Fic: Winterheart
Title: Winterheart
Characters/Pairings: Kurogane/Fai, Sakura/Syaoran, Ashura
Rating: K+ ?
Summary: Fairytale AU. The Prince of Winter has a heart of ice that’s slowly killing him, and no-one knows how to melt it.
A/N: Sap. Sap, and sap. Sentimental dorkiness? This was written when I was trying to get back into writing for Ever After and had the term ‘winterheart’ stuck in my head for some reason, and picked up a lot of the fairytale-narrator feeling from there.Warnings for fairytale logic. And sap.
*****
A long time ago, in a world far, far away from this one, there was once a kingdom in the north that saw so little sunshine that its people called it ‘Winter.’ It was the coldest of all the kingdoms of that world, its cities made up of dazzling white stone that shone under the Frostfire that danced in their night sky.
The King of Winter, Ashura, was a just ruler and kind man - but he was lonely, too. A demon’s curse laid upon him in his youth meant that he had no family by either bond or blood, and no spell he tried to work (for the king was a powerful magician) could remove the evil hex from him. All that he loved were doomed to freeze in the cold of his kingdom - to despair and die, while he survived to mourn them.
Sickness struck Winter one year, and rushed through the outer cities with little heed to who it took with it, man, woman or child. It was contained, eventually, but one of the smallest cities had been nearly completely destroyed, with few people left living inside its walls. So few in numbers were they that the king ordered the abandonment of the place, and the survivors were assigned to go move elsewhere in the kingdom, to where they had families and friends that would take them in, and help them start life anew.
One survivor had no family or friends to go to.
He was a young boy, half an adult’s height, with hair the colour of the sought-out sunshine, and eyes the same shade as the magical Frostfire the children watched so avidly at night. His family were all dead, killed by the sickness, and his friends too. Everyone he had ever known had lived in the abandoned city, and no-one knew quite what to do with him.
The boy was sent to the king’s palace, and the officials who served His Majesty set about arranging a home for the child. It was difficult - the boy was grieving, and needed special attention and care, as he shied away from most of the servants who were sent to tend him, solemn and quiet. He would not be coaxed into games with the other palace children, and fled to the Royal Library to go through the books there, hiding behind tall shelves when people came to look for him.
Added to the boy’s avoidant nature was the streak of wild magic he had running through him, a potent reservoir hidden within the child that the palace magicians whispered about behind their hands, the palace officials all but tearing out their hair trying to find a family that could safely - and willingly - support such a young - and therefore potentially dangerous - magician in their midst.
‘A difficult child,’ the people said, and shook their heads and sighed at one another. ‘Would that at least one member of his family had lived, so they could have raised him, and he had been brought to our attention later in his life in the more normal way. He could have been an asset to the kingdom.’
Their king overheard the. ‘He will be an asset still,’ Ashura told them, ‘if I have a say in the matter. Where is the child?’
The child was in the library, as always, and so it was to the library that the King of Winter went, dismissing the servants that plagued the place searching for the boy and taking a seat by the room’s warm fire. Winter was cold - terribly cold - and everyone crept to the fire eventually, out of necessity.
The boy haunting the library was no exception. He drew close after a long while, slowly emerging from the shadows with a book clutched in his hands, warily eying the king who kept warm by the fire’s glow. Ashura did not move, however, did not speak or stir, and so the orphan child edged closer and closer, until he stood close to the fire’s heat, well within the king’s line of sight, and they both dubiously regarded each other.
It was the boy who broke the silence between them first.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
‘…I was under the impression,’ Ashura replied, ‘that you did not like people speaking to you.’
His companion was unimpressed with his reasoning. ‘That didn’t stop the others.’
‘No,’ the King of Winter gently agreed. ‘It did not.’
More silence, and the orphan child looked awkward, clutching the book he carried more closely to himself, aware - always - of the king’s eyes upon him.
Ashura relieved his unease somewhat. ‘Do you like this library?’
The boy nodded. He had never seen so many books in one place before in his short life.
‘Then I will give it to you, if you are willing to stay in this palace.’
His young companion’s head shot up at that, his expression filled with distrust. ‘The servants said they were going to find me a new family.’
The king only smiled. ‘I am willing to become that family.’
‘But -’ said the boy, and then faltered, his face taking on a look of mild confusion. ‘But you’re the king.’
‘That is correct.’
‘All your family is dead.’
Ashura nodded. ‘That is also correct.’
Once more, a long quiet descended over the library, broken only by the soft hisses and spats of the burning fire. The boy looked over his book at the king. ‘…All mine are too.’
And so it was the King of Winter took the orphan boy in, and the child became the prince and heir of the kingdom. The people coaxed his name from him - Fai - and slowly drew him out of his shell, the king overseeing the boy’s magical instruction, having him schooled in various skills and arts. Fai became the asset to the kingdom that the people had once only thought he could be, working his magic for the greater good and returning home, to the palace, at the end of each day, smiling, to the king, to the one he eventually called ‘father.’
And so the years passed, and the king’s curse seemed forgotten. The Prince of Winter happily served the kingdom that slowly grew to love him - for his talents, and his kindness, and his smile - as the boy flourished from his childhood into a youth, and from youth into a young man. He was fair of face and form, and though prone to mischief, his tricks did no real harm. He brooded sometimes, with a shadowed face, but was more often seen laughing, dancing, drinking. By all intents and purposes he seemed to truly love life, and he shared that love with the people who surrounded him.
