There will be magic, chapter 38, RukaxYomi, KaixRuki, AoixReita
Title: There will be magic
Author: yukigafuru
Chapters: 38/?
Pairings: RukaxYomi, KaixRuki, AoixReita for now
Bands: Gazette, Naitomea, D... (and a surprise)
Rating: PG-17, for this chapter
Warnings: will be angst, yaoi, a bit of gore here and there
Genre: AU, Angst, Romance
Disclaimer: I am not connected to the real persons. This is just a figment of my imagination and I don't make any money nor profit in any way out of this (well, except gathering your love that is).
Summary: The age of magic and mystery is coming towards its end. But what if someone that has the gift to see the future can join forces with others who have the power to stop it? What will be born then? What will be found?
Chapter 38
The night had been exerting its magic upon the tired travellers for quite some time and almost each and everyone was asleep when Reita cuddled closer into Aoi and, after making sure that the other had been awake, asked:
“What happened before, Aoi? And I know you know what I mean, so don't play dumb.”
“Rei, there's no water here.”
“Well, it is the desert...” There was no mistaking the surprise upon the tiger's face.
“You don't understand. There's water everywhere, even in a desert, deep underground, yes, but there is still water. But here, there isn't and that scares me, because if there's no water...”
Aoi trailed off and Reita put an arm around the other's body to calm him. It had to be something quite serious for Aoi ever to admit that he was scared.
“And I felt as if someone was watching us earlier, Rei.”
“There probably is. After hearing Asagi's explanation, I think I have an idea, at last, regarding to what is happening here.”
“You do?” Aoi exclaimed, a bit too loud and Kai, next to him, shifted a bit in his sleep but did not wake up.
“I once heard of an old legend... In this world, there are four sacred artefacts, and one artefact that unites them all, an object so powerful that it is said it was used when this world was created and therefore can be used for its destruction too. There are only two persons that can use this artefact: the golden dragon and the Necra, and only under certain conditions. Only the golden dragon and his four disciples can hide this object once more.”
“Let me see if I get you, you think this is the object Asagi was talking about.”
“Yes. And it's possible that the Necra already has found the object. With it, he can indeed keep us all under surveillance you know. The powers of that thing are limitless.”
“You truly believe this story?” Aoi questioned. “It seemed a bit far-fetched to me. For one, I've never heard of any creature called a Necra.”
“It's not a creature, Aoi...”
All of a sudden, a harsh wind picked up and started blowing sand over their small camp, lacing the edges of their covers with fine layers of the small particles.
“Whatever it is, Rei, I just wish we'd get out of this desert.” Aoi ended their conversation by drawing even closer to the tiger and placing a small kiss on his cheek, their joint body heat lulling them to sleep.
There was one more person that with his senses had heard their conversation. Ruka hadn't meant to hear anything at first, but then a rare bout of curiosity made him listen in. Of course, he wasn't one to flap his mouth for nothing and there was no precise reason he should share what he had learned with the others. His lover would worry and the others would make him talk too much. Besides, if they really were being watched, what made those two talk about it in the first place? He sighed. Sometimes he really didn't understand other people.
Come morning, everyone seemed a bit more cheerful and ready to face the scorching heat of the desert again. After getting up before the sunrise to take advantage of the little coolness that the hour before dawn offered, eating breakfast and drinking a bit of water, the eight quickly gathered their things and started towards the north, as in keeping their backs to the red patch of sky, painting the rest of the world in more colours little by little.
It was tiring for the eyes and the spirit to see nothing but sky and sand, sand and sky all the times. The dunes all had the same shape, the sky barely changed colour, and not even could watching could help pass the time, because there was not a single speck of cloud to block the sun's rays; just a sea of blue, from one end of the world to the other. And even being held by your loved one became annoying, for the heat of their combined bodies only made their discomfort grow. Out of all the couples, Yomi and Ruka were the only ones cuddling closely, with only thin layers of white cloth separating their skins.
Sometime after the first hour of morning, Kai, miffed by the fact that holding Ruki close to his chest made him want to scream from the lack of comfort, when holding him truly was the only thing he had to look forward to in their monotonous day, asked Yomi how the two of them could stand being so wrapped up in each other. The answer he got only made him curse Ruka in jest.
