![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damalurbackupTITLE: The Execution of All Things, Pt. 5
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai
NOTES: See part the first.
SUMMARY: Fai is dead. A world is ending. Kurogane copes about as well as you'd expect.
0.1 | a prologue
You're not sure where Sakura and Syaoran are. Somewhere off to your left you sense the vague pitter-patter of their heartbeats, slow and steady for Syaoran, Sakura's just a shade quicker. You can actually hear the blood racing through the veins of the man pressed against your back; his blood is singing, singing for battle. This is his element, his habitat, that place where he is most at home. You understand something of his predatory lust yourself.
Together you will build a wall of the dead.
The sand is so bright that the rest of the world is washed to grayscale; your depth perception isn't what it was, but you think that even with two eyes the desert would seem flat and unreal. The shadow approaches, it approaches, it advances, a dark army of wraith-creatures creeping over the yellow earth. You think of your brother, your mother, your princess, your king; and then you discard those thoughts, let them drift away.
Fei Wong Reed's shadow has come.
You let their faces drift away, and you give yourself over to the dance. Because in this moment, you aren't Yuui of Valeria. You aren't the wizard of Celes, the vampire of Tokyo, the traitor of Infinity, you don't have to lie or run or smile. You are what you have become, you are what you have made yourself: you are Fai, and that is all you have to be. You are Fai, and Kurogane is at your back, and that is all that matters.
That is all.
There is no way you can win. You have abandoned hope. You are already dead. You are already free, so you give yourself over to the dark of the shadow and the light of the sun and the whirl of your scythe -
The flash of his sword -
The blue of the sky -
You are rising.
The Execution of All Things
RESHUFFLE.
Act 5.
5.1 | re union
Kurogane stands frozen in the doorway, but his face is utterly impassive, and Fai doesn't know how to respond. He could lay a hand on Kurogane's arm, perhaps, or a kiss on his lips -
He settles on saying, "Well." Kurogane still doesn't react, and after a moment's pause Fai turns to sit. Begins to turn, at any rate, because at that second Kurogane's hand snatches him by the shoulder. Fai tenses and lifts his eyes to meet Kurogane's squarely; there's a faintly puzzled set to the ninja's dark eyebrows.
Finally, though, Kurogane breathes, "Fai."
"Yes," Fai answers, puzzled himself. He'd expected rage, he'd expected anger, he'd expected gruffness and irritation and disbelief and (he'd hoped for) joy, but this indifferent studying reaction he doesn't understand.
"Your eyes are blue," Kurogane says, and then again, "Your eyes are blue," and the clouds break apart in Fai's mind. Not indifference, then, merely shock.
"You'll have some questions," Fai replies, but what he really means is my eyes are blue, I don't blame you, you're here -
I love you.
That's not what he says, though. Instead he tugs out of Kurogane's grasps and sits on the bare floor; Kurogane mimics him, eyes still trained on Fai's face, and a bit of that expected rage begins to leak into his gaze. "You're Blue John - you were alive this whole time and now I find out that you're a terrorist - "
"I am not a terrorist," Fai says. "Honestly, Kuro-tan, I would hope you'd know me better than that."
Kurogane's anger visibly rams against that wall and begins to wilt, but not before a final rally. "But you are breaking the law."
"Of course," Fai answers. He hadn't thought that would be a problem, but if Kurogane sees it as one - "Would Kuro-rin like to know why?"
Kurogane growls, low and deep in his chest, and Fai can't stop a tingle of excitement from seeping into his fingertips; he beams. "Well, then," he says. "It's not really as long a story as you might think, me being here."
He launches into his tale, the tale of his death and his life (his third life, his fourth life, with nine lives like a cat he'd still have six time left to die). Kurogane sits still and just a bit awed through the whole story, and Fai deftly avoids mention of the final battle.
He avoids mentioning the final battle, and Kurogane sits silent.
There is five careful feet of space between them.
5.2 | assessment
Fai likes a number of things about Kurogane. He admires the other's sheer determination, he appreciates Kurogane's quick, sharp mind, he knows without doubt that the man is fierce and deadly in battle.
Fai dislikes an equal number of things about Kurogane. He hates how blunt the other man is, hates that Kurogane has no appreciation for finesse, abhors how Kurogane wears his anger plainly. He despises Kurogane's self-righteousness, finds it maddening that the other man thinks he can make decisions for Fai, and outright wonders about Kurogane's sanity when he's worked himself into a wrath.
Never once does Fai forget that Kurogane is a predator. Other people might be lulled into complacency by the man's shyness, by his gruff caring, but not Fai. Fai never forgets that Kurogane is a predator, but neither is he frightened; he simply notices and then doesn't care. It takes someone a bit reckless, a bit suicidal, a bit wild to love a man like Kurogane. Kurogane has to be a bit crazy himself, though, to love someone as cunning and wayward as Fai.