Now, Winter was not the only kingdom of that world. There were three other kingdoms spread out across the land, one to each main point of the great map, and all four of the kingdoms would often trade with one another. In older times the kingdoms had gone to war with one another, but those days had been abandoned for more amicable, profitable relations, left behind as bad memories. There were those that remembered those days among the kingdoms’ peoples still, but they were the minority. Most people wanted to forget the wars and do trade for the goods of their neighbours instead, for exotic treasures from far away.
As tokens of goodwill, the kings and queens of the four kingdoms often sent gifts to each other. The King of Winter had, like the other sovereigns, sent out caravans to the other three kingdoms, and, like the other sovereigns, had received gifts from the other three kingdoms in return. Fai, as the heir, received gifts as well, much to his delight - and the delight of the servants he often shared them with, in the cases where his presents were of the edible (or drinkable) kind.
It so happened that news reached the Winter Palace one day of a foreign caravan caught in a small avalanche in one of the mountain passes that led to the main city of Winter. No normal man dared to try and go up to the pass to try and aid the caravan - the weather was fierce, a blizzard having swept down from the furthest north quite suddenly, and the mountains were far too treacherous to traverse. The caravan had, no doubt, been taken unawares whilst travelling - but what could the citizens of Winter do, save pray for the souls caught up in the storm?
The Prince of Winter went out into the blizzard, taking some of the more magical members of the palace guard with him. Using his magic he pushed back the snow, freeing the caravan beneath. Nearly all of the people in it were unconscious, and the guards and Fai saw to it that they were taken immediately to the main city, rushed into the nearest hospitable inn and warmth. Fai commanded the salvaged contents of the carriages - and the surviving horses who had drawn them - the caravan had brought with them to be removed to the Winter Palace, there to await collection, and then took himself to the inn as well.
‘They’re from the Spring kingdom,’ one of the guards said to Fai when the prince arrived, shucking off his long, snow-plastered fur coat and gratefully wrapping himself in a blanket he was offered. The guard offered a letter to him - its wax seal bore the stamp of the Spring Queen. ‘Their leader was carrying this; they were here on state business.’
‘The leader is still alive?’
‘Alive, but unconscious - like the rest of his group. The healers we called in said they should all make it through, though some of them may need extra treatment. There are some badly broken bones, two cases of severe frostbite, and nearly all of them have taken high fevers.’
‘Then they were lucky,’ the prince said, and asked to be shown to the room where the leader of the caravan had been laid.
The leader was a warrior - a high-ranking soldier. The Prince of Winter stepped past the armour that had been stripped from the fallen man from Spring, the gleaming silver sword that had been laid at the warrior’s bedside, and took a seat, studying the sleeping man who was then a guest at Ashura’s leisure.
The leader was dark - tan, from long hours under the sun that did not shine in Winter -, with short black hair on his head, black lashes on his high cheeks. He would be tall when standing, and by his physique, undoubtedly strong. His palms were not those of the royal or gentry-born, calloused from holding the hilt of his sword, and their fingers clenched while Fai inspected them - looking up, the prince saw the caravan’s leader had woken and was regarding him with a remarkably focused gaze, his hand still in Fai’s grip.
The man’s eyes looked like a sunset.
The prince smiled at him, disarming, and dropped the stranger’s hand. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Like I’ve had an avalanche dropped on my head, idiot.’ The leader’s voice was low, a little rough from the fever he had undoubtedly taken, and grouchy. He probably had quite the headache.
Fai’s smile brightened - his guest only looked more dour. ‘I apologise - our healers have been too busy tending to your more seriously injured companions; they had no time to spare on bruises. Bumps and scratches, many say, are better off healing on their own.’
It came out that the Warrior of Spring was named Kurogane, and he had been personally sent by the Queen and Princess of Spring to see the delivery of the contents of the caravan’s carriages safely to the Winter Palace and the king there - the contents were a gift to His Majesty and His son from the Spring Court. The warrior seemed pleased when he learned that the carriages had been taken to the palace while he had been unconscious, though put-out that he had not been conscious to properly present them to the king. Fai did his best to ease Kurogane’s obvious worries, not mentioning his own adopted status to the man, and waited until Kurogane was comfortable and asleep once more before departing the inn to return to his father and update Ashura on the situation.
The members of the caravan were brought to the Winter Palace as soon as they were fit to travel, and set up there as guests of the king. Their leader, the Warrior of Spring, offered his stilted apologies and thanks to Ashura for the delay and His Majesty’s kindness, presenting the letter from the Queen of Spring to the Winter King. When it came to light that Fai was the prince of the kingdom the foreign warrior was naturally taken aback, but the prince himself so effectively succeeded in driving Kurogane to distraction with his teasing that status was forgotten quite quickly - and Kurogane was quite horrified, much to the rest of his caravan’s - and the Winter Palace’s - amusement, when he learned that Fai had coaxed Ashura into insisting that the delegation from Spring should stay in the palace until such a time that every last member of the foreign party was completely recovered from the avalanche, down to the last suspicious-sounding sniffle.
It soon became quite clear that the warrior and the prince were a good match for one another. They were both highly skilled, with sharp, shrewd minds, and personalities that managed to compliment and clash with each other at the same time. Kurogane, stoic, refused to even call the flourishing relationship a friendship - but Fai doted on his ‘grumpy’ companion, and eloquently described the other’s feelings as ‘puppy love.’ This roused Kurogane to temper on more than one occasion, and his yelling could be heard throughout the Winter Palace on many days and night, echoed always by Fai’s accompanying laughter.