“Ruka is ice cold.”
This had to be the only time in his life that Kai truly envisaged becoming an un-dead just to get away from the hotness of the air surrounding them and be able to put his arms around Ruki.
As it was, the couples rode with at least three centimetres of space between them, the one in front holding on to the horses' long hair if needed, while the rider at the back keeping a firm hand on the long reins. After riding for so long, none of them really had difficulty anymore with holding their balance on the horses, especially when the animals weren't flying or even galloping. The conditions simply made it impossible for the poor animals to go faster than they were going without killing themselves.
“Do I see water?” Were the only words said before Ruki got hold of the reins from Kai and lead the pegasus towards a blue patch between two dunes, a few hundred metres ahead. Aoi had already changed forms and leapt between the pegasus and the supposed puddle of water, when the said blue thing lurched forward and revealed its true identity: a five metre long snake-like worm, with slitted eyes and long green fangs, two horns on top of his head and a slimy goo-like substance covering his blue scales from the head to the long splinted tale. He only had two claw-like members, closer to his face, which probably made them work as hands.
Before anyone registered what exactly was happening, the worm creature had attacked the beautiful white being that had leapt to Ruki and Kai's help. For everyone realized in that very instant that Aoi was no mere basilisk. His long reptilian body wound around itself, his tale forming a perfect circle through which its tip shook left and right, filling the air with a bell-like warning signal. All over his back, a thin membranous wing, like a fish's thin, but looking sharp like daggers stood up straight, pointing at the sun. On his belly, scales looking like a tortoise's shell protected the basilisk. The eyes were the same midnight black, only that yellow circles now surrounded the slanted pupils, and sharp canines were revealed every time the basilisk hissed and threatened. But what was unheard of in a basilisk, what made Aoi seem like an ethereal creature, was the snow-white fur, that looked softer than the finest silk; and the cat-like small pointed years that adorned the top of a head rounder than that of any reptilian.
The other had attacked Aoi, its' fangs slicing the air, its claws trying to make purchase on Aoi's body, but the claws never penetrated the coat of fur and neither did its jaws hurt the basilisk, who in turn used the worm's thoughtless attack to get his tale around the lower body of the creature, and before the other realized, start squeezing, until the worm gave a cry of pain, and keep squeezing. However, Aoi did not realize, until it was too late, that the other's slime had seeped through his fur and then past the hard as scale skin and infiltrated his blood stream. He only noticed something was wrong when his vision began to shake and he started losing control of his body and unwillingly loosened his hold on his attacker.
The worm did not waste the opportunity offered and lunged again, its long fangs making purchase on the basilisk's left ear, tearing one off. The basilisk screamed an agonizing cry and then blindingly, seeing that he no longer had perfect control of his body, tried to bite the worm. But he was avoided and his attacker manage to rip off part of his thin and leave a blood-dripping wound on his upper back. With the poison running through his veins Aoi barely noticed that his defences had all collapsed and that he was now practically at the mercy of the creature.
His mind seemed to refuse to listen to his body and shut down though, because it kept trying to come up with solutions. And finally, he had reached one: the poison had to be secreted from somewhere, if he only found that and destroyed it, it would be perhaps easier to crush the worm, perhaps inject his own poison. Now that not even adrenaline seemed to affect him much, he started feeling the blood dripping on the sand and the wound started aching. He welcomed the feeling for it helped keep him awake.
While using what was left of his senses to dodge the incessant attacks, stopping them with the impenetrable scales protecting his front, Aoi reviewed all the information he had, all he had known about the creature before and what he had learned after the encounter. And he reached a conclusion: its head was the only place on its body less heavily covered in the muck, and that was probably because it was being produced there. More precisely put, it must be the horns, those appendages that never belonged to snakes, that made the poison and distributed it.
He feinted to go for its belly, when in reality, he used his tail to tumble the body and then bit at the soft horns. They were ripped off easily, leaving a gaping wound behind and the perfect opening for the rivers of basilisk poison Aoi injected into it in one swift move. Faster than the wind caressing the dunes, the creature had collapsed and was giving its last breaths when the sand bellow him caved and drew the body in. And then all the signs of any other creature being there had disappeared and Aoi himself allowed his body to start shutting down. His last effort was to change to human form when hearing his love's voice.