They're both stubborn and they're both proud, each in his own way; and that is their triumph and their tragedy.
5.3 | I am a runner and you are your father's son
When he finishes his story, he can't help but wonder what Kurogane will say. Fai is a different person now, a whole person, not the broken thing that hid behind a smile and carried a secret name in his heart. He's not that man that Kurogane knew, and yet he's still the man that knew Kurogane. So he wonders what Kurogane will say, because words have power; he knows that better than anyone.
"Huh," says Kurogane.
"Are you going to arrest me now?" Fai teases, and even though he's worried, there's still a kernel of hope in his heart. Because Kurogane did miss him, Kurogane did think of him, Kurogane did mourn him; he can read it in the other man's posture, in the way those red eyes have not yet moved from Fai's face. Maybe Kurogane just doesn't know what to say.
Fai doesn't know what to say either.
"No," Kurogane answers. "But if you know who attacked the castle - " I'm sorry. I did mourn for you. I am happy that you're alive.
"I don't. I have some information I could give you..." I forgive you. I miss you. I wanted to come to you, but I was afraid.
(See how they dance around each other?)
"That's fine," Kurogane says, and Fai realizes that they are not able to reach across the gulf that's grown between them.
"Of course," he answers, standing. "I suppose I ought to get back to Princess Tomoyo now - "
"I ought to leave too," Kurogane agrees. Stoically, always so stoic, so narrow in the range of emotions he allows himself to express.
Fai smiles and nods and hides behind his lying eyes, always so secretive, so veiled, so reluctant to give away anything. "See you later, then, Kuro-chi," he says, and opens the door, and steps through, and closes the door. His last glimpse is of Kurogane sitting on folded legs, his posture perfect, his head high, his sword at an exact right angle to his knees.
Fai is running again.
Maybe he and that broken thing he once was aren't so different, after all.
5.4 | the magician
Keywords: Creativity - precision - conviction - manipulation - initiative.
Iconography: Above his head, the lemniscate of life and infinity; at his waist, the serpent devouring its own tail. In his right hand a wand pointing to the heavens, in his left hand a gesture to the earth: his ability to to bridge the worlds. On the table, symbols of the four elements, and beneath the table, roses changed to garden flowers: his aspiration.
Interpretation: The Magician usually points to talents, capabilities, and resources, often with connotation of tapping into one's full potential. Reversed, it points to a manipulator or the intoxication of power. In some traditions the Magician refers to scholarly knowledge, multiple realms, divine motive, or consciousness itself.
5.5 | let it lie
He doesn't go back to Tsukuyomi; she excused him with a promise to resume their negotiations tomorrow. Instead he goes back to the refugee camp. Segawa Keiichi smiles at him, but Fai just raises a hand in response. He ducks into a tent on the outskirts of the encampment, and takes off the rich red coat that was a gift from the Tomoyo of another world, and even though it is not yet dusk he falls into his bed.
He falls.
He sleeps.
He dreams.
5.6 | to sleep, perchance -
He dreams.
He dreams of an endless sea of gray, an ocean of static, that surrounds him and engulfs him and suffocates him. Death was not restful, but it was serene: a foreign, threatening sort of serenity. He will not forget that sea of gray, and yet he cannot express what it was to swim there. Swim and sink and drown, in a sea of gray: that was Fai's death.
He dreams of dragons; seven dragons, and then fourteen, and then less again. Dragons in the sky, dragons on the earth, doing great battle for the fate of worlds. He has seen the dragons and felt their might, and he has pitied the dragons, too. He knows what it is to be a pawn on some greater force's chessboard.
He dreams of Sakura: his only princess. She occupies a special section in his heart, a section adjacent to where his mother and brother are locked away. He dreams that the princess is with her knight, and in his dreams he wishes them the best.
He dreams of red eyes in the night.
He dreams of the wind.
5.7 | three hopeful thoughts
Saving a world is hard work, work that's largely thankless, and it drains a great deal of Fai's energy. They're moving thousands of people a day between dimensions, mostly through the Egret Gate that hovers near Himeji, and he's almost constantly on edge. His nerves are frayed, his eyes bloodshot, his sleep restless, and yet -
And yet he's nearly content.
He's working with two powerful sorceresses, and in tandem they weave spells of grandeur and complexity and subtlety. He'd missed being able to do magic, missed holding words of power in his mind, and he's found that his own craft complements Yuuko and Sakura's more circular brand of casting. He's doing good work, too, work that saves lives, and he's not being hunted across worlds. He's nobody's pawn and he bows to only his own will; he serves Sakura precisely because he chooses to do so.
And someday, at the end -
Gaps can be crossed.