Eventually, however, every member of the Spring caravan had recovered from their conditions, and its people had to leave, and return to their own kingdom. They left quickly, with Ashura’s blessings, and well warned of the sudden weather shifts in Winter so they could take care to avoid avalanches in the mountains on possible future trips.
The Prince of Winter pined for a good while after the people of Spring had left his father’s kingdom. He had become close to the Warrior of Spring in the time the foreigners had stayed in the palace, and was sad at the thought of not seeing the other man for a long time. Winter seemed so small to him after talking to the people of the caravan from the other kingdom - they had spoken of other places, and the prince’s curiosity was piqued.
He went to his father, the king, and begged leave to depart from Winter, to travel the world and see the other three kingdoms that he would one day be expected to negotiate with, to see new sights, to learn new things. Ashura was much reluctant to let him go but his son pleaded with him for many days and nights, and eventually conceded, with the condition that Fai took with him members of the guard, and returned with a year’s time. Fai, delighted at being able to travel, readily agreed, and so a week later he left Winter, a select few of the guard with him.
He went west first, to the kingdom of Autumn, where the sweet berries grew and the leaves on the trees were always red, gold and brown. The flame-haired princesses of the kingdom were more than happy to show him around after he had presented himself to their mother, the Queen, and they coaxed him to dance with them beside bonfires and fireworks that leapt up into the falling dusk. Their younger brother, the more serious prince, Syaoran, took him out to see the great buildings of the kingdom, the red foxes that played in the golden fields of harvest, and, reluctantly laughing, was drawn into a game to chase the leaves that the wind blew down all around them, a shower of colour and light.
Fai loved Autumn, the reckless rush of that kingdom, the parties and the heady drinks made from the harvest fruits that ran straight to the head, the firelight shifting and the shadows dancing crazily every way he himself span. He loved the smell of the old books Syaoran showed him, the archaic letters spilling out in strange tongues, the tawny amber shade of the boy’s eyes when the light caught his eyes and he smiled. He was easily fond of the boy himself, the way Syaoran stuttered and blushed when teased, his earnest determination to achieve his dreams.
After four months in Autumn Fai went south, leaving behind his new friends, to the kingdom of Summer, where the hot sand shimmered and shifted under his feet and the sky overhead was an endless, cloudless blue. The people of that kingdom dressed simply, extending dusty, welcome hands and offering cool drinks in the shade. Summer and Winter had once warred fiercely, natural enemies, and Fai worried, for a little while, that Summer would still hold old grudges - but the king and queen extended their hospitality to him almost immediately, welcoming him to the Summer Palace. Their son, the prince, offered a cursory tour, while their daughter, the younger princess, Sakura, leapt upon Winter’s prince with a bright smile, making him crowns of hot, vivid flowers to wreath in his hair. The people of Summer slept during the hottest part of the day and told old stories well into the night, and when they dreamed they thought of more wondrous tales, so that the dawn always brought new wonders to tell of, new delights to share. They fanned themselves with great feathers in glorious shades of green, yellow and blue, and trekked the city markets to hunt out glittering jewellery, sun-sweet apples that the princess adored. They always had sand in their hair and Fai developed a streak of sunburn across his nose, but when Fai left after another four months he left regretfully, having enjoyed himself thoroughly in the hot kingdom under the sun.
To the east lay the kingdom of Spring, and it was to there Fai went to spend the last part of his year travelling, the princess of that kingdom greeting the Prince of Winter’s arrival with a gentle smile, her sister, the Queen, and her warrior, the one Winter’s Prince had saved, at her side. Blossoms fell down from the leaning trees when they ate together in the garden, pale petals resting in the curves of their clothing, floating lightly on the surface of the lake nearby. Fish, gleaming where the sun caught their scales, opened their wide mouths near the surface, searching for food, before diving back down into the depths with a flicker-flash of their fins and a few droplets of water splashing up into the air. When it rained, when the water dripped and dropped on the grass, they went inside, and the queen played her harp while the princess sang. The Spring Warrior guarded them both - and he guarded the Prince of Winter too, just the same, when the music lulled the man to sleep, brushing one hand over the golden hair that fanned out upon his lap.
Spring was a gentle kingdom, the weather mild, the clothes long and silky and apparently impossible for a foreigner to tie without detailed instruction. They were light, like air against Fai’s skin, nothing like the heavier furs he wrapped himself up in in Winter, to stave off the cold. The prince’s steps were lighter too, as a result, and he resumed his games with the Spring Warrior, badgering the other man until Kurogane chased him for his tricks, both of them dashing through the blossom-filled gardens. Fai laughed, and danced, and enjoyed Kurogane’s company, growing closer to the warrior, smiling more softly at him as the days passed. Kurogane, for his part, eased his temper, still gruff but with better intentions, showing the prince the sights of Spring, taunting the other with dishes of raw fish that the prince pulled faces at and refused to touch, once buying the blond a trinket - a gold brooch, twisted into the shape of a flower - he’d admired so in the local markets, flushing and looking away when he handed it over.
‘Kuro-sama is very charming, ne?’
‘Idiot, it’s Kurogane!’