….................
Reita had been frozen at first with the sight before him. He had jerked instinctively when Aoi had leapt to the others' defence and then, everything stilled, the world around him seemed to stop, dead in motion, when he gazed upon the basilisk's form. Aoi was so beautiful like that, the pure whiteness of the fur and his magnificent form, lithe yet deadly strong; the way it curled around itself yet kept its head boldly straight, threatening his attacker, it was awing. Reita had only seen Aoi like that once before.
There was a slight fogginess surrounding the world when Reita woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. He listened attentively around him but he couldn't catch any reason for his sleep being disturbed. The castle was wrapped in a veil of stillness and the silence was only breached at intervals by the chants of the crickets and the rustle of the wind attacking the stone walls. He would have liked to go back to bed, but although he closed his eyes, there was just something that was impeding him from falling back into a resting slumber. Seeing as there was nothing to do, unwilling to just sit in bed pointlessly, Reita got up and moved closer to his window, opening it and the shutters, revelling in the night's clean frisk air. There was a full bright moon up in the cloudless skies, lightening the world in its silvery mantle and Reita was astonished by its sheer closeness, looming straight outside his window, apparently within his reach, if he only stretched his hand further. But Reita was a big boy by now and he knew that how ever far he stretched, he couldn't reach it. That didn't stop him for bathing in its light though. And then he caught a small glimpse of the lake, beyond the castle gardens, in an area Reita had been warned not to breach. He wanted to see it better now. He needed to see it better now, under the light of the moon.
So the boy slid out of his room and walked soundlessly, like a big pussy-cat, towards the castle towers. He chuckled to find several guards asleep on the way, wondering if the ones at their castle were doing such a poor job at protection as the basilisks were. After flights of stairs, Reita finally pushed open the massive oak door leading to the tower closest to his room. It was windier at those heights than Reita had imagined, and a lot colder, so he hastily drew his arms around himself trying to hold on to all his warmth. He didn't give up and go back in, though. He got closer to the edge and after encompassing the whole view, his eyes slowly focussed on the pool of molten silver shimmering in the distance.
It was ethereal, the way the moon transformed the water into something so bewitching, so moving. Reita had never quite seen such a round white moon reflected into the waters, having light reflected back at it. His gaze narrowed on the lake, and his tiger eyes slowly adjusted to the distance and slowly revealed more of the picture. And Reita was shocked to notice that every few minutes, the surface of the lake would wrinkle and distort the reflection of the moon, just before exploding, still attached to the body leaving its midst and then faster than it, leaving it and falling softly as rain back into the silvery waters, just to be shortly followed by the form that had disturbed the waters so.
Not even Reita could make out what the form was though. It just leapt out of the water, its body long and shining like diamonds, it curled around itself and then faster than Reita would have wished, fell back into the waters.
Reita's curiosity was piqued. He longed painfully to know what the creature was, so he quickly left the tower and without thinking it twice, the castle and the safety of the gardens, edging fast towards the lake. When he finally got close, he slowed down, using all his astuteness to make sure he was as quiet as he had ever been, preying closer to the surface of the water, resenting to be heard and perhaps scare the being he so longed to watch. His efforts were rewarded for in a few minutes, his eyes caught what his heart had so longed to see. The surface of the water started wrinkling and then, in no time at all, a serpent-like being shot up into the air, turning and turning, and letting out a trill that tugged at the tiger's heartstrings. It was just moments before the waters concealed the creature again and Reita earned to see it one more time, see the way the water dropped off its body, like small jewels falling in the air, while pure unblemished white, rivalling the moon, danced before his eyes.
Reita had been far too young to understand his own heart then, but now, seeing the memory, he shuddered at how erotic the view had been, how arousing it was to him now. And it wasn't just the memory. Aoi's form made Reita gasp and shudder, want to touch that fur he knew was softer even than the leaf Aoi had made for him, softer than anything he had ever touched in his life. Just the sight of the snake made him long to be crushed in its winding embrace, knowing that there was no other place he'd ever be safer in.
