But that was my choice to do that, of my own free will. I volunteered; you didn't force or trick me into it in any way. You aren't responsible for what I choose to do!"
Fai's expression was changing from confused to faintly stunned, and Kurogane began to hope that he was making an impression. Even if the thought of someone wanting to help him for his own sake, with no obligation or return favors, seemed to be so alien to Fai. He released Fai's arm, and continued more quietly, "And I hope that you'll help me now, because I am asking -- I am begging -- for that help. But I want you to do it because it's something you choose to do, not because you feel like you have to do it, because I have some sort of hold over you. I don't want to have that hold over you."
Fai took a deep breath, wrapped his arms around himself. "All right," he said quietly. "I'll try it. But it won't be easy -- it's a long way, and the magic-users of Nihon have their own ways of keeping out unfriendly presences. Just getting past the magical interference posed by the wards will be difficult enough... I'll need your help."
"Anything," Kurogane said immediately, throwing himself into the project whole-heartedly. "What do you need?"
"Mostly what I need from you is guidance. I need you to come with me, but you don't... Do you know anything about astral projection?"
Kurogane shook his head. Fai looked daunted. "Trance states? Meditation?" he tried.
"Of course," Kurogane said, feeling slightly insulted by the question. Meditation was a fundamental element of the discipline of bushido, and he'd learned it along with all his other skills when he'd still been a boy.
Fai looked relieved. "Oh, good," he said. "We won't be starting totally from scratch."
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Under Fai's direction, Kurogane slipped into the light trance-like meditation state he'd been taught by his father. It wasn't easy to clear his mind -- worry and fear and urgency and a fiery new curiosity about what Fai proposed all competed for attention in his consciousness. But that was the whole point of meditation, to be able to clear your mind of intrusive thoughts and focus on the purity of steel and movement. His breathing slowed, deepened, and he began to feel light-headed from more than just blood loss.
The chilly meadow around him faded, rendering in fog and shades of gray -- but of Fai, kneeling in front of him, he became more aware than ever. There was a channel between them, he became aware, like a subtle path of least resistance that linked the two of them. Fai reached out through that channel with hands that shimmered like starlight, and pulled him in.
Come on, Fai whispered; all bemused, Kurogane went.
Everything took on a surreal, dream-like quality; the sky and horizon seemed blurred into an indistinguishable fog, shot with strange glowing lights. The grey-colored landscape flowed beneath them, and Kurogane wondered if this were what it was like to be a bird; although surely even birds couldn't travel this fast. Gradually the rugged slopes gave way to gentler hills, then to wooded plains that seemed vaguely familiar to Kurogane from his patrolling days -- although he couldn't be sure, since he hadn't exactly seen them from this vantage before.
At last they came to the walls, and Fai's guidance slowed to a stop. In this view they were not the familiar, sand-colored stone walls that Kurogane knew; instead, the wall was a glowing patchwork of lights, shot through with harsh bright beams that trailed off into infinity in the sky. Was this how Fai saw the world? Kurogane wondered with a kind of detached amazement.
Fai's presence nudged against his. This is as far as I can go, his voice seemed to say. You have to take us the rest of the way in. Do you know the way, Kurogane?
Of course he did. After a few moments of indecision, Kurogane took the lead, once again flowing over the gray landscape -- although much more slowly -- south along the wall, towards the Red Sunset Gate. It was the one he knew best, although he used others from time to time; and the road from there led straight in to the palace.
The fog seemed to draw closer about them, shrouding in mystery things even a few feet from the road; but Kurogane led the way confidently on, through the mulberry groves and sunken barley fields on either side. Slowly the winding road became straight, and unpaved dirt became cobblestones, and they were at Edo, passing through the guarded gate like a pair of ghosts.
Tomoyo, Fai prompted him, when he hesitated in confusion between the castle and his home. We need to find Tomoyo.
That was easy enough; she was his princess, and he could find her anywhere. He turned away from the nobles' quarters and led the way up the hill to Shirasagi castle. A strange medley of lights and shadows -- not in the places he had expected to find them -- threatened to throw him off the trail, but after several false starts and restarts, he finally found Tomoyo.
His princess was in one of the interior chambers, which was why he'd not been able to find her at first; but once they were close, Fai had been able to take over once more. A blur-featured servant stood behind her, brushing out her hair. Kendappa did not seem to be in the vicinity, and neither did Souma. Sent north to war? Kurogane wondered, too dreamy to be afraid at the thought.
Fai's presence sharpened, until it seemed almost like he was actually standing there, his form picked out in lights and grey shadows. "Tsukuyomi, hear me!" he called out; and his voice, although it seemed to come from a great distance, sounded like a real voice again.
Tomoyo turned in her place, and her violet eyes widened as she took in her unexpected visitor. "You!" she gasped, and her voice too sounded clearly in the shadows of the room. The blurry servant paused, hovering hesitantly, but Tomoyo waved her away. "Who are you? How... how did you come to be here?"
"I apologize for entering your sanctuary without leave, my lady," Fai said, sounding formal, "but the need was urgent. I am Fai Flowright of Ceres, and I came to bring you warning of a great danger in the west."
"Ah..." Tomoyo settled back down, her eyes growing intent. She did not seem to see Kurogane, hovering wordlessly by Fai's side; he wished he knew how to do the same sharpening-trick as Fai had just done. "The wizard of Ceres. I have heard so much about you... So, at last we meet."
Fai bowed, a strange but formal-looking movement with one hand spread over his heart. "I can only regret that it was under such circumstances. I cannot remain thus for long; will you hear my message?"
Tomoyo nodded assent; her face was set in a grave frown. "Speak, my lord. I will at least listen."
"I was sent out by my king Ashura of Ceres some weeks ago, as diplomatic envoy to the dark magician in the West, who commands the legion of demons."
"Aid for Ceres in the war against Nihon?" Tomoyo sounded suspicious, as well she might, Kurogane thought.
Fai just nodded. "King Ashura is desperate, my lady. However good a front he presents to you, he knows he does not have the troops or the resources to secure his advance. He must have allies, or he will lose everything. But the Master of Demons is ally to no one. He captured me..." Fai's voice -- and his image -- wavered, and Kurogane became alert in concern. But Fai pulled himself together in the next moment. "And made clear his intentions; that all kingdoms of men would be his food, particularly those souls who are strong in magic."
"Had you but asked me, I could have saved you the trip," Tomoyo responded tartly. "My visions of the Master are clouded, but I know that he is the enemy of all human life."
Fai shrugged with a sheepish little smile, but then his visage grew serious, intent. "But listen. Your vision of him is obscured, but the reverse is not true. The Master has knowledge of all the doings at your court. He knows about the war with Ceres; he has heard that you have stripped all your southern defenses to fight it. He has launched an armada of demons, to strike quickly while your border is exposed. You must move quickly, or all Nihon will be lost to them; and empowered with all the souls of the Nihon empire, Ceres will quickly fall to him as well."
Black dismay rippled from Tomoyo as she took this in. "This is your message?" she whispered, sounding distraught.
Fai nodded, looking grim. "I barely escaped from him with my life, lady, and could not have done so at all without the aid of your champion. Please, the demon attack has already been launched. You must defend your borders, or all will be lost."