They drank together, walked together, ate and talked and rested together - and at the end of Fai’s stay in the kingdom of Spring they stood together, and Fai asked Kurogane to return to Winter with him.
And they rowed.
It was a fearsome quarrel, for they both were fools, and could not yell out the words that either of them meant. Kurogane would not leave Spring, for he swore his duty lay there, guarding the princess and the queen, and Fai had to return to Winter, to take up once more his mantle of heir. They could not find compromise for arguing, and eventually Fai unpinned the brooch the Warrior of Spring from his breast and flung it back at the man, running away to his rooms.
The Prince of Winter left Spring the following morning, and Kurogane did not go to see or say goodbye.
Ashura was glad to see his son’s return to Winter - a grand ball was hosted in the Winter Palace in celebration, but all who attended could not fail to notice that the smile the prince wore was wan, and slid from his face quickly. They asked themselves what ailed the man and put the query forth to the king - who, in turn, asked the question of Fai, who replied it was just a sickness picked up on the last stage of his travels, and it would pass over him soon.
The ‘sickness’ did not lift soon. A cloud of gloom took to hanging perpetually over the Prince of Winter, much to the distress of those who were fond of him. The year trip, once thought to have been able to do a great deal of good for Fai, was blamed and cursed, and people wondered what it was that the prince had seen that had left such a sorrow in his heart and head.
Princess Sakura came to Winter a few months after Fai had been reinstated in his home kingdom, a few weeks shy of the year-turn, the coldest day and longest night, following the idea that Fai had spread across the kingdoms - why should the heirs to the four thrones not travel, and see the world they were to one day govern in? She had gone first to Autumn, and rested at the Queen’s hospitality there, and the King of Winter, likewise, was glad to offer her a place to stay in the Winter Palace during her visit.
Fai was glad to see Sakura, for the Summer Princess had become a dear friend to him in the time he had spent in her kingdom, and her smiles warmed even the coldest rooms in Winter. He brightened in her presence - as all did - and the people of Winter relaxed seeing their prince at such ease, restored to his usual warmth.
Syaoran, the Prince of Autumn, arrived in Winter on the Summer Princess’ heels, also taking a year out to tour the other kingdoms. There was talk about it of course, giggling whispers in the Winter Palace’s halls - and they only doubled in volume when people caught sight of how the Autumn Prince looked so gently at the Summer Princess, and how she blushed so easily back. It was decided the two would tour together - it came of no surprise to anyone.
Fai approved of the match and took delight in teasing both of his companions - they flushed so quickly and prettily at his joking, with squeaks and flailings and the general amusement of everyone else. He took charge of the two whilst they were in Winter and took pleasure in showing them around his kingdom, pointing out the night’s Frostfire and the lovingly-crafted ice sculptures that lined the main city’s streets. There were balls and dances and feasts with roasts and hot wine, and early morning rides when the frost had been cast anew over the landscape, the hooves of their steeds kicking up glittering flakes as the dawn slowly crept up over the horizon.
And then it went wrong.
It was a well-known fact in Winter that the guests staying at the palace were royalty from Autumn and Summer, and though Autumn had nearly always been a fairly neutral name in Winter’s history Summer was quite the opposite. There were people - older, sourer people with memories just as old and sour - who could recall the days when Winter and Summer were enemies, who still spat on Summer’s memory in dark, drunk times. The sort of people who, in a fit of that selfsame darkened drunkenness, saw no problem in waylaying the three riders from the Winter Palace on one of their morning jaunts, and attacking the Summer Princess with a sharpened blade.
Both the Prince of Winter and the Prince of Autumn saw the sword at the same time - but there was so little time to do anything about it. Fai, closer to Sakura than Syaoran at the time, rode in front and took the point instead of the girl, and Syaoran went for the attacker. The man fell - quickly - and was restrained by the people who rushed out into the streets at Sakura’s scream, the crowds gathering around the three royals, worried, seeing how Fai’s face was twisted in pain, how the prince could barely keep his seat on his horse. His hand was pressed to his chest, where the blade had caught him, and when Sakura eventually coaxed the limb away so she could try and see what damage had been done his palm came away soaked in vivid red.
They rushed Fai back to the Winter Palace quickly, the prince thankfully falling both into the arms of the healers there and unconsciousness. The king was summoned and the news was spread that it was likely the Prince of Winter would die from his wound - another victim of His Majesty’s curse, they whispered, another one dead in the cold of Winter.
Ashura willed it not to be so. There were far too many who loved Fai - and he himself among them - to let the prince fall so easily into death, and so he burst into the room where the healers were frantically fighting a losing battle with his dying son, and sent them, confused, away from the bed in which they’d laid him.
The king used his great magics to freeze his heir’s heart, stopping the flow of crimson that sought to steal the young man’s life by turning the heart itself to glittering ice. It was a strange and risky spell, placing the prince in limbo, neither quite dead nor quite alive. The healers stared as Ashura stepped back away from Fai, wondering how it was that the prince remained breathing with a heart so frozen - a heart of Winter, surely. And then the king bid them heal his son.
‘But his heart,’ they protested, unsure of the king’s magic. ‘How can he live if his heart is ice?’
‘Heal him as if it were beating normally,’ Ashura told them. ‘We will melt the ice at a later time.’