He hadn't expected the brutal bodily reaction he had upon seeing the basilisk in that form again, after all these years. He had somehow barely denied the attraction he had been feeling for Aoi for the last days, even after all the touches and kisses, denied it stubbornly, but now, it simply stopped his breath, took the air out of his lungs, crushed him under its weight. He had never known he could be this aroused in all his adult life.
All the realisations shocked him as he stood there, watching the two beings begin their dance around each other. Only that it quickly escalated from a dance to a fierce fight. His heart constricted but at first he was relieved to see that Aoi was winning, effectively crushing his opponent. He relaxed a tiny bit knowing the sheer amount of strength Aoi possessed. But then, everything seemed to turn the other way. Aoi had practically let go and was swaying in the air, and the first blood, his blood, stained the white fur with deep red drops. Reita lunged, eager to help Aoi. He didn't know how, didn't form any plan in mind, he just wanted to get near him and help him, whatever the stakes. But then he bumped straight into a barrier and he growled, his claws fruitlessly clawing at it. He turned, like a tiger in a cage, looking for his jailer and he growled upon discovering Yomi.
“I'm sorry, Reita. But you'd only turn Aoi's attention away from the fight if you barged in there.”
Reita refused to admit the truth of that statement, refused to admit even the gentle tone, his instinct only telling him one thing: Yomi was keeping him away from HIS MATE. He growled more and pushed more against the barrier, but nothing worked.
“Reita, please, Kai is going to his rescue right now. See. He's just borrowing Ruki's necklace.”
Reita did see that there was some moving in the group and he was about to feel a bit more relaxed, although not less belligerent when his senses detected another development in the fight: Aoi had fatally wounded his attacker, that was collapsing on the sands below them. Even Yomi breathed relieved and then lowered the barrier. Reita didn't wait for more and stormed towards the basilisk. He was just a few meters away when Aoi started falling and in his collapse, turned back to his human form. Reita rushed and caught him just moments before his body would have hit the sands. He desperately called to him but he received no reply, while Aoi's blood stained his hands and dripped on the hot sand, and his body lie limp in his arms.
A/N: There you have it. Aoi's transformation and well... development. Squishes to all you lovelies that comment. hugs
Author: yukigafuru
Chapters: 38/?
Pairings: RukaxYomi, KaixRuki, AoixReita for now
Bands: Gazette, Naitomea, D... (and a surprise)
Rating: PG-17, for this chapter
Warnings: will be angst, yaoi, a bit of gore here and there
Genre: AU, Angst, Romance
Disclaimer: I am not connected to the real persons. This is just a figment of my imagination and I don't make any money nor profit in any way out of this (well, except gathering your love that is).
Summary: The age of magic and mystery is coming towards its end. But what if someone that has the gift to see the future can join forces with others who have the power to stop it? What will be born then? What will be found?
Chapter 38
The night had been exerting its magic upon the tired travellers for quite some time and almost each and everyone was asleep when Reita cuddled closer into Aoi and, after making sure that the other had been awake, asked:
“What happened before, Aoi? And I know you know what I mean, so don't play dumb.”
“Rei, there's no water here.”
“Well, it is the desert...” There was no mistaking the surprise upon the tiger's face.
“You don't understand. There's water everywhere, even in a desert, deep underground, yes, but there is still water. But here, there isn't and that scares me, because if there's no water...”
Aoi trailed off and Reita put an arm around the other's body to calm him. It had to be something quite serious for Aoi ever to admit that he was scared.
“And I felt as if someone was watching us earlier, Rei.”
“There probably is. After hearing Asagi's explanation, I think I have an idea, at last, regarding to what is happening here.”
“You do?” Aoi exclaimed, a bit too loud and Kai, next to him, shifted a bit in his sleep but did not wake up.
“I once heard of an old legend... In this world, there are four sacred artefacts, and one artefact that unites them all, an object so powerful that it is said it was used when this world was created and therefore can be used for its destruction too. There are only two persons that can use this artefact: the golden dragon and the Necra, and only under certain conditions. Only the golden dragon and his four disciples can hide this object once more.”
“Let me see if I get you, you think this is the object Asagi was talking about.”
“Yes. And it's possible that the Necra already has found the object. With it, he can indeed keep us all under surveillance you know. The powers of that thing are limitless.”