Tomoyo was silent for a moment. Kurogane stirred in alarm. Did she doubt Fai's truthfulness, suspect some ruse? Admittedly, it would sound suspicious for an agent of Ceres to call for Nihon to weaken their offensive forces in the middle of a pitched battle, but there was no time to lose in doubt. She must be made to believe!
"Kurogane is with you?" Tomoyo whispered at last. "He found the demon's lair... and he escaped alive? Is he all right?"
"I'm here, Tomoyo," Kurogane's own voice intruded into the silence. There was a shock of surprise as he spoke, not only on Fai's part but on his own; apparently Fai hadn't expected him to be able to do this. Then again, he hadn't thought he could either. "Listen to him. He speaks the truth."
"The truth is not in doubt, my dear Kurogane," Tomoyo said, and the warmth of her gentle correction struck a sudden pang of homesickness in him. "When speaking mind-to-mind like this, one cannot lie. But if the danger is so near upon us, then there is nothing we can... There is no time to..."
Time, it seemed, cut both ways; the vision of the inner chamber was beginning to waver, pulled away by invisible tugs like the current of a river. He sensed strain in Fai, and accurately judged that he couldn't maintain such an extended connection for long. "Be strong, Tomoyo," he called out, and his own voice sounded fainter.
"Farewell, my lady," Fai's voice said, and his voice too was hushed down to barely more than a whisper. "I regret that we had to meet under such desperate circumstances. I only wish I could help."
"You've done all you can... and I thank you," Tomoyo's voice whispered back, and then she was lost in the mist.
------------
Kurogane blinked back to himself, still sitting seiza in the clover of the mountain meadow, and shuddered; he was freezing cold. A few paces away, Fai was sitting bent-over, his arms clasped tightly around his middle, gasping huge gulps of breath. According to the evidence of the fading light, hours had passed.
"Hey," he said, and had to stop to clear his throat; his voice was rusty. "You okay?"
Fai nodded without speaking, and then uncurled himself to flop on his back into the grass, eyes closed. "Just tired," he murmured, before Kurogane's alarm could get too great. "Haven't done anything like that in a while... took a lot out of me. Just give me... a few minutes... to get my wind back."
"Do you need anything?" Kurogane asked hesitantly. If he'd depleted himself, run down too far on his energy reserves... he would need to eat, wouldn't he. "More blood?"
The idea of Fai biting him again, draining more of his blood, wasn't a particularly pleasant one, but it was no longer as frightening as it had been. Now they knew that Fai could feed from him safely -- not exactly without harm, but without risk of either killing him or destroying his soul -- it was both cruel and unjust to deny him. Especially not when Fai had undertaken what was obviously a very difficult task on Kurogane's behalf, for his country's sake. By all rights Fai ought not to care two bits what happened to Nihon, if anything he ought to take Ashura's part. But he hadn't. He'd done it because Kurogane had asked him.
Fai rolled over and pushed himself up on his hands, staring at Kurogane with an unfathomable expression. His glowing-yellow eye was intense, and Kurogane found himself growing nervous, unable to make sense of the emotions swirling behind it. "What?" he finally asked.
Fai pushed himself to his feet, crossed the distance between them in two strides, took Kurogane's face in his hand, and kissed him. Kurogane was startled; Fai's swift, fierce kisses always had that effect on him. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was like stepping out into a fierce storm and smelling lightning, being hit in the face with a gust of cold wind and rain. Exciting, but frightening at the same time -- and it effectively robbed him of the capability, or the desire, for speech.
Finally Fai lifted his face until he could meet Kurogane's eyes, and his hand stroked over Kurogane's cheek, brushing back a lock of hair over his ears. "It's not like normal hunger," he said quietly to Kurogane. "Even a small amount of blood seems to sustain me for a very long time; I haven't even begun to be hungry again. I don't think I'll need to eat more than once a week, at the most. And you're still weak, and can't afford to lose any more blood now. So no, I don't need to eat again now."
"Oh." That seemed to be the most intelligent thing Kurogane could come up with; after a moment, he asked, "So why did you do that?"
Fai closed his eyes and leaned in close again, until his forehead rested against Kurogane's. "Because I love you," he said softly, and kissed him again, briefly and sweetly. "Because you offered."
------------
They sat quietly for a long time, watching the short day turn into evening and then night; Fai got up once or twice to put more fuel on the fire, but soon returned to snuggle against Kurogane again. During one of these trips, watching Fai move around their small campsite, Kurogane came to a decision that he'd been working up to for some time.
"I want you to teach me about magic."
Fai's response would have been almost insulting if it wasn't so comical. He whipped around to face Kurogane so fast he almost dropped his stack of firewood, and gawked at him like a fish. "You want me to what?"
"You heard me," Kurogane said, glowering.
"You want me to teach you magic?" Fai stared at him, the flickering firelight playing over his stunned expression.
Kurogane wasn't sure whether it was the 'him' part or the 'magic' part that was causing the trouble. "Well, yes!" he said, exasperated. "You told me... The first time you met me, even, you told me you thought I had some ability at magic, didn't you? And since then you never shut up about it!"
"Well -- yes," Fai said, sounding cautious. "But -- you seemed so offended by the idea, I didn't want to... To be frank, Kuro-chan, this was the last thing I ever thought I'd hear you ask!"
Kurogane rolled his eyes. "So I thought that magic was a female thing," he said. "I understand now that I was wrong. It's just... it's one thing to accept the idea that men can can do magic at all... and another thing to admit that I might be..." He trailed off, at a loss.
Fai came over to sit by Kurogane, and put a hand on his shoulder. "So what changed your mind?" he asked quietly.
Kurogane shook his head helplessly. "If if were just you, it would be one thing. But Seishirou..." He hesitated, then plunged on. "He gloated over how much I didn't know. Told me that anyone with my amount of power should have been able to see through his lies, fight off his -- his --" He was floundering now, keenly feeling the lack of terminology, of the proper concepts to express his frustration and distress.
"It's not as easy as he made it sound," Fai offered, stroking his hand down Kurogane's arm in a soothing manner. "He was powerful, and skilled in his own twisted way -- and he used a perverted kind of magic that even a skilled wizard would have trouble resisting. You have nothing to acquit yourself of, in tangling with him."
Kurogane shrugged irritably; immediately Fai pulled his hand back, and Kurogane regretted the movement. "It's not just that," he said, letting a hint of apology into his tone. "Seishirou -- and Ashura -- they both told me I had magical power, but that I didn't know how to use it. And I've always been taught that a weapon you don't know how to use is a weapon in the hands of your enemy. It was hard for me to accept that I have it, but now that I have... I'd damn well better learn how to use it."
After a moment, Fai leaned against Kurogane's side; this time, he did not shrug him off, but instead leaned back into the touch. "I'm not sure how much you really need me to teach you," he said. "Every culture expresses magic a little bit differently. Within your own discipline, you already know how to use magic perfectly well. There's nothing I can teach you there that you don't already know."