There are such things as bridges.
<< | >>
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai
NOTES: See part the first.
SUMMARY: Fai is dead. A world is ending. Kurogane copes about as well as you'd expect.
0.1 | a prologue
You're not sure where Sakura and Syaoran are. Somewhere off to your left you sense the vague pitter-patter of their heartbeats, slow and steady for Syaoran, Sakura's just a shade quicker. You can actually hear the blood racing through the veins of the man pressed against your back; his blood is singing, singing for battle. This is his element, his habitat, that place where he is most at home. You understand something of his predatory lust yourself.
Together you will build a wall of the dead.
The sand is so bright that the rest of the world is washed to grayscale; your depth perception isn't what it was, but you think that even with two eyes the desert would seem flat and unreal. The shadow approaches, it approaches, it advances, a dark army of wraith-creatures creeping over the yellow earth. You think of your brother, your mother, your princess, your king; and then you discard those thoughts, let them drift away.
Fei Wong Reed's shadow has come.
You let their faces drift away, and you give yourself over to the dance. Because in this moment, you aren't Yuui of Valeria. You aren't the wizard of Celes, the vampire of Tokyo, the traitor of Infinity, you don't have to lie or run or smile. You are what you have become, you are what you have made yourself: you are Fai, and that is all you have to be. You are Fai, and Kurogane is at your back, and that is all that matters.
That is all.
There is no way you can win. You have abandoned hope. You are already dead. You are already free, so you give yourself over to the dark of the shadow and the light of the sun and the whirl of your scythe -
The flash of his sword -
The blue of the sky -
You are rising.
The Execution of All Things
RESHUFFLE.
Act 5.
5.1 | re union
Kurogane stands frozen in the doorway, but his face is utterly impassive, and Fai doesn't know how to respond. He could lay a hand on Kurogane's arm, perhaps, or a kiss on his lips -
He settles on saying, "Well." Kurogane still doesn't react, and after a moment's pause Fai turns to sit. Begins to turn, at any rate, because at that second Kurogane's hand snatches him by the shoulder. Fai tenses and lifts his eyes to meet Kurogane's squarely; there's a faintly puzzled set to the ninja's dark eyebrows.
Finally, though, Kurogane breathes, "Fai."
"Yes," Fai answers, puzzled himself. He'd expected rage, he'd expected anger, he'd expected gruffness and irritation and disbelief and (he'd hoped for) joy, but this indifferent studying reaction he doesn't understand.
"Your eyes are blue," Kurogane says, and then again, "Your eyes are blue," and the clouds break apart in Fai's mind. Not indifference, then, merely shock.
"You'll have some questions," Fai replies, but what he really means is my eyes are blue, I don't blame you, you're here -
I love you.
That's not what he says, though. Instead he tugs out of Kurogane's grasps and sits on the bare floor; Kurogane mimics him, eyes still trained on Fai's face, and a bit of that expected rage begins to leak into his gaze. "You're Blue John - you were alive this whole time and now I find out that you're a terrorist - "
"I am not a terrorist," Fai says. "Honestly, Kuro-tan, I would hope you'd know me better than that."
Kurogane's anger visibly rams against that wall and begins to wilt, but not before a final rally. "But you are breaking the law."
"Of course," Fai answers. He hadn't thought that would be a problem, but if Kurogane sees it as one - "Would Kuro-rin like to know why?"
Kurogane growls, low and deep in his chest, and Fai can't stop a tingle of excitement from seeping into his fingertips; he beams. "Well, then," he says. "It's not really as long a story as you might think, me being here."
He launches into his tale, the tale of his death and his life (his third life, his fourth life, with nine lives like a cat he'd still have six time left to die). Kurogane sits still and just a bit awed through the whole story, and Fai deftly avoids mention of the final battle.
He avoids mentioning the final battle, and Kurogane sits silent.
There is five careful feet of space between them.
5.2 | assessment
Fai likes a number of things about Kurogane. He admires the other's sheer determination, he appreciates Kurogane's quick, sharp mind, he knows without doubt that the man is fierce and deadly in battle.
Fai dislikes an equal number of things about Kurogane. He hates how blunt the other man is, hates that Kurogane has no appreciation for finesse, abhors how Kurogane wears his anger plainly. He despises Kurogane's self-righteousness, finds it maddening that the other man thinks he can make decisions for Fai, and outright wonders about Kurogane's sanity when he's worked himself into a wrath.
Never once does Fai forget that Kurogane is a predator. Other people might be lulled into complacency by the man's shyness, by his gruff caring, but not Fai. Fai never forgets that Kurogane is a predator, but neither is he frightened; he simply notices and then doesn't care. It takes someone a bit reckless, a bit suicidal, a bit wild to love a man like Kurogane. Kurogane has to be a bit crazy himself, though, to love someone as cunning and wayward as Fai.