So the healers set to work, as ordered, and though they shivered to look on the winterheart their loving prince had become, the ice chilling their own hands and hearts, they did their task well, mending the hole that the sword had left in the prince’s body. When they left him Fai slept deeply, seemingly naturally, as if he had never been hurt at all. They were sworn to silence, never to mention the spell that had been cast over the prince.
Fai woke, in time, much to the relief of those who gathered around his bedside. He seemed bewildered when Sakura flung herself at him in a hug, when Syaoran all but refused to leave his side, when Ashura made always to linger after visiting him. The servants smiled at him more often, brought him treats, and ignored how he tried to brush off his then-healed wound as ‘just a scratch.’
They tried the man who had attacked the Summer Princess and wounded Fai - the king himself presided over the trial, with his heir standing solemnly at his side. Syaoran stood by and watched with Sakura shivering beside him, and her attacker was found irredeemably guilty, and sentenced to a lifetime of slave labour.
‘It’s curious,’ Fai said to his father later, when the trial was done and they were in private rooms together, comfortable beside the fire as the night fell outside. It grew darker so much more quickly as the year-turn approached, colder than ever in Winter. ‘After what he did, it would be natural to assume I’d be furious - after all, he could’ve hurt the princess.’
Ashura looked up at him. ‘And he certainly hurt you.’
‘Yes…’ Fai moved closer to the king, his expression perplexed. The firelight caught his golden hair, the pale of his skin on his face and hand when he spread his palm over his heart. ‘But I don’t feel anything about it.’
Ashura paused and Fai looked at him curiously - but the king waved the moment off, and they moved onto lighter topics. Later, however, Ashura went to see his heir when Fai was asleep, checking the heart he had given his son. He had expected it to have gone, to melt back into its normal self from the warmth of Fai’s emotions, and the emotions of the people who surrounded the prince - but the heart was cold still, glittering ice that seemed to have hardened over the days’ passage rather than easing with time. Worse than that, the ice had spread somewhat, running in the prince’s blood and freezing some of Fai’s lesser-used feelings.
The King of Winter left his heir’s rooms a deeply troubled man, but still kept faith in what he had told the healers. They would melt Fai’s heart; this was only a minor setback, and no ice could hold up against life’s warmth for very long.
Fai’s did.
No matter how they talked or laughed or stayed with Fai, the ice in the prince’s heart stubbornly refused to melt - it grew, in fact, even further, spreading out through the blond’s system and stealing what it was that made Fai Fai from them. His ever-flowing feelings…
Curiosity was one of the first ones to go. The Prince of Winter was renowned for his inquisitiveness in most things; the day it shut off was a stunning one. A new caravan arrived in the main city and Fai did little else but spare it a brief glance, unroused from the board game he was playing with Syaoran. Even when the servants announced that the king had bought new books for the prince’s personal library - for Fai had always loved the library, throughout all his years - he didn’t glance up, preoccupied. It was both a blessing and a curse - Fai didn’t question what was happening to him, and the changes were too gradual for many to notice what was affecting their prince.
Pride went next. Fai grew more sloppy in his appearance, in the tasks he did around the palace, often wandering aimlessly away from something he’d been doing with little mind to returning to it later to see the job done. Then loneliness - once coaxed from his childish shell Fai had always loved being around people; the loss of loneliness meant it didn’t matter whether he was with others or not.
Anticipation - the days came and went, with nothing new in them.
Confusion - questions about the change affecting the prince rolled straight off the blonds back, meeting the blank of his smile.
Fear - Fai stopped dreading his own numbness.
Amusement -
‘Fai,’ Sakura whispered one day, when she had gone to sit beside the prince, as Fai had read to her and she had leaned against his side. She looked up at him, at the arm he’d wrapped so gently around her, her green eyes bright with a fear her friend could no longer feel. ‘Fai, why are you so cold?’
He looked down at her, serene. ‘I apologise. Should I sit closer to the fire?’
Sakura shook her head, anxious. They were already sitting as close to the fire as possible without getting burned; the princess could feel the heat of the flames on her skin. Fai, however, remained as cold as the snow outside; it was like being wrapped in frost. ‘No…’
Everyone noticed when Fai stopped laughing. The prince had always been a merry soul, and the sudden solemnity that had descended over him seemed to kill the atmosphere in the Winter Palace dead. The Princess of Summer and Prince of Autumn worried at their friend’s shift in mood, had been worrying about the changes that Fai had been undergoing for a while. When the laughter stopped they went to Ashura, their host, and begged to know if he knew what ailed his heir.
Ashura did, of course. He spoke to them, quiet, dreadful, and told them of what he had done to save Fai’s life, and how Fai’s heart refused to melt after. Sakura wept before the king and Syaoran could do little but hold her, for it was plain to see the princess blamed herself. Fai had saved her life.
‘He’s so cold,’ she told Syaoran and the king. ‘How can he live when his heart is making him so cold?’
‘He can’t,’ Ashura told her sadly, and saw the way Syaoran’s arm tightened around Sakura, as if to ward off the sting of the Winter King’s words. ‘No-one can live with a heart of ice. It freezes a man’s feelings - and without feelings, one is dead. Fai grows colder as his heart grows colder - and if we cannot melt it, it is all but certain by the year-turn, by the longest night, he will be dead.’