“You truly believe this story?” Aoi questioned. “It seemed a bit far-fetched to me. For one, I've never heard of any creature called a Necra.”
“It's not a creature, Aoi...”
All of a sudden, a harsh wind picked up and started blowing sand over their small camp, lacing the edges of their covers with fine layers of the small particles.
“Whatever it is, Rei, I just wish we'd get out of this desert.” Aoi ended their conversation by drawing even closer to the tiger and placing a small kiss on his cheek, their joint body heat lulling them to sleep.
There was one more person that with his senses had heard their conversation. Ruka hadn't meant to hear anything at first, but then a rare bout of curiosity made him listen in. Of course, he wasn't one to flap his mouth for nothing and there was no precise reason he should share what he had learned with the others. His lover would worry and the others would make him talk too much. Besides, if they really were being watched, what made those two talk about it in the first place? He sighed. Sometimes he really didn't understand other people.
Come morning, everyone seemed a bit more cheerful and ready to face the scorching heat of the desert again. After getting up before the sunrise to take advantage of the little coolness that the hour before dawn offered, eating breakfast and drinking a bit of water, the eight quickly gathered their things and started towards the north, as in keeping their backs to the red patch of sky, painting the rest of the world in more colours little by little.
It was tiring for the eyes and the spirit to see nothing but sky and sand, sand and sky all the times. The dunes all had the same shape, the sky barely changed colour, and not even could watching could help pass the time, because there was not a single speck of cloud to block the sun's rays; just a sea of blue, from one end of the world to the other. And even being held by your loved one became annoying, for the heat of their combined bodies only made their discomfort grow. Out of all the couples, Yomi and Ruka were the only ones cuddling closely, with only thin layers of white cloth separating their skins.
Sometime after the first hour of morning, Kai, miffed by the fact that holding Ruki close to his chest made him want to scream from the lack of comfort, when holding him truly was the only thing he had to look forward to in their monotonous day, asked Yomi how the two of them could stand being so wrapped up in each other. The answer he got only made him curse Ruka in jest.
“Ruka is ice cold.”
This had to be the only time in his life that Kai truly envisaged becoming an un-dead just to get away from the hotness of the air surrounding them and be able to put his arms around Ruki.
As it was, the couples rode with at least three centimetres of space between them, the one in front holding on to the horses' long hair if needed, while the rider at the back keeping a firm hand on the long reins. After riding for so long, none of them really had difficulty anymore with holding their balance on the horses, especially when the animals weren't flying or even galloping. The conditions simply made it impossible for the poor animals to go faster than they were going without killing themselves.
“Do I see water?” Were the only words said before Ruki got hold of the reins from Kai and lead the pegasus towards a blue patch between two dunes, a few hundred metres ahead. Aoi had already changed forms and leapt between the pegasus and the supposed puddle of water, when the said blue thing lurched forward and revealed its true identity: a five metre long snake-like worm, with slitted eyes and long green fangs, two horns on top of his head and a slimy goo-like substance covering his blue scales from the head to the long splinted tale. He only had two claw-like members, closer to his face, which probably made them work as hands.
Before anyone registered what exactly was happening, the worm creature had attacked the beautiful white being that had leapt to Ruki and Kai's help. For everyone realized in that very instant that Aoi was no mere basilisk. His long reptilian body wound around itself, his tale forming a perfect circle through which its tip shook left and right, filling the air with a bell-like warning signal. All over his back, a thin membranous wing, like a fish's thin, but looking sharp like daggers stood up straight, pointing at the sun. On his belly, scales looking like a tortoise's shell protected the basilisk. The eyes were the same midnight black, only that yellow circles now surrounded the slanted pupils, and sharp canines were revealed every time the basilisk hissed and threatened. But what was unheard of in a basilisk, what made Aoi seem like an ethereal creature, was the snow-white fur, that looked softer than the finest silk; and the cat-like small pointed years that adorned the top of a head rounder than that of any reptilian.