They're both stubborn and they're both proud, each in his own way; and that is their triumph and their tragedy.
5.3 | I am a runner and you are your father's son
When he finishes his story, he can't help but wonder what Kurogane will say. Fai is a different person now, a whole person, not the broken thing that hid behind a smile and carried a secret name in his heart. He's not that man that Kurogane knew, and yet he's still the man that knew Kurogane. So he wonders what Kurogane will say, because words have power; he knows that better than anyone.
"Huh," says Kurogane.
"Are you going to arrest me now?" Fai teases, and even though he's worried, there's still a kernel of hope in his heart. Because Kurogane did miss him, Kurogane did think of him, Kurogane did mourn him; he can read it in the other man's posture, in the way those red eyes have not yet moved from Fai's face. Maybe Kurogane just doesn't know what to say.
Fai doesn't know what to say either.
"No," Kurogane answers. "But if you know who attacked the castle - " I'm sorry. I did mourn for you. I am happy that you're alive.
"I don't. I have some information I could give you..." I forgive you. I miss you. I wanted to come to you, but I was afraid.
(See how they dance around each other?)
"That's fine," Kurogane says, and Fai realizes that they are not able to reach across the gulf that's grown between them.
"Of course," he answers, standing. "I suppose I ought to get back to Princess Tomoyo now - "
"I ought to leave too," Kurogane agrees. Stoically, always so stoic, so narrow in the range of emotions he allows himself to express.
Fai smiles and nods and hides behind his lying eyes, always so secretive, so veiled, so reluctant to give away anything. "See you later, then, Kuro-chi," he says, and opens the door, and steps through, and closes the door. His last glimpse is of Kurogane sitting on folded legs, his posture perfect, his head high, his sword at an exact right angle to his knees.
Fai is running again.
Maybe he and that broken thing he once was aren't so different, after all.
5.4 | the magician
Keywords: Creativity - precision - conviction - manipulation - initiative.
Iconography: Above his head, the lemniscate of life and infinity; at his waist, the serpent devouring its own tail. In his right hand a wand pointing to the heavens, in his left hand a gesture to the earth: his ability to to bridge the worlds. On the table, symbols of the four elements, and beneath the table, roses changed to garden flowers: his aspiration.
Interpretation: The Magician usually points to talents, capabilities, and resources, often with connotation of tapping into one's full potential. Reversed, it points to a manipulator or the intoxication of power. In some traditions the Magician refers to scholarly knowledge, multiple realms, divine motive, or consciousness itself.
5.5 | let it lie
He doesn't go back to Tsukuyomi; she excused him with a promise to resume their negotiations tomorrow. Instead he goes back to the refugee camp. Segawa Keiichi smiles at him, but Fai just raises a hand in response. He ducks into a tent on the outskirts of the encampment, and takes off the rich red coat that was a gift from the Tomoyo of another world, and even though it is not yet dusk he falls into his bed.
He falls.
He sleeps.
He dreams.
5.6 | to sleep, perchance -
He dreams.
He dreams of an endless sea of gray, an ocean of static, that surrounds him and engulfs him and suffocates him. Death was not restful, but it was serene: a foreign, threatening sort of serenity. He will not forget that sea of gray, and yet he cannot express what it was to swim there. Swim and sink and drown, in a sea of gray: that was Fai's death.
He dreams of dragons; seven dragons, and then fourteen, and then less again. Dragons in the sky, dragons on the earth, doing great battle for the fate of worlds. He has seen the dragons and felt their might, and he has pitied the dragons, too. He knows what it is to be a pawn on some greater force's chessboard.
He dreams of Sakura: his only princess. She occupies a special section in his heart, a section adjacent to where his mother and brother are locked away. He dreams that the princess is with her knight, and in his dreams he wishes them the best.
He dreams of red eyes in the night.
He dreams of the wind.
5.7 | three hopeful thoughts
Saving a world is hard work, work that's largely thankless, and it drains a great deal of Fai's energy. They're moving thousands of people a day between dimensions, mostly through the Egret Gate that hovers near Himeji, and he's almost constantly on edge. His nerves are frayed, his eyes bloodshot, his sleep restless, and yet -
And yet he's nearly content.
He's working with two powerful sorceresses, and in tandem they weave spells of grandeur and complexity and subtlety. He'd missed being able to do magic, missed holding words of power in his mind, and he's found that his own craft complements Yuuko and Sakura's more circular brand of casting. He's doing good work, too, work that saves lives, and he's not being hunted across worlds. He's nobody's pawn and he bows to only his own will; he serves Sakura precisely because he chooses to do so.
And someday, at the end -
Gaps can be crossed.
There are such things as bridges.
<< | >>