Sakura wept further and went away, crying on the lap of the man she had been told not to tell the terrible secret to - Fai himself. The Prince of Winter was distressed at her tears, for he was deeply fond of the princess and did not know why she was crying, but kept her company and ran cold fingers through her hair. He was sorrowful, too, at the way she looked at him, and though his mind knew not why he was coaxed to weep cold tears with her, until his heart froze too much for him to recall what sadness was. The ice had crept into an unseen hole in his heart and found firm lodgings there, and nought anyone could do could budge it from its rest.
A hush had descended over the Winter Palace. It was quite obvious to all, then, that something was terribly wrong with Fai, for the blond was cold and pale as snow, and his skin chilled where it brushed another person’s. The prince barely spoke, barely moved, barely remembered to eat or breathe or sleep, and the people whispered of Ashura’s curse, that all the king loved would despair and die, while Ashura himself tried to appeal to his son for some recognition, some emotion, some anything that would crack through the ice enveloping his child from the inside out.
‘Can’t we do anything?’ The Prince of Autumn made one last appeal to the king, anxious about Fai, about the way Sakura’s smile had turned watery even as she tried to force it out for their older friend, to try and get some response from the Winter Prince. The days had passed too far, though - Fai only looked at her blankly, a living doll, for by then even gentle affection had died in his heart, withering in the growing frost. ‘And if we cannot - isn’t there someone else we can ask?’
The idea spread.
‘…He has friends in the kingdom of Spring,’ Sakura told them softly, on one of the rare times when she could be coaxed away from Fai’s side. ‘He spoke of them, sometimes, and wore…this smile…’
‘Then I’ll go to Spring,’ Syaoran determined, looking towards Ashura. ‘With Your Majesty’s permission, I’ll ask for aid there, to see if anyone else can melt Fai’s heart.’
The King of Winter could nought but offer his permission, his blessings, and the Prince of Autumn left the Winter Palace within the hour, heading for Spring. It was a long journey there, of many days, and as the young prince rode he worried how the time’s passage would affect those he left behind him in Winter.
He came to Spring at last and proceeded to the Spring Palace, moving always in haste, and begged audience with the Queen of Spring and her younger sister. They admitted him - Syaoran was of royalty too - and his insistence upon the urgency of an audience caught their attention.
And he told them of Fai.
They were saddened, of course, to hear the tragic news of the pleasing guest they’d entertained not so many months before, ‘But,’ the queen said, pityingly, ‘we were not so terribly close with him. We are distant friends at best, and if his own father cannot appeal to him, why should we be able to?’
‘I liked him,’ the princess spoke up from her sister’s side, clear but soft. ‘Fai and I were close, I believe, but there was one he was far closer to during his time here.’
‘They argued before the prince left.’ The Queen dismissed the younger girl’s words, waving one hand. ‘Half the palace heard it.’
‘They were close,’ the princess repeated, with the same hint of stubbornness. ‘And is that not what Fai needs to rouse him - strong feelings? Anger is not the most pleasing of emotions, I will admit, but it is a human emotion all the same.’
‘Kurogane prefers to rage alone,’ her sister said warningly.
‘Perhaps,’ the princess said, and sent a servant to fetch Kurogane, her warrior, so that the man could be told Syaoran’s tale. ‘Perhaps not.’
Kurogane came as the royals had bid him, and bowed his head to listen to the story Syaoran spoke of, the boy’s voice ringing with the worry he felt for his friend. Those who looked to the Warrior of Spring instead of the Autumn Prince noted the way the man’s hands tightened in his lap, the way the light caught a golden brooch the warrior wore pinned underneath his dark cloak - and those who looked at the warrior were wise, said nothing, and went back to wait until Syaoran’s tale was done.
And then Kurogane looked to the princess and the queen. ‘With you permission…’ he started, but the princess smiled and cut across his question.
‘You would go without it, Kurogane, if you had to. None of us here are cruel enough to make you do so - so go, with our blessings and all due haste, and give the prince our love.’
And so went the Warrior of Spring with a hastily-gathered entourage and the Autumn Prince at his side, out of Spring Palace and towards Winter, the Winter Palace, and Fai. He took the fastest mount in all of Spring and managed to outride both his entourage and Syaoran, and when he arrived in the main city of Winter he was alone, his steed weary, and he himself worn.
The city was quiet save for the sonorous, slow ringing of bells, and when he queried what had caused the unnatural hush the people around him looked at him as though he was mad.
‘It’s the state funeral today,’ they told him, clipped and sharp. ‘Don’t you know that our prince is recently dead?’
‘Dead?’ the warrior, asked, feeling a numbness creep over him. ‘For how long?’
‘Three days,’ they replied. So soon - too soon. The year-turn was a day or two off yet. Why, then, had Fai succumbed so quickly? ‘As is tradition, we burn our dead on the third. You’ve chosen a sad time to come to Winter, foreigner.’
Kurogane did not answer them. He went on, instead, pushing himself further, to the Winter Palace, and the solemn funeral there. The guards at the gates and doors were glad, when he showed them the Spring seal his princess had given him, that they did not have to stop him, for the warrior had gathered fury around him like a cloak, a deterrent to the chill that was seeping into his own person - the kind not brought by the wind.
The warrior rode his horse right into the great hall where the people had gathered to hold their rites over the prince’s coffin, and the people rose up in outrage at such a rude intrusion. The guards came then, the travesty unable to be excused even by the Spring seal, and tried to catch the reins of Kurogane’s steed - but the great beast reared back, stamping its hooves down on the marble floor with such weight that the men hastily moved out of the way, for fear of being trampled.