"But there's more, isn't there?" Kurogane insisted. "There's so much I realize I don't know -- not the way that we do... magic, but the things that you seem to know that I don't. Half the time you do something I don't even know what you're doing; I don't know what you're even capable of! All those rules, all that background knowledge, that you throw around so easily... I don't even know how to talk about what I need to know," he finished in frustration.
Fai moved to speak, but Kurogane wasn't quite finished; he laid one finger across Fai's lips, silencing him. He looked straight into Fai's eye. "When we were trapped in that dungeon," he said quietly, "I didn't know what was wrong with you. I didn't know how to help you. It was sheer dumb luck that we stumbled onto a solution that got us both out of there alive. Even if it's knowledge that I hopefully won't ever need to use, I need to know. I don't ever want to be that helpless in the face of your suffering again."
He moved his finger away, but it seemed he'd achieved an unlikely event; Fai was speechless. After a long moment, Fai slipped his arm around Kurogane's back, leaned his head against his shoulder. "All right," he agreed at last. "There's a lot to learn, more than anyone can learn in one single lifetime, but I'll try to teach you what you want to know."
He grinned suddenly. "If I could become an apprentice demon-hunter, I guess it's not so strange for Kuro-pon to become an apprentice wizard! Stranger things have happened!"
"I guess," Kurogane agreed. "One big difference, though."
"What?"
"You were a terrible student," Kurogane said, voice sharpened by remembered frustration and annoyance. "Even as a cover to get close to me and an excuse to spend time with me, you could have at least tried to take my lessons seriously."
Fai pouted, fake exaggerated hurt for effect. "Maybe Kuro-teacher is just a terrible instructor," he said.
"I am not. I have other students, you know, and they turn out just fine." Kurogane frowned, reminded of Syaoran for the first time in days. He hoped the boy was all right; that the fighting had died down between Nihon and Ceres soon enough that he hadn't gotten hurt in the clash; hoped that his almost fanatical hatred of Ceres hadn't led him to do anything stupid after the armistice. Hoped that Syaoran had remembered all he taught him. "Mostly," he sighed.
"So when do you want to start?" Fai asked him, after another long stretch staring at the fire.
"First thing tomorrow morning," Kurogane said decisively. "It'll be a good way to pass the time while I'm getting my strength back up. Because as soon as I can ride again, we're going south."
"South?" Fai's eyes reflected startled dismay. "Why... south? Wouldn't you want to go east -- back to your own country?"
Behind the facade of calm, he was agitated; Kurogane could tell that he knew exactly what Kurogane had meant, but didn't want to admit it. "South," he said firmly. "We have a demon-master to kill."
~to be continued...
Author's notes: You may have noticed that the season has rather suddenly become spring. That's my bad, really -- I've been attempting to keep track of a coherent timeline (and distance scale) for this series, but parts of it are a bit fuzzy. Going by my original schedule, this story should have started in the fall -- late september to early october -- and should just now be getting into mid-january, still solidly midwinter.
But, after thinking it over I realized it makes a lot more sense for this to be more like late winter or early spring. Very few people, even Ashura and his wizards, will wage war in the middle of winter; and the coming of spring makes more sense thematically with the birth of Kuro and Fai's romance and the end of the war. (Also, I started writing this in November, so fall and winter imagery was easy to come by -- but it's summer now! I have to think really hard to remember what winter was like!)
At some point I will go back and edit the timeline so that it becomes congruent with the new time frame, mostly by adding more weeks to the dead time spent in Ceres before Kurogane left and Nihon before Ceres attacked. But for the time being... it's early March in this chapter.
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R overall, PG-13 in this chapter
Warning: Explicit description of Fai's eye injury, but nothing gets any worse than it was.
Summary: In which Kurogane and Fai get some facts straight between them, and Kurogane gets a quick education in the uses of magic.
Bonus: The wonderful konnichipuu has drawn an illustration for this chapter! If you have a DeviantArt account, please go let her know what you think!
Author's notes: This chapter is short, I know -- I'm about halfway through the last section of the fic (the last one will be the confrontation with Seishirou.) But it turned out to be too long to fit into one chapter, so it'll be broken into two, instead.
Part 1 - Chapter I - Chapter II - Chapter III - Chapter IV - Chapter V
Part 2 - Chapter VI - Chapter VII - Chapter VIII - Chapter IX - Chapter X
Part 3 - Chapter XI - Chapter XII - Side Story: The Prince of Valeria - Chapter XIII - Chapter XIV
Part 4 - Chapter XV - Chapter XVI - Chapter XVII - Chapter XVIII - Chapter XIX - Chapter XX
Kurogane drifted towards consciousness out of a dreamstate that was nervous and scattered. Lacking any coherent narrative, they were mostly fragmented collections of images and feelings; and, he suspected, not entirely his own. He groaned; he hurt all over.
"You're awake," a familiar voice said from nearby. A slender hand descended on his shoulder. "Don't try to move yet."
His eyes popped open, revealing a world filled with blurry blobs of color. A lingering sense of panic prompted Kurogane to ignore the advice, rolling over on the -- ground? -- and pushing himself to a sitting position. Almost as soon as he raised his head, a dark dizziness boiled up in his vision, and he collapsed again. His heart was pounding as though he'd just run a marathon, worsening the panicked feeling. The same slender hands from before caught him before he could hit the ground, and eased him back into a lying position.
"Told you so," the voice said.
He opened his eyes again and concentrated on bringing the world into focus. Both the voice and the hands belonged to Fai, who was kneeling beside him, bending down towards him with a worried expression. Above him the sky was filled with light, real light, not the eldritch magical glow of the cellar; they were outdoors. Somewhere nearby, he heard the crackle of a fire and smelled woodsmoke.
"Where are we?" he said; it came out as a croak. His throat hurt, which he supposed shouldn't have come as a surprise, and he was thirsty as hell.
Fai smiled down at him, but Kurogane could clearly read the tension behind that smile. "I'm not exactly sure. It's hard to control the remote locus of a portal when you're in the middle of casting the local one; I couldn't exactly choose my destination. But judging by the position of the sun and the mountains, I'd estimate we're somewhere in the mountains, approximately twenty-five miles southwest of the Ceres-Nihon border."
Kurogane was far too tired to translate that into ri in his head, but Fai wasn't done yet. "And about three times that due north of the valley of demons."
"Demons!" Remembering that particular hazard -- they were still out in the wilderness, you could never let your guard down -- his hands clenched, futilely seeking a sword hilt, and he squirmed, trying to get back up and get on guard.
But Fai's hands on his shoulders pressed down harder, keeping him flat. "Don't worry. I can take care of anything that shows up," Fai told him. "You should lie still. You... lost a lot of blood. I -- it almost killed you."
There was a catch in his voice, and Kurogane heard the guilt and sorrow behind it all too clearly. "Stop that," he murmured, not feeling up to dancing around the issue and choosing instead to get right to the point. "Stop feeling guilty. Remember, I volunteered. And it worked, didn't it? We're both alive -- and safe."
The dark emotions lightened, at least a little. Fai's tense smile became a little more real. "Yes," he said. "Thank you."
Fai moved away, then came back a moment later with a blurry object in hand. "Here," he said. "You should drink. You need to get some fluids back in you."