The other had attacked Aoi, its' fangs slicing the air, its claws trying to make purchase on Aoi's body, but the claws never penetrated the coat of fur and neither did its jaws hurt the basilisk, who in turn used the worm's thoughtless attack to get his tale around the lower body of the creature, and before the other realized, start squeezing, until the worm gave a cry of pain, and keep squeezing. However, Aoi did not realize, until it was too late, that the other's slime had seeped through his fur and then past the hard as scale skin and infiltrated his blood stream. He only noticed something was wrong when his vision began to shake and he started losing control of his body and unwillingly loosened his hold on his attacker.
The worm did not waste the opportunity offered and lunged again, its long fangs making purchase on the basilisk's left ear, tearing one off. The basilisk screamed an agonizing cry and then blindingly, seeing that he no longer had perfect control of his body, tried to bite the worm. But he was avoided and his attacker manage to rip off part of his thin and leave a blood-dripping wound on his upper back. With the poison running through his veins Aoi barely noticed that his defences had all collapsed and that he was now practically at the mercy of the creature.
His mind seemed to refuse to listen to his body and shut down though, because it kept trying to come up with solutions. And finally, he had reached one: the poison had to be secreted from somewhere, if he only found that and destroyed it, it would be perhaps easier to crush the worm, perhaps inject his own poison. Now that not even adrenaline seemed to affect him much, he started feeling the blood dripping on the sand and the wound started aching. He welcomed the feeling for it helped keep him awake.
While using what was left of his senses to dodge the incessant attacks, stopping them with the impenetrable scales protecting his front, Aoi reviewed all the information he had, all he had known about the creature before and what he had learned after the encounter. And he reached a conclusion: its head was the only place on its body less heavily covered in the muck, and that was probably because it was being produced there. More precisely put, it must be the horns, those appendages that never belonged to snakes, that made the poison and distributed it.
He feinted to go for its belly, when in reality, he used his tail to tumble the body and then bit at the soft horns. They were ripped off easily, leaving a gaping wound behind and the perfect opening for the rivers of basilisk poison Aoi injected into it in one swift move. Faster than the wind caressing the dunes, the creature had collapsed and was giving its last breaths when the sand bellow him caved and drew the body in. And then all the signs of any other creature being there had disappeared and Aoi himself allowed his body to start shutting down. His last effort was to change to human form when hearing his love's voice.
….................
Reita had been frozen at first with the sight before him. He had jerked instinctively when Aoi had leapt to the others' defence and then, everything stilled, the world around him seemed to stop, dead in motion, when he gazed upon the basilisk's form. Aoi was so beautiful like that, the pure whiteness of the fur and his magnificent form, lithe yet deadly strong; the way it curled around itself yet kept its head boldly straight, threatening his attacker, it was awing. Reita had only seen Aoi like that once before.
There was a slight fogginess surrounding the world when Reita woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. He listened attentively around him but he couldn't catch any reason for his sleep being disturbed. The castle was wrapped in a veil of stillness and the silence was only breached at intervals by the chants of the crickets and the rustle of the wind attacking the stone walls. He would have liked to go back to bed, but although he closed his eyes, there was just something that was impeding him from falling back into a resting slumber. Seeing as there was nothing to do, unwilling to just sit in bed pointlessly, Reita got up and moved closer to his window, opening it and the shutters, revelling in the night's clean frisk air. There was a full bright moon up in the cloudless skies, lightening the world in its silvery mantle and Reita was astonished by its sheer closeness, looming straight outside his window, apparently within his reach, if he only stretched his hand further. But Reita was a big boy by now and he knew that how ever far he stretched, he couldn't reach it. That didn't stop him for bathing in its light though. And then he caught a small glimpse of the lake, beyond the castle gardens, in an area Reita had been warned not to breach. He wanted to see it better now. He needed to see it better now, under the light of the moon.
So the boy slid out of his room and walked soundlessly, like a big pussy-cat, towards the castle towers. He chuckled to find several guards asleep on the way, wondering if the ones at their castle were doing such a poor job at protection as the basilisks were. After flights of stairs, Reita finally pushed open the massive oak door leading to the tower closest to his room. It was windier at those heights than Reita had imagined, and a lot colder, so he hastily drew his arms around himself trying to hold on to all his warmth. He didn't give up and go back in, though. He got closer to the edge and after encompassing the whole view, his eyes slowly focussed on the pool of molten silver shimmering in the distance.