The King of Winter, grieving at the front of the hall beside his son’s body, rose to his feet then, sorrow and anger mixed in his gaze, and saw fit to begin summoning his great magic to restrain the impudent wretch who disturbed Winter’s mourning -
But Syaoran, breathless, suddenly ran into the hall then and flung himself before the simmering Kurogane, crying ‘Wait!’
Ashura stilled his magic; Kurogane calmed his mount, and Syaoran gasped, trying vainly to find his breath, having had the sense to dismount at the doors and run for the great hall when he had heard the news of Fai’s death, and Kurogane’s response. The Spring entourage trickled in behind him.
The Princess of Summer, who had been sitting near the front beside the Winter King, picked up the hem of her skirts and dashed down to the Autumn Prince, offering him her arm and support while the boy got his breath back. She spoke quickly, lowly, and explained how they had found Fai, unmoving and not breathing in his rooms three days prior, tears prickling in her eyes. Kurogane listened to her as well - and then slowly dismounted his horse, handing the reins to a nearby guard brusquely and stalking down the main aisle of the hall, heading for the front, the Winter King, and the coffin. He didn’t look back, but Syaoran quickly broke free of Sakura and dashed after him again, the princess following suit.
‘Your Majesty,’ the boy began speaking quickly to Ashura, attempting to explain Kurogane’s actions, ‘this is the man from Spring, Kurogane, a warrior who -’
‘I know him.’ The King of Winter interrupted, his eyes watching Kurogane as the warrior ignored the still-outraged guests at the funeral, his own entourage and all the royals, approaching the coffin of ice where Fai had been laid in preparation for his final rest, for the pyre. ‘He has visited these halls before.’
‘He -’ Syaoran paused. ‘He has?’
Ashura nodded - and then Kurogane suddenly turned on him, away from the coffin, angry. ‘I was told the idiot would live to see the year-turn.’
‘…We thought he would,’ Sakura whispered, head bowed, when the king didn’t reply. ‘I stayed with Fai every day, but…’ her shoulders shook. ‘I’m sorry.’
The Warrior of Spring clenched his jaw, unable to yell at the girl, but unable to accept anyone’s apology at that moment. A tense silence fell, which Kurogane himself broke. ‘…Kid,’ he motioned to Syaoran, who looked a little confused at the name, but went along with it, unwilling to argue something so pointless. Kurogane jerked his head at the coffin, and Syaoran’s bewilderment only increased. Kurogane narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t you want to say your goodbye? He was your friend.’
‘I - yes -’ Syaoran hurried over to the coffin, just as Kurogane began stalking back off down the aisle, heading for the exit. People cleared a path for him.
‘…Sir?’ Sakura called out timidly after him, getting the warrior to pause in his tracks. ‘Sir, please wait.’ Kurogane glanced back over his shoulder at her, seeing her green eyes, the way the king and Syaoran were both looking at him as well. Inwardly, the warrior complained. ‘Sir,’ Sakura said softly again, ‘please, won’t you say goodbye to Fai as well? He always spoke well of you when the words came from him…I think he’d be glad to know you were wishing him safely on his way.’
Kurogane didn’t say anything.
‘…Please,’ Sakura repeated. ‘You came all this way.’
The Warrior of Spring turned around completely and went back. Sakura smiled at him, watery, but he brushed past her, and Syaoran moved away from the coffin to give Kurogane room, the youth going to give his support to the faltering Summer Princess.
The Prince of Winter exemplified his kingdom at that moment - pale and cold and still. It was strange indeed for Kurogane to see Fai lying so quietly and colourless, without smile or laugh or breath to move him. No teasing, no silliness, no warmth, just… It was hard not to stare, harder to keep looking, and Kurogane reached out with one hand to touch the prince’s smooth wrist, feeling no pulse.
‘…Idiot,’ the warrior said quietly, eventually, and reached beneath his cloak, to the golden brooch he still wore. Unpinning it he reached over to fix it on the white garment they were to burn the prince in, to the left of Fai’s frozen heart. He let his hands linger there for a moment, one last touch, one last look, and then he turned his back on the coffin once more, and looked for the way out. He could not stay to see Fai eaten by the flames.
‘…I suppose it’s a nicer gift than fish…’
The hushed comment made Kurogane go rigid, grief turning to abrupt, cathartic fury, and he whirled around again, hand on his sword, intending to lay waste to the sneering fool that had dared to overhear, dared to pass judgement on this day of all days -
‘Kuro-sama…’
A soft murmur, and the hall stared as Kurogane stomped back over to the Prince of Winter’s coffin, (the warrior could not make his mind up,) seeing the way the foreigner’s throat had locked and words caught and died -
And then everyone gawked as the Warrior of Spring reached into the coffin, plucked up the body of their prince, and started furiously shaking him as if to rattle Fai’s wits straight out of his skull.
And if the people of Winter had been outraged at Kurogane’s intrusion before…
Syaoran could do little else but pull an aghast Sakura out of the way when people rushed for the warrior, quite sure that grief had done something strange to the older man. Everybody was livid at the insult being done to the Winter Prince’s body, at how the impudent oaf from Spring had dared to lift Fai from his rest and shake him about so.
And then Fai started complaining, raising one half-hearted hand to swat at the one who was holding him like a limp ragdoll.
Naturally, everyone else stopped dead.