"I can do it myself," Kurogane groused, but when he reached up, his hand shook wildly and he could not support any weight in it; the cup nearly fell out of his hand when he tried. Giving up, he let Fai help him; one hand holding the cup, the other behind Kurogane's head to help support him. To his surprise, it was hot tea, not cold water; and where'd he gotten hold of that tin cup, anyway?
Fai took the empty cup away and eased Kurogane back down, which was annoying, since he wanted to get a good look at their surroundings and all he could see from here was sky. "When you feel up to it, you should eat," Fai was saying. "I've got some stew going. You need to eat to get your strength back."
"Ugh." The thought of eating now made him faintly queasy, although he thought hunger was buried in there somewhere, as well. Lying back, Kurogane tried to assess his condition. He'd known blood-loss before, but never this severe. Every inch of his body hurt like he'd been beaten by sticks; he felt too weak to move; and he was freezing cold. Although, perhaps, not as cold as he ought to be, lying on open ground in late winter... Kurogane frowned, moving his hands across the surface beneath him. He was lying on a blanket? And another one was covering him.
"Where the hell did you get these supplies?" he asked suspiciously, turning his head to look at Fai. "Magic?"
Fai's aura brightened still further. "Ah! You won't believe this," he said happily. He turned his head and, without moving from Kurogane's side, put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
From somewhere off to their left, a horse neighed, and Kurogane started as he recognized the sound. "You're kidding me," he said.
"Nope." Fai said, and grinned as he took his hand away from his mouth. "We left all our stuff with the horses when we climbed the pass to Ceres, but Bella still remembered. She answered my summons not long after we arrived here, and she still knew where we'd left the cache, and guided me back to it. Your horse is here too, but he's not as sociable, big lump that he is."
Kurogane fell back against the blanket, feeling faintly stunned and more than a little sense of deja vu.. Apart from the debilitating weakness, he could almost imagine that no time had passed, that this was a normal morning that they'd camped together on patrol in the wilderness south of Nihon, without another care in the world... no wars, no kings, no terrifying demon-sorcerers...
While he was still pondering that, the fatigue crept up on him unawares, and he slept. The last thing he was aware of was Fai's hand, gently stroking across his forehead and smoothing his hair.
------------
The next time he woke up, he felt much better; at least, his body still felt like shit, but his mind was almost clear. And he could, with effort, sit up without the movement causing him to black out, so that was a great improvement.
He must have slept all night, because it was early morning now, with sunlight illuminating the cloud-streaked sky but not yet touching the hill-shadowed ground below. There was still plenty of light to see by, though, and he shivered in the cold morning air as he pushed away the blanket.
Their makeshift camp was in the middle of a round mountain meadow, a gentle dip in the terrain -- perhaps at some point in its history it had been a pond that had since drained dry. The banks on all side were grown thick and high with brambles, the leaves showing the distinct serrated-triangle shape of blackberries. He could see no natural break in the hedge, nor could he see over the top of it; from the outside, it would be almost impossible to either see or get in here. The ground was covered with short grass, filled with tiny ivory flowers; the first growth of spring, pushing forth a tentative effort against the cold.
He could smell and hear running water nearby; some painful twisting located a small freshet springing up from the lowest part of the dell. Two horses were picketed there, his own familiar black gelding and Fai's grey mare. A pile of camping gear was heaped nearby them, and various objects scattered haphazardly around the grass. How the hell the wizard had gotten there and back again in such a short time, to say nothing of getting the horses in here through the briar hedge, Kurogane had no idea and wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Speaking of Fai -- his head turned like a needle pointing north to locate him, on the other side of the fire about a dozen paces away. Fai looked up when he felt Kurogane's gaze, and gave him a tentative smile.
Kurogane watched him narrowly, trying to assess his condition. Actually, he looked surprisingly healthy; he looked better than Kurogane felt, in fact. He was still thin and bony, obviously having lost all the weight he'd accomplished while traveling with Kurogane, but much changed from the pitiful near-skeleton he'd been in the dungeon. He was clean, dressed in his own clothes, (presumably from the same unexpected cache that had produced the blankets and cooking gear,) and standing and moving with ease. Only his eyes -- one still demon-yellow, the other hidden completely behind a carefully-brushed lock of hair -- gave any hint to what he'd been through in the last few weeks.
His scrutiny was broken when Fai came around the fire towards him, holding a steaming bowl and ladle in his hands. Kurogane's stomach growled hungrily at the smell of that steam, and he was reminded that he at least hadn't eaten in at least three days.
"Think you can eat something?" Fai said, coming to sit beside him.
"As long as you don't insist on spoon-feeding me, yes." He reached out to take the bowl, but once again his hands began to shake uncontrollably as soon as they took the weight; hastily, he supported it on his lap, and glared as he defended it from Fai's attempt to reclaim it. "I'm not an infant." To prove his point, he held the bowl firmly in his lap and ate one-handed; he had enough strength to manage that. Gods, he'd forgotten how good Fai's cooking was.
Fai looked embarrassed, and shrugged a little. "Sorry," he said. He fidgeted a little, and Kurogane got the impression that he was vastly uncomfortable sitting here and watching Kurogane eat, when he could not. His strange and incredible view into the other man's mind was gone -- he was unquestionably back in himself -- but a trace of the link seemed to remain, enough that Kurogane could tell his true emotions almost as intuitively as his own. "I'll go check on the horses, shall I?" Fai said, and started to get up.
Kurogane's free hand shot out, and grabbed his wrist. Although his grip was as weak as a kitten's, it was enough to stop him. "Stay," he said, and he made the command soft.
Fai sat back down.
Kurogane set aside the bowl and spoon, and looked Fai squarely in the eye. "How are you feeling?" he asked straightforwardly.
Fai flashed him a bright smile. "Much better than I was expecting to feel today, that's for sure!" he said, although Kurogane heard a touch of evasiveness in it.
"You look a hell of a lot better than you did back in the dungeon. How long have I been out?" Watching Fai, he inhaled deeply, testing the air. It was strange; Fai's scent had definitely changed, but he could only barely detect the smell that he usually associated with demons. The foul reek that nearly overcome him in the dungeon was gone; only a faint lingering trace of it remained, not so much a bad smell as a strange, distinctive one, like the tang of a rare metal in the air. Obviously, a chance to clean himself of the aftereffects of his imprisonment had done him a world of good; but how much damage was left?
"Only yesterday and last night." His smile faded, and he looked away. "It seems there are some benefits to... to my new state. As soon as I provided my body with the proper fuel, it was able to heal itself of most of my other injuries."
Other injuries? That particular choice of phrasing sent a pang of alarm through Kurogane. He looked closer. Fai was still trying to hide the left side of his face from Kurogane, turning his head away and ducking so that his hair fell over his cheek. "But not that one?" he asked softly, already knowing the answer.
Fai bit his lip, and looked down. "It seems that injuries sustained from before I became a demon don't heal," he said in a quieter voice.
Kurogane reached to brush aside the curtain of hair. Fai leaned back and away, out of reach of Kurogane's hand. "Don't," he said uneasily. "It's -- there's nothing there to see, Kuro-sama."
"Let me see," Kurogane said, letting a note of iron command leak into his voice. He had no intention of letting Fai neglect a serious injury.