It was ethereal, the way the moon transformed the water into something so bewitching, so moving. Reita had never quite seen such a round white moon reflected into the waters, having light reflected back at it. His gaze narrowed on the lake, and his tiger eyes slowly adjusted to the distance and slowly revealed more of the picture. And Reita was shocked to notice that every few minutes, the surface of the lake would wrinkle and distort the reflection of the moon, just before exploding, still attached to the body leaving its midst and then faster than it, leaving it and falling softly as rain back into the silvery waters, just to be shortly followed by the form that had disturbed the waters so.
Not even Reita could make out what the form was though. It just leapt out of the water, its body long and shining like diamonds, it curled around itself and then faster than Reita would have wished, fell back into the waters.
Reita's curiosity was piqued. He longed painfully to know what the creature was, so he quickly left the tower and without thinking it twice, the castle and the safety of the gardens, edging fast towards the lake. When he finally got close, he slowed down, using all his astuteness to make sure he was as quiet as he had ever been, preying closer to the surface of the water, resenting to be heard and perhaps scare the being he so longed to watch. His efforts were rewarded for in a few minutes, his eyes caught what his heart had so longed to see. The surface of the water started wrinkling and then, in no time at all, a serpent-like being shot up into the air, turning and turning, and letting out a trill that tugged at the tiger's heartstrings. It was just moments before the waters concealed the creature again and Reita earned to see it one more time, see the way the water dropped off its body, like small jewels falling in the air, while pure unblemished white, rivalling the moon, danced before his eyes.
Reita had been far too young to understand his own heart then, but now, seeing the memory, he shuddered at how erotic the view had been, how arousing it was to him now. And it wasn't just the memory. Aoi's form made Reita gasp and shudder, want to touch that fur he knew was softer even than the leaf Aoi had made for him, softer than anything he had ever touched in his life. Just the sight of the snake made him long to be crushed in its winding embrace, knowing that there was no other place he'd ever be safer in.
He hadn't expected the brutal bodily reaction he had upon seeing the basilisk in that form again, after all these years. He had somehow barely denied the attraction he had been feeling for Aoi for the last days, even after all the touches and kisses, denied it stubbornly, but now, it simply stopped his breath, took the air out of his lungs, crushed him under its weight. He had never known he could be this aroused in all his adult life.
All the realisations shocked him as he stood there, watching the two beings begin their dance around each other. Only that it quickly escalated from a dance to a fierce fight. His heart constricted but at first he was relieved to see that Aoi was winning, effectively crushing his opponent. He relaxed a tiny bit knowing the sheer amount of strength Aoi possessed. But then, everything seemed to turn the other way. Aoi had practically let go and was swaying in the air, and the first blood, his blood, stained the white fur with deep red drops. Reita lunged, eager to help Aoi. He didn't know how, didn't form any plan in mind, he just wanted to get near him and help him, whatever the stakes. But then he bumped straight into a barrier and he growled, his claws fruitlessly clawing at it. He turned, like a tiger in a cage, looking for his jailer and he growled upon discovering Yomi.
“I'm sorry, Reita. But you'd only turn Aoi's attention away from the fight if you barged in there.”
Reita refused to admit the truth of that statement, refused to admit even the gentle tone, his instinct only telling him one thing: Yomi was keeping him away from HIS MATE. He growled more and pushed more against the barrier, but nothing worked.
“Reita, please, Kai is going to his rescue right now. See. He's just borrowing Ruki's necklace.”
Reita did see that there was some moving in the group and he was about to feel a bit more relaxed, although not less belligerent when his senses detected another development in the fight: Aoi had fatally wounded his attacker, that was collapsing on the sands below them. Even Yomi breathed relieved and then lowered the barrier. Reita didn't wait for more and stormed towards the basilisk. He was just a few meters away when Aoi started falling and in his collapse, turned back to his human form. Reita rushed and caught him just moments before his body would have hit the sands. He desperately called to him but he received no reply, while Aoi's blood stained his hands and dripped on the hot sand, and his body lie limp in his arms.
A/N: There you have it. Aoi's transformation and well... development. Squishes to all you lovelies that comment. hugs