The Spring Warrior took the opportunity to drop the Winter Prince on the floor.
As romantic resuscitations went bouncing off of the floor as a finishing touch was generally considered an unconventional and possibly damaging approach, but Kurogane certainly relished the thump Fai made when he landed - and the aggrievedly indignant ‘ow!’ from the prince’s mouth along with it was just as glorious. The dead couldn’t whine as spectacularly as Fai could.
There was a dive for the prince on the part of all present, at which point Kurogane hauled Fai back up again by the scruff of his neck, holding the thin cloth of the robes at near-tearing point, and started dragging the royal towards the exit. The warrior was determined to get to it at some point that day, kill the idiot he was pulling along with him for being a pain, and then get a good, long sleep.
Everyone mostly just stared as the man from Spring manhandled their - apparently breathing, if the quite vocal protests echoing through the otherwise utterly silent hall were any indication - prince first out of the hall, and then the Winter Palace itself, heading for whichever inn was nearest. They continued to stare for a good while after the strange pair was gone, and the hall doors had been slammed shut behind them by the still-grumpy Kurogane.
Syaoran cleared his throat, and quite a few eyes shifted to him. ‘What…?’
Ashura just shook his head at the boy.
Sakura clasped her hands, and beamed. ‘Fai’s alive!’
Fai was alive - the hall could grasp that, and a loud cheer went up, the news spreading through the city. A kingdom-wide celebration was called and, though the guest of honour was notably missing (and sequestered away by his ‘saviour’), no-one truly minded (or rather, they didn’t quite dare to mind, after the first couple of groups attempting to retrieve Fai and Kurogane from the inn the warrior had dragged the two of them had the pointier end of Kurogane’s sword shoved threateningly under their noses, and Fai’s brief explanation being somewhere along the lines of ‘Kuro-pon needing his sleep; he’s a grouchy puppy when disturbed.’).
The Winter Prince himself…he was happy, if somewhat confused, possessing little to no memory of what had happened after he had taken the blade for Sakura. His father’s magic had frozen his heart and his memories of that time, and since the frost inside of him had melted it had taken away the tears and tribulations of that time too, leaving only hazy puddles of nonsensical images behind. Kurogane’s grumblings at him made very little sense but Fai was content to go along with it - he didn’t particularly have much choice in the matter, as Kurogane refused to let him move more than an arm’s length away from the warrior’s person at any given time, but Fai took it as a good opportunity to snuggle. Kurogane was being quite amicable - as amicable as he got about snuggling, anyway - and so Fai lazily draped himself over the other man to his warm heart’s content, content to be sleepily petted by Kurogane as they both listened to the partying outside.
As for what had melted Fai’s heart…Ashura had his own reasoning, when Kurogane - eventually - returned Fai to the palace, and the Winter King saw how close it was the warrior and his son were standing. He didn’t voice them though, too glad to hear Fai’s laughter ringing out again, their younger guests stammering and Kurogane complaining as the Winter Prince went straight back to his everyday tricks. Feelings took many forms, and if the warmth of one heart is enough to soften another with only the gentlest touch...
Winter was, at first glance, a terribly cold kingdom. It saw so little sunshine from the sky above, but everyone knew that the land’s real sunshine came from its people. They came alive in the cold and snow, dancing and partying under the Frostfire lights in the night sky, and loved their lives and how they led them.
Ashura’s curse was considered broken. The demon had said that those the Winter King loved would despair and die - and so they all had, but Fai had come back.
Fai himself wore his golden brooch, always, from that day forward. He took delight in teasing Kurogane about it, but over time the warrior’s complaints died down until they were practically gone altogether, and it came as no surprise to anyone when the Queen of Spring and her sister released the warrior from his forsworn duty to them and Kurogane moved to Winter, the Winter Palace - and Fai’s rooms - permanently. They visited Spring quite often though, as prince, and as-good-as-assumed-to-be-prince-consort.
Sakura and Syaoran had long moved on in their tour of the other kingdoms, eventually returning to their own respective homes. They stayed in touch with the couple in Winter, and when their wedding was announced the Winter Prince and Warrior headed their invitation list.
And so they all lived - all of them -, warmly, happily, and more than a little dysfunctionally, together, for the rest of their lives.
A/N: Choosing which of the characters got assigned to each season took a little longer than everything else for this. Fai got winter by default, and the natural assumption was to place Kurogane in summer opposite him, as is the norm - but when have winter and summer sat beside one another in life? Also, geographically, it seemed strange to place Kurogane’s background from somewhere southern; Sakura and Syaoran are far more suited to the sand. Kurogane got spring because of two things - one, the sakura imagery CLAMP are so terribly fond of using, and it’s a spring flower; two, Syaoran’s element in TRC is fire, and that doesn’t seem terribly ‘spring-like’ to me.
That left summer and autumn to Sakura and Syaoran - two seasons that are made to blend almost seamlessly, happy times, good times, so similar they might as well be one long season. Sakura and Syaoran share a determination, and a vigour for life. Because Syaoran is assigned fire I gave him autumn - when all the leaves turn to colours of flame, and we set off fireworks for quite a few things in the UK. That left Sakura summer.
…Incidentally, there was no way I was calling autumn ‘fall’ for this, even though I did debate doing that for a few seconds. It just seemed a too-weird name for a kingdom. ;;;
Also, look, look. I actually managed to write a oneshot and post it in one part! I’m learning. =w=