It seemed that even now, Fai couldn't resist Kurogane. After a moment, his shoulders sagged, and his head dropped forward. Kurogane completed his movement, brushing the concealing fall of hair carefully back and smoothing it over his temple, bringing his hand down to cup Fai's cheek and turn his face towards the light.
Fai had made an obvious effort to scrub himself as clean as he could, with cold water and no soap, but his efforts had not extended here. Perhaps the injury had still been too raw and painful for him to be able to clean it properly by himself. It seemed that some healing had taken place nonetheless, since no new blood seeped from the wound; it looked like it had been closed for a week, although still a raw and ugly red crusted with black scabs. A series of now-sealed scalpel cuts sliced the flesh around -- and in -- the eye, seeming almost to form some kind of symbol or sigil; Kurogane wondered what sick purpose or whim had driven that knife. Dried blood mixed with salt tears formed streaks around the orbit of the eye. He could feel Fai's sick shame as though it were his own, at the ugliness of the mutilation, the eyelid torn to useless shreds and doing nothing to conceal the gaping hollow.
Kurogane's breath hissed in unexpected sympathy as he saw the extent of the damage, and the soup he had gotten down threatened to curdle his stomach. "I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling the sickness spread to his heart. He'd wasted weeks, idling around uselessly in Nihon, while Fai was being tortured. "If I had only gotten there sooner... maybe..."
Quick as a flash, Fai's hand darted out and caught at Kurogane's wrist; Kurogane was startled once more by the iron, inhuman strength of his grasp. "Don't apologize for this," Fai said, and anger and some stranger, more complex emotions made his voice vibrate dangerously. "Not to me. Not you. Not ever."
Kurogane was speechless. He could feel the raging tempest of Fai's emotions, but he couldn't fathom what drove them. Fai took a deep breath, perhaps sensing his own bafflement in turn, and closed his eye, pulling Kurogane's hand back up to press against his clean, unscarred right cheek. "You saved me," he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. "When I was lost in the dark you came and brought the light back to me. You gave me everything. So don't you ever apologize to me for things that were never your fault."
Kurogane swallowed painfully, and nodded silent acceptance. He wouldn't push Fai, not now, not when the memory of pain was still so fresh and raw. Instead, he changed the subject.
"So I'm 'Kuro-sama' again now, am I?" he said. It gave him a little shock, to realize how much he had missed those stupid nicknames. "Whatever happened to 'my lord Suwa?' "
Fai blinked, and looked up at him again; he lowered their caught hands together to his lap, but didn't let go. He smiled again, and this time it had a tinge of apologetic embarrassment. "I never knew you hated being called by your name so much, that you liked the nicknames better," he said. "You never said."
He'd never admitted that to Fai. How the hell had he -- oh. Kurogane had been inside Fai's mind, close enough that their souls had touched; he'd seen Fai's truest thoughts and feelings in there. It only made sense that Fai would have seen something of himself in return.
Which meant -- oh. Oh, crap.
Swallowing against panic, Kurogane tried to remain nonchalant. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "I hate those damn nicknames, too. It -- it's just that you started calling me by my name on the same night you tried to -- " He broke off, feeling the stiffening unhappiness in Fai's shoulders. He looked away. "The night you stopped being my friend," he said instead.
"I never stopped wanting to be your friend, Kuro-sama," Fai said softly, but there was a ache and a yearning in his voice that Kurogane could not ignore. He remembered what he'd seen inside Fai's mind; he knew the truth about Fai's feelings from him. They ran much deeper than friendship, even the close warrior bonds of companionship.
And if the reverse held true as well... then Fai knew what Kurogane had been trying to hide from him, from himself, from everyone. But he respected Kurogane's privacy, his reserve. He would never bring it up if Kurogane didn't first. But he would always be wondering, waiting, hoping...
It was cruel to pretend any longer. What was he hoping to save? His pride? To hell with that; like he had any left these days anyway. He took a breath and reached to take Fai's hand again, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight. Fai looked up, eyes widening, breath catching with hope. "Kuro-chan?" he said faintly.
"You've always been someone I consider a friend," Kurogane said firmly. "And... and not just a friend. Something more than that. You've become someone very special to me, and..." He stuttered awkwardly, groping for the words. Damn, they should have sent a poet. "And I've fallen in love with you."
There. He said it. Even in his confidence, Kurogane felt his heart speeding up and his breath seize; how much more painful could the uncertainty have been for Fai, who had no such surety? Every nerve on edge, Kurogane waited for a response.
After a moment of stunned and gawking silence, it came in a thoroughly unexpected format. Fai began to laugh; first as a low chuckle, then escalating to loud, full-throated gales of laughter, doubling him over with lack of breath.
At first, Kurogane didn't mind all that much; at least, it was a relief to hear real happiness in Fai's laughter again, not the frightening hysterical cackling that had heralded madness when they'd been trapped together. But after several moments when Fai showed no signs of stopping, Kurogane felt pride begin to make a reappearance. "Oi," he said, annoyance edging his voice. "You know, this is not the sort of response that a man who just made a declaration of love wants to hear."
"S-sorry," Fai gasped, raising his left hand to awkwardly swipe at the right side of his face, wiping away tears of laughter from his flushed cheek. "It's just -- so -- funny! Don't you see?!"
"No, I don't see!" Kurogane snapped, beginning to feel genuinely stung. "I was serious, mage, so I don't appreciate you treating it like a joke!"
"No, no -- it's not you, it's --" Fai took a deep breath, visibly getting hold of himself, although now and then a giggle escaped his control, hiccuping his speech. "Seishirou -- he kept telling me, you see -- what a great joke it was -- that I was in love with someone I was going to have to kill! He -- he kept telling me how f-funny -- that I'd fallen in love with a demon-hunter -- someone who would despise me for, for, for what I'd become!"
Kurogane stilled, his anger and hurt pride draining away. "That's... not actually funny at all," he said numbly. Just the thought of it made him feel ill.
"Yes, but don't you see? That's why it's funny! Because he was wrong!" Fai's voice rang out like a clarion trumpet in the still, cool air of the mountain meadow, bubbling over with joy. He threw back his head, and laughed to the sky. "Wrong!"
Kurogane couldn't help but feel moved, although he still wished Fai would quit laughing. He pulled Fai's hand insistently, trying to get him to shut up. "Of course he was wrong," he growled. "Everything that bastard said was wrong. Everything he was was wrong. Everything he said to you, just retroactively assume it was wr --"
He was cut off mid-sentence when Fai abruptly leaned forward, his free hand circling around the back of Kurogane's head to tangle in his hair, and kissed him.
Kurogane's primary emotion was alarm; first at Fai's sudden movement, which melted quickly as the warmth of that kiss registered with him; second as Fai's lips parted under his and his tongue ran questingly along his lips, seeking entrance; third as he tried tentatively to return the favor, and encountered Fai's fangs; and at last when the extended length of the kiss threatened to black him out again for lack of air.
He lay back against the blankets, shaking and wheezing like a much older man; and Fai lay back with him, curling his too-thin body around Kurogane's. This time, his was the warmer body, and Kurogane pulled him close, grateful for the heat.
------------
By mid-afternoon, however, the sense of urgency was growing too frantic to deny, and Kurogane was fretful and impatient. Twice he tried to push himself to stand and do warm-up exercises; the second time Fai didn't even bother to force him to sit down, simply waiting until he collapsed and catching him before he hit the ground.
"I have to go," Kurogane said fretfully, calculating the distance to his horse. All he needed to do was get to the saddle, and then the horse would be doing the work, right? "I have to ride. It might already be too late!"
"Where do you think you can ride to?" Fai said, exasperated. He wrapped his hands around Kurogane's upper arms, holding him still. "You won't get half a mile before you fall off the horse, and probably break your neck."
"I need to get back home!" Kurogane knew Fai was right, that he was in no condition to ride, but damn it, he didn't have a choice. Demons took time to travel overland just as people did, but they could move as fast as a man ahorse; the first one would be arriving at the outermost walls anytime now. "Seishirou knows that the defenses are down -- he's going to send all his oni to attack us while we're weak. By the time anyone sees them coming, it'll be too late to defend!"
Fai sat rather heavily next to Kurogane, not letting go of his arm. He didn't have to be told what the results of that would be; he'd seen the ruins of Suwa. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle and apologetic. "Even if you could ride, it'll take you days on horseback to get back to Nihon. It will be too late then, too."
"I have to warn Tomoyo somehow!" Feverishly, Kurogane cast about for some alternatives. If only he'd had someone to send to ride courier, or a homing pigeon. He didn't have those. But he had Fai. Fai was a wizard, and released now from the dampening effects of the geas. He twisted to look up into Fai's face. "Can't you get me there sooner, with one of those portal-spells?" he asked, an unaccustomed note of pleading in his voice.
Slowly, regretfully, Fai shook his head. "I don't have enough control over it," he said lowly. "I wasn't able to decide where the portal would take us -- i just figured that anywhere away from there would be better. But maybe I can..." He stopped mid-sentence.
Kurogane pounced on that hesitation. "You can do something?"
Fai was frowning, looking abstracted. "Maybe I can send a message. Normally I wouldn't be able to, but..." He looked back up at Kurogane. "This Tomoyo, the Tsukuyomi -- she's a powerful mage, isn't she?"
Hope began to flare in Kurogane's heart. "I don't -- I don't know how to answer that question." He recalled what else Fai had said about mages -- yes, and he recalled that Fai was one, as well. "She can talk to people in their minds, without using her voice. Is that what you mean?"
"To be heard by non-mages, she'd have to be," Fai answered. He was back to frowning, and he absently tugged at a stray lock of hair, pulling it back from his face. "I can try to reach her, mind to mind. It will take an enormous effort, and Nihon has its own ways of discouraging unwanted presences..."
"But you'll do it?" Kurogane said insistantly.
Fai gave him a strained, weary smile. "I can't exactly say no, can I?" he said quietly. "I owe you too much... after Seishirou's dungeon. I'll do whatever you ask of me."
There was a strange pang that came with those words, a feeling like grief and a long weariness. Yes, for the rest of my life, whatever you ask. "No!" Kurogane was distracted -- briefly -- from his fervent concern over Tomoyo in order to address this. He grabbed Fai's arm, pulling him around to face his startled expression square on. "That's not how this is going to work. What I did back in the dungeon, I offered of my own free will, with no expectation of return -- with no thought of you owing me anything. It was the only way I could think of to get out of there, that's all it was!"
"But --" Fai looked confused, distressed. "You saved me. I owe you -- what you did, I can't ever repay --"
"I didn't do it to put you in some kind of debt to me, dammit!" Kurogane said, frustrated by his inability to communicate even this simple concept to Fai. "Yes, I saved you. I preferred that at least one of us would escape alive than that we both would die down there. But that was my choice to do that, of my own free will. I volunteered; you didn't force or trick me into it in any way. You aren't responsible for what I choose to do!"
Fai's expression was changing from confused to faintly stunned, and Kurogane began to hope that he was making an impression. Even if the thought of someone wanting to help him for his own sake, with no obligation or return favors, seemed to be so alien to Fai. He released Fai's arm, and continued more quietly, "And I hope that you'll help me now, because I am asking -- I am begging -- for that help. But I want you to do it because it's something you choose to do, not because you feel like you have to do it, because I have some sort of hold over you. I don't want to have that hold over you."
Fai took a deep breath, wrapped his arms around himself. "All right," he said quietly. "I'll try it. But it won't be easy -- it's a long way, and the magic-users of Nihon have their own ways of keeping out unfriendly presences. Just getting past the magical interference posed by the wards will be difficult enough... I'll need your help."
"Anything," Kurogane said immediately, throwing himself into the project whole-heartedly. "What do you need?"
"Mostly what I need from you is guidance. I need you to come with me, but you don't... Do you know anything about astral projection?"
Kurogane shook his head. Fai looked daunted. "Trance states? Meditation?" he tried.
"Of course," Kurogane said, feeling slightly insulted by the question. Meditation was a fundamental element of the discipline of bushido, and he'd learned it along with all his other skills when he'd still been a boy.
Fai looked relieved. "Oh, good," he said. "We won't be starting totally from scratch."
------------
Under Fai's direction, Kurogane slipped into the light trance-like meditation state he'd been taught by his father. It wasn't easy to clear his mind -- worry and fear and urgency and a fiery new curiosity about what Fai proposed all competed for attention in his consciousness. But that was the whole point of meditation, to be able to clear your mind of intrusive thoughts and focus on the purity of steel and movement. His breathing slowed, deepened, and he began to feel light-headed from more than just blood loss.
The chilly meadow around him faded, rendering in fog and shades of gray -- but of Fai, kneeling in front of him, he became more aware than ever. There was a channel between them, he became aware, like a subtle path of least resistance that linked the two of them. Fai reached out through that channel with hands that shimmered like starlight, and pulled him in.
Come on, Fai whispered; all bemused, Kurogane went.
Everything took on a surreal, dream-like quality; the sky and horizon seemed blurred into an indistinguishable fog, shot with strange glowing lights. The grey-colored landscape flowed beneath them, and Kurogane wondered if this were what it was like to be a bird; although surely even birds couldn't travel this fast. Gradually the rugged slopes gave way to gentler hills, then to wooded plains that seemed vaguely familiar to Kurogane from his patrolling days -- although he couldn't be sure, since he hadn't exactly seen them from this vantage before.
At last they came to the walls, and Fai's guidance slowed to a stop. In this view they were not the familiar, sand-colored stone walls that Kurogane knew; instead, the wall was a glowing patchwork of lights, shot through with harsh bright beams that trailed off into infinity in the sky. Was this how Fai saw the world? Kurogane wondered with a kind of detached amazement.
Fai's presence nudged against his. This is as far as I can go, his voice seemed to say. You have to take us the rest of the way in. Do you know the way, Kurogane?
Of course he did. After a few moments of indecision, Kurogane took the lead, once again flowing over the gray landscape -- although much more slowly -- south along the wall, towards the Red Sunset Gate. It was the one he knew best, although he used others from time to time; and the road from there led straight in to the palace.
The fog seemed to draw closer about them, shrouding in mystery things even a few feet from the road; but Kurogane led the way confidently on, through the mulberry groves and sunken barley fields on either side. Slowly the winding road became straight, and unpaved dirt became cobblestones, and they were at Edo, passing through the guarded gate like a pair of ghosts.
Tomoyo, Fai prompted him, when he hesitated in confusion between the castle and his home. We need to find Tomoyo.
That was easy enough; she was his princess, and he could find her anywhere. He turned away from the nobles' quarters and led the way up the hill to Shirasagi castle. A strange medley of lights and shadows -- not in the places he had expected to find them -- threatened to throw him off the trail, but after several false starts and restarts, he finally found Tomoyo.
His princess was in one of the interior chambers, which was why he'd not been able to find her at first; but once they were close, Fai had been able to take over once more. A blur-featured servant stood behind her, brushing out her hair. Kendappa did not seem to be in the vicinity, and neither did Souma. Sent north to war? Kurogane wondered, too dreamy to be afraid at the thought.
Fai's presence sharpened, until it seemed almost like he was actually standing there, his form picked out in lights and grey shadows. "Tsukuyomi, hear me!" he called out; and his voice, although it seemed to come from a great distance, sounded like a real voice again.
Tomoyo turned in her place, and her violet eyes widened as she took in her unexpected visitor. "You!" she gasped, and her voice too sounded clearly in the shadows of the room. The blurry servant paused, hovering hesitantly, but Tomoyo waved her away. "Who are you? How... how did you come to be here?"
"I apologize for entering your sanctuary without leave, my lady," Fai said, sounding formal, "but the need was urgent. I am Fai Flowright of Ceres, and I came to bring you warning of a great danger in the west."
"Ah..." Tomoyo settled back down, her eyes growing intent. She did not seem to see Kurogane, hovering wordlessly by Fai's side; he wished he knew how to do the same sharpening-trick as Fai had just done. "The wizard of Ceres. I have heard so much about you... So, at last we meet."
Fai bowed, a strange but formal-looking movement with one hand spread over his heart. "I can only regret that it was under such circumstances. I cannot remain thus for long; will you hear my message?"
Tomoyo nodded assent; her face was set in a grave frown. "Speak, my lord. I will at least listen."
"I was sent out by my king Ashura of Ceres some weeks ago, as diplomatic envoy to the dark magician in the West, who commands the legion of demons."
"Aid for Ceres in the war against Nihon?" Tomoyo sounded suspicious, as well she might, Kurogane thought.
Fai just nodded. "King Ashura is desperate, my lady. However good a front he presents to you, he knows he does not have the troops or the resources to secure his advance. He must have allies, or he will lose everything. But the Master of Demons is ally to no one. He captured me..." Fai's voice -- and his image -- wavered, and Kurogane became alert in concern. But Fai pulled himself together in the next moment. "And made clear his intentions; that all kingdoms of men would be his food, particularly those souls who are strong in magic."
"Had you but asked me, I could have saved you the trip," Tomoyo responded tartly. "My visions of the Master are clouded, but I know that he is the enemy of all human life."
Fai shrugged with a sheepish little smile, but then his visage grew serious, intent. "But listen. Your vision of him is obscured, but the reverse is not true. The Master has knowledge of all the doings at your court. He knows about the war with Ceres; he has heard that you have stripped all your southern defenses to fight it. He has launched an armada of demons, to strike quickly while your border is exposed. You must move quickly, or all Nihon will be lost to them; and empowered with all the souls of the Nihon empire, Ceres will quickly fall to him as well."
Black dismay rippled from Tomoyo as she took this in. "This is your message?" she whispered, sounding distraught.
Fai nodded, looking grim. "I barely escaped from him with my life, lady, and could not have done so at all without the aid of your champion. Please, the demon attack has already been launched. You must defend your borders, or all will be lost."
Tomoyo was silent for a moment. Kurogane stirred in alarm. Did she doubt Fai's truthfulness, suspect some ruse? Admittedly, it would sound suspicious for an agent of Ceres to call for Nihon to weaken their offensive forces in the middle of a pitched battle, but there was no time to lose in doubt. She must be made to believe!
"Kurogane is with you?" Tomoyo whispered at last. "He found the demon's lair... and he escaped alive? Is he all right?"
"I'm here, Tomoyo," Kurogane's own voice intruded into the silence. There was a shock of surprise as he spoke, not only on Fai's part but on his own; apparently Fai hadn't expected him to be able to do this. Then again, he hadn't thought he could either. "Listen to him. He speaks the truth."
"The truth is not in doubt, my dear Kurogane," Tomoyo said, and the warmth of her gentle correction struck a sudden pang of homesickness in him. "When speaking mind-to-mind like this, one cannot lie. But if the danger is so near upon us, then there is nothing we can... There is no time to..."
Time, it seemed, cut both ways; the vision of the inner chamber was beginning to waver, pulled away by invisible tugs like the current of a river. He sensed strain in Fai, and accurately judged that he couldn't maintain such an extended connection for long. "Be strong, Tomoyo," he called out, and his own voice sounded fainter.
"Farewell, my lady," Fai's voice said, and his voice too was hushed down to barely more than a whisper. "I regret that we had to meet under such desperate circumstances. I only wish I could help."
"You've done all you can... and I thank you," Tomoyo's voice whispered back, and then she was lost in the mist.
------------
Kurogane blinked back to himself, still sitting seiza in the clover of the mountain meadow, and shuddered; he was freezing cold. A few paces away, Fai was sitting bent-over, his arms clasped tightly around his middle, gasping huge gulps of breath. According to the evidence of the fading light, hours had passed.
"Hey," he said, and had to stop to clear his throat; his voice was rusty. "You okay?"
Fai nodded without speaking, and then uncurled himself to flop on his back into the grass, eyes closed. "Just tired," he murmured, before Kurogane's alarm could get too great. "Haven't done anything like that in a while... took a lot out of me. Just give me... a few minutes... to get my wind back."
"Do you need anything?" Kurogane asked hesitantly. If he'd depleted himself, run down too far on his energy reserves... he would need to eat, wouldn't he. "More blood?"
The idea of Fai biting him again, draining more of his blood, wasn't a particularly pleasant one, but it was no longer as frightening as it had been. Now they knew that Fai could feed from him safely -- not exactly without harm, but without risk of either killing him or destroying his soul -- it was both cruel and unjust to deny him. Especially not when Fai had undertaken what was obviously a very difficult task on Kurogane's behalf, for his country's sake. By all rights Fai ought not to care two bits what happened to Nihon, if anything he ought to take Ashura's part. But he hadn't. He'd done it because Kurogane had asked him.
Fai rolled over and pushed himself up on his hands, staring at Kurogane with an unfathomable expression. His glowing-yellow eye was intense, and Kurogane found himself growing nervous, unable to make sense of the emotions swirling behind it. "What?" he finally asked.
Fai pushed himself to his feet, crossed the distance between them in two strides, took Kurogane's face in his hand, and kissed him. Kurogane was startled; Fai's swift, fierce kisses always had that effect on him. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was like stepping out into a fierce storm and smelling lightning, being hit in the face with a gust of cold wind and rain. Exciting, but frightening at the same time -- and it effectively robbed him of the capability, or the desire, for speech.
Finally Fai lifted his face until he could meet Kurogane's eyes, and his hand stroked over Kurogane's cheek, brushing back a lock of hair over his ears. "It's not like normal hunger," he said quietly to Kurogane. "Even a small amount of blood seems to sustain me for a very long time; I haven't even begun to be hungry again. I don't think I'll need to eat more than once a week, at the most. And you're still weak, and can't afford to lose any more blood now. So no, I don't need to eat again now."
"Oh." That seemed to be the most intelligent thing Kurogane could come up with; after a moment, he asked, "So why did you do that?"
Fai closed his eyes and leaned in close again, until his forehead rested against Kurogane's. "Because I love you," he said softly, and kissed him again, briefly and sweetly. "Because you offered."
------------
They sat quietly for a long time, watching the short day turn into evening and then night; Fai got up once or twice to put more fuel on the fire, but soon returned to snuggle against Kurogane again. During one of these trips, watching Fai move around their small campsite, Kurogane came to a decision that he'd been working up to for some time.
"I want you to teach me about magic."
Fai's response would have been almost insulting if it wasn't so comical. He whipped around to face Kurogane so fast he almost dropped his stack of firewood, and gawked at him like a fish. "You want me to what?"
"You heard me," Kurogane said, glowering.
"You want me to teach you magic?" Fai stared at him, the flickering firelight playing over his stunned expression.
Kurogane wasn't sure whether it was the 'him' part or the 'magic' part that was causing the trouble. "Well, yes!" he said, exasperated. "You told me... The first time you met me, even, you told me you thought I had some ability at magic, didn't you? And since then you never shut up about it!"
"Well -- yes," Fai said, sounding cautious. "But -- you seemed so offended by the idea, I didn't want to... To be frank, Kuro-chan, this was the last thing I ever thought I'd hear you ask!"
Kurogane rolled his eyes. "So I thought that magic was a female thing," he said. "I understand now that I was wrong. It's just... it's one thing to accept the idea that men can can do magic at all... and another thing to admit that I might be..." He trailed off, at a loss.
Fai came over to sit by Kurogane, and put a hand on his shoulder. "So what changed your mind?" he asked quietly.
Kurogane shook his head helplessly. "If if were just you, it would be one thing. But Seishirou..." He hesitated, then plunged on. "He gloated over how much I didn't know. Told me that anyone with my amount of power should have been able to see through his lies, fight off his -- his --" He was floundering now, keenly feeling the lack of terminology, of the proper concepts to express his frustration and distress.
"It's not as easy as he made it sound," Fai offered, stroking his hand down Kurogane's arm in a soothing manner. "He was powerful, and skilled in his own twisted way -- and he used a perverted kind of magic that even a skilled wizard would have trouble resisting. You have nothing to acquit yourself of, in tangling with him."
Kurogane shrugged irritably; immediately Fai pulled his hand back, and Kurogane regretted the movement. "It's not just that," he said, letting a hint of apology into his tone. "Seishirou -- and Ashura -- they both told me I had magical power, but that I didn't know how to use it. And I've always been taught that a weapon you don't know how to use is a weapon in the hands of your enemy. It was hard for me to accept that I have it, but now that I have... I'd damn well better learn how to use it."
After a moment, Fai leaned against Kurogane's side; this time, he did not shrug him off, but instead leaned back into the touch. "I'm not sure how much you really need me to teach you," he said. "Every culture expresses magic a little bit differently. Within your own discipline, you already know how to use magic perfectly well. There's nothing I can teach you there that you don't already know."
"But there's more, isn't there?" Kurogane insisted. "There's so much I realize I don't know -- not the way that we do... magic, but the things that you seem to know that I don't. Half the time you do something I don't even know what you're doing; I don't know what you're even capable of! All those rules, all that background knowledge, that you throw around so easily... I don't even know how to talk about what I need to know," he finished in frustration.
Fai moved to speak, but Kurogane wasn't quite finished; he laid one finger across Fai's lips, silencing him. He looked straight into Fai's eye. "When we were trapped in that dungeon," he said quietly, "I didn't know what was wrong with you. I didn't know how to help you. It was sheer dumb luck that we stumbled onto a solution that got us both out of there alive. Even if it's knowledge that I hopefully won't ever need to use, I need to know. I don't ever want to be that helpless in the face of your suffering again."
He moved his finger away, but it seemed he'd achieved an unlikely event; Fai was speechless. After a long moment, Fai slipped his arm around Kurogane's back, leaned his head against his shoulder. "All right," he agreed at last. "There's a lot to learn, more than anyone can learn in one single lifetime, but I'll try to teach you what you want to know."
He grinned suddenly. "If I could become an apprentice demon-hunter, I guess it's not so strange for Kuro-pon to become an apprentice wizard! Stranger things have happened!"
"I guess," Kurogane agreed. "One big difference, though."
"What?"
"You were a terrible student," Kurogane said, voice sharpened by remembered frustration and annoyance. "Even as a cover to get close to me and an excuse to spend time with me, you could have at least tried to take my lessons seriously."
Fai pouted, fake exaggerated hurt for effect. "Maybe Kuro-teacher is just a terrible instructor," he said.
"I am not. I have other students, you know, and they turn out just fine." Kurogane frowned, reminded of Syaoran for the first time in days. He hoped the boy was all right; that the fighting had died down between Nihon and Ceres soon enough that he hadn't gotten hurt in the clash; hoped that his almost fanatical hatred of Ceres hadn't led him to do anything stupid after the armistice. Hoped that Syaoran had remembered all he taught him. "Mostly," he sighed.
"So when do you want to start?" Fai asked him, after another long stretch staring at the fire.
"First thing tomorrow morning," Kurogane said decisively. "It'll be a good way to pass the time while I'm getting my strength back up. Because as soon as I can ride again, we're going south."
"South?" Fai's eyes reflected startled dismay. "Why... south? Wouldn't you want to go east -- back to your own country?"
Behind the facade of calm, he was agitated; Kurogane could tell that he knew exactly what Kurogane had meant, but didn't want to admit it. "South," he said firmly. "We have a demon-master to kill."
~to be continued...
Author's notes: You may have noticed that the season has rather suddenly become spring. That's my bad, really -- I've been attempting to keep track of a coherent timeline (and distance scale) for this series, but parts of it are a bit fuzzy. Going by my original schedule, this story should have started in the fall -- late september to early october -- and should just now be getting into mid-january, still solidly midwinter.
But, after thinking it over I realized it makes a lot more sense for this to be more like late winter or early spring. Very few people, even Ashura and his wizards, will wage war in the middle of winter; and the coming of spring makes more sense thematically with the birth of Kuro and Fai's romance and the end of the war. (Also, I started writing this in November, so fall and winter imagery was easy to come by -- but it's summer now! I have to think really hard to remember what winter was like!)
At some point I will go back and edit the timeline so that it becomes congruent with the new time frame, mostly by adding more weeks to the dead time spent in Ceres before Kurogane left and Nihon before Ceres attacked. But for the time being... it's early March in this chapter.